Judicial Restraint in Modern Originalism
Utah Lawyer Chapter
Kirton McConkie, 20th FloorSponsors: Salt Lake City Lawyers Chapter In-Person Event Kirton McConkie, 20th Floor 36 S. State Street
Salt Lake City, UT 84111
Here are the latest events.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit
Patrick J. Bumatay was confirmed as a U.S. Circuit Judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in December 2019. He is based in San Diego, California.
Prior to his appointment, Judge Bumatay served as an Assistant United States Attorney in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of California, where he was a member of the Appellate and Narcotics Sections. He also served as a Counselor to the Attorney General on criminal law issues, including on national opioid strategy and combating transnational organized crime. Judge Bumatay has also worked in the Office of the Deputy Attorney General, the Office of the Associate Attorney General, and the Office of Legal Policy at the U.S. Department of Justice. Judge Bumatay has twice received the Attorney General’s Distinguished Service Award.
Judge Bumatay previously worked as an associate at Morvillo, Abramowitz, Grand, Iason, and Bohrer in New York, New York. Judge Bumatay clerked for the Honorable Timothy M. Tymkovich of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit and the Honorable Sandra L. Townes of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York. Judge Bumatay earned his B.A., cum laude, from Yale University and his J.D. from Harvard Law School.
Managing Director, BGR Group
Sean Cooksey, a former senior official in the Trump administration and on Capitol Hill, works as a Managing Director with BGR Group’s Commerce and Infrastructure Practice. He brings a wealth of executive branch, legislative, and private sector experience to his work with clients on issues ranging from congressional oversight and investigations, competition and antitrust matters, intellectual property and technology policy, and litigation support.
Prior to joining the BGR team, Sean was Counsel to Vice President JD Vance. In this role, he served as the Vice President’s chief legal adviser and a senior policy staffer within the White House. As part of the Trump-Vance administration, he regularly advised the Vice President and senior White House staff on constitutional law, domestic policy, ethics, and executive and judicial nominations.
Previously, Sean was a member of the Federal Election Commission, after being nominated by President Trump in 2020. Sean served on the FEC for four years and was elected Chairman for the 2024 presidential election year, overseeing an agency of 300 staff to administer federal campaign-finance law.
Sean began his political career in the United States Senate, where he served as General Counsel for Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Deputy Chief Counsel for Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX). During his tenure in both offices, Sean worked on the Senate’s Committee on the Judiciary on some of the Senate’s most high-stakes matters, including major legislation and two Supreme Court confirmations.
Prior to his Senate service, Sean worked at an international law firm in Washington, D.C., where his practice focused on appeals and constitutional law. He also served as a law clerk for Judge Jerry E. Smith of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in Houston, Texas.
Sean has appeared on television, on radio, and in print in outlets such as The Ingraham Angle, Varney & Co., Morning Edition, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Axios, and Politico. He speaks regularly at major conferences, including the Republican National Lawyers Association and the National Association of Business PACs.
Founder and Executive Director, National Security Institute; Assistant Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
Jamil N. Jaffer is the Founder and Executive Director of the National Security Institute at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University where he also serves as an Assistant Professor of Law, Director of the National Security Law and Policy Program, and Director of the Cyber, Intelligence, and National Security LLM Program. Jamil also teaches classes on counterterrorism, intelligence, surveillance, cybersecurity, and other national security matters, as well as a summer course held abroad with U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil M. Gorsuch. Jamil is also affiliated with Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation and previously served as a Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution from 2016 to 2019.
Jamil is also a Venture Partner with Paladin Capital Group, where he assists the firm with investments across the full range of its themes and theses, including a focus on dual-use national security technologies. Jamil also serves on the board of directors of RangeForce, a cybersecurity training and readiness platform startup and Tozny, a digital identity startup, and on the advisory boards of U.S. Strategic Metals, North America’s largest primary producer of cobalt, a critical mineral used in EV batteries, aerospace, and other national security applications; and Constella Intelligence, a deep and dark web intelligence startup. Jamil also serves as an advisor to Beacon Global Strategies, a strategic advisory firm and Duco, a technology platform startup that connects corporations with geopolitical and international business experts. Jamil is also the managing director of Trigraph Caveat Capital, a private investment vehicle.
Among other things, Jamil currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Greater Washington Board of Trade, the Board of Advisors for the Global Cyber Alliance, and the Advisory Board of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies’ Center on Cyber and Tech Innovation, the Executive Committee of the Reagan Institute Strategy Group. Jamil is also a Fellow at the Academy for Judaic, Christian, and Islamic Studies, an advisor to the Concordia Summit, and is a member of the Board of Directors for the Center for Intelligence Policy, the Board of Directors of Speech First, and the Executive Committee of the International Law and National Security Practice Group of the Federalist Society.
