Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit
The Honorable Joan L. Larsen is a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. She was nominated by the President on May 8, 2017 and confirmed by the Senate on November 1, 2017. Before her appointment to the federal bench, Judge Larsen served two terms as a Justice of the Michigan Supreme Court, where she was the court’s liaison to Michigan’s drug, sobriety, mental health and veteran’s courts.
Before becoming a judge, Judge Larsen was a faculty member at the University of Michigan Law School, where she was also Special Counsel to the Dean and received the L. Hart Wright Award for Excellence in Teaching. Judge Larsen's research and teaching interests included constitutional law, criminal procedure, statutory interpretation, and presidential power. Judge Larsen continues to assist the law school as the adviser to the Henry M. Campbell Moot Court Competition.
Judge Larsen began her legal career as a law clerk to the Hon. David B. Sentelle of the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and to Justice Antonin Scalia of the Supreme Court of the United States. Following her clerkships, she joined the law firm of Sidley Austin, where she was a member of the Constitutional, Criminal, and Civil Litigation Section. She later served as Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the United States Department of Justice, Office of Legal Counsel.
Judge Larsen graduated first in her class from Northwestern University School of Law, where she served as articles editor of the Northwestern University Law Review and earned the John Paul Stevens Award for Academic Excellence. She received her B.A., with highest honors, from the University of Northern Iowa.
Richard and Frances Mallery Professor of Law and Faculty Director, Constitutional Law Center, Stanford Law School
Michael W. McConnell is the Richard and Frances Mallery Professor and Faculty Director of the Constitutional Law Center at Stanford Law School, and a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. From 2002 to 2009, he served as a Circuit Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. He was nominated by President George W. Bush, a Republican, and confirmed by a Democratic Senate by unanimous consent. McConnell has previously held chaired professorships at the University of Chicago and the University of Utah, and visiting professorships at Harvard and NYU. He teaches courses on constitutional law, constitutional history, First Amendment, and interpretive theory. He has published widely in the fields of constitutional law and theory, especially church and state, equal protection, and separation of powers. His book, “The President Who Would Not Be King: Executive Power Under the Constitution,” was published by Princeton University Press in 2020, based on the Tanner Lectures in Human Values, which he delivered at Princeton in 2019. His latest book, co-authored with Nathan Chapman, “Agreeing to Disagree: How the Establishment Clause Protects Religious Diversity and Freedom of Conscience,” was published by Oxford University Press in mid-2023. McConnell has argued sixteen cases in the United States Supreme Court, most recently Carney v. Adams (2020). defending a provision of the Delaware Constitution requiring political balance on that state’s courts. More recently, he was co-counsel in Gonzalez v. Google. He earned his B.A. from Michigan State University and his J.D. from the University of Chicago, and has received honorary degrees from Notre Dame University and Michigan State. He served as law clerk to Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. and D.C. Circuit Chief Judge J. Skelly Wright. He has been Assistant General Counsel of the Office of Management & Budget, Assistant to the Solicitor General of the Department of Justice, and a member of the President’s Intelligence Oversight Board. He is Senior of Counsel to the law firm Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich & Rosati, and is co-chair of Meta’s Oversight Review Board.
James G. Phillipp Professor of Law, University of Michigan Law School
Julian Davis Mortenson writes on constitutional and international law. His current book project—The Founders' President (under contract, Harvard University Press)—develops a comprehensive account of presidential power at the American Founding. He is also co-authoring a new constitutional law casebook, scheduled for publication by Foundation Press in 2020.
Professor Mortenson is an award-winning teacher and an active litigator. Representative constitutional matters include his work as lead counsel in a pre-Obergefell suit that required Michigan to recognize the marriages of more than 300 same-sex couples; his representation of discharged military service members challenging the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" law; and his work as one of the principal drafters of the merits briefs in the landmark case Boumediene v. Bush, which secured the right of Guantanamo detainees to challenge their incarceration. He regularly litigates complex transnational matters in the U.S. courts, and has served as arbitrator, counsel, and expert witness in a wide variety of commercial and investor-state disputes.
Before joining the faculty, Professor Mortenson worked at the law firm WilmerHale, in the President's Office of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, and as a law clerk for both Justice David H. Souter and The Hon. J. Harvie Wilkinson III. Prior to law school, he was a management consultant with a client portfolio spanning the finance, manufacturing, oil and gas, and information technology industries. Professor Mortenson was salutatorian of his class at Stanford Law School and received an AB in history, summa cum laude, from Harvard College.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit
The Honorable Joan L. Larsen is a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. She was nominated by the President on May 8, 2017 and confirmed by the Senate on November 1, 2017. Before her appointment to the federal bench, Judge Larsen served two terms as a Justice of the Michigan Supreme Court, where she was the court’s liaison to Michigan’s drug, sobriety, mental health and veteran’s courts.
Before becoming a judge, Judge Larsen was a faculty member at the University of Michigan Law School, where she was also Special Counsel to the Dean and received the L. Hart Wright Award for Excellence in Teaching. Judge Larsen's research and teaching interests included constitutional law, criminal procedure, statutory interpretation, and presidential power. Judge Larsen continues to assist the law school as the adviser to the Henry M. Campbell Moot Court Competition.
Judge Larsen began her legal career as a law clerk to the Hon. David B. Sentelle of the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and to Justice Antonin Scalia of the Supreme Court of the United States. Following her clerkships, she joined the law firm of Sidley Austin, where she was a member of the Constitutional, Criminal, and Civil Litigation Section. She later served as Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the United States Department of Justice, Office of Legal Counsel.
Judge Larsen graduated first in her class from Northwestern University School of Law, where she served as articles editor of the Northwestern University Law Review and earned the John Paul Stevens Award for Academic Excellence. She received her B.A., with highest honors, from the University of Northern Iowa.
Richard and Frances Mallery Professor of Law and Faculty Director, Constitutional Law Center, Stanford Law School
Michael W. McConnell is the Richard and Frances Mallery Professor and Faculty Director of the Constitutional Law Center at Stanford Law School, and a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. From 2002 to 2009, he served as a Circuit Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. He was nominated by President George W. Bush, a Republican, and confirmed by a Democratic Senate by unanimous consent. McConnell has previously held chaired professorships at the University of Chicago and the University of Utah, and visiting professorships at Harvard and NYU. He teaches courses on constitutional law, constitutional history, First Amendment, and interpretive theory. He has published widely in the fields of constitutional law and theory, especially church and state, equal protection, and separation of powers. His book, “The President Who Would Not Be King: Executive Power Under the Constitution,” was published by Princeton University Press in 2020, based on the Tanner Lectures in Human Values, which he delivered at Princeton in 2019. His latest book, co-authored with Nathan Chapman, “Agreeing to Disagree: How the Establishment Clause Protects Religious Diversity and Freedom of Conscience,” was published by Oxford University Press in mid-2023. McConnell has argued sixteen cases in the United States Supreme Court, most recently Carney v. Adams (2020). defending a provision of the Delaware Constitution requiring political balance on that state’s courts. More recently, he was co-counsel in Gonzalez v. Google. He earned his B.A. from Michigan State University and his J.D. from the University of Chicago, and has received honorary degrees from Notre Dame University and Michigan State. He served as law clerk to Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. and D.C. Circuit Chief Judge J. Skelly Wright. He has been Assistant General Counsel of the Office of Management & Budget, Assistant to the Solicitor General of the Department of Justice, and a member of the President’s Intelligence Oversight Board. He is Senior of Counsel to the law firm Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich & Rosati, and is co-chair of Meta’s Oversight Review Board.
James G. Phillipp Professor of Law, University of Michigan Law School
Julian Davis Mortenson writes on constitutional and international law. His current book project—The Founders' President (under contract, Harvard University Press)—develops a comprehensive account of presidential power at the American Founding. He is also co-authoring a new constitutional law casebook, scheduled for publication by Foundation Press in 2020.
