Executive Vice President, Mackinac Center for Public Policy
Michael J. Reitz is executive vice president of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, where he oversees execution of the Center's strategic plan. The Mackinac Center is an independent, nonprofit research and educational institute based in Midland, Michigan, with the mission of improving the quality of life for all Michigan citizens by promoting sound solutions to state and local policy questions.
Prior to joining the Mackinac Center in 2012, Reitz spent eight years with the Freedom Foundation in Washington state as its general counsel and director of labor policy. Reitz established the Freedom Foundation’s Theodore L. Stiles Center for Liberty, where he litigated for accurate elections, defended the First Amendment rights of individuals, fought against governmental abuses of power and wrote extensively on constitutional law. Reitz championed a number of reforms to modify public-sector collective bargaining and to protect workers from coercive union monopolies.
An advocate of accountable government, Reitz has worked actively to promote transparency in state and local government, serving on the board of the Michigan Coalition for Open Government, a nonprofit organization that educates citizens about their rights to access public records and attend public meetings. While in Washington state, Reitz led a research and litigation effort to expose the governor's secretive practice of withholding records under claims of executive privilege.
Reitz frequently comments on public policy issues and has been cited by The Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, The Seattle Times and other publications. He is a co-author of "To Protect and Maintain Individual Rights," a reference guide to the Declaration of Rights in the Washington Constitution. Reitz received his law degree from Oak Brook College of Law and Government Policy. He is a member of the Washington bar and is admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution of Stanford University
Counsel, Sutherland Asbill & Brennan LLP
Visiting Professor of Public and International Affairs, Charles and Marie Robertson Visiting Professor, Princeton School of Public and International Affairs
Martin S. Flaherty is a longtime is Visiting Professor at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs, where he was Fellow in the Program in Law and Public Affairs. He is also Leitner Family Professor of International Human Rights Law and Founding Co-Director of the Leitner Center for International Law and Justice at Fordham Law School. Professor Flaherty also currently teaches at Columbia Law School and Barnard College. Previously he has taught at China University of Political Science and Law and the National Judges College in Beijing, Sungkyunkwan University in Seoul, Queen’s University Belfast. Professor Flaherty earlier served as a law clerk for Justice Byron R. White of the U.S. Supreme Court and Chief Judge John Gibbons of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
Flaherty received a J.D. from Columbia Law School, where he was Book Reviews and Articles Editor of the Columbia Law Review, an M.A. and M.Phil., with distinction, from Yale (in history), and B.A. summa cum laude from Princeton. For the Leitner Center, Human Rights First, and the New York City Bar Association, he has led or participated in human rights missions to Northern Ireland, Turkey, Hong Kong, Mexico, Malaysia, Kenya, Romania and China. Professor Flaherty is currently the President of the American Association of the International Commission of Jurists, https://www.aaicj.org, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and a legal expert advisor at the Sixth Committee of the United Nations General Assembly.
Flaherty’s scholarly publications focus upon international human rights, foreign affairs, and constitutional law and history, and appear in such journals as the Columbia Law Review, the Yale Law Journal, the Michigan Law Review, the University of Chicago Law Review, Constitutional Commentary, the Harvard Journal of Law and Policy, and the Harvard Human Rights Journal. He has written, appeared, or been quoted in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Yorker, The Boston Globe, The Daily News, Newsday, the PBS Newshour, CNN, MSNBC, and NPR. He is also the author of the Restoring the Global Judiciary: Why the Supreme Court Should Rule in Foreign Affairs (Princeton University Press, 2019).
Harlan Fiske Stone Professor of Constitutional Law, Columbia Law School
A leading administrative and constitutional law scholar, Gillian Metzger ’96 writes and teaches in the areas of administrative law, constitutional law, and federal courts, with an emphasis on federalism and privatization. In 2023-2024, she served as Acting Assistant Attorney General and Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Counsel in the Department of Justice.
