Partner, Shook, Hardy & Bacon, LLP
Phil Goldberg is the office managing partner of Shook in Washington, D.C., and co-chair of the firm’s Public Policy Practice Group. He has more than 25 years of experience advising clients on high stakes and high profile liability-related public policy, public affairs and public relations issues. He counsels businesses and their trade associations on some of the most cutting-edge liability issues of the day.
As part of this work, Phil co-chairs the firm’s National Amicus Practice, which files more than three dozen amicus briefs every year. He has filed amicus briefs for many of the most influential trade and civil justice groups with courts at every level, from the U.S. Supreme Court to the U.S. Courts of Appeals and state appellate courts. He has testified before Congress and state legislatures, has authored leading legal scholarship and is a regular speaker at judicial education conferences. He also is a resource for journalists, podcasters and others who report on and discuss pressing liability issues.
President and Co-Founder, America First Legal Foundation
Gene Hamilton is the President of America First Legal, which he co-founded, and where he was previously the Executive Director, Executive Vice President, and General Counsel. He most recently served as Deputy White House Counsel to President Donald Trump. Earlier in his career, Gene served as Counselor to Attorney General at the U.S. Department of Justice and as Senior Counselor to the Secretary of Homeland Security. He also served as General Counsel on the Senate Judiciary Committee and held several roles at the Department of Homeland Security, including with U.S. Immigration Enforcement, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the Office of the General Counsel. He holds a B.A. from the University of Georgia and a J.D. from Washington and Lee University School of Law.
Executive Director, Alliance For Consumers
O.H. leads Alliance For Consumers, which fights to ensure that consumer protection efforts, class action lawsuits, and attorney general enforcement actions are consistent with the rule of law and benefit everyday consumers, not just class action lawyers and career bureaucrats.
His work with AFC builds off his time with the Arizona Attorney General's Office under Attorney General Mark Brnovich, where he not only defended constitutional questions and served as the State's lead counsel in the U.S. Supreme Court, but also had the privilege of leading Arizona's consumer protection lawsuit against Google over the tracking of consumers' location, and the successful case against Volkswagen over well-publicized diesel-related consumer deception.
O.H. is a 2010 graduate of Harvard Law School. Before joining Attorney General Brnovich in 2016, O.H. practiced at WilmerHale and Ropes & Gray in Boston and clerked for the Hon. J.L. Edmondson of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in Atlanta, Georgia.
Counsel, Boyden Gray PLLC
Jim Wedeking is counsel at Boyden Gray PLLC. He has extensive experience with environmental regulations, providing compliance counseling for large industrial and agricultural companies and their related trade associations, drafting comments on proposed environmental rulemakings from a variety of federal agencies, and challenging those rules in court. For over 20 years he has helped companies obtain various permits and other authorizations for constructing major infrastructure projects, including fossil fuel-fired power plants, natural gas pipelines, and offshore wind turbines, as well as defend those permits and authorizations through litigation. Mr. Wedeking frequently writes on federal environmental law topics, including for the Washington Legal Foundation.
He has also counseled clients on several Freedom of Information Act matters, including the protection of confidential business information from disclosure to third parties and how the Supreme Court’s Food Marketing Institute v. Argus Leader Media decision increased protections for company information provided to regulatory agencies.
Before joining the firm, Mr. Wedeking was counsel in Sidley Austin’s Washington, D.C. environmental, health, and safety practice group. There, he represented industrial companies in defending against civil and criminal enforcement actions and toxic tort suits.
Mr. Wedeking received a J.D., cum laude, from the Catholic University of America Columbus School of Law and a B.A. in Criminology and Criminal Justice from the University of Maryland.
Partner, Shook, Hardy & Bacon, LLP
Phil Goldberg is the office managing partner of Shook in Washington, D.C., and co-chair of the firm’s Public Policy Practice Group. He has more than 25 years of experience advising clients on high stakes and high profile liability-related public policy, public affairs and public relations issues. He counsels businesses and their trade associations on some of the most cutting-edge liability issues of the day.