Professor Mortenson is an award-winning teacher and an active litigator. Representative constitutional matters include his work as lead counsel in a pre-Obergefell suit that required Michigan to recognize the marriages of more than 300 same-sex couples; his representation of discharged military service members challenging the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" law; and his work as one of the principal drafters of the merits briefs in the landmark case Boumediene v. Bush, which secured the right of Guantanamo detainees to challenge their incarceration. He regularly litigates complex transnational matters in the U.S. courts, and has served as arbitrator, counsel, and expert witness in a wide variety of commercial and investor-state disputes.
Before joining the faculty, Professor Mortenson worked at the law firm WilmerHale, in the President's Office of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, and as a law clerk for both Justice David H. Souter and The Hon. J. Harvie Wilkinson III. Prior to law school, he was a management consultant with a client portfolio spanning the finance, manufacturing, oil and gas, and information technology industries. Professor Mortenson was salutatorian of his class at Stanford Law School and received an AB in history, summa cum laude, from Harvard College.
Professor of Law, University of Michigan Law School
Professor Nicholas Bagley teaches and writes in the areas of administrative law, regulatory theory, and health law. Prior to joining the Law School faculty, he was an attorney with the appellate staff in the Civil Division at the U.S. Department of Justice, where he argued a dozen cases before the U.S. Courts of Appeals and acted as lead counsel in many more. Professor Bagley also served as a law clerk to Justice John Paul Stevens of the U.S. Supreme Court and to the Hon. David S. Tatel of the U.S. Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit. Professor Bagley holds a BA in English from Yale University and received his JD, summa cum laude, from New York University School of Law. Before entering law school, he joined Teach For America and taught eighth-grade English at a public school in South Bronx. Professor Bagley's work has appeared in the Harvard Law Review, the Columbia Law Review, the Georgetown Law Journal, the New England Journal of Medicine, and the Journal of Health Politics, Policy, and Law. In 2012, he was the recipient of the Law School's L. Hart Wright Award for Excellence in Teaching. He is a frequent contributor to The Incidental Economist, a prominent health policy blog.
Professor of Law, University of Notre Dame Law School
Emily Bremer teaches and writes in the areas of administrative law, regulatory process, and civil procedure. Her scholarship focuses primarily on matters of procedural design, with a recent focus on the history and interpretation of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). She is a recipient of the AALS’s award for the year’s best administrative law scholarship by a junior scholar and the AALL’s Joseph L. Andrew’s Legal Literature Award for her contribution to the Bremer-Kovacs Collection of Historical Documents Related to the APA (HeinOnline). Bremer’s articles include a defense forthcoming in the Virginia Law Review of the constitutionality of the APA’s regime for ensuring the competence and impartiality of Administrative Law Judges; a plea in the Yale Journal on Regulation for administrative law to take greater account of the on-the-ground reality of administration; twin articles uncovering the intellectual foundation and meaning of the APA’s adjudication and rulemaking provisions; and three separate studies that served as the basis of recommendations of the Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS) on the subjects of agency declaratory orders, incorporation by reference, and statutory limitations on the jurisdiction of the Court of Federal Claims. Bremer serves as a Senior Fellow of ACUS, a co-editor of the administrative law section of Jotwell, and a regular contributor to the Yale Journal on Regulation’s Notice & Comment blog.
Professor of Law, University of Chicago Law School
Jennifer Nou is Professor of Law at the University of Chicago Law School. Nou’s main research interests are in administrative law, executive branch dynamics, regulatory policy, and constitutional separation-of-powers. Prior to joining the faculty, she was a Public Law Fellow at the Law School and also worked as a policy analyst and special assistant at the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. Nou is a graduate of Yale College and Yale Law School, and received an MPhil in Politics from Oxford University as a Marshall Scholar. After law school, she was a law clerk to Judge Richard Posner of the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and then to Justice Stephen Breyer of the US Supreme Court. She is currently a public member of the Administrative Conference of the United States.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit
Judge Rao was appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in March 2019. She graduated from Yale College in 1995 and the University of Chicago Law School in 1999. Following graduation, she served as a law clerk to Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and, in the 2001 October Term, as law clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas of the U.S. Supreme Court. Between her clerkships, Judge Rao served as counsel for nominations and constitutional law to the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary. In 2002, she joined the international arbitration group of Clifford Chance LLP in London, England. From 2005-2006, she served as Special Assistant and Associate White House Counsel to President George W. Bush. From 2006 to 2017, Judge Rao was a professor at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University, where she taught constitutional law, legislation and statutory interpretation, and the history and foundations of the administrative state. In 2014, she founded the Center for the Study of the Administrative State, a non-profit Center that promotes academic scholarship and public policy debates about administrative law. In July 2017, she was appointed to serve as the Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Office of Management Budget. She served in this position until her appointment to the D.C. Circuit.
Of Counsel, Covington & Burling LLP
The Honorable Paul J. Ray is currently Of Counsel at Covington & Burling LLP where he advises clients on regulatory opportunities and challenges and helps them formulate and execute advocacy strategies for their regulatory policy priorities before the executive branch and Congress.
During the first Trump Administration, Paul held various senior positions at the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) within the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, including as acting, and then Senate-confirmed, head of the office. As OIRA Administrator (the "regulations czar"), Paul supervised the review of hundreds of regulations from across the government, drafted numerous executive orders governing the regulatory process, and led the Administration’s regulatory reform effort. As a result of this experience, Paul is well-positioned to help clients understand and achieve regulatory policy priorities in the context of the government’s regulatory agenda and ongoing reform efforts.
Most recently, Paul was also the Director of the Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation. In that role, he supervised the formulation of the Foundation’s economic and regulatory policy recommendations and provided technical assistance to congressional committees and staff regarding legislative changes to the regulatory process. In addition to his role at The Heritage Foundation, Paul also served as a Senior Advisor at a strategic advisory firm. Before his time in government, Paul practiced law at a law firm in Washington, specializing in administrative law matters.
Prior to his role at the White House, Paul was Counselor to the Secretary at the U.S. Department of Labor. There he led departmental efforts in high-profile rulemakings and helped formulate the Department’s legal positions and strategy.
Paul served as a law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito and as a law clerk to the Honorable Debra Livingston of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
Paul is a thought leader in the conservative legal movement and is a frequent commentator and speaker on regulatory policy and reform matters, including at law schools, professional gatherings, and other venues. He is the Chairman of Innovations in Peacebuilding International and the Regulatory Process Working Group of the Federalist Society’s Regulatory Transparency Project and a public member of the Administrative Conference of the United States. Paul is also an adjunct lecturer at the Hillsdale College School of Government.
Professor of Law, University of Michigan Law School
Professor Nicholas Bagley teaches and writes in the areas of administrative law, regulatory theory, and health law. Prior to joining the Law School faculty, he was an attorney with the appellate staff in the Civil Division at the U.S. Department of Justice, where he argued a dozen cases before the U.S. Courts of Appeals and acted as lead counsel in many more. Professor Bagley also served as a law clerk to Justice John Paul Stevens of the U.S. Supreme Court and to the Hon. David S. Tatel of the U.S. Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit. Professor Bagley holds a BA in English from Yale University and received his JD, summa cum laude, from New York University School of Law. Before entering law school, he joined Teach For America and taught eighth-grade English at a public school in South Bronx. Professor Bagley's work has appeared in the Harvard Law Review, the Columbia Law Review, the Georgetown Law Journal, the New England Journal of Medicine, and the Journal of Health Politics, Policy, and Law. In 2012, he was the recipient of the Law School's L. Hart Wright Award for Excellence in Teaching. He is a frequent contributor to The Incidental Economist, a prominent health policy blog.
