Ari Bargil

Senior Attorney

Institute for Justice

Ari Bargil is a senior attorney with the Institute for Justice. He joined IJ’s Florida Office in September of 2012, and litigates constitutional cases protecting economic liberty, property rights, school choice, and free speech in both federal and state courts.

Ari is co-lead of IJ’s Zoning Justice Project, a campaign to protect and promote the freedom to peacefully and productively use property. As part of that work, Ari frequently represents property owners battling aggressive zoning regulations and excessive fines in state and federal court nationwide. He has represented a small-business owner in Dallas, Texas, and a married couple in Wilmington, North Carolina, in challenges to highly controversial “amortization” ordinances—laws that unconstitutionally seek to eradicate already-existing legal land uses. Ari has also litigated in state and federal court challenging the constitutionality of catastrophic fines for trivial code-enforcement violations. As part of his First Amendment practice, Ari has litigated in federal courts of appeals on behalf of both a state-licensed medical-cannabis dispensary owner in Mississippi who was prohibited from advertising his lawful business and a holistic health coach in Florida who was forced to obtain state Licensure in order to speak to her clients about their health.

In addition to maintaining an active litigation practice in all of IJ’s core areas, Ari also regularly testifies before state and local legislative bodies and committees on issues ranging from occupational licensing to property rights regulation. Ari has also spearheaded several successful legislative campaigns in Florida, including the effort to legalize the sale of 64-ounce “growlers” by craft breweries and the Florida Legislature’s passage of the Right to Garden Act—a reform which made it unlawful for local governments to ban residential vegetable gardens throughout the state.

Ari’s work has been featured by USA Today, NPR, Fox News, Washington Post, Miami Herald, Dallas Morning News and other national and local publications.

A native Floridian, Ari attended the Florida State University College of Law. He received his undergraduate degree from the University of Florida in 2006.