The Conservative Case against the Federal Marriage Amendment
Engage, Volume 5, Issue 2
Can you blame conservatives for proposing the Federal Marriage Amendment (FMA)? Having been deprived of...
Civil Rights Practice Group
Engage, Volume 5, Issue 2
Can you blame conservatives for proposing the Federal Marriage Amendment (FMA)? Having been deprived of...
Michael A. Carvin, Louis Fisher
Later this year the Supreme Court will hear arguments in Smith v. City of Jackson,...
Edward J. Blum, Roger B. Clegg
President Bush has proposed that there be a new “temporary worker program to match foreign...
David S. Petron, Brian J. Murray
Last year saw momentous advances in civil rights for homosexual persons. First, in Lawrence v....
Administrative Law & Regulation Independent Peer Review: The Sine Qua Non of Information Quality by...
Solicitor General of Nebraska
Cody Barnett previously served as legal counsel on Alliance Defending Freedom’s Appellate Advocacy Team, where he represented various ADF clients before appellate courts across the country.
Before joining ADF, Barnett served as the William H. Rehnquist Fellow at Cooper & Kirk PLLC. He then went on to clerk for the Honorable Amul R. Thapar and the Honorable Raymond M. Kethledge, both of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit, and for the Honorable Justin R. Walker of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.
Barnett earned his J.D. from the University of Kentucky College of Law in 2017, where he graduated first in his class. He also served as president of the Christian Legal Society and as an articles editor for the Kentucky Law Journal. He completed ADF’s Blackstone Legal Fellowship in 2017. Prior to law school, Barnett earned a Bachelor of Arts in both history and political science from Transylvania University.
Barnett is admitted to practice law in Kentucky, the District of Columbia, and before several U.S. Courts of Appeal.
Director, Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies, Cato Institute
Thomas Berry is the director in the Cato Institute’s Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies and editor in chief of the Cato Supreme Court Review. Before joining Cato, he was an attorney at Pacific Legal Foundation and clerked for Judge E. Grady Jolly of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. His academic work has appeared in NYU Journal of Law and Liberty, Washington and Lee Law Review Online, and Federalist Society Review. His popular writing has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, National Law Journal, Investor’s Business Daily, National Review Online, and The Hill Online. He has testified before the U.S. Senate, and his work has been cited by the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
Berry holds a J.D. from Stanford Law School, where he was a senior editor on the Stanford Law and Policy Review and a Bradley Student Fellow in the Stanford Constitutional Law Center. He graduated with a B.A. in Liberal Arts from St. John’s College, Santa Fe.
Vice President for Legal Strategy, Stand Together
Casey Mattox is Vice President for Legal Strategy at Stand Together and Senior Advisor at
Americans for Prosperity. In these roles he advocates for and creates strategies and
partnerships to ensure a constitutionally limited government that protects the civil liberties of all
Americans. Prior to joining Stand Together and AFP Casey’s legal career focused on defending
the First Amendment rights of students, faculty, healthcare workers and religious organizations.
Casey has a J.D. from Boston College School of Law and an undergraduate degree from the
University of Virginia. You can find him on Twitter at @CaseyMattox_ and on LinkedIn at
@Casey-Mattox-ST.
Charles Evans Hughes Professor of Law, Columbia Law School
THOMAS W. MERRILL is the Charles Evans Hughes Professor of Law at Columbia Law School. He previously taught at Northwestern University School of Law and Yale Law School. He has undergraduate degrees from Grinnell College and Oxford University, where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar, and a law degree from the University of Chicago. He clerked on the D.C. Circuit (for Chief Judge David Bazelon) and the U.S. Supreme Court (for Justice Harry Blackmun). From 1987-1990 he served as Deputy Solicitor General, U.S. Department of Justice. Professor Merrill’s writings related to property include Property: Principles and Policies (Foundation Press Second Edition, 2012) (with Henry E. Smith); Property: The Oxford Introductions to U.S. Law (Oxford U. Press, 2010); Property: Takings (Foundation Press, 2002)(with David Dana); and numerous articles, including “The Economics of Public Use” (Cornell Law Review 1986); “The Landscape of Constitutional Property” (Virginia Law Review 2000); and “The Character of the Governmental Action” (Vermont Law Review 2012). He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Vice President and Deputy Chief Counsel, U.S. Chamber Litigation Center, U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Jennifer B. Dickey is vice president and deputy chief counsel at the U.S. Chamber Litigation Center, the litigation arm of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Dickey handles a variety of litigation matters for the Chamber.