Immediately prior to his current positions, from 2015-2021, Jamil served as a senior business leader at IronNet Cybersecurity, helping take the company from a bootstrapped first-year technology products startup through two rounds of venture capital fundraising, growing from 40 employees to over 300, and through its listing on New York Stock Exchange. In his role as IronNet's Senior Vice President for Strategy, Partnerships & Corporate Development, Jamil worked directly for the co-CEOs of the company, Gen (ret.) Keith B. Alexander, the former Director of the National Security Agency and Founding Commander of U.S. Cyber Command, and Bill Welch, the former COO of Zscaler and Duo; in that role, Jamil led all of the company’s strategic and technology partnership efforts, including developing go-to-market and technology integration plans with some of the largest cloud platforms and cybersecurity companies in the market, evaluating potential acquisition targets, and developing overall corporate strategy and thought leadership around collective security and collaborative defense in the cyber arena.
Prior to his time at IronNet, Jamil served on the leadership team of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee as Chief Counsel and Senior Advisor under Chairman Bob Corker (R-TN), where he worked on key national security and foreign policy issues, including leading the drafting of the proposed Authorization for the Use of Military Force against ISIS in 2014 and 2015, the AUMF against Syria in 2013, and revisions to the 9/11 AUMF against al Qaeda. Jamil was also the lead architect of the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act and two sanctions laws against Russia for its first intervention in Ukraine.
Prior to joining SFRC, Jamil served as Senior Counsel to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence under Chairman Mike Rogers (R-MI) where he led the committee’s oversight of NSA surveillance, NRO intelligence issues, and NGA analytic and collection matters, as well as intelligence community-wide counterterrorism issues. Jamil was also the lead architect of the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, the nation’s first cyber threat intelligence sharing legislation that was signed into law in 2015.
In the Bush Administration, Jamil served in the White House as an Associate Counsel to the President, handling Defense Department, State Department, and intelligence community matters, and serving as one of the White House Counsel’s primary representatives to the National Security Council Deputies Committee.
Prior to the White House, Jamil served on the leadership team of the Justice Department’s National Security Division as Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for National Security, where he focused on counterterrorism and intelligence matters. At NSD, Jamil helped lead the division’s work on In re: Directives, the first ever two-party litigated matter in the FISA Court and the second case before the FISA Court of Review in its 30-year history. Jamil also led NSD’s efforts on the President’s Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative (CNCI), including the drafting of NSPD-54/HSPD-23, and related classified matters, and advised the National Security Agency (NSA) and U.S. Cyber Command’s predecessor organization, the Joint Function Component Command for Network Warfare (JFCC-NW), on matters related to cyber intelligence collection and offensive cyber activities. For his work on these matters, Jamil was awarded the Assistant Attorney General’s Award for Special Initiative and was among the group of lawyers awarded the Director of National Intelligence’s 2008 Legal Award (Team of the Year – Cyber Legal).
Jamil also served in other positions in the Justice Department, including in the Office of Legal Policy, where he worked on the confirmations of Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. and Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. to the United States Supreme Court.
Jamil also served as a lawyer in private practice at Kellogg Huber, a Washington, DC-based litigation boutique, as a policy advisor to Congressman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), and as a staff member or senior advisor on a number of political campaigns, including two presidential campaigns and a presidential transition team. While in law school, Jamil was a member of the University of Chicago Law Review, managing editor of the Chicago Journal of International Law, and National Symposium Editor of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy. Following law school, Jamil served as a law clerk to Judge Edith H. Jones of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and, later in his career, as a law clerk to then-Judge Neil M. Gorsuch when he first joined the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit as well as a law clerk to Justice Neil Gorsuch when he joined the U.S. Supreme Court.
Jamil has published multiple op-eds and academic articles on national security, foreign policy, cybersecurity, counterterrorism, encryption, and intelligence matters, and is the co-author of a book chapter with former NSA Director Gen. (Ret.) Keith B. Alexander on national security and the press in National Security, Leaks, and the Freedom of the Press: The Pentagon Papers Fifty Years On (2021) and a book chapter with former CIA Director Gen. (ret.) Mike Hayden on ISIS, al Qaeda, and other international terrorist groups in Choosing to Lead: American Foreign Policy for a Disordered World (2015). Jamil has also written book chapters on cybersecurity and surveillance, as well as op-eds and policy papers with former Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey, former National Counterterrorism Center Director Matt Olsen, and Congressman Mike Waltz (R-FL), among others.
