Sterling Professor of International Law, Yale Law School
Harold Hongju Koh is Sterling Professor of International Law at Yale Law School. He returned to Yale Law School in January 2013 after serving for nearly four years as the 22nd Legal Adviser of the U.S. Department of State.
Professor Koh is one of the country’s leading experts in public and private international law, national security law, and human rights. He first began teaching at Yale Law School in 1985 and served as its fifteenth Dean from 2004 until 2009. From 2009 to 2013, he took leave as the Martin R. Flug ’55 Professor of International Law to join the State Department as Legal Adviser, service for which he received the Secretary of State's Distinguished Service Award. From 1993 to 2009, he was the Gerard C. & Bernice Latrobe Smith Professor of International Law at Yale Law School, and from 1998 to 2001, he served as U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor.
Professor Koh has received seventeen honorary degrees and more than thirty awards for his human rights work, including awards from Columbia Law School and the American Bar Association for his lifetime achievements in international law. He has authored or co-authored eight books, published more than 200 articles, testified regularly before Congress, and litigated numerous cases involving international law issues in both U.S. and international tribunals. He is a Fellow of the American Philosophical Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, an Honorary Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, and a member of the Council of the American Law Institute.
He holds a B.A. degree from Harvard College and B.A. and M.A. degrees from Oxford University, where he was a Marshall Scholar. He earned his J.D. from Harvard Law School, where he was Developments Editor of the Harvard Law Review. Before coming to Yale, he served as a law clerk for Justice Harry A. Blackmun of the United States Supreme Court and Judge Malcolm Richard Wilkey of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, worked as an attorney in private practice in Washington, and served as an Attorney-Adviser for the Office of Legal Counsel, U.S. Department of Justice.
David C. Baum Professor Emeritus, University of Illinois College of Law
John Nowak graduated from College of Law in 1971, with the highest grade point average in the graduating class. During his third year at the College of Law, he served as the editor-in-chief of the University of Illinois Law Forum [now renamed as the University of Illinois Law Review]. Following graduation, John clerked for Justice Walter Schaefer of the Illinois Supreme Court. Professor Nowak joined the University of Illinois College of Law faculty in 1972; for thirty years he was what academics euphemistically call “a full-time professor.” He was the David C. Baum Professor at the College of Law from 1993 until his retirement in 2002; he received the “outstanding professor award” from three graduating classes of the College. As an emeritus professor, John taught courses at the College of Law from 2002 to 2008.
In 2008, Professor Nowak was the first professor appointed to the Raymond and Mary Simon Chair in Constitutional Law at Loyola University Chicago. He served in that position at Loyola from 2008-2014; he was awarded the “outstanding professor award” by the Loyola graduating class of 2011. In 2014, illness once again led Professor Nowak to retire. The Loyola University Chicago Board of Trustees awarded Professor Nowak the title of Professor and Raymond and Mary Simon Chair in Constitutional Law Emeritus.
Professor Nowak is the author, or coauthor, of more than a score of law review articles, including articles in the California, Columbia, Georgetown, Michigan, Northwestern, U.C.L.A., and Virginia Law Reviews, and the Supreme Court Review (published by the University of Chicago Press). With Jenner Professor Emeritus Professor Ronald D. Rotunda, Professor Nowak has coauthored: Concise Hornbook on Constitutional Law (4th edition, Thomson-West 2010); Constitutional Law (8th edition, Thomson-West 2010); and the six-volume Treatise on Constitutional Law: Substance and Procedure (5th ed., 2012-2013, West & Thomson-Reuters-Westlaw). Their multi-volume Treatise, which has annual supplements, also serves as the “conlaw” database on Westlaw. A chapter of Constitutional Law was translated into Korean by Professor Lee Boo-Ha, Yeungnam University College of Law and Political Science, and published in Korea as Nowak & Rotunda, Freedom of Speech and the American Constitution. Professors Nowak and Rotunda are also the editors of Story’s Commentaries on the Constitution (1987, Carolina Academic Press).
Professor Nowak has been a scholar in residence at the University of Arizona; a visiting professor at the University of Michigan; the Lee Distinguished Visiting Professor at the College of William and Mary, and the Williams Visiting Professor at the University of Richmond. He has presented lectures at several law schools; the National Conference of Law Reviews annual meeting; and at a variety of Federal Judicial Center programs. Professor Nowak served as Reporter for the National Center for State Courts’ Task Force on Courts in the American System of Government; Reporter for the Illinois Supreme Court’s Committee on Jury Instructions in Criminal Cases; Reporter for the United States District Courts for the Central and Southern Districts of Illinois Speedy Trial Act Planning Groups; and as a member of the Rules Committee of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.
Professor Nowak is a member of the American Bar Foundation, and a “life member” of the American Law Institute. He has served as a member of the Order of the Coif Triennial Book Award Committee; and as a member or a chairperson of the several committees of the Association of American Law Schools. Twice, Professor Nowak was elected to serve as the chairperson of the AALS Section on Constitutional Law. He served as the University of Illinois Faculty Athletic Representative to the Big Ten Conference and NCAA from 1981 through 1989; and a member of the NCAA’s Committee on Infractions from 1987 to 1990. Professor Nowak served as the “Interim Deputy Chancellor for Intercollegiate Athletics,” during the time when the University of Illinois Division of Intercollegiate Athletics replaced the University’s “Athletic Association,” and the campus did not have an Athletics Director.
Former General Counsel of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization, Former United States Ambassador to East Timor
Grover Joseph Rees, a native and resident of Louisiana, served as the first United States Ambassador to East Timor from 2002 to 2006.
From October 2006 until January 2009 Ambassador Rees served as Special Representative for Social Issues in the U.S. Department of State. He was responsible for promoting human dignity, including issues affecting vulnerable persons and the family, within the United Nations system. He served as Acting U.S. Representative to the United Nations Economic and Social Counsel during the fall 2007 session of the UN General Assembly and also served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Organizations.
From 1995 until 2002 Rees was a senior staff member on the Foreign Affairs Committee in the United States House of Representatives, where he was responsible for human rights and refugee protection and played a major role in the drafting and enactment of important human rights legislation including the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, the International Religious Freedom Act, and the Torture Victims Relief Act.
Ambassador Rees also formerly served as General Counsel of the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service (1991-93), as Chief Justice of the High Court of American Samoa (1986-1991), and as Special Counsel to the Attorney General of the United States (1985-86).
Prior to his work in Washington, Rees served for seven years as a law professor at the University of Texas. He has written and spoken widely on international law, human rights, refugees, and related issues.
Rees obtained his undergraduate degree from Yale University and his law degree from Louisiana State University Law School, where he served as Editor in Chief of the Louisiana Law Review and was selected for the academic honor society Order of the Coif.
Rees was born in New Orleans, the oldest of 12 children. He is married to Lan Dai Nguyen Rees and has one son. He retired from government service in January 2009 and now lives and works in Lafayette, Louisiana.
