Professor of Law, South Texas College of Law Houston
Josh Blackman is a national thought leader on constitutional law and the United States Supreme Court. Josh’s work was quoted during two presidential impeachment trials. He has testified before Congress and advises federal and state lawmakers. Josh regularly appears on TV, including NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox, and the BBC. Josh is also a frequent guest on NPR and other syndicated radio programs. He has published commentaries in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and leading national publications.
Since 2012, Josh has served as a professor at the South Texas College of Law Houston. He holds the Centennial Chair of Constitutional Law. Josh is an Adjunct Fellow at the Manhattan Institute. Josh has written more than seven dozen law review articles that have been cited more than a thousand times. Josh was selected as the Jurist of the Year by the Texas Journal of Law & Public Policy, received the inaugural Meese III Originalism Award, and was awarded the Inaugural Joseph Story Award. Josh was selected by Forbes Magazine for the “30 Under 30” in Law and Policy. Josh is the President of the Harlan Institute, and founded FantasySCOTUS, the Internet’s Premier Supreme Court Fantasy League. He blogs at the Volokh Conspiracyand posts@JoshMBlackman.
Professor of Law, University of Baltimore School of Law (on leave); Senior Counsel, U.S. Department of Justice
Professor Dolin’s scholarship centers on patent law with a specific focus on how the patent regime affects innovation, especially in bio-pharmaceutical areas. His work in these areas includes a number of scholarly articles, presentations, amicus briefs, and congressional testimony.
Dr. Dolin is currently on leave from his academic duties while he serves as Senior Counsel in the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice.
From January 2020 to January 2022, Professor Dolin served as a resident Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Palau. In this role, he (together with other members of the Court) heard appeals in civil, criminal, administrative, and constitutional law matters.
Prior to joining the University of Baltimore School of Law, Professor Dolin held visiting appointments in other law schools. He also served as a law clerk to the Hon. Pauline Newman, of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and the late Hon. H. Emory Widener Jr., of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
Rumors that he has a real Russian bear in his office are entirely true.
Assistant Professor, George Mason University School of Law
Assistant Professor Christopher M. Newman graduated magna cum laude from the University of Michigan Law School in 1999, where he served as book review editor for the Michigan Law Review and received Michigan's highest law school award, the Henry M. Bates Memorial Scholarship. He also holds a BA in classical liberal arts awarded by St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland.
Following law school, Professor Newman was a clerk for the Honorable Alex Kozinski of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, with whom he co-published What's So Fair About Fair Use?, 46 J. Copyright Soc'y 513 (1999). From 2000-2007, he was a litigation associate with Irell & Manella LLP in Los Angeles, where he represented clients in disputes involving contracts, business torts, intellectual property, corporate and securities litigation, and appellate matters, as well as pro bono family and criminal law matters. Professor Newman left practice at the beginning of 2007 to serve an Olin/Searle Fellowship in Law at the UCLA School of Law, where he focused on his research and writing in the areas of property theory and intellectual property, and from January 2008 until his arrival at Mason Law served as a research fellow of UCLA's Intellectual Property Project.
Chief Policy Counsel, Council on Criminal Justice and Senior Advisor, Right on Crime
Marc A. Levin is the Chief Policy Counsel for the Council on Criminal Justice (counciloncj.org) and Senior Advisor for Right on Crime.
An attorney and accomplished author on legal and public policy issues, Marc began the Foundation’s criminal justice program in 2005. This work contributed to nationally praised policy changes that have been followed by dramatic declines in crime and incarceration in Texas. Building on this success, in 2010, Levin developed the concept for the Right on Crime initiative, a TPPF project in partnership with Prison Fellowship and the American Conservative Union Foundation. Right on Crime has become the national clearinghouse for conservative criminal justice reforms and has contributed to the adoption of policies in dozens of states that fight crime, support victims, and protect taxpayers.
In 2014, Levin was named one of the “Politico 50” in the magazine’s annual “list of thinkers, doers, and dreamers who really matter in this age of gridlock and dysfunction.”
