Partner, Schaerr | Jaffe LLP
Erik Jaffe has been involved in appeals on a broad range of legal issues, including First Amendment challenges to campaign finance reform, Commerce Clause challenges to Health Care Reform and other federal legislation, Equal Protection Clause challenges to affirmative action in education, First Amendment challenges to school vouchers, Fifth Amendment challenges to takings of property, Second Amendment challenges to restrictions on gun ownership, and a wide variety of cases involving patents, copyrights, ERISA, securities fraud, federal preemption, environmental regulation, and other state and federal constitutional and statutory matters. He has represented businesses and non-profit groups, Judges, Senators, former government officials, Nobel Prize winners, and a broad cross-section of private individuals. Mr. Jaffe has been involved in over 120 Supreme Court matters, including filing over 30 cert. petitions, representing half-a-dozen parties on the merits, and filing over 70 amicus briefs at both the cert. and merits stages.
A 1990 graduate of the Columbia University School of Law, Mr. Jaffe was a law clerk to Judge Douglas H. Ginsburg of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit from 1990 to 1991. Following that clerkship he spent five years in litigation practice with the Washington, D.C. law firm of Williams & Connolly. In the summer of 1996 he left Williams & Connolly to clerk for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. At the end of that clerkship he started his own practice, and he was a sole practitioner from 1997 to 2018. He joined the firm of Schaerr | Jaffe LLP in 2018.
General Counsel, xAI and X
Partner, Stone Pigman Walther Wittmann LLC
Mr. Thomson concentrates his practice in white collar criminal defense, government investigations, and corporate compliance. He has tried over 50 criminal trials to verdict in federal and state courts, and has experience in appellate litigation. His practice also includes civil litigation and information security. Prior to joining Stone Pigman, Mr. Thomson had a 23 year career as a federal prosecutor with the U.S. Department of Justice. He served on special assignment with the National Security Agency, where he worked on matters involving information assurance and intelligence collection.
Prior to private practice, Mr. Thomson was recognized numerous times by government agencies, including a Special Commendation Award given by the U.S. Attorney General for completing the Justice Department's Leadership Excellence and Achievement Program; Special Commendation by FBI Director for outstanding performance for successful corruption prosecution after Hurricane Katrina; Special Award from the U.S. Postal Service for prosecution of corrupt employee; Special Award by New Orleans Police Department, ATF and U.S. Department of Justice for his contributions to Project Exile; and Special Awards for Outstanding Contributions to Drug Law Enforcement from the Drug Enforcement Administration.
Laurence H. Silberman Chair in Constitutional Governance and Senior Fellow, American Enterprise Institute; Co-Director, Antonin Scalia Law School’s C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State
Adam J. White is the Laurence H. Silberman Chair in Constitutional Governance and senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he focuses on the Supreme Court and the administrative state. Concurrently, he codirects the Antonin Scalia Law School’s C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State.
Mr. White practiced constitutional and administrative law, particularly in the regulation of energy and financial markets. He started his legal career as a law clerk for Judge David B. Sentelle at the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit.
Mr. White has written for the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Washington Post, National Affairs, Commentary, Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, and Notre Dame Law Review, among other publications. He is a regular contributor to the Yale Journal on Regulation’s Notice and Comment blog, and for many years, he was one of the Weekly Standard’s lead writers on constitutional law and the Supreme Court.
Mr. White has testified often before Congress, including before the Senate’s Committees on the Judiciary; Commerce, Science, and Transportation; and Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs and before the House’s Judiciary and Financial Services Committees. In 2018, the Senate Committee on the Judiciary called him to testify in Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings to advise senators on Kavanaugh’s approach to administrative law.
In 2021, he served on the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States, where he criticized “Court packing” and other efforts to restructure the Supreme Court. In 2017, he was appointed to serve on the Administrative Conference of the United States. He also serves on the leadership council for the American Bar Association’s Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice Section, which he will chair in 2023–24. Before joining AEI, he was a research fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and an adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
Mr. White has a JD from Harvard Law School and a bachelor of business administration from the College of Business at the University of Iowa.
