James Madison Distinguished Professor of Law and Class of 1941 Research Professor of Law, University of Virginia School of Law
Professor John C. Harrison is the James Madison Distinguished Professor of Law and Class of 1941 Research Professor of Law at the University of Virginia School of Law. He joined the faculty at University of Virginia in 1993 as an associate professor of law after a distinguished career with the U.S. Department of Justice. His teaching subjects include constitutional history, federal courts, remedies, corporations, civil procedure, legislation and property. In 2008 he was on leave from the Law School to serve as counselor on international law in the Office of the Legal Adviser at the U.S. Department of State.
A 1977 graduate of the University of Virginia, Harrison earned his law degree in 1980 at Yale, where he served as editor of the Yale Law Journal and editor and articles editor of the Yale Studies in World Public Order. He was an associate at Patton Boggs & Blow in Washington, D.C., and clerked for Judge Robert Bork on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He worked with the Department of Justice from 1983-93, serving in numerous capacities, including deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel (1990-93).
Partner, Millbank LLP
Mr. Katyal, the former Acting Solicitor General of the United States, focuses on appellate and complex litigation. He has argued 54 cases before the Supreme Court of the United States.
He has extensive experience in matters of antitrust, corporate, constitutional, securities, technology, criminal, patent, copyright, trademark, ERISA, products liability, labor, employment and tribal law. In the 2022-23 Supreme Court term, he argued five separate cases (nearly 10% of the docket), including winning the landmark voting case Moore v. Harper, which Judge Michael Luttig described as “the most important case for American democracy in the almost two and a half centuries since America’s founding.” Judge Luttig also said Mr. Katyal’s argument “was the single best oral argument I have ever heard made in the Supreme Court of the United States.” His cases include successfully striking down the Guantanamo military tribunals, successfully defending the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act and successfully defending the Peace Cross in Maryland. His 2017 win in Bristol Myers Squibb v. Superior Court was a landmark victory for personal jurisdiction law and his 2006 win in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld was described by former Acting Solicitor General Walter Dellinger as “simply the most important decision on presidential power and the rule of law ever. Ever.”
From 2010 to 2011, Mr. Katyal served as Acting Solicitor General of the United States, where he argued several major Supreme Court cases involving a variety of issues, such as his successful defense of the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, his victorious defense of former Attorney General John Ashcroft for alleged abuses in the war on terror, his unanimous victory against eight states who sued the nation's leading power plants for contributing to global warming, and a variety of other matters. As Acting Solicitor General, he was responsible for representing the federal government of the United States in all appellate matters before the US Supreme Court and the Courts of Appeals throughout the nation. He served as Counsel of Record hundreds of times in the US Supreme Court. He was also the only head of the Solicitor General's office to argue a case in the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, on the important question of whether certain aspects of the human genome were patentable.
After graduating from Yale Law School, Mr. Katyal clerked for The Honorable Guido Calabresi of the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit as well as for The Honorable Justice Stephen G. Breyer of the US Supreme Court. He also served in the Deputy Attorney General's Office at the Justice Department as National Security Advisor and as Special Assistant to the Deputy Attorney General during 1998-1999.
Mr. Katyal is a best-selling New York Times author and has published dozens of scholarly articles in law journals (including several in the Harvard Law Review and Yale Law Journal), as well as many op-ed articles in publications such as the New York Times and the Washington Post. He has testified numerous times before various committees of both the US House of Representatives and the US Senate.
Board Member, U.S. Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board
Beth A. Williams is a Board Member of the United States Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, an agency whose mission is to ensure that the federal government's efforts to prevent terrorism are balanced with the need to protect privacy and civil liberties.
Prior to her Board service, Ms. Williams was the Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Policy at the United States Department of Justice from August 2017 to December 2020. In that role, she served as the primary policy advisor to the Attorney General and the Deputy Attorney General, and as the Chief Regulatory Officer for the Department. Ms. Williams also led the judicial nomination process for the Department, assisting in the selection and confirmation of more than 230 Article III judges to the bench.
Prior to becoming Assistant Attorney General, Ms. Williams was a litigation and appellate partner at a national law firm, where her practice focused on complex commercial, securities, appellate, and First Amendment litigation. From 2005-2006, Ms. Williams served as Special Counsel to the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary, where she assisted with the confirmation of Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. and Associate Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. to the United States Supreme Court.
Ms. Williams clerked for the Hon. Richard C. Wesley on the United State Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. She graduated from Harvard College magna cum laude, with a degree in History and Literature, and she earned her law degree from Harvard Law School, where she served as Executive Editor of the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy.
Former President & CEO, The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies
Eugene B. Meyer, former President and CEO of the Federalist Society, has served as Executive Director, CEO, and/or President of the organization for more than 40 years. He is responsible for shepherding the organization from a small group of law students to a community of 90,000 lawyers, law students, academics, judges, and others interested in the rule of law. The Society now includes a Student Chapter at nearly every ABA-accredited law school in the country and Lawyers Chapters in 220 major cities across the nation. Gene earned his B.A. in history at Yale in 1975 and his M.A. in political science from the London School of Economics in 1976. Gene currently serves on the boards of the U.S. Chess Center, the Holman Foundation, the Sarah Scaife Foundation, and the advisory board of the Adam Smith Society. He holds the title of International Chess Master.
Director of Law & Policy, Environmental Integrity Project
Following Princeton and the University of Chicago Law School, David began practicing law at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison. Eventually tiring of litigation where the result was a wire transfer from Entity A to Entity B, in the early 1990’s David began his environmental law career at the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office. Since then, he has litigated dozens of cases under all of the major environmental statutes including, as Sierra Club’s Chief Climate Counsel, initiating and managing Massachusetts v. EPA. Most recently, he has been busy challenging FERC’s permitting of natural gas pipelines and LNG export terminals. Apart from litigation, David has helped lead efforts on both greenhouse gas regulation and global warming legislation (and may be the only person ever invited to testify by both Barbara Boxer and James Inhofe).
He has drafted a range of federal climate legislation, advised states as to their greenhouse gas regulatory authority (and for many years has represented environmental groups defending state GHG regulations from dormant Commerce Clause challenges). David has designed and taught courses on “Environmental Litigation” at Georgetown University Law Center and “Environmental Law and Science” at the William and Mary Law School/Virginia Institute of Marine Science.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit
John K. Bush is a Circuit Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. His chambers are in Louisville, Kentucky. Prior to joining the court, Judge Bush was a partner in the Louisville office of Bingham Greenebaum Doll LLP, where he also was co-chair of the firm’s litigation department. He began his legal practice in the Washington, D.C. office of Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP.
Judge Bush served as a law clerk for Judge J. Smith Henley of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. He was graduated summa cum laude from Vanderbilt University in 1986, and cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1989.
United States Attorney, Eastern District of California
Mr. Grant was appointed by Attorney General Pam Bondi to serve as the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of California beginning on August 11, 2025. Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 546(d), he was further appointed by the district court effective December 9, 2025.
Mr. Grant is a veteran of the Department of Justice, having served twice in Washington, D.C.: from 1991 to 1993 as an Attorney-Adviser in the Office of Legal Counsel, and from 2017 to 2021 as a Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Environment and Natural Resources Division (ENRD). During his tenure at ENRD, he supervised more than a hundred Department litigators advancing the interests of the United States and its agencies in both enforcement and defensive matters, both civil and criminal.
In addition to his service in the Department, Mr. Grant has decades of experience in private practice in Washington, D.C. and Sacramento. That experience includes arguments in the U.S. Supreme Court, the California Supreme Court, and numerous other federal and state courts.
Mr. Grant served as a law clerk to Chief Justice Warren E. Burger (retired) and Associate Justice Clarence Thomas during the Supreme Court’s October 1994 Term. Earlier he served as a law clerk to Judge Edith H. Jones of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in Houston, Texas.
Mr. Grant grew up in Modesto, California and raised his family in Sacramento County. He attended the University of California, Berkeley, from which he earned a bachelor’s degree in economics (1986) and a law degree (1990).
Emeritus Dean and Professor of Law, Lewis & Clark Law School
Professor Huffman joined the law school faculty in 1973, was appointed Acting Dean in 1993 and Dean in 1994, and returned to full time teaching in 2006. Born in Fort Benton, Montana, Jim graduated from Montana State University, the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, and the University of Chicago Law School. He has been a visiting professor at Auckland University in New Zealand, the University of Oregon, the University of Athens in Greece and Universidad Francisco Marroquin in Guatemala. He was also a fellow at the Humane Studies Institute and a Distinguished Bradley Scholar at the Heritage Foundation. Jim serves on the boards of the National Crime Victims Law Institute, the Foundation for Research on Economics and the Environment, the Classroom Law Project, and the Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Foundation. He is a member and former Chair of the Executive Committee of the Environment and Property Rights Practice Group of the Federalist Society. He is a member of the Montana Bar Association and is admitted to practice before the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and the United States Supreme Court. He is the author of more than 100 articles and chapters on a wide array of legal topics.
Senior Fellow, Ave Maria School of Law and Host of the Four Boxes Diner Second Amendment Channel
Mark W. Smith is Visiting Fellow in Pharmaceutical Public Policy and Law in the Department of Pharmacology at the University of Oxford; Presidential Scholar and a Senior Fellow in Law and Public Policy at The King’s College; and Distinguished Scholar and Senior Fellow of Law and Public Policy at the Ave Maria School of Law.
He is a constitutional attorney and Host of the Four Boxes Diner YouTube channel—which provides scholarly and historical analyses of the Second Amendment. Mark is also a New York Times bestselling author.
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.
Justice, Fifth District Court of Appeals
Justice John Browning was appointed to the Fifth District Court of Appeals by Governor Greg Abbott on August 24, 2020. Before joining the Court, he was a trial and appellate lawyer for thirty-one years as a partner with large national law firms and his own small law firm. While in private practice, Justice Browning’s vast experience encompassed personal injury and wrongful death; product liability; commercial litigation; intellectual property disputes; employment matters; consumer protection and DTPA cases; professional liability; health care; class action litigation; defamation and media law; and cyberliability and data privacy. He is admitted in both Texas and Oklahoma, as well as before the U.S. District Courts for the Northern, Southern, Eastern, and Western Districts of Texas, the Western District of Oklahoma, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, and the U.S. Supreme Court.
Justice Browning received bachelors degrees in History and Comparative Literature in 1986 from Rutgers University, where he was a National Merit Scholar, Phi Beta Kappa, and Henry Rutgers Scholar. He received his J.D. in 1989 from the University of Texas School of Law, where he received awards for legal writing and advocacy. A former varsity tennis player and teaching professional, Justice Browning won tournaments at the local, state, national, and international levels. During his years in private practice, Justice Browning was rated “AV Preeminent” (5.0 out of 5.0) by Martindale-Hubbell, designated a “Texas Super Lawyer” from 2005-2020, and named to a variety of “Best Lawyers” lists and trial lawyer honorary societies.
Justice Browning has a long record of leadership and service to the bar, and has served as Chair of the Texas Bar Journal Editorial Advisory Board, as Chair of the Computer & Technology Section of the State Bar, as an appointed member of the Professional Ethics Committee, as a member of the State Bar Grievance Committee, as a member of the State Bar Jury Service Committee, and as President of the Rockwall County Bar Association. He also serves on the UT Law Alumni Association Executive Committee. Justice Browning is an elected member of the American Law Institute, a board member of SCRIBES, and a member of the Board of Trustees of the Texas Supreme Court Historical Society.
A noted legal author and CLE speaker, Justice Browning has received the Bar’s highest honors for legal writing, legal ethics, and public service. These include the State Bar of Texas Presidents’ Certificate of Merit; the Texas Bar Foundation’s Dan Rugeley Price Memorial Award; the Lola Wright Foundation Award for lifetime contributions to legal ethics; the Texas Bar College’s Patrick Nester Award for Outstanding Achievement in Continuing Legal Education; the Texas Bar College’s Jim Bowmer Professionalism Award; the Texas Bar Foundation’s Outstanding Law Review Article of the Year Award; the Texas Bar College’s Outstanding CLE Article of the Year Award; the Houston Bar Foundation’s Outstanding Legal Article of the Year Award; the DRI’s G. Duffield Smith Outstanding Publication of the Year Award; the J.L. Turner Foundation Award for Contributions to Legal History; and the Burton Award for Distinguished Achievement in Legal Writing (2009, 2010, 2012, 2014). Justice Browning is the author of four law books, more than forty law review articles, and hundreds of other articles on legal subjects.
Presiding Judge, George Court of Appeals
Presiding Judge Stephen Louis A. Dillard was appointed as the 73rd judge of the Court of Appeals of the State of Georgia on November 1, 2010 by Governor Sonny Perdue. Prior to his appointment, Judge Dillard was in private practice with James, Bates, Pope & Spivey in Macon, serving as chairman of the firm’s appellate practice group. Judge Dillard was elected and then reelected by his fellow Georgians in 2012, 2018, and 2024. On July 1, 2017, Judge Dillard was sworn in as the 30th Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals of Georgia for a two-year term that ended on June 30, 2019. He currently serves as the presiding judge of the Court’s Fourth Division, and will begin serving as the presiding judge of the Court’s Third Division in 2026.
Judge Dillard was born in Nashville, Tennessee on November 13, 1969. He attended and graduated from Hillwood High School in Nashville, Tennessee; Samford University (B.A. 1992); Mississippi College School of Law (J.D., cum laude, 1996); and Duke University School of Law (LL.M., Judicial Studies, 2025). In college, Judge Dillard was a member of The Sigma Chi Fraternity and Omicron Delta Kappa. He was also given the Evelyn Meadows Historical Essay Award, as well as the William McMillian Rogers Colonial Dames Overall Essay Award, for “The Tempting of America to be America: Alexander Hamilton and the Federalist Papers.” During law school, Judge Dillard was a member of the Moot Court Board and received the Judge Robert G. Gillespie Outstanding Achievement in Appellate Advocacy Award, as well as the American Jurisprudence Award in Appellate Advocacy. He also served as president of the Mississippi College Chapter of the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies.
After graduating from law school, Judge Dillard joined the Macon law firm of Stone and Baxter, where he practiced from 1996 until 2001. In September 2001, he left private practice for a two-year period to serve as a law clerk at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit for Judge Daniel A. Manion (who was appointed by President Ronald W. Reagan in 1986 and served until 2022). In September 2003, Judge Dillard joined James Bates as of counsel, specialized in appellate practice and complex litigation, and served as chairperson of the firm’s appellate practice group. While in practice, he received an AV® Preeminent™ Peer-Review Rating from Martindale-Hubbell and was named by Super Lawyers as one of Georgia’s “rising stars.”