In addition to English, Ambassador Rees speaks French, Spanish, Portuguese, Samoan, and Tetum.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit
LAURENCE HIRSCH SILBERMAN, senior circuit judge; recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, June 19, 2008; born in York, PA, October 12, 1935; son of William Silberman and Anna (Hirsch); married to Rosalie G. Gaull on April 28, 1957 (deceased), married Patricia Winn on January 5, 2008; children: Robert Steven Silberman, Katherine DeBoer Fischer, and Anne Gaull Otis; B.A., Dartmouth College, 1957; LL.B., Harvard Law School, 1961; admitted to Hawaii Bar, 1962; District of Columbia Bar, 1973; associate, Moore, Torkildson and Rice, 1961–64; partner (Moore, Silberman and Schulze), Honolulu, 1964–67; attorney, National Labor Relations Board, Office of General Counsel, Appellate Division, 1967–69; Solicitor, Department of Labor, 1969–70; Under Secretary of Labor, 1970–73; partner, Steptoe and Johnson, 1973–74; Deputy Attorney General of the United States, 1974–75; Ambassador to Yugoslavia, 1975–77; President’s Special Envoy on ILO Affairs, 1976; senior fellow, American Enterprise Institute, 1977–78; visiting fellow, 1978–85; managing partner, Morrison and Foerster, 1978–79 and 1983–85; executive vice president, Crocker National Bank, 1979–83; lecturer, University of Hawaii, 1962–63; board of directors, Commission on Present Danger, 1978–85, Institute for Educational Affairs, New York, NY, 1981–85, member: General Advisory Committee on Arms Control and Disarmament, 1981–85; Defense Policy Board, 1981–85; vice chairman, State Department’s Commission on Security and Economic Assistance, 1983–84; American Bar Association (Labor Law Committee, 1965–72, Corporations and Banking Committee, 1973, Law and National Security Advisory Committee, 1981–85); Hawaii Bar Association Ethics Committee, 1965–67; Council on Foreign Relations, 1977–present; Judicial Conference Committee on Court Administration and Case Management, 1994; member, U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Court of Review, 1996–2003; Adjunct Professor of Law (Administrative Law and Labor Law) Georgetown Law Center, 1987–94; 1997; Adjunct Professor of Law, Harvard Law School, 1994-95, Adjunct Professor of Law, New York University Law School, 1995–96; Distinguished Visitor from the Judiciary, Georgetown Law Center, 2003–2019; co-chairman of the President’s Commission on The Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction, 2004–05; appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit by President Reagan on October 28, 1985.
George P. Shultz Senior Fellow in Foreign Policy and National Security Affairs, Emeritus, Hoover Institution
Abraham D. Sofaer was appointed the first George P. Shultz Distinguished Scholar and Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution in 1994. Named in honor of former US secretary of state George P. Shultz, the appointment is awarded to a senior scholar whose broad vision, knowledge, and skill will be brought to bear on the problems presented by a radically transformed global environment.
Sofaer's work focuses on the power over war within the US government and on issues related to international law, terrorism, diplomacy, and national security. His most recent books are Taking on Iran: Strength, Diplomacy, and the Iranian Threat(Hoover Institution Press, 2013) and The Best Defense?: Legitimacy and Preventive Force (Hoover Institution Press, 2010).
From 1985 to 1990, he served as a legal adviser to the US Department of State, where he resolved several interstate matters, including the dispute between Egypt and Israel over Taba, the claim against Iraq for its attack on the USS Stark, and the claims against Chile for the assassination of Orlando Letelier. He received the Distinguished Service Award in 1989, the highest state department award given to a non–civil servant.
From 1979 to 1985, Sofaer served as a US district judge in the Southern District of New York. From 1969 to 1979, he was a professor of law at Columbia University School of Law and wrote War, Foreign Affairs, and Constitutional Power: The Origins.From 1967 to 1969, he was an assistant US attorney in the Southern District of New York, after clerking for Judge J. Skelly Wright on the US Court of Appeals in Washington, DC, and the Honorable William J. Brennan Jr. on the US Supreme Court. He practiced law at Hughes, Hubbard and Reed from 1990 to 1994.
A veteran of the US Air Force, Sofaer received an LLB degree from New York University School of Law in 1965, where he was editor in chief of the law review. He holds a BA in history from Yeshiva College (1962). Sofaer is a founding trustee of the National Museum of Jazz in Harlem and a member of the board of the Koret Foundation.
His research papers are available at the Hoover Institution Archives.
Senior Counsel, Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP
Floyd Abrams is Senior Counsel in Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP's litigation practice group.
Floyd has a national trial and appellate practice and extensive experience in high-visibility matters, often involving First Amendment, securities litigation, intellectual property, public policy and regulatory issues. He has argued frequently in the Supreme Court in cases raising issues as diverse as the scope of the First Amendment, the interpretation of ERISA, the nature of broadcast regulation, the impact of copyright law and the continuing viability of the Miranda rule. Most recently, Floyd prevailed in his argument before the Supreme Court on behalf of Senator Mitch McConnell as amicus curiae, defending the rights of corporations and unions to speak publicly about politics and elections in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. Floyd's clients have included The McGraw-Hill Companies in a large number of litigations around the country involving claims against its subsidiary, Standard & Poor’s Financial Services LLC, The New York Times in the Pentagon Papers case and others, ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, Time Magazine, Business Week, The Nation, Reader's Digest, Hearst, AIG, and others in trials, appeals and investigations.
Floyd has represented Standard & Poor’s in litigations about its ratings; he defended the Brooklyn Museum of Art in its legal battles with Mayor Rudolph Giuliani; he represented two of the nation’s largest insurers in litigation under Section 17200 in California and he has frequently testified before congressional committees and prepared clients to do so. In 1998, he represented CNN in investigating and issuing a report on its broadcast accusing the United States of using nerve gas on a military mission in Laos in 1970, and again in 1999 in seeking to persuade the United States Senate to permit the public to view its deliberations as it determined whether or not to convict President Clinton of alleged high crimes and misdemeanors. He represented Nina Totenberg and National Public Radio in the 1992 "leak" investigation conducted by the United States Senate arising out of the confirmation hearing of Justice Clarence Thomas and, in 2004 and 2005, Judith Miller and Matthew Cooper in their efforts to avoid revealing their confidential sources.
In 2006, Floyd was elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, an independent research center that conducts multidisciplinary studies of complex and emerging problems advanced by its 4,600 elected members, who are leaders in the academic disciplines, the arts, business and public affairs from around the world. In 2015, Floyd was honored by Yale Law School with its prestigious Award of Merit. Also in 2015, Floyd received the Walter Cronkite Freedom of Information Award presented by the Connecticut Foundation for Open Government. In 2011, Floyd was awarded the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism's Lifetime Achievement Award. In 1998, Floyd was the recipient of the William J. Brennan, Jr. Award for outstanding contribution to public discourse; the Learned Hand Award of the American Jewish Committee; and the Thurgood Marshall Award of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York. In November, 1999, he received the William J. Brennan, Jr. award of the Libel Defense Resource Center. Floyd was awarded, in 1997, the Milton S. Gould Award for outstanding appellate advocacy by the Office of the Appellate Defender in New York. Previously he had been awarded the Ross Essay Prize of the American Bar Association for his study of the Ninth Amendment of the United States Constitution. He has also received awards from, among others, the American Jewish Congress, Catholic University, the New York and Philadelphia Chapters of the Society of Professional Journalists, Sigma Delta Chi, the New York Civil Liberties Union, the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, and the National Broadcast Editorial Association.
In November, 2011, Yale Law School announced the formation of The Floyd Abrams Institute for Freedom of Expression, whose mission is to promote free speech, scholarship and law reform on emerging questions concerning traditional and new media. Developed in cooperation with Floyd, the Institute includes a clinic for Yale Law students to engage in litigation, draft model legislation, and advise lawmakers and policy makers on issues of media freedom and informational access.
The American Bar Association awarded Floyd its Certificate of Merit for his article published in The New York Times Magazine entitled "The New Effort to Control Information," which was described by the ABA as a "noteworthy contribution to public understanding of the American system of law and justice."
