A Seat at the Sitting - December 2023
The December Docket in 90 Minutes or Less
Each month, a panel of constitutional experts convenes to discuss the Court’s upcoming docket sitting...
Each month, a panel of constitutional experts will convene to discuss the Court’s upcoming docket and debrief oral arguments from the previous month.
Justin Aimonetti, Jennifer Jenkins, Stephanie Ann Maloney, Lindsey Simon
The December Docket in 90 Minutes or Less
Each month, a panel of constitutional experts convenes to discuss the Court’s upcoming docket sitting...
Justin Aimonetti, Jennifer Jenkins, Stephanie Ann Maloney, Lindsey Simon
The December Docket in 90 Minutes or Less
Each month, a panel of constitutional experts convenes to discuss the Court’s upcoming docket sitting...
Karen Harned, Vikrant P. Reddy, Amanda Salz, Brian C. Johnson
The October Docket in 90 Minutes or Less
Each month, a panel of constitutional experts convenes to discuss the Court’s upcoming docket sitting...
Anastasia P. Boden, Thomas F. Gede, Sharon Fast Gustafson, Brian Hauss, Ilya Somin
The April Docket in 90 Minutes or Less
Each month, a panel of constitutional experts convenes to discuss the Court’s upcoming docket sitting...
Anastasia P. Boden, Thomas F. Gede, Sharon Fast Gustafson, Brian Hauss, Ilya Somin
The April Docket in 90 Minutes or Less
Each month, a panel of constitutional experts convenes to discuss the Court’s upcoming docket sitting...
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.
Partner, Boyden Gray PLLC
Jimmy Conde is partner at Boyden Gray PLLC, specializing in energy, environmental, and administrative law, with particular expertise in the Clean Air Act. He has protected clients against agency overreach in cutting-edge and complex legal proceedings, including challenges to EPA, DOE, DOT, and California rules seeking to compel electrification of motor vehicles, the FCC’s universal service fund, Department of Labor Wage & Hour Division rules, and HHS rules interfering with the practice of medicine and sound insurance practices. His written commentary has been published and referenced in the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Examiner, Concurrences (an antitrust publication), and Newsweek, among others.
Mr. Conde began his legal career as an associate with Boyden Gray PLLC. He clerked for Judge Douglas H. Ginsburg in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and Judge David J. Porter in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
Associate Chief Counsel, U.S. Chamber Litigation Center, U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Maria C. Monaghan is associate chief counsel at the U.S. Chamber Litigation Center, the litigation arm of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. In this capacity, she handles a variety of litigation matters for the Chamber.
Before joining the Litigation Center, Monaghan practiced as an associate in the D.C. office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP. She represented clients in the telecommunications, energy, transportation, and e-commerce sectors, with a focus on appellate litigation and regulatory matters.
Monaghan served as a law clerk to the Honorable Samuel A. Alito of the United States Supreme Court, the Honorable Ed Carnes of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, and the Honorable Amul R. Thapar of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. She graduated Order of the Coif from the University of Virginia School of Law, where she served as Articles Development Editor for the Virginia Law Review and participated in the Supreme Court Litigation Clinic. She received her undergraduate degree in Human Resource Management and Labor Studies from Rutgers University.
Senior Counsel, America First Legal
James Rogers is Senior Counsel at America First Legal Foundation, where he litigates in a number of areas, including border security, election integrity, parental rights, and administrative and constitutional law. Before joining America First Legal, from 2021 to 2022, he was Senior Litigation Counsel at the Solicitor General’s Office of the Arizona Attorney General’s Office. While there, he spearheaded lawsuits against the Biden Administration’s destructive open borders policies and its COVID19 vaccine mandates. From 2015 to 2021, James was a Foreign Service Officer at the U.S. Department of State, where he worked in the Office of the Assistant Legal Advisor for Consular Affairs, at the U.S. Consulate in Porto Alegre, Brazil, and at the U.S. Embassy in Windhoek, Namibia.
Prior to joining the Department of State, he was a commercial litigation partner at Osborn Maledon, a Phoenix-based firm with a #1 litigation ranking from Chambers and Partners. James earned a J.D. from Harvard Law School in 2009, an L.L.M. in International Law from the University of Cambridge in 2008, and a B.A., with honors, in International Studies from Brigham Young University in 2005. He is a sixth-generation Arizonan and lives in Mesa, Arizona, with his four children.
Partner, Marshall, Gerstein & Borun LLP
Ryan Schermerhorn is a registered patent attorney in the firm's Industrial & Mechanical Technologies Practice Group. His engineering background provides him with an understanding of clients’ technologies and enables him to effectively and efficiently provide a range of patent procurement services. He also leverages his experience to assist on intellectual property litigation as well as develop strategies for acquiring and protecting intellectual property.
Since 2017, Ryan has been listed as an "Emerging Lawyer" by Emerging Lawyers Magazine and has been selected for inclusion in the Illinois Rising Stars® lists. Ryan was recognized in Chicago Daily Law Bulletin's 2023 40 Under Forty list. Since 2024, Ryan has been selected for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America© list in the practice areas of Litigation - Patent and Patent Law. In 2025, Ryan was selected by the Law Bulletin Publishing Company’s Leading Lawyer Network as a “Leading Lawyer.”
Executive Director, Center for Election Confidence
Lisa L. Dixon serves as the Executive Director of the Center for Election Confidence (formerly known as Lawyers Democracy Fund). Lisa is also a consultant for the Republican National Lawyers Association, serving as their Legal Counsel. Previously, Lisa practiced at Holtzman Vogel, where she specialized in tax-exempt organizations, campaign finance and election law, and lobbying compliance.
