Governor, Virginia
Governor Glenn Youngkin is a homegrown Virginian who grew up in Richmond and Virginia Beach. As his father changed jobs, Governor Youngkin learned that moving around didn’t equal moving up – nothing was handed to him. From his first job washing dishes and frying eggs at a diner in Virginia Beach, he embraced hard work and responsibility to help his family when his father lost his job. His determination to succeed earned him multiple high school basketball honors in Virginia and an athletic scholarship to college.
After earning an engineering degree at Rice University, and his MBA at Harvard Business School, Governor Youngkin and his wife Suzanne moved to Northern Virginia. He landed a job at The Carlyle Group, where he spent the next 25 years. Working his way to the top of the company, Governor Youngkin played a key role in building Carlyle into one of the leading investment firms in the world. His efforts have helped fund the retirements of teachers, police officers, firefighters and other frontline public servants and supported hundreds of thousands of American jobs.
Married for over 27 years to his amazing wife Suzanne, Governor Youngkin is a dedicated father of four wonderful children. Their family journey has been and continues to be guided by their faith.
Professor of Law, South Texas College of Law Houston
Josh Blackman is a national thought leader on constitutional law and the United States Supreme Court. Josh’s work was quoted during two presidential impeachment trials. He has testified before Congress and advises federal and state lawmakers. Josh regularly appears on TV, including NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox, and the BBC. Josh is also a frequent guest on NPR and other syndicated radio programs. He has published commentaries in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and leading national publications.
Since 2012, Josh has served as a professor at the South Texas College of Law Houston. He holds the Centennial Chair of Constitutional Law. Josh is an Adjunct Fellow at the Manhattan Institute. Josh has written more than seven dozen law review articles that have been cited more than a thousand times. Josh was selected as the Jurist of the Year by the Texas Journal of Law & Public Policy, received the inaugural Meese III Originalism Award, and was awarded the Inaugural Joseph Story Award. Josh was selected by Forbes Magazine for the “30 Under 30” in Law and Policy. Josh is the President of the Harlan Institute, and founded FantasySCOTUS, the Internet’s Premier Supreme Court Fantasy League. He blogs at the Volokh Conspiracyand posts@JoshMBlackman.
Professor of Law, South Texas College of Law Houston
Josh Blackman is a national thought leader on constitutional law and the United States Supreme Court. Josh’s work was quoted during two presidential impeachment trials. He has testified before Congress and advises federal and state lawmakers. Josh regularly appears on TV, including NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox, and the BBC. Josh is also a frequent guest on NPR and other syndicated radio programs. He has published commentaries in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and leading national publications.
Since 2012, Josh has served as a professor at the South Texas College of Law Houston. He holds the Centennial Chair of Constitutional Law. Josh is an Adjunct Fellow at the Manhattan Institute. Josh has written more than seven dozen law review articles that have been cited more than a thousand times. Josh was selected as the Jurist of the Year by the Texas Journal of Law & Public Policy, received the inaugural Meese III Originalism Award, and was awarded the Inaugural Joseph Story Award. Josh was selected by Forbes Magazine for the “30 Under 30” in Law and Policy. Josh is the President of the Harlan Institute, and founded FantasySCOTUS, the Internet’s Premier Supreme Court Fantasy League. He blogs at the Volokh Conspiracyand posts@JoshMBlackman.
Director, Faculty Relations, The Federalist Society
Katie McClendon is the Director of Faculty Relations at the Federalist Society, where she has worked since 2015.
Katie holds a J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania Law School and a B.A. in Political Science from Biola University, where she was a member of the Torrey Honors Institute. She is a fellow of the John Jay Institute and the Blackstone Legal Fellowship. Katie is originally from Los Angeles, and she now lives with her husband and four children in Atlanta.
Partner, Givens Pursley LLP
Jeff Beelaert is a partner at Givens Pursley LLP in Boise, Idaho, with a distinguished background of public service and extensive experience with trial and appellate litigation. As lead counsel, Jeff has achieved success for clients in high-stakes, complex cases at every level of state and federal courts, including the United States Supreme Court.
Before joining Givens Pursley, Jeff previously held several posts at the United States Department of Justice.
Jeff previously worked as an associate at Sidley Austin in DC, where he drafted Supreme Court briefs and handled white collar matters and investigations.
Of Counsel, Spencer Fane LLP
Anthony J. “A.J.” Ferate has built a multi-faceted background in the areas of the law, policy, energy, campaigns and elections, and defense over the last 20 years.
