Joseph Tartakovsky

At the Claremont Institute for the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy, he was a Contributing Editor at the Claremont Review of Books and later the James Wilson Fellow in Constitutional Law.[14]

In 2015, he was appointed Nevada's first Deputy Solicitor General[15] 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,[16] public lands, free speech,[17] ERISA,[18] 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.[19]

Author and attorney Joseph Tartakovsky speaking at the 2020 Pacific Research Institute's Ideas in Action Conference in Sacramento, CA.

In 2018, he published The Lives of the Constitution: Ten Exceptional Minds that Shaped America’s Supreme Law (2018).

Tartakovsky later returned to the appellate and constitutional practice at the law firm of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher in San Francisco, where he practiced constitutional law. While there, he was part of the team challenging, before the U.S. Supreme Court, the decision in Martin v. 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.[20] The decision remains the subject of debate in cities across the West.[21][22][23]

In 2019 he was named the Pacific Research Institute's Adjunct Fellow in Legal Studies.[24]

In March 2021, he published a second book, No Way Home: The Crisis of Homelessness and How to Fix It with Intelligence and Humanity, as one of four co-authors.[25]

As a federal prosecutor, he has handled cases involving drug trafficking,[26][27] firearms,[28] cyberstalking,[29] theft of endangered species, embezzlement,[30] and child sexual exploitation,[31] among other offenses.