Senior Fellow and Director of Constitutional Studies, Manhattan Institute
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.
Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
ILYA SOMIN is Professor of Law at George Mason University and the B. Kenneth Simon Chair in Constitutional Studies at the Cato Institute. His research focuses on constitutional law, property law, democratic theory, federalism, and migration rights. He is the author of Free to Move: Foot Voting, Migration, and Political Freedom (Oxford University Press, revised and expanded edition, 2022), Democracy and Political Ignorance: Why Smaller Government is Smarter (Stanford University Press, revised and expanded second edition, 2016), and The Grasping Hand: Kelo v. City of New London and the Limits of Eminent Domain (University of Chicago Press, 2015, rev. paperback ed., 2016), coauthor of A Conspiracy Against Obamacare: The Volokh Conspiracy and the Health Care Case (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), and co-editor of Eminent Domain: A Comparative Perspective (Cambridge University Press, 2017). Democracy and Political Ignorance has been translated into Italian and Japanese.
Somin’s work has appeared in numerous scholarly journals, including the Yale Law Journal, Stanford Law Review, Northwestern University Law Review, Georgetown Law Journal, Critical Review, and others. Somin has also published articles in a variety of popular press outlets, including the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, CNN, NBC, The Atlantic, USA Today, Boston Globe, US News and World Report, South China Morning Post, National Law Journal and Reason. He has been quoted or interviewed by the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Time, Newsweek, The Economist, the Christian Science Monitor, the Financial Times, The Guardian, the Associated Press, CBS, MSNBC, NPR, BBC, Reuters, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Al Jazeera, and the Voice of America, among other media.
Somin’s writings have been cited in decisions by the United States Supreme Court, multiple state supreme courts and lower federal courts, and the Supreme Court of Israel. He is co-counsel for the plaintiffs in VOS Selections, Inc. v. Trump, a case challenging the constitutionality of President Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs. Somin has testified on the use of drones for targeted killing in the War on Terror before the US Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Human Rights. In 2009, he testified on property rights issues at the United States Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Somin writes regularly for the popular Volokh Conspiracy law and politics blog, now affiliated with Reason magazine (previously affiliated with the Washington Post from 2014 to 2017). From 2006 to 2013, he served as Co-Editor of the Supreme Court Economic Review, one of the country’s top-rated law and economics journals.
Somin has served as a visiting professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. He has also been a visiting professor or scholar at the Georgetown University Law Center, the University of Hamburg, Germany, the University of Torcuato Di Tella in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Uriel Reichman University in Israel, and Zhengzhou University in China. He is a University Affiliate of the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University, and an affiliated faculty member of the George Mason University Institute for Immigration Research. Before joining the faculty at George Mason, Somin was the John M. Olin Fellow in Law at Northwestern University Law School in 2002-2003. In 2001-2002, he clerked for the Hon. Judge Jerry E. Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Professor Somin earned his B.A., Summa Cum Laude, at Amherst College, M.A. in Political Science from Harvard University, and J.D. from Yale Law School.
Sheila M. McDevitt Professor of Law and Faculty Director of the Election Law Center, Florida State University College of Law
Professor Morley joined FSU Law in 2018, and teaches and writes in the areas of election law, constitutional law, remedies, and the federal courts. He is best known for his work on election emergencies and post-election litigation, nationwide and other defendant-oriented injunctions, the jurisdiction of the federal courts and their equitable powers more generally. He has testified before congressional committees, made presentations to election officials for the U.S. Election Assistance Commission and participated in bipartisan blue-ribbon groups to develop election reforms. The governor of Florida also appointed Professor Morley to the Criminal Punishment Code Task Force, to propose potential revisions to the legislature.
The U.S. Supreme Court has cited several of his articles, and he was counsel of record for the successful Petitioner in a landmark campaign finance case. Professor Morley has appeared on C-SPAN, Court TV, Fox News and numerous local news programs, and has been quoted in the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Roll Call, Politico, U.S. News and World Report, and a wide range of other national publications. His work has been published in many of the nation’s top law reviews, including the Georgetown Law Journal, Northwestern University Law Review, Boston University Law Review and Emory Law Journal.
