Frederick Douglass and the Original Originalists
Salt Lake City Lawyers Chapter
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Salt Lake City, UT 84111
Here are the latest events.
Associate Professor of Law, Brigham Young University
Bradley Rebeiro is a PhD candidate in constitutional studies and political theory at the University of Notre Dame. He earned his J.D. from J. Reuben Clark School of Law in 2017, and his B.A. from Brigham Young University in 2014. Rebeiro’s research ranges from U.S. constitutional history to comparative constitutional inquiries. He studies the philosophy of law, as well as the influence of political thought on constitutional jurisprudence. His dissertation, Natural Rights (Re)Construction: Frederick Douglass and Constitutional Abolitionism, investigates the constitutional thought of Frederick Douglass and its influence in the Antebellum period and Reconstruction. He argues that Frederick Douglass had a robust theory of constitutional interpretation, informed by natural rights theory, which led Douglass to advocate for the Constitution as an anti-slavery document. Rebeiro argues that Douglass’s method later helped frame the way constitutional actors approached Reconstruction. Rebeiro will join the law faculty at J. Reuben Clark School of Law this fall, where he will teach courses on Property and the Fourteenth Amendment. In the fall of 2022, Rebeiro will take a sabbatical from BYU Law to clerk for Judge John K. Bush of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the
Partner, Jones Day
Justin Herdman, a former United States Attorney, is a trial lawyer who represents businesses and individuals involved in high-stakes government investigations, criminal litigation, and civil actions. Justin's practice is focused on obtaining favorable results in matters arising from alleged violations of state and federal laws, including fraud, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), and the False Claims Act (FCA). He has successfully tried numerous cases in state and federal courts throughout his two decades in public service and private practice.
Prior to rejoining Jones Day in 2021, Justin served as the chief federal law enforcement officer for the Northern District of Ohio. Justin was nationally recognized for his effort in developing strategic responses to controlled substances, terrorism, and violent crime. While U.S. Attorney, Justin served as vice chair of the Attorney General's Advisory Committee (AGAC), where he provided national-level guidance on the management and operations of the Justice Department. Justin was also named co-chair of the Attorney General's Prescription Interdiction and Litigation Task Force and was chair of AGAC's Terrorism and National Security Subcommittee.
Justin also maintains an active pro bono practice. In 2022, his trial work with the Ohio Innocence Project led to the acquittal of a wrongfully convicted man who had spent 15 years in state prison.
Justin previously served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney prosecuting national security offenses, including terrorism, money laundering, and export control violations. He is a former assistant district attorney in New York City and currently serves as a judge advocate in the U.S. Air Force Reserve.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit
Judge Readler earned his undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Michigan. After graduating, he served as a law clerk to Judge Alan Norris of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Judge Readler then began practicing law in the Columbus office of the international law firm Jones Day, eventually spending ten years as a partner in the firm’s Issues and Appeals Practice Group. While at Jones Day, Judge Readler appeared in state and federal trial and appellate courts around the country, most frequently the Supreme Court of Ohio and the Sixth Circuit. Judge Readler also successfully argued before the United States Supreme Court in McQuiggin v. Perkins on behalf of an inmate claiming actual innocence. His other pro bono representations include representing capital defendants before the Tenth Circuit and the Supreme Court of Ohio, as well as representing defendants sentenced to life in prison before the Sixth Circuit. While at Jones Day, Judge Readler traveled to Nairobi with Lawyers Without Borders to train Kenyan lawyers in prosecuting domestic violence cases, and he was also a recipient of the American Marshall Memorial Fellowship awarded by the German Marshall Fund of the United States. Following his career in private practice, Judge Readler served as Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division of the United States Department of Justice from 2017 to 2019. In that role, Judge Readler led and supervised over 1,000 lawyers in the Department’s largest litigating division, briefing and arguing several cases on behalf of the United States in federal courts across the country, including high-profile cases significant to the Administration and the Department. In March 2019, Judge Readler was confirmed to serve as a Circuit Judge on the Sixth Circuit. He resides in Columbus.
