The Federalist Society’s Lawyers Division was founded in 1986 to bring together attorneys, business and policy leaders, judges and others interested in examining and improving the state of the law. The Lawyers Division reaches the legal community through over 90 Lawyers Chapters located in virtually every major city in the United States. Over 65,000 are involved in the activities of these groups. Every year, the chapters organize over 400 programs and meetings, drawing a combined audience of over 25,000. Each chapter is run by local volunteer leadership. The chapters host speeches, panel discussions and debates on current topics at the local and national level, and help members find opportunities to become actively involved in the policy and public interest worlds. In addition to the city chapters, the Federalist Society’s Capitol Hill Chapter hosts discussions to examine legal and policy issues that are particularly appealing to congressional staffers.
John F. Duffy, Adam Mossoff, David S. Olson
Intellectual Property Practice Group
On the final day of the term, the U.S. Supreme Court released its long-anticipated decision...
John L. Douglas, Bert Ely, Peter J. Wallison, Dean Reuter
Financial Services & E-Commerce Practice Group
On a conference call briefing held on May 15, 2010, Mr. John L. Douglas, Mr....
Troy McKenzie, David Skeel, Todd J. Zywicki, Edith H. Jones
Financial Services & E-Commerce Practice Group
Marshall v. Marshall involved the effort of starlet Anna Nicole Smith to recover from the...
John D. Cline, William G. Otis, John S. Baker, James C. Dunlop
Criminal Law & Procedure Practice Group
On June 24, 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court announced its decisions in Skilling v. US,...
Robert S. Adler, Nancy A. Nord, Harold "Hal" Stratton
Administrative Law & Regulation Practice Group
The enacted Consumer Products Safety Improvement Act of 2008 mandated the promulgation of over 40...
Deputy Associate Attorney General, U.S. Department of Justice
Abhishek Kambli currently serves as Deputy Associate Attorney General at the U.S. Deprtment of Justice. Prior to this, he was the Deputy Attorney General at the Kansas Attorney General’s Office where he leads the Special Litigation and Constitutional Issues Division. In that capacity he litigates the Kansas AG office’s most high impact cases, such as Kansas v. Biden (later renamed Alaska v. Department of Education) where he successfully argued for a preliminary injunction against the SAVE plan that would have provided $475 billion in student loan forgiveness. He was also lead counsel on Kansas v. Department of Education which enjoined the 2024 Title IX rule that expanded the definition “sex” to include gender identity under Title IX and Kansas v. Department of Labor, where he argued for and won a preliminary injunction on a Department of Labor rule that would have provided federal collective bargaining rights to H-2A workers. In addition, he was counsel of record on a 26-state amicus brief at the U.S. Supreme Court in Beals v. Virginia Coalition for Immigrant Rights, where the Court ultimately allowed the Commonwealth of Virginia to remove noncitizens from its voter role prior to the 2024 election.
Before serving the state of Kansas, he was an assistant United States attorney prosecuting federal crimes within the Southern District of Indiana. He also served as a JAG officer in the United States Air Force where he still serves in the Reserves. He holds a juris doctorate from Notre Dame Law School.
Attorney and Legal Commentator
John Shu is an attorney and legal commentator. His focus areas include constitutional law, securities & corporate law, antitrust law, administrative law, politics, and international affairs. Mr. Shu has lectured and published on a wide variety of issues.
Mr. Shu served President George H.W. Bush and President George W. Bush. He also served Judge Stanley Sporkin, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, who was Director of Enforcement at the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission and General Counsel at the Central Intelligence Agency, and Judge Paul Roney, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, who was Presiding Judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review.
Mr. Shu is a member of the National Committee on U.S. - China Relations, the Pacific Council on International Policy, and the Foreign Policy Association.
Senior Fellow in Executive Power, Cato Institute
Molly Nixon is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, where she focuses on the scope, use, and history of executive power as well as its limits under the Constitution. Molly was previously an attorney with Pacific Legal Foundation’s separation of powers practice, where she litigated cases challenging congressional delegations of legislative power and executive branch overreach. Before that, she served as an Attorney-Advisor at the Department of the Interior and as Legislative Counsel for Congressman Justin Amash.
Molly holds a J.D. from New York University School of Law and a B.A. in History and International Relations from Boston University. She clerked for the U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska and practiced law at a firm in New York City for several years before moving to Washington, D.C.
