Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law and Director, Classical Liberal Institute, New York University School of Law; Director, Classical Liberal Institute, Civitas Institute University of Texas at Austin
Richard A. Epstein is the inaugural Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law at NYU School of Law. Prior to his joining the faculty, he was a visiting law professor at NYU from 2007 through 2009. He served as the Peter and Kirstin Bedford Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution from 2000 to 2024. Since 2024 to the present he is a senior lecturer at the Civitas Institute at the University of Texas—Austin. Epstein is also the James Parker Hall Distinguished Service Professor of Law Emeritus and a senior lecturer at the University of Chicago. His initial law school appointment was at the University of Southern California from 1968 to 1972. Epstein received an LL.D., h.c. from the University of Ghent, 2003. He has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 1985 and was a Senior Fellow of the Center for Clinical Medical Ethics at the University of Chicago Division of Biological Sciences, also from 1983. to 2022 He served as editor of the Journal of Legal Studies from 1981 to 1991, and of the Journal of Law and Economics from 1991-2001. From 2001 to 2010 he was a director of the John M. Olin Program in Law and Economics at the University of Chicago.
His newest book, The Myth of Birthright Citizenship: What the Fourteenth Amendment Really Says was published in 2026 (Encounter Books). Prior to that he has published many books including, The Dubious Morality of the Modern Administrative State (Roman & Littlefield 2020).Earlier he published th Classical Liberal Constitution: The Uncertain Quest for Limited Government (Harvard 2014) iHis previous books include Design for Liberty: Private Property, Public Administration and the Rule of Law (Harvard 2011); The Case Against the Employee Free Choice Act (Hoover 2009); Supreme Neglect: How to Revive the Constitutional Protection of Property Rights (Oxford 2008); Antitrust Decrees in Theory and Practice: Why Less is More (AEI 2007); Overdose: How Excessive Government Regulation Stifles Pharmaceutical Innovation (Yale University Press. 2006); How Progressives Rewrote the Constitution (Cato 2006); Cases and Materials on Torts (Aspen Law & Business; 8th ed. 2004); Skepticism and Freedom: A Modern Case for Classical Liberalism (University of Chicago, 2003); Torts (Aspen Law & Business 1999); Principles for a Free Society: Reconciling Individual Liberty with the Common Good (Perseus Books, 1998): Mortal Peril: Our Inalienable Rights to Health Care (Addison-Wesley, 1997); Simple Rules for a Complex World (Harvard, 1995); Bargaining With the State (Princeton, 1993); Forbidden Grounds: The Case Against Employment Discrimination Laws (Harvard , 1992); Takings: Private Property and the Power of Eminent Domain (Harvard, 1985); and Modern Products Liability Law (Greenwood Press, 1980). He has also edited(with Catherine M. Sharkey) Cases and Materials on the Law of Torts (10th edition 2012).
Professor Epstein has written numerous articles on a wide range of legal and interdisciplinary subjects. He has taught courses in administrative law, antitrust law, civil procedure, communications, constitutional law, contracts, corporations, criminal law, employment discrimination law, environmental law, food and drug law health law and policy, legal history, labor law, property, real estate development and finance, jurisprudence, labor law; land use planning, patents, individual, estate and corporate taxation, Roman Law; torts, and workers' compensation.
Professor Epstein also writes a regular column for Civitas Institute, which also sponsors his podcast, The Libertarian with Charles C.W. Cooke, and Law Talk, with Cooke and John Yoo. He also does a podcast with John Batchelor. And appears regularly on the Freedom File with Judge Andrew Napolitano.
Professor Emeritus of Law, Indiana University; Co-Author, The Law of Lawyering
After graduating with honors from Harvard College in 1966, and from Rutgers Law School with highest honors in 1969, W. William Hodes began practice in a small civil rights and personal injury firm in New Orleans, where he had lived as a child. During the next eight years, he worked in Newark, New Jersey, first for the Kenneth Gibson administration, and then as senior staff attorney for the Education Law Center, a public interest law firm funded by the Ford Foundation.
