Garwood Visiting Professor and Visiting Fellow, James Madison Pr, Cleveland-Marshall College of Law
Biography
David F. Forte is Professor of Law at Cleveland State University, where he was the inaugural holder of the Charles R. Emrick, Jr.- Calfee Halter & Griswold Endowed Chair. This fall, Professor Forte will be the Garwood Visiting Professor at Princeton University in the Department of Politics, and Visiting Fellow at the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions. He holds degrees from Harvard College, Manchester University, England, the University of Toronto and Columbia University.
During the Reagan administration, Professor Forte served as chief counsel to the United States delegation to the United Nations and alternate delegate to the Security Council. He has authored a number of briefs before the United States Supreme Court, and has frequently testified before the United States Congress and consulted with the Department of State on human rights and international affairs issues. His advice was specifically sought on the approval of the Genocide Convention, on world-wide religious persecution, and Islamic extremism. He has appeared and spoken frequently on radio and television, both nationally and internationally. In 2002, the Department of State sponsored a speaking tour for Professor Forte in Amman, Jordan, and he was also a featured speaker to the Meeting of Peoples in Rimini, Italy, a meeting which gathers over 500,000 people from all over Europe. He has also been called to testify before the state legislatures of Ohio, Kansas, and Idaho as well as the New York City Council. He has assisted in drafting a number of pieces of legislation for the Ohio General Assembly dealing with abortion, international trade, and federalism. He has sat as acting judge on the municipal court of Lakewood Ohio and was chairman of Professional Ethics Committee of the Cleveland Bar Association. He has received a number of awards for his public service, including the Cleveland Bar Association’s President’s Award, the Cleveland State University Award for Distinguished Service, the Cleveland State University Distinguished Teaching Award, and the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law Alumni Award for Faculty Excellence. He served as Consultor to the Pontifical Council for the Family under Pope St. John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI. In 2003, Dr. Forte was a Distinguished Fulbright Chair at the University of Trento and returned there in 2004 as a Visiting Professor. For the academic year, 2008-2009, Professor Forte was Senior Visiting Scholar at the Center for the Study of Religion and the Constitution in at the Witherspoon Institute in Princeton, New Jersey. He was the Robert E. Henderson Constitution Day Lecturer at the Ashbrook Center at Ashland University, and he has given over 300 invited addresses and papers at more than 100 academic institutions. His work has been cited by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Professor Forte was a Bradley Scholar at the Heritage Foundation, and Visiting Scholar at the Liberty Fund. He has been President of the Ohio Association of Scholars, was on the Board of Directors of the Philadelphia Society, and is also adjunct Scholar at the Ashbrook Center. He has been appointed to the Ohio State Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. He has also been a Civil War re-enactor and a Merit Badge Counselor for the Boy Scouts.
He writes and speaks nationally on topics such as constitutional law, religious liberty, Islamic law, the rights of families, and international affairs. He served as book review editor for the American Journal of Jurisprudence and has edited a volume entitled, Natural Law and Contemporary Public Policy, published by Georgetown University Press. His book, Islamic Law Studies: Classical and Contemporary Applications, has been published by Austin & Winfield. He is Senior Editor of The Heritage Guide to the Constitution (2006), 2d edition (2014), published by Regnery & Co, a clause by clause analysis of the Constitution of the United States.
His teaching competencies include Constitutional Law, the First Amendment, Islamic Law, Jurisprudence, Natural Law, International Law, International Human Rights, the Presidency, and Constitutional History.
Professor of Law, University of Notre Dame Law School
Biography
Gerard V. Bradley is Professor of Law at the University of Notre Dame, where he teaches Legal Ethics and Constitutional Law. At Notre Dame he directs (with John Finnis) the Natural Law Institute and co-edits The American Journal of Jurisprudence, an international forum for legal philosophy. Bradley has been a Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University, and a Senior Fellow of the Witherspoon Institute, in Princeton, New Jersey. He served for many years as President of the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars.
Bradley received his B.A and J.D. degrees from Cornell University, graduating Summa cum laude from the law school in 1980. After serving in the Trial Division of the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office he joined the law faculty at the University of Illinois. He moved to Notre Dame in 1992. Bradley has published over one hundred scholarly articles and reviews. His most recent books are an edited collection of essays titled, Challenges to Religious Liberty in the Twenty-First Century (published by Cambridge University Press in 2012), Essays on Law, Religion, and Morality and Unquiet Americans: U.S. Catholics and the Common Good (both to be published in 2014.) He is currently working on a book about regulating obscenity in the Internet Age.