Dickey joined the Chamber following her service as Acting Assistant Attorney General and Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Civil Division at the U.S. Department of Justice. She also previously served as Deputy Associate Attorney General, providing strategic oversight of the Civil Division, Civil Rights Division, and Foreign Claims Settlement Commission, as well as Special Assistant to the President and Associate Counsel to the President. In the latter capacity, she provided legal advice on a wide array of executive actions and rulemakings, civil litigation, and judicial nominations.
Dickey also practiced law at Kirkland & Ellis LLP before her government service. She was a commercial and appellate litigator, representing businesses in federal and state courts.
Earlier in her career, Dickey served as a law clerk for the Honorable Clarence Thomas of the Supreme Court of the United States and the Honorable William H. Pryor Jr. of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.
Dickey earned her law degree magna cum laude from Duke University School of Law, where she was an Executive Editor of the Duke Law Journal, and her undergraduate degree magna cum laude from Dartmouth College.
Associate Counsel, The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL)
Lauren Greuel is Associate Counsel at WILL. She focuses on legal and policy issues related to K-12 education in Wisconsin.
Lauren returned to Wisconsin this year after receiving her law degree, from Regent University School of Law in Virginia Beach, VA. She also holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Economy, from Hillsdale College in Hillsdale, MI.
Lauren worked for WILL from 2018-2020 as a policy intern and is happy to return as an attorney—to continue to fight for an education system that is student-centered and prioritizes the freedom of families to choose the best education for their children.
Executive Director & Secretary, American Civil Rights Project
Dan Morenoff is the executive director at the American Civil Rights Project and an adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
His work focuses on protecting and, where necessary, restoring the primacy of all Americans' shared civil rights against the identitarian alternative.
Before practicing law, Morenoff served on the legislative staff of Sen. Phil Gramm (R-TX). Morenoff holds a B.A. from Columbia College of Columbia University in the City of New York and a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School. He has also served as an officer or director of several community organizations in Dallas, Texas.
Tazewell Taylor Professor of Law and William H. Cabell Research Professor, William & Mary Law School
Jonathan H. Adler joined the William & Mary law faculty as the Tazwell Taylor Professor of Law and William H. Cabell Research Professor in 2025. Prior to joining the faculty, he was the inaugural Johan Verheij Memorial Professor of Law and the founding Director of the Coleman P. Burke Center for Environmental Law at the Case Western Reserve University School of Law.
Professor Adler is the author or editor of seven books, including Climate Liberalism: Perspectives on Liberty, Property and Pollution (Palgrave, 2023), Marijuana Federalism: Uncle Sam and Mary Jane (Brookings Institution Press, 2020), Business and the Roberts Court (Oxford University Press, 2016) and Rebuilding the Ark: New Perspectives on Endangered Species Act Reform (AEI Press, 2011).
His articles have appeared in publications ranging from the Harvard Environmental Law Review and Yale Journal on Regulation to the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and Washington Post. He has testified before Congress a dozen times, and his work has been cited in the U.S. Supreme Court. A 2024 study identified Professor Adler as the seventh most cited legal academic in administrative and environmental law from 2019 to 2023.
Professor Adler is a contributing editor to Civitas Outlook and a regular contributor to the popular legal blog, The Volokh Conspiracy. A regular commentator on constitutional and regulatory issues, he has appeared on numerous radio and television programs, ranging from the PBS Newshour and National Public Radio to the Fox News Channel and Entertainment Tonight.
Professor Adler is a senior fellow at the Property & Environment Research Center in Bozeman, Montana. In 2018, Professor Adler was elected to membership in the American Law Institute and helped co-found the organization Checks and Balances. In 2024, Professor Adler was appointed a public member of the Administrative Conference of the United States.
Professor Adler clerked for the Honorable David B. Sentelle on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
Chief Deputy Solicitor General, Director of the Tenth Amendment Center, Ohio Attorney General's Office
John serves in the Office of the Solicitor General as a Deputy Solicitor General and as the Director of the Tenth Amendment Center. In his role, John monitors federal actions, orders, statutes, and regulations for potential overreach and advises the Solicitor General about potential actions to protect the interests of the State of Ohio. John works in both state and federal courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. Courts of Appeals, and the Ohio Supreme Court.