Additionally, Judge Dillard was appointed by Governor Sonny Perdue to the Judicial Nominating Commission and the Public Defender Selection Panel for the Macon Judicial Circuit. He has published scholarly essays in the Encyclopedia of Civil Liberties, the Encyclopedia of Great American Judges, the Encyclopedia of Great American Lawyers, Judicature, the Green Bag Almanac & Reader, the Journal of Appellate Practice & Process, as well as two articles in the Mercer Law Review regarding the inner workings and culture of the Court of Appeals of the State of Georgia. He was also a participating lawyer with the Criminal Justice Act Appellate Panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, handling pro bono publico appeals for indigent individuals. Judge Dillard is a member of the State Bar of Georgia’s Appellate Practice and Judicial Sections, the Macon Bar Association, the Atlanta Bar Association, the Lawyers Club of Atlanta, the Saint Thomas More Society, the Judge Clarence Cooper American Inn of Court, the Logan E. Bleckley American Inn of Court, the William Augustus Bootle American Inn of Court, the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies, the Palaver Club of Macon, and the Samford Bulldog Club. He also has served as a mentor for The Appellate Project, which is “focused on empowering law students of color to pursue appellate work.”
Since joining the Court of Appeals, Judge Dillard has spoken to numerous organizations, participated in countless state and national seminars, held a wide variety of leadership positions, and received many awards. In 2025, one of Judge Dillard’s opinions—his concurrence in Board of Commissioners of Brantley County v. Brantley County Development Partners LLC et al.—was selected by The Green Bag Almanac and Reader as one of its works of “exemplary writing.” Judge Dillard was also named as the Milvain Chair in Advocacy by the University of Calgary Law Faculty that year, and he is the first American jurist and 43rd person to ever receive this honor. In 2024, Judge Dillard was appointed by Chief Justice Michael P. Boggs as co-chair of the Supreme Court of Georgia’s Study Committee on Legal Regulatory Reform, joined The Legal Accountability Project’s Advisory Board, and also gave the “Last Senior Lecture” to the Samford University Class of 2024. In 2023, Judge Dillard began serving his second term on Samford University’s Board of Overseers, and started the L.L.M. program for Judicial Studies at the Duke University School of Law. In 2022, he began serving on the Communications Committee of the Council of Chief Judges of the State Courts of Appeal. In 2021, Judge Dillard was given the “Significant Sig” award by The Sigma Chi Fraternity (one of its highest honors), which “recognizes those alumni members whose exemplary achievements in their fields of endeavor have brought great honor and prestige to the name of Sigma Chi.” He also began serving that year on the Dean Search Committee for Samford University’s Cumberland School of Law, and completed his work on that committee in April 2022. In 2020, Judge Dillard began serving his second two-year term as the president of the Samford University Alumni Association, a three-year term on Samford University’s Board of Overseers, as an advisor to the Pi Chapter of The Sigma Chi Fraternity at Samford University, and as a member of the Samford University Presidential Search Committee and the Samford University Task Force on Racial Justice. He was also given the Distinguished Judicial Service Award that year by the Young Lawyers Division of the State Bar of Georgia for the second time in his career. In 2019, Judge Dillard began teaching Appellate Practice and Procedure at Mercer University Law School and joined the National Advisory Board for The Constitutional Sources Project (“ConSource”), an organization dedicated to increasing access to and understanding of the United States Constitution and its history and creation. He was also named that year as the “Tweeter Laureate” of Georgia by the Georgia House of Representatives, as one of Atlanta’s 500 most powerful leaders by Atlanta Magazine, and as “Best Social Mediator” by the Fulton County Daily Report. In 2018, Judge Dillard began serving his first two-year term as president of the Samford University Alumni Association, as well as a member of the Samford University Athletic Director’s Cabinet. He also began his service that year as a member of the Supreme Court of Georgia’s Justice for Children Committee. In 2017, Judge Dillard was named Samford University’s “Alumnus of the Year,” which is the highest honor the university bestows on its graduates. In 2016, Judge Dillard began serving a two-year term as president of Samford University’s Atlanta Alumni chapter. He was also appointed that year as the co-chairperson of the Georgia Judicial Council’s Strategic Plan Standing Committee, and as a member of the Council’s Standing Committee on Technology. Finally, he was also named Samford University’s 2016 “Featured Alumnus” for the Howard College of Arts and Sciences. In 2015, Judge Dillard was appointed by Governor Nathan Deal to the Georgia Appellate Jurisdiction Review Commission. He was also appointed that year to serve on the Georgia Judicial Council, and as the chairperson of the Court Reporting Matters Committee. In 2014, Judge Dillard was named the “State Judge of the Year” by his alma mater, the Mississippi College School of Law, for his outstanding judicial service; and he also received the “Fastcase 50” award, which honors leaders in the world of law, scholarship, and legal technology. In 2013, Judge Dillard was awarded the Distinguished Judicial Service Award by the Young Lawyers Division of the State Bar of Georgia, recognizing his outstanding service on the bench and commitment to improving the practice of law. In 2012, Judge Dillard was appointed to the Code of Judicial Conduct Review Committee by Chief Judge John J. Ellington, and he also began serving as the special consultant to the Georgia High School Mock Trial Committee.
Among his many accomplishments in leadership at the Court of Appeals, Judge Dillard restructured the Court’s Central Staff Attorney Office, advocated for and implemented livestreaming and archiving of the Court’s oral arguments, helped design and shepherd a complete overhaul of the Court’s operational structure, had the primary responsibility for overseeing the Court’s move to the Nathan Deal Judicial Center (during his time as chief judge), drafted numerous Court rules (including the rule abolishing “physical precedent”) and IOM revisions, and lead the implementation of the Court’s transition to its first typography change in twenty years (i.e., the “Equity” font). Finally, he created, designed, and continues to oversee the Judge Herbert E. Phipps Fellowship program in partnership with Morehouse College.
Judge Dillard is married to the former Krista McDaniel, and they have three children. He is a parishioner of Saint Joseph Catholic Church and the former president of the School Board for Saint Joseph’s Catholic School.
Founder, Original Jurisdiction
David Lat is a lawyer turned writer. He publishes Original Jurisdiction, a newsletter on Substack about law and legal affairs, and he writes for newspapers and magazines, including the New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal. Prior to launching Original Jurisdiction, David founded Above the Law, one of the nation's most widely read legal news websites, and Underneath Their Robes, a popular blog about federal judges that he wrote under a pseudonym. He is also the author of a novel set in the world of the federal courts, Supreme Ambitions. Before entering the media world, David worked as a federal prosecutor in Newark, New Jersey; a litigation associate at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, in New York; and a law clerk to Judge Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. David graduated from Harvard College and Yale Law School, where he served as an editor of the Yale Law Journal.
Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit
Don Willett serves on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
Before joining the federal bench, Judge Willett served 13 years on the Supreme Court
of Texas. His career spans decades of public service, including roles as legal counsel to
a Texas Attorney General, a Texas Governor, a U.S. Attorney General, and the
President of the United States.
