Tazewell Taylor Professor of Law and William H. Cabell Research Professor, William & Mary Law School
Jonathan H. Adler joined the William & Mary law faculty as the Tazwell Taylor Professor of Law and William H. Cabell Research Professor in 2025. Prior to joining the faculty, he was the inaugural Johan Verheij Memorial Professor of Law and the founding Director of the Coleman P. Burke Center for Environmental Law at the Case Western Reserve University School of Law.
Professor Adler is the author or editor of seven books, including Climate Liberalism: Perspectives on Liberty, Property and Pollution (Palgrave, 2023), Marijuana Federalism: Uncle Sam and Mary Jane (Brookings Institution Press, 2020), Business and the Roberts Court (Oxford University Press, 2016) and Rebuilding the Ark: New Perspectives on Endangered Species Act Reform (AEI Press, 2011).
His articles have appeared in publications ranging from the Harvard Environmental Law Review and Yale Journal on Regulation to the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and Washington Post. He has testified before Congress a dozen times, and his work has been cited in the U.S. Supreme Court. A 2024 study identified Professor Adler as the seventh most cited legal academic in administrative and environmental law from 2019 to 2023.
Professor Adler is a contributing editor to Civitas Outlook and a regular contributor to the popular legal blog, The Volokh Conspiracy. A regular commentator on constitutional and regulatory issues, he has appeared on numerous radio and television programs, ranging from the PBS Newshour and National Public Radio to the Fox News Channel and Entertainment Tonight.
Professor Adler is a senior fellow at the Property & Environment Research Center in Bozeman, Montana. In 2018, Professor Adler was elected to membership in the American Law Institute and helped co-found the organization Checks and Balances. In 2024, Professor Adler was appointed a public member of the Administrative Conference of the United States.
Professor Adler clerked for the Honorable David B. Sentelle on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission
Paul S. Atkins was sworn into office as the 34th Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission on April 21, 2025, after being nominated by President Donald J. Trump on January 20, 2025, and confirmed by the U.S. Senate on April 9, 2025.
Prior to returning to the SEC, Chairman Atkins was most recently chief executive of Patomak Global Partners, a company he founded in 2009. Chairman Atkins helped lead efforts to develop best practices for the digital asset sector. He served as an independent director and non-executive chairman of the board of BATS Global Markets, Inc. from 2012 to 2015.
Chairman Atkins was appointed by President George W. Bush to serve as a Commissioner of the SEC from 2002 to 2008. During his tenure, he advocated for transparency, consistency, and the use of cost-benefit analysis at the agency. Chairman Atkins also represented the SEC at meetings of the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets and the U.S.-EU Transatlantic Economic Council. From 2009 to 2010, he was appointed a member of the Congressional Oversight Panel for the Troubled Asset Relief Program.
Before serving as an SEC Commissioner, Chairman Atkins was a consultant on securities and investment management industry matters, especially regarding issues of strategy, regulatory compliance, risk management, new product development, and organizational control.
From 1990 to 1994, Chairman Atkins served on the staff of two chairmen of the SEC, Richard C. Breeden and Arthur Levitt, ultimately as chief of staff and counselor, respectively. He received the SEC’s 1992 Law and Policy Award for work regarding corporate governance matters.
Chairman Atkins began his career as a lawyer in New York, focusing on a wide range of corporate transactions for U.S. and foreign clients, including public and private securities offerings and mergers and acquisitions. He was resident for 2½ years in his firm's Paris office and admitted as conseil juridique in France.
A member of the New York and Florida bars, Chairman Atkins received his J.D. from Vanderbilt University School of Law in 1983 and was Senior Student Writing Editor of the Vanderbilt Law Review. He received his A.B., Phi Beta Kappa, from Wofford College in 1980.
Originally from Lillington, North Carolina, Chairman Atkins grew up in Tampa, Florida. He and his wife Sarah have three sons.
