Scholar in Residence, The Constitution Project
Louis Fisher is Scholar in Residence at the Constitution Project. Previously he worked for four decades at the Library of Congress as Senior Specialist in Separation of Powers (Congressional Research Service, from 1970 to 2006) and Specialist in Constitutional Law (the Law Library, from 2006 to 2010). During his service with CRS he was research director of the House Iran-Contra Committee in 1987, writing major sections of the final report. Fisher's specialties include constitutional law, war powers, budget policy, executive-legislative relations, and judicial-congressional relations.
After completing his doctoral work in political science at the New School for Social Research in 1967, he taught full-time at Queens College for three years. Later he taught part-time at Georgetown University, American University, Catholic University law school, Indiana University, Catholic University, the College of William and Mary law school, and Johns Hopkins University. Currently he is a Visiting Professor at the William and Mary law school.
His books include President and Congress (1972), Presidential Spending Power (1975), The Constitution Between Friends (1978), The Politics of Shared Power (4th ed. 1998), Constitutional Conflicts Between Congress and the President (6th ed. 2014), Constitutional Dialogues (1988),American Constitutional Law (with Katy J. Harriger, 10th ed. 2013), Presidential War Power (3rd ed. 2014), Political Dynamics of Constitutional Law (with Neal Devins, 5th ed. 2011), Congressional Abdication on War and Spending (2000), Religious Liberty in America: Political Safeguards (2002), Nazi Saboteurs on Trial: A Military Tribunal & American Law (2003; 2d ed. 2005), The Politics of Executive Privilege (2004), The Democratic Constitution (with Neal Devins, 2004), Military Tribunals and Presidential Power: American Revolution to the War on Terrorism (2005), In the Name of National Security: Unchecked Presidential Power and the Reynolds Case (2006), The Constitution and 9/11: Recurring Threats to America’s Freedoms (2008), The Supreme Court and Congress: Rival Interpretations (2009), On Appreciating Congress: The People’s Branch (2010), Defending Congress and the Constitution (2011), On the Supreme Court: Without Illusion and Idolatry(2013), and The Law of the Executive Branch: Presidential Power (2014). His textbook in constitutional law is available in two paperbacks:Constitutional Structures: Separation of Powers and Federalism and Constitutional Rights: Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. With Leonard W. Levy he edited the four-volume Encyclopedia of the American Presidency (1994).
He has twice won the Louis Brownlow Book Award (for Presidential Spending Power and Constitutional Dialogues). The encyclopedia he co-edited was awarded the Dartmouth Medal. In 1995 he received the Aaron B. Wildavsky Award “For Lifetime Scholarly Achievement in Public Budgeting” from the Association for Budgeting and Financial Management. In 2006 he received the Neustadt Book Award for Military Tribunals and Presidential Power. In 2011 he received the Walter Beach Pi Sigma Alpha Award from the National Capital Area Political Science Association for strengthening the relationship between political science and public service. In 2012 he received the Hubert H. Humphrey Award from the American Political Science Association in recognition of notable public service by a political scientist. The July 2013 issue of PS: Political Science & Politics includes a symposium on "Law and (Disciplinary) Order: A Dialogue about Louis Fisher, Constitutionalism, and Political Science.
Dr. Fisher has been invited to testify before Congress more than 50 times on such issues as war powers, state secrets privilege, NSA surveillance, executive spending discretion, presidential reorganization authority, Congress and the Constitution, the legislative veto, the item veto, the Gramm-Rudman deficit control act, executive privilege, committee subpoenas, executive lobbying, CIA whistleblowing, covert spending, the pocket veto, recess appointments, the budget process, the balanced budget amendment, biennial budgeting, and presidential impoundment powers.
He has been active with CEELI (Central and East European Law Initiative) of the American Bar Association, traveling to Bulgaria, Albania, and Hungary to assist constitution-writers; participating in CEELI conferences in Washington, D.C. with delegations from Bosnia-Herzegovina, Lithuania, Romania, and Russia; serving on CEELI "working groups" on Armenia and Belarus; and assisted in drafting constitutional amendments for the Kyrgyz Republic. As part of CRS delegations he traveled to Russia and Ukraine to assist on constitutional questions. For the International Bar Association he helped analyze the draft constitutions for Swaziland and Zimbabwe.
He is the author of more than 500 articles in law reviews, political science journals, encyclopedias, books, magazines, and newspapers. He has been invited to speak in Albania, Australia, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, China, the Czech Republic, Denmark, England, France, Germany, Greece, Israel, Japan, Macedonia, Malaysia, Mexico, the Netherlands, Oman, the Philippines, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovenia, South Korea, Sweden, Taiwan, Ukraine, and the United Arab Emirates. The topics include a range of constitutional, political, and institutional issues.
Professor of Constitutional Law, Pepperdine University School of Law
One of America's best known scholars and popular commentators on the law, Professor Douglas W. Kmiec holds the endowed chair in constitutional law at Pepperdine Law School. He came to this position after serving several years as dean and St. Thomas More Professor of Law at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., and for nearly two decades, on the law faculty at the University of Notre Dame. As dean at Catholic University, Professor Kmiec did what many said would be impossible; he greatly increased academic quality and student selectivity at the same time he deepened the school's religious commitment. During his tenure, the law school moved into the upper tier of the U.S. News ranking from tier three. At Notre Dame, he was director of Notre Dame's Center on Law & Government, and the founder of its Journal of Law, Ethics & Public Policy. Beyond the university setting, Kmiec served Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush during 1985-89 as constitutional legal counsel (Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Counsel, U.S. Department of Justice).
A wide-ranging writer and engaging speaker, Professor Kmiec writes a syndicated column for the Catholic News Service, and for several years wrote a regular column in the Chicago Tribune. He is also a frequent contributor to the pages of the Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, and other periodicals. He is the co-author (with legal historian Stephen Presser of Northwestern) of three books on the Constitution -- The American Constitutional Order; Individual Rights and the American Constitution and The History, Structure and Philosophy of the American Constitution. Another recent book, Cease-Fire on the Family (Crisis Books/Notre Dame) attracted scholarly and popular acclaim for proposing realistic ways for families to "end the culture war" by renewing personal virtue and civic responsibility within itself. He has also written The Attorney General's Lawyer (Praeger 1992), and several respected legal treatises.
Professor Kmiec's scholarly research spans legal and non-legal subjects, from the Constitution and the federal system, to land use and the organization of America society. He is a frequent guest on national news programs, such as Nightline, the Newshour, and NPR's Talk of the Nation, analyzing constitutional questions.
A White House Fellow (1982-83), Professor Kmiec is one of a few individuals who has received the Distinguished Service Award from two cabinet departments —the Department of Justice in 1987 and Housing and Urban Development in 1983. In 1988, he was awarded the Edmund J. Randolph Award by the attorney general. He has lectured on the U.S. Constitution in Asia as a Fulbright Distinguished Scholar.
An honors graduate of Northwestern, Professor Kmiec received his law degree from the University of Southern California, where he served on the Law Review and received the Legion Lex Commencement Prize for Legal Writing. He is a member of the bar of the U.S. Supreme Court and the state bars of Illinois and California.
B.A., with honors, Northwestern University, 1973
J.D., University of Southern California, 1976
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.
Emanuel S. Heller Professor of Law, University of California at Berkeley; Thomas Smith Senior Research Fellow, Civitas Institute, University of Texas at Austin
John Yoo is the Emanuel Heller Professor of Law at the University of California at Berkeley. He is also the Thomas Smith Senior Research Fellow, Civitas Institute, at the University of Texas at Austin. He is also a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
His most recent book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Supreme Court, co-authored with Robert Delahunty, was published in 2023. Professor Yoo’s other books include Defender-in-Chief: Trump’s Fight for Presidential Power; Striking Power: How Cyber, Robots, and Space Weapons Change the Rules for War; Point of Attack: Preventive War, International Law, and Global Welfare; and Crisis and Command: A History of Executive Power from George Washington to George Bush.