Through recent representation as Vice President of Regulatory Affairs for the Oklahoma Independent Petroleum Association (“OIPA”), A.J. held responsibilities over government efforts outside of the legislative branch on matters as broad as water, electric generation, commodity marketing, land matters, and seismicity. A.J. also maintained responsibility for legal matters at OIPA, including amicus briefing in appellate matters. A.J.’s extensive experience also includes management of public policy strategy for a Fortune 500 company.
For the past eleven years, A.J. has volunteered as General Counsel and spokesman for the Oklahoma Republican Party and has represented a number of elected officials, including U.S. Senator James Lankford, former statewide elected officials, a number of state legislators, and members of Congress.
Additionally, A.J. has assisted elected officials serve their constituents in all branches of government. Early in his career, A.J. held legislative aide duties in the Nebraska Legislature, then went on to work for former Nebraska Treasurer David Heineman. A.J. gained experience in the judiciary while serving Judge Gary L. Lumpkin at the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals, the highest criminal appellate court in Oklahoma. Following this service, A.J. began work with Denise A. Bode of the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, assisting her in her duties regulating 70 percent of Oklahoma’s economy, including oil and gas and electric utilities.
A.J. honorably served ten years as an intelligence analyst for the United States Naval Reserve, including time at the Office of Naval Intelligence in the greater Washington DC area.
Opinion pieces authored or ghostwritten by A.J. have been published in the Seattle Times, Politico, Law360, The Oklahoman, Tulsa World and The Journal Record. A.J. has also been interviewed by national and international newspapers, and has also appeared on national radio programs including NPR’s The Diane Rehm Show and On Point with Tom Ashbrook.
Supreme Court Correspondent, The New York Times
Adam Liptak covers the Supreme Court for The New York Times. Liptak’s column on legal affairs, “Sidebar,” appears every other Tuesday.
A graduate of Yale College and Yale Law School, Liptak practiced law at a large New York City law firm and in the legal department of The New York Times Company before joining the paper’s news staff in 2002.
Liptak was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in explanatory reporting in 2009 for “American Exception,” a series of articles examining ways in which the American legal system differs from those of other developed nations. He received the 2010 Scripps Howard Award for Washington reporting for a five-part series on the Roberts Court.
He is the author of “To Have and Uphold: The Supreme Court and the Battle for Same-Sex Marriage.”
His journalism has appeared in The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Business Week and Rolling Stone, and he has published articles in The Arizona Law Review, The Michigan Law Review and The New York University Annual Survey of American Law.
Liptak has taught courses at Yale, Columbia, the University of Chicago, Washington University in St. Louis, the University of Southern California and U.C.L.A. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Solicitor General, Louisiana
In 2016, Attorney General Jeff Landry appointed Liz Murrill as the first Solicitor General for Louisiana. She has more than 25 years of experience working in diverse state and federal government legal environments and has experience handling complex litigation, state and federal appeals, and complex government transactions. Liz most recently served as the Louisiana Department of Justice's Director of Administration and, before that, Director of the Civil Division. She previously served former Governor Bobby Jindal as Executive Counsel and was Executive Counsel to the Commissioner of Administration. Liz was counsel for the Office of the Governor in the BP Oil Spill litigation and has served as a member and counsel to several state boards and commissions. She was a United States Supreme Court Judicial Fellow in 2007-08 at the Federal Judicial Center and taught appellate advocacy and legal writing at the Louisiana State University Law Center for more than ten years. Liz earned her bachelor’s degree from Louisiana State University, law degree from the Louisiana State University Law Center where she was Editor-In-Chief of the Law Review, and Master of Laws in Alternative Dispute Resolution from Pepperdine University School of Law. She clerked for U.S. District Judge Frank J. Polozola and Louisiana First Circuit Court of Appeal Judge Melvin Shortess. Liz has argued three cases at the United States Supreme Court (including June Medical v. Russo and Ramos v. Louisiana) and many others at the Louisiana Supreme Court, United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and the District of Columbia Circuit, and multiple state and federal courts. Additionally, she has filed briefs in courts across the country on a wide variety of constitutional issues.