Charles W. Ebersold and Florence Whitcomb Ebersold Chair in Constitutional Law; Director, Election Law @ Moritz, Ohio State University Moritz College of Law
Biography
Professor Foley (known as “Ned”) directs Election Law @ Moritz at Ohio State’s law school, where he also holds the Ebersold Chair in Constitutional Law.
His book Ballot Battles: The History of Disputed Elections in the United States (Oxford University Press, 2016) was named Finalist for the David J. Langum, Sr. Prize in American Legal History and listed as one of 100 “must-read books about law and social justice”.
He has completed a new book manuscript, Presidential Elections and Majority Rule (to be published by Oxford University Press), which employs historical analysis to offer a feasible reform of state laws that would enable the Electoral College to operate as intended and thereby avoid the election of presidents who lack majority support among the voters in the states responsible for their Electoral College victories.
As Reporter for the American Law Institute’s Project on Election Administration (with his Mortiz colleague Steven Huefner, who served as Associate Reporter), Professor Foley drafted Principles of Law: Non-Precinct Voting and Resolution of Ballot-Counting Disputes, which provides nonpartisan guidance for the resolution of election disputes.
During his fellowship at Stanford University’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, Foley wrote Due Process, Fair Play and Excessive Partisanship: A New Principle of Judicial Review of Election Law, 84 U. Chicago Law Review 655-758 (2017), which was cited in briefs in Gill v. Whitford and Benisek v. Lamone (the Supreme Court gerrymandering cases). His extensive online commentary about gerrymandering includes: Wechsler, History, and Gerrymandering, Scotusblog, and Constitutional Preservation, the Marbury Duty & Congressional Gerrymanders, Election Law Blog.
While Professor Foley has special expertise on recounts and other procedures for fairly and accurately identifying which candidate is the winner in close elections, he has written widely on all aspects of election law, including the need for nonpartisan institutions in election administration. He has also co-authored Election Law and Litigation: The Judicial Regulation of Politics (Wolters Kluwer 2014).
Professor Foley has taught at Ohio State since 1991. Previously, he clerked for Chief Judge Patricia M. Wald of the U.S. Court of Appeals and Justice Harry Blackmun of the United States Supreme Court. In 1999, he took a leave from the faculty to serve as the state solicitor in the office of Ohio’s Attorney General. In that capacity, he was responsible for the state’s appellate and constitutional cases.
Professor Foley is a graduate of Columbia University School of Law and Yale College.
Scott Gaylord directs High Point Law’s Appellate Litigation Clinic and serves as a Professor of Law, teaching Constitutional Law and related upper-level elective courses. The Appellate Clinic works with students to write and file briefs in significant court cases, including appeals before the United States Supreme Court.
Professor Gaylord is a prominent Constitutional Law scholar with an impressive background in both academia and legal practice. He has authored or co-authored 18 substantial law review articles, co-authored a Constitutional Law casebook, and has written more than 35 amicus briefs to the U.S. Supreme Court and federal circuit courts on prominent national cases involving religious liberty and free speech. He is a frequent speaker on constitutional law and First Amendment topics at law schools across the country and has regularly provided commentary on ongoing constitutional issues to national media outlets, including th eNew York Times, USA Today, the Diane Rehm Show, NPR, The National Constitution Center, and Bloomberg Law.
Professor Gaylord also started an appellate advocacy clinic at his former law school and currently serves on the North Carolina Chief Justice’s Commission on Professionalism, along with holding many other service and leadership roles. Prior to joining the academy in 2007, he practiced complex civil and commercial litigation with the Charlotte firm of Robinson Bradshaw & Hinson, and he clerked for Judge Edith H. Jones on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
Professor Gaylord earned his B.A. in philosophy and English, summa cum laude, from Colgate University, his Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and his J.D. from Notre Dame Law School, where he also graduated summa cum laude.
