Bolick graduated from Drew University in 1979 and received his J.D. from the University of California, Davis in 1982.

Bolick previously served as the president and general counsel of the Alliance for School Choice, a national non-profit educational policy group advocating school choice programs across the United States. Bolick is a co-founder and former vice president of the libertarian public interest law firm Institute for Justice.

While working for the Landmark Legal Foundation, Bolick led the defense for the first Wisconsin school voucher program.Bolick often cites the interests of low-income schoolchildren in inadequate urban public schools as a focus of his school choice advocacy.

Bolick was an assistant at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission when current Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was EEOC chairman.Bolick successfully argued Granholm v. Heald, the 2005 U.S. Supreme Court case striking down regulatory barriers to direct interstate shipment of wine to consumers.

In 2006, Bolick was the recipient of a Bradley Prize, an honor bestowed annually on public intellectuals and academics by the Lynne and Harry Bradley Foundation for excellence in the Foundation's stated mission of "strengthening American democratic capitalism."Bolick also served as Of Counsel to the Rose Law Group in Scottsdale, Arizona

Bolick is a research fellow with the Hoover Institution.

Bolick currently serves as the director of the Scharf-Norton Center for Constitutional Litigation at the Goldwater Institute. The Goldwater Institute's Center for Constitutional Litigation is the first of its kind and a new avenue for free-market organizations to advance freedom in the states.

Awards

The recipient of many honors, Bolick was named one of three Lawyers of the Year in 2003 by American Lawyer. His most recent book, "David’s Hammer", was chosen for the June 2007 Lysander Spooner Award for Advancing the Literature of Liberty. In 2008 he received the Champion of Law and Liberty award from the Legal Times, which honored him for upholding the legal profession's core values and fighting to expand liberties and protect civil rights.

Writings

Bolick is the author of Voucher Wars: Waging the Legal Battle Over School Choice, and The Affirmative Action Fraud: Can We Restore the American Civil Rights Vision?, both published by the Cato Institute. His most recent nonfiction book is David’s Hammer: The Case for an Activist Judiciary (Cato Institute, April 2007).

Bolick published his first novel, Nicki’s Girl, in 2007.