Described by Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan as "the most significant First Amendment lawyer of our age," Floyd is top-ranked by Chambers USA. He is listed in Who’s Who Legal, Who’s Who in American Law, and has been awarded with Lifetime Achievement Awards by The New York Law Journal and The American Lawyer (2013).
Floyd, who served as chairman of Mayor Edward Koch's Committee on Appointments, New York City, served as the Chairman of the New York State Zenger Commemoration Planning Committee. Previously, he served as the Chairman of the Communications Committee of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, as well as Chairman of the Committee on Freedom of Speech and of the Press of the Individual Rights Section of the American Bar Association and of the Committee on Freedom of Expression of the Litigation Section of the American Bar Association.
He has appeared frequently on television on Nightline, the News Hour with Jim Lehrer, Charlie Rose and other programs and has published articles and reviews in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Yale Law Journal, The Harvard Law Review, and elsewhere.
Floyd served on the Technology and Privacy Advisory Committee of the U.S. Department of Defense in 2003-4 and as the Chair of the New York State Commission on Public Access to Court Records in 2004.
For fifteen years, Floyd was the William J. Brennan, Jr. Visiting Professor of First Amendment Law at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. He has, as well, been a Visiting Lecturer at Yale Law School and Columbia Law School and he is author of Friend of the Court: On the Front Lines with the First Amendment, published by Yale University Press (2013) and Speaking Freely: Trials of the First Amendment, published by Viking Press (2005).
General Counsel, Tikvah Fund
Suzanne Garment is an American scholar, writer, editor and attorney.
Garment is best known for her book, Scandal: The Culture of Mistrust in American Politics, and for her work as a aide to Ambassador Daniel Patrick Moynihan working to block the 1975 United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3379 of the United Nations that "Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination."
Garment holds the A.B. from Radcliffe College, the M.A. from the University of Sussex in the United Kingdom, the PhD in political science from Harvard University, the J.D. and a master of laws degree in taxation from Georgetown University
She has served as a visiting scholar at the Indiana University Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University; special counsel to Richard Ravitch, New York Lieutenant Governor and as counsel to the Task Force on the State Budget Crisis, co-chaired by Ravitch and former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker. Before earning the J.D., she was a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute; associate editorial page editor of the Wall Street Journal; author of the "Capital Chronicle" column at the Wall Street Journal; and special assistant to Daniel Patrick Moynihan, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Garment has taught politics and public policy at Yale and Harvard Universities. She was the executive editor of Jewish Ideas Daily.
Professor of Law Emeritus, Brooklyn Law
Henry Mark Holzer received his B.A. degree from New York University where he studied Russian and political science. After graduation in 1954 he served in South Korea with United States Army intelligence, holding top secret clearance as chief order of battle analyst (Chinese Communist Forces) at Eighth Army Headquarters in Seoul. Following Professor Holzer’s military service he earned his Juris Doctor degree at New York University School of Law. After his admission to the New York bar in December 1959 he practiced constitutional and appellate law.
From 1972 to 1993 he taught full time at Brooklyn Law School, and for two years was an associate dean. His courses included Constitutional Law, Administrative Law, Civil Liberties, First Amendment and Appellate Advocacy. In the fall of 1993, he taught as a visiting professor at the University of New Mexico School of Law in Albuquerque.
He is author of approximately 300 articles, essays, and reviews. He has published legal and political commentary on current issues in print and electronic media, and has often been interviewed on radio and television.
Several of his out-of-print books are The Gold Clause: Government’s Money Monopoly; Sweet Land of Liberty? The Supreme Court and Individual Rights; Speaking Freely: The Case Against Speech Codes; Why Not Call it Treason? Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Today. With his wife, Erika Holzer, he is co-author of “Aid and Comfort”: Jane Fonda in North Vietnam; and Fake Warriors: Identifying, Exposing, and Punishing Those Who Falsify Their Military Service.
His book The Supreme Court Opinions of Clarence Thomas, 1919-2006, was published in 2007. The second edition, covering the years 1991-2011 was published in 2012. Also published in 2012, in a print edition and eBook, was Professor Holzer’s book The American Constitution and Ayn Rand’s “Inner Contradiction.”
Journalist, Professor, and Author
Donald "Don" Oberdorfer Jr. (May 28, 1931 – July 23, 2015) was an American professor at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University with a specialty in Korea, and was a journalist for 38 years, 25 of them with The Washington Post. He is the author of five books and several academic papers. His book, Senator Mansfield: The Extraordinary Life of a Great American Statesman and Diplomat, won the D.B. Hardeman Prize in 2003.
Oberdorfer graduated from Princeton University and went to South Korea as a U.S. Army lieutenant after the signing of the armistice that ended the Korean War. In 1955 he joined The Charlotte Observer, and eventually found a job with The Washington Post. During the next 25 years, he worked for The Post, serving as White House correspondent, Northeast Asia correspondent, and diplomatic correspondent. He retired from the paper in 1993.
At the Nitze school, beyond his teaching position, Oberdorfer served as chairman of the U.S.-Korea Institute from its inauguration in 2006 and was named chairman emeritus in 2013.
Former Assistant Attorney General, U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Division
During the Reagan Administration, Richard Willard served as Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Civil Division, the largest litigation division of the US Department of Justice. There, he chaired the Reagan Administration's Tort Policy Working Group and developed its proposals for reforming civil litigation, workplace drug testing, and preventing unauthorized disclosure of classified information.
More recently, he served as senior vice president and general counsel for Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. and Gillette Company, where he led large worldwide legal departments, advised on strategic transactions, and enabled launch of new products with strong intellectual property protection.
Mr. Willard's private practice involved corporate counseling and litigation of cases raising public policy concerns. He served as lead counsel in complex litigation involving multiple claims, parties, and jurisdictions. He frequently appeared in trial and appellate courts around the country, including six arguments in the Supreme Court.
Senior Counsel, Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP
Floyd Abrams is Senior Counsel in Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP's litigation practice group.
Floyd has a national trial and appellate practice and extensive experience in high-visibility matters, often involving First Amendment, securities litigation, intellectual property, public policy and regulatory issues. He has argued frequently in the Supreme Court in cases raising issues as diverse as the scope of the First Amendment, the interpretation of ERISA, the nature of broadcast regulation, the impact of copyright law and the continuing viability of the Miranda rule. Most recently, Floyd prevailed in his argument before the Supreme Court on behalf of Senator Mitch McConnell as amicus curiae, defending the rights of corporations and unions to speak publicly about politics and elections in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. Floyd's clients have included The McGraw-Hill Companies in a large number of litigations around the country involving claims against its subsidiary, Standard & Poor’s Financial Services LLC, The New York Times in the Pentagon Papers case and others, ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, Time Magazine, Business Week, The Nation, Reader's Digest, Hearst, AIG, and others in trials, appeals and investigations.
Floyd has represented Standard & Poor’s in litigations about its ratings; he defended the Brooklyn Museum of Art in its legal battles with Mayor Rudolph Giuliani; he represented two of the nation’s largest insurers in litigation under Section 17200 in California and he has frequently testified before congressional committees and prepared clients to do so. In 1998, he represented CNN in investigating and issuing a report on its broadcast accusing the United States of using nerve gas on a military mission in Laos in 1970, and again in 1999 in seeking to persuade the United States Senate to permit the public to view its deliberations as it determined whether or not to convict President Clinton of alleged high crimes and misdemeanors. He represented Nina Totenberg and National Public Radio in the 1992 "leak" investigation conducted by the United States Senate arising out of the confirmation hearing of Justice Clarence Thomas and, in 2004 and 2005, Judith Miller and Matthew Cooper in their efforts to avoid revealing their confidential sources.