Raised by a heroic widowed mom in a doublewide trailer in a town of 32, Judge
Willett is his family’s first college graduate. He earned a triple-major B.B.A. from Baylor
University—where he serves on the Board of Regents—and three degrees from Duke
University—where he serves on the Board of Visitors: a J.D. with honors, an A.M. in
political science, and an LL.M. in judicial studies. After law school, he clerked on the
Fifth Circuit and practiced at Haynes and Boone before entering public service.
Judge Willett publishes widely in both leading law reviews and national media, including
The Yale Law Journal, The University of Pennsylvania Law Review, and The Wall Street
Journal. The longtime editor-in-chief of Judicature—the Scholarly Journal for Judges, he
holds academic appointments at various law schools and has received more than a
dozen Green Bag honors for “exemplary legal writing.” He was named Distinguished
Jurist of the Year by the Texas Review of Law & Politics, and he is a member of the
American Law Institute and a Life Fellow of the American, Texas, and Austin Bar
Foundations.
A onetime bull rider and professional drummer, Judge Willett was named “Tweeter
Laureate of Texas” in 2015. He is the namesake of Don R. Willett Elementary
School—home of mighty Willett Wranglers—located just a mile from where he grew up.
He and his radiant wife, Tiffany have three children—Jacob, Shane-David, and
Geneviève—plus the family pup, Amicus.
Albert A. Walsh Chair in Real Estate, Land Use, and Property Law; Faculty Director, Urban Law Center, Fordham Law School
Nestor Davidson joined Fordham in 2011 and was named the Albert A. Walsh Professor of Real Estate, Land Use and Property Law in 2017. Professor Davidson is an expert in property, urban law, and affordable housing law and policy, and is the co-author of the casebook Property Law: Rules, Policies and Practices (7th ed. 2017). Professor Davidson founded and serves as the faculty director of the law school’s Urban Law Center and previously served as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs.
Professor Davidson practiced with the firm of Latham and Watkins, focusing on commercial real estate and affordable housing, and served as Special Counsel and Principal Deputy General Counsel at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. He currently serves as a Member of the Board of the New York State Housing Finance Agency.
Professor Davidson earned his AB from Harvard College and his JD from Columbia Law School. After law school, he clerked for Judge David S. Tatel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and Justice David H. Souter of the Supreme Court of the United States.
Professor of Law and Jamie L. Whitten Chair in Law and Government, University of Mississippi School of Law
Christopher Green (https://law.olemiss.edu/faculty-directory/christopher-green/) is Professor of Law and Jamie L. Whitten Chair in Law and Government at the University of Mississippi, where he has taught since 2006. He is a graduate of Princeton University and Yale Law School, and has a PhD in philosophy from the University of Notre Dame. He clerked for Judge Rhesa H. Barksdale on the Fifth Circuit and is the author of Equal Citizenship, Civil Rights, and the Constitution: The Original Sense of the Privileges or Immunities Clause (2015) and a large number of articles and essays on constitutional theory and the Fourteenth Amendment, including the two-part Original Sense of the (Equal) Protection Clause and Clarity and Reasonable Doubt in Early State-Constitutional Judicial Review. He is an affiliated scholar with the University of San Diego Center for the Study of Constitutional Originalism.
U.S. Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit
Born 1971 in Fort Wayne, IN
Federal Judicial Service:
Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
Nominated by Donald J. Trump on February 15, 2018, to a seat vacated by Richard Allen Posner. Confirmed by the Senate on May 14, 2018, and received commission on May 21, 2018.
Education:
St. Joseph’s College, Rensselaer, Indiana, B.B.A., 1993
Northwestern University School of Law, J.D., 1998
Professional Career:
Law clerk, Hon. Paul V. Niemeyer, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, 1998-1999
Law clerk, Hon. Anthony M. Kennedy, Supreme Court of the United States, 1999-2000
Private practice, Cleveland, Ohio, 2000-2002
Assistant U.S. attorney, Southern District of New York, 2002-2006
Counselor to the deputy attorney general, U.S. Department of Justice, 2006
Associate counsel, President George W. Bush, 2007
General counsel, National Security Council, and senior associate counsel, President George W. Bush, 2007-2009
Private practice, Chicago, Illinois, 2009-2018
Professor of Law, University of Wisconsin School of Law
Miriam Seifter's research and teaching interests include administrative law, federalism, state and local government law, energy law, and property law. Her recent work focuses on executive power and the separation of powers at the state level, and on the role of states and interest groups in the federal regulatory process. Her publications appear or are forthcoming in the Harvard Law Review, the NYU Law Review, the UCLA Law Review, and the Virginia Law Review, among others. In 2017, UW Law students honored Professor Seifter with the Classroom Teacher of the Year Award, and in 2018, she received one of twelve Distinguished Teaching Awards from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. For her article Gubernatorial Administration, Seifter was named the 2017 winner of the American Constitution Society's Richard D. Cudahy Writing Competition on Regulatory and Administrative Law.
Professor Seifter received a B.A. magna cum laude from Yale University, an M.Sc. with distinction from Oxford University, and a J.D. magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, where she was the Environmental Fellow and an Articles Editor on the Harvard Law Review. After law school, she served as a law clerk for Chief Judge Merrick Garland on the D.C. Circuit and for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg at the Supreme Court of the United States. Prior to joining the UW Law faculty, she was a Visiting Researcher and Adjunct Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center and worked in private practice at Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP in San Francisco.
Chief Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit
JEFFREY S. SUTTON is the Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. He has served as Chair of the Federal Judicial Conference Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure, Chair of the Advisory Committee on Appellate Rules, and Chair of the Supreme Court Fellows Commission. He currently serves as Chair of the Executive Committee of the Judicial Conference of the United States. Since 1993, Chief Judge Sutton has been an adjunct professor at The Ohio State University College of Law, where he teaches seminars on State Constitutional Law, the United States Supreme Court, and Appellate Advocacy. He also teaches a class on State Constitutional Law at Harvard Law School. Among other publications, he is the author of Who Decides? States as Laboratories of Constitutional Experimentation and 51 Imperfect Solutions: States and the Making of American Constitutional Law. He is the co-author of a casebook, State Constitutional Law: The Modern Experience, as well as The Law of Judicial Precedent. He is also the co-editor of The Essential Scalia: On the Constitution, the Courts, and the Rule of Law. In 2006, Chief Judge Sutton was elected to the American Law Institute, and in 2017 he was elected to its Council.
Former President & CEO, The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies
Eugene B. Meyer, former President and CEO of the Federalist Society, has served as Executive Director, CEO, and/or President of the organization for more than 40 years. He is responsible for shepherding the organization from a small group of law students to a community of 90,000 lawyers, law students, academics, judges, and others interested in the rule of law. The Society now includes a Student Chapter at nearly every ABA-accredited law school in the country and Lawyers Chapters in 220 major cities across the nation. Gene earned his B.A. in history at Yale in 1975 and his M.A. in political science from the London School of Economics in 1976. Gene currently serves on the boards of the U.S. Chess Center, the Holman Foundation, the Sarah Scaife Foundation, and the advisory board of the Adam Smith Society. He holds the title of International Chess Master.