Before joining FSU Law, Professor Morley was a Climenko Fellow and Lecturer in Law at Harvard Law School. Prior to his experience in academia, he served in government as special assistant to the General Counsel of the Army at the Pentagon, as well as a law clerk for Judge Gerald B. Tjoflat of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. During his tenure with the Army General Counsel’s office, he was awarded the Meritorious Civilian Service Award and the Army Staff Lapel Pin. He also worked as an associate at Williams & Connolly LLP and the Supreme Court & Appellate group of Winston & Strawn, LLP, both in Washington, D.C.
Professor Morley earned his J.D. from Yale Law School in 2003, where he was a senior editor on the Yale Law Journal; served on the moot court board; and received the Thurman Arnold Prize for Best Oralist in the Morris Tyler Moot Court of Appeals.
Senior Fellow and Director of Constitutional Studies, Manhattan Institute
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.
George Mason University Foundation Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
TODD J. ZYWICKI is George Mason University Foundation Professor of Law at Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University and Research Fellow of the George Mason Law and Economics Center. During the Fall 2023 semester he served as the Visiting Scholar in Conservative Thought and Policy for the Bruce Benson Center for the Study of Western Civilization at the University of Colorado-Boulder. From 2020-2021 he was Chair of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Taskforce on Federal Consumer Financial Law. In 2021 he was inducted to the American College of Consumer Financial Services Lawyers. He is also a Senior Fellow of the F.A. Hayek Program for the Advanced Study of Politics, Philosophy, and Economics at George Mason University and a former Senior Fellow of the Cato Institute. From 2015-2017 he was Executive Director of the George Mason Law and Economics Center. He served as Co-Editor of the Supreme Court Economic Review from 2006-2017. From 2003-2004, Professor Zywicki served as the Director of the Office of Policy Planning at the Federal Trade Commission. He has also taught at Vanderbilt University Law School, Georgetown University Law Center, Boston College Law School, Mississippi College School of Law, and China University of Political Science and Law.
Professor Zywicki clerked for Judge Jerry E. Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and worked as an associate at Alston & Bird in Atlanta, Georgia, where he practiced bankruptcy and commercial law. He received his J.D. from the University of Virginia, where he was executive editor of the Virginia Tax Review and John M. Olin Scholar in Law and Economics. Professor Zywicki also received an M.A. in Economics from Clemson University and an A.B. cum Laude with high honors in his major from Dartmouth College.
Professor Zywicki is also a Lone Mountain Fellow of the Property and Environment Research Center, a Fellow of the International Centre for Economic Research in Turin, Italy, and a former Senior Fellow of the Goldwater Institute. During the Fall 2008 Semester Professor Zywicki was the Searle Fellow of the George Mason University School of Law and was a 2008-09 W. Glenn Campbell and Rita Ricardo-Campbell National Fellow and the Arch W. Shaw National Fellow at the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace. He has lectured and consulted with government officials around the world, including Iceland, Italy, Japan, and Guatemala. In 2006 Professor Zywicki served as a Member of the United States Department of Justice Study Group on “Identifying Fraud, Abuse and Errors in the United States Bankruptcy System.”
Professor Zywicki is the author of more than 130 articles in leading law reviews and peer-reviewed economics journals. He is one of the Top 10 most-cited law professors in the field of Commercial Law and one of the Top 25 law professors on Twitter as measured by engagement levels. He is one of the Top 50 Most Downloaded Law Authors at the Social Science Research Network. He has testified multiple times before Congress on issues of consumer bankruptcy law and consumer credit and is a frequent commentator on legal issues in the print and broadcast media, including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, The Washington Post, The Washington Times, Nightline, The Newshour with Jim Lehrer, Neil Cavuto Show, Fox & Friends, Smerconish, Fox News @ Night with Shannon Bream, Fox Business, CNN, CNBC, Bloomberg News, BBC, The Diane Rehm Show, Lou Dobbs Show, Jerry Doyle Show, and The Laura Ingraham Show.