Partner, Williams & Connolly
Lisa Blatt serves as Chair of Williams & Connolly’s Supreme Court and Appellate practice. Lisa has argued 53 cases before the United States Supreme Court, prevailing in 86% of them. The National Law Journal has called her a "visionary" and one of "the 100 most influential lawyers in America." Bloomberg has described her as a "legendary high court litigator" while The National Journal likewise has referred to her as a "SCOTUS legend." In 2021, The American Lawyer recognized Lisa as the "Litigator of the Year." Lisa’s appellate work has been highlighted by multiple publications and has earned her rankings in Chambers USA, Benchmark Litigation, The Legal 500, and Washingtonian magazine. Lisa was selected as one of the “Top 10 Women in Litigation” in the United States by Benchmark Litigation in 2020 and 2021. Managing IP named her the 2021 “Practitioner of the Year (Appellate)” for her work as lead counsel to Booking.com before the Supreme Court. In 2021, Chambers USA reported that clients describe Lisa as “one of the best advocates today. She is extremely strong on her feet, connects with judges and has an unmatched win record,” and her “command of the case law and the way she presents is a work of art.”
Lisa has argued and briefed numerous appeals on a wide range of business law issues in federal and state courts of appeal. The American Lawyer Litigation Daily has twice named her "Litigator of the Week" – for her work in Price v. Philip Morris, Inc. in overturning reinstatement of a $10 billion verdict against client Philip Morris in a "light" cigarette case, and in SmithKline Beecham Corp. v. Abbott Laboratories, a landmark case on behalf of GlaxoSmithKline finding that the Equal Protection Clause bars peremptory challenges of jurors based on sexual orientation. Lisa also represented Marvin Gaye’s heirs in their copyright dispute over the hit songs “Got To Give It Up” and “Blurred Lines,” and the Washington Redskins football team in its dispute with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office over the team's trademarks.
Lisa has substantial experience with trademark law and the pharmaceutical industry. Her Supreme Court cases also have addressed a broad range of issues, involving First Amendment, arbitration, antitrust, civil procedure, preemption, employment and ERISA, and bankruptcy.
Lisa began her career at Williams & Connolly as an associate before joining the general counsel’s office at the Department of Energy, followed by thirteen years in the Office of the Solicitor General.
Lisa received her J.D. summa cum laude from the University of Texas School of Law before clerking for The Honorable Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
Lisa assists the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in selecting cases for amicus participation, and is on the Advisory Boards for Georgetown University Law Center's Supreme Court Institute and the Washington Legal Foundation. She also teaches at Georgetown University’s Law Center.
Supreme Court & Appellate Litigation Chair, Lex Politica; Of Counsel, Alliance Defending Freedom
Erin Morrow Hawley serves as Chair of Lex Politica's Supreme Court and Appellate Practice overseeing the firm’s strategic appellate litigation and critical motions practice in the trial courts. Erin is an experienced litigator who represents clients in constitutional, regulatory, and appellate matters in federal and state courts throughout the country.
Erin has represented dozens of clients before the Supreme Court of the United States, served as lead counsel in high-profile cases raising novel constitutional and statutory issues, and authored numerous successful petitions for certiorari and briefs in opposition. She has argued in state and federal appellate and trial courts throughout the country, including the Supreme Court of the United States. Erin represents diverse clients in high-stakes litigation from state governments to faith-based nonprofits to Fortune 100 companies. She possesses expertise on a wide range of subject matters including administrative law, the First Amendment, religious liberty, federal jurisdiction, federal preemption, equitable jurisdiction, tax law, the Affordable Care Act, and Title IX.
Erin represents clients in cases where public communications strategy is paramount. She is a sought-after speaker and writer, has testified multiple times before Congress, and is a frequent presenter on constitutional and administrative law issues, including at the Oxford Union, the National Federalist Society Convention, and university campuses across the country. She is a frequent commentator to media outlets, including Fox News, MSNBC, the Wall Street Journal, WORLD, USA Today, the Federalist, and the Hill.
Erin previously oversaw Alliance Defending Freedom’s--where she still serves as Of Counsel--litigation strategies to empower women and protect the dignity of life, defend pregnancy centers’ First Amendment rights from government overreach, and safeguard Americans’ freedoms from the ever-encroaching administrative state.
Editor, SCOTUSblog
Partner, McGuireWoods
John Moran is a member of the firm’s nationally recognized Government Investigations and White Collar Litigation department. A former senior official at the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the White House and an experienced litigator and counselor, John draws on his broad experience from private practice and government service to advise and represent clients in government enforcement, congressional investigations, high-stakes civil disputes, and regulatory litigation. He also serves as co-chair of the firm’s Congressional Investigations practice, representing both companies and individuals in congressional investigations and hearings and is a member of the firm’s Appeals & Issues group.
