Legal Civility: Perspectives from the Bench and Bar, 02/27

Lee DeJulius currently serves as the partner-in-charge of the New York Office of Jones Day. DeJulius received his undergraduate degree from St. Louis University and his law degree from the University of Notre Dame. He clerked for Judge Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and for Chief Justice William Rehnquist on the Supreme Court of the United States. DeJulius represents clients across industries and legal subjects in high-stakes trial and appellate matters throughout the country. He has tried cases to juries, judges and arbitration panels. He also has appeared in dozens of appellate matters, presenting arguments in several federal circuit courts and state supreme courts.

Many of DeJulius’s matters involve high-profile disputes with the government. He has extensive experience in public nuisance lawsuits related to the manufacture, promotion and sale of products. He has handled commercial, regulatory and environmental cases brought by government entities and has defended clients in statewide investigating grand jury proceedings. He serves as national counsel for Sherwin-Williams in lead paint litigation. He also leads Chevron's defense of thousands of lawsuits, including a federal multidistrict litigation (MDL) and coordinated state proceedings related to alleged health effects from a historical herbicide. DeJulius recently secured a unanimous reversal in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court on a billion-dollar dispute involving a consent decree with the Pennsylvania attorney general.

Judge Readler earned his undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Michigan. After graduating, he served as a law clerk to Judge Alan Norris of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Judge Readler then began practicing law in the Columbus office of the international law firm Jones Day, eventually spending ten years as a partner in the firm's Issues and Appeals Practice Group. While at Jones Day, Judge Readler appeared in state and federal trial and appellate courts around the country, most frequently the Supreme Court of Ohio and the Sixth Circuit. Judge Readler also successfully argued before the United States Supreme Court in McQuiggin v. Perkins on behalf of an inmate claiming actual innocence. His other pro bono representations include representing capital defendants before the Tenth Circuit and the Supreme Court of Ohio, as well as representing defendants sentenced to life in prison before the Sixth Circuit. While at Jones Day, Judge Readler traveled to Nairobi with Lawyers Without Borders to train Kenyan lawyers in prosecuting domestic violence cases, and he was also a recipient of the American Marshall Memorial Fellowship awarded by the German Marshall Fund of the United States. 

Following his career in private practice, Judge Readler served as acting assistant attorney general for the civil division of the United States Department of Justice from 2017 to 2019. In that role, Judge Readler led and supervised over one thousand lawyers in the department's largest litigating division, briefing and arguing several cases on behalf of the United States in federal courts across the country, including high-profile cases significant to the administration and the department. In March 2019, Judge Readler was confirmed to serve as a circuit judge on the Sixth Circuit.  He resides in Columbus.