Senior Of Counsel, Covington & Burling LLP and Executive Chairma, The Chertoff Group
Michael Chertoff concentrates in the area of White Collar Defense and Investigations. In recent years, he has handled a series of federal investigations, including complex criminal and civil regulatory matters. He has advised major clients on SEC and Justice Department investigations and successfully served as the independent monitor of a major national healthcare company under criminal and civil investigation.
In addition to his legal work, Mr. Chertoff is Founder and Chairman of The Chertoff Group, a security and risk management firm, where he provides high-level strategic counsel to corporate and government leaders on a broad range of security issues, from risk identification and prevention to preparedness, response and recovery.
In April of 2012, Mr. Chertoff was elected as the new Chairman of the Board of Directors of BAE Systems, Inc. He also sits on the board of directors or board of advisors of a number of companies and nonprofits.
Previously, Mr. Chertoff served as Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. As Secretary, he led a 218,000 person department with a budget of $50 billion. Mr. Chertoff developed and implemented border security and immigration policy; promulgated homeland security regulations; and spearheaded a national cyber security strategy. He also served periodically on the National Security Council and the Homeland Security Council, and on the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States.
Prior to his appointment to the Cabinet, Mr. Chertoff served from 2003 to 2005 on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. Before becoming a federal judge, Mr. Chertoff was the Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. In that position, he oversaw the investigation of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and formed the Enron Task Force, which produced more than 20 convictions, including those of CEOs Jeffrey Skilling and Kenneth Lay.
Mr. Chertoff’s career includes more than a decade as a federal prosecutor, including service as U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey, First Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey, and Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. As a federal prosecutor, Mr. Chertoff investigated and personally prosecuted significant cases of political corruption, organized crime, and corporate fraud.
From 1994-2001, Mr. Chertoff represented major corporations and individuals in numerous white collar investigations and trials. Among other matters, he successfully represented the nation’s largest hospital company in a four year, multi-jurisdictional criminal and civil investigation, represented major corporations in corruption scandals, and obtained acquittals at trial for individual criminal defendants.
Mr. Chertoff has received numerous awards including the Department of Justice Henry E. Petersen Memorial Award (2006); the Department of Justice John Marshall Award for Trial of Litigation (1987); NAACP Benjamin L. Hooks Award for Distinguished Service (2007); European Institute Transatlantic Leadership Award (2008); and two honorary doctorates. His trial experiences have been featured in over half a dozen books and many news articles.
Executive Vice President and Senior Counselor to the President, The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies
B.A., Yale; J.D., University of Chicago. Lee Liberman Otis is the Executive Vice President and Senior Counselor to the President at the Federalist Society. She also serves as a member of the American Law Institute (ALI), a senior fellow of the Administrative Conference (ACUS), and as the co-chair of the National Constitution Center's Coalition of Freedom Advisory Board. She previously was a special assistant and an Associate Deputy Attorney General at the U.S. Department of Justice, General Counsel of the Department of Energy, an associate in the appellate section of Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue, an associate counsel to President George H.W. Bush, and a law clerk to Associate Justice Antonin Scalia. She also served as an assistant professor of law at George Mason, where she taught legislation, federal jurisdiction, constitutional law, civil procedure, and appellate advocacy. Ms. Otis has been an important member of the Federalist Society team since the organization’s beginnings. Together with David McIntosh, she led the effort to start what became the Chicago chapter of the Society. She also helped organize the Society’s first conference at Yale, its second conference at Chicago, and its first Lawyers Division chapter in Washington DC, as well as the effort to incorporate the Society, recruit its permanent staff, and obtain its early funding. She was a Founding Director of the Federalist Society.
Executive Director, Justice and Society Program, The Aspen Institute
Meryl Justin Chertoff is Executive Director of The Aspen Institute’s Justice and Society Program. She directs its summer seminar in Aspen, its speaker series in New York, Washington and Aspen, and the Inclusive America Project, on religious pluralism in America. She is also an adjunct professor of law at Georgetown Law, where she teaches about state government. She is an opinion contributor for The Hill, and also writes for the Huffington Post and the Aspen Idea.
From 2006-2009, Ms. Chertoff was Director of the Sandra Day O’Connor Project on the State of the Judiciary at Georgetown Law, studying and educating the public about federal and state courts. At Georgetown Law, she developed educational programs for visiting judges and other government officials from overseas.