Vice President for Litigation, Institute for Free Speech
Alan joined the Institute for Free Speech as Vice President for Litigation in February 2021. In this role, Alan directs the Institute’s litigation and legal advocacy, leads our in-house legal team, and manages and works to expand our network of volunteer attorneys.
Prior to joining the Institute, Alan litigated complex federal matters for twenty years, in his own practice and as a partner in various Washington-area firms. He argued and won landmark constitutional cases in the United States Supreme Court and has appeared before numerous appellate and district courts throughout the country. Alan often speaks at law schools and continuing legal education seminars. He also teaches strategic/public interest litigation as an adjunct professor at the Georgetown University Law Center.
Alan began his career clerking for the Hon. Terrence W. Boyle, United States District Judge for the Eastern District of North Carolina. He has also served as a Deputy Attorney General for the State of California, a litigation associate at the Washington office of Sidley Austin, and as counsel to the United States Senate Judiciary Committee.
Alan earned his J.D. at Georgetown (1995) and his B.A. at Cornell University (1992). He is an active member in good standing of the Virginia, District of Columbia, and California bars, the Bar of the United States Supreme Court, and various federal appellate and district court bars.
Author and FoxNews.com Contributor
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.
Senior Counsel, Schaerr Jaffe LLP
Ken Klukowski is senior counsel at the law firm Schaerr Jaffe, focusing on constitutional, administrative, and election law, and the federal courts. He has served in politically appointed positions in the U.S. government, including senior counsel in the Civil Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, and prior to that in the White House as special counsel in the Office of Management and Budget. He was also the constitutional rights advisor on the Presidential Transition Team of President Donald J. Trump. In the private sector, he has worked as a senior fellow of the American Constitutional Rights Union, senior counsel at First Liberty Institute, and a legal journalist. He litigates constitutional cases in the U.S. Supreme Court and lower federal courts, and contributes to media coverage of the nation’s highest court and legal issues. Earlier in his career, Klukowski served as special deputy attorney general of Indiana, and worked on faculty at Liberty University School of Law. His academic works have been published by journals such as the Federalist Society’s Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, and his columns have appeared in the Wall Street Journal and other national publications. His amicus briefs and nine law review articles have been cited by various federal courts and top legal journals. He has participated in numerous Supreme Court cases, and lectured and debated at 100 law school events nationwide. Klukowski received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Notre Dame, studied history at Arizona State University, earned his law degree from Scalia Law School at George Mason University, and served as a law clerk to Chief Judge Alice Batchelder on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.
George Mason University Foundation Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
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, The Diane Rehm Show, Lou Dobbs Show, Jerry Doyle Show, and The Laura Ingraham Show.
Professor Zywicki is former Chairman and a current member of the Board of Directors of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and is a member of the Board of Directors of the Institute for Humane Studies, Bill of Rights Institute, the Executive Committee for the Federalist Society's Financial Institutions and E-Commerce Practice Group, the Board of Trustees of the Foundation for Research on Economics and the Environment. He formerly served on the Governing Board and the Advisory Council for the Financial Services Research Program at George Washington University School of Business. He is currently the Chair of the Academic Advisory Council for the following organizations: The Bill of Rights Institute, the film “We the People in IMAX,” and the McCormick-Tribune Foundation “Freedom Museum” in Chicago, Illinois. He is a member of the Board of Visitors of Ralston College and was a member of the Board of Trustees of Yorktown University. From 2005-2009 he served as an elected Alumni Trustee of the Dartmouth College Board of Trustees.
Former Adjunct Professor of Law; former Special Counsel to the President; former federal prosecutor, Georgetown Law (ret.)
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.
Senior Fellow, Independent Institute
Dr. Stephen P. Halbrook is a Senior Fellow at the Independent Institute. He has taught legal and political philosophy at George Mason University, Howard University, and Tuskegee Institute, and he received his J.D. from the Georgetown University Law Center and Ph.D. in social philosophy from Florida State University.
The winner of three cases before the U.S. Supreme Court (Printz v. United States, United States v. Thompson/Center Arms Company, and Castillo v. United States), he has testified before the Subcommittee on the Constitution of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution, Subcommittee on Crime of the House Judiciary Committee, Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, and House Committee on the District of Columbia.
