Chris Galiardo serves as Staff Counsel at Thomas More Society. Before joining Thomas More Society in 2024, Chris clerked for prominent federal judges, including Judge Lawrence VanDyke of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (2022–2023), Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas (2020–2021), Judge Timothy J. Kelly of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia (2017), and Judge James O. Browning of the U.S. District Court for the District of New Mexico (2016–2017). As Chief Law Clerk for Judge Kacsmaryk, he managed the civil docket, streamlined chambers operations, and drafted key opinions.

Chris also served as an Assistant Attorney General in the Office of the Texas Solicitor General (2021–2022), where he briefed eleven cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and argued before the Fifth Circuit. His innovative empirical model predicting Supreme Court votes achieved a 100 percent accuracy rate for Texas appeals during the 2022 term. Earlier, as a Presidential Management Fellow at the White House Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (2017–2019), he managed trade enforcement for Latin America and contributed to NAFTA renegotiation efforts.

A graduate of Yale Law School and Harvard University, where he earned a concurrent J.D. and M.P.P. in 2015, Chris distinguished himself as a Jack B. Tate Scholar (Yale) and Dubin Fellow (Harvard). He holds an A.B. summa cum laude from Dartmouth College (2006), where he received the Dartmouth Senior Scholar Award for his top-ranked thesis. His academic publications, including works on democratization and education reform, have been recognized internationally.

Chris’s accolades include the Fulbright Scholarship (2008–2009), the U.S. Secretary of Defense Award for Excellence (2014), and the President’s Lifetime Achievement Award for Community Service (2007). With proficiency in German, Spanish, Arabic, Mandarin, and Portuguese, he has presented research at global forums like the World Innovation Summit for Education (2009). Admitted to the Texas Bar and the Fifth and Ninth Circuits, Chris is a member of the Federalist Society, Phi Beta Kappa Society, and Knights of Columbus.