The Federalist Society Adds Four New Members To Board of Directors

The Federalist Society is pleased to welcome Thomas Bell, Stephen Sachs, Annie Talley, and Michael Fragoso as the newest members of our Board of Directors. These talented legal thinkers are ideally suited to help advance the Society's mission. Thomas Bell, one of the Society’s original law student founders, shares the Society’s dedication to our founding principles; and Stephen Sachs, Annie Talley, and Michael Fragoso are ideally suited to help lead generational change for the Society.

Thomas H. Bell:  Thomas H. Bell is a Partner at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, where he is a member of the Firm’s Corporate Department. Tom focuses on investment management matters and founded the Firm’s Private Funds Practice, an area in which the Firm has a preeminent international presence, having been chosen as the “Global Private Funds Law Firm of the Year” for five consecutive years (2005-2009) by Who's Who Legal. He advises clients globally on organizing and advising a wide range of private equity funds, real estate funds, hedge funds and other kinds of funds for alternative asset categories. He is a frequent lecturer before professional groups on private investment funds of all kinds. He received his B.A., summa cum laude, from Dartmouth College in 1978, where he was elected Phi Beta Kappa. He received his J.D. from Yale Law School in 1983, where he was editor of The Yale Law Journal, and helped found the Yale Federalist Society, which served as the springboard for the national Federalist Society.

Stephen Sachs: Stephen E. Sachs is the Antonin Scalia Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, where he teaches civil procedure, conflict of laws, and seminars on constitutional law and jurisprudence. Sachs has authored numerous articles, essays, and book chapters. He is an elected member of the American Law Institute, an adviser to the ALI’s project on the Restatement of the Law (Third), Conflict of Laws, a member of the Board of Directors of the Yale Law Journal, a former member of the Judicial Conference’s Advisory Committee on Appellate Rules, and a founding member of the Academic Freedom Alliance. He is the faculty advisor to Harvard’s chapter of the Federalist Society, and a former leader of the Society's NextGen group of scholars. In 2020, Sachs received the Federalist Society’s Joseph Story Award. He is also a faculty co-advisor to the Harvard Law School Alliance for Israel. He clerked for Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. as well as for Judge Stephen F. Williams of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Sachs received his J.D. from Yale Law School, where he was executive editor of the Yale Law Journal and served both as executive editor and articles editor of the Yale Law & Policy Review. A Rhodes Scholar, he graduated from Oxford University with a first-class BA (Hons) degree in philosophy, politics, and economics. He received his A.B. degree summa cum laude in history from Harvard University, earning the Sophia Freund Prize.

Annie Talley:  Annie Talley is a partner at the law firm Luther Strange & Associates LLC, where she is an experienced adviser and problem solver specializing in complex interactions with government actors. Talley previously served in the White House as Deputy Assistant to the President, Deputy Counsel to the President and Chief of Staff to the Office of White House Counsel. There, Talley helped stand up and manage the White House Counsel’s Office and interfaced with the Department of Justice and other departments and agencies across the federal government. Prior to her government service, Talley was an associate at Jones Day and Patton Boggs in Washington, DC, and is a veteran of three presidential campaigns. Talley holds a B.A., summa cum laude, from the University of Alabama and a J.D. from Harvard Law School, where she was Supreme Court editor for the Harvard Law Review and an executive editor for the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy.

Michael Fragoso:  Michael Fragoso is a partner at Torridon Law and a fellow at the Ethics & Public Policy Center. He previously served as Chief Counsel to Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell and as chief counsel for nominations and constitutional law for the Senate Judiciary Committee, where, among other matters, he managed the confirmation process for over 80 federal judges. He also served as Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Policy, where he ran the Department's efforts in support of judicial nominations and prepared over 100 nominees for their Senate hearings. Earlier in his career he was the legislative director for Senator Jeff Flake and chief counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology and the Law. He is also a former law clerk to Judge Diane Sykes and a former associate at Kirkland & Ellis. He is a graduate of Princeton University and Notre Dame Law School, where he was involved in the Federalist Society and the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy.