In a 30-year career on the Supreme Court, Justice Antonin Scalia authored more than 800 opinions, forming the basis for the conservative originalist view of the Constitution. But an equally lasting legacy may turn out to be his family. The justice, who died in 2016, had nine children: five boys and four girls. The eldest son, Eugene Scalia, has been nominated by President Trump to serve as labor secretary, and the others have had notable careers in law, the military, ministry, and writing, among other pursuits.
Eugene Scalia, 55, has worked with the private sector management-side firm Gibson Dunn, chairing its Labor and Employment Practice Group for the past 12 years. His clients have included some of the largest trade associations in Washington, most notably the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. He has represented the Chamber and others in some of the highest-profile cases before the Labor Department and the National Labor Relations Board in recent years. Eugene Scalia previously served as solicitor for the Labor Department in 2002 during President George W. Bush’s administration.
John Scalia, the next oldest, is also a labor law attorney with the management-side firm Greenberg Traurig, where he is currently a member of its global law and employment practices. He worked at the firm from 2001 through 2013 and rejoined it last month. His profile at Greenberg Traurig states: “He practices regularly in federal and state courts, in private mediation and arbitration proceedings, and before the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the U.S. Department of Labor, and equivalent state administrative agencies.” John Scalia previously worked at the high-profile firms Littler Mendelson and Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman, again in labor law.
The middle son, Paul, 47, was ordained a Catholic priest in 1996 in the Diocese of Arlington. He gave the homily at this father’s funeral and currently serves as the diocese’s Vicar for Clergy. In a 2017 interview in the Washingtonian, Paul Scalia joked that his parents welcomed his ordination because, with nine children, that it meant “one less wedding” they had to participate in. Paul is a prolific writer like his father, having contributed to the religious magazine First Things and written books on faith for Ignatius Press, including that Nothing May Be Lost (2017) and Sermons in Times of Crisis (2019).
Matthew Scalia is a U.S. Army colonel who is the garrison commander at Fort Benning, Georgia. A graduate of West Point and the U.S. Army War College, he has served in 101st Airborne and was deployed to Iraq as an infantryman in 2003 for one year during Operation Iraqi Freedom and to Afghanistan as a cavalry officer in 2009 for a year where he participated in Operation Enduring Freedom. He has also taught, having been an assistant professor of military studies at the University of Delaware. From 2011 through 2013, Matthew Scalia served as a liaison between U.S. and United Kingdom forces.
The youngest son, Christopher Scalia, is a writer like his father. He was an English professor at the University of Virginia’s College at Wise from 2007 to 2015 and now works at the American Enterprise Institute. His commentary has appeared in the Wall Street Journal and the Weekly Standard. He is the co-editor of Scalia Speaks: Reflections on Law, Faith, and Life Well Lived, a 2017 collection of his father’s writings.
The later justice’s four daughters are Catherine Courtney, a widowed mother of six who works as a librarian and administrator for Oakcrest School, a private all-girls school in Vienna, Virginia, Mary Clare Scalia Murray, a mother of seven, who writes for Catholic blogs and teaches German at a Catholic high school in Virginia, Margaret “Meg” Scalia Bryce, a mother of three, has a PhD in psychology who has worked in marriage ministry, and Ann Banaszewski, the eldest child and a mother of three who lives in Illinois and has avoided the media since pleading guilty to drunken driving in 2007.
