The Federalist Society

Optional Login

Have an account?

Sign in

Email

Password


Forgot password?

Proceed as Guest

Continue
Our website is currently undergoing updates, some links may no longer work and content may change. Please check back soon.
The Federalist Society
  • Commentary
    • The Federalist Society Review
    • Videos
    • Publications
    • Podcasts
    • Blog
    • Briefcases
    • No. 86
  • Cases
  • Events
    • All Upcoming Events
    • FedSoc Forums
    • Webinars
    • Live Streams
    • Past Events
    • Event Photos
  • Divisions
    • Lawyers
    • Faculty
    • Student
    • Practice Groups
  • Chapters
  • Projects
    • The American History & Tradition Project
    • Structural Constitution Initiative
    • Family & Parental Rights Network
    • Armed Services Legal Network
    • In-House Counsel Network
    • A Seat at the Sitting
    • Freedom of Thought
    • Article I Initiative
    • Regulatory Transparency Project
    • State Attorneys General
    • State Courts
  • Store
    • On-Demand CLE
  • About
    • Membership
    • Jobs
    • Staff
    • Board of Directors
    • Board of Visitors
    • Opportunities
    • Internships
    • FAQ
    • History
    • Press Inquiries
  • Login
  • Donate
  • Join
  • YouTube
  • LinkedIn
  • Facebook
  • Twitter

Tampa Bay Lawyer Chapter

Tampa, FL

  • Home
  • Chapters
  • Florida
  • Tampa Bay Lawyer Chapter
  • https://fedsoc.org/chapters/FL/tampa-bay-lawyer-chapter
  • Print
  • Email
  • Facebook Share
  • Twitter Share
  • About the Federalist Society
  • FAQs
  • Our Background
  • Upcoming Events
  • RSS Feeds
Join Now! Find Your Chapter

President

Eliot Bradford Peace

[email protected]

Vice-President

Charbel J. Barakat

[email protected]
2026 Annual Federalist Society Reception at the Florida Bar's Annual Meeting
Register
Jun 18 2026
Thursday 6:15 p.m. EDT    

2026 Annual Federalist Society Reception at the Florida Bar's Annual Meeting

Signia by Hilton Orlando Bonnet Creek and Waldorf Astoria Orlando
14100 Bonnet Creek Resort Ln
Orlando, FL 32821
Sponsors:
Orlando Lawyer Chapter • Tallahassee Lawyer Chapter • Miami Lawyer Chapter • Tampa Bay Lawyer Chapter • Palm Beach Lawyer Chapter • Southwest Florida Lawyer Chapter • Treasure Coast Lawyer Chapter • Jacksonville Lawyer Chapter • Broward County Lawyer Chapter • North Central Florida Lawyer Chapter • Emerald Coast Lawyer Chapter
  • In-Person Event
The State of Higher Education in Florida and Beyond
Register
Jun 25 2026
Thursday 5:30 p.m. EDT    

The State of Higher Education in Florida and Beyond

Tampa Bay Lawyer Chapter

Shutts & Bowen
4301 W. Boy Scout Blvd, Second Floor
Tampa, FL 33607
Speakers:
Zack Smith
Sponsors:
Tampa Bay Lawyer Chapter
  • In-Person Event
2027 Florida Chapters Conference
Jan 29 2027
Friday 1:00 p.m. EDT    

2027 Florida Chapters Conference

Lake Buena Vista, FL
Sponsors:
Tampa Bay Lawyer Chapter • Tallahassee Lawyer Chapter • Miami Lawyer Chapter • Palm Beach Lawyer Chapter • Broward County Lawyer Chapter • Southwest Florida Lawyer Chapter • Jacksonville Lawyer Chapter • Emerald Coast Lawyer Chapter • Orlando Lawyer Chapter • Polk County Lawyer Chapter • North Central Florida Lawyer Chapter • Treasure Coast Lawyer Chapter • Sarasota Lawyer Chapter
  • In-Person Event
An Evening with Judge Greg Katsas and Don McGahn: A Rapid-Fire Roundtable
This event has concluded.
Apr 23 2026
Thursday 5:30 p.m. EDT    

An Evening with Judge Greg Katsas and Don McGahn: A Rapid-Fire Roundtable

Tampa Bay Lawyer Chapter

The University Club of Tampa
201 N. Franklin St., Suite 3800
Tampa, FL 33602
Speakers:
Gregory G. Katsas • Donald F. McGahn • Chad Mizelle
Sponsors:
Tampa Bay Lawyer Chapter
  • In-Person Event
Stare Decisis After Dobbs - Tampa
This event has concluded.
Apr 16 2026
Thursday 5:30 p.m. EDT    