In 2006, Floyd was elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, an independent research center that conducts multidisciplinary studies of complex and emerging problems advanced by its 4,600 elected members, who are leaders in the academic disciplines, the arts, business and public affairs from around the world. In 2015, Floyd was honored by Yale Law School with its prestigious Award of Merit. Also in 2015, Floyd received the Walter Cronkite Freedom of Information Award presented by the Connecticut Foundation for Open Government. In 2011, Floyd was awarded the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism's Lifetime Achievement Award. In 1998, Floyd was the recipient of the William J. Brennan, Jr. Award for outstanding contribution to public discourse; the Learned Hand Award of the American Jewish Committee; and the Thurgood Marshall Award of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York. In November, 1999, he received the William J. Brennan, Jr. award of the Libel Defense Resource Center. Floyd was awarded, in 1997, the Milton S. Gould Award for outstanding appellate advocacy by the Office of the Appellate Defender in New York. Previously he had been awarded the Ross Essay Prize of the American Bar Association for his study of the Ninth Amendment of the United States Constitution. He has also received awards from, among others, the American Jewish Congress, Catholic University, the New York and Philadelphia Chapters of the Society of Professional Journalists, Sigma Delta Chi, the New York Civil Liberties Union, the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, and the National Broadcast Editorial Association.
In November, 2011, Yale Law School announced the formation of The Floyd Abrams Institute for Freedom of Expression, whose mission is to promote free speech, scholarship and law reform on emerging questions concerning traditional and new media. Developed in cooperation with Floyd, the Institute includes a clinic for Yale Law students to engage in litigation, draft model legislation, and advise lawmakers and policy makers on issues of media freedom and informational access.
The American Bar Association awarded Floyd its Certificate of Merit for his article published in The New York Times Magazine entitled "The New Effort to Control Information," which was described by the ABA as a "noteworthy contribution to public understanding of the American system of law and justice."
Described by Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan as "the most significant First Amendment lawyer of our age," Floyd is top-ranked by Chambers USA. He is listed in Who’s Who Legal, Who’s Who in American Law, and has been awarded with Lifetime Achievement Awards by The New York Law Journal and The American Lawyer (2013).
Floyd, who served as chairman of Mayor Edward Koch's Committee on Appointments, New York City, served as the Chairman of the New York State Zenger Commemoration Planning Committee. Previously, he served as the Chairman of the Communications Committee of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, as well as Chairman of the Committee on Freedom of Speech and of the Press of the Individual Rights Section of the American Bar Association and of the Committee on Freedom of Expression of the Litigation Section of the American Bar Association.
He has appeared frequently on television on Nightline, the News Hour with Jim Lehrer, Charlie Rose and other programs and has published articles and reviews in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Yale Law Journal, The Harvard Law Review, and elsewhere.
Floyd served on the Technology and Privacy Advisory Committee of the U.S. Department of Defense in 2003-4 and as the Chair of the New York State Commission on Public Access to Court Records in 2004.
For fifteen years, Floyd was the William J. Brennan, Jr. Visiting Professor of First Amendment Law at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. He has, as well, been a Visiting Lecturer at Yale Law School and Columbia Law School and he is author of Friend of the Court: On the Front Lines with the First Amendment, published by Yale University Press (2013) and Speaking Freely: Trials of the First Amendment, published by Viking Press (2005).
General Counsel, Tikvah Fund
Suzanne Garment is an American scholar, writer, editor and attorney.
Garment is best known for her book, Scandal: The Culture of Mistrust in American Politics, and for her work as a aide to Ambassador Daniel Patrick Moynihan working to block the 1975 United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3379 of the United Nations that "Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination."
Garment holds the A.B. from Radcliffe College, the M.A. from the University of Sussex in the United Kingdom, the PhD in political science from Harvard University, the J.D. and a master of laws degree in taxation from Georgetown University
She has served as a visiting scholar at the Indiana University Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University; special counsel to Richard Ravitch, New York Lieutenant Governor and as counsel to the Task Force on the State Budget Crisis, co-chaired by Ravitch and former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker. Before earning the J.D., she was a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute; associate editorial page editor of the Wall Street Journal; author of the "Capital Chronicle" column at the Wall Street Journal; and special assistant to Daniel Patrick Moynihan, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Garment has taught politics and public policy at Yale and Harvard Universities. She was the executive editor of Jewish Ideas Daily.
Professor of Law Emeritus, Brooklyn Law
Henry Mark Holzer received his B.A. degree from New York University where he studied Russian and political science. After graduation in 1954 he served in South Korea with United States Army intelligence, holding top secret clearance as chief order of battle analyst (Chinese Communist Forces) at Eighth Army Headquarters in Seoul. Following Professor Holzer’s military service he earned his Juris Doctor degree at New York University School of Law. After his admission to the New York bar in December 1959 he practiced constitutional and appellate law.
From 1972 to 1993 he taught full time at Brooklyn Law School, and for two years was an associate dean. His courses included Constitutional Law, Administrative Law, Civil Liberties, First Amendment and Appellate Advocacy. In the fall of 1993, he taught as a visiting professor at the University of New Mexico School of Law in Albuquerque.
He is author of approximately 300 articles, essays, and reviews. He has published legal and political commentary on current issues in print and electronic media, and has often been interviewed on radio and television.
Several of his out-of-print books are The Gold Clause: Government’s Money Monopoly; Sweet Land of Liberty? The Supreme Court and Individual Rights; Speaking Freely: The Case Against Speech Codes; Why Not Call it Treason? Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Today. With his wife, Erika Holzer, he is co-author of “Aid and Comfort”: Jane Fonda in North Vietnam; and Fake Warriors: Identifying, Exposing, and Punishing Those Who Falsify Their Military Service.
His book The Supreme Court Opinions of Clarence Thomas, 1919-2006, was published in 2007. The second edition, covering the years 1991-2011 was published in 2012. Also published in 2012, in a print edition and eBook, was Professor Holzer’s book The American Constitution and Ayn Rand’s “Inner Contradiction.”
Journalist, Professor, and Author
Donald "Don" Oberdorfer Jr. (May 28, 1931 – July 23, 2015) was an American professor at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University with a specialty in Korea, and was a journalist for 38 years, 25 of them with The Washington Post. He is the author of five books and several academic papers. His book, Senator Mansfield: The Extraordinary Life of a Great American Statesman and Diplomat, won the D.B. Hardeman Prize in 2003.
Oberdorfer graduated from Princeton University and went to South Korea as a U.S. Army lieutenant after the signing of the armistice that ended the Korean War. In 1955 he joined The Charlotte Observer, and eventually found a job with The Washington Post. During the next 25 years, he worked for The Post, serving as White House correspondent, Northeast Asia correspondent, and diplomatic correspondent. He retired from the paper in 1993.
At the Nitze school, beyond his teaching position, Oberdorfer served as chairman of the U.S.-Korea Institute from its inauguration in 2006 and was named chairman emeritus in 2013.
Former Assistant Attorney General, U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Division
During the Reagan Administration, Richard Willard served as Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Civil Division, the largest litigation division of the US Department of Justice. There, he chaired the Reagan Administration's Tort Policy Working Group and developed its proposals for reforming civil litigation, workplace drug testing, and preventing unauthorized disclosure of classified information.
More recently, he served as senior vice president and general counsel for Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. and Gillette Company, where he led large worldwide legal departments, advised on strategic transactions, and enabled launch of new products with strong intellectual property protection.
