Judge Thomas B. Griffith (Ret.) to Receive the 2026 American Inns of Court Professionalism Award for the DC Circuit

ALEXANDRIA, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Thomas B. Griffith has been selected to receive the prestigious 2026 American Inns of Court Professionalism Award for the DC Circuit. Until he retired from the bench in 2020, Griffith was a circuit judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He will receive the award at a special awards ceremony in Williamsburg, Virginia, in June.

“Judge Griffith has had a distinguished career of public service, serving in both the judicial and legislative branches of government, as well as academia and private practice,” writes Spencer Hallet, circuit executive for the U.S. Courts of the DC Circuit, who nominated Griffith for the award.

Appointed to the court by President George W. Bush in 2005, Griffith tackled such complex issues as constitutional and administrative law. During his term, the chief justice of the United States appointed him to serve on two Judicial Conference of the United States committees—one focused on the federal judiciary’s relationship to the president and the other focused on setting the ethical standards governing the federal judiciary.

Griffith’s commitment to public service has continued. In 2024, then-Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed him to serve as a judge on the U.S. Department of Justice Data Protection Review Court, which hears complaints about alleged privacy violations by U.S. intelligence. Griffith’s passion for the rule of law extends to the international realm. He is a deputy member of the advisory group the Ukrainian government created to vet applicants for the country’s constitutional court. He is also a member of the advisory board of the CEELI Institute in Prague, a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing the rule of law.

Griffith is currently special counsel at Hunton Andrews Kurth in Washington, DC, a lecturer on law at Harvard Law School, a senior research associate at Pembroke College, the University of Oxford, and a fellow at the Wheatley Institute at Brigham Young University. He is a frequent contributor to academic publications on such topics as civic charity, the rule of law, and toxic polarization and the judiciary.

Griffith earned a summa cum laude undergraduate degree from Brigham Young University in 1978. He earned his law degree from the University of Virginia School of Law in 1985. His career in public service began in 1995, when he began serving as Senate legal counsel. He served in that role—basically the U.S. Senate’s nonpartisan chief legal officer—until 1999.

The American Inns of Court, headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia, inspires the legal community to advance the rule of law by achieving the highest level of professionalism through example, education, and mentoring. The organization’s membership includes more than 30,000 federal, state, and local judges; lawyers; law professors; and law students in more than 350 chapters nationwide. More information is available at www.innsofcourt.org.