George Mason University Foundation Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
Biography
TODD J. ZYWICKI is George Mason University Foundation Professor of Law at Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University and Research Fellow of the George Mason Law and Economics Center. During the Fall 2023 semester he served as the Visiting Scholar in Conservative Thought and Policy for the Bruce Benson Center for the Study of Western Civilization at the University of Colorado-Boulder. From 2020-2021 he was Chair of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Taskforce on Federal Consumer Financial Law. In 2021 he was inducted to the American College of Consumer Financial Services Lawyers. He is also a Senior Fellow of the F.A. Hayek Program for the Advanced Study of Politics, Philosophy, and Economics at George Mason University and a former Senior Fellow of the Cato Institute. From 2015-2017 he was Executive Director of the George Mason Law and Economics Center. He served as Co-Editor of the Supreme Court Economic Review from 2006-2017. From 2003-2004, Professor Zywicki served as the Director of the Office of Policy Planning at the Federal Trade Commission. He has also taught at Vanderbilt University Law School, Georgetown University Law Center, Boston College Law School, Mississippi College School of Law, and China University of Political Science and Law.
Professor Zywicki clerked for Judge Jerry E. Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and worked as an associate at Alston & Bird in Atlanta, Georgia, where he practiced bankruptcy and commercial law. He received his J.D. from the University of Virginia, where he was executive editor of the Virginia Tax Review and John M. Olin Scholar in Law and Economics. Professor Zywicki also received an M.A. in Economics from Clemson University and an A.B. cum Laude with high honors in his major from Dartmouth College.
Professor Zywicki is also a Lone Mountain Fellow of the Property and Environment Research Center, a Fellow of the International Centre for Economic Research in Turin, Italy, and a former Senior Fellow of the Goldwater Institute. During the Fall 2008 Semester Professor Zywicki was the Searle Fellow of the George Mason University School of Law and was a 2008-09 W. Glenn Campbell and Rita Ricardo-Campbell National Fellow and the Arch W. Shaw National Fellow at the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace. He has lectured and consulted with government officials around the world, including Iceland, Italy, Japan, and Guatemala. In 2006 Professor Zywicki served as a Member of the United States Department of Justice Study Group on “Identifying Fraud, Abuse and Errors in the United States Bankruptcy System.”
Professor Zywicki is the author of more than 130 articles in leading law reviews and peer-reviewed economics journals. He is one of the Top 10 most-cited law professors in the field of Commercial Law and one of the Top 25 law professors on Twitter as measured by engagement levels. He is one of the Top 50 Most Downloaded Law Authors at the Social Science Research Network. He has testified multiple times before Congress on issues of consumer bankruptcy law and consumer credit and is a frequent commentator on legal issues in the print and broadcast media, including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, The Washington Post, The Washington Times, Nightline, The Newshour with Jim Lehrer, Neil Cavuto Show, Fox & Friends, Smerconish, Fox News @ Night with Shannon Bream, Fox Business, CNN, CNBC, Bloomberg News, BBC, TheDiane Rehm Show, Lou Dobbs Show, Jerry Doyle Show, and The Laura Ingraham Show.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit
Biography
Judge Nelson was confirmed to the Ninth Circuit in October 2018,as the youngest Circuit Judge to serve from Idaho and he has chambers in his hometown of Idaho Falls.Prior to his confirmation, Judge Nelson served for nine years as General Counsel of Idaho Falls-based Melaleuca, Inc., a consumer goods company. He previously worked in Washington, DC, where he served in all three branches of the federal government, including as Special Counsel for Supreme Court nominations to the Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee; Deputy General Counsel to the White House Office of Management and Budget; Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Environment and Natural Resources Division of the United States Department of Justice; and a law clerk to Judge Henderson of the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. He has argued in most of the federal courts of appeals and worked on dozens of Supreme Court briefs. He started in the Washington, DC office of Sidley Austin as an appellate lawyer, after clerking for Judges Mosk and Brower of the Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal at The Hague, and fornow-Judge Tom Griffith, then-Senate Legal Counsel, during the impeachment trial of President Clinton. Judge Nelson earned his B.A. from Brigham Young University and his J.D., with honors, from BYU Law School. Judge Nelson has been a member of the Federalist Society since 1998.
Sterling Professor Emeritus of Law, Yale Law School
Biography
Owen Fiss is Sterling Professor Emeritus of Law and Professorial Lecturer in Law of Yale University. He was educated at Dartmouth, Oxford, and Harvard. He clerked for Thurgood Marshall (when Marshall was a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit) and later for Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. He also served in the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice from 1966 to 1968. Before coming to Yale, Professor Fiss taught at the University of Chicago. At Yale he teaches procedure, legal theory, and constitutional law.