Professor of Law, University of Notre Dame Law School
Emily Bremer teaches and writes in the areas of administrative law, regulatory process, and civil procedure. Her scholarship focuses primarily on matters of procedural design, with a recent focus on the history and interpretation of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). She is a recipient of the AALS’s award for the year’s best administrative law scholarship by a junior scholar and the AALL’s Joseph L. Andrew’s Legal Literature Award for her contribution to the Bremer-Kovacs Collection of Historical Documents Related to the APA (HeinOnline). Bremer’s articles include a defense forthcoming in the Virginia Law Review of the constitutionality of the APA’s regime for ensuring the competence and impartiality of Administrative Law Judges; a plea in the Yale Journal on Regulation for administrative law to take greater account of the on-the-ground reality of administration; twin articles uncovering the intellectual foundation and meaning of the APA’s adjudication and rulemaking provisions; and three separate studies that served as the basis of recommendations of the Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS) on the subjects of agency declaratory orders, incorporation by reference, and statutory limitations on the jurisdiction of the Court of Federal Claims. Bremer serves as a Senior Fellow of ACUS, a co-editor of the administrative law section of Jotwell, and a regular contributor to the Yale Journal on Regulation’s Notice & Comment blog.
Professor of Law, University of Chicago Law School
Jennifer Nou is Professor of Law at the University of Chicago Law School. Nou’s main research interests are in administrative law, executive branch dynamics, regulatory policy, and constitutional separation-of-powers. Prior to joining the faculty, she was a Public Law Fellow at the Law School and also worked as a policy analyst and special assistant at the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. Nou is a graduate of Yale College and Yale Law School, and received an MPhil in Politics from Oxford University as a Marshall Scholar. After law school, she was a law clerk to Judge Richard Posner of the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and then to Justice Stephen Breyer of the US Supreme Court. She is currently a public member of the Administrative Conference of the United States.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit
Judge Rao was appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in March 2019. She graduated from Yale College in 1995 and the University of Chicago Law School in 1999. Following graduation, she served as a law clerk to Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and, in the 2001 October Term, as law clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas of the U.S. Supreme Court. Between her clerkships, Judge Rao served as counsel for nominations and constitutional law to the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary. In 2002, she joined the international arbitration group of Clifford Chance LLP in London, England. From 2005-2006, she served as Special Assistant and Associate White House Counsel to President George W. Bush. From 2006 to 2017, Judge Rao was a professor at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University, where she taught constitutional law, legislation and statutory interpretation, and the history and foundations of the administrative state. In 2014, she founded the Center for the Study of the Administrative State, a non-profit Center that promotes academic scholarship and public policy debates about administrative law. In July 2017, she was appointed to serve as the Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Office of Management Budget. She served in this position until her appointment to the D.C. Circuit.
Of Counsel, Covington & Burling LLP
The Honorable Paul J. Ray is currently Of Counsel at Covington & Burling LLP where he advises clients on regulatory opportunities and challenges and helps them formulate and execute advocacy strategies for their regulatory policy priorities before the executive branch and Congress.
During the first Trump Administration, Paul held various senior positions at the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) within the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, including as acting, and then Senate-confirmed, head of the office. As OIRA Administrator (the "regulations czar"), Paul supervised the review of hundreds of regulations from across the government, drafted numerous executive orders governing the regulatory process, and led the Administration’s regulatory reform effort. As a result of this experience, Paul is well-positioned to help clients understand and achieve regulatory policy priorities in the context of the government’s regulatory agenda and ongoing reform efforts.
Most recently, Paul was also the Director of the Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation. In that role, he supervised the formulation of the Foundation’s economic and regulatory policy recommendations and provided technical assistance to congressional committees and staff regarding legislative changes to the regulatory process. In addition to his role at The Heritage Foundation, Paul also served as a Senior Advisor at a strategic advisory firm. Before his time in government, Paul practiced law at a law firm in Washington, specializing in administrative law matters.
Prior to his role at the White House, Paul was Counselor to the Secretary at the U.S. Department of Labor. There he led departmental efforts in high-profile rulemakings and helped formulate the Department’s legal positions and strategy.
Paul served as a law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito and as a law clerk to the Honorable Debra Livingston of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
Paul is a thought leader in the conservative legal movement and is a frequent commentator and speaker on regulatory policy and reform matters, including at law schools, professional gatherings, and other venues. He is the Chairman of Innovations in Peacebuilding International and the Regulatory Process Working Group of the Federalist Society’s Regulatory Transparency Project and a public member of the Administrative Conference of the United States. Paul is also an adjunct lecturer at the Hillsdale College School of Government.
Tazewell Taylor Professor of Law and William H. Cabell Research Professor, William & Mary Law School
Jonathan H. Adler joined the William & Mary law faculty as the Tazwell Taylor Professor of Law and William H. Cabell Research Professor in 2025. Prior to joining the faculty, he was the inaugural Johan Verheij Memorial Professor of Law and the founding Director of the Coleman P. Burke Center for Environmental Law at the Case Western Reserve University School of Law.
Professor Adler is the author or editor of seven books, including Climate Liberalism: Perspectives on Liberty, Property and Pollution (Palgrave, 2023), Marijuana Federalism: Uncle Sam and Mary Jane (Brookings Institution Press, 2020), Business and the Roberts Court (Oxford University Press, 2016) and Rebuilding the Ark: New Perspectives on Endangered Species Act Reform (AEI Press, 2011).
His articles have appeared in publications ranging from the Harvard Environmental Law Review and Yale Journal on Regulation to the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and Washington Post. He has testified before Congress a dozen times, and his work has been cited in the U.S. Supreme Court. A 2024 study identified Professor Adler as the seventh most cited legal academic in administrative and environmental law from 2019 to 2023.
Professor Adler is a contributing editor to Civitas Outlook and a regular contributor to the popular legal blog, The Volokh Conspiracy. A regular commentator on constitutional and regulatory issues, he has appeared on numerous radio and television programs, ranging from the PBS Newshour and National Public Radio to the Fox News Channel and Entertainment Tonight.
Professor Adler is a senior fellow at the Property & Environment Research Center in Bozeman, Montana. In 2018, Professor Adler was elected to membership in the American Law Institute and helped co-found the organization Checks and Balances. In 2024, Professor Adler was appointed a public member of the Administrative Conference of the United States.
Professor Adler clerked for the Honorable David B. Sentelle on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
United States House of Representatives, Michigan
Representative Justin Amash represents Michigan's Third District in the 112th United States Congress. Justin serves on the House Budget Committee and the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. He was elected to his first term on November 2, 2010.
Justin was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and raised in the city of Kentwood. He received his bachelor's degree with High Honors in Economics from the University of Michigan and his Juris Doctor from the University of Michigan Law School. Justin worked as a business lawyer and a Michigan state representative before his election to Congress.
Justin has been a leader in the incorporation of Facebook and other social media into his work as a public official. He also set new standards for transparency and accountability in the Michigan state House.
In October 2010, TIME Magazine named Justin one of its "40 under 40 - Rising Stars of U.S. Politics."
Justin lives in Cascade Charter Township with his wife Kara, a graduate of Calvin College and a former elementary school teacher. Justin and Kara have three children, Alexander, Anwen, and Evelyn.
Professor of Law, Cornell Law School
Josh Chafetz received his B.A. from Yale University, his doctorate in Politics from Oxford (where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar), and his J.D. from Yale Law School. Following law school, he clerked for Judge Guido Calabresi of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
His research interests include structural constitutional law, American and British constitutional history, legislation and legislative procedure, American political development, and the intersection of law and politics. His second book, Congress's Constitution: Legislative Authority and the Separation of Powers, was published by Yale University Press in 2017. He is also the author of Democracy's Privileged Few: Legislative Privilege and Democratic Norms in the British and American Constitutions (Yale University Press, 2007) and is a co-editor (along with William N. Eskridge, Jr., Elizabeth Garrett, and James Brudney) of the leading casebook in Legislation, Cases and Materials on Legislation and Regulation: Statutes and the Creation of Public Policy, published by West.
