Attorney, DJ Chapman Law, P.C.
David Chapman is a solo lawyer with DJ Chapman Law, P.C., in Fargo, ND, and is a 1995 graduate of the University of North Dakota School of Law. He previously practiced with two private firms in Fargo, and served as in-house General Counsel for Global Electric Motorcars, LLC, when that company was a subsidiary of what was previously DaimlerChrysler Corporation. David has taught continuing legal education courses on immigration law as well as attorney ethics and professional responsibility, and he has authored articles and materials on immigration law and attorney ethics. David has also appeared as a guest on radio and television to discuss legal and policy issues. He currently serves as a member of the US Commission on Civil Rights and a past member of the North Dakota State Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. He and his wife live in West Fargo with their son.
Senior Associate, Holtzman Vogel Josefiak Torchinsky PLLC
Drew Watkins is a senior associate with Holtzman Vogel Josefiak Torchinsky PLLC, providing counsel in the areas of campaign finance and election law, lobbying and ethics compliance, and tax-exempt organizations.
Prior to joining the firm, Drew served as a law clerk to the Honorable Joseph R. Goeke, Senior Judge of the United States Tax Court in Washington, D.C., and worked in the Office of General Counsel for the Governor of Kentucky, Matthew G. Bevin. While in law school, Drew served as a law clerk for the Kentucky Executive Branch Ethics Commission and interned for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in his office in Washington, D.C.
Drew graduated from the University of Louisville with a B.S. in Justice Administration. He earned his Juris Doctor, magna cum laude, from the University of Kentucky College of Law and was a member of the Order of the Coif. During law school, he served as a senior staff editor on the Kentucky Law Journal and authored a published student note on the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act. He is a member of the Kentucky, D.C. and Virginia bars and the Federalist Society.
Partner, Dechert LLP
In a career spanning both private and public practice, Steven A. Engel is a leading litigator and counselor, acting as an advocate in high-profile trial and appellate matters and advising clients on their most sensitive and complex legal issues. Mr. Engel is the Chair of Dechert’s Appellate and Regulatory Litigation Group and has appeared in courts across the country, handling a wide range of civil litigation matters, including administrative law, commercial litigation, constitutional law and securities cases. He regularly counsels clients on challenges to agency regulations and in connection with government, congressional and internal investigations.
Until January 2021, Mr. Engel served as the Assistant Attorney General for the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel. As the head of the office, Mr. Engel served as the chief counsel to the Attorney General and the principal legal adviser to the Executive Branch, providing legal advice to the President and cabinet secretaries on the most critical constitutional and statutory questions, including matters pertaining to national security, administrative law, criminal law, congressional oversight, and executive orders. In December 2020, Mr. Engel was awarded the Department of Justice’s highest honor, the Edmund J. Randolph Award, for outstanding service to the Department.
Before his appointment as Assistant Attorney General in 2017, Mr. Engel had been a partner at Dechert since 2009 and previously served as Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel. Mr. Engel clerked on the U.S. Supreme Court for Associate Justice Anthony M. Kennedy and on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit for Judge Alex Kozinski.
Mr. Engel is a member of the Advisory Committee on Rules for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and the Administrative Conference of the United States. He has been an Adjunct Professor at the Antonin Scalia School of Law at George Mason University and the Columbus School of Law at the Catholic University of America and was formerly the Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist Distinguished Practitioner in Residence at the C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State. He has been nationally ranked as a leading lawyer in The Legal 500 USA and Benchmark Litigation. Mr. Engel has frequently commented on legal subjects in numerous publications, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and USA Today, and has appeared on national news programs as a legal analyst, including on MSNBC, CNN, Fox News Channel and the Fox Business Network. Mr. Engel has testified on several occasions before committees of the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate.
Distinguished Senior Fellow and Antonin Scalia Chair in Constitutional Studies, Ethics and Public Policy Center
Edward Whelan is a Distinguished Senior Fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center and holds EPPC’s Antonin Scalia Chair in Constitutional Studies. He is the longest-serving President in EPPC’s history, having held that position from March 2004 through January 2021.