Robert F. Stanton Professor of Law, University of Maryland Carey School of Law
Robert V. Percival is the Robert F. Stanton Professor of Law and the Director of the Environmental Law Program at the University of Maryland School of Law. He received a B.A. summa cum laude from Macalester College, a J.D. from Stanford Law School and an M.A. in economics from Stanford University. At Stanford Percival was named the Nathan Abbott Scholar for graduating first in his law school class. Following graduation, he served as a law clerk for Judge Shirley M. Hufstedler of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Byron R. White. He joined the Maryland faculty in 1987 after serving as a senior attorney for the Environmental Defense Fund. Percival has served as a visiting professor of law at Harvard Law School, Georgetown University Law Center, the China University of Political Science and Law (Beijing), and Comenius University (Bratislava). He is the principal author of a leading environmental law casebook, now in its 9th edition, and the author of several articles about the Supreme Court and presidential authority over executive agencies. Percival wrote one of the first articles on the propriety of consent decrees to effectuate and enforce federal law “The Bounds of Consent: Consent Decrees, Settlements and Federal Environmental Policymaking,” 1987 Univ. Chic. Leg. F. 327 (1987). He also is the author of the first comprehensive analyses of what the papers of the late Justices Thurgood Marshall and Harry Blackmun reveal about the Supreme Court’s handling of environmental cases (“Environmental Law in the Supreme Court: Highlights from the Blackmun Papers,” 35 ELR 10637 (2005), and “Environmental Law in the Supreme Court: Highlights from the Marshall Papers,” 13 ELR 10606 (Oct. 1993)).
Partner, McDermott Will & Emery
Kenji M. Price focuses his practice on white-collar government investigations, internal investigations, compliance counseling, and complex civil litigation.
Prior to joining McDermott, Kenji served as the United States Attorney for the District of Hawaii. As the chief federal law enforcement officer in the district, Kenji led a team responsible for representing the United States in criminal and civil litigation in the district. In addition to leading the US Attorney’s Office in Hawaii, Kenji served as the Vice Chair of the Controlled Substances Subcommittee of the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee.
Before serving as the US Attorney in Hawaii, Kenji also served as an Assistant US Attorney in the Eastern District of New York. While serving as a federal prosecutor in Brooklyn, Kenji handled criminal investigations and prosecutions involving diverse subject matters, while serving in the office’s General Crimes and International Narcotics and Money Laundering Sections.
In addition to his service as a federal prosecutor, Kenji served as an infantry officer in the US Army. During approximately four years of active duty service, Kenji deployed overseas on four occasions, leading soldiers in the 75th Ranger Regiment and 173rd Airborne Brigade. Kenji was twice awarded the Bronze Star Medal for his service during overseas deployments.
Kenji graduated from the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where he served as Editor-in-Chief of the University of Pennsylvania Law Review. Following law school, Kenji clerked for Judge Robert B. Kugler of the US District Court for the District of New Jersey and Judge Kent A. Jordan of the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
Partner, Givens Pursley LLP
Jeff Beelaert is a partner at Givens Pursley LLP in Boise, Idaho, with a distinguished background of public service and extensive experience with trial and appellate litigation. As lead counsel, Jeff has achieved success for clients in high-stakes, complex cases at every level of state and federal courts, including the United States Supreme Court.
Before joining Givens Pursley, Jeff previously held several posts at the United States Department of Justice.
Jeff previously worked as an associate at Sidley Austin in DC, where he drafted Supreme Court briefs and handled white collar matters and investigations.
Of Counsel, Spencer Fane LLP
Anthony J. “A.J.” Ferate has built a multi-faceted background in the areas of the law, policy, energy, campaigns and elections, and defense over the last 20 years.
Through recent representation as Vice President of Regulatory Affairs for the Oklahoma Independent Petroleum Association (“OIPA”), A.J. held responsibilities over government efforts outside of the legislative branch on matters as broad as water, electric generation, commodity marketing, land matters, and seismicity. A.J. also maintained responsibility for legal matters at OIPA, including amicus briefing in appellate matters. A.J.’s extensive experience also includes management of public policy strategy for a Fortune 500 company.
For the past eleven years, A.J. has volunteered as General Counsel and spokesman for the Oklahoma Republican Party and has represented a number of elected officials, including U.S. Senator James Lankford, former statewide elected officials, a number of state legislators, and members of Congress.
Additionally, A.J. has assisted elected officials serve their constituents in all branches of government. Early in his career, A.J. held legislative aide duties in the Nebraska Legislature, then went on to work for former Nebraska Treasurer David Heineman. A.J. gained experience in the judiciary while serving Judge Gary L. Lumpkin at the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals, the highest criminal appellate court in Oklahoma. Following this service, A.J. began work with Denise A. Bode of the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, assisting her in her duties regulating 70 percent of Oklahoma’s economy, including oil and gas and electric utilities.
A.J. honorably served ten years as an intelligence analyst for the United States Naval Reserve, including time at the Office of Naval Intelligence in the greater Washington DC area.
