Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
Biography
Helen Alvaré is a Professor of Law at Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University, where she teaches Family Law, Law and Religion, and Property Law. She publishes on matters concerning marriage, parenting, non-marital households, and the First Amendment religion clauses. She is faculty advisor to the law school’s Civil Rights Law Journal, and the Latino/a Law Student Association, a Member of the Holy See’s Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life (Vatican City), a board member of Catholic Relief Services, a member of the Executive Committee of the AALS’ Section on Law and Religion, and an ABC news consultant. She cooperates with the Permanent Observer Mission of the Holy See to the United Nations as a speaker and a delegate to various United Nations conferences concerning women and the family.
In addition to her books, and her publications in law reviews and other academic journals, Professor Alvaré publishes regularly in news outlets including the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Huffington Post, and CNN.com. She also speaks at academic and professional conferences in the United States, Europe, Latin America and Australia.
Prior to joining the faculty of Scalia Law, Professor Alvaré taught at the Columbus School of Law at the Catholic University of America; represented the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops before legislative bodies, academic audiences and the media; and was a litigation attorney for the Philadelphia law firm of Stradley, Ronon, Stevens & Young.
Professor Alvaré received her law degree from Cornell University School of Law and her master’s degree in Systematic Theology from the Catholic University of America.
Lyle T. Alverson Professor of Law, the George Washington University
Biography
Professor Catherine Ross is Lyle T. Alverson Professor of Law at the George Washington University Law School. She specializes in constitutional law (with particular emphasis on the First Amendment) and family law. Professor Ross' book A Right to Lie? Presidents, Other Liars, and the First Amendment (University of Pennsylvania Press) was published in November 2021 and has been featured at events at the Cato Institute, the National Constitution Center and other venues. Her last book, Lessons in Censorship: How Schools and Courts Subvert Students' First Amendment Rights (Harvard University Press, 2015) was named the Best Book on the First Amendment by Concurring Opinions’ First Amendment News; it also won the Critics’ Choice Book Award from the American Education Studies Association.
In 2015-2016, she was a Member of the School of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton from 2008-2009. In 2015-2016 Professor Ross was a Visiting Scholar at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She has been a visiting professor at the University of Pennsylvania, Boston College (where she held joint appointments in the School of Education and the History Department) and St. John’s School of Law in New York.
An elected Fellow of the American Bar Foundation, Professor Ross was the primary author of the ABA’s landmark report on America’s Children at Risk (1993) (with the Hon. A. Leon Higginbotham, Jr.) and is former chair of the ABA’s Steering Committee on the Unmet Legal Needs of Children. She has served on a wide variety of ABA committees. Professor Ross is a former chair of the Section on Law and Communitarianism of the Association of American Law Schools.
She holds her BA, PhD (in History), and JD from Yale University where Professor Ross was a member of the first class of women to graduate from Yale College.
Before attending Yale Law School, she was on the faculty of the Yale Child Study Center (Medical School) and the Bush Center on Child Development and Social Policy at Yale.
Prior to entering legal academia, Professor Ross was a litigator at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison in New York, where she won major impact litigation on behalf of the city’s homeless population.
Ilan Wurman is the Julius E. Davis Professor of Law at the University of Minnesota, where he teaches administrative law and constitutional law. He previously taught at Arizona State University. He writes primarily on the Fourteenth Amendment, administrative law, separation of powers, and constitutionalism. His academic writing has appeared in the Yale Law Journal, the Stanford Law Review, the University of Chicago Law Review, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, the Virginia Law Review, the Duke Law Journal, the Minnesota Law Review, the Notre Dame Law Review, and the Texas Law Review among other journals.
Professor Wurman is the author of a casebook, Administrative Law Theory and Fundamentals: An Integrated Approach (Foundation Press 2d ed. 2024). He is also the author of A Debt Against the Living: An Introduction to Originalism (Cambridge 2017), and The Second Founding: An Introduction to the Fourteenth Amendment (Cambridge 2020). His next book, The Constitution of 1789: A New Introduction, is also forthcoming with Cambridge University Press.
