Hugh and Hazel Darling Foundation Professor of Law; Director, Center for the Study of Constitutional Originalism, University of San Diego School of Law
Biography
Michael Rappaport is the Hugh & Hazel Darling Professor of Law at the University of San Diego School of Law, where he is also the Director of the Center for the Study of Constitutional Originalism. Rappaport teaches Constitutional Law and Administrative Law. His research interests include originalism, administrative law, the separation of powers, federalism, the constitutional amendment process, and supermajority rules. He is the author (with John McGinnis) of Originalism and the Good Constitution (Harvard 2013) as well as of numerous law review articles. He also blogs at The Originalism Blog. He has taught at the Sorbonne and at Paris 2 Law School in Paris, France, at Bocconi University, Milan, Italy, and at Bar Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel. Before joining the academy, Rappaport worked in the Office of Legal Counsel in the U.S. Department of Justice and practiced appellate law with Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher in Washington, D.C. He received a JD and a DCL (political theory) from the Yale Law School, and served as a senior editor of the Yale Law Journal.
Newton D. Baker-Baker & Hostetler Chair in Law, Moritz College of Law, The Ohio State University
Biography
Professor Douglas A. Berman is Newton D. Baker-Baker & Hostetler Chair in Law and Executive Director of the Drug Enforcement and Policy Center, housed in the Moritz College of Law. Berman’s principal teaching and research focus is in the area of criminal law and criminal sentencing, though he also has teaching and practice experience in the fields of legislation and intellectual property. He has taught Criminal Law, Criminal Punishment and Sentencing, Criminal Procedure – Investigation, Marijuana Law, Policy & Reform Seminar, Federal and State Clemency Decision-making, The Death Penalty, Legislation, Introduction to Intellectual Property, Second Amendment Seminar, and the Legislation Clinic.
Professor Berman attended Princeton University and Harvard Law School. In law school, he was an editor and developments office chair of the Harvard Law Review and also served as a teaching assistant for a Harvard University philosophy course. After graduation from law school in 1993, Professor Berman served as a law clerk for Judge Jon O. Newman and then for Judge Guido Calabresi, both on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. After clerking, Professor Berman was a litigation associate at the law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton, and Garrison in New York City.
Professor Berman is the co-author of two casebooks. Sentencing Law and Policy: Cases, Statutes and Guidelines, published by Aspen Publishers, is now in its fifth edition. Marijuana Law and Policy was released by Carolina Academic Press in 2020. In addition to authoring numerous articles on topics ranging from capital punishment to the federal sentencing guidelines, Professor Berman has served as a managing editor of the Federal Sentencing Reporter for more than twenty five years, and also serves as an editor of the Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law.
Professor Berman is the sole creator and author of the widely-read and widely-cited blog, Sentencing Law and Policy. The blog often receives nearly 50,000 page views per month (and had over 20,000 hits the day of the Supreme Court’s major sentencing decision in United States v. Booker). Professor Berman’s work on the Sentencing Law and Policy blog, which he describes as a form of “scholarship in action,” has been profiled or discussed at length in articles appearing in the Wall Street Journal, Legal Affairs magazine, Lawyers Weekly USA, Legal Times, Columbus Monthly, and in numerous other print and online publications.
In addition, Sentencing Law and Policy has the distinction of being the first blog cited by the U.S. Supreme Court (for a document appearing exclusively on the site), and substantive analysis in particular blog posts has been cited in numerous appellate and district court rulings, in many briefs submitted to federal and state courts around the country, and in hundreds of law review articles.
Professor Berman is a member of the Council on Criminal Justice and frequently is consulted by national and state policymakers, sentencing commissioners, and public policy groups concerning sentencing law and policy reforms. He has testified before the U.S. House of Representatives and before numerous sentencing commissions. He also is frequently contacted by national and local media concerning sentencing and marijuana reform developments.
Professor Berman has appeared on national television, radio and podcast news programs and has been extensively quoted in newspaper articles appearing in nearly every major national paper and many local papers, including TheNew York Times, TheWashington Post, TheWall Street Journal, Legal Times, and in pieces from the Associated Press, Reuters, and Knight-Ridder news services.
Professor Berman sometimes serves as a consultant to lawyers working on important or interesting sentencing cases. In most instances, Professor Berman’s consulting has been on an ad hoc and pro bono basis, and it usually involves a quick review of draft briefs and other court filings and then providing general advice on litigation strategies. On some occasions, however, Professor Berman has been formally retained to play a more sustained role in certain cases, including being retained by law firms to provide consulting service on various cutting-edge federal sentencing issues.