John previously practiced as a litigator at two large law firms in Columbus. He clerked for Judge Joseph Hood on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky and Judge Eugene Siler for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.
Senior Fellow in Executive Power, Cato Institute
Molly Nixon is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, where she focuses on the scope, use, and history of executive power as well as its limits under the Constitution. Molly was previously an attorney with Pacific Legal Foundation’s separation of powers practice, where she litigated cases challenging congressional delegations of legislative power and executive branch overreach. Before that, she served as an Attorney-Advisor at the Department of the Interior and as Legislative Counsel for Congressman Justin Amash.
Molly holds a J.D. from New York University School of Law and a B.A. in History and International Relations from Boston University. She clerked for the U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska and practiced law at a firm in New York City for several years before moving to Washington, D.C.
Attorney, Separation of Powers, Pacific Legal Foundation
Josh Robbins is an attorney in Pacific Legal Foundation’s separation of powers group. He litigates cases to defend the structural protections of the U.S. and state constitutions that guarantee liberty for all Americans. He wants to help ensure Americans receive due process from the government when their lives and property are at stake and that the laws are made by our democratically elected representatives and not by unaccountable bureaucrats.
As an attorney in private practice, Josh saw firsthand how the government can embroil people (and even large corporations) in years-long legal battles. At PLF, he works to provide those without great resources an opportunity to vindicate their right to a properly ordered government, which is the right of all Americans.
Prior to joining PLF, Josh was an associate at a large law firm where he litigated cases in federal and state courts. He clerked for the Honorable Jerry E. Smith of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in Houston.
Josh earned a B.A. in economics and international studies from Yale University and a J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law. While at UVA, he served as an articles editor for the Virginia Law Review. He lives in Alexandria, Virginia, and enjoys hiking, swimming, and attending Washington Nationals games.
Josh is a member of the bar only in the states of Virginia and D.C.
Executive Director, Alliance For Consumers; President & CEO, American Juris Link
O.H. Skinner is the President & CEO of American Juris Link, a nonprofit dedicated to accelerating nonprofit litigation to advance freedom, liberty, and the rule of law. O.H. has a long track record in facilitating strategic nonprofit litigation in his role as the Executive Director at Alliance For Consumers as well as from his time serving Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich in senior positions, including as Arizona Solicitor General. O.H. is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard Law School. Prior to joining the Arizona Attorney General's Office, O.H. practiced at WilmerHale and Ropes & Gray in Boston, and clerked for the Hon. J.L. Edmondson of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. In 2023, O.H. was a Wasserstein Public Interest Fellow at Harvard Law School, where he counseled students as a Harvard-identified “outstanding public interest attorney.”
In his 35 years at the Justice Department and in private practice, Mike Carvin was one of the leading appellate and trial lawyers challenging state and federal regulations on constitutional and statutory grounds, with 10 Supreme Court arguments and numerous high-profile victories. In addition to his numerous cases in the United States Supreme Court, he argued in virtually every federal appeals court. His major cases include the recent constitutional challenge to the Affordable Care Act and the decisions invalidating Sarbanes-Oxley's accounting board, preventing the Justice Department from obtaining monetary relief against the tobacco industry under RICO, overturning the federal government's plan to statistically adjust the census, limiting the Justice Department's ability to create "majority-minority" districts, and upholding Proposition 209's ban on racial preferences in California.
Mike was one of the lead lawyers, and argued before the Florida Supreme Court, on behalf of George W. Bush in the 2000 presidential election Florida recount controversy. He also has represented state governments, financial institutions, telecommunications, and energy companies in "takings," First Amendment, civil rights, and statutory challenges to federal government actions.
Chairman, Center for Equal Opportunity
Linda Chavez is Chairman of the Center for Equal Opportunity. She has published opinions and columns in newspapers across the country and appears regularly on cable news. Chavez is the author of the three books: Out of the Barrio: Toward a New Politics of Hispanic Assimilation, An Unlikely Conservative: The Transformation of an Ex-Liberal, and Betrayal: How Union Bosses Shake Down Their Members and Corrupt American Politics. She has been honored by the Library of Congress as a "Living Legend" and as nominee for Secretary of Labor by President George W. Bush.