She served in the Office of Legislative Affairs at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), participating in the agency’s transition into the Department of Homeland Security in 2003. Ms. Chertoff has been a legislative relations professional, Director of New Jersey’s Washington, D.C. Office under two governors, and legislative counsel to the Chair of the New Jersey State Assembly Appropriations Committee.
Her undergraduate and law degrees are from Harvard. She and her husband have two adult children.
Associate Dean and Associate Professor of Law, University of Notre Dame Law School
William K. Kelley teaches constitutional law and administrative law, and focuses on public law issues in his scholarship. He serves as Associate Dean with responsibility for coordinating special projects. During Spring 2008 semester, he will act as Associate Dean for Faculty Research. From 2005-2007, he served in the White House as Deputy Counsel to the President. In that capacity, he was responsible for advising the President of the United States on all legal matters affecting the Executive Branch. He joined the faculty in 1995 after practicing with two major law firms, and serving from 1991-1994 as assistant to the solicitor general at the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. Professor Kelley began his legal career by serving as law clerk to the Honorable Kenneth W. Starr on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (1987-88), as well as for Chief Justice Warren E. Burger and Associate Justice Antonin Scalia (1988-89). He earned his B.A. from Marquette University in 1984, where he was a member of Phi Beta Kappa, and his J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1987, where he served as Supreme Court editor of the Harvard Law Review.
William Rand Kenan, Jr. Distinguished Professor of Law, University of North Carolina School of Law
William (Bill) Marshall joined the Carolina Law faculty in 2001 and serves as the William R. Kenan Jr. Distinguished Professor of Law. His teaching and research interests include the first amendment, presidential power, election law, federal jurisdiction, federal judicial selection, civil procedure, and media law. Marshall is the author of numerous book chapters, articles, and essays on free speech, separation of powers, the Establishment Clause, and the Free Exercise Clause. His work has appeared in the Harvard Law Review, the Yale Law Journal, the Supreme Court Review, and the University of Chicago Law Review, among others.
Marshall received his law degree from the University of Chicago and his undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania. Marshall was Deputy Counsel to the President and Deputy Assistant to the President during the Clinton Administration and also served as the Solicitor General for the State of Ohio. He has taught at the Northwestern, Boston University, Vanderbilt, Ohio State, DePaul, Case Western Reserve, William and Mary, and the University Connecticut law schools. Prior to beginning his teaching career, Marshall was a Special Assistant Attorney General for the State of Minnesota.
Justice, Supreme Court of Alabama (Retired); Professor of Law, Belmont University College of Law?
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit
Judge Sykes was nominated to the Seventh Circuit by President George W. Bush and confirmed by the Senate in 2004. Prior to her appointment to the federal bench, Judge Sykes served as a justice on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Governor Tommy G. Thompson appointed her in September 1999 to fill a mid-term vacancy on the state supreme court, and she was elected to a full ten-year term in April 2000. From 1992-1999, Judge Sykes served on the state trial bench in Milwaukee County (elected in 1992 and re-elected in 1998). From 1985-1992, Judge Sykes practiced law with the Milwaukee firm of Whyte & Hirschboeck, S.C., and from 1984-1985, was a law clerk to Federal Judge Terence T. Evans.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee area, Judge Sykes earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University in 1980 and a law degree from Marquette University Law School in 1984. Between college and law school, Judge Sykes worked as a reporter for The Milwaukee Journal.
Judge Sykes has two sons.
Executive Director, Justice and Society Program, The Aspen Institute
Meryl Justin Chertoff is Executive Director of The Aspen Institute’s Justice and Society Program. She directs its summer seminar in Aspen, its speaker series in New York, Washington and Aspen, and the Inclusive America Project, on religious pluralism in America. She is also an adjunct professor of law at Georgetown Law, where she teaches about state government. She is an opinion contributor for The Hill, and also writes for the Huffington Post and the Aspen Idea.
From 2006-2009, Ms. Chertoff was Director of the Sandra Day O’Connor Project on the State of the Judiciary at Georgetown Law, studying and educating the public about federal and state courts. At Georgetown Law, she developed educational programs for visiting judges and other government officials from overseas.
She served in the Office of Legislative Affairs at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), participating in the agency’s transition into the Department of Homeland Security in 2003. Ms. Chertoff has been a legislative relations professional, Director of New Jersey’s Washington, D.C. Office under two governors, and legislative counsel to the Chair of the New Jersey State Assembly Appropriations Committee.
Her undergraduate and law degrees are from Harvard. She and her husband have two adult children.
