Stephen Wirth is the Chair of Appellate Litigation at Jacobson Lawyers Group. Prior to joining the firm, Stephen worked for a decade in the Supreme Court and Appellate practice group at Arnold & Porter, where he successfully briefed and argued cases across all levels of the federal judiciary, including five merits-stage victories at the Supreme Court and another highly consequential win on the Supreme Court’s emergency docket. He has served as lead counsel at both the district court and appellate level in matters involving the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), constitutional separation of powers, the Due Process Clause, personal jurisdiction, sovereign immunity, and the First, Fourth, and Fifth Amendments.

Stephen has particular expertise in litigation against federal and state governments under the APA and Constitution. His clients in these cases have included major trade associations, academic institutions, nonprofits, multinational corporations, and individuals. He led emergency litigation on behalf of major government contractors and grantees challenging the Trump Administration’s freeze of congressionally mandated foreign-assistance funding, securing a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction that resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars in funding being released to his clients. That litigation included a 5-4 victory in the Supreme Court, which left the district court’s TRO in place. Stephen has also litigated regulatory actions affecting the pharmaceutical, healthcare, and environmental sectors—including significant victories against the Department of Health and Human Services, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of State, Customs and Border Patrol, and the Office of Management and Budget, among others.

Stephen also has extensive experience representing individuals and organizations in litigation to vindicate civil and criminal rights, including in the areas of voting rights, immigration, religious liberty, and criminal justice reform. He has briefed argued appeals in such cases before numerous federal courts of appeals, including the en banc Fourth Circuit, where he argued and won a voting rights case on behalf of the NAACP.

Stephen’s work has received significant recognition from his peers, clients, and industry groups. Best Lawyers named him to its “Ones to Watch” list in Appellate Practice (2023–2026) and Commercial Litigation (2023–2026). He was recognized by Washington, DC Super Lawyers as a “Rising Star” in Appellate (2023–2025) and by The Legal 500 US in Appellate: Courts of Appeal/Supreme Courts (2021–2025). And he received the Texas Civil Rights Project’s Kristi Couvillon Pro Bono Award (2019).

Before working in private practice, Stephen clerked for the Hon. Carlos T. Bea of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and the Hon. Paul A. Crotty of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. He earned his J.D. magna cum laude from Cornell Law School, where he was an Articles Editor of The Cornell Law Review and Managing Editor of The Legal Information Institute, and his B.A. magna cum laude from Yale College.