Opinion pieces authored or ghostwritten by A.J. have been published in the Seattle Times, Politico, Law360, The Oklahoman, Tulsa World and The Journal Record. A.J. has also been interviewed by national and international newspapers, and has also appeared on national radio programs including NPR’s The Diane Rehm Show and On Point with Tom Ashbrook.
Supreme Court Correspondent, The New York Times
Adam Liptak covers the Supreme Court for The New York Times. Liptak’s column on legal affairs, “Sidebar,” appears every other Tuesday.
A graduate of Yale College and Yale Law School, Liptak practiced law at a large New York City law firm and in the legal department of The New York Times Company before joining the paper’s news staff in 2002.
Liptak was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in explanatory reporting in 2009 for “American Exception,” a series of articles examining ways in which the American legal system differs from those of other developed nations. He received the 2010 Scripps Howard Award for Washington reporting for a five-part series on the Roberts Court.
He is the author of “To Have and Uphold: The Supreme Court and the Battle for Same-Sex Marriage.”
His journalism has appeared in The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Business Week and Rolling Stone, and he has published articles in The Arizona Law Review, The Michigan Law Review and The New York University Annual Survey of American Law.
Liptak has taught courses at Yale, Columbia, the University of Chicago, Washington University in St. Louis, the University of Southern California and U.C.L.A. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Solicitor General, Louisiana
In 2016, Attorney General Jeff Landry appointed Liz Murrill as the first Solicitor General for Louisiana. She has more than 25 years of experience working in diverse state and federal government legal environments and has experience handling complex litigation, state and federal appeals, and complex government transactions. Liz most recently served as the Louisiana Department of Justice's Director of Administration and, before that, Director of the Civil Division. She previously served former Governor Bobby Jindal as Executive Counsel and was Executive Counsel to the Commissioner of Administration. Liz was counsel for the Office of the Governor in the BP Oil Spill litigation and has served as a member and counsel to several state boards and commissions. She was a United States Supreme Court Judicial Fellow in 2007-08 at the Federal Judicial Center and taught appellate advocacy and legal writing at the Louisiana State University Law Center for more than ten years. Liz earned her bachelor’s degree from Louisiana State University, law degree from the Louisiana State University Law Center where she was Editor-In-Chief of the Law Review, and Master of Laws in Alternative Dispute Resolution from Pepperdine University School of Law. She clerked for U.S. District Judge Frank J. Polozola and Louisiana First Circuit Court of Appeal Judge Melvin Shortess. Liz has argued three cases at the United States Supreme Court (including June Medical v. Russo and Ramos v. Louisiana) and many others at the Louisiana Supreme Court, United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and the District of Columbia Circuit, and multiple state and federal courts. Additionally, she has filed briefs in courts across the country on a wide variety of constitutional issues.
Robert F. Stanton Professor of Law, University of Maryland Carey School of Law
Robert V. Percival is the Robert F. Stanton Professor of Law and the Director of the Environmental Law Program at the University of Maryland School of Law. He received a B.A. summa cum laude from Macalester College, a J.D. from Stanford Law School and an M.A. in economics from Stanford University. At Stanford Percival was named the Nathan Abbott Scholar for graduating first in his law school class. Following graduation, he served as a law clerk for Judge Shirley M. Hufstedler of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Byron R. White. He joined the Maryland faculty in 1987 after serving as a senior attorney for the Environmental Defense Fund. Percival has served as a visiting professor of law at Harvard Law School, Georgetown University Law Center, the China University of Political Science and Law (Beijing), and Comenius University (Bratislava). He is the principal author of a leading environmental law casebook, now in its 9th edition, and the author of several articles about the Supreme Court and presidential authority over executive agencies. Percival wrote one of the first articles on the propriety of consent decrees to effectuate and enforce federal law “The Bounds of Consent: Consent Decrees, Settlements and Federal Environmental Policymaking,” 1987 Univ. Chic. Leg. F. 327 (1987). He also is the author of the first comprehensive analyses of what the papers of the late Justices Thurgood Marshall and Harry Blackmun reveal about the Supreme Court’s handling of environmental cases (“Environmental Law in the Supreme Court: Highlights from the Blackmun Papers,” 35 ELR 10637 (2005), and “Environmental Law in the Supreme Court: Highlights from the Marshall Papers,” 13 ELR 10606 (Oct. 1993)).
Partner, McDermott Will & Emery
Kenji M. Price focuses his practice on white-collar government investigations, internal investigations, compliance counseling, and complex civil litigation.
Prior to joining McDermott, Kenji served as the United States Attorney for the District of Hawaii. As the chief federal law enforcement officer in the district, Kenji led a team responsible for representing the United States in criminal and civil litigation in the district. In addition to leading the US Attorney’s Office in Hawaii, Kenji served as the Vice Chair of the Controlled Substances Subcommittee of the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee.
