Alan Gura

Alan Gura is an American lawyer who argued two Supreme Court cases on gun rights, District of Columbia v. Heller and McDonald v. Chicago.

born 1971District of Columbia v. HellerMcDonald v. ChicagoGun rights litigation

Born: 2 January 1971, Tel Aviv
Occupation: lawyer, gun rights advocate
Education: Georgetown University Law Center, Cornell University

Alan Gura was born in 1971 in Tel Aviv

Alan Gura was born in Tel Aviv on January 2, 1971. At age 7 he moved with his family to Los Angeles, California.

He earned a BA from Cornell University in 1992. He received a JD from the Georgetown University Law Center in 1995.

He began as a law clerk to federal judge Terrence W. Boyle in North Carolina. He then served as a Deputy Attorney General for California and later worked at the Washington, D.C. offices of Sidley & Austin. In February 2000 he left to serve for a year as counsel to a Senate Judiciary subcommittee.

He later founded his own firm, now Gura P.L.L.C., working in civil, appellate and civil rights law. Before the Supreme Court he argued District of Columbia v. Heller and McDonald v. Chicago, and won both. In 2016 he represented Defense Distributed in a case against the State Department, and in February 2021 he became Vice President for Litigation at the Institute for Free Speech.