Prior to Judge Michael Park’s confirmation for the Second Circuit on May 9, 2019, he spent his career dismantling people’s rights, from advocating against affirmative action to undermining reproductive rights, tribal rights, workers’ rights, access to health care, consumer rights, and environmental justice.
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Biography
Park received his A.B. from Princeton in 1998 and graduated from Yale Law School in 2001. After graduation, Park clerked for then-Judge Alito on the Third Circuit, and later, for Justice Alito on the Supreme Court during the 2008 term. During this year, he co-clerked with Andrew Oldham, now Judge Oldham, who sits on the Fifth Circuit.
Legal Experience
Between 2002 and 2006, Park worked at WilmerHale in New York. From 2006 to 2008, he served as an Attorney-Advisor with the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel. He went on to work at Dechert from 2009 to 2015. In 2015, Park joined the firm of Consovoy McCarthy (formerly Consovoy McCarthy Park) as the named partner who specialized in appellate and complex litigation. Consovoy McCarthy is described as the go-to legal shop for conservative idealogues. While working there in 2018, Park and his firm represented President Trump in his personal capacity in a lawsuit related to the Emoluments Clause. Also during this time, Park represented the state of Kansas in its efforts to cut Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood.
Key Facts & Context
Prior to Trump’s nomination of Park to the Second Circuit in 2018, the Senate had not proceeded with nominations without positive “blue slips” from both senators. During Park’s Senate Judiciary hearing, Park refused to directly answer Senator Blumenthal’s questions on whether Roe v. Wade and Brown v. Board of Education were correctly decided.
When questioned about race conscious college admissions, Park pointed to Supreme Court precedent, noting race is a permissible factor “if it satisfies strict scrutiny.” Park’s Senate Judiciary hearing for his Second Circuit nomination also revealed his lack of trial experience: up until that point, he had never tried a case or watch a trial through the full process.
- In 2019, Park supported efforts to undercount immigrant communities in the 2020 census. On behalf of the Project on Fair Representation, Park authored an amicus brief arguing that a citizenship question would provide “critical” data, allegedly to better enforce the Voting Rights Act “at DOJ’s urging.” In fact, evidence showed that Stephen Bannon and Kris Kobach pushed for the additional citizenship question.
- Since Park’s confirmation to the Second Circuit, he’s authored a number of anti-labor cases, including a relatively high-profile cases upholding a noncompete clause against a well-known wedding dress designers and social medial influencer. He also ruled against a whistleblower bringing a claim under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, and was “present” for many summary orders denying asylum claims from female asylum seekers. The Supreme Court later unanimously overruled Park’s decision in the whistleblower claim under Sarbanes-Oxley, where a former employee of UBS Securities claimed he was fired in retaliation for reporting fraud on shareholders to his supervisor.