Professor Fiss is the author of many articles and books, including The Civil Rights Injunction, Troubled Beginnings of the Modern State, The Structure of Procedure (with Robert Cover), Liberalism Divided, The Irony of Free Speech, A Community of Equals, A Way Out: America’s Ghettos and the Legacy of Racism, Adjudication and its Alternatives (with Judith Resnik), The Law as it Could Be, The Dictates of Justice: Essays on Law and Human Rights, and A War Like No Other: The Constitution in a Time of Terror. In a 2012 study, four of his articles were named as among the top 100 most-cited law review articles of all time. His most recent book is Pillars of Justice: Lawyers and the Liberal Tradition.
Professor Fiss is one of the founders of the Law School programs in Latin America and the Middle East and, along with Anthony Kronman, directs the Abdallah S. Kamel Center for the Study of Islamic Law and Civilization. Professor Fiss is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and has received honorary doctorates from the University of Toronto, Universidad de Chile, Universidad de Buenos Aires, and Universidad de Palermo (Buenos Aires). He was also awarded La distinción Sócrates from Universidad de Los Andes (Bogotá) and was appointed honorary visiting professor at Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México. Most recently, Professor Fiss was awarded the 2020 Henry M. Phillips Prize in Jurisprudence by the American Philosophical Society, becoming only the 26th recipient of the prize since it was established in 1888.
Anthony Kronman is Sterling Professor of Law at Yale Law School. A former Dean of Yale Law School, Professor Kronman teaches in the areas of contracts, bankruptcy, jurisprudence, social theory, and professional responsibility. Before coming to Yale, he taught at the University of Chicago. Among his books are Education's End: Why Our Colleges and Universities Have Given Up on the Meaning of Life, Max Weber, Contracts: Cases and Materials (with F. Kessler and G. Gilmore), and Lost Lawyer. His latest book, Confessions of a Born-Again Pagan, was published by Yale University Press in 2016. Professor Kronman received his B.A. from Williams College, and his Ph.D. in Philosophy and J.D. from Yale.
Clarke has a law degree from Valparaiso University School of Law and a B.A. in Political Science from Allegheny College.
Clarke Forsythe is currently Senior Counsel for AUL and author of Abuse of Discretion: The Inside Story of Roe v. Wade. His twenty-seven years of service to AUL includes founding and directing the AUL Project in Law & Bioethics, serving for six years as Vice President and General Counsel, overseeing our nationwide litigation and legislation strategy, and serving as President for ten years.
Mr. Forsythe has argued cases before federal and state courts and has testified before Congress and state legislatures. He is also a prolific writer on pro-life law issues, having published more than 15 law review articles and book chapters, as well as articles in First Things, the Wall Street Journal, and National Review Online. Other leading newspapers that have published his articles or quoted him include The New York Times, USA Today, the Washington Times, the Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, and the Wall Street Journal. Clarke blogs frequently on “The Road to Roe."
In 2006, Mr. Forsythe received an M.A. in Bioethics from Trinity International University. His recent articles include “A Lack of Prudence,” published in Human Life Review; “Protecting Unconscious, Medically-Dependent Persons after Wendland & Schiavo,” published in Constitutional Commentary; “The Tragic Failure of Roe v. Wade: Why Abortion Should be Returned to the States” published in Texas Review of Law and Politics; and most recently, “A Road Map Through the Supreme Court’s Back Alley” published in Villanova Law Review.
His first book, Politics for the Greatest Good: The Case for Prudence in the Public Square, was published by InterVarsity Press in 2009. First Things called it “an essential book for lawmakers and all participants in the ongoing culture wars.”
Tazewell Taylor Professor of Law and William H. Cabell Research Professor, William & Mary Law School
Biography
Jonathan H. Adler joined the William & Mary law faculty as the Tazwell Taylor Professor of Law and William H. Cabell Research Professor in 2025. Prior to joining the faculty, he was the inaugural Johan Verheij Memorial Professor of Law and the founding Director of the Coleman P. Burke Center for Environmental Law at the Case Western Reserve University School of Law.
Professor Adler is the author or editor of seven books, including Climate Liberalism: Perspectives on Liberty, Property and Pollution (Palgrave, 2023), Marijuana Federalism: Uncle Sam and Mary Jane (Brookings Institution Press, 2020), Business and the Roberts Court (Oxford University Press, 2016) and Rebuilding the Ark: New Perspectives on Endangered Species Act Reform (AEI Press, 2011).
His articles have appeared in publications ranging from the Harvard Environmental Law Review and Yale Journal on Regulation to the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and Washington Post. He has testified before Congress a dozen times, and his work has been cited in the U.S. Supreme Court. A 2024 study identified Professor Adler as the seventh most cited legal academic in administrative and environmental law from 2019 to 2023.
Professor Adler is a contributing editor to Civitas Outlook and a regular contributor to the popular legal blog, The Volokh Conspiracy. A regular commentator on constitutional and regulatory issues, he has appeared on numerous radio and television programs, ranging from the PBS Newshour and National Public Radio to the Fox News Channel and Entertainment Tonight.
Professor Adler is a senior fellow at the Property & Environment Research Center in Bozeman, Montana. In 2018, Professor Adler was elected to membership in the American Law Institute and helped co-found the organization Checks and Balances. In 2024, Professor Adler was appointed a public member of the Administrative Conference of the United States.
