Chief Justice Paul Newby was born in Asheboro and grew up in Jamestown, N.C. He received his B.A. degree in Public Policy Studies from Duke University and law degree from UNC-Chapel Hill School of Law.
Chief Justice Newby was first elected to the Supreme Court as an Associate Justice in 2004. He was elevated to the highest judicial office in North Carolina in the 2020 election. As Chief Justice, he is head of the Judicial Branch, a co-equal branch of state government with the Legislative and Executive branches. He is entrusted with leading the Judicial Branch and its 7,600 elected officials and employees.
He is a former adjunct professor of law at Campbell University and has published a book on the North Carolina Constitution.
Chief Justice Newby’s legal experience includes private practice and corporate inhouse legal counsel. He also served almost 20 years as an Assistant United States Attorney, during which he played an integral role in conducting the undercover sting operation that recovered North Carolina’s original copy of the Bill of Rights, stolen in the aftermath of the Civil War.
Chief Justice Newby is an Eagle Scout and is the recipient of the Heroism Award (for rescuing nine people from a riptide), the God and Service Award, the Silver Beaver Award, and the Scouter of the Year Award. In 2012, he was designated a Distinguished Eagle Scout, a national honor that recognizes both his service to the Boy Scouts and his dedication to public service.
Chief Justice Newby has been married to Macon Tucker Newby since 1983, and they have four children. He is active in his local church, where he serves as a teacher and mentor to young professionals.
Judge, Tennessee 5th Judicial District, Blount County Circuit Court
Biography
David R. Duggan, Blount County circuit judge, is the author of the book, Alcoa: A Century in Words and Pictures. He also co-authored Alcoa and Maryville in Arcadia Publishing’s Images of America series. He is Alcoa city historian, a former Blount County Library board chair, and lay representative, a Sunday School teacher, and church historian at Alcoa First Methodist Church. He serves as lay leader of the MidSouth Annual Conference of the Global Methodist Church (GMC), and he is a member of the GMC’s global Ecumenical Relations Commission. He chaired the City of Alcoa’s 75th Anniversary and Centennial Committees. Named to the Daily Times Alumni Wall of Fame in 2010, he received the Blount Historic Trust Champion Award in 2015. He also received, in 2018, a Community History Award, and in 2022 an Award of Distinction, from the East Tennessee Historical Society. He is president and a director of the Faith and Family Coalition, Inc. He serves as a member of the executive committee of the Knoxville chapter of the Federalist Society. Duggan also serves on the Mr. P Foundation board. Alcoa High School’s lyceum is named in his honor.
John Marshall Harlan II Professor of Law Emerita, New York Law School; Former President, American Civil Liberties Union
Biography
Nadine Strossen, New York Law School Professor Emerita and Senior Fellow at FIRE (the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression), was national President of the American Civil Liberties Union from 1991 to 2008. An internationally acclaimed free speech scholar and advocate, who regularly addresses diverse audiences and provides media commentary around the world, Strossen is also the Host and Project Consultant for Free To Speak, a 3-hour documentary film series distributed on public television in 2023. Her books about free speech include: Free Speech: What Everyone Needs to Know® (Oxford University Press 2023); HATE: Why We Should Resist It with Free Speech, Not Censorship (Oxford University Press 2018); and Defending Pornography: Free Speech, Sex, and the Fight for Women’s Rights (Scribner 1995), which was republished with a new Preface in 2024 as part of the NYU Classics Series. Her many honors and awards include the National Coalition Against Censorship’s Judy Blume Lifetime Achievement Award for Free Speech. She serves on the Advisory Boards of several organizations that do free speech work, including: ACLU, Academic Freedom Alliance, Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism (FAIR), Heterodox Academy, National Coalition Against Censorship, and the University of Austin.
Professor of Law, The College of the Law, University of California San Francisco
Biography
Professor Zachary Price has taught at UC Law SF since 2013 and currently holds the Eucalyptus Foundation Endowed Chair. He joined UC Law SF following a fellowship at the Stanford Constitutional Law Center, and before entering academics, he served for three years as an attorney in the U.S. Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel. He has also worked as a litigator in private practice and clerked for Judge Catherine C. Blake of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, Judge David S. Tatel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, and Justice Anthony M. Kennedy of the U.S. Supreme Court. He graduated from Harvard Law School magna cum laude and from Stanford University with honors and distinction.
Professor Zachary S. Price teaches and writes about constitutional law, administrative law, and criminal and civil law enforcement. His book Constitutional Symmetry: Judging in a Divided Republic is forthcoming with Cambridge University Press in summer 2024. His scholarly articles include “Faithful Execution in the Fifty States” in the Georgia Law Review, “Congress’s Power Over Military Offices” in the Texas Law Review, “Funding Restrictions and Separation of Powers” in the Vanderbilt Law Review, “Enforcement Discretion and Executive Duty” in the Vanderbilt Law Review, and “NAMUDNO’s Non-Existent Principle of State Equality” in the New York University Law Review Online. Professor Price has also contributed to publications including the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Scotusblog, Notice and Comment, Administrative and Regulatory News, Law and Liberty, Balkinization, the Supreme Court of California Blog, the State and Local Government Blog, and the Take Care Blog. In fall 2023, Professor Price was the Bruce Bromley Visiting Professor of Law at Harvard Law School.
