Identified as one of 'Washington's Top Lawyers' by Washingtonian magazine (December 2004), Paul Mogin's practice involves both civil and criminal litigation, with a special emphasis on challenges to criminal convictions and cases involving claims for punitive damages. He argued Cleveland v. United States, 531 U.S. 12 (2000), and has also argued or briefed successful challenges to criminal convictions in the Second, Fourth, Sixth, and District of Columbia Circuits and the New Jersey Appellate Division. Most recently, Mr. Mogin prevailed before the Sixth Circuit in April 2011 in overturning in its entirety a conviction that rested on two wire fraud/honest services counts and four counts under 18 U.S.C § 1001. In 2009 Mr. Mogin's University of Chicago Law Review article concerning punitive damages was reprinted in The Right to a Fair Trial, a collection edited by Thom Brooks, Ph.D., of Newcastle University, U.K., and published by Ashgate Publishing. His most recent article, published in Virginia Law Review In Brief, criticizes the proposal of Professors Gregg Polsky and Dan Markel to instruct juries that business-related punitive damages are tax deductible. See Don’t Tilt the Playing Field: A Response to Polsky and Markel, 96 Va. L. Rev. In Brief 69 (2011). Mr. Mogin has written amicus curiae briefs for the American Bar Association in Mohawk Industries, Inc. v. Carpenter, 130 S. Ct. 599 (2009), and for the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers in Castro v. United States, 540 U.S. 375 (2003), and Wyoming v. Houghton, 526 U.S. 295 (1999). He joined Williams & Connolly LLP in 1981 and has been a partner since 1989.

The issue before the Supreme Court in Cleveland v. United States was whether a state-issued license constitutes "property" for purposes of the federal mail fraud statute. The courts of appeals were divided on that issue. Compare, e.g., United States v. Salvatore, 110 F.3d 1131 (5th Cir. 1997), with United States v. Granberry, 908 F. 2d 278 (8th Cir. 1990). In 1997 the Supreme Court denied a petition for certiorari in the Salvatore case that had asked the Court to resolve the conflict. 522 U.S. 981 (1997). But three years later in Cleveland, which like Salvatore originated in the Fifth Circuit, Mr. Mogin and two other Williams & Connolly attorneys persuaded the Supreme Court to grant certiorari and to hold that the mail fraud statute does not apply to a scheme to obtain a state-issued license through false or fraudulent statements.