Professor Wurman practices law with the firm Tully Bailey. He has litigated a variety of administrative law and constitutional law cases, including cases involving COVID-19 restrictions, transmission lines, and Appointments Clause challenges. He also devised winning public nuisance theories to force city governments to address the increasingly challenging public camping crises throughout the country.
Mrs. Kay C. James has an extensive background in crafting public policy and leading in nearly every sector of America’s economy. She has worked at the local, state, and federal levels of government under the administrations of former U.S. President George H. W. Bush (1989–1993); former Virginia Governor George Allen (1994–1996); and former U.S. President George W. Bush (2001–2005) and has also served dozens of organizations in the corporate and nonprofit arenas. James has a passion for serving the youth of America and substantial experience in the field of education.
James served as Dean of the Robertson School of Government at Regent University in Virginia Beach, Virginia, from 1996 to 1999. Regent University is a Christian liberal arts school with a combined online and in-person enrollment of approximately 8,900 students. During her time as Dean, she led the SACS accreditation initiative for the school of government. James also served on the Virginia Commonwealth University Board of Visitors from 2010 to 2014. During her time on the board, she chaired the Academic and Health Affairs Committee, which provided oversight and made recommendations to the full board on all policies and plans regarding strategic enrollment management, academic quality, student issues, faculty issues, athletics, and research consistent with the stated goals and objectives of the university. Additionally, the committee provided oversight to the VCU Academic Health Center including its affiliation with the VCU Health System Authority. She and her fellow board members led the effort to fulfill the University President’s goal of making VCU a leading research institution in Virginia. James’s commitment to providing quality education goes beyond just institutions of higher education; she crafted education policy during her time on the Virginia State Board of Education and the Fairfax County School Board. She also served as Director of Community Education and Development for Housing Opportunities Made Equal in Richmond, Virginia.
Today, Kay James is President of The Heritage Foundation, America’s premier conservative think tank. The Heritage Foundation is dedicated to formulating and promoting conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense. James has also been a Heritage Foundation trustee for 13 years.
James is also the founder of The Gloucester Institute, an organization that trains and nurtures college-age leaders in the African American community. The Gloucester Institute is committed to providing an intellectually safe environment where ideas can be discussed and transformed into practical solutions that produce results. James has also served as Senior Fellow and Director of the Citizenship Project at The Heritage Foundation, Senior Vice President of the Family Research Council, and Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer for One to One Partnership.
Kay James is a former board member of PNC Financial Services Group, the National Board of the Cancer Treatment Centers of America, the Magellan Health Services Board, and Amerigroup Corporation. She is a member of the National Association of Corporate Directors and has done continuing board education at the Harvard School of Business.
James has far-reaching experience and respect in the public sector. Under President George H. W. Bush, she served as Associate Director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy and as Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Following her time in the Bush administration, she was appointed as Secretary of Health and Human Resources under former Virginia Governor George Allen. In this role she designed and implemented Virginia’s landmark welfare reform initiative, affecting 14 state agencies and over 19,000 employees. As Secretary, she also influenced housing policies regarding young, elderly, and low-income Virginians.
In 2001, James was appointed as Director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) by President George W. Bush and led a department of 3,600 employees. As Director, she served as the President’s principal advisor in matters of personnel administration for the 1.8 million members of the federal civil service and was responsible for the stewardship of over $650 billion in federal employee assets. In this position, James designed the process and system through which nearly 170,000 employees from 22 different agencies merged into the new Department of Homeland Security. During this time, she also chaired the Chief Human Capital Officers (CHCO) Council, was a member of the President's Management Council, and was appointed by President Bush to serve on the White House Fellows Commission.