Chavez has held many appointed positions and has served on numerous corporate and nonprofit boards. Among her appointed positions has been Chairman, National Commission on Migrant Education (1988-1992); White House Director of Public Liaison (1985); Staff Director of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights (1983-1985); and member of the Administrative Conference of the United States (1984-1986). Chavez was also the Republican nominee for U.S. Senator from Maryland in 1986 and was elected by the United Nations' Human Rights Commission to serve a four-year term as U.S. Expert to the U.N. Sub-commission on the Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities.
Chavez earned her BA from the University of Colorado.
Adjunct Professor of Law; Director, N.Y. Census and Redistricting Institute, New York Law School
Jeff Wice is a Distinguished Adjunct Professor and Senior Fellow at New York Law School where he directs the New York Elections, Census & Redistricting Institute and teaches classes on redistricting, election law, and the census. He is now working on his sixth redistricting cycle. In past years, he served as a redistricting counsel to New York State Legislativbe Leaders and as counsel to three New York City Districting Commissions and to numerous counties and localities across New York and the nation.
During the 2000 census cycle, Professor Wice served as counsel to President Bill Clinton’s members of the U.S. Census Monitoring Board. He is the co-editor/author of the National Conference of State Legislatures' 2020 Redistricting Redbook, a comprehensive handbook on the census and redistricting.
‘’City & State NY’ recognized Professor Wice as one of New York’s “Top 50 Over 50” in 2022 and just last month as a "New York legal trailblazer" for his efforts promoting fair representation and the census. He is a graduate of the George Washington University and Antioch School of Law.
Emanuel S. Heller Professor of Law, University of California at Berkeley; Thomas Smith Senior Research Fellow, The Civitas Institute, University of Texas at Austin
John Yoo is the Emanuel Heller Professor of Law at the University of California at Berkeley. He is also the Thomas Smith Senior Research Fellow, Civitas Institute, at the University of Texas at Austin. He is also a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
His most recent book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Supreme Court, co-authored with Robert Delahunty, was published in 2023. Professor Yoo’s other books include Defender-in-Chief: Trump’s Fight for Presidential Power; Striking Power: How Cyber, Robots, and Space Weapons Change the Rules for War; Point of Attack: Preventive War, International Law, and Global Welfare; and Crisis and Command: A History of Executive Power from George Washington to George Bush.
He is a co-author of volumes 1 and 2 of R. Rossum, G. Tarr, V. Munoz & J. Yoo American Constitution Law (Routledge, 2026), and a co-editor of the eight-volume series on the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution, We Hold These Truths, with Yuval Levin and Adam White of the American Enterprise Institute.
Professor Yoo has published more than 100 articles in academic journals on subjects including national security, constitutional law, international law, and the Supreme Court. He also regularly contributes to the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and National Review, among others.
Professor Yoo has served in all three branches of government. He was an official in the U.S. Department of Justice, where he worked on national security and terrorism issues after the 9/11 attacks. He served as general counsel of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. He has been a law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and federal appeals Judge Laurence Silberman. He has been a visiting professor at the University of Texas at Austin’s School of Civic Leadership, Seoul National University, the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya, Keio University, Trento University, the University of Chicago, and the Free University of Amsterdam.
Professor Yoo supervises the Public Law and Policy Program and the California Constitution Center. He also serves on the boards of Founding Forward, the Washington Legal Foundation, the Pacific Legal Foundation, the Ulysses Grant Institute, the Federalist Society’s Separation of Powers and Federalism Division, the Universidad Cientifica del Sur Law School, and the Asia-Pacific Law Institute at Seoul National University. He is a winner of the Federalist Society’s Paul Bator award and the Heritage Foundation’s Edwin Meese III Originalism Lectureship.
Professor Yoo graduated from Yale Law School and summa cum laude from Harvard College.
In his 35 years at the Justice Department and in private practice, Mike Carvin was one of the leading appellate and trial lawyers challenging state and federal regulations on constitutional and statutory grounds, with 10 Supreme Court arguments and numerous high-profile victories. In addition to his numerous cases in the United States Supreme Court, he argued in virtually every federal appeals court. His major cases include the recent constitutional challenge to the Affordable Care Act and the decisions invalidating Sarbanes-Oxley's accounting board, preventing the Justice Department from obtaining monetary relief against the tobacco industry under RICO, overturning the federal government's plan to statistically adjust the census, limiting the Justice Department's ability to create "majority-minority" districts, and upholding Proposition 209's ban on racial preferences in California.
