Stuart W. Nolan, Jr., Esq.

The founder and managing attorney of LegalWorks, Stu Nolan grew up in western Pennsylvania and went to Washington, DC, to study the nexus of communications, government, law, and politics. He interned at the Heritage Foundation and received his undergraduate degree from American University. Prior to enrolling in law school, Stu worked in the conservative think tank realm for a few years, authoring an annual book-length study of the political agendas supported by corporate philanthropy. Throughout law school, he clerked at the Federal Communications Commission, the U.S. Senate, and a legislative law firm. Stu received his Juris Doctor from Catholic University of America, where he also had served as a research assistant in the Law & Religion program and completed additional certificate programs in Communications Law and in Law & Public Policy.

Upon entering the Virginia Bar, Stu began his legal career at a media law firm, eventually becoming a partner at Wood Maines & Nolan, PC. On the Feast of the Annunciation in 2010, he founded LegalWorks Apostolate, PLLC, to serve as “counsel for a culture of life”. He has served on the governing boards of several nonprofit organizations, including 17 years on the Board of Directors for Human Life International (nine years as chairman) and seven years on the Board of Directors for Trail Life USA.

On the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe in 2024, Stu founded the Sanctus Josephus Society, where he is president and general counsel. A longtime member of the Federalist Society and of the National Lawyers Association, he has served as Grand Knight of his parish council of the Knights of Columbus and as founding troopmaster of Our Lady of Guadalupe Troop 1212, an adventuring unit of Trail Life USA. He and his wife, Cynthia M. Nolan, Ph.D., have been married for more than 30 years and have been blessed with a daughter and four sons. They live in the northern Shenandoah Valley.