In 1979, Hodes returned to the legal academy, first as a Bigelow Teaching Fellow at the University of Chicago Law School, and then as a Professor of Law at the Indiana University School of Law in Indianapolis. For the next twenty years, Professor Hodes taught in the areas of Civil Procedure, Constitutonal Law, Federal Courts, Administrative Law, and Professional Responsibility. He gained a national reputation as a scholar, consultant, and expert witness in the areas of Legal Ethics and Professional Responsbility, as they were then known.
Beginning in 1985 however, those subjects began to be known as "The Law of Lawyering," after a book of that name was published, co-authored by Professor Hodes and Professor Geoffrey C. Hazard, Jr., who had served as the Reporter to the Kutak Commission that developed the Model Rules of Professional Conduct. The treatise, which is now in its fourth edition and updated twice a year by Hodes and new co-author Peter R. Jarvis of Portland, Oregon, has become a mainstay resource for both the practicing bar and the academic community, and is often cited in court and ethics committee opinions.
While in the academy, Professor Hodes took two unusual sabbatical leaves. In the Spring of 1989, Hodes, who had spent his junior high school years in Beijing and is still fluent in Chinese, was a Visiting Scholar and Lecturer at the China University of Politics and Law, teaching a course in American Civil Procedure and conducting research into Chinese People's Mediation. (The course was suspended in April, when the events leading to the June 4th Tiananmen Massacre began to unfold, and Professor Hodes began to accompany his students on protest marches.)
During the October 1996 Term of the United States Supreme Court, Professor Hodes served as law clerk to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who had been his Civil Procedure and Conflicts of Law professor some thirty years earlier, during her Rutgers days. According to knowledgeable sources, Hodes was the oldest person to have served as a law clerk since the early 19th Century.
In 1999, W. William Hodes retired from law teaching (at age 56) in order to establish the William Hodes Professional Corporation, which was later renamed The William Hodes Law Firm; he became Professor Emeritus of Law at Indiana University as the new century began. Through this solo practice, Hodes can now devote full time to providing representation, consultation, expert testimony, legal opinions, and other counsel and assistance to lawyers in the areas of The Law of Lawyering, and Constitutional, Appellate, Supreme Court, and other complex litigation.
Senior Counsel, U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee
Tessa E. Shurr serves as Senior Counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee (Majority).
Prior to joining the Judiciary Committee staff, Tessa served as a Litigation Associate at the Fairness Center, a non-profit law firm, where she represented clients who had been harmed by their public-sector union. Before that, she counseled high-level leadership at the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Policy on legislative and regulatory matters, assisted the U.S. Department of Defense with procurement of supplies and services, and worked on both civil and criminal cases at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania.
Tessa graduated from Penn State Dickinson Law in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. There, she served as Managing Editor of the Dickinson Law Review, one of the oldest legal journals in the United States. During her time in law school, Tessa earned CALI Excellence for the Future Awards in Advanced Federal Income Tax; Congressional Investigations; and Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, & Law. She also published an academic comment proposing a new regulatory scheme for digital assets and cryptocurrency.
President and General Counsel, Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute
Anna St. John is an attorney with the Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute. She began working with the Center for Class Action Fairness, which has since moved to HLLI, in March 2015. She has argued appeals before the Second, Seventh, Ninth, and D.C. Circuits and state courts in New York and California, and presented argument to over a dozen federal and state trial courts. Her work has led to the return of over $100 million in settlement funds to class members.
Previously, she clerked for the Honorable Rhesa H. Barksdale on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and was an attorney with Covington & Burling LLP.
St. John is a graduate of Columbia Law School, where she was named a James Kent Scholar. She is a member of the state bars of New York and Louisiana and the District of Columbia Bar. She has spoken on topics of class action fairness, government overreach and regulatory abuses, the First Amendment, and the U.S. Supreme Court.
