Retired or Appointed Elsewhere
Expected Retirement
Judge, 5th District Court of Appeal. Appointed by Governor Ron DeSantis.
* Appointed instead of running for election because of a vacancy between election cycles.
Before he became a judge, Pratt had about 11 years of experience as an attorney. In that time, he argued 2 non-jury trials and 10 appellate cases to completion. In the first years out of law school, he held various positions: 5 months as an adjunct professor at Florida Coastal School of Law, 2 years as a Law Clerk for the U.S. Middle District, 1 year as a Law Clerk at the U.S. Court of Appeals, and 1 year as a Federalist Society Olin-Searle Part-Time Visiting Fellow.
After that he spent 3.5 years as Deputy Solicitor General for the State of Florida. There he defended the State and its officials, such as the Governor.
Then, he was Counsel at the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. for 1.5 years. In this role he worked on policy issues and to secure federal judicial confirmations.
After that, he was Deputy General Counsel at the U.S. Small Business Administration in Washington, D.C for less than 1 year. In this role, he assisted the General Counsel in managing the office attorneys and staff. He drafted rule proposals, legal opinions, and supervised litigation.
He left government work to join First Liberty Institute in Washington, D.C. as Senior Counsel. He stayed there 2 years, until he joined the Appellate Court. In this role he managed other attorneys and litigated civil rights cases is federal and state courts.
During college, he received a 1 year Blackstone Legal Fellowship for Alliance Defending Freedom, spent time as a research assistant for a professor and for Federalist Society for Law & Public Policy Studies. He interned for 1 summer at the U.S. Court of Appeals and 1 summer at the U.S. Middle District.
This judge is a member of the Federalist Society.
This judge is a textualist, who uses an interpretation of the Constitution that is advocated by the Federalist Society.
He has served the Federalist Society for Law & Public Policy Studies as a member or the Executive Committees on Religious Liberties Federalism and Separation of Powers. He was also President of the Tallahassee Lawyers Chapter, and the President of the Florida Student Chapter.
He was a Fellow in Georgetown's Originalism Boot Camp seminar.
In college, he was Master-at-Arms of Republican Idealists Furthering Legal Education.
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