Experience 

Charles Rothfeld, recognized by USA Today as "part of an emerging elite private-sector group of lawyers who dominate advocacy at the Supreme Court" and by Legal Times as a "top-tier appellate advocate," focuses his practice on Supreme Court and appellate litigation. His appellate experience has earned him recognition in Chambers USA (2009) and Best Lawyers in America.  He has worked on more than 200 cases before the United States Supreme Court and on numerous other cases before federal and state appellate courts. Charles has argued 24 cases before the US Supreme Court, including arguments in January, March, and December 2008, and April 2009.

Since joining Mayer Brown in 1991, Charles has represented foreign governments, states, municipalities, members of Congress, and groups of state and local officials before the Supreme Court. His clients also have included Fortune 500 companies and other businesses in a range of industries, for whom he has worked in cases involving various aspects of constitutional law — including the Commerce and Due Process clauses, the First Amendment, and the Twenty-first Amendment — as well as antitrust, securities regulation, federal preemption, taxation, and banking law.  Among his cases last year, Charles successfully argued before the Court on behalf of the Republic of the Philippines and the Philippine National Bank in an effort to reclaim assets stolen by former Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos.  In his most recent argument, Charles prevailed in Polar Tankers, Inc. v. City of Valdez, 129 S. Ct. 2277 (2009), the first case since the nineteenth century in which the Court invalidated a state tax under the Constitution’s Tonnage Clause.

Charles is a founder and co-director of the Yale Law School’s Supreme Court Clinic, which is among the largest and most successful appellate advocacy programs in the nation. This past term, it handled four cases on the merits in the Supreme Court, addressing issues of civil rights, immigration, and criminal law and procedure.

In addition, Charles is a member of the Board of Advisors of Georgetown University Law Center’s Supreme Court Institute. He also has served as a faculty member in the National Association of Attorneys General (NAAG) Supreme Court advocacy program and as a judge in NAAG’s annual “Best Supreme Court Brief” competition. He is a regular participant in moot courts for NAAG, the Chamber of Commerce, and the Georgetown Supreme Court Institute. He has published widely on the Supreme Court, the Constitution, and appellate advocacy, and he is one of the co-authors of Mayer Brown’s just published treatise on practice in the federal courts of appeals.

Prior to joining Mayer Brown, Charles served as Special Counsel for the State and Local Legal Center (1988–1990) and as Assistant to the Solicitor General, US Department of Justice (1984–1988), where he had primary responsibility for handling the government’s Supreme Court litigation in the areas of banking and securities regulation. From 1982 to 1984, he worked with another law firm in Washington, DC. Earlier, Charles served as Law Clerk to Justice Harry A. Blackmun, US Supreme Court (1981–1982) and to Chief Judge Spottswood W. Robinson III, US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (1980–1981).

Education 

University of Chicago Law School, JD, cum laude, 1980; Joseph Henry Beale Prize for outstanding legal writing; Articles Editor, University of Chicago Law Review • Cornell University, AB, cum laude, 1977; Editor-in-Chief, Cornell Daily Sun

Admitted

• Supreme Court of the United States, 1985
• New York, 1982
• District of Columbia, 1982
• All United States Circuit Courts of Appeals
• United States District Court for the District of Columbia