Assistant Attorney General, Civil Division, United States Department of Justice
Brett A. Shumate was sworn in as the Civil Division’s 36th Assistant Attorney General on June 11, 2025. He previously served in the Civil Division from 2017 to 2019 as the Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Federal Programs Branch. Prior to rejoining the Department, Mr. Shumate was a partner at Jones Day in Washington, D.C.
Mr. Shumate clerked for Judge Edith H. Jones on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. He graduated from Wake Forest University School of Law and Furman University.
Partner, Wiley Rein, LLP
Megan L. Brown is a partner at Wiley Rein LLP. She has significant litigation, appellate and regulatory experience before state and federal courts and agencies.
Ms. Brown helps businesses respond to federal, state and local regulation and investigations raising administrative law, statutory interpretation, and constitutional issues, including the First Amendment.
General Counsel and Corporate Secretary, Citigroup
Brent McIntosh joined Citi as General Counsel and Corporate Secretary in October 2021. Brent leads Citi's global legal team, including Citi security and investigative services, and oversees Citi’s independent compliance risk management function.
Brent served as Under Secretary of the Treasury for International Affairs from 2019 to 2021. He led the Treasury Department’s engagement in the G7 and G20, represented the United States on the Financial Stability Board, and managed U.S. participation at the IMF and World Bank. He oversaw Treasury’s international economic and financial policy work, including significant engagements on investment security and regulation of digital currencies. During 2020, he coordinated initiatives to alleviate the COVID-19 pandemic’s economic consequences.
From 2017 to 2019, Brent served as Treasury’s General Counsel, leading the department’s approximately 2,000 lawyers and spearheading its regulatory reform efforts. Prior to that, he was a partner in the law firm of Sullivan & Cromwell, where his practice focused on complex disputes involving financial institutions and multinational corporations.
Brent served in the White House from 2006 until 2009, first as Associate Counsel to the President and then as Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy Staff Secretary. Before that, he was a Deputy Assistant Attorney General at the Justice Department, where his work focused on national security matters.
A Michigan native, Brent holds an A.B. in economics and political science from the University of Michigan and a J.D. from Yale Law School. Following law school, he was a law clerk to two federal appellate judges, Dennis Jacobs of the Second Circuit and Laurence H. Silberman of the D.C. Circuit. Brent serves on the Board of Directors of the Alexander Hamilton Society, the Board of Advisors for the National Security Institute at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School, and the Advisory Council of the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, where he previously served as an Adjunct Senior Fellow for International Economics and Finance, as well as the Bretton Woods Committee and the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
Rebecca Seidel currently resides in Louisville, Kentucky and in 2023 recently joined the state office of Senator Rand Paul, M.D, as Grant Coordinator. In this position, Ms. Seidel tracks grant opportunities, both public and private, that could aid constituents and works to provide support and helpful information to those in need who can benefit.
Prior to moving to Kentucky in 2016 Rebecca Seidel was General Counsel of the Senate Commerce Committee in Washington D.C. In that role, Ms. Seidel handled cybersecurity, privacy, data security, vehicle safety and consumer protections issues. She also oversaw committee investigations and oversight of the executive branch and private sector companies. Prior to joining the Commerce Committee, Ms. Seidel held positions in the Senate, the Executive Branch and in private sector law practice.
Immediately prior to the Commerce Committee, Ms. Seidel was counsel to the Senate Impeachment Trial Committee, formed for the trial of Judge G. Thomas Porteous. Before that Ms. Seidel was Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Legislative Affairs at the Department of Justice. Previously she served as senior counsel on the Senate Judiciary Committee handling legal reform issues including asbestos and class action. Prior to that she started her government career as counsel to then Senator George V. Voinovich.
Ms. Seidel’s time in private law practice was spent in the Boston, Massachusetts area where she was a litigator for five years practicing federal and state civil litigation defense in complex product liability, premises liability, liquor liability, and ERISA cases. She received her undergraduate degree from the University of Notre Dame and her law degree from the University of Dayton.