He is a co-author of volumes 1 and 2 of R. Rossum, G. Tarr, V. Munoz & J. Yoo American Constitution Law (Routledge, 2026), and a co-editor of the eight-volume series on the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution, We Hold These Truths, with Yuval Levin and Adam White of the American Enterprise Institute.
Professor Yoo has published more than 100 articles in academic journals on subjects including national security, constitutional law, international law, and the Supreme Court. He also regularly contributes to the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and National Review, among others.
Professor Yoo has served in all three branches of government. He was an official in the U.S. Department of Justice, where he worked on national security and terrorism issues after the 9/11 attacks. He served as general counsel of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. He has been a law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and federal appeals Judge Laurence Silberman. He has been a visiting professor at the University of Texas at Austin’s School of Civic Leadership, Seoul National University, the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya, Keio University, Trento University, the University of Chicago, and the Free University of Amsterdam.
Professor Yoo supervises the Public Law and Policy Program and the California Constitution Center. He also serves on the boards of Founding Forward, the Washington Legal Foundation, the Pacific Legal Foundation, the Ulysses Grant Institute, the Federalist Society’s Separation of Powers and Federalism Division, the Universidad Cientifica del Sur Law School, and the Asia-Pacific Law Institute at Seoul National University. He is a winner of the Federalist Society’s Paul Bator award and the Heritage Foundation’s Edwin Meese III Originalism Lectureship.
Professor Yoo graduated from Yale Law School and summa cum laude from Harvard College.
Former Associate Justice, United States Supreme Court
Stephen G. Breyer was born in San Francisco, California, August 15, 1938. He married Joanna Hare in 1967, and has three children - Chloe, Nell, and Michael. He received an A.B. from Stanford University, a B.A. from Magdalen College, Oxford, and an LL.B. from Harvard Law School. He served as a law clerk to Justice Arthur Goldberg of the Supreme Court of the United States during the 1964 Term, as a Special Assistant to the Assistant U.S. Attorney General for Antitrust, 1965–1967, as an Assistant Special Prosecutor of the Watergate Special Prosecution Force, 1973, as Special Counsel of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, 1974–1975, and as Chief Counsel of the committee, 1979–1980. He was an Assistant Professor, Professor of Law, and Lecturer at Harvard Law School, 1967–1994, a Professor at the Harvard University Kennedy School of Government, 1977–1980, and a Visiting Professor at the College of Law, Sydney, Australia and at the University of Rome. From 1980–1990, he served as a Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, and as its Chief Judge, 1990–1994. He also served as a member of the Judicial Conference of the United States, 1990–1994, and of the United States Sentencing Commission, 1985–1989. President Clinton nominated him as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, and he took his seat August 3, 1994. Justice Breyer retired from the Supreme Court on June 30, 2022.
Chief Legal Correspondent, CBS News
Jan Crawford is CBS News' chief legal correspondent and contributes regularly to the "CBS Evening News," "CBS This Morning," and "Face the Nation," as well as CBS News Radio and CBSNews.com.
Crawford joined CBS News in October 2009. She had been a regular contributor to CBS News in 2005 to 2006.
Crawford is a recognized authority on the Supreme Court whose 2007 book, "Supreme Conflict: The Inside Story of the Struggle for the Control of the United States Supreme Court" (Penguin Press), gained critical acclaim and became an instant New York Times Bestseller. She began covering the Court in 1994 for the Chicago Tribune and went on to become a law and political correspondent for all ABC News programs, a Supreme Court analyst for The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer on PBS and a legal analyst for CBS News' "CBS Evening News" and "Face the Nation." She has reported on most of the major judicial appointments and confirmation hearings of the past 15 years and amassed crucial sources in the White House, the Justice Department and Congress along the way.
Chief Justice John Roberts granted his first network television interview to Crawford, just one of the rare interviews she was able to obtain with a total of five of the Court's current members, as well as retired Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. Crawford also sat down with then-86-year-old Justice John Paul Stevens in his first television interview, as well as Justices Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia and Stephen Breyer.
Crawford's in-depth reports on the Bush Administration's legal war on terror and her exclusive reports on controversial interrogation techniques used for terror suspects have received wide acclaim and been credited with being a catalyst for congressional hearings. Washingtonian Magazine named her one of Washington's top journalists.
Crawford began her journalistic career at the Tribune in 1987, joining the legal affairs beat in 1993, after her graduation from the University of Chicago Law School. The newspaper awarded Crawford its highest award in 2001, for her role on a team of reporters covering the presidential election of 2000, and the legal battles over the White House. She won the same prize for her 13-part series on the post-civil rights South, a project that brought her back to her native Alabama.
Crawford graduated from the University of Alabama in 1987. She has taught journalism at American University and frequently speaks about the Court to universities, law schools, legal organizations and civic groups across the country. She is a member of the New York Bar. She and her family live in Washington D.C.
Associate Justice, United States Supreme Court
Antonin Scalia, Associate Justice, was born in Trenton, New Jersey, March 11, 1936. He married Maureen McCarthy and has nine children- Ann Forrest, Eugene, John Francis, Catherine Elisabeth, Mary Clare, Paul David, Matthew, Christopher James, and Margaret Jane. He received his A.B. from Georgetown University and the University of Fribourg, Switzerland, and his LL.B. from Harvard Law School, and was a Sheldon Fellow of Harvard University from 1960-1961. He was in private practice in Cleveland, Ohio from 1961-1967, a Professor of Law at the University of Virginia from 1967-1971, and a Professor of Law at the University of Chicago from 1977-1982, and a Visiting Professor of Law at Georgetown University and Stanford University. He was chairman of the American Bar Association's Section of Administrative Law, 1981-1982, and its Conference of Section Chairmen, 1982-1983. He served the federal government as General Counsel of the Office of Telecommunications Policy from 1971-1972, Chairman of the Administrative Conference of the United States from 1972-1974, and Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel from 1974-1977. He was appointed Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in 1982. President Reagan nominated him as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, and he took his seat September 26, 1986.
Former Associate Justice, United States Supreme Court
Stephen G. Breyer was born in San Francisco, California, August 15, 1938. He married Joanna Hare in 1967, and has three children - Chloe, Nell, and Michael. He received an A.B. from Stanford University, a B.A. from Magdalen College, Oxford, and an LL.B. from Harvard Law School. He served as a law clerk to Justice Arthur Goldberg of the Supreme Court of the United States during the 1964 Term, as a Special Assistant to the Assistant U.S. Attorney General for Antitrust, 1965–1967, as an Assistant Special Prosecutor of the Watergate Special Prosecution Force, 1973, as Special Counsel of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, 1974–1975, and as Chief Counsel of the committee, 1979–1980. He was an Assistant Professor, Professor of Law, and Lecturer at Harvard Law School, 1967–1994, a Professor at the Harvard University Kennedy School of Government, 1977–1980, and a Visiting Professor at the College of Law, Sydney, Australia and at the University of Rome. From 1980–1990, he served as a Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, and as its Chief Judge, 1990–1994. He also served as a member of the Judicial Conference of the United States, 1990–1994, and of the United States Sentencing Commission, 1985–1989. President Clinton nominated him as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, and he took his seat August 3, 1994. Justice Breyer retired from the Supreme Court on June 30, 2022.
Chief Legal Correspondent, CBS News
Jan Crawford is CBS News' chief legal correspondent and contributes regularly to the "CBS Evening News," "CBS This Morning," and "Face the Nation," as well as CBS News Radio and CBSNews.com.
