BYU prof named Texas solicitor general
After an abrupt departure last month, Texas has a new solicitor general in place for the next year.
On Monday, Attorney General Ken Paxton appointed Aaron Nielson, a Brigham Young University law professor, to the position in charge of arguing major cases before state and federal appeals courts. Nielson will take a one-year leave of absence from the university to take the role.
“In this position, he will lead the critical appellate work for some of our most significant, far-reaching cases,” Paxton, a third-term Republican, said in a statement. “His talent and expertise are virtually unmatched, earning him national renown in the legal community. He will be a tremendous asset to our agency and to our state’s appellate leadership on the major legal questions of our era.”
Nielson succeeds former Solicitor General Judd Stone, who resigned from the attorney general’s office last month to work full time at a private practice he and another office attorney founded while they were on leave to defend Paxton against impeachment.
“It is my great honor to serve the state of Texas as Solicitor General,” Nielson said in a statement. “I look forward to working alongside the team Attorney General Paxton has assembled and to leading and learning from the world-class lawyers in the Solicitor General Division that represent Texas so well in our nation’s appellate courts.”
The office did not respond to a question about the short-term nature of Nielson’s appointment.
The solicitor general position has become a pillar of the office’s strategy to challenge the Biden administration with a flurry of lawsuits over immigration, abortion rights and the environment, and argues the state’s cases before the U.S. Supreme Court.
At BYU, Nielson specializes in administrative law, civil procedure, antitrust and the federal courts, and Paxton’s office described him as “one of the nation’s foremost experts on the Administrative Procedure Act.” Texas has frequently challenged Biden administration immigration policies using that law.
The State Bar does not show Nielson as licensed to practice in Texas yet. According to the Texas Board of Law Examiners’ rules, the agency can take up to 270 days, or about nine months, to finish its investigation of an applicant’s character and fitness, a major part of the licensing process.
“We do not offer truncated or expedited processing for any applicant for any reason,” an agency spokesperson said.
The attorney general’s office statement said Nielson regularly argues before the New Orleansbased 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, whose district encompasses Texas.
The office’s statement also highlighted that Nielson was appointed by the U.S. Supreme Court to brief and argue Collins v. Yellen, a separation-of-powers case about the Federal Housing Finance Agency. The high court ultimately sided against him.
Prior to his time teaching at BYU, Nielson was in private practice with the firm Kirkland & Ellis LLP, where he did appellate and antitrust cases, according to the statement. He formerly clerked for one of the high court’s most conservative justices, Justice Samuel Alito.
Nielson has a law degree from Harvard Law School, a master of laws degree from the University of Cambridge and an undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania, majoring in economics and political science.