Bio
Evelyn Danforth-Scott is an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, where she’s defended fundamental freedoms and championed government accountability through some of the nation's highest-profile, most consequential recent legal fights. Her practice focuses on complex legal questions of first impression, and she has particular experience with cases that implicate free speech, technology, administrative law, and national security.
Evelyn specializes in constitutional litigation before the United States Supreme Court, and has represented parties adverse to the second Trump Administration seven times on the Court's shadow docket over the past year—one of only two attorneys in America to have achieved that distinction. She has also worked on landmark merits cases, including NRA v. Vullo, a unanimous victory for advocacy organizations' free speech rights in the face of government retaliation, and Barbara v. Trump, the forthcoming challenge to President Trump’s attempt to nullify the Fourteenth Amendment’s promise of birthright citizenship. Other notable Supreme Court case work includes A.A.R.P. v. Trump, which secured a midnight stay of removal for individuals designated under the Alien Enemies Act.
In addition to her Supreme Court work, Evelyn’s practice encompasses litigation in federal district courts and courts of appeals, pre-litigation counseling, and regulatory advocacy for policy issues at the nexus of artificial intelligence and civil liberties.
Before joining the ACLU, she counseled technology firms on regulatory strategy and tackled cutting-edge claims for clients in the software, venture capital, and semiconductor industries. Evelyn served as a law clerk to Justice Leondra Kruger on the California Supreme Court and is a graduate of Stanford Law School, where she received the Judge Thelton E. Henderson Prize for Outstanding Performance in the Supreme Court Litigation Clinic, the Gerald Gunther Prize for Outstanding Performance in many subjects, and worked as a research assistant to Dean Jenny S. Martinez. Her writing has been featured in the Stanford Law Review and the Stanford Law and Policy Review. She started her career working in national politics.