Marc has testified on criminal justice policy on four occasions before Congress and has testified before legislatures in states including Texas, Nevada, Kansas, Wisconsin, and California. He also has met personally with leaders such as U.S. Presidents, Speakers of the House, and the Justice Commtitee of the United Kingdom Parliament to share his ideas on criminal justice reform. In 2007, he was honored in a resolution unanimously passed by the Texas House of Representatives that stated, “Mr. Levin’s intellect is unparalleled and his research is impeccable.”
Since 2005, Marc has published dozens of policy papers on topics such as sentencing, probation, parole, reentry, and overcriminalization which are available on the TPPF website. Levin’s articles on law and public policy have been featured in publications such as the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Texas Review of Law & Politics, National Law Journal, New York Daily News, Jerusalem Post, Toronto Star, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Philadelphia Inquirer, San Francisco Chronicle, Washington Times, Los Angeles Daily Journal, Charlotte Observer, Dallas Morning News, Houston Chronicle, Austin American-Statesman, San Antonio Express-News and Reason Magazine.
In 1999, Marc graduated with honors from the University of Texas with a B.A. in Plan II Honors and Government. In 2002, Marc received his J.D. with honors from the University of Texas School of Law. Marc was a Charles G. Koch Summer Fellow in 1996. He served as a law clerk to Judge Will Garwood on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and Staff Attorney at the Texas Supreme Court.
President, R Street Institute
Eli Lehrer is president and co-founder of the R Street Institute, a free-market think tank. He oversees R Street’s central headquarters in Washington, D.C., as well as its field offices in Sacramento, Calif.; Tallahassee, Fla.; Columbus, Ohio; and Austin, Texas.
Prior to co-founding R Street, Mr. Lehrer was vice president of the Heartland Institute. He also played a major role in founding SmarterSafer.org, a coalition of taxpayer, environmental, insurance and free-market groups dedicated to risk-based insurance rates, mitigation and environmental protection.
He is the author of several academic book chapters on emergency management and insurance topics; and was editor of Heartland’s “Seven Big Ideas for Congress.” His research has been cited in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and USA Today.
Mr. Lehrer worked as speechwriter to U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn. He previously worked as a manager in Unisys Corp.’s Homeland Security Practice, was senior editor of The American Enterprise magazine, and a fellow of the Heritage Foundation.
Mr. Lehrer earned a bachelor of arts, cum laude, from Cornell University and a master’s with honors from Johns Hopkins University, where his master’s thesis focused on the Federal Emergency Management Agency. His work has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today, Washington Times, Weekly Standard, National Review, Public Interest, Salon and dozens of other publications. He is an associate editor of National Affairs and is a member of the board of the Log Cabin Republicans, an organization representing gay and lesbian conservatives and their allies.
Mr. Lehrer lives in Virginia with his wife, Kari, and son, Andrew.
Stoneleigh Fellow and Director, Center on Youth Registration Ref, Impact Justice
Nicole Pittman has worked exclusively on questioning the wisdom of placing children on sex offender registries since 2005, becoming a leading national expert on policy, litigation, legislation, and research in this area. In 2011, Ms. Pittman published, "A Snapshot of Juvenile Sex Offender Registration and Notification Laws: A Survey of the United States", a comprehensive reference guide on sex offender registration and notification laws applied to children adjudicated delinquent in the U.S. juvenile justice system.
As a 2011 Soros Senior Justice Advocacy Fellow at Human Rights Watch, Ms. Pittman interviewed hundreds of individuals raised on registries across the country to document the abuses that stem from subjecting children to sex offender registration laws. In 2013, Human Rights Watch published the results of her work in Raised on the Registry: The Irreparable Harm of Placing Children on Sex Offender Registries in the US. The report became the first comprehensive examination of the harm of placing children on sex offender registries and features first-person narratives illustrating the harrowing treatment of children, as young as 8, 10, and 12 years old, subjected to lifetime sex offender registration and public notification.