Associate Dean and Associate Professor of Law, University of Notre Dame Law School
William K. Kelley teaches constitutional law and administrative law, and focuses on public law issues in his scholarship. He serves as Associate Dean with responsibility for coordinating special projects. During Spring 2008 semester, he will act as Associate Dean for Faculty Research. From 2005-2007, he served in the White House as Deputy Counsel to the President. In that capacity, he was responsible for advising the President of the United States on all legal matters affecting the Executive Branch. He joined the faculty in 1995 after practicing with two major law firms, and serving from 1991-1994 as assistant to the solicitor general at the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. Professor Kelley began his legal career by serving as law clerk to the Honorable Kenneth W. Starr on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (1987-88), as well as for Chief Justice Warren E. Burger and Associate Justice Antonin Scalia (1988-89). He earned his B.A. from Marquette University in 1984, where he was a member of Phi Beta Kappa, and his J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1987, where he served as Supreme Court editor of the Harvard Law Review.
William Rand Kenan, Jr. Distinguished Professor of Law, University of North Carolina School of Law
William (Bill) Marshall joined the Carolina Law faculty in 2001 and serves as the William R. Kenan Jr. Distinguished Professor of Law. His teaching and research interests include the first amendment, presidential power, election law, federal jurisdiction, federal judicial selection, civil procedure, and media law. Marshall is the author of numerous book chapters, articles, and essays on free speech, separation of powers, the Establishment Clause, and the Free Exercise Clause. His work has appeared in the Harvard Law Review, the Yale Law Journal, the Supreme Court Review, and the University of Chicago Law Review, among others.
Marshall received his law degree from the University of Chicago and his undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania. Marshall was Deputy Counsel to the President and Deputy Assistant to the President during the Clinton Administration and also served as the Solicitor General for the State of Ohio. He has taught at the Northwestern, Boston University, Vanderbilt, Ohio State, DePaul, Case Western Reserve, William and Mary, and the University Connecticut law schools. Prior to beginning his teaching career, Marshall was a Special Assistant Attorney General for the State of Minnesota.
Justice, Supreme Court of Alabama (Retired); Professor of Law, Belmont University College of Law?
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit
Judge Sykes was nominated to the Seventh Circuit by President George W. Bush and confirmed by the Senate in 2004. Prior to her appointment to the federal bench, Judge Sykes served as a justice on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Governor Tommy G. Thompson appointed her in September 1999 to fill a mid-term vacancy on the state supreme court, and she was elected to a full ten-year term in April 2000. From 1992-1999, Judge Sykes served on the state trial bench in Milwaukee County (elected in 1992 and re-elected in 1998). From 1985-1992, Judge Sykes practiced law with the Milwaukee firm of Whyte & Hirschboeck, S.C., and from 1984-1985, was a law clerk to Federal Judge Terence T. Evans.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee area, Judge Sykes earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University in 1980 and a law degree from Marquette University Law School in 1984. Between college and law school, Judge Sykes worked as a reporter for The Milwaukee Journal.
Judge Sykes has two sons.
Co-Chairman, The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies
Leonard is Co-Chairman and former Executive Vice President of the Federalist Society, joining the organization over 25 years ago. Since that time he has been instrumental in helping the organization top 70,000, focusing on the growth of lawyers membership, operations and activities advancing limited, constitutional government. In addition to his work at the Society, Leonard has advised President Trump on judicial selection, assisted with the Gorsuch and Kavanaugh Supreme Court selection and confirmation process, and served as a member of the transition team. He also organized the outside coalition efforts in support of the Roberts and Alito U.S. Supreme Court confirmations. Leonard was appointed by President George W. Bush to three terms to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom as chairman. He was also a U.S. Delegate to the UN Council and UN Commission on Human Rights during the Bush Administration. Leonard was the recipient of the 2009 Bradley Prize, along with the other founders and directors of the Federalist Society, for his work in advancing freedom and the rule of law. He is the coeditor of Presidential Leadership: Rating the Best and the Worst in the White House, as well as the author of opinion editorials in the New York Times,The Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post. Leonard holds degrees from Cornell University and Cornell Law School. He presently resides in Northern Virginia, where he and his wife Sally have raised their seven children.
United States Senator, Kentucky
Mitch McConnell is the Senate Majority Leader. Elected to that position unanimously by his Republican colleagues first in 2014 and again in 2016, he is only the second Kentuckian to ever serve as Majority Leader in the U.S. Senate. The first, Senator Alben Barkley, led the Democrats from 1937 to 1949.