She resides in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law and Director, Classical Liberal Institute, New York University School of Law; Director, Classical Liberal Institute, Civitas Institute University of Texas at Austin
Richard A. Epstein is the inaugural Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law at NYU School of Law. Prior to his joining the faculty, he was a visiting law professor at NYU from 2007 through 2009. He served as the Peter and Kirstin Bedford Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution from 2000 to 2024. Since 2024 to the present he is a senior lecturer at the Civitas Institute at the University of Texas—Austin. Epstein is also the James Parker Hall Distinguished Service Professor of Law Emeritus and a senior lecturer at the University of Chicago. His initial law school appointment was at the University of Southern California from 1968 to 1972. Epstein received an LL.D., h.c. from the University of Ghent, 2003. He has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 1985 and was a Senior Fellow of the Center for Clinical Medical Ethics at the University of Chicago Division of Biological Sciences, also from 1983. to 2022 He served as editor of the Journal of Legal Studies from 1981 to 1991, and of the Journal of Law and Economics from 1991-2001. From 2001 to 2010 he was a director of the John M. Olin Program in Law and Economics at the University of Chicago.
His newest book, The Myth of Birthright Citizenship: What the Fourteenth Amendment Really Says was published in 2026 (Encounter Books). Prior to that he has published many books including, The Dubious Morality of the Modern Administrative State (Roman & Littlefield 2020).Earlier he published th Classical Liberal Constitution: The Uncertain Quest for Limited Government (Harvard 2014) iHis previous books include Design for Liberty: Private Property, Public Administration and the Rule of Law (Harvard 2011); The Case Against the Employee Free Choice Act (Hoover 2009); Supreme Neglect: How to Revive the Constitutional Protection of Property Rights (Oxford 2008); Antitrust Decrees in Theory and Practice: Why Less is More (AEI 2007); Overdose: How Excessive Government Regulation Stifles Pharmaceutical Innovation (Yale University Press. 2006); How Progressives Rewrote the Constitution (Cato 2006); Cases and Materials on Torts (Aspen Law & Business; 8th ed. 2004); Skepticism and Freedom: A Modern Case for Classical Liberalism (University of Chicago, 2003); Torts (Aspen Law & Business 1999); Principles for a Free Society: Reconciling Individual Liberty with the Common Good (Perseus Books, 1998): Mortal Peril: Our Inalienable Rights to Health Care (Addison-Wesley, 1997); Simple Rules for a Complex World (Harvard, 1995); Bargaining With the State (Princeton, 1993); Forbidden Grounds: The Case Against Employment Discrimination Laws (Harvard , 1992); Takings: Private Property and the Power of Eminent Domain (Harvard, 1985); and Modern Products Liability Law (Greenwood Press, 1980). He has also edited(with Catherine M. Sharkey) Cases and Materials on the Law of Torts (10th edition 2012).
Professor Epstein has written numerous articles on a wide range of legal and interdisciplinary subjects. He has taught courses in administrative law, antitrust law, civil procedure, communications, constitutional law, contracts, corporations, criminal law, employment discrimination law, environmental law, food and drug law health law and policy, legal history, labor law, property, real estate development and finance, jurisprudence, labor law; land use planning, patents, individual, estate and corporate taxation, Roman Law; torts, and workers' compensation.
Professor Epstein also writes a regular column for Civitas Institute, which also sponsors his podcast, The Libertarian with Charles C.W. Cooke, and Law Talk, with Cooke and John Yoo. He also does a podcast with John Batchelor. And appears regularly on the Freedom File with Judge Andrew Napolitano.
Professor Emeritus of Law, Indiana University; Co-Author, The Law of Lawyering
After graduating with honors from Harvard College in 1966, and from Rutgers Law School with highest honors in 1969, W. William Hodes began practice in a small civil rights and personal injury firm in New Orleans, where he had lived as a child. During the next eight years, he worked in Newark, New Jersey, first for the Kenneth Gibson administration, and then as senior staff attorney for the Education Law Center, a public interest law firm funded by the Ford Foundation.
