PERSON: Elizabeth Prelogar

Cooley LLP

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Elizabeth Barchas Prelogar (born March 7, 1980; née Elizabeth Margaret Barchas) is an American lawyer who has served as solicitor general of the United States since October 2021. She served as acting solicitor general from January 20, 2021, at the start of the Biden Administration, until President Joe Biden sent her nomination to the U.S. Senate on August 11, 2021, when she was prevented from serving while the nomination was before the Senate as a result of the terms of the Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998.

Prelogar was born on March 7, 1980, as the youngest of four children to Jeanne and Rudolph “Rudy” Barchas and was raised in Boise, Idaho. Prelogar has two older brothers, Joshua and Eric, and one older sister, Leah. Joshua passed away shortly after his birth.

She graduated from Boise High School in 1998. After first taking college courses at Boise State University at the age of 12, she attended Emory University, where she double majored in English and Russian and was a Fulbright Scholar. She graduated from Emory in 2002 with her B.A., summa cum laude.

During 2002 and 2003, Prelogar studied creative writing at the University of St Andrews, receiving an M.Litt. With distinction. She then attended Harvard Law School, where she was an articles editor for the Harvard Law Review and a finalist in the Ames Moot Court Competition. Prelogar graduated with her J.D., magna cum laude, from Harvard in 2008. Prelogar is fluent in Russian. While at Harvard, she won an Overseas Press Club scholarship to study Russian media and censorship.

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