The 9th Annual Joseph D. Grano Dinner
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Justice, Michigan Supreme Court
Stephen Markman was appointed Justice of the Michigan Supreme Court on October 1, 1999. He served as the Chief Justice from 2017-2019. Before his appointment, he served as Judge on the Michigan Court of Appeals from 1995-1999. Prior to this, he practiced law with the firm of Miller, Canfield, Paddock & Stone in Detroit.
From 1989-1993, Justice Markman served as United States Attorney, or federal prosecutor, in Michigan, after having been nominated by President George H. W. Bush and confirmed by the United States Senate. From 1985-1989, he served as Assistant Attorney General of the United States, after having been nominated by President Ronald Reagan and confirmed by the United States Senate. In that position, he headed the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Policy, which served as the principal policy development office within the Department, and which coordinated the federal judicial selection process. Prior to this, he served for seven years as Chief Counsel of the United States Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution, and as Deputy Chief Counsel of the United States Senate Judiciary Committee.
Justice Markman has authored articles for such publications as the University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform, the Detroit College of Law Review, the Stanford Law Review, the University of Chicago Law Review, the American Criminal Justice Law Review, the Barrister’s Law Journal, the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, and the American University Law Review. He has also served as a contributing editor of National Review magazine, and has authored chapters in such books as “In the Name of Justice: The Aims of the Criminal Law,” “Still the Law of the Land,” and “Originalism: A Quarter Century of Debate.”
Justice Markman has taught constitutional law at Hillsdale College since 1993. He has served on the Board of Directors of the Western Michigan University Thomas M. Cooley Law School. He traveled to Ukraine on two occasions on behalf of the State Department, to provide assistance in the development of that nation’s post-Soviet constitution. He is a Fellow of the Michigan Bar Foundation, a Master of the Bench of the Inns of Court, and a member of the One Hundred Club. He has spoken before hundreds of youth, civic, charitable, and legal groups throughout Michigan and nationally, and has coached Little League baseball and basketball. He lives with his wife Mary Kathleen in Mason, and has two sons, James and Charles.
Justice Markman was re-elected to the Supreme Court in 2000, 2004, and 2012. His present term expires January 1, 2021.
Justice in Residence and Visiting Professor of Law, Ave Maria School of Law
Professor Taylor is a retired Chief Justice of the Michigan Supreme Court and served over 16 years as an appellate judge in Michigan. He is a graduate of the University of Michigan and received his J.D. from George Washington University Law School. After service as an officer in the US Navy, he began his legal career as an Assistant Prosecuting Attorney in Michigan and then practiced in a Lansing, Michigan, law firm, Denfield, Timmer and Taylor, for 19 years earning the highest ratings as to competence and character. He has lectured at law schools across the United States, been published in numerous law reviews and was the co-author of a three volume Michigan Practice Guide on Torts. He has served on the Board of Directors of the National Conference of Chief Justices, was a member, and then President, of the Michigan State Board of Law Examiners and served on the Board of Directors of the George Mason University Law School's Law and Economics Center.
Former Michigan Supreme Court Justice
Robert P. Young, Jr., retired justice of the Michigan Supreme Court, promoted initiatives to measure judicial performance, track public satisfaction, adopt best practices, streamline court processes, and implement technologies that expand public access, increase efficiency, and boost productivity of trial courts. From 2018 to 2019 he served as vice president and general counsel at Michigan State University. Mr. Young previously served 18 years as a member of the Michigan Supreme Court, including as chief justice from 2011 to January 2017. Before that, he was a judge of the Michigan Court of Appeals. Mr. Young has served on the boards of many charitable groups, including the Detroit Urban League, United Community Services of Metropolitan Detroit, and Vista Maria, a resource center for abused and neglected young women and girls. A former commissioner of the Michigan Civil Service Commission, he was a trustee of Central Michigan University, University Liggett School, and the Grosse Pointe Academy. Mr. Young is a former chair of the Greater Detroit Chamber of Commerce Leadership Detroit. He had been an adjunct professor at Wayne State University Law School for more than 20 years and more recently taught at Michigan State University Law School.