Metzger's recent work covers topics ranging from constitutional attacks on the administrative state to appropriations, administrative law under the Roberts Court, and the role of administrative agencies in a polarized world. In 2015, Metzger won the American Bar Association Administrative Law Section Annual Scholarship Award for “The Constitutional Duty to Supervise,” which examined presidential control and oversight of the modern administrative state. She is a co-editor of Gellhorn & Byse’s Administrative Law: Cases and Comments, 13th ed. (Foundation Press, 2023), a seminal administrative law casebook.
Professor Metzger was recently elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and is a Senior Fellow of the Administrative Conference of the United States. In 2020, she was awarded Columbia University's Faculty Mentorship Award and in 2014, the Law School’s graduating class awarded Metzger the Willis L.M. Reese Prize for Excellence in Teaching, recognizing, among many other accomplishments, her commitment to mentoring new generations of law students.
In 2012, Metzger helped launch Columbia Law School’s Center for Constitutional Governance (CCG)—where she now serves as faculty director—a nonpartisan legal and policy organization devoted to the study of constitutional structure and authority. CCG brings together a diverse group of constitutional scholars to explore policy areas such as health care, civil rights, immigration, financial regulation, and national security.
Metzger also has co-authored and filed numerous amicus briefs in major constitutional and administrative law challenges before the Supreme Court and other courts. Most recently, Metzger filed a brief in Seila Law Center v. CFPB, a separation of powers challenge, and in Kisor v. Wilkie, a case involving judicial deference to agencies. She has also filed briefs in cases involving reproductive rights and the Affordable Care Act, among others.
Previously, Metzger served as vice dean of intellectual life at Columbia Law School. Before joining the Law School, she worked as an attorney with the Brennan Center for Justice. Metzger also clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg ’59 and Judge Patricia M. Wald of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. In 2018, Metzger moderated a panel discussion with Justice Ginsburg on impact litigation at Columbia Law School.
C. Ben Dutton Professor of Law, Indiana University Maurer School of Law
Professor Nagy joined the law school faculty in 2006 as the C. Ben Dutton Professor of Business Law. She began her teaching career in 1994 at the University of Cincinnati College of Law, where she served as Interim Dean from 2004-05 and as Associate Dean for Faculty Development from 2002-04. In Spring 2001, she was a Visiting Professor of Law at the University of Illinois College of Law, and was a Visiting Scholar at the University of Canterbury School of Law in Christchurch, New Zealand in Spring 2002.
Professor Nagy teaches and writes in the areas of securities litigation, securities regulation, and corporations. Her scholarship includes articles in the Cornell Law Review, the Notre Dame Law Review, and the Ohio State Law Journal as well as two co-authored books, one on the law of insider trading and a casebook on Securities Litigation and Enforcement. She is a frequent speaker on securities regulation and litigation topics at law schools and professional conferences. She also served as Chair of the AALS Section on Securities Regulation in 2004-05; as Chair of the AALS Standing Committee on Sections and the Annual Meeting in 2007-08; and as a Vice President and Member of the Board of Trustees of the SEC Historical Society from 2008-11.
Prior to teaching, Professor Nagy was an associate with Debevoise & Plimpton in Washington, D.C., specializing in securities enforcement and litigation. She was named interim executive associate dean for academic affairs in August 2013 and executive associate dean in January 2014.
Jacob E. Davis and Jacob E. Davis II Chair in Law, Moritz Colleg, The Ohio State University
Professor Shane came to Ohio State in 2003 from Carnegie Mellon University's H. John Heinz III School of Public Policy and Management. He is an internationally recognized scholar in administrative law, with a specialty in separation of powers law, and has co-authored leading casebooks on each subject. He has served on the faculty at the University of Iowa College of Law and was dean at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law.
In addition to his outstanding law teaching and scholarship, Professor Shane has received a National Science Foundation grant for interdisciplinary study related to cyberspace and democracy. At Ohio State, he provides strong leadership in interdisciplinary scholarship and teaching.
