Ronald N. Boyce Presidential Professor of Criminal Law and University Distinguished Professor of Law, The University of Utah College of Law
Paul G. Cassell is an internationally recognized legal scholar on criminal and civil justice, crime victims' rights, constitutional law, evidence, judicial process, and other legal issues. Cassell received a B.A. (1981) and a J.D. (1984) from Stanford University, where he graduated Order of the Coif and was President of the Stanford Law Review. He clerked for then-Judge Antonin Scalia when Scalia was on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (1984-85) and for Chief Justice Warren Burger of the United States Supreme Court (1985-86). Cassell then served as an Associate Deputy Attorney General with the U.S. Justice Department (1986-88) and as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia (1988 to 1991). Cassell joined the faculty at the College of Law in 1992, where he taught full-time until he was sworn in as a U.S. District Court Judge for the District of Utah in July 2002. In November 2007, he resigned his judgeship to return full-time to the College of Law to teach, write, and litigate concerning issues relating to crime victims' rights and criminal and civil justice reform. Professor Cassell has also published numerous law review articles in journals such as the Stanford Law Review, the Michigan Law Review, the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, and the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology. He is a co-author of the nation's only law school textbook on crime victims' rights, Victims in Criminal Procedure (various editions, most recently in its fifth edition published in 2025). Professor Cassell has argued pro bono cases relating to criminal procedure and crime victims' rights before the United States Supreme Court, the 2nd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, and D.C. Circuits (including the 5th and 11th Circuits en banc), several U.S. District Courts, the Utah Supreme Court, and the Arizona Supreme Court. In 2020, Cassell received the Ronald Wilson Reagan Public Policy Award - National Crime Victims' Service Award from the U.S. Department of Justice. Cassell is a member of the American Law Institute, a fellow of the American Bar Foundation, and an inaugural member of the Council on Criminal Justice. He is also an occasional blogger at The Volokh Conspiracy.
Former President & CEO, The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies
Eugene B. Meyer, former President and CEO of the Federalist Society, has served as Executive Director, CEO, and/or President of the organization for more than 40 years. He is responsible for shepherding the organization from a small group of law students to a community of 90,000 lawyers, law students, academics, judges, and others interested in the rule of law. The Society now includes a Student Chapter at nearly every ABA-accredited law school in the country and Lawyers Chapters in 220 major cities across the nation. Gene earned his B.A. in history at Yale in 1975 and his M.A. in political science from the London School of Economics in 1976. Gene currently serves on the boards of the U.S. Chess Center, the Holman Foundation, the Sarah Scaife Foundation, and the advisory board of the Adam Smith Society. He holds the title of International Chess Master.
Sterling Professor of Law, Yale Law School
Akhil Reed Amar is Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science at Yale University, where he teaches constitutional law in both Yale College and Yale Law School. After graduating from Yale College, summa cum laude, in 1980 and from Yale Law School in 1984, and clerking for Judge (later Justice) Stephen Breyer, Amar joined the Yale faculty in 1985 at the age of 26. He is Yale’s only living professor to have won the University’s unofficial triple crown — the Sterling Chair for scholarship, the DeVane Medal for teaching, and the Lamar Award for alumni service.
Amar’s work has won awards from both the American Bar Association and the Federalist Society, and he has been cited by Supreme Court justices across the spectrum in more than 50 cases — tops among scholars under age 70. According to both Fred Shapiro’s landmark 2021 study of lifetime scholarly citations and Heinonline’s most recent tabulation of lifetime law-review citations, Amar is America’s second most-cited legal scholar still under age 70. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and has written widely for popular publications, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Time, and The Atlantic. He was an informal consultant to the popular TV show The West Wing and his scholarship has been showcased on many broadcasts, including The Colbert Report, Morning Joe, AC360, Velshi, Fox News @ Night with Shannon Bream, Fareed Zakaria GPS, Erin Burnett Outfront, and Constitution USA with Peter Sagal.
He is the author of more than a hundred law review articles and several books, including The Bill of Rights (1998 — winner of the Yale University Press Governors’ Award), America’s Constitution (2005 — winner of the ABA’s Silver Gavel Award), America’s Unwritten Constitution (2012 — named one of the year’s 100 best nonfiction books by The Washington Post), and The Constitution Today (2016 — named one of the year’s top ten nonfiction books by Time magazine). The first volume of his ambitious trilogy on American constitutional history from the Founding to the present, The Words That Made Us: America’s Constitutional Conversation, 1760-1840, came out in May 2021. The second volume, Born Equal: Remaking America’s Constitution, 1840-1920, will be published in September 2025 and is already available for pre-order. All together, his nonfiction books have won two starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and three starred reviews from Kirkus—tops, it is believed, among legal scholars under age 70. Together with Vikram David Amar (YLS ’88), he has a bi-weekly column on the Supreme Court on the distinguished website SCOTUSblog. Along with Andy Lipka, he co-hosts a popular and free weekly podcast, Amarica’s Constitution, whose listeners are eligible for CLE credit in most American jurisdictions. A wide assortment of his articles and op-eds and video links to many of his public lectures and free online courses may be found at akhilamar.com.