In 1979, Hodes returned to the legal academy, first as a Bigelow Teaching Fellow at the University of Chicago Law School, and then as a Professor of Law at the Indiana University School of Law in Indianapolis. For the next twenty years, Professor Hodes taught in the areas of Civil Procedure, Constitutonal Law, Federal Courts, Administrative Law, and Professional Responsibility. He gained a national reputation as a scholar, consultant, and expert witness in the areas of Legal Ethics and Professional Responsbility, as they were then known.
Beginning in 1985 however, those subjects began to be known as "The Law of Lawyering," after a book of that name was published, co-authored by Professor Hodes and Professor Geoffrey C. Hazard, Jr., who had served as the Reporter to the Kutak Commission that developed the Model Rules of Professional Conduct. The treatise, which is now in its fourth edition and updated twice a year by Hodes and new co-author Peter R. Jarvis of Portland, Oregon, has become a mainstay resource for both the practicing bar and the academic community, and is often cited in court and ethics committee opinions.
While in the academy, Professor Hodes took two unusual sabbatical leaves. In the Spring of 1989, Hodes, who had spent his junior high school years in Beijing and is still fluent in Chinese, was a Visiting Scholar and Lecturer at the China University of Politics and Law, teaching a course in American Civil Procedure and conducting research into Chinese People's Mediation. (The course was suspended in April, when the events leading to the June 4th Tiananmen Massacre began to unfold, and Professor Hodes began to accompany his students on protest marches.)
During the October 1996 Term of the United States Supreme Court, Professor Hodes served as law clerk to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who had been his Civil Procedure and Conflicts of Law professor some thirty years earlier, during her Rutgers days. According to knowledgeable sources, Hodes was the oldest person to have served as a law clerk since the early 19th Century.
In 1999, W. William Hodes retired from law teaching (at age 56) in order to establish the William Hodes Professional Corporation, which was later renamed The William Hodes Law Firm; he became Professor Emeritus of Law at Indiana University as the new century began. Through this solo practice, Hodes can now devote full time to providing representation, consultation, expert testimony, legal opinions, and other counsel and assistance to lawyers in the areas of The Law of Lawyering, and Constitutional, Appellate, Supreme Court, and other complex litigation.
Senior Counsel, U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee
Tessa E. Shurr serves as Senior Counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee (Majority).
Prior to joining the Judiciary Committee staff, Tessa served as a Litigation Associate at the Fairness Center, a non-profit law firm, where she represented clients who had been harmed by their public-sector union. Before that, she counseled high-level leadership at the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Policy on legislative and regulatory matters, assisted the U.S. Department of Defense with procurement of supplies and services, and worked on both civil and criminal cases at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania.
Tessa graduated from Penn State Dickinson Law in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. There, she served as Managing Editor of the Dickinson Law Review, one of the oldest legal journals in the United States. During her time in law school, Tessa earned CALI Excellence for the Future Awards in Advanced Federal Income Tax; Congressional Investigations; and Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, & Law. She also published an academic comment proposing a new regulatory scheme for digital assets and cryptocurrency.
President and General Counsel, Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute
Anna St. John is an attorney with the Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute. She began working with the Center for Class Action Fairness, which has since moved to HLLI, in March 2015. She has argued appeals before the Second, Seventh, Ninth, and D.C. Circuits and state courts in New York and California, and presented argument to over a dozen federal and state trial courts. Her work has led to the return of over $100 million in settlement funds to class members.
Previously, she clerked for the Honorable Rhesa H. Barksdale on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and was an attorney with Covington & Burling LLP.
St. John is a graduate of Columbia Law School, where she was named a James Kent Scholar. She is a member of the state bars of New York and Louisiana and the District of Columbia Bar. She has spoken on topics of class action fairness, government overreach and regulatory abuses, the First Amendment, and the U.S. Supreme Court.
She resides in New Orleans, Louisiana.
