Partner, Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough LLP
Miles practices in the areas of appeals, business litigation, and First Amendment law. In addition to representing clients in complex civil and criminal litigation and appeals, Miles advises and represents public and private universities and serves as outside general counsel to several business and educational clients. He also represents and counsels private entities and government agencies and officials, including multiple current and former governors of South Carolina and members of Congress, on issues relating to the constitutional and statutory freedoms of speech, religion, and association. His First Amendment work has been cited by the United States Supreme Court.
State Attorney General, Texas
Attorney General, Nebraska
Elected as Nebraska’s 32nd Attorney General in 2014, Doug Peterson has dedicated his career to being an advocate for Nebraskans both in state and federal court.
Peterson was born in Columbus, Nebraska and grew up primarily in Lincoln. He graduated from the University of Nebraska with a business degree in 1981, and from Pepperdine University School of Law in 1985. Following law school, Mr. Peterson spent two years in North Platte, Nebraska, prosecuting both criminal and civil cases for the Lincoln County Attorney. From 1988 to 1990, he served as Assistant Attorney General to the Nebraska Attorney General’s office, representing the State in employment law matters and tort litigation. In 1990, Peterson entered private practice, where he had the opportunity to advise and advocate for both individuals and businesses.
In his role as Attorney General, Peterson works closely with law enforcement agencies across the State to ensure that Nebraska communities are safe. Peterson’s office has supported strengthened legislation and enforcement in the areas of human trafficking, prosecution of child sexual assault and abuse, and consumer protection laws to safeguard all Nebraskans.
Office Overview
The Nebraska Department of Justice/Office of the Attorney General operates, in many respects, as the “State’s law firm.” The office is headed by the Nebraska Attorney General, an independently-elected constitutional officer, and is a diverse organization of highly specialized attorneys and support staff. The Attorney General’s Office is the largest “law firm” in Nebraska outside of Omaha.
Major Duties
Attorney General, South Carolina
Alan Wilson was elected South Carolina’s Fifty-First Attorney General on November 2, 2010, and took office on January 12, 2011, becoming the nation’s youngest Attorney General.
This marks his third stint in the office. Previously, he served as a prosecution division intern under Charlie Condon and as an Assistant Attorney General under Henry McMaster.
As South Carolina’s Attorney General, Wilson is the state’s chief prosecutor, chief securities officer, and the state’s chief legal counsel. The office is comprised of more than two hundred employees and nearly seventy-five attorneys who manage nearly 8,000 active case files.
Wilson has focused on keeping our families safe and defending the Constitution.
He has assembled an unprecedented coalition consisting of the Attorney General’s office, the State Law Enforcement Division, every sheriff, the Police Chief’s Association, and all 16 solicitors. Together, they are actively advancing legislative priorities to ensure South Carolina is the safest place to live, work, and raise a family.
As Attorney General, Wilson has defended the Constitution and the laws of this state even if it means challenging the federal government. He has protected South Carolina’s right-to-work; helped lead the 26-state challenge to the federal health care mandate; and successfully safeguarded South Carolina’s voter identification and immigration laws in court.
Today, he is actively engaged in state and federal litigation to provide safe harbor to South Carolina’s ports, shield the state’s energy interests at Yucca Mountain, as well as a constitutional challenge of Dodd-Frank.
Prior to his election, Wilson served as an Assistant Solicitor and as an Assistant Attorney General before entering private practice with the Columbia firm of Willoughby & Hoefer, P.A. He began his legal career working for the late Judge Marc H. Westbrook.
Growing up, public service was paramount in the Wilson house. Alan and his three brothers have all achieved the rank of Eagle Scout. All four presently serve our nation in uniform.
Wilson joined the National Guard immediately after graduating from college. He was called to serve in Iraq where he led troops through enemy fire and earned the Combat Action Badge. Today, he continues his military service by providing legal support for soldiers and assisting in the prosecution of military crimes as a Lt. Colonel in the Judge Advocate General Corps.
He is a graduate of Francis Marion University and the University of South Carolina School of Law. Wilson and his wife, Jennifer, have two young children, Michael and Anna Grace.
Partner, Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough LLP
Miles practices in the areas of appeals, business litigation, and First Amendment law. In addition to representing clients in complex civil and criminal litigation and appeals, Miles advises and represents public and private universities and serves as outside general counsel to several business and educational clients. He also represents and counsels private entities and government agencies and officials, including multiple current and former governors of South Carolina and members of Congress, on issues relating to the constitutional and statutory freedoms of speech, religion, and association. His First Amendment work has been cited by the United States Supreme Court.
State Attorney General, Texas
Attorney General, Nebraska
Elected as Nebraska’s 32nd Attorney General in 2014, Doug Peterson has dedicated his career to being an advocate for Nebraskans both in state and federal court.
Peterson was born in Columbus, Nebraska and grew up primarily in Lincoln. He graduated from the University of Nebraska with a business degree in 1981, and from Pepperdine University School of Law in 1985. Following law school, Mr. Peterson spent two years in North Platte, Nebraska, prosecuting both criminal and civil cases for the Lincoln County Attorney. From 1988 to 1990, he served as Assistant Attorney General to the Nebraska Attorney General’s office, representing the State in employment law matters and tort litigation. In 1990, Peterson entered private practice, where he had the opportunity to advise and advocate for both individuals and businesses.
In his role as Attorney General, Peterson works closely with law enforcement agencies across the State to ensure that Nebraska communities are safe. Peterson’s office has supported strengthened legislation and enforcement in the areas of human trafficking, prosecution of child sexual assault and abuse, and consumer protection laws to safeguard all Nebraskans.
Office Overview
The Nebraska Department of Justice/Office of the Attorney General operates, in many respects, as the “State’s law firm.” The office is headed by the Nebraska Attorney General, an independently-elected constitutional officer, and is a diverse organization of highly specialized attorneys and support staff. The Attorney General’s Office is the largest “law firm” in Nebraska outside of Omaha.
Major Duties
Attorney General, South Carolina
Alan Wilson was elected South Carolina’s Fifty-First Attorney General on November 2, 2010, and took office on January 12, 2011, becoming the nation’s youngest Attorney General.
This marks his third stint in the office. Previously, he served as a prosecution division intern under Charlie Condon and as an Assistant Attorney General under Henry McMaster.
As South Carolina’s Attorney General, Wilson is the state’s chief prosecutor, chief securities officer, and the state’s chief legal counsel. The office is comprised of more than two hundred employees and nearly seventy-five attorneys who manage nearly 8,000 active case files.
Wilson has focused on keeping our families safe and defending the Constitution.
He has assembled an unprecedented coalition consisting of the Attorney General’s office, the State Law Enforcement Division, every sheriff, the Police Chief’s Association, and all 16 solicitors. Together, they are actively advancing legislative priorities to ensure South Carolina is the safest place to live, work, and raise a family.
As Attorney General, Wilson has defended the Constitution and the laws of this state even if it means challenging the federal government. He has protected South Carolina’s right-to-work; helped lead the 26-state challenge to the federal health care mandate; and successfully safeguarded South Carolina’s voter identification and immigration laws in court.
Today, he is actively engaged in state and federal litigation to provide safe harbor to South Carolina’s ports, shield the state’s energy interests at Yucca Mountain, as well as a constitutional challenge of Dodd-Frank.
Prior to his election, Wilson served as an Assistant Solicitor and as an Assistant Attorney General before entering private practice with the Columbia firm of Willoughby & Hoefer, P.A. He began his legal career working for the late Judge Marc H. Westbrook.
Growing up, public service was paramount in the Wilson house. Alan and his three brothers have all achieved the rank of Eagle Scout. All four presently serve our nation in uniform.
