Senior Legal Fellow and Manager, National Security Law Program, The Heritage Foundation
Biography
Charles “Cully” Stimson is a widely recognized expert in national security, homeland security, crime control, drug policy and immigration. A senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation since 2007, Stimson became Manager of the National Security Law Program in Heritage’s Institute for Constitutional Government in April 2013 after serving as Heritage’s chief of staff for a year.
Stimson writes and lectures on policy issues such as the law of armed conflict, terrorist detainee policy and interrogations, the Geneva Conventions, military commissions, the Patriot Act and FISA, criminal law and the death penalty, immigration and the war on drugs. As chief of staff to then-Heritage President Edwin J. Feulner, he was a key adviser on public policy matters as well as manager of Feulner’s office staff and Heritage’s day-to-day operations.
Stimson’s many research papers, op-eds and articles include special reports such as “Adult Time for Adult Crime,” a comprehensive study on the constitutionality of life sentences for teen-age murderers, and Sexual Assault in the Military: Understanding the Problem and How to Fix It, a ground-breaking paper detailing the inner workings of the military justice system compared to its civilian counterpart. His work on criminal and immigration law has been cited in briefs before the U.S. Supreme Court.
He testifies before the U.S. Senate and House on national security issues, and recently testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee on the Law of Armed Conflict, Law of War, and the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force.
Before joining the think tank in 2007, Stimson served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Detainee Affairs. He advised then-Secretaries of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Robert Gates and coordinated the Pentagon’s global detention policy and operations, including at Guantanamo Bay and in Iraq and Afghanistan. He was chairman of detainee-related panels such as the Defense Senior Leadership Oversight Committee, and the Special Detainee Follow Up Group. He represented the United States before the U.N. in Geneva, Switzerland in May 2006 where he led the DOD delegation in defense of the United States’ Second Period Report on the Convention Against Torture.
An accomplished trial lawyer, Stimson worked as a prosecutor at the local, state and federal levels, where he concentrated on violent crimes such as homicide, sexual assault and domestic violence. A third generation naval officer, Cully also served as a military prosecutor, defense counsel, and recently served as Deputy Chief Judge of the Navy-Marine Corps Trial Judiciary. He continues to serve, with the rank of Captain, as the Commanding Officer of the Preliminary Hearing Unit.
Stimson’s thousands of media interviews and appearances include Fox News Channel, MSNBC, CNN, BBC, NPR and C-SPAN. He has been quoted by most major newspapers, including The Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and London Times.
A businessman and educator by training, Stimson is Vice Chairman of his family’s commercial real estate company in Seattle. Before 9/11, he was a Vice President at a New York-based global financial services and insurance brokerage firm where ran the private equity mergers and acquisitions D.C. operation.
Stimson holds a law degree from the George Mason University School of Law, where he later taught as an Adjunct Professor of Law. He is a graduate of Kenyon College, where he was Captain of the men’s varsity soccer team and an All-Conference player. He also studied at Harvard and Exeter universities. An avid soccer player and triathlete, he serves as Chairman of the Board of the United States Soccer Foundation, the charitable giving arm of U.S. Soccer.
Judge, United States District Court, Southern District of Florida
Biography
On April 4, 2019, Judge Altman was confirmed to a seat on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida. At 36, he became the youngest federal district court judge in the country—and the youngest federal judge ever appointed in the Southern District of Florida.
Judge Altman received a BA from Columbia University, where he played quarterback on the football team and pitched for the baseball team—earning All-Ivy honors. Judge Altman received his JD from the Yale Law School, where he was projects editor of the Yale Law Journal. After law school, the Judge clerked on the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals for the Honorable Stanley Marcus.
Judge Altman then became a federal prosecutor at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Miami, where he twice received the Director of the Executive Office of U.S. Attorneys’ Award for Superior Performance by a federal prosecutor. In 2013, Judge Altman was named “Federal Prosecutor of the Year” by the Miami-Dade Chiefs of Police and the Law Enforcement Officers’ Charitable Foundation.
In 2014, Judge Altman became a partner at the Miami law firm of Podhurst Orseck, where he represented the victims of airplane crashes and bank fraud conspiracies.
