Keith E. Whittington is the David Boies Professor of Law at Yale Law School. He is the faculty director of the Center for Academic Freedom and Free Speech at Yale. Prior to joining Yale, Professor Whittington was the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Politics at Princeton University. He writes about American constitutional law, politics and history and American political thought. He has been a visiting professor at the University of Texas School of Law, is a member of the American Academy of the Arts and Sciences, and served on the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States. He did his undergraduate work at the University of Texas at Austin and completed his Ph.D. in political science at Yale University. His books include Constitutional Interpretation: Textual Meaning, Original Intent, and Judicial Review. His most recent books include You Can't Teach That! The Battle over University Classrooms and Repugnant Laws: Judicial Review of Acts of Congress from the Founding to the Present.
Senior Counsel, Center for Life, Alliance Defending Freedom
Biography
Kevin Theriot serves as senior counsel with Alliance Defending Freedom, where he is a key member of the Center for Life Team working to defend pro-life speech and protect medical rights of conscience.
Since joining Alliance Defending Freedom in 2003, Theriot has been successful as lead counsel or co-counsel in numerous cases protecting the unborn and preserving the freedoms of speech and religion. In NIFLA v. Becerra he was part of the Supreme Court team that protected California pregnancy centers from being forced to refer for abortion. In Women’s Health Link v. City of Ft. Wayne, Ind., Theriot defended the freedom of a pro-life pregnancy center to access an advertising forum in city buses. In Kelvin Cochran v. City of Atlanta, he defended Chief Cochran’s free speech rights from government censorship, receiving a settlement of $1.2 million dollars. Theriot also co-authored the 2017 law review article, Free to Do No Harm: Conscience Protections for Healthcare Professionals.
Theriot earned his J.D. in 1991 from Vanderbilt University Law School. He is admitted to the bar in the states of Tennessee, Texas, Florida, Virginia, Georgia, Missouri, Kansas, and Arizona. He is also a member of the U.S. Supreme Court and numerous federal district and appellate courts.
Milton R. Underwood Chair in Free Enterprise, Vanderbilt University Law School
Biography
Brian Fitzpatrick is the Milton R. Underwood Chair in Free Enterprise and Professor of Law at Vanderbilt Law School, where his research focuses on class action litigation, federal courts, judicial selection, and constitutional law. He is best known for his empirical studies of class action settlements as well as his book The Conservative Case for Class Actions (University of Chicago Press, 2019). Professor Fitzpatrick joined Vanderbilt's law faculty in 2007 after serving as the John M. Olin Fellow at New York University School of Law. He graduated first in his class from Harvard Law School and went on to clerk for Judge Diarmuid O'Scannlain on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and Justice Antonin Scalia on the U.S. Supreme Court. After his clerkships, Professor Fitzpatrick practiced commercial and appellate litigation for several years at Sidley Austin in Washington, D.C., and served as Special Counsel for Supreme Court Nominations to U.S. Senator John Cornyn. Before earning his law degree, Fitzpatrick graduated summa cum laude with a bachelor's of science in chemical engineering from the University of Notre Dame. He has received the Hall-Hartman Outstanding Professor Award, which recognizes excellence in classroom teaching, for his Civil Procedure and Federal Courts courses.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit
Biography
Patrick J. Bumatay was confirmed as a U.S. Circuit Judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in December 2019. He is based in San Diego, California.
Prior to his appointment, Judge Bumatay served as an Assistant United States Attorney in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of California, where he was a member of the Appellate and Narcotics Sections. He also served as a Counselor to the Attorney General on criminal law issues, including on national opioid strategy and combating transnational organized crime. Judge Bumatay has also worked in the Office of the Deputy Attorney General, the Office of the Associate Attorney General, and the Office of Legal Policy at the U.S. Department of Justice. Judge Bumatay has twice received the Attorney General’s Distinguished Service Award.
Judge Bumatay previously worked as an associate at Morvillo, Abramowitz, Grand, Iason, and Bohrer in New York, New York. Judge Bumatay clerked for the Honorable Timothy M. Tymkovich of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit and the Honorable Sandra L. Townes of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York. Judge Bumatay earned his B.A., cum laude, from Yale University and his J.D. from Harvard Law School.
Legal Counsel, Office of the Solicitor for the Department of Labor
Biography
Daniel Whitehead currently serves as legal counsel in the Office of the Solicitor for the Department of Labor. Before that, he was a Senior Fellow with the Hungary Foundation and the Matthias Corvinus Collegium in Budapest, where he lectured on international affairs and political philosophy, among other things.
Daniel previously served in the General Counsel's Office for Governor Ron DeSantis, and he clerked on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit for Judge Daniel Manion and on the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims for Judge Joseph Leo Toth. He also worked for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Daniel is a John Marshall Fellow with the Claremont Institute and a Fellow with the James Wilson Institute. Daniel attended Ave Maria School of Law and Ave Maria University, majoring in Classical Languages and Literature.