Associate Vice President & Associate Legal Director, Americans United for Separation of Church and State
Alex Luchenitser is the Associate Vice President & Associate Legal Director at Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
Alex has litigated church-state cases throughout the country for Americans United since January 2001. He has led lawsuits challenging religious proselytization of students in public schools, public funding of religious institutions, discriminatory governmental prayer practices, and government-sponsored religious displays. His successful cases include:
Alex has also authored and edited numerous friend-of-the-court briefs filed on behalf of Americans United. After the Covid-19 pandemic began, Alex led Americans United’s efforts to fight lawsuits that sought religious exemptions from public-health orders, filing fifty friend-of-the-court briefs in such cases around the country, including six in the U.S. Supreme Court.
Alex was born in Kyiv, Ukraine, in 1969 and immigrated to the United States in 1977. He received his bachelor’s degree magna cum laude in government and economics from Harvard University in 1991, and he received his Juris Doctor with distinction from Stanford Law School in 1994. After finishing law school, Alex served two one-year judicial clerkships, with Justice Warren W. Matthews Jr. of the Alaska Supreme Court and U.S. Magistrate Judge Wayne D. Brazil of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. Alex then spent four years in private practice in Northern California, participating in the prosecution of class actions on behalf of investors, consumers, and trust beneficiaries.
Alex has spoken about church-state issues in many television and radio appearances and public presentations and has been quoted in numerous major newspapers. His published articles include:
Alex is an active member of the District of Columbia Bar, is an inactive member of the State Bar of California, and has been admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court; the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, Ninth, Tenth, Eleventh, Federal, and District of Columbia Circuits; and the U.S. District Courts for the District of Columbia, the Northern District of California, the District of Colorado, the Eastern District of Michigan, and the Eastern District of Wisconsin.
University Professor of Law and Religion and Director of the Eleanor H. McCullen Center for Law, Religion and Public Policy, Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law
Michael P. Moreland was appointed University Professor of Law and Religion and Director of the Eleanor H. McCullen Center for Law, Religion and Public Policy at Villanova University in 2017. Professor Moreland joined the Villanova faculty in 2006 and served as Vice Dean from 2012 to 2015. His research is primarily in the areas of torts, law and religion, constitutional law, and Catholic social thought, and he regularly teaches Torts, First Amendment, seminars in law and religion, and undergraduate courses in ethics.
Professor Moreland is the co-editor of Christianity and Private Law (Routledge, 2021), and his most recent publications include: “The Authority of Tradition: John Henry Newman and Legal Theory” in Christianity and the Making of Irish Law (Routledge, 2025); “Christianity and Torts” in The Oxford Handbook on Christianity and Law, (Oxford University Press, 2023); “Germaneness and Religious Liberty” in the Notre Dame Law Review (2023); “Contingency and Contestation in Christianity and Liberalism” in the Notre Dame Law Review (2023); “Friendship as the Primary Purpose of Law” in The American Journal of Jurisprudence 279 (2022); and “The Moral of Torts” (with Jeffrey Pojanowski) in Christianity and Private Law (Routledge, 2021).
Professor Moreland was a Visiting Professor of Law at the University of Notre Dame and the Mary Ann Remick Senior Visiting Fellow at the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture from 2015 to 2017. He was the Forbes Visiting Fellow at Princeton University in the James Madison Program during academic year 2010-11. He has served as the project leader for grants from the John Templeton Foundation and the Charles Koch Foundation. He serves as the Chair of the Federalist Society’s Religious Liberties Practice Group Executive Committee and the Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Institute for Advanced Catholic Studies at the University of Southern California.
Professor Moreland received his BA in philosophy from the University of Notre Dame, his MA and PhD in theological ethics from Boston College, and his JD from the University of Michigan Law School. Following law school, Professor Moreland clerked for the Honorable Paul J. Kelly Jr., of the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit and was an associate at Williams & Connolly LLP in Washington, DC, where he represented clients in First Amendment, professional liability, and products liability matters. Before coming to Villanova, he served as Associate Director for Domestic Policy at the White House under President George W. Bush, where he worked on a range of legal policy issues, including criminal justice, immigration, civil rights, and liability reform.
Senior Counsel, Alliance Defending Freedom
Phil Sechler serves as senior counsel at Alliance Defending Freedom, where he focuses on academic and religious freedom.