Chief Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit
JEFFREY S. SUTTON is the Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. He has served as Chair of the Federal Judicial Conference Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure, Chair of the Advisory Committee on Appellate Rules, and Chair of the Supreme Court Fellows Commission. He currently serves as Chair of the Executive Committee of the Judicial Conference of the United States. Since 1993, Chief Judge Sutton has been an adjunct professor at The Ohio State University College of Law, where he teaches seminars on State Constitutional Law, the United States Supreme Court, and Appellate Advocacy. He also teaches a class on State Constitutional Law at Harvard Law School. Among other publications, he is the author of Who Decides? States as Laboratories of Constitutional Experimentation and 51 Imperfect Solutions: States and the Making of American Constitutional Law. He is the co-author of a casebook, State Constitutional Law: The Modern Experience, as well as The Law of Judicial Precedent. He is also the co-editor of The Essential Scalia: On the Constitution, the Courts, and the Rule of Law. In 2006, Chief Judge Sutton was elected to the American Law Institute, and in 2017 he was elected to its Council.
U.S. Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit
Sandra Segal Ikuta was confirmed as a judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on June 19, 2006. She filled a judgeship vacant since September 1, 2000, when Chief Judge Emeritus James R. Browning took senior status.
Before becoming a U.S. Circuit Judge, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger appointed her to be deputy secretary and general counsel of the California Resources Agency in January 2004.
Prior to her political appointment, Judge Ikuta was a partner at the Los Angeles office of O'Melveny & Myers LLP. She joined the law firm in 1990 as an associate and became a partner in 1997. She specialized in environmental and natural resources law and co-chaired the firm's environmental practice group. She previously served as a law clerk for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, 1989-90, and Judge Alex Kozinski of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, 1988-89.
Prior to her legal career, Judge Ikuta took an unorthodox career path, which included serving as the first female editor-in-chief of a national martial arts magazine.
She received her J.D. from the University of California at Los Angeles School of Law and a Master of Science from Columbia University School of Journalism. She earned her undergraduate degree from the University of California at Berkeley in 1976.
In addition to her duties as an active U.S. Circuit Judge, Judge Ikuta was an appointed member of the Judicial Conference of the U.S. Advisory Committee on Bankruptcy Rules.
President, Becket Fund for Religious Liberty; Professor of Law and Co-Director of the Center for Religious Liberty, Catholic University; Visiting Professor, Harvard Law School
Mark joined the Becket team in 2011 and splits his time as Associate Professor at The Catholic University of America, Columbus School of Law, and as Visiting Professor at Harvard Law School. Mark teaches constitutional law, religious liberty, torts, and evidence. He has been voted Teacher of the Year three years in a row by the Law School’s Student Bar Association.
Mark has broad experience litigating First Amendment religious exercise and free speech cases. He has represented the winning parties in a variety of Supreme Court First Amendment cases including Hobby Lobby, Little Sisters, Wheaton College, and Holt. In January 2014, Mark argued before the Supreme Court in McCullen v. Coakley, a First Amendment challenge to a Massachusetts speech restriction outside of abortion clinics. The Justices ruled in favor of his clients 9-0. Mark also led a successful eight-year litigation battle against Governor Blagojevich’s effort to force religious pharmacists to distribute the morning-after and week-after pills.
Mark’s academic writing focuses on the First and Fourteenth Amendments, and has appeared in a variety of prestigious journals, including the Harvard Law Review.
Mark is a widely sought after speaker on constitutional issues, particularly concerning abortion and the First Amendment. Professor Rienzi has been invited to discuss these issues at Harvard Law School, Columbia University Law School, Georgetown University Law Center, Boston College Law School, Notre Dame Law School, the National Press Club, and the Capitol. He has been quoted on constitutional law issues on NPR, in the Washington Times, The New York Daily News, and the Chicago Sun-Times. Mark has also been featured on the Kelly File, Fox News Sunday, Your World with Neil Cavuto, Geraldo at Large, CNN Tonight, CNN Live, Andrea Mitchell Reports, and Wall Street Journal Live.
Prior to joining Becket, Mark served as counsel for the litigation department and the intellectual property litigation practice group of WilmerHale LLP. His practice focused on complex civil and appellate litigation with a particular emphasis on intellectual property and First Amendment issues. Prior to joining WilmerHale, he served as law clerk to the Hon. Stephen F. Williams, senior circuit judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Prior to that, Mark was an editor of the Harvard Law Review, and earned his J.D. from Harvard Law School and B.A. from Princeton University, both with honors.
Assistant Professor, Legal Studies & Business Ethics, The University of Pennsylvania Wharton School
Amanda Shanor is an Assistant Professor at the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School, where her scholarship focuses on constitutional and administrative law, and in particular the First Amendment.
Shanor is a graduate of Yale Law School and Yale College, and a PhD candidate in law at Yale University. She served as a law clerk to Judges Cornelia T.L. Pillard and Judith W. Rogers on the D.C. Circuit, and Judge Robert W. Sweet in the Southern District of New York. She has taught at both Yale and Georgetown law schools and has published in the New York University Law Review, the Harvard Law Review Forum, and the Yale Law Journal Forum, among others. She is a contributor to Take Care and the co-author of a textbook on counterterrorism law.
Prior to joining the academy, Amanda worked in the National Legal Department of the American Civil Liberties Union on the organization’s Supreme Court litigation, including Masterpiece Cakeshop. Previously, she litigated a number of constitutional and national security cases with Professor David Cole, including Humanitarian Law Project v. Holder, while a fellow at Georgetown.
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).
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit
Judge Carlos Bea serves as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. He received his Bachelor's Degree from Stanford University in 1956 and his J.D. from Stanford Law School in 1958. Judge Bea was born in San Sebastian, Spain, and immigrated with his family to Cuba in 1939. In 1952, he represented Cuba on the Cuban National basketball team in the Helsinki Olympics. Judge Bea became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1958. He engaged in private practice in San Francisco, principally in the area of civil trials (jury and non-jury), from 1959-75 at Dunne, Phelps & Mills and from 1975-90 at Carlos Bea, A Law Corporation. He taught courses in civil litigation advocacy at Hastings College of Law and Stanford Law School. From 1990 to 2003, Judge Bea served as a judge of the San Francisco Superior Court. He was nominated by President George W. Bush to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and was confirmed in 2003.
Judge Bea and his wife Louise reside in San Francisco, where they raised their four sons, Sebastian, Alexander, Nicholas, and Dominic.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Third Circuit
Judge Hardiman was appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit on January 9, 2007 and was confirmed by the Senate (95-0) on March 15, 2007. Prior to becoming an appellate judge, Judge Hardiman served as a trial judge on the United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania as of November 1, 2003. In 2008, Chief Justice John Roberts appointed Judge Hardiman to the Information Technology Committee of the Judicial Conference of the United States. Judge Hardiman was appointed Chairman of the IT Committee in 2013 and served in that capacity until September 2021. In 2021 he was appointed by the Director of the Administrative Office of the United States Courts to serve as Chair of the Judiciary IT Security Task Force, which completed its work in fall 2023. Chief Justice Roberts appointed Judge Hardiman to the Board of the Federal Judicial Center to serve from March 2020 until March 2024. As part of his work with the Center, Judge Hardiman now serves as Editor in Chief for the Manual for Complex Civil Litigation, Fifth.