Mr. Whelan directs EPPC’s program on The Constitution, the Courts, and the Culture. His areas of expertise include constitutional law and the judicial confirmation process. As a contributor to National Review Online’s Bench Memos blog, he has been a leading commentator on nominations to the Supreme Court and the lower courts and on issues of constitutional law. He has written essays and op-eds for leading newspapers—including the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and the Washington Post—opinion journals, and academic symposia and law reviews. The National Law Journal has named Mr. Whelan among its “Champions and Visionaries” in the practice of law in D.C.
Mr. Whelan is co-editor of three volumes of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s work: Scalia Speaks: Reflections on Law, Faith, and Life Well Lived (Crown Forum, 2017), a New York Times bestselling collection of speeches by Justice Scalia; On Faith: Lessons from an American Believer (Crown Forum, 2019), a collection of Justice Scalia’s writings on faith and religion; and The Essential Scalia: On the Constitution, the Courts, and the Rule of Law (Crown Forum, 2020), a collection of Justice Scalia’s views on legal issues.
Mr. Whelan, a lawyer and a former law clerk to Justice Scalia, has served in positions of responsibility in all three branches of the federal government. From just before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, until joining EPPC in 2004, Mr. Whelan was the Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel in the U.S. Department of Justice. In that capacity, he advised the White House Counsel’s Office, the Attorney General and other senior DOJ officials, and departments and agencies throughout the executive branch on difficult and sensitive legal questions. Mr. Whelan previously served on Capitol Hill as General Counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary. In addition to clerking for Justice Scalia, he was a law clerk to Judge J. Clifford Wallace of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
In 1981 Mr. Whelan graduated with honors from Harvard College and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. He received his J.D. magna cum laude in 1985 from Harvard Law School, where he was a member of the Board of Editors of the Harvard Law Review.
For more on Mr. Whelan’s background, see this interview.
Partner, Dechert LLP
In a career spanning both private and public practice, Steven A. Engel is a leading litigator and counselor, acting as an advocate in high-profile trial and appellate matters and advising clients on their most sensitive and complex legal issues. Mr. Engel is the Chair of Dechert’s Appellate and Regulatory Litigation Group and has appeared in courts across the country, handling a wide range of civil litigation matters, including administrative law, commercial litigation, constitutional law and securities cases. He regularly counsels clients on challenges to agency regulations and in connection with government, congressional and internal investigations.
Until January 2021, Mr. Engel served as the Assistant Attorney General for the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel. As the head of the office, Mr. Engel served as the chief counsel to the Attorney General and the principal legal adviser to the Executive Branch, providing legal advice to the President and cabinet secretaries on the most critical constitutional and statutory questions, including matters pertaining to national security, administrative law, criminal law, congressional oversight, and executive orders. In December 2020, Mr. Engel was awarded the Department of Justice’s highest honor, the Edmund J. Randolph Award, for outstanding service to the Department.
Before his appointment as Assistant Attorney General in 2017, Mr. Engel had been a partner at Dechert since 2009 and previously served as Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel. Mr. Engel clerked on the U.S. Supreme Court for Associate Justice Anthony M. Kennedy and on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit for Judge Alex Kozinski.
Mr. Engel is a member of the Advisory Committee on Rules for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and the Administrative Conference of the United States. He has been an Adjunct Professor at the Antonin Scalia School of Law at George Mason University and the Columbus School of Law at the Catholic University of America and was formerly the Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist Distinguished Practitioner in Residence at the C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State. He has been nationally ranked as a leading lawyer in The Legal 500 USA and Benchmark Litigation. Mr. Engel has frequently commented on legal subjects in numerous publications, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and USA Today, and has appeared on national news programs as a legal analyst, including on MSNBC, CNN, Fox News Channel and the Fox Business Network. Mr. Engel has testified on several occasions before committees of the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate.
Distinguished Senior Fellow and Antonin Scalia Chair in Constitutional Studies, Ethics and Public Policy Center
Edward Whelan is a Distinguished Senior Fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center and holds EPPC’s Antonin Scalia Chair in Constitutional Studies. He is the longest-serving President in EPPC’s history, having held that position from March 2004 through January 2021.