U.S. Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit
Frank H. Easterbrook is a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and a Senior Lecturer at the Law School of the University of Chicago. He was Chief Judge from 2006–2013. Before joining the court in 1985, he was the Lee andBrena Freeman Professor of Law at the University of Chicago, where he taught and wrote in antitrust, securities, corporate law, jurisprudence, and criminal procedure. He has published The Economic Structure of Corporate Law (with Daniel R. Fischel) and about 100 scholarly articles. He served as Co-Editor of the Journal of Law and Economics from 1982 to 1991 and as a member of the Judicial Conference’s Standing Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure from 1991 to 1997. Before joining the faculty of the Law School in 1979, Judge Easterbrook was Deputy Solicitor General of the United States. He holds degrees from Swarthmore College (B.A. with high honors, 1970) and the University of Chicago (J.D. cum laude, 1973), and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Law Institute, the Mont Pelerin Society, Phi Beta Kappa, and the Order of the Coif.
Justice, Michigan Supreme Court
Stephen Markman was appointed Justice of the Michigan Supreme Court on October 1, 1999. He served as the Chief Justice from 2017-2019. Before his appointment, he served as Judge on the Michigan Court of Appeals from 1995-1999. Prior to this, he practiced law with the firm of Miller, Canfield, Paddock & Stone in Detroit.
From 1989-1993, Justice Markman served as United States Attorney, or federal prosecutor, in Michigan, after having been nominated by President George H. W. Bush and confirmed by the United States Senate. From 1985-1989, he served as Assistant Attorney General of the United States, after having been nominated by President Ronald Reagan and confirmed by the United States Senate. In that position, he headed the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Policy, which served as the principal policy development office within the Department, and which coordinated the federal judicial selection process. Prior to this, he served for seven years as Chief Counsel of the United States Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution, and as Deputy Chief Counsel of the United States Senate Judiciary Committee.
Justice Markman has authored articles for such publications as the University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform, the Detroit College of Law Review, the Stanford Law Review, the University of Chicago Law Review, the American Criminal Justice Law Review, the Barrister’s Law Journal, the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, and the American University Law Review. He has also served as a contributing editor of National Review magazine, and has authored chapters in such books as “In the Name of Justice: The Aims of the Criminal Law,” “Still the Law of the Land,” and “Originalism: A Quarter Century of Debate.”
Justice Markman has taught constitutional law at Hillsdale College since 1993. He has served on the Board of Directors of the Western Michigan University Thomas M. Cooley Law School. He traveled to Ukraine on two occasions on behalf of the State Department, to provide assistance in the development of that nation’s post-Soviet constitution. He is a Fellow of the Michigan Bar Foundation, a Master of the Bench of the Inns of Court, and a member of the One Hundred Club. He has spoken before hundreds of youth, civic, charitable, and legal groups throughout Michigan and nationally, and has coached Little League baseball and basketball. He lives with his wife Mary Kathleen in Mason, and has two sons, James and Charles.
Justice Markman was re-elected to the Supreme Court in 2000, 2004, and 2012. His present term expires January 1, 2021.
Herbert W. Armstrong Professor of Constitutional Law, Emeritus, University of San Diego Gould School of Law
Larry Simon joined the USC Law faculty in 1975. Specializing in constitutional law and theory, he taught Constitutional Law, Legal Profession and Insurance.
Simon is the author of “The Supreme Court’s Independence: Accountability, Majoritarianism, and Justification; Comments on Seidman” (Symposium: Judicial Election, Selection, and Accountability, Southern California Law Review, 1988), “The New Republicanism: Generosity of Spirit in Search of Something to Say” (William and Mary Law Review, 1987) and “Access to Higher Education and the Law” in Access Policy and Procedures and the Law in U.S. Higher Education (Interbook, Inc., 1978).
A summa cum laude graduate of Hobart College, Simon earned his LLB from Yale Law School, where he was an editor of the Yale Law Journal. His graduate study was at University of Rochester. Simon clerked for Judge Edward Weinfeld, U.S. District Judge, Southern District, New York, and Chief Justice Earl Warren, U.S. Supreme Court. He taught at Yale Law School, where he was associate dean from 1990-95, prior to joining USC Gould.
Sterling Professor of Law, Yale Law School
Akhil Reed Amar is Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science at Yale University, where he teaches constitutional law in both Yale College and Yale Law School. After graduating from Yale College, summa cum laude, in 1980 and from Yale Law School in 1984, and clerking for Judge (later Justice) Stephen Breyer, Amar joined the Yale faculty in 1985 at the age of 26. He is Yale’s only living professor to have won the University’s unofficial triple crown — the Sterling Chair for scholarship, the DeVane Medal for teaching, and the Lamar Award for alumni service.
Amar’s work has won awards from both the American Bar Association and the Federalist Society, and he has been cited by Supreme Court justices across the spectrum in more than 50 cases — tops among scholars under age 70. According to both Fred Shapiro’s landmark 2021 study of lifetime scholarly citations and Heinonline’s most recent tabulation of lifetime law-review citations, Amar is America’s second most-cited legal scholar still under age 70. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and has written widely for popular publications, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Time, and The Atlantic. He was an informal consultant to the popular TV show The West Wing and his scholarship has been showcased on many broadcasts, including The Colbert Report, Morning Joe, AC360, Velshi, Fox News @ Night with Shannon Bream, Fareed Zakaria GPS, Erin Burnett Outfront, and Constitution USA with Peter Sagal.
