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William Taylor

Deputy Director, Second Amendment Litigation

Bill works to defend gun-safety laws against Second Amendment and other constitutional challenges.

Bill supports state attorneys general and city attorneys in Second Amendment cases, helps manage Everytown’s amicus practice, represents municipalities defending their gun laws in court, and speaks publicly at law schools and in other settings about the Second Amendment and the future of gun litigation.

Before joining Everytown, Bill served, for more than five years, as an Assistant Attorney General in the Litigation Bureau at the New York Attorney General’s Office, where he represented the state and its agencies and officers in a wide variety of civil actions, with a particular focus on Second Amendment litigation. Bill was lead counsel for the State of New York in numerous Second Amendment and other gun cases, including New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Cuomo, in which the district court upheld New York’s restrictions on assault weapons and large-capacity magazines against a Second Amendment challenge, a decision later affirmed on appeal. In recognition of his work on gun litigation, Bill received the 2016 Louis J. Lefkowitz Memorial Award for outstanding performance as an Assistant Attorney General.

Bill previously worked for over a decade as a litigator at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP in New York City, where he had a broad general litigation practice, across a variety of civil matters, at both trial and appellate levels. He also served as a law clerk to Judge Kim McLane Wardlaw of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. While at Harvard Law School, Bill was the Editor and Book Review Chair of the Harvard Law Review.

Office

  • New York

Education

  • Duke University, B.A.
  • Harvard Law School, J.D.

Bar Admissions

  • New York

Court Admissions

  • United States District Courts, Southern, Eastern, and Western Districts of New York
  • United States District Court, Northern District of Florida
  • United States District Court, District of Colorado
  • United States Court of Appeals for the First, Second, Fourth, Seventh, Ninth, and Tenth Circuits
  • United States Supreme Court

Speaking Engagements

March 6, 2020: Bill Taylor at The University of Chicago Law School Symposium on Gun Violence