Before serving as the US Attorney in Hawaii, Kenji also served as an Assistant US Attorney in the Eastern District of New York. While serving as a federal prosecutor in Brooklyn, Kenji handled criminal investigations and prosecutions involving diverse subject matters, while serving in the office’s General Crimes and International Narcotics and Money Laundering Sections.
In addition to his service as a federal prosecutor, Kenji served as an infantry officer in the US Army. During approximately four years of active duty service, Kenji deployed overseas on four occasions, leading soldiers in the 75th Ranger Regiment and 173rd Airborne Brigade. Kenji was twice awarded the Bronze Star Medal for his service during overseas deployments.
Kenji graduated from the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where he served as Editor-in-Chief of the University of Pennsylvania Law Review. Following law school, Kenji clerked for Judge Robert B. Kugler of the US District Court for the District of New Jersey and Judge Kent A. Jordan of the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
United States Senator, Utah
Elected in 2010 as Utah's 16th Senator, Mike Lee has spent his career defending the basic liberties of Americans and Utahns as a tireless advocate for our founding constitutional principles.
Senator Lee acquired a deep respect for the Constitution early on. His father, Rex Lee, who served as the Solicitor General under President Ronald Reagan, would often discuss varied aspects of judicial and constitutional doctrine around the kitchen table, from Due Process to the uses of Executive Plenary Power. He attended most of his father's arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court, giving him a unique, hands-on experience and understanding of government up close.
Lee graduated from Brigham Young University with a Bachelor of Science in Political Science, and served as BYU's Student Body President in his senior year. He graduated from BYU's Law School in 1997 and went on to serve as law clerk to Judge Dee Benson of the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah, and then with future Supreme Court Justice Judge Samuel A. Alito, Jr. on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
Lee spent several years as an attorney with the law firm Sidley & Austin specializing in appellate and Supreme Court litigation, and then served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in Salt Lake City arguing cases before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.
Lee served the state of Utah as Governor Jon Huntsman's General Counsel and was later honored to reunite with Justice Alito, now on the Supreme Court, for a one-year clerkship. He returned to private practice in 2007.
Throughout his career, Lee earned a reputation as an outstanding practitioner of the law based on his sound judgment, abilities in the courtroom, and thorough understanding of the Constitution.
Today, Lee fights to preserve America's proud founding document in the United States Senate. He advocates efforts to support constitutionally limited government, fiscal responsibility, individual liberty, and economic prosperity.
Lee is a member of the Judiciary Committee, and serves as Chairman of the Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights Subcommittee protecting business competition and personal freedom.
He also oversees issues critical to Utah as the Chairman of the Water and Power Subcommittee of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. He serves on the Commerce Committee and the Joint Economic Committee, as well.
In the 114th Congress, Lee also began his tenure as Chairman of the Senate Steering Committee, where he works with his Republican colleagues in the Senate to introduce bold and innovative solutions to issues facing the American people.
Lee and his wife Sharon live in Alpine, Utah, with their three children. He is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and served a two-year mission for the Church in the Texas Rio Grande Valley.
Senior Transportation Policy Analyst, Reason Foundation
Marc Scribner is a senior transportation policy analyst at Reason Foundation.
Scribner's work focuses on a variety of public policy issues related to transportation, land use, and urban growth, including infrastructure investment and operations, transportation safety and security, risk and regulation, privatization and public finance, urban redevelopment and property rights, and emerging transportation technologies such as automated road vehicles and unmanned aircraft systems. He frequently advises policymakers on these matters at the federal, state, and local levels.
Scribner has testified before Congress at the invitation of both Democrats and Republicans on issues including highway revenue collection, traffic congestion management, and airport financing. He is a member of the Transportation Research Board's Standing Committee on Emerging Technology Law.
He has appeared on television and radio programs in outlets such as Fox Business Network, National Public Radio, and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and has also written for numerous publications, including USA Today, The Washington Post, Wired, CNN.com, MSNBC.com, Forbes, and National Review. And his work has been featured by The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Scientific American, Congressional Quarterly, Washington Monthly, POLITICO, CNN, Bloomberg, BBC, C-SPAN, and other print, television, and radio outlets.
Scribner joined Reason Foundation after more than a decade at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, where he was a senior fellow in transportation policy. He received his undergraduate degree in economics and philosophy from George Washington University.
Senior Fellow, R Street Institute
Prior to R Street, Adam spent 12 years as a senior fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. Before the Mercatus Center, he served as the president of the Progress and Freedom Foundation. Adam has also worked for the Adam Smith Institute, the Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute.