During law school, she interned for the Office of Chief Counsel, Procedure and Administration, at the Internal Revenue Service and at the Center for Law and Religious Freedom. Before law school, she served as the Assistant Student Division Director at The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies and interned at The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Legal and Judicial Studies.
Lisa earned a J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law, an M.A. in History from the University of Virginia, and a B.A. in History from Hillsdale College. After 18 years on the East Coast, mostly in northern Virginia, she recently returned to her native Michigan, where she lives with her husband and three sons.
Senior Attorney, Pacific Legal Foundation
Oliver Dunford joined the Pacific Legal Foundation in March 2017. He litigates across the country to defend and advance individual liberty and the rule of law. Oliver’s cases involve the separation of powers, economic liberty, property rights, and the First Amendment.
Oliver remains inspired by the Classical Liberal ideals upon which our Founders declared independence and secured the blessings of liberty. The Constitution’s promises, however, are not self-executing. As James Madison explained, “In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.” Oliver feels lucky that his work helps oblige the government to control itself—to the end that all individuals may pursue their rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Before joining PLF, Oliver clerked at the Ohio Supreme Court and the Ohio Court of Appeals, and spent more than a decade in private practice working on complex commercial litigation. Originally from Cleveland, Oliver is a graduate of the University of Dayton and Cleveland-Marshall College of Law, where he was a managing editor for the Cleveland State Law Review. Oliver is admitted to the state bars of Florida, California, and Ohio, as well as several federal courts including the United States Supreme Court.
Oliver spends all of his free time following the Cleveland Indians.
Partner, Phelps Dunbar LLP
Mike Hurst is a partner with Phelps Dunbar LLP where he optimizes his in-depth knowledge of the court system, investigative and prosecutorial agencies, the regulatory arena, and the public policy realm to help clients facing government investigations, enforcement actions, regulatory matters, general litigation and policy issues. Mike currently serves as the General Counsel of the Republican National Committee and as Chairman of the Mississippi Republican Party. He previously served as the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Mississippi from 2017-2021, and with over 20 years of experience before judges, juries and policy makers, handling some of the largest and most high-profile cases in Mississippi, he's known for untangling the most complex legal issues.
As U.S. Attorney, Mike was described as a “hard charger,” leading efforts to combat violent crime, human trafficking and public corruption, among many other issues, throughout Mississippi. He almost tripled prosecutions in the U.S. Attorney’s Office over a three-year period, resulting in the most indictments and federal defendants indicted in a one-year period in Mississippi history. He created innovative and national award-winning crime-fighting solutions, like “Project EJECT,” and he established the first statewide, multilevel and multidisciplinary human trafficking body, the Mississippi Human Trafficking Council, to comprehensively and holistically address this criminal scourge.
During his tenure as U.S. Attorney, Mike oversaw some of the biggest cases in Mississippi history: the largest health care fraud scheme (Wade Walters, et. al.), the largest Ponzi scheme (Lamar Adams), the largest False Claims Act health care fraud settlement (Region 8), and the largest nursing home False Claim Act settlement (Hyperion). In addition, as Chief Federal Law Enforcement Officer for the Southern District, Mike coordinated the largest single-state immigration worksite enforcement operation in our nation’s history, involving hundreds of federal law enforcement agents covering seven different locations operated by multiple companies.
Mike’s no show pony – he’s a work horse. Before his tenure as U.S. Attorney, Mike was an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Mississippi for more than eight years. He handled some of the most difficult and complex cases in that office, dealing with white collar crimes, public corruption and financial fraud, including numerous jury trials before almost every federal judge in the Southern District.
He also has experience in the private sector. He has practiced law in Washington, D.C., and has served as a litigator and general counsel for a conservative nonprofit. He also has extensive experience in public policy, having served as the Legislative Director to a U.S. Congressman and as Counsel to the House Judiciary Committee.
Mike has also testified before both the United States Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives on issues ranging from crime to Presidential pardons. He has worked on all sides of the legal, regulatory, investigative, prosecutorial and policy spectrum. The incredible insight gained from this varied experience enables him to find a path forward for clients, no matter how complicated the case.
Senior Litigation Counsel, Washington Legal Foundation
Zac joined WLF in 2025 as Senior Litigation Counsel. In that role, he regularly represents WLF and other clients as counsel of record in cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and the federal appellate courts. Before arriving at WLF, Zac served as counsel to Commissioner Allen Dickerson of the Federal Election Commission. Zac also spent eight years litigating First Amendment cases as a staff attorney for the Institute for Free Speech, where he represented clients in federal and state cases across the country. He received his J.D. from George Mason University’s School of Law, where he participated in GMU’s Wiley Rein Supreme Court clinic.
Solicitor General, Iowa Office of the Attorney General
Eric Wessan serves as Iowa’s Solicitor General in the Iowa Attorney General’s Office. In that
role, Wessan leads Iowa’s litigation before State and federal appellate courts, including the Iowa
and U.S. Supreme Courts. Before that role, Wessan worked on complex commercial litigation at
two large law firms in Chicago. Wessan also served as a law clerk for the Honorable James C.
Ho on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and for the Honorable John F. Kness on the
U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. Wessan is a graduate of the University of
Chicago Law School, with honors, and of the University of Chicago.
