Trevor Cox

Trevor S. Cox is a former Acting Solicitor General of Virginia.  As counsel in the Richmond office, Trevor focuses his practice on issues and appeals.

Prior to joining Hunton Andrews Kurth, Trevor served for more than four years in the Solicitor General’s division of the Office of the Attorney General of Virginia (OAG), as Deputy Solicitor General & Counsel to the Executive Division, Senior Appellate Counsel, and Acting Solicitor General.

As chief appellate counsel for the Commonwealth of Virginia, he represented the Commonwealth, its agencies, and its officials in matters concerning the constitutionality of Virginia statutes or regulations or touching upon sensitive policies of the Commonwealth. In January 2018 he presented argument on behalf of Virginia in the US Supreme Court in Collins v. Commonwealth of Virginia, 138 S. Ct. 1663 (2018).

During his tenure at the OAG, Trevor handled important litigation matters at every level of the Virginia and federal judiciaries, arguing a dozen cases in the Fourth Circuit alone, successfully opposing certiorari in the US Supreme Court, and authoring dozens of briefs in federal courts and the Supreme Court of Virginia.

In addition to personally handling litigation matters and overseeing others within the division, Trevor provided legal advice to the Attorney General and Governor and advised other attorneys in the OAG on legal strategy.

He also drafted numerous Opinions of the Attorney General on a variety of matters relating to the Constitution of Virginia and state government.

Prior to his service to the Commonwealth, Trevor was an associate on the firm’s corporate and securities litigation team, representing public and private companies and their officers and directors in matters related to securities, corporate governance and mergers and acquisitions.

Trevor sits on the Virginia Bar Association’s Appellate Practice Section Council, presents CLEs on appellate litigation and related topics, and is active in a variety of legal and nonprofit organizations in Virginia and beyond.

Experience:

• Collins v. Commonwealth of Virginia, 138 S. Ct. 1663 (2018) (automobile exception to warrant requirement does not apply within a home’s curtilage)
• Manning v. Caldwell, No. 17-1320, 2018 WL 3763428 (4th Cir. Aug. 9, 2018) (rejecting constitutional challenge to Virginia’s interdiction statute as applied to homeless alcoholics)
• Brat v. Personhuballah, 883 F.3d 475 (4th Cir. 2018) (Virginia not responsible for plaintiffs’ attorney’s fees incurred in litigating against intervening defendants)
• Stinnie v. Holcomb, No. 17-1740, 2018 WL 2337750 (4th Cir. May 23, 2018) (in appeal asserting unconstitutionality of suspending drivers’ licenses for failure to pay court debt, dismissing for lack of jurisdiction)
• DePaola v. Va. Dep’t of Corr., 703 F. App’x 205 (4th Cir. 2017) (rejecting constitutional challenge to Department of Corrections policy of housing dangerous and disruptive inmates in restrictive conditions)
• Cashion v. Lee, No. 5:17-cv-00004-MFU, 2017 WL 5179238 (W.D. Va. Nov. 8, 2017) (dismissing claim that Virginia Code § 8.01-243.2 violates US Constitution)
• Shin v. Commonwealth, 294 Va. 517, 808 S.E.2d 401 (Va. 2017) (rejecting constitutional challenges to Virginia’s implied-consent law)
• Vista-Graphics, Inc. v. Va. Dep’t of Transp., 682 F. App’x 231 (4th Cir.) (per curiam) (upholding against constitutional challenge VDOT’s tourism-literature program at highway rest areas), cert. denied, 138 S. Ct. 304 (2017) (mem.)
• Hoye v. Gilmore, 691 F. App’x 764 (4th Cir. 2017) (rejecting inmate’s First Amendment retaliation claim)
• Canales v. Orellana, 67 Va. App. 759 (2017) (en banc) (in course of making custody determinations, Virginia courts have jurisdiction to make findings of fact that may be used to support applications for Special Immigrant Juvenile status under federal law)
• Pleasant v. Commonwealth, No. CL16-825 (Va. Cir. Ct (Suffolk) Aug. 9, 2017) (quashing subpoena duces tecum and witness subpoena directed at Secretary of the Commonwealth)
• Tomikel v. Virginia, 136 S. Ct. 538 (2015) (mem.) (denying certiorari in case raising Confrontation Clause claims)
• Marron v. Miller, 135 S. Ct. 2888 (2015) (mem.) (denying certiorari in case raising claims under RLUIPA and First, Fifth, Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments)
• In re Steven Roy Arnold, Record No. 131447 (Va. argued Jan. 4, 2015) [decided under companion case, In re Robert Floyd Brown, 289 Va. 343, 770 S.E.2d 494 (Va. 2015)] (agreeing with Attorney General’s amicus position that transgender inmate had presented statutorily required “good cause” in support of name-change application)

EDUCATION:

• JD, Harvard Law School, 2009
• MPhil, Historical Studies, University of Cambridge, 2003
• AB, American History & Literature, Harvard University, cum laude, 2002

BAR ADMISSIONS:

• Virginia

GOVERNMENT EXPERIENCE:

• Senior Appellate Counsel, OAG, February–July 2018
• Acting Solicitor General, OAG, August 2017–February 2018
• Deputy Solicitor General & Counsel to the Executive Division, OAG, September 2015–August 2017
• Deputy Solicitor General, OAG, January 2014–September 2015

Memberships:

• Member, VBA Appellate Practice Section Council
• Member, John Marshall Inn of Court