Adam has published 10 books on a wide range of topics, including online child safety, internet governance, intellectual property, telecommunications policy, media regulation and federalism.
In 2008, Adam received the Family Online Safety Institute’s “Award for Outstanding Achievement.”
Garwood Visiting Professor and Visiting Fellow, James Madison Pr, Cleveland-Marshall College of Law
David F. Forte is Professor of Law at Cleveland State University, where he was the inaugural holder of the Charles R. Emrick, Jr.- Calfee Halter & Griswold Endowed Chair. This fall, Professor Forte will be the Garwood Visiting Professor at Princeton University in the Department of Politics, and Visiting Fellow at the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions. He holds degrees from Harvard College, Manchester University, England, the University of Toronto and Columbia University.
During the Reagan administration, Professor Forte served as chief counsel to the United States delegation to the United Nations and alternate delegate to the Security Council. He has authored a number of briefs before the United States Supreme Court, and has frequently testified before the United States Congress and consulted with the Department of State on human rights and international affairs issues. His advice was specifically sought on the approval of the Genocide Convention, on world-wide religious persecution, and Islamic extremism. He has appeared and spoken frequently on radio and television, both nationally and internationally. In 2002, the Department of State sponsored a speaking tour for Professor Forte in Amman, Jordan, and he was also a featured speaker to the Meeting of Peoples in Rimini, Italy, a meeting which gathers over 500,000 people from all over Europe. He has also been called to testify before the state legislatures of Ohio, Kansas, and Idaho as well as the New York City Council. He has assisted in drafting a number of pieces of legislation for the Ohio General Assembly dealing with abortion, international trade, and federalism. He has sat as acting judge on the municipal court of Lakewood Ohio and was chairman of Professional Ethics Committee of the Cleveland Bar Association. He has received a number of awards for his public service, including the Cleveland Bar Association’s President’s Award, the Cleveland State University Award for Distinguished Service, the Cleveland State University Distinguished Teaching Award, and the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law Alumni Award for Faculty Excellence. He served as Consultor to the Pontifical Council for the Family under Pope St. John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI. In 2003, Dr. Forte was a Distinguished Fulbright Chair at the University of Trento and returned there in 2004 as a Visiting Professor. For the academic year, 2008-2009, Professor Forte was Senior Visiting Scholar at the Center for the Study of Religion and the Constitution in at the Witherspoon Institute in Princeton, New Jersey. He was the Robert E. Henderson Constitution Day Lecturer at the Ashbrook Center at Ashland University, and he has given over 300 invited addresses and papers at more than 100 academic institutions. His work has been cited by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Professor Forte was a Bradley Scholar at the Heritage Foundation, and Visiting Scholar at the Liberty Fund. He has been President of the Ohio Association of Scholars, was on the Board of Directors of the Philadelphia Society, and is also adjunct Scholar at the Ashbrook Center. He has been appointed to the Ohio State Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. He has also been a Civil War re-enactor and a Merit Badge Counselor for the Boy Scouts.
He writes and speaks nationally on topics such as constitutional law, religious liberty, Islamic law, the rights of families, and international affairs. He served as book review editor for the American Journal of Jurisprudence and has edited a volume entitled, Natural Law and Contemporary Public Policy, published by Georgetown University Press. His book, Islamic Law Studies: Classical and Contemporary Applications, has been published by Austin & Winfield. He is Senior Editor of The Heritage Guide to the Constitution (2006), 2d edition (2014), published by Regnery & Co, a clause by clause analysis of the Constitution of the United States.
His teaching competencies include Constitutional Law, the First Amendment, Islamic Law, Jurisprudence, Natural Law, International Law, International Human Rights, the Presidency, and Constitutional History.
Chairman, Federal Communications Commission
Brendan Carr is the Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. He previously served as the senior Republican Commissioner and as the FCC’s General Counsel. Nominated by both President Trump and President Biden, Carr has been confirmed unanimously by the Senate three times.
Described by Axios as “the FCC’s 5G crusader,” Carr has led the FCC’s work to modernize its infrastructure rules and accelerate the buildout of high-speed networks. His reforms cut billions of dollars in red tape, enabled the private sector to construct high-speed networks in communities across the country, and extended America’s global leadership in 5G.
Chairman Carr is also focused on expanding America’s skilled workforce—the tower climbers and construction crews needed to build next-gen networks. His jobs initiative promotes community colleges and apprenticeships as a pipeline for good-paying 5G jobs. He is recognizing America’s talented tower crews through a series of “5G Ready” Hard Hat presentations.
