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.
William S. Boyd Professor of Law, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, William S. Boyd School of Law
Biography
Dr. Leslie C. Griffin is the William S. Boyd Professor of Law at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, William S. Boyd School of Law. Professor Griffin, who teaches constitutional law, is known for her interdisciplinary work in law and religion. She holds a Ph.D. in Religious Studies from Yale University and a J.D. from Stanford Law School. She is author of the Foundation Press casebook Law and Religion: Cases and Materials (5th edition, 2022) with Andrew L. Seidel. Practicing Bioethics Law (2d ed. 2021) is co-authored with Joan H. Krause, Dan K. Moore Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of North Carolina School of Law. She and University of Pennsylvania Professor Marci Hamilton published Learning Constitutional Law (Cognella Press, 2023).
She wrote the recent book chapter, Bambi Trauma—Surviving TBI Twice, in Traumatic Brain Injury—Challenges (Dr. Ioannis Mavroudis & Alin Ciobica, eds., IntechOpen, 2024), https://www.intechopen.com/online-first/1179800#. And Catholic Sexual Abuse in Louisiana is in the University of Detroit Mercy Law Review, volume 101, p. 375 (2024).
Another article is What Did Those Sixteen Justices Say?, 58 Willamette L. Rev. 163 (2022). A book chapter entitled Rewritten Opinion, Means v. United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, is in the book Feminist Judgments: Rewritten Health Law Opinions (S. Mohapatra & L. Wiley, eds., Cambridge University Press, 2022). Other recent articles include What is Ethical Discharge?, 10:3 Narrative Inquiry in Bioethics 193 (2020); What Can We Expect of Law and Religion in 2020?, 79 SMU L. Rev. F. 73 (2020); Traumatic Brain Injury: Compassionate Care, Not Clinical Nihilism, 6:2 Journal of Hospital Ethics 87 (Fall 2019) (with Carole S. Anhalt); Conquering Brain Injury, 34:5 Journal of Head Trauma Rehabilitation 366 (2019), Religious Freedom, Human Rights, and Peaceful Coexistence, 50 Loyola University Chicago Law Journal 77 (2018), Pre-or Post Mortem?, 18 Nevada Law Journal 221 (2017). Her rewritten opinion about the abortion funding case, Harris v. McRae, 448 U.S. 297 (1980), is in Feminist Judgments: Rewritten Opinions of the United States Supreme Court (L. Berger, B. Crawford & K. Stanchi, eds., Cambridge University Press, 2016).
Griffin has written numerous amicus briefs defending children's and employees' religious freedom. She blogs for Justia's Verdict column, and posts occasionally on Petrie-Flom’s health law blog.
Other writings include Marriage Rights and Religious Exemptions in the United States, Oxford Handbooks Online (2017), Beyond the Basketball Court: How Brittney Griner’s In My Skin Illustrates Title IX’s Failure to Protect LGBT Athletes at Religious Institutions, 34 Law and Inequality 489 (2016), A Word of Warning from A Woman: Arbitrary, Categorical, and Hidden Religious Exemptions Threaten LGBT Rights, 7 Ala. C.R. & C.L.L. Rev. 97 (2015), and The Catholic Bishops vs. the Contraceptive Mandate, Religions 2015, 6, 1411–1432.
Former Adjunct Professor of Law; former Special Counsel to the President; former federal prosecutor, Georgetown Law (ret.)
Biography
Bill Otis is a former Adjunct Professor of Law at Georgetown University, a one-time federal prosecutor, and a former Special White House Counsel for President George H. W. Bush. After graduating from Stanford Law School, he started his career in the Criminal Division of the Justice Department, then became chief of appeals for the US Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Virginia. In the 1980's he served on the Department's "Train the Trainer" team, which taught US Attorneys Offices across the county how to implement the then-new Sentencing Reform Act. He has held several posts in the federal government, including Special Assistant to the Secretary of Energy and Counselor to the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration, in addition to the White House post. He has testified before Congress on issues in criminal procedure, illegal drugs, the US Sentencing Commission, and the death penalty, and has given numerous media interviews on those and other subjects. He currently teaches a seminar at Georgetown Law titled "Conservatism in Law in America" with his wife, Federalist Society co-founder Lee Liberman Otis.
Louis Capozzi is an associate at the Washington D.C. office of Jones Day and a Lecturer in Law at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School. As a lawyer, he specializes in appellate advocacy and motions practice.
Mr. Capozzi clerked for Justice Neil Gorsuch during the October 2021 Term, as well as for Judges J. Harvie Wilkinson III of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and Anthony J. Scirica of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. He graduated as the valedictorian from the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 2019.
Professor, The University of South Dakota School of Law
Biography
Patrick Garry is a professor of law at The University of South Dakota and the Director of the Hagemann Center for Legal & Public Policy Research.