Senior Counsel, YetterColeman LLP
Chris’s practice focuses on complex appeals. He has represented major corporations in a variety of industries—including energy, insurance, and financial services—as well as governmental entities and private parties in litigation against governmental entities in federal and state courts throughout the country and in the U.S. Supreme Court. He has briefed numerous successful appeals and orally argued in federal and state appellate courts. Chris is admitted to practice in Texas, the United States Supreme Court, the United States Courts of Appeals for the Second, Fifth, Ninth, and District of Columbia Circuits, and the United States District Courts of Texas. Chris was a law clerk for the Honorable Will Garwood of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Before attending law school, he worked as a Latin teacher, for the Republican Party of Texas, and for Texas State Senator Jane Nelson.
Professor of Law, Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law
Tuan Samahon teaches and writes in the areas of federal courts and constitutional law. His articles have been published in the Stanford Law Review, Ohio State Law Journal, Hastings Law Journal, William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal, University of Chicago Legal Forum, Denver Law Review, and Villanova Law Review, among others.
Beyond his scholarship, Tuan is engaged in interpreting and fashioning federal constitutional law. He has testified before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on the Constitution, and has served as counsel in separation-of-powers and Freedom of Information Act litigation in federal trial and appellate courts. Recently, Tuan prevailed against the CIA in a civil action for the release of the draft fifth volume of its secret history of the 1961 Bay of Pigs operation. In addition to representing others, for a book he is researching, Tuan successfully sued the FBI for the release of agency records detailing high-ranking executive and judicial officers' abuses of power.
Tuan received his B.A. from Brigham Young University and his J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center, where he was an Olin Law and Economics Research Fellow and was co-awarded the Olin Prize in Law and Economics. Prior to entering teaching, he clerked for U.S. District Judge Raymond A. Jackson on the Eastern District of Virginia and for U.S. Circuit Judge Jay S. Bybee on the Ninth Circuit. He also practiced in the Washington, D.C. office of Covington & Burling. Professor Samahon was named "Professor of the Year" by his students at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. He teaches civil procedure, federal courts, and constitutional law subjects.
During spring 2017, Tuan served as a Fulbright scholar with the law faculty at the University of Zagreb, Croatia.
Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution of Stanford University
Counsel, Sutherland Asbill & Brennan LLP
Western Environmental Law Center
Partner, Crowell & Moring
Ellen Steen is a partner specializing in environmental and natural resources law. She has represented a broad range of industrial, mining, timber, and agricultural clients in matters involving the Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, Endangered Species Act, Superfund, Resource Conservation and Recovery Act ("RCRA"), Emergency Protection and Community Right-to-Know Act ("EPCRA"), Toxic Substances Control Act ("TSCA"), Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act ("FIFRA"), and the National Environmental Policy Act ("NEPA").
Ellen's litigation practice has included a wide range of cases concerning the scope of EPA's regulatory authority (both challenging and defending EPA regulations), as well as enforcement actions by EPA and citizens groups. She has litigated Clean Water Act cases involving National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System ("NPDES") permitting, including storm water permitting, as well as section 404 wetlands ("dredge and fill") permitting, antidegradation policies, the total maximum daily load ("TMDL") program, state water quality certification requirements, and Endangered Species Act consultation in connection with EPA action under the Clean Water Act. Some of the more significant policy-related Clean Water Act cases include the successful challenge to aspects of EPA's NPDES regulations for concentrated animal feeding operations ("CAFOs"), Waterkeeper Alliance, Inc. v. EPA, 399 F.3d 486 (2nd Cir. 2005), the successful defense of EPA's current general permit for construction-related storm water discharges, Texas Independent Royalty Producers and Owners Ass'n v. EPA, 410 F.3d 964 (7th Cir. 2005), and on-going litigation concerning EPA's 2008 revised CAFO rules, National Pork Producers Council, et al. v. EPA, No. 08-61093 (5th Cir.), and administrative reporting exemption from EPCRA release reporting requirements, Waterkeeper Alliance, et al. v. EPA, No. 09-1017 (D.C. Cir.). Ellen has defended against numerous administrative and judicial enforcement actions under the Clean Water Act and other environmental laws, including citizens' suits alleging violations of hazardous substance release reporting requirements, as well as citizen claims for RCRA "imminent and substantial endangerment" and open dumping. She has litigated NEPA cases, defending federal projects from challenges to the adequacy of environmental impact analyses, and has extensive experience in Superfund contribution and cost recovery litigation.