As part of this work, Phil co-chairs the firm’s National Amicus Practice, which files more than three dozen amicus briefs every year. He has filed amicus briefs for many of the most influential trade and civil justice groups with courts at every level, from the U.S. Supreme Court to the U.S. Courts of Appeals and state appellate courts. He has testified before Congress and state legislatures, has authored leading legal scholarship and is a regular speaker at judicial education conferences. He also is a resource for journalists, podcasters and others who report on and discuss pressing liability issues.
President and Co-Founder, America First Legal Foundation
Gene Hamilton is the President of America First Legal, which he co-founded, and where he was previously the Executive Director, Executive Vice President, and General Counsel. He most recently served as Deputy White House Counsel to President Donald Trump. Earlier in his career, Gene served as Counselor to Attorney General at the U.S. Department of Justice and as Senior Counselor to the Secretary of Homeland Security. He also served as General Counsel on the Senate Judiciary Committee and held several roles at the Department of Homeland Security, including with U.S. Immigration Enforcement, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the Office of the General Counsel. He holds a B.A. from the University of Georgia and a J.D. from Washington and Lee University School of Law.
Executive Director, Alliance For Consumers
O.H. leads Alliance For Consumers, which fights to ensure that consumer protection efforts, class action lawsuits, and attorney general enforcement actions are consistent with the rule of law and benefit everyday consumers, not just class action lawyers and career bureaucrats.
His work with AFC builds off his time with the Arizona Attorney General's Office under Attorney General Mark Brnovich, where he not only defended constitutional questions and served as the State's lead counsel in the U.S. Supreme Court, but also had the privilege of leading Arizona's consumer protection lawsuit against Google over the tracking of consumers' location, and the successful case against Volkswagen over well-publicized diesel-related consumer deception.
O.H. is a 2010 graduate of Harvard Law School. Before joining Attorney General Brnovich in 2016, O.H. practiced at WilmerHale and Ropes & Gray in Boston and clerked for the Hon. J.L. Edmondson of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in Atlanta, Georgia.
Counsel, Boyden Gray PLLC
Jim Wedeking is counsel at Boyden Gray PLLC. He has extensive experience with environmental regulations, providing compliance counseling for large industrial and agricultural companies and their related trade associations, drafting comments on proposed environmental rulemakings from a variety of federal agencies, and challenging those rules in court. For over 20 years he has helped companies obtain various permits and other authorizations for constructing major infrastructure projects, including fossil fuel-fired power plants, natural gas pipelines, and offshore wind turbines, as well as defend those permits and authorizations through litigation. Mr. Wedeking frequently writes on federal environmental law topics, including for the Washington Legal Foundation.
He has also counseled clients on several Freedom of Information Act matters, including the protection of confidential business information from disclosure to third parties and how the Supreme Court’s Food Marketing Institute v. Argus Leader Media decision increased protections for company information provided to regulatory agencies.
Before joining the firm, Mr. Wedeking was counsel in Sidley Austin’s Washington, D.C. environmental, health, and safety practice group. There, he represented industrial companies in defending against civil and criminal enforcement actions and toxic tort suits.
Mr. Wedeking received a J.D., cum laude, from the Catholic University of America Columbus School of Law and a B.A. in Criminology and Criminal Justice from the University of Maryland.
Fellow, Ethics and Public Policy Center
Rachel N. Morrison is an attorney and Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, where she directs EPPC’s Administrative State Accountability Project. Her legal and policy work focuses on religious liberty, health care rights of conscience, the right to life, nondiscrimination, and civil rights.
Before joining EPPC, Ms. Morrison served as an Attorney Advisor and Special Assistant to General Counsel Sharon Fast Gustafson at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), where she focused on religious discrimination issues and was a member of the General Counsel’s Religious Discrimination Work Group. Before that, she served as Litigation Counsel for Americans United for Life and as a Constitutional Law Fellow at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, defending the right to life and religious freedom for all. She also clerked on the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.
