William Cranch Research Professor of Law, The George Washington University Law School
Biography
Bradford R. Clark teaches and writes in the areas of civil procedure, constitutional structure, federal courts, and foreign relations. His scholarship has appeared in leading journals including California Law Review, Columbia Law Review, Harvard Law Review, Texas Law Review, University of Chicago Law Review, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, and Virginia Law Review. His book, The Law of Nations and the United States Constitution (co-authored with Anthony J. Bellia Jr.), was published in 2017 by Oxford University Press. Professor Clark has been a visiting professor at Harvard Law School and the University of Michigan Law School. Professor Clark also served as a special master appointed by the Supreme Court to make recommendations in an original action between states, Alabama, et al. v. North Carolina, Orig. No. 132.
Before joining the law school faculty, Professor Clark spent several years practicing law in the Washington, D.C. office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, where he specialized in trial and appellate litigation. Previously, he served as an attorney adviser in the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel, where he provided legal advice to the president, the attorney general, and the heads of executive departments. Professor Clark also served as a law clerk to The Honorable Robert H. Bork of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and to The Honorable Antonin Scalia of the Supreme Court of the United States.
Noel Francisco served as the 47th Solicitor General of the United States in the Trump Administration, from 2017 to 2020. He has argued some of the most important cases the Supreme Court has heard in recent years on a wide array of issues.
For example, as Solicitor General, he argued Trump v. Hawaii, where he successfully defended the president's orders restricting travel from countries deemed to present security risks; Janus v. AFSCME, which upheld the First Amendment rights of public employees who decline to join labor unions; Kisor v. Wilkie, which adopted his argument that the "Auer deference doctrine" should be significantly curtailed but retained in its core applications; Apple Inc. v. Pepper, which addressed whether Apple's App Store customers had standing to sue the company for antitrust violations; Knick v. Township of Scott, which held that property owners could sue state and local governments in federal court to vindicate Fifth Amendment takings claims; and Seila Law LLC v. CFPB, which invalidated restrictions on the president's authority to remove the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
He also spearheaded the government's general strategy to seek emergency relief in the appellate courts and the Supreme Court when lower courts issued nationwide injunctions against important government programs.
Noel's service as Solicitor General built on his previous tenure at Jones Day, during which he argued McDonnell v. United States, which reversed the federal bribery conviction of the governor of Virginia; NLRB v. Noel Canning, which limited the president's constitutional recess appointments power; and Zubik v. Burwell, which challenged federal insurance coverage regulations that violated Catholic organizations' religious beliefs.
Bruce J. Sarchet has focused his entire legal career on the representation of management in labor and employment law matters and has particular expertise in issues involving:
Unionized employers
Violence in the workplace
Employment discrimination
Employee leaves of absence
He regularly appears in state and federal courts and before the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) on matters involving:
The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA)
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)
The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA)
California's Educational Employment Relations Act
California's Meyers Milias Brown Act
With energy, enthusiasm, and intense focus, Bruce provides clients with superior quality work and exceptional client service and has earned a reputation as a hands-on problem solver. He provides consultation and representation to large, medium and small businesses across California in a variety of industries, including food and beverage, healthcare, transportation, technology, and construction. He also represents public sector employers. He crafts practical, real world solutions to workplace problems such as dealing with difficult employees and recognizing and balancing business realities and necessities with the need to minimize exposure to litigation.
For unionized employers, Bruce frequently serves as chief spokesperson in collective bargaining negotiations and provides representation in grievances and arbitration hearings. He also represents employers during union organizing drives and unfair labor practice charges under the National Labor Relations Act.
An animated, effective and entertaining public speaker, Bruce regularly makes presentations to local professional organizations on labor and employment law topics and has also presented numerous in-house training sessions and workshops to management teams at private and public employers. Bruce has published numerous articles for local business journals, providing practical, hands-on labor and employment law advice to small business owners.
From 2005 to 2013, Bruce served on the firm's five-attorney Management Committee, which handles the firm's operations. In this capacity, he oversaw thirteen Littler offices in seven states. Prior to his selection to the Management Committee, he served as the office-managing shareholder for the firm's Sacramento office and served several terms as a member of the firm's Board of Directors.