Senator McConnell has served, again by the unanimous vote of his colleagues, as the Republican Leader since the 110th Congress. He is the longest-serving Senate Republican Leader in the history of the United States. McConnell previously served in leadership as the Majority Whip in the 108th and 109th Congresses and as chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee during the 1998 and 2000 election cycles.
McConnell has been called “the most conservative leader of either party in the history of the Senate.” He has also earned a reputation as a “master tactician” for permanently locking in critical tax relief for working families and small businesses, and putting in place the most significant spending reduction legislation in a generation.
He has received praise from numerous media outlets for his work as Senate Majority Leader, and in 2015 TIME Magazine named McConnell one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World.
First elected to the Senate in 1984, McConnell is Kentucky’s longest-serving senator. He made history that year as the only Republican challenger in the country to defeat an incumbent Democrat and as the first Republican to win a statewide Kentucky race since 1968. On November 4, 2014, he was elected to a record sixth term by receiving broad support across Kentucky, winning 110 of the Commonwealth’s 120 counties.
McConnell graduated with honors from the University of Louisville College of Arts and Sciences, where he served as student body president. He also is a graduate of the University of Kentucky College of Law, where he was elected president of the Student Bar Association.
McConnell worked as an intern on Capitol Hill for Senator John Sherman Cooper before serving as chief legislative assistant to Senator Marlow Cook and as Deputy Assistant Attorney General to President Gerald Ford.
Before his election to the Senate, he served as judge-executive of Jefferson County, Kentucky, from 1978 until he commenced his Senate term on January 3, 1985.
McConnell currently serves as a senior member of the Appropriations, Agriculture and Rules Committees. He is the proud father of three daughters.
McConnell is married to Secretary Elaine L. Chao, the 18th U.S. Secretary of Transportation. Previously, Secretary Chao served for eight years as President George W. Bush’s U.S. Secretary of Labor. She is also a former president of the United Way of America and director of the Peace Corps.
Co-Chairman, The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies
Leonard is Co-Chairman and former Executive Vice President of the Federalist Society, joining the organization over 25 years ago. Since that time he has been instrumental in helping the organization top 70,000, focusing on the growth of lawyers membership, operations and activities advancing limited, constitutional government. In addition to his work at the Society, Leonard has advised President Trump on judicial selection, assisted with the Gorsuch and Kavanaugh Supreme Court selection and confirmation process, and served as a member of the transition team. He also organized the outside coalition efforts in support of the Roberts and Alito U.S. Supreme Court confirmations. Leonard was appointed by President George W. Bush to three terms to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom as chairman. He was also a U.S. Delegate to the UN Council and UN Commission on Human Rights during the Bush Administration. Leonard was the recipient of the 2009 Bradley Prize, along with the other founders and directors of the Federalist Society, for his work in advancing freedom and the rule of law. He is the coeditor of Presidential Leadership: Rating the Best and the Worst in the White House, as well as the author of opinion editorials in the New York Times,The Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post. Leonard holds degrees from Cornell University and Cornell Law School. He presently resides in Northern Virginia, where he and his wife Sally have raised their seven children.
United States Senator, Kentucky
Mitch McConnell is the Senate Majority Leader. Elected to that position unanimously by his Republican colleagues first in 2014 and again in 2016, he is only the second Kentuckian to ever serve as Majority Leader in the U.S. Senate. The first, Senator Alben Barkley, led the Democrats from 1937 to 1949.
Senator McConnell has served, again by the unanimous vote of his colleagues, as the Republican Leader since the 110th Congress. He is the longest-serving Senate Republican Leader in the history of the United States. McConnell previously served in leadership as the Majority Whip in the 108th and 109th Congresses and as chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee during the 1998 and 2000 election cycles.
McConnell has been called “the most conservative leader of either party in the history of the Senate.” He has also earned a reputation as a “master tactician” for permanently locking in critical tax relief for working families and small businesses, and putting in place the most significant spending reduction legislation in a generation.
He has received praise from numerous media outlets for his work as Senate Majority Leader, and in 2015 TIME Magazine named McConnell one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World.
First elected to the Senate in 1984, McConnell is Kentucky’s longest-serving senator. He made history that year as the only Republican challenger in the country to defeat an incumbent Democrat and as the first Republican to win a statewide Kentucky race since 1968. On November 4, 2014, he was elected to a record sixth term by receiving broad support across Kentucky, winning 110 of the Commonwealth’s 120 counties.
