About Amanda Kelly
Amanda Kelly Rice built an early habit of moving through the federal courts. She took the bench not as a judge but as a clerk, and those years shaped how she reads statutes and opinions today. Her legal education began at Tulane University, where she completed a Bachelor of Arts in 2007, and continued at Harvard Law School, where she earned her J.D. in 2011.
Rice launched her post‑graduate career in the federal judiciary. In 2011 she served as a law clerk to Judge James E. Boasberg on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The next year she worked on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. That progression culminated in a 2014 clerkship with Justice Elena Kagan at the U.S. Supreme Court. Those assignments placed her at the center of federal litigation and appellate decision-making during the first half of the 2010s.
After several years in the judiciary, Rice moved into private practice. She joined Jones Day and rose to partner. At the firm she has been part of teams handling matters that engage federal courts across multiple circuits. She is admitted in a broad range of jurisdictions, including the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the 2nd, 6th, 7th, 9th and 11th Circuits, and in the District of Columbia and Michigan. She also is admitted in the U.S. District Courts for the Eastern and Western Districts of Michigan.
Rice maintains active bar memberships in the District of Columbia Bar, admitted in 2014, and in the Michigan State Bar, admitted in 2016. Those memberships reflect the bi‑regional nature of her practice and her work in both trial and appellate forums. Her time clerking at each level of the federal system informs how she prepares briefs and argues procedure, evidence and legal standard questions for courts.
Colleagues describe Rice as someone who writes tightly and reads closely. She combines the analytical habits of a former clerk with a law firm’s pace. She has handled matters that require coordination across circuits and district courts. That experience underpins the work she does now at Jones Day.
She currently practices as a partner at Jones Day, handling appellate and federal litigation matters.