Mr. Willard's private practice involved corporate counseling and litigation of cases raising public policy concerns. He served as lead counsel in complex litigation involving multiple claims, parties, and jurisdictions. He frequently appeared in trial and appellate courts around the country, including six arguments in the Supreme Court.
Associate, Jones Day
Katie Roholt Lane represents clients at critical stages of high-stakes regulatory and constitutional litigation. Her practice also consists of developing case strategy at the trial and appellate levels, briefing legal issues, and conducting motions practice. Katie currently represents clients in litigation arising under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), and the Medicare Act.
In addition to her litigation practice, Katie provides strategic planning and regulatory compliance advice to companies seeking to navigate the complex U.S. regulations that impact domestic and international industries. She has represented clients in rulemakings and consultations before regulatory authorities, including the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) often seeking to eliminate the regulatory barriers to industry innovation.
Katie also maintains an active pro bono practice that focuses on briefing constitutional and statutory issues before the U.S. Supreme Court and federal appellate courts. She was part of the team that represented The American Legion in its landmark victory at the U.S. Supreme Court in The American Legion v. American Humanist Association, 139 S. Ct. 2067 (2019).
Katie is president of the Federalist Society's D.C. Young Lawyers Chapter.
United States Senator, Tennessee
U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn was sworn in to the Senate in January 2019. Marsha Blackburn was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2018, and is currently serving her first term representing the state of Tennessee. Before her election to the Senate, Marsha represented Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District.
Marsha’s public service is dedicated to promoting opportunities for women and making America a more prosperous place to live. Marsha’s leadership philosophy is based on her experiences in the private sector as a small business woman and author, as well as being a mother and grandmother.
Marsha went to college on a 4-H scholarship and worked her way through school selling books for the Southwestern Company as one of their first female sales associates, and later as one of their first female sales managers.
She then became Director of Retail Fashion and Special Events for the Castner Knott Company, which was a Nashville-based regional department store. Later, Marsha founded her own business, Marketing Strategies, which focused on the retail marketplace, as well as electronic and print media.
Marsha began her career in public service in 1995 when she was named executive director of the Tennessee Film, Entertainment, and Music Commission. In 1998, she was elected to the Tennessee State Senate. In the state legislature, she earned a reputation for fiscal responsibility and government accountability by identifying waste and offering realistic solutions to Tennessee’s budget challenges.
While serving in the Tennessee Senate, Marsha led a statewide grassroots campaign to defeat a proposed state income tax. The tax was defeated, and Marsha’s leadership earned her a reputation as an anti-tax champion. In 2014, the people of Tennessee passed an amendment to the state constitution to expressly prohibit a state income tax – a fitting cap to a 14-year battle.
In 2002, Marsha was elected to represent the people of Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District based on her record in the state legislature. She brought her Tennessee values to Washington, DC, and became a leader in the fight for small, efficient federal government that is accountable to its citizens. As a Congressman, Marsha was often selected by her colleagues to lead the charge for principled conservativism. Her congressional career was also noted for her Chairmanship of the Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Communications and Technology, as well as bipartisan expertise in defending songwriters’ and performers’ rights.
Marsha is a member of numerous charitable organizations and is an active member of her church, Christ Presbyterian.
Marsha and her husband Chuck live in Williamson County, Tennessee. They have two children, Mary Morgan (Paul) Ketchel and Chad (Hillary) Blackburn, and two grandsons. Originally from Laurel, Mississippi, Marsha is a graduate of Mississippi State University.
Associate, Jones Day
Katie Roholt Lane represents clients at critical stages of high-stakes regulatory and constitutional litigation. Her practice also consists of developing case strategy at the trial and appellate levels, briefing legal issues, and conducting motions practice. Katie currently represents clients in litigation arising under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), and the Medicare Act.
In addition to her litigation practice, Katie provides strategic planning and regulatory compliance advice to companies seeking to navigate the complex U.S. regulations that impact domestic and international industries. She has represented clients in rulemakings and consultations before regulatory authorities, including the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) often seeking to eliminate the regulatory barriers to industry innovation.
Katie also maintains an active pro bono practice that focuses on briefing constitutional and statutory issues before the U.S. Supreme Court and federal appellate courts. She was part of the team that represented The American Legion in its landmark victory at the U.S. Supreme Court in The American Legion v. American Humanist Association, 139 S. Ct. 2067 (2019).
Katie is president of the Federalist Society's D.C. Young Lawyers Chapter.
United States Senator, Tennessee
U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn was sworn in to the Senate in January 2019. Marsha Blackburn was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2018, and is currently serving her first term representing the state of Tennessee. Before her election to the Senate, Marsha represented Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District.
Marsha’s public service is dedicated to promoting opportunities for women and making America a more prosperous place to live. Marsha’s leadership philosophy is based on her experiences in the private sector as a small business woman and author, as well as being a mother and grandmother.
Marsha went to college on a 4-H scholarship and worked her way through school selling books for the Southwestern Company as one of their first female sales associates, and later as one of their first female sales managers.
She then became Director of Retail Fashion and Special Events for the Castner Knott Company, which was a Nashville-based regional department store. Later, Marsha founded her own business, Marketing Strategies, which focused on the retail marketplace, as well as electronic and print media.
Marsha began her career in public service in 1995 when she was named executive director of the Tennessee Film, Entertainment, and Music Commission. In 1998, she was elected to the Tennessee State Senate. In the state legislature, she earned a reputation for fiscal responsibility and government accountability by identifying waste and offering realistic solutions to Tennessee’s budget challenges.
While serving in the Tennessee Senate, Marsha led a statewide grassroots campaign to defeat a proposed state income tax. The tax was defeated, and Marsha’s leadership earned her a reputation as an anti-tax champion. In 2014, the people of Tennessee passed an amendment to the state constitution to expressly prohibit a state income tax – a fitting cap to a 14-year battle.
In 2002, Marsha was elected to represent the people of Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District based on her record in the state legislature. She brought her Tennessee values to Washington, DC, and became a leader in the fight for small, efficient federal government that is accountable to its citizens. As a Congressman, Marsha was often selected by her colleagues to lead the charge for principled conservativism. Her congressional career was also noted for her Chairmanship of the Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Communications and Technology, as well as bipartisan expertise in defending songwriters’ and performers’ rights.
Marsha is a member of numerous charitable organizations and is an active member of her church, Christ Presbyterian.
Marsha and her husband Chuck live in Williamson County, Tennessee. They have two children, Mary Morgan (Paul) Ketchel and Chad (Hillary) Blackburn, and two grandsons. Originally from Laurel, Mississippi, Marsha is a graduate of Mississippi State University.
Chair, International Trade & National Security Practice Group, Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney
Mr. Pickard counsels U.S. and international clients on the laws and regulations governing international trade, with particular emphasis on import remedy, anti-bribery, national security, and export control issues. He represents and advises clients in matters related to trade remedy investigations (including antidumping, countervailing duty, and safeguard cases), U.S. economic sanctions, export controls, anti-boycott measures, and the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). Mr. Pickard provides comprehensive international trade law compliance guidance, including assessing and resolving sensitive national security matters; developing corporate compliance programs; establishing compliance with the National Industrial Security Program (NISP) and mitigating Foreign Ownership, Control, or Influence (FOCI) issues; conducting internal investigations relating to potential violations; and appearing before the relevant agencies in connection with investigations, licensing, and enforcement actions. He also teams with the firm’s Election Law & Government Ethics Group to provide guidance pertaining to the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).