William Rand Kenan, Jr. Distinguished Professor of Law, University of North Carolina School of Law
Biography
William (Bill) Marshall joined the Carolina Law faculty in 2001 and serves as the William R. Kenan Jr. Distinguished Professor of Law. His teaching and research interests include the first amendment, presidential power, election law, federal jurisdiction, federal judicial selection, civil procedure, and media law. Marshall is the author of numerous book chapters, articles, and essays on free speech, separation of powers, the Establishment Clause, and the Free Exercise Clause. His work has appeared in the Harvard Law Review, the Yale Law Journal, the Supreme Court Review, and the University of Chicago Law Review, among others.
Marshall received his law degree from the University of Chicago and his undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania. Marshall was Deputy Counsel to the President and Deputy Assistant to the President during the Clinton Administration and also served as the Solicitor General for the State of Ohio. He has taught at the Northwestern, Boston University, Vanderbilt, Ohio State, DePaul, Case Western Reserve, William and Mary, and the University Connecticut law schools. Prior to beginning his teaching career, Marshall was a Special Assistant Attorney General for the State of Minnesota.
Eric Fraser regularly handles high-profile appeals and issue litigation. He has argued major cases before the Ninth Circuit, Arizona Supreme Court, and Arizona Court of Appeals. Benchmark Litigation named him to its 40 & Under Hot List (2018-2019) and Southwest Super Lawyers lists him as a Rising Star (2013-2019) for appeals.
Before joining private practice, Fraser clerked on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. He currently serves as a Ninth Circuit Appellate Lawyer Representative and as Chair Elect for the Appellate Practice Section of the State Bar. He also regularly writes about appeals, including contributing to SCOTUSblog, co-editing the azapp.com blog, and coauthoring a monthly column in Arizona Attorney magazine covering civil appeals. The New York Times, Arizona Republic, Bloomberg Businessweek, Fox News, and many local media outlets have featured his discussion of his cases or legal analysis.
The Honorable Jennifer M. Perkins began service on the Arizona Court of Appeals, Division One, on October 30, 2017. At the time of her appointment by Governor Douglas Ducey, Judge Perkins was Assistant Solicitor General for the State of Arizona.
Judge Perkins was born in Portales, New Mexico, and primarily raised in Albuquerque. She attended the prestigious Albuquerque Academy from 1988-1995, before moving to Washington D.C. to attend the Elliott School of International Affairs at the George Washington University as a National Merit Scholar. Therafter, she relocated again to Dallas, Texas, and earned her juris doctor from the SMU Dedman School of Law, graduating cum laude in 2002.
Judge Perkins started her career at the law firm of Browning & Peifer (now Peifer, Hanson, Mullins, and Baker) in Albuquerque, New Mexico. While there, she litigated complex commercial matters including class action plaintiff and defense work, and assisted with employment and contract litigation. In 2003, the judge accompanied the Honorable James O. Browning in transitioning to the federal district court bench, serving as his first law clerk.
After her clerkship, Judge Perkins moved to Arizona to work for the Institute for Justice, Arizona Chapter, a public interest law firm. She spent five years with IJ-AZ litigating civil rights cases in Arizona and across the country. In 2009, the judge became Disciplinary Counsel for the Arizona Commission on Judicial Conduct, where she reviewed and prosecuted ethics complaints against state court judges throughout Arizona. After five years serving the state in this capacity, Judge Perkins entered private practice by joining an appellate law firm in Phoenix. While there, she worked on state and federal appeals involving a wide range of legal subjects, including complex business disputes, property rights, judicial ethics, and personal injury matters.
In January 2015, Judge Perkins joined the Office of the Arizona Attorney General to serve as the first Assistant Solicitor General; in that capacity, she was responsible for oversight of Attorney General Opinions and served as ethics counsel to the entire office. In addition to these two primary roles, the judge assisted on a variety of matters including trial and appellate litigation of election-related matters; federal appellate litigation with the Federalism Unit; state criminal appeals; and drafting amicus briefs on behalf of Arizona in state and federal courts.
Will Barnette is a partner in the Atlanta office of King & Spalding, where he is a member of the firm’s business litigation practice and class action defense group. During his 30-year career, Will has consistently led clients to successful outcomes in their most sensitive and high exposure class action, MDL, and related regulatory matters. From litigating high-stakes tobacco class actions at the turn of the century, to defending massive data breach litigation in the last decade, and winning several lucrative antitrust opt-out settlements more recently, Will has played a key role in much of the leading complex litigation of the era and led clients to tremendous success on both sides of the “v.” In particular, he has deep experience in litigating consumer, products, and antitrust class actions, commercial disputes, and managing internal investigations.