Wilson joined the National Guard immediately after graduating from college. He was called to serve in Iraq where he led troops through enemy fire and earned the Combat Action Badge. Today, he continues his military service by providing legal support for soldiers and assisting in the prosecution of military crimes as a Lt. Colonel in the Judge Advocate General Corps.
He is a graduate of Francis Marion University and the University of South Carolina School of Law. Wilson and his wife, Jennifer, have two young children, Michael and Anna Grace.
State Attorney General, Texas
Partner, Lehotsky Keller LLP
The New York Times recognized Scott A. Keller as a “legal heavyweight,” who “is praised by opponents as a formidable advocate.”
Mr. Keller has argued 12 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and 12 cases before the Texas Supreme Court. He is the only practicing lawyer to have argued at least 10 cases in both courts. Mr. Keller frequently represents parties in high stakes appeals, and he has argued many cases in federal courts of appeals throughout the nation. He has earned individual accolades from Lawdragon 500 Leading Litigators in America, Chambers, Legal 500, The American Lawyer, The National Law Journal, Law360, Super Lawyers, The Best Lawyers in America, and other publications.
Before founding Lehotsky Keller Cohn LLP, Mr. Keller headed Baker Botts LLP’s Supreme Court Practice. He also has significant experience at the highest levels in all three branches of government. Mr. Keller served as the Solicitor General of Texas, the State’s chief appellate litigator. He was U.S. Senator Ted Cruz’s chief counsel on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Mr. Keller was a law clerk for Justice Anthony Kennedy of the Supreme Court of the United States and Chief Judge Alex Kozinski of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. He was also a Bristow Fellow in the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of the Solicitor General.
Mr. Keller represents clients in cases where public communications strategy is crucial, and he has made numerous media appearances in major outlets such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, BBC, Fox News, NPR, and Politico. As a sought after speaker and writer, Mr. Keller’s articles have appeared in the Stanford Law Review, Virginia Law Review, and Texas Law Review. He has also served as an adjunct professor of constitutional litigation, Supreme Court practice, and federal courts at the University of Texas School of Law.
State Attorney General, Texas
Board Member, U.S. Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board
Beth A. Williams is a Board Member of the United States Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, an agency whose mission is to ensure that the federal government's efforts to prevent terrorism are balanced with the need to protect privacy and civil liberties.
Prior to her Board service, Ms. Williams was the Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Policy at the United States Department of Justice from August 2017 to December 2020. In that role, she served as the primary policy advisor to the Attorney General and the Deputy Attorney General, and as the Chief Regulatory Officer for the Department. Ms. Williams also led the judicial nomination process for the Department, assisting in the selection and confirmation of more than 230 Article III judges to the bench.
Prior to becoming Assistant Attorney General, Ms. Williams was a litigation and appellate partner at a national law firm, where her practice focused on complex commercial, securities, appellate, and First Amendment litigation. From 2005-2006, Ms. Williams served as Special Counsel to the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary, where she assisted with the confirmation of Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. and Associate Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. to the United States Supreme Court.
Ms. Williams clerked for the Hon. Richard C. Wesley on the United State Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. She graduated from Harvard College magna cum laude, with a degree in History and Literature, and she earned her law degree from Harvard Law School, where she served as Executive Editor of the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy.
Associate Justice, Minnesota Supreme Court (ret.)
Former Minnesota Supreme Court Justice Barry Anderson is a 1976 graduate of Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minnesota and a 1979 graduate of the University of Minnesota Law School. He was a member of the Minnesota Court of Appeals from August 1998 until his appointment to the Supreme Court. He was sworn in and joined the court on October 13, 2004, and served through to his retirement on May 10, 2024.
He previously was a partner in the Minneapolis and Hutchinson law firm of Arnold, Anderson & Dove, PLLP, and also served the City of Hutchinson as City Attorney from 1987 to 1998. He is certified by the Minnesota State Bar Association as a civil trial specialist.
Justice Anderson’s background includes substantial public service including as a board member and chair of variety of community organizations including service clubs, task forces and a local public access channel as well as a wide variety of other community activities.
Justice Anderson also served on the Minnesota Judicial Council, the managing body for the Minnesota Judicial Branch. He is also a frequent contributor to continuing legal education efforts on both appellate advocacy issues as well as general trial practice.
Partner, Locke Lord LLP
Paulette Brown, a partner in the Labor & Employment group of Locke Lord LLP was the first woman of color to lead the American Bar Association in its 137 year history. Brown simultaneously served as the first person of color to Chair the Labor & Employment Section of the New Jersey State Bar Association. Brown has been honored by the National Law Journal as one of the 50 Most Influential Minority Lawyers in the US and by US News as one of the Best Lawyers in America. She is also nationally recognized for her efforts relating to diversity & inclusion.
Elihu Root Professor of Law, New York University School of Law
Stephen Gillers has been a professor of law at New York University School of Law since 1978 and Vice Dean from 1999-2004. He holds the Elihu Root chair. He does most of his research and writing on the regulation of the legal profession. His courses include Regulation of Lawyers, Evidence, and Law and Literature (with University Professor Catharine Stimpson, former dean of the graduate school).
Professor Gillers has written widely on legal and judicial ethics in law reviews and in the legal and popular press. He has taught legal ethics as a visitor at other law schools and has spoken on lawyer regulatory issues at hundreds of events in the U.S. and in Europe, Asia, and South America - often for legal ethics CLE credit - including at federal and state judicial conferences, law firms, corporate general counsel's offices, government law offices, ABA meetings, state and city bar meetings nationwide, in oral and written submissions to Congress, and in law school lectureships. For many years, four or five times each year, he has lectured on legal ethics at the New York City Bar Association CLEs.
Professor Gillers is the author of Regulation of Lawyers: Problems of Law and Ethics, a widely used law school casebook first published by Little, Brown (now Aspen) in 1985 with a 10th edition in 2015. With Roy Simon (and Andrew Perlman as of 2008 and Dana Remus as of 2016), he has edited Regulation of Lawyers: Statutes and Standards, published annually by Little, Brown, then Aspen, since 1989. He is also the author of Regulation of the Legal Profession (Aspen 2009)(the "Essentials" series).
From 2000-2002, Professor Gillers was a member of the ABA's Multijurisdictional Practice Commission which proposed rule changes (all of them accepted) to recognize the cross-border nature of legal practice. In 2009, Professor Gillers was selected to be a member of the ABA 20/20 Commission, 2010-2013, which studied the effects of technology and globalization on the regulation of lawyers leading to amendments to the Model Rules and recommended rule changes all of which were accepted. He was chair of the Policy Implementation Committee of the ABA's Center for Professional Responsibility (2004-2008) and was a member from 2002-2010. He was a member of the International Issues Committee of the ABA Section on Legal Education (2008-2009) and
In 2011, he received the Michael Franck Award from the ABA’s Center for Professional Responsibility. The Award is given annually for “significant contributions to the work of the organized bar….noteworthy scholarly contributions made in academic settings, [and] creative judicial or legislative initiatives undertaken to advance the professionalism of lawyers…are also given consideration.” The American Bar Foundation gave him the Outstanding Scholar Award in 2015.
Following a clerkship with Chief Judge Gus J. Solomon in Federal District Court in Portland, Oregon, Professor Gillers practiced law for nine years in various settings in New York City before joining the NYU Law School faculty. He is often quoted on issues of legal ethics in the legal and popular media.