Stare Decisis After Dobbs - Tampa

Tampa Bay Lawyer Chapter

The University Club of Tampa
201 N. Franklin St., Suite 3800
Tampa, FL 33602
Speakers:
Ilya Shapiro
Sponsors:
Tampa Bay Lawyer Chapter
  • In-Person Event
From Nomination to Confirmation: Inside the Federal Judicial Selection Process  - Tampa
This event has concluded.
Feb 10 2026
Tuesday 5:30 p.m. EDT    

From Nomination to Confirmation: Inside the Federal Judicial Selection Process - Tampa

Tampa Bay Lawyer Chapter

The University Club of Tampa
201 N Franklin St., Suite #3800
Tampa, FL 33602
Speakers:
Michael Fragoso • Robert Luther • Kathryn Kimball Mizelle
Sponsors:
Tampa Bay Lawyer Chapter
  • In-Person Event
View more
James Madison Portrait
© 2026 The Federalist Society
1776 I Street, NW Suite 300
Washington, DC 20006
  • Phone(202) 822-8138
  • Fax(202) 296-8061
  • Email[email protected]
  • Join
  • Donate
  • Join
  • Donate
  • Login
  • My FedSoc
    • My FedSoc
    • Logout
  • Commentary
    • The Federalist Society Review
    • Videos
    • Publications
    • Podcasts
    • Blog
    • Briefcases
    • No. 86
  • Cases
  • Events
    • All Upcoming Events
    • FedSoc Forums
    • Webinars
    • Live Streams
    • Past Events
    • Event Photos
  • Divisions
    • Lawyers
    • Faculty
    • Student
    • Practice Groups
  • Chapters
  • Projects
    • The American History & Tradition Project
    • Structural Constitution Initiative
    • Family & Parental Rights Network
    • Armed Services Legal Network
    • In-House Counsel Network
    • A Seat at the Sitting
    • Freedom of Thought
    • Article I Initiative
    • Regulatory Transparency Project
    • State Attorneys General
    • State Courts
  • Store
    • On-Demand CLE
  • About
    • Membership
    • Jobs
    • Staff
    • Board of Directors
    • Board of Visitors
    • Opportunities
    • Internships
    • FAQ
    • History
    • Press Inquiries
  • YouTube
  • LinkedIn
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
Speaker Information
Zack Smith

Zack Smith

Legal Fellow and Manager, Supreme Court and Appellate Advocacy Program, The Heritage Foundation

Biography

Zack is a Legal Fellow and Manager of the Supreme Court and Appellate Advocacy Program in the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation.

He previously served for several years as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Northern District of Florida. Prior to that, he spent two years as an associate in the Washington, D.C. office of Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton, which he joined after clerking for the Hon. Emmett R. Cox on the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. 

Smith received his undergraduate, master’s, and law degrees from the University of Florida. During law school, Smith served as the Editor in Chief of the Florida Law Review and served on the executive boards of several student organizations, including the UF Chapter of the Federalist Society.

Read more...
View Full Profile
Speaker Information
Gregory G. Katsas

Gregory G. Katsas

Judge, United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit

Biography

Judge Katsas was appointed to the D.C. Circuit in December 2017. He graduated from Princeton University and Harvard Law School, where he was an executive editor on the Harvard Law Review. Between 1989 and 1992, he served as a law clerk to Judge Edward Becker on the Third Circuit, to then-Judge Clarence Thomas on the D.C. Circuit, and to Justice Thomas on the Supreme Court. Between 1992 and 2001, he was an associate and then partner in the Washington office of Jones Day, where he specialized in appellate and complex civil litigation. Between 2001 and 2009, he served in many senior positions in the Department of Justice, including as Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division and as Acting Associate Attorney General. In 2009, he returned to Jones Day. From January to December 2017, he served as Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy Counsel to the President.

Before joining the bench, Judge Katsas argued more than 75 appeals, including three cases in the Supreme Court, 13 cases in the D.C. Circuit, and cases in every other federal court of appeals. By appointment of the Chief Justice, he served on the Advisory Committee on Appellate Rules from 2013 to 2017. In 2016, he was elected to membership in the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers.

Read more...
View Full Profile
Speaker Information
Donald F. McGahn

Donald F. McGahn

Partner, Jones Day

Biography

Don McGahn represents clients before government agencies, in enforcement matters, and in court disputes arising from government regulation or action. He handles litigation, crisis management, regulatory compliance, and political issues.

