George Mason University Foundation Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
TODD J. ZYWICKI is George Mason University Foundation Professor of Law at Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University and Research Fellow of the George Mason Law and Economics Center. During the Fall 2023 semester he served as the Visiting Scholar in Conservative Thought and Policy for the Bruce Benson Center for the Study of Western Civilization at the University of Colorado-Boulder. From 2020-2021 he was Chair of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Taskforce on Federal Consumer Financial Law. In 2021 he was inducted to the American College of Consumer Financial Services Lawyers. He is also a Senior Fellow of the F.A. Hayek Program for the Advanced Study of Politics, Philosophy, and Economics at George Mason University and a former Senior Fellow of the Cato Institute. From 2015-2017 he was Executive Director of the George Mason Law and Economics Center. He served as Co-Editor of the Supreme Court Economic Review from 2006-2017. From 2003-2004, Professor Zywicki served as the Director of the Office of Policy Planning at the Federal Trade Commission. He has also taught at Vanderbilt University Law School, Georgetown University Law Center, Boston College Law School, Mississippi College School of Law, and China University of Political Science and Law.
Professor Zywicki clerked for Judge Jerry E. Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and worked as an associate at Alston & Bird in Atlanta, Georgia, where he practiced bankruptcy and commercial law. He received his J.D. from the University of Virginia, where he was executive editor of the Virginia Tax Review and John M. Olin Scholar in Law and Economics. Professor Zywicki also received an M.A. in Economics from Clemson University and an A.B. cum Laude with high honors in his major from Dartmouth College.
Professor Zywicki is also a Lone Mountain Fellow of the Property and Environment Research Center, a Fellow of the International Centre for Economic Research in Turin, Italy, and a former Senior Fellow of the Goldwater Institute. During the Fall 2008 Semester Professor Zywicki was the Searle Fellow of the George Mason University School of Law and was a 2008-09 W. Glenn Campbell and Rita Ricardo-Campbell National Fellow and the Arch W. Shaw National Fellow at the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace. He has lectured and consulted with government officials around the world, including Iceland, Italy, Japan, and Guatemala. In 2006 Professor Zywicki served as a Member of the United States Department of Justice Study Group on “Identifying Fraud, Abuse and Errors in the United States Bankruptcy System.”
Professor Zywicki is the author of more than 130 articles in leading law reviews and peer-reviewed economics journals. He is one of the Top 10 most-cited law professors in the field of Commercial Law and one of the Top 25 law professors on Twitter as measured by engagement levels. He is one of the Top 50 Most Downloaded Law Authors at the Social Science Research Network. He has testified multiple times before Congress on issues of consumer bankruptcy law and consumer credit and is a frequent commentator on legal issues in the print and broadcast media, including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, The Washington Post, The Washington Times, Nightline, The Newshour with Jim Lehrer, Neil Cavuto Show, Fox & Friends, Smerconish, Fox News @ Night with Shannon Bream, Fox Business, CNN, CNBC, Bloomberg News, BBC, The Diane Rehm Show, Lou Dobbs Show, Jerry Doyle Show, and The Laura Ingraham Show.
Professor Zywicki is former Chairman and a current member of the Board of Directors of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and is a member of the Board of Directors of the Institute for Humane Studies, Bill of Rights Institute, the Executive Committee for the Federalist Society's Financial Institutions and E-Commerce Practice Group, the Board of Trustees of the Foundation for Research on Economics and the Environment. He formerly served on the Governing Board and the Advisory Council for the Financial Services Research Program at George Washington University School of Business. He is currently the Chair of the Academic Advisory Council for the following organizations: The Bill of Rights Institute, the film “We the People in IMAX,” and the McCormick-Tribune Foundation “Freedom Museum” in Chicago, Illinois. He is a member of the Board of Visitors of Ralston College and was a member of the Board of Trustees of Yorktown University. From 2005-2009 he served as an elected Alumni Trustee of the Dartmouth College Board of Trustees.
George Mason University Foundation Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
TODD J. ZYWICKI is George Mason University Foundation Professor of Law at Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University and Research Fellow of the George Mason Law and Economics Center. During the Fall 2023 semester he served as the Visiting Scholar in Conservative Thought and Policy for the Bruce Benson Center for the Study of Western Civilization at the University of Colorado-Boulder. From 2020-2021 he was Chair of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Taskforce on Federal Consumer Financial Law. In 2021 he was inducted to the American College of Consumer Financial Services Lawyers. He is also a Senior Fellow of the F.A. Hayek Program for the Advanced Study of Politics, Philosophy, and Economics at George Mason University and a former Senior Fellow of the Cato Institute. From 2015-2017 he was Executive Director of the George Mason Law and Economics Center. He served as Co-Editor of the Supreme Court Economic Review from 2006-2017. From 2003-2004, Professor Zywicki served as the Director of the Office of Policy Planning at the Federal Trade Commission. He has also taught at Vanderbilt University Law School, Georgetown University Law Center, Boston College Law School, Mississippi College School of Law, and China University of Political Science and Law.
Professor Zywicki clerked for Judge Jerry E. Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and worked as an associate at Alston & Bird in Atlanta, Georgia, where he practiced bankruptcy and commercial law. He received his J.D. from the University of Virginia, where he was executive editor of the Virginia Tax Review and John M. Olin Scholar in Law and Economics. Professor Zywicki also received an M.A. in Economics from Clemson University and an A.B. cum Laude with high honors in his major from Dartmouth College.
Professor Zywicki is also a Lone Mountain Fellow of the Property and Environment Research Center, a Fellow of the International Centre for Economic Research in Turin, Italy, and a former Senior Fellow of the Goldwater Institute. During the Fall 2008 Semester Professor Zywicki was the Searle Fellow of the George Mason University School of Law and was a 2008-09 W. Glenn Campbell and Rita Ricardo-Campbell National Fellow and the Arch W. Shaw National Fellow at the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace. He has lectured and consulted with government officials around the world, including Iceland, Italy, Japan, and Guatemala. In 2006 Professor Zywicki served as a Member of the United States Department of Justice Study Group on “Identifying Fraud, Abuse and Errors in the United States Bankruptcy System.”
Professor Zywicki is the author of more than 130 articles in leading law reviews and peer-reviewed economics journals. He is one of the Top 10 most-cited law professors in the field of Commercial Law and one of the Top 25 law professors on Twitter as measured by engagement levels. He is one of the Top 50 Most Downloaded Law Authors at the Social Science Research Network. He has testified multiple times before Congress on issues of consumer bankruptcy law and consumer credit and is a frequent commentator on legal issues in the print and broadcast media, including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, The Washington Post, The Washington Times, Nightline, The Newshour with Jim Lehrer, Neil Cavuto Show, Fox & Friends, Smerconish, Fox News @ Night with Shannon Bream, Fox Business, CNN, CNBC, Bloomberg News, BBC, The Diane Rehm Show, Lou Dobbs Show, Jerry Doyle Show, and The Laura Ingraham Show.
