Attorney and Legal Commentator
John Shu is an attorney and legal commentator. His focus areas include constitutional law, securities & corporate law, antitrust law, administrative law, politics, and international affairs. Mr. Shu has lectured and published on a wide variety of issues.
Mr. Shu served President George H.W. Bush and President George W. Bush. He also served Judge Stanley Sporkin, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, who was Director of Enforcement at the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission and General Counsel at the Central Intelligence Agency, and Judge Paul Roney, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, who was Presiding Judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review.
Mr. Shu is a member of the National Committee on U.S. - China Relations, the Pacific Council on International Policy, and the Foreign Policy Association.
Executive Director, Ohio Dental Association
David J. Owsiany is the executive director of the Ohio Dental Association and a past president of the Columbus Lawyers Chapter of the Federalist Society.
He has served as CEO of a statewide health care association, president of the Buckeye Institute, chief of policy for the Ohio Department of Insurance, judicial law clerk for the Illinois Appellate Court, and staffer on the United State Senate Judiciary Committee.
Mr. Owsiany has written dozens of articles on legal and public policy issues for various publications, including the University of Toledo Law Review, the Federalist Society's State Court Docket Watch, Columbus Dispatch, Cincinnati Enquirer, Crain’s Cleveland Business, and Akron Beacon Journal.
Owsiany received his J.D. from Washington University School of Law in St. Louis and B.A. from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
Managing Director, Berkeley Research Group
Dan Troy is Managing Director and an expert witness on FDA matters at Berkeley Research Group. Previously he served as Chief Counsel of the US Food and Drug Administration and General Counsel of GlaxoSmithKline PLC.
Publius comes from the pen name Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay used when they wrote 85 publicly printed letters now known as the Federalist Papers. Hamilton chose “Publius” as a name that would represent friends of the newly proposed American republic - Publius Valeria Publicola was a Roman general who helped to found the Roman Republic. The Federalist Society continues the tradition of publishing things under the name Publius in celebration of our constitutional roots and recognition that author credit is not always necessary.
Journalist & Legal Expert
Tim O’Brien is an attorney and an award winning journalist whose achievements include covering the U.S. Supreme Court for ABC News for more than twenty-two years. He is a recognized expert on the Court, its Justices and on the development of a generation of constitutional law.
O’Brien’s reporting has received the highest accolades of both the legal and journalism professions. The National Academy of Arts and Sciences awarded Mr. O’Brien an Emmy for his contributions to CNN’s coverage of the September 11thterrorism attacks. His television documentaries on the criminal justice system received the American Bar Association’s highest award (The Silver Gavel Award) as well as a Columbia-DuPont Award for Excellence in journalism. He also received a Columbia-DuPont Award for Human Rights Reporting for “Escape From Justice—Nazi War Criminals in America,” an ABC News documentary.
O’Brien’s reporting on the death penalty and alternative dispute resolution have also been recognized by the American Bar Association for journalism excellence. He is currently a contributing correspondent to the PBS Broadcast, “Religion and Ethics Newsweekly.” His opinions on issues ranging from the death penalty to broadcast coverage of the U.S. Supreme Court have appeared on the Op Ed pages of The New York Times, The Washington Post and other major newspapers around the U.S.
O’Brien is a member of the District of Columbia Bar and the Bar of the Supreme Court of the U.S. Active in the Washington legal community, he is an elected member of the American Law Institute, a former Director of the American Judicature Society and a current board member of the National Legal Center for the Public Interest.
O’Brien is a Distinguished Visiting Professor of Law at Nova Southeastern University in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida and has held similar positions at Loyola University School of Law in New Orleans (2003, 2005), St. Thomas University School of Law in Miami (2001) and Hofstra University School of Law, Hempstead, NY. (2000)
He is a “Distinguished Alumnus” of Michigan State University and a member of the Board of Visitors of the Loyola University School of Law in New Orleans. A frequent lecturer on the Supreme Court and legal issues generally, he was the keynote speaker at the D.C. Judicial Circuit Conference for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia meeting at Williamsburg, Virginia in 2002. In 2009, he was the keynote speaker for annual meetings of the state bar associations of Michigan and Kentucky.
Justice, Supreme Court of Alabama (Retired); Professor of Law, Belmont University College of Law?
Colorado’s Immigration Reform
Gwen Benevento
On June 12, 2006, the Colorado Supreme Court refused to allow a ballot initiative that...
Same-Sex Marriage in the State Courts
John Shu
Gay marriage litigation continues to occur in several states. In the first half of 2006,...
Ohio Supreme Court Limits Eminent Domain
David J. Owsiany
Since the Supreme Court’s decision in Kelo v. New London1 last year, eminent domain and...
FDA Labeling and State Liability
Daniel E. Troy
Were state and federal courts to defer sufficiently to FDA determinations of drug safety, the...
Judicial Speech in Kansas
Publius
The Supreme Court held in Republican Party of Minnesota v. White1 that the announce clause...
The Florida Supreme Court: Judicial Activism & Judicial Self-Restraint – Some Examples
Thomas C. Marks, Pamela Buha
This paper is about judicial activism and judicial self-restraint. These terms can mean different things...
The Florida Supreme Court: Judicial Activism & Judicial Self-Restraint – Some Examples
Thomas C. Marks, Pamela Buha
This paper is about judicial activism and judicial self-restraint. These terms can mean different things...
The Colorado Supreme Court: Independence or Activism?
Shawn Mitchell
Politicians, academics, and even U.S. Supreme Court Justices have joined the debate over the role...
The Colorado Supreme Court: Independence or Activism?
Shawn Mitchell
Politicians, academics, and even U.S. Supreme Court Justices have joined the debate over the role...
Are Judicial Elections a Threat to Judicial Independence? - Event Audio
Randall T. Shepard, Tim O'Brien, Harold F. See
State Courts Project
The Federalist Society's State Courts Project presented this event on October 24, 2006, at the...