Senior Litigation Counsel, New Civil Liberties Alliance
Throughout his 40-year career in private law practice in Washington, D.C., Richard Samp has specialized in appellate litigation with a focus on constitutional law. He served as Chief Counsel of the Washington Legal Foundation for more than 30 years. He has participated directly in more than 200 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. Mr. Samp is a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Michigan Law School and clerked for a federal judge in Detroit.
Legal Scholar and Solo Practitioner
Jack received his B.A. in History from the University of Virginia in 1977, graduating with Highest Distinction. After graduating Yale Law School in 1980, he served active duty in the U.S. Army's JAG Corps, rising to the rank of Major, where he represented the United States in more than 250 cases.
He practiced for a decade as an Associate for Bradley Arant in Birmingham, Alabama. He proudly served the State of Alabama in the Office of the Attorney General, both as Deputy and Assistant Attorney General, handling complex civil and criminal litigation cases for the people of Alabama. In 2000, he won the "Best Brief Award" from the National Association of Attorneys General for his brief in a case decided by the U.S. Supreme Court, James Alexander v. Martha Sandoval – a case he won. He was Special Assistant to the Inspector General for the Corporation for National and Community Service, Visiting Legal Fellow for the Center for Judicial and Legal Studies for the Heritage Foundation, Of Counsel at Strickland Brockington Lewis, a solo practitioner, and General Counsel for Indigo Energy.
Most recently, he "re-upped" for military service, volunteering his legal services to the Georgia State Defense Force where twice each month he provided legal services for National Guardsmen who were being deployed. He wore his military uniform for the last time in October 2024.
Jack Park passed away on March 16, 2026.
Partner, Schaerr Jaffe LLP
Gene Schaerr specializes in handling—and usually winning—civil appeals, writ proceedings and similar matters, both in appellate courts and in the law-focused proceedings at the trial-court or agency level that often determine success or failure on appeal. He has argued and won dozens of cases in a variety of forums—including the U.S. Supreme Court (where he has argued six cases), every federal circuit, and numerous federal district courts and state appellate courts. His win rate in the dozens of federal appeals he has argued in the past six years is over 75 percent.
He was a coordinator of Sidley Austin's appellate practice from 1993 until 2005, and from 2005 until 2014 was the chair of the nationwide appellate practice at Winston & Strawn—a practice he led to numerous recognitions in such publications as the Appellate Hot List. His personal practice successes have won him repeated recognition in such publications as Best Lawyers in Washington, D.C., Legal 500, D.C. Superlawyers, and Best Lawyers in America. In January 2014, Mr. Schaerr formed his own boutique litigation firm so that he could serve his clients without the conflicts and inefficiencies inherent in big-firm law practice.
Substantively, Mr. Schaerr's experience includes not only virtually every area of federal law, defamation, higher education law, immigration, insurance coverage, labor and employment, patent and trademark, privacy, product liability and warranty, statutory interpretation and tax.He has represented clients in virtually every sector, including automotive, communications, energy, financial services, health care, higher education, insurance, maritime, pharmaceuticals, technology and state and local government. He also teaches courses in Supreme Court litigation, religious freedom litigation and advanced litigation skills as an adjunct professor of law at the Brigham Young University law school.
Mr. Schaerr began law practice in 1987 following clerkships on the U.S. Supreme Court (for Chief Justice Warren Burger and Justice Antonin Scalia) and on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (for then- Judge Kenneth Starr). He graduated in 1985 from the Yale Law School, where he was Editor-in-Chief of the Yale Journal on Regulation and Senior Editor of the Yale Law Journal. From 1991 to 1993, he served in the White House as Associate Counsel to the President, where he had responsibility for a wide range of constitutional and administrative-law issues, including those involving economic regulation, higher education, separation of powers, federalism and religious freedom. He serves as Chairman of the Constitutional Sources Project, a digital resource providing free public access to historical materials relevant to the U.S. Constitution.