Senior Litigator, The Buckeye Institute; Partner, Wegman Hessler Valore
Jay R. Carson is the senior litigator at The Buckeye Institute. In this role he oversees all of Buckeye’s efforts to protect people’s rights and good public policy through the courts.
Carson brings 20 years of private-sector litigation and public policy experience to The Buckeye Institute, and has served as a legislative aide to the Ohio General Assembly, a law clerk to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, as well as a Common Pleas Court Magistrate.
In addition to his work for The Buckeye Institute, Carson continues to practice at Wegman Hessler in Cleveland, where he focuses on business litigation, regulatory compliance counseling, and dispute resolution. Carson draws on his experiences in the public and private sectors to advocate for economic liberty and against burdensome government regulations on behalf of The Buckeye Institute and the people that it represents.
Carson is active in his community, the Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Association, the Northern District of Ohio Chapter of the Federal Bar Foundation, and is a life member of the Sixth Circuit Judicial Conference. Carson has also served on the Lakewood Civil Service Commission, the Lakewood Charter Review Commission, and the Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Workforce Investment Board. He currently serves on the boards of the North Coast Health Foundation and the Three Arches Foundation, which focus on providing health care to the uninsured, as well as the Lakewood Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors.
Jay earned his J.D. from The Ohio State University College of Law and his B.A. from Baldwin-Wallace College.
Senior Attorney, Institute for Justice
Sam Gedge is a senior attorney at the Institute for Justice. He joined IJ in June 2015 and litigates cases to promote economic liberty, protect political speech, and secure individuals’ rights to private property.
In 2017, Sam was named IJ’s second Elfie Gallun Fellow for Freedom and the Constitution. The fellowship comes with an emphasis on publishing written materials and speaking to students and others about the vital role the U.S. Constitution plays in protecting our most precious freedoms.
In his time at IJ, Sam has launched cases battling civil forfeiture and overzealous licensing boards, which generated widespread coverage and conversation in media outlets from Wired and The Atlantic to London’s Daily Mail.
Before joining IJ, Sam was an attorney at Wiley Rein LLP, in Washington, D.C., where he focused on litigation and election law. He is a former law clerk to Judge Raymond W. Gruender of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.
Sam received his law degree cum laude from Harvard Law School in 2010.
Assistant Attorney General, Opinions Unit, Ohio Attorney General’s Office
Jeff Hobday serves as an Assistant Attorney General in the Opinions Unit at the Ohio Attorney General’s Office, where he researches and drafts formal opinions to guide state agencies, county officials, and townships on complex questions of statutory interpretation. He recently co-authored an amicus brief filed in the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of Ohio and 28 other states in Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II, LLC, addressing federal preemption and the States’ authority to regulate highway safety through tort law.
Previously, Jeff held leadership roles at the Ohio Secretary of State’s Office, including as Senior Elections Counsel and Deputy Elections Director. He began his public service career as an attorney with the Ohio Legislative Service Commission, where he drafted legislation and advised lawmakers on criminal justice, tort law, and the state’s court system.
Jeff Hobday earned his law degree from Cornell Law School and holds a Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance and Psychology from Wheaton College in Illinois.
Partner, Lehotsky Keller Cohn LLP
Mary Miller is an experienced litigator focusing on complex trial and appellate litigation in state and federal courts. She has represented clients in matters involving antitrust, fraud, breach of contract, class actions, misappropriation of trade secrets, false advertising, and the False Claims Act. Mary previously first chaired a federal jury trial to successful verdict, and she has authored numerous motions and briefs at all stages of litigation.
Before joining Lehotsky Keller Cohn LLP, Mary was a partner at Kirkland & Ellis LLP in Washington, D.C. Mary previously clerked for the Honorable Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. of the Supreme Court of the United States, Judge Priscilla Richman of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, and Judge Richard J. Leon of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.
Legal Fellow and Manager, Supreme Court and Appellate Advocacy Program, The Heritage Foundation
Zack is a Legal Fellow and Manager of the Supreme Court and Appellate Advocacy Program in the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation.
He previously served for several years as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Northern District of Florida. Prior to that, he spent two years as an associate in the Washington, D.C. office of Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton, which he joined after clerking for the Hon. Emmett R. Cox on the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.
Smith received his undergraduate, master’s, and law degrees from the University of Florida. During law school, Smith served as the Editor in Chief of the Florida Law Review and served on the executive boards of several student organizations, including the UF Chapter of the Federalist Society.
U.S. Chamber Litigation Center, Senior Counsel
Jordan Von Bokern is senior counsel at the U.S. Chamber Litigation Center, the litigation arm of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. In this capacity, Von Bokern focuses on regulatory litigation, especially affirmative litigation in which the Chamber is suing to challenge federal, state, and local regulations.
Before joining the Litigation Center, Von Bokern served as a trial attorney in the Federal Programs Branch in the Civil Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. In this role, Von Bokern defended the United States and various federal agencies and officers against lawsuits that raised constitutional and statutory challenges to federal statutes, regulations, guidance documents, and other executive branch actions. Von Bokern litigated those claims in federal district courts across the country.
Prior to that, Von Bokern served as senior counsel in the Office of Legal Policy at the U.S. Department of Justice. Here, Von Bokern advised Department of Justice leadership and the White House on the selection, nomination, and confirmation of federal judges. He also worked on Department of Justice policy initiatives.
