Lawrence VanDyke

Lawrence James Christopher VanDyke (born 1972) is an American attorney and jurist serving as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. He is a former solicitor general of Nevada and Montana. Early life and education VanDyke was born in Midland, Texas, and grew up in Bozeman, Montana. After attending Oklahoma Christian University from 1992 to 1995, VanDyke studied civil engineering at Montana State University, graduating in 1997 with a Bachelor of Science with highest honors. He worked for his family's construction company and did graduate study at Montana State for the next three years, receiving a Master of Construction Engineering Management degree in 2000. From 2000 to 2002, VanDyke attended Bear Valley Bible Institute, a Bible college in Denver, Colorado, from which he received a Bachelor of Theology degree summa cum laude. He then attended Harvard Law School, where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review and the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy. He graduated in 2005 with a Juris Doctor magna cum laude.