Mr. Pickard represents clients before the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC), the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), the U.S. Department of State’s Directorate of Defense Trade Controls (DDTC), the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) and International Trade Administration (ITA), the U.S. Department of Defense’s Defense Security Service (DSS), the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), the U.S. Court of International Trade, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.
Partner, International Trade, King & Spalding LLP
Stephen P. Vaughn is a Partner in the International Trade Team of King & Spalding who works primarily on international trade litigation and policy matters. In April 2019, Stephen completed more than two years of service as the General Counsel for the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR). In that position, he managed a team of government attorneys representing U.S. interests in both trade negotiations and trade litigation. During two months in early 2017, Stephen also served as the acting U.S. Trade Representative. He is widely regarded as one of the world’s foremost authorities on current U.S. trade policy, as well as one of the most talented U.S. trade remedy litigators.
Former United States National Security Advisor
Zbigniew Brzezinski (born 1928) was assistant to the president of the United States for national security affairs during the Carter administration (1977-1980). Later he was associated with the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington D.C. He authored several books through which he expounded his philosophies as well as his political beliefs and ideals.
David McIntosh is a leader for the principles of limited constitutional government and individual freedom. He is president of the Club for Growth, the leading advocate for economic liberty.
Former Congressman David McIntosh represented Indiana's 2nd Congressional District in the United States Congress from 1995-2001. As a Freshman, David chaired the Subcommittee on Regulatory Relief. He passed the Congressional Review Act and held extensive oversight and field hearings to build a record of public support for regulatory relief initiatives in energy, biotechnology, pharmaceutical, healthcare, transportation and technology sectors. Another issue that he championed was the elimination of the marriage penalty in the Federal Tax Code.
David served during the Reagan administration as special assistant to Attorney General Edwin Meese III, and as special assistant to President Reagan for Domestic Affairs. During the first Bush administration, he served as executive director of the President's Council on Competitiveness and assistant to the Vice President. The Competitiveness Council coordinated the cost/benefit review of major regulations and promoted legal reform measures.
David is a co-founder of the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy and serves on the Board of Directors. He remains active with several free market and conservative think tanks and grassroots organizations. David has also had stints at the Hudson Institute and as a Professor of Economics at Ball State School of Business.
Prior to the Club for Growth, David was a partner at Mayer Brown, LLP in Washington, DC.
David graduated from the University of Chicago Law School in 1983, and Yale University, BA, cum laude, in 1980. He and his wife, Ruthie, are the proud parents of Ellie age 17 and Davey age 13.
Former United States Secretary of Defense
Caspar Weinberger (August 18, 1917 – March 28, 2006) was an American politician and businessman. As a prominent Republican, he served in a variety of state and federal positions for three decades, including Chairman of the California Republican Party, 1962–68. Most notably he was Secretary of Defense under President Ronald Reagan from 1981 to 1987.
Former United States National Security Advisor
Zbigniew Brzezinski (born 1928) was assistant to the president of the United States for national security affairs during the Carter administration (1977-1980). Later he was associated with the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington D.C. He authored several books through which he expounded his philosophies as well as his political beliefs and ideals.
David McIntosh is a leader for the principles of limited constitutional government and individual freedom. He is president of the Club for Growth, the leading advocate for economic liberty.
Former Congressman David McIntosh represented Indiana's 2nd Congressional District in the United States Congress from 1995-2001. As a Freshman, David chaired the Subcommittee on Regulatory Relief. He passed the Congressional Review Act and held extensive oversight and field hearings to build a record of public support for regulatory relief initiatives in energy, biotechnology, pharmaceutical, healthcare, transportation and technology sectors. Another issue that he championed was the elimination of the marriage penalty in the Federal Tax Code.
David served during the Reagan administration as special assistant to Attorney General Edwin Meese III, and as special assistant to President Reagan for Domestic Affairs. During the first Bush administration, he served as executive director of the President's Council on Competitiveness and assistant to the Vice President. The Competitiveness Council coordinated the cost/benefit review of major regulations and promoted legal reform measures.
David is a co-founder of the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy and serves on the Board of Directors. He remains active with several free market and conservative think tanks and grassroots organizations. David has also had stints at the Hudson Institute and as a Professor of Economics at Ball State School of Business.
Prior to the Club for Growth, David was a partner at Mayer Brown, LLP in Washington, DC.
David graduated from the University of Chicago Law School in 1983, and Yale University, BA, cum laude, in 1980. He and his wife, Ruthie, are the proud parents of Ellie age 17 and Davey age 13.
Former United States Secretary of Defense
Caspar Weinberger (August 18, 1917 – March 28, 2006) was an American politician and businessman. As a prominent Republican, he served in a variety of state and federal positions for three decades, including Chairman of the California Republican Party, 1962–68. Most notably he was Secretary of Defense under President Ronald Reagan from 1981 to 1987.
Stuyvesant P. Comfort Professor of Law; Director, Center for Financial Institutions; and Co-Director, Center for Civil Justice, New York University School of Law
Geoffrey Miller is an author or editor of a dozen books and more than 200 articles in the fields of financial institutions, contract law, corporate and securities law, constitutional law, civil procedure, legal history, jurisprudence, and ancient law. He has taught a wide range of subjects including law and economics, corporations, compliance and risk management, property, regulation of financial institutions, land development, securities law, the legal profession, and legal theory. Miller received his BA magna cum laude from Princeton in 1973 and his JD from Columbia in 1978, where he was a Stone Scholar and editor-in-chief of the Columbia Law Review. He clerked for Judge Carl McGowan of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and Justice Byron White of the US Supreme Court. After two years as an attorney adviser at the Office of Legal Counsel of the US Department of Justice and one year with a Washington, DC, law firm, he joined the faculty of the University of Chicago Law School in 1983 and NYU School of Law in 1995.
Miller has been a visiting professor or visiting scholar at Columbia University, Harvard University, University of Minnesota, University of Basel (Switzerland), University of Genoa (Italy), Collegio Carlo Alberto (Italy), Study Center Gerzensee (Switzerland), Vanderbilt University, University of St. Gallen (Switzerland), University of Frankfurt (Germany), University of Sydney (Australia), University of Auckland (New Zealand), and the Bank of Japan. Miller is a founder of the Society for Empirical Legal Studies, a scholarly organization devoted to promoting statistical and other empirical techniques in the study of legal institutions. He is founder and director of NYU School of Law’s Center for Financial Institutions, co-director of the Center for Civil Justice, co-founder of and Senior Academic Fellow at NYU's Program on Corporate Compliance and Enforcement, co-convener of the Global Economic Policy Forum, a member of the board of directors of State Farm Bank, and a fellow in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Former United States Assistant Attorney General, Civil Rights Division, United States Department of Justice
William Bradford served as the United States Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division from 1981 to 1988.
Reynolds was Senior Counsel in BakerBotts Antitrust and Competition division. He graduated with a LL.B. from Vanderbilt University Law School in 1967 where he was Order of the Coif and Editor-in-Chief of the Vanderbilt Law Review. In 1964, he received a B.A. from Yale University.
Reynolds passed away on September 14, 2019, in Seabrook Island, South Carolina at age 77.
Professor of Law, Emeritus, Marshall-Wythe Law School at the College of William and Mary
William W. Van Alstyne, one of the nation's foremost constitutional law scholars, and William & Mary’s Lee Professor of Law from 2004 to 2012, died on January 29, 2019, in Southern California.