Michael F. Cannon is the Cato Institute’s director of health policy studies. His scholarship spans public health; regulation of clinicians, medical facilities, pharmaceuticals, and medical devices; employer‐sponsored and other private health insurance; Medicare; Medicaid; CHIP; the Veterans Health Administration; medical malpractice litigation; administrative law; international health systems; political philosophy; and more. Cannon is “an influential health‐care wonk” (Washington Post) and “the most famous libertarian health care scholar” (Washington Examiner). Washingtonian magazine named Cannon one of Washington, DC’s “Most Influential People” in 2021, 2022, and 2023.
Cannon has appeared on ABC, Al Jazeera, BBC, CBS, CNN, CNBC, C‑SPAN, Fox News Channel, NPR, and other broadcast media. His articles have appeared in the Wall Street Journal; the New York Times; USA Today; the Washington Post; the Los Angeles Times; SCOTUSBlog; Forum for Health Economics and Policy; JAMA Internal Medicine; Health Matrix: Journal of Law‐Medicine; Harvard Health Policy Review; the Yale Journal of Health Policy, Law, and Ethics; the Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law; and Quinnipiac Health Law Journal. His latest book is Recovery: A Guide to Reforming the U.S. Health Sector.
Cannon was previously a domestic policy analyst for the U.S. Senate Republican Policy Committee, where he advised the Senate leadership on health, education, labor, welfare, and the Second Amendment. He is a member of the Board of Advisers of Harvard Health Policy Review and the Federalist Society Regulatory Transparency Project’s FDA & Health Working Group.
Cannon holds an MA in economics and a JM in law and economics from George Mason University and a BA in American government from the University of Virginia.
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
James C. Ho is a Circuit Judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Before taking the bench on January 4, 2018, he was a partner and co-chair of the national Appellate and Constitutional Law practice group of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP.
As an appellate litigator for over a decade, including three years as the Solicitor General of Texas, Judge Ho presented 50 oral arguments in federal and state courts nationwide. He won numerous appeals, including three merits cases at the U.S. Supreme Court. He was routinely ranked among the nation’s leading lawyers by Benchmark, Chambers, Law360, The Legal 500, and The National Law Journal, among other publications. His work has been cited favorably by courts at every level of both the federal and state judiciaries. He won a Best Brief Award from the National Association of Attorneys General for every year that he served as solicitor general, and he is the only state solicitor general in history to be invited by the U.S. Supreme Court to express the views of a state.
Judge Ho has served in all three branches of the federal government. On the Senate Judiciary Committee, he served as chief counsel of the Subcommittees on the Constitution and Immigration under Senator John Cornyn. At the Justice Department, he served as Special Assistant to the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights and an attorney-advisor at the Office of Legal Counsel. He clerked for Judge Jerry E. Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and Justice Clarence Thomas of the U.S. Supreme Court.
His record of public service also includes appointments as vice chair of the Federal Judicial Evaluation Committee in Texas and co-chair of the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association Judiciary Committee, and as a member of the U.S. Magistrate Judge Merit Selection Panel for the Northern District of Texas, the U.S. delegation to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, and the Continuity of Government Commission.
In addition, Judge Ho has served as an Adjunct Professor of Law at the University of Texas School of Law, where he taught seminars on U.S. Supreme Court Litigation and Religious Liberty. He has authored numerous articles in respected law reviews nationwide, including an annual feature on exemplary judicial writing for The Green Bag Almanac & Reader. He previously served as senior editor of The Green Bag and as co-editor of Pub. L. Misc.
Judge Ho graduated from Stanford University with honors and a B.A. in Public Policy in 1995, and the University of Chicago Law School with high honors in 1999. Before law school, he was a legislative aide to California State Senator Quentin Kopp. He and his wife Allyson live in Dallas, Texas, with their twin daughter and son.
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.
Welpton & Wise Professor of Law, University of Nebraska College of Law
Biography
Professor Rick Duncan is the Welpton & Wise Professor of Law at the University Of Nebraska College Of Law. He is a graduate of the Cornell Law School and served as an editor of the Cornell Law Review. He teaches Constitutional Law with a special emphasis on the law of religious freedom, free speech, and federalism. Duncan has written numerous books, articles, and commentaries on a wide variety of legal topics. His recent publications include an article on Justice Scalia’s legacy, another on Kermit Gosnell and Roe v. Wade, a piece on the Electoral College and Federalism, a 2019 piece on Masterpiece Cakeshop and the First Amendment, and three recent articles on the “no compelled speech” doctrine as a First Amendment defense against authoritarianism and tyranny. His most recent article, on School Choice and the First Amendment, will be published in 2023 in Case Western Law Review. He is also the co-author of a book on Secured Transactions under Article 9 of the UCC. He served as Chairman of the Nebraska Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights during the Reagan Administration. He also loves to speak at Federalist Society meetings around the country on life, liberty, and the pursuit of federalism.
