Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law and Director, Classical Liberal Institute, New York University School of Law; Director, Classical Liberal Institute, Civitas Institute University of Texas at Austin
Biography
Richard A. Epstein is the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law, at New York University, a senior research fellow at the Civitas Institute at the University of Texas Austin, and a senior Lecturer, the University of Chicago. He received an LL.D., h.c . from the University of Ghent, 2003 , and an LLD h.c . from the University of Siegen in 2018 and the Bradley Prize in 2011. He has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 1985. He has edited both the Journal of Legal Studies (1981-1991) and the Journal of Law and Economics (1991-2001). He is also a founder and director of the Classical Liberal Institute at NYU Law School. His most recent book is The Classical Liberal Constitution: The Uncertain Quest for Limited Government (2014). His other books include Takings: Private Property and the Power of Eminent Domain ( 1985); Bargaining with the State (1993); Simple Rules for a Complex World (1995); Principles for a Free Society: Reconciling Individual Liberty and the Common Good (1998); Skepticism and Freedom: A Modern Theory of Classical Liberalism (2003); Design for Liberty: Private Property, Public Administration and the Rule of Law (2011), and most recently, The Myth of Birthright citizenship—and Beyond (2026). He has taught courses in , administrative law, antitrust, constitutional, contracts, environmental law, land use planning; real property, torts and water law. He has written and spoken extensively on a wide range of topics, and is writes a regular column for Defining Ideas.
JAMAL GREENE is the Dwight Professor of Law at Columbia Law School, where he teaches courses in constitutional law, comparative constitutional law, and the law of the political process. He is the author of How Rights Went Wrong: Why Our Obsession With Rights Is Tearing America Apart, as well as numerous articles and book chapters on constitutional law and theory. He is also a co-chair of the Oversight Board, an independent body that reviews content moderation decisions on Facebook and Instagram. He served as a law clerk to the Hon. Guido Calabresi on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and for the Hon. John Paul Stevens on the U.S. Supreme Court. He earned his J.D. from Yale Law School in 2005 and his A.B. from Harvard College in 1999.
Margaret Stock focuses her practice on immigration and citizenship law. She is a nationally known expert on immigration and national security laws, and has testified regularly before Congressional committees on immigration, homeland security, and military matters. As a retired Lieutenant Colonel in the Military Police, U.S. Army Reserve, Margaret has extensive experience with U.S. military issues. She has also worked as a professor at the United States Military Academy at West Point, and she has served as an adjunct instructor at the University of Alaska. Margaret served as a member of the American Bar Association Commission on Immigration from 2008-2012. She regularly authors articles on military-related immigration issues, and is well-versed on “parole in place” for military family members and the Military Accessions Vital to the National Interest (“MAVNI”) Program. Margaret authored the book Immigration Law & the Military, which was published by the American Immigration Lawyers Association in 2012.
U.S. Army War College (Masters of Strategic Studies, 2006)
Harvard Kennedy School of Government (M.P.A., 2001)
Harvard Law School (J.D., with honors, 1992)
Harvard and Radcliffe Colleges (A.B., with honors in Government, 1985)
Dr. Michael P. Farris is a litigator, educator, public advocate, and communicator, and is widely recognized for his successful work on both the national and international stage.
He is the founding president of both the Home School Legal Defense Association (1983) and Patrick Henry College (2000) and continues to serve as Chairman of the Board of HSLDA and Chancellor Emeritus of PHC. Dr. Farris served as the President and CEO of Alliance Defending Freedom and continues to serve in a part-time capacity as Counselor to the President. He currently serves as General Counsel for National Religious Broadcasters.
Michael J. Marks Professor of Law, University of Chicago Law School
Biography
M. Todd Henderson is the Michael J. Marks Professor of Law at the University of Chicago Law School. Professor Henderson’s research interests include corporations, securities regulation, and law and economics. He has taught classes ranging from Banking Regulation to Torts to American Indian Law.