Mike was one of the lead lawyers, and argued before the Florida Supreme Court, on behalf of George W. Bush in the 2000 presidential election Florida recount controversy. He also has represented state governments, financial institutions, telecommunications, and energy companies in "takings," First Amendment, civil rights, and statutory challenges to federal government actions.
Scholar in Residence, The Constitution Project
Louis Fisher is Scholar in Residence at the Constitution Project. Previously he worked for four decades at the Library of Congress as Senior Specialist in Separation of Powers (Congressional Research Service, from 1970 to 2006) and Specialist in Constitutional Law (the Law Library, from 2006 to 2010). During his service with CRS he was research director of the House Iran-Contra Committee in 1987, writing major sections of the final report. Fisher's specialties include constitutional law, war powers, budget policy, executive-legislative relations, and judicial-congressional relations.
After completing his doctoral work in political science at the New School for Social Research in 1967, he taught full-time at Queens College for three years. Later he taught part-time at Georgetown University, American University, Catholic University law school, Indiana University, Catholic University, the College of William and Mary law school, and Johns Hopkins University. Currently he is a Visiting Professor at the William and Mary law school.
His books include President and Congress (1972), Presidential Spending Power (1975), The Constitution Between Friends (1978), The Politics of Shared Power (4th ed. 1998), Constitutional Conflicts Between Congress and the President (6th ed. 2014), Constitutional Dialogues (1988),American Constitutional Law (with Katy J. Harriger, 10th ed. 2013), Presidential War Power (3rd ed. 2014), Political Dynamics of Constitutional Law (with Neal Devins, 5th ed. 2011), Congressional Abdication on War and Spending (2000), Religious Liberty in America: Political Safeguards (2002), Nazi Saboteurs on Trial: A Military Tribunal & American Law (2003; 2d ed. 2005), The Politics of Executive Privilege (2004), The Democratic Constitution (with Neal Devins, 2004), Military Tribunals and Presidential Power: American Revolution to the War on Terrorism (2005), In the Name of National Security: Unchecked Presidential Power and the Reynolds Case (2006), The Constitution and 9/11: Recurring Threats to America’s Freedoms (2008), The Supreme Court and Congress: Rival Interpretations (2009), On Appreciating Congress: The People’s Branch (2010), Defending Congress and the Constitution (2011), On the Supreme Court: Without Illusion and Idolatry(2013), and The Law of the Executive Branch: Presidential Power (2014). His textbook in constitutional law is available in two paperbacks:Constitutional Structures: Separation of Powers and Federalism and Constitutional Rights: Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. With Leonard W. Levy he edited the four-volume Encyclopedia of the American Presidency (1994).
He has twice won the Louis Brownlow Book Award (for Presidential Spending Power and Constitutional Dialogues). The encyclopedia he co-edited was awarded the Dartmouth Medal. In 1995 he received the Aaron B. Wildavsky Award “For Lifetime Scholarly Achievement in Public Budgeting” from the Association for Budgeting and Financial Management. In 2006 he received the Neustadt Book Award for Military Tribunals and Presidential Power. In 2011 he received the Walter Beach Pi Sigma Alpha Award from the National Capital Area Political Science Association for strengthening the relationship between political science and public service. In 2012 he received the Hubert H. Humphrey Award from the American Political Science Association in recognition of notable public service by a political scientist. The July 2013 issue of PS: Political Science & Politics includes a symposium on "Law and (Disciplinary) Order: A Dialogue about Louis Fisher, Constitutionalism, and Political Science.
Dr. Fisher has been invited to testify before Congress more than 50 times on such issues as war powers, state secrets privilege, NSA surveillance, executive spending discretion, presidential reorganization authority, Congress and the Constitution, the legislative veto, the item veto, the Gramm-Rudman deficit control act, executive privilege, committee subpoenas, executive lobbying, CIA whistleblowing, covert spending, the pocket veto, recess appointments, the budget process, the balanced budget amendment, biennial budgeting, and presidential impoundment powers.
