James P. Sullivan was appointed to the Texas Supreme Court by Governor Greg Abbott on January 7, 2025, after serving as his General Counsel. He is the proud husband of Alithea and father of Conan. Growing up in Austin, Judge Sully was an extra in the movie "Dazed & Confused." He was a highly unrecruited walk-on at Rice University, until an injury turned him into a debater. Once in law school, he met his wife, Alithea, on the Harvard Law Review. After graduating, he clerked on the D.C. Circuit for Judge Thomas B. Griffith. He also worked under then-Attorney General Abbott in the Office of the Solicitor General, in addition to stints as an adjunct professor at George Mason University and an appellate litigator in private practice.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit
Biography
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.
Dr. John Baker is Professor Emeritus of Law, and previously the Dale E. Bennett Professor of Law, at Louisiana State University Law School. He is currently Visiting Professor at Peking University School of Transnational Law (via Zoom) and has been Visiting Professor at The Center for the Constitution, Georgetown Law School (2013-2020). He has also been a Visiting Fellow at Oriel College, the University of Oxford (2012-2014) and taught at Blackfriars Hall, Oxford in 2014. Dr. Baker has also been an adjunct Fellow at the Heritage Foundation (Spring, 2008) and a Distinguished Scholar at the Catholic University of America Law School (2011-12). He has taught at Tulane Law School, George Mason Law School, Pepperdine Law School, New York Law School, Hong Kong University, and the University of Dallas, School of Management and also taught and/or lectured in 17 foreign countries. Notable among his foreign visits are the
following: Visiting Professor at the University of Lyon III (France) (1999-2011); Visiting Professor at the Universidad de los Andes, Chile (2012), as a Fulbright Specialist (2006); and a Fulbright Scholar at various universities in the Philippines. Dr. Baker received his J.D., with honors, from the University of Michigan Law School and his B.A., magna cum laude, from the University of Dallas. He also earned a Ph.D. in Political Thought from the University of London. Baker has taught over a dozen different subjects, mostly courses in public law. His main areas of interest are Constitutional Law (particularly federalism and separation of powers), Criminal Law, Anti-Terrorism Law, International Law, Health Care Law, Mediation, and Comparative Law.
In addition to law review articles and book chapters, Dr. Baker’s academic publications include Hall's Criminal Law: Cases and Materials (with Benson, Force and George; 5th ed. Michie, 1993); An Introduction to the Law of the United States (ed. with Levasseur; University Press of America, 1992). He has also published on Forbes.com, FoxNews.com, in The Washington Times, and a number of times in The Wall Street Journal. He argues in federal court, including two oral arguments in the U.S. Supreme Court. For many years, he co-taught courses for the Federalist Society on separation of powers with the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. In September 2016, he co-taught a Supreme Court seminar in China with Justice Samuel Alito. Following law school, he served as a law clerk in federal district court and as an assistant district attorney in New Orleans before joining LSU in 1975. While a professor, he has been as a consultant to USAID, USIA (since rolled into the State Department), the Justice Department, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Separation of Powers, and the Office of Planning in the White House. He served on an ABA Task Force which issued the report, The Federalization of Crime (1998) and later as a consultant to the “Bi-Partisan Task Force on the Over- federalization of Crime” (2012-2014) created by the U.S. House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime. Dr. Baker was a co-founder of the first iteration (1995) of Stratfor Inc., a global intelligence agency. He co-authored its first book: The Intelligence Edge (with Friedman, Friedman and Chapman; Crown Books/Random House 1997). In 2022, he began a short, weekly video podcast available on YouTube and Rumble, The Baker Brief.
Nebraskans elected Mike Hilgers to be their 33rd Attorney General in 2022. As Attorney General, Mike will work to keep Nebraskans and their families safe, protect their rights, ensure the integrity of our constitutional structure, help our law enforcement officials around the state, and protect our natural resources, including our water supplies.
Before taking office, Mike was an experienced private practice attorney, successful entrepreneur, and legislator.
Mike was in private practice for over fifteen years, handling complex litigation and discovery disputes in state and federal court. After practicing at a large law firm, Mike founded his own litigation law firm. Mike built that firm from nothing into one of the fastest growing practices in the country. Before leaving his practice to take office as Nebraska’s Attorney General, the firm had over 100 professionals and handled cases around the country. Mike started his private practice after clerking for Judge Edith Clement on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Mike graduated of the University of Chicago Law School, where he was an editor of the law review.
Before taking office as Attorney General, Mike spent six years serving the people of Northwest Lincoln and Lancaster County in the Legislature (District 21), serving his last two as the Speaker of the Nebraska Legislature. In the Legislature Mike introduced and passed a wide variety of legislation to help Nebraskans around the state, from legislation to protect constitutional rights, to protecting our water, to supporting law enforcement.
Mike and his wife, Heather, are raising their four children Alice, Elsie, Clara Jane, and Michael Jr. They are raising their family in Lincoln.
