Anna St. John

On January 6, 2026, President Trump nominated Anna St. John to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana. She was confirmed on March 17, 2026.

View/download the fact sheet here.
View/download the joint letter of opposition here.
Read our affiliated organization’s analysis of this unfit nominee here.
Watch our affiliated organization’s opposition video here.

Biography 

Born in Gulfport, Mississippi, in 1979, St. John earned a B.A. from Louisiana State University in 2001, an M.A. from the Columbia University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and a J.D. from the Columbia University School of Law in 2006.

Legal Experience 

From 2006 to 2007, St. John clerked for the Honorable Rhesa H. Barksdale of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. After her clerkship, St. John worked as an associate at Covington & Burling from 2007 through 2014, representing primarily large corporations. Since 2015, St. John has maintained a law practice, St. John LLC. She also joined the Center for Class Action Fairness (CCAF) in 2015 as an attorney. At that time, CCAF was a project of the Competitive Enterprise Institute but now functions as part of the Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute (HLLI). Since 2020, St. John has served as HLLI’s President and General Counsel. In 2024, St. John was a visiting fellow at the Independent Women’s Forum (IWF).

Key Facts

• Louisiana State Bar Association (since 2015), New York Bar Association (since 2006), District of Columbia Bar Association (since 2008).

• Federalist Society (2003–present, with a few lapses).

  • Federalist Society Executive Committee, Free Speech Practice Group (2021–present).

• Pro–Forced Arbitration

  • St. John testified against EFASASHA, a modest and popular bipartisan bill to end forced arbitration in cases involving sexual assault and sexual harassment.

• Anti-Consumer

  • President and General Counsel at Hamilton Legal Law Institute (HLLI); previously led the Center for Class Action Fairness (CCAF), a subunit of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, which has since been folded into HLLI. CEI received millions of dollars in funding from Koch family foundations, The American Conservative, Monsanto, the American Bankers Association, and Exxon Mobil Corporation.St. John and HLLI have intervened in consumer cases seeking to undermine class action settlements where companies misled or harmed consumers.

• Anti-LGBTQ+ and Anti-Trans

  • St. John authored and co-authored numerous amicus briefs undermining LGBTQ+ rights. In 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, St. John argued that businesses should be allowed to discriminate against LGBTQ+ individuals under the guise of so-called religious freedom. In Green v. Miss USA, St. John called for banning transgender women from the Miss USA pageant, arguing that their inclusion “would infringe upon the pageant’s rights” (emphasis added).

• Attacked First Amendment Protections

  • Authored an op-ed in The American Spectator arguing that New York Times Co. v. Sullivan (1964) has no basis in the history of the First Amendment. St. John criticized a Supreme Court precedent that has stood for more than six decades and was established to ensure the public can freely criticize government officials and that journalists can report without fear of retaliation or lawsuits. The decision affirms that public debate should be “uninhibited, robust, and wide-open.”