Indian-origin lawyer at the center of the Supreme Court’s landmark verdict against Trump

Attorney Neal Katyal, left, and Sara Albrecht, president of the Liberty Justice Center, during an interview outside the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, DC, U.S., on Friday, February 20, 2026. | Photo credit: Annabelle Gordon

Neal Katyal, the son of Indian immigrants and former acting attorney general of the United States under President Barack Obama, argued the resulting tariff case on behalf of small businesses and won.

“Victory,” Katyal posted on X shortly after the Supreme Court verdict was delivered on Friday.

Katyal said in an interview with MS Now: “One of the great things about the American system is what just happened today. I was able to go to court – the son of immigrants – and say on behalf of America’s small businesses, ‘Hey, this president is acting illegally.'”

“I was able to present my case and have them ask me very difficult questions. It was a very intense plea and at the end they voted and we won,” he said.

“That’s something extraordinary about this country. The idea that we have a system that corrects itself, that allows us to say, ‘You may be the most powerful man in the world, but you still can’t break the Constitution. That, to me, is what today is about,” he added.

Katyal was born in Chicago in 1970 to a pediatrician mother and an engineer father, both of whom emigrated from India.

Katyal is a partner in the Washington DC office of Milbank LLP and a member of the firm’s Litigation & Arbitration Group.

In a statement after the verdict, he said the U.S. Supreme Court stood up for the rule of law and for Americans everywhere.

“The message was simple: Presidents are powerful, but our Constitution is even more powerful. In America, only Congress can impose taxes on the American people. The U.S. Supreme Court has given us everything we asked for in our lawsuit. Everything.” Katyal expressed her gratitude for the leadership of the Liberty Justice Center, which “led the fight when others would not.”

“This case has always been about the presidency, not one president. It has always been about the separation of powers, not the politics of the moment. I’m glad to see our Supreme Court, which has been the foundation of our government for 250 years, protecting our most fundamental values,” he said.

According to his profile on the Milbank website, Katyal focuses on appellate and complex litigation and has argued 54 cases before the United States Supreme Court.

He also spent more than two decades as a law professor at Georgetown University Law Center, “where he was one of the youngest professors to receive tenure and a professorship in the history of the university” and has served as a visiting professor at Harvard and Yale law schools.

Katyal graduated from Yale Law School and clerked for Guido Calabresi of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and for Judge Stephen G. Breyer of the United States Supreme Court.

From 1998 to 1999, he also served in the Deputy Attorney General’s Office of the Department of Justice as National Security Advisor and Special Assistant to the Deputy Attorney General.

Katyal is the recipient of the “highest honor bestowed on a civilian” by the U.S. Department of Justice, the Edmund Randolph Award, which was presented to him by the attorney general in 2011, according to his profile.

The Chief Justice of the United States appointed him to the Advisory Committee on Federal Appellate Rules in 2011 and 2014.

In a post on

“I think first of my father, who came to this land of freedom… May the Constitution win,” Katyal wrote.

Published on February 21, 2026