Associate Justice, North Carolina Supreme Court
Early Years
Personal Information
Married to Susan Awbrey Hunter. One son, Robert Neal Hunter III; two step-sons, Chris Awbrey Steele and Alan Baret Steel; two grandchildren; Member of First Presbyterian Church, Greensboro, North Carolina
Partner, Robinson & Lawing, LLP
When Mike Robinson was six years old, he wrote a brief essay in school about what he wanted to be when he grew up. While the other kids in his class wanted to be firemen, cowboys, ballerinas and football players, Mike knew he wanted to be a lawyer and one day a judge. Since that time, he never wavered from those goals. Today, Mike has a distinguished law career and recently announced his candidacy for the Supreme Court of North Carolina.
For over 33 years, Mike has practiced law in North Carolina. In 1997, he was one of nine lawyers who formed, Robinson & Lawing, LLP. For the past six years he has served as one of its managing partners. Mike has concentrated his practice on matters involving complex civil litigation, medical malpractice defense, insurance defense, intellectual property matters, and corporate litigation planning and loss prevention. Mike is admitted to practice in North Carolina State Courts, the three U.S. District Courts in North Carolina, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court.
In addition to his professional accomplishments, Mike has served in numerous volunteer capacities with a number of charitable and civic organizations within the community.
Mike is a conservative who believes that judges do not make laws, but rather should enforce them. If elected to the North Carolina Supreme Court, Mike will be tough but fair and will apply the law as written by the state legislature. He will work hard to examine every case that comes before him and take a level-headed approach to his work.
Mike received his undergraduate degree from Davidson College and his juris doctor degree with honors from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Mike and his wife Wynn have lived in Winston-Salem for the past 33 years. They have four grown children (three sons and a daughter), two daughters-in-law and two granddaughters.
Founding Dean & Professor, Kenneth F. Kahn School of Law at High Point University
Hon. Mark Martin is the founding dean and professor of law at the Kenneth F. Kahn School of Law at High Point University.
Mark served as Chief Justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court from 2014-2019. He also served on that Court as an Associate Justice, on the North Carolina Court of Appeals, and on a North Carolina Superior Court.
The Chief Justice of the United States appointed Mark to the Committee on Federal-State Jurisdiction of the United States Judicial Conference. He also served on the board of directors of the Conference of Chief Justices.
Mark chairs the Thomson Reuters Judicial Advisory Council. He is a member of the American Law Institute, where he assists with the Third Restatement, Conflict of Laws, and serves on the Region 15 Advisory Committee.
Mark has served on the adjunct faculties of Duke University, North Carolina Central University, and the University of North Carolina law schools. Mark co-taught a course on the various modes of constitutional interpretation with Associate Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. of the United States Supreme Court from 2020-2022.
North Carolina Court of Appeals
Sam J. Ervin, IV, was born in Morganton, North Carolina, on November 18, 1955. He attended the public schools in Burke County, North Carolina, graduating from Freedom High School in 1974. In 1978, Judge Ervin was awarded an A.B., magna cum laude, from Davidson College. After graduating from Davidson, he attended Harvard Law School, from which he received a J.D., cum laude, in 1981.
From 1981 until 1999, Judge Ervin practiced law with the Morganton, North Carolina firm of Byrd, Byrd, Ervin, Whisnant, McMahon, P.A., and its predecessors. While in private practice, Judge Ervin handled a wide variety of civil, criminal, and administrative matters, including many appeals to the North Carolina Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court of North Carolina.
In 1999, Judge Ervin was nominated for a seat on the North Carolina Utilities Commission by Governor James B. Hunt, Jr. He was nominated for a second term on the Utilities Commission by Governor Michael F. Easley in 2007. Both appointments were confirmed by the General Assembly. The Utilities Commission is a quasi-judicial body that is responsible for regulating electric, natural gas, telecommunications, water and sewer, and certain types of transportation service provided to retail customers in North Carolina by privately-owned entities. During his service as a member of the Utilities Commission, Judge Ervin was involved in deciding many important regulatory matters, including, but not limited to, electric and natural gas rate proceedings, electric and natural gas business combination proceedings, proceedings involving applications by electric utilities for authority to construct new generation and transmission facilities, proceedings involving the approval of telecommunications price regulation plans, proceedings arbitrating or otherwise examining the terms and conditions under which competitive telecommunications providers were allowed to interconnect with incumbents, and proceedings addressing issues relating to the adequacy of water and sewer service in certain specific locations.