Professor Van Alstyne was appointed Lee Professor of Law at the Marshall-Wythe Law School at the College of William and Mary in 2004. He is a graduate of the University of Southern California (B.A. in philosophy, magna cum laude) and Stanford University Law School (J.D., Articles and Book Review Editor of The Stanford Law Review). Following his admission to the California Bar and brief service as Deputy Attorney General of California, he joined the Civil Rights Division of the U. S. Department of Justice handling voting rights cases in the South. After active duty with the U. S. Air Force, he was appointed to the law faculty of the Ohio State University, advancing to full professor in three years. Appointed to the Duke law faculty shortly thereafter, he was named to the William R. & Thomas S. Perkins Chair of Law in 1974.
Professor Van Alstyne’s professional writings have appeared during four decades in the principal law journals in the United States, with frequent republication in foreign journals. They address virtually every major subject in the field of constitutional law. His work has been cited in a large number of judicial opinions including those of the Supreme Court. The Journal of Legal Studies for January, 2000, named Professor Van Alstyne in the top forty most frequently cited legal scholars in the United States of the preceding half-century.
Professor Van Alstyne has also taught and given professional papers internationally, in Germany, Austria, and Denmark, in Chile, the former Soviet Union, China, Japan, Canada, and Australia. He has been a visiting faculty member on the law faculties of the University of Chicago, Stanford, California (Berkeley and UCLA), Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Illinois, a Fulbright Lecturer in Chile, a Senior Fellow at the Yale Law School, and a faculty fellow at the Hague International Court of Justice. He has appeared as counsel and as amicus curiae in constitutional litigation in the federal courts, including the Supreme Court. He has also appeared in numerous hearings before Senate and House Committees, on legislation affecting the separation of powers, war powers, constitutional amendments, impeachments, legislation affecting civil rights and civil liberties, and nominations to the Supreme Court.
In 1987, Professor Van Alstyne was selected in a poll of federal judges, lawyers, and academics by the New York Law Journal as one of three academics among "the ten most qualified" persons in the country for appointment to the Supreme Court, a distinction repeated in a similar poll by The American Lawyer, in 1991. Past National President of the American Association of University Professors, and former member of the National Board of Directors of the A.C.L.U., he was elected into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1994.
Former United States Representative, Florida
Charles Edward Bennett was a member of the United States House of Representatives from Jacksonville from 1949 to 1993. He was a Democrat.
He was born December 2, 1910 in Canton, New York and moved to Jacksonville by the end of his childhood. Bennett was an Eagle Scout and recipient of the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award from the Boy Scouts of America. He was a lawyer and a member of the United States Army during World War II before being elected to Congress from what was then the 2nd District. He was reelected 21 more times from this Jacksonville-based district. He rarely faced serious opposition even as Jacksonville fell under increasing Republican influence.
In 1951, he began proposing a code of ethics for government employees, nicknamed The Ten Commandments. After the Sherman-Adams Affair, the code was adopted as the first Code of ethics for Government Service in 1958. In 1954, he sponsored the bill that added the words “In God We Trust” to both the nation’s coins and currency.
Bennett died in Jacksonville on September 6, 2003 and is buried at Arlington National Cemetery. He is still the longest-serving member of either house of Congress in Florida’s history. The Charles E. Bennett Federal Building is named after him.
United States Ambassador to Australia
President Donald J. Trump nominated Ambassador Arthur B. (A.B.) Culvahouse Jr. to be the United States Ambassador to Australia on November 6, 2018. Confirmed by the U.S. Senate on January 2, 2019 by unanimous consent, he was formally sworn in by Vice President Mike Pence on February 19, 2019 and presented his credentials to the Governor-General, Sir Peter Cosgrove, on March 13, 2019.
Ambassador Culvahouse serves as the President’s personal representative to the government and people of Australia. He leads the U.S. Mission to Australia, which is comprised of the embassy in Canberra and three consulates in Melbourne, Sydney, and Perth.
Ambassador Culvahouse has a long and distinguished career. He is the former Chair of O’Melveny & Myers, an international law firm he was associated with for more than four decades. He began his career as Chief Legislative Assistant to United States Senator Howard H. Baker, Jr. and later served as White House Counsel to President Ronald Reagan. In 1989, President Reagan awarded Ambassador Culvahouse the Presidential Citizens’ Medal, an award to “recognize citizens who performed exemplary deeds of service for the country or their fellow citizens.” In December 1992, then-Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney awarded Ambassador Culvahouse the Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service for his work on the Federal Advisory Committee on Nuclear Failsafe and Risk Reduction.
Both President Trump and the late-Senator John McCain tapped Ambassador Culvahouse to head the search to select their running mates.
Ambassador Culvahouse was raised in Ten Mile, Tennessee and attended the University of Tennessee and the New York University School of Law. He is the proud father of three accomplished daughters.
Former United States Representative, Florida
Charles Edward Bennett was a member of the United States House of Representatives from Jacksonville from 1949 to 1993. He was a Democrat.
He was born December 2, 1910 in Canton, New York and moved to Jacksonville by the end of his childhood. Bennett was an Eagle Scout and recipient of the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award from the Boy Scouts of America. He was a lawyer and a member of the United States Army during World War II before being elected to Congress from what was then the 2nd District. He was reelected 21 more times from this Jacksonville-based district. He rarely faced serious opposition even as Jacksonville fell under increasing Republican influence.
In 1951, he began proposing a code of ethics for government employees, nicknamed The Ten Commandments. After the Sherman-Adams Affair, the code was adopted as the first Code of ethics for Government Service in 1958. In 1954, he sponsored the bill that added the words “In God We Trust” to both the nation’s coins and currency.
Bennett died in Jacksonville on September 6, 2003 and is buried at Arlington National Cemetery. He is still the longest-serving member of either house of Congress in Florida’s history. The Charles E. Bennett Federal Building is named after him.
United States Ambassador to Australia
President Donald J. Trump nominated Ambassador Arthur B. (A.B.) Culvahouse Jr. to be the United States Ambassador to Australia on November 6, 2018. Confirmed by the U.S. Senate on January 2, 2019 by unanimous consent, he was formally sworn in by Vice President Mike Pence on February 19, 2019 and presented his credentials to the Governor-General, Sir Peter Cosgrove, on March 13, 2019.
Ambassador Culvahouse serves as the President’s personal representative to the government and people of Australia. He leads the U.S. Mission to Australia, which is comprised of the embassy in Canberra and three consulates in Melbourne, Sydney, and Perth.
Ambassador Culvahouse has a long and distinguished career. He is the former Chair of O’Melveny & Myers, an international law firm he was associated with for more than four decades. He began his career as Chief Legislative Assistant to United States Senator Howard H. Baker, Jr. and later served as White House Counsel to President Ronald Reagan. In 1989, President Reagan awarded Ambassador Culvahouse the Presidential Citizens’ Medal, an award to “recognize citizens who performed exemplary deeds of service for the country or their fellow citizens.” In December 1992, then-Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney awarded Ambassador Culvahouse the Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service for his work on the Federal Advisory Committee on Nuclear Failsafe and Risk Reduction.
Both President Trump and the late-Senator John McCain tapped Ambassador Culvahouse to head the search to select their running mates.
Ambassador Culvahouse was raised in Ten Mile, Tennessee and attended the University of Tennessee and the New York University School of Law. He is the proud father of three accomplished daughters.
