Roger Pilon is the Cato’s Institute’s vice president for legal affairs, the founding director of Cato’s Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies, the inaugural holder of Cato’s B. Kenneth Simon Chair in Constitutional Studies, and the founding publisher of the Cato Supreme Court Review.
Prior to joining Cato, Pilon held five senior posts in the Reagan administration, including at State and Justice, and was a national fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution. In 1989 the Bicentennial Commission presented him with its Benjamin Franklin Award for excellence in writing on the U.S. Constitution. In 2001 Columbia University’s School of General Studies awarded him its Alumni Medal of Distinction. Pilon lectures and debates at universities and law schools across the country and testifies often before Congress.
His writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Legal Times, National Law Journal, Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, Stanford Law and Policy Review, and elsewhere. He has appeared on ABC’s Nightline, CBS’s 60 Minutes II, Fox News Channel, NPR, CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, C-SPAN, and other media.
Pilon holds a BA from Columbia University, an MA and a PhD from the University of Chicago, and a JD from the George Washington University School of Law.
Professor of Law, South Texas College of Law Houston
Biography
Josh Blackman is a national thought leader on constitutional law and the United States Supreme Court. Josh’s work was quoted during two presidential impeachment trials. He has testified before Congress and advises federal and state lawmakers. Josh regularly appears on TV, including NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox, and the BBC. Josh is also a frequent guest on NPR and other syndicated radio programs. He has published commentaries in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and leading national publications.
Since 2012, Josh has served as a professor at the South Texas College of Law Houston. He holds the Centennial Chair of Constitutional Law. Josh is an Adjunct Fellow at the Manhattan Institute. Josh has written more than seven dozen law review articles that have been cited more than a thousand times. Josh was selected as the Jurist of the Year by the Texas Journal of Law & Public Policy, received the inaugural Meese III Originalism Award, and was awarded the Inaugural Joseph Story Award. Josh was selected by Forbes Magazine for the “30 Under 30” in Law and Policy. Josh is the President of the Harlan Institute, and founded FantasySCOTUS, the Internet’s Premier Supreme Court Fantasy League. He blogs at the Volokh Conspiracyand posts@JoshMBlackman.
Robert G. Storey Distinguished Faculty Fellow; Associate Professor of Law Co-Director, Tsai Center for Law, Science and Innovation, SMU Dedman School of Law
Biography
David O. Taylor is an Associate Professor at the SMU Dedman School of Law in Dallas, Texas. He also founded and currently serves as a Co-Director of the school’s Tsai Center for Law, Science and Innovation.
Professor Taylor earned his bachelor of science, magna cum laude, in mechanical engineering from Texas A&M University and his juris doctor, cum laude, from Harvard Law School. Prior to law school, Professor Taylor worked as an applications engineer at National Instruments Corporation in Austin, Texas. While in law school, he served as an extern for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Boston, as a member of both the Harvard Journal of Law & Technology and the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, and as President of the law school's Texas Club.
After graduating from law school, Professor Taylor clerked for the current Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, the Honorable Sharon Prost. Professor Taylor also worked for seven years at the law firm of Baker Botts LLP in its Dallas office. While at Baker Botts, Professor Taylor engaged in patent litigation in various district courts and at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. His litigation experience includes both bench and jury trials. A registered patent attorney, he also gained significant experience in the fields of intellectual property licensing and patent prosecution. During his time in practice he assisted with several advanced patent law courses at SMU Dedman School of Law, including Patent Litigation, Intellectual Property Licensing, and Patent Prosecution, and successfully represented clients in pro bono matters, including before the U.S. Court of Veterans Appeals.
At SMU, Professor Taylor teaches in the areas of contracts and patent law. His scholarship focuses on patent law, patent policy, patent litigation, and civil procedure. Professor Taylor has published articles in various journals, including the Connecticut Law Review, Georgia Law Review, New York University Law Review, and in an assortment of intellectual property specialty journals. His publications have been cited by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and various district courts.
