Director of Equality and Opportunity Litigation, Pacific Legal Foundation
Joshua directs the litigation for PLF’s Equality and Opportunity Program, where he fights to dismantle unconstitutional barriers to opportunity, freeing individuals to rise based on their choices, character, and ability.
Joshua joined PLF as an attorney in 2007. His litigation practice has covered all PLF subject areas with a particular focus on equality and opportunity. Joshua argued PLF’s 13th case before the United States Supreme Court, Cedar Point Nursery v. Hassid, where the court ruled that a California regulation that allowed union organizers onto private property violated the Fifth Amendment’s Takings Clause. Other litigation highlights of his include ending a decades-long racial quota in Hartford, Connecticut, lifting a ban on boys’ dancing in Minnesota, and vindicating an entrepreneur’s right to start a moving business in Kentucky.
Joshua’s writings have been published by the USA Today, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post. And his research has been published in journals such as Texas Review of Law & Politics, Alabama Civil Rights & Civil Liberties Law Review, Journal of Civil Rights & Economic Development, and Northern Illinois University Law Review. He has appeared on national television and radio, including PBS Newshour, NPR’s All things Considered, Stossel, and Univision.
Joshua earned his BA with distinction from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a triple major in political science, international relations, and German. He earned his JD cum laude from Michigan State College of Law where he was on the law review and trial practice institute. Joshua lives in Sacramento, California with his wife and three children. He loves playing chess and rooting for Wisconsin sports teams.
Joshua is a member of the bar only in the state of California.
Board Member, Center for Equal Opportunity
Roger Clegg is a Board Member at and former President and General Counsel of the Center for Equal Opportunity. He focuses on legal issues arising from civil rights laws--including the regulatory impact on business and the problems in higher education created by affirmative action. A former Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Reagan and Bush administrations, Clegg held the second highest positions in both the Civil Rights Division (1987-91) and in the Environment and Natural Resources Division (1991-93). He has held several other positions at the U.S. Justice Department, including Assistant to the Solicitor General (1985-87), Associate Deputy Attorney General (1984-85), and Acting Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Policy (1984). Clegg is a graduate of Yale University Law School (1981).
Editor, Breitbart News
John Carney covers Wall Street and finance for CNBC.com, where he runs NetNet. John Carney was recently hired by Breitbart News, where he leads a new finance and economics section. Carney joined CNBC in 2010 after serving as managing editor of Business Insider's Wall Street and economics section. Prior to that he was Editor in Chief of DealBreaker.com.
He is a frequent guest on CNBC's "Power Lunch" and public radio's "Marketplace." His writing has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The New York Sun, Page Six Magazine, the New York Post, Fortune, Gawker and New York magazine.
Mr. Carney received a law degree from the University of Pennsylvania and practiced corporate law at firms such as Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom and Latham & Watkins where he primarily represented banks, hedge funds and private equity firms.
Partner, Foley & Lardner LLP
A trial and courtroom lawyer for over 30 years, Jason A. Levine is an antitrust and commercial litigation partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Foley & Lardner LLP.
Mr. Levine has served as lead counsel for clients in high-stakes and often multi-faceted business disputes. His diverse practice focuses on antitrust, complex contractual, and business tort suits. Mr. Levine tried 14 cases to judges and juries across the country, briefed and argued dozens of dispositive motions and several precedent-setting appeals, and has had an active amicus practice before the U.S. Supreme Court for nationwide trade associations. He was also lead counsel to defendants in several of the nation’s largest antitrust class actions and MDLs. Mr. Levine has perennially been recognized as a prominent litigator by Best Lawyers, SuperLawyers, Benchmark Litigation, and Global Competition Review. He also spent nearly four years as an Investment Manager at Omni Bridgeway, a global commercial litigation finance company, where he launched and led the Washington, D.C. office and led the U.S. antitrust strategy.
Mr. Levine received his B.A. summa cum laude (Phi Beta Kappa) from Brandeis University in 1991 and his J.D. cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1994, where he was Editor-in-Chief of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy. Before entering private practice, Mr. Levine was a law clerk for Judge Randall Rader on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, where he focused on the court’s Takings and administrative cases.
Senior Fellow and Director of Constitutional Studies, Manhattan Institute
Ilya Shapiro is a senior fellow and director of constitutional studies at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal. Previously he was executive director and senior lecturer at the Georgetown Center for the Constitution, and before that a vice president of the Cato Institute.
Shapiro is the author of Lawless: The Miseducation of America’s Elites (2025) and Supreme Disorder: Judicial Nominations and the Politics of America’s Highest Court (2020), coauthor of Religious Liberties for Corporations? (2014), and editor of 11 volumes of the Cato Supreme Court Review (2008-18). He has contributed to a variety of academic, popular, and professional publications, including the Wall Street Journal, Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, National Review, and Newsweek. He also regularly provides commentary for various media outlets, writes the Shapiro’s Gavel newsletter on Substack, and once appeared on the Colbert Report.
Shapiro has testified many times before Congress and state legislatures and has filed more than 500 amicus curiae “friend of the court” briefs in the Supreme Court. He lectures regularly on behalf of the Federalist Society, is a member of the board of fellows of the Jewish Policy Center, was an inaugural Washington Fellow at the National Review Institute, and has been an adjunct law professor at the George Washington University and University of Mississippi. He is also the chairman of the board of advisers of the Mississippi Justice Institute, a barrister in the Edward Coke Appellate Inn of Court, and a former member of the Virginia Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.