McConnell graduated with honors from the University of Louisville College of Arts and Sciences, where he served as student body president. He also is a graduate of the University of Kentucky College of Law, where he was elected president of the Student Bar Association.
McConnell worked as an intern on Capitol Hill for Senator John Sherman Cooper before serving as chief legislative assistant to Senator Marlow Cook and as Deputy Assistant Attorney General to President Gerald Ford.
Before his election to the Senate, he served as judge-executive of Jefferson County, Kentucky, from 1978 until he commenced his Senate term on January 3, 1985.
McConnell currently serves as a senior member of the Appropriations, Agriculture and Rules Committees. He is the proud father of three daughters.
McConnell is married to Secretary Elaine L. Chao, the 18th U.S. Secretary of Transportation. Previously, Secretary Chao served for eight years as President George W. Bush’s U.S. Secretary of Labor. She is also a former president of the United Way of America and director of the Peace Corps.
Chief Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit
William H. Pryor Jr. serves as Chief Circuit Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.
In 2013–18, he served on the United States Sentencing Commission and, in 2017–18, served as Acting Chair.
He has taught as a visiting professor at the University of Alabama School of Law and previously taught as an adjunct professor at the Cumberland School of Law of Samford University.
He served as the 45th Attorney General of Alabama from 1997 to 2004. When he took office, he was the youngest attorney general in the nation. In his reelection, he received the highest percentage of votes of any statewide candidate.
He graduated magna cum laude from Tulane Law School where he finished first in the common-law curriculum and was editor in chief of the Tulane Law Review. He then served as a law clerk for Judge John Minor Wisdom of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
He is a member of The American Law Institute and an Adviser for the RESTATEMENT OF THE LAW THIRD, CONFLICT OF LAWS. He is a coauthor with Bryan Garner, Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, and several other judges of a treatise, THE LAW OF JUDICIAL PRECEDENT. He has published in the Yale Law Journal, Columbia Law Review, Virginia Law Review, Notre Dame Law Review, Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, Yale Law & Policy Review, George Mason Law Review, Florida Law Review, Alabama Law Review, Case Western Reserve Law Review, and Tulane Law Review. He has published op-eds in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, National Review, and USA Today. He has debated at National Lawyers’ Conventions of the Federalist Society (including on National Public Radio) and at the Oxford Union in the United Kingdom. And he is listed among several “widely admired judicial writers” in Bryan Garner’s The Redbook: A Manual on Legal Style.
He is a member of the Tulane Law School Hall of Fame and has received the Defender of the Constitution Award from the Heritage Foundation, the Jurist of the Year Award from the Texas Review of Law & Politics, and the St. Thomas More Award from the St. Thomas More Society of Atlanta. Judge Pryor is also a proud member of the National Society of the Sons of the American Revolution.
Shareholder, Maynard Cooper & Gale
Tommy’s trial practice concentrates on complex mass tort, environmental, and product liability cases, often handling the defense of class actions or mass consolidated cases throughout the South. He has handled cases in Alabama, Virginia, California, Texas, Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Illinois, Tennessee, Georgia, Mississippi and the District of Columbia. Tommy is active in the American Bar Association, having served as the Association’s President in 2008-2009. His skills as a litigator have been highly recognized throughout the years, including being listed in The Best Lawyers in America© and one of Alabama’s Top Ten attorneys in Super Lawyers®. He is a Fellow of the International Academy of Trial Lawyers, the Litigation Counsel of America and the American College of Environmental Lawyers.
Distinguished Senior Fellow and Antonin Scalia Chair in Constitutional Studies, Ethics and Public Policy Center
Edward Whelan is a Distinguished Senior Fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center and holds EPPC’s Antonin Scalia Chair in Constitutional Studies. He is the longest-serving President in EPPC’s history, having held that position from March 2004 through January 2021.
Mr. Whelan directs EPPC’s program on The Constitution, the Courts, and the Culture. His areas of expertise include constitutional law and the judicial confirmation process. As a contributor to National Review Online’s Bench Memos blog, he has been a leading commentator on nominations to the Supreme Court and the lower courts and on issues of constitutional law. He has written essays and op-eds for leading newspapers—including the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and the Washington Post—opinion journals, and academic symposia and law reviews. The National Law Journal has named Mr. Whelan among its “Champions and Visionaries” in the practice of law in D.C.