A frequent speaker, he has made academic presentations at law schools across the United States, including Boston College, California Berkeley, Cardozo, Chicago-Kent, DePaul, Houston, Kansas, San Diego, Stanford, and Texas, and internationally in Chongqing, China; Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam; and Taipei, Taiwan. He also is a regular speaker at various continuing legal education (CLE) events, including events sponsored by the Dallas Bar Association, the Eastern District of Texas Bar Association, the Center for American and International Law, and the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies.
In addition to these activities, Professor Taylor has organized numerous symposia and conferences, helped launch SMU’s Patent and Trademark Clinics, and helped draft the proposal to secure the funding to launch the Tsai Center for Law, Science and Innovation. He serves on several law school committees and is an advisor to both the SMU Science and Technology Law Review and The International Lawyer. Professor Taylor also serves as an advisor to the law school's chapter of the Federalist Society, which regularly hosts speakers addressing hot topics in the field of constitutional law. SMU granted Professor Taylor tenure in 2016.
Professor Taylor serves in various leadership positions. He is a member of the Advisory Council for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. He serves on the Executive Board of the Institute for Law and Technology at the Center for American and International Law. He also is currently the Reporter for the Patentable Subject Matter Task Force of the American Intellectual Property Law Association (AIPLA), and he serves as a member of the AIPLA's Amicus Committee. He is a Director of the Intellectual Property Law Section of the Dallas Bar Association (DBA), and he previously served as the Chair of the Computer Law Section of the DBA. In addition to these leadership activities, Professor Taylor has served as an expert and consultant in various intellectual property disputes.
He has received several accolades. Professor Taylor is the recipient of a Thomas Edison Innovation Fellowship from the Center for the Protection of Intellectual Property at the George Mason University Antonin Scalia Law School. He has also been named a founding Barrister of the Honorable Barbara M.G. Lynn American Inn of Court, an Honorary Barrister of the SMU Dedman School of Law Board of Advocates, and an Outstanding Graduate of the Irving Independent School District. In addition to these awards, he has received numerous research and course development grants.
Outside of his work at the law school and the field of intellectual property law, Professor Taylor has engaged in public service with diverse groups including Advocates for Community Transformation, Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children, and the Veterans Consortium Pro Bono Program.
Professor Taylor is married. Together with his wife Rachel, he enjoys spending time with his three children: Caroline, Emily, and Joshua.
Vice President for Legal Affairs, Goldwater Institute
Biography
Timothy Sandefur is the Vice President for Legal Affairs at the Goldwater Institute’s Scharf-Norton Center for Constitutional Litigation and holds the Duncan Chair in Constitutional Government. He litigates to promote economic liberty, private property rights, free speech, and other crucial values in states across the country.
Timothy is the author of nine books, including most recently You Don’t Own Me: Individualism and the Culture of Liberty (2025), and Freedom’s Furies: How Isabel Paterson, Rose Wilder Lane, and Ayn Rand Found Liberty in an Age of Darkness (2022), as well as more than 50 scholarly articles on a wide variety of legal subjects. A frequent guest on radio and television, he is well known to radio audiences as “Tim the Lawyer” on The Armstrong & Getty Show, and his writings have appeared in Reason, National Review, The Weekly Standard, The Wall Street Journal, and The Objective Standard, where he is a contributing editor. He has taught classes at Pepperdine University, McGeorge School of Law, George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School, and Arizona State University, where he held the 2023-24 Barry Goldwater Chair in American Institutions.
He is an Adjunct Scholar with the Cato Institute and is a graduate of Hillsdale College and Chapman University School of Law.
Senior Fellow and Director of Constitutional Studies, Manhattan Institute
Biography
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 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.
Michael J. Edney is head of the white collar criminal defense practice at Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP and partner in its Washington office. He guides clients through all aspects of government regulation, criminal and regulatory investigations, and civil litigation.
Mr. Edney vigorously defends corporations and individuals facing government agency inquiries and prosecutorial threats. Mr. Edney has represented clients before the Department of Justice, the Department of the Treasury and its Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), the Department of State, the Department of Commerce, the Department of Defense, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the National Security Agency (NSA), congressional committees, and other government entities. In 2014, for example, Mr. Edney successfully negotiated a resolution of what was then the largest non-bank trade sanctions investigation in United States history, along with a resolution of charges under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA).