Ms. Pittman has been invited to testify on this issue before 37 state legislatures and the U.S. Congress. She has cultivated and maintained long-term partnerships with several key stakeholders, including juvenile defender organizations; criminal defense policy groups; members of Congress; state officials and legislators; the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children; the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Juvenile Justice Delinquency and Prevention (OJJDP) and various state chapters of organizations for individuals on registries.
Through her Stoneleigh Fellowship, Ms. Pittman is serving as the Director of the Center on Youth Registration Reform at Impact Justice. This national Center supports federal and state lawmakers and leaders working to make communities safer and eliminate the placement of youth on registries through technical, legal, and programmatic assistance. To advance this work, Ms. Pittman is actively collaborating with numerous stakeholders and thought leaders in the fields of sexual violence prevention, reentry, alternative sentencing, and restorative justice.
For seven years, Ms. Pittman worked as a specialist attorney with the Defender Association of Philadelphia. She is the recipient of the 2013 Distinguished Service Award, Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers (ATSA) and the 2010 National Juvenile Defender Center Robert Shepherd Jr. Leadership Award of Excellence in Juvenile Defense. In 2015, she was named a “Rising Star” by Ozy.com for her work to remove youth from sex offender registries. Ms. Pittman received her JD from Tulane Law School and her undergraduate degree from Duke University.
President, Stop Child Predators
Stacie D. Rumenap is President of Stop Child Predators (SCP). Ms. Rumenap previously served as SCP's Executive Director and brings with her extensive insight and experience into legislative affairs, non-profit management and a dedication to ending the sexual exploitation of children. As president, Ms. Rumenap manages the day-to-day operations of SCP and is responsible for developing partnerships and coalitions with similarly motivated organizations; provides guidance and assistance to state and federal lawmakers to bring about legislative change; and leads Internet safety training programs.
Prior to joining SCP, Ms. Rumenap served as the Deputy Director for the American Conservative Union (ACU), the nation's oldest and largest conservative grassroots issue-advocacy organization, where she directed the ACU's annual Conservative Political Action Conference and served as one of the group's principle lobbyists. Ms. Rumenap has also served as the Executive Director for both U.S. Term Limits and the National Center for Growth, worked on Capitol Hill, and worked on three successful congressional campaigns. Ms. Rumenap currently serves on the Boards of Directors of the America's Future Foundation and the Safe Internet Alliance. She is a former board member of the Initiative and Referendum Institute and the Georgia State Society. Ms. Rumenap received her M.A. in Legislative Affairs from George Washington University and her B.A. in Journalism from Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania.
Clinical Professor, University of Texas at Austin School of Law
Steven T. Collis researches and teaches on religion and law and other First Amendment topics. He is the founding faculty director of the Bech-Loughlin First Amendment Center and of Texas's Law & Religion Clinic. On the topic of religious freedom law, he is a sought-after speaker to academic and lay audiences across the United States, including foreign diplomats from countries in Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and South America on behalf of the United States State Department. He has been interviewed by and quoted in various news and media outlets, including The Deseret News, Bloomberg, The Washington Times, Law360, The Salt Lake Tribune, PBS, The Denver Business Journal, Law Week Colorado, CBN News, and numerous podcasts and television shows. His scholarly work has appeared in The Michigan Law Review, The Nebraska Law Review, The University of Denver Law Review Online, and in his book Deep Conviction, which brings to life the history of free exercise law in the United States for lay audiences.
Prior to joining Texas, Steven was the Olin-Darling Research Fellow in the Constitutional Law Center at Stanford Law School.
Earlier in his career, he was an equity partner at Holland & Hart LLP, where he chaired the firm’s nationwide religious institutions and First Amendment practice group and was a member of the firm's complex civil litigation and employment practice groups. He also taught religious liberty law at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law and clerked for Chief Judge Timothy M. Tymkovich of the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.
Steven graduated magna cum laude from the University of Michigan Law School, where he was elected to the Order of the Coif and served as an editor on The Michigan Law Review and The Michigan Journal of Race and Law. He also holds an M.F.A. in creative writing from Virginia Commonwealth University, where he served as the associate editor of the literary journal Blackbird. He completed his undergraduate studies, with university honors, at Brigham Young University.