Jamil has previously taught graduate-level courses in intelligence law and policy at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs and the National Intelligence University, served an outside advisor to the Cyberspace Solarium Commission, and has recently testified before committees of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives on China, cybersecurity, counterterrorism, and other national security matters. Jamil has also recently appeared on a range of national television and radio outlets including CNN, Fox News, Fox Business, MSNBC, Bloomberg, PBS, Voice of America, and National Public Radio, and in various print and online publications, including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and the Washington Post on a range of national security matters including cybersecurity, counterterrorism, surveillance, encryption, privacy, and foreign policy issues.
Jamil holds degrees from UCLA (BA, cum laude), the University of Chicago Law School (JD, with honors), and the United States Naval War College (MA, with distinction).
Professor of Cyber Security and Policy, Tufts University
Susan Landau is Professor of Cyber Security and Policy in the Department of Computer Science, Tufts University. Earlier, as Bridge Professor of Cyber Security and Policy at the Fletcher School and School of Engineering, she founded Tufts's innovative MS degree in Cybersecurity and Public Policy. Prior to Tufts, Landau was Senior Staff Privacy Analyst at Google, Distinguished Engineer at Sun Microsystems, and faculty member at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and Wesleyan University.
An interdisciplinary scholar, Landau works at the intersection of privacy, surveillance, cybersecurity, and the law. She has testified before Congress and briefed US and European policymakers on encryption, Landau and Whitfield Diffie won the McGannon Book Award for Social and Ethical Relevance in Communication Policy Research for Privacy on the Line: The Politics of Wiretapping and Encryption. She received the Surveillance Studies Book Prize for Surveillance or Security? The Risks Posed by New Wiretapping Technologies, the USENIX Lifetime Achievement Award, shared with Steven Bellovin and Matt Blaze, and the American Mathematical Society's Bertrand Russell Prize. Landau has served on committees of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, on the National Science Foundation Computer and Information Science Engineering Advisory Board, the National Institute of Standards and Technology Information Security and Privacy Advisory Board, and on mathematics and computer science journal editorial boards. Landau received her BA from Princeton, MS from Cornell, and PhD from MIT.
Strategic Council, Silverado Policy Accelerator; former Republican Deputy Staff Director, U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
Tara Caroselli McFeely is a senior national security executive with expertise spanning defense, intelligence, and technology policy, political, and budgetary domains. She serves on the Strategic Council at Silverado Policy Accelerator, advising on innovative, data-driven national security policy initiatives, and is an Adjunct Professor in the Master of Science in Foreign Service program at Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service.
In government, she most recently served as the Republican Deputy Staff Director on the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) driving the national security and intelligence policy and Executive Branch oversight strategic direction. She also co-led the professional staff oversight functions of the policies and programs of the U.S. intelligence enterprise spanning six Departments: Defense, Energy, Homeland Security, Justice, Treasury, State; and two independent agencies: the Central Intelligence Agency and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Prior to this role she served as the SSCI Budget Director, leading the staff oversight of the Intelligence Community (IC) and Defense Intelligence Enterprise annual $100.0+ billion budget and programs. Formerly, she was the SSCI Chairman’s Senior Advisor for Counterterrorism and the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s intelligence programs.
In the research domain, Ms. McFeely was the Deputy Director of the Intelligence Analyses Division at the Institute for Defense Analyses. In this role she led a large team of senior social sciences and STEM researchers on complex multidisciplinary research and analysis projects.
At Booz Allen Hamilton, she was a senior advisor for multiple IC and Department of Defense clients. She also led numerous multifaceted contracts across the U.S. Government landscape globally, including multilateral counter-Biological Weapons (BW) program initiatives.
Ms. McFeely began her career serving globally in the U.S. Navy, initially as a Surface Warfare Officer conducting U.S. 2nd Fleet and NATO operations across the Atlantic, and subsequently as a Naval Intelligence Officer supporting operations in the Balkans and the Global War on Terror.
Ms. McFeely has a Bachelor of Science in Political Science from the U.S. Naval Academy where she was a letterwoman on the Women’s Varsity Basketball Team. She also has a Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy (MALD) from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University.