Harry Reasoner Regents Chair in Law, The University of Texas at Austin School of Law
Biography
David Adelman teaches and writes in the areas of environmental law, intellectual property law, and climate change policy. Professor Adelman’s research focuses on the many interfaces between law and science. His articles have addressed such topics as the implications of emerging genomic technologies for toxics regulation, the tensions between legal and scientific evidentiary standards in regulatory decision making, and development of effective policies for promoting innovation relevant to addressing climate change. Professor Adelman clerked for the Honorable Samuel Conti of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. Before entering academia, he was an associate with the law firm Covington & Burling in Washington, D.C., where he litigated patent disputes and provided counsel on environmental regulatory matters, and a Senior Attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council also in Washington, D.C. Professor Adelman was an Associate Professor of Law at the University of Arizona Rogers College of Law from 2001 to 2009.
Hugh and Hazel Darling Foundation Professor of Law; Director, Center for the Study of Constitutional Originalism, University of San Diego School of Law
Biography
Michael Rappaport is the Hugh & Hazel Darling Professor of Law at the University of San Diego School of Law, where he is also the Director of the Center for the Study of Constitutional Originalism. Rappaport teaches Constitutional Law and Administrative Law. His research interests include originalism, administrative law, the separation of powers, federalism, the constitutional amendment process, and supermajority rules. He is the author (with John McGinnis) of Originalism and the Good Constitution (Harvard 2013) as well as of numerous law review articles. He also blogs at The Originalism Blog. He has taught at the Sorbonne and at Paris 2 Law School in Paris, France, at Bocconi University, Milan, Italy, and at Bar Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel. Before joining the academy, Rappaport worked in the Office of Legal Counsel in the U.S. Department of Justice and practiced appellate law with Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher in Washington, D.C. He received a JD and a DCL (political theory) from the Yale Law School, and served as a senior editor of the Yale Law Journal.
Justice Daniel Kelly was appointed to the Supreme Court by Gov. Scott Walker in 2016 to fill the vacancy created by the retirement of Justice David T. Prosser, Jr.
A native of Santa Barbara, California, Kelly grew up in Arvada, Colorado. He came to Waukesha, Wisconsin to study at Carroll College (now Carroll University), where he earned a bachelor's degree in Political Science and Spanish in 1986. He earned his law degree from Regent University School of Law in Virginia Beach, Virginia in 1991.
Before joining the Court, Kelly had 19 years' experience as a private practice attorney in Wisconsin and represented clients in cases before the Wisconsin Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court. Kelly spent most of his private practice career at one of the largest and oldest law firms in Wisconsin. Subsequently, he served as vice president and general counsel for a philanthropic foundation, and then practiced law at a firm he owned and founded in Waukesha.
Early in his legal career, Kelly was a law clerk and then staff attorney for the Office of Special Masters of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, from 1992 to 1996. He worked as a law clerk for the late Wisconsin Court of Appeals Judge Ralph Adam Fine from 1991 to 1992.
Kelly is a member of the board of advisors and past president of the Milwaukee Lawyer's Chapter of the Federalist Society. He serves on the Carroll University President's Advisory Council and is a former member of the Wisconsin Advisory Committee of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.
Kelly is married and has five children. He lives in North Prairie, Wisconsin.
Ben Flowers, a partner at Ashbrook Byrne Kresge Flowers LLC, is an accomplished litigator with experience briefing, arguing, and winning high-stakes cases in courts throughout the country.
Before joining the law firm, Ben served as Ohio's 10th Solicitor General. In that role he regularly represented the State of Ohio before the Supreme Court of the United States, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, and the Supreme Court of Ohio. Most prominently, in National Federation of Independent Business v. Department of Labor, Ben led a multi-state challenge to OSHA's vaccine mandate, ultimately prevailing before the Supreme Court.
Ben is a graduate of The Ohio State University and the University of Chicago Law School. Following law school, Ben clerked for Judge Sandra Ikuta of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and for Justice Antonin Scalia of the Supreme Court of this United States. Ben lives in Upper Arlington, Ohio with his wife Denise and their three very active children.
Athie Livas rejoined Cooper & Kirk in 2022. Prior to joining the firm, Ms. Livas clerked for Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh on the United States Supreme Court. Ms. Livas also previously clerked for Judge Amul R. Thapar on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and Judge Dabney L. Friedrich on the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.
Ms. Livas graduated from Yale Law School, where she served as President of the Yale Federalist Society, co-President of the Barristers’ Union trial competition, Student Director of the Supreme Court Litigation Clinic, and Editor on the Yale Law Journal. Ms. Livas is admitted to the bar of the Commonwealth of Kentucky.
