Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit
Biography
David Stras became a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit on January 31, 2018. Before serving on the Eighth Circuit, Judge Stras was an Associate Justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court, a position he occupied from July 1, 2010 until his appointment to the Eighth Circuit.
Prior to becoming a judge, Stras was a member of the faculty of the University of Minnesota Law School from 2004 through 2010. He taught and wrote in the areas of federal courts and jurisdiction, constitutional law, criminal law, and law and politics.
Judge Stras received his Bachelor of Arts degree, with highest distinction, in 1995 and his Master of Business Administration in 1999, both from the University of Kansas. He also received his law degree from the University of Kansas School of Law in 1999, where he served as Editor-in-Chief of the Criminal Procedure Edition of the Kansas Law Review.
Following law school, Stras clerked for The Honorable Melvin Brunetti of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and then for The Honorable J. Michael Luttig of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
From 2001 to 2002, he practiced white-collar criminal and appellate litigation with the Washington, D.C., office of Sidley Austin Brown & Wood. Following his year in practice, he clerked for The Honorable Clarence Thomas of the Supreme Court of the United States.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit
Biography
David Stras became a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit on January 31, 2018. Before serving on the Eighth Circuit, Judge Stras was an Associate Justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court, a position he occupied from July 1, 2010 until his appointment to the Eighth Circuit.
Prior to becoming a judge, Stras was a member of the faculty of the University of Minnesota Law School from 2004 through 2010. He taught and wrote in the areas of federal courts and jurisdiction, constitutional law, criminal law, and law and politics.
Judge Stras received his Bachelor of Arts degree, with highest distinction, in 1995 and his Master of Business Administration in 1999, both from the University of Kansas. He also received his law degree from the University of Kansas School of Law in 1999, where he served as Editor-in-Chief of the Criminal Procedure Edition of the Kansas Law Review.
Following law school, Stras clerked for The Honorable Melvin Brunetti of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and then for The Honorable J. Michael Luttig of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
From 2001 to 2002, he practiced white-collar criminal and appellate litigation with the Washington, D.C., office of Sidley Austin Brown & Wood. Following his year in practice, he clerked for The Honorable Clarence Thomas of the Supreme Court of the United States.
VP, Legal Policy and Copyright Counsel, Copyright Alliance
Biography
Terry Hart joined the Copyright Alliance in 2013. He has been quoted by publications such as Politico, The Hollywood Reporter, and BNA’s Patent, Trademark, and Copyright Daily. His articles have appeared in publications including the George Mason Law Review, SCOTUSBlog, and IP Watchdog. He speaks regularly and has appeared at events such as the Copyright Society Mid-Winter Meeting, the Fordham IP Law & Policy Conference, the CPIP Fall Conference, the IPO Annual Meeting, and the WIPO/USPTO Summer School on IP.
Since 2010, Terry has blogged at Copyhype on copyright law, history, and policy. The blog was named one of the top 100 legal blogs by the American Bar Association in 2011 and has been cited in law review articles, legal filings, and books.
In addition, he is an adjunct professor at George Mason University School of Law, where he teaches copyright law.
The former Principal Deputy Solicitor General in Virginia’s Office of the Attorney General, Matt is a seasoned appellate and trial court attorney. As counsel, Matt focuses on appellate litigation as well as helping clients frame complex legal issues before trial courts and administrative agencies.
Before joining Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP, Matt served for nearly four years in the Solicitor General’s division of the Office of the Attorney General of Virginia. He represented the Commonwealth, its agencies and its officials in significant and sensitive cases pending before the US Supreme Court, the US Courts of Appeals, the Supreme Court of Virginia and federal and state trial courts. Before the US Supreme Court, Matt briefed, argued and won a 5-4 victory in Currier v. Virginia, 138 S. Ct. 2144 (2018). That case involved a “complicated” constitutional question about the double jeopardy clause, which resulted in one commentator noting “the exceptionally high intellectual plane of the Supreme Court’s discourse” during the argument (SCOTUSBlog 2018). Matt was also the principal attorney defending the sentence imposed on Lee Boyd Malvo, one of the “D.C. Snipers,” including drafting the successful petition for writ of certiorari, granted by the US Supreme Court in 2019. Recently, Matt argued before the full en banc US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in Manning v. Caldwell, a case challenging the constitutionality of Virginia’s habitual drunkard laws, and successfully represented the Virginia State Bar before the Supreme Court of Virginia in Morrissey v. Virginia State Bar.
