Suggestions
Eli Nachmany
J.D. Candidate at Harvard Law School
Eli Nachmany is an associate at Covington & Burling LLP in Washington, DC.13 He specializes in advising clients on antitrust issues, administrative law, and complex civil litigation, with a particular focus on appellate matters and expertise in sports and gaming.1
Nachmany's educational background includes:
- Graduating magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, where he was Editor-in-Chief of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy3
- Graduating summa cum laude from New York University with a B.S. in Sports Management3
His professional experience includes:
- Clerking for Judge Steven J. Menashi of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit13
- Serving as an adjunct instructor at New York University, teaching an undergraduate sports management course about the NFL Draft in Spring 20231
- Working as a speechwriter to the U.S. Secretary of the Interior and as a domestic policy aide in the White House Office of American Innovation prior to law school3
Nachmany has published scholarly works on administrative law and executive power in various law reviews, including the BYU Law Review, George Mason Law Review, Wake Forest Law Review, and Yale Law Journal Forum.13 Recently, he announced placing another law review article in the Alabama Law Review, forthcoming in November 2025.2
He is also recognized for his pro bono work, having been listed on the 2023 Capital Pro Bono Honor Roll.4
Highlights
Proud to share that I won my first federal appeal as lead counsel. In a unanimous decision, an Eighth Circuit panel reversed the dismissal of a prisoner civil rights suit concerning an unlawful search.
While incarcerated, Steven Volner brought a self-represented Section 1983 lawsuit, alleging that he was the victim of an illegal search. The district court dismissed, citing the Supreme Court's decision in Heck v. Humphrey. We proposed to represent Mr. Volner pro bono for an appeal to the Eighth Circuit of that decision. The Eighth Circuit agreed that Heck did not bar Mr. Volner's unlawful-search lawsuit.
I attach the court's opinion here. If you're interested, here's the brief we filed in the case: https://lnkd.in/ew57tETB
I'm grateful to my firm Covington & Burling LLP for allowing me to take on such substantive appellate work so early in my career and to Bob Long for supervising my lawyering in this case.
Sharing a fun, short post I got to do for The Federalist Society’s State Court Docket Watch, reviewing a recent state nondelegation opinion from the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.
As I note in the essay (and Judge Jeffrey Sutton has written elsewhere), state courts’ interpretations of their own state constitutions need not mirror federal courts’ interpretations of the federal constitution. So, just as the Massachusetts SJC interpreted the state’s constitution to mirror the federal “intelligible principle” standard for nondelegation challenges, other state courts can interpret their state constitutions to embody nondelegation doctrines that are more robust than the U.S. Supreme Court’s current conception of the doctrine.