Professor Zywicki is former Chairman and a current member of the Board of Directors of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and is a member of the Board of Directors of the Institute for Humane Studies, Bill of Rights Institute, the Executive Committee for the Federalist Society's Financial Institutions and E-Commerce Practice Group, the Board of Trustees of the Foundation for Research on Economics and the Environment. He formerly served on the Governing Board and the Advisory Council for the Financial Services Research Program at George Washington University School of Business. He is currently the Chair of the Academic Advisory Council for the following organizations: The Bill of Rights Institute, the film “We the People in IMAX,” and the McCormick-Tribune Foundation “Freedom Museum” in Chicago, Illinois. He is a member of the Board of Visitors of Ralston College and was a member of the Board of Trustees of Yorktown University. From 2005-2009 he served as an elected Alumni Trustee of the Dartmouth College Board of Trustees.
Partner, Kirkland & Ellis LLP
Mr. Doug Smith has litigated cases at both the trial and appellate stage in state and federal courts throughout the country, including commercial, mass tort, product liability, securities, bankruptcy, environmental, and intellectual property cases. He is a member of the American Law Institute and has published on a wide variety of legal topics.
Thomas W. Smith Fellow; Contributing Editor, City Journal, Manhattan Institute
Heather Mac Donald is the Thomas W. Smith Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a contributing editor of City Journal, and a New York Times bestselling author. She is a recipient of the 2005 Bradley Prize. Mac Donald’s work at City Journal has covered a range of topics, including higher education, immigration, policing, homelessness and homeless advocacy, criminal-justice reform, and race relations. Her writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The New Republic, and The New Criterion. Mac Donald's newest book, The Diversity Delusion: How Race and Gender Pandering Corrupt the University and Undermine Our Culture (2018), argues that toxic ideas first spread by higher education have undermined humanistic values, fueled intolerance, and widened divisions in our larger culture.
Mac Donald’s The War on Cops (2016), a New York Times bestseller, warns that raced-based attacks on the criminal-justice system, from the White House on down, are eroding the authority of law and putting lives at risk. Other previous works include The Burden of Bad Ideas (2001), a collection of Mac Donald’s City Journal essays, details the effects of the 1960s counterculture’s destructive march through America’s institutions. In The Immigration Solution: A Better Plan than Today’s (2007), coauthored with Victor Davis Hanson and Steven Malanga, she chronicles the effects of broken immigration laws and proposes a practical solution to securing the country’s porous borders. In Are Cops Racist? (2010), another City Journal anthology, Mac Donald investigates the workings of the police, the controversy over so-called racial profiling, and the anti-profiling lobby’s harmful effects on black Americans.
A nonpracticing lawyer, Mac Donald clerked for the Honorable Stephen Reinhardt, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and was an attorney-advisor in the Office of the General Counsel of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and a volunteer with the Natural Resources Defense Council. She has frequently testified before U.S. House and Senate Committees. In 1998, Mac Donald was appointed to Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s task force on the City University of New York. She has received numerous awards for her writing:
A frequent guest on Fox News and other TV and radio programs, Mac Donald holds a B.A. in English from Yale University, graduating with a Mellon Fellowship to Cambridge University, where she earned an M.A. in English and studied in Italy through a Clare College study grant. She holds a J.D. from Stanford University Law School.
At the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation's 2018 annual meeting in downtown Los Angeles, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions called Mac Donald, “the greatest thinker on criminal justice in America today.”
Senior Counsel, Corporate Engagement Team, Alliance Defending Freedom
Brian Knight serves as senior counsel on the Corporate Engagement Team. His work focuses on issues of financial access, debanking, and preventing the power of the private sector from being weaponized against people of faith by both public and private actors.
Prior to joining ADF, Knight spent almost nine years at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, as both a senior research fellow and as a program director. In addition to managing a team of scholars, Knight’s research focused on financial regulation and the politicization of financial services. His research helped inform legislation and regulation at the federal and state level. He was also the lead author for two amicus briefs submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of National Rifle Association v. Vullo.
Before joining Mercatus, Knight worked at the Milken Institute, where he focused on financial technology. He was also an entrepreneur, co-founding a firm focused on compliance for crowdfunding.
Knight earned a Juris Doctor from the University of Virginia School of Law and a Bachelor of Arts from the College of William and Mary.