Senior Counsel, First Liberty Institute
Prior to coming to First Liberty, Nate was the Founder and Chief Counsel of the Center for Religious Expression.
For over 3 decades, Nate has defended religious liberty in courtrooms all over the country. He has handled more than 500 litigated cases and 50 appeals before various federal appellate courts regarding, winning numerous landmark decisions, including Brindley v. City of Memphis, Johnson v. Minneapolis Park & Recreation Board, Boardley v. Dept. of Interior and Brown v. Polk County.
Nate is also a sought after speaker and has appeared on numerous television and radio shows, including Huckabee, Hannity, Fox and Friends, and the Hugh Hewitt show. He has been frequently quoted in major print media, like Time magazine, The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, National Review, and USA Today. He has also written op-eds and articles for various media outlets, including Townhall, American Thinker, One News Now, and was a regular contributor for the Christian Post.
Nate earned his Juris Doctorate from the University of Mississippi, graduating with honors in 1988. He is admitted to state bars in Tennessee and Mississippi, as well as numerous federal appellate courts.
Justice, Supreme Court of Arizona
Clint Bolick was appointed by Governor Doug Ducey in January 2016 to serve on the Arizona Supreme Court and was retained by the voters in 2018 and 2024.
Prior to joining the Court, Justice Bolick litigated constitutional cases in state and federal courts from coast to coast, including the U.S. Supreme Court. Among other positions, he served as Vice President for Litigation at the Goldwater Institute and as Co-founder and Vice President for Litigation at the Institute for Justice. He has litigated in support of school choice, freedom of enterprise, private property rights, freedom of speech, and federalism, and against racial classifications and government subsidies.
Justice Bolick received his Juris Doctor degree from the University of California at Davis, where he has been recognized as a distinguished alumnus, and his Bachelor of Arts degree magna cum laude from Drew University. He serves as a research fellow with the Hoover Institution. Among other honors, he was named one of the 90 Greatest DC Lawyers in the Last 30 Years by Legal Times in 2008, received a Bradley Prize in 2006, and was recognized as one of the nation’s three lawyers of the year by American Lawyer in 2002 for his successful defense of school vouchers in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris.
Justice Bolick is a prolific author of a dozen books and hundreds of articles. Among his most recent books are Unshackled: Freeing America’s K-12 Education System: Immigration Wars: Forging an American Solution, co-authored with former Florida Governor Jeb Bush; and David’s Hammer: The Case for an Activist Judiciary. Bolick serves as an adjunct professor of constitutional law at Arizona State University’s Sandra Day O’Connor School of Law and has served as a lecturer at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.
Chief Counsel, Arizona Chamber Law Center
Prior to joining the Chamber, Nate was an Attorney at the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF) and an Assistant Attorney General for the State of Arizona. At TPPF, he brought cases seeking to limit federal government overreach. As an Assistant AG, he practiced criminal appeals in Arizona appellate courts, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and the U.S. Supreme Court. He began his legal career as a clerk at the Arizona Supreme Court for Justices Clint Bolick and John Lopez before going on to clerk at the U.S. District Court for Judge Susan Brnovich.
Nate earned his J.D. from the University of Arizona, where he was an Articles Editor for the Arizona Law Review and President of the Federalist Society. He is licensed to practice law in Arizona and the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth, Sixth, Ninth, and DC Circuits.
Director, Children's Law Clinic, Center for the Rights of Abused Children
Tom Jose is a lawyer who protects the rights of abused children throughout the foster care process and beyond.
Tom heads up our one-of-a-kind pro bono Children’s Law Clinic, where he represents abused children, foster parents, kinship placements, and biological parents in dependency and severance proceedings to ensure that the state respects their rights. He litigates to protect the rights of abused children throughout the foster process and beyond. Tom also represents transition-aged youth in a variety of matters to give them their best chance at starting adult lives.
Tom’s passion for protecting abused children was ignited while working for an appeals court, shortly after he graduated from law school. He was shocked at the sheer volume of abused children who passed through—and remained in—the foster system every year and how little was being done to protect the rights of these innocent children. Since then, he has spent his legal career helping abused children in Arizona.
Before joining the Center for the Rights of Abused Children, Tom worked for the Arizona Attorney General’s Office in its Child and Family Protection Appeals Unit. He handled hundreds of appeals, filed over 75 substantive briefs, and had five oral arguments before the Arizona Supreme Court and the Arizona Court of Appeals. In 2020, the Attorney General’s Office presented Tom with an award for Outstanding Appellate Advocacy.
