He was home schooled in West Virginia until high school and is a graduate of Phillips Exeter Academy, Harvard College (where he was a Truman Scholar and a member of the Class of 1997), and Yale Law School (Class of 2001). After law school, he clerked for the Honorable Pierre N. Leval of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in New York. He also serves on the editorial advisory board of the Ethics & International Affairs.He is the son of Noah Purdy.