Ellen's regulatory counseling and permitting expertise includes Clean Water Act permitting and compliance (related to both NPDES and section 404 dredge and fill regulation), as well as counseling on a variety of issues concerning the regulation of chemical substances, site remediation under the Superfund National Contingency Plan, hazardous substance release reporting, hazardous waste management, and pesticide regulation. She regularly prepares formal comments and engages in administrative advocacy related to EPA initiatives concerning NPDES permitting rules and permit issuance, water quality standards, effluent limitations guidelines, and TMDLs.
She serves as a vice-chair of the Agricultural Management Committee within the ABA's Section of Environment, Energy, and Resources. She is a member of the bars of the Supreme Court of the United States, various federal appellate courts, the District of Columbia, and North Carolina.
Senior Advisor, Trade, Intellectual Property and Strategic Issue, CropLife America
Douglas T. Nelson is senior advisor, for trade, intellectual property and strategic issues for CropLife America, the largest national trade organization representing developers, manufacturers, formulators and distributors of agricultural pesticides across the United States.
Prior to CropLife America, Nelson served as assistant general counsel and assistant secretary of Unilever United States, Inc. in New York, N.Y.
Other previous positions included acquisitions and divestitures counsel at Union Carbide Corporation in Danbury, Conn., and associate positions at the New York law firms of Paul, Weiss Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, and Coudert Brothers.
Nelson is an appointed member of the United States Industry Trade Advisory Committee on Intellectual Property Rights, which advises the U.S. trade representative and the Secretary of Commerce on intellectual property rights aspects of U.S. trade policy.
Nelson holds a bachelor’s degree in history from Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J., a master’s degree and Ph.D. in European history from Columbia University and a J.D. from the Columbia University School of Law, in New York, N.Y.
Nelson holds a bachelor’s degree in history from Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J., a master’s degree and Ph.D. in European history from Columbia University and a J.D. from the Columbia University School of Law, in New York, N.Y.
Executive Director & Secretary, American Civil Rights Project
Dan Morenoff is the executive director at the American Civil Rights Project and an adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
His work focuses on protecting and, where necessary, restoring the primacy of all Americans' shared civil rights against the identitarian alternative.
Before practicing law, Morenoff served on the legislative staff of Sen. Phil Gramm (R-TX). Morenoff holds a B.A. from Columbia College of Columbia University in the City of New York and a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School. He has also served as an officer or director of several community organizations in Dallas, Texas.
Executive Director & Secretary, American Civil Rights Project
Dan Morenoff is the executive director at the American Civil Rights Project and an adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
His work focuses on protecting and, where necessary, restoring the primacy of all Americans' shared civil rights against the identitarian alternative.
Before practicing law, Morenoff served on the legislative staff of Sen. Phil Gramm (R-TX). Morenoff holds a B.A. from Columbia College of Columbia University in the City of New York and a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School. He has also served as an officer or director of several community organizations in Dallas, Texas.
University Professor of Law and Religion and Director of the Eleanor H. McCullen Center for Law, Religion and Public Policy, Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law
Michael P. Moreland was appointed University Professor of Law and Religion and Director of the Eleanor H. McCullen Center for Law, Religion and Public Policy at Villanova University in 2017. Professor Moreland joined the Villanova faculty in 2006 and served as Vice Dean from 2012 to 2015. His research is primarily in the areas of torts, law and religion, constitutional law, and Catholic social thought, and he regularly teaches Torts, First Amendment, seminars in law and religion, and undergraduate courses in ethics.
Professor Moreland is the co-editor of Christianity and Private Law (Routledge, 2021), and his most recent publications include: “The Authority of Tradition: John Henry Newman and Legal Theory” in Christianity and the Making of Irish Law (Routledge, 2025); “Christianity and Torts” in The Oxford Handbook on Christianity and Law, (Oxford University Press, 2023); “Germaneness and Religious Liberty” in the Notre Dame Law Review (2023); “Contingency and Contestation in Christianity and Liberalism” in the Notre Dame Law Review (2023); “Friendship as the Primary Purpose of Law” in The American Journal of Jurisprudence 279 (2022); and “The Moral of Torts” (with Jeffrey Pojanowski) in Christianity and Private Law (Routledge, 2021).