During her nearly 30-year career, Kay James has served on numerous boards and commissions including the National Gambling Impact Study Commission, Virginia Empowerment Commission, National Commission on Children, Medicaid Commission, Carter–Baker Commission on Election Reform, NASA Advisory Council, Fairfax County School Board, Virginia State Board of Education, Focus on the Family Board of Directors, Young Life Board of Directors, National Advisory Board of the Salvation Army, and Virginia Commonwealth University Board of Visitors.
A graduate of Hampton University, James is the recipient of numerous honorary degrees including a Doctor of Laws from Pepperdine University, the University of Virginia’s Publius Award for Public Service, and the Spirit of Democracy Award for Public Policy Leadership from the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation. As a commentator and lecturer, she has appeared on network morning shows and several national news and talk programs. She is the author of three books: her award-winning autobiography Never Forget (1993); Transforming America from the Inside Out (1995); and What I Wish I’d Known Before I Got Married (2001).
Most important, Kay James is the wife of Charles James, Sr., and the proud mother of three grown children and five grandchildren.
Attorney Matthew Fernholz focuses his practice on commercial litigation, trust and fiduciary disputes, business torts, trade secrets, non-compete agreements, defamation, and appellate work. In addition, he has developed one of the preeminent political and election law practices in the State of Wisconsin, and has handled several high-profile matters, from representing candidates for statewide office, successfully challenging the Governor’s emergency powers, arguing before the Wisconsin Elections Commission, and representing the Speaker of the Assembly.
Matthew frequently and successfully tries cases to verdict, and believes a lawyer unwilling to try a case should not take on a client in a litigation matter. In addition to this trial work, he has handled dozens of appeals, and countless dispositive motions.
His work has also been published in law review journals and newspapers alike.
Edward and Ellen Schwarzman Professor of Law, Duke University School of Law
Biography
Guy-Uriel Charles joined the Duke Law faculty in 2009. He is currently the Edward and Ellen Schwarzman Professor of Law at Duke Law School and the Bennett Boskey Visiting Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. He is the co-director, with Mitu Gulati, of the Duke Law Center on Law, Race and Politics. He teaches and writes about constitutional law, election law, campaign finance, redistricting, politics, and race. In 2016, he received the Law School’s Distinguished Teaching Award. He has published over 30 articles in journals including the Harvard Law Review, Constitutional Commentary, The Cornell Law Review, The Michigan Law Review, The Michigan Journal of Race and Law, The Georgetown Law Journal, The Journal of Politics, The California Law Review, The North Carolina Law Review, and others. He is the co-athor of two leading casebooks and two edited volumes. He has been a visiting professor at Harvard, Berkeley, Georgetown, Virginia, and Columbia law schools.
Professor Charles received his JD from the University of Michigan Law School and clerked for The Honorable Damon J. Keith of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. While at the University of Michigan, he was among a group of students who founded the Michigan Journal of Race & Law and he served as the Journal’s first editor-in-chief. From 1995-2000, he was a graduate student in political science at the University of Michigan. He is a past member of the National Research Commission on Elections and Voting and the Century Foundation Working Group on Election Reform.
Prior to Duke, Professor Charles taught at the University of Minnesota Law School from 2000-2009 where he also held the Russell M. and Elizabeth M. Bennett Professor of Law. From 2006-2008, he served as the interim co-dean at the University of Minnesota Law School. At Minnesota, he was named the Stanley V. Kinyon Teacher of the Year for 2002-2003.
Somin’s work has appeared in numerous scholarly journals, including the Yale Law Journal, Stanford Law Review, Northwestern University Law Review, Georgetown Law Journal, Critical Review, and others. Somin has also published articles in a variety of popular press outlets, including the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, CNN, NBC, The Atlantic, USA Today, Boston Globe, US News and World Report, South China Morning Post, National Law Journal and Reason. He has been quoted or interviewed by the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Time, Newsweek, The Economist, the Christian Science Monitor, the Financial Times, The Guardian, the Associated Press, CBS, MSNBC, NPR, BBC, Reuters, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Al Jazeera, and the Voice of America, among other media.