Tom holds a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and a law degree from Arizona State University. He lives in Mesa, Arizona, with his son Eric, where he enjoys collecting (and playing) vintage video games and going camping around our beautiful state.
Vice President for Litigation & General Counsel, Goldwater Institute
Jon Riches is the Vice President for Litigation for the Goldwater Institute’s Scharf-Norton Center for Constitutional Litigation and General Counsel for the Institute. He litigates in federal and state trial and appellate courts in the areas of economic liberty, regulatory reform, free speech, taxpayer protections, public labor issues, government transparency, and school choice, among others.
Jon has developed and authored several pieces of legislation, including the landmark Right to Earn a Living Act, which provides some of the greatest protections in the country to job-seekers and entrepreneurs facing arbitrary licensing regulations. He also developed legislation eliminating deference to administrative agencies in Arizona—a first-of-its-kind regulatory reform that can serve as a model for the rest of the country.
His work at the Institute has been covered by national media, including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, CBS This Morning, Bloomberg News, and Politico. Jon is also a member of the Federalist Society’s Regulatory Transparency Project: State and Local Working Group.
Prior to joining the Goldwater Institute, Jon served on active duty in the U.S. Navy Judge Advocate General’s (JAG) Corps. While on active duty, Jon represented hundreds of clients, litigated dozens of court-martial cases, and advised commanders on a vast array of legal issues.
He previously clerked for Sen. Jon Kyl on the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, worked for the Rules Committee in the Arizona State Senate, and clerked in the Office of Counsel to the President at the White House. Jon received his B.A. from Boston College, where he graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa. He earned his J.D. from the University of Arizona, James E. Rogers College of Law.
Jon served as a presidentially appointed Panel Member on the Federal Service Impasses Panel. He is an officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve and an Adjunct Professor at Arizona State University School of Law. Jon is a native of Phoenix.
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.
Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
Adam Mossoff is Professor of Law at Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University. He has published extensively on why patents, copyrights, and other intellectual property rights have been—and should be—legally secured to innovators and creators as property rights. His scholarship has been relied on by the United States Supreme Court, by lower federal courts, and by U.S. federal agencies. He has been invited to testify numerous times before the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives on intellectual property legislation. His writings on intellectual property policy have also appeared in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Forbes, Investors Business Daily, and in other media outlets. His journal articles can be downloaded here.
Professor Mossoff is a longstanding member of the Executive Committee of the Intellectual Property Practice Group of the Federalist Society, on which he served as Chairperson from 2016-2018, and he is Chair of the Intellectual Property Working Group of the Regulatory Transparency Project of the Federalist Society. He is a Senior Fellow and Chair of the Forum for Intellectual Property at the Hudson Institute, a Visiting Intellectual Property Fellow at the Heritage Foundation, and a member of the Board of Directors of the Center for Intellectual Property Understanding. He is a member of the Intellectual Property Rights Policy Committee of ANSI and he has served as Chair and Vice-Chair of the Intellectual Property Committee of the IEEE-USA, on which he remains a member in good standing.
Associate Professor, Boston College Law School
David Olson is an associate professor and the Faculty Director of the Program on Innovation and Entrepreneurship. He teaches patent law, intellectual property law, antitrust law, and various seminars. His research and writing primarily focus on patents, copyrights, antitrust, and incentives for innovation and competition. Since joining BC Law in 2007, he has been recognized for his teaching excellence and contributions. In 2011, he received the Business & Law Society Faculty Award for Achievement in Business & Law. In 2012, he received the Professor Emil Slizewski Award for Faculty Excellence. For one semester in 2015, Olson served as a visiting professor at Pontifical Catholic University, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where he conducted research and taught a course on intellectual property.
Olson has published scholarly articles on patent law, copyright law, antitrust, music licensing, and first amendment copyright issues. His writing has been cited in Supreme Court and other legal opinions. He has testified before the U.S. Congress on matters of drug patents, FDA regulation, and antitrust.
The media frequently seeks Olson’s insights and opinions. He has been quoted in the Wall Street Journal, Associated Press, and Reuters, among others. He has appeared as a guest panelist on WBUR’s Radio Boston, WAMU's Kojo Namdi Show, and Public Radio Canada. His op-eds have appeared in the Chicago Tribune, Washington Times, and The Hill.