Before entering judicial service, Judge Hardiman handled a wide variety of litigation matters in state and federal trial and appellate courts as a partner at Reed Smith LLP (1999-2003), a partner at Titus & McConomy LLP (1996-1999), and as an associate with its predecessor firm, Cindrich & Titus (1992-1996). Judge Hardiman began his legal career as an associate in the Washington, D.C. office of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom (1990-1992).
A 1987 honors graduate of the University of Notre Dame, Judge Hardiman received his law degree in 1990 from the Georgetown University Law Center, where he served as a Notes and Comments Editor on the Georgetown Law Journal. In 2012, Judge Hardiman was elected as a member of the American Law Institute and was elected to its Council in 2019 and its Executive Committee in 2025. Judge Hardiman regularly teaches a seminar on Advanced Constitutional Law at Duquesne University School of Law and a one-week course entitled “Constitutional Law: the First and Second Amendments” at Georgetown University Law Center.
A native of Waltham, Massachusetts, Judge Hardiman has chambers in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He and his wife Lori married in 1992 and have three children.
Former United States Attorney General
Michael B. Mukasey is the former Attorney General of the United States, the nation’s chief law enforcement officer. As Attorney General from November 2007 to January 2009, he oversaw the U.S. Department of Justice and advised on critical issues of domestic and international law.
From 1988 to 2006, Judge Mukasey served as a district judge in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, becoming Chief Judge in 2000.
From 1972 to 1976, Judge Mukasey served as an Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and as Chief of the Official Corruption Unit from 1975 to 1976. His practice consisted of criminal litigation on behalf of the government, including investigation and prosecution of narcotics, bank robbery, interstate theft, securities fraud, fraud on the government and bribery. From 1976 to 1987 and from 2006 to 2007 he was in private practice.
Judge Mukasey has received numerous honors, including the Federal Bar Council’s Learned Hand Medal for Excellence in Federal Jurisprudence. He served as Chairman of the Committee on Public Access to Information and Proceedings of the New York Bar Association from 1984 to 1987. He served on the Federal Courts Committee of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York from 1979 to 1982 and its Communications Law Committee from 1983 to 1986. Judge Mukasey was also a part-time lecturer at Columbia School of Law from January 1993 to May 2007, teaching trial advocacy.
He received his LL.B. from Yale Law School in 1967 and his B.A. from Columbia College in 1963.
Chief Judge, U.S. District Court, District of Rhode Island
William Edward Smith is the Chief United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the District of Rhode Island. Prior to his appointment to the bench, Judge Smith was a partner at Edwards & Angell practicing labor and employment law.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit
Amul R. Thapar serves as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. His judicial career began in 2007 when President George W. Bush nominated him to serve on the Eastern District of Kentucky, making him the first South Asian Article III judge in American history. In 2017, he became President Donald J. Trump’s first appellate court nominee.
Before joining the bench, Judge Thapar served as the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Kentucky. While United States Attorney, Judge Thapar worked on the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee (“AGAC”) and chaired the AGAC’s Controlled Substances and Asset Forfeiture subcommittee. He also served on the Terrorism and National Security subcommittee, the Violent Crime subcommittee, and the Child Exploitation working group.
Judge Thapar has worked in private practice, at Williams & Connolly in Washington, D.C., and Squire, Sanders & Dempsey in Cincinnati, Ohio. He also served as an Assistant United States Attorney in both the Southern District of Ohio and the District of Columbia.
Judge Thapar received his undergraduate degree from Boston College and his law degree from the University of California, Berkeley. After graduating, Judge Thapar worked as a law clerk to the Honorable S. Arthur Spiegel of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, and the Honorable Nathaniel R. Jones of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.
Judge Thapar has also published in the Yale Law Journal, Michigan Law Review, and Catholic University Law Review. He teaches courses on originalism, the Federalists and Anti-Federalists, and legal writing at Notre Dame Law School, the University of Virginia School of Law, and Vanderbilt Law School.
Former EVP and GC, CSRA Inc; former EVP and GC, SIGA Technologies; former Chief Corporate Counsel, Chevron Corporation; former GC of the Dept of Defense
Jim Haynes is a corporate executive advising early-stage companies in emerging technologies.
Mr. Haynes has served at the highest levels in the private sector (as executive vice president and chief legal officer of two publicly traded corporations) and the public sector (with senateconfirmed appointments by two United States presidents.) Most recently, Mr. Haynes was executive vice president, general counsel and secretary of CSRA Inc., a next generation information technologies solutions and services company, until CSRA was acquired by General Dynamics Corporation for $9.7 billion.
Earlier in his career, Mr. Haynes was executive vice president and general counsel of SIGA Technologies, Inc. (biotechnology); chief corporate counsel of Chevron Corporation (energy); and staff vice president and associate general counsel of General Dynamics Corporation (government contractor).
Mr. Haynes is the longest serving General Counsel of the Department of Defense (2001-2008), holding that office under Secretaries Donald H. Rumsfeld and Robert M. Gates during the administration of President George W. Bush. From 1990-1993, Mr. Haynes served as General Counsel of the Department of the Army during the administration of President George H. W. Bush.
Mr. Haynes was twice a partner in Jenner & Block, a national law firm. Mr. Haynes also was a volunteer in central Asia for Mercy Corps International, helping manage a micro-credit program.
After graduating from Davidson College and Harvard Law School, Mr. Haynes clerked for Judge James B. McMillan in Charlotte, North Carolina. Mr. Haynes then served four years active duty as a captain in the U. S. Army.
Mr. Haynes has earned numerous honors and awards, including various medals from the Department of Defense; the Departments of the Army, Navy, and Air Force; and the Department of Justice. Mr. Haynes holds an honorary Doctor of Laws from Stetson University Law School. Mr. Haynes is a member of the advisory committee of the National Security Institute of the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University; a member of the advisory council of the United States Court of Federal Claims; a trustee of the Supreme Court Historical Society; and a trustee of the Greater New York Councils of the Boy Scouts of America.
Partner, Sullivan & Cromwell LLP
Eric Kadel is engaged in a wide variety of corporate, transactional and regulatory matters. He is a member of the Firm’s Corporate and Finance, Financial Services, Investment Management, Alternative Investment Management, Cybersecurity, and Commodities, Futures and Derivatives Groups. With regard to financings, Mr. Kadel regularly represents participants in capital markets transactions, and dealers and end users in connection with structuring and documenting a wide variety of swaps and other derivatives, including equity, credit default and commodity swaps, options and forwards. Mr. Kadel’s work in the investment management area includes advising public and private investment companies and investment advisers on a wide variety of transactional, regulatory, compliance and other matters, including registration and regulation. Mr. Kadel also advises clients of the Firm regarding developments in the laws regulating the financial services industry and on cybersecurity issues. Mr. Kadel is currently an adjunct professor at George Washington University Law School.
In addition, Mr. Kadel is one of the principal partners in the Firm’s International Trade and Investment practice. He counsels and represents clients on questions about U.S. economic sanctions, including those administered by the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”), United States antiboycott requirements under the Export Administration Regulations administered and enforced by the Commerce Department’s Office of Antiboycott Compliance within the Bureau of Industry and Security, Bank Secrecy Act/anti‐money laundering laws and the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (“FCPA”). Mr. Kadel’s practice includes analysis of proposed transactions and business relationships; due diligence and design and review of compliance procedures and strategies; and internal investigations, voluntary disclosures and government enforcement actions. Mr. Kadel also regularly advises clients regarding questions arising under Exon-Florio and the transaction review process administered by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (“CFIUS”), and has represented clients before CFIUS on many national security reviews.