Professor Zywicki is former Chairman and a current member of the Board of Directors of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and is a member of the Board of Directors of the Institute for Humane Studies, Bill of Rights Institute, the Executive Committee for the Federalist Society's Financial Institutions and E-Commerce Practice Group, the Board of Trustees of the Foundation for Research on Economics and the Environment. He formerly served on the Governing Board and the Advisory Council for the Financial Services Research Program at George Washington University School of Business. He is currently the Chair of the Academic Advisory Council for the following organizations: The Bill of Rights Institute, the film “We the People in IMAX,” and the McCormick-Tribune Foundation “Freedom Museum” in Chicago, Illinois. He is a member of the Board of Visitors of Ralston College and was a member of the Board of Trustees of Yorktown University. From 2005-2009 he served as an elected Alumni Trustee of the Dartmouth College Board of Trustees.
Founding Partner, Compton Jones Dresher LLP
Paul Compton is a founding partner of Compton Jones Dresher, a law practice based in Birmingham, Alabama that focuses on transactional and regulatory matters for clients in the real estate, financial services and community bank industries. Paul’s practice especially involves affordable housing and tax credit supported community development projects. He is currently a member of the Housing Advisory Council of the Bipartisan Policy Center. He is an adjunct Professor at the University of Alabama School of Law and a member of the Board of Directors of the Alabama Affordable Housing Association.
From 2018 to 2020 Paul served as General Counsel of the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, Washington, D.C. In that capacity he also served on the Federal Housing Administration Mortgagee Review Board and Mortgage Risk Review Council.
Before Paul’s service at HUD he was a partner and member of the managing board of Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP in its Birmingham office.
Paul is a graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law and the University of Alabama. He attended the London School of Economics and Political Science and is a Truman Scholar.
Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights, U.S. Department of Agriculture
Devon Westhill is the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The U.S. Senate confirmed President Donald Trump’s nomination of Westhill on October 7, 2025.
Westhill returns to the USDA where he previously headed the civil rights office as Deputy Assistant Secretary in President Trump’s first term. His previous government appointments also include service at the U.S. Department of Labor, liaison to the Administrative Conference of the U.S., and liaison to the White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Prior to returning to government service, Westhill was President and General Counsel of a nonprofit civil rights organization.
Westhill has testified on civil rights matters before Congress, federal agencies, and as an expert witness in federal court. He has spoken hundreds of times at college campuses, conferences, and on radio and TV programs, and he is frequently quoted in print publications, and his writing has appeared in numerous national outlets. A U.S. Navy veteran, Westhill earned his BA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and his JD from the University of Florida.
General Counsel, National Fair Housing Alliance
Morgan Williams is responsible for leading NFHA’s strategic and tactical legal initiatives and affairs. Mr. Williams leads NFHA’s efforts to pursue pioneering litigation under the federal Fair Housing Act, often utilizing testing-based evidence and working in partnership with NFHA’s network of local fair housing centers. He coordinates NFHA’s actions to file amicus briefs to promote sound fair housing jurisprudence. Mr. Williams also provides training and technical support to local fair housing centers across the country on investigation and enforcement strategies, as well as training to housing providers and servicers on a range of complicated and emerging topics. In addition, he assists with NFHA’s federal public policy advocacy, in coordination with legislative offices and federal agencies, and helps local advocates address state and local legislative matters.
Professor of History, East Stroudsburg University
Dr. Brooks is currently professor of history at East Stroudsburg University, where he teaches several courses, including African Americans and the Courts and US Constitutional History and Law and other courses in legal history. Further to his work at ESU, he is also a founding member and vice president of the Harrisburg lawyers' chapter of the Federalist Society.
Professor Brooks received his BA and MA in US History from East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania. He then received a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholarship to Edinburgh University (Scotland), where he studied British influences on the US judiciary. He completed his doctoral work at Kassel University (Germany). There he worked on the international “Modern Constitutionalism” project, editing and translating constitutions from German to English and English to German. His doctoral work there focused in particular on eleventh amendment sovereignty issues and law during the US founding era.
While in Germany, Prof. Brooks was an active member of the Center for North American Research, where he focused on constitutional and legal history, especially as it pertained to jurisprudential matters. He ran a solo business where he trained attorneys in several mid- to large-sized German and international law firms in legal English and communication. Prof. Brooks also did legal translation for many firms and for Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court, that nation’s highest court. Two books resulting from his work there include German Employment Law: 618 Questions Frequently Asked by Foreigners (2014) and Expats in Germany - Inbound and Outbound: Questions Frequently Asked by Foreigners (2017).
Current areas of research include state appellate judicial selection reform, early black attorneys, and comparative employment law.
Dr. Brooks has also written extensively Real Clear Politics, Real Clear Pennsylvania, and Allentown’s The Morning Call. His work has also appeared in New York Daily News, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, and The Hill.
Research Scholar in Law and Executive Director, Center for Academic Freedom and Free Speech, Yale Law School
Joe Cohn is a research scholar in law at Yale Law school and the executive director of the Center for Academic Freedom and Free Speech (CAFFS).
Cohn has served as a staff attorney at the AIDS Law Project of Pennsylvania, a staff attorney for the Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit, an adjunct professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where he supervised law students representing clients in litigation in state and federal courts, and as the interim legal director for ACLU affiliates in Nevada and Utah.
A majority of Cohn’s career has been dedicated to defending civil liberties on college campuses and free expression in society at large. As the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression’s (FIRE’s) founding legislative and policy director, from 2012 to 2023, he testified on numerous occasions in legislatures across America and in Congress, drafted legislation on campus free speech, campus due process, and academic freedom that has been enacted in states across the country. Immediately before joining CAFFS, Cohn advocated for open inquiry, viewpoint diversity, and constructive disagreement in higher education as Heterodox Academy’s director of policy.
Cohn writes extensively on civil liberties, with articles published in a wide array of media outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, Newsweek, the Hill, the New York Daily News, the Chicago Tribune, the Las Vegas Review Journal, the Minnesota Star Tribune, the Chronicle of Higher Education, Inside Higher Ed, and the Volokh Conspiracy.
He earned his bachelor of arts from the University of Nevada at Las Vegas in 2000. He is a 2004 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Carey School of Law and the Fels Institute of Government Administration, where he earned his J.D. and M.A. in Government Administration.
Counsel, Consovoy McCarthy PLLC
Ms. Meehan represents clients in all phases of litigation, with a focus on constitutional litigation and appellate matters. She has assisted clients on a broad range of matters, including those involving constitutional issues, the interpretation of federal statutes and regulations, contractual disputes and other complex commercial issues.
Ms. Meehan has served as a court-appointed amicus curiae for the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals in an en banc appeal involving the federal habeas statute. She has successfully petitioned the Seventh Circuit to halt the deposition of a high-ranking public official, and she has served as trial counsel in related redistricting litigation. Previously, Ms. Meehan was a partner at Bartlit Beck, where she served as trial and appellate counsel for a variety of complex commercial disputes, patent disputes, and cases involving constitutional claims.
Ms. Meehan is a former law clerk to Justice Antonin Scalia and Justice Clarence Thomas of the U.S. Supreme Court and Judge William H. Pryor Jr. of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. She graduated with high honors from the University of Chicago Law School, where she was selected for Order of the Coif and served as Managing Editor of the Law Review. Ms. Meehan is also a graduate, summa cum laude, from the University of Missouri School of Journalism. Ms. Meehan is located in Illinois and is a member of the Illinois and District of Columbia bars. Her application to the Virginia bar is pending.
