The Solicitor General Roadshow
California-Berkeley Student Chapter
Room 100Law Building
Berkeley, CA 94720
Here are the latest events.
Deputy Assistant Attorney General, U.S. Department of Justice
Eric Hamilton serves as the Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Federal Programs Branch of the Civil Division. He previously served as the Solicitor General for the State of Nebraska and as an Assistant Solicitor General in the Texas Attorney General’s Office. During the first Trump Administration, Eric worked as an Associate Counsel to the President in the Office of White House Counsel. Earlier in his career, he was in private practice in Washington, D.C. and clerked for Judge Thomas M. Hardiman on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
Eric is a graduate of Stanford Law School, where he served on the Stanford Law Review. He holds an undergraduate degree from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Shareholder at Kirton McConkie, Former Solicitor General of Idaho
Alan Hurst is the Solicitor General of Idaho, the state’s chief appellate advocate before the Idaho Supreme Court, the federal courts of appeals, and the United States Supreme Court. He supervises all civil appellate litigation for the state and all trial-court filings raising significant civil appellate issues. He also advises the Attorney General and other state officers on matters of constitutional and legal policy.
Alan is a graduate of Brigham Young University and Yale Law School and clerked for Justice Christine Durham of the Utah Supreme Court and Judge Monroe McKay on the Tenth Circuit. He has been a fellow at the Yale Center for Faith and Culture, the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, and BYU’s J. Reuben Clark Law School, where he taught property law and related subjects before becoming a litigation partner at a national law firm and an occasional legal columnist for the Deseret News.
Solicitor General, Iowa Office of the Attorney General
Eric Wessan serves as Iowa’s Solicitor General in the Iowa Attorney General’s Office. In that role, Wessan leads Iowa’s litigation before State and federal appellate courts, including the Iowa and U.S. Supreme Courts. Before that role, Wessan worked on complex commercial litigation at two large law firms in Chicago. Wessan also served as a law clerk for the Honorable James C. Ho on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and for the Honorable John F. Kness on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. Wessan is a graduate of the University of Chicago Law School, with honors, and of the University of Chicago.
Partner, Givens Pursley LLP
Jeff Beelaert is a partner at Givens Pursley LLP in Boise, Idaho, with a distinguished background of public service and extensive experience with trial and appellate litigation. As lead counsel, Jeff has achieved success for clients in high-stakes, complex cases at every level of state and federal courts, including the United States Supreme Court.
Before joining Givens Pursley, Jeff previously held several posts at the United States Department of Justice.
Jeff previously worked as an associate at Sidley Austin in DC, where he drafted Supreme Court briefs and handled white collar matters and investigations.
Partner, Boyden Gray PLLC
Trent McCotter is a partner with Boyden Gray PLLC. He previously served as Deputy Associate Attorney General of the United States and as an Assistant U.S. Attorney.
Mr. McCotter maintains an extensive appellate practice. He has considerable experience identifying and briefing cases that draw the Supreme Court’s attention, having persuaded the Court to grant certiorari in numerous cases raising issues of sovereignty, constitutional rights, due process, and criminal law. He has authored and submitted over 60 briefs at the Court.
He has also personally argued more than fifteen federal appeals across the Second, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Ninth, Eleventh, Federal, and D.C. Circuits—including once arguing three separate appeals in just four days. He has also twice argued before the 17-judge en banc Fifth Circuit. He has been counsel in over 50 other appeals raising matters from FOIA and the APA to constitutional rights and statutory construction.
As Deputy Associate Attorney General, Mr. McCotter oversaw DOJ’s Civil Appellate and Federal Programs branches, which are responsible for defending nearly all major litigation against the federal government. During his three years as a federal trial attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia’s “Rocket Docket,” Mr. McCotter won the Attorney General’s Award for Distinguished Service.
During his DOJ tenures, Mr. McCotter also assisted with the confirmations of two Supreme Court justices and over a dozen lower-court judges.
Mr. McCotter served as an inaugural clerk to the Hon. Steven J. Menashi on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and also clerked for the Hon. R. Lanier Anderson III on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.
Attorney, Competitive Enterprise Institute
Devin Watkins is an attorney at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Devin Watkins previously worked at the Cato Institute as a legal associate and interned at the Institute for Justice. At the Cato Institute, Watkins worked on a variety of Supreme Court cases, and one of the briefs he worked on was cited by the Court. His op-eds have appeared in National Review Online, The Hill, Time, and The Federalist among others.
