Blog
2018 JRCLS Annual Fireside broadcast featuring Judge Thomas B. Griffith
Thursday, February 15th, 2018
The 2018 JRCLS Annual Fireside featured remarks by Judge Thomas B. Griffith of United States Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit. 
Thomas B. Griffith was appointed to the U. S. Court of Appeals for the D. C. Circuit by President George W. Bush in 2005. A native of Washington, D. C., Griffith graduated from Brigham Young University and the University of Virginia School of Law. Immediately prior to his appointment to the bench, Griffith was Assistant to the President and General Counsel of BYU, serving under Presidents Bateman and Samuelson. At BYU, he worked primarily on religious liberty issues in American higher education. Most of his professional career has been spent in Washington, D. C. where he was a litigation partner at a law firm and for four years served as Senate Legal Counsel, the chief legal officer of the U. S. Senate. In that capacity, Griffith advised the Senate’s leadership and committees on a variety of legal matters and participated in the impeachment trial of President Clinton. Before embarking on a legal career, Griffith worked in the Church Educational System as the director of Seminaries and Institutes for the Baltimore, Maryland area.
Judge Griffith has taught courses at the law schools at BYU, Harvard, and Stanford, and has long been involved in rule of law projects in the former communist nations of Eastern Europe and Eurasia. He has served in various capacities in the Church, including as a full-time missionary in southern Africa, an early morning Seminary teacher, a bishop, and a president of a BYU campus stake. He is married to Susan Stell, also a native of Washington, D.C., who is also a graduate of BYU and a professional genealogist. They are the parents of six and the grandparents of nine.