Ms. Morrison’s legal analysis has been published in the Seton Hall Law Review, the Pepperdine Law Review, and the Ave Maria Law Review, as well as various other print media outlets.
Ms. Morrison earned her J.D., magna cum laude, from the Pepperdine University School of Law, where she was elected to the Order of the Coif and served as an editor for the Pepperdine Law Review and the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy. She received her B.A. in Mathematics and Speech Communication, summa cum laude, from Whitworth University (Spokane, WA). She is a member of the District of Columbia and the Washington State bars.
Ms. Morrison lives with her husband and daughter in Virginia.
Vice President & Senior Legal Fellow, Defending Education
Sarah Parshall Perry is vice president and senior legal fellow at Defending Education.
Before coming to Defending Education, Sarah served as a Senior Legal Fellow for the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, part of the Institute for Constitutional Government at Heritage, where her work centered on civil rights and the proper role of the courts.
Sarah joined Heritage after serving as Senior Counsel to the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Education where she focused on policy reform, technical guidance, and the Office for Civil Rights’ (OCR) annual report to Congress. While at OCR, she was appointed by the Acting Assistant Secretary to co-chair the Employment Engagement, Diversity, & Inclusion Council and, in coordination with the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Enforcement oversee the hiring of dozens of attorneys for OCR’s 12 regional offices nationwide. Prior to her tenure at the Department of Education, she spent six years at the Family Research Council in Washington, D.C. where she was Senior Fellow for Education Reform and later, became the regular substitute host for the “Washington Watch” radio show. Her work at the Family Research Council also included the building and oversight of multiple policy coalitions geared toward the fight against antisemitism in academia, curbing tech censorship, and protecting religious liberty.
Before joining FRC, Sarah was in-house counsel and director of development for a Baltimore advertising agency, providing management of all new business transactions from pitch to contract execution for the multi-million-dollar enterprise. She began her practice at the litigation firm of Simms Showers, LLP where her work included Title VII employment discrimination, maritime/admiralty, and False Claims Act (“Qui Tam”) law. Sarah has a law degree from the University of Virginia School of Law, where she was an editor of the Virginia Journal of International Law, a recipient of the American Jurisprudence award, a Phi Delta Phi honor society member, and a student practitioner in the appellate litigation clinic where she argued before the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals. She holds a B.S. in Journalism with honors from Liberty University.
Her commentary and analysis have appeared in media outlets across the country, including the AP, BBC, Fox News, NPR, The Hill, Washington Post, Washington Times, and the New York Times. She is the mother of three children, and the author of just as many books on the trials and triumphs of parenting children on the autism spectrum. Sarah is a member of the Kirkpatrick Society at the American Enterprise Institute, and makes her home north of Baltimore, Maryland.
Fellow, Ethics and Public Policy Center
Rachel N. Morrison is an attorney and Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, where she directs EPPC’s Administrative State Accountability Project. Her legal and policy work focuses on religious liberty, health care rights of conscience, the right to life, nondiscrimination, and civil rights.
Before joining EPPC, Ms. Morrison served as an Attorney Advisor and Special Assistant to General Counsel Sharon Fast Gustafson at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), where she focused on religious discrimination issues and was a member of the General Counsel’s Religious Discrimination Work Group. Before that, she served as Litigation Counsel for Americans United for Life and as a Constitutional Law Fellow at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, defending the right to life and religious freedom for all. She also clerked on the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.
Ms. Morrison’s legal analysis has been published in the Seton Hall Law Review, the Pepperdine Law Review, and the Ave Maria Law Review, as well as various other print media outlets.
Ms. Morrison earned her J.D., magna cum laude, from the Pepperdine University School of Law, where she was elected to the Order of the Coif and served as an editor for the Pepperdine Law Review and the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy. She received her B.A. in Mathematics and Speech Communication, summa cum laude, from Whitworth University (Spokane, WA). She is a member of the District of Columbia and the Washington State bars.
Ms. Morrison lives with her husband and daughter in Virginia.