Stuyvesant P. Comfort Professor of Law; Director, Center for Financial Institutions; and Co-Director, Center for Civil Justice, New York University School of Law
Geoffrey Miller is an author or editor of a dozen books and more than 200 articles in the fields of financial institutions, contract law, corporate and securities law, constitutional law, civil procedure, legal history, jurisprudence, and ancient law. He has taught a wide range of subjects including law and economics, corporations, compliance and risk management, property, regulation of financial institutions, land development, securities law, the legal profession, and legal theory. Miller received his BA magna cum laude from Princeton in 1973 and his JD from Columbia in 1978, where he was a Stone Scholar and editor-in-chief of the Columbia Law Review. He clerked for Judge Carl McGowan of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and Justice Byron White of the US Supreme Court. After two years as an attorney adviser at the Office of Legal Counsel of the US Department of Justice and one year with a Washington, DC, law firm, he joined the faculty of the University of Chicago Law School in 1983 and NYU School of Law in 1995.
Miller has been a visiting professor or visiting scholar at Columbia University, Harvard University, University of Minnesota, University of Basel (Switzerland), University of Genoa (Italy), Collegio Carlo Alberto (Italy), Study Center Gerzensee (Switzerland), Vanderbilt University, University of St. Gallen (Switzerland), University of Frankfurt (Germany), University of Sydney (Australia), University of Auckland (New Zealand), and the Bank of Japan. Miller is a founder of the Society for Empirical Legal Studies, a scholarly organization devoted to promoting statistical and other empirical techniques in the study of legal institutions. He is founder and director of NYU School of Law’s Center for Financial Institutions, co-director of the Center for Civil Justice, co-founder of and Senior Academic Fellow at NYU's Program on Corporate Compliance and Enforcement, co-convener of the Global Economic Policy Forum, a member of the board of directors of State Farm Bank, and a fellow in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Former United States Assistant Attorney General, Civil Rights Division, United States Department of Justice
William Bradford served as the United States Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division from 1981 to 1988.
Reynolds was Senior Counsel in BakerBotts Antitrust and Competition division. He graduated with a LL.B. from Vanderbilt University Law School in 1967 where he was Order of the Coif and Editor-in-Chief of the Vanderbilt Law Review. In 1964, he received a B.A. from Yale University.
Reynolds passed away on September 14, 2019, in Seabrook Island, South Carolina at age 77.
Professor of Law, Emeritus, Marshall-Wythe Law School at the College of William and Mary
William W. Van Alstyne, one of the nation's foremost constitutional law scholars, and William & Mary’s Lee Professor of Law from 2004 to 2012, died on January 29, 2019, in Southern California.
Professor Van Alstyne was appointed Lee Professor of Law at the Marshall-Wythe Law School at the College of William and Mary in 2004. He is a graduate of the University of Southern California (B.A. in philosophy, magna cum laude) and Stanford University Law School (J.D., Articles and Book Review Editor of The Stanford Law Review). Following his admission to the California Bar and brief service as Deputy Attorney General of California, he joined the Civil Rights Division of the U. S. Department of Justice handling voting rights cases in the South. After active duty with the U. S. Air Force, he was appointed to the law faculty of the Ohio State University, advancing to full professor in three years. Appointed to the Duke law faculty shortly thereafter, he was named to the William R. & Thomas S. Perkins Chair of Law in 1974.
Professor Van Alstyne’s professional writings have appeared during four decades in the principal law journals in the United States, with frequent republication in foreign journals. They address virtually every major subject in the field of constitutional law. His work has been cited in a large number of judicial opinions including those of the Supreme Court. The Journal of Legal Studies for January, 2000, named Professor Van Alstyne in the top forty most frequently cited legal scholars in the United States of the preceding half-century.
Professor Van Alstyne has also taught and given professional papers internationally, in Germany, Austria, and Denmark, in Chile, the former Soviet Union, China, Japan, Canada, and Australia. He has been a visiting faculty member on the law faculties of the University of Chicago, Stanford, California (Berkeley and UCLA), Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Illinois, a Fulbright Lecturer in Chile, a Senior Fellow at the Yale Law School, and a faculty fellow at the Hague International Court of Justice. He has appeared as counsel and as amicus curiae in constitutional litigation in the federal courts, including the Supreme Court. He has also appeared in numerous hearings before Senate and House Committees, on legislation affecting the separation of powers, war powers, constitutional amendments, impeachments, legislation affecting civil rights and civil liberties, and nominations to the Supreme Court.
In 1987, Professor Van Alstyne was selected in a poll of federal judges, lawyers, and academics by the New York Law Journal as one of three academics among "the ten most qualified" persons in the country for appointment to the Supreme Court, a distinction repeated in a similar poll by The American Lawyer, in 1991. Past National President of the American Association of University Professors, and former member of the National Board of Directors of the A.C.L.U., he was elected into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1994.
Panel III: The Treaty Power [Archive Collection]
Harold Hongju Koh, John E. Nowak, Grover Joseph Rees, Laurence H. Silberman, Abraham D. Sofaer
Foreign Affairs and the Constitution
On November 6-7, 1987, The Federalist Society held a symposium at the Grand Hyatt Hotel...
Panel II: The First Amendment and National Security [Archive Collection]
Floyd Abrams, Suzanne Garment, Henry Mark Holzer, Don Oberdorfer, Richard K. Willard
Foreign Affairs and the Constitution
On November 6-7, 1987, The Federalist Society held a symposium at the Grand Hyatt Hotel...
Panel II: The First Amendment and National Security [Archive Collection]
Floyd Abrams, Suzanne Garment, Henry Mark Holzer, Don Oberdorfer, Richard K. Willard
Foreign Affairs and the Constitution
On November 6-7, 1987, The Federalist Society held a symposium at the Grand Hyatt Hotel...
A Conversation with Senator Marsha Blackburn
Kaytlin Roholt Lane, Marsha Blackburn
DC Young Lawyers Chapter - Online Event
The DC Young Lawyers Chapter hosted Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, a member of the...
A Conversation with Senator Marsha Blackburn
Kaytlin Roholt Lane, Marsha Blackburn
DC Young Lawyers Chapter - Online Event
The DC Young Lawyers Chapter hosted Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, a member of the...
The U.S. and the World Trade Organization (WTO): Predictions for What Comes Next – A Virtual Conversation with Stephen Vaughn
Daniel B. Pickard, Stephen P. Vaughn
The World Trade Organization (WTO) was intended to be the principal forum for setting the...
Address by Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger [Archive Collection]
Zbigniew Brzezinski, David M. McIntosh, Caspar W. Weinberger
Foreign Affairs and the Constitution
On November 6-7, 1987, The Federalist Society held a symposium at the Grand Hyatt Hotel...
Address by Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger [Archive Collection]
Zbigniew Brzezinski, David M. McIntosh, Caspar W. Weinberger
Foreign Affairs and the Constitution
On November 6-7, 1987, The Federalist Society held a symposium at the Grand Hyatt Hotel...
Panel I: The President's Powers as Commander-in-Chief vs. Congress's War Power and Appropriations Power [Archive Collection]
Geoffrey P. Miller, Wm. Bradford Reynolds, William Van Alstyne, Charles E. Bennett, A.B. Culvahouse
Foreign Affairs and the Constitution
On November 6-7, 1987, The Federalist Society held a symposium at the Grand Hyatt Hotel...
Panel I: The President's Powers as Commander-in-Chief vs. Congress's War Power and Appropriations Power [Archive Collection]
Charles E. Bennett, A.B. Culvahouse, Geoffrey P. Miller, Wm. Bradford Reynolds, William Van Alstyne
Foreign Affairs and the Constitution
On November 6-7, 1987, The Federalist Society held a symposium at the Grand Hyatt Hotel...