Senior Vice President and Deputy General Counsel, Conference of State Bank Supervisors
Margaret Liu is Senior Vice President and Deputy General Counsel at the Conference of State Bank Supervisors (CSBS). Margaret serves as a part of the CSBS legal and policy team, providing legal support for CSBS and its affiliated organizations as well as overseeing CSBS efforts representing the policy perspectives of state banking commissioners before Congress. She also serves as the lead CSBS staff member on fintech issues.
Margaret has worked as a consultant on financial services policy issues and in a variety of roles at Fannie Mae, including Vice President of Single Family Mortgage Business, Vice President for Industry Relations, and Vice President for Policy Communications at Fannie Mae.
Margaret is a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Chicago Law School.
Senior Director of Strategic Partnerships, First Liberty Institute
Lisa Budzynski Ezell is the former Vice President and Director of the Federalist Society’s Lawyers Chapters. In this role, she managed a growing network of over 90 lawyers chapters nationwide, including oversight of leadership recruitment, chapter programming, state conferences, civics education outreach, and young lawyers activities. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Saint Mary’s College in Political Science and History and a Master of Public Policy from George Mason University.
Co-Chairman, The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies
Leonard is Co-Chairman and former Executive Vice President of the Federalist Society, joining the organization over 25 years ago. Since that time he has been instrumental in helping the organization top 70,000, focusing on the growth of lawyers membership, operations and activities advancing limited, constitutional government. In addition to his work at the Society, Leonard has advised President Trump on judicial selection, assisted with the Gorsuch and Kavanaugh Supreme Court selection and confirmation process, and served as a member of the transition team. He also organized the outside coalition efforts in support of the Roberts and Alito U.S. Supreme Court confirmations. Leonard was appointed by President George W. Bush to three terms to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom as chairman. He was also a U.S. Delegate to the UN Council and UN Commission on Human Rights during the Bush Administration. Leonard was the recipient of the 2009 Bradley Prize, along with the other founders and directors of the Federalist Society, for his work in advancing freedom and the rule of law. He is the coeditor of Presidential Leadership: Rating the Best and the Worst in the White House, as well as the author of opinion editorials in the New York Times,The Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post. Leonard holds degrees from Cornell University and Cornell Law School. He presently resides in Northern Virginia, where he and his wife Sally have raised their seven children.
Senior Advisor, Covington & Burling
Senator Jon Kyl advises companies on domestic and international policies that influence U.S. and multi-national businesses and assists corporate clients on tax, health care, national security, and intellectual property matters, among others.
Jon served in the U.S. Senate from 1995 to 2013, retiring as the second-highest ranking Republican senator. He returned to the Senate in September 2018 after being appointed to succeed the late John McCain, and retired again at the end of 2018.
During Jon’s 26 years in Congress, he built a reputation for mastering the complexities of legislative policy and coalition building, first in the House of Representatives and then in the Senate. In 2010, Time magazine called him one of the 100 most influential people in the world, noting his "encyclopedic knowledge of domestic and foreign policy, and his hard work and leadership" and his "power to persuade."
Jon sat on the powerful Senate Finance Committee and was the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism. A member of the Republican Leadership for well over a decade, Jon chaired the Senate Republican Policy Committee and the Senate Republican Conference, before becoming Senate Republican Whip. In filling Senator McCain’s seat, he served on the Armed Services and Homeland Security Committees.
President, Housing Policy Council
Ed DeMarco is President of the Housing Policy Council. Prior to joining HPC in June 2017, DeMarco was a senior fellow in residence at the Milken Institute’s Center for Financial Markets.
From 2009 to 2014, DeMarco was acting director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), where he served as the conservator for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and regulator of those companies and the Federal Home Loan Banks. He was named HousingWire Magazine’s Person of the Year in 2012 for his impact on housing finance. DeMarco was chief operating officer and senior deputy director of the FHFA and its predecessor agency from 2006 to 2009.
DeMarco’s career in public service includes positions at the Social Security Administration, the Treasury Department, and GAO. He earned a B.A. in economics from the University of Notre Dame and a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Maryland.