Vice President & Senior Legal Fellow, Defending Education
Sarah Parshall Perry is vice president and senior legal fellow at Defending Education.
Before coming to Defending Education, Sarah served as a Senior Legal Fellow for the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, part of the Institute for Constitutional Government at Heritage, where her work centered on civil rights and the proper role of the courts.
Sarah joined Heritage after serving as Senior Counsel to the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Education where she focused on policy reform, technical guidance, and the Office for Civil Rights’ (OCR) annual report to Congress. While at OCR, she was appointed by the Acting Assistant Secretary to co-chair the Employment Engagement, Diversity, & Inclusion Council and, in coordination with the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Enforcement oversee the hiring of dozens of attorneys for OCR’s 12 regional offices nationwide. Prior to her tenure at the Department of Education, she spent six years at the Family Research Council in Washington, D.C. where she was Senior Fellow for Education Reform and later, became the regular substitute host for the “Washington Watch” radio show. Her work at the Family Research Council also included the building and oversight of multiple policy coalitions geared toward the fight against antisemitism in academia, curbing tech censorship, and protecting religious liberty.
Before joining FRC, Sarah was in-house counsel and director of development for a Baltimore advertising agency, providing management of all new business transactions from pitch to contract execution for the multi-million-dollar enterprise. She began her practice at the litigation firm of Simms Showers, LLP where her work included Title VII employment discrimination, maritime/admiralty, and False Claims Act (“Qui Tam”) law. Sarah has a law degree from the University of Virginia School of Law, where she was an editor of the Virginia Journal of International Law, a recipient of the American Jurisprudence award, a Phi Delta Phi honor society member, and a student practitioner in the appellate litigation clinic where she argued before the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals. She holds a B.S. in Journalism with honors from Liberty University.
Her commentary and analysis have appeared in media outlets across the country, including the AP, BBC, Fox News, NPR, The Hill, Washington Post, Washington Times, and the New York Times. She is the mother of three children, and the author of just as many books on the trials and triumphs of parenting children on the autism spectrum. Sarah is a member of the Kirkpatrick Society at the American Enterprise Institute, and makes her home north of Baltimore, Maryland.
E. Claiborne Robins Distinguished Chair in Law, University of Richmond School of Law
Professor Kurt Lash teaches and writes about constitutional law. Founder and director of the Richmond Program on the American Constitution, Professor Lash has published widely on the subjects of constitutional law and constitutional history, including The Fourteenth Amendment and the Privileges or Immunities of American Citizenship (Cambridge University Press, 2014), The Lost History of the Ninth Amendment (Oxford University Press, 2009), and The American First Amendment in the Twenty-first Century: Cases and Materials(with William W. Van Alstyne) (5th ed., Foundation Press, 2014). An elected member of the American Law Institute, Professor Lash’s work has appeared in numerous legal journals including the Stanford Law Journal, Georgetown Law Journal, Virginia Law Review, andNotre Dame Law Review. He has been a visiting professor at Northwestern University School of Law and is the former director of the University of Illinois College of Law Program in Constitutional Theory, History, and Law.
Solicitor General, Iowa Office of the Attorney General
Eric Wessan serves as Iowa’s Solicitor General in the Iowa Attorney General’s Office. In that
role, Wessan leads Iowa’s litigation before State and federal appellate courts, including the Iowa
and U.S. Supreme Courts. Before that role, Wessan worked on complex commercial litigation at
two large law firms in Chicago. Wessan also served as a law clerk for the Honorable James C.
Ho on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and for the Honorable John F. Kness on the
U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. Wessan is a graduate of the University of
Chicago Law School, with honors, and of the University of Chicago.
Professor, University of Minnesota Law School
Ilan Wurman is the Julius E. Davis Professor of Law at the University of Minnesota, where he teaches administrative law and constitutional law. He previously taught at Arizona State University. He writes primarily on the Fourteenth Amendment, administrative law, separation of powers, and constitutionalism. His academic writing has appeared in the Yale Law Journal, the Stanford Law Review, the University of Chicago Law Review, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, the Virginia Law Review, the Duke Law Journal, the Minnesota Law Review, the Notre Dame Law Review, and the Texas Law Review among other journals.