Von Bokern served as a law clerk for both then-Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Amy Coney Barrett and Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Jerry E. Smith. Between his clerkships, he was an associate at Jones Day in their Labor and Employment practice. He graduated cum laude from The University of Chicago Law School, where he served as managing editor of The University of Chicago Law Review. Von Bokern received his B.A. in Political Science, summa cum laude, from Colorado State University.
Associate, Dechert LLP
Justin W. Aimonetti is an associate in Dechert’s trials, investigations, and securities group, focusing on trial and appellate matters and advising clients on complex legal issues. Mr. Aimonetti has experience representing individuals and corporations in federal court, as well as in numerous federal agencies and state courts. His experience touches on all parts of the litigation process.
Mr. Aimonetti has published numerous law review articles on a wide range of subjects. His scholarship has appeared in the Virginia Law Review, Yale Law Journal Forum, Stanford Law Review Online, the Pepperdine Law Review, and many other journals and reviews. Mr. Aimonetti has received several awards for his legal scholarship.
Before joining Dechert, Mr. Aimonetti served as a judicial law clerk to the Honorable Carl J. Nichols on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, as a judicial law clerk to the Honorable Chief Judge Jeffrey S. Sutton on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, and as a summer adviser in the Office of Legal Counsel at the Department of Justice. In law school, Mr. Aimonetti contributed as an Articles Editor on the Virginia Law Review and participated in the Supreme Court Litigation Clinic.
Associate Professor of Law, Ave Maria School of Law
Before arriving at Ave Maria School of Law, Professor Jennifer (Barrow) Jenkins was a Climenko Fellow and Lecturer on Law at Harvard University School of Law. Professor Barrow was born in Plymouth, Massachusetts, and grew up in Tampa, Florida. Professor Barrow received a B.S. in the American Legal System from the United States Military Academy at West Point. She served as an Army intelligence officer in Afghanistan and Iraq, receiving the Bronze Star in 2010. Professor Barrow is a graduate of Harvard Law School and was an editor for the International Law Journal, Journal of Law and Public Policy, Journal on Legislation, and the National Security Journal. After law school, Professor Barrow clerked for Judge Ralph K. Winter on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. She then served as a Supreme Court Fellow, placed at the U.S. Sentencing Commission, where she helped revise a draft amendment to the career offender provision of the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines. Her primary teaching interests include criminal law and procedure, torts, and military law. Her scholarship focuses on criminal law and military law, with an emphasis on sentencing. Her research scrutinizes the increased power of the legislative, executive, and judicial branches at the expense of the jury and suggests reforms.
Chief of Staff and Associate Chief Counsel, U.S. Chamber Litigation Center
Stephanie Maloney is chief of staff and associate chief counsel at the U.S. Chamber Litigation Center, the litigation arm of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. In this capacity, Maloney handles a variety of matters for the Chamber, including environment and energy litigation.
Most recently, Maloney served as Chief of Staff and Counsel in the Environment and Natural Resources Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. In that capacity, she directed litigation strategy, oversaw case briefing, and managed coordination and communication with agency clients in priority cases. And she served as government counsel in cases arising under various environmental and natural resources laws.
Before that, Maloney practiced as an associate in the Appellate and Critical Motions Practice Group at Winston & Strawn LLP. Her work focused on briefing and strategy in complex commercial and appellate litigation at the federal and state level, including merits and amicus curiae briefs to the Supreme Court of the United States.
Maloney served as a law clerk to both the Honorable Edith Brown Clement, of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, and the Honorable Stephen J. Murphy, III, of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. She graduated cum laude from Notre Dame Law School, where she served as Symposium Editor of the Notre Dame Law Review, and summa cum laude from Loyola University Maryland, where she received a B.A. in Political Science. Maloney also holds a master’s degree in theology from Emory University.
Associate Professor of Law, Emory University School of Law
Lindsey Simon is an associate professor at the Emory University School of Law.
Her research focuses on the bankruptcy system, drawing concepts from bankruptcy structure and procedure to address broader institutional design challenges. Simon’s articles have been published in the Administrative Law Review, the Cardozo Law Review, the Indiana Law Journal and the North Carolina Law Review. Simon’s most recent scholarship addresses the intersection between mass torts and bankruptcy, including an article on non-debtor relief in Chapter 11 forthcoming in the Yale Law Journal. She has assisted academics, judges, members of Congress and many other stakeholders on the subject of mass tort bankruptcies, and her commentary in connection with the Purdue Pharma, Boy Scouts of America and USA Gymnastics bankruptcies has appeared in various media outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Forbes, The Economist, NPR and Reuters.
Before joining the Emory Law faculty in 2023, Professor Simon served as the Robert Cotten Alston Associate Chair in Corporate Law at the University of Georgia School of Law. Prior to becoming a professor, Simon was an associate at Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton, where her practice involved a mix of commercial litigation and corporate restructuring matters. She represented corporations, committees and individuals in state and federal litigation, both in and out of the bankruptcy context. Simon also practiced at a litigation boutique in Chicago, Illinois, and served as a judicial clerk for Judge Beverly B. Martin on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. Additionally, she taught as an adjunct professor at the Georgia State University College of Law.
Simon earned her law degree magna cum laude from the Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law and obtained her Bachelor of Music magna cum laude and her Master of Education from Vanderbilt University.
She is an active member of the American Bankruptcy Institute, where she serves as a member of the ABI Diversity Working Group. She previously served as vice chair and community service co-chair for the Georgia Network of the International Women's Insolvency & Restructuring Confederation and as vice president of the board of directors of the Georgia Latino Law Foundation.