Senior Fellow, Mises Institute
Alex J. Pollock is a Senior Fellow with the Mises Institute, providing thought and policy leadership on financial issues and the study of financial systems. His work includes cycles of booms and busts, financial crises with their political responses, housing finance, government-sponsored enterprises, risk and uncertainty, central banking, banking and financial regulation, corporate governance, retirement finance, student loans, and the politics of finance.
He previously served as the Principal Deputy Director of the Office of Financial Research in the U.S. Treasury Department 2019-2021. He was a Distinguished Senior Fellow with the R Street Institute 2015-2019 and 2021, and a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, 2004-2015. Among the many aspects of his AEI work, he developed the One Page Mortgage Form to give borrowers in clear form the key information they need in order to know what they are committing themselves to. He was President and CEO of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago from 1991 to 2004. There he invented the Mortgage Partnership Finance program, which successfully created front-end mortgage credit risk sharing beginning in 1997. His decades of banking experience include being a Visiting Scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, 1991.
Pollock was a director of the CME Group 2004-2019 and of Ascendium Education Group 1989-2019. He is a director and past-chairman of the Great Books Foundation and a past president of the International Union for Housing Finance.
He is the co-author of Surprised Again! - The COVID Crisis and the New Market Bubble (2022), and the author of Finance and Philosophy—Why We’re Always Surprised (2018) and Boom and Bust: Financial Cycles and Human Prosperity (2011), as well as numerous articles and Congressional testimony.
Pollock is a graduate of Williams College, the University of Chicago, and Princeton University.
His work is available on alexjpollock.com.
Chief Investigative Counsel, U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
Steve Castor is chief investigative counsel for the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform under committee Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-SC). He has served on the committee staff since 2005, and during his twelve-year tenure participated in a wide variety of high-profile oversight investigations. Prior to working for Congress, he practiced commercial litigation in Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. He earned his law degree from George Washington University.
Vice President, Networks, The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies
Nathan Kaczmarek is Vice President for Networks at the Federalist Society. He began his legal career in Detroit representing nationwide clients in all phases of healthcare litigation and complex medical malpractice claims. He has since served as a Senior Legal and Policy Advisor in the U.S. House of Representatives and as Counsel for the Subcommittee on Regulatory Affairs and Federal Management in the U.S. Senate. Prior to overseeing the Networks, he was Director of the Practice Groups, the Regulatory Transparency Project, and the Article I Initiative for the Federalist Society.
Nathan holds degrees from Hillsdale College and Thomas M. Cooley Law School. He is a Liaison Representative for The Administrative Conference of the United States. He also serves as Vice President of the Associates of St. John Bosco, a Virginia based non-profit dedicated to Catholic high school and college students.
Of Counsel, Gibson Dunn & Crutcher
Amanda H. Neely is of counsel in the Washington, D.C. office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher and is a member of the Public Policy, Congressional Investigations, White Collar, and National Security practice groups.
Ms. Neely has extensive experience working on Capitol Hill. She leverages that expertise to advise clients regarding their interactions with Congress and the executive branch. Over the course of ten years, Ms. Neely held several senior staff positions in Congress. She served as Director of Governmental Affairs for the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs and General Counsel to Senator Rob Portman. Under Senator Portman’s chairmanship, she also served as Deputy Chief Counsel for the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. In those roles, she managed Senator Portman’s regulatory reform agenda and led oversight of federal government agencies and investigations into private entities. She previously served in several other Capitol Hill offices including as Oversight Counsel for the House of Representatives Committee on Ways and Means.
Congressional Investigations: At Gibson Dunn, Ms. Neely has represented clients undergoing investigations by numerous congressional committees, including the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations; Senate Finance Committee; Senate Judiciary Committee; Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee; House Committee on Oversight and Accountability; House Judiciary Committee; and the House Energy and Commerce Committee. In the course of those representations, Ms. Neely assists clients in all stages of investigations, including responding to letter requests and subpoenas to preparing witnesses for interviews, depositions, and congressional hearings. She also has assisted clients appearing before independent commissions such as the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission and the Commission on Wartime Contracting.