University Professor, Founding Linda D. & Timothy J. O’Neill Professor of Global Health Law, Faculty Director of O’Neill Institute for National & Global Health Law, Georgetown University, Director, World Health Organization Collaborating Center on Public Health Law & Human Rights
Biography
Lawrence O. Gostin is University Professor, Georgetown University’s highest academic rank conferred by the University President. Prof. Gostin directs the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law and is the Founding O’Neill Chair in Global Health Law. He served as Associate Dean for Research at Georgetown Law from 2004 to 2008. He is Professor of Medicine at Georgetown University and Professor of Public Health at the Johns Hopkins University.
Prof. Gostin is the Director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Center on National and Global Health Law. The WHO Director-General has appointed Prof. Gostin to high-level positions, including the International Health Regulations (IHR) Roster of Experts and the Expert Advisory Panel on Mental Health. He served on the Director-General’s Advisory Committee on Reforming the World Health Organization, as well as numerous WHO expert advisory committees, including on the Pandemic Influenza Preparedness Framework, smallpox, genomic sequencing data, migrant health, and NCD prevention. He served on the WHO/Global Fund Blue Ribbon Expert Panel: The Equitable Access Initiative to develop a global health equity framework. He co-chairs the Lancet Commission on Global Health Law.
Professor Gostin served on two global commissions to report on the lessons learned from the 2015 West Africa Ebola epidemic. He was also senior advisor to the United Nations Secretary General’s post-Ebola Commission. He also served on the drafting team for the G-7 Summit in Tokyo 2016, focusing on global health security and Universal Health Coverage.
Prof. Gostin holds multiple international academic professorial appointments, including at Oxford University, the University of Witwatersrand (South Africa), and Melbourne University. Prof. Gostin served on the Governing Board of Directors of the Consortium of Universities for Global Health.
Prof. Gostin holds editorial appointments in leading academic journals throughout the world. He is the Legal and Global Health Correspondent for the Journal of the American Medical Association. He is also Founding Editor-in-Chief of Laws (an international open access law journal). He was formally the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics.
Prof. Gostin holds four honorary degrees. In 1994, the Chancellor of the State University of New York conferred an Honorary Doctor of Laws Degree. In 2006, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and the Vice Chancellor awarded Cardiff University’s (Wales) highest honor, an Honorary Fellow. In 2007, the Royal Institute of Public Health (United Kingdom) appointed Prof. Gostin as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Public Health (FRSPH). In 2012, the Chancellor of the University of Sydney – on the nomination of the Deans of the Law and Medical Schools – conferred a Doctor of Laws (honoris causa), presided by two Justices of Australia’s highest court—Justices Kirby and Haydon.
Prof. Gostin is an elected lifetime Member of the National Academy of Medicine/ National Academy of Sciences. He has served on the National Academy’s Board on Health Sciences Policy, the Board on Population Health, the Human Subjects Review Board, and the Committee on Science, Technology, and Law. He currently serves on the National Academies of Sciences Engineering, and Medicine, Board on Global Health. Gostin chaired the National Academy’s Committee on Global Solutions to Falsified, Substandard, and Counterfeit Medicines. He has chaired National Academy Committees on national preparedness for mass disasters, health informational privacy, public health genomics, and human subject research on prisoners.
Prof. Gostin is also a Member of the Council on Foreign Relations and Fellow of the Hastings Center. In 2016, President Obama appointed Prof. Gostin to a six-year term on the President’s National Cancer Advisory Board to advise the nation on cancer prevention, research, and policy. He also serves on the National Institutes of Health Director’s Advisory Committee on the ethics of public/private partnerships to end the opioid crisis.
Prof. Gostin has led major law reform initiatives in the U.S., including drafting the Model Emergency Health Powers Act (MEHPA) to combat bioterrorism (following the post-9/11 anthrax attacks) and the “Turning Point” Model State Public Health Act. He also spearheaded the World Health Organization and International Development Law Organization’s major report, Advancing the Right to Health: The Vital Role of Law.
Prof. Gostin’s proposal for a Framework Convention on Global Health – an international treaty ensuring the right to health – is now part of a global campaign, endorsed by the UN Secretary-General and Director of UNAIDS.
In the United Kingdom, Lawrence Gostin was the Legal Director of the National Association for Mental Health, Director of the National Council of Civil Liberties (the UK equivalent of the ACLU), and a Fellow at Oxford University. He helped draft the Mental Health Act (England and Wales) and brought landmark cases before the European Court of Human Rights.
Prof. Gostin’s books include: Public Health Law: Power, Duty, Restraint (University of California Press, 3rd ed., 2016); Public Health Law and Ethics: A Reader (University of California Press, 3rd ed., 2018); Human Rights in Global Health: Rights-Based Governance for a Globalizing World (Oxford University Press, 2018); Law and the Health System (Foundation Press, 2014); Principles of Mental Health Law & Practice (Oxford University Press, 2010).
Gostin’s classic text, Global Health Law (Harvard University Press, 2014) is read throughout the world—translated and published in both simplified and traditional Chinese, and in Spanish. Paul Farmer, Partners in Health, says of his book: Global Health Law is “more than the definitive book on a dynamic field. Gostin harnesses the power of international law and human rights as tools to close unconscionable health inequities — the injustices that burden marginalized populations throughout the world. Gostin presents a forceful vision, one that deserves a wide embrace.”