Crawford joined CBS News in October 2009. She had been a regular contributor to CBS News in 2005 to 2006.
Crawford is a recognized authority on the Supreme Court whose 2007 book, "Supreme Conflict: The Inside Story of the Struggle for the Control of the United States Supreme Court" (Penguin Press), gained critical acclaim and became an instant New York Times Bestseller. She began covering the Court in 1994 for the Chicago Tribune and went on to become a law and political correspondent for all ABC News programs, a Supreme Court analyst for The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer on PBS and a legal analyst for CBS News' "CBS Evening News" and "Face the Nation." She has reported on most of the major judicial appointments and confirmation hearings of the past 15 years and amassed crucial sources in the White House, the Justice Department and Congress along the way.
Chief Justice John Roberts granted his first network television interview to Crawford, just one of the rare interviews she was able to obtain with a total of five of the Court's current members, as well as retired Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. Crawford also sat down with then-86-year-old Justice John Paul Stevens in his first television interview, as well as Justices Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia and Stephen Breyer.
Crawford's in-depth reports on the Bush Administration's legal war on terror and her exclusive reports on controversial interrogation techniques used for terror suspects have received wide acclaim and been credited with being a catalyst for congressional hearings. Washingtonian Magazine named her one of Washington's top journalists.
Crawford began her journalistic career at the Tribune in 1987, joining the legal affairs beat in 1993, after her graduation from the University of Chicago Law School. The newspaper awarded Crawford its highest award in 2001, for her role on a team of reporters covering the presidential election of 2000, and the legal battles over the White House. She won the same prize for her 13-part series on the post-civil rights South, a project that brought her back to her native Alabama.
Crawford graduated from the University of Alabama in 1987. She has taught journalism at American University and frequently speaks about the Court to universities, law schools, legal organizations and civic groups across the country. She is a member of the New York Bar. She and her family live in Washington D.C.
Associate Justice, United States Supreme Court
Antonin Scalia, Associate Justice, was born in Trenton, New Jersey, March 11, 1936. He married Maureen McCarthy and has nine children- Ann Forrest, Eugene, John Francis, Catherine Elisabeth, Mary Clare, Paul David, Matthew, Christopher James, and Margaret Jane. He received his A.B. from Georgetown University and the University of Fribourg, Switzerland, and his LL.B. from Harvard Law School, and was a Sheldon Fellow of Harvard University from 1960-1961. He was in private practice in Cleveland, Ohio from 1961-1967, a Professor of Law at the University of Virginia from 1967-1971, and a Professor of Law at the University of Chicago from 1977-1982, and a Visiting Professor of Law at Georgetown University and Stanford University. He was chairman of the American Bar Association's Section of Administrative Law, 1981-1982, and its Conference of Section Chairmen, 1982-1983. He served the federal government as General Counsel of the Office of Telecommunications Policy from 1971-1972, Chairman of the Administrative Conference of the United States from 1972-1974, and Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel from 1974-1977. He was appointed Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in 1982. President Reagan nominated him as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, and he took his seat September 26, 1986.
Founder and Director, James Wilson Institute on Natural Rights & the American Founding
Hadley Arkes joined the faculty of Amherst College in 1966. He became the Edward Ney Professor of Jurisprudence in 1987, and held that chair until he retired officially in July 2015. But he has not retired from writing and speaking. He has carried that teaching into a new phase; he has become the Founder and Director of the James Wilson Institute on Natural Rights and the American Founding in Washington, D.C. He has written eight books, mostly with Princeton and Cambridge University Presss. Among the books at Princeton have been: The Philosopher in the City (1981), First Things (1986), Beyond the Constitution (1990), and The Return of George Sutherland (1994). With Cambridge Press he has done Natural Rights and the Right to Choose (2002), and Constitutional Illusions & Anchoring Truths: The Touchstone of the Natural Law (2010). His most recent book, with Regnery Press is Mere Natural Law (2023) His articles have appeared in professional journals, but apart from his writing in more scholarly formats, he has become known to a wider audience through his writings in the Wall Street Journal, National Review, Civitas and First Things, a journal that took its name from his book of that title.
He was the main advocate, and architect, of the bill that became known as the Born-Alive Infants’ Protection Act. The account of his experience, in moving the bill through Congress, is contained as an epilogue or memoir in his book, Natural Rights & the Right to Choose. Arkes first prepared his proposal as part of the debating kit assembled for the first George Bush in 1988. The purpose of that proposal was to offer the “most modest first step” of all in legislating on abortion, and opening a conversation even with people who called themselves “pro-choice.” Professor Arkes proposed to begin simply by preserving the life of a child who survived an abortion–contrary to the holding of one federal judge, that such a child was not protected by the laws. Professor Arkes led the testimony on the bill before the Judiciary Committee of the U.S. House in July 2000, then again in July 2001. The legislative calendar was upended in the aftermath of September 11th, but in March 2002, the bill was brought to the floor of the House, where it passed unanimously. To the surprise of Professor Arkes, the bill was brought to the floor of the Senate on July 18 by the Deputy Majority Leader, Harry Reid, and passed in the same way. On August 5, President Bush signed the bill into law with Professor Arkes in attendance.
Professor Arkes was the founder, at Amherst, of the Committee for the American Founding, a group of alumni and students seeking to preserve, at Amherst, the doctrines of “natural rights” taught by the American Founders and Lincoln. That interest has been carried over now to the founding of a new center for the jurisprudence of natural law, in Washington, D.C.: the James Wilson Institute on Natural Rights and the American Founding, named for one of the premier minds among the American Founders. Professor Arkes has drawn to this project a cluster of accomplished federal judges who have wanted to get a firmer hold on the natural law, and brought them together with some gifted teachers of philosophy and law. The new institute will be sponsoring lectures and seminars in Washington and other parts of the country. The purpose of this new James Wilson Institute is to teach anew, to lawyers, judges, and students those principles of law that furnished the guide to the American Founders as they set about framing a Constitution. And the hope is to restore, to a new generation, the furnishings of mind of the men who formed this regime.
Partner, O'Melveny & Myers LLP
Walter Dellinger is an influential authority on appellate and Supreme Court decisions, lending his experience as a former Solicitor General and decades of legal knowledge to amicus briefs, a multitude of pro bono clients, and public and private companies involved in bet-the-company litigation. A frequent commentator for the Wall Street Journal, Slate, and major television networks, Walter holds the designation of the Douglas B. Maggs Emeritus Professor of Law at Duke University. He was named one of the 100 Most Influential Lawyers in America by the National Law Journal and recognized with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Lawyer.
Walter, who formerly served as O’Melveny’s Diversity and Inclusion Partner, helped convince the US Supreme Court that proponents of Proposition 8, California's ban on same-sex marriage, did not have standing to appeal a court order invalidating it. That ruling, Hollingsworth v. Perry, cleared the way for marriage equality in California and eventually nationwide.
Walter served as Assistant Attorney General and head of the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) from 1993 to 1996. He was acting Solicitor General for the 1996-97 Term of the US Supreme Court. During that time, Walter argued nine cases before the Court, the most by any Solicitor General in more than 20 years. His arguments included cases dealing with physician-assisted suicide, the line item veto, the cable television act, the Brady Act, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and the constitutionality of remedial services for parochial school children.
Walter has served as Special Counsel to the Board of Directors of the New York Stock Exchange in connection with the NYSE’s transformation into a publicly held company and its acquisition of an electronic trading company.
