The Hon. Jeffrey S. Sutton

Jeffrey S. Sutton has served on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit since 2003 and was appointed chief judge in May 2021. Before that, he was the State Solicitor of Ohio and a partner at Jones Day in Columbus. He has argued twelve cases in the United States Supreme Court and numerous cases in the state supreme courts and federal courts of appeal. Chief Judge Sutton served as a law clerk to Justices Lewis F. Powell, Jr. (Ret.) and Antonin Scalia of the United States Supreme Court, as well as Judge Thomas J. Meskill of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Chief Judge Sutton received his B.A. from Williams College and his J.D. from The Ohio State University College of Law.

Chief Judge Sutton served as Chair of the Federal Judicial Conference Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure from 2012 to 2016. He was appointed to that committee by Chief Justice Roberts. He has also served on the Advisory Committee on Appellate Rules. He was appointed to that committee by Chief Justice Rehnquist in 2005, and Chief Justice Roberts appointed him to be Chair of that committee in 2009. He currently serves as the Commissioner of the Supreme Court fellows Program.

Since 1993, Judge Sutton has been an adjunct professor at The Ohio State University College of Law, where he teaches seminars on State Constitutional Law, the United States Supreme Court, and Appellate Advocacy. He also teaches a class on State Constitutional Law at Harvard Law School. Among other publications, he is the co-author of a casebook, State Constitutional Law: The Modern Experience, as well as The Law of Judicial Precedent.