Professor and Director, Prolife Center, University of St. Thomas School of Law
Teresa Collett, J.D., is professor at the University of St. Thomas School of Law, where she serves as director of the school's Prolife Center. Collett received her doctorate at the University of Oklahoma College of Law. As a well-known advocate for the protection of human life and the family, Collett specializes in the subjects of marriage, religion and bioethics in her research.
Collett has published numerous legal articles and is the co-author of a law casebook on professional responsibility and co-editor of a collection of essays exploring “catholic” and “Catholic” perspectives on American law. She is an elected member of the American Law Institute, and has testified before committees of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, as well as before legislative committees in several states.
In 2009, Pope Benedict XVI appointed Collett to a five-year term on the Pontifical Council for the Family. Her appointment was renewed by His Holiness Pope Francis until 2016 when the responsibilities of the Council were assumed by the Dicastery for the Laity, Family and Life. In 2013, she served as a delegate to the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) for the Mission of the Holy See to the United Nations.
She represented Congressman Ron Paul and various medical groups in the defense of the U.S. federal ban of partial-birth abortion, and the governors of Minnesota and North Dakota defending the N.H. requirement of state parental involvement prior to performance of an abortion on a minor before the U.S. Supreme Court. Collett is often asked to represent the interests of government officials before federal appellate courts. She has served as special attorney general for the states of Oklahoma and Kansas, as well as assisting other state attorneys general in defending laws protecting human life and marriage. Prior to joining St. Thomas in 2003, Collett taught at the South Texas College of Law, where she established the nation's first annual symposium on legal ethics.
Shareholder, Kirton McConkie
R. Shawn Gunnarson is a shareholder with Kirton McConkie in Salt Lake City.
Professor of Law, Notre Dame Law School
Professor Derek Muller is a nationally-recognized scholar in the field of election law. His research focuses on the role of states in the administration of federal elections, the constitutional contours of voting rights and election administration, the limits of judicial power in the domain of elections, and the Electoral College.
He has published more than two dozen academic works, and his op-eds have appeared in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and the Wall Street Journal. He has testified before Congress, and he is a contributor at the Election Law Blog. He is a co-author on a Federal Courts casebook published by Carolina Academic Press. He is also the co-reporter on a new Restatement of the Law, Election Litigation, an effort led by the American Law Institute.
Professor Muller teaches Election Law, Civil Procedure, and Evidence.
Appellate Counsel, Theodore Cooperstein PLLC
Theodore Cooperstein currently is an appellate attorney in the boutique law firm of Theodore Cooperstein PLLC, available for criminal and civil appeals in both state and federal courts. A former career prosecutor with twenty five years of service in the US Department of Justice, he was an Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida and the Southern District of Mississippi, and has served as a Military Intelligence Officer in the Army Reserves from 1989 to 2011, retiring with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. During the Trump Administration, he was appointed and served as the General Counsel of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Prior to joining the Southern District of Florida, Mr. Cooperstein served as a Special Assistant U.S. Attorney in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Maryland. He previously had served as Counsel to the Deputy Attorney General at the Department of Justice, and as Assistant General Counsel in the FBI Office of the General Counsel.
A.B., Dartmouth College; J.D., Stanford University; LL.M., Comparative and International Law, Georgetown University Law Center; Masters of Strategic Studies, U.S. Army War College
Shareholder, Kirton McConkie
R. Shawn Gunnarson is a shareholder with Kirton McConkie in Salt Lake City.
Director of Asian Studies and Resident Fellow, American Enterprise Institute
Dan Blumenthal is the director of Asian Studies at the American Enterprise Institute, where he focuses on East Asian security issues and Sino-American relations. Mr. Blumenthal has both served in and advised the U.S. government on China issues for over a decade. From 2001 to 2004, he served as senior director for China, Taiwan, and Mongolia at the Department of Defense. Additionally, he served as a commissioner on the congressionally-mandated U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission since 2006-2012, and held the position of vice chairman in 2007. He has also served on the Academic Advisory Board of the congressional U.S.-China Working Group. Mr. Blumenthal is the co-author of “An Awkward Embrace: The United States and China in the 21st Century” (AEI Press, November 2012).
Partner, McGuireWoods LLP
George Terwilliger is co-head of the firm's white collar practice and leads the firm's Strategic Response and Crisis Management practice group. Following his fifteen years of public service in the US Department of Justice, where he began as a law clerk and concluded as Acting Attorney General, George has provided counsel in government and internal investigations, agency enforcement proceedings and in civil and criminal litigation. He has represented many of the nation's and the world's largest corporations, including major financial institutions, energy companies, public institutions as well as leading business and government officials, including members of the US Senate and House as well as cabinet officials. He has also represented lawyers and corporate legal departments in investigations. As a result of both his private sector work and government positions, George is called upon to provide counsel as well as commentary to government officials, Congress and private organizations on national security, homeland defense, terrorism, and other public policy and legal issues. George's work regularly involves providing counsel in the executive suites and boardrooms of major corporations.
In private practice for international law firms, George has represented national and international financial, energy, telecommunications, industrial and healthcare companies. He is a recognized expert in leading credible corporate internal investigations and his experience designing and executing both targeted and global legal compliance reviews has involved work in more than 60 countries around the globe. George is an expert on the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and regularly provides counsel to companies addressing FCPA issues. No stranger to high stakes litigation and crisis events, George helped lead the Bush-Cheney legal team in the 2000 Florida vote recount, served as special outside counsel to a Senate committee investigating vote fraud allegations, served as counsel to an executive commission on gambling, and has represented many clients in politically charged election law and similar cases. He has guided corporations and individual through high stakes matters of intense public interest. He represented an incumbent president in First Amendment litigation concerning the right to have an inaugural prayer said in a public ceremony.
At the Department of Justice, George served for 10 years as a frontline federal prosecutor, handling hundreds of investigations, trials and appeals, including in white collar and national security cases. President Ronald Reagan appointed him as a U.S. attorney, and he next served as the deputy attorney general and as acting attorney general during the George H.W. Bush administration. As Deputy Attorney General, George ran the Justice Department's operations, overseeing all the nation's federal prosecutors, as well as the FBI and other law enforcement agencies. He also had leadership responsibility in several national and international crises, including a hostage-taking in a federal prison and the federal law enforcement response to domestic unrest in Los Angeles. In several instances, he personally handled negotiations of high-profile criminal and civil matters in the United States and abroad.
Litigation Update: International Partners for Ethical Care v. Ferguson
Teresa Stanton Collett, R. Shawn Gunnarson, Derek T. Muller
In International Partners for Ethical Care v. Ferguson, the Supreme Court has been asked to...
Topics
Religious Schools and the Ministerial Exception
On Monday, the Court heard oral argument in two important First Amendment cases—Our Lady of...
The War on Terrorism: Law Enforcement or National Security?
Theodore Cooperstein, R. Shawn Gunnarson, Daniel Blumenthal, Robert Parker, George J. Terwilliger
George Terwilliger*Theodore Cooperstein**Shawn Gunnarson***Daniel Blumenthal****Robert Parker***** The horrific events of September 11th were immediately labeled...