After serving in early 1993 in the White House as an advisor to the President on constitutional issues, Walter was nominated by the President to be Assistant Attorney General. He was confirmed by the Senate in October 1993 and served for three years. As head of the OLC, Walter issued opinions on a wide variety of issues, including: the President's authority to deploy United States forces in Haiti and Bosnia; whether the trade agreements required treaty ratification; and a major review of separation of powers questions. He provided extensive legal advice on questions arising out of the shutdown of the federal government, on national debt ceiling issues, and on loan guarantees for Mexico.
Walter has published articles on constitutional issues for scholarly journals including the Harvard Law Review, the Yale Law Journal, and the Duke Law Journal, and has written for the New York Times, the Washington Post, Newsweek, the New Republic, and the London Times. He has been a visiting professor at the Catholic University of Belgium and has given lectures to university faculties in Florence, Siena, Nuremberg, Copenhagen, Leiden, Utrecht, Tilburg, Mexico, and Rio de Janeiro, and has delivered major lectures at Stanford, Yale, Harvard, Michigan, Berkeley, Penn, Duke, Chicago, and other US law schools. He has testified more than 25 times before committees of Congress.
In private practice, Walter’s arguments before the United States Supreme Court have included Exxon Shipping Co. v. Baker, Morgan Stanley Capital Group Inc. v. Public Utility District No. 1 of Snohomish County, Alabama v. North Carolina, Hosanna-Tabor v. EEOC, Heller v. District of Columbia, Jackson v. Birmingham School District, Brown v. Legal Foundation of Washington, US Airways v. Barnett, Utah v. Evans, Hunt v. Cromartie, and Hunt v. Easley. His most notable Court of Appeals and state supreme court arguments include Martha Stewart v. United States, Whiteside v. United States, and Exxon v. Alabama, LCI v. Phillips.
Alexander M. Bickel Professor of Public Law, Yale Law School
Degrees from Davidson College, B.A. summa cum laude, 1973; Harvard University, M.A., 1974; Yale Law School, J.D, 1978. Clerked for Edward Weinfeld, 1978-79; Attorney at Shea & Gardner, 1979-82; Law Professor since 1982, tenured at Georgetown and Yale, visiting professor at Stanford, NYU, Toronto, Harvard, Columbia, Penn, Fordham, Vanderbilt. Author of casebooks on legislation and sexuality, gender and law, as well as monographs on statutory interpretation and the rights of sexual and gender minorities. Author of dozens of articles, by one empirical count a top ten most cited law professors.
Ronald Reagan Distinguished Fellow Emeritus, The Heritage Foundation
Edwin Meese III, the prominent conservative leader, thinker and elder statesman, continues a quarter-century formal association with The Heritage Foundation as the leading think tank’s Ronald Reagan Distinguished Fellow Emeritus.
In that capacity, Meese oversees special projects and acts as an ambassador for Heritage within the conservative movement.
Meese was chairman of Heritage’s Center for Legal and Judicial Studies from its founding in 2001 until what he calls his “semi-retirement” on Feb. 1, 2013.
He joined Heritage in 1988 as the think tank's first Ronald Reagan Distinguished Fellow -- the only policy chair in the country to be officially named for the 40th president. His work focused on keeping President Reagan’s legacy of conservative principles alive in public debate and discourse.
The legal center now bears his name, in recognition of Meese’s contributions to the rule of law and the nation’s understanding of constitutional law. Its mission is to educate government officials, the media and the public about the Constitution and legal principles -- and how they affect public policy.
Perhaps best known as U.S. attorney general during Reagan’s second term, Meese’s service to the conservative icon stretched from the California governor’s mansion in 1966 to the White House in 1981 before he went to the Department of Justice four years later.
His Heritage “hats” kept Meese among the major conservative voices in national policy debates at an age when most men and women enjoyed quiet retirements.
In 2006, for example, Meese was named to the Iraq Study Group, a special presidential commission dedicated to examining the best resolutions for America's involvement in Iraq. In the past few years he wrote and spoke about constitutional topics ranging from religious liberty to the responsibility of Supreme Court justices.
Immediately after Reagan's death in 2004, and in the years since, Meese often agreed to major media appearances to discuss the lasting impact of his old friend, mentor and boss. He has summarized the Reagan legacy in three accomplishments: Reagan cut taxes and kept them low. He worked to defeat and end the Soviet Union and its worldwide push for communism. And he restored America's faith in itself after years of failure and "malaise."
"I admired him as a leader and cherish his friendship," Meese wrote in a 2004 essay for Heritage members and supporters. "Ronald Reagan had strong convictions. He was committed to the principles that had led to the founding of our nation. And he had the courage to follow his convictions against all odds." <[>Edwin Meese III was born Dec. 2, 1931, to Edwin Jr. and Leone Meese in Oakland, Calif. He graduated from Yale University in 1953 and holds a law degree from the University of California-Berkeley.
Meese spent much of his adult life working for Reagan, first after the former actor, sports announcer and athlete was elected as California’s governor in 1966 and then when he sought and won the presidency in 1980.
Reagan never forgot Meese's loyalty and hard work. During a press conference at which reporters questioned Meese's actions at the Justice Department, Reagan replied: "If Ed Meese is not a good man, there are no good men."
During the Reagan governorship, Meese served as executive assistant and chief of staff from 1969 through 1974 and as legal affairs secretary from 1967 through 1968. He previously was deputy district attorney in Alameda County, Calif.
From January 1981 to February 1985, Meese held the position of counsellor to the president -- the senior job on the White House staff -- and functioned as Reagan's chief policy adviser. In 1985, he received Government Executive magazine's annual award for excellence in management.
Meese served as the 75th attorney general of the United States from February 1985 to August 1988. As the nation's chief law enforcement officer, he directed the Justice Department and led international efforts to combat terrorism, drug trafficking and organized crime.
Meese’s relationship with Heritage began when he met with senior management to discuss the think tank's landmark policy guide, Mandate for Leadership, prepared for the incoming administration. Meese later recalled that Reagan personally handed out copies of the 1,093-page book to members of his Cabinet and asked them to read it. Nearly two-thirds of Mandate's 2,000 recommendations would be adopted or attempted by the Reagan administration.
More than a decade after joining Heritage, Meese assumed the chairmanship of its Center for Legal and Judicial Studies. Under his guidance, the center counseled White House staffers, Justice Department officials and Senate Judiciary Committee members on the importance of filling judicial vacancies with qualified men and women who are committed to interpreting the Constitution according to the founding document's original meaning.
The center became known for hosting "moot court" practice sessions to sharpen the arguments of attorneys slated to bring important cases before the Supreme Court. Those cases addressed constitutional issues ranging from property rights to racial preferences in primary and secondary schools to restrictions on free speech in campaign finance law.
Meese headed the legal center's Advisory Board for the writing and editing of the best-selling book, The Heritage Guide to the Constitution (Regnery, 2005). In it, 109 experts walked readers through a clause-by-clause analysis of the Constitution. Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) was among those keeping the reference work handy during Judiciary Committee hearings on Supreme Court nominees.
Meese's other books include “Leadership, Ethics and Policing” (Prentice Hall, 2004); “Making America Safer” (Heritage, 1997); and “With Reagan: The Inside Story” (Regnery Gateway, 1992).He wrote the Introduction to a well-received 2010 book on the “overcriminalization” trend, “One Nation Under Arrest,” by Heritage veterans Paul Rosenzweig and Brian W. Walsh.
He also is a distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University in California and lectures, writes and consults throughout the United States on a variety of subjects.
As both attorney general and counsellor to Reagan, Meese was a member of the Cabinet and the National Security Council. He served as chairman of the Domestic Policy Council and the National Drug Policy Board. After Reagan won the White House in the 1980 election, Meese headed the transition team. During the campaign, he was the Reagan-Bush Committee's senior official.
Meese had a career outside government and politics. From 1977 to 1981, he was a law professor at the University of San Diego, where he also directed the Center for Criminal Justice Policy and Management.