Associate Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University
Robert Luther III was appointed Associate Professor of Law in 2025 after serving as Distinguished Professor of Law from 2024-2025 and Adjunct Professor of Law from 2019-2024. He teaches and writes on the federal courts, legal and judicial ethics, political law, Congress, and professional sports. He has served at high levels in all three branches of the federal government and recently founded Constitutional Solutions PLLC—a law firm that navigates judicial candidates, judges, elected officials, professional athletes, and executives through high-stakes hearings, investigations, and reputational attacks.
Immediately before joining the Scalia Law faculty, Professor Luther spent over five years in the Washington, D.C. office of Jones Day, where his practice focused on strategic counseling, crisis management, and litigation. Prior to joining Jones Day, he served as Associate Counsel to the President of the United States in the White House Counsel’s Office. In the White House, he co-managed the judicial selection process and supervised the preparation of over 150 federal judicial nominees for their successful U.S. Senate confirmation hearings. The New York Times Magazine referred to his work on judicial selection during this period as “unique in White House history.” Before joining the White House, Professor Luther served as Counsel to then–U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) on the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, where he served as a core member of the team that prepared the Senator for confirmation as United States Attorney General. Professor Luther was also a law clerk to Judge Daniel A. Manion of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. Earlier in his career, Professor Luther practiced civil and appellate litigation at a boutique firm in Williamsburg, Va. and taught at William & Mary Law School.
Professor Luther frequently speaks on the legal profession, political law, and federal judicial selection. His public work has been covered by or appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Fox News, The Hill, Politico, the Washington Examiner, National Law Journal, Law360, The Washington Reporter, and elsewhere, while his scholarship is published in the law journals of nearly twenty universities including three journals of Harvard University. He holds active law licenses in Virginia, the District of Columbia, the U.S. Supreme Court, and half of the U.S. Courts of Appeals.
In 2025, Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin appointed Professor Luther to the Board of Visitors to Mount Vernon. He is an elected member of the American Law Institute (ALI) and serves on the Advisory Board of the Wilson Center for Leadership at Hampden-Sydney College. Since 2019, he has helped over 200 of his students secure clerkships with federal judges.
Solicitor General, State of Florida
Previously, David served as Senior Advisor to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, Chief Deputy Attorney General of Idaho, and Solicitor General of Montana.
As an appointee of President Donald J. Trump, David served as the Principal Deputy General Counsel at the U.S. Department of Commerce, where he advised the Secretary on legal and policy matters implicating every corner of Commerce’s broad mandate. In this role, David worked closely with the White House to advance the President's agenda, and managed the Department’s expansive litigation portfolio. He also defended Department officials in Congressional investigations, and served as Commerce’s Regulatory Reform Officer and Chief Environmental Review Permitting Officer.
David clerked for Judge Lawrence VanDyke on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and helped create and lead the public interest litigation group at the Freedom Foundation, where he litigated constitutional, labor, and campaign finance cases before federal and state courts and administrative agencies.
David received his B.A. from Western Kentucky University. After a year teaching overseas, David earned his J.D. from The George Washington University Law School, where he served as symposium editor for the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy and President of the Federalist Society.
Commissioner, Federal Trade Commission
Andrew N. Ferguson was sworn in April 2, 2024 as a Commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission. President Joe Biden named Ferguson to a term that expires on September 25, 2030.
Ferguson most recently served as solicitor general of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Prior to that position, he served as chief counsel to U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, and as a Republican counsel on the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. He also practiced law at several Washington, D.C. law firms. He earned his undergraduate degree and law degree from the University of Virginia. After law school, Ferguson clerked for Judge Karen L. Henderson on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
President, America First Legal Foundation
Gene Hamilton is the President of America First Legal, which he co-founded, and where he was previously the Executive Director, Executive Vice President, and General Counsel. He most recently served as Deputy White House Counsel to President Donald Trump. Earlier in his career, Gene served as Counselor to Attorney General at the U.S. Department of Justice and as Senior Counselor to the Secretary of Homeland Security. He also served as General Counsel on the Senate Judiciary Committee and held several roles at the Department of Homeland Security, including with U.S. Immigration Enforcement, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the Office of the General Counsel. He holds a B.A. from the University of Georgia and a J.D. from Washington and Lee University School of Law.
First Assistant Attorney General, Texas
Brent Webster was appointed by Ken Paxton to be First Assistant Attorney General in 2020. As second in command to Ken Paxton, Brent’s job is to implement Paxton’s policy and litigation initiatives and manage the day-to-day operation of the Office of the Attorney General, which employs approximately 4200 Texans.