His scholarship has been published in a number of top law reviews, including the Harvard Law Review, Yale Law Journal, University of Chicago Law Review, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, Duke Law Journal, Notre Dame Law Review, and Yale Journal of Law & the Humanities, among others. He has also written for a number of popular press outlets, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, Politico, Slate, and the New Republic. He is currently a Contributing Writer for the Capitol Hill newspaper The Hill.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit
On November 19, 2019, Judge Robert J. Luck was appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit by President Donald Trump. Prior to serving on the federal bench, he was appointed to the Florida Supreme Court by Governor Ron DeSantis on January 14, 2019. He previously served on the Third District Court of Appeal in Miami after his appointment there by Governor Rick Scott in March 2017.
Earlier, Judge Luck served on the Eleventh Judicial Circuit Court of Florida from September 2013 to March 2017. He presided in the Criminal, Civil, and Appellate Divisions. Judge Luck, in his years as a trial court judge, tried seventy jury trials, and heard dozens of appeals from the county court and municipal agencies. Judge Luck was appointed to the circuit court in 2013 and was elected by the voters of Miami-Dade County to retain his seat in 2016.
Prior to his service on the bench, Judge Luck was an Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida. In his years as a federal prosecutor, he was assigned to the Appeals, Major Crimes, and Economic Crimes Sections of the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Judge Luck tried nineteen jury trials before the federal district court and argued three appeals to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. In his final year in the Office, he was a Deputy Chief in the Major Crimes Section.
Earlier in his career, Judge Luck was a legislative correspondent for two United States Senators, a law clerk and staff attorney to Circuit Judge Edward E. Carnes on the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, and a part of the Greenberg Traurig firm’s appellate section. Judge Luck received his Juris Doctor from the University of Florida Levin College of Law magna cum laude and was asked to join the Order of the Coif. Judge Luck also served as Editor-in-Chief of the Florida Law Review. Judge Luck received his Bachelor of Arts in Economics from the University of Florida with highest honors.
Harlan Fiske Stone Professor of Constitutional Law, Columbia Law School
A leading administrative and constitutional law scholar, Gillian Metzger ’96 writes and teaches in the areas of administrative law, constitutional law, and federal courts, with an emphasis on federalism and privatization. In 2023-2024, she served as Acting Assistant Attorney General and Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Counsel in the Department of Justice.
Metzger's recent work covers topics ranging from constitutional attacks on the administrative state to appropriations, administrative law under the Roberts Court, and the role of administrative agencies in a polarized world. In 2015, Metzger won the American Bar Association Administrative Law Section Annual Scholarship Award for “The Constitutional Duty to Supervise,” which examined presidential control and oversight of the modern administrative state. She is a co-editor of Gellhorn & Byse’s Administrative Law: Cases and Comments, 13th ed. (Foundation Press, 2023), a seminal administrative law casebook.
Professor Metzger was recently elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and is a Senior Fellow of the Administrative Conference of the United States. In 2020, she was awarded Columbia University's Faculty Mentorship Award and in 2014, the Law School’s graduating class awarded Metzger the Willis L.M. Reese Prize for Excellence in Teaching, recognizing, among many other accomplishments, her commitment to mentoring new generations of law students.
In 2012, Metzger helped launch Columbia Law School’s Center for Constitutional Governance (CCG)—where she now serves as faculty director—a nonpartisan legal and policy organization devoted to the study of constitutional structure and authority. CCG brings together a diverse group of constitutional scholars to explore policy areas such as health care, civil rights, immigration, financial regulation, and national security.
Metzger also has co-authored and filed numerous amicus briefs in major constitutional and administrative law challenges before the Supreme Court and other courts. Most recently, Metzger filed a brief in Seila Law Center v. CFPB, a separation of powers challenge, and in Kisor v. Wilkie, a case involving judicial deference to agencies. She has also filed briefs in cases involving reproductive rights and the Affordable Care Act, among others.
Previously, Metzger served as vice dean of intellectual life at Columbia Law School. Before joining the Law School, she worked as an attorney with the Brennan Center for Justice. Metzger also clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg ’59 and Judge Patricia M. Wald of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. In 2018, Metzger moderated a panel discussion with Justice Ginsburg on impact litigation at Columbia Law School.
Of Counsel, Gibson Dunn & Crutcher
Amanda H. Neely is of counsel in the Washington, D.C. office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher and is a member of the Public Policy, Congressional Investigations, White Collar, and National Security practice groups.
Ms. Neely has extensive experience working on Capitol Hill. She leverages that expertise to advise clients regarding their interactions with Congress and the executive branch. Over the course of ten years, Ms. Neely held several senior staff positions in Congress. She served as Director of Governmental Affairs for the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs and General Counsel to Senator Rob Portman. Under Senator Portman’s chairmanship, she also served as Deputy Chief Counsel for the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. In those roles, she managed Senator Portman’s regulatory reform agenda and led oversight of federal government agencies and investigations into private entities. She previously served in several other Capitol Hill offices including as Oversight Counsel for the House of Representatives Committee on Ways and Means.
Congressional Investigations: At Gibson Dunn, Ms. Neely has represented clients undergoing investigations by numerous congressional committees, including the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations; Senate Finance Committee; Senate Judiciary Committee; Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee; House Committee on Oversight and Accountability; House Judiciary Committee; and the House Energy and Commerce Committee. In the course of those representations, Ms. Neely assists clients in all stages of investigations, including responding to letter requests and subpoenas to preparing witnesses for interviews, depositions, and congressional hearings. She also has assisted clients appearing before independent commissions such as the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission and the Commission on Wartime Contracting.
Public Policy: Ms. Neely also works with clients to advance their legislative interests on Capitol Hill by gathering intelligence, formulating strategic plans, and executing lobbying campaigns. In those matters, she has represented a wide range of clients from the fields of technology, healthcare, finance, and energy.
Regulatory Counseling: Ms. Neely regularly advises clients regarding their interests before regulatory agencies. Her expertise in the CHIPS and Science Act allows her to help clients comply with the Department of Commerce’s regulations and assist them in commenting on agency rules and applying for funding. She also works with clients to engage in the rulemaking process at agencies ranging from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Ms. Neely also has participated in a variety of litigation matters before state and federal trial and appellate courts, including several class action defense and False Claims Act cases.
Ms. Neely clerked for the Honorable David B. Sentelle, then-Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. She earned her law degree cum laude from Duke University School of Law, where she served as the Articles Editor for both the Alaska Law Review and the Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy. She was a member of the Duke Law Moot Court Board and served on the executive board of the Duke Law Federalist Society.
Ms. Neely graduated cum laude from Princeton University, where she majored in English and earned a certificate in Medieval Studies. She served for two years on United States Senator Elizabeth Dole’s staff as a legislative correspondent, focusing on banking, housing, budget, and tax issues. Ms. Neely is admitted to practice law in the District of Columbia and before the United States Courts of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
Tazewell Taylor Professor of Law and William H. Cabell Research Professor, William & Mary Law School
Jonathan H. Adler joined the William & Mary law faculty as the Tazwell Taylor Professor of Law and William H. Cabell Research Professor in 2025. Prior to joining the faculty, he was the inaugural Johan Verheij Memorial Professor of Law and the founding Director of the Coleman P. Burke Center for Environmental Law at the Case Western Reserve University School of Law.
Professor Adler is the author or editor of seven books, including Climate Liberalism: Perspectives on Liberty, Property and Pollution (Palgrave, 2023), Marijuana Federalism: Uncle Sam and Mary Jane (Brookings Institution Press, 2020), Business and the Roberts Court (Oxford University Press, 2016) and Rebuilding the Ark: New Perspectives on Endangered Species Act Reform (AEI Press, 2011).
His articles have appeared in publications ranging from the Harvard Environmental Law Review and Yale Journal on Regulation to the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and Washington Post. He has testified before Congress a dozen times, and his work has been cited in the U.S. Supreme Court. A 2024 study identified Professor Adler as the seventh most cited legal academic in administrative and environmental law from 2019 to 2023.
Professor Adler is a contributing editor to Civitas Outlook and a regular contributor to the popular legal blog, The Volokh Conspiracy. A regular commentator on constitutional and regulatory issues, he has appeared on numerous radio and television programs, ranging from the PBS Newshour and National Public Radio to the Fox News Channel and Entertainment Tonight.