In addition, Judge Ervin was extensively involved in the activities of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC), having served as Chairman of that organization's Subcommittee on Nuclear Issues and Waste Disposal from 2002 until 2005; as Chairman of that organization's Committee on Electricity from 2004 until 2007; and as a member of its Task Force on Climate Policy from 2007 through 2008. As part of his involvement in NARUC, Judge Ervin supervised its participation in the process that led to the implementation of the Energy Policy Act of 2005. While a member of the Utilities Commission, Judge Ervin testified on two different occasions before the Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality of the Committee on Commerce of the United States House of Representatives. Judge Ervin was a regular speaker at energy-related conferences and seminars during his service as a Utilities Commissioner.
Judge Ervin has also been, at various times, involved in a wide variety of church-related, bar-related, and charitable activities. He is married to Mary Temple Ervin and has two children and two step-children.
Judge Ervin was elected to the North Carolina Court of Appeals at the November 4, 2008, general election. His term as a member of the Court of Appeals commenced on January 1, 2009, and extends until December 31, 2017.
Associate Justice, North Carolina Supreme Court
Early Years
Born in DeKalb County, Georgia in 1952, Robin E. Hudson moved to Greensboro, NC with her family in 1966.
Professional Background
Admitted to the North Carolina Bar in 1976 and practiced law in Raleigh and Durham until her election to the Court of Appeals in November 2000. She is the first North Carolina woman elected to the appellate court division without having been appointed first. She served on the NC Court of Appeals from January 2001 until December 2006. During that time, she helped organize and coordinate the Court of Appeals voluntary mediation program. She began her 8-year term on the Supreme Court in January 2007.
Except for 3 years as assistant appellant defender in the mid-1980's, she practiced law in the private sector and handled a variety of trials and appeals, but concentrated on workers' compensation and tort litigation, with particular emphasis on occupational diseases and products liability. She practiced extensively before the Industrial Commission, as well as in State and Federal courts. Since 1994, she has been certified to mediate cases from Superior Court and the Industrial Commission.
Graduate of Page Senior High School, Greensboro, 1969. Graduated from Yale University in 1973 with a BA degree in philosophy and psychology. Received J.D. from the University of North Carolina School of Law in 1976.
Seventh Division of the Superior Court, North Carolina
Judge Eric Levinson joined the District Attorney’s Office in Cabarrus and Rowan Counties, N.C. as a felony prosecutor following law school, and he prosecuted drug, property, sexual assault, and homicide offenders.
Judge Eric Levinson was elected to the N.C. judiciary in 1996 as a District and Family Court Judge in Charlotte, N.C. In this role, he was recognized for implementing best-practices in our criminal and child support enforcement courts and became a N.C. Certified Juvenile Court Judge.
Judge Eric Levinson was elected statewide in 2002 as one of fifteen members of the N.C. Court of Appeals in Raleigh, N.C., where he served as an Associate Judge and the Court’s youngest member. He authored hundreds of legal opinions in disputes and lawsuits concerning criminal, civil and administrative matters.
Judge Eric Levinson was appointed by the Bush Administration in 2007 as the Justice Attache to Iraq for the U.S. Department of Justice. As Justice Attache, Levinson managed the U.S. government’s diplomatic relationship with the Iraqi judiciary and its Chief Justice, Medhat al Mahmoud, and advanced the establishment of Major Crimes Courts where terrorists were prosecuted.
Judge Eric Levinson worked in Kabul, Afghanistan as a Rule of Law and Courts Advisor in 2008. In this role, he collaborated with members of the Supreme Court of Afghanistan and helped draft and advance guidelines to establish commercial courts to adjudicate business, contract and related civil conflicts.
Judge Eric Levinson was appointed to the N.C. Superior Court in 2009 after a bipartisan group of Republican and Democratic lawmakers, business professionals, attorneys and community stakeholders endorsed his appointment. Levinson presently holds court in counties all across western, central and eastern N.C. and presides over violent crimes against persons (homicide, sexual assault, armed robbery, serious assault) as well as civil conflicts (complex business disputes, class action, property).
Judge Eric Levinson gained his Juris Doctorate from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Law where he was President of the Student Bar Association. He obtained a BBA in Finance,cum laude, at the University of Georgia, where he was an Honors Program student. Levinson also completed the Institute on Comparative Political and Economic Systems through the Fund for American Studies in Washington, D.C. and Georgetown University, and completed a program in International Finance hosted by the University of London, England. He is a certified Superior Court mediator, and is a N.C. Certified Juvenile Court Judge.
Fmr. Chief Justice, North Carolina Supreme Court
Chief Justice Cheri Beasley has spent more than 20 years dedicated to the rule of law. She began her judicial career as a district court judge in Cumberland County, where she served for a decade before being elected to the North Carolina Court of Appeals in 2008. She served as an associate justice on the Supreme Court of North Carolina for seven years before being appointed by Governor Roy Cooper to lead the Supreme Court and North Carolina's third branch of government, the Judicial Branch. She is the first African-American woman in the Supreme Court’s 200-year history to serve as Chief Justice.