Olson came to Boston College from Stanford Law School's Center for Internet and Society, where he conducted research on patent law and litigated copyright fair use impact cases. Before entering academia, Olson practiced law as a patent litigator. He clerked for Judge Jerry Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
Partner, Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP
Mr. Douglas is a partner in Davis Polk’s Financial Institutions Group, heading the firm’s bank regulatory practice and focusing on bank restructuring and resolutions and other issues arising from the current banking and financial crisis. He has been involved in some of the most difficult and sensitive matters during the crisis, including advising the boards of directors of Indymac and Bank United, counseling Citigroup with respect to FDIC matters, advising various parties on the fallout from the failure of Washington Mutual and advising various private equity firms on proposed investments in troubled or failed banks.
Mr. Douglas was appointed General Counsel of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation in 1987 and continued in that capacity through 1989. This was a period of unprecedented stress on the financial system, and he was involved in the major bank failures and restructurings of the late 1980s, participated in the landmark Financial Institutions Regulatory Reform and Restructuring Act of 1989 and assisted in the organization of the Resolution Trust Corporation.
Mr. Douglas is regarded as one of the leading bank insolvency lawyers in the nation.
Principal, Ely & Company, Inc.
Bert Ely has specialized in deposit insurance and banking structure issues since 1981. In 1986, he became an early predictor of the S&L crisis and a taxpayer bailout of the FSLIC. In 1991, he was the first person to correctly predict the non-crisis in commercial banking; in 1992, he predicted an eventual taxpayer bailout of the Japanese banking system.
Bert continuously monitors conditions in the banking and S&L industries, monetary policy, and the growing federalization of credit risk. He has helped to draft legislation to enact the cross-guarantee concept for privatizing banking regulation and its related deposit insurance and systemic risks. He has testified on numerous occasions before congressional committees on banking issues and he often speaks on these matters to bankers and others.
Bert first established his consulting practice in 1972. Before that, he was the chief financial officer of a public company, a consultant with Touche, Ross & Company, and an auditor with Ernst & Ernst. He received his MBA from the Harvard Business School in 1968 and his Bachelor's degree in economics in 1964 from Case Western Reserve University.
Senior Fellow, Arthur F. Burns Fellow in Financial Policy Studies, American Enterprise Institute
Peter J. Wallison holds the Arthur F. Burns Chair in Financial Policy Studies and is co-director of AEI’s program on Financial Policy Studies. Prior to joining AEI, he practiced banking, corporate and financial law at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher in Washington, D.C., and New York. Mr. Wallison has held a number of government positions. From June 1981 to January 1985, he was General Counsel of the United States Treasury Department, where he had a significant role in the development of the Reagan Administration's proposals for deregulation in the financial services industry. During 1986 and 1987, Mr. Wallison was White House counsel to President Ronald Reagan, and between 1972 and 1976, he served first as Special Assistant to New York's Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller and, subsequently, as counsel to Mr. Rockefeller as vice president of the United States.
Mr. Wallison was admitted to practice before the courts of New York and the District of Columbia, and is retired from practice in New York. He continues to be a member of the District of Columbia Bar Association. He received his undergraduate degree from Harvard College in 1963 and law degree from Harvard Law School in 1966.
Mr. Wallison is the author of Ronald Reagan: The Power of Conviction and the Success of His Presidency, published in December 2002 by Westview Press. On campaign finance, he is the author (with Joel Gora) of Better Parties, Better Government, (AEI Press 2009). On financial or regulatory matters, he is the author of Back From the Brink, a proposal for a private deposit insurance system, and co-author of Nationalizing Mortgage Risk: The Growth of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac; The GAAP Gap: Corporate Disclosure in the Internet Age; Competitive Equity: A Better Way to Organize Mutual Funds; Bad History, Worse Policy: How a False Narrative about the Financial Crisis Led to the Dodd-Frank Act (AEI Press 2013); and Hidden In Plain Sight: What Caused the World’s Worst Financial Crisis and Why it Could Happen Again (Encounter Books 2015). His most recent book is Judicial Fortitude: The Last Chance to Rein in the Administrative State, published by Encounter Books in October 2018.