In a 2012 systematic empirical analysis of legal scholarship, independent researchers ranked Prof. Gostin 1st in the nation in productivity among all law professors, and 11th in in impact and influence. A 2017 and 2018 systematic empirical analysis ranked Prof. Gostin 1st in the nation for citations in health law.
Kimberly Hermann serves as Executive Director for Southeastern Legal Foundation.
Kim has worked with Southeastern Legal Foundation since 2009. Her belief in liberty and desire to serve started at a young age – instilled by her parents’ dedication to hard work, family values, and love for America.
After earning her undergraduate degree in Analytical Finance and graduate degree in Accounting from Wake Forest University, Kim worked as a licensed CPA with an international accounting firm. But her strong belief in individual liberty, the rule of law, and accountability in government led her to pursue a career in law. While in law school at Georgia State University College of Law, Kim served as a law clerk at SLF. After graduating, Kim worked at a private law firm in Atlanta where she specialized in financial and business litigation but continued to serve SLF in a pro bono capacity. In 2013, Kim returned to SLF full-time and is proud to dedicate her career to the freedom-based law movement.
Kim advances liberty through litigation in federal and state trial and appellate courts on issues ranging from government overreach, free speech, property rights, and economic liberty. In addition to representing clients, Kim testifies before state legislatures, drafts model legislation, and regularly publishes legal articles. Through SLF’s legal initiatives, she informs Americans about their constitutional rights, equipping them with the tools they need to stand up to government overreach. Her work and that of Southeastern Legal Foundation is regularly covered by national media and you will frequently hear or see her on radio, podcasts, and television.
Kim is an active member of the Federalist Society where she serves as an expert on the Federalist Society’s Civil Rights Executive Committee. She is also an active member of her community and when she isn’t fighting for liberty, you can find her at her children’s school or on the sports fields cheering them on. She lives in the Atlanta area with her husband and two children.
Luke A. Wake is an attorney at the Pacific Legal Foundation. Prior to joining PLF, he was a senior staff attorney at the NFIB Small Business Legal Center.
Wake has particular expertise on environmental and land use issues, and has worked on numerous other constitutional issues and matters of importance to small business owners. He is an ardent defender of private property rights, which he believes are essential to the free enterprise system and the foundation of American liberty. As a strong advocate of individual rights and economic liberties, he has built his career defending small business interests.
Wake has focused on a whole host of issues, from employment law matters to regulatory compliance. In addition to serving as a resource for small business owners, Wake is committed to ensuring that the voice of small business is heard in the nation’s courts. As an appellate practitioner, Wake has focused particularly on informing the courts on matters of administrative law and on issues under the Fifth Amendment’s Takings Clause. He is also working to advance small business interests in law review articles, and was recently published in the Berkeley Journal of Law & Ecology. See R.S. Radford & Luke A. Wake, Deciphering and Extrapolating: Searching for Sense in Penn Central, 38 Ecology L.Q. 731, 746-747 (2011).
Before joining the Legal Center’s team, Wake completed a prestigious two-year fellowship as an attorney in the Pacific Legal Foundation’s College of Public Interest Law. Wake is a graduate of Case Western Reserve University School of Law in Cleveland Ohio, and is a member of the California Bar. He completed his undergraduate studies at Elon University in North Carolina in 2006 where he focused on political theory and corporate communications.
JOHN L. RYDER concentrates his practice in the areas of bankruptcy and commercial litigation. He has represented secured lenders, unsecured creditor's committees, trustees and debtors in the bankruptcy process. He has participated in a number of major bankruptcies including: The Julien Companies, Microwave Products, Wexner & Jacobson, Wang's, XpertTune, Braniff and others.
He served as Shelby County Delinquent Tax Attorney (1990-1994) and was a member of the Shelby County Home Rule Charter Commission (1984-1985). He is a member of the Memphis (Chairman, Bankruptcy Section, 1985) and Tennessee (Chairman, Commercial, Banking and Bankruptcy Section, 1986) Bar Associations, and the American Bankruptcy Institute and Mid-South Commercial Law Institute (Director, 1989-Present). He also serves as an Assistant County Attorney. Mr. Ryder is listed in the Best Lawyers in America. He has also been recognized by Business Tennessee as being among 101 Best Lawyers in Tennessee.
Vanderbilt University (J.D., 1974) Wabash College (A.B., 1971)
Professor of Law, University of Cincinnati College of Law
Biography
Professor Bryant is a prolific scholar and a popular teacher. Prior to joining the faculty at the University of Cincinnaiti College of Law, he spent three years on the faculty of the William S. Boyd School of Law, University of Nevada, Las Vegas where he was voted Law Professor of the year in 2001-02.
After earning his JD from the University of Chicago Law School, Professor Bryant clerked for James L. Buckley of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He was a litigation associate at Shea & Gardner in Washington, D.C. and Assistant Senate Legal Counsel in the U.S. Senate Office of Legal Counsel.
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.
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