Chief Justice Beasley has spent her entire career advocating for courts that are independent, fair, and accessible, and that serve every person with dignity and respect. As Chief Justice, she is advocating for a court system that not only solves legal disputes, but also helps people better their lives. By engaging local judges, educators and law enforcement, she is helping to reform discipline in our schools and keeping kids out of our courtrooms. She is committed to expanding specialized treatment courts that better serve the needs of North Carolina’s children and families. She is also working to leverage the power of technology to make sure our courts are efficient and accessible.
She has lectured extensively to promote the administration of justice, the importance of an independent judiciary, and fair judicial selection. She is active in her community through leadership in her church, First Baptist of Raleigh, her support of hunger relief efforts, and her mentoring of students from elementary school to law school. She is a graduate of Douglass College of Rutgers University, the University of Tennessee College of Law, and Duke University School of Law where she obtained her LL.M. She and her husband, Curtis Owens, are the proud parents of twin sons, Thomas and Matthew.
Vice President of Marketing and Communications, John Locke Foundation
As Vice President of Marketing and Communications, Donna shares the foundation’s message of freedom, free markets, and limited government across media platforms. She co-hosts Carolina Journal Radio, a weekly syndicated radio show produced by JLF and heard on more than a dozen stations across North Carolina. Donna came to JLF in 2003 after freelance writing for Carolina Journal and contributing to projects for the North Carolina Education Alliance. Her career has been spent in marketing, public relations, and broadcasting, and includes time at UNC-TV and The Arizona Republic, the daily newspaper serving metropolitan Phoenix. Donna is a graduate of Arizona State University and is married to Rick Martinez. She and Rick co-host “You Don’t Say,” a daily radio talk show heard on NewsRadio 680 WPTF in the Triangle.
Sr Corporate Counsel, Cisco Systems, Inc.
Partner, BakerHostetler, Adjunct Fellow, The Manhattan Institute
Andrew Grossman leads BakerHostetler’s Appellate and Major Motion team. He has appeared before the U.S. Supreme Court, nearly all the federal courts of appeals, as well as some state appellate courts, litigating high-profile and complex commercial, administrative and constitutional issues.
Andrew works with practice groups across BakerHostetler to identify and tackle complex issues, advise on administrative law and strategy, tee up issues for appeal and tackle appeals. He has developed and implemented litigation and administrative strategies for clients in several fields and industries.
In addition to his practice, Andrew advises members of Congress on matters of constitutional and administrative law, having testified more than a dozen times before the House and Senate Judiciary Committees. He has been a frequent legal commentator on radio and television, having appeared on Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, NPR and its affiliates, CBN and elsewhere. His legal commentary has also appeared in dozens of magazines and newspapers, including The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The Washington Post, The Washington Times and many others.
Andrew is a Senior Legal Fellow at the Buckeye Institute, an Adjunct Fellow the Manhattan Institute and a member of the leadership of the Federalist Society. He previously served as an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute’s Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies and a legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation’s Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies. He clerked for Judge Edith H. Jones on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
Professor, University of Illinois College of Law
Robin Fretwell Wilson is the Mildred Van Voorhis Jones Chair in Law at the University of Illinois College of Law.
A scholar in family law, bioethics and law and religion, Professor Wilson has worked extensively on behalf of state and federal law reform efforts in each realm.
Across two decades, she has worked to secure laws protecting the autonomy of patients to decide when they will be used to teach intimate exams to medical students, laws now in place in 22 states—sixteen of which have been enacted since 2019.
Professor Wilson is known for bridging differences in the culture war. In 2015, she spent a month in residence with the Utah legislature, helping Utah state lawmakers to pass anti-discrimination legislation that balances religious liberty and LGBT rights. In 2019, Professor Wilson assisted the governor of Utah to craft regulations banning gay conversion therapy. In 2019, she also aided U.S. Representative Chris Stewart with portions of the “Fairness for All” he introduced in Congress. A member of the American Law Institute and a Fulbright Specialist, Professor Wilson has served as a consultant to the United Arab Emirates’ Judicial Department as they sought to create a parallel court system for the adjudication by expatriates of family law matters using the laws of their home country or of their faith traditions.