He is the author of more than a hundred law review articles and several books, including The Bill of Rights (1998 — winner of the Yale University Press Governors’ Award), America’s Constitution (2005 — winner of the ABA’s Silver Gavel Award), America’s Unwritten Constitution (2012 — named one of the year’s 100 best nonfiction books by The Washington Post), and The Constitution Today (2016 — named one of the year’s top ten nonfiction books by Time magazine). The first volume of his ambitious trilogy on American constitutional history from the Founding to the present, The Words That Made Us: America’s Constitutional Conversation, 1760-1840, came out in May 2021. The second volume, Born Equal: Remaking America’s Constitution, 1840-1920, will be published in September 2025 and is already available for pre-order. All together, his nonfiction books have won two starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and three starred reviews from Kirkus—tops, it is believed, among legal scholars under age 70. Together with Vikram David Amar (YLS ’88), he has a bi-weekly column on the Supreme Court on the distinguished website SCOTUSblog. Along with Andy Lipka, he co-hosts a popular and free weekly podcast, Amarica’s Constitution, whose listeners are eligible for CLE credit in most American jurisdictions. A wide assortment of his articles and op-eds and video links to many of his public lectures and free online courses may be found at akhilamar.com.
U.S. Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit
Frank H. Easterbrook is a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and a Senior Lecturer at the Law School of the University of Chicago. He was Chief Judge from 2006–2013. Before joining the court in 1985, he was the Lee andBrena Freeman Professor of Law at the University of Chicago, where he taught and wrote in antitrust, securities, corporate law, jurisprudence, and criminal procedure. He has published The Economic Structure of Corporate Law (with Daniel R. Fischel) and about 100 scholarly articles. He served as Co-Editor of the Journal of Law and Economics from 1982 to 1991 and as a member of the Judicial Conference’s Standing Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure from 1991 to 1997. Before joining the faculty of the Law School in 1979, Judge Easterbrook was Deputy Solicitor General of the United States. He holds degrees from Swarthmore College (B.A. with high honors, 1970) and the University of Chicago (J.D. cum laude, 1973), and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Law Institute, the Mont Pelerin Society, Phi Beta Kappa, and the Order of the Coif.
Justice, Michigan Supreme Court
Stephen Markman was appointed Justice of the Michigan Supreme Court on October 1, 1999. He served as the Chief Justice from 2017-2019. Before his appointment, he served as Judge on the Michigan Court of Appeals from 1995-1999. Prior to this, he practiced law with the firm of Miller, Canfield, Paddock & Stone in Detroit.
From 1989-1993, Justice Markman served as United States Attorney, or federal prosecutor, in Michigan, after having been nominated by President George H. W. Bush and confirmed by the United States Senate. From 1985-1989, he served as Assistant Attorney General of the United States, after having been nominated by President Ronald Reagan and confirmed by the United States Senate. In that position, he headed the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Policy, which served as the principal policy development office within the Department, and which coordinated the federal judicial selection process. Prior to this, he served for seven years as Chief Counsel of the United States Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution, and as Deputy Chief Counsel of the United States Senate Judiciary Committee.
Justice Markman has authored articles for such publications as the University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform, the Detroit College of Law Review, the Stanford Law Review, the University of Chicago Law Review, the American Criminal Justice Law Review, the Barrister’s Law Journal, the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, and the American University Law Review. He has also served as a contributing editor of National Review magazine, and has authored chapters in such books as “In the Name of Justice: The Aims of the Criminal Law,” “Still the Law of the Land,” and “Originalism: A Quarter Century of Debate.”
Justice Markman has taught constitutional law at Hillsdale College since 1993. He has served on the Board of Directors of the Western Michigan University Thomas M. Cooley Law School. He traveled to Ukraine on two occasions on behalf of the State Department, to provide assistance in the development of that nation’s post-Soviet constitution. He is a Fellow of the Michigan Bar Foundation, a Master of the Bench of the Inns of Court, and a member of the One Hundred Club. He has spoken before hundreds of youth, civic, charitable, and legal groups throughout Michigan and nationally, and has coached Little League baseball and basketball. He lives with his wife Mary Kathleen in Mason, and has two sons, James and Charles.
Justice Markman was re-elected to the Supreme Court in 2000, 2004, and 2012. His present term expires January 1, 2021.
Herbert W. Armstrong Professor of Constitutional Law, Emeritus, University of San Diego Gould School of Law
Larry Simon joined the USC Law faculty in 1975. Specializing in constitutional law and theory, he taught Constitutional Law, Legal Profession and Insurance.
Simon is the author of “The Supreme Court’s Independence: Accountability, Majoritarianism, and Justification; Comments on Seidman” (Symposium: Judicial Election, Selection, and Accountability, Southern California Law Review, 1988), “The New Republicanism: Generosity of Spirit in Search of Something to Say” (William and Mary Law Review, 1987) and “Access to Higher Education and the Law” in Access Policy and Procedures and the Law in U.S. Higher Education (Interbook, Inc., 1978).
A summa cum laude graduate of Hobart College, Simon earned his LLB from Yale Law School, where he was an editor of the Yale Law Journal. His graduate study was at University of Rochester. Simon clerked for Judge Edward Weinfeld, U.S. District Judge, Southern District, New York, and Chief Justice Earl Warren, U.S. Supreme Court. He taught at Yale Law School, where he was associate dean from 1990-95, prior to joining USC Gould.
Professor of Law, Notre Dame University
Roger P. Alford joined the Notre Dame Law faculty in January 2012. Alford teaches and writes in a wide range of subject-matter areas, including international trade, international arbitration, international antitrust, and comparative law.