Before joining ADF, Sechler had a long career in private practice, with substantial first-chair trial experience in courts around the country on a variety of complex litigation matters. Sechler spent most of his career as a partner in the powerhouse law firm of Williams & Connolly LLP in Washington, D.C. He also was a partner in the litigation boutique of Robbins, Russell, Englert, Orseck & Untereiner LLP.
In August 2013, Sechler took a break from law practice to become a Distinguished Visitor from Practice at Penn State Law School, where he spent four years teaching courses in Evidence, Professional Responsibility, and Advocacy. He also taught at the Antonin Scalia School of Law at George Mason University and at the Georgetown University Law Center, where he continues to teach a course on Professional Responsibility.
Sechler received his bachelor’s degree with high distinction from Pennsylvania State University, and he earned his Juris Doctor from Georgetown University Law Center, where he graduated summa cum laude and was Editor-in-Chief of The Georgetown Law Journal. Following law school, he clerked for the Honorable Francis D. Murnaghan, Jr., of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit.
Sechler is an active member of the District of Columbia Bar and is admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court and numerous federal appellate and trial courts.
Associate Vice President & Associate Legal Director, Americans United for Separation of Church and State
Alex Luchenitser is the Associate Vice President & Associate Legal Director at Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
Alex has litigated church-state cases throughout the country for Americans United since January 2001. He has led lawsuits challenging religious proselytization of students in public schools, public funding of religious institutions, discriminatory governmental prayer practices, and government-sponsored religious displays. His successful cases include:
Alex has also authored and edited numerous friend-of-the-court briefs filed on behalf of Americans United. After the Covid-19 pandemic began, Alex led Americans United’s efforts to fight lawsuits that sought religious exemptions from public-health orders, filing fifty friend-of-the-court briefs in such cases around the country, including six in the U.S. Supreme Court.
Alex was born in Kyiv, Ukraine, in 1969 and immigrated to the United States in 1977. He received his bachelor’s degree magna cum laude in government and economics from Harvard University in 1991, and he received his Juris Doctor with distinction from Stanford Law School in 1994. After finishing law school, Alex served two one-year judicial clerkships, with Justice Warren W. Matthews Jr. of the Alaska Supreme Court and U.S. Magistrate Judge Wayne D. Brazil of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. Alex then spent four years in private practice in Northern California, participating in the prosecution of class actions on behalf of investors, consumers, and trust beneficiaries.
Alex has spoken about church-state issues in many television and radio appearances and public presentations and has been quoted in numerous major newspapers. His published articles include:
Alex is an active member of the District of Columbia Bar, is an inactive member of the State Bar of California, and has been admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court; the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, Ninth, Tenth, Eleventh, Federal, and District of Columbia Circuits; and the U.S. District Courts for the District of Columbia, the Northern District of California, the District of Colorado, the Eastern District of Michigan, and the Eastern District of Wisconsin.
University Professor of Law and Religion and Director of the Eleanor H. McCullen Center for Law, Religion and Public Policy, Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law
Michael P. Moreland was appointed University Professor of Law and Religion and Director of the Eleanor H. McCullen Center for Law, Religion and Public Policy at Villanova University in 2017. Professor Moreland joined the Villanova faculty in 2006 and served as Vice Dean from 2012 to 2015. His research is primarily in the areas of torts, law and religion, constitutional law, and Catholic social thought, and he regularly teaches Torts, First Amendment, seminars in law and religion, and undergraduate courses in ethics.
Professor Moreland is the co-editor of Christianity and Private Law (Routledge, 2021), and his most recent publications include: “The Authority of Tradition: John Henry Newman and Legal Theory” in Christianity and the Making of Irish Law (Routledge, 2025); “Christianity and Torts” in The Oxford Handbook on Christianity and Law, (Oxford University Press, 2023); “Germaneness and Religious Liberty” in the Notre Dame Law Review (2023); “Contingency and Contestation in Christianity and Liberalism” in the Notre Dame Law Review (2023); “Friendship as the Primary Purpose of Law” in The American Journal of Jurisprudence 279 (2022); and “The Moral of Torts” (with Jeffrey Pojanowski) in Christianity and Private Law (Routledge, 2021).
Professor Moreland was a Visiting Professor of Law at the University of Notre Dame and the Mary Ann Remick Senior Visiting Fellow at the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture from 2015 to 2017. He was the Forbes Visiting Fellow at Princeton University in the James Madison Program during academic year 2010-11. He has served as the project leader for grants from the John Templeton Foundation and the Charles Koch Foundation. He serves as the Chair of the Federalist Society’s Religious Liberties Practice Group Executive Committee and the Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Institute for Advanced Catholic Studies at the University of Southern California.