Mr. Whelan is co-editor of three volumes of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s work: Scalia Speaks: Reflections on Law, Faith, and Life Well Lived (Crown Forum, 2017), a New York Times bestselling collection of speeches by Justice Scalia; On Faith: Lessons from an American Believer (Crown Forum, 2019), a collection of Justice Scalia’s writings on faith and religion; and The Essential Scalia: On the Constitution, the Courts, and the Rule of Law (Crown Forum, 2020), a collection of Justice Scalia’s views on legal issues.
Mr. Whelan, a lawyer and a former law clerk to Justice Scalia, has served in positions of responsibility in all three branches of the federal government. From just before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, until joining EPPC in 2004, Mr. Whelan was the Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel in the U.S. Department of Justice. In that capacity, he advised the White House Counsel’s Office, the Attorney General and other senior DOJ officials, and departments and agencies throughout the executive branch on difficult and sensitive legal questions. Mr. Whelan previously served on Capitol Hill as General Counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary. In addition to clerking for Justice Scalia, he was a law clerk to Judge J. Clifford Wallace of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
In 1981 Mr. Whelan graduated with honors from Harvard College and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. He received his J.D. magna cum laude in 1985 from Harvard Law School, where he was a member of the Board of Editors of the Harvard Law Review.
For more on Mr. Whelan’s background, see this interview.
Professor Emeritus, Paul M. Hebert Law Center, Louisiana State University
In memoriam
Dr. John Baker is Professor Emeritus of Law, and previously the Dale E. Bennett Professor of Law, at Louisiana State University Law School. He is currently Visiting Professor at Peking University School of Transnational Law (via Zoom) and has been Visiting Professor at The Center for the Constitution, Georgetown Law School (2013-2020). He has also been a Visiting Fellow at Oriel College, the University of Oxford (2012-2014) and taught at Blackfriars Hall, Oxford in 2014. Dr. Baker has also been an adjunct Fellow at the Heritage Foundation (Spring, 2008) and a Distinguished Scholar at the Catholic University of America Law School (2011-12). He has taught at Tulane Law School, George Mason Law School, Pepperdine Law School, New York Law School, Hong Kong University, and the University of Dallas, School of Management and also taught and/or lectured in 17 foreign countries. Notable among his foreign visits are the
following: Visiting Professor at the University of Lyon III (France) (1999-2011); Visiting Professor at the Universidad de los Andes, Chile (2012), as a Fulbright Specialist (2006); and a Fulbright Scholar at various universities in the Philippines. Dr. Baker received his J.D., with honors, from the University of Michigan Law School and his B.A., magna cum laude, from the University of Dallas. He also earned a Ph.D. in Political Thought from the University of London. Baker has taught over a dozen different subjects, mostly courses in public law. His main areas of interest are Constitutional Law (particularly federalism and separation of powers), Criminal Law, Anti-Terrorism Law, International Law, Health Care Law, Mediation, and Comparative Law.
In addition to law review articles and book chapters, Dr. Baker’s academic publications include Hall's Criminal Law: Cases and Materials (with Benson, Force and George; 5th ed. Michie, 1993); An Introduction to the Law of the United States (ed. with Levasseur; University Press of America, 1992). He has also published on Forbes.com, FoxNews.com, in The Washington Times, and a number of times in The Wall Street Journal. He argues in federal court, including two oral arguments in the U.S. Supreme Court. For many years, he co-taught courses for the Federalist Society on separation of powers with the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. In September 2016, he co-taught a Supreme Court seminar in China with Justice Samuel Alito. Following law school, he served as a law clerk in federal district court and as an assistant district attorney in New Orleans before joining LSU in 1975. While a professor, he has been as a consultant to USAID, USIA (since rolled into the State Department), the Justice Department, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Separation of Powers, and the Office of Planning in the White House. He served on an ABA Task Force which issued the report, The Federalization of Crime (1998) and later as a consultant to the “Bi-Partisan Task Force on the Over- federalization of Crime” (2012-2014) created by the U.S. House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime. Dr. Baker was a co-founder of the first iteration (1995) of Stratfor Inc., a global intelligence agency. He co-authored its first book: The Intelligence Edge (with Friedman, Friedman and Chapman; Crown Books/Random House 1997). In 2022, he began a short, weekly video podcast available on YouTube and Rumble, The Baker Brief.
Partner, Latham & Watkins LLP
Alice Fisher is a partner in Latham & Watkins' Washington, D.C. office and is a member of the firm's Executive Committee. She focuses her practice on white collar criminal investigations, internal investigations and advises clients on a range of criminal matters.