Alford earned his B.A. with Honors from Baylor in 1985, his J.D. with Honors from New York University, and his LL.M. from Edinburgh University. Before entering the legal academy, he served as a law clerk to Judge James Buckley of the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, and Judge Richard Allison of the Iran-United States Claims Tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands. He practiced law with Hogan & Hartson (now Hogan Lovells) in Washington, D.C., and was also a senior legal advisor to the Claims Resolution Tribunal for Dormant Activities in Zurich, Switzerland.
In addition to publishing widely in leading law reviews and journals, Alford is the general editor of Kluwer Arbitration Blog and on the Executive Committee of the Institute for Transnational Arbitration.
He is Concurrent Professor at the Keough School of Global Affairs, a Faculty Fellow at the Kellogg Institute for International Studies, and a Faculty Fellow at the Nanovic Institute for European Studies. He was the Academic Director of the London Global Gateway from 2016-2017 and Associate Dean for Graduate and International Programs from 2013-2017.
He served as the Deputy Assistant Attorney General for International Affairs with the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice from 2017-2019.
Partner, Labaton Sucharow LLP
Jay Himes is a partner in the New York office of Labaton Sucharow LLP and co-chair of the Firm's Antitrust and Competition Litigation Practice. With more than 40 years of experience, Jay is experienced in all facets of antitrust and complex litigation generally. He focuses on representing plaintiffs in price-fixing class action cases and protecting businesses from anticompetitive activities.
A past recipient of the New York State Bar Association’s William T. Lifland Service Award for distinguished service, Jay has been described by Chambers USA as “a walking encyclopedia of case law…thoughtful, well read and a first-rate lawyer," and The Legal 500 called him "a very solid and highly experienced antitrust lawyer."
Jay was appointed by United States District Judge Orrick to serve as the monitoring trustee under the final judgment in United States of America v. Bazaarvoice, Inc. Upon completion of the four-year appointment, the Court thanked him for having “diligently and effectively monitored the defendant’s compliance,” and for having “worked through innumerable complex issues . . . with obvious skill and sensitivity.”
A regular speaker at conferences focusing on such subjects as antitrust, class actions, international litigation and arbitration, trade law and data protection, Jay has authored many conference papers and published articles. He has lectured annually on U.S. cartel and private action enforcement at the Zurich University of Applied Science's international competition and compliance programs, offered in Geneva, Winterthur and Zurich, Switzerland, to foreign competition law officials and practitioners. He also has presented at conferences in Europe (Amsterdam, Berlin, Dublin, Krakow, Lisbon, Paris, Stockholm, Vienna, Winterthur, and Zurich), Latin America (Antigua and Sao Paolo), and the Far East (Hanoi, Seoul, and Tokyo), as well as in Montreal and the United States.
Prior to joining Labaton Sucharow, Jay served for nearly eight years as the Antitrust Bureau Chief in the New York Attorney General's office. In that role, he was the States’ principal representative in the marathon 2001 negotiations that led to settlement of the governments’ landmark monopolization case against Microsoft. Thereafter, Jay partnered with US DOJ officials to lead the Microsoft judgment monitoring and enforcement effort, an activity that continued throughout his time at the Attorney General's office.
During his tenure as New York's chief antitrust official, Jay also led significant, high-profile antitrust investigations and enforcement actions. These cases included: In re Buspirone Antitrust Litigation ($100 million settlement); In re Cardizem CD Antitrust Litigation ($80 million settlement); and In re Compact Disc Antitrust Litigation ($67 million settlement). Under Jay's leadership, the New York Bureau secured the two largest antitrust civil penalties recoveries ever achieved under the State's antitrust statute.
Before serving in the Attorney General's office, Jay practiced complex litigation for 25 years at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP. There, he represented the 12 Federal Reserve Banks as plaintiffs in a price-fixing case against the nation's leading armored car companies, and defended a Revlon healthcare company in a series of price-fixing cases that spanned nearly a decade. Additionally, Jay handled a wide range of litigation, including securities class actions as well as contract, construction, constitutional, entertainment, environmental, real property, and tax litigation. Active in pro bono matters, Jay worked with the New York Civil Liberties Union, NAACP, and National Coalition for the Homeless, while also representing inmate and immigration asylum clients.
Jay is a member of the American Antitrust Institute advisory board, the U.S. advisory board of the Loyola University Chicago School of Law's Institute of Consumer Antitrust Studies, the MLex advisory board, the editorial advisory group of the Antitrust Chronicle, the steering committee of the American Economic Liberties Project, and the board of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.
Effective June 1, 2020, Jay will chair the New York State Bar Association’s (NYSBA’s) International Section, which has more than 2,000 members worldwide. Jay is a representative to NYSBA’s sections caucus, and co-chairs the antitrust committees of both the State Bar's Commercial and Federal Litigation and International sections. Jay is also a member of antitrust, litigation, and intellectual property groups in the American Bar Association. He also is a past chair of NYSBA’s Antitrust Section, and served a four-year term as the Section's delegate to the House of Delegates.
Jay earned his Juris Doctor, magna cum laude, from the University of Wisconsin Law School, where he served as the Articles Editor of the Wisconsin Law Review. Following law school, he pursued independent study at the University of Oxford in England.