Associate, Dechert LLP
Justin W. Aimonetti is an associate in Dechert’s trials, investigations, and securities group, focusing on trial and appellate matters and advising clients on complex legal issues. Mr. Aimonetti has experience representing individuals and corporations in federal court, as well as in numerous federal agencies and state courts. His experience touches on all parts of the litigation process.
Mr. Aimonetti has published numerous law review articles on a wide range of subjects. His scholarship has appeared in the Virginia Law Review, Yale Law Journal Forum, Stanford Law Review Online, the Pepperdine Law Review, and many other journals and reviews. Mr. Aimonetti has received several awards for his legal scholarship.
Before joining Dechert, Mr. Aimonetti served as a judicial law clerk to the Honorable Carl J. Nichols on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, as a judicial law clerk to the Honorable Chief Judge Jeffrey S. Sutton on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, and as a summer adviser in the Office of Legal Counsel at the Department of Justice. In law school, Mr. Aimonetti contributed as an Articles Editor on the Virginia Law Review and participated in the Supreme Court Litigation Clinic.
Associate Professor of Law, Ave Maria School of Law
Before arriving at Ave Maria School of Law, Professor Jennifer (Barrow) Jenkins was a Climenko Fellow and Lecturer on Law at Harvard University School of Law. Professor Barrow was born in Plymouth, Massachusetts, and grew up in Tampa, Florida. Professor Barrow received a B.S. in the American Legal System from the United States Military Academy at West Point. She served as an Army intelligence officer in Afghanistan and Iraq, receiving the Bronze Star in 2010. Professor Barrow is a graduate of Harvard Law School and was an editor for the International Law Journal, Journal of Law and Public Policy, Journal on Legislation, and the National Security Journal. After law school, Professor Barrow clerked for Judge Ralph K. Winter on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. She then served as a Supreme Court Fellow, placed at the U.S. Sentencing Commission, where she helped revise a draft amendment to the career offender provision of the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines. Her primary teaching interests include criminal law and procedure, torts, and military law. Her scholarship focuses on criminal law and military law, with an emphasis on sentencing. Her research scrutinizes the increased power of the legislative, executive, and judicial branches at the expense of the jury and suggests reforms.
Chief of Staff and Associate Chief Counsel, U.S. Chamber Litigation Center
Stephanie Maloney is chief of staff and associate chief counsel at the U.S. Chamber Litigation Center, the litigation arm of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. In this capacity, Maloney handles a variety of matters for the Chamber, including environment and energy litigation.
Most recently, Maloney served as Chief of Staff and Counsel in the Environment and Natural Resources Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. In that capacity, she directed litigation strategy, oversaw case briefing, and managed coordination and communication with agency clients in priority cases. And she served as government counsel in cases arising under various environmental and natural resources laws.
Before that, Maloney practiced as an associate in the Appellate and Critical Motions Practice Group at Winston & Strawn LLP. Her work focused on briefing and strategy in complex commercial and appellate litigation at the federal and state level, including merits and amicus curiae briefs to the Supreme Court of the United States.
Maloney served as a law clerk to both the Honorable Edith Brown Clement, of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, and the Honorable Stephen J. Murphy, III, of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. She graduated cum laude from Notre Dame Law School, where she served as Symposium Editor of the Notre Dame Law Review, and summa cum laude from Loyola University Maryland, where she received a B.A. in Political Science. Maloney also holds a master’s degree in theology from Emory University.
Associate Professor of Law, Emory University School of Law
Lindsey Simon is an associate professor at the Emory University School of Law.
Her research focuses on the bankruptcy system, drawing concepts from bankruptcy structure and procedure to address broader institutional design challenges. Simon’s articles have been published in the Administrative Law Review, the Cardozo Law Review, the Indiana Law Journal and the North Carolina Law Review. Simon’s most recent scholarship addresses the intersection between mass torts and bankruptcy, including an article on non-debtor relief in Chapter 11 forthcoming in the Yale Law Journal. She has assisted academics, judges, members of Congress and many other stakeholders on the subject of mass tort bankruptcies, and her commentary in connection with the Purdue Pharma, Boy Scouts of America and USA Gymnastics bankruptcies has appeared in various media outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Forbes, The Economist, NPR and Reuters.
Before joining the Emory Law faculty in 2023, Professor Simon served as the Robert Cotten Alston Associate Chair in Corporate Law at the University of Georgia School of Law. Prior to becoming a professor, Simon was an associate at Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton, where her practice involved a mix of commercial litigation and corporate restructuring matters. She represented corporations, committees and individuals in state and federal litigation, both in and out of the bankruptcy context. Simon also practiced at a litigation boutique in Chicago, Illinois, and served as a judicial clerk for Judge Beverly B. Martin on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. Additionally, she taught as an adjunct professor at the Georgia State University College of Law.
Simon earned her law degree magna cum laude from the Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law and obtained her Bachelor of Music magna cum laude and her Master of Education from Vanderbilt University.
She is an active member of the American Bankruptcy Institute, where she serves as a member of the ABI Diversity Working Group. She previously served as vice chair and community service co-chair for the Georgia Network of the International Women's Insolvency & Restructuring Confederation and as vice president of the board of directors of the Georgia Latino Law Foundation.
