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Michael McConnell, now a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, graduated at the top of his class from the University of Chicago Law School, where he was Comment Editor of the University of Chicago Law Review. He clerked in the D.C. Circuit for Judge J. Skelly Wright, and in the Supreme Court for Justice William J. Brennan. Michael served as Assistant General Counsel in the Office of Management and Budget, with responsibilities for regulatory review, and subsequently as Assistant to the Solicitor General. Before being elevated to the bench, he argued 11 cases in the Supreme Court, including 5 while affiliated with Mayer, Brown. Michael was a tenured Professor at the University of Chicago Law School before becoming the Presidential Professorship at the University of Utah Law School. During his academic career, Michael served as Chair of the Constitutional Law Section of the Association of American Law Schools, Co-Chair of the Emergency Committee to Defend the First Amendment, and was a member of the President's Intelligence Oversight Board and the Board of Directors of the Austin Christian Law Center, a low-income legal aid clinic in Chicago. While practicing law with Mayer Brown he was named by American Lawyer magazine as among the 45 most influential lawyers in the public sector under age 45. His oral argument in Rosenberger v. Rector & Visitors, University of Virginia, was named the best oral argument of the October Term 1994 by the Los Angeles Times.