Charles Klein Professor of Law and Government, Director of the LL.M. in Asian Law, Temple University School of Law
Professor Salil Mehra joined the Temple Law faculty in 2000. His research focuses on antitrust/competition law and technology. A sample of Professor Mehra’s publications can be found below and on his publications page.
Professor Mehra is a past Chair of the AALS Section on Antitrust and Economic Regulation, and is a nongovernmental advisor to the International Competition Network. He is a former Abe Fellow of Japan’s Center for Global Partnership and the Social Science Research Center.
Prior to his career with Temple Law, Professor Mehra clerked for Chief Judge Juan R. Torruella of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, and then worked at the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice, and then subsequently at the New York law firm of Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, where his practice included antitrust, first amendment, and takeover defense litigation.
Professor Mehra graduated with honors, Order of the Coif, from the University of Chicago Law School, where he was on the law review and was named an Olin Student Fellow. In 2016, Professor Mehra won the University Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching.
Emanuel S. Heller Professor of Law, University of California at Berkeley; Senior Research Fellow, School of Civic Leadership, Civitas Institute, University of Texas at Austin; Nonresident Senior Fellow, American Enterprise Institute
John Yoo is the Emanuel Heller Professor of Law. He is also Distinguished Visiting Scholar, School of Civic Leadership and Senior Research Fellow, Civitas Institute, at the University of Texas at Austin. He is also a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
His most recent book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Supreme Court, co-authored with Robert Delahunty, was published in 2023. Professor Yoo’s other books include Defender-in-Chief: Trump’s Fight for Presidential Power; Striking Power: How Cyber, Robots, and Space Weapons Change the Rules for War, Point of Attack: Preventive War, International Law, and Global Welfare, and Crisis and Command: A History of Executive Power from George Washington to George Bush.
Professor Yoo has published more than 100 articles in academic journals on subjects including national security, constitutional law, international law, and the Supreme Court. He also regularly contributes to the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and National Review, among others.
Professor Yoo has served in all three branches of government. He was an official in the U.S. Department of Justice, where he worked on national security and terrorism issues after the 9/11 attacks. He served as general counsel of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. He has been a law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and federal appeals Judge Laurence Silberman. He has been a visiting professor at Seoul National University in South Korea, the Interdisciplinary Center in Israel, Keio University in Japan, Trento University in Italy, the University of Chicago, and the Free University of Amsterdam.
Professor Yoo supervises the Public Law and Policy Program and the California Constitution Center. He also serves on the boards of the Pacific Legal Foundation, the Federalist Society’s Separation of Powers and Federalism Division, the Universidad Cientifica del Sur Law School, and the Asia-Pacific Law Institute at Seoul National University. He is a winner of the Federalist Society’s Paul Bator award and been the Edwin Meese III Originalism Lecturer at the Heritage Foundation.
Professor Yoo graduated from Yale Law School and summa cum laude from Harvard College.
President, Harned Strategies LLC
Karen Harned is President at Harned Strategies LLC. Previously, she served as Executive Director of the National Federation of Independent Business Small Business Legal Center, a post she held from 2002-2022. Prior to joining the Legal Center, Ms. Harned was an attorney at a Washington, D.C. law firm specializing in food and drug law, where she represented several small and large businesses and their respective trade associations before Congress and federal agencies. She also served as Assistant Press Secretary to U.S. Senator Don Nickles of Oklahoma from August of 1989 to March of 1993. Ms. Harned received her B.A. from the University of Oklahoma in 1989 and her J.D. from The George Washington University National Law Center in 1995. She is admitted to practice in the District of Columbia.
As Executive Director of the NFIB Small Business Legal Center, Ms. Harned commented regularly on small business cases before federal and state courts, as well as the U.S. Supreme Court. She has appeared on Fox News, Fox Business, NBC Nightly News, CNN, CNBC and MSNBC, as well as National Public Radio, CBS Radio, and radio outlets across the country. Her opinion editorials and articles regarding healthcare, lawsuit abuse, regulation, and other issues important to small business have been published in newspapers and other publications nationwide.
Ms. Harned has testified before Congress on the small business impact of regulation and the civil justice system. Additionally, she has conducted numerous webinars and legal compliance seminars for small business owners across the country on issues relating to employment law, including unionization and immigration.
Shareholder, Littler Mendelson P.C.
James A. Paretti, Jr. is an experienced management-side employment and labor relations attorney with in-depth political and policy knowledge of labor, pension, healthcare and employment law, regulations and legislation. Jim is well versed in all aspects of legislative and political processes with demonstrated knowledge in the substance of federal labor and employment policy. He has over two decades of experience working with federal legislators and policymakers, including former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Chairmen of the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce, and senior level administration officials.
Prior to joining Littler, Jim was chief of staff and senior counsel to the acting chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. He provided legal and political counsel with respect to all aspects of agency business, administered and managed the Office of the Chair where he was responsible for over 2,200 employees and a 375 million dollar annual budget, and served as primary liaison to regulated stakeholders and Capitol Hill.
His extensive experience includes developing policy and providing legal counsel on the Committee on Education and Labor in the U.S. House of Representatives as well as coordinating external communications and media relations for a senior member of Congress. Jim represented corporate and nonprofit clients in employment litigation in federal and state court, before administrative agencies and in private arbitration while with two Boston firms.
