Draft:Christopher R.J. Pace

• Comment: Too many primary sources, or are simple name checks. What is needed are sources that provide in-depth, significant coverage in reliable sources that are fully independent from the person. Netherzone (talk) 22:16, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

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Christopher R.J. Pace (born 1966) is a Litigation and Trials Partner at Winston & Strawn LLP. He is based out of Winston's Dallas and Miami offices.  He is admitted to the bars of at least the States of California, Florida, New York, and Texas, as well as the District of Columbia.  He formerly served as a Supreme Court law clerk and an Assistant United States Attorney.

Education

Pace graduated from Southern Methodist University (SMU) in 1987 with a Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA), as first in his major.  While at SMU, he was a brother in the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity. Pace then attended the University of Pennsylvania Law School.  He served as the Executive Editor of The University of Pennsylvania Law Review. During his time at the University of Pennsylvania, the Law Review published an article by then-Senator (and future President) Joseph Biden entitled "The Treaty Power: Upholding a Constitutional Partnership." He and Richard C. Pepperman also won the Law School's Keedy Cup Moot Court competition. In 1990, Pace graduated first in his class (valedictorian) from the University of Pennsylvania Law School.

Government Service

Pace served as a law clerk for Justice Anthony M. Kennedy of The Supreme Court of the United States, from 1992 to 1993. Pace also served as a law clerk for Judge Alex Kozinski of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit from 1991 to 1992.  Two of his co-clerks with Judge Kozinski were current Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh and former Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar. Justice Kavanaugh later clerked for Justice Kennedy one Supreme Court Term after Pace, and Secretary Azar clerked for Justice Scalia the same Supreme Court Term as Pace. Pace's first service with the judiciary was as an extern in 1990 for Judge Edward R. Becker of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.  From 1989 to 1990, one of Judge Becker's law clerks was current Judge Greg Katsas of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

Pace was an Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida in the mid-to-late 1990s.

Private Practice

Pace is a Litigation and Trials partner at Winston & Strawn LLP. His practice areas include commercial litigation, antitrust, unfair competition and unfair practices, product liability and mass torts, and appellate.

Awards/Recognitions

Pace has been recognized as a "best," ""leading" and "star" litigator/trial attorney by a number of well-known lawyer evaluation organizations:

Chambers USA.

Best Lawyers in America.

Lawdragon, 500 Leading Litigators in America.

Benchmark Litigation.

The Legal 500.

Law Review Articles and Legal Commentaries

Pace has published a substantial number of law review articles and substantive law commentaries.  Among his articles and commentaries are:

The Disorderly Origin of "Ordered Liberty," 86 Tx. Bar J. 30 (Jan. 2023).

Admitting and Excluding General Causation Expert Testimony: The Eleventh Circuit Construct, 37 Am. J. Trial Advocacy 47 (2013).

Supremacy Clause Limitations on Federal Regulatory Preemption, 11 Tx. Rev. L. & Politics 1 (2006).

The Case for a Federal Trade Secrets Act, 8 Harv. J.L. & Tech. 427 (1995).

Reconsidering a Founding Father's Admonition Against a Bill of Rights, 13 Geo. Mason L. Rev. 499 (1991).

The Art of War Under the Constitution, 95 Dickerson L. Rev. 557 (1991).

The Problem of High-Cost Education and the Potential Cure in Federal Tax Policy, 20 J.L. & Educ. 1 (1991).

Determining Price Inadequacy with Neutral Decision Making and Expert Assistance, 16 Del. J. Corp. L. 57 (1991).

5^th Cir. CFBR Ruling Means Challenges for Federal Agencies, Law360 (July 2022).

International Money Laundering Enforcement Will Rise – What GCs Need to Know, Bloomberg Law (Feb. 2021).

FCA Ruling Lays Out a Fraudulent Inducement Defense, Law360, Jan. 28, 2021.

4 Views on Medical Device Preemption, Law 360, March 24, 2011.

Displacement under the California Uniform Trade Secrets Act, Bloomberg Law Reports: Intellectual Property (Nov. 2011).

Two of these articles are of particular current interest.  In The Disorderly Origin of Ordered Liberty, Pace argues that the substantive due process standard announced by the majority in the abortion case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, which asks whether a right is "implicit in the concept of ordered liberty," is a hard-to-defend, if not indefensible, standard. He traces back the history of the phrase "ordered liberty" to the Supreme Court's since-discredited "Lochner era."  He further traces back the phrase's use by politicians such as Presidents Washington and Hoover not as a tool to identify the most important individual liberties, but as a description of civil governance.  The quote from President Hoover was that "America stands for individual liberty, but that means an ordered liberty. A liberty subject to law and subordinate to the common welfare."  He also explains how, just a year before Dobbs was decided, the Supreme Court rejected a legal standard in the criminal procedure context that relied on the concept of "ordered liberty" because it was a misleading standard that only "offer[ed] false hope."  Pace predicts that the Supreme Court will abandon the "ordered liberty" substantive due process standard, perhaps soon, as "an ill-suited measure of 14^th Amendment rights."

Supremacy Clause Limitations on Federal Regulatory Preemption addresses an issue of recent origin in which federal agencies attempt to preempt state laws by federal regulations as opposed to by federal statutes.  Pace argues that such preemption conflicts with the constitutional structure and, most specifically, the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution.  Given the Supreme Court's 2024 decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Riamondo effectively eliminating the deference that courts give to federal agency interpretations of federal statutes, it appears fairly likely that the Court will also reject the notion that federal agencies can use federal regulations to preempt state laws that are not otherwise preempted by an Act of Congress.

Just over 20 years after Pace advocated that the United States should enact a federal trade secrets law, Congress finally passed the Defend Trade Secrets Act in 2016.

A little less than 20 years after Pace advocated for Congress to enact tax legislation allowing for the accelerated deduction of certain costs of higher education, Congress passed the American Opportunity Tax Credit as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

Personal Life

Pace married Reagan Hoy in 2008.