Lea Patterson serves as Senior Litigation Counsel at The Heritage Foundation. Before joining Heritage in April 2026, Lea co-founded Butterfield & Patterson, PLLC, a boutique litigation practice in Dallas, Texas.

Prior to co-founding Butterfield & Patterson, Lea served as Senior Counsel and Practice Group Chair at First Liberty Institute. There, she focused on religious liberty litigation, handling cases ranging from trial court to the Supreme Court. Lea served on the litigation team for Carson v. Makin, a landmark Supreme Court case protecting families from religious discrimination in school choice programs. Lea argued before the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit on behalf of an employee facing religious employment discrimination and successfully challenged the IRS’s denial of tax-exempt status to Christians Engaged, a faith-based voter education organization. She also served as co-counsel to the Arkansas Office of the Attorney General in a case defending the Arkansas Capitol’s Ten Commandments Monument.

After graduating from the University of Virginia School of Law, Lea clerked for the Honorable Raymond W. Gruender of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in St. Louis, Missouri. At UVA Law, Lea received the Dillard Scholarship and served as an executive editor for the Virginia Law Review and as president of the UVA chapter of Advocates for Life, a national association of pro-life law students.

A native Texan, Lea graduated summa cum laude from Texas Christian University.

Her publications include: Hiram S. Sasser and Lea E. Patterson, “The Religious Liberty Solution to Big Tech Censorship: How the Religious Freedom Restoration Act Limits Section 230,” Texas Review of Law and Politics, Vol. 26, No. 3 (August 10, 2022).