President, Harned Strategies LLC
Karen Harned is President at Harned Strategies LLC. Previously, she served as Executive Director of the National Federation of Independent Business Small Business Legal Center, a post she held from 2002-2022. Prior to joining the Legal Center, Ms. Harned was an attorney at a Washington, D.C. law firm specializing in food and drug law, where she represented several small and large businesses and their respective trade associations before Congress and federal agencies. She also served as Assistant Press Secretary to U.S. Senator Don Nickles of Oklahoma from August of 1989 to March of 1993. Ms. Harned received her B.A. from the University of Oklahoma in 1989 and her J.D. from The George Washington University National Law Center in 1995. She is admitted to practice in the District of Columbia.
As Executive Director of the NFIB Small Business Legal Center, Ms. Harned commented regularly on small business cases before federal and state courts, as well as the U.S. Supreme Court. She has appeared on Fox News, Fox Business, NBC Nightly News, CNN, CNBC and MSNBC, as well as National Public Radio, CBS Radio, and radio outlets across the country. Her opinion editorials and articles regarding healthcare, lawsuit abuse, regulation, and other issues important to small business have been published in newspapers and other publications nationwide.
Ms. Harned has testified before Congress on the small business impact of regulation and the civil justice system. Additionally, she has conducted numerous webinars and legal compliance seminars for small business owners across the country on issues relating to employment law, including unionization and immigration.
Senior Fellow, Stand Together Trust
Vikrant Reddy is a senior fellow at Stand Together Trust, specializing in the area of criminal justice reform. Reddy previously served as a senior policy analyst at the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF), where he managed the launch of TPPF’s national Right on Crime initiative in 2010. He has worked as a research assistant at the Cato Institute, as a judicial clerk to the Hon. Gina M. Benavides in Texas, and as an attorney in private practice. He is a member of the State Bar of Texas, and he serves on the Executive Committee of the Criminal Law Practice Group of the Federalist Society. He is also an appointee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights Texas State Advisory Committee.
Reddy’s research and scholarly opinions have appeared in a range of national media outlets, including USA Today, National Review, The Federalist, and others.
Reddy earned his law degree from the Southern Methodist University School of Law. He received his undergraduate degree from the University of Texas at Austin.
Counsel, Becket Fund for Religious Liberty
Amanda Salz is counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, where her practice focuses on First Amendment litigation at both the trial and appellate levels. She is also a member of the Federalist Society’s Religious Liberties Executive Committee.
Before joining Becket, Amanda worked as an associate at Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP. As a member of the firm’s appellate group, Amanda litigated many cases involving constitutional and administrative issues. In addition to her experience in private practice, Amanda clerked for the Honorable Andrew S. Oldham of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and the Honorable Reed C. O’Connor of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas.
Managing Director, Banking Supervision and Regulation Group, Patomak Global Partners
Brian Johnson is Managing Director in the Banking Supervision and Regulation Group at Patomak Global Partners.
In this role, Mr. Johnson spearheads projects related to the regulation of consumer financial products under Keith Noreika, Executive Vice President and Chairman of the Banking Supervision and Regulation Group and former acting Comptroller of the Currency.
Prior to joining Patomak, Mr. Johnson was a partner in Alston & Bird LLP’s financial services and products group. There, he advised financial institutions on consumer finance regulatory issues relating to product compliance, examination, enforcement investigations, and compliance management systems, and on strategic engagement with independent federal regulatory agencies and with Congress.
Mr. Johnson previously served as Deputy Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), where he oversaw the agency’s rulemaking, supervision, and enforcement activities. He conceived and led the creation of high-profile agency initiatives, including the Office of Innovation, Taskforce on Federal Consumer Financial Law, policy symposia series, and Start Small, Save Up emergency savings program. He also served as the CFPB representative to the Financial Stability Oversight Council Deputies’ Committee and advised on interagency matters involving the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council.
Mr. Johnson held various positions on Capitol Hill, including policy director and chief financial institutions counsel on the House Committee on Financial Services, where his portfolio covered consumer protection and credit, mortgage origination, credit reporting, banking, and data security. His efforts on the committee involved drafting legislation to provide regulatory relief to bank, credit union, and nondepository financial institutions, as well as conducting oversight of the activities of the CFPB, Financial Stability Oversight Council, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Office of Financial Research, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Federal Reserve System, and National Credit Union Administration.
Mr. Johnson received his juris doctorate from the University of Virginia School of Law and his bachelor’s in economics from the University of Virginia.
Constitutional Scholarship Director and Senior Legal Analyst, Pacific Legal Foundation
Anastasia Boden is Director of Constitutional Scholarship at Pacific Legal Foundation, where she leads the organization’s Supreme Court commentary and directs scholarly analysis in support of the firm’s litigation. She has represented entrepreneurs and small businesses nationwide in challenges to onerous licensing regimes, anti-competitive titling restrictions, Certificate of Need (“competitor’s veto”) laws, and other forms of unnecessary red tape that block economic opportunity.
Prior to this role, Anastasia developed nearly a dozen constitutional challenges to Certificate of Need laws across the country, helping spur legislative reform in Montana, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. Her victories include a ruling invalidating Houston’s busking restrictions, multiple appellate decisions expanding access to the courts for civil rights plaintiffs, and the legislative repeal of Virginia’s happy-hour advertising ban.
Her writings on law and liberty have been featured in USA Today, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, Forbes, and more, and she has appeared on Headline News, CBS News, Fox News, ReasonTV, Newsmax, and John Stossel. In 2020, she was featured on Libertarian Party presidential candidate Jo Jorgensen’s Supreme Court shortlist.