Earlier in his career, Shapiro was a special assistant/adviser to the Multi-National Force in Iraq on rule-of-law issues and practiced at Patton Boggs and Cleary Gottlieb. Before entering private practice, he clerked for Judge E. Grady Jolly of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. He holds an AB from Princeton University, an MSc from the London School of Economics, and a JD from the University of Chicago Law School.
Immigration Policy Analyst, Cato Institute
David J. Bier is an immigration policy analyst at the Cato Institute’s Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity. He is an expert on visa reform, border security, and interior enforcement, and his work has been cited in the Washington Post, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Politico, and many other print and online publications.
From 2013 to 2015, Mr. Bier drafted immigration legislation as senior policy advisor for Congressman Raúl Labrador, a member of the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security. Previously, he worked as the immigration policy analyst at the Competitive Enterprise Institute and most recently as the director of immigration policy at the Niskanen Center.
Mr. Bier has a B.A. in political science from Grove City College in Pennsylvania.
Senior Fellow, National Review
Bestselling author Andrew C. McCarthy is a contributing editor at National Review, a senior fellow at National Review Institute, and a Fox News contributor. He is a former Chief Assistant United States Attorney in the Southern District of New York and led the terrorism prosecution against the “Blind Sheikh” (Omar Abdel Rahman) and eleven other jihadists for conducting a war of urban terrorism against the United States that included the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and a plot to bomb New York City landmarks. During is 20-year career as a prosecutor, he received numerous honors, including the Justice Department’s highest awards. Andy speaks and writes widely on law and national security, radical Islam, politics, and culture. He has testified before Congress as an expert on issues of constitutional law, counterterrorism, and law-enforcement. He is a columnist for The Hill, and his essays and book reviews appear frequently at The New Criterion. His most recent New York Times bestselling book is Ball of Collusion (Encounter Books, 2019), about the Russiagate controversy (an updated version was published in 2020). His other books include Willful Blindness (2008), The Grand Jihad (2010), Spring Fever: The Illusion of Islamic Democracy (2012), and Faithless Execution (2014). He has also written several pamphlets in the Broadside series published by Encounter Books, most recently Islam and Free Speech (2015).
Director of Muslim Matters, America Matters
Shireen Qudosi is an American Muslim writer and strategist. She specializes in understanding and defeating ideological drivers. Her articles have been featured in The Federalist, The Huffington Post, On Being, The Middle East Forum, Fox, and The Hill, among others. She’s appeared on Fox, BBC, Australia’s Radio National, NewsMax, and Breitbart to discuss challenges facing American Muslims.
Her keynote writings also include an in-depth assessment on the War on Terror through the lens of WWII and a two-hour exclusive interview with radical Imam Abu Taubah, who was linked to Orlando Shooter Omar Mateen. In 2016, Ms. Qudosi testified before the House Homeland Security Committee Hearing on Radical Islam, offering a powerful testimony that tied the current crisis to Islam's conflicted history.
Her experience has given her insight in forecasting the conversation among the world’s leading secular and religious Islamic leaders. As a former refugee raised across three continents, Ms. Qudosi has a unique perspective of the issues facing the U.S. and global Muslim community.
In 2011, she was also named one of the top ten North American Muslim Reformers. She presently serves as Director of Muslim Matters, at America Matters. She’s currently also working on her first book titled Islam’s Origin Story.
Hardie v. NCAA: Can the NCAA Bar Convicted Felons from Coaching in NCAA-Certified Recruiting Tournaments? - Podcast
Joshua Paul Thompson, Roger B. Clegg
Civil Rights Practice Group Podcast
Hardie v. NCAA is a recently argued case from the Ninth Circuit. It involves a...
2017 James Kent Summer Academy
The Federalist Society’s James Kent Summer Academy is a program for students and recent graduates...
Topics
SCOTUS Opinions and Orders update
Today the Supreme Court issued three opinions and a new Order List. A short summary follows:...
Topics
Federalist Society Presents 2017 Bator Award
On Saturday, March 4, the Federalist Society presented the 2017 Paul M. Bator Award to...
Topics
Student Symposium Livestream: Universities and the First Amendment
Universities have long been thought of, and cherished, as places for the free exchange of...
Freddie & Fannie Shareholder Litigation Update - Podcast
John Carney, Jason Alan Levine
Litigation Practice Group Podcast
During the 2008 financial crisis, Congress provided Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac with billions of...
Courthouse Steps: Packingham v. North Carolina - Podcast
Ilya Shapiro
Free Speech & Election Law Practice Group Podcast
In Packingham v. North Carolina, the Supreme Court will decide whether the First Amendment bars...
Topics
Should Bar Disciplinary Committees Conduct Political Fact-Checking?
On February 20, fifteen law professors submitted a complaint to the D.C. bar seeking discipline...
Travel Moratorium Executive Order - Podcast
David J. Bier, Andrew McCarthy, Shireen Qudosi
International & National Security Law Practice Group Podcast
On January 21, President Trump signed an executive order “Protecting the nation from foreign terrorist...
Topics
Regulation by Litigation at the State Level
Last week, Peggy Little and the Competitive Enterprise Institute published Pirates at the Parchment Gates,...