Professor Garry has published more than forty scholarly articles and authored ten books, many of which have been the subject of numerous conferences and symposia. Professor Garry has been invited on several occasions to testify before Congress on legal and constitutional matters, and he is a frequent speaker at Federalist Society sponsored events. Aside from his public speaking appearances, Professor Garry often writes for popular audience websites, magazines, and newspapers, including the Chicago Tribune and Washington Times. These writings offer commentary and analysis of current political and legal issues.
Professor Garry received his Ph.D. and J.D. from the University of Minnesota. And he has been invited to teach as a visiting professor at the George Washington University Law School, the University of Utah School of Law, the University of Missouri School of Law, and the University of St. Thomas School of Law.
Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law, Harvard Law School
Biography
Professor Alan M. Dershowitz is Brooklyn native who has been called “the nation’s most peripatetic civil liberties lawyer” and one of its “most distinguished defenders of individual rights,” “the best-known criminal lawyer in the world,” “the top lawyer of last resort,” “America’s most public Jewish defender” and “Israel’s single most visible defender – the Jewish state’s lead attorney in the court of public opinion.” He is the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. Dershowitz, a graduate of Brooklyn College and Yale Law School, joined the Harvard Law School faculty at age 25 after clerking for Judge David Bazelon and Justice Arthur Goldberg.
He has also published more than 1000 articles in magazines, newspapers, journals and blogs such as The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Harvard Law Review, the Yale Law Journal, Huffington Post, Newsmax, Jerusalem Post and Ha’aretz. Professor Dershowitz is the author of 30 fiction and non-fiction works with a worldwide audience, including The New York Times #1 bestseller Chutzpah and five other national bestsellers. His autobiography, Taking the Stand: My Life in the Law, was published in October 2013 by Crown, a division of Random House. Earlier titles include “an exceptional, action packed book,” The Trials of Zion, a novel which has been called “a thought-provoking page turner;” Rights From Wrong; The Case For Israel; The Case For Peace; Blasphemy; Preemption; Finding Jefferson; and Shouting Fire.
In addition to his numerous law review articles and books about criminal and constitutional law, he has written, taught and lectured about history, philosophy, psychology, literature, mathematics, theology, music, sports – and even delicatessens.
His writing has been praised by Truman Capote, Saul Bellow, William Styron, David Mamet, Aharon Appelfeld, A.B. Yehoshua, Elie Wiesel, Richard North Patterson, and Henry Louis Gate, Jr. More than a million of his books—translated in many languages—have been sold worldwide.
In 1983, the Anti-Defamation League of the B'nai B'rith presented him with the William O. Douglas First Amendment Award for his "compassionate eloquent leadership and persistent advocacy in the struggle for civil and human rights." In presenting the award, Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel said: "If there had been a few people like Alan Dershowitz during the 1930s and 1940s, the history of European Jewry might have been different." Professor Dershowitz has been awarded the honorary doctor of laws degree by Yeshiva University, Brooklyn College, Syracuse University, Tel Aviv University, New York City College, Haifa University and several other institutions of learning. He has also been the recipient of numerous academic awards including a Guggenheim Fellowship for his work on human rights, a fellowship at The Center for The Advanced Study of Behavioral Sciences and several Dean’s Awards for his books.
He has been the subject of two New Yorker cartoons, a New York Times crossword puzzle, and a Trivial Pursuit question. A sandwich at Fenway Park has been named after him—pastrami, of course. He is married to Carolyn Cohen, a PhD psychologist. He has three children, one a film producer, one a lawyer for the Women’s National Basketball Association and one a professional actor. He also has two grandchildren, one a college junior and the other a college freshman.
Judge Matthew R. Byrne was elected to the Ohio Court of Appeals for the Twelfth District in 2020, and his first term began on January 1, 2021. He is currently serving as the court's elected Administrative Judge. The Twelfth District Court of Appeals hears civil and criminal appeals from the trial courts in eight counties in southwest Ohio. Judge Byrne is active in the Ohio Judicial Conference and the Ohio Court of Appeals Judges Association. He also currently serves as a member and vice chair of the Ohio Supreme Court's Commission on the Rules of Practice and Procedure (where he previously chaired the Appellate Rules Committee). He previously served as a member of the Ohio Supreme Court's Commission on Character and Fitness.
From January 2010 to December 2020, Judge Byrne practiced law at the national law firm of Jackson Lewis P.C. He was a member of the firm's General Employment Litigation Practice Group and the Wage and Hour Practice Group. From 2007 to 2010 he practiced at Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLP. At both firms, Judge Byrne represented clients ranging from small businesses to international corporations in state and federal trial and appellate litigation, including multiple class and collective actions. He also represented clients in arbitration and before numerous administrative agencies, including the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the National Labor Relations Board, and the Ohio Civil Rights Commission.