Professor Moreland received his BA in philosophy from the University of Notre Dame, his MA and PhD in theological ethics from Boston College, and his JD from the University of Michigan Law School. Following law school, Professor Moreland clerked for the Honorable Paul J. Kelly Jr., of the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit and was an associate at Williams & Connolly LLP in Washington, DC, where he represented clients in First Amendment, professional liability, and products liability matters. Before coming to Villanova, he served as Associate Director for Domestic Policy at the White House under President George W. Bush, where he worked on a range of legal policy issues, including criminal justice, immigration, civil rights, and liability reform.
Senior Counsel, Alliance Defending Freedom
Phil Sechler serves as senior counsel at Alliance Defending Freedom, where he focuses on academic and religious freedom.
Before joining ADF, Sechler had a long career in private practice, with substantial first-chair trial experience in courts around the country on a variety of complex litigation matters. Sechler spent most of his career as a partner in the powerhouse law firm of Williams & Connolly LLP in Washington, D.C. He also was a partner in the litigation boutique of Robbins, Russell, Englert, Orseck & Untereiner LLP.
In August 2013, Sechler took a break from law practice to become a Distinguished Visitor from Practice at Penn State Law School, where he spent four years teaching courses in Evidence, Professional Responsibility, and Advocacy. He also taught at the Antonin Scalia School of Law at George Mason University and at the Georgetown University Law Center, where he continues to teach a course on Professional Responsibility.
Sechler received his bachelor’s degree with high distinction from Pennsylvania State University, and he earned his Juris Doctor from Georgetown University Law Center, where he graduated summa cum laude and was Editor-in-Chief of The Georgetown Law Journal. Following law school, he clerked for the Honorable Francis D. Murnaghan, Jr., of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit.
Sechler is an active member of the District of Columbia Bar and is admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court and numerous federal appellate and trial courts.
Eric Criss is an independent scholar who recently published The Boss of New Orleans: Martin Behrman and Machine Politics in the Crescent City with the LSU Press. He taught advanced public policy at Florida State University, where he earned his PhD in history. Eric earned his MA in Government at John's Hopkins University and BA in Political Science at the University of Florida. Eric began his career with U.S. Senators Don Nickles of Oklahoma and Phil Gramm of Texas at the National Republican Senatorial Committee in Washington, D.C. He later served as staff member or consultant to Fortune 500 corporations, political parties, and presidential, congressional, and gubernatorial campaigns.
Professor of History, Georgia Southern University
Johnathan O'Neill is Professor of History at Georgia Southern University. Professor O’Neill is the author of Originalism in American Law and Politics: A Constitutional History (2005) and Conservative Thought and American Constitutionalism Since the New Deal (2023).
Supreme Court Preview: What Is in Store for October Term 2024?
Jonathan H. Adler, Paul S. Atkins, Lisa S. Blatt, Erin M. Hawley, Sarah Isgur, John S. Moran
Co-Sponsored by the Faculty Division and Practice Groups
On October 1, 2024, the Federalist Society's Faculty Division and Practice Groups will host a panel at...
A Religious Charter School? A Discussion on the Limits of State Action and Demands of the Free Exercise Clause
Alex J. Luchenitser, Michael P. Moreland, Philip A. Sechler
On June 25, 2024, the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled that the nation’s first religious charter...
A Religious Charter School? A Discussion on the Limits of State Action and Demands of the Free Exercise Clause
Alex J. Luchenitser, Michael P. Moreland, Philip A. Sechler
On June 25, 2024, the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled that the nation’s first religious charter...
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Bad Judicial Medicine
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Major Questions About the FTC’s Junk Fee Rule
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A Win for Texas in U.S. v. Abbott: Examining the States’ Power to Defend Their Borders
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Integrity or Interference?: Evaluating the Constitutionality of Georgia's Election Integrity Act
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Federalist Society Review, Volume 25
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Netanyahu Gave a Great Speech, But He Should Not Have Been Invited
Prime Minister Netanyahu’s July 24 address to a joint session of Congress was brilliant, and...
A Response to the Constitution's Critics
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Federalist Society Review, Volume 25
A review of Dennis Hale and Marc Landy, Keeping the Republic: A Defense of American...