Professor of Law, University of Michigan Law School
Biography
Christopher J. Walker is a Professor of Law at the University of Michigan. Prior to joining Michigan law faculty in 2022, he spent a decade teaching at The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law. He previously clerked for Justice Anthony Kennedy of the U.S. Supreme Court, worked on the Civil Appellate Staff at the U.S. Department of Justice, and served on the Senate Judiciary Committee staff for the Gorsuch Supreme Court confirmation. Professor Walker’s research focuses on administrative law, regulation, and law and policy at the agency level. Outside the law school, he chaired the American Bar Association’s Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice in 2020-21 and served as one of forty Public Members of the Administrative Conference of the United States from 2016-2022, and he continues to serve in both organizations in various capacities. He also works of counsel at the U.S. Chamber Litigation Center. In 2022, he received the Federalist Society’s Joseph Story Award.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit
Biography
Andrew Oldham is a Circuit Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Before ascending to the bench, Judge Oldham served as General Counsel to Texas Governor Greg Abbott, where he advised the Governor on a range of issues under federal and state law and managed litigation in which the Governor was an interested party. Before that he served as Deputy Solicitor General for the State of Texas, where he represented Texas in federal courts across the country, including twice before the United States Supreme Court. Before moving to Texas, Judge Oldham was an attorney at Kellogg Hansen Todd Figel & Frederick in Washington, D.C. His practice focused on appellate litigation in federal courts of appeals throughout the country. Before entering private practice, Judge Oldham served as a law clerk to Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr., at the Supreme Court of the United States and to Judge David B. Sentelle of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He also worked as an attorney-adviser in the Office of Legal Counsel at the U.S. Department of Justice from 2006 to 2008. Judge Oldham earned a B.A. from the University of Virginia with highest honors, a Truman Scholarship for graduate school, an M. Phil., first class (with distinction), from Cambridge University, and a J.D., magna cum laude, from Harvard Law School.
Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, specializing in foreign policy and civil liberties. He worked as special assistant to President Reagan and editor of the political magazine Inquiry. He writes regularly for leading publications such as Fortune magazine, National Interest, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Times. Bandow speaks frequently at academic conferences, on college campuses, and to business groups. Bandow has been a regular commentator on ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox News Channel, and MSNBC. He holds a J.D. from Stanford University.
Newsweek Senior Editor-at-Large, Syndicated Columnist, Host of "The Josh Hammer Show," Article III Project Senior Counsel, Newsweek, Salem Media, Article III Project, David Horowitz Freedom Center
Biography
Josh Hammer is the senior editor-at-large of Newsweek and host of "The Josh Hammer Show," a podcast, a syndicated radio show, and TV program on Salem News Channel. A syndicated columnist through Creators Syndicate, Josh is a frequent pundit and essayist on political, legal, and cultural issues. He is also senior counsel for the Article III Project and Internet Accountability Project, as well as a Shillman Fellow with the David Horowitz Freedom Center and a fellow with the Palm Beach Freedom Institute.
An outspoken conservative, Josh opines on conservative intellectual trends, contemporary domestic and foreign policy debates, constitutional and legal issues, and the intersection of law, politics and culture. He has been published by many leading outlets, including the Los Angeles Times, the New York Post, Daily Mail, Newsweek, the Claremont Review of Books, National Affairs, American Affairs, The New Criterion, The National Interest, National Review, RealClearPolitics, First Things, City Journal, Public Discourse, Law & Liberty, Tablet Magazine, Deseret Magazine, Compact Magazine, Chronicles Magazine, The Spectator, The American Mind, The American Conservative, The European Conservative, American Greatness, American Compass, The Federalist, Blaze Media, TomKlingenstein.com, Townhall, The Daily Wire, The Daily Signal, The Daily Caller, The Epoch Times, Anchoring Truths, Fortune, Fox Business, The Jerusalem Post, The Times of Israel, The Forward, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and the Jewish Journal. He has also had legal scholarship published by the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy and the University of St. Thomas Law Journal.
Josh is a college campus speaker through Young America's Foundation and the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, and a law school campus speaker through the Federalist Society. Prior to Newsweek and The Daily Wire, where he was an editor, Josh worked at Kirkland & Ellis LLP and clerked for the Hon. James C. Ho on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Josh has also served as a John Marshall Fellow with the Claremont Institute and as a Fellow with the James Wilson Institute. He is the former host of "America on Trial with Josh Hammer," a one-season daily podcast with The First that covered the unique legal issues surrounding the 2024 presidential election.
Josh graduated from Duke University, where he majored in economics, and from the University of Chicago Law School. He lives in Florida, but remains an active member of the State Bar of Texas.