He was an executive in the aerospace and transportation industry as vice president for administration of Rohr Industries Inc. in Chula Vista, Calif. He left Rohr to return to the practice of law, doing corporate and general work in San Diego County.
A retired colonel in the Army Reserve, Meese remains active in numerous civic and educational organizations.
He and his wife, Ursula, have two grown children and reside in McLean, Va.
W. H. Brady Scholar, American Enterprise Institute
Charles Murray is a political scientist, author, and libertarian. He first came to national attention in 1984 with the publication of Losing Ground, which has been credited as the intellectual foundation for the Welfare Reform Act of 1996. His 1994 New York Times bestseller, The Bell Curve (Free Press, 1994), coauthored with the late Richard J. Herrnstein, sparked heated controversy for its analysis of the role of IQ in shaping America’s class structure. Murray's other books include What It Means to Be a Libertarian (1997), Human Accomplishment (2003), In Our Hands (2006), and Real Education (2008). His most recent book, Coming Apart (Crown Forum, 2012), describes an unprecedented divergence in American classes over the last half century.
Executive Director, American Civil Liberties Union
Anthony D. Romero is the Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties Union. He took the helm just four days before the September 11, 2001 attacks. Shortly afterward, the ACLU launched its national Safe and Free campaign to protect basic freedoms during a time of crisis. Romero has led the ACLU in its fight to restore civil liberties, including pushing for accountability for torture committed under the Bush administration and fighting the practice of indefinite detention. Romero is the ACLU's sixth executive director, and the first Latino and openly gay man to serve in that capacity.
Founder, Eagle Forum
Phyllis Schlafly was a national leader of the conservative movement since the publication of her best-selling 1964 book, A Choice Not An Echo. She created the pro-family movement in 1972, when she started her national volunteer organization called Eagle Forum. In a ten-year battle, Mrs. Schlafly led the pro-family movement to victory over the principal legislative goal of the radical feminists, called the Equal Rights Amendment. An articulate and successful opponent of the radical feminist movement, she debated on college campuses more frequently than any other conservative. She was named one of the 100 most important women of the 20th century by the Ladies’ Home Journal.
Mrs. Schlafly’s monthly newsletter called The Phyllis Schlafly Report was published for fifty years. At her request, the monthly newsletter was renamed after her death to the Eagle Forum Report: the Successor to The Phyllis Schlafly Report. Eagle Forum is the publisher of the Eagle Forum Report.
Her syndicated column appeared in 100 newspapers, and on many conservative websites.
Mrs. Schlafly was the author or editor of 27 books on subjects as varied as family and feminism (The Power of the Positive Woman and Feminist Fantasies); the judiciary (The Supremacists: The Tyranny of Judges and How to Stop It); religion (No Higher Power: Obama’s War on Religious Freedom); nuclear strategy (Strike From Space and Kissinger on the Couch); education (Child Abuse in the Classroom); child care (Who Will Rock the Cradle?); and phonics (First Reader and Turbo Reader).
Mrs. Schlafly was a lawyer and served as a member of the Commission on the Bicentennial of the U.S. Constitution, 1985-1991, appointed by President Ronald Reagan. She testified before more than 50 Congressional and State Legislative committees on constitutional, national defense, and family issues.
Mrs. Schlafly was a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Washington University, received her Master’s in Political Science from Harvard University, and received her J.D. from Washington University Law School. In 2008, Washington University/St. Louis awarded Phyllis Schlafly an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters.
Phyllis Schlafly was America’s best-known advocate of the dignity and honor that we as a society owe to the role of fulltime homemaker. The mother of six children, she was the 1992 Illinois Mother of the Year.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit
Judge Carlos Bea serves as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. He received his Bachelor's Degree from Stanford University in 1956 and his J.D. from Stanford Law School in 1958. Judge Bea was born in San Sebastian, Spain, and immigrated with his family to Cuba in 1939. In 1952, he represented Cuba on the Cuban National basketball team in the Helsinki Olympics. Judge Bea became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1958. He engaged in private practice in San Francisco, principally in the area of civil trials (jury and non-jury), from 1959-75 at Dunne, Phelps & Mills and from 1975-90 at Carlos Bea, A Law Corporation. He taught courses in civil litigation advocacy at Hastings College of Law and Stanford Law School. From 1990 to 2003, Judge Bea served as a judge of the San Francisco Superior Court. He was nominated by President George W. Bush to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and was confirmed in 2003.
Judge Bea and his wife Louise reside in San Francisco, where they raised their four sons, Sebastian, Alexander, Nicholas, and Dominic.
U.S. Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit
Danny Julián Boggs is a Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. He was appointed to a newly created seat on that court on January 29, 1986 by President Ronald Reagan, confirmed by the U.S. Senate on March 3, and received his commission on March 25. He served as the Chief Judge of the Sixth Circuit from 2003 to 2009.
United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit
Dennis Jacobs is the Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He became Chief Judge on October 1, 2006. At the time of his appointment in 1992, he was a partner in the New York law firm of Simpson Thacher & Bartlett.
Judge Jacobs received his B.A. degree from Queens College of the City University of New York in 1964; his M.A. degree from New York University in 1965; and his J.D. degree from the New York University School of Law in 1973.
Judge Jacobs was a lecturer in the English Department of Queens College of the City University of New York from 1967 until 1969. He was in private practice from 1973 with the New York law firm of Simpson, Thacher & Bartlett, serving as a partner there from 1980 until his judicial appointment.
In 1997-2004, Judge Jacobs was a member of the Committee on Judicial Resources of the Judicial Conference of the United States; starting in 1999 he was chair of that committee.
Judge Jacobs is a native of New York City.
U.S. Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit
Frank H. Easterbrook is a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and a Senior Lecturer at the Law School of the University of Chicago. He was Chief Judge from 2006–2013. Before joining the court in 1985, he was the Lee andBrena Freeman Professor of Law at the University of Chicago, where he taught and wrote in antitrust, securities, corporate law, jurisprudence, and criminal procedure. He has published The Economic Structure of Corporate Law (with Daniel R. Fischel) and about 100 scholarly articles. He served as Co-Editor of the Journal of Law and Economics from 1982 to 1991 and as a member of the Judicial Conference’s Standing Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure from 1991 to 1997. Before joining the faculty of the Law School in 1979, Judge Easterbrook was Deputy Solicitor General of the United States. He holds degrees from Swarthmore College (B.A. with high honors, 1970) and the University of Chicago (J.D. cum laude, 1973), and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Law Institute, the Mont Pelerin Society, Phi Beta Kappa, and the Order of the Coif.
Alexander M. Bickel Professor of Public Law, Yale Law School
Degrees from Davidson College, B.A. summa cum laude, 1973; Harvard University, M.A., 1974; Yale Law School, J.D, 1978. Clerked for Edward Weinfeld, 1978-79; Attorney at Shea & Gardner, 1979-82; Law Professor since 1982, tenured at Georgetown and Yale, visiting professor at Stanford, NYU, Toronto, Harvard, Columbia, Penn, Fordham, Vanderbilt. Author of casebooks on legislation and sexuality, gender and law, as well as monographs on statutory interpretation and the rights of sexual and gender minorities. Author of dozens of articles, by one empirical count a top ten most cited law professors.
Professor of Law, UCLA Law School
Daniel Lowenstein was the first American law professor to specialize in Election Law and established a leading reputation in that field. He authored the first twentieth century textbook in the field — Election Law: Cases and Materials (Carolina Academic Press, 1995), now in its sixth edition. As co-editor with Professor Rick Hasen he inaugurated the Election Law Journal, the leading journal in the field. On January 29, 2010, leading scholars in Election Law put on a festschrift celebrating Lowenstein’s work in the field.