Professor Wilson is the author of 20 books, including her 2018 book, Religious Freedom, LGBT Rights, and the Prospects for Common Ground, with Yale University Professor William Eskridge, Jr., which is now in paperback at Cambridge University Press. Her other books include: The Contested Place of Religion in Family Law (Cambridge University Press, 2018, ed.), Reconceiving the Family: Critical Reflections on the American Law Institute’s Principles of the Law of Family Dissolution (Cambridge University Press, 2006, ed.); The Handbook of Children, Culture & Violence (Sage Publications, 2006, with Nancy Dowd and Dorothy Singer, eds.); Same-Sex Marriage and Religious Liberty: Emerging Conflicts (Rowman & Littlefield, 2008, with Douglas Laycock and Anthony Picarello, eds.); Health Law and Bioethics: Cases in Context (Aspen, 2008, with Joan Krause, Sandra Johnson, and Richard Saver, eds.); Domestic Relations: Cases and Materials, 8th edition (Foundation Press, 2017, with Walter Wadlington and Raymond C. O’Brien); and Understanding Family Law, 4th edition (LexisNexis, 2013, with John DeWitt Gregory and Peter N. Swisher). Her articles have appeared in the Boston College Law Review, Cornell Law Review, Emory Law Journal, Illinois Law Review, North Carolina Law Review, San Diego Law Review, U.C. Davis Law Review, and Washington and Lee Law Review, as well as in numerous peer-reviewed journals.
In 2010 and again in 2016, Professor Wilson was ranked among the Top Ten Family Law Scholars in the United States for scholarly impact. She ranks among the Top 10% of Authors in all time downloads on the Social Science Research Network. Professor Wilson’s scholarship has been cited by the Fifth, Seventh and Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, the Minnesota Court of Appeals, lower federal courts, and the Supreme Courts of Delaware, Illinois, Iowa, and Washington.
Professor Wilson’s work has been featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, National Public Radio’s All Things Considered, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, The Atlantic Monthly, U.S. News and World Report, ABA Journal, Chronicle of Higher Education, Chicago Tribune, CNN Headline News, Good Morning America, ABC News, CBS News, Philadelphia Inquirer, Essence Magazine, The American Prospect, People Magazine, The American Conservative, The Australian, and Al Jazeera, among others. She has presented her research across the world, including the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, as well as in Argentina, Brazil, Peru, Chile, China, Israel, Qatar, the Netherlands, Italy, England, Wales, Poland, Spain, Serbia, Japan, Canada, Norway, Denmark, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Turkey, and France.
Professor Wilson has seven times been honored for her work on innovative laws that respect all persons. In 2007, she received the Citizen’s Legislative Award for her work on changing Virginia’s informed consent law. In 2018, Professor Wilson received the Thomas L. Kane Religious Freedom Award from the J. Reuben Clark Law Society, which is presented annually to an individual who exemplifies the spirit of religious liberty for all and who has contributed in significant ways to the defense of religious freedom in the public square.
In 2018, Professor Wilson was honored as one of the 150 for 150: Celebrating the Accomplishments of Women at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for its sesquicentennial celebration. In 2020, Professor Wilson received the 2020 Larine Y. Cowan Make a Difference Award for Advocacy for LGBTQ Affairs, a university-wide honor given by the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Founder and Senior Director, Institutional Religious Freedom Alliance
Stanley Carlson-Thies is the Founder and Senior Director of the Institutional Religious Freedom Alliance (IRFA), a division of the Center for Public Justice. As part of this role, he convenes the Coalition to Preserve Religious Freedom, a multi-faith alliance of social-service, education, and religious freedom organizations that advocates for the religious freedom of faith-based organizations to Congress and the federal government. In addition he is also a Senior Fellow at the Canadian think tank Cardus.
From 2009-2010 he served on a task force of President Obama’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, helping to draft recommendations on how to clarify the church-state rules that apply to federal funding of social-service providers, and has consulted with federal departments and several states.
He served with the White House Office of Faith-Based & Community Initiatives from its inception in February 2001 until mid-May 2002. He assisted with writing “Unlevel Playing Field: Barriers to Participation by Faith-Based and Community Organizations in Federal Social Service Programs,” a report released by the White House in August 2001, and “Rallying the Armies of Compassion,” the initial blueprint for President George W. Bush’s faith and community agenda.
Previously, he was Director of Social Policy Studies for CPJ and directed CPJ’s project to track the implementation and impact of the Charitable Choice provision of the 1996 federal welfare reform law. Following his term in the White House, he returned to CPJ as the Director of Faith-based Policy Studies.
He received the William Bentley Ball Life and Religious Liberty Defense Award from the Center for Law and Religious Freedom and the Christian Legal Society in October 2004. He was named as one of 12 advocates who are “reinterpreting God and country” by the National Journal in May 2004. He holds a doctorate in political science from the University of Toronto. His dissertation is on the role of Protestants and Catholics in the development of Dutch politics in the 19th and 20th centuries. Besides the United States, he has lived in Canada, the Netherlands, and Japan, where he was born of missionary parents. He lives in Annapolis, Maryland, with his wife, Christiane. They are the proud parents of Simon.
Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law Center
Sheryll Cashin, Professor of Law at Georgetown University, teaches Administrative Law, Constitutional Law, and Race and American Law among other subjects. She writes about race relations, government and inequality in America. Her new book, Place Not Race: A New Vision of Opportunity in America (Beacon Press, 2014), argues that affirmative action as currently practiced does little to help disadvantaged people and offers a new framework for true inclusion. Her book, The Failures of Integration (PublicAffairs, 2004) was an Editors' Choice in the New York Times Book Review. Cashin is also a two-time nominee for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award for non-fiction (2005 and 2009). She has published widely in academic journals and written commentaries for several periodicals, including the L.A. Times, Washington Post, and Education Week.
Professor Cashin is an active member of the Poverty and Race Research Action Council (PRRAC) and Building ONE America, an emerging national network of state and regional coalitions promoting sustainable growth and social inclusion. She worked in the Clinton White House as an advisor on urban and economic policy, particularly concerning community development in inner-city neighborhoods. She was law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall and Judge Abner Mikva of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. She graduated summa cum laude from Vanderbilt University with a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering. As a Marshall Scholar, she went on to receive a masters in English Law with honors from Oxford University and a J.D. with honors from Harvard Law School where she was a member of the Harvard Law Review. Cashin was born and raised in Huntsville, Alabama, where her parents were political activists. She is married to Marque Chambliss and the mother of twin boys, Logan and Langston.
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).
Professor, Dale E. Fowler School of Law, Chapman University
Professor Bell joined the faculty of Fowler School of Law in 1998. Professor Bell specializes in high-tech legal issues and has written a variety of works on intellectual property and Internet law, including the book, Intellectual Privilege: Copyright, Common Law, and the Common Good (2014). He received his Juris Doctor from the University of Chicago Law School in 1993, where he served both as a member of the University of Chicago Law Review and as Articles Editor and cofounder of the University of Chicago Legal Roundtable. After graduating from law school, Professor Bell joined the Silicon Valley law firm of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. He entered teaching in 1995, when he became an Assistant Professor of Law in the Law and Technology Program at the University of Dayton School of Law. During a one year leave of absence from that school, and just prior to joining the Fowler School of Law faculty, he served as Director of Telecommunications and Technology Studies at the Cato Institute in Washington, D.C. Professor Bell joined the faculty of Fowler School of Law in 1998. In addition to writing a steady stream of scholarly works, Professor Bell has appeared on or been quoted in the Wall Street Journal, CNN, Economist, Los Angeles Times, and many other news sources, and starred in several online videos addressing timely legal issues.
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.
Partner, King & Spalding
Adam Conrad is a partner in the firm’s Intellectual Property Practice Group and its national appellate practice. Mr. Conrad joined the firm following a clerkship with United States Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. He also clerked for Judge David B. Sentelle, U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
Mr. Conrad frequently briefs cases in the Courts of Appeals and the United States Supreme Court in areas ranging from patent law to constitutional issues. He has successfully argued before the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. In addition, Mr. Conrad’s patent litigation experience includes analysis and strategy on critical issues, assisting with appellate preservation, drafting dispositive motions, and drafting post-trial motions.
United States Magistrate Judge, Eastern District of North Carolina
Robert T. Numbers, II serves as a United States Magistrate Judge in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina.
Judge Numbers received degrees in Political Science and Economics, with honors, from Wake Forest University. After completing his undergraduate work, Judge Numbers obtained his law degree from the University of Notre Dame where he served on the Notre Dame Law Review.
Upon his graduation from law school, Judge Numbers joined the Winston-Salem office of a large, regional law firm. From 2005 until 2010, Judge Numbers’ practice focused on civil rights claims against local municipalities and government contractors. In 2010, Judge Numbers joined the firm’s Raleigh office and concentrated his practice on complex business litigation in state and federal courts.
Counsel, King & Spalding
Bradley J. Lingo is a counsel in King & Spalding’s Charlotte office. He practices in the firm’s National Business Litigation Group.
Mr. Lingo has considerable experience guiding clients to successful resolutions of complex civil litigation matters. His work has encompassed a broad array of trial and appellate matters, but in recent years, much of it has focused on defending accounting firms against claims of malpractice and securities fraud. He has played a significant role in matters for three of the Big Four accounting firms. He also has experience representing clients facing regulatory investigations, including investigations by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Justice.
Mr. Lingo has maintained an active pro bono practice focusing on religious-liberties issues. Accounts of pro bono work spearheaded by Mr. Lingo have appeared on the front pages of the New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal.
Prior to joining King & Spalding, Mr. Lingo practiced in the Washington, D.C., office of Gibson Dunn and served as a law clerk to the Hon. Morris Sheppard Arnold of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. He received his law degree, cum laude, from Harvard Law School, where he was an executive editor of the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy. He graduated first in his class and summa cum laude from Grove City College. While there, he was elected student body vice-president and awarded the Calderwood Scholarship, which goes to the two rising seniors demonstrating outstanding scholarship, leadership, and service.