Former United States Senator, Oklahoma
Tom A. Coburn, M.D. was elected to the U.S. Senate on November 2, 2004. Dr. Coburn's priorities in the Senate included reducing wasteful spending, protecting your liberty, balancing the budget, improving health care access and affordability, protecting the sanctity of all human life - including the unborn - and representing traditional, Oklahoma values. As a citizen legislator, Dr. Coburn pledged to serve no more than two terms in the Senate and to continue to care for patients. He was a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and the Committee on Finance.
As a Senator, Dr. Coburn offered more amendments than any of his colleagues. He offered amendments to eliminate funding for the "Bridge to Nowhere," the "Woodstock Museum" in New York and countless other special interests earmarks sponsored by members of both parties. Dr. Coburn also worked to make government more accountable and transparent. In 2006, he teamed up with then-Senator Barack Obama to create http://www.usaspending.gov/, an online database of all federal spending.
Prior to his election to the Senate, Dr. Coburn represented Oklahoma's Second Congressional District in the House of Representatives from 1995 through 2001. He was first elected in 1994, then re-elected in 1996 and 1998, becoming the first Republican to hold the seat for consecutive terms. Dr. Coburn retired from Congress in 2001, fulfilling his pledge to serve no more than three terms in the House.
In 1970, Dr. Coburn graduated with an accounting degree from Oklahoma State University. From 1970 to 1978, Dr. Coburn served as manufacturing manager at the Ophthalmic Division of Coburn Optical Industries in Colonial Heights, Virginia. Under his leadership, the Virginia division of Coburn Optical grew from 13 employees to more than 350 and captured 35 percent of the U.S. market.
After the family business was sold, Dr. Coburn changed the course of his life by returning to school to become a physician at the University of Oklahoma Medical School where he graduated in 1983. He then did his internship in general surgery at St. Anthony's Hospital in Oklahoma City and family practice residency at the University of Arkansas, Fort Smith.
Dr. Coburn returned to Muskogee where he specialized in family medicine, obstetrics and the treatment of allergies. Dr. Coburn personally delivered more than 4,000 babies.
CoFounder, RightsClick
Steven’s extensive background in IP law and policy began as an attorney for the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, after which, he served as senior counsel for Policy and International Affairs at the U.S. Copyright Office and then as Chief Intellectual Property Counsel for the Global Intellectual Property Center of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Before co-founding RightsClick, he started the IP consultancy Sentinel Worldwide, and teaches copyright law at George Washington University Law School.
Grosscurth Professor of Law, University of Louisville
John Cross joined the Louisville faculty in 1987 after several years in private practice in Minneapolis. Since coming to Louisville, he has taught and published in a wide variety of areas, ranging from the first-year course in Civil Procedure to Animal Law. In recent years, however, he has increasingly focused his efforts in two broad areas: intellectual property law (both domestic and international), and the law governing court systems (Civil Procedure, Conflicts, Federal Jurisdiction, and Comparative Systems). Because of his exemplary work in the intellectual property field, Cross was named the Grosscurth Chair in Law in 2005.
His teaching interests reflect this same focus. He currently oversees the intellectual property curriculum at Louisville, and teaches many of the courses in that curriculum, including the Intellectual Property Survey, Trademark Law, Intellectual Property and Competition, Authors' and Performers' Rights, International Intellectual Property Law, Law and Computers, and Design Protection Law. He also continues to teach courses in court law, especially the first-year Civil Procedure Course and the capstone course in Federal Jurisdiction.
Cross' recent research parallels his teaching. This work has delved into various issues - both historic and contemporary - in intellectual property. For example, a recent article argues for the abolition of the current dual system of federal and state trademark law, proposing a unitary system in its place. Another article, published in a South African journal and reprinted in a German publication, argues that it is feasible to use an intellectual property model to protect folklore and traditional scientific knowledge. John is also a co-author of a casebook for the first year Civil Procedure course, along with Les Abramson at Louisville and Ellen Deason at Ohio State.
Because of the broad scope of Cross' research, his work has been recognized both in the United States and abroad. Most significantly, in 2006 he was awarded the degree of Doctor of Laws H.C. from the University of Turku in Finland, in recognition of his significant contributions to legal scholarship. He has also received two Fulbright awards (the maximum allowable), one in Finland (1995), the other in Ireland (2000). John has been invited to teach classes and/or give lectures in a number of foreign locales, including institutions in Argentina, Canada, Germany, England, Finland, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, South Africa, and Sweden. In January of 2008, he was a visiting professor at the University of Western Ontario.
Pravel, Hewitt, Kimball and Kreiger Professorial Lecturer in Intellectual Property and Patent Law, George Washington University Law School
Ralph Oman practices and teaches copyright law at The George Washington University Law School as the Pravel Professorial Lecturer in Intellectual Property and Patent law. He also serves as a Fellow on the faculty of the law school’s Creative and Innovative Economy Center. He has taught at The George Washington University Law School since 1993. From 1994 to 2008, he was counsel to the international law firm, Dechert LLP. He has more than 36 years of experience in intellectual property law and legislation.
Before entering private practice in 1994, Mr. Oman was the register of copyrights of the United States (1985-93), the chief government official charged with administering the national copyright law. During his tenure as register, he helped move the United States into the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, the oldest and most prestigious international copyright treaty, a goal sought by U.S. Registers for 100 years.
