BETHESDA, MD, January 17, 2019 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Allen Snyder has recently been honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award from Marquis Who's Who. As in all Marquis Who's Who biographical volumes, individuals profiled are selected on the basis of current reference value. Factors such as position, noteworthy accomplishments, visibility, and prominence in a field are all taken into account during the selection process.
After graduating from Harvard Law School magna cum laude in 1971, where he served as President of the Harvard Law Review, Mr. Snyder served as a law clerk for Supreme Court Justice John Harlan and then for Justice William Rehnquist, who joined the Court after Justice Harlan's death. After clerking, in 1972 Mr. Snyder started his legal career as an associate (and from 1979 on, a partner) with the law firm of Hogan & Hartson, where he did trial and appellate litigation until his retirement in 2001. At Hogan he served as Chairman of the Litigation Department for 15 years, and served on the firm's five-member Executive Committee for 9 years. In 1978, the D.C. Court of Appeals appointed him as a member, and then Chair, of its Board on Professional Responsibility, which oversees the attorney discipline system in D.C. The United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit later appointed him as a member, and then chair, of its disciplinary committee, and subsequently as a member of its Advisory Committee on court rules, as well. Mr. Snyder also served as Secretary and a member of the Board of the D.C. Unified Bar.
Mr. Snyder's litigation practice included complex trial litigation, such as the multi-year Kansas City School District desegregation case, in which he represented the School District seeking the elimination of state barriers to desegregating its schools, and the Microsoft antitrust matter, where he represented Netscape. He also handled innumerable appellate matters, including four Supreme Court cases he argued himself, including his successful appeal in Jenkins v. Missouri, where the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that federal courts have the authority to overturn state laws that forbid localities from enacting tax increases, where the court finds tax increases are needed to redress constitutional violations. He was a member of the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers. He also represented the House Ethics Committee in actions against members of Congress caught up in the FBI's "Abscam" sting, and represented Elizabeth Taylor in successful litigation against ABC-TV relating to a proposed "docudrama" about her life, as well as representing a number of governmental entities and organizations suing governments regarding constitutional and statutory disputes.
In late 1999, when Mr. Snyder was planning to retire shortly from the private practice of law, the White House informed him that President Clinton would soon be nominating him for a vacancy on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Mr. Snyder's hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee occurred in mid-2000 and went smoothly, but Senator Trent Lott, then the Majority Leader of the Senate, announced that the Committee would take no vote on the matter, and the nomination lapsed at the end of the (election) year. Mr. Snyder then proceeded with the plan he and his wife, Susan, had decided on previously, and they both retired from their careers in 2001.
In retirement, Mr. and Mrs. Snyder initially traveled, studied, and served at various times as emergency foster parents for 15 children in the Montgomery County, MD court system, until in January 2005 they instantly fell in love with the latest little baby they were caring for. They subsequently adopted Ceci as their third child (her older sisters are now 40 and 37). When Ceci started elementary school, and no longer needed a full-time stay-at-home parent, Mr. Snyder was asked and agreed to serve, pro bono, as the founder and head of a new appellate practice group at Childrens Law Center in D.C., which represents primarily children caught up in the D.C. courts' neglect and abuse system. He continues to do appellate work for the Center. In 2014 Mr. Snyder was named the D.C. Bar's pro bono attorney of the year.
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