Professor Wurman is the author of a casebook, Administrative Law Theory and Fundamentals: An Integrated Approach (Foundation Press 2d ed. 2024). He is also the author of A Debt Against the Living: An Introduction to Originalism (Cambridge 2017), and The Second Founding: An Introduction to the Fourteenth Amendment (Cambridge 2020). His next book, The Constitution of 1789: A New Introduction, is also forthcoming with Cambridge University Press.
Professor Wurman practices law with the firm Tully Bailey. He has litigated a variety of administrative law and constitutional law cases, including cases involving COVID-19 restrictions, transmission lines, and Appointments Clause challenges. He also devised winning public nuisance theories to force city governments to address the increasingly challenging public camping crises throughout the country.
E. Claiborne Robins Distinguished Chair in Law, University of Richmond School of Law
Professor Kurt Lash teaches and writes about constitutional law. Founder and director of the Richmond Program on the American Constitution, Professor Lash has published widely on the subjects of constitutional law and constitutional history, including The Fourteenth Amendment and the Privileges or Immunities of American Citizenship (Cambridge University Press, 2014), The Lost History of the Ninth Amendment (Oxford University Press, 2009), and The American First Amendment in the Twenty-first Century: Cases and Materials(with William W. Van Alstyne) (5th ed., Foundation Press, 2014). An elected member of the American Law Institute, Professor Lash’s work has appeared in numerous legal journals including the Stanford Law Journal, Georgetown Law Journal, Virginia Law Review, andNotre Dame Law Review. He has been a visiting professor at Northwestern University School of Law and is the former director of the University of Illinois College of Law Program in Constitutional Theory, History, and Law.
Solicitor General, Iowa Office of the Attorney General
Eric Wessan serves as Iowa’s Solicitor General in the Iowa Attorney General’s Office. In that
role, Wessan leads Iowa’s litigation before State and federal appellate courts, including the Iowa
and U.S. Supreme Courts. Before that role, Wessan worked on complex commercial litigation at
two large law firms in Chicago. Wessan also served as a law clerk for the Honorable James C.
Ho on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and for the Honorable John F. Kness on the
U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. Wessan is a graduate of the University of
Chicago Law School, with honors, and of the University of Chicago.
Professor, University of Minnesota Law School
Ilan Wurman is the Julius E. Davis Professor of Law at the University of Minnesota, where he teaches administrative law and constitutional law. He previously taught at Arizona State University. He writes primarily on the Fourteenth Amendment, administrative law, separation of powers, and constitutionalism. His academic writing has appeared in the Yale Law Journal, the Stanford Law Review, the University of Chicago Law Review, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, the Virginia Law Review, the Duke Law Journal, the Minnesota Law Review, the Notre Dame Law Review, and the Texas Law Review among other journals.
Professor Wurman is the author of a casebook, Administrative Law Theory and Fundamentals: An Integrated Approach (Foundation Press 2d ed. 2024). He is also the author of A Debt Against the Living: An Introduction to Originalism (Cambridge 2017), and The Second Founding: An Introduction to the Fourteenth Amendment (Cambridge 2020). His next book, The Constitution of 1789: A New Introduction, is also forthcoming with Cambridge University Press.
Professor Wurman practices law with the firm Tully Bailey. He has litigated a variety of administrative law and constitutional law cases, including cases involving COVID-19 restrictions, transmission lines, and Appointments Clause challenges. He also devised winning public nuisance theories to force city governments to address the increasingly challenging public camping crises throughout the country.
