Jonathan D. Libby
Los Angeles, CA
Appointed by California ChangeLawyers
Current Term Extends through June 30, 2026
Jonathan D. Libby has been a deputy federal public defender in the Central District of California (Los Angeles) since January 2003, focusing on appeals and habeas corpus work. He previously worked at the federal defender office in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia) and in private criminal defense practice in New York. He is an experienced appellate practitioner, having argued more than 100 federal appeals, including cases before the Second, Third, and Ninth Circuit Courts of Appeals, and he successfully argued United States v. Alvarez, 567 U.S. 709 (2012), in the United States Supreme Court in which the Court agreed with him that the federal “Stolen Valor Act”––which made it a crime to falsely claim receipt of a military medal––was facially unconstitutional under the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment.
In addition, Mr. Libby has been a Lecturer in Law at the University of Southern California Gould School of Law since 2012 where he has taught both an upper-division course in advanced appellate advocacy and the year-long required first-year course in legal writing and advocacy.
He currently serves on the Board of Directors of California ChangeLawyers (formerly California Bar Foundation), a statewide foundation with the mission to build a better justice system for all Californians. And he previously served as Chair of the State Bar of California’s Client Security Fund Commission which reimburses legal consumers who have lost money or property due to theft or an equivalent dishonest act committed by a California lawyer acting in a professional capacity. He is also a past editorial board member of Los Angeles Lawyer, the magazine of the Los Angeles County Bar Association.
He received his JD from The City University of New York School of Law, where he served as editor-in-chief of the law review and was a member of the school’s national moot court team, and his BA in journalism from Temple University, where he served as student body president.