Before joining the Attorney General’s office, Matt frequently represented clients before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in proceedings arising under the Federal Power Act and the Natural Gas Act. Immediately after law school, Matt served as a law clerk for Judge E. Grady Jolly on the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
Matt also co-teaches a course on the Constitution and State Attorneys General at the University of Richmond School of Law.
Director, Center to Protect Free Speech, American Legislative Exchange Council
Biography
Shelby Emmett graduated from James Madison College at Michigan State University (GO GREEN!!) in 2006 with a dual-major in Political Theory & Constitutional Democracy and Social Relations & Policy. Shelby attended the David A. Clarke School of Law in Washington, D.C., where she participated in the school’s Legislative Clinic.
After law school, Shelby served as the Policy Coordinator for a national non-profit in Baltimore. In 2012, Shelby was the Legislative Fellow with the Republican Study Committee, the largest caucus in the House of Representatives. During the 113th session of Congress, Shelby served as Legislative Counsel for Michigan’s 11th district, responsible for a broad legislative portfolio including education and civil rights. Most recently, Shelby was the Legal & Legislative Policy Advocate and Strategic Outreach Officer at the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), a nonprofit organization devoted to protecting free speech rights on college campuses.
Shelby, a native of Detroit, Michigan is an attorney licensed in the state of Maryland and lives in Washington, D.C. In her down time, Shelby enjoys traveling and kickboxing–and is looking forward to competing in her first competition in 2017.
Frank Edwards Tyler Distinguished Professor of Law, University of Kansas School of Law
Biography
Stephen Ware is the author of four books, over 50 law review articles, and many other publications. His writings have been cited by the Supreme Court of the United States and in at least 36 other cases. Ware teaches and writes on: Arbitration, Mediation, and Alternative Dispute Resolution, Bankruptcy, Insolvency, and Debt Collection, Contracts and Commercial Law, and Judicial Selection, each with an international or comparative dimension.
Ware has testified before both houses of the U.S. Congress, several state legislatures and, as an expert witness, in court. He is a frequent guest lecturer and speaker at academic and professional conferences—having given such presentations throughout the U.S. and in several other countries. He has appeared on numerous television and radio stations and been quoted in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Financial Times, National Law Journal and many other news outlets. He is an elected member of the American Law Institute (ALI) and has served, at various times in his career, on the editorial board of the Journal of Legal Education and as an arbitrator for the American Arbitration Association.
Professor of Law, South Texas College of Law Houston
Biography
Josh Blackman is a national thought leader on constitutional law and the United States Supreme Court. Josh’s work was quoted during two presidential impeachment trials. He has testified before Congress and advises federal and state lawmakers. Josh regularly appears on TV, including NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox, and the BBC. Josh is also a frequent guest on NPR and other syndicated radio programs. He has published commentaries in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and leading national publications.
Since 2012, Josh has served as a professor at the South Texas College of Law Houston. He holds the Centennial Chair of Constitutional Law. Josh is an Adjunct Fellow at the Manhattan Institute. Josh has written more than seven dozen law review articles that have been cited more than a thousand times. Josh was selected as the Jurist of the Year by the Texas Journal of Law & Public Policy, received the inaugural Meese III Originalism Award, and was awarded the Inaugural Joseph Story Award. Josh was selected by Forbes Magazine for the “30 Under 30” in Law and Policy. Josh is the President of the Harlan Institute, and founded FantasySCOTUS, the Internet’s Premier Supreme Court Fantasy League. He blogs at the Volokh Conspiracyand posts@JoshMBlackman.
Agnes Williams Sesquicentennial Professor of Federal Courts, Georgetown Law
Biography
Stephen I. Vladeck is a professor of law at the Georgetown University Law Center, and is a nationally recognized expert on the federal courts; the Supreme Court; national security law; and military justice.
Vladeck is author of the New York Times bestselling book, “The Shadow Docket: How the Supreme Court Uses Stealth Rulings to Amass Power and Undermine the Republic,” which won the 2023 Writers’ League of Texas Book Award for Non-Fiction and was a finalist for the 2024 ABA Silver Gavel Award for Media and the Arts. Vladeck is also a highly regarded appellate advocate, having argued three cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and over a dozen before various lower federal civilian and military courts. He has received numerous awards for his influential and widely cited legal scholarship, his prolific popular writing, his teaching, and his service to the legal profession—including the 2024 University of Texas President’s Research Impact Award and his selection by the Order of the Coif to serve as its Distinguished Visiting Professor for 2025.