Public Policy: Ms. Neely also works with clients to advance their legislative interests on Capitol Hill by gathering intelligence, formulating strategic plans, and executing lobbying campaigns. In those matters, she has represented a wide range of clients from the fields of technology, healthcare, finance, and energy.
Regulatory Counseling: Ms. Neely regularly advises clients regarding their interests before regulatory agencies. Her expertise in the CHIPS and Science Act allows her to help clients comply with the Department of Commerce’s regulations and assist them in commenting on agency rules and applying for funding. She also works with clients to engage in the rulemaking process at agencies ranging from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Ms. Neely also has participated in a variety of litigation matters before state and federal trial and appellate courts, including several class action defense and False Claims Act cases.
Ms. Neely clerked for the Honorable David B. Sentelle, then-Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. She earned her law degree cum laude from Duke University School of Law, where she served as the Articles Editor for both the Alaska Law Review and the Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy. She was a member of the Duke Law Moot Court Board and served on the executive board of the Duke Law Federalist Society.
Ms. Neely graduated cum laude from Princeton University, where she majored in English and earned a certificate in Medieval Studies. She served for two years on United States Senator Elizabeth Dole’s staff as a legislative correspondent, focusing on banking, housing, budget, and tax issues. Ms. Neely is admitted to practice law in the District of Columbia and before the United States Courts of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
Emanuel S. Heller Professor of Law, University of California at Berkeley; Senior Research Fellow, School of Civic Leadership, Civitas Institute, University of Texas at Austin; Nonresident Senior Fellow, American Enterprise Institute
John Yoo is the Emanuel Heller Professor of Law. He is also Distinguished Visiting Scholar, School of Civic Leadership and Senior Research Fellow, Civitas Institute, at the University of Texas at Austin. He is also a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
His most recent book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Supreme Court, co-authored with Robert Delahunty, was published in 2023. Professor Yoo’s other books include Defender-in-Chief: Trump’s Fight for Presidential Power; Striking Power: How Cyber, Robots, and Space Weapons Change the Rules for War, Point of Attack: Preventive War, International Law, and Global Welfare, and Crisis and Command: A History of Executive Power from George Washington to George Bush.
Professor Yoo has published more than 100 articles in academic journals on subjects including national security, constitutional law, international law, and the Supreme Court. He also regularly contributes to the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and National Review, among others.
Professor Yoo has served in all three branches of government. He was an official in the U.S. Department of Justice, where he worked on national security and terrorism issues after the 9/11 attacks. He served as general counsel of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. He has been a law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and federal appeals Judge Laurence Silberman. He has been a visiting professor at Seoul National University in South Korea, the Interdisciplinary Center in Israel, Keio University in Japan, Trento University in Italy, the University of Chicago, and the Free University of Amsterdam.
Professor Yoo supervises the Public Law and Policy Program and the California Constitution Center. He also serves on the boards of the Pacific Legal Foundation, the Federalist Society’s Separation of Powers and Federalism Division, the Universidad Cientifica del Sur Law School, and the Asia-Pacific Law Institute at Seoul National University. He is a winner of the Federalist Society’s Paul Bator award and been the Edwin Meese III Originalism Lecturer at the Heritage Foundation.
Professor Yoo graduated from Yale Law School and summa cum laude from Harvard College.
Senior Director of Strategic Partnerships, First Liberty Institute
Lisa Budzynski Ezell is the former Vice President and Director of the Federalist Society’s Lawyers Chapters. In this role, she managed a growing network of over 90 lawyers chapters nationwide, including oversight of leadership recruitment, chapter programming, state conferences, civics education outreach, and young lawyers activities. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Saint Mary’s College in Political Science and History and a Master of Public Policy from George Mason University.
Senior Advisor, Covington & Burling
Senator Jon Kyl advises companies on domestic and international policies that influence U.S. and multi-national businesses and assists corporate clients on tax, health care, national security, and intellectual property matters, among others.
Jon served in the U.S. Senate from 1995 to 2013, retiring as the second-highest ranking Republican senator. He returned to the Senate in September 2018 after being appointed to succeed the late John McCain, and retired again at the end of 2018.