Legal Fellow, Center for the Separation of Powers, Pacific Legal Foundation
Alison Somin joined Pacific Legal Foundation in May 2020 as a legal fellow in the Center for the Separation of Powers and part of the equality before the law practice group.
Before joining the Pacific Legal Foundation team, Alison was a special assistant and counsel for over a decade to Gail Heriot, a member of the bipartisan United States Commission on Civil Rights. She also has deep roots in the liberty movement. Alison was a Koch Associate at the National Federation for Independent Business Legal Foundation and, during law school, completed summer clerkships at the Institute for Justice and the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation. She holds a J.D. from Emory University School of Law and an A.B. in history from Dartmouth College.
Her work has been published in the San Francisco Chronicle, the Daily Journal, Texas Journal of Law and Politics, and The Federalist Society’s Engage magazine and blog.
She lives in northern Virginia with her husband Ilya; two children; and golden retriever Willow. In her spare time, she enjoys reading, baking and cooking, children’s art projects, and training and exercising Willow.
Professor of History, East Stroudsburg University
Dr. Brooks is currently professor of history at East Stroudsburg University, where he teaches several courses, including African Americans and the Courts and US Constitutional History and Law and other courses in legal history. Further to his work at ESU, he is also a founding member and vice president of the Harrisburg lawyers' chapter of the Federalist Society.
Professor Brooks received his BA and MA in US History from East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania. He then received a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholarship to Edinburgh University (Scotland), where he studied British influences on the US judiciary. He completed his doctoral work at Kassel University (Germany). There he worked on the international “Modern Constitutionalism” project, editing and translating constitutions from German to English and English to German. His doctoral work there focused in particular on eleventh amendment sovereignty issues and law during the US founding era.
While in Germany, Prof. Brooks was an active member of the Center for North American Research, where he focused on constitutional and legal history, especially as it pertained to jurisprudential matters. He ran a solo business where he trained attorneys in several mid- to large-sized German and international law firms in legal English and communication. Prof. Brooks also did legal translation for many firms and for Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court, that nation’s highest court. Two books resulting from his work there include German Employment Law: 618 Questions Frequently Asked by Foreigners (2014) and Expats in Germany - Inbound and Outbound: Questions Frequently Asked by Foreigners (2017).
Current areas of research include state appellate judicial selection reform, early black attorneys, and comparative employment law.
Dr. Brooks has also written extensively Real Clear Politics, Real Clear Pennsylvania, and Allentown’s The Morning Call. His work has also appeared in New York Daily News, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, and The Hill.
Research Scholar in Law and Executive Director, Center for Academic Freedom and Free Speech, Yale Law School
Joe Cohn is a research scholar in law at Yale Law school and the executive director of the Center for Academic Freedom and Free Speech (CAFFS).
Cohn has served as a staff attorney at the AIDS Law Project of Pennsylvania, a staff attorney for the Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit, an adjunct professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where he supervised law students representing clients in litigation in state and federal courts, and as the interim legal director for ACLU affiliates in Nevada and Utah.
A majority of Cohn’s career has been dedicated to defending civil liberties on college campuses and free expression in society at large. As the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression’s (FIRE’s) founding legislative and policy director, from 2012 to 2023, he testified on numerous occasions in legislatures across America and in Congress, drafted legislation on campus free speech, campus due process, and academic freedom that has been enacted in states across the country. Immediately before joining CAFFS, Cohn advocated for open inquiry, viewpoint diversity, and constructive disagreement in higher education as Heterodox Academy’s director of policy.
Cohn writes extensively on civil liberties, with articles published in a wide array of media outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, Newsweek, the Hill, the New York Daily News, the Chicago Tribune, the Las Vegas Review Journal, the Minnesota Star Tribune, the Chronicle of Higher Education, Inside Higher Ed, and the Volokh Conspiracy.
He earned his bachelor of arts from the University of Nevada at Las Vegas in 2000. He is a 2004 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Carey School of Law and the Fels Institute of Government Administration, where he earned his J.D. and M.A. in Government Administration.
Counsel, Consovoy McCarthy PLLC
Ms. Meehan represents clients in all phases of litigation, with a focus on constitutional litigation and appellate matters. She has assisted clients on a broad range of matters, including those involving constitutional issues, the interpretation of federal statutes and regulations, contractual disputes and other complex commercial issues.
Ms. Meehan has served as a court-appointed amicus curiae for the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals in an en banc appeal involving the federal habeas statute. She has successfully petitioned the Seventh Circuit to halt the deposition of a high-ranking public official, and she has served as trial counsel in related redistricting litigation. Previously, Ms. Meehan was a partner at Bartlit Beck, where she served as trial and appellate counsel for a variety of complex commercial disputes, patent disputes, and cases involving constitutional claims.
Ms. Meehan is a former law clerk to Justice Antonin Scalia and Justice Clarence Thomas of the U.S. Supreme Court and Judge William H. Pryor Jr. of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. She graduated with high honors from the University of Chicago Law School, where she was selected for Order of the Coif and served as Managing Editor of the Law Review. Ms. Meehan is also a graduate, summa cum laude, from the University of Missouri School of Journalism. Ms. Meehan is located in Illinois and is a member of the Illinois and District of Columbia bars. Her application to the Virginia bar is pending.
Legal Fellow, Center for the Separation of Powers, Pacific Legal Foundation
Alison Somin joined Pacific Legal Foundation in May 2020 as a legal fellow in the Center for the Separation of Powers and part of the equality before the law practice group.
Before joining the Pacific Legal Foundation team, Alison was a special assistant and counsel for over a decade to Gail Heriot, a member of the bipartisan United States Commission on Civil Rights. She also has deep roots in the liberty movement. Alison was a Koch Associate at the National Federation for Independent Business Legal Foundation and, during law school, completed summer clerkships at the Institute for Justice and the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation. She holds a J.D. from Emory University School of Law and an A.B. in history from Dartmouth College.
Her work has been published in the San Francisco Chronicle, the Daily Journal, Texas Journal of Law and Politics, and The Federalist Society’s Engage magazine and blog.
She lives in northern Virginia with her husband Ilya; two children; and golden retriever Willow. In her spare time, she enjoys reading, baking and cooking, children’s art projects, and training and exercising Willow.
District Judge, State of Texas
Cory Liu is a state district judge in Austin, Texas. He previously served as assistant general counsel to Texas Governor Greg Abbott. Mr. Liu clerked for Judge Andrew Oldham on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and Judge Danny Boggs on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. He was Editor-in-Chief of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy and is a graduate of Harvard Law School and the University of Chicago.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Third Circuit
Judge Paul Matey was appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in 2019 by President Trump.
Before his judicial service, Judge Matey was a partner at Lowenstein Sandler in New Jersey where he practiced complex commercial litigation and criminal defense. Earlier, Judge Matey was the Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary for University Hospital Newark, an academic medical center and teaching hospital.
He also served as the Deputy Chief Counsel to Governor Chris Christie, and as an Assistant United States Attorney in the District of New Jersey, where he was awarded the Justice Department’s Director’s Award for Superior Performance. He also practiced at the Washington D.C. firm of Kellogg, Hansen, Todd, Figel & Frederick, and served as a law clerk to judges on the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit and the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey.
He earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Scranton, a Jesuit University, in 1993, and his juris doctorate, summa cum laude, from Seton Hall University School of Law in 2001, where he served as Editor-in-Chief of the Seton Hall Law Review.