Professor Gillers' latest scholarship is A Rule to Forbid Bias and Harassment in Law Practice: A Guide for State Courts Considering Model Rule 8.4(g), 30 Geo. J. Legal Ethics ____ (2017); Guns, Fruits, Drugs, and Documents: A Criminal Defense Lawyer's Responsibility for Real Evidence, 63 Stan. L. Rev. 813 (2011); A Profession, If You Can Keep It: How Information Technology and Fading Borders Are Reshaping the Law Marketplace and What We Should Do About It, 63 Hastings L. J. 953 (2012); How To Make Rules for Lawyers: The Professional Responsibility of the Legal Profession, 40 Pepperdine L. Rev. 365 (2013)(Symposium issue on The Lawyer of the Future); and Lowering the Bar: How Lawyer Discipline in New York Fails to Protect the Public, 17 J. Legis. & Public Policy 485 (2014).
State Attorney General, Texas
Doy & Dee Henley Chair and Distinguished Professor of Jurisprude, Chapman University Dale E. Fowler School of Law
Ronald D. Rotunda was the Doy & Dee Henley Chair and Distinguished Professor of Jurisprudence, at Chapman University, the Dale E. Fowler School of Law. He joined the faculty in 2008. Before that, he was University Professor and Professor of Law at George Mason University School of Law. From 2002 to 2006, he was the George Mason University Foundation Professor of Law. Before that, he was the Albert E. Jenner, Jr. Professor of Law, at the University of Illinois. He was a magna cum laude graduate of both Harvard College and Harvard Law School, where he was a member of Harvard Law Review. He joined the University of Illinois faculty in 1974 after clerking for Judge Walter R. Mansfield of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, practicing law in Washington, D.C., and serving as assistant majority counsel for the Senate Watergate Committee. He has co-authored the most widely used course book on legal ethics, Problems and Materials on Professional Responsibility(Foundation Press, 12th ed. 2014) and was the author of a leading course book on constitutional law, Modern Constitutional Law (West Academic Co., 11th ed. 2015)(Abridged & Unabridged editions). He was the coauthor of, Legal Ethics: The Lawyer's Deskbook on Professional Responsibility (ABA- West/Thompson Reuters Publishing, St. Paul, Minnesota, 2016-2017 ed.) (Jointly published by the ABA and West/Thompson Reuters Publishing) (with John Dzienkowski). Rotunda also co-authored (with John Nowak) the six-volume Treatise on Constitutional Law (West/Thompson Reuters Publishing, 5th ed. 2012)(with annual updates), and a one volume Treatise on Constitutional Law (West Academic, 8th ed. 2010). He was also the author of several other books and more than 500 articles in various law reviews, journals, newspapers, and books in this country and abroad. His works have been translated into French, Portuguese German, Romanian, Czech, Russian, Japanese, and Korean. These books and articles have been cited more than 2000 times by law reviews, by state and federal courts at every level, from trial courts to the U.S. Supreme Court, and by foreign courts in Europe, Africa, Asia, and South America. He has been interviewed on radio and television on legal issues, both in this country and abroad. In 1993 he was the Constitutional Law Adviser to the Supreme National Council of Cambodia and assisted that country in writing its first democratic constitution. He has consulted with various new democracies in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, including Moldova, Romania, and Ukraine, on their proposed constitutions and judicial codes. He chaired the subcommittee that drafted the American Bar Association's Model Rules for Lawyer Disciplinary Enforcement; was a member of the Publications Board of the A.B.A. Center for Professional Responsibility from 1994 to 2016; was a member of the A.B.A. Standing Committee on Professional Discipline (1991-1997); and was Liaison to the A.B.A. Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility (1994-1997). He was a Fulbright Professor in Venezuela in 1986 and a Fulbright Research Scholar in Italy in 1981. In 1996 he assisted the Czech Republic in drafting the first Rules of Ethics for lawyers in that country. During the Spring, 1999 semester, he was Visiting Professor at the University of Alabama School of Law, holding the John S. Stone Endowed Chair of Law. During the summer and fall of 2000, he was the Visiting Senior Fellow in Constitutional Studies at the Cato Institute, in Washington, DC. In the fall of 2001, he was visiting professor at George Mason University School of Law. During November-December, 2002, he was Visiting Scholar, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Faculty of Law, Leuven, Belgium. In May, 2004, and December, 2005, he was visiting lecturer at the Institute of Law and Economics, Institut für Recht und Ökonomik, at the University of Hamburg. From early June 2004 to May 2005, he was the Special Counsel to the Department of Defense. He was on the Panel of Contributing Editors that produced, Black's Law Dictionary (West/Thompson Reuters Publishing, 8th ed. 2004; Thomson-Reuters, 10th ed. 2014). From 2005-2006, he was a member of the Task Force on Judicial Functions of the Commission on Virginia Courts in the 21st Century: To Benefit All, to Exclude None.
In May, 2000, American Law Media, publisher of The American Lawyer, the National Law Journal, and the Legal Times picked Professor Rotunda as one of the ten most influential Illinois Lawyers. Also in 2000, a lengthy study that the University of Chicago Press published, which sought to determine the influence, productivity, and reputations of law professors over the last several decades, listed Professor Rotunda as the 17th highest in the nation. The 2002-2003 New Educational Quality Ranking of U.S. Law Schools (EQR) [the last year for which such records are available] ranks Professor Rotunda as the eleventh most cited of all law faculty in the United States. Seehttp://www.leiterrankings.com/faculty/2002faculty_impact_cites.shtml.
In July, 2007, he was one of the main speakers at the International Judicial Conference hosted by the United States Embassy, the Supreme Court of Latvia, and the Latvian Ministry of Justice. The other main speakers were Justice Samuel Alito, the President of Latvia, the Prime Minister of Latvia, the Chief Justice of Latvia, and the Minister of Justice of Latvia. On February 27, 2008, President George W. Bush nominated Ronald D. Rotunda to become a member of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) for an initial four-year term and sent his nomination to the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs for confirmation hearings on the nominees. He was selected the Best Lawyer in Washington, DC, in 2009 in Ethics and Professional Responsibility Law, as published in November 2008 in the Washington Post in association with the Legal Times. When he moved to California, he was also selected as one of the Best Lawyers in Southern California, in 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, also in Ethics and Professional Responsibility Law as published in the Los Angeles Times, U.S. News, and American Law Media. On June 17, 2009, he became a Commissioner of the Fair Political Practices Commission, a state regulatory agency (analogous to the Federal Election Commission) that is California's independent political watchdog. He served until January 31, 2013, when his term expired. In 2012, he became a Distinguished International Research Fellow at the World Engagement Institute, a non-profit, multidisciplinary and academically-based non-governmental organization with the mission to facilitate professional global engagement for international development and poverty reduction http://www.weinstitute.org/fellows.html. In 2012, Chapman University honored him with The Chapman University Excellence In Scholarly/Creative Work Award, 2011-2012. Since 2014, he has been a member of the Editorial Board of, The International Journal of Sustainable Human Security (IJSHS), a peer-reviewed publication of the World Engagement Institute (WEI). Rotunda was a Member of the Editorial Board of ABA's Journal of Legal Education (2014 to 2016).
Associate Justice, Minnesota Supreme Court (ret.)
Former Minnesota Supreme Court Justice Barry Anderson is a 1976 graduate of Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minnesota and a 1979 graduate of the University of Minnesota Law School. He was a member of the Minnesota Court of Appeals from August 1998 until his appointment to the Supreme Court. He was sworn in and joined the court on October 13, 2004, and served through to his retirement on May 10, 2024.
He previously was a partner in the Minneapolis and Hutchinson law firm of Arnold, Anderson & Dove, PLLP, and also served the City of Hutchinson as City Attorney from 1987 to 1998. He is certified by the Minnesota State Bar Association as a civil trial specialist.