When companies encounter allegations of wrongdoing, Mr. Edney has conducted many internal investigations on their behalf, while carefully avoiding disruption of the client's important business operations. He has worked extensively with the Audit Committees and senior management of public companies to determine how to comprehensively resolve suggestions of misconduct.
Todd Gaziano is the President of the Center for Individual Rights. Mr. Gaziano received his J.D. in 1988 from the University of Chicago Law School, where he was a John M. Olin Fellow in Law and Economics. He received his B.A. from West Virginia University, summa cum laude in 1985. He was selected as a Truman Scholar from West Virginia while an undergraduate.
Mr. Gaziano’s previous legal work includes service as a law clerk for U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit Judge Edith Jones, as an attorney in the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel, as a chief subcommittee counsel in the U.S. House of Representatives, as a Houston trial attorney, and as a chief corporate legal officer. He also served a six-year term as commissioner on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights (2008-2013), where he helped conduct oversight and investigations of civil rights agencies.
For most of the last 25 years, Mr. Gaziano was a legal scholar and public interest law leader, promoting individual liberty in the Supreme Court and Congress. From 1997 to 2013, he was the founding director of the Edwin Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation. From 2014 until he joined CIR, he was the Chief of Legal Policy and Strategic Research, and Director of the Center for the Separation of Powers, at Pacific Legal Foundation.
Dr. John Eastman is the former Henry Salvatori Professor of Law & Community Service and former Dean at Chapman University's Dale E. Fowler School of Law, where he had been a member of the faculty since 1999, specializing in Constitutional Law, Legal History, and Property. He is a founding director of the Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence, a public interest law firm affiliated with the Claremont Institute that he founded in 1999. He has a Ph.D. in Government from the Claremont Graduate School and a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School, and a B.A. in Politics and Economics from the University of Dallas. He serves as the Chairman of the Board of the National Organization for Marriage.
Prior to joining the Chapman law faculty, Dr. Eastman served as a law clerk to the Honorable Clarence Thomas, Associate Justice, Supreme Court of the United States, and to the Honorable J. Michael Luttig, Judge, United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and practiced law with the national law firm of Kirkland & Ellis. Dr. Eastman has also represented numerous clients in important constitutional law matters and has argued before the Supreme Court. On behalf of the Claremont Institute Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence, he has participated as amicus curiae before the Supreme Court of the United States, U.S. Courts of Appeals, and State Supreme Courts in more than one hundred cases of constitutional significance, including Boy Scouts of America v. Dale, Zelman v. Simmons-Harris (the school vouchers case), Kelo v. New London, Ct. (eminent domain), and Van Orden v. Perry (the 10 Commandments case). He has also appeared as an expert legal commentator on numerous television and radio programs, including C-SPAN, Fox News, PBS, NewsHour, and The O'Reilly Factor.
Sadanand Dhume writes about South Asian political economy, foreign policy, business, and society, with a focus on India and Pakistan. He is also a South Asia columnist for the Wall Street Journal. He has worked as a foreign correspondent for the Far Eastern Economic Review in India and Indonesia and was a Bernard Schwartz Fellow at the Asia Society in Washington, D.C. His political travelogue about the rise of radical Islam in Indonesia, My Friend the Fanatic: Travels with a Radical Islamist, has been published in four countries.
June Teufel Dreyer is Professor of Political Science at the University of Miami, Coral Gables, Florida, where she teaches courses on China, U.S. defense policy, and international relations. Professor Dreyer has lectured to, and taught a course for, National Security Agency analysts, consults for organizations including the National Geographic and Centra Technology. She is a senior fellow of the Foreign Policy Research Institute and a member of International Institute for Strategic Studies.