He has been active with CEELI (Central and East European Law Initiative) of the American Bar Association, traveling to Bulgaria, Albania, and Hungary to assist constitution-writers; participating in CEELI conferences in Washington, D.C. with delegations from Bosnia-Herzegovina, Lithuania, Romania, and Russia; serving on CEELI "working groups" on Armenia and Belarus; and assisted in drafting constitutional amendments for the Kyrgyz Republic. As part of CRS delegations he traveled to Russia and Ukraine to assist on constitutional questions. For the International Bar Association he helped analyze the draft constitutions for Swaziland and Zimbabwe.
He is the author of more than 500 articles in law reviews, political science journals, encyclopedias, books, magazines, and newspapers. He has been invited to speak in Albania, Australia, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, China, the Czech Republic, Denmark, England, France, Germany, Greece, Israel, Japan, Macedonia, Malaysia, Mexico, the Netherlands, Oman, the Philippines, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovenia, South Korea, Sweden, Taiwan, Ukraine, and the United Arab Emirates. The topics include a range of constitutional, political, and institutional issues.
President, Students for Fair Admissions
Edward Blum is the president of Students for Fair Admissions, a membership organization whose mission is to eliminate racial and ethnic classifications and preferences in school admissions. Shortly after SFFA’s inception in 2014, the group challenged in federal court the racial admissions policies at Harvard and the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. In 2023, the United States Supreme Court struck down the use of race as an admissions factor at all colleges and universities.
He is the president of the newly formed American Alliance for Equal Rights which has filed over a dozen lawsuits challenging the use of race by corporations, law firms, venture capital firms and cultural institutions. Mr. Blum also serves as the President of the Project on Fair Representation, a nonprofit legal foundation formed in 2005 that has provided counsel in a number of race-related U.S. Supreme Court cases including, Shelby Co. Alabama v. Holder, Fisher v. University of Texas (I and II) and Evenwel v. Abbott.
Since 2005, Blum has been a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute where he studies legal and policy issues relating to race and ethnicity. He is the author of a book on the Voting Rights Act, numerous essays and law review articles, and is a frequent contributor to the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, and National Review, among others.
Board Member, Center for Equal Opportunity
Roger Clegg is a Board Member at and former President and General Counsel of the Center for Equal Opportunity. He focuses on legal issues arising from civil rights laws--including the regulatory impact on business and the problems in higher education created by affirmative action. A former Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Reagan and Bush administrations, Clegg held the second highest positions in both the Civil Rights Division (1987-91) and in the Environment and Natural Resources Division (1991-93). He has held several other positions at the U.S. Justice Department, including Assistant to the Solicitor General (1985-87), Associate Deputy Attorney General (1984-85), and Acting Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Policy (1984). Clegg is a graduate of Yale University Law School (1981).
Attorney, Rathje Woodward LLC
Brian Murray is a first-chair trial and appellate lawyer with a nationwide practice, practicing at Rathje Woodward LLC. A former law clerk to Justice Antonin Scalia, he represents companies and individuals in complex commercial litigation, class actions and civil government enforcement and regulatory matters. In addition, Brian has briefed over a hundred appeals, and has personally argued over 30 of them — including cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, nearly every federal court of appeals, and a number of state supreme and intermediate appellate courts. Brian also served as Deputy to the Associate Attorney General for the United States Department of Justice. In this senior leadership office at the DOJ, Brian counseled Department and executive branch principals and helped formulate policies and strategies for investigating, litigating, and resolving civil regulatory and enforcement matters. Brian relies on his deep experience in guiding his clients through pressing legal challenges.
Brian is routinely called upon to present clients’ most complex and business-critical matters to tribunals nationwide. Notable first-chair jury trial wins include a full defense verdict in a sprawling civil rights class action against the City of Chicago. Key appellate wins include a victory at the Supreme Court that changed the course of CERCLA law, and multiple wins in courts across the country for pharmaceutical companies combatting consumer fraud claims related to drug pricing. Other engagements over the last twenty years have included matters involving environmental, consumer fraud, RICO, antitrust, Title VII, the FAA, and other statutory and common-law claims; enforcement litigation involving the False Claims Act, environmental, and constitutional claims; and other complex civil matters.
Brian has taught Complex Litigation and Class Actions at the University of Chicago Law School for almost a decade. He is a member of the Seventh Circuit Bar Association, the Chicago-Lincoln and Robert Jones American Inns of Court, and the Illinois Appellate Lawyers’ Association. His work has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, and on PBS’s Chicago Tonight.