Mr. Lingo currently serves as Chairman of the Federalist Society's Charlotte Chapter. Super Lawyers named him one of North Carolina’s “Rising Stars” for 2014. He is admitted to practice in North Carolina and the District of Columbia.
Partner, King & Spalding
Adam Conrad is a partner in the firm’s Intellectual Property Practice Group and its national appellate practice. Mr. Conrad joined the firm following a clerkship with United States Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. He also clerked for Judge David B. Sentelle, U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
Mr. Conrad frequently briefs cases in the Courts of Appeals and the United States Supreme Court in areas ranging from patent law to constitutional issues. He has successfully argued before the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. In addition, Mr. Conrad’s patent litigation experience includes analysis and strategy on critical issues, assisting with appellate preservation, drafting dispositive motions, and drafting post-trial motions.
United States Magistrate Judge, Eastern District of North Carolina
Robert T. Numbers, II serves as a United States Magistrate Judge in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina.
Judge Numbers received degrees in Political Science and Economics, with honors, from Wake Forest University. After completing his undergraduate work, Judge Numbers obtained his law degree from the University of Notre Dame where he served on the Notre Dame Law Review.
Upon his graduation from law school, Judge Numbers joined the Winston-Salem office of a large, regional law firm. From 2005 until 2010, Judge Numbers’ practice focused on civil rights claims against local municipalities and government contractors. In 2010, Judge Numbers joined the firm’s Raleigh office and concentrated his practice on complex business litigation in state and federal courts.
Counsel, King & Spalding
Bradley J. Lingo is a counsel in King & Spalding’s Charlotte office. He practices in the firm’s National Business Litigation Group.
Mr. Lingo has considerable experience guiding clients to successful resolutions of complex civil litigation matters. His work has encompassed a broad array of trial and appellate matters, but in recent years, much of it has focused on defending accounting firms against claims of malpractice and securities fraud. He has played a significant role in matters for three of the Big Four accounting firms. He also has experience representing clients facing regulatory investigations, including investigations by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Justice.
Mr. Lingo has maintained an active pro bono practice focusing on religious-liberties issues. Accounts of pro bono work spearheaded by Mr. Lingo have appeared on the front pages of the New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal.
Prior to joining King & Spalding, Mr. Lingo practiced in the Washington, D.C., office of Gibson Dunn and served as a law clerk to the Hon. Morris Sheppard Arnold of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. He received his law degree, cum laude, from Harvard Law School, where he was an executive editor of the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy. He graduated first in his class and summa cum laude from Grove City College. While there, he was elected student body vice-president and awarded the Calderwood Scholarship, which goes to the two rising seniors demonstrating outstanding scholarship, leadership, and service.
Mr. Lingo currently serves as Chairman of the Federalist Society's Charlotte Chapter. Super Lawyers named him one of North Carolina’s “Rising Stars” for 2014. He is admitted to practice in North Carolina and the District of Columbia.
Supreme Court Correspondent, The Washington Post
Robert Barnes has been a Washington Post reporter and editor since 1987. He joined the paper to cover Maryland politics, and has served in various editing positions including metropolitan editor and national political editor . He has covered the Supreme Court since November 2006. He gave up law school plans for a life in newspapers after taking a journalism class in college. It did not occur to him, as it apparently did to others, that he could do both.
Director, Center for Energy, Climate, and Environment and The Herbert and Joyce Morgan Fellow in Energy and Environmental Policy, The Heritage Foundation
Diana Furchtgott-Roth is director of the Center for Energy, Climate, and Environment and the Herbert and Joyce Morgan Fellow in Energy and Environmental Policy at The Heritage Foundation. She is an Oxford-educated economist, a frequent guest on TV and radio shows, and a columnist for Forbes.
Diana worked in senior roles in the White House under Presidents Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush. She has served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology at the U.S. Department of Transportation; Acting Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy at the U.S. Department of Treasury; Chief Economist at the U.S. Department of Labor; Chief of Staff of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers; and Deputy Executive Secretary of the White House Domestic Policy Council.
Diana is the author or coauthor of six books and hundreds of articles on economic policy, including Regulating to Disaster: How Green Jobs Policies are Destroying America's Economy (Encounter Books, 2012). Her most recent book is United States Income, Wealth, Consumption, and Inequality (Oxford University Press, 2021). She received degrees in economics from Swarthmore College and Oxford University.
Professor of Law, University of San Diego School of Law (Retired)
Gail Heriot is a recently retired law professor from the University of San Diego. She also served as a member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights from 2007 to 2025. She is also the chairman of the board of the American Civil Rights Project and the chair emerita of the Civil Rights practice group at the Federalist Society for Law & Public Policy.
