Lindsay L. Clayton is an Assistant Director in the Tax Branch of the U.S. Department of Justice's Civil Division, where she oversees and reviews attorneys litigating civil tax cases nationwide, focused in the Ninth and Tenth Circuits. She is a regular instructor at the Department’s National Advocacy Center on topics including dispositive motions practice, negotiation, and civil discovery. Before the Tax Division’s dissolution in 2025, she was an Assistant Chief with the Western Civil Trial Section. She has played a key role in the litigation of regulatory challenges under the Administrative Procedure Act, employee retention credits, foreign banking and information reporting penalties, complex corporate and individual Chapter 11 bankruptcies, IRS summons disputes, jeopardy levies, white-collar fraud, tax procedure, and listed transactions. Before 2017, she served as a Tax Division Trial Attorney, handling a varied docket including complex estate and gift tax issues, research credits, the domestic production activities deduction, and the extraterritorial income exclusion regime. During her time as a Trial Attorney, she handled both jury and bench trials and engaged in extensive civil discovery and motions practice. In addition, she successfully obtained a writ of ne exeat republica, one of a handful historically sought by the Department. She graduated summa cum laude in 2004 from Dartmouth College with a Bachelor of Arts in Economics. In 2007, she graduated from Yale Law School. Before joining the Department, she spent three years as an associate with the Washington, D.C. office of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP.