Kannon K. Shanmugam

Kannon Shanmugam is a partner in the law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison.  He heads the firm’s Supreme Court and appellate litigation practice and is managing partner of the firm’s Washington office.  Widely recognized as one of the nation’s premier appellate advocates, Kannon has argued 27 cases before the Supreme Court, including several of the Court’s most significant recent business and criminal cases.  Beyond the Supreme Court, he has argued dozens of appeals in courts across the country.  In ranking Kannon in the first tier of appellate advocates nationwide, Chambers USA praised him as “brilliant” and “unflappable.”

Kannon previously served as an Assistant to the Solicitor General in the Department of Justice.  Born and raised in Lawrence, Kansas, he received an A.B. summa cum laude in classics from Harvard; an M. Litt. in classics from the University of Oxford, where he was a Marshall Scholar; and a J.D. magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, where he was executive editor of the law review and argued for the winning side in the moot-court competition.  After graduation, he served as a law clerk to Justice Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court and Judge J. Michael Luttig on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.