Partner, Covington & Burling LLP
Sarah L. Wilson is a litigation partner at Covington & Burling and a former federal judge whose practice focuses on litigation and investigations. She has handled a broad range of civil and criminal disputes, including False Claims Act litigation, environmental and natural resources litigation, insurance litigation, pharmaceutical and consumer product company investigations, and arbitration.
Ms. Wilson co-chairs Covington & Burling's Advertising and Consumer Law Practice Group. She has represented the world’s largest automotive and consumer product companies in recall and post-recall investigations and disputes.
Ms. Wilson previously served as a Trial Attorney and Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Department of Justice, as an Associate and Senior Counsel in the White House Counsel's Office, and as a Judge on the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.
Columbia Law School, 1990
Yale University, M.Phil., 1985
Yale University, M.A., 1984
Williams College, B.A., 1981
Senior Counsel, Becket Fund for Religious Liberty
William J. Haun is Senior Counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty and a Nonresident Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). At Becket, Will litigates nationwide in defense of religious liberty for all faith traditions, particularly before the U.S. Supreme Court and in other federal and state appellate courts. His litigation includes being a member of the U.S. Supreme Court team that prevailed 9-0 for Catholic Social Services in Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, arguing before multiple federal appellate courts, federal district courts, and the Supreme Court of Texas. At AEI, Will writes and researches on constitutionalism and self-government’s prerequisites, especially the role of religion in securing and preserving freedom.
Before joining Becket and AEI, Will practiced appellate and antitrust law at two international law firms—Shearman & Sterling and Hunton & Williams. He also served as a law clerk to Judge Janice Rogers Brown of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and Judge Claude Hilton of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. Will often writes on constitutional law issues, including in the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, the Catholic University Law Review, National Affairs, Law & Liberty, National Review Online, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post. He also speaks on these topics, including at the Catholic University of America, Columbus School of Law, Princeton University, the University of Virginia School of Law, and the University of Chicago Law School. He received his J.D. from the Catholic University of America, cum laude, where he was a published member of the Law Review. He received his B.A. from American University in political science, cum laude. He lives in Maryland with his wife and children, where they enjoy sailing, cheering on their favorite baseball teams, and discovering the great traditions of their Catholic faith.
Senior Fellow, Administrative Conference of the United States
Paul D. Kamenar is a Washington, D.C. public policy and appellate attorney who counsels clients on legal, regulatory, and public policy matters. He is also a Senior Fellow of the Administrative Conference of the United States and guest lectures at the U.S. Naval Academy on National Security Law. He has been a speaker at several conferences across the country on overcriminalization and regulatory enforcement, including those sponsored by the American Bar Association, George Mason University Law School, S.J. Quinney College of Law-University of Utah, American University Washington College of Law, Northwestern University School of Law, and the Cleveland Chapter of the Federalist Society. He also has briefed Members of Congress and their staff on overcriminalization issues along with representatives from the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and the Heritage Foundation. He and his clients have also testified before congressional committees on these issues. He was Senior Executive Counsel of the Washington Legal Foundation, Clinical Professor of Law at George Mason University Law School from 1999-2005, and adjunct professor at Georgetown University Law Center teaching a separation of powers/appellate advocacy seminar. He is a graduate of Georgetown Law and received his undergraduate degree from Rutgers College.
Legal Scholar and Solo Practitioner
Jack received his B.A. in History from the University of Virginia in 1977, graduating with Highest Distinction. After graduating Yale Law School in 1980, he served active duty in the U.S. Army's JAG Corps, rising to the rank of Major, where he represented the United States in more than 250 cases.
He practiced for a decade as an Associate for Bradley Arant in Birmingham, Alabama. He proudly served the State of Alabama in the Office of the Attorney General, both as Deputy and Assistant Attorney General, handling complex civil and criminal litigation cases for the people of Alabama. In 2000, he won the "Best Brief Award" from the National Association of Attorneys General for his brief in a case decided by the U.S. Supreme Court, James Alexander v. Martha Sandoval – a case he won. He was Special Assistant to the Inspector General for the Corporation for National and Community Service, Visiting Legal Fellow for the Center for Judicial and Legal Studies for the Heritage Foundation, Of Counsel at Strickland Brockington Lewis, a solo practitioner, and General Counsel for Indigo Energy.