Chairman Carr leads a groundbreaking telehealth initiative at the FCC. The Connected Care Pilot Program supports the delivery of high-quality care to low-income Americans and veterans.
Chairman Carr’s time outside of Washington helps inform his approach to the job. He regularly hits the road to hear directly from community members and learn how changes in federal policies could help improve their lives.
Chairman Carr brings nearly 20 years of private and public sector experience in communications and tech policy to his position. Before joining the FCC as a staffer back in 2012, he worked as an attorney at Wiley Rein LLP in the firm’s appellate, litigation, and telecom practices. Previously, Chairman Carr clerked on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit for Judge Dennis Shedd. After attending Georgetown University for his undergrad, Chairman Carr earned his J.D. magna cum laude from the Catholic University of America’s Columbus School of Law where he served as an editor of the Catholic University Law Review.
Senator and Chairman, Indiana Senate Utilities Committee, Indiana State Senate
An 8th generation Hoosier, Eric grew up on a grain and livestock farm, where he learned the value of hard work and experienced the risk and rewards of the commodity markets.
He earned a Bachelor’s Degree from Georgetown University and worked on President Ronald Reagan’s re-election campaign in the Office of Political Affairs at the Reagan-Bush ’84 Committee.
While earning his Juris Doctorate at the Indiana University School of Law, he clerked at the Bloomington law firm of McDonald, Barrett & Dakich.
He has been engaged in the private practice of law with offices in Bloomington since 1989 and Bedford since 2003. He is a member of the Monroe and Lawrence County Bar Associations, the Indiana State Bar Association, the Million Dollar Advocates Forum, the Multi-Million Dollar Advocates Forum, and founded and served as the first President of the Indiana Creditors Bar Association.
In 2002, he was elected to the Indiana House of Representatives, where he served until being elected to the Indiana State Senate in 2016. His legislative service has been recognized by, among others, the Indiana Judges Association (Champion of Justice Award), the Indiana Trial Lawyers Association (Legislator of the Year 2008 and 2015), the Indiana Pro Bono Commission (Randall T. Shepard Award), Kentucky Governor Ernie Fletcher (Kentucky Colonel), and Indiana Governor Mike Pence (Sagamore of the Wabash).
He currently serves as Chairman of the Senate Utilities Committee, Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary and Commerce & Technology Committees, and as a member of the Senate Corrections & Criminal Law, Elections, and Family & Children Committees.
A nationally-recognized leader in energy policy, he serves as co-chairman of the Energy Supply Task Force of the National Conference of State Legislatures, as a member of the Executive Committee of the National Council on Electricity Policy, and holds a graduate certificate in Energy Policy Planning from the University of Idaho. He also serves as a member of the Federal Communication Commission Consumer Advisory Committee. He focuses on energy, telecommunications, and water policy interactions in Indiana and nationally.
He has served as a member of the Indiana Commission on Courts (2007—2011), the Indiana Probate Code Study Commission (2005—2007, 2013—2014, 2019—present), the Indiana Military Base Planning Council (2005—2019), the Board of Trustees of the Indiana Criminal Justice Institute (2006—2011), and the Indiana Public Defender Commission (2017—present). He represents Indiana as a Commissioner on The National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws (2018—present). As a member of the Indiana Supreme Court's Commercial Courts Committee (2019—present), he provides guidance to Indiana's Commercial Courts. He was appointed by the Indiana Supreme Court to serve on its Innovation Initiative (2019—present) to advise the Supreme Court on opportunities to increase efficiency and accessibility through innovative technology and case management, analysis of court reform, and development and testing of pilot programs related to court reform.
Eric frequently serves as a faculty member teaching continuing legal education courses, including for the Indiana State Bar Association and the Indiana Continuing Legal Education Forum. He enjoys teaching lawyers about new developments in the law and sharing his insights into the legislative process.
He is a registered civil mediator, having earned a civil mediation certificate from the Indiana University McKinney School of Law, studying under ADR expert John Krauss. Eric enjoys using the combination of his mediation skills and litigation experience to help parties settle cases and resolve disputes.
Eric is frequently appointed by judges to serve as a court-appointed fiduciary with responsibilities such as a trustee, federal multidistrict litigation plaintiffs’ steering committee member, special administrator, and personal representative.
A licensed Indiana title insurance producer, he founded Indiana Title Insurance Company in 2015 and serves as its President. His business experience also includes real estate, as President of White River Properties, Inc.; agriculture, as a partner in Koch Farms; and healthcare, as a former board member and Chairman of the Board of Dunn Memorial Hospital and St. Vincent Dunn Hospital.