Anastasia earned her BA with dean’s honors from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and her JD from Georgetown University Law Center, where she was research assistant to Professor Randy E. Barnett—the “intellectual godfather” of the constitutional challenge to Obamacare. She is the co-creator of the podcast Dissed, about infamous Supreme Court dissents. She authors the biweekly newsletter SCOTUS Scoop and the column, “In Dissent” for SCOTUSblog.
Retired
Tom Gede retired in 2023 as a principal in Morgan Lewis Consulting LLC and of counsel to the firm. He currently consults on a variety of legal and policy matters for both public and private clients. Tom has a national reputation and distinguished background in federal Indian law. Prior to retirement, he represented clients in complex governmental matters in litigation, administrative and regulatory proceedings, including high-profile matters involving state governments. A former senior deputy in the California Attorney General’s office, Tom was amicus coordinator and Supreme Court counsel, and argued cases in the US Supreme Court, the California Supreme Court, and numerous state and federal appellate courts.
Tom also served as executive director of the Conference of Western Attorneys General (CWAG), coordinating activities on key legal and policy issues, such as federal Indian law, energy, environmental, public lands, financial services, and telecommunications, for the attorneys general of 18 western states and territories. In 2016, Tom was elected as a Member of the American Law Institute (ALI), and served as an Adviser on the Restatement of the Law Third - The Law of American Indians. Tom also taught federal Indian law as an adjunct law professor at the University of the Pacific - McGeorge School of Law. He served as an assistant editor for and the author of the Indian gaming chapter in CWAG’s American Indian Law Deskbook (2d & 3d eds.). He has been engaged in Indian gaming and Indian law matters for more than three decades, having focused on the gaming compacts with Indian tribes, as well as complex civil and criminal jurisdiction, land, natural resources, water and law enforcement issues in Indian country. He has testified before Congress on American Indian and Native Alaskan issues. In 2012 he was appointed by Speaker John Boehner to serve on the United States Indian Law and Order Commission, where he examined criminal justice issues in Indian country and Alaska, resulting in the issuance of an important report to the President and Congress.
Principal, Sharon Fast Gustafson, Attorney at Law, PLC
SHARON FAST GUSTAFSON is the immediate past General Counsel of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), where she enforced Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act.
Ms. Gustafson graduated with honors from Georgetown Law Center in 1991 and has concentrated her practice in employment law. She worked for four years in the labor and employment law group at Jones, Day in Washington, D.C. Since that time, she has had a broad-based solo practice advising and representing employers and employees in handling all aspects of the employment relationship, in compliance with federal and state workplace laws, and in designing and implementing sound employment policies and practices.
Ms. Gustafson is an experienced litigator in federal and state courts; before administrative agencies, including the EEOC, state and local civil rights offices, and the Department of Labor (DOL) Wage and Hour Division; and in mediation and arbitration. She is admitted to practice in state and federal courts in Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia, and in the United States Supreme Court.
Ms. Gustafson successfully litigated a pregnancy discrimination case, Young v. UPS, 575 U.S. 206 (2015), from EEOC intake to a successful outcome at the U.S. Supreme Court. In 2016, she received the Metropolitan Washington Employment Lawyers Association’s “Lawyer of the Year” award “in recognition of outstanding dedication to Civil Rights, Equality, and Justice.”
Ms. Gustafson represents both employers and employees in matters relating to employment law.
Senior Staff Attorney, Speech, Privacy & Technology Project, ACLU
Brian Hauss is a senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy & Technology Project, where he focuses on free expression issues. Since joining the ACLU in 2012, he has litigated cases defending the First Amendment rights of writers, journalists, media organizations, activists, advocacy groups, labor unions and private citizens. He has authored or co-authored numerous Supreme Court amicus curiae briefs on behalf of the ACLU and other groups. He also regularly discusses First Amendment issues in the media and at law schools throughout the country. Brian was a 2021-22 Wasserstein Public Interest Fellow at Harvard Law School. He is a graduate of Yale University and Harvard Law School and served as a law clerk to the Hon. Marsha S. Berzon of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
ILYA SOMIN is Professor of Law at George Mason University and the B. Kenneth Simon Chair in Constitutional Studies at the Cato Institute. His research focuses on constitutional law, property law, democratic theory, federalism, and migration rights. He is the author of Free to Move: Foot Voting, Migration, and Political Freedom (Oxford University Press, revised and expanded edition, 2022), Democracy and Political Ignorance: Why Smaller Government is Smarter (Stanford University Press, revised and expanded second edition, 2016), and The Grasping Hand: Kelo v. City of New London and the Limits of Eminent Domain (University of Chicago Press, 2015, rev. paperback ed., 2016), coauthor of A Conspiracy Against Obamacare: The Volokh Conspiracy and the Health Care Case (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), and co-editor of Eminent Domain: A Comparative Perspective (Cambridge University Press, 2017). Democracy and Political Ignorance has been translated into Italian and Japanese.
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 popular Volokh Conspiracy law 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.
Constitutional Scholarship Director and Senior Legal Analyst, Pacific Legal Foundation
Anastasia Boden is Director of Constitutional Scholarship at Pacific Legal Foundation, where she leads the organization’s Supreme Court commentary and directs scholarly analysis in support of the firm’s litigation. She has represented entrepreneurs and small businesses nationwide in challenges to onerous licensing regimes, anti-competitive titling restrictions, Certificate of Need (“competitor’s veto”) laws, and other forms of unnecessary red tape that block economic opportunity.