Prior to rejoining Jones Day in 2019, Don served as Counsel to the President of the United States, advising Donald J. Trump on all legal issues concerning the President and his administration, including constitutional and statutory authority, executive orders, international agreements, tariffs, trade, administrative law, and national security. Don also managed the judicial selection process for the President. During Don's tenure, a historic number of judges were appointed to the federal bench, including two Supreme Court justices. In addition, he spearheaded President Trump's deregulation efforts, which resulted in deregulation at record rates. Following Don's departure from the White House, the President appointed him to the Council of the Administrative Conference of the United States, a nonpartisan, independent agency dedicated to promoting improvement to administrative agency processes.

Don's accomplishments have been recognized at the highest levels of government. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell stated that Don concluded his tenure "not only as the best White House Counsel I've seen on the job, but more broadly, as one of the most successful and consequential aides to any President in recent memory."

Don was nominated by President George W. Bush in 2008, and confirmed in the Senate by unanimous consent, to serve as a member of the Federal Election Commission. He also served as outside Counsel to the Committee on House Administration during the 113th and 114th Congresses and as general counsel to the National Republican Congressional Committee.

Read more...
View Full Profile
Speaker Information
Chad Mizelle

Chad Mizelle

Chief of Staff and Acting Associate Attorney General, U.S. Department of Justice

Biography

Chad R. Mizelle is the Chief of Staff and Acting Associate Attorney General of the Department of Justice. Previously, Chad was the Chief Legal Officer at Affinity Partners, a global private equity firm with more than $4B under management. Before that Chad worked at Jones Day, where his practice focused on government regulation and national security issues. Previously, Chad served as the Acting General Counsel at the Department of Homeland Security, where he managed more than 2,200 lawyers. As the top lawyer at DHS, Chad directed all legal activities related to the Agency’s broad mission. Prior to serving as Acting General Counsel, Chad served as the Chief of Staff at DHS. He also served at the White House as Associate Counsel to the President and at the Department of Justice as Counsel to the Deputy Attorney General. Chad clerked for the Honorable David B. Sentelle of the D.C. Circuit. He received his J.D. from Cornell Law School and his B.A. from the University of Florida. Chad and his wife Kat reside in Tampa, Florida with their two kids.

Read more...
View Full Profile
Speaker Information
Ilya Shapiro

Ilya Shapiro

Senior Fellow and Director of Constitutional Studies, Manhattan Institute

Biography

Ilya Shapiro is a senior fellow and director of constitutional studies at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal. Previously he was executive director and senior lecturer at the Georgetown Center for the Constitution, and before that a vice president of the Cato Institute.

Shapiro is the author of Lawless: The Miseducation of America’s Elites (2025) and Supreme Disorder: Judicial Nominations and the Politics of America’s Highest Court (2020), coauthor of Religious Liberties for Corporations? (2014), and editor of 11 volumes of the Cato Supreme Court Review (2008-18). He has contributed to a variety of academic, popular, and professional publications, including the Wall Street Journal, Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, National Review, and Newsweek. He also regularly provides commentary for various media outlets, writes the Shapiro’s Gavel newsletter on Substack, and once appeared on the Colbert Report.

Shapiro has testified many times before Congress and state legislatures and has filed more than 500 amicus curiae “friend of the court” briefs in the Supreme Court. He lectures regularly on behalf of the Federalist Society, is a member of the board of fellows of the Jewish Policy Center, was an inaugural Washington Fellow at the National Review Institute, and has been an adjunct law professor at the George Washington University and University of Mississippi. He is also the chairman of the board of advisers of the Mississippi Justice Institute, a barrister in the Edward Coke Appellate Inn of Court, and a former member of the Virginia Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.

Earlier in his career, Shapiro was a special assistant/​adviser to the Multi-​National Force in Iraq on rule-of-law issues and practiced at Patton Boggs and Cleary Gottlieb. Before entering private practice, he clerked for Judge E. Grady Jolly of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. He holds an AB from Princeton University, an MSc from the London School of Economics, and a JD from the University of Chicago Law School.

Read more...
View Full Profile
Speaker Information
Michael Fragoso

Michael Fragoso

Partner, Torridon Law PLLC

Biography

Mike Fragoso is a seasoned legal and policy strategist. Most recently he served as chief counsel to Senate Republican Leader, Mitch McConnell. He has negotiated consequential legislation, managed successful congressional oversight, and prepared individuals for the most contentious Senate hearings.

As chief counsel to Leader McConnell Mike was the Leader’s primary legal advisor and managed the “last mile” of any legislation touching on the Senate Judiciary Committee. He ran the 2024 reauthorization of FISA Section 702 and was involved at the highest levels of the appropriations and budget-reconciliation processes. Mike also repeatedly represented Leader McConnell as counsel of record at the Supreme Court. Leader McConnell said of Mike that he’s “equally at home in the high-minded philosophical discourse of the legal community and the urgent pragmatism of Congressional dealmaking,” and that he “maintains a firm grasp on the realm of the possible” but “knows which screws to twist.” He observed that Mike “is so exceptionally competent that he often produces from his desk the work that would normally require, literally, teams of outside counsel.”