A contributor to numerous scholarly volumes, he is the author of the books, Gun Control in Nazi-Occupied France: Tyranny and Resistance; Gun Control in the Third Reich: Disarming the Jews and “Enemies of the State”; The Founders’ Second Amendment: Origins of the Right to Bear Arms; That Every Man Be Armed: Evolution of a Constitutional Right; A Right to Bear Arms; Firearms Law Deskbook: Federal and State Criminal Practice; Securing Civil Rights: Freedmen, the Fourteenth Amendment, and the Right to Bear Arms; State and Federal Bills of Rights and Constitutional Guarantees; and Target Switzerland: Swiss Armed Neutrality in World War II. Dr. Halbrook’s scholarly articles have appeared in such journals as the Arizona Journal of International and Comparative Law, Drug Law Report, George Mason University Law Review, Journal of Air Law and Commerce, Journal of Law and Policy, Law & Contemporary Problems, National Law Journal, Northern Kentucky Law Review, St. John’s Journal of Legal Commentary; Seton Hall Constitutional Law Journal, Tennessee Law Review, University of Dayton Law Review, Valparaiso University Law Review, Vermont Law Review, and William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal.
Dr. Halbrook's popular articles have appeared in such publications as the Wall Street Journal, Newsday, San Francisco Chronicle, National Review, Investor’s Business Daily, Kansas City Star, Washington Examiner, Shreveport Times, Sacramento Bee, Providence Journal, Tampa Tribune, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, History News Network, San Antonio Express-News, The Daily Caller, Detroit News, Honolulu Star Advertiser, Birmingham News, Environmental Forum, USA Today, and Washington Times. He has also appeared on numerous national TV/radio programs on CNN, Fox News Channel, Fox Business Network, Court TV, NewsMax TV, CBN, Voice of America, and C-SPAN.
Professor of Law, Fordham University School of Law
Professor Johnson is currently a Professor of Law at Fordham University School of Law, and teaches in the areas of Contracts, Environmental Law, and Gun Control/Gun Rights. He was previously Professor of Legal Studies in Business at Franklin and Marshall College (1988-93), Of Counsel at Kirkpatrick and Lockhard (1990-93), Vice President and Co-owner Westar Environmental Corporation (1988-90), and an Associate at Morgan, Lewis and Bockius (1985-88).
Tazewell Taylor Professor of Law and William H. Cabell Research Professor, William & Mary Law School
Jonathan H. Adler joined the William & Mary law faculty as the Tazwell Taylor Professor of Law and William H. Cabell Research Professor in 2025. Prior to joining the faculty, he was the inaugural Johan Verheij Memorial Professor of Law and the founding Director of the Coleman P. Burke Center for Environmental Law at the Case Western Reserve University School of Law.
Professor Adler is the author or editor of seven books, including Climate Liberalism: Perspectives on Liberty, Property and Pollution (Palgrave, 2023), Marijuana Federalism: Uncle Sam and Mary Jane (Brookings Institution Press, 2020), Business and the Roberts Court (Oxford University Press, 2016) and Rebuilding the Ark: New Perspectives on Endangered Species Act Reform (AEI Press, 2011).
His articles have appeared in publications ranging from the Harvard Environmental Law Review and Yale Journal on Regulation to the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and Washington Post. He has testified before Congress a dozen times, and his work has been cited in the U.S. Supreme Court. A 2024 study identified Professor Adler as the seventh most cited legal academic in administrative and environmental law from 2019 to 2023.
Professor Adler is a contributing editor to Civitas Outlook and a regular contributor to the popular legal blog, The Volokh Conspiracy. A regular commentator on constitutional and regulatory issues, he has appeared on numerous radio and television programs, ranging from the PBS Newshour and National Public Radio to the Fox News Channel and Entertainment Tonight.
Professor Adler is a senior fellow at the Property & Environment Research Center in Bozeman, Montana. In 2018, Professor Adler was elected to membership in the American Law Institute and helped co-found the organization Checks and Balances. In 2024, Professor Adler was appointed a public member of the Administrative Conference of the United States.