On July 1, 2009, Lowenstein became Director of the new UCLA Center for the Liberal Arts and Free Institutions (CLAFI), intended to facilitate and promote study of the great works and achievements of western civilization. He currently teaches undergraduate courses, primarily in literature.
Lowenstein worked as a staff attorney at California Rural Legal Assistance for two and one-half years beginning in 1968. While working for California's Secretary of State, Edmund G. Brown Jr. starting in 1971, he specialized in Election Law and was the main drafter of the Political Reform Act, an initiative statute that California voters approved in 1974, thereby creating a new Fair Political Practices Commission. Governor Brown appointed Lowenstein as first chairman of the Commission in 1975. Lowenstein has served on the national governing board of Common Cause and has been a board member and a vice president of Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights. He has also served as chairman of the Board of Directors of the award-winning theatre troupe Interact and regularly brings the company to the School of Law to perform plays with legal themes, such as Sophocles' Antigone, Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People, and Wouk's The Caine Mutiny Court Martial.
Professor Lowenstein’s published research runs the gamut of Election Law subjects, including campaign finance, redistricting, voting rights, political parties, and initiatives. He has also published literary criticism on works such as The Merchant of Venice and Bleak House.
To obtain news and information about CLAFI or about the Interact play readings at the School of Law, please write to Lowenstein at Lowenstein@law.ucla.edu.
Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit
Judge Sentelle was appointed United States Circuit Judge in October 1987, served as Chief Judge from February 11, 2008 until February 11, 2013, and took senior status on February 12, 2013. He is a 1968 graduate of the University of North Carolina Law School. Following law school, he practiced with the firm of Uzzell & DuMont until he became an Assistant U.S. Attorney in Charlotte, N.C. in 1970. From 1974 to 1977, he served as a North Carolina State District Judge but left the bench in 1977 to become a partner with the firm of Tucker, Hicks, Sentelle, Moon & Hodge. In 1985, Judge Sentelle joined the U.S. District Court, Western District of North Carolina, in Asheville, where he served until his appointment to the D.C. Circuit. Judge Sentelle was the Presiding Judge of the Special Division for the Purpose of Appointing Independent Counsels (1992-2006). He also served as the Chair of the U.S. Judicial Conference's Executive Committee (2010-2013). Judge Sentelle served for over 20 years as President of the Edward Bennett Williams Inn of the American Inns of Court.
Editor, The Weekly Standard
William Kristol is the editor of The Weekly Standard. He is also a regular panelist on Fox News Sunday, a contributor for the Fox News Channel, and a monthly columnist for the Washington Post. Before starting the Weekly Standard in 1995, Mr. Kristol led the Project for the Republican Future, where he helped shape the strategy that produced the 1994 Republican congressional victory. Prior to that, Mr. Kristol served as chief of staff to Vice President Dan Quayle during the first Bush Administration, and to Education Secretary William Bennett under President Reagan. Before coming to Washington in 1985, Mr. Kristol was on the faculty of Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and the Department of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, D.C. Circuit
Judge Randolph was confirmed by the Senate and appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit by President George H. W. Bush in July 1990.
Judge Randolph received his B.S. degree in 1966 from Drexel University, majoring in economics and basic engineering. At Drexel, he was president of the debate society, vice president of the Student Senate, and a member of the varsity wrestling squad. In 1969, he received his J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, summa cum laude. Judge Randolph ranked first in his law school class all three years and was managing editor of the Law Review.
After graduation, Judge Randolph served as a law clerk to Judge Henry J. Friendly of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York.
Admitted to the California Bar in 1970 (and to the District of Columbia bar in 1973), Judge Randolph worked as Assistant to the Solicitor General, U.S. Department of Justice, in Washington, D.C., 1970-1973.
After two years in private practice, Judge Randolph was named Deputy Solicitor General of the United States, a position he held from 1975-1977.
In 1979, Judge Randolph was appointed Special Counsel to the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct (the Ethics Committee) of the United States House of Representatives, remaining in this position until 1980.
In the 1980s, Judge Randolph held a number of positions while in private practice, including Special Assistant Attorney General for the states of New Mexico (1985 90), Utah (1986-1990) and Montana (1983-1990). He also served as a Member of the Advisory Panel of the Federal Courts Study Committee.
From 1971-1990, Judge Randolph argued 23 times in the United States Supreme Court, winning 20 of his cases.
As an Adjunct Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center from 1974-1978 he taught courses in civil procedure and injunctions. In 1992 he taught a course in constitutional law. He is a Distinguished Adjunct Professor of Law at George Mason School of Law and for the past ten years has been teaching First Amendment law. He also serves on the Judicial Advisory Board of the George Mason University Law and Economics Center.
From 1993 through 1995 Judge Randolph was a member of the Committee on Codes of Conduct of the Judicial Conference of the United States, and from 1995 to 1998 served as the Committee's chairman. He also served as the judicial liaison to the American Bar Association’s Administrative Law Section.
Judge Randolph is a member of the Board of Visitors at Drexel University Law School and was named to the “Drexel One Hundred” as a leading alumnus. In 2002 he was presented the James Wilson Award by the University of Pennsylvania Law School. In November 2005 he delivered the Fifth Annual Barbara K. Olson Memorial Lecture at the Annual Lawyers Convention of the Federalist Society. He has published numerous articles, the most recent of which is in the June 2006 issue of the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy.
Judge Randolph is married to the Honorable Eileen J. O’Connor, formerly Assistant Attorney General, Tax Division, U.S. Department of Justice. His son John Trevor Randolph is an investment banker in New York. His daughter Cynthia Lee Randolph is an artist living in San Francisco.
Partner, Supreme Court Attorney, Cabinet Briard LLP
François-Henri Briard is a Knight of the Legion of Honor, an Officer of the National Order of Merit and a Knight of the Palmes Académiques.
He was a member of the Governing Board of the Bar of the French Supreme Courts (2003-2005).
François-Henri Briard was a trustee of Sarah Lawrence College in New York for eight years. He is President of the Institut Vergennes, a member of the U.S. Supreme Court Historical Society and an honorary member of the Society of the Cincinnati and of the Sons of the American Revolution. He is also an expert with the Federalist Society, a U.S. think tank that focuses on constitutional and judicial issues.
He is a member of the Institute of Consulting Tax Attorneys (IACF) and an associate member of the Academy of Moral Sciences, Letters and Arts of Versailles and Ile de France.
He is a member of the French Navy civilian reserve with the rank of frigate captain and has been awarded a medal by the voluntary military services. On behalf of the Firm, he received the Military Reserve Prize (2011).
Visiting Professor of Public and International Affairs, Charles and Marie Robertson Visiting Professor, Princeton School of Public and International Affairs
Martin S. Flaherty is a longtime is Visiting Professor at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs, where he was Fellow in the Program in Law and Public Affairs. He is also Leitner Family Professor of International Human Rights Law and Founding Co-Director of the Leitner Center for International Law and Justice at Fordham Law School. Professor Flaherty also currently teaches at Columbia Law School and Barnard College. Previously he has taught at China University of Political Science and Law and the National Judges College in Beijing, Sungkyunkwan University in Seoul, Queen’s University Belfast. Professor Flaherty earlier served as a law clerk for Justice Byron R. White of the U.S. Supreme Court and Chief Judge John Gibbons of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
Flaherty received a J.D. from Columbia Law School, where he was Book Reviews and Articles Editor of the Columbia Law Review, an M.A. and M.Phil., with distinction, from Yale (in history), and B.A. summa cum laude from Princeton. For the Leitner Center, Human Rights First, and the New York City Bar Association, he has led or participated in human rights missions to Northern Ireland, Turkey, Hong Kong, Mexico, Malaysia, Kenya, Romania and China. Professor Flaherty is currently the President of the American Association of the International Commission of Jurists, https://www.aaicj.org, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and a legal expert advisor at the Sixth Committee of the United Nations General Assembly.