Mr. Whelan directs EPPC’s program on The Constitution, the Courts, and the Culture. His areas of expertise include constitutional law and the judicial confirmation process. As a contributor to National Review Online’s Bench Memos blog, he has been a leading commentator on nominations to the Supreme Court and the lower courts and on issues of constitutional law. He has written essays and op-eds for leading newspapers—including the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and the Washington Post—opinion journals, and academic symposia and law reviews. The National Law Journal has named Mr. Whelan among its “Champions and Visionaries” in the practice of law in D.C.
Mr. Whelan is co-editor of three volumes of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s work: Scalia Speaks: Reflections on Law, Faith, and Life Well Lived (Crown Forum, 2017), a New York Times bestselling collection of speeches by Justice Scalia; On Faith: Lessons from an American Believer (Crown Forum, 2019), a collection of Justice Scalia’s writings on faith and religion; and The Essential Scalia: On the Constitution, the Courts, and the Rule of Law (Crown Forum, 2020), a collection of Justice Scalia’s views on legal issues.
Mr. Whelan, a lawyer and a former law clerk to Justice Scalia, has served in positions of responsibility in all three branches of the federal government. From just before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, until joining EPPC in 2004, Mr. Whelan was the Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel in the U.S. Department of Justice. In that capacity, he advised the White House Counsel’s Office, the Attorney General and other senior DOJ officials, and departments and agencies throughout the executive branch on difficult and sensitive legal questions. Mr. Whelan previously served on Capitol Hill as General Counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary. In addition to clerking for Justice Scalia, he was a law clerk to Judge J. Clifford Wallace of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
In 1981 Mr. Whelan graduated with honors from Harvard College and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. He received his J.D. magna cum laude in 1985 from Harvard Law School, where he was a member of the Board of Editors of the Harvard Law Review.
For more on Mr. Whelan’s background, see this interview.
Associate, Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP
Erica is an associate in the Issues and Appeals group at Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP. She assists clients with appeals before federal and state courts involving a wide range of issues, including questions of constitutional, administrative, and environmental law.
Before joining Hunton, Erica served for three years in the Solicitor General’s division of the Office of the West Virginia Attorney General. In that role, she represented the State of West Virginia in administrative, constitutional, environmental, and criminal law matters before the US Supreme Court, US Courts of Appeals, and the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals.
Erica served as a law clerk for Judge Elizabeth L. Branch of the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. She received her J.D. from George Mason University and her B.A. from American University.
Activism Associate, Institute for Justice
Andrew Meleta is an Activism Associate at the Institute for Justice. He joined the Activism team in 2018 and focuses on municipal regulation and policy and its effect on entrepreneurship. He also co-leads IJ’s Cities Work initiative. Before joining IJ, Andrew worked at the Cato Institute as a fundraising research assistant and as a policy research intern for the Manhattan Institute and Cato. He graduated from George Mason University in 2017 with a B.S. in economics and data analysis. In his free time, Andrew spends time traveling, riding trains, and running.
City Policy Associate, Institute for Justice
Alex Montgomery is IJ’s City Policy Associate. In that role, he produces internal reports and external research products to support activism campaigns.
Currently, Alex’s main focus is fighting for reforms at the grassroots to protect people’s right to earn an honest living. He’s especially interested in reducing red tape that inhibits entrepreneurship, learning from regulatory best-practices in cities across the country.
Alex previously worked at IJ as a Maffucci Fellow. Prior to joining the team, he was a summer fellow at the D.C.-based Hertog Foundation. Born and raised in Western North Carolina, he received his B.A. in Political Science and English from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Vice President for Litigation & General Counsel, Goldwater Institute
Jon Riches is the Vice President for Litigation for the Goldwater Institute’s Scharf-Norton Center for Constitutional Litigation and General Counsel for the Institute. He litigates in federal and state trial and appellate courts in the areas of economic liberty, regulatory reform, free speech, taxpayer protections, public labor issues, government transparency, and school choice, among others.
Jon has developed and authored several pieces of legislation, including the landmark Right to Earn a Living Act, which provides some of the greatest protections in the country to job-seekers and entrepreneurs facing arbitrary licensing regulations. He also developed legislation eliminating deference to administrative agencies in Arizona—a first-of-its-kind regulatory reform that can serve as a model for the rest of the country.
His work at the Institute has been covered by national media, including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, CBS This Morning, Bloomberg News, and Politico. Jon is also a member of the Federalist Society’s Regulatory Transparency Project: State and Local Working Group.