He testifies frequently before committees of Congress, and is a frequent contributor to the op-ed pages of the Wall Street Journal and other print and online journals. He has also been a speaker at many conferences on financial services, housing, the causes of the financial crisis, the Dodd-Frank Act, accounting, and corporate governance, and was a member of the Shadow Financial Regulatory Committee between 1995 and 2015. He was a member of the SEC Advisory Committee on Improvements to Financial Reporting (2008), co-Chair of the Pew Financial Reform Task Force (2009), and a member of the congressionally- appointed Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (2009-2011). In May 2011, for his work in financial policy, Mr. Wallison received an honorary doctorate in Humane Letters from the University of Colorado.
Executive Vice President, The Federalist Society
Dean Reuter is Executive Vice President at the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies. He has served in two federal government agency Offices of the Inspector General, as Counsel to the Inspector General and Deputy Inspector General, responsible for policing the use of federal funds granted and contracted through those agencies. As such, he helped conduct and oversee criminal investigations across the country. He is the principal author of the non-fiction book, The Hidden Nazi: The Untold Story of America's Deal with the Devil, and editor of Liberty’s Nemesis: The Unchecked Expansion of the State and Confronting Terror: 9/11 and the Future of American National Security. He was appointed by the President and served as Vice-Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Corporation for National and Community Service, and recently served as an appointee on the U.S. Commission on Presidential Scholars. He is a graduate of Hood College (BA with Honors) and the University of Maryland School of Law.
Professor of Law, New York University School of Law
Troy McKenzie joined the faculty of New York University School of Law in 2007. His scholarly interests include bankruptcy, civil procedure, complex litigation, and the federal courts. He earned a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering in 1997 from Princeton University and his law degree in 2000 from NYU, where he was an executive editor of the NYU Law Review and a member of the Order of the Coif. After law school, he served as a law clerk to Judge Pierre N. Leval of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and Justice John Paul Stevens of the Supreme Court of the United States. Before joining the NYU faculty, McKenzie was a litigation associate for four years at Debevoise & Plimpton in New York. His article "Judicial Independence, Autonomy, and the Bankruptcy Courts" recently appeared in the Stanford Law Review (2010).
S. Samuel Arsht Professor of Corporate Law, University of Pennsylvania Law School
David Skeel is the Caryl Louise Boies Visiting Professor of Law at New York University, and the S. Samuel Arsht Professor of Corporate Law at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of The New Financial Deal: Understanding the Dodd-Frank Act and its (Unintended) Consequences (Wiley, 2011); Icarus in the Boardroom: The Fundamental Flaws in Corporate America and Where They Came From (Oxford University Press, 2005); Debt’s Dominion: A History of Bankruptcy Law in America (Princeton University Press, 2001); and numerous articles on bankruptcy, corporate law, financial regulation, Christianity and law, and other topics. Professor Skeel has also written commentaries for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Books & Culture, The Weekly Standard, and other publications.
George Mason University Foundation Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
TODD J. ZYWICKI is George Mason University Foundation Professor of Law at Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University and Research Fellow of the George Mason Law and Economics Center. During the Fall 2023 semester he served as the Visiting Scholar in Conservative Thought and Policy for the Bruce Benson Center for the Study of Western Civilization at the University of Colorado-Boulder. From 2020-2021 he was Chair of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Taskforce on Federal Consumer Financial Law. In 2021 he was inducted to the American College of Consumer Financial Services Lawyers. He is also a Senior Fellow of the F.A. Hayek Program for the Advanced Study of Politics, Philosophy, and Economics at George Mason University and a former Senior Fellow of the Cato Institute. From 2015-2017 he was Executive Director of the George Mason Law and Economics Center. He served as Co-Editor of the Supreme Court Economic Review from 2006-2017. From 2003-2004, Professor Zywicki served as the Director of the Office of Policy Planning at the Federal Trade Commission. He has also taught at Vanderbilt University Law School, Georgetown University Law Center, Boston College Law School, Mississippi College School of Law, and China University of Political Science and Law.
Professor Zywicki clerked for Judge Jerry E. Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and worked as an associate at Alston & Bird in Atlanta, Georgia, where he practiced bankruptcy and commercial law. He received his J.D. from the University of Virginia, where he was executive editor of the Virginia Tax Review and John M. Olin Scholar in Law and Economics. Professor Zywicki also received an M.A. in Economics from Clemson University and an A.B. cum Laude with high honors in his major from Dartmouth College.