Flaherty’s scholarly publications focus upon international human rights, foreign affairs, and constitutional law and history, and appear in such journals as the Columbia Law Review, the Yale Law Journal, the Michigan Law Review, the University of Chicago Law Review, Constitutional Commentary, the Harvard Journal of Law and Policy, and the Harvard Human Rights Journal. He has written, appeared, or been quoted in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Yorker, The Boston Globe, The Daily News, Newsday, the PBS Newshour, CNN, MSNBC, and NPR. He is also the author of the Restoring the Global Judiciary: Why the Supreme Court Should Rule in Foreign Affairs (Princeton University Press, 2019).
George C. Dix Professor in Constitutional Law, Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law
John O. McGinnis is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review. He also has an MA degree from Balliol College, Oxford, in philosophy and theology. Professor McGinnis clerked on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. From 1987 to 1991, he was deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel at the Department of Justice. He is the author of Accelerating Democracy: Transforming Government Through Technology (Princeton 2013) and Originalism and the Good Constitution (Harvard 2013) (with M. Rappaport). He is a past winner of the Paul Bator award given by the Federalist Society to an outstanding academic under 40. He has been listed by the United States on the roster of panelists who may be called upon to decide World Trade Organization Disputes.
Partner, Baker Hostetler LLP
David Rivkin is a member of the firm's litigation, international and environmental teams and is co-leader of the firm's national appellate practice. He has extensive experience in constitutional, administrative and international law litigation and has been involved in numerous high-profile cases. With his prior experience in the government sector, David draws on a wealth of knowledge when providing compliance advice to companies and handling enforcement proceedings before government agencies on issues arising out of multilateral and unilateral sanctions, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), anti-boycott issues, bankruptcy and financial fraud matters, and environmental and energy issues.
David has developed and implemented legislative, regulatory and litigation initiatives for two presidential administrations. Over the years, he has published hundreds of articles, op-eds, book reviews and book chapters on a variety of international, legal, constitutional, defense, arms control, foreign policy, environmental and energy issues for various newspapers and magazines, including The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The New York Times, USA Today and The Los Angeles Times, and has been a frequent commentator and guest on TV and radio shows including ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox News, NPR and PBS.
Former President & CEO, The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies
Eugene B. Meyer, former President and CEO of the Federalist Society, has served as Executive Director, CEO, and/or President of the organization for more than 40 years. He is responsible for shepherding the organization from a small group of law students to a community of 90,000 lawyers, law students, academics, judges, and others interested in the rule of law. The Society now includes a Student Chapter at nearly every ABA-accredited law school in the country and Lawyers Chapters in 220 major cities across the nation. Gene earned his B.A. in history at Yale in 1975 and his M.A. in political science from the London School of Economics in 1976. Gene currently serves on the boards of the U.S. Chess Center, the Holman Foundation, the Sarah Scaife Foundation, and the advisory board of the Adam Smith Society. He holds the title of International Chess Master.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, D.C. Circuit
Judge Randolph was confirmed by the Senate and appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit by President George H. W. Bush in July 1990.
Judge Randolph received his B.S. degree in 1966 from Drexel University, majoring in economics and basic engineering. At Drexel, he was president of the debate society, vice president of the Student Senate, and a member of the varsity wrestling squad. In 1969, he received his J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, summa cum laude. Judge Randolph ranked first in his law school class all three years and was managing editor of the Law Review.
After graduation, Judge Randolph served as a law clerk to Judge Henry J. Friendly of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York.
Admitted to the California Bar in 1970 (and to the District of Columbia bar in 1973), Judge Randolph worked as Assistant to the Solicitor General, U.S. Department of Justice, in Washington, D.C., 1970-1973.
After two years in private practice, Judge Randolph was named Deputy Solicitor General of the United States, a position he held from 1975-1977.
In 1979, Judge Randolph was appointed Special Counsel to the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct (the Ethics Committee) of the United States House of Representatives, remaining in this position until 1980.
In the 1980s, Judge Randolph held a number of positions while in private practice, including Special Assistant Attorney General for the states of New Mexico (1985 90), Utah (1986-1990) and Montana (1983-1990). He also served as a Member of the Advisory Panel of the Federal Courts Study Committee.
From 1971-1990, Judge Randolph argued 23 times in the United States Supreme Court, winning 20 of his cases.
As an Adjunct Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center from 1974-1978 he taught courses in civil procedure and injunctions. In 1992 he taught a course in constitutional law. He is a Distinguished Adjunct Professor of Law at George Mason School of Law and for the past ten years has been teaching First Amendment law. He also serves on the Judicial Advisory Board of the George Mason University Law and Economics Center.
From 1993 through 1995 Judge Randolph was a member of the Committee on Codes of Conduct of the Judicial Conference of the United States, and from 1995 to 1998 served as the Committee's chairman. He also served as the judicial liaison to the American Bar Association’s Administrative Law Section.
Judge Randolph is a member of the Board of Visitors at Drexel University Law School and was named to the “Drexel One Hundred” as a leading alumnus. In 2002 he was presented the James Wilson Award by the University of Pennsylvania Law School. In November 2005 he delivered the Fifth Annual Barbara K. Olson Memorial Lecture at the Annual Lawyers Convention of the Federalist Society. He has published numerous articles, the most recent of which is in the June 2006 issue of the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy.
Judge Randolph is married to the Honorable Eileen J. O’Connor, formerly Assistant Attorney General, Tax Division, U.S. Department of Justice. His son John Trevor Randolph is an investment banker in New York. His daughter Cynthia Lee Randolph is an artist living in San Francisco.
President Emeritus, Intercollegiate Studies Institute
T. Kenneth Cribb Jr. is the former president of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute. Mr. Cribb was Assistant to the President for Domestic Affairs in the Reagan administration, serving as President Reagan’s top adviser on domestic matters. Earlier in the administration he held the position of Counselor to the Attorney General. He also served as Vice Chairman of the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board from 1989 to 1992.
Ronald Reagan Distinguished Fellow Emeritus, The Heritage Foundation
Edwin Meese III, the prominent conservative leader, thinker and elder statesman, continues a quarter-century formal association with The Heritage Foundation as the leading think tank’s Ronald Reagan Distinguished Fellow Emeritus.
In that capacity, Meese oversees special projects and acts as an ambassador for Heritage within the conservative movement.
Meese was chairman of Heritage’s Center for Legal and Judicial Studies from its founding in 2001 until what he calls his “semi-retirement” on Feb. 1, 2013.
He joined Heritage in 1988 as the think tank's first Ronald Reagan Distinguished Fellow -- the only policy chair in the country to be officially named for the 40th president. His work focused on keeping President Reagan’s legacy of conservative principles alive in public debate and discourse.
The legal center now bears his name, in recognition of Meese’s contributions to the rule of law and the nation’s understanding of constitutional law. Its mission is to educate government officials, the media and the public about the Constitution and legal principles -- and how they affect public policy.
Perhaps best known as U.S. attorney general during Reagan’s second term, Meese’s service to the conservative icon stretched from the California governor’s mansion in 1966 to the White House in 1981 before he went to the Department of Justice four years later.
His Heritage “hats” kept Meese among the major conservative voices in national policy debates at an age when most men and women enjoyed quiet retirements.
In 2006, for example, Meese was named to the Iraq Study Group, a special presidential commission dedicated to examining the best resolutions for America's involvement in Iraq. In the past few years he wrote and spoke about constitutional topics ranging from religious liberty to the responsibility of Supreme Court justices.