In 2019, Judge Matey was elected to membership in the American Law Institute and, since 2020, has lectured on administrative law and the American legal history at Seton Hall.
Julius L. Chambers Distinguished Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Civil Rights, University of North Carolina School of Law
Theodore M. Shaw is the Julius L. Chambers Distinguished Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Civil Rights at the University of North Carolina School of Law at Chapel Hill. Professor Shaw teaches Civil Procedure and Advanced Constitutional Law/Fourteenth Amendment. Before joining the faculty of UNC Law School, from 2008-2014 Professor Shaw taught at Columbia University Law School, where he was Professor of Professional Practice. During that time he was also “Of Counsel” to the law firm of Norton Rose Fulbright (formerly Fulbright & Jaworski, LLP). His practice involved civil litigation and representation of institutional clients on matters concerning diversity and civil rights.
Professor Shaw was the fifth Director-Counsel and President of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., for which he worked in various capacities over the span of twenty-six years. He has litigated education, employment, voting rights, housing, police misconduct, capital punishment and other civil rights cases in trial and appellate courts, and in the United States Supreme Court.From 1982 until 1987, he litigated education, housing, and capital punishment cases and directed LDF's education litigation docket. In 1987, under the direction of LDF's third Director-Counsel, Julius Chambers, Mr. Shaw relocated to Los Angeles to establish LDF's Western Regional Office. In 1990, Mr. Shaw left LDF to join the faculty of the University of Michigan Law School, where he taught Constitutional Law, Civil Procedure and Civil Rights. While at Michigan, he played a key role in initiating a review of the law school's admissions practices and policies, and served on the faculty committee that promulgated the admissions program that was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2003 in Grutter v. Bollinger.
In 1993, Mr. Shaw returned to LDF as Associate Director-Counsel, and in 2004, he became LDF's fifth Director-Counsel. Mr. Shaw's legal career began as a Trial Attorney in the Honors Program of the United States Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division in Washington, D.C., where he worked from 1979 until 1982.
Mr. Shaw has testified on numerous occasions before Congress and before state and local legislatures. His human rights work has taken him to Africa, Asia, Europe, and South America. In addition to teaching at Columbia and at Michigan Law School, Professor Shaw held the 1997-1998 Haywood Burns Chair at CUNY School of Law at Queens College and the 2003 Phyllis Beck Chair at Temple Law School. He was a visiting scholar at the Constitution Center in Philadelphia in 2008-2009. He is a member of the faculty of the Practicing Law Institute (PLI).
Mr. Shaw served on the Obama Transition Team after the 2008 presidential election, as team leader for the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department.
Partner, Consovoy McCarthy Park PLLC
Mr. Strawbridge provides clients with advice and representation at the pre-litigation, trial, and appellate stages. He has represented a broad range of individual and institutional clients on matters of constitutional law, financial and securities regulation, environmental laws, complex commercial disputes, and consumer protection statutes. His experience includes arbitrations, trial and appellate litigation, and administrative and regulatory proceedings.
Mr. Strawbridge served as a law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, Judge Morris Sheppard Arnold of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, and Justice Howard Dana of the Supreme Judicial Court of Maine. Previously, Mr. Strawbridge was a partner at two large international law firms. He worked as a newspaper reporter for four years before attending law school. Mr. Strawbridge is an adjunct professor for the Supreme Court Clinic at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University.
Mr. Strawbridge earned a Bachelor of Journalism from the University of Missouri, and his J.D. summa cum laude from Creighton University School of Law. Mr. Strawbridge is a member of the Maine and Massachusetts bars.
District Judge, State of Texas
Cory Liu is a state district judge in Austin, Texas. He previously served as assistant general counsel to Texas Governor Greg Abbott. Mr. Liu clerked for Judge Andrew Oldham on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and Judge Danny Boggs on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. He was Editor-in-Chief of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy and is a graduate of Harvard Law School and the University of Chicago.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Third Circuit
Judge Paul Matey was appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in 2019 by President Trump.
Before his judicial service, Judge Matey was a partner at Lowenstein Sandler in New Jersey where he practiced complex commercial litigation and criminal defense. Earlier, Judge Matey was the Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary for University Hospital Newark, an academic medical center and teaching hospital.
He also served as the Deputy Chief Counsel to Governor Chris Christie, and as an Assistant United States Attorney in the District of New Jersey, where he was awarded the Justice Department’s Director’s Award for Superior Performance. He also practiced at the Washington D.C. firm of Kellogg, Hansen, Todd, Figel & Frederick, and served as a law clerk to judges on the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit and the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey.
He earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Scranton, a Jesuit University, in 1993, and his juris doctorate, summa cum laude, from Seton Hall University School of Law in 2001, where he served as Editor-in-Chief of the Seton Hall Law Review.
In 2019, Judge Matey was elected to membership in the American Law Institute and, since 2020, has lectured on administrative law and the American legal history at Seton Hall.
Julius L. Chambers Distinguished Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Civil Rights, University of North Carolina School of Law
Theodore M. Shaw is the Julius L. Chambers Distinguished Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Civil Rights at the University of North Carolina School of Law at Chapel Hill. Professor Shaw teaches Civil Procedure and Advanced Constitutional Law/Fourteenth Amendment. Before joining the faculty of UNC Law School, from 2008-2014 Professor Shaw taught at Columbia University Law School, where he was Professor of Professional Practice. During that time he was also “Of Counsel” to the law firm of Norton Rose Fulbright (formerly Fulbright & Jaworski, LLP). His practice involved civil litigation and representation of institutional clients on matters concerning diversity and civil rights.
Professor Shaw was the fifth Director-Counsel and President of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., for which he worked in various capacities over the span of twenty-six years. He has litigated education, employment, voting rights, housing, police misconduct, capital punishment and other civil rights cases in trial and appellate courts, and in the United States Supreme Court.From 1982 until 1987, he litigated education, housing, and capital punishment cases and directed LDF's education litigation docket. In 1987, under the direction of LDF's third Director-Counsel, Julius Chambers, Mr. Shaw relocated to Los Angeles to establish LDF's Western Regional Office. In 1990, Mr. Shaw left LDF to join the faculty of the University of Michigan Law School, where he taught Constitutional Law, Civil Procedure and Civil Rights. While at Michigan, he played a key role in initiating a review of the law school's admissions practices and policies, and served on the faculty committee that promulgated the admissions program that was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2003 in Grutter v. Bollinger.
In 1993, Mr. Shaw returned to LDF as Associate Director-Counsel, and in 2004, he became LDF's fifth Director-Counsel. Mr. Shaw's legal career began as a Trial Attorney in the Honors Program of the United States Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division in Washington, D.C., where he worked from 1979 until 1982.
Mr. Shaw has testified on numerous occasions before Congress and before state and local legislatures. His human rights work has taken him to Africa, Asia, Europe, and South America. In addition to teaching at Columbia and at Michigan Law School, Professor Shaw held the 1997-1998 Haywood Burns Chair at CUNY School of Law at Queens College and the 2003 Phyllis Beck Chair at Temple Law School. He was a visiting scholar at the Constitution Center in Philadelphia in 2008-2009. He is a member of the faculty of the Practicing Law Institute (PLI).