Prior to this role, Anastasia developed nearly a dozen constitutional challenges to Certificate of Need laws across the country, helping spur legislative reform in Montana, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. Her victories include a ruling invalidating Houston’s busking restrictions, multiple appellate decisions expanding access to the courts for civil rights plaintiffs, and the legislative repeal of Virginia’s happy-hour advertising ban.
Her writings on law and liberty have been featured in USA Today, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, Forbes, and more, and she has appeared on Headline News, CBS News, Fox News, ReasonTV, Newsmax, and John Stossel. In 2020, she was featured on Libertarian Party presidential candidate Jo Jorgensen’s Supreme Court shortlist.
Anastasia earned her BA with dean’s honors from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and her JD from Georgetown University Law Center, where she was research assistant to Professor Randy E. Barnett—the “intellectual godfather” of the constitutional challenge to Obamacare. She is the co-creator of the podcast Dissed, about infamous Supreme Court dissents. She authors the biweekly newsletter SCOTUS Scoop and the column, “In Dissent” for SCOTUSblog.
Retired
Tom Gede retired in 2023 as a principal in Morgan Lewis Consulting LLC and of counsel to the firm. He currently consults on a variety of legal and policy matters for both public and private clients. Tom has a national reputation and distinguished background in federal Indian law. Prior to retirement, he represented clients in complex governmental matters in litigation, administrative and regulatory proceedings, including high-profile matters involving state governments. A former senior deputy in the California Attorney General’s office, Tom was amicus coordinator and Supreme Court counsel, and argued cases in the US Supreme Court, the California Supreme Court, and numerous state and federal appellate courts.
Tom also served as executive director of the Conference of Western Attorneys General (CWAG), coordinating activities on key legal and policy issues, such as federal Indian law, energy, environmental, public lands, financial services, and telecommunications, for the attorneys general of 18 western states and territories. In 2016, Tom was elected as a Member of the American Law Institute (ALI), and served as an Adviser on the Restatement of the Law Third - The Law of American Indians. Tom also taught federal Indian law as an adjunct law professor at the University of the Pacific - McGeorge School of Law. He served as an assistant editor for and the author of the Indian gaming chapter in CWAG’s American Indian Law Deskbook (2d & 3d eds.). He has been engaged in Indian gaming and Indian law matters for more than three decades, having focused on the gaming compacts with Indian tribes, as well as complex civil and criminal jurisdiction, land, natural resources, water and law enforcement issues in Indian country. He has testified before Congress on American Indian and Native Alaskan issues. In 2012 he was appointed by Speaker John Boehner to serve on the United States Indian Law and Order Commission, where he examined criminal justice issues in Indian country and Alaska, resulting in the issuance of an important report to the President and Congress.
Principal, Sharon Fast Gustafson, Attorney at Law, PLC
SHARON FAST GUSTAFSON is the immediate past General Counsel of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), where she enforced Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act.
Ms. Gustafson graduated with honors from Georgetown Law Center in 1991 and has concentrated her practice in employment law. She worked for four years in the labor and employment law group at Jones, Day in Washington, D.C. Since that time, she has had a broad-based solo practice advising and representing employers and employees in handling all aspects of the employment relationship, in compliance with federal and state workplace laws, and in designing and implementing sound employment policies and practices.
Ms. Gustafson is an experienced litigator in federal and state courts; before administrative agencies, including the EEOC, state and local civil rights offices, and the Department of Labor (DOL) Wage and Hour Division; and in mediation and arbitration. She is admitted to practice in state and federal courts in Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia, and in the United States Supreme Court.
Ms. Gustafson successfully litigated a pregnancy discrimination case, Young v. UPS, 575 U.S. 206 (2015), from EEOC intake to a successful outcome at the U.S. Supreme Court. In 2016, she received the Metropolitan Washington Employment Lawyers Association’s “Lawyer of the Year” award “in recognition of outstanding dedication to Civil Rights, Equality, and Justice.”
Ms. Gustafson represents both employers and employees in matters relating to employment law.
Senior Staff Attorney, Speech, Privacy & Technology Project, ACLU
Brian Hauss is a senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy & Technology Project, where he focuses on free expression issues. Since joining the ACLU in 2012, he has litigated cases defending the First Amendment rights of writers, journalists, media organizations, activists, advocacy groups, labor unions and private citizens. He has authored or co-authored numerous Supreme Court amicus curiae briefs on behalf of the ACLU and other groups. He also regularly discusses First Amendment issues in the media and at law schools throughout the country. Brian was a 2021-22 Wasserstein Public Interest Fellow at Harvard Law School. He is a graduate of Yale University and Harvard Law School and served as a law clerk to the Hon. Marsha S. Berzon of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
ILYA SOMIN is Professor of Law at George Mason University and the B. Kenneth Simon Chair in Constitutional Studies at the Cato Institute. His research focuses on constitutional law, property law, democratic theory, federalism, and migration rights. He is the author of Free to Move: Foot Voting, Migration, and Political Freedom (Oxford University Press, revised and expanded edition, 2022), Democracy and Political Ignorance: Why Smaller Government is Smarter (Stanford University Press, revised and expanded second edition, 2016), and The Grasping Hand: Kelo v. City of New London and the Limits of Eminent Domain (University of Chicago Press, 2015, rev. paperback ed., 2016), coauthor of A Conspiracy Against Obamacare: The Volokh Conspiracy and the Health Care Case (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), and co-editor of Eminent Domain: A Comparative Perspective (Cambridge University Press, 2017). Democracy and Political Ignorance has been translated into Italian and Japanese.
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 popular Volokh Conspiracy law 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.