Senior Fellow, Administrative Conference of the United States
Paul D. Kamenar is a Washington, D.C. public policy and appellate attorney who counsels clients on legal, regulatory, and public policy matters. He is also a Senior Fellow of the Administrative Conference of the United States and guest lectures at the U.S. Naval Academy on National Security Law. He has been a speaker at several conferences across the country on overcriminalization and regulatory enforcement, including those sponsored by the American Bar Association, George Mason University Law School, S.J. Quinney College of Law-University of Utah, American University Washington College of Law, Northwestern University School of Law, and the Cleveland Chapter of the Federalist Society. He also has briefed Members of Congress and their staff on overcriminalization issues along with representatives from the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and the Heritage Foundation. He and his clients have also testified before congressional committees on these issues. He was Senior Executive Counsel of the Washington Legal Foundation, Clinical Professor of Law at George Mason University Law School from 1999-2005, and adjunct professor at Georgetown University Law Center teaching a separation of powers/appellate advocacy seminar. He is a graduate of Georgetown Law and received his undergraduate degree from Rutgers College.
Managing Partner, Wilkinson Barker Knauer LLP
Bryan Tramont, the firm’s managing partner, offers strategic counsel to Fortune 100 companies and trade associations, as well as small and mid-sized telecommunications and media companies, on all aspects of communications law and regulation. He is regularly called on to advise companies as they develop and evaluate new business opportunities in the technology, media, and telecommunications sectors. Mr. Tramont also designs and leads the execution of the firm’s strategic plan and directs client management and development. Mr. Tramont has been recognized by leading publications like Legal 500, Chambers USA, and Washingtonian as one of the nation’s top communications lawyers. In 2017, he was named to the inaugural Legal 500 Hall of Fame List, which highlights individuals who have received constant praise by their clients and who have been recognized by the Legal 500 as an elite leading lawyer for six consecutive years. He has been awarded The Best Lawyers in America © 2017 “Lawyer of the Year” for Media Law and “Lawyer of the Year" in Communications Law in 2016. In 2016, he was also named one of the Top 10 Washington, DC Super Lawyers.
Mr. Tramont serves on the Commerce Spectrum Management Advisory Committee (CSMAC), advising the Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information at NTIA. Appointed under the Bush and Obama Administrations, he also served as the committee’s Co-Chairman from 2008-2010. In addition, Mr. Tramont is active in the Federal Communications Bar Association, where he served in a variety of leadership roles, including as President from 2010-11 and has been awarded the organization’s Distinguished Service Award. Mr. Tramont chairs the Federalist Society’s Telecommunications Practice Group Executive Committee, serves on the International Institute of Communications Canada Board of Directors, and previously served on the Governing Committee of the ABA Forum on Communications Law. Mr. Tramont currently is an adjunct law professor at The Catholic University of America as part of the Communications Law Institute, is a senior adjunct fellow at the University of Colorado, Boulder, has served as the Syracuse University Law School’s Practitioner in Residence, and is on the Board of Trustees at William Woods University. Mr. Tramont is the author of numerous articles on communications policy and is a frequent speaker and lecturer at academic and industry events. Prior to joining Wilkinson Barker Knauer, Mr. Tramont served as Chief of Staff of the Federal Communications Commission under Chairman Michael Powell. As Chief of Staff, Mr. Tramont managed all aspects of the agency’s operations and directed FCC staff in implementing all components of the agency’s policy portfolio including media, broadband, mobility, and traditional telephone services. Before being elevated to Chief of Staff, Mr. Tramont was Chairman Powell’s Senior Legal Advisor, advising him on strategic policy matters and on wireless, international, technology, satellite, and consumer issues. Mr. Tramont also served as Senior Legal Advisor to Commissioner Kathleen Abernathy and, before that, to Commissioner Harold Furchtgott-Roth. He also served as a law clerk for the Honorable Duane Benton on the Supreme Court for his home state of Missouri. In addition, Mr. Tramont has served as an expert witness in a number of communications-related litigation matters.
Bryan Tramont graduated summa cum laude from The George Washington University with a degree in political science. He earned his law degree from Yale Law School, where he served as editor of the Yale Law & Policy Review.
Judge William Hawley Atwell Chair of Constitutional Law, SMU Dedman School of Law
Professor Carpenter is the Judge William Hawley Atwell Chair of Constitutional Law. He previously served as the Charles J. and Inez Wright Murray Distinguished Visiting Professor of Law at SMU, teaching Constitutional Law I as well as LGBT Rights and the Law. This fall he will teach Constitutional Law II.
Prior to joining SMU, Professor Carpenter taught for 16 years at the University of Minnesota, where he served as a Distinguished University Teaching Professor and the Earl R. Larson Professor of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Law. He won multiple teaching awards. He is also an editor of Constitutional Commentary.