Judge Byrne earned his law degree, cum laude, from The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law. During law school he was symposium editor of the Ohio State Law Journal and the winner of the Donald S. Teller Memorial Award for student writing contributing most significantly to the Ohio State Law Journal. During law school he clerked for the Acting General Counsel of the United States Department of the Treasury. Judge Byrne earned his bachelor's degree, magna cum laude, from Xavier University, where he majored in International Affairs (Business) and Political Science.
Prior to entering law school Judge Byrne served in President George W. Bush's Administration as a member of the White House staff in the Office of Presidential Personnel, the office responsible for selecting candidates to recommend to the President for appointment or nomination to high-level government positions, and for coordinating with the Offices of White House Counsel, Press Secretary, and Executive Clerk regarding candidate background clearances, press announcements, and the status of appointments/nominations.
Judge Byrne has been a member of the Federalist Society since law school and he served for five years as president of the Federalist Society's Cincinnati Lawyers Chapter. He is a member of a number of other community and civic organizations, including the Ohio State Bar Association and the bar associations of Butler, Clermont, and Warren Counties. Judge Byrne previously was a member of the Advisory Board of Pregnancy Center East and a board member and president of the St. Thomas More Lawyers Guild of Greater Cincinnati.
Judge Byrne is an active parishioner at his church, where he is a lector, a former member and president of the Education Commission, and a former member of the Finance and Administration Commission.
Judge Byrne resides in Deerfield Township, Warren County, Ohio with his wife Julie and their three children.
John P. Murphy Foundation Professor of Law and Associate Dean for External Engagement, University of Notre Dame Law School
Biography
Nicole Stelle Garnett is the John P. Murphy Foundation Professor of Law at Notre Dame Law School, where she also serves as the Associate Dean for External Engagement and directs the Notre Dame Education Law Project. Her teaching and research focus on education law and policy, religious liberty, and topics related to property law (especially land use and urban development policies). In addition to dozens of articles on these subjects, she is the author of Lost Classroom, Lost Community: Catholic Schools' Importance in Urban America (University of Chicago Press, 2014) and Ordering the City: Land Use, Policing and the Restoration of Urban America (Yale University Press, 2009).
Garnett received her B.A. with distinction in Political Science from Stanford University and her J.D. from Yale Law School. After law school, she clerked for the Honorable Morris S. Arnold of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit and for Associate Justice Clarence Thomas of the Supreme Court of the United States. Before joining the law school faculty in 1999, she worked for two years as a staff attorney at the Institute for Justice, a non-profit public-interest law firm in Washington, D.C., where she helped to defend the constitutionality of the nation's first private-school-choice programs.
At Notre Dame, Garnett is a faculty fellow in the Institute for Educational Initiatives, Kellogg Institute for International Studies, Fitzgerald Institute for Real Estate, and deNicola Center for Ethics and Culture. She also is an elected member of the American Law Institute and a Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
Clare Morell is a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, where she directs EPPC’s Technology and Human Flourishing Project. Prior to joining EPPC, Ms. Morell worked in both the White House Counsel’s Office and the Department of Justice, as well as in the private and non-profit sectors. She is also the author of the forthcoming book, The Tech Exit: A Practical Guide to Freeing Kids and Teens from Smartphones, which will be published by Penguin Random House.
At the Department of Justice, Ms. Morell worked as an Advisor to Attorney General Bill Barr. As part of her work for the Attorney General, she helped oversee the President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice and served as Editor of the Commission’s final report. A major focus of the Commission’s report was the challenges that Big Tech’s end-to-end encryption presents to law enforcement for gaining lawful access to crucial intelligence in criminal investigations, like domestic terrorism, as well as human and drug trafficking crimes. Ms. Morell also supported the Attorney General’s work on Section 230 reform as one of his main priorities.
Prior to her role with the Office of the Attorney General, Ms. Morell worked on judicial nominations for the White House Counsel’s office and monitored all nominations data to create high-level presentations for briefing White House leadership. From her experience, Ms. Morell brings an intimate knowledge and understanding of how policy is advanced within the Executive Branch of the federal government, particularly in the Department of Justice and the White House.
Ms. Morell has had opinion pieces published in the Wall Street Journal, Fox News, Newsweek, the Washington Examiner, National Review, American Affairs Journal,Deseret News, The Federalist, Public Discourse, WORLD Magazine, the Washington Times, and the Daily Signal.
Ms. Morell received a B.S.F.S. from Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service, where she majored in Science, Technology, and International Affairs. She graduated summa cum laude and received the Edmund A. Walsh Award for academic achievement in international law. She also is proficient in Spanish.
Ms. Morell lives with her husband and three children in Washington, D.C.
