Whitfield & Marchetti is a small Washington practice with one focus: written and oral advocacy before federal appellate courts. We have argued seventeen cases before the United States Supreme Court and more than two hundred before the federal courts of appeals. Our clients are corporations, government entities, and individuals whose cases turn on questions of constitutional and statutory interpretation.
We do not take cases outside these subject-matter areas. The boundary is intentional: appellate work rewards depth far more than breadth, and our results follow from refusing engagements where another firm would serve a client better.
Certiorari petitions and merits briefing before the Supreme Court of the United States. We have filed amicus briefs on behalf of bar associations, sovereign nations, and Fortune 100 companies on questions ranging from administrative law to the First Amendment.
Civil and administrative appeals across all thirteen federal circuits. Representative matters have included multi-billion-dollar antitrust judgments, agency rulemaking challenges, and constitutional defenses of municipal ordinances.
First Amendment, Fourteenth Amendment, and federalism challenges in trial and appellate courts. We have represented clients before three-judge district court panels in redistricting and election-law cases since 1994.
Petitions for review of federal agency action under the APA, the Hobbs Act, and sector-specific statutes. Recent representations have addressed EPA emissions standards, FCC spectrum rulemakings, and FERC pipeline certifications.
Appellate representation of foreign sovereigns under the FSIA and of federally recognized Indian tribes on questions of treaty rights, jurisdiction, and federal-trust obligations.
Authorship of amicus briefs and strategic counsel to trial teams preparing matters that may reach the appellate courts. We are often retained two or three years before an appeal to shape the trial record.
Cases of public record. Many of our most significant representations cannot be publicly identified.
Supreme Court of the United States · 601 U.S. ___
Argued the meaning of the "feasibility" requirement in the Clean Water Act's section 404(b) regulations. The Court adopted petitioner's construction 6–3, reversing the Ninth Circuit.
United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
Successfully defended a $4.2 billion district-court judgment for a class of municipal bondholders against eleven separate appeals consolidated before the Eleventh Circuit.
Supreme Court of the United States · 600 U.S. 142
Petitioned for certiorari on the proper standard for evaluating ineffective-assistance claims under Strickland in capital cases. Cert granted; reversed on the merits.
United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit
Successful APA challenge to a FERC certificate order authorizing a $1.1 billion natural-gas pipeline. Order vacated and remanded with instructions to reconsider environmental-justice factors.
A small bench, by design. We accept fewer matters than we could, and we staff every engagement with at least one partner and one senior associate.
Argued nine cases before the Supreme Court. Editor-in-Chief, Harvard Law Review. Forty-one years at the appellate bar.
Argued eight cases before the Supreme Court. Former Deputy Solicitor General. Visiting Lecturer, Yale Law School.
Leads the firm's energy and environmental practice. Twelve years at the firm; partner since 2018.
Whitfield & Marchetti is among that small handful of appellate boutiques whose name on a brief changes how the court reads the first page.
Chambers USA · National Appellate Rankings · 2024 Edition
We do not actively pursue rankings. The recognitions below are awarded by peer survey and editorial review, not by submission.
Selected analysis from our partners. Updated when there is something genuinely worth reading — never on a schedule.
Eight of the cases on the Court's docket this term turn on questions of agency deference. We summarize the issues, the circuit splits, and what each outcome would mean for federal rulemaking.
Read the analysisA close reading of the Court's June decision and its likely effects on agency rulemaking, statutory interpretation in the lower courts, and the practical work of administrative-law litigators in the coming term.
Read the analysisA short essay on a long-standing institutional preference. The fifty-page limit is a ceiling, not a target. Forty pages will read more carefully than forty-eight, and twenty-eight will read most carefully of all.
Read the essayIf you are considering retaining appellate counsel, or seeking strategic advice on a matter that may eventually reach an appellate court, please contact our managing partner directly. We respond to substantive inquiries within one business day.