By 2012, Verrilli had participated in more than 100 cases before the Supreme Court, and given oral argument in seventeen of those.[8] In addition to Grokster, these include two pro bono cases that were notable in the area of defendants rights. In Wiggins v. Smith, Verrilli successfully argued that his client had been denied effective assistance of counsel. In Montejo v. Louisiana, he unsuccessfully argued that his client's Sixth Amendment rights had been violated when he was questioned after having counsel appointed for him.
On May 26, 2011, Senate Democrats filed for cloture on Verrilli's nomination. A cloture vote was withdrawn right before it was scheduled. Instead, the Senate on June 6 proceeded straight to an up-or-down vote on Verrilli's nomination.[13] Senators then confirmed Verrilli in a 72–16 vote.[14] Verrilli was sworn in on June 9, 2011,[15] and became the 46th Solicitor General.[16] He finished his position in June 2016; his final day on the job was Friday, June 25.[17]
On March 26, 27 and 28, 2012, Verrilli argued the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act before the Supreme Court. His performance on the 27th, the first involving substantive arguments regarding the constitutionality of the PPACA, was widely panned as a "disaster" for the Obama administration.[18][19][20][21] However, he was vindicated on June 28, 2012, when the court ruled that the individual mandate and most of the Act was constitutional,[22][23] albeit as a tax and not as an exercise of Congress's power under the Commerce Clause. His oral arguments were praised by some[who?] who remarked that "court arguments are not television anchor tryouts; they’re about the merits of an argument, and a review of the transcript of the oral arguments from that day (with the benefit of hindsight, of course) finds Verrilli made a strong case for the government’s taxing power."[24] CNN legal commentator Jeffrey Toobin, one of Verrilli's strongest critics, apologized on-air and said "This is a day for Don Verrilli to take an enormous amount of credit, and for me to eat a bit of crow, because he won, and everyone should know that that argument was a winning argument, whatever you thought of it."[25]
After hearing his arguments in Shelby County v. Holder, Lincoln Caplan of The New York Times called Verrilli a "lawyer's lawyer" and said that he "isn't showy, but he is a deeply experienced and capable advocate who finds ways to make technical legal arguments that persuade a majority of justices. While he's not inspiring, he's often effective."[26]
In early June 2016, Verrilli announced that he would step down as solicitor general; Verrilli is the seventh longest serving solicitor general in U.S. history.[27]
Personal life
In 1988, Verrilli married Gail W. Laster,[2] who is director of the Office of Consumer Protection at the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA). They have one daughter.[28]