Mr. Shaw served on the Obama Transition Team after the 2008 presidential election, as team leader for the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department.
Partner, Consovoy McCarthy Park PLLC
Mr. Strawbridge provides clients with advice and representation at the pre-litigation, trial, and appellate stages. He has represented a broad range of individual and institutional clients on matters of constitutional law, financial and securities regulation, environmental laws, complex commercial disputes, and consumer protection statutes. His experience includes arbitrations, trial and appellate litigation, and administrative and regulatory proceedings.
Mr. Strawbridge served as a law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, Judge Morris Sheppard Arnold of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, and Justice Howard Dana of the Supreme Judicial Court of Maine. Previously, Mr. Strawbridge was a partner at two large international law firms. He worked as a newspaper reporter for four years before attending law school. Mr. Strawbridge is an adjunct professor for the Supreme Court Clinic at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University.
Mr. Strawbridge earned a Bachelor of Journalism from the University of Missouri, and his J.D. summa cum laude from Creighton University School of Law. Mr. Strawbridge is a member of the Maine and Massachusetts bars.
Professor of Law, American University; Washington College of Law
Robert Dinerstein is professor of law and director of the Disability Rights Law Clinic at American University Washington College of Law (AUWCL), where he has taught since 1983. His previous positions include serving as the law school's acting dean (2020-2021), associate dean for academic affairs from (1997-2004), associate dean for experiential education (2012-2018), and director of the clinical program (1988-96 and 2008-2018). He specializes in the fields of clinical education and disability law, especially mental disabilities law (including issues of consent/choice, capacity and supported decision-making and other alternatives to guardianship), the Americans with Disabilities Act, the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, legal representation of clients with mental disabilities, and disability and international human rights.
Dinerstein has made numerous presentations on clinical legal education and disability law, among other topics, and has published a number of books, articles, chapters and other writing on these subjects.
He is the author/editor of two books. He is co-editor and co-author, with the late Stanley Herr and Joan O’Sullivan, of A Guide to Consent (AAMR, 1999). He is co-author, with the late Stephen Ellmann, Isabelle Gunning, Kate Kruse and Ann Shalleck, of Lawyers and Clients: Critical Issues in Interviewing and Counseling (Thomson West 2009) and the accompanying Teacher’s Manual.
Among Dinerstein’s recent publications in the disability law area, he is the author of:
In the area of legal education and lawyering, his recent articles include “New Wine and New Bottles (on experiential legal education),” 44 Syllabus 2 (Winter 2012-13), Publication of ABA Section on Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar; as co-author (with Margaret Barry, Phyllis Goldfarb, Peggy Maisel and Linda Morton) “Exploring the Meaning of Experiential Deaning,” 67(3) Journal of Legal Education 660 (2018); and ‘The Clinical Law Review at 25: What Hath We Wrought?, 26(1) Clinical Law Review 147 (2019) (25th Anniversary Symposium Issue). He has written extensively on issues of clinical pedagogy and lawyering, in particular, client-centered counseling [especially in his article, “Client-Centered Counseling: Reappraisal and Refinement,” 32 Arizona L. Rev. 501 (1990).] He has also written and presented on the US Department of Justice’s record of enforcement of the rights of persons with disabilities under several administrations.
Dinerstein was appointed by President Clinton in 1994 to serve on the President's Committee on Mental Retardation (now called the President’s Committee on People with Intellectual Disabilities), on which he served until 2001. From 2018-2021, he was a commissioner on the ABA Commission on Disability Rights, and from 2021-present serves as the ABA Section on Civil Rights and Social Justice’s liaison to the Commission. Internationally, he has consulted for the World Health Organization (Ghana and Malawi) and the Open Society Foundations (Ghana and Zambia) regarding the revision of mental health laws and was a signatory to the Montreal Declaration on Intellectual Disabilities, adopted in Montreal, Canada in October 2004. He also has consulted with the Open Society Foundations regarding disability rights clinics and disability rights curricula in Latin America and Southern Africa. Domestically, he has consulted for the Ford Foundation, Public Welfare Foundation and the US Department of Health and Human Services and the US Department of Education on issues related to legal services, disability law and poverty law. He is the principal investigator for the Disability and Human Rights Fellows program, which receives support from the Open Society Foundations.
Prior to joining AUWCL, Dinerstein worked as an attorney in the U.S. Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division, Special Litigation Section, where he handled federal court cases on the rights of people in institutions for people with psychosocial disabilities, people with intellectual disabilities and juveniles. In addition to the Disability Rights Law Clinic, which he founded (and which handles special education, supported decision making, advance mental health directives, Titles I-III of the ADA, and other cases), he teaches a seminar on law and disability and has taught interviewing and counseling, legal ethics, the supervised externship seminar, and the criminal justice clinic (which he directed from 1989-1996).
Dinerstein is actively involved in organizations related to legal education nationally. He was a member (elected) of the Council of the American Bar Association Section on Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar (2006-2011), and previously was on the section’s Standards Review Committee, where he was vice chair. He has been a member of 17 ABA-AALS joint site inspection teams, chairing four teams. Within the Association of American Law Schools, he was a member of the membership review committee and has, among other things, chaired the sections on clinical legal education, law and community, disability law and law and mental disability law, as well as the committees on clinical legal education, sections and the annual meeting, and the planning committee for the 2006 clinical teachers’ conference. He has been a member of a number of other planning committees, including for the AALS New Teachers’ Conference.
Dinerstein currently sits on the boards of directors of the Equal Rights Center (president), and the New Hope Community, Inc. and Foundation, and in the past has served on the boards of the Quality Trust for Individuals with Disabilities, Inc. (founding board member & president, 2001-2016), Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless, Inc. (founding board member and long-term treasurer, 1986-2015), Advocates for Justice and Education (treasurer), the District of Columbia Bar Board of Governors (elected; 2002-05), Society of American Law Teachers (elected), Mental Disability Rights International (founding board member; now called Disability Rights International), Legal Counsel for the Elderly, and the Maryland Disability Law Center; and the steering committee for the Jacobus tenBroek annual disability law symposium sponsored by the National Federation of the Blind (founding member, and member until 2019).
Among his many awards and honors, Dinerstein has received the WCL Outstanding Service Award (2017-18); been named a Fellow of the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (2016) and received the Paul G. Hearne Award for Disability Rights (ABA, 2013); (with Ann Shalleck) the Egon Guttman Casebook Award (2011-12) for Lawyers and Clients; the William Pincus Award for his contributions to clinical legal education (2010); American University Awards for Scholar-Teacher of the Year (2013), Outstanding Teaching in a Full-Time Appointment (2009) and Faculty-Administrator Award for Outstanding Service to the University Community (2002); and the Pro Bono Service Award from the International Human Rights Law Group (1988).
He has an A.B. degree from Cornell University and a J.D. degree from Yale Law School. He is listed in Who's Who in America).
Founder, Chairman, and CEO, Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law
Hon. Kenneth L. Marcus is an internationally recognized expert in civil and human rights, as well as a leader in the fight against anti-Semitism on and off university campuses. He is the Founder, Chairman, and CEO of The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, the leading civil rights legal organization fighting against anti-Semitism. The New York Times has called him “The Man Who Helped Redefine Campus Anti-Semitism.” He been described, in that paper, as “the single most effective and respected force” to combat anti-Semitism.