Prior to his appointment as register, Mr. Oman served as chief counsel for the Senate Subcommittee on Patents, Copyrights, and Trademarks of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. In his total of 10 years on Capitol Hill working for Senator Hugh Scott of Pennsylvania and Senator Charles McCurdy Mathias of Maryland, he participated directly in many legislative enactments, most notably the 1976 revision of the copyright law. In 2002 he received the Jefferson Medal in recognition of his lifelong contribution to strong intellectual property protection.
Mr. Oman continues to promote intellectual property protection. He often serves in judicial proceedings as an expert witness, and he lectures frequently at venues around the world.
At Georgetown University Law Center, Mr. Oman served as executive editor of the Journal of International Law. After law school, he clerked for the Honorable C. Stanley Blair of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland. Prior to law school, Mr. Oman was a Naval Flight Officer, and he spent two tours of duty in Vietnam with his squadron. He was also a Foreign Service Officer and served as the U.S. Vice Consul in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia.
Alston & Bird Professor of Law, Duke University School of Law
Professor Young teaches constitutional law, federal courts, and foreign relations law. He is one of the nation's leading authorities on the constitutional law of federalism, having written extensively on the Rehnquist Court's "Federalist Revival" and the difficulties confronting courts as they seek to draw lines between national and state authority. He also is an active commentator on foreign relations law, where he focuses on the interaction between domestic and supranational courts and the application of international law by domestic courts. Professor Young also writes on constitutional interpretation and constitutional theory. He has been known to dabble in maritime law and comparative constitutional law.
A native of Abilene, Texas, Professor Young joined the Duke Law faculty in 2008, after serving as the Charles Alan Wright Chair in Federal Courts at the University of Texas at Austin School of Law, where he had taught since 1999. He graduated from Dartmouth College in 1990 and Harvard Law School in 1993. After law school, he served as a law clerk to Judge Michael Boudin of the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals (1993-94) and to Justice David Souter of the U.S. Supreme Court (1995-96). Professor Young practiced law at Cohan, Simpson, Cowlishaw, & Wulff in Dallas, Texas (1994-95) and at Covington & Burling in Washington, D.C. (1996-98), where he specialized in appellate litigation. He has also been a visiting professor at Harvard Law School (2004-05) and Villanova University School of Law (1998-99), as well as an adjunct professor at Georgetown University Law Center (1997).
Elected to the American Law Institute in 2006, Professor Young is an active participant in both public and private litigation in his areas of interest. He has been the principal author of amicus briefs on behalf of leading constitutional scholars in several recent Supreme Court cases, including Medellin v. Texas(concerning presidential power and the authority of the International Court of Justice over domestic courts) and Gonzales v. Raich (concerning federal power to regulate medical marijuana).
Grosscurth Professor of Law, University of Louisville
John Cross joined the Louisville faculty in 1987 after several years in private practice in Minneapolis. Since coming to Louisville, he has taught and published in a wide variety of areas, ranging from the first-year course in Civil Procedure to Animal Law. In recent years, however, he has increasingly focused his efforts in two broad areas: intellectual property law (both domestic and international), and the law governing court systems (Civil Procedure, Conflicts, Federal Jurisdiction, and Comparative Systems). Because of his exemplary work in the intellectual property field, Cross was named the Grosscurth Chair in Law in 2005.
His teaching interests reflect this same focus. He currently oversees the intellectual property curriculum at Louisville, and teaches many of the courses in that curriculum, including the Intellectual Property Survey, Trademark Law, Intellectual Property and Competition, Authors' and Performers' Rights, International Intellectual Property Law, Law and Computers, and Design Protection Law. He also continues to teach courses in court law, especially the first-year Civil Procedure Course and the capstone course in Federal Jurisdiction.
Cross' recent research parallels his teaching. This work has delved into various issues - both historic and contemporary - in intellectual property. For example, a recent article argues for the abolition of the current dual system of federal and state trademark law, proposing a unitary system in its place. Another article, published in a South African journal and reprinted in a German publication, argues that it is feasible to use an intellectual property model to protect folklore and traditional scientific knowledge. John is also a co-author of a casebook for the first year Civil Procedure course, along with Les Abramson at Louisville and Ellen Deason at Ohio State.
Because of the broad scope of Cross' research, his work has been recognized both in the United States and abroad. Most significantly, in 2006 he was awarded the degree of Doctor of Laws H.C. from the University of Turku in Finland, in recognition of his significant contributions to legal scholarship. He has also received two Fulbright awards (the maximum allowable), one in Finland (1995), the other in Ireland (2000). John has been invited to teach classes and/or give lectures in a number of foreign locales, including institutions in Argentina, Canada, Germany, England, Finland, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, South Africa, and Sweden. In January of 2008, he was a visiting professor at the University of Western Ontario.
Pravel, Hewitt, Kimball and Kreiger Professorial Lecturer in Intellectual Property and Patent Law, George Washington University Law School
Ralph Oman practices and teaches copyright law at The George Washington University Law School as the Pravel Professorial Lecturer in Intellectual Property and Patent law. He also serves as a Fellow on the faculty of the law school’s Creative and Innovative Economy Center. He has taught at The George Washington University Law School since 1993. From 1994 to 2008, he was counsel to the international law firm, Dechert LLP. He has more than 36 years of experience in intellectual property law and legislation.
Before entering private practice in 1994, Mr. Oman was the register of copyrights of the United States (1985-93), the chief government official charged with administering the national copyright law. During his tenure as register, he helped move the United States into the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, the oldest and most prestigious international copyright treaty, a goal sought by U.S. Registers for 100 years.
