About Brian D.
Brian D. Schmalzbach combined an interest in the humanities with a legal education. He earned a B.A. in Classics and Religious Studies from the University of Virginia and a J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law in 2010. Those years set the stage for a career that has moved between the bench and the appellate bar.
After law school he served as a law clerk to Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in 2010. He joined Latham & Watkins as an associate in 2011 and later returned to the judiciary as a law clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas of the U.S. Supreme Court in 2013. He became a partner at McGuireWoods LLP in 2019.
Clerkships at both a federal circuit court and the Supreme Court gave him early exposure to high-stakes appellate work. The years in private practice that followed broadened that experience in other procedural contexts. His career pathway shows repeated movement between appellate practice and appellate adjudication, a corridor few attorneys travel so directly.
Schmalzbach holds bar memberships and admissions in multiple jurisdictions. He is an active member of the Virginia State Bar and has been a member of the District of Columbia Bar since 2012 and the Maryland State Bar since 2011. His admissions extend across numerous federal circuits, including the Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh Circuits, as well as the Federal Circuit. He is admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court and in several federal district courts, among them the Eastern District of Virginia and the Eastern and Western Districts of Michigan.
Colleagues describe his courtroom work as methodical. He has handled appeals and federal filings that require close attention to precedent and procedure. His background on the bench informs how he frames briefing and oral argument. He moves from statutory questions to constitutional claims with equal facility, drafting arguments intended for judges who themselves once occupied law clerks’ chairs.
At McGuireWoods LLP he works on matters that involve federal appeals and complex appellate strategy. The mix of clerkship experience and private-practice appellate work shapes how he approaches cases now. His current practice centers on appellate litigation and federal court appeals.