Partner, Mayer Brown
Prof. Tim Keeler, an attorney in the Government and International Trade Group, joined Mayer Brown in 2009, and brings an in-depth knowledge of international trade law and economic policy matters, and a history of working in the Executive Branch and Congress on major economic, legislative and regulatory issues.
Prior to joining Mayer Brown, Professor Keeler served in a variety of senior positions in the U.S. Government for almost 12 years. Most recently he was the Chief of Staff in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) from 2006 - 2009, where he oversaw implementation of U.S. policy, strategy and negotiations involving all aspects of international trade and investment matters. He worked on a number of key issues including: climate change and trade; US and China relations; WTO negotiations and litigation; free trade agreement negotiations and implementation; and CFIUS decisions.
Before working for USTR, Prof. Keeler spent more than five years at the Treasury Department from 2001 – 2006. He joined the Office of Legislative Affairs in 2001 as a Deputy to the Assistant Secretary for International Issues, where he was responsible for Treasury’s legislative strategy on issues including capital market sanctions, foreign exchange rate policy testimony, appropriations for U.S. agreements to replenish the World Bank and other Multilateral Development Banks, multilateral debt relief, and U.S. participation in the International Monetary Fund. He later managed the Office of Legislative Affairs from 2002 - 2006 and assisted on all policy and personnel issues in the Office. This included leading Treasury nominees through the U.S. Senate confirmation process, legislative strategy on Treasury Intelligence and Terrorist Financing matters, and advising on major economic legislative initiatives such as the 2003 tax cuts and social security reform proposals.
Prof. Keeler also served on the Presidential Transition Team in 2000–2001 as a policy coordinator on export control and trade remedy policy, handling the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Export Administration (now called the Bureau of Industry and Security) and the International Trade Commission (ITC).
Earlier in his career, Prof. Keeler served as a professional staff member for international trade on the US Senate Finance Committee under Chairman William V. Roth (R-DE). There he worked on legislation establishing permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) between the U.S. and China, preferential trade programs for Sub-Saharan Africa (the African Growth and Opportunity Act) and the Caribbean basin, the Generalized System of Preferences, legislation to bring the U.S. into compliance with the WTO decision on the Foreign Sales Corporation provisions of the Internal Revenue Code, and the miscellaneous tariff bill.
In recognition of his government service, Prof. Keeler was awarded the USTR Distinguished Service Award, the Treasury Distinguished Service Award, and the Treasury Secretary’s Honor Award twice.
Prof. Keeler is also an adjunct professor at the Georgetown University School of Law, co-teaching a course on U.S. and WTO law, policy, and politics; is a member of the Board of Directors of the Washington International Trade Foundation; and is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Prof. Keeler has spoken at conferences on international trade and economic issues sponsored by, inter alia, the American Bar Association (Climate Change and Trade, March 2009), the Korea Economic Institute (the U.S. – Korea Free Trade Agreement, October 2010), and the U.S.-China Business Council (Sec. 421 tires safeguard case, July 2009; and the U.S. – China Economic and Political Relationship, January 2010).
Co-Chair, NYU Center for Cybersecurity; Distinguished Fellow, Center on Law and Security; Professor of Practice, New York University School of Law
Randal Milch is the Co-Chair of the NYU Center for Cybersecurity, a Distinguished Fellow at the Center on Law and Security, and a Professor of Practice at NYU School of Law. He was most recently executive vice president and strategic policy adviser to Verizon’s chairman and CEO. He served as the company’s general counsel from 2008 to 2014, and before that was general counsel of several business divisions within Verizon. At Verizon, Milch chaired the Verizon Executive Security Council, which was responsible for information security across all Verizon entities. Milch was responsible for national security matters at Verizon beginning in 2006, and has served as the senior cleared executive at Verizon. Earlier in his career, Milch was a partner in the Washington, DC office of Donovan Leisure Newton & Irvine. Milch holds a JD from New York University School of Law and a BA from Yale University.
Executive Vice President, General Counsel, and Corporate Secretary, Qualcomm
Donald J. Rosenberg is executive vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary of Qualcomm Incorporated. Mr. Rosenberg reports directly to CEO Steve Mollenkopf and is a member of the company's Executive Committee. In his role as chief legal officer, he is responsible for overseeing Qualcomm's worldwide legal affairs including litigation, intellectual property and corporate matters. Qualcomm's Government Affairs, Internal Audit and Compliance organizations also report to him.
Prior to joining Qualcomm, Mr. Rosenberg served as senior vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary of Apple Inc. Prior to that, he was senior vice president and general counsel of IBM Corporation where he had also held numerous positions including vice president and assistant general counsel for litigation and counsel to IBM's mainframe division.
Mr. Rosenberg has had extensive experience in corporate governance, compliance, law department management, litigation, securities regulation, intellectual property and competition issues.
Mr. Rosenberg is a board member of NuVasive, Inc., Corporate Directors Forum, CONNECT, La Jolla Music Society, La Jolla Playhouse and a trustee of Rady Children's Hospital San Diego and the Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute. He is immediate past National Co-Chairman of the Board of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, where he continues to serve on the Board and the Executive Committee.
Mr. Rosenberg is a member of the International Advisory Board, University of California San Diego (UCSD) School of Global Policy and Strategy. He is also a member of the China Leadership Board for the 21st Century China Center at the UCSD. He has served as an adjunct professor of law at New York's Pace University School of Law, where he taught courses in intellectual property and antitrust law.
Mr. Rosenberg received a Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics from the State University of New York at Stony Brook and his juris doctor from St. John's University School of Law.
Secretary, U.S. Department of Health & Human Services
Alex M. Azar II was sworn in as the Secretary of Health and Human Services on Jan. 29, 2018. Azar has spent his career working in both the public and private sectors, as an attorney and in senior leadership roles focused on advancing healthcare reform, research and innovation.
From 2001 to 2007, Azar served at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services – first as its General Counsel (2001–2005) and then as Deputy Secretary. During his time as Deputy Secretary, Azar was involved in improving the department’s operations; advancing its emergency preparedness and response capabilities as well as its global health affairs activities; and helping oversee the rollout of the Medicare Part D prescription drug program.
In 2007, Azar rejoined the private sector as senior vice president for corporate affairs and communications at Eli Lilly and Co. From 2012 to 2017, he served as president of Lilly USA LLC, the company’s largest affiliate.
Azar clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia prior to practicing law for several years.
Azar graduated summa cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in economics and government from Dartmouth College and earned his law degree from Yale University.
For the past 10 years, Azar has lived in Indiana with his wife and their two children.
Executive Vice President, The Federalist Society
Dean Reuter is Executive Vice President at the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies. He has served in two federal government agency Offices of the Inspector General, as Counsel to the Inspector General and Deputy Inspector General, responsible for policing the use of federal funds granted and contracted through those agencies. As such, he helped conduct and oversee criminal investigations across the country. He is the principal author of the non-fiction book, The Hidden Nazi: The Untold Story of America's Deal with the Devil, and editor of Liberty’s Nemesis: The Unchecked Expansion of the State and Confronting Terror: 9/11 and the Future of American National Security. He was appointed by the President and served as Vice-Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Corporation for National and Community Service, and recently served as an appointee on the U.S. Commission on Presidential Scholars. He is a graduate of Hood College (BA with Honors) and the University of Maryland School of Law.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit
James C. Ho is a Circuit Judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Before taking the bench on January 4, 2018, he was a partner and co-chair of the national Appellate and Constitutional Law practice group of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP.
