Joseph Tartakovsky is a senior associate in the San Francisco office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. He practices in the firm’s Litigation and Appellate and Constitutional Law groups.

He recently returned to the firm after serving as Nevada’s first Deputy Solicitor General, where his roles including supervising the state’s appeals docket, developing legal strategy in critical litigation, and advising the Nevada Attorney General on legal policy. He represented the State of Nevada in select matters of statewide or national significance, in both state and federal courts at all levels. Substantive areas of his litigation included federal and state constitutional law, free speech, public lands, elections, false claims, habeas corpus, endangered species, takings, mining, religious liberty, and firearms.

Mr. Tartakovsky regularly litigated against and alongside federal agencies, including the U.S. Department of Labor and U.S. Department of Interior. He was also responsible for defending numerous Nevada statutes against constitutional challenge, including statutes on school choice, elected-official recalls, and taxation. He also coordinated of nationwide litigation and amicus efforts with other state officials.

Mr. Tartakovsky has personally argued numerous appeals in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and Nevada Supreme Court. Selected appellate arguments presented by him include:

Ninth Circuit

• Bd. of Trustees of Glazing Health & Welfare Tr. v. Chambers, 903 F.3d 829 (9th Cir. 2018) (ERISA preemption)
• England v. Walsh, 727 Fed. Appx. 255 (9th Cir. 2018) (free exercise and Nation of Islam)
• Moonin v. Tice, 868 F.3d 853 (9th Cir. 2017) (prior restraint and police officer free speech)
• Hiser v. Nev. Dep’t of Corr., 708 Fed. Appx. 297 (9th Cir. 2017) (false imprisonment and due process)
• Tarbuck v. Nevada, 691 Fed. Appx. 426 (9th Cir. 2017) (Title VII retaliation)
• Reberger v. Baker, 657 Fed. Appx. 681 (9th Cir. 2016) (Prison Litigation Reform Act)
• DeBarr v. Clark, 648 Fed. Appx. 706 (9th Cir. 2016) (religious liberty)

Nevada Supreme Court and Nevada Court of Appeals

• K-Kel, Inc. v. Nev. Dep’t of Taxation, 412 P.3d 15 (Nev. 2018) (free speech and taxation)
• Andrew v. Coster, 408 P.3d 559 (Nev. 2017), cert. denied, 138 S. Ct. 2634 (Nev. 2018) (constitutionality of medical malpractice law)
• Morrow v. LeGrand, 393 P.3d 659 (Nev. 2017) (Public Records Act)
• Centofanti v. Aranas, 2017 WL 6547435 (Nev. App. Dec. 14, 2017) (prisoner medical care)
• Elko Cty. v. Deputy Dir. of the Governor’s Office of Energy, 386 P.3d 995 (Nev. 2016) (tax abatements for geothermal power)

Mr. Tartakovsky is the author of The Lives of the Constitution: Ten Exceptional Minds that Shaped America’s Supreme Law (Encounter Books, 2018), an Amazon #1 bestseller in constitutional law.

Mr. Tartakovsky is a frequent commentator on legal and constitutional issues. His op-eds include “The Culture That Sustains America’s Constitution,” Wall Street Journal (July 2, 2018); “An enlightened California judge paved the way to fight Trump’s travel ban more than a century ago,” Los Angeles Times (June 3, 2018); “231 years ago this week, work began on the most important document in American history,” Fox News (May 24, 2018); “Dickens v. Lawyers,” New York Times (Feb. 5, 2012).

A former magazine editor and literary journalist, he has taught courses on legal writing. He was named the James Wilson Fellow in Constitutional Law at the Claremont Institute for the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy and is a past fellow of the California Constitution Center at UC Berkeley School of Law.

Mr. Tartakovsky’ s recent speaking engagements include:

• Speaker, “The Lives of the Constitution,” Portland Lawyers Chapter of the Federalist Society. Portland, Oregon, May, 2, 2019.
• Panelist, “Campus Liberty, Free Speech and the U.S. Constitution,” The Sacramento Chapter of the Federal Bar Association. Sacramento, CA, April 23, 2019.
• Speaker, “Will Our Constitutional Culture Survive?,” Houston Lawyers Chapter of the Federalist Society. Houston, Texas, September, 27, 2018.
• Speaker, “The Lives of the Constitution: Ten Exceptional Minds That Shaped America’s Supreme Law,” The Commonwealth Club. San Francisco, CA, July 9, 2018.
• Speaker, “The Lives of the Constitution with Book Author Joseph Tartakovsky,” Los Angeles Lawyers Chapter of the Federalist Society. Los Angeles, CA, June 20, 2018.
• C-SPAN’s Washington Journal, Interviewee, “Joseph Tartakovsky on Key Figures Who Shaped the Constitution.” San Francisco and Washington D.C., May 3, 2018.
• C-SPAN’s Book TV, Book event, “Joseph Tartakovsky, Author of The Lives of the Constitution,” University Club. Washington D.C., April 24, 2018.

Mr. Tartakovsky clerked for Judge Paul J. Kelly, Jr., of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. He received his law degree from Fordham Law School, Order of the Coif, where he was a Mary Daly Scholar and the recipient of both the Mary Louise Condon and the Henrietta Metcalf Prizes. Mr. Tartakovsky graduated with honors from the University of California, Santa Barbara.

He is admitted to the U.S. Supreme Court, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth, Tenth, and Fifth Circuits, and U.S. District Courts for the Northern District of California, Central District of California, and District of Nevada.