Most recently, he "re-upped" for military service, volunteering his legal services to the Georgia State Defense Force where twice each month he provided legal services for National Guardsmen who were being deployed. He wore his military uniform for the last time in October 2024.
Jack Park passed away on March 16, 2026.
Professor of Law, South Texas College of Law Houston
Josh Blackman is a national thought leader on constitutional law and the United States Supreme Court. Josh’s work was quoted during two presidential impeachment trials. He has testified before Congress and advises federal and state lawmakers. Josh regularly appears on TV, including NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox, and the BBC. Josh is also a frequent guest on NPR and other syndicated radio programs. He has published commentaries in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and leading national publications.
Since 2012, Josh has served as a professor at the South Texas College of Law Houston. He holds the Centennial Chair of Constitutional Law. Josh is an Adjunct Fellow at the Manhattan Institute. Josh has written more than seven dozen law review articles that have been cited more than a thousand times. Josh was selected as the Jurist of the Year by the Texas Journal of Law & Public Policy, received the inaugural Meese III Originalism Award, and was awarded the Inaugural Joseph Story Award. Josh was selected by Forbes Magazine for the “30 Under 30” in Law and Policy. Josh is the President of the Harlan Institute, and founded FantasySCOTUS, the Internet’s Premier Supreme Court Fantasy League. He blogs at the Volokh Conspiracyand posts@JoshMBlackman.
Dr. John Eastman is the former Henry Salvatori Professor of Law & Community Service and former Dean at Chapman University's Dale E. Fowler School of Law, where he had been a member of the faculty since 1999, specializing in Constitutional Law, Legal History, and Property. He is a founding director of the Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence, a public interest law firm affiliated with the Claremont Institute that he founded in 1999. He has a Ph.D. in Government from the Claremont Graduate School and a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School, and a B.A. in Politics and Economics from the University of Dallas. He serves as the Chairman of the Board of the National Organization for Marriage.
Prior to joining the Chapman law faculty, Dr. Eastman served as a law clerk to the Honorable Clarence Thomas, Associate Justice, Supreme Court of the United States, and to the Honorable J. Michael Luttig, Judge, United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and practiced law with the national law firm of Kirkland & Ellis. Dr. Eastman has also represented numerous clients in important constitutional law matters and has argued before the Supreme Court. On behalf of the Claremont Institute Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence, he has participated as amicus curiae before the Supreme Court of the United States, U.S. Courts of Appeals, and State Supreme Courts in more than one hundred cases of constitutional significance, including Boy Scouts of America v. Dale, Zelman v. Simmons-Harris (the school vouchers case), Kelo v. New London, Ct. (eminent domain), and Van Orden v. Perry (the 10 Commandments case). He has also appeared as an expert legal commentator on numerous television and radio programs, including C-SPAN, Fox News, PBS, NewsHour, and The O'Reilly Factor.
Counsel to Sen. Ted Cruz, U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee
Kathleen Hunker is a senior policy analyst with the Center for Economic Freedom at the Texas Public Policy Foundation. She is also a managing editor of the Foundation’s research and publications.
During her time at the Foundation, Ms. Hunker has testified nearly two-dozen times before the Texas Legislature and has become a respected expert on the law surrounding consumer protection, property rights, and the Texas civil court system.
A Texan by choice, not birth, Ms. Hunker previously worked as a legal associate at the Cato Institute’s Center for Constitutional Studies, where she conducted rigorous research and writing on a wide-range of federal and state cases in order to advance the Center’s mission of a constitutionally limited government.
The Claremont Institute selected her in 2014 for their prestigious John Marshall Fellowship on American political thought and jurisprudence.