Prior to his appointment as register, Mr. Oman served as chief counsel for the Senate Subcommittee on Patents, Copyrights, and Trademarks of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. In his total of 10 years on Capitol Hill working for Senator Hugh Scott of Pennsylvania and Senator Charles McCurdy Mathias of Maryland, he participated directly in many legislative enactments, most notably the 1976 revision of the copyright law. In 2002 he received the Jefferson Medal in recognition of his lifelong contribution to strong intellectual property protection.
Mr. Oman continues to promote intellectual property protection. He often serves in judicial proceedings as an expert witness, and he lectures frequently at venues around the world.
At Georgetown University Law Center, Mr. Oman served as executive editor of the Journal of International Law. After law school, he clerked for the Honorable C. Stanley Blair of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland. Prior to law school, Mr. Oman was a Naval Flight Officer, and he spent two tours of duty in Vietnam with his squadron. He was also a Foreign Service Officer and served as the U.S. Vice Consul in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia.
CoFounder, RightsClick
Steven’s extensive background in IP law and policy began as an attorney for the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, after which, he served as senior counsel for Policy and International Affairs at the U.S. Copyright Office and then as Chief Intellectual Property Counsel for the Global Intellectual Property Center of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Before co-founding RightsClick, he started the IP consultancy Sentinel Worldwide, and teaches copyright law at George Washington University Law School.
Alston & Bird Professor of Law, Duke University School of Law
Professor Young teaches constitutional law, federal courts, and foreign relations law. He is one of the nation's leading authorities on the constitutional law of federalism, having written extensively on the Rehnquist Court's "Federalist Revival" and the difficulties confronting courts as they seek to draw lines between national and state authority. He also is an active commentator on foreign relations law, where he focuses on the interaction between domestic and supranational courts and the application of international law by domestic courts. Professor Young also writes on constitutional interpretation and constitutional theory. He has been known to dabble in maritime law and comparative constitutional law.
A native of Abilene, Texas, Professor Young joined the Duke Law faculty in 2008, after serving as the Charles Alan Wright Chair in Federal Courts at the University of Texas at Austin School of Law, where he had taught since 1999. He graduated from Dartmouth College in 1990 and Harvard Law School in 1993. After law school, he served as a law clerk to Judge Michael Boudin of the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals (1993-94) and to Justice David Souter of the U.S. Supreme Court (1995-96). Professor Young practiced law at Cohan, Simpson, Cowlishaw, & Wulff in Dallas, Texas (1994-95) and at Covington & Burling in Washington, D.C. (1996-98), where he specialized in appellate litigation. He has also been a visiting professor at Harvard Law School (2004-05) and Villanova University School of Law (1998-99), as well as an adjunct professor at Georgetown University Law Center (1997).
Elected to the American Law Institute in 2006, Professor Young is an active participant in both public and private litigation in his areas of interest. He has been the principal author of amicus briefs on behalf of leading constitutional scholars in several recent Supreme Court cases, including Medellin v. Texas(concerning presidential power and the authority of the International Court of Justice over domestic courts) and Gonzales v. Raich (concerning federal power to regulate medical marijuana).
Mapp v. Ohio [SCOTUSbrief]
Paul G. Cassell
Short video featuring Paul Cassell
When police officers commit an unconstitutional search, should the evidence they obtained be usable in...
Annual Report 2019
Eugene B. Meyer
For the Federalist Society, the opportunities and challenges have never been greater. That was going...
Panel V: The Role and Relevance of the Amendment Process [Archive Collection]
Akhil Reed Amar, Frank H. Easterbrook, Steve J. Markman, Larry Simon
1988 National Student Symposium
On March 4-5, 1988, The Federalist Society's University of Virginia student chapter hosted the National...
Panel V: The Role and Relevance of the Amendment Process [Archive Collection]
Akhil Reed Amar, Frank H. Easterbrook, Steve J. Markman, Larry Simon
1988 National Student Symposium
On March 4-5, 1988, The Federalist Society's University of Virginia student chapter hosted the National...
Topics
A Billion Dollar (Almost) Trade Secrets Dispute
Automated valuation models (AVMs) – computer models typically employing artificial intelligence (AI) and used to...
Deep Dive Episode 105 – Do We Need to Rethink Antitrust for Big Tech?
Roger P. Alford, Jay Himes, Salil Mehra, John C. Yoo
Regulatory Transparency Project's Fourth Branch Podcast
On March 4, 2020, the Regulatory Transparency Project sponsored a symposium with the University of...
COVID-19 in the Workplace: Mandated Paid Sick Leave
Karen Harned, James A. Paretti
On March 18, the Senate passed and the President signed into law the “Families First...
Necessary & Proper Episode 56: Highlights from Senator Tom Coburn (2015)
Tom A. Coburn
Recently we were saddened to learn of the passing of Senator Tom Coburn. In this...
Allen v. Cooper - Post-Decision SCOTUScast
Steven M. Tepp, John T. Cross, Ralph Oman, Ernest Young
On March 23, 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court released a decision in Allen v. Cooper,...
Courthouse Steps Decision Teleforum: Allen v. Cooper
John T. Cross, Ralph Oman, Steven M. Tepp, Ernest Young
Intellectual Property Practice Group Teleforum
Of Federalism, Copyright, and Blackbeard’s Revenge: The recent Supreme Court ruling in Allen v. Cooper is the...