Joseph Tartakovsky is an American lawyer, writer, and historian, and the former Deputy Solicitor General of Nevada. Tartakovsky is presently an attorney in the appellate and constitutional practice at the law firm of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher in San Francisco. Most recently, he authored The Lives of the Constitution: Ten Exceptional Minds that Shaped America’s Supreme Law. At the Claremont Institute, he is the James Wilson Fellow in Constitutional Law for the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy. He is also a Contributing Editor at the Claremont Review of Books. In 2019 he was named the Pacific Research Institute's Adjunct Fellow in Legal Studies. His writings appear in publications that include the New York Times, Wall Street Journal,, the Los Angeles Times, and Forbes. Tartakovsky and his wife, Tahlia, have three children and live in San Francisco.
Career history
Joseph Tartakovsky served as a law clerk to Judge Paul K. Kelly, Jr., of the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. He was an associate at Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLC, an international law firm, in San Francisco, where he practiced in criminal defense and civil litigation. In 2015, he was appointed Nevada's first Deputy Solicitor General by Adam Laxalt. He served until 2018. In that position he helped oversee Nevada's legal strategy for major litigation in state and federal courts, and advised the Nevada Attorney General and Nevada Governor on matters of statewide importance. He also helped handle Nevada's docket in the United States Supreme Court and other appeals courts. He has argued and litigated cases on a variety of issues that include education, public lands, free speech, ERISA, gun background checks, and elections. He argued numerous appeals in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and Nevada Supreme Court. He has been counsel of record in the United States Supreme Court. He was part of the team challenging, before the U.S. Supreme Court, the decision in Martin v. City of Boise, in which the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit that held that anti-camping laws, under certain circumstances, violate the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause. The decision is controversial in cities across the West. His book, The Lives of the Constitution, became a #1 bestseller on Amazon.com in the three areas: constitutional law, legal history, and legal biography. A video featuring Tartakovsky and based on his book's chapter on Alexander Hamilton, filmed by PragerU, has received over 1.5 million views on YouTube. He has been a guest on C-SPAN's Washington Journal. C-SPAN's Book TV featured a book release event for The Lives of the Constitution in Washington, D.C. Tartakovsky later returned to the appellate and constitutional practice at the law firm of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher in San Francisco, where he practices constitutional law.