E. Claiborne Robins Distinguished Chair in Law, University of Richmond School of Law
Professor Kurt Lash teaches and writes about constitutional law. Founder and director of the Richmond Program on the American Constitution, Professor Lash has published widely on the subjects of constitutional law and constitutional history, including The Fourteenth Amendment and the Privileges or Immunities of American Citizenship (Cambridge University Press, 2014), The Lost History of the Ninth Amendment (Oxford University Press, 2009), and The American First Amendment in the Twenty-first Century: Cases and Materials(with William W. Van Alstyne) (5th ed., Foundation Press, 2014). An elected member of the American Law Institute, Professor Lash’s work has appeared in numerous legal journals including the Stanford Law Journal, Georgetown Law Journal, Virginia Law Review, andNotre Dame Law Review. He has been a visiting professor at Northwestern University School of Law and is the former director of the University of Illinois College of Law Program in Constitutional Theory, History, and Law.
Solicitor General, Iowa Office of the Attorney General
Eric Wessan serves as Iowa’s Solicitor General in the Iowa Attorney General’s Office. In that
role, Wessan leads Iowa’s litigation before State and federal appellate courts, including the Iowa
and U.S. Supreme Courts. Before that role, Wessan worked on complex commercial litigation at
two large law firms in Chicago. Wessan also served as a law clerk for the Honorable James C.
Ho on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and for the Honorable John F. Kness on the
U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. Wessan is a graduate of the University of
Chicago Law School, with honors, and of the University of Chicago.
Professor, University of Minnesota Law School
Ilan Wurman is the Julius E. Davis Professor of Law at the University of Minnesota, where he teaches administrative law and constitutional law. He previously taught at Arizona State University. He writes primarily on the Fourteenth Amendment, administrative law, separation of powers, and constitutionalism. His academic writing has appeared in the Yale Law Journal, the Stanford Law Review, the University of Chicago Law Review, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, the Virginia Law Review, the Duke Law Journal, the Minnesota Law Review, the Notre Dame Law Review, and the Texas Law Review among other journals.
Professor Wurman is the author of a casebook, Administrative Law Theory and Fundamentals: An Integrated Approach (Foundation Press 2d ed. 2024). He is also the author of A Debt Against the Living: An Introduction to Originalism (Cambridge 2017), and The Second Founding: An Introduction to the Fourteenth Amendment (Cambridge 2020). His next book, The Constitution of 1789: A New Introduction, is also forthcoming with Cambridge University Press.
Professor Wurman practices law with the firm Tully Bailey. He has litigated a variety of administrative law and constitutional law cases, including cases involving COVID-19 restrictions, transmission lines, and Appointments Clause challenges. He also devised winning public nuisance theories to force city governments to address the increasingly challenging public camping crises throughout the country.
Partner, Graves Garrett Greim LLC
Edward “Eddie” Greim focuses his practice on complex commercial litigation, free speech and election law, and internal investigations and whistleblower claims. He has been recognized for his successful representation of businesses and individuals in commercial litigation while also being named a “go-to” lawyer on policy and constitutional issues.
Eddie was named a Constitutional and Election Law Trailblazer by the National Law Journal in 2020. His free speech and election law practice has included numerous constitutional challenges to election and campaign finance laws; representation of clients in state and federal ethics and campaign finance enforcement actions and investigations; initiative petition drafting and litigation; litigation and advice regarding First Amendment protections for petition circulation; representation of not-for-profit clients before state regulators; litigation of state and federal redistricting issues; and advice on campaign and election law compliance.
Eddie complements his trial work in complex, high-profile commercial and constitutional cases with oral advocacy and briefing in important appeals. Recognized as a Missouri Lawyers Media POWER 30 Appellate Attorney in 2021, he has argued before the Missouri and Kansas supreme courts multiple times, other state appellate courts across the country, and before the Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, and Tenth U.S. Courts of Appeals.
Eddie’s notable work for clients includes:
Recovering substantial compensation and injunctive relief for plaintiffs, in complex multiyear litigation, as lead counsel in the first and only nationwide class action certified against the Internal Revenue Service for violating taxpayer protection statutes when it targeted hundreds of groups based on their political viewpoints.
Successful First Amendment challenge to Missouri’s 2016 campaign finance restrictions.
