Xiao Wang
Supreme Court & Appellate Advocate
Director, Supreme Court Litigation Clinic · University of Virginia School of Law
About Me
I am an appellate lawyer and law professor. I direct the Supreme Court Litigation Clinic at the University of Virginia School of Law. I hold a joint appointment at the University of Virginia Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy. My practice and scholarship center on the federal courts, constitutional law, and law and religion. Before joining the University of Virginia, I was a professor at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law, where I was nominated for the law school's teaching award.
Prior to academia, I practiced at Williams & Connolly and Wilkinson Stekloff. I also clerked on the Sixth Circuit, for Judge Karen N. Moore, and on the Northern District of California, for Judge Lucy H. Koh. Earlier, I was a consultant at McKinsey & Company. I earned my law degree from Yale Law School, where I was a Truman Scholar, and my undergraduate and master's degrees from the University of Virginia, where I was a Jefferson Scholar.
Supreme Court & Appellate Practice
Selected cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and the federal courts of appeals.
Admitted before the U.S. Supreme Court and all thirteen federal courts of appeals.
Teaching & Programs
Supreme Court Litigation Clinic
I direct the Supreme Court Litigation Clinic, where a dozen third-year law students and I take on live matters before the Court — spotting cert-worthy questions, drafting petitions and merits briefs, and preparing for argument alongside experienced advocates. It sits within the Supreme Court and Appellate Litigation Program, which has hosted leading advocates and commentators, including former Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, CBS News correspondent Jan Crawford, and New York Times columnist Linda Greenhouse.
In OT24, the Clinic won back-to-back 9–0 victories at the Supreme Court. One of those two cases, Cunningham v. Cornell University, was considered a long shot. Prediction markets opened forecasting a 9–0 loss for the petitioners. After briefing and on the morning of argument, the case was considered a coin flip. The Court ultimately ruled unanimously in favor of the petitioners.
The En Banc Institute
I founded the only program in the country devoted to preparing advocates for the rare and high-stakes en banc arguments before the federal circuit courts. Drawing on faculty, alumni, and leading appellate advocates, the Institute assembles mock panels that pinpoint the pressure points in a case; each moot runs close to a hundred hours of preparation. It began at Northwestern and moved with me to the University of Virginia in 2023. Advocates have described the preparation as both critical and invaluable.
National Appellate Clinic Network
I organize a network to connect and support appellate clinics across the country. Its brief and motion database now holds more than four hundred filings — the largest public, searchable collection of its kind — and the network spans some sixty faculty nationwide. The data it gathers also grounds my scholarship on appellate clinics and anchored a session I chaired at the 2025 AALS Clinical Legal Education Conference.
Virginia Policy Review
The Virginia Policy Review is the flagship publication for the Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy. I currently serve as the Virginia Policy Review's faculty advisor.
I also serve on the drafting committee for the NCBE NextGen Bar Exam and the University's Rhodes and Marshall Committee. I am an affiliated faculty member of the Education Rights Institute and the Center for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties.
Scholarship
On federal courts, constitutional law, and law and religion. Full texts on SSRN.
Public Writing
Essays and commentary for general audiences.
Featured In
Selected commentary and coverage of my cases, research, and clinical work.
Selected Speaking
Recent lectures, panels, and interviews.
Legal Work
Alongside my work at the University of Virginia, I take on a select number of appellate and Supreme Court engagements — including merits and certiorari-stage briefing, oral argument, amicus work, and strategic consultation, as well as mooting advocates preparing for argument. If you have a matter you'd like to discuss, I'd welcome hearing from you by email.
Contact
The fastest way to reach me is email.