United States District Judge, United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida
Biography
On December 20, 2019, Raag Singhal received his judicial commission to serve on the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida. Judge Singhal is the first Asian American in history to serve as an Article III judge in the jurisdiction of the Eleventh Circuit (Alabama, Georgia and Florida).
Immediately prior to becoming a federal judge, Judge Singhal spent eight years as a State Circuit Court Judge in Broward County, Florida, having been appointed by then-Governor Rick Scott in 2011. During that period of time, Singhal served, at times, in the Criminal, Civil and Mental Health divisions and was fortunate enough to sit as an Associate Judge on Florida’s Fourth District Court of Appeal on four occasions.
As a lawyer, Singhal gained experience at a civil litigation firm followed by three years as an Assistant State Attorney. After that, Singhal ran a successful criminal defense practice in Fort Lauderdale for eighteen years. During that time, he handled more than two hundred jury trials including thirty first-degree murder cases.
Judge Singhal has had leadership roles in many law-related groups. He is past-President of the Broward Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and the Stephen H. Booher Chapter of the American Inns of Court. He was on the Board of Directors of the Broward County Bar Association, and is a frequent speaker at events for various local Bar groups such as the Asian Pacific American Bar Association and the Federalist Society. Singhal was also Associate Dean of the Florida College for Advanced Judicial Studies upon his elevation to the federal court system.
Judge Singhal received his law degree from Wake Forest University School of Law in 1989 where he was very active in Moot Court activities, and was on the winning team of the J. Braxton Craven National Moot Court Competition (4th Amendment). He received his undergraduate degree in Political Science from Rice University in 1986.
Clinical Professor of Law, University of Arizona, James E. Rogers College of Law
Biography
Tessa L. Dysart is the Assistant Director of Legal Writing and Associate Clinical Professor of Law at the University of Arizona, James E. Rogers College of Law. With the Hon. Leslie H. Southwick of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, she co-authored the third edition of Winning on Appeal: Better Briefs and Oral Arguments. She manages the Appellate Advocacy Blog, writes on human trafficking and constitutional law, and lectures nationally on developing effective state anti-trafficking laws.
Professor Dysart is a graduate of Willamette University and Harvard Law School. She clerked for the Hon. Dennis W. Shedd of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. Her practice experience includes working for the United States Department of Justice Office of Legal Policy and the Senate Judiciary Committee. Prior to joining the College of Law faculty she taught appellate advocacy and constitutional law courses at Regent University School of Law, where she coached award-winning moot court teams and advised the program to a national ranking.
Erin Morrow Hawley serves as Chair of Lex Politica's Supreme Court and Appellate Practice overseeing the firm’s strategic appellate litigation and critical motions practice in the trial courts. Erin is an experienced litigator who represents clients in constitutional, regulatory, and appellate matters in federal and state courts throughout the country.
Erin has represented dozens of clients before the Supreme Court of the United States, served as lead counsel in high-profile cases raising novel constitutional and statutory issues, and authored numerous successful petitions for certiorari and briefs in opposition. She has argued in state and federal appellate and trial courts throughout the country, including the Supreme Court of the United States. Erin represents diverse clients in high-stakes litigation from state governments to faith-based nonprofits to Fortune 100 companies. She possesses expertise on a wide range of subject matters including administrative law, the First Amendment, religious liberty, federal jurisdiction, federal preemption, equitable jurisdiction, tax law, the Affordable Care Act, and Title IX.
Erin represents clients in cases where public communications strategy is paramount. She is a sought-after speaker and writer, has testified multiple times before Congress, and is a frequent presenter on constitutional and administrative law issues, including at the Oxford Union, the National Federalist Society Convention, and university campuses across the country. She is a frequent commentator to media outlets, including Fox News, MSNBC, the Wall Street Journal, WORLD, USA Today, the Federalist, and the Hill.
Erin previously oversaw Alliance Defending Freedom’s--where she still serves as Of Counsel--litigation strategies to empower women and protect the dignity of life, defend pregnancy centers’ First Amendment rights from government overreach, and safeguard Americans’ freedoms from the ever-encroaching administrative state.