Justice Anderson’s background includes substantial public service including as a board member and chair of variety of community organizations including service clubs, task forces and a local public access channel as well as a wide variety of other community activities.
Justice Anderson also served on the Minnesota Judicial Council, the managing body for the Minnesota Judicial Branch. He is also a frequent contributor to continuing legal education efforts on both appellate advocacy issues as well as general trial practice.
Partner, Locke Lord LLP
Paulette Brown, a partner in the Labor & Employment group of Locke Lord LLP was the first woman of color to lead the American Bar Association in its 137 year history. Brown simultaneously served as the first person of color to Chair the Labor & Employment Section of the New Jersey State Bar Association. Brown has been honored by the National Law Journal as one of the 50 Most Influential Minority Lawyers in the US and by US News as one of the Best Lawyers in America. She is also nationally recognized for her efforts relating to diversity & inclusion.
Elihu Root Professor of Law, New York University School of Law
Stephen Gillers has been a professor of law at New York University School of Law since 1978 and Vice Dean from 1999-2004. He holds the Elihu Root chair. He does most of his research and writing on the regulation of the legal profession. His courses include Regulation of Lawyers, Evidence, and Law and Literature (with University Professor Catharine Stimpson, former dean of the graduate school).
Professor Gillers has written widely on legal and judicial ethics in law reviews and in the legal and popular press. He has taught legal ethics as a visitor at other law schools and has spoken on lawyer regulatory issues at hundreds of events in the U.S. and in Europe, Asia, and South America - often for legal ethics CLE credit - including at federal and state judicial conferences, law firms, corporate general counsel's offices, government law offices, ABA meetings, state and city bar meetings nationwide, in oral and written submissions to Congress, and in law school lectureships. For many years, four or five times each year, he has lectured on legal ethics at the New York City Bar Association CLEs.
Professor Gillers is the author of Regulation of Lawyers: Problems of Law and Ethics, a widely used law school casebook first published by Little, Brown (now Aspen) in 1985 with a 10th edition in 2015. With Roy Simon (and Andrew Perlman as of 2008 and Dana Remus as of 2016), he has edited Regulation of Lawyers: Statutes and Standards, published annually by Little, Brown, then Aspen, since 1989. He is also the author of Regulation of the Legal Profession (Aspen 2009)(the "Essentials" series).
From 2000-2002, Professor Gillers was a member of the ABA's Multijurisdictional Practice Commission which proposed rule changes (all of them accepted) to recognize the cross-border nature of legal practice. In 2009, Professor Gillers was selected to be a member of the ABA 20/20 Commission, 2010-2013, which studied the effects of technology and globalization on the regulation of lawyers leading to amendments to the Model Rules and recommended rule changes all of which were accepted. He was chair of the Policy Implementation Committee of the ABA's Center for Professional Responsibility (2004-2008) and was a member from 2002-2010. He was a member of the International Issues Committee of the ABA Section on Legal Education (2008-2009) and
In 2011, he received the Michael Franck Award from the ABA’s Center for Professional Responsibility. The Award is given annually for “significant contributions to the work of the organized bar….noteworthy scholarly contributions made in academic settings, [and] creative judicial or legislative initiatives undertaken to advance the professionalism of lawyers…are also given consideration.” The American Bar Foundation gave him the Outstanding Scholar Award in 2015.
Following a clerkship with Chief Judge Gus J. Solomon in Federal District Court in Portland, Oregon, Professor Gillers practiced law for nine years in various settings in New York City before joining the NYU Law School faculty. He is often quoted on issues of legal ethics in the legal and popular media.
Professor Gillers' latest scholarship is A Rule to Forbid Bias and Harassment in Law Practice: A Guide for State Courts Considering Model Rule 8.4(g), 30 Geo. J. Legal Ethics ____ (2017); Guns, Fruits, Drugs, and Documents: A Criminal Defense Lawyer's Responsibility for Real Evidence, 63 Stan. L. Rev. 813 (2011); A Profession, If You Can Keep It: How Information Technology and Fading Borders Are Reshaping the Law Marketplace and What We Should Do About It, 63 Hastings L. J. 953 (2012); How To Make Rules for Lawyers: The Professional Responsibility of the Legal Profession, 40 Pepperdine L. Rev. 365 (2013)(Symposium issue on The Lawyer of the Future); and Lowering the Bar: How Lawyer Discipline in New York Fails to Protect the Public, 17 J. Legis. & Public Policy 485 (2014).
State Attorney General, Texas
Doy & Dee Henley Chair and Distinguished Professor of Jurisprude, Chapman University Dale E. Fowler School of Law
Ronald D. Rotunda was the Doy & Dee Henley Chair and Distinguished Professor of Jurisprudence, at Chapman University, the Dale E. Fowler School of Law. He joined the faculty in 2008. Before that, he was University Professor and Professor of Law at George Mason University School of Law. From 2002 to 2006, he was the George Mason University Foundation Professor of Law. Before that, he was the Albert E. Jenner, Jr. Professor of Law, at the University of Illinois. He was a magna cum laude graduate of both Harvard College and Harvard Law School, where he was a member of Harvard Law Review. He joined the University of Illinois faculty in 1974 after clerking for Judge Walter R. Mansfield of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, practicing law in Washington, D.C., and serving as assistant majority counsel for the Senate Watergate Committee. He has co-authored the most widely used course book on legal ethics, Problems and Materials on Professional Responsibility(Foundation Press, 12th ed. 2014) and was the author of a leading course book on constitutional law, Modern Constitutional Law (West Academic Co., 11th ed. 2015)(Abridged & Unabridged editions). He was the coauthor of, Legal Ethics: The Lawyer's Deskbook on Professional Responsibility (ABA- West/Thompson Reuters Publishing, St. Paul, Minnesota, 2016-2017 ed.) (Jointly published by the ABA and West/Thompson Reuters Publishing) (with John Dzienkowski). Rotunda also co-authored (with John Nowak) the six-volume Treatise on Constitutional Law (West/Thompson Reuters Publishing, 5th ed. 2012)(with annual updates), and a one volume Treatise on Constitutional Law (West Academic, 8th ed. 2010). He was also the author of several other books and more than 500 articles in various law reviews, journals, newspapers, and books in this country and abroad. His works have been translated into French, Portuguese German, Romanian, Czech, Russian, Japanese, and Korean. These books and articles have been cited more than 2000 times by law reviews, by state and federal courts at every level, from trial courts to the U.S. Supreme Court, and by foreign courts in Europe, Africa, Asia, and South America. He has been interviewed on radio and television on legal issues, both in this country and abroad. In 1993 he was the Constitutional Law Adviser to the Supreme National Council of Cambodia and assisted that country in writing its first democratic constitution. He has consulted with various new democracies in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, including Moldova, Romania, and Ukraine, on their proposed constitutions and judicial codes. He chaired the subcommittee that drafted the American Bar Association's Model Rules for Lawyer Disciplinary Enforcement; was a member of the Publications Board of the A.B.A. Center for Professional Responsibility from 1994 to 2016; was a member of the A.B.A. Standing Committee on Professional Discipline (1991-1997); and was Liaison to the A.B.A. Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility (1994-1997). He was a Fulbright Professor in Venezuela in 1986 and a Fulbright Research Scholar in Italy in 1981. In 1996 he assisted the Czech Republic in drafting the first Rules of Ethics for lawyers in that country. During the Spring, 1999 semester, he was Visiting Professor at the University of Alabama School of Law, holding the John S. Stone Endowed Chair of Law. During the summer and fall of 2000, he was the Visiting Senior Fellow in Constitutional Studies at the Cato Institute, in Washington, DC. In the fall of 2001, he was visiting professor at George Mason University School of Law. During November-December, 2002, he was Visiting Scholar, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Faculty of Law, Leuven, Belgium. In May, 2004, and December, 2005, he was visiting lecturer at the Institute of Law and Economics, Institut für Recht und Ökonomik, at the University of Hamburg. From early June 2004 to May 2005, he was the Special Counsel to the Department of Defense. He was on the Panel of Contributing Editors that produced, Black's Law Dictionary (West/Thompson Reuters Publishing, 8th ed. 2004; Thomson-Reuters, 10th ed. 2014). From 2005-2006, he was a member of the Task Force on Judicial Functions of the Commission on Virginia Courts in the 21st Century: To Benefit All, to Exclude None.