Duncan has five children, five grandchildren, and a wonderful wife who help him pursue happiness. He loves lifting weights (particularly going heavy on the incline bench press), attending Broadway musicals and plays, including Hamilton: An American Musical which he has seen 12 times (possibly a Nebraska record). He regularly reads both the Bible and the New York Times because it is important to keep up with what both sides have to say. He loves following major league baseball, especially the San Diego Padres. And his favorite legal aphorism is “first come rights then comes government to secure those rights.”
Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Intellectual Property Law, Maurice A. Deane School of Law at Hofstra University
Biography
Professor Manta teaches intellectual property law subjects. Her research examines the intersection between intellectual property law and social science, with a focus on psychology. She has most recently written about the hedonic value of trademarks and its legal implications, the problem of cognitive bias in copyright infringement litigation, price discrimination through software licensing in the age of the Internet of Things, and the role of criminal sanctions in intellectual property. Professor Manta has published or has forthcoming work in the Emory Law Journal, William & Mary Law Review, Iowa Law Review, Alabama Law Review, Boston College Law Review, Ohio State Law Journal, Washington and Lee Law Review, Harvard Journal of Law & Technology, Stanford Technology Law Review, Florida Law Review, Arizona Law Review, and Cornell Law Review Online, among others. She is also a co-author for a forthcoming textbook on criminal law issues in intellectual property. Professor Manta has further been a guest blogger for PrawfsBlawg and for Concurring Opinions. In 2014, she received the Lawrence A. Stessin Prize for Outstanding Scholarly Publications, which is awarded to two junior faculty members across all disciplines at Hofstra University.
Before joining the law school faculty in 2012, Professor Manta was an Assistant Professor of Law at the Case Western Reserve University School of Law. She was a Bigelow Teaching Fellow and Lecturer in Law at the University of Chicago Law School from 2007 to 2009. Professor Manta has also served on the faculties of Brooklyn Law School, The George Washington University School of Law, and the University of Arkansas at Little Rock William H. Bowen School of Law. She clerked for Judge Morris S. Arnold on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit for the 2006-2007 term.
While earning her J.D. at Yale Law School, Professor Manta was the grand prize winner of the Foley & Lardner LLP Intellectual Property Writing Competition. She also served as tributes editor of the Yale Law Journal, articles editor of the Yale Law & Policy Review, and editor of the Yale Journal on Regulation. She graduated magna cum laude from Yale University with a B.A. in psychology.
Clint Bolick was appointed by Governor Doug Ducey in January 2016 to serve on the Arizona Supreme Court and was retained by the voters in 2018 and 2024.
Prior to joining the Court, Justice Bolick litigated constitutional cases in state and federal courts from coast to coast, including the U.S. Supreme Court. Among other positions, he served as Vice President for Litigation at the Goldwater Institute and as Co-founder and Vice President for Litigation at the Institute for Justice. He has litigated in support of school choice, freedom of enterprise, private property rights, freedom of speech, and federalism, and against racial classifications and government subsidies.
Justice Bolick received his Juris Doctor degree from the University of California at Davis, where he has been recognized as a distinguished alumnus, and his Bachelor of Arts degree magna cum laude from Drew University. He serves as a research fellow with the Hoover Institution. Among other honors, he was named one of the 90 Greatest DC Lawyers in the Last 30 Years by Legal Times in 2008, received a Bradley Prize in 2006, and was recognized as one of the nation’s three lawyers of the year by American Lawyer in 2002 for his successful defense of school vouchers in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris.
Justice Bolick is a prolific author of a dozen books and hundreds of articles. Among his most recent books are Unshackled: Freeing America’s K-12 Education System: Immigration Wars: Forging an American Solution, co-authored with former Florida Governor Jeb Bush; and David’s Hammer: The Case for an Activist Judiciary. Bolick serves as an adjunct professor of constitutional law at Arizona State University’s Sandra Day O’Connor School of Law and has served as a lecturer at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.
