Paul M. Bator

Paul Michael Bator
Principal Deputy Solicitor General of the United States
In office
October 1982 – December 1983
PresidentRonald Reagan
Succeeded byCharles Fried
Personal details
Born(1929-06-02)June 2, 1929
Budapest, Hungary
DiedFebruary 24, 1989(1989-02-24) (aged 59)
Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Political partyRepublican
EducationPrinceton University (BA)
Harvard University (MA, LLB)

Paul Michael Bator (June 2, 1929 – February 24, 1989) was a Hungarian-born American legal scholar, Supreme Court advocate, and academic expert on United States federal courts. He taught for almost 30 years at Harvard Law School and the University of Chicago Law School. He also served as the United States Deputy Solicitor General during the Reagan administration, in which capacity he argued and won the landmark administrative law case Chevron U.S.A. v. Natural Resources Defense Council. From 1984 to 2024, the Chevron doctrine governed the judicial interpretation of Congressional statutes that authorized federal regulators to make law.

He clerked for Justice John Marshall Harlan II of the United States Supreme Court.