Republican Attorney General-elect Liz Murrill has tapped fellow LSU law school graduate Benjamin Aguiñaga to replace her as Louisiana’s solicitor general when she takes office next year.
“I am grateful to the Attorney General-elect for the opportunity to serve the people of Louisiana as the next Solicitor General,” Aguiñaga said in an email Tuesday.
A Texas native, Aguiñaga graduated from LSU in 2015 and became the law center’s second alumnus ever to win a U.S. Supreme Court clerkship. He worked for Justice Samuel Alito during the court’s 2018-2019 term.
As solicitor general, Aguiñaga will represent Louisiana in federal court, including possibly in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. He is expected to handle lawsuits Murrill’s predecessor, Gov.-elect Jeff Landry, brought against President Joe Biden’s administration, as well as high-profile issues such as legal disputes over Louisiana’s political districts.
Murrill considers the incoming solicitor general to be one of the most important people in her upcoming administration.
“I continue to believe we need to be very, very vigorous and attentive in fighting federal overreach and I don’t think that fight is going to go away,” she said at a meeting of the East Baton Rouge Republican Party Tuesday. “I intend to build that staff up as well.”
Aguiñaga is a rising star in conservative legal circles.
In addition to his work for Alito, the LSU alum served as a law clerk for Judge Edith Jones, a conservative Ronald Reagan appointee on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and Judge Don Willett, then on the Texas Supreme Court. (Willett was appointed to the 5th Circuit by President Donald Trump in 2017 after Aguiñaga worked for him.)
Aguiñaga was also a member of U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz’s Senate Judiciary Committee staff and chief of staff in the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice during the Trump administration.
He currently works in Dallas for Jones Day, a law firm with offices around the globe. In that job, he handles appellate matters as well as environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues for corporations, according to the firm’s website.
Former LSU law professor Scott Sullivan described Aguiñaga as “the definition of extraordinary.”
Aguiñaga took five of Sullivan’s classes at LSU and, in two of them, scored so high on the class exam that his marks had to be left out of the final grading pool because it would have skewed the bell curve for other students.
“I’ve never had another student like him,” Sullivan said.
Michelle Stratton, the only other LSU law school graduate to land a Supreme Court clerkship, also praised Aguiñaga. Stratton, who is now a partner in a Houston law firm, worked for Justice Clarence Thomas in 2011.
“I have full confidence in his ability to completely excel,” she said Tuesday. “He is not only whip smart, but also very kind, very courteous and very collegial.”
Prior to law school, Aguiñaga received his undergraduate degree in political science, with minors in mathematics and history, from Baylor University.
Murrill has also picked Louisiana state Rep. Larry Frieman, R-Abita Springs, to serve as her chief deputy attorney general.
A legislator for four years, Frieman is expected to be second in command in the Louisiana Department of Justice and will oversee some litigation.
“I’ll be involved in the legislative process as well,” Frieman said.
Frieman, formerly a physical therapist, is a partner in the Covington office of the Juge Napolitano law firm. He specializes in workers’ compensation and other civil litigation matters for the business community.
He ran unsuccessfully for a judge’s seat this year in the 22nd Judicial District that covers St. Tammany and Washington parishes.
Read the original reporting by the Louisiana Illuminator here.