Professor Moreland was a Visiting Professor of Law at the University of Notre Dame and the Mary Ann Remick Senior Visiting Fellow at the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture from 2015 to 2017. He was the Forbes Visiting Fellow at Princeton University in the James Madison Program during academic year 2010-11. He has served as the project leader for grants from the John Templeton Foundation and the Charles Koch Foundation. He serves as the Chair of the Federalist Society’s Religious Liberties Practice Group Executive Committee and the Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Institute for Advanced Catholic Studies at the University of Southern California.
Professor Moreland received his BA in philosophy from the University of Notre Dame, his MA and PhD in theological ethics from Boston College, and his JD from the University of Michigan Law School. Following law school, Professor Moreland clerked for the Honorable Paul J. Kelly Jr., of the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit and was an associate at Williams & Connolly LLP in Washington, DC, where he represented clients in First Amendment, professional liability, and products liability matters. Before coming to Villanova, he served as Associate Director for Domestic Policy at the White House under President George W. Bush, where he worked on a range of legal policy issues, including criminal justice, immigration, civil rights, and liability reform.
Litigation Associate, Winston & Strawn LLP
Jacob R. Loshin is a litigation associate in Winston & Strawn's Washington, D.C. office and a member of the firm’s nationwide appellate and critical motions practice.
Before joining Winston & Strawn, Mr. Loshin served as a law clerk to the Hon. Jerry E. Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. He has also worked in business strategy and development for an education technology company.
While at Yale Law School, Mr. Loshin was senior editor of the Yale Law Journal and editor-in-chief of the Yale Journal on Regulation.
B.A., magna cum laude, in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics, Claremont McKenna College
J.D., Yale Law School
Washington Supreme Court Upholds At-Will Employment: Employees Who Object to “Bad Boss” Are Not Protected from Termination
Michael J. Reitz
The Washington State Supreme Court narrowly affirmed an employer’s right to terminate employees who disagree...
New York Court Weakens Product Liability Defenses
Craig Mausler
Passante v. Agway Consumer Products
In Passante v. Agway Consumer Products, the plaintiff, an employee of a loading company, was...
Judicial Funding Mandates Related to Education Sharply Decline
Eric A. Hanushek, Alfred A. Lindseth
Twenty years ago a new kind of educational lawsuit designed to ensure “adequacy of funding”...
PCAOB Debate
Martin Flaherty, Gillian E. Metzger, Donna M. Nagy, Peter M. Shane, Christian J. Ward, Tuan Samahon
Online Debate
This debate will focus on the following questions: Is the Sarbanes-Oxley Act consistent with the...
Judicial Funding Mandates Related to Education Sharply Decline
Eric A. Hanushek, Alfred A. Lindseth
Twenty years ago a new kind of educational lawsuit designed to ensure “adequacy of funding”...
National Cotton Council v. EPA and NPDES Permits
Charles Tebbutt, Ellen Steen, Doug T. Nelson
Environmental Law & Property Rights Practice Group
Since the passage of the Clean Water Act in 1972, any entity that disposes pollutants...
Fighting Judicial Activism in Washington
John Cornyn, Dan Morenoff
Dallas Lawyers Chapter
On October 16, 2009, Senator John Cornyn delivered an address before the Dallas Lawyers Chapter...
Fighting Judicial Activism in Washington
John Cornyn, Dan Morenoff
Dallas Lawyers Chapter
On October 16, 2009, Senator John Cornyn delivered an address before the Dallas Lawyers Chapter...
Salazar v. Buono – Post-Argument SCOTUScast
Michael P. Moreland
SCOTUScast 10-16-09 featuring Michael P. Moreland
On October 7, 2009, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in Salazar v. Buono. The...
United States v. Stevens - Post-Argument SCOTUScast
Jacob R. Loshin
SCOTUScast 10-16-2009 featuring Jacob R. Loshin
On October 6, 2009, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in United States v. Stevens....