Successful challenge to a vast, multiyear, secret criminal investigation into Wisconsin political groups and nonprofits, and follow-up challenge to expose role of state ethics board which secretly aided the investigation and was later dissolved by the legislature.
U.S. Supreme Court amicus brief for the National Republican Redistricting Trust in the 2019 Rucho litigation, and federal and state redistricting litigation and advice since 2011.
Challenges under the First Amendment in federal court, and in briefing to the Michigan Supreme Court on state constitutional grounds, to unprecedented emergency powers claimed by Michigan Governor in 2020.
Representation of numerous public officials and private citizens who are subject to “lawfare” attacks based on their political viewpoints or policy objectives.
Oversight of multiple internal investigations.
Eddie received his law degree from Harvard Law School in 2002, where he taught on the Board of Student Advisers, received the Dean’s Award for Leadership, and served as President of the Harvard Catholic Law Students Association. He received two bachelor’s degrees, summa cum laude, in economics and political science from the University of Missouri.
A native of Excelsior Springs, Missouri, Eddie lives in Kansas City with his family. He enjoys Missouri and military history. On many weekends, he can be found with his wife and daughters exploring sites of local interest. He enjoys reading and debating and has given presentations or organized discussions at numerous gatherings, formal and informal, of professional and personal interest.
Partner, Graves Garrett Greim LLC
Edward “Eddie” Greim focuses his practice on complex commercial litigation, free speech and election law, and internal investigations and whistleblower claims. He has been recognized for his successful representation of businesses and individuals in commercial litigation while also being named a “go-to” lawyer on policy and constitutional issues.
Eddie was named a Constitutional and Election Law Trailblazer by the National Law Journal in 2020. His free speech and election law practice has included numerous constitutional challenges to election and campaign finance laws; representation of clients in state and federal ethics and campaign finance enforcement actions and investigations; initiative petition drafting and litigation; litigation and advice regarding First Amendment protections for petition circulation; representation of not-for-profit clients before state regulators; litigation of state and federal redistricting issues; and advice on campaign and election law compliance.
Eddie complements his trial work in complex, high-profile commercial and constitutional cases with oral advocacy and briefing in important appeals. Recognized as a Missouri Lawyers Media POWER 30 Appellate Attorney in 2021, he has argued before the Missouri and Kansas supreme courts multiple times, other state appellate courts across the country, and before the Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, and Tenth U.S. Courts of Appeals.
Eddie’s notable work for clients includes:
Recovering substantial compensation and injunctive relief for plaintiffs, in complex multiyear litigation, as lead counsel in the first and only nationwide class action certified against the Internal Revenue Service for violating taxpayer protection statutes when it targeted hundreds of groups based on their political viewpoints.
Successful First Amendment challenge to Missouri’s 2016 campaign finance restrictions.
Successful challenge to a vast, multiyear, secret criminal investigation into Wisconsin political groups and nonprofits, and follow-up challenge to expose role of state ethics board which secretly aided the investigation and was later dissolved by the legislature.
U.S. Supreme Court amicus brief for the National Republican Redistricting Trust in the 2019 Rucho litigation, and federal and state redistricting litigation and advice since 2011.
Challenges under the First Amendment in federal court, and in briefing to the Michigan Supreme Court on state constitutional grounds, to unprecedented emergency powers claimed by Michigan Governor in 2020.
Representation of numerous public officials and private citizens who are subject to “lawfare” attacks based on their political viewpoints or policy objectives.
Oversight of multiple internal investigations.
Eddie received his law degree from Harvard Law School in 2002, where he taught on the Board of Student Advisers, received the Dean’s Award for Leadership, and served as President of the Harvard Catholic Law Students Association. He received two bachelor’s degrees, summa cum laude, in economics and political science from the University of Missouri.
A native of Excelsior Springs, Missouri, Eddie lives in Kansas City with his family. He enjoys Missouri and military history. On many weekends, he can be found with his wife and daughters exploring sites of local interest. He enjoys reading and debating and has given presentations or organized discussions at numerous gatherings, formal and informal, of professional and personal interest.