Professor Zywicki is also a Lone Mountain Fellow of the Property and Environment Research Center, a Fellow of the International Centre for Economic Research in Turin, Italy, and a former Senior Fellow of the Goldwater Institute. During the Fall 2008 Semester Professor Zywicki was the Searle Fellow of the George Mason University School of Law and was a 2008-09 W. Glenn Campbell and Rita Ricardo-Campbell National Fellow and the Arch W. Shaw National Fellow at the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace. He has lectured and consulted with government officials around the world, including Iceland, Italy, Japan, and Guatemala. In 2006 Professor Zywicki served as a Member of the United States Department of Justice Study Group on “Identifying Fraud, Abuse and Errors in the United States Bankruptcy System.”
Professor Zywicki is the author of more than 130 articles in leading law reviews and peer-reviewed economics journals. He is one of the Top 10 most-cited law professors in the field of Commercial Law and one of the Top 25 law professors on Twitter as measured by engagement levels. He is one of the Top 50 Most Downloaded Law Authors at the Social Science Research Network. He has testified multiple times before Congress on issues of consumer bankruptcy law and consumer credit and is a frequent commentator on legal issues in the print and broadcast media, including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, The Washington Post, The Washington Times, Nightline, The Newshour with Jim Lehrer, Neil Cavuto Show, Fox & Friends, Smerconish, Fox News @ Night with Shannon Bream, Fox Business, CNN, CNBC, Bloomberg News, BBC, The Diane Rehm Show, Lou Dobbs Show, Jerry Doyle Show, and The Laura Ingraham Show.
Professor Zywicki is former Chairman and a current member of the Board of Directors of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and is a member of the Board of Directors of the Institute for Humane Studies, Bill of Rights Institute, the Executive Committee for the Federalist Society's Financial Institutions and E-Commerce Practice Group, the Board of Trustees of the Foundation for Research on Economics and the Environment. He formerly served on the Governing Board and the Advisory Council for the Financial Services Research Program at George Washington University School of Business. He is currently the Chair of the Academic Advisory Council for the following organizations: The Bill of Rights Institute, the film “We the People in IMAX,” and the McCormick-Tribune Foundation “Freedom Museum” in Chicago, Illinois. He is a member of the Board of Visitors of Ralston College and was a member of the Board of Trustees of Yorktown University. From 2005-2009 he served as an elected Alumni Trustee of the Dartmouth College Board of Trustees.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit
Edith Jones graduated from Alamo Heights High School, where she was a National Merit Scholar. In 1971, she received her B.A. in Economics from Cornell University, graduating with honors. In 1974, she was awarded her J.D. at the University of Texas Law School, where she was a law review editor and received the Order of the Coif.
Judge Jones was the first female partner at Andrews, Kurth, Campbell & Jones (now Hunton Andrews Kurth) where she practiced various types of litigation and bankruptcy cases. Judge Jones went on the federal bench on June 1, 1985.
Judge Jones served as a former member of the National Bankruptcy Review Commission, and as a member of the Judicial Conference Commission on Bankruptcy Rules. Judge Jones served on the White House Fellows Commission. Judge Jones served on the board of the Sam Houston Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America. She has been a member of the Garland Walker Inn of Court in Houston for more than 20 years and its President for at least ten years. Judge Jones is also on the Board of the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Foundation.
Law Office of John Cline
John Cline graduated magna cum laude from the University of Texas Law School, where he was editor-in-chief of the Texas Law Review. After graduation, he served as a law clerk to the Honorable Homer Thornberry of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. John began practice at Williams & Connolly in Washington, D.C., where he became a partner in 1994. Following a move to New Mexico, John became a shareholder at Freedman Boyd Hollander Goldberg & Cline in 1997. He joined Jones Day as a partner in San Francisco in 2004 and left in 2010 to form the Law Office of John D. Cline.
John is a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers. He has been included as a Northern California Superlawyer since 2005; he has been listed in Best Lawyers in America for many years; he has appeared on a variety of other "best lawyer" lists; and he has an AV rating from Martindale-Hubbell.
Former Adjunct Professor of Law; former Special Counsel to the President; former federal prosecutor, Georgetown Law (ret.)