Watkins holds a Juris Doctor cum laude from George Mason University's Antonin Scalia Law School, where he was the development editor on the Mason Law Review. Prior to his legal career Watkins was a senior software developer at Intel and WebMD. He graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey.
Watkins is a member of the Virginia State Bar, the District of Columbia Bar, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Bar, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit Bar.
Director, Independent Women's Law Center, Independent Women's
Jennifer C. Braceras, a member of the Federalist Society Board of Visitors, is the director of Independent Women’s Law Center and a former member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.
Ms. Braceras is a graduate of the Harvard Law School, where she served as an editor of the Law Review. After law school, she clerked for two federal judges and practiced labor and employment law with the Boston law firm Ropes & Gray.
A long time political columnist and editor, Ms. Braceras's writing has appeared in a variety of publications, including the Wall Street Journal, the Boston Globe, the Hill, and National Review Online. She co-hosts At the Bar, a bimonthly virtual happy hour discussion about issues at the intersection of law, politics, and culture.
Ashe Family Chair Professor of Law, Georgia State University College of Law
Eric J. Segall graduated from Emory University, Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum laude, and from Vanderbilt Law School, where he was the research editor for the Law Review and member of Order of the Coif. He clerked for the Chief Judge Charles Moye Jr. for the Northern District of Georgia, and Albert J. Henderson of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. After his clerkships, Segall worked for Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher and the U.S. Department of Justice, before joining the Georgia State faculty in 1991.
Segall teaches federal courts and constitutional law I and II. He is the author of the books Originalism as Faith and Supreme Myths: Why the Supreme Court is not a Court and its Justices are not Judges. His articles on constitutional law have appeared in, among others, the Harvard Law Review Forum, the Stanford Law Review On Line, the UCLA Law Review, the George Washington Law Review, the Washington University Law Review, the University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law, the Northwestern University Law Review Colloquy, and Constitutional Commentary among many others.
Segall’s op-eds and essays have appeared in the New York Times, the LA Times, The Atlantic, SLATE, Vox, Salon, and the Daily Beast, among others. He has appeared on CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, and France 24 and all four of Atlanta’s local television stations. He has also appeared on numerous local and national radio shows.
Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights, U.S. Department of Agriculture
Devon Westhill is the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The U.S. Senate confirmed President Donald Trump’s nomination of Westhill on October 7, 2025.
Westhill returns to the USDA where he previously headed the civil rights office as Deputy Assistant Secretary in President Trump’s first term. His previous government appointments also include service at the U.S. Department of Labor, liaison to the Administrative Conference of the U.S., and liaison to the White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Prior to returning to government service, Westhill was President and General Counsel of a nonprofit civil rights organization.
Westhill has testified on civil rights matters before Congress, federal agencies, and as an expert witness in federal court. He has spoken hundreds of times at college campuses, conferences, and on radio and TV programs, and he is frequently quoted in print publications, and his writing has appeared in numerous national outlets. A U.S. Navy veteran, Westhill earned his BA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and his JD from the University of Florida.
Partner, Latham & Watkins LLP
Roman Martinez is a partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Latham & Watkins. As a member of the firm’s Supreme Court and Appellate Practice, he focuses primarily on appeals in the Supreme Court of the United States, the United States Courts of Appeals, and state appellate courts. Mr. Martinez has handled civil and criminal matters involving a wide range of constitutional, statutory, and administrative law issues, and he has argued cases in the Supreme Court and the D.C., Sixth, Ninth, and Federal Circuits, among other courts.
Mr. Martinez’s appellate practice encompasses civil and criminal matters spanning virtually all areas of law. He recently rejoined Latham after serving as an Assistant to the Solicitor General at the US Department of Justice. In that role, he represented the United States in litigation before the Supreme Court and advised the Solicitor General on the government’s appellate litigation throughout the country.
Mr. Martinez has personally argued seven cases in the Supreme Court, including important cases in the fields of patent law, criminal law, civil rights, and civil procedure. He has filed over 75 briefs in the Supreme Court involving a wide range of legal issues, including administrative, tax, securities, intellectual property, criminal, environmental, education, civil rights, immigration, and First Amendment law.
Over the past year, Mr. Martinez has led Latham appellate teams in cases involving the Administrative Procedure Act, securities, ERISA, products liability, and employment law. Earlier this year, he successfully persuaded the Supreme Court to reject the State of Connecticut’s high-profile effort to reinstate the murder conviction of Michael Skakel. He frequently consults with clients to develop creative approaches to difficult legal questions that arise in and out of litigation.