Senior Legal Fellow, the Meese Institute for the Rule of Law, Advancing American Freedom
Biography
Paul J. Larkin is a Senior Legal Fellow in the Meese Institute for the Rule of Law at Advancing American Freedom. Paul has held various positions in the federal and state governments throughout his career, such as being an attorney in the Organized Crime and Racketeering Section of the Criminal Division at the U.S. Department of Justice, an Assistant to the Solicitor General in the Office of the Solicitor General at the U.S. Department of Justice, Special Agent-in-Charge and Acting Director of the Criminal Investigation Division at the Environmental Protection Agency, and a member of the Parole Abolition and Sentencing Reform Commission and of the Juvenile Justice Reform Commission in the Office of Virginia Governor George Allen.
He has also worked at Verizon Communications and two law firms in Washington, D.C. His current research is principally in the fields of drug policy, criminal justice policy, and administrative law and policy. He has published numerous articles in law and public policy journals, both in print and online.
Distinguished Senior Fellow and Antonin Scalia Chair in Constitutional Studies, Ethics and Public Policy Center
Biography
Edward Whelan is a Distinguished Senior Fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center and holds EPPC’s Antonin Scalia Chair in Constitutional Studies. He is the longest-serving President in EPPC’s history, having held that position from March 2004 through January 2021.
Mr. Whelan directs EPPC’s program on The Constitution, the Courts, and the Culture. His areas of expertise include constitutional law and the judicial confirmation process. As a contributor to National Review Online’s Bench Memos blog, he has been a leading commentator on nominations to the Supreme Court and the lower courts and on issues of constitutional law. He has written essays and op-eds for leading newspapers—including the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and the Washington Post—opinion journals, and academic symposia and law reviews. The National Law Journal has named Mr. Whelan among its “Champions and Visionaries” in the practice of law in D.C.
Mr. Whelan is co-editor of three volumes of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s work: Scalia Speaks: Reflections on Law, Faith, and Life Well Lived (Crown Forum, 2017), a New York Times bestselling collection of speeches by Justice Scalia; On Faith: Lessons from an American Believer (Crown Forum, 2019), a collection of Justice Scalia’s writings on faith and religion; and The Essential Scalia: On the Constitution, the Courts, and the Rule of Law (Crown Forum, 2020), a collection of Justice Scalia’s views on legal issues.
Mr. Whelan, a lawyer and a former law clerk to Justice Scalia, has served in positions of responsibility in all three branches of the federal government. From just before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, until joining EPPC in 2004, Mr. Whelan was the Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel in the U.S. Department of Justice. In that capacity, he advised the White House Counsel’s Office, the Attorney General and other senior DOJ officials, and departments and agencies throughout the executive branch on difficult and sensitive legal questions. Mr. Whelan previously served on Capitol Hill as General Counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary. In addition to clerking for Justice Scalia, he was a law clerk to Judge J. Clifford Wallace of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
In 1981 Mr. Whelan graduated with honors from Harvard College and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. He received his J.D. magna cum laude in 1985 from Harvard Law School, where he was a member of the Board of Editors of the Harvard Law Review.
For more on Mr. Whelan’s background, see this interview.
Senior Vice President for Legal Studies, Cato Institute
Biography
Clark Neily is senior vice president for legal studies at the Cato Institute. His areas of interest include constitutional law, overcriminalization, civil forfeiture, police accountability, and gun rights. Neily is the author of Terms of Engagement: How Our Courts Should Enforce the Constitution’s Promise of Limited Government. His writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and National Review Online, as well as various law reviews, including the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, George Mason Law Review, Georgetown Journal of Law and Public Policy, NYU Journal of Law and Liberty, and Texas Review of Law and Politics. Neily is a frequent guest speaker and lecturer for the Federalist Society, Institute for Humane Studies, and American Constitution Society.
Before joining Cato in 2017, Neily was a senior attorney and constitutional litigator at the Institute for Justice and director of the Institute’s Center for Judicial Engagement. He is also an adjunct professor at the University of Texas School of Law, where he teaches constitutional litigation and public-interest law.
Neily served as co-counsel in District of Columbia v. Heller, the historic case in which the Supreme Court held for the first time that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to own a gun for self-defense.