During Jon’s 26 years in Congress, he built a reputation for mastering the complexities of legislative policy and coalition building, first in the House of Representatives and then in the Senate. In 2010, Time magazine called him one of the 100 most influential people in the world, noting his "encyclopedic knowledge of domestic and foreign policy, and his hard work and leadership" and his "power to persuade."
Jon sat on the powerful Senate Finance Committee and was the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism. A member of the Republican Leadership for well over a decade, Jon chaired the Senate Republican Policy Committee and the Senate Republican Conference, before becoming Senate Republican Whip. In filling Senator McCain’s seat, he served on the Armed Services and Homeland Security Committees.
Co-Chairman, The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies
Leonard is Co-Chairman and former Executive Vice President of the Federalist Society, joining the organization over 25 years ago. Since that time he has been instrumental in helping the organization top 70,000, focusing on the growth of lawyers membership, operations and activities advancing limited, constitutional government. In addition to his work at the Society, Leonard has advised President Trump on judicial selection, assisted with the Gorsuch and Kavanaugh Supreme Court selection and confirmation process, and served as a member of the transition team. He also organized the outside coalition efforts in support of the Roberts and Alito U.S. Supreme Court confirmations. Leonard was appointed by President George W. Bush to three terms to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom as chairman. He was also a U.S. Delegate to the UN Council and UN Commission on Human Rights during the Bush Administration. Leonard was the recipient of the 2009 Bradley Prize, along with the other founders and directors of the Federalist Society, for his work in advancing freedom and the rule of law. He is the coeditor of Presidential Leadership: Rating the Best and the Worst in the White House, as well as the author of opinion editorials in the New York Times,The Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post. Leonard holds degrees from Cornell University and Cornell Law School. He presently resides in Northern Virginia, where he and his wife Sally have raised their seven children.
Sanctuary City & State Litigation Update: What Happens When Federal and Local Enforcement Priorities Conflict?
Ilya Shapiro, Ilya Somin
A Teleforum Call Sponsored by the Federalism & Separation of Power Practice Group
The litigation over California's "sanctuary state" law raises important federalism questions that go far beyond...
Nutraceutical Corp. v. Lambert - Post-Argument SCOTUScast
Michael T. Morley
SCOTUScast featuring Michael Morley
On November 27, 2018, the Supreme Court heard argument in Nutraceutical Corp. v. Lambert, a...
Courthouse Steps Oral Argument: Tennessee Wine and Spirits Retailers Association v. Byrd
Ilya Shapiro, Todd J. Zywicki
Federalism & Separation of Powers Practice Group and Regulatory Transparency Project Teleforum
For the first time in over a decade, the Supreme Court has taken a case...
Courthouse Steps Oral Argument: Merck Sharp & Dohme Corp. v. Albrecht
Douglas Geoffrey Smith
In Merck Sharp & Dohme Corp. v. Albrecht, the Supreme Court has been asked to...
Book Review: Diversity Delusion
Heather Mac Donald
Civil Rights Practice Group
Heather MacDonald discusses her new book: The Diversity Delusion: "America is in crisis, from the...
Fintech Licensing and the OCC Charter
Brian Knight, Margaret Liu
Regulatory Transparency Project Teleforum
Innovations in financial technology have enabled financial services to be provided in new ways and...
Necessary & Proper Episode 33: Discussion with Senator Jon Kyl
Lisa Ezell, Leonard A. Leo, Jon Kyl
On December 10, 2018, Senator Jon Kyl (AZ) spoke at an event co-sponsored by the...
What Should the FHFA's 2019 Agenda Be?
Ed DeMarco, Alex J. Pollock
Regulatory Transparency Project Teleforum
January 7, 2019 starts a new leadership era for the Federal Housing Finance Agency, as...
The New Congress and Congressional Oversight
Steve Castor, Nathan Kaczmarek, Amanda H. Neely, John C. Yoo
Co-sponsored by the Article I Initiative and the Capitol Hill Chapter
With the election of the 116th Congress there are many interesting aspects of the intersection...
Discussion with Senator Jon Kyl
Lisa Ezell, Jon Kyl, Leonard A. Leo
DC Young Lawyers Chapter
On December 10, 2018, Senator Jon Kyl (AZ) spoke to the DC Young Lawyers Chapter...