Professor Henderson received an engineering degree cum laude from Princeton University in 1993. He worked for several years designing and building dams in California before matriculating at the Law School. While at the Law School, Todd was an editor of the Law Review and captained the Law School's all-University champion intramural football team. He graduated magna cum laude in 1998 and was elected to the Order of the Coif. Following law school, Todd served as clerk to the Hon. Dennis Jacobs of the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He then practiced appellate litigation at Kirkland & Ellis in Washington, DC, and was an engagement manager at McKinsey & Company in Boston, where he specialized in counseling telecommunications and high-tech clients on business and regulatory strategy.
Owner and Chief Executive Officer, Coalmont Electrical Developme, Outsider Inside the Supreme Court: A Decisive First Amendment Battle
Biography
Shaun McCutcheon grew up in Vestavia Hills, Alabama, and received his Bachelor of Electrical Engineering degree from Georgia Institute of Technology in 1989. Shaun is a registered Professional Engineer in Alabama and still attending Georgia Tech occasionally for continuing education in order to obtain a Power Systems Certificate. After graduation, he worked for an electrical controls company, heading up a number of heavy industrial projects for paper, steel other process industries.
Mr. McCutcheon traveled extensively for 15 years installing motor drives and controls. In 1996, Shaun started his own electrical engineering company, Coalmont, in order to develop custom systems for customers needing upgrades and production improvements. Coalmont is now located in Tuscaloosa County and focuses primarily on difficult projects for the coal mining industry. Mr. McCutcheon’s group is also working on some new energy projects in Alabama for clean coal liquefaction and alternate energy conversion. Shaun specializes in controls and large horsepower energy conversion, both AC and DC.
Mr. McCutcheon is a member of IEEE and the NFIB and hopes to help create additional Alabama jobs with new mines and associated heavy industries such as wood products and automotive. He is a sponsor of the Young Republicans and Finance Director and an elected member of the Jefferson County Republican Executive Committee. He was elected to the Jefferson County Steering Committee, and is He is the chairman of Conservative Action Fund PAC. Mr. McCutcheon also sponsors several charities including Feed the Children.
Jonathan F. Mitchell is Principal at Mitchell Law PLLC. He received his law degree with high honors from the University of Chicago Law School, where he was an articles editor of The University of Chicago Law Review and a member of the Order of the Coif.
After graduating from law school, Mr. Mitchell clerked for Judge J. Michael Luttig of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and for Justice Antonin Scalia of the Supreme Court of the United States. He then served as an Attorney-Adviser in the Office of Legal Counsel of the United States Department of Justice from 2003 through 2006. After leaving the Department of Justice, Mr. Mitchell served as a Visiting Researcher at Georgetown University Law Center, a Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Chicago Law School from 2006 through 2008, and an Assistant Professor of Law at George Mason University from 2008 through 2010.
In 2010, Mr. Mitchell was appointed Solicitor General of Texas, a position he held until January 2015. After leaving the Texas Solicitor General’s office, Mr. Mitchell served as the Searle Visiting Professor of Law at the University of Texas School of Law before joining the Hoover Institution as a Visiting Fellow from 2015 to 2016. Mr. Mitchell also served as a Visiting Professor of Law at Stanford Law School before opening his own law firm in 2018.
Mr. Mitchell has published numerous works of scholarship in top-10 law journals, and he has written articles on textualism, national-security law, criminal law and procedure, judicial review and judicial federalism, and the legality of stare decisis in constitutional adjudication.
Mr. Mitchell has argued eight times before the Supreme Court of the United States, and more than 20 times in the federal courts of appeals. He has also argued before Supreme Court of Texas and in numerous trial courts. Mr. Mitchell has authored the principal merits brief in 11 Supreme Court cases, and has written and submitted more than 20 amicus curiae briefs in the Supreme Court.
Mr. Mitchell devised the novel enforcement mechanism in the Texas Heartbeat Act, also known as Senate Bill 8, which avoids pre-enforcement judicial review by prohibiting government officials from enforcing the statute and empowering private citizens to bring lawsuits against those who violate it. This produced an end-run around Roe v. Wade and allowed Texas and other states to impose pre-viability abortion bans despite the continued existence of Roe.
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.