As an appellate litigator for over a decade, including three years as the Solicitor General of Texas, Judge Ho presented 50 oral arguments in federal and state courts nationwide. He won numerous appeals, including three merits cases at the U.S. Supreme Court. He was routinely ranked among the nation’s leading lawyers by Benchmark, Chambers, Law360, The Legal 500, and The National Law Journal, among other publications. His work has been cited favorably by courts at every level of both the federal and state judiciaries. He won a Best Brief Award from the National Association of Attorneys General for every year that he served as solicitor general, and he is the only state solicitor general in history to be invited by the U.S. Supreme Court to express the views of a state.
Judge Ho has served in all three branches of the federal government. On the Senate Judiciary Committee, he served as chief counsel of the Subcommittees on the Constitution and Immigration under Senator John Cornyn. At the Justice Department, he served as Special Assistant to the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights and an attorney-advisor at the Office of Legal Counsel. He clerked for Judge Jerry E. Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and Justice Clarence Thomas of the U.S. Supreme Court.
His record of public service also includes appointments as vice chair of the Federal Judicial Evaluation Committee in Texas and co-chair of the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association Judiciary Committee, and as a member of the U.S. Magistrate Judge Merit Selection Panel for the Northern District of Texas, the U.S. delegation to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, and the Continuity of Government Commission.
In addition, Judge Ho has served as an Adjunct Professor of Law at the University of Texas School of Law, where he taught seminars on U.S. Supreme Court Litigation and Religious Liberty. He has authored numerous articles in respected law reviews nationwide, including an annual feature on exemplary judicial writing for The Green Bag Almanac & Reader. He previously served as senior editor of The Green Bag and as co-editor of Pub. L. Misc.
Judge Ho graduated from Stanford University with honors and a B.A. in Public Policy in 1995, and the University of Chicago Law School with high honors in 1999. Before law school, he was a legislative aide to California State Senator Quentin Kopp. He and his wife Allyson live in Dallas, Texas, with their twin daughter and son.
John Paul Stevens Professor of Law, Northwestern University School of Law
Andrew Koppelman is John Paul Stevens Professor of Law, Professor (by courtesy) of Political Science, and Philosophy Department Affiliated Faculty at Northwestern University. He received the Walder Award for Research Excellence from Northwestern, the Hart-Dworkin award in legal philosophy from the Association of American Law Schools, and the Edward S. Corwin Prize from the American Political Science Association. His scholarship focuses on issues at the intersection of law and political philosophy. He has written more than 100 scholarly articles and eight books, most recently Burning Down the House: How Libertarian Philosophy Was Corrupted by Delusion and Greed, (St. Martin’s Press). His column appears regularly at The Hill. You can find his recent work at andrewkoppelman.com.
Senior Research Fellow, Center for Equal Opportunity
In D.C. area for over 20 years, Althea Nagai, Ph.D., is a research fellow at the Center for Equal Opportunity. She has conducted numerous statistical analyses on racial and ethnic preferences in higher education, including racial and ethnic preferences in undergraduate education at five public universities in Virginia, the University of Michigan, two Arizona universities, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, two Ohio universities, and various law and medical schools. In addition, she has written two essays for CEO focusing on Asian Americans, “Too Many Asian Americans,” and “Harvard Investigates Harvard.”
She has also has done work on other statistical studies in the field of social policy. Her first study was a content analysis and critique of the national history standards with John Fonte and Lynne Cheney. She has also conducted studies on marriage, religion, and family structure; on adolescent risk behavior; on philanthropy and social change; and on American elites (American Elites, with Robert Lerner and Stanley Rothman, 1996 Yale University Press).
Partner, Consovoy McCarthy Park PLLC
Mr. Strawbridge provides clients with advice and representation at the pre-litigation, trial, and appellate stages. He has represented a broad range of individual and institutional clients on matters of constitutional law, financial and securities regulation, environmental laws, complex commercial disputes, and consumer protection statutes. His experience includes arbitrations, trial and appellate litigation, and administrative and regulatory proceedings.
Mr. Strawbridge served as a law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, Judge Morris Sheppard Arnold of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, and Justice Howard Dana of the Supreme Judicial Court of Maine. Previously, Mr. Strawbridge was a partner at two large international law firms. He worked as a newspaper reporter for four years before attending law school. Mr. Strawbridge is an adjunct professor for the Supreme Court Clinic at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University.
Mr. Strawbridge earned a Bachelor of Journalism from the University of Missouri, and his J.D. summa cum laude from Creighton University School of Law. Mr. Strawbridge is a member of the Maine and Massachusetts bars.
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.
Eleventh Annual Rosenkranz Debate & Luncheon
John C. Harrison, Neal K. Katyal, Beth A. Williams, Eugene B. Meyer
2018 National Lawyers Convention
RESOLVED: District courts do not have the authority to enter universal injunctions. Prof. John Harrison,...
Climate Change Nuisance Suits
David Bookbinder, John K. Bush, Eric Grant, James L. Huffman, Mark W. Smith
2018 National Lawyers Convention
Should climate change responsibility be evaluated in the courts or by the elected policymaking branches?...
Technology, Social Media and Professional Ethics
Josh Blackman, John Browning, Stephen Louis A. Dillard, David Lat, Don R. Willett
2018 National Lawyers Convention
To what extent can the legal community engage in social media: a critical means to...
Showcase Panel III: The States & Administrative Law
Nestor Davidson, Christopher R. Green, Michael Scudder, Miriam Seifter, Jeffrey S. Sutton
2018 National Lawyers Convention
We live in a system where regulators make the rules, investigate alleged violations of the...
18th Annual Barbara K. Olson Memorial Lecture
Eugene B. Meyer, Jeffrey S. Sutton
2018 National Lawyers Convention
On September 11, 2001, at the age of 45 and at the height of her...
Say What You Will?: Government Compelled Speech
Sandra Segal Ikuta, Mark L. Rienzi, Amanda Shanor, Eugene Volokh
2018 National Lawyers Convention
When can the government require you to speak, or to host speech on your property,...
Evolution of the District Courts
Carlos T. Bea, Thomas M. Hardiman, Michael B. Mukasey, William E. Smith, Amul R. Thapar
2018 National Lawyers Convention
Over the past several decades, the workload of federal district courts has changed significantly. On...
National Security Law & Doing Business Abroad
William J. Haynes, Eric J. Kadel, Timothy J. Keeler, Randal S. Milch, Donald J. Rosenberg
2018 National Lawyers Convention
U.S. businesses operating in the global economy, and non-U.S. businesses operating or looking to invest...
Address by Alex Azar
Alex M. Azar, Dean Reuter
2018 National Lawyers Convention
On November 16, 2018, Secretary Alex Azar offered an address on the unintended consequences of...
Discrimination Against Minorities
James C. Ho, Andrew Koppelman, Althea Nagai, Patrick Strawbridge, John C. Yoo
2018 National Lawyers Convention
In 2014, Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) sued Harvard University, alleging that Harvard was violating...