Senior Counsel, America First Legal Foundation
James Rogers is Senior Counsel at America First Legal Foundation, where he litigates in a number of areas, including border security, election integrity, parental rights, and administrative and constitutional law. Before joining America First Legal, from 2021 to 2022, he was Senior Litigation Counsel at the Solicitor General’s Office of the Arizona Attorney General’s Office. While there, he spearheaded lawsuits against the Biden Administration’s destructive open borders policies and its COVID19 vaccine mandates. From 2015 to 2021, James was a Foreign Service Officer at the U.S. Department of State, where he worked in the Office of the Assistant Legal Advisor for Consular Affairs, at the U.S. Consulate in Porto Alegre, Brazil, and at the U.S. Embassy in Windhoek, Namibia.
Prior to joining the Department of State, he was a commercial litigation partner at Osborn Maledon, a Phoenix-based firm with a #1 litigation ranking from Chambers and Partners. James earned a J.D. from Harvard Law School in 2009, an L.L.M. in International Law from the University of Cambridge in 2008, and a B.A., with honors, in International Studies from Brigham Young University in 2005. He is a sixth-generation Arizonan and lives in Mesa, Arizona, with his four children.
Solicitor General, Iowa Office of the Attorney General
Eric Wessan serves as Iowa’s Solicitor General in the Iowa Attorney General’s Office. In that
role, Wessan leads Iowa’s litigation before State and federal appellate courts, including the Iowa
and U.S. Supreme Courts. Before that role, Wessan worked on complex commercial litigation at
two large law firms in Chicago. Wessan also served as a law clerk for the Honorable James C.
Ho on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and for the Honorable John F. Kness on the
U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. Wessan is a graduate of the University of
Chicago Law School, with honors, and of the University of Chicago.
Litigation Finance: Access to Justice, Lawfare, and Foreign Influence
Phil Goldberg, Gene P. Hamilton, Oramel H. Skinner, Jim Wedeking
Third-party litigation funding has grown into a major part of modern civil litigation. Supporters argue it...
Litigation Finance: Access to Justice, Lawfare, and Foreign Influence
Phil Goldberg, Gene P. Hamilton, Oramel H. Skinner, Jim Wedeking
Third-party litigation funding has grown into a major part of modern civil litigation. Supporters argue it...
From the Courthouse Steps: Little v. Hecox and West Virginia v. B.P.J.
Rachel N. Morrison, Sarah Parshall Perry
In the consolidated cases Little v. Hecox and West Virginia v. B.P.J., the Supreme Court...
From the Courthouse Steps: Little v. Hecox and West Virginia v. B.P.J.
Rachel N. Morrison, Sarah Parshall Perry
In the consolidated cases Little v. Hecox and West Virginia v. B.P.J., the Supreme Court...
From the Courthouse Steps: Trump v. Barbara
Kurt T. Lash, Eric Wessan, Ilan Wurman
In Trump v. Barbara, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the Fourteenth Amendment's Citizenship Clause...
From the Courthouse Steps: Trump v. Barbara
Kurt T. Lash, Eric Wessan, Ilan Wurman
In Trump v. Barbara, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the Fourteenth Amendment's Citizenship Clause...
From the Courthouse Steps: Trump v. Barbara
Kurt T. Lash, Eric Wessan, Ilan Wurman
In Trump v. Barbara, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the Fourteenth Amendment's Citizenship Clause...
From the Courthouse Steps: Watson v. Republican National Committee
Chad Ennis, Edward D. Greim
In Watson v. Republican National Committee, the Supreme Court held 5-4 that federal election-day statutes...
From the Courthouse Steps: Watson v. Republican National Committee
Chad Ennis, Edward D. Greim
In Watson v. Republican National Committee, the Supreme Court held 5-4 that federal election-day statutes...
From the Courthouse Steps: Mullin v. Doe
James Rogers, Eric Wessan
In Mullin v. Doe, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in favor of the Trump administration,...