Bill Otis is a former Adjunct Professor of Law at Georgetown University, a one-time federal prosecutor, and a former Special White House Counsel for President George H. W. Bush. After graduating from Stanford Law School, he started his career in the Criminal Division of the Justice Department, then became chief of appeals for the US Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Virginia. In the 1980's he served on the Department's "Train the Trainer" team, which taught US Attorneys Offices across the county how to implement the then-new Sentencing Reform Act. He has held several posts in the federal government, including Special Assistant to the Secretary of Energy and Counselor to the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration, in addition to the White House post. He has testified before Congress on issues in criminal procedure, illegal drugs, the US Sentencing Commission, and the death penalty, and has given numerous media interviews on those and other subjects. He currently teaches a seminar at Georgetown Law titled "Conservatism in Law in America" with his wife, Federalist Society co-founder Lee Liberman Otis.
Professor Emeritus, Paul M. Hebert Law Center, Louisiana State University
In memoriam
Dr. John Baker is Professor Emeritus of Law, and previously the Dale E. Bennett Professor of Law, at Louisiana State University Law School. He is currently Visiting Professor at Peking University School of Transnational Law (via Zoom) and has been Visiting Professor at The Center for the Constitution, Georgetown Law School (2013-2020). He has also been a Visiting Fellow at Oriel College, the University of Oxford (2012-2014) and taught at Blackfriars Hall, Oxford in 2014. Dr. Baker has also been an adjunct Fellow at the Heritage Foundation (Spring, 2008) and a Distinguished Scholar at the Catholic University of America Law School (2011-12). He has taught at Tulane Law School, George Mason Law School, Pepperdine Law School, New York Law School, Hong Kong University, and the University of Dallas, School of Management and also taught and/or lectured in 17 foreign countries. Notable among his foreign visits are the
following: Visiting Professor at the University of Lyon III (France) (1999-2011); Visiting Professor at the Universidad de los Andes, Chile (2012), as a Fulbright Specialist (2006); and a Fulbright Scholar at various universities in the Philippines. Dr. Baker received his J.D., with honors, from the University of Michigan Law School and his B.A., magna cum laude, from the University of Dallas. He also earned a Ph.D. in Political Thought from the University of London. Baker has taught over a dozen different subjects, mostly courses in public law. His main areas of interest are Constitutional Law (particularly federalism and separation of powers), Criminal Law, Anti-Terrorism Law, International Law, Health Care Law, Mediation, and Comparative Law.
In addition to law review articles and book chapters, Dr. Baker’s academic publications include Hall's Criminal Law: Cases and Materials (with Benson, Force and George; 5th ed. Michie, 1993); An Introduction to the Law of the United States (ed. with Levasseur; University Press of America, 1992). He has also published on Forbes.com, FoxNews.com, in The Washington Times, and a number of times in The Wall Street Journal. He argues in federal court, including two oral arguments in the U.S. Supreme Court. For many years, he co-taught courses for the Federalist Society on separation of powers with the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. In September 2016, he co-taught a Supreme Court seminar in China with Justice Samuel Alito. Following law school, he served as a law clerk in federal district court and as an assistant district attorney in New Orleans before joining LSU in 1975. While a professor, he has been as a consultant to USAID, USIA (since rolled into the State Department), the Justice Department, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Separation of Powers, and the Office of Planning in the White House. He served on an ABA Task Force which issued the report, The Federalization of Crime (1998) and later as a consultant to the “Bi-Partisan Task Force on the Over- federalization of Crime” (2012-2014) created by the U.S. House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime. Dr. Baker was a co-founder of the first iteration (1995) of Stratfor Inc., a global intelligence agency. He co-authored its first book: The Intelligence Edge (with Friedman, Friedman and Chapman; Crown Books/Random House 1997). In 2022, he began a short, weekly video podcast available on YouTube and Rumble, The Baker Brief.
Senior Attorney, Sensient Technologies Corporation
Commissioner, Consumer Product Safety Commission
Robert (Bob) S. Adler is a Commissioner at the U. S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). He was appointed to the agency by President Barack Obama in August 2009. His term runs through October 2014. Prior to his appointment, he served on the Obama Transition Team and co-authored a report on the CPSC for the Obama administration.