Professor Heriot is a prolific writer in the area of civil rights. She is the author of many law review articles. She is also the editor (along with Maimon Schwarzschild) of the 2021 anthology, A Dubious Expediency: How Race Preferences Damage Higher Education. Her upcoming book is entitled, Why We Walk on Eggshell: How Our Civil Rights Laws Helped Bring About the Woke Era—And the Trump Era, Too.
Her writings for a general audience have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the San Diego Union-Tribune, the National Review and many other newspapers and magazines.
In 1996, she co-chaired the successful “Yes on Proposition 209” campaign, which amended the California Constitution to prohibit state-sponsored discrimination or preferential treatment based on race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin. In 2020, she co-chaired the “No on Proposition 16” campaign, which successfully prevented Proposition 209’s repeal.
Senior Counsel & Director of Education Policy for At-Risk Studen, National Women's Law Center
Lara S. Kaufmann is Senior Counsel and Director for Education Policy for At-Risk Students. She works on the advancement of women and girls at school and in the workplace. Lara engages in litigation, advocacy, and public education, with a particular focus on improving educational outcomes for at-risk girls, including pregnant and parenting students. Lara co-authored the Center’s 2012 report, A Pregnancy Test for Schools: The Impact of Education Laws on Pregnant and Parenting Students, as well as its 2009 report, Listening to Latinas: Barriers to High School Graduation. Before joining the Center, Lara was a Staff Attorney with the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, and prior to that she was an Assistant United States Attorney in Chicago. Lara also worked with the law firm of McDermott, Will & Emery, and was law clerk to then-Chief Judge Marvin Aspen of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. Lara is a graduate of the University of Michigan and Northwestern University School of Law.
Supreme Court Correspondent, The Washington Post
Robert Barnes has been a Washington Post reporter and editor since 1987. He joined the paper to cover Maryland politics, and has served in various editing positions including metropolitan editor and national political editor . He has covered the Supreme Court since November 2006. He gave up law school plans for a life in newspapers after taking a journalism class in college. It did not occur to him, as it apparently did to others, that he could do both.
Director, Center for Energy, Climate, and Environment and The Herbert and Joyce Morgan Fellow in Energy and Environmental Policy, The Heritage Foundation
Diana Furchtgott-Roth is director of the Center for Energy, Climate, and Environment and the Herbert and Joyce Morgan Fellow in Energy and Environmental Policy at The Heritage Foundation. She is an Oxford-educated economist, a frequent guest on TV and radio shows, and a columnist for Forbes.
Diana worked in senior roles in the White House under Presidents Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush. She has served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology at the U.S. Department of Transportation; Acting Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy at the U.S. Department of Treasury; Chief Economist at the U.S. Department of Labor; Chief of Staff of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers; and Deputy Executive Secretary of the White House Domestic Policy Council.
Diana is the author or coauthor of six books and hundreds of articles on economic policy, including Regulating to Disaster: How Green Jobs Policies are Destroying America's Economy (Encounter Books, 2012). Her most recent book is United States Income, Wealth, Consumption, and Inequality (Oxford University Press, 2021). She received degrees in economics from Swarthmore College and Oxford University.
Professor of Law, University of San Diego School of Law (Retired)
Gail Heriot is a recently retired law professor from the University of San Diego. She also served as a member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights from 2007 to 2025. She is also the chairman of the board of the American Civil Rights Project and the chair emerita of the Civil Rights practice group at the Federalist Society for Law & Public Policy.
Professor Heriot is a prolific writer in the area of civil rights. She is the author of many law review articles. She is also the editor (along with Maimon Schwarzschild) of the 2021 anthology, A Dubious Expediency: How Race Preferences Damage Higher Education. Her upcoming book is entitled, Why We Walk on Eggshell: How Our Civil Rights Laws Helped Bring About the Woke Era—And the Trump Era, Too.
Her writings for a general audience have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the San Diego Union-Tribune, the National Review and many other newspapers and magazines.
In 1996, she co-chaired the successful “Yes on Proposition 209” campaign, which amended the California Constitution to prohibit state-sponsored discrimination or preferential treatment based on race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin. In 2020, she co-chaired the “No on Proposition 16” campaign, which successfully prevented Proposition 209’s repeal.