Neily began his legal career as a law clerk to Judge Royce Lamberth on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. After that he spent four years in the trial department of the Dallas-based firm Thompson & Knight. Neily received his undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Texas, where he was Chief Articles Editor of the Texas Law Review.
Associate Professor of Political Science, Johns Hopkins University
Biography
Steven Teles is associate professor of political science at Johns Hopkins University and fellow at the New America Foundation.
He is the author, most recently, of the Rise of the Conservative Legal Movement: The Battle for Control of the Law (Princeton University Press, 2008), and before that Whose Welfare: AFDC and Elite Politics (University Press of Kansas, 1996). He is the co-editor of two books: Conservatism and American Political Development (Oxford University Press, 2009, with Brian Glenn) and Ethnicity, Social Mobility and Public Policy: Comparing the US and UK (Cambridge University Press, 2005, with Glenn Loury and Tariq Modood). Professor Teles is also the editor of Oxford University Press' book series on Contemporary American Political Development. He is currently working on two co-authored books. The first, with Mark Kleiman of UCLA, tentatively calledThe Statesman's Discipline: The Art of Asking the Right Questions. His second project, with Peter Frumkin, is a developmental study of foundations over the past half-century.
Professor Teles has also published articles in the New Statesman, American Prospect, Public Interest, National Affairs, The American Interest, Prospect (UK) and Boston Reviews, appeared on bloggingheads.tv and blogs occasionally at samefacts.com.
He received his PhD in government and foreign affairs from the University of Virginia in 1995, and his BA in political science from George Washington University in 1989.
Visiting Fellow, Yale Information Society Project, Yale Law School
Biography
DEREK KHANNA is a Yale Law Visiting Fellow at the Information Society Project. He was previously a congressional staffer for the House Republican Study Committee and Senator Scott Brown (R-MA). He writes about issues at the intersection of government and technology.
Speaker Information
Erik Luna
Amelia D. Lewis Professor of Constitutional and Criminal Law, Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law at Arizona State University
Biography
Erik Luna is the Amelia D. Lewis Professor of Constitutional and Criminal Law in the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law at Arizona State University.
Professor Luna teaches and writes primarily in the areas of criminal law and criminal procedure. Luna has received two Fulbright awards. In 2000, he served as the senior Fulbright Scholar to New Zealand at Victoria University Law School (Wellington, NZ). In 2016-17, he was the Fulbright Distinguished Chair at the University of Birmingham (Birmingham, UK). Luna has also been a visiting scholar with the Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Criminal Law (Freiburg, DE), a visiting professor with the Cuban Society of Penal Sciences (Havana, CU), a visiting professional in the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (The Hague, NL), and a research fellow with the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (Bonn, DE). Prior to coming to ASU, Luna was the Sydney & Frances Lewis Professor of Law at Washington and Lee University, and before that, he was the Hugh B. Brown Chair in Law at the University of Utah. Luna is a member of the American Law Institute and an adjunct scholar with the Cato Institute. He graduated summa cum laude from the University of Southern California and received his J.D. with honors from Stanford Law School. Upon graduation, Luna was a prosecutor in the San Diego District Attorney’s Office and a fellow and lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School.
Senior Vice President for Legal Studies, Cato Institute
Biography
Clark Neily is senior vice president for legal studies at the Cato Institute. His areas of interest include constitutional law, overcriminalization, civil forfeiture, police accountability, and gun rights. Neily is the author of Terms of Engagement: How Our Courts Should Enforce the Constitution’s Promise of Limited Government. His writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and National Review Online, as well as various law reviews, including the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, George Mason Law Review, Georgetown Journal of Law and Public Policy, NYU Journal of Law and Liberty, and Texas Review of Law and Politics. Neily is a frequent guest speaker and lecturer for the Federalist Society, Institute for Humane Studies, and American Constitution Society.
Before joining Cato in 2017, Neily was a senior attorney and constitutional litigator at the Institute for Justice and director of the Institute’s Center for Judicial Engagement. He is also an adjunct professor at the University of Texas School of Law, where he teaches constitutional litigation and public-interest law.
Neily served as co-counsel in District of Columbia v. Heller, the historic case in which the Supreme Court held for the first time that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to own a gun for self-defense.
Neily began his legal career as a law clerk to Judge Royce Lamberth on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. After that he spent four years in the trial department of the Dallas-based firm Thompson & Knight. Neily received his undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Texas, where he was Chief Articles Editor of the Texas Law Review.