Professor Adler clerked for the Honorable David B. Sentelle on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
Professor of Law, University of Michigan Law School
Biography
Professor Nicholas Bagley teaches and writes in the areas of administrative law, regulatory theory, and health law. Prior to joining the Law School faculty, he was an attorney with the appellate staff in the Civil Division at the U.S. Department of Justice, where he argued a dozen cases before the U.S. Courts of Appeals and acted as lead counsel in many more. Professor Bagley also served as a law clerk to Justice John Paul Stevens of the U.S. Supreme Court and to the Hon. David S. Tatel of the U.S. Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit. Professor Bagley holds a BA in English from Yale University and received his JD, summa cum laude, from New York University School of Law. Before entering law school, he joined Teach For America and taught eighth-grade English at a public school in South Bronx. Professor Bagley's work has appeared in the Harvard Law Review, the Columbia Law Review, the Georgetown Law Journal, the New England Journal of Medicine, and the Journal of Health Politics, Policy, and Law. In 2012, he was the recipient of the Law School's L. Hart Wright Award for Excellence in Teaching. He is a frequent contributor to The Incidental Economist, a prominent health policy blog.
Edwin M. Adams Professor of Law, University of Illinois College of Law
Speaker Information
Julia D. Mahoney
John S. Battle Professor of Law, University of Virginia School of Law
Biography
Julia D. Mahoney teaches courses in property, government finance, constitutional law and nonprofit organizations. A graduate of Yale Law School, she joined the University of Virginia faculty as an associate professor in 1999 and is now John S. Battle Professor of Law. She has also taught at the University of Southern California Law School and the University of Chicago Law School, and before entering the legal academy, practiced law at the New York firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz. Her scholarly articles include works on land preservation, eminent domain, health care reform and property rights in human biological materials.
Clarke has a law degree from Valparaiso University School of Law and a B.A. in Political Science from Allegheny College.
Clarke Forsythe is currently Senior Counsel for AUL and author of Abuse of Discretion: The Inside Story of Roe v. Wade. His twenty-seven years of service to AUL includes founding and directing the AUL Project in Law & Bioethics, serving for six years as Vice President and General Counsel, overseeing our nationwide litigation and legislation strategy, and serving as President for ten years.
Mr. Forsythe has argued cases before federal and state courts and has testified before Congress and state legislatures. He is also a prolific writer on pro-life law issues, having published more than 15 law review articles and book chapters, as well as articles in First Things, the Wall Street Journal, and National Review Online. Other leading newspapers that have published his articles or quoted him include The New York Times, USA Today, the Washington Times, the Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, and the Wall Street Journal. Clarke blogs frequently on “The Road to Roe."
In 2006, Mr. Forsythe received an M.A. in Bioethics from Trinity International University. His recent articles include “A Lack of Prudence,” published in Human Life Review; “Protecting Unconscious, Medically-Dependent Persons after Wendland & Schiavo,” published in Constitutional Commentary; “The Tragic Failure of Roe v. Wade: Why Abortion Should be Returned to the States” published in Texas Review of Law and Politics; and most recently, “A Road Map Through the Supreme Court’s Back Alley” published in Villanova Law Review.
His first book, Politics for the Greatest Good: The Case for Prudence in the Public Square, was published by InterVarsity Press in 2009. First Things called it “an essential book for lawmakers and all participants in the ongoing culture wars.”
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.”
Ari Cohn is Chicago-based attorney with a decade of experience defending the First Amendment and free speech. A nationally-recognized expert in First Amendment law, defamation law, and Section 230, Ari currently serves as Free Speech Counsel at TechFreedom, a non-partisan nonprofit think tank devoted to technology law and policy, and the preservation of civil liberties in our digital world. He works tirelessly with his colleagues, other civil society groups, and stakeholders to defend the First Amendment and the vibrant, open Internet that has put the world and all of its knowledge at our fingertips, advocating before legislators, regulators, the courts, and the public. In his private capacity, Ari defends individual clients against abusive and censorial defamation (and other speech tort) claims aimed at dissuading or punishing the exercise of First Amendment rights.
Prior to joining TechFreedom, Ari was the director of the Individual Rights Defense Program at the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (now the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression), where he managed the program’s direct advocacy and guided the organization to a record number of free speech victories on behalf of college students and faculty members across the United States. Ari has also previously served as an attorney with the United States Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, and as a litigation associate at the Chicago office of Mayer Brown LLP, where he represented large multinational companies in complex litigation matters.
Ari is a sought-after communicator on free speech and tech policy issues, regularly serving as a source for print media and appearing on television, radio, and podcasts. He has been invited to speak to dozens of conferences, continuing legal education programs, events, and other groups on important First Amendment and tech policy issues. Ari particularly enjoys speaking to diverse audiences and emphasizing bridging ideological divides to foster productive engagement on important issues.
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.