Senior Counsel & Director of Education Policy for At-Risk Studen, National Women's Law Center
Lara S. Kaufmann is Senior Counsel and Director for Education Policy for At-Risk Students. She works on the advancement of women and girls at school and in the workplace. Lara engages in litigation, advocacy, and public education, with a particular focus on improving educational outcomes for at-risk girls, including pregnant and parenting students. Lara co-authored the Center’s 2012 report, A Pregnancy Test for Schools: The Impact of Education Laws on Pregnant and Parenting Students, as well as its 2009 report, Listening to Latinas: Barriers to High School Graduation. Before joining the Center, Lara was a Staff Attorney with the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, and prior to that she was an Assistant United States Attorney in Chicago. Lara also worked with the law firm of McDermott, Will & Emery, and was law clerk to then-Chief Judge Marvin Aspen of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. Lara is a graduate of the University of Michigan and Northwestern University School of Law.
Senior Political Analyst, Washington Examiner
Michael Barone is a Senior Political Analyst for the Washington Examiner, where he writes a twice-weekly column and contributes to their Beltway Confidential blog. He is also a frequent contributor during Fox News Channel's election coverage.
Director of the Human Rights, Civil Rights, and Citizenship Prog, Constitutional Accountability Center
David joined CAC after serving as Program Director of Cardozo Law School's Floersheimer Center for Constitutional Democracy, and as an attorney with the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, where he worked with Bert Neuborne on appellate briefs in constitutional cases involving the First Amendment and voting rights. Previously, David was an Acting Assistant Professor at NYU School of Law and practiced law at Emery Cuti Brinckerhoff & Abady, PC, where he litigated a wide range of constitutional and civil rights cases. David has also served as an attorney fellow for the Center for Reproductive Law and Policy and as a law clerk for the Hon. Rosemary Barkett on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit. He is a graduate of Yale Law School, where he served as an editor on the Yale Law Review. His academic writings have appeared in the Yale Law Journal, the Boston University Law Review, the Emory Law Journal, the George Washington Law Review. Before receiving his law degree, David worked as a paralegal for the American Civil Liberties Union, where he helped Kathryn Kolbert prepare the briefs and argument in Planned Parenthood v. Casey. In 1993, David and Ms. Kolbert co-authored an article in the Temple Law Review titled "Responding to Planned Parenthood v. Casey: Establishing Neutrality Principles in State Constitutional Law." David received his undergraduate degree from Columbia University.
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.
Senior Legal Fellow, Edwin Meese III Institute for the Rule of Law, Advancing American Freedom
2014 North Carolina Supreme Court Candidate Forum - Event Videos
Robert N. Hunter, Michael L. Robinson, Mark D. Martin, Samuel J. Ervin, Robin Hudson, Eric Levinson, Cheri Beasley, Donna Martinez, Kevin Hales
Triangle Lawyers Chapter
In November, North Carolina voters will head to the polls to elect four of the...
Race-based Admissions Revisited: Fisher v. University of Texas - Podcast
Andrew Grossman
Civil Rights Practice Group Podcast
On July 25, 2014, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals issued its decision in Fisher v....
Executive Order 13672: The LGBT Executive Order - Podcast
Robin Fretwell Wilson, Stanley Carlson-Thies
Religious Liberties Practice Group Podcast
On July 21, 2014 President. Obama issued Executive Order 13672, amending EO 11246 which has...
Place, Not Race: A New Vision of Opportunity in America - Podcast
Sheryll D. Cashin, Roger B. Clegg
Civil Rights Practice Group Podcast
Race-based affirmative action had been declining as a factor in university admissions even before the...
Copyright Originalism - Podcast
Thomas W. Bell, Christopher Newman
Intellectual Property Practice Group Podcast
Professor Tom W. Bell, Chapman University, Fowler School of Law, participated in a Teleforum conference call...
Recent Decisions of the Supreme Court of North Carolina
Adam Conrad, Robert T. Numbers, Bradley Lingo, Wm Lambert
State Courts White Paper
This paper aims to inform North Carolinians about some of the important cases decided in...
Recent Decisions of the Supreme Court of North Carolina
Adam Conrad, Robert T. Numbers, Bradley Lingo, Wm Lambert
State Courts White Paper
This paper aims to inform North Carolinians about some of the important cases decided in...
Panel IV: Passion and Prudence in the Political Process: The Debate Over Federal Civil Rights Policy
Robert Barnes, Diana Furchtgott-Roth, Gail L. Heriot, Lara S. Kaufmann
Civil Rights in the United States
Emotions sometimes run high in the public debates over race and gender issues. Some claim...
Panel IV: Passion and Prudence in the Political Process: The Debate Over Federal Civil Rights Policy
Robert Barnes, Diana Furchtgott-Roth, Gail L. Heriot, Lara S. Kaufmann
Civil Rights in the United States
Emotions sometimes run high in the public debates over race and gender issues. Some claim...
Panel III: The Future of Voting Rights
Michael Barone, David H. Gans, Ilya Shapiro, Hans A. Von Spakovsky
Civil Rights in the United States
The Supreme Court’s ruling in Shelby County v. Holder, which disabled Section 5 of the Voting...