Professor Adler clerked for the Honorable David B. Sentelle on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
Partner, Gibson Dunn
Thomas H. Dupree, Jr. is a partner in the Washington, DC office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. He is a member of the firm's litigation department and its Appellate and Constitutional Law practice group, and serves as the hiring partner for the DC office.
Mr. Dupree is an experienced trial and appellate advocate. He has argued more than 70 appeals in the federal courts, including in all thirteen circuits as well as the United States Supreme Court. He has represented clients throughout the country in a wide variety of trial and appellate matters, including cases involving punitive damages, class actions, product liability, arbitration, intellectual property, employment, and constitutional challenges to federal and state statutes.
In 2007, Mr. Dupree was appointed Deputy Assistant Attorney General. He served in the Civil Division at the U.S. Department of Justice from 2007 to 2009, ultimately becoming the Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General. In that capacity, he served as the division's second-in-command, overseeing the more than 900 lawyers in the Civil Appellate, Commercial, Federal Programs and Torts branches, as well as the Office of Immigration Litigation and the Office of Consumer Litigation. Mr. Dupree was responsible for managing many of the government's most significant cases involving regulatory, commercial, constitutional and national security matters on behalf of virtually all of the federal agencies, the White House, and senior federal officials. Before being named the division's top deputy, Mr. Dupree ran its largest litigating branch, managing a staff of 280 lawyers.
Chambers and Partners named Mr. Dupree one of the leading appellate lawyers in the United States in 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, and 2016. He received similar honors in 2010, when he was ranked as one of the top ten appellate litigators under age 40 by Law360. In 2009, the National Law Journal and Legal Times selected him as one of the top 40 lawyers under 40 in Washington, DC, as did Washingtonian magazine in 2006. Based on surveys of hundreds of corporate counsel, Mr. Dupree was named a "Client Service All-Star" by BTI Consulting Group in a 2013 report for his "overall legal prowess" and his "ability to deliver a plan of action that yields results."
Legal Times has called Mr. Dupree "no stranger to high-profile work." Among other things, he played a substantial role in the successful representation of George W. Bush before the United States Supreme Court in Bush v. Gore, and represented New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady in challenging his "Deflategate" suspension.
In 2014, Mr. Dupree argued and won, by a unanimous 9-0 vote, a landmark personal jurisdiction case in the United States Supreme Court, Daimler AG v. Bauman. For this achievement, American Lawyer magazine named him Litigator of the Week, noting that he "won over both the liberal and conservative wings of the court."
Other matters Mr. Dupree has handled include:
Mr. Dupree appears frequently on national television as a legal analyst. He is a regular guest on Fox News Channel, and has appeared on "The O'Reilly Factor" and "The Kelly File," as well as on CNN's "Situation Room" and C-Span's "America & The Courts," among other programs. He has also been quoted in numerous print publications, including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and many others, discussing legal issues and developments. Mr. Dupree has also testified before Congress on constitutional and separation-of-powers issues, including the President's authority to act through executive order.
Mr. Dupree graduated cum laude from Williams College, and with Honors from the University of Chicago Law School, where he served as an Editor of the University of Chicago Law Review. After law school, he clerked for the Honorable Jerry E. Smith of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
Partner, Troutman Pepper Hamilton Sanders LLP
Misha leads Troutman Peppers' national appellate and Supreme Court practice. Most recently, he successfully obtained orders from the Supreme Court blocking an unconstitutional restriction on places of worship, as well as overturning a lower court order that had blocked several state election laws. He has also argued and prevailed before the Supreme Court in Gill v. Whitford, one of the most significant redistricting cases in decades, as well as Murr v. Wisconsin, a high-stakes regulatory taking case.
Before joining Troutman, Misha served as Solicitor General of the State of Wisconsin. Misha previously served as a law clerk for the Honorable Anthony M. Kennedy of the Supreme Court, Janice Rogers Brown of the D.C. Circuit, and Alex Kozinski of the 9th Circuit. He graduated from Georgetown University Law Center, where he was President of the Federalist Society Chapter.