Prior to rejoining King & Spalding, where he worked earlier in his career, Will served as Associate General Counsel for The Home Depot and was a member of the company’s Legal Senior Leadership Team. As leader of The Home Depot’s commercial litigation team for more than ten years, he was responsible for the company’s most significant commercial and business litigation, which frequently challenged core aspects of the company’s business. During his 21-year tenure with The Home Depot, Will led the successful defense of several hundred class actions, created and led the company’s recovery litigation program, and successfully managed multiple high-profile investigations and favorably resolved significant related regulatory matters, including with the United States Department of Justice, the United States Environmental Protection Agency, and multi-state Attorney General groups.
A recognized thought leader in complex litigation, Will argued before the U.S. Supreme Court in the 2019 term—one of the few in-house counsel to do so. He received the Atlanta Business Chronicle’s Corporate Counsel Award for Advocacy in 2016 and has authored seven law review articles. His recent works, Misunderstanding Original Jurisdiction and There Is No Conservative Case for Class Actions, ranked among the top SSRN downloads in Federal Courts and Jurisdiction. He frequently lectures on class actions, MDL litigation, and internal investigations, and teaches Complex Litigation at the University of Tennessee Winston College of Law, where he earned the Harold C. Warner Outstanding Adjunct Professor Award in 2025.
Will chairs the Board of Georgians for Lawsuit Reform, which was instrumental in passing Georgia’s 2025 tort reform legislation. He also serves as Chair of the Class Actions Section for the State Bar of Georgia and is a former President of the Atlanta Legal Aid Society. Will played varsity college basketball at Sewanee.
Milton R. Underwood Chair in Free Enterprise, Vanderbilt University Law School
Biography
Brian Fitzpatrick is the Milton R. Underwood Chair in Free Enterprise and Professor of Law at Vanderbilt Law School, where his research focuses on class action litigation, federal courts, judicial selection, and constitutional law. He is best known for his empirical studies of class action settlements as well as his book The Conservative Case for Class Actions (University of Chicago Press, 2019). Professor Fitzpatrick joined Vanderbilt's law faculty in 2007 after serving as the John M. Olin Fellow at New York University School of Law. He graduated first in his class from Harvard Law School and went on to clerk for Judge Diarmuid O'Scannlain on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and Justice Antonin Scalia on the U.S. Supreme Court. After his clerkships, Professor Fitzpatrick practiced commercial and appellate litigation for several years at Sidley Austin in Washington, D.C., and served as Special Counsel for Supreme Court Nominations to U.S. Senator John Cornyn. Before earning his law degree, Fitzpatrick graduated summa cum laude with a bachelor's of science in chemical engineering from the University of Notre Dame. He has received the Hall-Hartman Outstanding Professor Award, which recognizes excellence in classroom teaching, for his Civil Procedure and Federal Courts courses.
Erin Murphy is widely recognized as one of the nation’s leading Supreme Court and appellate advocates. She has argued dozens of cases in appellate and trial courts throughout the country, including the Supreme Court and nearly all of the federal courts of appeals. Erin is one of only seven women in the top two bands of Chambers & Partners rankings for Appellate Law–Nationwide, and the National Law Journal has named her one of the nation’s “Outstanding Women Lawyers.” Erin has litigated appeals involving myriad provisions of the Constitution, including several cases involving the Constitution’s structural protections of liberty. She has litigated a wide range of statutory issues as well, including cases involving the Affordable Care Act, the Bankruptcy Code, the False Claims Act, the Federal Arbitration Act, the Federal Power Act, the Natural Gas Act, the National Labor Relations Act, and more. The National Law Journal named Erin a “Litigation Trailblazer” for her work representing institutional clients, which includes successfully arguing before the Supreme Court on behalf of the U.S. House of Representatives and the Wisconsin State Legislature. Erin also has an active pro bono practice, through which she has successfully represented many religious organizations and adherents, criminal defendants, asylum applicants, adoptive parents, and more.
Erin is an adjunct professor at her alma mater the Georgetown University Law Center, a member and former officer of the Edward Coke Appellate Inn of Court, and a frequent speaker on topics relating to the Supreme Court and appellate advocacy. In her spare time, Erin serves on the boards of directors of Street Law and the Mother of Light Center.
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.