During his public service career, Marcus served as Assistant U.S. Secretary of Education for Civil Rights; Staff Director at the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights; and General Deputy Assistant U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity.
In academia, he serves as Professorial Lecturer in Law at George Washington University. He formerly held the Lillie and Nathan Ackerman Chair in Equality and Justice in America at the City University of New York’s Bernard M. Baruch College, served as Visiting Research Professor of Political Science at Yeshiva University, and was a Board of Visitors member George Mason University and Distinguished Senior Fellow at that university’s law school. He is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Contemporary Antisemitism and previously served as Associate Editor of the Journal for the Study of Anti-Semitism.
Marcus is also author of The Definition of Anti-Semitism (Oxford University Press) and Jewish Identity and Civil Rights in America (Cambridge University Press). He has published widely in academic journals as well as in more popular venues such as The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Newsweek, USA Today, and Politico. He is a graduate of Williams College and the University of California at Berkeley School of Law.
Earlier in his career, he was a litigation partner in two major law firms, where he conducted complex commercial and constitutional litigation. He also serves as Chairman emeritus of the Executive Committee of the Federalist Society for Law & Public Policy Civil Rights Practice Group.
Vice President & Senior Legal Fellow, Defending Education
Sarah Parshall Perry is vice president and senior legal fellow at Defending Education.
Before coming to Defending Education, Sarah served as a Senior Legal Fellow for the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, part of the Institute for Constitutional Government at Heritage, where her work centered on civil rights and the proper role of the courts.
Sarah joined Heritage after serving as Senior Counsel to the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Education where she focused on policy reform, technical guidance, and the Office for Civil Rights’ (OCR) annual report to Congress. While at OCR, she was appointed by the Acting Assistant Secretary to co-chair the Employment Engagement, Diversity, & Inclusion Council and, in coordination with the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Enforcement oversee the hiring of dozens of attorneys for OCR’s 12 regional offices nationwide. Prior to her tenure at the Department of Education, she spent six years at the Family Research Council in Washington, D.C. where she was Senior Fellow for Education Reform and later, became the regular substitute host for the “Washington Watch” radio show. Her work at the Family Research Council also included the building and oversight of multiple policy coalitions geared toward the fight against antisemitism in academia, curbing tech censorship, and protecting religious liberty.
Before joining FRC, Sarah was in-house counsel and director of development for a Baltimore advertising agency, providing management of all new business transactions from pitch to contract execution for the multi-million-dollar enterprise. She began her practice at the litigation firm of Simms Showers, LLP where her work included Title VII employment discrimination, maritime/admiralty, and False Claims Act (“Qui Tam”) law. Sarah has a law degree from the University of Virginia School of Law, where she was an editor of the Virginia Journal of International Law, a recipient of the American Jurisprudence award, a Phi Delta Phi honor society member, and a student practitioner in the appellate litigation clinic where she argued before the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals. She holds a B.S. in Journalism with honors from Liberty University.
Her commentary and analysis have appeared in media outlets across the country, including the AP, BBC, Fox News, NPR, The Hill, Washington Post, Washington Times, and the New York Times. She is the mother of three children, and the author of just as many books on the trials and triumphs of parenting children on the autism spectrum. Sarah is a member of the Kirkpatrick Society at the American Enterprise Institute, and makes her home north of Baltimore, Maryland.
Professor of Law, American University; Washington College of Law
Robert Dinerstein is professor of law and director of the Disability Rights Law Clinic at American University Washington College of Law (AUWCL), where he has taught since 1983. His previous positions include serving as the law school's acting dean (2020-2021), associate dean for academic affairs from (1997-2004), associate dean for experiential education (2012-2018), and director of the clinical program (1988-96 and 2008-2018). He specializes in the fields of clinical education and disability law, especially mental disabilities law (including issues of consent/choice, capacity and supported decision-making and other alternatives to guardianship), the Americans with Disabilities Act, the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, legal representation of clients with mental disabilities, and disability and international human rights.
Dinerstein has made numerous presentations on clinical legal education and disability law, among other topics, and has published a number of books, articles, chapters and other writing on these subjects.
He is the author/editor of two books. He is co-editor and co-author, with the late Stanley Herr and Joan O’Sullivan, of A Guide to Consent (AAMR, 1999). He is co-author, with the late Stephen Ellmann, Isabelle Gunning, Kate Kruse and Ann Shalleck, of Lawyers and Clients: Critical Issues in Interviewing and Counseling (Thomson West 2009) and the accompanying Teacher’s Manual.
Among Dinerstein’s recent publications in the disability law area, he is the author of:
In the area of legal education and lawyering, his recent articles include “New Wine and New Bottles (on experiential legal education),” 44 Syllabus 2 (Winter 2012-13), Publication of ABA Section on Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar; as co-author (with Margaret Barry, Phyllis Goldfarb, Peggy Maisel and Linda Morton) “Exploring the Meaning of Experiential Deaning,” 67(3) Journal of Legal Education 660 (2018); and ‘The Clinical Law Review at 25: What Hath We Wrought?, 26(1) Clinical Law Review 147 (2019) (25th Anniversary Symposium Issue). He has written extensively on issues of clinical pedagogy and lawyering, in particular, client-centered counseling [especially in his article, “Client-Centered Counseling: Reappraisal and Refinement,” 32 Arizona L. Rev. 501 (1990).] He has also written and presented on the US Department of Justice’s record of enforcement of the rights of persons with disabilities under several administrations.
Dinerstein was appointed by President Clinton in 1994 to serve on the President's Committee on Mental Retardation (now called the President’s Committee on People with Intellectual Disabilities), on which he served until 2001. From 2018-2021, he was a commissioner on the ABA Commission on Disability Rights, and from 2021-present serves as the ABA Section on Civil Rights and Social Justice’s liaison to the Commission. Internationally, he has consulted for the World Health Organization (Ghana and Malawi) and the Open Society Foundations (Ghana and Zambia) regarding the revision of mental health laws and was a signatory to the Montreal Declaration on Intellectual Disabilities, adopted in Montreal, Canada in October 2004. He also has consulted with the Open Society Foundations regarding disability rights clinics and disability rights curricula in Latin America and Southern Africa. Domestically, he has consulted for the Ford Foundation, Public Welfare Foundation and the US Department of Health and Human Services and the US Department of Education on issues related to legal services, disability law and poverty law. He is the principal investigator for the Disability and Human Rights Fellows program, which receives support from the Open Society Foundations.
Prior to joining AUWCL, Dinerstein worked as an attorney in the U.S. Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division, Special Litigation Section, where he handled federal court cases on the rights of people in institutions for people with psychosocial disabilities, people with intellectual disabilities and juveniles. In addition to the Disability Rights Law Clinic, which he founded (and which handles special education, supported decision making, advance mental health directives, Titles I-III of the ADA, and other cases), he teaches a seminar on law and disability and has taught interviewing and counseling, legal ethics, the supervised externship seminar, and the criminal justice clinic (which he directed from 1989-1996).