Prior to assuming office, Adler served as a professor of Legal Studies at the University of North Carolina as the Luther Hodges Jr., Scholar in Ethics and Law at Chapel Hill's Kenan-Flagler Business School. At the University of North Carolina, he served as the Associate Dean of the MBA Program and as Associate Dean for the School's Bachelor of Science in Business Administration Program. As a professor, he taught courses in business law, business ethics, business-government relations and negotiation. Bob won a university-wide teaching award, the Tanner Award, in 1996 and the undergraduate program's Distinguished Teaching Award in 1990. In 2004, he received the Gerald Barrett Faculty Award for outstanding teaching and service to the MBA Program.
Bob's academic research interests included product safety, product liability, regulation, commercial law, medical malpractice, and negotiation. His article, When David Meets Goliath: Dealing With Power Differentials in Negotiation, in the Spring 2000 issue of the Harvard Negotiation Law Review (co-authored with Elliot Silverstein) received the annual best article award by the CPR Institute for Dispute Resolution.
Prior to his service at UNC, he spent nine years as an attorney-advisor to two commissioners at the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission in Washington, D.C. Subsequently, he served as counsel to the Subcommittee on Health and the Environment of the Committee on Energy and Commerce in the U.S. House of Representatives. While on the subcommittee, he worked on legislation relating to product liability, childhood vaccines, the Food and Drug Administration, medical malpractice, and the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
Before his service at the CPSC, Bob served as a deputy attorney general for the Pennsylvania Justice Department, where he headed the southwest regional office of the Pennsylvania Bureau of Consumer Protection.
Bob has been involved in numerous consumer protection and education activities for many years. He was elected six times to the board of directors of Consumers Union, publisher of Consumer Reports magazine.
Bob graduated cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania in 1966 with a major in political science. He received a JD from the University of Michigan Law School in 1969.
Commissioner, Consumer Product Safety Commission
Nancy A. Nord was nominated by President George W. Bush to be a commissioner of the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) for a term that expires in October of 2012. The CPSC protects the public against unreasonable risks of injury and death associated with consumer products. She was confirmed by the Senate for that position on April 29, 2005 and was sworn into office on May 5, 2005. Ms. Nord also served as Acting Chairman of the CPSC from July 2006 until May 2009.
Ms. Nord was born and raised in Sioux Falls, SD. She holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Nebraska and a law degree from the George Washington University in Washington, D.C.
Ms. Nord has held a number of legal positions both in the federal government and in the private sector. Her federal experience includes service as General Counsel of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, counsel to the Commerce Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives and attorney at the Federal Communications Commission. In the private sector, she was the Director of Federal Affairs for the Eastman Kodak Company, practiced law with the Washington, DC law firm of Verner, Liipfert, Bernhard, McPherson and Hand, served as the executive director of the American Corporate Counsel Association and was Director of Consumer Affairs for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Ms. Nord is married to the Honorable James S. Halpern, a judge on the U.S. Tax Court and the mother of one daughter. She resides in Washington, DC.
Shareholder, Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, LLP
From Capitol Hill to Albuquerque, Hal Stratton is a familiar figure in the halls of government. He has spent over three decades navigating government—as the head of a federal agency, as a state attorney general, as a small business owner and as a successful litigator and government relations advisor.
Hal advises and counsels clients in the areas of mining, oil and gas, natural resources product safety regulation, products liability litigation, state and federal government relations, and multistate and class action litigation with an emphasis on product safety and liability as well as areas affected by state attorneys general. Hal also counsels clients concerning international trade, regulation and product health and safety.
In 1978, Hal was elected to the New Mexico House of Representatives at the age of 27 by defeating the House Majority Whip. During his four terms in the New Mexico House he served on a number of committees, including the Judiciary Committee, where he served as chairman; the Energy & Natural Resources Committee, where he served as vice chairman; and the Transportation and Rules Committees. In 1986, he was elected New Mexico’s attorney general—the only Republican to serve in that position since 1930.
While in the private practice of law, Hal has handled and litigated numerous matters involving oil and gas, federal and state grazing lease and condemnation rights, oil and gas tax and royalty valuation, asbestos landfill siting and matters with the Office of Aircraft Safety (now the National Business Center Aviation Management), among others. He has also handled a number of matters involving American Indian tribes.
Hal has served as an adjunct professor of law at George Mason University School of Law where he created a course on state attorneys general and multistate litigation and regulation. He is a Distinguished Military Graduate, served on active duty in the U.S. Army, and is the recipient of a number of awards including the American Legislative Exchange Council’s Legislator of the Year award and recognition as the National Right to Work Committee’s Statesman of the Year.
