Who were the lawyers who argued the Trump vote case?

When the Supreme Court considers Thursday whether former President Donald J. Trump should appear on Colorado's primary ballot, two former law clerks with starkly different ideologies will face the justices.

Colorado's attorney general will also argue in court.

Mr. Trump's lawyer, Jonathan F. Mitchell, 47, is best known for drafting anti-abortion laws that ultimately led to the Supreme Court striking down the constitutional right to the procedure.

One of those laws, Senate Bill 8, was authored in part by Mr. Mitchell and led to a near-total ban on abortion in Texas. He also worked on similar laws in other states.

After graduating from the University of Chicago Law School, Mr. Mitchell clerked for J. Michael Luttig, a federal appellate judge and a prominent conservative voice who has since spoken out forcefully against Mr. Trump, followed by an internship at the Supreme Court with Justice. Antonin Scalia. Notably, the now-retired Judge Luttig has filed a brief opposing Mr. Trump's position in the case.

In 2010, Mr. Mitchell was appointed Attorney General of Texas, a position he held until 2015. In 2018, he opened his own law firm in Austin, Texas.

He worked for years on legislation in Texas that would effectively ban abortion in the state. In 2021, the law, called the Texas Heartbeat Act, went into effect. Its enforcement created a reward system of sorts – ordinary people could file suit against those involved in performing abortions – and encouraged lawsuits by allowing plaintiffs to collect $10,000 and legal fees from those they sued.

Mr. Mitchell, who has argued before the Supreme Court five times, will appear again this term. He will argue on behalf of a Texas gun rights activist in a challenge to a Trump administration law banning bump stocks, attachments that allow semiautomatic rifles to fire in sustained, rapid bursts.

Jason Murray, 38, represents Colorado voters who successfully challenged Trump's inclusion on the state's primary ballot.

This will be Mr. Murray's first time before the Supreme Court, but he clerked for two of the current justices: Judge Neil M. Gorsuch, then a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, and Judge Elena Kagan.

He graduated from Harvard Law and spent more than a decade as a litigator in private practice before joining a group of lawyers to a boutique law firm focused on legal matters of general interest.

Colorado Attorney General Shannon Stevenson will argue on behalf of Colorado's Secretary of State Jena Griswold. Ms. Stevenson, 48, took office last spring after more than two decades in private practice at a firm based in Denver. She informed and argued more than 70 cases before state and federal appellate courts in the West.

Kitty Bennett And Kirsten Noyes research contributed.