From 2005-2008, Ms. Fisher served as Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Criminal Division of the US DOJ. As Assistant Attorney General, Ms. Fisher led more than 750 attorneys and staff responsible for federal criminal enforcement policy as well as handling criminal matters in federal courts across the country in all areas of federal criminal law enforcement. Under her leadership, the Criminal Division pursued a broad array of federal criminal investigations and prosecutions, with particular focus on corporate fraud matters, including securities fraud, procurement fraud, financial institution fraud, anti-money laundering, healthcare fraud, computer hacking and cyber security, national security, as well as US-domestic and international corruption.
Ms. Fisher also chaired the National Procurement Fraud Task Force, supervised the Medicare Fraud Strike Force, and served as a member of the President's Corporate Fraud Task Force. She handled various transnational and multi-national law enforcement operations and policies, including bilateral agreements and treaties involving information sharing and global criminal enforcement initiatives. Representing the DOJ in front of Congress, Ms. Fisher testified on criminal enforcement policies and served on the Federal Criminal Rules Committee.
As a litigation partner at Latham from 2003-2005 and prior to 2001, Ms. Fisher represented both individual and corporate clients in grand jury, agency and congressional inquiries involving allegations of securities and bank fraud, healthcare fraud, the FCPA, criminal antitrust matters, OFAC sanctions and procurement fraud. She has also represented clients in a number of complex civil and regulatory litigations. Ms. Fisher previously held other positions in government, including Deputy Special Counsel to a US Senate Special Committee.
Ms. Fisher has published articles and spoken on criminal law topics such as the criminalization of corporate conduct, the FCPA, healthcare and procurement fraud, the False Claims Act, the US criminal enforcement environment, public corruption and the honest services statute, financial crime in the financial services industry, securities fraud, identity theft, cybercrime and national security.
United States Attorney General
Attorney General Merrick B. Garland was sworn in as the 86th Attorney General of the United States on March 11, 2021. As the nation’s chief law enforcement officer, Attorney General Garland leads the Justice Department’s 115,000 employees, who work across the United States and in more than 50 countries worldwide. Under his leadership, the Department of Justice is dedicated to upholding the rule of law, keeping our country safe, and protecting the civil rights of all Americans.
Immediately preceding his confirmation as Attorney General, Attorney General Garland was a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He was appointed to that position in 1997, served as Chief Judge of the Circuit from 2013-20, and served as Chair of the Executive Committee of the Judicial Conference of the United States from 2017-20. In 2016, President Obama nominated him for the position of Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court.
Before becoming a federal judge, Attorney General Garland spent a substantial part of his professional life at the Department of Justice. He served in both career and non-career positions under five Attorneys General, including as Special Assistant to the Attorney General, Assistant United States Attorney, Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Criminal Division, and Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General. In those roles, his responsibilities spanned the work of the Department, including criminal, civil, and national security matters. They also included direct supervision of investigations and prosecutions of national importance, including the Oklahoma City bombing, Unabomber, and Montana Freemen cases.
Earlier in his career, Attorney General Garland was a partner in the law firm of Arnold & Porter, where his practice involved civil and criminal litigation, antitrust, and administrative law. He also taught antitrust at Harvard Law School and published law review articles on both antitrust and administrative law.
Attorney General Garland graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College and magna cum laude from Harvard Law School. Following law school, he clerked for Judge Henry J. Friendly of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and for Justice William J. Brennan, Jr., of the United States Supreme Court.
Kellyanne Elizabeth Conway is Founder and President of the polling companyTM, inc./WomanTrend a privately-held, woman-owned corporation founded in 1995. The firm is headquartered in Washington, DC and maintains an office in New York City. Kellyanne is one of the most quoted and noted pollsters on the national scene, having provided commentary on over 1,200 television shows on ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, CNN, CNBC, MSNBC, HBO, Comedy Central, MTV and the Fox News Channel, and numerous radio shows and print stories.
Throughout her two decades in market research, Kellyanne has provided primary research and advice for clients in 46 of the 50 states and has directed hundreds of demographic and attitudinal survey projects for statewide and congressional political races, trade associations, and Fortune 100 companies. A professionally trained moderator, Kellyanne has personally directed more than 300 focus groups and other qualitative discussions. Clients have included Lifetime Television, The Heritage Foundation, Major League Baseball, The Federalist Society, Coalition of Community Pharmacists Association, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, Mass Connections, American Express, ABC News, Ladies Home Journal, and the U.S. Department of Labor.
