Biography

Kyle joined the Becket Fund as General Counsel in January 2012, after serving as Solicitor General and appellate chief of the Louisiana Department of Justice (2008-11). Previously, he taught constitutional law at the University of Mississippi School of Law (2004-08), and served as an assistant solicitor general in the Texas Attorney General’s Office, under Solicitor General Greg Coleman (1999-2002). He also practiced appellate law with Vinson & Elkins in Houston, Texas (1998-99).

Kyle received a J.D. from the Paul M. Hebert Law Center at Louisiana State University in 1997, where he graduated Order of the Coif and was Executive Senior Editor of the Louisiana Law Review. Following law school, he clerked for Judge John M. Duhè, Jr., on the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals from 1998-99. He later served as an associate-in-law and received an LL.M. from Columbia Law School in 2004.

Kyle has argued numerous appeals in state and federal courts. In 2010, he argued the landmark case of Connick v. Thompson before the U.S. Supreme Court, obtaining the reversal of a $20 million civil rights judgment against a district attorney’s office. In 2011, he argued and won Adar v. Smith before the en banc U.S. Fifth Circuit, a seminal dispute over interstate recognition of same-sex adoptions. Additionally, Kyle has won cases allowing Louisiana to recoup billions in hurricane recovery funds, defending enhanced sex-offender registration, and upholding high-profile criminal convictions. He has also represented numerous state amici in the U.S. Supreme Court in major constitutional matters concerning juvenile life-without-parole sentences (Graham v. Florida), restrictions on juvenile access to violent video games (Brown v. EMA), admission of eyewitness identification evidence (Perry v. New Hampshire), and roadside memorial crosses (Davenport v. American Atheists).

Kyle has published articles on religious liberty and church-state relationships in the Fordham Law Review, the Villanova Law Review, the Utah Law Review, and the Nevada Law Review. He has also written about state judicial issues for The Federalist Society.