Partner, Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP
Jeffrey T. Dinwoodie is a member of the Financial Institutions Group at Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP. Mr. Dinwoodie previously served as Chief Counsel to the Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and as Head of the Office of Financial Institutions at the U.S. Department of the Treasury.
Mr. Dinwoodie has broad experience advising financial institutions, companies and investors, as well as government officials, across multiple disciplines. His practice focuses on advising clients on financial regulation and compliance, enforcement and examinations, and M&A and other corporate transactions. Mr. Dinwoodie’s practice also covers policy and regulatory strategy matters. Mr. Dinwoodie’s clients include established institutions, emerging companies and entrepreneurs—and his work spans both traditional finance and innovation‑related and crypto asset issues.
Partner, Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP
Annette L. Nazareth is a Davis Polk partner practicing in the firm’s Financial Institutions Group in the Washington DC office. She advises clients across a broad range of complex regulatory matters and transactions. She also works closely with Davis Polk’s SEC enforcement practice, counseling nonfinancial sector corporations that are subject to government regulatory and enforcement actions.
Ms. Nazareth was a key financial services policymaker for more than a decade. She joined the SEC Staff in 1998 as a Senior Counsel to Chairman Arthur Levitt and then served as Interim Director of the Division of Investment Management. She served as Director of the Division of Market Regulation (now the Division of Trading and Markets) from 1999 to 2005. As Director, she oversaw the regulation of broker-dealers, exchanges, clearing agencies, transfer agents and securities information processors. In 2005, she was appointed an SEC Commissioner. During her tenure at the Commission, she worked on numerous groundbreaking initiatives, including execution quality disclosure rules, implementation of equities decimal pricing, short sale reforms and modernization of the national market system rules. Ms. Nazareth also served as the Commission’s representative on the Financial Stability Forum from 1999 to 2008.
Since leaving the SEC in January 2008, she has served as Rapporteur for the Group of Thirty’s report, The Structure of Financial Supervision: Approaches and Challenges in a Global Marketplace and as Project Director for their report, Enhancing Financial Stability and Resilience: Macroprudential Policy, Tools and Systems for the Future. Earlier in her career, she held a number of senior legal positions at several investment banks.
United States v. Texas - Post-Argument SCOTUScast
Josh Blackman
SCOTUScast 5-12-16 featuring Josh Blackman
On April 18, 2016, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in United States v. Texas....
Sen. John Thune bullies Facebook over suggested bias
Cuozzo Speed Technologies, LLC v. Lee - Post-Argument SCOTUScast
Gregory Dolin
SCOTUScast 5-12-16 featuring Gregory Dolin
On April 25, 2016, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Cuozzo Speed Technologies, LLC...
Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons - Post-Argument SCOTUScast
Christopher Newman
SCOTUScast 5-12-16 featuring Christopher Newman
On April 25, 2016, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley...
Topics
What 20 Years of Internet Law Teaches Us about Innovation Policy
The Internet and the Digital Revolution gave us an abundance of riches—powerful computers, tablets, and...
Scarlet Letters and Federal Mandates: Reconsidering Juvenile Sex Offender Registration and the Adam Walsh Act - Podcast
Marc Levin, Eli Lehrer, Nicole Pittman, Stacie Rumenap
Criminal Law & Procedure Practice Group Podcast
Given the understandable public fear of sexual predators, policies concerning sex offenders have often become...
Topics
More sex offender registry background
Stormans v. Wiesman: Paths to Strict Scrutiny in Religious Free Exercise Cases
Steven T. Collis
Federalist Society Review, Volume 17, Issue 2
Note from the Editor: This article is about Stormans v. Wiesman, a case from the 9th...
The Department of Labor’s Fiduciary Rulemaking: Impacts, Implications and Related Policy Issues - Podcast
Jeffrey T. Dinwoodie, Annette L. Nazareth
Financial Services & E-Commerce Practice Group Podcast
On April 6, 2016, the Department of Labor released its much-anticipated “fiduciary” rulemaking, which will...
Topics
Adam Walsh Act Teleforum Preview, Continued
The Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006 established a national sex offender...