Professor Adler is a senior fellow at the Property & Environment Research Center in Bozeman, Montana. In 2018, Professor Adler was elected to membership in the American Law Institute and helped co-found the organization Checks and Balances. In 2024, Professor Adler was appointed a public member of the Administrative Conference of the United States.
Professor Adler clerked for the Honorable David B. Sentelle on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
United States House of Representatives, Michigan
Representative Justin Amash represents Michigan's Third District in the 112th United States Congress. Justin serves on the House Budget Committee and the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. He was elected to his first term on November 2, 2010.
Justin was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and raised in the city of Kentwood. He received his bachelor's degree with High Honors in Economics from the University of Michigan and his Juris Doctor from the University of Michigan Law School. Justin worked as a business lawyer and a Michigan state representative before his election to Congress.
Justin has been a leader in the incorporation of Facebook and other social media into his work as a public official. He also set new standards for transparency and accountability in the Michigan state House.
In October 2010, TIME Magazine named Justin one of its "40 under 40 - Rising Stars of U.S. Politics."
Justin lives in Cascade Charter Township with his wife Kara, a graduate of Calvin College and a former elementary school teacher. Justin and Kara have three children, Alexander, Anwen, and Evelyn.
Professor of Law, Cornell Law School
Josh Chafetz received his B.A. from Yale University, his doctorate in Politics from Oxford (where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar), and his J.D. from Yale Law School. Following law school, he clerked for Judge Guido Calabresi of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
His research interests include structural constitutional law, American and British constitutional history, legislation and legislative procedure, American political development, and the intersection of law and politics. His second book, Congress's Constitution: Legislative Authority and the Separation of Powers, was published by Yale University Press in 2017. He is also the author of Democracy's Privileged Few: Legislative Privilege and Democratic Norms in the British and American Constitutions (Yale University Press, 2007) and is a co-editor (along with William N. Eskridge, Jr., Elizabeth Garrett, and James Brudney) of the leading casebook in Legislation, Cases and Materials on Legislation and Regulation: Statutes and the Creation of Public Policy, published by West.
His scholarship has been published in a number of top law reviews, including the Harvard Law Review, Yale Law Journal, University of Chicago Law Review, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, Duke Law Journal, Notre Dame Law Review, and Yale Journal of Law & the Humanities, among others. He has also written for a number of popular press outlets, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, Politico, Slate, and the New Republic. He is currently a Contributing Writer for the Capitol Hill newspaper The Hill.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit
On November 19, 2019, Judge Robert J. Luck was appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit by President Donald Trump. Prior to serving on the federal bench, he was appointed to the Florida Supreme Court by Governor Ron DeSantis on January 14, 2019. He previously served on the Third District Court of Appeal in Miami after his appointment there by Governor Rick Scott in March 2017.
Earlier, Judge Luck served on the Eleventh Judicial Circuit Court of Florida from September 2013 to March 2017. He presided in the Criminal, Civil, and Appellate Divisions. Judge Luck, in his years as a trial court judge, tried seventy jury trials, and heard dozens of appeals from the county court and municipal agencies. Judge Luck was appointed to the circuit court in 2013 and was elected by the voters of Miami-Dade County to retain his seat in 2016.
Prior to his service on the bench, Judge Luck was an Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida. In his years as a federal prosecutor, he was assigned to the Appeals, Major Crimes, and Economic Crimes Sections of the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Judge Luck tried nineteen jury trials before the federal district court and argued three appeals to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. In his final year in the Office, he was a Deputy Chief in the Major Crimes Section.
Earlier in his career, Judge Luck was a legislative correspondent for two United States Senators, a law clerk and staff attorney to Circuit Judge Edward E. Carnes on the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, and a part of the Greenberg Traurig firm’s appellate section. Judge Luck received his Juris Doctor from the University of Florida Levin College of Law magna cum laude and was asked to join the Order of the Coif. Judge Luck also served as Editor-in-Chief of the Florida Law Review. Judge Luck received his Bachelor of Arts in Economics from the University of Florida with highest honors.
Harlan Fiske Stone Professor of Constitutional Law, Columbia Law School
A leading administrative and constitutional law scholar, Gillian Metzger ’96 writes and teaches in the areas of administrative law, constitutional law, and federal courts, with an emphasis on federalism and privatization. In 2023-2024, she served as Acting Assistant Attorney General and Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Counsel in the Department of Justice.
Metzger's recent work covers topics ranging from constitutional attacks on the administrative state to appropriations, administrative law under the Roberts Court, and the role of administrative agencies in a polarized world. In 2015, Metzger won the American Bar Association Administrative Law Section Annual Scholarship Award for “The Constitutional Duty to Supervise,” which examined presidential control and oversight of the modern administrative state. She is a co-editor of Gellhorn & Byse’s Administrative Law: Cases and Comments, 13th ed. (Foundation Press, 2023), a seminal administrative law casebook.
Professor Metzger was recently elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and is a Senior Fellow of the Administrative Conference of the United States. In 2020, she was awarded Columbia University's Faculty Mentorship Award and in 2014, the Law School’s graduating class awarded Metzger the Willis L.M. Reese Prize for Excellence in Teaching, recognizing, among many other accomplishments, her commitment to mentoring new generations of law students.
In 2012, Metzger helped launch Columbia Law School’s Center for Constitutional Governance (CCG)—where she now serves as faculty director—a nonpartisan legal and policy organization devoted to the study of constitutional structure and authority. CCG brings together a diverse group of constitutional scholars to explore policy areas such as health care, civil rights, immigration, financial regulation, and national security.
Metzger also has co-authored and filed numerous amicus briefs in major constitutional and administrative law challenges before the Supreme Court and other courts. Most recently, Metzger filed a brief in Seila Law Center v. CFPB, a separation of powers challenge, and in Kisor v. Wilkie, a case involving judicial deference to agencies. She has also filed briefs in cases involving reproductive rights and the Affordable Care Act, among others.
Previously, Metzger served as vice dean of intellectual life at Columbia Law School. Before joining the Law School, she worked as an attorney with the Brennan Center for Justice. Metzger also clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg ’59 and Judge Patricia M. Wald of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. In 2018, Metzger moderated a panel discussion with Justice Ginsburg on impact litigation at Columbia Law School.
Of Counsel, Gibson Dunn & Crutcher
Amanda H. Neely is of counsel in the Washington, D.C. office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher and is a member of the Public Policy, Congressional Investigations, White Collar, and National Security practice groups.
Ms. Neely has extensive experience working on Capitol Hill. She leverages that expertise to advise clients regarding their interactions with Congress and the executive branch. Over the course of ten years, Ms. Neely held several senior staff positions in Congress. She served as Director of Governmental Affairs for the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs and General Counsel to Senator Rob Portman. Under Senator Portman’s chairmanship, she also served as Deputy Chief Counsel for the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. In those roles, she managed Senator Portman’s regulatory reform agenda and led oversight of federal government agencies and investigations into private entities. She previously served in several other Capitol Hill offices including as Oversight Counsel for the House of Representatives Committee on Ways and Means.
Congressional Investigations: At Gibson Dunn, Ms. Neely has represented clients undergoing investigations by numerous congressional committees, including the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations; Senate Finance Committee; Senate Judiciary Committee; Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee; House Committee on Oversight and Accountability; House Judiciary Committee; and the House Energy and Commerce Committee. In the course of those representations, Ms. Neely assists clients in all stages of investigations, including responding to letter requests and subpoenas to preparing witnesses for interviews, depositions, and congressional hearings. She also has assisted clients appearing before independent commissions such as the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission and the Commission on Wartime Contracting.
Public Policy: Ms. Neely also works with clients to advance their legislative interests on Capitol Hill by gathering intelligence, formulating strategic plans, and executing lobbying campaigns. In those matters, she has represented a wide range of clients from the fields of technology, healthcare, finance, and energy.
