The lawyers for abortion providers and the Texas government who are battling in court over a temporary COVID-19 abortion ban both have experience arguing cases before the U.S. Supreme Court.

The dispute, which has already reached the high court once and may do so again, centers on whether one of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott's emergency orders that prohibited nonessential surgeries or procedures during the coronavirus pandemic would also temporarily ban abortions in the state.

Planned Parenthood Federation of America staff attorney Julie Murray of Washington, D.C., is arguing on appeal for a group of abortion providers who say abortions should still be able to proceed. So far, Murray's team won two temporary restraining orders in the trial court, which the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit struck down. Most recently on Monday, the Fifth Circuit overturned a temporary restraining order that would have allowed some categories of abortions to proceed.

On the other side , Texas Solicitor General Kyle Hawkins argues that the state's broad emergency powers during the pandemic do provide the authority to halt abortions temporarily. The Fifth Circuit sided with him, finding that the trial court order "usurps the state's authority to craft emergency public health measures." However, the court did allow abortions for women who would be past the legal gestational limit for abortion in Texas.

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Here's a look at the top lawyers for both sides of the case.

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Abortion providers' lawyer

Julie A Murray Julie A. Murray. Courtesy photo

The large group of abortion providers who sued are represented by lead counsel Murray, staff attorney of public policy litigation and law at Planned Parenthood. Murray is licensed to practice law in New York and Washington, D.C.

Murray earned her law degree from Harvard Law School in 2009. Next, she was a law clerk for Judge Marsha S. Berzon of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. From 2010 to 2011 Murray was a Margaret Fund Fellow for the Washington, D.C.-based National Women's Law Center, which fights for gender equality for women and girls.

From 2011 to 2018, Murray was an attorney in the Public Citizen Litigation Group, according to a biography on Public Citizen's website. There, she practiced administrative law, the First Amendment, civil rights and more. During her time at Public Citizen, Murray represented employees in a case before the U.S. Supreme Court, BNSF Railway v. Tyrrell. The high court in that case ruled in favor of nationwide corporations seeking to limit the jurisdictions where they can be sued. She joined Planned Parenthood in 2019.

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Texas' appellate counsel

Texas' request for mandamus relief from the Fifth Circuit was headed by Texas Solicitor General Kyle Hawkins, who took up that top job in September 2018, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Kyle Hawkins Texas Solicitor General Kyle Hawkins. Courtesy photo

Hawkins earned his law degree in 2009 from the University of Minnesota School of Law. He was an associate at Faegre & Benson for one year, and then served as a law clerk on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. He was an associate with Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher from 2011 to 2013. He took a one-year break to serve as a law clerk for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, and then he returned to Gibson Dunn for three years. That's when he joined the Texas Office of the Attorney General as an assistant solicitor general from October 2017 to August 2018.

He has been involved in very high-profile appellate litigation. For example, he was a key attorney in the legal challenge to the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act. In an amicus brief, he argued that the U.S. Supreme Court should uphold a Louisiana law that regulates abortion.