Owen L. Coon Professor of Law, Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law
Biography
James E. Pfander has focused his teaching and research on the role of the federal judiciary under Article III of the Constitution. His latest book, Constitutional Torts and the War on Terror (Oxford U. Press 2017), documents and evaluates the failure of the federal courts to address the merits of the claims of individuals who were subjected to extraordinary rendition, military detention, and torture during the Bush Administration’s war on terror. Other books include Civil Procedure: A Modern Approach (7th ed. 2018) (with Marcus, Redish & Sherman); Federal Courts: Cases, Comments, and Questions (8th ed. 2018) (with Redish & Sherry), Principles of Federal Jurisdiction (3d ed. 2017).
Pfander’s recent scholarship explores the role of non-contentious jurisdiction in a federal system otherwise largely devoted to the resolution of disputes between adverse parties; the forgotten distinction between “cases” and “controversies” in defining the work of the federal judiciary; the lessons available from Scotland’s civil-law-inflected approach to the problem of litigant standing; the origins and meaning of the anti-injunction act of 1793; and the possible influence of the Scottish judicial system on the structure of the federal court system.
A member of the American Law Institute, Pfander recently concluded his work as reporter/consultant to the Federal-State Jurisdiction Committee of the Judicial Conference of the United States. He has served as chair of both the federal courts and civil procedure sections of the Association of American Law Schools.
Charles I. Francis Professorship in Law, University of Texas at Austin School of Law
Biography
Professor Aaron Nielson lectures and writes in the areas of administrative law, civil procedure, and federal courts. Before joining the faculty, he served as Solicitor General of Texas and represented Texas before the U.S. Supreme Court and the Texas Supreme Court, as well as overseeing all appellate litigation for the State. Earlier in his career, he was a professor at Brigham Young University and an appellate and antitrust partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Kirkland & Ellis LLP. He also clerked for Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. of the U.S. Supreme Court, Judge Janice Rogers Brown of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, and Judge Jerry E. Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
As Solicitor General, Professor Nielson successfully defended against a First Amendment challenge Texas’s law requiring online pornographers to institute age verification. In 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court appointed him to defend the constitutionality of a federal agency. He currently serves as a Senior Fellow of the Administrative Conference of the United States after completing a six-year term as an appointed public member and chair of the Conference’s Administration & Management Committee.
Nielson’s research focuses on administrative law, federal litigation, and the separation of powers. He has published (or soon will publish) in the Harvard Law Review, Columbia Law Review, University of Chicago Law Review, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, Duke Law Journal, Georgetown Law Journal, Cornell Law Review, and Northwestern University Law Review, among others. Nielson has been recognized for teaching for teaching and scholarship and in 2021 received the Federalist Society’s Joseph Story Award, which recognizes a young academic for excellence in legal scholarship, a commitment to teaching, and a concern for students, and who has made a significant public impact in a manner that advances the rule of law in a free society. He is also an elected member of the American Law Institute.
Professor Nielson received his J.D. magna cum laude from Harvard Law School and an LL.M from the University of Cambridge, where he focused his studies on the institutions that regulate global competition and commerce. He received his undergraduate degree summa cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania, majoring in economics and political science.
Laurence H. Silberman Chair in Constitutional Governance and Senior Fellow, American Enterprise Institute; Co-Director, Antonin Scalia Law School’s C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State
Biography
Adam J. White is the Laurence H. Silberman Chair in Constitutional Governance and senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he focuses on the Supreme Court and the administrative state. Concurrently, he codirects the Antonin Scalia Law School’s C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State.
Mr. White practiced constitutional and administrative law, particularly in the regulation of energy and financial markets. He started his legal career as a law clerk for Judge David B. Sentelle at the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit.
Mr. White has written for the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Washington Post, National Affairs, Commentary, Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, and Notre Dame Law Review, among other publications. He is a regular contributor to the Yale Journal on Regulation’s Notice and Comment blog, and for many years, he was one of the Weekly Standard’s lead writers on constitutional law and the Supreme Court.
Mr. White has testified often before Congress, including before the Senate’s Committees on the Judiciary; Commerce, Science, and Transportation; and Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs and before the House’s Judiciary and Financial Services Committees. In 2018, the Senate Committee on the Judiciary called him to testify in Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings to advise senators on Kavanaugh’s approach to administrative law.
