Attorney General Ken Paxton issued the following statement welcoming William Peterson, who will begin serving as the tenth Solicitor General of Texas next month, and congratulating Aaron Nielson, who will become a tenured professor at the University of Texas School of Law upon finishing his time as Solicitor General.
“Will is one of the most accomplished lawyers in the United States, and I am confident he will do a fantastic job as Texas’s Solicitor General. His clerkships with Justice Clarence Thomas and a Fifth Circuit judge, and experience co-chairing the appellate practice of one of the nation’s largest law firms have prepared him well for this role,” said Attorney General Paxton. “For almost two years, Aaron has fought tooth and nail for Texas before the U.S. Supreme Court and the Texas Supreme Court in many of the State’s most important and complex disputes. Texas owes him a debt of gratitude for extraordinary service, and I am pleased that he will continue to serve the State as a law professor at the University of Texas’s law school.”
Mr. Peterson is currently a partner in the Houston office of Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, LLP, where he co-chairs the firm's Appellate Practice. A native Texan, Mr. Peterson graduated with highest honors from the University of Texas School of Law after receiving his undergraduate degree in Engineering and Applied Sciences from the California Institute of Technology. Following law school, he served as a law clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas of the U.S. Supreme Court and a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. In 2016, he was appointed by the U.S. Supreme Court to brief and argue in defense of the judgment in Reyes Mata v. Lynch, an immigration appeal. Mr. Peterson is a board-certified specialist in civil appellate law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization and is involved with numerous legal organizations, including the Pattern Jury Charge: Business Committee and the Garland R. Walker American Inn of Court. In private practice, he has argued appeals in federal and state courts across the country.
“I am honored to serve as Solicitor General of Texas,” said Mr. Peterson. “I deeply appreciate the opportunity and the confidence placed in me by Attorney General Paxton. Aaron Nielson has been an excellent Solicitor General for the people of Texas, and I look forward to continuing that work alongside the talented attorneys at the Office of the Attorney General.”
In 2023, Professor Nielson took a leave from his professorship at Brigham Young University to serve as Solicitor General. A graduate of Harvard Law School and an elected member of the American Law Institute, Nielson was an appellate partner at Kirkland & Ellis LLP and a law clerk to Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. of the U.S. Supreme Court, Judge Janice Rogers Brown of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, and Judge Jerry E. Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. During his time serving as Texas Solicitor General, Professor Nielson has represented Texas in many pivotal cases, securing major victories for the people of Texas. Most recently, the Supreme Court upheld Texas’s law requiring pornography companies to institute age-verification measures to safeguard children from obscene online material after Professor Nielson successfully argued the case.
“Serving as Texas Solicitor General has been one of the highlights of my professional life,” said Professor Nielson. “I’m grateful to General Paxton and the people of Texas and am confident that Will Peterson will serve with distinction.”