In May, 2000, American Law Media, publisher of The American Lawyer, the National Law Journal, and the Legal Times picked Professor Rotunda as one of the ten most influential Illinois Lawyers. Also in 2000, a lengthy study that the University of Chicago Press published, which sought to determine the influence, productivity, and reputations of law professors over the last several decades, listed Professor Rotunda as the 17th highest in the nation. The 2002-2003 New Educational Quality Ranking of U.S. Law Schools (EQR) [the last year for which such records are available] ranks Professor Rotunda as the eleventh most cited of all law faculty in the United States. Seehttp://www.leiterrankings.com/faculty/2002faculty_impact_cites.shtml.
In July, 2007, he was one of the main speakers at the International Judicial Conference hosted by the United States Embassy, the Supreme Court of Latvia, and the Latvian Ministry of Justice. The other main speakers were Justice Samuel Alito, the President of Latvia, the Prime Minister of Latvia, the Chief Justice of Latvia, and the Minister of Justice of Latvia. On February 27, 2008, President George W. Bush nominated Ronald D. Rotunda to become a member of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) for an initial four-year term and sent his nomination to the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs for confirmation hearings on the nominees. He was selected the Best Lawyer in Washington, DC, in 2009 in Ethics and Professional Responsibility Law, as published in November 2008 in the Washington Post in association with the Legal Times. When he moved to California, he was also selected as one of the Best Lawyers in Southern California, in 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, also in Ethics and Professional Responsibility Law as published in the Los Angeles Times, U.S. News, and American Law Media. On June 17, 2009, he became a Commissioner of the Fair Political Practices Commission, a state regulatory agency (analogous to the Federal Election Commission) that is California's independent political watchdog. He served until January 31, 2013, when his term expired. In 2012, he became a Distinguished International Research Fellow at the World Engagement Institute, a non-profit, multidisciplinary and academically-based non-governmental organization with the mission to facilitate professional global engagement for international development and poverty reduction http://www.weinstitute.org/fellows.html. In 2012, Chapman University honored him with The Chapman University Excellence In Scholarly/Creative Work Award, 2011-2012. Since 2014, he has been a member of the Editorial Board of, The International Journal of Sustainable Human Security (IJSHS), a peer-reviewed publication of the World Engagement Institute (WEI). Rotunda was a Member of the Editorial Board of ABA's Journal of Legal Education (2014 to 2016).
State Attorney General, Texas
Professor of Law, University of Virginia School of Law
Aditya Bamzai is a professor of law at the University of Virginia. He teaches administrative law, civil procedure, computer crime and conflicts of law, and he has written about these and related subjects. He has argued cases relating to the separation of powers and national security in the U.S. Supreme Court, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review, D.C. Circuit and other federal courts of appeals. From 2019 to 2021, he served as a Member of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, a federal agency charged with ensuring that the government’s national security efforts are balanced with the need to protect privacy and civil liberties. Before entering the academy, Bamzai was an attorney-adviser in the Office of Legal Counsel of the U.S. Department of Justice, and an appellate attorney in both private practice and for the National Security Division of the Department of Justice. Earlier in his career, he was a law clerk to Justice Antonin Scalia of the Supreme Court of the United States and to Judge Jeffrey Sutton of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Professor of Law, Baylor Law School
Professor Ron Beal has developed an expertise in Texas administrative law. He has authored numerous law review articles that have been cited as authoritative by the Texas judiciary, taught training courses for administrative law judges and lectured in advanced courses for practicing lawyers.
"Procedure is the lifeblood of the practicing attorney," he says. "There is no greater error that can be committed by a lawyer than making a procedural error that deprives his/her client of the right to have a decision made on the merits of a claim or defense. At the same time, there is no other area of the law that a student perceives as more boring than studying procedural law. Thus, I am highly motivated to engage students in studying procedure and to demonstrate to them the vital importance of the subject area."
"In addition, administrative law can be properly labeled as a "hybrid system" that borrows principles from the constitutional system and blends them with informal processes of decision-making and policy formation. It is difficult for the average student to view issues with clarity when the answer is not black or white, but is found within the gray area that merges principles from both disciplines. However, if one can discern the consistent themes within this unique area of law, the sun shines through the trees and the student experiences the 'Ah-Ha' phenomenon of understanding. That is my reward and my goal for Baylor Law students."
Professor Beal earned a J.D. from William Mitchell College of Law in 1979 after receiving a B.A. in 1975 from St. Olaf College. After graduation, he was a civil trial lawyer for three years in St. Paul, Minn., at Murnane, Brandt . Professor Beal then earned a LL.M. at Temple University School of Law in Philadelphia, Penn. In 1983, he joined the faculty at Baylor Law School.
In 1991, he was honored by the State Bar of Texas Administrative and Public Law Council for writing the Outstanding Administrative Law Review Article and in 1994, Baylor University conferred upon him the award of Outstanding Research Professor. In 1997, he completed a treatise, Texas Administrative Practice and Procedure, which is considered the "bible" of Texas administrative law. He also has served as Editor-in-Chief of the General Practice Digest of the General Practice, Solo and Small Firm Section of the State Bar of Texas for the last 25 years. He has also been the contributing editor for Texas Administrative Law for 25 years.
Professor Beal is an avid jogger and recently ran in the infamous Bay to Breakers race in San Francisco. He also enjoys reading, PBS Mysteries and Masterpiece Theatre, classical music, art and foreign films and model railroading.
Founding Partner, Cooper & Kirk PLLC
Charles J. Cooper is a founding member and the chairman of Cooper & Kirk, PLLC, “one of the Nation’s leading litigation boutiques” (Above The Law 2017). The National Law Journal recently wrote that Mr. Cooper’s “brilliant legal career has so far spanned five decades and thrust Cooper into the spotlight in some of the most historic moments of the country’s modern history.” He has argued nine cases before the United States Supreme Court and scores of appeals before each of the 13 federal courts of appeals and several state supreme courts. He has been lead trial counsel in numerous complex, weeks-long trials in federal courts throughout the country. Named by the National Law Journal as one of the 10 best litigators in Washington D.C., Mr. Cooper’s work has been reported in numerous press accounts, and he has been called a “powerhouse attorney” (Fortune 2015), “a hard-nosed litigator” (Washington Post 2017), and “one of the country’s most in-demand civil litigators and a Washington legal institution unto himself” (The American Spectator 2014).
After graduating from the University of Alabama School of Law in 1977, where he ranked first in his class and served as Editor-in-Chief of the Alabama Law Review, Mr. Cooper began his career as a law clerk to Judge Paul Roney on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and to Justice William H. Rehnquist in 1978–79. He then practiced law in Atlanta for two years before joining the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, where he served as the Deputy Assistant Attorney General in charge of, among other things, appellate matters. In 1985 President Reagan appointed him to the position of Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel, which is the office responsible for providing legal opinions and advice to the White House, the Attorney General, and Executive Branch departments and agencies on issues covering the full spectrum of federal constitutional, statutory, and regulatory law.
