D.C. Circuit Unveils Portrait of Former Judge and Hunton Andrews Kurth Special Counsel Thomas B. Griffith

Judge Thomas B. Griffith, special counsel to Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP and former judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, was honored by the court with the unveiling of his own portrait, which will hang in the courtroom of the Court of Appeals.

Chief Judge Sri Srinivasan presided over the ceremony, which was attended by members of Judge Griffith’s family; Chief Justice John Roberts; Justices Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett and Ketanji Brown Jackson; the judges of the Court of Appeals and of the District Court of the D.C. Circuit; the Solicitor General of the U. S.; and other notable jurists, lawyers and educators.

Tributes to Judge Griffith were offered by two of his law clerks along with Attorney General Merrick Garland, Chief Judge Jeffrey Sutton of the Sixth Circuit and Judge David Tatel of the D. C. Circuit. They spoke of Judge Griffith’s efforts while on the court to achieve consensus among the judges and of his efforts since leaving the court to preserve the rule of law in the U. S. and other nations, especially through his writing and speaking on the need to push back against political polarization that threatens the Constitution.

In his response to these tributes, Judge Griffith remarked, “It’s up to the judiciary to show the nation how to engage in reasoned argument with respect for one another. My colleagues on the D.C. Circuit showed me how to do that. When citizens take the oath ‘to support and defend the Constitution,’ we pledge that we will be agents to reconciliation… I am grateful to have been part of a court that models that sort of commitment to the Constitution.”

Judge Griffith was appointed to the D.C. Circuit, called by many “the second most important court in the Nation,” by President George W. Bush in 2005. A national magazine included him on its list of “Washington’s Most Powerful, Least Famous People.” He stepped down from the bench in 2020 and joined Hunton Andrews Kurth the next year. While on the D.C. Circuit, Judge Griffith was the author of approximately 200 opinions on a range of matters including administrative, environmental and energy law and congressional investigations. He was a member of the President’s Commission on the Supreme Court and is currently a member of the American Bar Association’s Task Force for American Democracy, a Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School, a Fellow at the Wheatley Institute at BYU and a member of the Board of Directors of Interfaith America.

At Hunton Andrews Kurth, Judge Griffith focuses his practice on appellate litigation, arbitration and mediation, congressional and internal investigations and strategic counseling. In the past year, Griffith was elected a member of the American Law Institute and received a Lifetime Achievement Award from The National Law Journal and a Defender of Democracy Award from the Center for Election Innovation & Research.