Shareholder, Kirton McConkie
Christopher Bates is co-chair of the firm’s Appellate section and a member of the Litigation and First Amendment and Religious Organizations sections. His practice focuses on appeals and critical motions in complex cases. He has argued dozens of cases in courts across the country, including the Utah Supreme Court, Utah Court of Appeals, and eleven of the thirteen federal circuits. He has also handled a variety of dispositive motions in both state and federal court. Chris’s subject matter experience includes a range of constitutional, regulatory, and commercial issues.
Chris has significant experience in senior positions in both state and federal government. Before joining Kirton McConkie, Chris served as deputy solicitor general for Utah. In that position, he managed complex ligation for the state on a range of topics and routinely appeared in both appellate and trial courts. He also led the state’s amicus efforts in the U.S. Supreme Court and federal courts of appeals. Prior to that, Chris served as senior counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division at the U.S. Department of Justice, where he defended agency rulemakings and other administrative actions against statutory and constitutional challenges.
Earlier in his career, Chris was chief counsel to U.S. Senator Orrin G. Hatch on the Senate Judiciary Committee. In that role, he served as Senator Hatch’s chief legal advisor on intellectual property, antitrust, and criminal law. He led introduction and passage of several key pieces of legislation and staffed the senator at two Supreme Court confirmation hearings. He brings this legislative experience to bear in analyzing complex statutes and building coalitions in multiparty litigation.
Chris began his career by serving as a law clerk to Judge Thomas B. Griffith on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. He was then a litigation associate in Sidley Austin’s Supreme Court and Appellate Practice in Washington, DC. He has also taught college-level courses on constitutional law and legal studies.
Principal, Spero Law LLC
Christopher Mills is the founder of Spero Law LLC. He was previously a partner at a national law firm and a Constitutional Law Fellow at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. He served as a law clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas on the U.S. Supreme Court during October Term 2018. He also clerked for the Honorable David B. Sentelle, then-Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. He has authored briefs and motions in the Supreme Court, courts of appeals, and trial courts, and successfully argued before the D.C. Circuit. He has served as special counsel to South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster, and is an Adjunct Professor at the Charleston School of Law.
A 2012 magna cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School, Christopher was a senior editor of the Harvard Law Review, an editor of the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, and served on the Executive Board of the Harvard Federalist Society. In 2009, he graduated Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum laude with a degree in economics from Furman University.
Christopher lives in Charleston, South Carolina with his wife, children, and golden retriever.
Associate, Wiley Rein LLP
Joel S. Nolette is an associate at Wiley Rein LLP, where he advocates on behalf of corporate and individual clients in a broad spectrum of complex litigation matters. In 2017, Joel graduated cum laude from the Georgetown University Law Center, where he served as the Editor in Chief of Volume 15 of the Georgetown Journal of Law and Public Policy. From 2019 to 2021, Joel clerked for the Honorable Raymond W. Gruender of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit; and from 2021 to 2022, he clerked for the Honorable Timothy J. Kelly of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Before attending law school, Joel graduated summa cum laude from Gordon College in Wenham, MA, with his Bachelor of Arts in Biblical Studies and worked as a letter carrier with the U.S. Postal Service.
Partner, Cooper & Kirk PLLC
BRIAN W. BARNES has litigated high-stakes cases at all levels of the federal court system and has also argued numerous cases in state trial and appellate courts. He was the principal author of the briefs for the petitioners in Collins v Mnuchin, a multi-billion-dollar administrative law case challenging the nationalization of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which is currently pending in the United States Supreme Court. In related litigation, Mr. Barnes deposed several of the current and former senior executives for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, including both companies’ former CEOs. Mr. Barnes also played a central role representing shareholders in disputes over the scope of the government’s discovery obligations in the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac litigation, successfully persuading the Court of Federal Claims to order the government to show plaintiffs’ counsel most of the documents the government attempted to withhold under the deliberative process and bank examination privileges.
Mr. Barnes also has extensive experience representing plaintiffs in suits filed under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (“RICO”). He briefed and argued St. Luke’s Health Network v. Lancaster General Hospital, 967 F.3d 295 (3d Cir. 2020), in which the Third Circuit reversed dismissal of RICO claims filed as part of a putative class action against a hospital that allegedly defrauded a Pennsylvania program that subsidizes care for indigent patients. Mr. Barnes also helped pioneer the use of RICO to sue state-legalized marijuana businesses: he filed the first such case, successfully argued the case on appeal after it was dismissed, and later helped try the case to a jury on remand. See Safe Streets Alliance v. Hickenlooper, 859 F.3d 865 (10th Cir. 2017).
Mr. Barnes has also worked on a wide range of other matters. He has briefed and argued cases concerning state preemption of local gun regulations in the trial and intermediate appellate courts of Illinois and Pennsylvania. In litigation over the Department of Education’s Title IX regulations, Mr. Barnes represents intervenors who are defending the regulations. And he has an active practice advising institutional investors on the probable outcomes of market-moving litigation in both state and federal courts.
Mr. Barnes clerked for Justice Samuel Alito during the Supreme Court’s 2012 Term and was previously a law clerk to Judge Thomas Griffith of the D.C. Circuit. He is a graduate of Yale Law School, where he was an Articles Editor for the Yale Law Journal and a member of the Yale Supreme Court Clinic. Mr. Barnes received his B.A. from Yale College and is a member of the Colorado and District of Columbia bars.
Courthouse Steps Oral Argument: First Choice Women’s Resource Centers, Inc. v. Platkin
Christopher Bates, Christopher E. Mills
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Courthouse Steps Oral Argument: Smith & Wesson Brands, Inc. v. Estados Unidos Mexicanos
Brian W. Barnes
In Smith & Wesson Brands, Inc. v. Estados Unidos Mexicanos Mexico brought suit against several U.S....
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