He is a member of the Boards of Directors of Mid-Southern Savings Bank, FSB and its holding company Mid-Southern Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ: MSVB).
His leadership in the non-profit sector has included service as a member of the Board of Governors of the Society of Indiana Pioneers, as a member of the Executive Board of the Hoosier Trails Council of the Boy Scouts of America, as a member of the Mitchell Urban Enterprise Association Board, and as a member of the Georgetown University Alumni Admissions Committee.
Senior Vice President, Strand Consult
Roslyn Layton, PhD is a leading international expert on technology policy. She is Senior Vice President of Strand Consult, an independent consultancy serving the global mobile telecom industry. She is also a Visiting Researcher at Aalborg University Copenhagen where she earned a doctoral thesis on network neutrality by measuring the outcome of the policy across 53 countries over 5 years. She served on the Presidential Transition Team for the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and her work was critical to the FCC’s defense for the Restoring Internet Freedom Order. She has testified to the United States Senate and House on multiple topics including spectrum, broadband, mobile mergers, competition, and privacy. She founded the think tank China Tech Threat to study the problems of technology produced by the People’s Republic of China. She serves as the Program Chair for the Telecom Policy Research Conference, the leading interdisciplinary academic gathering. Her recent paper on rural broadband describes the empirical case for policy reform to recover network infrastructure costs from streaming video entertainment providers. She is a Senior Contributor to Forbes.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit
Judge Menashi was appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on November 14, 2019. Previously, he served as special assistant and associate counsel to the President in the White House and as acting general counsel at the U.S. Department of Education. He was assistant professor of law at Scalia Law School, George Mason University, where he taught administrative law and civil procedure, and a research fellow at New York University School of Law and Georgetown University Law Center. He was also a partner at Kirkland & Ellis LLP in New York, where he practiced appellate and commercial litigation, and served as a law clerk to Justice Samuel Alito on the Supreme Court of the United States and to Judge Douglas Ginsburg on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He graduated from Stanford Law School, where he was elected to Order of the Coif and served as senior articles editor of the Stanford Law Review, and from Dartmouth College, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.
Keynote Address by Governor Glenn Youngkin
Glenn Youngkin
2022 National Student Symposium
Featuring: Gov. Glenn Youngkin, 74th Governor of Virginia
Abortion, Dobbs, and The Future of the Conservative Legal Movement
Josh Blackman
Evansville Lawyers Chapter
On February 18, 2022, the Evansville Lawyers Chapter hosted a Zoom webinar featuring Professor Josh...
Abortion, Dobbs, and The Future of the Conservative Legal Movement
Josh Blackman
Evansville Lawyers Chapter
On February 18, 2022, the Evansville Lawyers Chapter hosted a Zoom webinar featuring Professor Josh...
Federalist Society Review, Volume 22
Katie McClendon
The Federalist Society Review is the legal journal produced by the Federalist Society for Law & Public...
A Seat at the Sitting - February 2022
Jeff Beelaert, Anthony J. Ferate, Adam Liptak, Elizabeth Murrill, Robert V. Percival, Kenji Marcel Price
The February-March Docket in 90 Minutes or Less
Each month, a panel of constitutional experts convenes to discuss the Court’s upcoming docket sitting by...
A Seat at the Sitting - February 2022
Jeff Beelaert, Anthony J. Ferate, Adam Liptak, Elizabeth Murrill, Robert V. Percival, Kenji Marcel Price
The February-March Docket in 90 Minutes or Less
Each month, a panel of constitutional experts convenes to discuss the Court’s upcoming docket sitting by...
The Constitution Line By Line with Senator Mike Lee: Article I, Section 8: The Commerce Clause
Mike S. Lee
Short video featuring Mike Lee
In this episode of the Constitution Line By Line, Senator Mike Lee covers Article I,...
Tech Roundup Episode 13 – Autonomous Vehicles: Where Are We Now?
Marc Scribner, Adam Thierer
Regulatory Transparency Project's Fourth Branch Podcast
Experts Marc Scribner and Adam Thierer join us to provide an update on autonomous vehicle...
James Madison And The Fight For The Constitution
Colleen Sheehan, David F. Forte
A FedSoc Films Production
Discover the story of James Madison, the Founding Father who gave us the Constitution and...
Federalism and Broadband Spending: Finding the Right Approach
Brendan Carr, Eric Allan Koch, Roslyn Layton, Steven J. Menashi
2021 National Lawyers Convention
The 2021 National Lawyers Convention took place November 11-13, 2021 at the Mayflower Hotel in...