Mike previously was chief counsel for nominations and constitutional law for the Senate Judiciary Committee under Ranking Member Chuck Grassley and Chairman Lindsey Graham. During this time he advised the Senators on two presidential impeachments, ran multiple policy hearings, and managed the confirmation process for over 80 federal judges, including Justice Amy Coney Barrett. Chairman Graham described Mike as “a force of nature.”

During the first Trump administration Mike was deputy assistant attorney general in the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Policy where he ran the Department’s efforts in support of judicial nominations and prepared over 100 nominees for Senate hearings.

Earlier in his career Mike was legislative director to former Senator Jeff Flake and chief counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology and the Law. There he led the oversight and repeal of the FCC’s broadband-privacy rule and was Senator Flake’s top advisor on the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017.

He frequently comments on public affairs and his writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, National Review, and the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy.

Mike also served as a law clerk to Judge Diane Sykes of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.

Read more...
View Full Profile
Speaker Information
Robert Luther

Robert Luther

Associate Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University

Biography

Robert Luther III was appointed Associate Professor of Law in 2025 after serving as Distinguished Professor of Law from 2024-2025 and Adjunct Professor of Law from 2019-2024. He teaches and writes on the federal courts, legal and judicial ethics, political law, Congress, and professional sports. He has served at high levels in all three branches of the federal government and recently founded Constitutional Solutions PLLC—a law firm that navigates judicial candidates, judges, elected officials, professional athletes, and executives through high-stakes hearings, investigations, and reputational attacks.

Immediately before joining the Scalia Law faculty, Professor Luther spent over five years in the Washington, D.C. office of Jones Day, where his practice focused on strategic counseling, crisis management, and litigation. Prior to joining Jones Day, he served as Associate Counsel to the President of the United States in the White House Counsel’s Office. In the White House, he co-managed the judicial selection process and supervised the preparation of over 150 federal judicial nominees for their successful U.S. Senate confirmation hearings. The New York Times Magazine referred to his work on judicial selection during this period as “unique in White House history.” Before joining the White House, Professor Luther served as Counsel to then–U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) on the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, where he served as a core member of the team that prepared the Senator for confirmation as United States Attorney General. Professor Luther was also a law clerk to Judge Daniel A. Manion of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. Earlier in his career, Professor Luther practiced civil and appellate litigation at a boutique firm in Williamsburg, Va. and taught at William & Mary Law School.

Professor Luther frequently speaks on the legal profession, political law, and federal judicial selection. His public work has been covered by or appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Fox News, The Hill, Politico, the Washington Examiner, National Law Journal, Law360, The Washington Reporter, and elsewhere, while his scholarship is published in the law journals of nearly twenty universities including three journals of Harvard University. He holds active law licenses in Virginia, the District of Columbia, the U.S. Supreme Court, and half of the U.S. Courts of Appeals.

In 2025, Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin appointed Professor Luther to the Board of Visitors to Mount Vernon. He is an elected member of the American Law Institute (ALI) and serves on the Advisory Board of the Wilson Center for Leadership at Hampden-Sydney College. Since 2019, he has helped over 200 of his students secure clerkships with federal judges.

Read more...
View Full Profile
Speaker Information
Kathryn Kimball Mizelle

Kathryn Kimball Mizelle

United States District Judge, United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida

Biography

In November 2020, the Senate confirmed Kathryn Kimball Mizelle as a United States District Judge for the Middle District of Florida. At age 33, she became the youngest Article III judge in the country. Prior to her confirmation, Judge Mizelle was in private practice at Jones Day, where she focused on complex civil and criminal litigation and appeals. Judge Mizelle previously served at the United States Department of Justice in the Office of the Associate Attorney General, in the Southern Criminal Enforcement Section of the Tax Division, and in the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia. Judge Mizelle has also taught as an adjunct professor of law at the University of Florida Levin College of Law and at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School.

Judge Mizelle earned her B.A., summa cum laude, from Covenant College, and her J.D., summa cum laude, from the University of Florida Levin College of Law. After graduation, Judge Mizelle served as a law clerk at every level of the federal judiciary: at the Supreme Court for Justice Clarence Thomas, at the D.C. Circuit for Judge Gregory G. Katsas, at the Eleventh Circuit for Chief Judge William H. Pryor Jr., and at the Middle District of Florida for Judge James S. Moody Jr.

 

Read more...
View Full Profile