Professor at Louis D. Brandeis School of Law, University of Louisville
Biography
Professor Russell L. Weaver graduated cum laude from the University of Missouri School of Law in 1978. He was a member of the Missouri Law Review, was elected to the Order of the Coif, and won the Judge Roy Harper Prize. After law school, Professor Weaver was associated with Watson, Ess, Marshall & Enggas in Kansas City, Missouri, and worked for the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of General Counsel in Washington, D.C.
Professor Weaver began teaching at the Louis D. Brandeis School of Law in 1982, and holds the rank of Professor of Law and Distinguished University Scholar. He teaches Constitutional Law, Advanced Constitutional Law, Remedies, Administrative Law, Criminal Law, and Criminal Procedure. He has received the Brandeis School of Law's awards for teaching, scholarship, and service, including the Brown Todd & Heyburn Fellowship. He has been awarded the President's Award (University of Louisville) for Outstanding Research, Scholarship and Creative Activity in the Field of Social Science, the President's Award for Outstanding Research, Scholarship and Creative Activity in the Career Achievement Category, and the President's Award for Distinguished Service. He is the Executive Director and past president of the Southeastern Conference of the Association of American Law Schools. He is an Honorary Associate of Macquarie University (Sydney, Australia).
Professor Weaver is a prolific author who has written dozens of books and articles over the last twenty-five years. He was named the Judge Spurgeon Bell Distinguished Visiting Professor at South Texas College of Law (affiliated with Texas A & M University) during the 1998-99 academic year, and he held the Herbert Herff Chair of Excellence at the Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law, University of Memphis, during 1992-93. In addition, he has been asked to speak at law schools and conferences around the world, and has been a visiting professor at law schools in France, England, Germany, Japan, Australia and Canada.
Professor Weaver is particularly noted for his work in the constitutional law area. He has served as a consultant to the constitutional drafting commissions of Belarus and Kyrghyzstan and as a commentator on the Russian Constitution. His constitutional law writings have focused on free speech issues, particularly those relating to the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark decision in N.Y. Times Co. v. Sullivan, and include a constitutional law case-book and two anthologies (The First Amendment Anthology and The Constitutional Law Anthology). He has a First Amendment casebook in progress.
Professor Weaver is also noted for his writings on legal education and his work in the administrative law area. In 1992 and 1993, he served as a consultant to the Administrative Conference of the United States. His writings have focused on agency interpretations of statutes and regulations, and he is co-author of one of the leading administrative law casebooks.
Professor Weaver has served on many community and professional committees. He served on the Louisville Bar Association's (LBA) Professional Responsibility Committee, and as Chair of the Association of American Law Schools' (AALS) Criminal Justice Section and serves on the AALS Planning Committee for the New Law Teacher's Workshop. He has also served on the American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky's Legal Panel and Board of Directors.
Served as a consultant to the constitutional drafting commissions of Kyrghyzstanand Belarus and as a commentator on the Russian Constitution; formerly workedin the Office of General Counsel in the Department of Energy; consultant to theAdministrative Conference of the United States. J.D., cum laude, University of Missouri Law School
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)
John R. Lott, Jr. is an economist who has held research and/or teaching positions at the University of Chicago, Yale University, Stanford, UCLA, Wharton, and Rice and was the chief economist at the United States Sentencing Commission during 1988 and 1989. He has published over 100 articles in academic journals. He also is the author of six books including More Guns, Less Crime, Freedomnomics, The Bias Against Guns, and Are Predatory Commitments Credible? He has just released another book entitled "Debacle: Obama's war on jobs and growth and what we can do now to regain our future." Lott is a FoxNews.com contributor and a weekly columnist for them. Opinion pieces by Prof. Lott have appeared in such places as The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, the New York Post, USA Today, and The Chicago Tribune. He has appeared on such television programs as the ABC and NBC National Evening News broadcasts, Fox News, "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer," and the "Today Show." He received his Ph.D. in economics from UCLA in 1984.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit
Biography
Judge Sykes was nominated to the Seventh Circuit by President George W. Bush and confirmed by the Senate in 2004. Prior to her appointment to the federal bench, Judge Sykes served as a justice on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Governor Tommy G. Thompson appointed her in September 1999 to fill a mid-term vacancy on the state supreme court, and she was elected to a full ten-year term in April 2000. From 1992-1999, Judge Sykes served on the state trial bench in Milwaukee County (elected in 1992 and re-elected in 1998). From 1985-1992, Judge Sykes practiced law with the Milwaukee firm of Whyte & Hirschboeck, S.C., and from 1984-1985, was a law clerk to Federal Judge Terence T. Evans.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee area, Judge Sykes earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University in 1980 and a law degree from Marquette University Law School in 1984. Between college and law school, Judge Sykes worked as a reporter for The Milwaukee Journal.
Professor of Law and Assistant Director, Criminal Justice Center, University of Florida Levin College of Law
Biography
Professor Stinneford teaches and writes about legal ethics, criminal law, criminal procedure, and constitutional law. His work has been cited by the United States Supreme Court, several state supreme courts and federal courts of appeal, and numerous scholars. It has published in numerous scholarly journals including the Georgetown Law Journal, the Northwestern University Law Review, the Virginia Law Review, the Notre Dame Law Review, and the William & Mary Law Review. The Stanford-Yale Junior faculty forum selected one of his articles as the best paper in the category of Constitutional History, and the AALS Criminal Justice Section named another article as the best paper in its Junior Scholars Paper Competition. In the fall of 2015, he was a Visiting Scholar at the Georgetown Law Center, Center for the Constitution.
Before joining the Florida faculty in 2009, Stinneford clerked for the Hon. James Moran of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, served as an Assistant United States Attorney, and practiced law with Winston & Strawn in Chicago. Stinneford teaches first-year courses in Criminal Law and Constitutional Law, and upper-level courses in Professional Responsibility, Criminal Procedure, Federal Criminal Law, Law & Literature, and White Collar Crime.
Welpton & Wise Professor of Law, University of Nebraska College of Law
Biography
Professor Rick Duncan is the Welpton & Wise Professor of Law at the University Of Nebraska College Of Law. He is a graduate of the Cornell Law School and served as an editor of the Cornell Law Review. He teaches Constitutional Law with a special emphasis on the law of religious freedom, free speech, and federalism. Duncan has written numerous books, articles, and commentaries on a wide variety of legal topics. His recent publications include an article on Justice Scalia’s legacy, another on Kermit Gosnell and Roe v. Wade, a piece on the Electoral College and Federalism, a 2019 piece on Masterpiece Cakeshop and the First Amendment, and three recent articles on the “no compelled speech” doctrine as a First Amendment defense against authoritarianism and tyranny. His most recent article, on School Choice and the First Amendment, will be published in 2023 in Case Western Law Review. He is also the co-author of a book on Secured Transactions under Article 9 of the UCC. He served as Chairman of the Nebraska Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights during the Reagan Administration. He also loves to speak at Federalist Society meetings around the country on life, liberty, and the pursuit of federalism.
Duncan has five children, five grandchildren, and a wonderful wife who help him pursue happiness. He loves lifting weights (particularly going heavy on the incline bench press), attending Broadway musicals and plays, including Hamilton: An American Musical which he has seen 12 times (possibly a Nebraska record). He regularly reads both the Bible and the New York Times because it is important to keep up with what both sides have to say. He loves following major league baseball, especially the San Diego Padres. And his favorite legal aphorism is “first come rights then comes government to secure those rights.”