Somin’s writings have been cited in decisions by the United States Supreme Court, multiple state supreme courts and lower federal courts, and the Supreme Court of Israel. He is co-counsel for the plaintiffs in VOS Selections, Inc. v. Trump, a case challenging the constitutionality of President Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs. Somin has testified on the use of drones for targeted killing in the War on Terror before the US Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Human Rights. In 2009, he testified on property rights issues at the United States Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Somin writes regularly for the popularVolokh Conspiracylaw and politics blog, now affiliated with Reason magazine (previously affiliated with the Washington Post from 2014 to 2017). From 2006 to 2013, he served as Co-Editor of the Supreme Court Economic Review, one of the country’s top-rated law and economics journals.
Somin has served as a visiting professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. He has also been a visiting professor or scholar at the Georgetown University Law Center, the University of Hamburg, Germany, the University of Torcuato Di Tella in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Uriel Reichman University in Israel, and Zhengzhou University in China. He is a University Affiliate of the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University, and an affiliated faculty member of the George Mason University Institute for Immigration Research. Before joining the faculty at George Mason, Somin was the John M. Olin Fellow in Law at Northwestern University Law School in 2002-2003. In 2001-2002, he clerked for the Hon. Judge Jerry E. Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Professor Somin earned his B.A., Summa Cum Laude, at Amherst College, M.A. in Political Science from Harvard University, and J.D. from Yale Law School.
Professor of Law, University of Chicago Law School
Biography
Daniel Hemel’s research focuses on taxation, nonprofit organizations, administrative law, and federal courts. His academic work has appeared in the California Law Review, Cornell Law Review, Columbia Law Review, Georgetown Law Journal, Journal of Legal Analysis, National Tax Journal, NYU Law Review, Supreme Court Review, Tax Law Review, Texas Law Review, University of Chicago Law Review, and Yale Law Journal, and has been cited by the US Supreme Court as well as the Ninth Circuit and Federal Circuit Courts of Appeals. His op-eds and other writing have appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Atlantic, Politico, Slate, TIME Magazine, and Vox. He also has provided on-air legal analysis for CNN, MSNBC, and NPR.
Daniel graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College and received an MPhil with distinction from Oxford University, where he was a Marshall Scholar. He then earned his JD from Yale Law School, where he was editor-in-chief of the Yale Law Journal. Before joining the University of Chicago Law School faculty, he was a law clerk to Associate Justice Elena Kagan on the US Supreme Court. He also clerked for Judge Michael Boudin on the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit and Judge Sri Srinivasan on the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, and served as visiting counsel at the Joint Committee on Taxation. He has held visiting professorships at Harvard Law School and Stanford Law School.
Dean and Sol & Lillian Goldman Professor of Law, Yale Law School
Biography
Robert Post is Dean and Sol & Lillian Goldman Professor of Law at Yale Law School. Before coming to Yale, he taught at the University of California at Berkeley School of Law. Dean Post’s subject areas are constitutional law, First Amendment, legal history, and equal protection. He has written and edited numerous books, including Citizens Divided: A Constitutional Theory of Campaign Finance Reform (2014), which was originally delivered as the Tanner Lectures at Harvard in 2013. Other books include, Democracy, Expertise, Academic Freedom: A First Amendment Jurisprudence for the Modern State (2012); For the Common Good: Principles of American Academic Freedom (with Matthew M. Finkin, 2009); Prejudicial Appearances: The Logic of American Antidiscrimination Law (with K. Anthony Appiah, Judith Butler, Thomas C. Grey & Reva Siegel, 2001); and Constitutional Domains: Democracy, Community, Management (1995).
