Justice Goodwin Liu is an Associate Justice of the California Supreme Court. He was confirmed to office by a unanimous vote of the California Commission on Judicial Appointments on August 31, 2011, following his appointment by Governor Edmund G. Brown, Jr. on July 26, 2011. The Governor administered the oath of office to Justice Liu in a public ceremony in Sacramento, California on September 1, 2011.
Before joining the state’s highest court, Justice Liu was Professor of Law at the UC Berkeley School of Law (Boalt Hall). His primary areas of expertise are constitutional law, education law and policy, and the U.S. Supreme Court. He has published widely on these subjects in books, law reviews, and the general media.
The son of Taiwanese immigrants, Justice Liu grew up in Sacramento, where he attended public schools. He went to Stanford University and earned a bachelor’s degree in biology in 1991. He attended Oxford University on a Rhodes Scholarship and earned a masters degree in philosophy and physiology. Upon returning to the United States, he went to Washington D.C. to help launch the AmeriCorps national service program and worked for two years as a senior program officer at the Corporation for National Service.
Justice Liu graduated from Yale Law School in 1998, becoming the first in his family to earn a law degree. He clerked for Judge David Tatel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and then worked as Special Assistant to the Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education, where he developed and coordinated K-12 education policy. He went on to clerk at the U.S. Supreme Court for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg during the October 2000 Term. In 2001, he joined the appellate litigation practice of O’Melveny & Myers in Washington, D.C., and worked on an array of antitrust, white collar, insurance, product liability, and pro bono matters.
Justice Liu is a prolific and influential scholar. He has published articles on constitutional law and education policy in the California Law Review, Michigan Law Review, NYU Law Review, Stanford Law Review, and Yale Law Journal, among others. His 2006 article, “Education, Equality, and National Citizenship,” won the Steven S. Goldberg Award for Distinguished Scholarship in Education Law, conferred by the Education Law Association. Justice Liu is also a popular and acclaimed teacher. In 2009, he received UC Berkeley’s Distinguished Teaching Award, the university’s most prestigious honor for individual excellence in teaching. He earned tenure at Boalt Hall in 2008 and was promoted to Associate Dean. The Boalt Hall Class of 2009 selected him as the faculty commencement speaker.
Justice Liu serves on the Council of the American Law Institute, on the Board of Directors of the James Irvine Foundation, and on the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Science, Technology, and Law. He has previously served on the Board of Trustees of Stanford University and the board of directors of the American Constitution Society, the National Women’s Law Center, and the Public Welfare Foundation. In 2008, he was elected to the American Law Institute. He has also served as a faculty advisor to the California College Prep Academy, a public charter school co-founded by UC Berkeley and Aspire Public Schools.
Chief Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit
Biography
JEFFREY S. SUTTON is the Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. He has served as Chair of the Federal Judicial Conference Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure, Chair of the Advisory Committee on Appellate Rules, and Chair of the Supreme Court Fellows Commission. He currently serves as Chair of the Executive Committee of the Judicial Conference of the United States. Since 1993, Chief Judge Sutton has been an adjunct professor at The Ohio State University College of Law, where he teaches seminars on State Constitutional Law, the United States Supreme Court, and Appellate Advocacy. He also teaches a class on State Constitutional Law at Harvard Law School. Among other publications, he is the author of Who Decides? States as Laboratories of Constitutional Experimentation and 51 Imperfect Solutions: States and the Making of American Constitutional Law. He is the co-author of a casebook, State Constitutional Law: The Modern Experience, as well as The Law of Judicial Precedent. He is also the co-editor of The Essential Scalia: On the Constitution, the Courts, and the Rule of Law. In 2006, Chief Judge Sutton was elected to the American Law Institute, and in 2017 he was elected to its Council.
Robert Alt is the President and Chief Executive Officer of The Buckeye Institute where he has catalyzed exponential growth since he took the organization’s helm in 2012. He has since founded Buckeye’s renowned Economic Research Center and established its impactful Legal Center.
Alt is a distinguished scholar and attorney with particular expertise in legal policy, criminal justice, national security, and constitutional law. He previously worked for former U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese III, regularly provides commentary on television and radio programs, and his writings have appeared in countless outlets.
In 2004, Alt spent five months in Iraq as an embedded war correspondent.
Alt has testified before Congress multiple times—including at the confirmation hearings for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan—the Federal Election Commission regarding matters of constitutional and administrative law, and numerous state legislatures.
Alt serves as an officer on the boards of The Philadelphia Society and the Federalist Society’s Columbus Lawyers Chapter. He taught national security law, criminal law, and legislation at Case Western Reserve University School of Law, as well as constitutional law and political parties and interest groups at Ashland University.
Alt earned his Doctor of Law degree from The University of Chicago Law School, where he was Symposium Editor and the winner of the Mulroy Prize for Excellence in Appellate Advocacy as well as research assistant to Professor Richard Epstein. Following law school, he clerked for Judge Alice Batchelder on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Alt graduated with his Bachelor of Arts in philosophy and political science magna cum laude from Azusa Pacific University where he also won the Outstanding Senior Award in Political Science.