In 1988 he returned to private practice as a litigation partner in the Washington, D.C. office of McGuireWoods. From 1990 until the founding of Cooper & Kirk in 1996, he was a partner at Shaw Pittman (now Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman), where he headed the firm’s Constitutional and Government Litigation Group.
Mr. Cooper has represented a wide range of public and private clients in highly complex constitutional, civil rights, antitrust, healthcare, banking, intellectual property, elections, campaign finance, administrative, commercial, and government contract cases. He has led trial teams in cases that have won judgments and settlements valued in the billions of dollars and that have established ground-breaking constitutional precedents.
Much of Mr. Cooper’s practice has involved representing high-profile clients in nationally prominent matters, including: the State of Florida in a First Amendment suit brought by the Disney Company concerning its autonomous regulatory authority over its Disney World property; the Commonwealth of Virginia in a suit seeking to enjoin the removal of noncitizens from its voter rolls; 38 members of the Duke Lacrosse team falsely accused of rape by officials of Duke University and the City of Durham; Harper Lee in a copyright dispute with the heirs of Gregory Peck; high-ranking former government officials such as former Attorneys General John Ashcroft, Jeff Sessions, and William Barr, and Ambassador John Bolton; several Governors and United States Senators; over 100 Members of Congress; and many state, territorial, and local government bodies and officials. He has also represented and advised government officials and public figures in connection with sensitive private issues that needed to be, and were, resolved discreetly without becoming matters of public record.
In 1998 Chief Justice Rehnquist appointed Mr. Cooper to the Standing Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure of the Judicial Conference of the United States, where he served for three terms. He also served as a Public Member, appointed by President George H.W. Bush, of the National Commission on Judicial Discipline and Removal. He is a member of numerous professional associations, including the American Law Institute (since 1993) and the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers (since 1996). He is also an active member of the Federalist Society and the Republican National Lawyers Association, which in 2010 named him Republican Lawyer of the Year and in 2016 honored him with its Edwin Meese III Award.
Mr. Cooper has published scores of articles and spoken extensively on constitutional and legal policy topics. He has appeared before congressional committees on 26 occasions, testifying as an expert on a wide variety of legal issues, including the Chevron doctrine of judicial deference to administrative agencies, the diversity of citizenship jurisdiction of federal courts, statehood bills for Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia, and the impeachment of President Clinton.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit
Edith Jones graduated from Alamo Heights High School, where she was a National Merit Scholar. In 1971, she received her B.A. in Economics from Cornell University, graduating with honors. In 1974, she was awarded her J.D. at the University of Texas Law School, where she was a law review editor and received the Order of the Coif.
Judge Jones was the first female partner at Andrews, Kurth, Campbell & Jones (now Hunton Andrews Kurth) where she practiced various types of litigation and bankruptcy cases. Judge Jones went on the federal bench on June 1, 1985.
Judge Jones served as a former member of the National Bankruptcy Review Commission, and as a member of the Judicial Conference Commission on Bankruptcy Rules. Judge Jones served on the White House Fellows Commission. Judge Jones served on the board of the Sam Houston Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America. She has been a member of the Garland Walker Inn of Court in Houston for more than 20 years and its President for at least ten years. Judge Jones is also on the Board of the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Foundation.
Founder, Libertas-West Project
Karen Lugo is a constitutional law consultant and national security analyst. She was Director of the Center for Tenth Amendment at Texas Public Policy Foundation from 2013 to 2015. When living in California, she was Co-Director of the Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence Center. From 2005 – 2012, she was a clinical visiting and adjunct professor at Chapman University School of Law where she co-taught the advanced Constitutional Law Clinic. Karen has co-authored and written circuit-level and Supreme Court amicus briefs on such issues as FISA Surveillance, Healthcare Reform, Arizona’s Border Security, Gay Marriage, The Ten Commandments, Eminent Domain, Christian Clubs on University Campuses, and Material Support for Terrorists.
Karen is the founder of the Libertas-West Project, a center for study Islamic integration and radicalization issues. In this capacity, she consulted with the Center for Security Policy to write a book on local over-watch of mosque construction and community engagement called: Mosques in America: A Guide to Accountable Permit Hearings and Continuing Citizen Oversight.
Karen writes and speaks for European and American groups on the importance of basing assimilation efforts on principles of Western exceptionalism. She presented a policy brief to the French Conseil d’Etat analyzing the legal implications of banning the burqa. Ms. Lugo has written one of the most comprehensive overviews of sharia law in American courts, American Family Law and Sharia-Compliant Marriages, for the Federalist Society law journal, Engage. She has written several white papers on the American Law for American Courts legislation and sharia tribunals in America.
Ms. Lugo was an appointee to the California Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. She also taught a Human Rights law course on the contrast between French and English Enlightenment theories in Strasbourg, France.
Until moving from California, Ms. Lugo was a member of the David Horowitz Freedom Center Board of Directors. She was also a regular guest on the Orange County PBS local issues debate program, Inside OC, and she is a contributor to Pajamas Media, National Review Online, City Journal, American Spectator, American Greatness, Townhall.com, American Thinker, Daily Caller, and Family Security Matters. She has been interviewed by dozens of radio hosts and has spoken for civic groups on constitutional and cultural concerns.
Charles I. Francis Professorship in Law, University of Texas at Austin School of Law
Professor Aaron Nielson lectures and writes in the areas of administrative law, civil procedure, and federal courts. Before joining the faculty, he served as Solicitor General of Texas and represented Texas before the U.S. Supreme Court and the Texas Supreme Court, as well as overseeing all appellate litigation for the State. Earlier in his career, he was a professor at Brigham Young University and an appellate and antitrust partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Kirkland & Ellis LLP. He also clerked for Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. of the U.S. Supreme Court, Judge Janice Rogers Brown of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, and Judge Jerry E. Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
As Solicitor General, Professor Nielson successfully defended against a First Amendment challenge Texas’s law requiring online pornographers to institute age verification. In 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court appointed him to defend the constitutionality of a federal agency. He currently serves as a Senior Fellow of the Administrative Conference of the United States after completing a six-year term as an appointed public member and chair of the Conference’s Administration & Management Committee.
Nielson’s research focuses on administrative law, federal litigation, and the separation of powers. He has published (or soon will publish) in the Harvard Law Review, Columbia Law Review, University of Chicago Law Review, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, Duke Law Journal, Georgetown Law Journal, Cornell Law Review, and Northwestern University Law Review, among others. Nielson has been recognized for teaching for teaching and scholarship and in 2021 received the Federalist Society’s Joseph Story Award, which recognizes a young academic for excellence in legal scholarship, a commitment to teaching, and a concern for students, and who has made a significant public impact in a manner that advances the rule of law in a free society. He is also an elected member of the American Law Institute.
Professor Nielson received his J.D. magna cum laude from Harvard Law School and an LL.M from the University of Cambridge, where he focused his studies on the institutions that regulate global competition and commerce. He received his undergraduate degree summa cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania, majoring in economics and political science.