Ms. Hunker graduated from Columbia University School of Law and the University College London with a Juris Doctor (J.D.) and Masters of Law (LL.M) respectively. She received her Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) from Hofstra University.
A former editor for the Columbia Journal of European Law, Ms. Hunker has written for such publications as Forbes, Townhall.com, Austin American-Statesman, and Ethika Politika, among others. Her legal research also has appeared in the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy and the Cornell International Law Journal Online. Ms. Hunker specializes in comparative constitutional law and natural rights.
Thomas M. Siebel Senior Fellow, The Hoover Institution, Stanford University; Gary T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus, UCLA School of Law
Eugene Volokh is the Thomas M. Siebel Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution (Stanford), as well as the Gary T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus and Distinguished Research Professor at UCLA School of Law. He recently retired from teaching at UCLA, after 30 years there, and is now focusing on research.
Volokh is the author of the textbooks The First Amendment and Related Statutes (8th ed. 2023), and Academic Legal Writing (5th ed. 2016), as well as over 100 academic law journal articles, mostly on First Amendment law. He is a member of The American Law Institute; the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Free Speech Law; and the creator and coauthor of The Volokh Conspiracy, a leading legal blog founded in 2002 (hosted at the Washington Post from 2014 to 2017 and now at Reason Magazine).
Unplugging FERC?: Federal Energy Regulatory Commission v. Electric Power Supply Association - Podcast
Erik S. Jaffe
Federalism & Separation of Powers and Environmental Law & Property Rights Practice Groups Podcast
In a case that could have serious implications about the limits of judicial review, the...
Supreme Court Declines to Hear Blockbuster Insider Trading Case: What’s Next After United States v. Newman? - Podcast
James M. Burnham, Peter M. Thomson
Corporations, Securities & Antitrust Practice Group Podcast
On October 2, 2015, the United States Supreme Court denied certiorari in United States v....
Net Neutrality Litigation - Podcast
Adam White, Brett Shumate
Litigation Practice Group Podcast
After suffering two judicial setbacks, most recently in the D.C. Circuit’s Verizon v. FCC decision...
Cybersecurity: Private Sector Faces Increasing Regulatory Risk From Agency Enforcement and Informal “Guidance” Becoming Standard of Care - Podcast
Megan L. Brown, Brent J. McIntosh, Rebecca Seidel
Litigation Practice Group Podcast
After Target, Anthem, Sony, and Ashley Madison, cybersecurity is at the top of every company...
The Court's Case on Texting and Class Actions: Campbell-Ewald Company v. Gomez - Podcast
Richard A. Samp
Litigation Practice Group Podcast
Advertising agency Campbell-Ewald sent recruitment texts to Jose Gomez on behalf of the US Navy,...
Juveniles and Life Without Parole: Montgomery v. Louisiana - Podcast
John J. Park
Criminal Law & Procedure Practice Group Podcast
In 2012, in Miller v. Alabama, the Supreme Court held that a sentencing scheme that...
Lawyers and Unsympathetic Clients - Podcast
Gene C. Schaerr, Sarah L. Wilson
Litigation Practice Group Podcast
In life, we are often judged by the company we keep. But is that fair...
Capital Punishment Once Again Before the Supreme Court: Kansas v. Gleason and Kansas v. Carr - Podcast
William J. Haun
Criminal Law & Procedure Practice Group Podcast
Somewhat overlooked at the end of the United States Supreme Court’s October 2014 term was...
Regulatory Crimes: Clay [Todd Farha] v. U.S. Oral Argument - Podcast
Paul D. Kamenar, John J. Park
Criminal Law & Procedure Practice Group Podcast
Is Clay v. United States, argued on October 2 in the 11th Circuit, a case...
Texas RFRA and the Houston "HERO" LGBT Referendum - Podcast
Josh Blackman, John C. Eastman, Kathleen Hunker, Eugene Volokh
Texas Chapters Podcast
The Houston Equal Rights Ordinance (HERO) ballot initiative, which extends to housing & employment, has...