Kellyanne has worked for leaders such as the late Congressman Jack Kemp; former Vice President Dan Quayle; Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich; Senator Fred Thompson and Congressman Mike Pence, the Chairman of the House Republican Conference and the third-highest ranking Republican in the House.
A "fully-recovered" attorney, Kellyanne is admitted to practice law in four jurisdictions (Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and the District of Columbia). She has practiced law, clerked for a judge in Washington, DC and for four years, was an adjunct professor at George Washington University Law Center. Kellyanne is a magna cum laude graduate of Trinity College, Washington, D.C., where she earned a B.A. in Political Science, studied at Oxford University, and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. She holds a law degree, with honors, from George Washington University Law Center.
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
Counsel, The Judicial Confirmation Network
Wendy Long is legal counsel to the Judicial Confirmation Network. Until March 2005, she was a litigation partner in the New York office of Kirkland & Ellis LLP. Wendy was a law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and to Judge Ralph Winter of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York. She is a graduate of Northwestern University School of Law, cum laude and Order of the Coif, where she was articles editor of the Northwestern University Law Review, and of Dartmouth College. She previously served as a press secretary in the U.S. Senate, for former U.S. Senator Bill Armstrong (R-Colo.) and former U.S. Senator Gordon Humphrey (R-N.H.).
Member, Moore & Van Allen PLLC
A former North Carolina state representative and senator, as well as Supreme Court justice and law school dean, Bill Whichard applies his extensive judicial and legislative experience in advising and mentoring MVA litigation attorneys, focusing on appellate litigation for Moore & Van Allen clients.
He also assists with evaluating new matters, developing arguments, reviewing pleadings and documents, and supplying other trial support, giving MVA clients seasoned counsel that can materially affect dispute outcomes.
He has also served as a mediator and arbitrator in major, multimillion-dollar litigation.
Mr. Whichard has lectured and written extensively on North Carolina politics, law and history. Further, his commitment to public service and community betterment has earned him numerous honors and recognitions during his distinguished career.
Address by Secretary Michael Chertoff
Michael Chertoff, Lee Liberman Otis
2008 National Lawyers Convention
United States Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff delivered this address at the 2008 National...
Showcase Panel I: Judicial Selection: Federal and State
Meryl J. Chertoff, William K. Kelley, William P. Marshall, Harold F. See, Diane S. Sykes
2008 National Lawyers Convention
Is the process we use for selecting judges broken at both the federal and the...
Showcase Panel I: Judicial Selection: Federal and State
Meryl J. Chertoff, William K. Kelley, William P. Marshall, Harold F. See, Diane S. Sykes
2008 National Lawyers Convention
Is the process we use for selecting judges broken at both the federal and the...
Welcome and Opening Address by Senator Mitch McConnell
Leonard A. Leo, Mitch McConnell
2008 National Lawyers Convention
United States Senator Mitch McConnell delivered the Opening Address at the 2008 National Lawyers Convention...
Welcome and Opening Address by Senator Mitch McConnell
Leonard A. Leo, Mitch McConnell
2008 National Lawyers Convention
United States Senator Mitch McConnell delivered the Opening Address at the 2008 National Lawyers Convention...
Special Session: Judicial Independence Dialogue
William H. Pryor, H. Thomas Wells, Edward Whelan
2008 National Lawyers Convention
Hon. William H., Pryor Jr., United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit Mr. H. Thomas...
Criminal Law: The Prosecution of Public Corruption
John S. Baker, Alice Fisher, Merrick B. Garland, Daniel E. Reidy, Robert Trout
2008 National Lawyers Convention
The United States Department of Justice has traditionally ranked the investigation and prosecution of public...
Key Findings from a National Survey of 800 Actual Voters
Kellyanne Conway
TO: Interested PartiesFROM: Kellyanne Conway, President & CEO the polling company™, inc.DATE: November 5, 2008RE: Key Findings from a National...
The 2008 Election and the Federal Courts
Douglas W. Kmiec, Wendy Long
Michigan Lawyers Chapter
On October 28, 2008, the Michigan Lawyers Chapter presented a debate on "The 2008 Election...
North Carolina Supreme Court Judicial Candidate Forum
Robert Edmunds, Suzanne Reynolds, Willis Whichard
Triangle Lawyers Chapter
On October 27, 2008, the Triangle Lawyers Chapter presented the "North Carolina Supreme Court Judicial...