Prior to joining the Goldwater Institute, Jon served on active duty in the U.S. Navy Judge Advocate General’s (JAG) Corps. While on active duty, Jon represented hundreds of clients, litigated dozens of court-martial cases, and advised commanders on a vast array of legal issues.
He previously clerked for Sen. Jon Kyl on the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, worked for the Rules Committee in the Arizona State Senate, and clerked in the Office of Counsel to the President at the White House. Jon received his B.A. from Boston College, where he graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa. He earned his J.D. from the University of Arizona, James E. Rogers College of Law.
Jon served as a presidentially appointed Panel Member on the Federal Service Impasses Panel. He is an officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve and an Adjunct Professor at Arizona State University School of Law. Jon is a native of Phoenix.
President, Defending Education
Nicole Neily is the president and founder of Defending Education, a national membership organization that gives parents, students, and others the resources and support they need to advocate for their children’s education. She is also the executive director of PDE Action, a 501(c)4 advocacy organization.
Defending Education champions equal protection and combats race and sex-based discrimination in both the court of law and the court of public opinion, and has successfully sued school districts and the US Department of Education in federal court; facilitated tens of thousands of comments submitted to the Federal Register; filed dozens of federal OCR and EEOC complaints, as well as over two thousand public records requests since its launch in 2021. The organization regularly releases deep-dive education investigations, recently covering political spending by teachers’ unions, biased accreditation agencies, and ethnic studies curriculum in both K-12 and universities.
Prior to launching Defending Education, Nicole created Speech First, a campus free speech organization that sued 6 public universities under her leadership; she has also worked as president of the Franklin Center for Government & Public Integrity; as executive director and senior fellow at the Independent Women’s Forum; and at the Cato Institute. She is the mother of two school-aged children and serves on the board of a public university.
President, Defending Education
Nicole Neily is the president and founder of Defending Education, a national membership organization that gives parents, students, and others the resources and support they need to advocate for their children’s education. She is also the executive director of PDE Action, a 501(c)4 advocacy organization.
Defending Education champions equal protection and combats race and sex-based discrimination in both the court of law and the court of public opinion, and has successfully sued school districts and the US Department of Education in federal court; facilitated tens of thousands of comments submitted to the Federal Register; filed dozens of federal OCR and EEOC complaints, as well as over two thousand public records requests since its launch in 2021. The organization regularly releases deep-dive education investigations, recently covering political spending by teachers’ unions, biased accreditation agencies, and ethnic studies curriculum in both K-12 and universities.
Prior to launching Defending Education, Nicole created Speech First, a campus free speech organization that sued 6 public universities under her leadership; she has also worked as president of the Franklin Center for Government & Public Integrity; as executive director and senior fellow at the Independent Women’s Forum; and at the Cato Institute. She is the mother of two school-aged children and serves on the board of a public university.
Environmental Law Attorney, DLA Piper
Garrett Kral is an attorney in DLA Piper’s Washington, DC, office, and a member of the Regulatory and Government Affairs Practice Group. His practice includes regulatory counseling, enforcement defense, and complex civil litigation on matters arising under major federal environmental statutes.
Garrett builds on a strong background in environmental science, a familiarity with technical processes involved in industrial operations, and valuable insights gained by serving in each branch of the federal government. With this experience, he advances the business objectives of Fortune 500 companies while limiting exposure and risk. Garrett is regarded as a strategic advisor to such clients on matters of environmental law and policy.
Founder, CGCN Law, PLLC
Environmental Law Attorney, DLA Piper
Garrett Kral is an attorney in DLA Piper’s Washington, DC, office, and a member of the Regulatory and Government Affairs Practice Group. His practice includes regulatory counseling, enforcement defense, and complex civil litigation on matters arising under major federal environmental statutes.
Garrett builds on a strong background in environmental science, a familiarity with technical processes involved in industrial operations, and valuable insights gained by serving in each branch of the federal government. With this experience, he advances the business objectives of Fortune 500 companies while limiting exposure and risk. Garrett is regarded as a strategic advisor to such clients on matters of environmental law and policy.
Founder, CGCN Law, PLLC
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