State Attorney General, Texas
Of Counsel, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP
Prerak Shah is Of Counsel at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP. He was most recently the Acting United States Attorney for the Northern District of Texas, leading a team of approximately 120 Assistant U.S. Attorneys handling a wide range of cases, including securities fraud, health care fraud, the False Claims Act, computer crime, national security, tax fraud, money laundering, public corruption, and terrorism. Mr. Shah previously held several leadership positions at the Department of Justice, including Deputy Associate Attorney General in the office overseeing the work of the Antitrust, Civil, Civil Rights, Environment & Natural Resources, and Tax Divisions. Before joining the Justice Department, Mr. Shah served as Chief of Staff to Senator Ted Cruz and as a Chief Counsel on the Senate Judiciary Committee. He graduated from the University of Chicago Law School and clerked for the Honorable Jerry E. Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
Professor of Law, University of Virginia School of Law
Aditya Bamzai is a professor of law at the University of Virginia. He teaches administrative law, civil procedure, computer crime and conflicts of law, and he has written about these and related subjects. He has argued cases relating to the separation of powers and national security in the U.S. Supreme Court, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review, D.C. Circuit and other federal courts of appeals. From 2019 to 2021, he served as a Member of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, a federal agency charged with ensuring that the government’s national security efforts are balanced with the need to protect privacy and civil liberties. Before entering the academy, Bamzai was an attorney-adviser in the Office of Legal Counsel of the U.S. Department of Justice, and an appellate attorney in both private practice and for the National Security Division of the Department of Justice. Earlier in his career, he was a law clerk to Justice Antonin Scalia of the Supreme Court of the United States and to Judge Jeffrey Sutton of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Professor of Law, Baylor Law School
Professor Ron Beal has developed an expertise in Texas administrative law. He has authored numerous law review articles that have been cited as authoritative by the Texas judiciary, taught training courses for administrative law judges and lectured in advanced courses for practicing lawyers.
"Procedure is the lifeblood of the practicing attorney," he says. "There is no greater error that can be committed by a lawyer than making a procedural error that deprives his/her client of the right to have a decision made on the merits of a claim or defense. At the same time, there is no other area of the law that a student perceives as more boring than studying procedural law. Thus, I am highly motivated to engage students in studying procedure and to demonstrate to them the vital importance of the subject area."
"In addition, administrative law can be properly labeled as a "hybrid system" that borrows principles from the constitutional system and blends them with informal processes of decision-making and policy formation. It is difficult for the average student to view issues with clarity when the answer is not black or white, but is found within the gray area that merges principles from both disciplines. However, if one can discern the consistent themes within this unique area of law, the sun shines through the trees and the student experiences the 'Ah-Ha' phenomenon of understanding. That is my reward and my goal for Baylor Law students."
Professor Beal earned a J.D. from William Mitchell College of Law in 1979 after receiving a B.A. in 1975 from St. Olaf College. After graduation, he was a civil trial lawyer for three years in St. Paul, Minn., at Murnane, Brandt . Professor Beal then earned a LL.M. at Temple University School of Law in Philadelphia, Penn. In 1983, he joined the faculty at Baylor Law School.
In 1991, he was honored by the State Bar of Texas Administrative and Public Law Council for writing the Outstanding Administrative Law Review Article and in 1994, Baylor University conferred upon him the award of Outstanding Research Professor. In 1997, he completed a treatise, Texas Administrative Practice and Procedure, which is considered the "bible" of Texas administrative law. He also has served as Editor-in-Chief of the General Practice Digest of the General Practice, Solo and Small Firm Section of the State Bar of Texas for the last 25 years. He has also been the contributing editor for Texas Administrative Law for 25 years.
Professor Beal is an avid jogger and recently ran in the infamous Bay to Breakers race in San Francisco. He also enjoys reading, PBS Mysteries and Masterpiece Theatre, classical music, art and foreign films and model railroading.
Founding Partner, Cooper & Kirk PLLC
Charles J. Cooper is a founding member and the chairman of Cooper & Kirk, PLLC, “one of the Nation’s leading litigation boutiques” (Above The Law 2017). The National Law Journal recently wrote that Mr. Cooper’s “brilliant legal career has so far spanned five decades and thrust Cooper into the spotlight in some of the most historic moments of the country’s modern history.” He has argued nine cases before the United States Supreme Court and scores of appeals before each of the 13 federal courts of appeals and several state supreme courts. He has been lead trial counsel in numerous complex, weeks-long trials in federal courts throughout the country. Named by the National Law Journal as one of the 10 best litigators in Washington D.C., Mr. Cooper’s work has been reported in numerous press accounts, and he has been called a “powerhouse attorney” (Fortune 2015), “a hard-nosed litigator” (Washington Post 2017), and “one of the country’s most in-demand civil litigators and a Washington legal institution unto himself” (The American Spectator 2014).
After graduating from the University of Alabama School of Law in 1977, where he ranked first in his class and served as Editor-in-Chief of the Alabama Law Review, Mr. Cooper began his career as a law clerk to Judge Paul Roney on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and to Justice William H. Rehnquist in 1978–79. He then practiced law in Atlanta for two years before joining the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, where he served as the Deputy Assistant Attorney General in charge of, among other things, appellate matters. In 1985 President Reagan appointed him to the position of Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel, which is the office responsible for providing legal opinions and advice to the White House, the Attorney General, and Executive Branch departments and agencies on issues covering the full spectrum of federal constitutional, statutory, and regulatory law.
In 1988 he returned to private practice as a litigation partner in the Washington, D.C. office of McGuireWoods. From 1990 until the founding of Cooper & Kirk in 1996, he was a partner at Shaw Pittman (now Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman), where he headed the firm’s Constitutional and Government Litigation Group.
Mr. Cooper has represented a wide range of public and private clients in highly complex constitutional, civil rights, antitrust, healthcare, banking, intellectual property, elections, campaign finance, administrative, commercial, and government contract cases. He has led trial teams in cases that have won judgments and settlements valued in the billions of dollars and that have established ground-breaking constitutional precedents.
Much of Mr. Cooper’s practice has involved representing high-profile clients in nationally prominent matters, including: the State of Florida in a First Amendment suit brought by the Disney Company concerning its autonomous regulatory authority over its Disney World property; the Commonwealth of Virginia in a suit seeking to enjoin the removal of noncitizens from its voter rolls; 38 members of the Duke Lacrosse team falsely accused of rape by officials of Duke University and the City of Durham; Harper Lee in a copyright dispute with the heirs of Gregory Peck; high-ranking former government officials such as former Attorneys General John Ashcroft, Jeff Sessions, and William Barr, and Ambassador John Bolton; several Governors and United States Senators; over 100 Members of Congress; and many state, territorial, and local government bodies and officials. He has also represented and advised government officials and public figures in connection with sensitive private issues that needed to be, and were, resolved discreetly without becoming matters of public record.
In 1998 Chief Justice Rehnquist appointed Mr. Cooper to the Standing Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure of the Judicial Conference of the United States, where he served for three terms. He also served as a Public Member, appointed by President George H.W. Bush, of the National Commission on Judicial Discipline and Removal. He is a member of numerous professional associations, including the American Law Institute (since 1993) and the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers (since 1996). He is also an active member of the Federalist Society and the Republican National Lawyers Association, which in 2010 named him Republican Lawyer of the Year and in 2016 honored him with its Edwin Meese III Award.
Mr. Cooper has published scores of articles and spoken extensively on constitutional and legal policy topics. He has appeared before congressional committees on 26 occasions, testifying as an expert on a wide variety of legal issues, including the Chevron doctrine of judicial deference to administrative agencies, the diversity of citizenship jurisdiction of federal courts, statehood bills for Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia, and the impeachment of President Clinton.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit
Edith Jones graduated from Alamo Heights High School, where she was a National Merit Scholar. In 1971, she received her B.A. in Economics from Cornell University, graduating with honors. In 1974, she was awarded her J.D. at the University of Texas Law School, where she was a law review editor and received the Order of the Coif.
Judge Jones was the first female partner at Andrews, Kurth, Campbell & Jones (now Hunton Andrews Kurth) where she practiced various types of litigation and bankruptcy cases. Judge Jones went on the federal bench on June 1, 1985.