Dinerstein is actively involved in organizations related to legal education nationally. He was a member (elected) of the Council of the American Bar Association Section on Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar (2006-2011), and previously was on the section’s Standards Review Committee, where he was vice chair. He has been a member of 17 ABA-AALS joint site inspection teams, chairing four teams. Within the Association of American Law Schools, he was a member of the membership review committee and has, among other things, chaired the sections on clinical legal education, law and community, disability law and law and mental disability law, as well as the committees on clinical legal education, sections and the annual meeting, and the planning committee for the 2006 clinical teachers’ conference. He has been a member of a number of other planning committees, including for the AALS New Teachers’ Conference.
Dinerstein currently sits on the boards of directors of the Equal Rights Center (president), and the New Hope Community, Inc. and Foundation, and in the past has served on the boards of the Quality Trust for Individuals with Disabilities, Inc. (founding board member & president, 2001-2016), Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless, Inc. (founding board member and long-term treasurer, 1986-2015), Advocates for Justice and Education (treasurer), the District of Columbia Bar Board of Governors (elected; 2002-05), Society of American Law Teachers (elected), Mental Disability Rights International (founding board member; now called Disability Rights International), Legal Counsel for the Elderly, and the Maryland Disability Law Center; and the steering committee for the Jacobus tenBroek annual disability law symposium sponsored by the National Federation of the Blind (founding member, and member until 2019).
Among his many awards and honors, Dinerstein has received the WCL Outstanding Service Award (2017-18); been named a Fellow of the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (2016) and received the Paul G. Hearne Award for Disability Rights (ABA, 2013); (with Ann Shalleck) the Egon Guttman Casebook Award (2011-12) for Lawyers and Clients; the William Pincus Award for his contributions to clinical legal education (2010); American University Awards for Scholar-Teacher of the Year (2013), Outstanding Teaching in a Full-Time Appointment (2009) and Faculty-Administrator Award for Outstanding Service to the University Community (2002); and the Pro Bono Service Award from the International Human Rights Law Group (1988).
He has an A.B. degree from Cornell University and a J.D. degree from Yale Law School. He is listed in Who's Who in America).
Founder, Chairman, and CEO, Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law
Hon. Kenneth L. Marcus is an internationally recognized expert in civil and human rights, as well as a leader in the fight against anti-Semitism on and off university campuses. He is the Founder, Chairman, and CEO of The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, the leading civil rights legal organization fighting against anti-Semitism. The New York Times has called him “The Man Who Helped Redefine Campus Anti-Semitism.” He been described, in that paper, as “the single most effective and respected force” to combat anti-Semitism.
During his public service career, Marcus served as Assistant U.S. Secretary of Education for Civil Rights; Staff Director at the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights; and General Deputy Assistant U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity.
In academia, he serves as Professorial Lecturer in Law at George Washington University. He formerly held the Lillie and Nathan Ackerman Chair in Equality and Justice in America at the City University of New York’s Bernard M. Baruch College, served as Visiting Research Professor of Political Science at Yeshiva University, and was a Board of Visitors member George Mason University and Distinguished Senior Fellow at that university’s law school. He is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Contemporary Antisemitism and previously served as Associate Editor of the Journal for the Study of Anti-Semitism.
Marcus is also author of The Definition of Anti-Semitism (Oxford University Press) and Jewish Identity and Civil Rights in America (Cambridge University Press). He has published widely in academic journals as well as in more popular venues such as The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Newsweek, USA Today, and Politico. He is a graduate of Williams College and the University of California at Berkeley School of Law.
Earlier in his career, he was a litigation partner in two major law firms, where he conducted complex commercial and constitutional litigation. He also serves as Chairman emeritus of the Executive Committee of the Federalist Society for Law & Public Policy Civil Rights Practice Group.
Vice President & Senior Legal Fellow, Defending Education
Sarah Parshall Perry is vice president and senior legal fellow at Defending Education.
Before coming to Defending Education, Sarah served as a Senior Legal Fellow for the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, part of the Institute for Constitutional Government at Heritage, where her work centered on civil rights and the proper role of the courts.
Sarah joined Heritage after serving as Senior Counsel to the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Education where she focused on policy reform, technical guidance, and the Office for Civil Rights’ (OCR) annual report to Congress. While at OCR, she was appointed by the Acting Assistant Secretary to co-chair the Employment Engagement, Diversity, & Inclusion Council and, in coordination with the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Enforcement oversee the hiring of dozens of attorneys for OCR’s 12 regional offices nationwide. Prior to her tenure at the Department of Education, she spent six years at the Family Research Council in Washington, D.C. where she was Senior Fellow for Education Reform and later, became the regular substitute host for the “Washington Watch” radio show. Her work at the Family Research Council also included the building and oversight of multiple policy coalitions geared toward the fight against antisemitism in academia, curbing tech censorship, and protecting religious liberty.
Before joining FRC, Sarah was in-house counsel and director of development for a Baltimore advertising agency, providing management of all new business transactions from pitch to contract execution for the multi-million-dollar enterprise. She began her practice at the litigation firm of Simms Showers, LLP where her work included Title VII employment discrimination, maritime/admiralty, and False Claims Act (“Qui Tam”) law. Sarah has a law degree from the University of Virginia School of Law, where she was an editor of the Virginia Journal of International Law, a recipient of the American Jurisprudence award, a Phi Delta Phi honor society member, and a student practitioner in the appellate litigation clinic where she argued before the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals. She holds a B.S. in Journalism with honors from Liberty University.
Her commentary and analysis have appeared in media outlets across the country, including the AP, BBC, Fox News, NPR, The Hill, Washington Post, Washington Times, and the New York Times. She is the mother of three children, and the author of just as many books on the trials and triumphs of parenting children on the autism spectrum. Sarah is a member of the Kirkpatrick Society at the American Enterprise Institute, and makes her home north of Baltimore, Maryland.
Segal Family Professor of Regulatory Law and Policy, New York University School of Law
Rachel Barkow is the Segal Family Professor of Regulatory Law and Policy and the Faculty Director of the Center on the Administration of Criminal Law at NYU. In June of 2013, the Senate confirmed her as a Member of the United States Sentencing Commission. Since 2010, she has also been a member of the Manhattan District Attorney's Office Conviction Integrity Policy Advisory Panel.
Professor Barkow teaches courses in criminal law, administrative law, and constitutional law. In 2013, she was the recipient of the NYU Distinguished Teaching Award. The Law School awarded her its Podell Distinguished Teaching Award in 2007.
Her scholarship focuses on criminal law, and she is especially interested in applying the lessons and theory of administrative and constitutional law to the administration of criminal justice. She has written more than 20 articles that span a range of topics. She has written several articles on sentencing, including the relationship between modern sentencing laws and the constitutional role of the criminal jury; federalism and the politics of sentencing; the role of cost-benefit and risk tradeoff analysis in sentencing policy; what institutional model works for designing agencies that regulate criminal punishment; the political factors that lead to guideline and commission formation; and the flawed bifurcation between capital and noncapital constitutional sentencing jurisprudence. Professor Barkow has also explored in numerous articles the role of prosecutors in the criminal justice system. For example, she has analyzed how the lessons of institutional design from administrative law could improve the way prosecutors' offices are structured; she has looked to organizational guidelines and compliance programs as a model for prosecutorial oversight; and she has considered the increasing role of prosecutors as regulators through the conditions they place on corporations. Professor Barkow has also explored larger structural questions of how criminal justice is administered in the United States. In a series of major articles, she has explored the relationship between separation of powers and the criminal law and the relationship between federalism and the criminal law. Professor Barkow has also considered the role of mercy and clemency in criminal justice, paying particular attention to the relationship between administrative law's dominance and the increasing reluctance of scholars and experts to accept pockets of unreviewable discretion in criminal law.
