Eric M. Palmer

Eric is an appellate and trial litigator who represents plaintiffs and defendants in high-stakes litigation and regulatory matters. His practice focuses on constitutional law, government regulation, antitrust, and class actions. A former United States Supreme Court clerk, Special Counsel to the United States Senate Judiciary Committee, and Deputy Attorney General for the state of Alabama, Eric’s experience serving at the highest levels of state and federal government informs every aspect of his approach to litigation and regulatory issues.

Eric has briefed and argued high-stakes appeals and dispositive motions in a variety of state and federal courts and briefed multiple matters at the United States Supreme Court. He has served as lead or co-lead counsel in regulatory, constitutional, and consumer-protection suits, including a pathbreaking suit challenging the Department of Commerce’s regulations governing census apportionment. Eric’s experience ranges across wide variety of substantive areas, including antitrust, civil rights, criminal law, energy, insurance, healthcare, securities and corporate law, defamation and privacy law, Indian law, gambling regulation, and international judgment enforcement.

Before joining the firm, Eric was a law clerk to the Hon. Samuel A. Alito at the United States Supreme Court and Chief Judge William H. Pryor at the Eleventh Circuit.  Eric also served as a special counsel to Senator Lindsey Graham in his capacity as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and as a Deputy Attorney General and the Assistant Solicitor General for the State of Alabama.  

• Successfully argued defense of a state data-privacy statute against a First Amendment challenge; currently serving as lead counsel on appeal
• Played leading role in the successful appellate defense of a record-setting $2.67 billion antitrust settlement
• Developed legal theories that led to decertification of a class action seeking billions in damages against Florida’s largest utility for power outages following a major hurricane
• Developed a pathbreaking suit to enforce judgment held by the victims of 9/11 against terrorist organizations in admiralty jurisdiction against stateless ships
• Drafted amicus brief on behalf of former DOJ Civil Rights officials challenging Douglass Mackey’s conviction for conspiring to deprive citizens of the right to vote in the 2016 presidential election
• Successfully overturned arbitration award on appeal that had been confirmed by the trial court
• Served as lead counsel in a pathbreaking suit challenging Department of Commerce regulations governing census apportionment
• Drafted merits brief in United States Supreme Court case dealing with the Eighth Amendment
• Drafted amicus brief for 18 states in United States Supreme Court case on the Endangered Species Act’s definition of “critical habitat”
• Served as lead amicus counsel for multiple coalitions of states opposing the EPA’s “hydrological connection” theory of jurisdiction under the Clean Water Act
• Argued federal appeal defending state statute regulating parental consent for certain medical procedures against a Fourteenth Amendment challenge
• Served as lead appellate counsel in successful defense of jury verdict against multiple constitutional challenges

Perspectives

Co-author, New Frameworks Not Required to Address the Constitutional Boundaries of Privacy Statutes (May 2025)

Publications

Co-author, Public Reason and Courts (Cambridge University Press 2020)

Co-author, A Cosmopolitan Legal Order: Kant, Constitutional Justice, and the European Convention on Human Rights (Oxford University Press 2018)

Co-author, A Kantian System of Constitutional Justice: Rights, Trusteeship, and Balancing, 6 Global Constitutionalism 377 (2017)