Justin W. Aimonetti
Justin is a litigator. He has worked on a diverse set of matters, including commercial disputes, criminal matters, antitrust cases, internal investigations, and numerous controversies involving statutory and constitutional issues. He has experience representing individuals and corporations in federal court, as well as in federal agencies and state courts. His experience touches on all parts of the litigation process. He has served as lead counsel on multiple federal appeals, has presented oral argument in federal and state court, and has zealously represented his clients in all sorts of legal forums implicating all sorts of legal issues.
Before joining Vinson & Elkins, Justin served as associate general counsel for the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), as an associate at an international law firm in Washington, D.C., as a judicial law clerk to the Honorable Carl J. Nichols on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, as a judicial law clerk to the Honorable Chief Judge Jeffrey S. Sutton on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, and as a legal adviser in the Office of Legal Counsel at the Department of Justice.
Justin has published numerous law review articles. His legal scholarship has appeared in the law reviews of Yale, Stanford, Minnesota, Pepperdine, Louisville, and Virginia, among others. His publications have won many awards and have been cited by a number of federal courts.
Credentials
- The University of Virginia School of Law, J.D., 2020 (Order of the Coif; Articles Editor, Virginia Law Review)
- The University of Virginia, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, M.A., American Legal History, 2020
- Columbia University, B.A., Political Science & History, cum laude, 2017 (four-year letter winner on the Columbia football team)
- Associate General Counsel, Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), 2025
- Associate, International Law Firm, 2022–2025
- Law Clerk to the Honorable Carl J. Nichols, United States District Court for the District of Columbia, 2021–2022
- Law Clerk to the Honorable Jeffrey S. Sutton, United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, 2020–2021
- Legal Adviser, Office of Legal Counsel at the Department of Justice, 2020
- Not admitted in Texas
- District of Columbia
- Maryland
- Article III and Alternative Holdings, 61 U. Louisville L. Rev. 455 (2023) (selected for presentation at the University of Louisville Federal Courts Symposium held at the law school in November 2022)
- Holmes v. Walton and its Enduring Lessons for Originalism, 106 Marquette L. Rev. 73 (2022) (runner-up for the University of Chicago Federalist Society’s Eaton Award)
- Voigt Deference: Deferring to a State Agency’s Interpretation of a Federal Regulation, 106 Minn. L. Rev. Headnotes 100 (2021)
- Race, Ramos, and the Second Amendment Standard of Review, 107 Va. L. Rev. Online 193 (2021)
- The Founders’ Multi-Purpose Chief Justice: The English Origins of the American Chief Justiceship, 124 W. Va. L. Rev. 1 (2021)
- Derivative Immunity as Savior from State Actor Status, 34 Regent Univ. L. Rev. 107 (2021)
- How Two Rights Made a Wrong: Sullivan, Anti-SLAPP, and the Under-enforcement of Public Figure Defamation Torts, 130 Yale L.J. Forum 708 (2021) (winner of the Yale Law Journal Student Essay Competition)
- Religious Exemptions as Rational Social Policy, 55 U. Rich. L. Rev. Online 25 (2021 (runner-up in the ICLRS Religious Liberty Student Writing Contest)
- What’s the Buzz About Standing, 89 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. Arguendo 175 (2020)
- Confining Custody, 53 Creighton L. Rev. 509 (2020) (winner of the Judge John R. Brown Award for Excellence in Legal Writing)
- ‘Magic Words’ and Original Understanding: An Amplified Clear Statement Rule to Abrogate Tribal Sovereign Immunity, 2020 Pepp. L. Rev. 1 (2020) (runner-up in the American Indian National Writing Competition)
- Colonial Virginia: The Intellectual Incubator of Judicial Review, 106 Va. L. Rev. 765 (2020) (recipient of University of Virginia School of Law’s Roger and Madeline Traynor Prize)
- Second Guessing Double Jeopardy: The Stare Decisis Factors as Proxy Tools for Original Correctness, 61 Wm. & Mary L. Rev. Online 35 (2020)
- Disciplining the “Disruptive” Student Heckler, 72 Rutgers U. L. Rev. Commentaries 101 (2019)
- Game Changer: Why and How Congress Should Preempt State Student-Athlete Compensation Regimes, 72 Stanford L. Rev. Online 28 (2019) (winner of Stanford’s Student Essay Competition)