President and General Counsel, Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute
Anna St. John is an attorney with the Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute. She began working with the Center for Class Action Fairness, which has since moved to HLLI, in March 2015. She has argued appeals before the Second, Seventh, Ninth, and D.C. Circuits and state courts in New York and California, and presented argument to over a dozen federal and state trial courts. Her work has led to the return of over $100 million in settlement funds to class members.
Previously, she clerked for the Honorable Rhesa H. Barksdale on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and was an attorney with Covington & Burling LLP.
St. John is a graduate of Columbia Law School, where she was named a James Kent Scholar. She is a member of the state bars of New York and Louisiana and the District of Columbia Bar. She has spoken on topics of class action fairness, government overreach and regulatory abuses, the First Amendment, and the U.S. Supreme Court.
She resides in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Senior Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit
Alice M. Batchelder obtained her first judicial post as a judge on the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Ohio in 1983. After two years, she was appointed by President Ronald Reagan to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio. In 1991 President George H.W. Bush appointed her to her position on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. From August 2009 to August 2014, Judge Batchelder served as Chief Judge of the Sixth Circuit. In March 2019, she took Senior Status and continues to work nearly full time.
Partner, Boies Schiller Flexner LLP
Jesse, the former third-ranking official at the U.S. Department of Justice, helps clients with their most difficult litigation and regulatory issues─whether that means defending against an enforcement action, pursuing high-stakes litigation and appeals, navigating regulatory thickets at federal and state agencies, or crafting a comprehensive strategy to manage a crisis. He approaches these problems with the knowledge gained both from his broad private-practice experience and from having served at the highest levels of federal and state government.
Jesse has experience across a range of substantive and regulatory areas. He has sued the federal government and has also been one of its top law-enforcement officials; he has represented states and has also navigated their regulatory agencies on behalf of clients; and he has represented companies in business disputes, both as defendants and plaintiffs.
Before joining the firm, Jesse was the Acting Associate Attorney General at the United States Department of Justice. In that role, he oversaw the civil and criminal work of the Antitrust, Civil, Civil Rights, Environment and Natural Resources, and Tax Divisions. During Jesse’s tenure, the Associate’s office closely managed the Department’s most significant litigation, including matters involving large financial institutions, healthcare companies, automakers, energy companies, and state and local governments. In addition, Jesse served as Chair of DOJ’s Regulatory Reform Task Force and Vice Chair of DOJ’s Task Force on Market Integrity and Consumer Fraud. Jesse regularly provided legal and strategic advice to the highest-level decision makers in the federal government, including the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General, general counsels across the spectrum of federal agencies, and White House officials.
Jesse served for three years as the secretary of Florida’s labor, economic-development, and land-use agency, the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity. Before that, he served as Governor (now Senator) Rick Scott’s general counsel.
Jesse maintains offices in both Washington D.C. and Florida. From Washington, he focuses on federal litigation and crisis management. In Florida, in addition to federal litigation, Jesse employs his knowledge of state government and regulation to help clients in courts across the state, from trial through the Florida Supreme Court.
Jesse currently serves on the Florida Supreme Court Judicial Nominating Commission, the body that provides the governor with nominees for appointment to the Florida Supreme Court. Jesse is also a fellow at the Center for the Study of the Administrative State at the Scalia Law School at George Mason University, where he writes and speaks about administrative law.
Partner, Sidley Austin LLP
JUSTIN SAVAGE is a global co-leader of the firm’s Environmental, Health, and Safety practice and co-leads the Automotive and Mobility sector team, where he is a leading strategist for companies navigating the intersection of complex regulation, high-stakes litigation, and transformative industry change. For nearly three decades, he has led clients through their most consequential environmental, health, and safety (EH&S) disputes and mobility-sector challenges, earning a reputation as both a trusted counselor and a forceful advocate in the courtroom and the boardroom. A core part of Justin’s practice also focuses on regulatory strategy and market entry, advising emerging technology companies, new market entrants, and established industry leaders on launching new products, technologies, and business models. He regularly counsel clients in emerging fields such as robotics and AI on engaging with regulators, anticipating enforcement and compliance risk, and building defensible regulatory strategies that support growth rather than slow it.