Vladeck is CNN’s Supreme Court analyst and editor and author of “One First,” a popular weekly newsletter about the Supreme Court. Together with Bobby Chesney, Vladeck co-hosts the popular and award-winning “National Security Law Podcast.” He is also a co-author of Aspen Publishers’ leading national security law and counterterrorism law casebooks. And he is a member of the Board of Trustees of EarthJustice—the nation’s premier nonprofit public interest environmental law organization.
Vladeck graduated from Yale Law School in 2004—where he was executive editor of the Yale Law Journal and won the Harlan Fiske Stone Prize for outstanding moot court oralist and shared the Potter Stewart Prize for best moot court team performance. After law school, he clerked for the Honorable Marsha S. Berzon on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and the Honorable Rosemary Barkett on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. He earned a B.A. summa cum laude with Highest Distinction in History and Mathematics from Amherst College in 2001—where he wrote his senior thesis on “Leipzig’s Shadow: The War Crimes Trials of the First World War and Their Implications from Nuremberg to the Present.” A native New Yorker and hopeless Mets fan, Vladeck lives in the District with his wife, Karen (Founder and Managing Partner of Risepoint Search Partners); their daughters, Madeleine and Sydney; and their eleven-year-old pug, Roxanna.
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.
Scott K. Ginsburg Professor of Health Law & Policy, Georgetown University
Biography
David A. Hyman, M.D., J.D., is the Scott K. Ginsburg Professor of Health Law & Policy at Georgetown University. Professor Hyman focuses his research and writing on the regulation and financing of health care. He teaches or has taught health care regulation, civil procedure, insurance, medical malpractice, law & economics, professional responsibility, and tax policy.
While serving as Special Counsel to the Federal Trade Commission, Professor Hyman was principal author and project leader for the first joint report ever issued by the Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice, “Improving Health Care: A Dose of Competition” (2004). He is also the author of Medicare Meets Mephistopheles, which was selected by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce/National Chamber Foundation as one of the top ten books of 2007, and the co-author (with Charles Silver) of Overcharged: Why Americans Pay Too Much for Health Care (2018). He has published widely in student-edited law reviews and peer-reviewed medical, health policy, law, and economics journals.
Roy W. and Eugenia C. McDonald Endowed Chair in Civil Procedure & Professor of Government, The University of Texas at Austin School of Law
Biography
Charles Silver holds the Roy W. and Eugenia C. McDonald Endowed Chair in Civil Procedure at the School of Law at the University of Texas at Austin. He has published widely in law reviews and peer-reviewed journals. His articles use economic theory, philosophical and doctrinal reasoning, and empirical methodologies to shed light on issues arising in the areas of civil procedure, liability insurance, and the professional regulation of attorneys. He has written about group lawsuits (including class actions and other mass proceedings), attorneys’ fees (including contractual compensation arrangements, common fund fee awards, and statutory fee awards), and professional responsibility (focusing on lawyers involved in civil litigation on behalf of plaintiffs and defendants). In recent years, as Co-Director of the Center on Lawyers, Civil Justice and the Media at the University of Texas, he has worked with a group of empirical researchers on a series of studies of medical malpractice litigation in Texas.
Professor Silver served as Associate Reporter on the Principles of the Law of Aggregate Litigation, published by the American Law Institute in 2010. He taught as a Visiting Professor at the Harvard Law School, the University of Michigan Law School, and the Vanderbilt University Law School.
Professor Silver has given many presentations at academic conferences, including programs sponsored by the American Law and Economics Association, the Conference on Empirical Legal Studies, the Law & Society Association, RAND, and the Searle Center on Law, Regulation and Economic Growth. He has also spoken at faculty colloquia at law schools across the U.S.
Professor Silver often consults with attorneys and serves as an expert witness. He has strong ties with all segments of the litigating bar. On the plaintiffs’ side, he submitted an expert report on attorneys’ fees in the massive Enron settlement and served as professional responsibility advisor to the private attorneys who handled the State of Texas’ lawsuit against the tobacco industry. On the defense side, he advises on the responsibilities of lawyers retained by insurance carriers to defend liability suits against policyholders. Professor Silver has also testified to legislative committees and submitted amicus curiae briefs to courts on topics ranging from class certification to lawyers’ fiduciary duties to medical malpractice litigation.
In 2009, the Tort Trial & Insurance Practice Section (TIPS) of the ABA awarded Professor Silver the Robert B. McKay Law Professor Award for outstanding scholarship on tort and insurance law.