Judge Jones served as a former member of the National Bankruptcy Review Commission, and as a member of the Judicial Conference Commission on Bankruptcy Rules. Judge Jones served on the White House Fellows Commission. Judge Jones served on the board of the Sam Houston Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America. She has been a member of the Garland Walker Inn of Court in Houston for more than 20 years and its President for at least ten years. Judge Jones is also on the Board of the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Foundation.
Founder, Libertas-West Project
Karen Lugo is a constitutional law consultant and national security analyst. She was Director of the Center for Tenth Amendment at Texas Public Policy Foundation from 2013 to 2015. When living in California, she was Co-Director of the Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence Center. From 2005 – 2012, she was a clinical visiting and adjunct professor at Chapman University School of Law where she co-taught the advanced Constitutional Law Clinic. Karen has co-authored and written circuit-level and Supreme Court amicus briefs on such issues as FISA Surveillance, Healthcare Reform, Arizona’s Border Security, Gay Marriage, The Ten Commandments, Eminent Domain, Christian Clubs on University Campuses, and Material Support for Terrorists.
Karen is the founder of the Libertas-West Project, a center for study Islamic integration and radicalization issues. In this capacity, she consulted with the Center for Security Policy to write a book on local over-watch of mosque construction and community engagement called: Mosques in America: A Guide to Accountable Permit Hearings and Continuing Citizen Oversight.
Karen writes and speaks for European and American groups on the importance of basing assimilation efforts on principles of Western exceptionalism. She presented a policy brief to the French Conseil d’Etat analyzing the legal implications of banning the burqa. Ms. Lugo has written one of the most comprehensive overviews of sharia law in American courts, American Family Law and Sharia-Compliant Marriages, for the Federalist Society law journal, Engage. She has written several white papers on the American Law for American Courts legislation and sharia tribunals in America.
Ms. Lugo was an appointee to the California Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. She also taught a Human Rights law course on the contrast between French and English Enlightenment theories in Strasbourg, France.
Until moving from California, Ms. Lugo was a member of the David Horowitz Freedom Center Board of Directors. She was also a regular guest on the Orange County PBS local issues debate program, Inside OC, and she is a contributor to Pajamas Media, National Review Online, City Journal, American Spectator, American Greatness, Townhall.com, American Thinker, Daily Caller, and Family Security Matters. She has been interviewed by dozens of radio hosts and has spoken for civic groups on constitutional and cultural concerns.
Charles I. Francis Professorship in Law, University of Texas at Austin School of Law
Professor Aaron Nielson lectures and writes in the areas of administrative law, civil procedure, and federal courts. Before joining the faculty, he served as Solicitor General of Texas and represented Texas before the U.S. Supreme Court and the Texas Supreme Court, as well as overseeing all appellate litigation for the State. Earlier in his career, he was a professor at Brigham Young University and an appellate and antitrust partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Kirkland & Ellis LLP. He also clerked for Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. of the U.S. Supreme Court, Judge Janice Rogers Brown of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, and Judge Jerry E. Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
As Solicitor General, Professor Nielson successfully defended against a First Amendment challenge Texas’s law requiring online pornographers to institute age verification. In 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court appointed him to defend the constitutionality of a federal agency. He currently serves as a Senior Fellow of the Administrative Conference of the United States after completing a six-year term as an appointed public member and chair of the Conference’s Administration & Management Committee.
Nielson’s research focuses on administrative law, federal litigation, and the separation of powers. He has published (or soon will publish) in the Harvard Law Review, Columbia Law Review, University of Chicago Law Review, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, Duke Law Journal, Georgetown Law Journal, Cornell Law Review, and Northwestern University Law Review, among others. Nielson has been recognized for teaching for teaching and scholarship and in 2021 received the Federalist Society’s Joseph Story Award, which recognizes a young academic for excellence in legal scholarship, a commitment to teaching, and a concern for students, and who has made a significant public impact in a manner that advances the rule of law in a free society. He is also an elected member of the American Law Institute.
Professor Nielson received his J.D. magna cum laude from Harvard Law School and an LL.M from the University of Cambridge, where he focused his studies on the institutions that regulate global competition and commerce. He received his undergraduate degree summa cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania, majoring in economics and political science.
State Attorney General, Texas
Of Counsel, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP
Prerak Shah is Of Counsel at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP. He was most recently the Acting United States Attorney for the Northern District of Texas, leading a team of approximately 120 Assistant U.S. Attorneys handling a wide range of cases, including securities fraud, health care fraud, the False Claims Act, computer crime, national security, tax fraud, money laundering, public corruption, and terrorism. Mr. Shah previously held several leadership positions at the Department of Justice, including Deputy Associate Attorney General in the office overseeing the work of the Antitrust, Civil, Civil Rights, Environment & Natural Resources, and Tax Divisions. Before joining the Justice Department, Mr. Shah served as Chief of Staff to Senator Ted Cruz and as a Chief Counsel on the Senate Judiciary Committee. He graduated from the University of Chicago Law School and clerked for the Honorable Jerry E. Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
States’ Attorneys General: Defenders of the Bulwarks of Federalism
Miles Coleman, Ken Paxton, Doug J. Peterson, Alan Wilson
South Carolina, Nebraska, and Houston Lawyers Chapter - Online Event
On September 10, 2020, The Federalist Society's South Carolina, Nebraska, and Houston Lawyers Chapters hosted...
States’ Attorneys General: Defenders of the Bulwarks of Federalism
Miles Coleman, Ken Paxton, Doug J. Peterson, Alan Wilson
South Carolina, Nebraska, and Houston Lawyers Chapter - Online Event
On September 10, 2020, The Federalist Society's South Carolina, Nebraska, and Houston Lawyers Chapters hosted...
State Court Docket Watch: In re Salon a la Mode, et al
Ken Paxton
State Court Docket Watch: 2020 Edition
In response to the global pandemic caused by COVID-19, local authorities in Texas, like local...
Nationwide Injunctions
Scott Allen Keller, Ken Paxton, Beth A. Williams
Executive Branch Review Week Teleforum
What is the true role and authority of courts to nullify Federal law? During the...
Using the Licensing Power of the Administrative State: Model Rule 8.4(g)
Barry Anderson, Paulette Brown, Stephen Gillers, Ken Paxton, Ronald D. Rotunda
2017 National Lawyers Convention
At its August 2016 meeting in San Francisco, the American Bar Association approved a major...
Using the Licensing Power of the Administrative State: Model Rule 8.4(g)
Barry Anderson, Paulette Brown, Stephen Gillers, Ken Paxton, Ronald D. Rotunda
2017 National Lawyers Convention
At its August 2016 meeting in San Francisco, the American Bar Association approved a major...
Litigation Update: Exxon Investigation - Podcast
Ken Paxton
Litigation Practice Group Podcast
On April 20th, eleven state Attorneys General filed a joint amicus brief in support of...
Justice Scalia and the Evolution of Chevron Deference
Aditya Bamzai, Ron Beal, Charles J. Cooper, Edith H. Jones, Karen J. Lugo, Aaron Nielson, Ken Paxton, Prerak Shah
Second Annual Texas Chapters Conference
For over thirty years, the seminal Supreme Court decision in Chevron v. NRDC has provided the principles...
Justice Scalia and the Evolution of Chevron Deference
Aditya Bamzai, Ron Beal, Charles J. Cooper, Edith H. Jones, Karen J. Lugo, Aaron Nielson, Ken Paxton, Prerak Shah
Second Annual Texas Chapters Conference
For over thirty years, the seminal Supreme Court decision in Chevron v. NRDC has provided the principles...