Mr. Martinez’s extensive pro bono practice focuses chiefly on administrative law challenges to unlawful agency action by the Department of Veterans Affairs, as well as on criminal defense appeals. In 2018, he persuaded the Supreme Court to grant certiorari on behalf of a veteran seeking judicial review of an unlawful regulation promulgated by the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Before joining Latham, Mr. Martinez served as a law clerk to Chief Justice John G. Roberts of the Supreme Court of the United States and to then Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh of the D.C. Circuit.
From 2002 to 2005, Mr. Martinez served as an advisor on the Iraqi political and constitutional process, in various roles at the White House, at the US Embassy and Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, and at the Department of Defense. He received the Secretary of Defense Medal for the Global War on Terrorism and the US Department of Defense Distinguished Public Service Award for his service in Iraq.
Mr. Martinez is a member of the Edward Coke Appellate Inn of Court, and he serves on the US Chamber of Commerce's Administrative Law & Government Litigation Advisory Committee. He previously served as a member of the D.C. Circuit’s Advisory Committee on Procedures, and he now serves on the US District Court for the District of Columbia’s Committee on Grievances. His writing has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and other publications. He has appeared as a guest on the PBS NewsHour and other television programs to discuss the Supreme Court.
Chief Administrative Law Judge
Donald van der Vaart is an American chemical engineer and lawyer who served as Secretary of the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality from 2015 to 2017. Van der Vaart was the first DEQ secretary to rise through the ranks as a scientist.
Van der Vaart earned a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from Cambridge University and a juris doctor from North Carolina Central University. In the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, he held the positions secretary, deputy secretary, North Carolina energy policy advisor, and air quality manager.
In 2021, Chief Justice Paul Newby of the North Carolina Supreme Court appointed van der Vaart as the new Chief Administrative Law Judge and Director of the Office of Administrative Hearings (OAH). As a licensed attorney and engineer, Dr. van der Vaart brings a wealth of administrative law and practical regulatory experience to OAH.
Former Deputy Attorney General for Virginia
Kennerly Davis has over forty years of experience in corporate management, public service, and the private practice of law. He has held senior executive positions in a Fortune 500 electric and gas company. He has served as Deputy Attorney General for the Commonwealth of Virginia, and as a legislative aide to a U.S. Senator and a U.S. Congressman. He practiced law for 25 years with Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP.
Davis is active in the Federalist Society as a member of the Regulatory Process Working Group of the Regulatory Transparency Project, and as a member of the Execuitve Committee of the Administrative Law and Regulation Practice Group. He is active in the national Alumni Free Speech Alliance, and involved in AFSA-chapter initiatives, including litigation, to publicize and correct the serious legal problems created by university Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs and the anonymous bias reporting systems used to enforce those DEI programs.
Davis writes and speaks on a wide variety of topics, including those related to the Founding of America, the natural rights foundation of our Republic, the constitutional rule of law, equal protection and free speech, DEI programs and bias reporting systems, capitalism, regulation and regulatory reform, and economic development. His articles have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, the Washington Examiner, the Richmond Times-Dispatch, The Federalist Society Review, the FedSoc Blog, Real Clear Energy, Townhall, the Daily Caller, reports of the Center for Strategic & International Studies, and other publications. He appears frequently on radio, podcasts, and television.
Davis graduated with honors from Cornell University with an A.B. degree in Government. He earned an M.A. degree from Pembroke College, Oxford, in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics. He was awarded a J.D. degree from Harvard Law School, and an M.B.A. degree from Virginia Commonwealth University.
Davis lives in Richmond, Virginia. He can be contacted by email: j.kendavis@verizon.net, and by phone: (804) 624-8525.
Secretary of State, Commonwealth of Kentucky
Professor of Law, South Texas College of Law Houston
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.
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.
Chief Economist, American Compass
Oren Cass is the chief economist at American Compass and author of The Once and Future Worker: A Vision for the Renewal of Work in America (2018). He is a contributing editor for the Financial Times and a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times.
From 2005 to 2015, Oren worked as a management consultant in Bain & Company’s Boston and Delhi offices. During this period, he also earned his J.D. magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, where he was elected vice president and treasurer of the Harvard Law Review and oversaw the journal’s budget and operations. While still in law school, Oren also became Domestic Policy Director for Governor Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign, editing and producing the campaign’s “jobs book” and developing its domestic policy strategy, proposals, and research. He joined the Manhattan Institute as a senior fellow in 2015 and became a prolific scholar, publishing more than 15 reports for MI and editing its popular “Issues 2016” and “Issues 2020” series, testifying before seven congressional committees and speaking on dozens of college campuses. He founded American Compass at the start of 2020.