The Texas native received his B.A. degree in history, magna cum laude, from Yale College and received his J.D., with honors, from the University of Chicago Law School, where he was editor-in-chief of the University of Chicago Law Review. After serving as a law clerk for Fifth Circuit Judge Edith Jones, he practiced at the firms Vinson & Elkins LLP in Houston, and at Howard, Rice, Nemerovski, Canady, Falk & Rabkin, P.C. in San Francisco.
As the author of numerous articles and an award-winning book —FLAGRANT CONDUCT: THE STORY OF LAWRENCE V. TEXAS (W.W. Norton & Co., 2012), about the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case that invalidated America's sodomy laws — he is often asked by the media to comment on constitutional law, the First Amendment, and LGBT Rights and the Law. Since 2005, he has been an active blogger on the popular legal blog, The Volokh Conspiracy, which is hosted by the Washington Post.
Professor of Constitutional Law, Pepperdine University School of Law
One of America's best known scholars and popular commentators on the law, Professor Douglas W. Kmiec holds the endowed chair in constitutional law at Pepperdine Law School. He came to this position after serving several years as dean and St. Thomas More Professor of Law at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., and for nearly two decades, on the law faculty at the University of Notre Dame. As dean at Catholic University, Professor Kmiec did what many said would be impossible; he greatly increased academic quality and student selectivity at the same time he deepened the school's religious commitment. During his tenure, the law school moved into the upper tier of the U.S. News ranking from tier three. At Notre Dame, he was director of Notre Dame's Center on Law & Government, and the founder of its Journal of Law, Ethics & Public Policy. Beyond the university setting, Kmiec served Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush during 1985-89 as constitutional legal counsel (Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Counsel, U.S. Department of Justice).
A wide-ranging writer and engaging speaker, Professor Kmiec writes a syndicated column for the Catholic News Service, and for several years wrote a regular column in the Chicago Tribune. He is also a frequent contributor to the pages of the Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, and other periodicals. He is the co-author (with legal historian Stephen Presser of Northwestern) of three books on the Constitution -- The American Constitutional Order; Individual Rights and the American Constitution and The History, Structure and Philosophy of the American Constitution. Another recent book, Cease-Fire on the Family (Crisis Books/Notre Dame) attracted scholarly and popular acclaim for proposing realistic ways for families to "end the culture war" by renewing personal virtue and civic responsibility within itself. He has also written The Attorney General's Lawyer (Praeger 1992), and several respected legal treatises.
Professor Kmiec's scholarly research spans legal and non-legal subjects, from the Constitution and the federal system, to land use and the organization of America society. He is a frequent guest on national news programs, such as Nightline, the Newshour, and NPR's Talk of the Nation, analyzing constitutional questions.
A White House Fellow (1982-83), Professor Kmiec is one of a few individuals who has received the Distinguished Service Award from two cabinet departments —the Department of Justice in 1987 and Housing and Urban Development in 1983. In 1988, he was awarded the Edmund J. Randolph Award by the attorney general. He has lectured on the U.S. Constitution in Asia as a Fulbright Distinguished Scholar.
An honors graduate of Northwestern, Professor Kmiec received his law degree from the University of Southern California, where he served on the Law Review and received the Legion Lex Commencement Prize for Legal Writing. He is a member of the bar of the U.S. Supreme Court and the state bars of Illinois and California.
B.A., with honors, Northwestern University, 1973
J.D., University of Southern California, 1976
Deputy General Counsel – VP, Health, Regulatory & Commercial Operations, Biotechnology Innovation Organization
Associate Justice, United States Supreme Court
Antonin Scalia, Associate Justice, was born in Trenton, New Jersey, March 11, 1936. He married Maureen McCarthy and has nine children- Ann Forrest, Eugene, John Francis, Catherine Elisabeth, Mary Clare, Paul David, Matthew, Christopher James, and Margaret Jane. He received his A.B. from Georgetown University and the University of Fribourg, Switzerland, and his LL.B. from Harvard Law School, and was a Sheldon Fellow of Harvard University from 1960-1961. He was in private practice in Cleveland, Ohio from 1961-1967, a Professor of Law at the University of Virginia from 1967-1971, and a Professor of Law at the University of Chicago from 1977-1982, and a Visiting Professor of Law at Georgetown University and Stanford University. He was chairman of the American Bar Association's Section of Administrative Law, 1981-1982, and its Conference of Section Chairmen, 1982-1983. He served the federal government as General Counsel of the Office of Telecommunications Policy from 1971-1972, Chairman of the Administrative Conference of the United States from 1972-1974, and Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel from 1974-1977. He was appointed Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in 1982. President Reagan nominated him as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, and he took his seat September 26, 1986.