Regulatory Counseling: Ms. Neely regularly advises clients regarding their interests before regulatory agencies. Her expertise in the CHIPS and Science Act allows her to help clients comply with the Department of Commerce’s regulations and assist them in commenting on agency rules and applying for funding. She also works with clients to engage in the rulemaking process at agencies ranging from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Ms. Neely also has participated in a variety of litigation matters before state and federal trial and appellate courts, including several class action defense and False Claims Act cases.
Ms. Neely clerked for the Honorable David B. Sentelle, then-Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. She earned her law degree cum laude from Duke University School of Law, where she served as the Articles Editor for both the Alaska Law Review and the Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy. She was a member of the Duke Law Moot Court Board and served on the executive board of the Duke Law Federalist Society.
Ms. Neely graduated cum laude from Princeton University, where she majored in English and earned a certificate in Medieval Studies. She served for two years on United States Senator Elizabeth Dole’s staff as a legislative correspondent, focusing on banking, housing, budget, and tax issues. Ms. Neely is admitted to practice law in the District of Columbia and before the United States Courts of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit
Hon. Jennifer Mascott served as Associate Professor of Law and Director of the Separation of Powers Institute at The Catholic University of America’s Columbus School of Law before her appointment to the federal bench. On July 16, 2025, President Donald J. Trump nominated her to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit (Delaware), and she was confirmed on October 9, 2025.
Prior to her confirmation, Judge Mascott wrote extensively in administrative and constitutional law, statutory interpretation, and the separation of powers. Her scholarship—published in leading journals including the Stanford Law Review, Notre Dame Law Review, and Supreme Court Review—was cited by the U.S. Supreme Court and multiple federal courts. She also contributed Supreme Court commentary for NBC Universal.
Before joining Catholic Law, she was an Assistant Professor and Co-Director of The C. Boyden Gray Center at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School. In 2022 she became co-author of Beermann, Cass & Diver’s Administrative Law: Cases and Materials (9th ed.). In 2023 she received the Justice Joseph Story Award for excellence in scholarship, teaching, and advancing the rule of law.
Judge Mascott also served as a Council Member of the ABA’s Administrative Law Section and as a Public Member of the Administrative Conference of the United States. She frequently testified before Congress on executive power, regulatory reform, and judicial jurisdiction, and participated in multiple Supreme Court confirmation hearings.
From 2019 to 2021, she took leave from academia to serve as Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel and later as Associate Deputy Attorney General, where she argued federal cases and assisted with Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation. Earlier in her career, she clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas and for then-Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh on the D.C. Circuit.
Judge Mascott earned her J.D. summa cum laude from the George Washington University Law School and her B.A. from the same institution.
Joseph L. Sax Collegiate Professor of Law and Co-Director of the Environmental and Energy Law Program, University of Michigan Law School
Charles Evans Hughes Professor of Law, Columbia Law School
THOMAS W. MERRILL is the Charles Evans Hughes Professor of Law at Columbia Law School. He previously taught at Northwestern University School of Law and Yale Law School. He has undergraduate degrees from Grinnell College and Oxford University, where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar, and a law degree from the University of Chicago. He clerked on the D.C. Circuit (for Chief Judge David Bazelon) and the U.S. Supreme Court (for Justice Harry Blackmun). From 1987-1990 he served as Deputy Solicitor General, U.S. Department of Justice. Professor Merrill’s writings related to property include Property: Principles and Policies (Foundation Press Second Edition, 2012) (with Henry E. Smith); Property: The Oxford Introductions to U.S. Law (Oxford U. Press, 2010); Property: Takings (Foundation Press, 2002)(with David Dana); and numerous articles, including “The Economics of Public Use” (Cornell Law Review 1986); “The Landscape of Constitutional Property” (Virginia Law Review 2000); and “The Character of the Governmental Action” (Vermont Law Review 2012). He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Charles I. Francis Professorship in Law, University of Texas at Austin School of Law
Professor Aaron Nielson lectures and writes in the areas of administrative law, civil procedure, and federal courts. Before joining the faculty, he served as Solicitor General of Texas and represented Texas before the U.S. Supreme Court and the Texas Supreme Court, as well as overseeing all appellate litigation for the State. Earlier in his career, he was a professor at Brigham Young University and an appellate and antitrust partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Kirkland & Ellis LLP. He also clerked for Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. of the U.S. Supreme Court, Judge Janice Rogers Brown of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, and Judge Jerry E. Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
As Solicitor General, Professor Nielson successfully defended against a First Amendment challenge Texas’s law requiring online pornographers to institute age verification. In 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court appointed him to defend the constitutionality of a federal agency. He currently serves as a Senior Fellow of the Administrative Conference of the United States after completing a six-year term as an appointed public member and chair of the Conference’s Administration & Management Committee.
Nielson’s research focuses on administrative law, federal litigation, and the separation of powers. He has published (or soon will publish) in the Harvard Law Review, Columbia Law Review, University of Chicago Law Review, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, Duke Law Journal, Georgetown Law Journal, Cornell Law Review, and Northwestern University Law Review, among others. Nielson has been recognized for teaching for teaching and scholarship and in 2021 received the Federalist Society’s Joseph Story Award, which recognizes a young academic for excellence in legal scholarship, a commitment to teaching, and a concern for students, and who has made a significant public impact in a manner that advances the rule of law in a free society. He is also an elected member of the American Law Institute.
Professor Nielson received his J.D. magna cum laude from Harvard Law School and an LL.M from the University of Cambridge, where he focused his studies on the institutions that regulate global competition and commerce. He received his undergraduate degree summa cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania, majoring in economics and political science.
Associate Professor, University of Notre Dame Law School
Jeffrey Pojanowski joined the faculty and community of Notre Dame Law School in 2010. He teaches and writes in the areas of administrative law, jurisprudence, and torts. At present, his scholarship focuses on the legal theory of administrative action, as well as the philosophy and intellectual history of legal reasoning.
Prof. Pojanowski earned his A.B. in Public Policy with highest honors from Princeton University and graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School in 2004, where he was Articles Co-Chair for the Harvard Law Review. After law school, he served as a law clerk to then-Judge John Roberts on the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and then to Justice Anthony Kennedy on the Supreme Court of the United States. He then practiced law with Latham & Watkins in Washington, D.C., where he specialized in appellate litigation and administrative-law matters.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit
Judge Readler earned his undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Michigan. After graduating, he served as a law clerk to Judge Alan Norris of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Judge Readler then began practicing law in the Columbus office of the international law firm Jones Day, eventually spending ten years as a partner in the firm’s Issues and Appeals Practice Group. While at Jones Day, Judge Readler appeared in state and federal trial and appellate courts around the country, most frequently the Supreme Court of Ohio and the Sixth Circuit. Judge Readler also successfully argued before the United States Supreme Court in McQuiggin v. Perkins on behalf of an inmate claiming actual innocence. His other pro bono representations include representing capital defendants before the Tenth Circuit and the Supreme Court of Ohio, as well as representing defendants sentenced to life in prison before the Sixth Circuit. While at Jones Day, Judge Readler traveled to Nairobi with Lawyers Without Borders to train Kenyan lawyers in prosecuting domestic violence cases, and he was also a recipient of the American Marshall Memorial Fellowship awarded by the German Marshall Fund of the United States. Following his career in private practice, Judge Readler served as Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division of the United States Department of Justice from 2017 to 2019. In that role, Judge Readler led and supervised over 1,000 lawyers in the Department’s largest litigating division, briefing and arguing several cases on behalf of the United States in federal courts across the country, including high-profile cases significant to the Administration and the Department. In March 2019, Judge Readler was confirmed to serve as a Circuit Judge on the Sixth Circuit. He resides in Columbus.
Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit
Hon. Jennifer Mascott served as Associate Professor of Law and Director of the Separation of Powers Institute at The Catholic University of America’s Columbus School of Law before her appointment to the federal bench. On July 16, 2025, President Donald J. Trump nominated her to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit (Delaware), and she was confirmed on October 9, 2025.