Alt is an accomplished high-altitude alpinist and endurance athlete who has successfully climbed 6.75 of the famed Seven Summits of the World including Mount Everest. He is the creator of PROFOUND CLIMBING™ and a frequent speaker across the country and around the world on legal and public policy topics as well as effective leadership, management, decision-making, and teamwork in contexts ranging from extraordinary life/death situations to ordinary professional/business settings.
Justice Goodwin Liu is an Associate Justice of the California Supreme Court. He was confirmed to office by a unanimous vote of the California Commission on Judicial Appointments on August 31, 2011, following his appointment by Governor Edmund G. Brown, Jr. on July 26, 2011. The Governor administered the oath of office to Justice Liu in a public ceremony in Sacramento, California on September 1, 2011.
Before joining the state’s highest court, Justice Liu was Professor of Law at the UC Berkeley School of Law (Boalt Hall). His primary areas of expertise are constitutional law, education law and policy, and the U.S. Supreme Court. He has published widely on these subjects in books, law reviews, and the general media.
The son of Taiwanese immigrants, Justice Liu grew up in Sacramento, where he attended public schools. He went to Stanford University and earned a bachelor’s degree in biology in 1991. He attended Oxford University on a Rhodes Scholarship and earned a masters degree in philosophy and physiology. Upon returning to the United States, he went to Washington D.C. to help launch the AmeriCorps national service program and worked for two years as a senior program officer at the Corporation for National Service.
Justice Liu graduated from Yale Law School in 1998, becoming the first in his family to earn a law degree. He clerked for Judge David Tatel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and then worked as Special Assistant to the Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education, where he developed and coordinated K-12 education policy. He went on to clerk at the U.S. Supreme Court for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg during the October 2000 Term. In 2001, he joined the appellate litigation practice of O’Melveny & Myers in Washington, D.C., and worked on an array of antitrust, white collar, insurance, product liability, and pro bono matters.
Justice Liu is a prolific and influential scholar. He has published articles on constitutional law and education policy in the California Law Review, Michigan Law Review, NYU Law Review, Stanford Law Review, and Yale Law Journal, among others. His 2006 article, “Education, Equality, and National Citizenship,” won the Steven S. Goldberg Award for Distinguished Scholarship in Education Law, conferred by the Education Law Association. Justice Liu is also a popular and acclaimed teacher. In 2009, he received UC Berkeley’s Distinguished Teaching Award, the university’s most prestigious honor for individual excellence in teaching. He earned tenure at Boalt Hall in 2008 and was promoted to Associate Dean. The Boalt Hall Class of 2009 selected him as the faculty commencement speaker.
Justice Liu serves on the Council of the American Law Institute, on the Board of Directors of the James Irvine Foundation, and on the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Science, Technology, and Law. He has previously served on the Board of Trustees of Stanford University and the board of directors of the American Constitution Society, the National Women’s Law Center, and the Public Welfare Foundation. In 2008, he was elected to the American Law Institute. He has also served as a faculty advisor to the California College Prep Academy, a public charter school co-founded by UC Berkeley and Aspire Public Schools.
Chief Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit
Biography
JEFFREY S. SUTTON is the Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. He has served as Chair of the Federal Judicial Conference Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure, Chair of the Advisory Committee on Appellate Rules, and Chair of the Supreme Court Fellows Commission. He currently serves as Chair of the Executive Committee of the Judicial Conference of the United States. Since 1993, Chief Judge Sutton has been an adjunct professor at The Ohio State University College of Law, where he teaches seminars on State Constitutional Law, the United States Supreme Court, and Appellate Advocacy. He also teaches a class on State Constitutional Law at Harvard Law School. Among other publications, he is the author of Who Decides? States as Laboratories of Constitutional Experimentation and 51 Imperfect Solutions: States and the Making of American Constitutional Law. He is the co-author of a casebook, State Constitutional Law: The Modern Experience, as well as The Law of Judicial Precedent. He is also the co-editor of The Essential Scalia: On the Constitution, the Courts, and the Rule of Law. In 2006, Chief Judge Sutton was elected to the American Law Institute, and in 2017 he was elected to its Council.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit
Biography
Amul R. Thapar serves as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. His judicial career began in 2007 when President George W. Bush nominated him to serve on the Eastern District of Kentucky, making him the first South Asian Article III judge in American history. In 2017, he became President Donald J. Trump’s first appellate court nominee.
Before joining the bench, Judge Thapar served as the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Kentucky. While United States Attorney, Judge Thapar worked on the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee (“AGAC”) and chaired the AGAC’s Controlled Substances and Asset Forfeiture subcommittee. He also served on the Terrorism and National Security subcommittee, the Violent Crime subcommittee, and the Child Exploitation working group.
Judge Thapar has worked in private practice, at Williams & Connolly in Washington, D.C., and Squire, Sanders & Dempsey in Cincinnati, Ohio. He also served as an Assistant United States Attorney in both the Southern District of Ohio and the District of Columbia.
Judge Thapar received his undergraduate degree from Boston College and his law degree from the University of California, Berkeley. After graduating, Judge Thapar worked as a law clerk to the Honorable S. Arthur Spiegel of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, and the Honorable Nathaniel R. Jones of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.
Judge Thapar has also published in the Yale Law Journal, Michigan Law Review, and Catholic University Law Review. He teaches courses on originalism, the Federalists and Anti-Federalists, and legal writing at Notre Dame Law School, the University of Virginia School of Law, and Vanderbilt Law School.