In 2021, he served on the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States, where he criticized “Court packing” and other efforts to restructure the Supreme Court. In 2017, he was appointed to serve on the Administrative Conference of the United States. He also serves on the leadership council for the American Bar Association’s Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice Section, which he will chair in 2023–24. Before joining AEI, he was a research fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and an adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
Mr. White has a JD from Harvard Law School and a bachelor of business administration from the College of Business at the University of Iowa.
John D. Couriel is the 90th Justice of the Florida Supreme Court. Justice Couriel was born in Miami, Florida in 1978. He is married to Rebecca L. Toonkel, M.D. They have two children.
Justice Couriel received his A.B. magna cum laude from Harvard College in 2000 and his J.D. from Harvard Law School in 2003. He clerked for the Honorable John D. Bates of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia before joining Davis Polk & Wardwell in New York. His practice there included securities offerings, mergers and acquisitions, bankruptcy matters, and investigations. In 2009, he became an Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida. He prosecuted hundreds of federal offenses, including international money laundering, public integrity, healthcare fraud, and human trafficking crimes. In 2013, he joined Kobre & Kim LLP, where he specialized in cross-border disputes and investigations relating to financial products and services, asset recovery, and government enforcement defense, with an emphasis on clients in Latin America.
Justice Couriel is a native speaker of Spanish. His parents emigrated from Cuba in the 1960s, his father as one of approximately 14,000 unaccompanied minors welcomed to the United States as part of Operation Pedro Pan.
He was appointed to the Florida Supreme Court by Governor Ron DeSantis on June 1, 2020.
Daniel Suhr serves as president of the Center for American Rights, where he spends every day on the front lines of the fight to preserve our rights and liberties. The Center's mission is to advance free speech, free enterprise, and parental freedom in education through strategic, precedent-setting litigation.
Daniel formerly worked as policy director for Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, as chief of staff for Wisconsin Lieutenant Governor Rebecca Kleefisch, and as a law clerk for Judge Diane Sykes of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. He holds a B.A. and J.D. from Marquette University, and master’s degrees from Georgetown and the University of Missouri.
Carrie Campbell Severino is the president of the JCN, and co-author with Mollie Hemingway of the bestselling book Justice on Trial: The Kavanaugh Confirmation and the Future of the Court. As a go-to expert on the confirmation process, Mrs. Severino has been extensively quoted in the media. She regularly appears on television, including FOX, CNN, MSNBC, C-SPAN, and ABC’s This Week.
Severino writes and speaks on a wide range of judicial issues, including the constitutional limits on government, the federal nomination process, and state judicial selection. She has testified before Congress on constitutional questions and briefed Senators on judicial nominations, and regularly files briefs in high-profile Supreme Court cases. She was a law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and to Judge David B. Sentelle of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, and is a graduate of Harvard Law School (J.D.), Duke University (B.A., Biology), and Michigan State University (M.A., Linguistics).
Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
Biography
Eric R. Claeys is Professor of Law at the Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University. He has written widely in the fields of property, private law, and constitutional law. Professor Claeys’s current research interests focus on flourishing- and labor-based natural rights justifications for property—in American property theory, in intellectual property, and in contemporary regulation of shale gas exploration and hydraulic fracturing. He is a member of the American Law Institute, he serves on the ALI’s Members’ Consultative Group for the first Restatement of Copyright, and he also serves as an adviser to the Restatement (Fourth) of the Law of Property.
Professor Claeys received his JD from the University of Southern California Gould School of Law. He received his AB from Princeton University, and he is a former visiting fellow and current member of Princeton’s Politics Department’s James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions. After law school, Professor Claeys clerked for the Hon. Melvin Brunetti, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and the Hon. William H. Rehnquist, Chief Justice of the United States.
Professor Claeys’s main teaching interests include Property, Torts, Jurisprudence, and Intellectual Property. In recent years, he has also taught Water Law, Remedies, Estates and Trusts, Trade Secrecy, Constitutional Law, Torts, and Oil and Gas law. Spring 2018, he is teaching Torts and Jurisprudence as a Visiting Professor at Harvard Law School.