Prior to her confirmation, Judge Mascott wrote extensively in administrative and constitutional law, statutory interpretation, and the separation of powers. Her scholarship—published in leading journals including the Stanford Law Review, Notre Dame Law Review, and Supreme Court Review—was cited by the U.S. Supreme Court and multiple federal courts. She also contributed Supreme Court commentary for NBC Universal.
Before joining Catholic Law, she was an Assistant Professor and Co-Director of The C. Boyden Gray Center at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School. In 2022 she became co-author of Beermann, Cass & Diver’s Administrative Law: Cases and Materials (9th ed.). In 2023 she received the Justice Joseph Story Award for excellence in scholarship, teaching, and advancing the rule of law.
Judge Mascott also served as a Council Member of the ABA’s Administrative Law Section and as a Public Member of the Administrative Conference of the United States. She frequently testified before Congress on executive power, regulatory reform, and judicial jurisdiction, and participated in multiple Supreme Court confirmation hearings.
From 2019 to 2021, she took leave from academia to serve as Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel and later as Associate Deputy Attorney General, where she argued federal cases and assisted with Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation. Earlier in her career, she clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas and for then-Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh on the D.C. Circuit.
Judge Mascott earned her J.D. summa cum laude from the George Washington University Law School and her B.A. from the same institution.
Joseph L. Sax Collegiate Professor of Law and Co-Director of the Environmental and Energy Law Program, University of Michigan Law School
Charles Evans Hughes Professor of Law, Columbia Law School
THOMAS W. MERRILL is the Charles Evans Hughes Professor of Law at Columbia Law School. He previously taught at Northwestern University School of Law and Yale Law School. He has undergraduate degrees from Grinnell College and Oxford University, where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar, and a law degree from the University of Chicago. He clerked on the D.C. Circuit (for Chief Judge David Bazelon) and the U.S. Supreme Court (for Justice Harry Blackmun). From 1987-1990 he served as Deputy Solicitor General, U.S. Department of Justice. Professor Merrill’s writings related to property include Property: Principles and Policies (Foundation Press Second Edition, 2012) (with Henry E. Smith); Property: The Oxford Introductions to U.S. Law (Oxford U. Press, 2010); Property: Takings (Foundation Press, 2002)(with David Dana); and numerous articles, including “The Economics of Public Use” (Cornell Law Review 1986); “The Landscape of Constitutional Property” (Virginia Law Review 2000); and “The Character of the Governmental Action” (Vermont Law Review 2012). He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Charles I. Francis Professorship in Law, University of Texas at Austin School of Law
Professor Aaron Nielson lectures and writes in the areas of administrative law, civil procedure, and federal courts. Before joining the faculty, he served as Solicitor General of Texas and represented Texas before the U.S. Supreme Court and the Texas Supreme Court, as well as overseeing all appellate litigation for the State. Earlier in his career, he was a professor at Brigham Young University and an appellate and antitrust partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Kirkland & Ellis LLP. He also clerked for Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. of the U.S. Supreme Court, Judge Janice Rogers Brown of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, and Judge Jerry E. Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
As Solicitor General, Professor Nielson successfully defended against a First Amendment challenge Texas’s law requiring online pornographers to institute age verification. In 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court appointed him to defend the constitutionality of a federal agency. He currently serves as a Senior Fellow of the Administrative Conference of the United States after completing a six-year term as an appointed public member and chair of the Conference’s Administration & Management Committee.
Nielson’s research focuses on administrative law, federal litigation, and the separation of powers. He has published (or soon will publish) in the Harvard Law Review, Columbia Law Review, University of Chicago Law Review, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, Duke Law Journal, Georgetown Law Journal, Cornell Law Review, and Northwestern University Law Review, among others. Nielson has been recognized for teaching for teaching and scholarship and in 2021 received the Federalist Society’s Joseph Story Award, which recognizes a young academic for excellence in legal scholarship, a commitment to teaching, and a concern for students, and who has made a significant public impact in a manner that advances the rule of law in a free society. He is also an elected member of the American Law Institute.
Professor Nielson received his J.D. magna cum laude from Harvard Law School and an LL.M from the University of Cambridge, where he focused his studies on the institutions that regulate global competition and commerce. He received his undergraduate degree summa cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania, majoring in economics and political science.
Associate Professor, University of Notre Dame Law School
Jeffrey Pojanowski joined the faculty and community of Notre Dame Law School in 2010. He teaches and writes in the areas of administrative law, jurisprudence, and torts. At present, his scholarship focuses on the legal theory of administrative action, as well as the philosophy and intellectual history of legal reasoning.
Prof. Pojanowski earned his A.B. in Public Policy with highest honors from Princeton University and graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School in 2004, where he was Articles Co-Chair for the Harvard Law Review. After law school, he served as a law clerk to then-Judge John Roberts on the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and then to Justice Anthony Kennedy on the Supreme Court of the United States. He then practiced law with Latham & Watkins in Washington, D.C., where he specialized in appellate litigation and administrative-law matters.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit
Judge Readler earned his undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Michigan. After graduating, he served as a law clerk to Judge Alan Norris of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Judge Readler then began practicing law in the Columbus office of the international law firm Jones Day, eventually spending ten years as a partner in the firm’s Issues and Appeals Practice Group. While at Jones Day, Judge Readler appeared in state and federal trial and appellate courts around the country, most frequently the Supreme Court of Ohio and the Sixth Circuit. Judge Readler also successfully argued before the United States Supreme Court in McQuiggin v. Perkins on behalf of an inmate claiming actual innocence. His other pro bono representations include representing capital defendants before the Tenth Circuit and the Supreme Court of Ohio, as well as representing defendants sentenced to life in prison before the Sixth Circuit. While at Jones Day, Judge Readler traveled to Nairobi with Lawyers Without Borders to train Kenyan lawyers in prosecuting domestic violence cases, and he was also a recipient of the American Marshall Memorial Fellowship awarded by the German Marshall Fund of the United States. Following his career in private practice, Judge Readler served as Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division of the United States Department of Justice from 2017 to 2019. In that role, Judge Readler led and supervised over 1,000 lawyers in the Department’s largest litigating division, briefing and arguing several cases on behalf of the United States in federal courts across the country, including high-profile cases significant to the Administration and the Department. In March 2019, Judge Readler was confirmed to serve as a Circuit Judge on the Sixth Circuit. He resides in Columbus.
Samuel H. McCoy II Professor of Law, University of Virginia School of Law
John F. Duffy is the Samuel H. McCoy II Professor of Law and Class of 1966 Research Professor of Law at the University of Virginia School of Law, where he teaches administrative law, torts and intellectual property. Professor Duffy has published articles on a wide range of administrative law and regulatory issues in journals such as University of Chicago Law Review, Yale Law Journal, Stanford Law Review, Virginia Law Review, Columbia Law Review, Texas Law Review, Northwestern University Law Review, NYU Law Review, University of Pennsylvania Law Review and the Supreme Court Review. His 1998 article Administrative Common Law in Judicial Review, 77 Tex. L. Rev. 113 (1998), was one of the first articles to criticize the Chevron doctrine as being irreconcilable with § 706 of the APA; it won the American Bar Association’s Scholarship Award in Administrative Law. His 2008 article “Are Administrative Patent Judges Unconstitutional?” was covered on National Public Radio), in the New York Times (Adam Liptak, In One Flaw, Questions on Validity of 46 Judges, May 6, 2008), and in the Wall Street Journal (Dan Slater, Patently Unconstitutional, May 6, 2008). The NYT and WSJ agreed that he was “a different kind of law professor,” “one of the lucky few” whose “writings actually wind up changing the law.”
As an attorney in the courts, Duffy has twice successfully convinced the Supreme Court to overturn lower court doctrines that had been applied in many cases over decades but that were unanimously held to be irreconcilable with Supreme Court precedents. See TC Heartland v. Kraft Foods Group Brands, 581 U.S. 258 (2017); KSR v. Teleflex, 550 U.S. 398 (2007).