Formerly senior Far East specialist at the Library of Congress, Dr. Dreyer has also served as Asia policy advisor to the Chief of Naval Operations and as commissioner of the United States-China Economic and Security Review Commission established by the U.S. Congress. Dr Dreyer’s most recent book, Middle Kingdom and Empire of the Rising Sun: Sino-Japanese Relations Past and Present, was published by Oxford University Press in 2016. The tenth edition of her China’s Political System: Modernization and Tradition, is scheduled for publication in 2018. Professor Dreyer received her BA from Wellesley College and her MA and PhD from Harvard, and has lived in China and Japan and paid numerous visits to Taiwan. She has served as a United States Information Agency lecturer, speaking in fourteen Asia-Pacific states. Professor Dreyer has published widely on the Chinese military, Asian-Pacific security issues, China-Taiwan relations, Sino-Japanese relations, ethnic minorities in China, and Chinese foreign policy. In 2017, she received the University of Miami’s faculty senate award as Distinguished Research Professor.
Karen Lugo is a constitutional law consultant and national security analyst. She was Director of the Center for Tenth Amendment at Texas Public Policy Foundation from 2013 to 2015. When living in California, she was Co-Director of the Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence Center. From 2005 – 2012, she was a clinical visiting and adjunct professor at Chapman University School of Law where she co-taught the advanced Constitutional Law Clinic. Karen has co-authored and written circuit-level and Supreme Court amicus briefs on such issues as FISA Surveillance, Healthcare Reform, Arizona’s Border Security, Gay Marriage, The Ten Commandments, Eminent Domain, Christian Clubs on University Campuses, and Material Support for Terrorists.
Karen is the founder of the Libertas-West Project, a center for study Islamic integration and radicalization issues. In this capacity, she consulted with the Center for Security Policy to write a book on local over-watch of mosque construction and community engagement called: Mosques in America: A Guide to Accountable Permit Hearings and Continuing Citizen Oversight.
Karen writes and speaks for European and American groups on the importance of basing assimilation efforts on principles of Western exceptionalism. She presented a policy brief to the French Conseil d’Etat analyzing the legal implications of banning the burqa. Ms. Lugo has written one of the most comprehensive overviews of sharia law in American courts, American Family Law and Sharia-Compliant Marriages, for the Federalist Society law journal, Engage. She has written several white papers on the American Law for American Courts legislation and sharia tribunals in America.
Ms. Lugo was an appointee to the California Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. She also taught a Human Rights law course on the contrast between French and English Enlightenment theories in Strasbourg, France.
Until moving from California, Ms. Lugo was a member of the David Horowitz Freedom Center Board of Directors. She was also a regular guest on the Orange County PBS local issues debate program, Inside OC, and she is a contributor to Pajamas Media, National Review Online, City Journal, American Spectator, American Greatness, Townhall.com, American Thinker, Daily Caller, and Family Security Matters. She has been interviewed by dozens of radio hosts and has spoken for civic groups on constitutional and cultural concerns.
David Lat is a lawyer turned writer. He publishes Original Jurisdiction, a newsletter on Substack about law and legal affairs, and he writes for newspapers and magazines, including the New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal. Prior to launching Original Jurisdiction, David founded Above the Law, one of the nation's most widely read legal news websites, and Underneath Their Robes, a popular blog about federal judges that he wrote under a pseudonym. He is also the author of a novel set in the world of the federal courts, Supreme Ambitions. Before entering the media world, David worked as a federal prosecutor in Newark, New Jersey; a litigation associate at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, in New York; and a law clerk to Judge Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. David graduated from Harvard College and Yale Law School, where he served as an editor of the Yale Law Journal.
Misha leads Troutman Peppers' national appellate and Supreme Court practice. Most recently, he successfully obtained orders from the Supreme Court blocking an unconstitutional restriction on places of worship, as well as overturning a lower court order that had blocked several state election laws. He has also argued and prevailed before the Supreme Court in Gill v. Whitford, one of the most significant redistricting cases in decades, as well as Murr v. Wisconsin, a high-stakes regulatory taking case.
Before joining Troutman, Misha served as Solicitor General of the State of Wisconsin. Misha previously served as a law clerk for the Honorable Anthony M. Kennedy of the Supreme Court, Janice Rogers Brown of the D.C. Circuit, and Alex Kozinski of the 9th Circuit. He graduated from Georgetown University Law Center, where he was President of the Federalist Society Chapter.
