David E. Mills

David Mills is an appellate lawyer with civil and criminal experience as a litigator in an international law firm and as law clerk to two federal judges. He has drafted briefs to the Supreme Court of the United States, argued in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, and advised judges as they presided on the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the First, Second, Sixth, and Ninth Circuits.

Mills was born and raised near Cleveland, Ohio. He earned a B.A. in Mathematics from Colgate University in 1999, graduating as a member of the Phi Beta Kappa Honor Society and as President of the Student Government Association.

Mills then attended the University of Michigan Law School, consistently ranked among the Top-10 law schools by U.S. News & World Report. As a law student, Mills worked for Jones Day and for the Midwest Center for Justice, which represents death-row inmates on appeal. Mills graduated from Michigan Law with honors in 2002.

Mills soon passed the Ohio Bar Examination, scoring in the 99th percentile on the criminal-law section.

Mills then joined Jones Day's litigation group, named American Lawyer Magazine's "Litigation Department of the Year" in 2002.

There, as part of a team led by Richard B. Whitney and Fordham E. Huffman, Mills cross-examined PricewaterhouseCoopers' expert actuarial witness during an auditing-malpractice trial that resulted in a $119.9-million jury verdict, which the National Law Journal recognized as the 15th-largest in the country for 2005.

Additionally, under the guidance of lead counsel Brian F. Toohey, Mills drafted briefs to the Fifth Circuit and to the United States Supreme Court on behalf of a Mississippi death-row inmate.

Mills left Jones Day to serve as law clerk to Judge R. Guy Cole, Jr., Circuit Judge for the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. President Clinton appointed Judge Cole to the bench in 1995.

Mills then served as law clerk to Judge Louis F. Oberdorfer, Senior District Judge for the District of Columbia. Mills advised Judge Oberdorfer on appeals pending in the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the First, Second, Sixth, and Ninth Circuits, where he sat by designation. President Carter appointed Judge Oberdorfer to the bench in 1977.

Upon completing service to these judges, Mills established The Mills Law Office LLC — a law practice devoted to federal appeals.