Since his appointment in October 2020, Brent has led a multi-pronged initiative at Ken Paxton’s request to (1) serve as the primary check on the federal governments overreach, (2) ensure that Texas is deterring wrongful conduct in the state through civil enforcement mechanisms, and (3) instill a trial-focused, litigation-first mentality across the agency to foster better results for Texas when involved in litigation. Brent has led Ken Paxton’s litigation against the federal government in 106 lawsuits, with a staggering win rate above 75%, he has doubled the average annual recovery through civil enforcement, amounting to over $426 million dollars in his first fiscal year and $548 million in his second fiscal year, and he has led an agency-wide initiative to empower OAG lawyers to aggressively pursue the State’s interests in court, whether against liberal municipalities, rogue school districts, or anyone else who violates the law in Texas. Most recently, Brent was the lead negotiator at mediation for the historic 1.4-billion-dollar settlement against Meta for the State of Texas.
Prior to joining the Attorney General's Office, Webster served in a variety of leadership roles including First Assistant District Attorney in Williamson County, Texas, Chief Operations Officer and General Counsel at an Austin start-up, and Senior Counsel at a litigation law firm. While serving as a Criminal Prosecutor for 10 years in Williamson he was awarded the “Crime Victim Advocate Hall of Fame Award” for outstanding service to crime victims.
Webster received his undergraduate education at Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas graduating in 2003, and received his legal education at University of Houston Law Center in 2005. He is licensed to practice law by the state of Texas and is admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court, and the federal district courts in the Western, Southern, and Northern districts of Texas.
Partner, Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath LLC
Aaron Van Oort is a legal strategist and appellate lawyer who co-chairs Faegre Drinker’s appellate advocacy group. A former law clerk for Justice Antonin Scalia, a Fellow of the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers and an editor of the Eighth Circuit Appellate Practice Manual (11th ed. 2024), Aaron is a distinguished voice for clients in trial and appellate courts throughout the country. Chambers USA describes him as having “notable prominence and presence in this field.”
Justice, Supreme Court of Tennessee
Justice Sarah Campbell was confirmed to the Tennessee Supreme Court in 2022. She previously served as an Associate Solicitor General in the Tennessee Attorney General’s Office and as an associate at the law firm of Williams & Connolly LLP in Washington, DC. Justice Campbell earned her law degree from Duke University School of Law, a Master of Public Policy degree from Duke University, and her undergraduate degree from the University of Tennessee, where she received the Torchbearer Award. She served as a law clerk for Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. on the United States Supreme Court and Judge William H. Pryor Jr. on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit
Andrew Oldham is a Circuit Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Before ascending to the bench, Judge Oldham served as General Counsel to Texas Governor Greg Abbott, where he advised the Governor on a range of issues under federal and state law and managed litigation in which the Governor was an interested party. Before that he served as Deputy Solicitor General for the State of Texas, where he represented Texas in federal courts across the country, including twice before the United States Supreme Court. Before moving to Texas, Judge Oldham was an attorney at Kellogg Hansen Todd Figel & Frederick in Washington, D.C. His practice focused on appellate litigation in federal courts of appeals throughout the country. Before entering private practice, Judge Oldham served as a law clerk to Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr., at the Supreme Court of the United States and to Judge David B. Sentelle of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He also worked as an attorney-adviser in the Office of Legal Counsel at the U.S. Department of Justice from 2006 to 2008. Judge Oldham earned a B.A. from the University of Virginia with highest honors, a Truman Scholarship for graduate school, an M. Phil., first class (with distinction), from Cambridge University, and a J.D., magna cum laude, from Harvard Law School.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit
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.
Attorney General of Kentucky
On November 7, 2023, Russell Coleman was elected the 52nd Attorney General of Kentucky, winning 117 out of 120 counties.
Prior to that, Coleman spent most of the past two decades in public service. In 2017, he was nominated by President Trump and unanimously confirmed by the Senate to be the United States Attorney for the Western District of Kentucky. In that capacity, he was the chief federal law enforcement officer for Kentucky's 53 western counties ranging from Louisville to the Jackson Purchase Region.
Coleman previously served as a Partner in the law firm of Frost, Brown, Todd; as a prosecutor in the Oldham Commonwealth's Attorney's Office; and as Legal Counsel to U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell.
A former FBI Special Agent, he was assigned to multiple field offices and served a temporary assignment in Iraq in support of the Global War on Terror. A significant spinal cord injury cut short his career with the FBI. After substantial therapy at Louisville’s Frazier Rehab Institute, Coleman learned to walk again.
Coleman was raised in Graves, Daviess, and Logan Counties, graduating from Logan County High School. He received both his undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Kentucky.
Russell lives in Oldham County with his wife, Ashley, and their three children.