He publishes regularly in legal journals and other publications; recent articles and chapters include “Theorizing Disagreement: Reconceiving the Relationship Between Law and Politics” (California Law Review, 2010); “Constructing the European Polity: ERTA and the Open Skies Judgments” in The Past and Future of EU Law: The Classics of EU Law Revisited on the 50th Anniversary of the Rome Treaty (Miguel Poiares Maduro & Loïc Azuolai eds., 2010); “Roe Rage: Democratic Constitutionalism and Backlash” (with Reva Siegel, Harvard Civil-Rights Civil-Liberties Law Review, 2007); “Federalism, Positive Law, and the Emergence of the American Administrative State: Prohibition in the Taft Court Era” (William & Mary Law Review, 2006); “Foreword: Fashioning the Legal Constitution: Culture, Courts, and Law” (Harvard Law Review, 2003); and “Subsidized Speech” (Yale Law Journal, 1996). He is a member of the American Philosophical Society and the American Law Institute and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is a former member of the Board of Directors of the American Constitution Society.
Ph.D., Harvard University, (History of American Civilization), 1980
Thomas M. Siebel Senior Fellow, The Hoover Institution, Stanford University; Gary T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus, UCLA School of Law
Biography
Eugene Volokh is the Thomas M. Siebel Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution (Stanford), as well as the Gary T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus and Distinguished Research Professor at UCLA School of Law. He recently retired from teaching at UCLA, after 30 years there, and is now focusing on research.
Volokh is the author of the textbooks The First Amendment and Related Statutes (8th ed. 2023), and Academic Legal Writing (5th ed. 2016), as well as over 100 academic law journal articles, mostly on First Amendment law. He is a member of The American Law Institute; the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Free Speech Law; and the creator and coauthor of The Volokh Conspiracy, a leading legal blog founded in 2002 (hosted at the Washington Post from 2014 to 2017 and now at Reason Magazine).
Anya Bidwell (née Cherkasova) leads IJ’s Project on Immunity and Accountability (“PIA”). Through this project, Anya works to promote judicial engagement and ensure that government officials are held to account when they violate individuals’ constitutional rights. Anya also serves as an adviser on the American Law Institute’s Restatement of the Law, Constitutional Torts project.
One of Anya’s PIA cases—Gonzalez v. Trevino—was heard by the United States Supreme Court on March 20, 2024. She argued the case for the petitioner, with the goal of convincing the Justices that retaliatory arrests not involving on-the-spot decisions by police officers should be actionable under the First Amendment regardless of probable cause. The decision is expected in June.
Before joining IJ, Anya worked for a top national law firm, handling cases in trial and appellate courts. She earned her J.D. with honors from the University of Texas. Two years prior to entering law school, Anya received a master’s degree in Global Policy Studies, also from the University of Texas, and wrote a thesis on asymmetric warfare.
Anya spent her childhood in Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan. At 16, she left her family behind and came to America on a university scholarship. Her upbringing motivated her to study law and become an advocate for a strong, independent judiciary.
Anya’s work has been featured in numerous publications, including the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, USA Today, and the Guardian. She is also the host of live recordings of our Short Circuit podcast and a co-producer of our documentary-style podcast Bound by Oath.
Tony Francois is experienced in Water and Real Property Law, Land Use and Zoning, Environmental Regulation, Natural Resources Development, Agricultural Law, and Constitutional Law. He has represented homeowners, builders, farmers and ranchers, trade associations, and water districts in administrative, civil, and criminal proceedings before state and federal administrative agencies and state and federal trial and appellate courts. He is a member of the California State Bar and the Northern, Eastern, and Central Districts of California and the Districts of New Mexico and North Dakota, and has litigated cases in federal courts in California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, North and South Dakota, Minnesota, Massachusetts, Maryland, South Carolina, and the District of Columbia, as well as the Sixth, Eighth, Ninth, and Tenth Circuit Courts of Appeals. He has appeared before the Supreme Courts of California, Idaho, Nevada, and the United States.
Prior to attending law school, he served as an infantry officer in the United States Army, and was stationed in the former West Germany during the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Tony was an Attorney at Pacific Legal Foundation from 2012 to 2021. He was a lobbyist for 10 years, first with California Farm Bureau Federation from 2003 to 2007, and then with KP Public Affairs from 2007 to 2012. He was an attorney at McQuaid, Bedford & Van Zandt in San Francisco from 1999 – 2003.