Margot Cleveland
Of Counsel
Margot joins the NCLA’s mission to safeguard the U.S. Constitution from the Administrative State’s overreach from a diverse professional background. After graduating from the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prize—the law school’s highest honor—Margot practiced law in a large Chicago law firm in the commercial litigation department. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, obtaining a broad expertise in federal constitutional, statutory, and regulatory law.
Margot is also a former full-time faculty member of the University of Notre Dame, where she taught law to undergraduate and graduate students for more than a decade, being honored in 1998 with the University-wide Frank O’Malley Undergraduate Teaching Award for her outstanding impact on undergraduate education and her exceptional service to students.
After retiring from the U.S. Courts, Margot launched a new career as an investigative journalist and legal analyst. She currently serves as the Senior Legal Correspondent to The Federalist. Margot’s work has also been published in The Wall Street Journal, The American Spectator, the New Criterion (forthcoming), National Review Online, Townhall.com, the Daily Signal, USA Today, and the Detroit Free Press. She also appears regularly as a guest on nationally syndicated radio programs and on FoxNews, Fox Business, and Newsmax.