Clients praise Justin as “an excellent litigator… strategically clever and creative… attentive, thoughtful and willing to go above and beyond” (Chambers USA 2025). Chambers USA has ranked him for Band 1 for Environment in District of Columbia (2017–2025) and Band 3 for Transportation: Road (Automotive) in USA—Nationwide (2023–2025).
Justin has won some of the most closely watched EH&S and transportation disputes of the past two decades and guided companies through crises where business continuity, brand reputation, and regulatory survival were on the line. His leadership has been repeatedly recognized: he is a three-time Law360 Environmental “MVP” (2018, 2024, 2025) and a Lawdragon “500 Global Leaders in Crisis Management” (2025-2026). He is the first call for companies facing bet-the-company challenges.
Justin’s clients concentrate in heavily regulated industries, including auto and mobility, aviation, chemicals, data centers, energy, mining, and refining. Justin litigates and counsels across the spectrum of U.S. environmental, transportation, and administrative laws, including the Clean Air Act (Title I, mobile sources, and fuels), incident response, RMP, NHTSA, Clean Water Act, TSCA, CSB investigations, APA claims, FOIA litigation, NEPA, and the Safe Drinking Water Act.
Prior to joining Sidley, Justin served for nearly a decade at the Environmental Enforcement Section of the U.S. Department of Justice, where he led teams in several multi-billion dollar enforcement cases. In his career, Justin has regularly taught on a range of environmental and litigation topics. For several years, Justin served as an instructor at the Justice Department’s National Advocacy Center where he taught hundreds of Assistant U.S. Attorneys and other agency lawyers on topics that included trial advocacy and evidence. Since rejoining private practice, Justin has served eight times as a faculty member for the American Law Institute’s Environmental Litigation program. He also lectured on a range of litigation and trial topics for bar associations and organizations, including serving as an instructor for the FAA on trial advocacy.
President and General Counsel, Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute
Anna St. John is an attorney with the Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute. She began working with the Center for Class Action Fairness, which has since moved to HLLI, in March 2015. She has argued appeals before the Second, Seventh, Ninth, and D.C. Circuits and state courts in New York and California, and presented argument to over a dozen federal and state trial courts. Her work has led to the return of over $100 million in settlement funds to class members.
Previously, she clerked for the Honorable Rhesa H. Barksdale on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and was an attorney with Covington & Burling LLP.
St. John is a graduate of Columbia Law School, where she was named a James Kent Scholar. She is a member of the state bars of New York and Louisiana and the District of Columbia Bar. She has spoken on topics of class action fairness, government overreach and regulatory abuses, the First Amendment, and the U.S. Supreme Court.
She resides in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Topics
Countering the Biden Administration’s ESG Push: A Litigation Update on Utah v. Walsh
Last week, the plaintiffs in Utah v. Walsh, filed a motion seeking to enjoin the...
A Seat at the Sitting - January 2023
Richard A. Epstein, William Hodes, Tessa Shurr Levensohn, Anna St. John
The January Docket in 90 minutes or Less
Each month, a panel of constitutional experts convenes to discuss the Court’s upcoming docket sitting...
A Seat at the Sitting - January 2023
Richard A. Epstein, William Hodes, Tessa Shurr Levensohn, Anna St. John
The January Docket in 90 minutes or Less
Each month, a panel of constitutional experts convenes to discuss the Court’s upcoming docket sitting...
Supreme Court Roundup: October Term 2020 [SCOTUSbrief]
Anna St. John
Short video featuring Anna St. John
While the Supreme Court’s last term included a number of blockbuster decisions, the majority of...
Settlement Payments to Non-Governmental Third Parties
Alice Batchelder, Jesse Panuccio, Justin Savage, Anna St. John
Litigation Practice Group
President Biden, on his first day in office, signed Executive Order 13990, which ordered all...