Last spring, The Emory Wheel spoke to the Solicitor General of the United States, the individual in charge of executing all Supreme Court litigation for the executive branch of the country. U.S. President Joe Biden nominated Emory University alumna and Bobby Jones Scholar Elizabeth Prelogar (02C) for the position of Solicitor General on Aug. 10, 2021. Prelogar is the second woman to serve as Solicitor General, the first being Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan. Tomorrow, Prelogar will be speaking at the Oxford Road Building in an event titled "Understanding Justice: A Conversation with the U.S. Solicitor General."
This Q&A has been edited for clarity and length.
The Emory Wheel: How did you come to choose Emory University?
Prelogar: I grew up in Idaho and was born and raised there. When it was time to look for colleges, I knew that I wanted to be in a big city — wanted to venture out from where I was raised. What really drew me to Emory was the sense of community. I was really fortunate to receive a Woodruff Scholarship, so it obviously helps to have that scholarship opportunity. But I came to visit Emory first as part of the Scholars Program interview and actually met during that scholars weekend the person who became my freshman year roommate and one of my closest friends to this day. Just making that connection and feeling like Emory would be a place where I could find that community is what drew me to the University
The Emory Wheel: What are some stories or memorable lessons you learned from working at the Wheel?
Prelogar: Actually, it really relates to what I do in my current job. I was a features writer for the Wheel, and what I loved about it was the opportunity to tell people stories. Obviously, journalism is different than law, but I think there's that same essential focus on storytelling in the sense that every case in the law involves real people on the ground who have real problems. I feel like when I was at Emory, getting that deep dive through the Wheel of how to write a story, how to capture attention, what kind of facts to include to make sure the reader knows exactly what's going on — it still kind of translates to what I do today.
It felt almost like a full-time job because I finished one story and was always moving on to the next one, but what I liked about it was that it gave me this chance to constantly be working on my writing, refining it, kind of brainstorming ideas for what kinds of stories were happening on campus that would interest people. It was this wonderful extracurricular to have on top of my coursework to really make me feel plugged into everything that was happening on the ground, in the moment, at the college.
The Emory Wheel: Can you speak about your journey from being an Emory student to now working in public service?
Prelogar: I originally went to law school thinking I was going to become a journalist. I had loved my work on the Wheel. All throughout my time at Emory, my summer internships were at newspapers. So I had a stint at the Austin American-Statesman in Austin, Texas, and then I worked at The Boston Globe. When I first applied to law school, I thought that I would go to gain a specialty so I could write about the law and help translate it to the wider world. But then when I got to law school, I quickly fell in love with the idea of law itself and, in particular, was very quickly drawn to appellate practice, where you're really trying to connect dots in terms of how precedent fits together and how it relates to the particular facts of a case — which are well established by the time you were up on appeal. It quickly made me realize that there was so much I could do in the law and take whatever skills or talents I have and try and devote them toward the greater good.
So that made me think, okay, I'm going to practice, but then it was figuring out exactly what I should do. I knew very early on that I loved the idea of being able to work in government. I ended up clerking for several years after I graduated from law school and then went to a firm for a period of time, but I always had my eye on the idea that it would be an incredible opportunity to go work at the Department of Justice, and I finally had that opportunity to join with the Solicitor General's Office in a career capacity. I came in as a line attorney in the office, or what we call an assistant to the Solicitor General. I have to say it was so wonderful to have the chance to learn how to be a government lawyer, learn all about the different equities across the government — which has a lot of cross-cutting interests and concerns and cases, and then to have the chance to advocate for the interests of the federal government at the Supreme Court. It never gets old to stand up at the lectern in the Supreme Court of the United States and think I'm here on behalf of my country. I represent the United States in this court. It's such an honor and a privilege to get to serve in that capacity.
The Emory Wheel: Can you talk about your experience first clerking for Attorney General Merrick Garland and now working more closely with him?
Prelogar: I feel like I had the most amazing experience at the outset of my career, first clerking for then-Judge Garland, and then I got to clerk for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Justice Elena Kagan on the court.
With the first clerkship, it was an incredible learning experience. I had this chance to work on cases and throw myself into them. I felt like I could spend a week thinking hard about the case and then write a bench memo for the judge, and he'd spend a couple of hours with the case and immediately be able to identify the central issue — the fault line that we really needed to resolve for purposes of thinking about what the right outcome was. It was a great experience to learn from that and to see how he approached those issues as a judge. Then obviously, it's been wonderful to come back and have the opportunity to work with him again in this capacity. It's a very different role than being a law clerk, but I feel like having that foundation and having learned from him at the start of my career has just made me able to hit the ground running.
The Emory Wheel: How does it feel having the high level of media scrutiny that comes with your job
Prelogar: It's true that the cases and the stakes are really profound. There's a lot of public engagement with that. But I have to say, I really think about it in terms of how we're going to do our best to advocate for the right result on behalf of the United States in any individual case. It's an incredible privilege to get to try to advance the best arguments in defense of the federal government's interests. A lot of what I do is just try to put my head down and shut out all the noise and focus on making the best case possible. I have this incredible team in the SG’s office that helps me do it. I'm really proud of the work we do.
The Emory Wheel: What advice would you give to current members of the Emory community who want to become lawyers, journalists or get involved in public service?
Prelogar: The best advice I could offer is to not be afraid of putting yourself out there and making yourself uncomfortable. When I look back across the course of my career, those times when I had the opportunity to do something that was outside my comfort zone, and I kind of thought hard about it and tried to figure out to … basically jump into the deep end. When I look back on it now, those were the times of enormous growth and incredible learning opportunities. So I guess what I would say is, it's so important to not be afraid to reach out and stretch beyond your comfort zone and look out for those types of opportunities.