Immediately after Reagan's death in 2004, and in the years since, Meese often agreed to major media appearances to discuss the lasting impact of his old friend, mentor and boss. He has summarized the Reagan legacy in three accomplishments: Reagan cut taxes and kept them low. He worked to defeat and end the Soviet Union and its worldwide push for communism. And he restored America's faith in itself after years of failure and "malaise."
"I admired him as a leader and cherish his friendship," Meese wrote in a 2004 essay for Heritage members and supporters. "Ronald Reagan had strong convictions. He was committed to the principles that had led to the founding of our nation. And he had the courage to follow his convictions against all odds." <[>Edwin Meese III was born Dec. 2, 1931, to Edwin Jr. and Leone Meese in Oakland, Calif. He graduated from Yale University in 1953 and holds a law degree from the University of California-Berkeley.
Meese spent much of his adult life working for Reagan, first after the former actor, sports announcer and athlete was elected as California’s governor in 1966 and then when he sought and won the presidency in 1980.
Reagan never forgot Meese's loyalty and hard work. During a press conference at which reporters questioned Meese's actions at the Justice Department, Reagan replied: "If Ed Meese is not a good man, there are no good men."
During the Reagan governorship, Meese served as executive assistant and chief of staff from 1969 through 1974 and as legal affairs secretary from 1967 through 1968. He previously was deputy district attorney in Alameda County, Calif.
From January 1981 to February 1985, Meese held the position of counsellor to the president -- the senior job on the White House staff -- and functioned as Reagan's chief policy adviser. In 1985, he received Government Executive magazine's annual award for excellence in management.
Meese served as the 75th attorney general of the United States from February 1985 to August 1988. As the nation's chief law enforcement officer, he directed the Justice Department and led international efforts to combat terrorism, drug trafficking and organized crime.
Meese’s relationship with Heritage began when he met with senior management to discuss the think tank's landmark policy guide, Mandate for Leadership, prepared for the incoming administration. Meese later recalled that Reagan personally handed out copies of the 1,093-page book to members of his Cabinet and asked them to read it. Nearly two-thirds of Mandate's 2,000 recommendations would be adopted or attempted by the Reagan administration.
More than a decade after joining Heritage, Meese assumed the chairmanship of its Center for Legal and Judicial Studies. Under his guidance, the center counseled White House staffers, Justice Department officials and Senate Judiciary Committee members on the importance of filling judicial vacancies with qualified men and women who are committed to interpreting the Constitution according to the founding document's original meaning.
The center became known for hosting "moot court" practice sessions to sharpen the arguments of attorneys slated to bring important cases before the Supreme Court. Those cases addressed constitutional issues ranging from property rights to racial preferences in primary and secondary schools to restrictions on free speech in campaign finance law.
Meese headed the legal center's Advisory Board for the writing and editing of the best-selling book, The Heritage Guide to the Constitution (Regnery, 2005). In it, 109 experts walked readers through a clause-by-clause analysis of the Constitution. Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) was among those keeping the reference work handy during Judiciary Committee hearings on Supreme Court nominees.
Meese's other books include “Leadership, Ethics and Policing” (Prentice Hall, 2004); “Making America Safer” (Heritage, 1997); and “With Reagan: The Inside Story” (Regnery Gateway, 1992).He wrote the Introduction to a well-received 2010 book on the “overcriminalization” trend, “One Nation Under Arrest,” by Heritage veterans Paul Rosenzweig and Brian W. Walsh.
He also is a distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University in California and lectures, writes and consults throughout the United States on a variety of subjects.
As both attorney general and counsellor to Reagan, Meese was a member of the Cabinet and the National Security Council. He served as chairman of the Domestic Policy Council and the National Drug Policy Board. After Reagan won the White House in the 1980 election, Meese headed the transition team. During the campaign, he was the Reagan-Bush Committee's senior official.
Meese had a career outside government and politics. From 1977 to 1981, he was a law professor at the University of San Diego, where he also directed the Center for Criminal Justice Policy and Management.
He was an executive in the aerospace and transportation industry as vice president for administration of Rohr Industries Inc. in Chula Vista, Calif. He left Rohr to return to the practice of law, doing corporate and general work in San Diego County.
A retired colonel in the Army Reserve, Meese remains active in numerous civic and educational organizations.
He and his wife, Ursula, have two grown children and reside in McLean, Va.
Former United States Assistant Attorney General, Civil Rights Division, United States Department of Justice
William Bradford served as the United States Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division from 1981 to 1988.
Reynolds was Senior Counsel in BakerBotts Antitrust and Competition division. He graduated with a LL.B. from Vanderbilt University Law School in 1967 where he was Order of the Coif and Editor-in-Chief of the Vanderbilt Law Review. In 1964, he received a B.A. from Yale University.
Reynolds passed away on September 14, 2019, in Seabrook Island, South Carolina at age 77.
May the President Disregard a Congressional Statute for National Security Reasons?
Louis Fisher, Douglas W. Kmiec, Ilya Somin, John C. Yoo
9th Annual Faculty Conference
The Federalist Society's Faculty Division presented this panel discussion at the Ninth Annual Faculty Conference...
A Conversation on the Constitution with Supreme Court Justices Stephen Breyer and Antonin Scalia
Stephen G. Breyer, Jan Crawford, Antonin Scalia
A Conversation on the Constitution: Perspectives from Active Liberty and A Matter of Interpretation ...
A Conversation on the Constitution with Supreme Court Justices Stephen Breyer and Antonin Scalia
Stephen G. Breyer, Jan Crawford, Antonin Scalia
A Conversation on the Constitution: Perspectives from Active Liberty and A Matter of Interpretation ...
Showcase Panel IV: The Role of Government in Defining Our Culture
Hadley P. Arkes, Walter E. Dellinger, William N. Eskridge, Edwin Meese, Charles Murray, Anthony D. Romero, Phyllis Schlafly
2006 National Lawyers Convention
The Federalist Society presented this Showcase Panel at the 2006 Annual National Lawyers Convention on...
Annual Convention Luncheon: Judicial Independence
Carlos T. Bea, Danny J. Boggs, Timothy B. Dyk, Dennis Jacobs, Patricia M. Wald
2006 National Lawyers Convention
The Federalist Society presented this panel at the 2006 Annual National Lawyers Convention on Saturday,...
Showcase Panel III: Are Constitutional Changes Necessary to Limit Government?
Frank H. Easterbrook, William N. Eskridge, Daniel H. Lowenstein, Richard D. Parker, David B. Sentelle
2006 National Lawyers Convention
The Federalist Society presented this Showcase Panel at the 2006 Annual National Lawyers Convention on...
Showcase Panel I: Limited Government and Spreading Democracy: Uneasy Cousins?
William Kristol, Tom G. Palmer, A. Raymond Randolph, François-Henri Briard
2006 National Lawyers Convention
The Federalist Society presented this Showcase Panel at the 2006 Annual National Lawyers Convention on...
Customary International Law, the War on Terror, and the Constitution
Jose A. Cabranes, Martin Flaherty, David Golove, John O. McGinnis, David B. Rivkin
International & National Security Law Practice Group
The Law of Nations includes principles of customary international law. Customary international law has played...
5th Annual Barbara K. Olson Memorial Lecture
Eugene B. Meyer, A. Raymond Randolph
2005 National Lawyers Convention
On September 11, 2001, at the age of 45 and at the height of her...
James Madison Award Presentation [Archive Collection]
T. Kenneth Cribb, Edwin Meese, Wm. Bradford Reynolds
First Annual National Lawyers Convention
On January 30-31, 1987, the Federalist Society hosted its first-ever national lawyers convention at the...