Prior to entering legal academics, Duffy clerked on the D.C. Circuit for Stephen Williams and on the Supreme Court for Antonin Scalia. While clerking, he became known as Justice Scalia’s “hapless law clerk,” who had been tasked with unearthing three-quarters of a century of legislative history that made “no difference” to the outcome in an otherwise forgettable case. See Conroy v. Aniskoff, 507 U.S. 511, 527-28 (1993) (Scalia, J., concurring in the judgment).
In earlier days, Duffy enjoyed being a professional blackjack player unwelcome in all Atlantic City casinos and a semi-professional road runner (best marathon time 2:24:33). He holds an A.B. in physics from Harvard and a J.D. from the University of Chicago.
Editor, SCOTUSblog
Professor of Law, University of Michigan Law School
Christopher J. Walker is a Professor of Law at the University of Michigan. Prior to joining Michigan law faculty in 2022, he spent a decade teaching at The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law. He previously clerked for Justice Anthony Kennedy of the U.S. Supreme Court, worked on the Civil Appellate Staff at the U.S. Department of Justice, and served on the Senate Judiciary Committee staff for the Gorsuch Supreme Court confirmation. Professor Walker’s research focuses on administrative law, regulation, and law and policy at the agency level. Outside the law school, he chaired the American Bar Association’s Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice in 2020-21 and served as one of forty Public Members of the Administrative Conference of the United States from 2016-2022, and he continues to serve in both organizations in various capacities. He also works of counsel at the U.S. Chamber Litigation Center. In 2022, he received the Federalist Society’s Joseph Story Award.
Samuel H. McCoy II Professor of Law, University of Virginia School of Law
John F. Duffy is the Samuel H. McCoy II Professor of Law and Class of 1966 Research Professor of Law at the University of Virginia School of Law, where he teaches administrative law, torts and intellectual property. Professor Duffy has published articles on a wide range of administrative law and regulatory issues in journals such as University of Chicago Law Review, Yale Law Journal, Stanford Law Review, Virginia Law Review, Columbia Law Review, Texas Law Review, Northwestern University Law Review, NYU Law Review, University of Pennsylvania Law Review and the Supreme Court Review. His 1998 article Administrative Common Law in Judicial Review, 77 Tex. L. Rev. 113 (1998), was one of the first articles to criticize the Chevron doctrine as being irreconcilable with § 706 of the APA; it won the American Bar Association’s Scholarship Award in Administrative Law. His 2008 article “Are Administrative Patent Judges Unconstitutional?” was covered on National Public Radio), in the New York Times (Adam Liptak, In One Flaw, Questions on Validity of 46 Judges, May 6, 2008), and in the Wall Street Journal (Dan Slater, Patently Unconstitutional, May 6, 2008). The NYT and WSJ agreed that he was “a different kind of law professor,” “one of the lucky few” whose “writings actually wind up changing the law.”
As an attorney in the courts, Duffy has twice successfully convinced the Supreme Court to overturn lower court doctrines that had been applied in many cases over decades but that were unanimously held to be irreconcilable with Supreme Court precedents. See TC Heartland v. Kraft Foods Group Brands, 581 U.S. 258 (2017); KSR v. Teleflex, 550 U.S. 398 (2007).
Prior to entering legal academics, Duffy clerked on the D.C. Circuit for Stephen Williams and on the Supreme Court for Antonin Scalia. While clerking, he became known as Justice Scalia’s “hapless law clerk,” who had been tasked with unearthing three-quarters of a century of legislative history that made “no difference” to the outcome in an otherwise forgettable case. See Conroy v. Aniskoff, 507 U.S. 511, 527-28 (1993) (Scalia, J., concurring in the judgment).
In earlier days, Duffy enjoyed being a professional blackjack player unwelcome in all Atlantic City casinos and a semi-professional road runner (best marathon time 2:24:33). He holds an A.B. in physics from Harvard and a J.D. from the University of Chicago.
Editor, SCOTUSblog
Professor of Law, University of Michigan Law School
Christopher J. Walker is a Professor of Law at the University of Michigan. Prior to joining Michigan law faculty in 2022, he spent a decade teaching at The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law. He previously clerked for Justice Anthony Kennedy of the U.S. Supreme Court, worked on the Civil Appellate Staff at the U.S. Department of Justice, and served on the Senate Judiciary Committee staff for the Gorsuch Supreme Court confirmation. Professor Walker’s research focuses on administrative law, regulation, and law and policy at the agency level. Outside the law school, he chaired the American Bar Association’s Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice in 2020-21 and served as one of forty Public Members of the Administrative Conference of the United States from 2016-2022, and he continues to serve in both organizations in various capacities. He also works of counsel at the U.S. Chamber Litigation Center. In 2022, he received the Federalist Society’s Joseph Story Award.
Debate: Presidential Power and Congress's Response
Joan Larsen, Michael W. McConnell, Julian Davis Mortenson
2025 National Student Symposium
Featuring: Prof. Michael W. McConnell, Richard and Frances Mallery Professor and Director of the Constitutional...
Debate: Presidential Power and Congress's Response
Joan Larsen, Michael W. McConnell, Julian Davis Mortenson
2025 National Student Symposium
Featuring: Prof. Michael W. McConnell, Richard and Frances Mallery Professor and Director of the Constitutional...
Panel III: Congress and the Administrative State: Prospects for Regulatory Reform
Nicholas Bagley, Emily Bremer, Jennifer Nou, Neomi Rao, Paul J. Ray
2025 National Student Symposium
Featuring: Prof. Nicholas Bagley, Thomas G. Long Professor of Law, University of Michigan Law School...
Panel III: Congress and the Administrative State: Prospects for Regulatory Reform
Nicholas Bagley, Emily Bremer, Jennifer Nou, Neomi Rao, Paul J. Ray
2025 National Student Symposium
Featuring: Prof. Nicholas Bagley, Thomas G. Long Professor of Law, University of Michigan Law School...
Panel II: Congress and the Constitution: The Separation of Powers in Action
Jonathan H. Adler, Justin Amash, Josh Chafetz, Robert J. Luck, Gillian E. Metzger, Amanda H. Neely
2025 National Student Symposium
Featuring: Prof. Jonathan H. Adler, Johan Verheij Memorial Professor of Law and Director of the...
Panel II: Congress and the Constitution: The Separation of Powers in Action
Jonathan H. Adler, Justin Amash, Josh Chafetz, Robert J. Luck, Gillian E. Metzger, Amanda H. Neely
2025 National Student Symposium
Featuring: Prof. Jonathan H. Adler, Johan Verheij Memorial Professor of Law and Director of the...
Panel I: How We Got Here – The Supreme Court’s “Anti-Administrativist” Turn?
Jenn L. Mascott, Nina A. Mendelson, Thomas W. Merrill, Aaron Nielson, Jeffrey Pojanowski, Chad A. Readler
2025 National Student Symposium
Featuring: Prof. Jeffrey Pojanowski, Biolchini Family Professor of Law, Notre Dame Law School Prof. Jennifer...
Panel I: How We Got Here – The Supreme Court’s “Anti-Administrativist” Turn?
Jenn L. Mascott, Nina A. Mendelson, Thomas W. Merrill, Aaron Nielson, Jeffrey Pojanowski, Chad A. Readler
2025 National Student Symposium
Featuring: Prof. Jeffrey Pojanowski, Biolchini Family Professor of Law, Notre Dame Law School Prof. Jennifer...
Arthur N. Rupe Debate: Public Servants or Permanent Rulers? The Future of the Civil Service
John F. Duffy, Sarah Isgur, Christopher J. Walker
2025 National Student Symposium
Featuring: Prof. John F. Duffy, Samuel H. McCoy II Professor of Law and Director of...
Arthur N. Rupe Debate: Public Servants or Permanent Rulers? The Future of the Civil Service
John F. Duffy, Sarah Isgur, Christopher J. Walker
2025 National Student Symposium
Featuring: Prof. John F. Duffy, Samuel H. McCoy II Professor of Law and Director of...