Barkow has been invited to present her work in various settings. In the summer of 2009, Barkow testified before the House of Representatives Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection regarding the institutional design of the proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency. Barkow testified before the United States Sentencing Commission at a 2009 regional hearing on the 25th Anniversary of the Sentencing Reform Act. In the summer of 2004, Barkow testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee at a hearing on the future of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines. She has also presented her work on sentencing to the National Association of Sentencing Commissions Conference, the Federal Judicial Center's National Sentencing Policy Institute, and the Judicial Conference of the Courts of Appeals for the First and Seventh Circuits. In addition, Barkow has presented papers at numerous law schools.
After graduating from Northwestern University (B.A. 1993), Barkow attended Harvard Law School (J.D. 1996), where she won the Sears Prize, which is awarded annually to two students with the top overall grade averages in the first-year class. Barkow served as a law clerk to Judge Laurence H. Silberman on the District of Columbia Circuit, and Justice Antonin Scalia on the U.S. Supreme Court. Barkow was an associate at Kellogg, Huber, Hansen, Todd, Evans & Figel, PLLC, in Washington, D.C., from 1998-2002, where she focused on telecommunications and administrative law issues in proceedings before the FCC, state regulatory agencies, and federal and state courts. She took a leave from the firm in 2001 to serve as the John M. Olin Fellow in Law at Georgetown University Law Center.
Senior Legal Fellow, the Meese Institute for the Rule of Law, Advancing American Freedom
Paul J. Larkin is a Senior Legal Fellow in the Meese Institute for the Rule of Law at Advancing American Freedom. Paul has held various positions in the federal and state governments throughout his career, such as being an attorney in the Organized Crime and Racketeering Section of the Criminal Division at the U.S. Department of Justice, an Assistant to the Solicitor General in the Office of the Solicitor General at the U.S. Department of Justice, Special Agent-in-Charge and Acting Director of the Criminal Investigation Division at the Environmental Protection Agency, and a member of the Parole Abolition and Sentencing Reform Commission and of the Juvenile Justice Reform Commission in the Office of Virginia Governor George Allen.
He has also worked at Verizon Communications and two law firms in Washington, D.C. His current research is principally in the fields of drug policy, criminal justice policy, and administrative law and policy. He has published numerous articles in law and public policy journals, both in print and online.
Chief Policy Counsel, Council on Criminal Justice and Senior Advisor, Right on Crime
Marc A. Levin is the Chief Policy Counsel for the Council on Criminal Justice (counciloncj.org) and Senior Advisor for Right on Crime.
An attorney and accomplished author on legal and public policy issues, Marc began the Foundation’s criminal justice program in 2005. This work contributed to nationally praised policy changes that have been followed by dramatic declines in crime and incarceration in Texas. Building on this success, in 2010, Levin developed the concept for the Right on Crime initiative, a TPPF project in partnership with Prison Fellowship and the American Conservative Union Foundation. Right on Crime has become the national clearinghouse for conservative criminal justice reforms and has contributed to the adoption of policies in dozens of states that fight crime, support victims, and protect taxpayers.
In 2014, Levin was named one of the “Politico 50” in the magazine’s annual “list of thinkers, doers, and dreamers who really matter in this age of gridlock and dysfunction.”
Marc has testified on criminal justice policy on four occasions before Congress and has testified before legislatures in states including Texas, Nevada, Kansas, Wisconsin, and California. He also has met personally with leaders such as U.S. Presidents, Speakers of the House, and the Justice Commtitee of the United Kingdom Parliament to share his ideas on criminal justice reform. In 2007, he was honored in a resolution unanimously passed by the Texas House of Representatives that stated, “Mr. Levin’s intellect is unparalleled and his research is impeccable.”
Since 2005, Marc has published dozens of policy papers on topics such as sentencing, probation, parole, reentry, and overcriminalization which are available on the TPPF website. Levin’s articles on law and public policy have been featured in publications such as the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Texas Review of Law & Politics, National Law Journal, New York Daily News, Jerusalem Post, Toronto Star, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Philadelphia Inquirer, San Francisco Chronicle, Washington Times, Los Angeles Daily Journal, Charlotte Observer, Dallas Morning News, Houston Chronicle, Austin American-Statesman, San Antonio Express-News and Reason Magazine.
In 1999, Marc graduated with honors from the University of Texas with a B.A. in Plan II Honors and Government. In 2002, Marc received his J.D. with honors from the University of Texas School of Law. Marc was a Charles G. Koch Summer Fellow in 1996. He served as a law clerk to Judge Will Garwood on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and Staff Attorney at the Texas Supreme Court.
Government-Mandated Vaccine Requirements: OSHA, Jacobson, and the Legacy of Buck v. Bell
Todd J. Zywicki
Polk County - Online Event
Featuring: Todd J. Zywicki, George Mason University Foundation Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George...
Government-Mandated Vaccine Requirements: OSHA, Jacobson, and the Legacy of Buck v. Bell
Todd J. Zywicki
Polk County - Online Event
Featuring: Todd J. Zywicki, George Mason University Foundation Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George...
Deep Dive Episode 202 – HUD and the Disparate Impact Rule
Paul Compton, Devon Westhill, Morgan Williams
Regulatory Transparency Project's Fourth Branch Podcast
On June 25, 2021, President Biden’s newly appointed Housing Secretary Marcia Fudge proposed to rescind...
Panel Three: Critical Race Theory in Schools
Christopher Brooks, Joe Cohn, Taylor Meehan, Alison E. Somin
2021 Third Circuit Chapters Conference
Schools across the country have introduced elements of critical race theory into their curriculums. The...
Panel Three: Critical Race Theory in Schools
Christopher Brooks, Joe Cohn, Taylor Meehan, Alison E. Somin
2021 Third Circuit Chapters Conference
Schools across the country have introduced elements of critical race theory into their curriculums. The...
Panel One: Racial Preferences in Higher Education: What are the Consequences and What Will the Supreme Court Do?
Cory R. Liu, Paul B. Matey, Theodore M. Shaw, Patrick Strawbridge
2021 Third Circuit Chapters Conference
Despite the fact that Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits racial...
Panel One: Racial Preferences in Higher Education: What are the Consequences and What Will the Supreme Court Do?
Cory R. Liu, Paul B. Matey, Theodore M. Shaw, Patrick Strawbridge
2021 Third Circuit Chapters Conference
Despite the fact that Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits racial...
Discussion: The OCR's Investigation of State Mask Mandate Bans
Robert Dinerstein, Kenneth L. Marcus, Sarah Parshall Perry
Civil Rights Practice Group Teleforum
The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights has launched an investigation into the...
Discussion: The OCR's Investigation of State Mask Mandate Bans
Robert Dinerstein, Kenneth L. Marcus, Sarah Parshall Perry
Civil Rights Practice Group Teleforum
The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights has launched an investigation into the...
What is the Right Way Forward on Clemency Reform?
Rachel Barkow, Paul James Larkin, Marc Levin
Criminal Law & Procedure Practice Group Teleforum
The Biden administration has announced it is considering clemency for convicted drug offenders among the...