About Aaron Lloyd
Aaron Lloyd Nielson built a law career that moves between the academy, appellate benches and a major firm. He began his academic journey at the University of Pennsylvania, where he earned a B.A. in economics in 1998. He returned to study law at Harvard Law School and received his J.D. in 2003. Two years later he completed an LL.M. at the University of Cambridge.
Early in his legal life he took standard steps for an appellate lawyer. He served as a law clerk on the U.S. Courts of Appeals, including stints in both the Fifth Circuit and the D.C. Circuit in 2007. Those clerkships were followed by a term clerking for Justice Samuel Alito at the United States Supreme Court in 2014. The hands-on work in chambers and on the bench gave him a steady exposure to complex federal appeals and constitutional questions.
He has spent significant time in private practice. Records show roles at Kirkland & Ellis beginning in 2009, where he worked as an associate, partner and later as of counsel. In 2015 he is listed again as an of counsel at Kirkland & Ellis LLP. His time in a large firm setting placed him on teams handling high-stakes appellate and regulatory matters.
Academic life has been a parallel track. He joined the faculty of the J. Reuben Clark Law School in 2013. As a law professor he has taught courses that draw on his appellate and federal experience. Teaching has kept him engaged in doctrinal debates and classroom discussion, and has tied his practical knowledge back into legal education.
Nielson is admitted to practice in the District of Columbia and in Utah. He appears on the rolls of the District of Columbia Bar beginning in 2010 and the Utah State Bar beginning in 2016. Those memberships mark the jurisdictions where he has been credentialed to handle client matters and court proceedings.
His career threads—clerkships, firm practice and law teaching—give a picture of a lawyer who moves comfortably between scholarship and courtroom procedure. He has combined appellate work and federal experience with time in private practice and the classroom. Currently, he teaches at the J. Reuben Clark Law School and continues to practice in jurisdictions where he is licensed, focusing on appellate and federal matters in his present work.
