Associate Justice, United States Supreme Court
The Honorable Amy Coney Barrett is an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. She was nominated by President Donald Trump and was confirmed on October 27, 2020. She is the fifth woman to serve on the Court.
Justice Barrett earned her J.D., summa cum laude, from Notre Dame, where she was a Kiley Fellow, earned the Hoynes Prize, the Law School’s highest honor, and served as executive editor of the Notre Dame Law Review. She clerked for Judge Laurence H. Silberman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and for Associate Justice Antonin Scalia of the U.S. Supreme Court. As an associate at Miller, Cassidy, Larroca & Lewin in Washington, D.C., she litigated constitutional, criminal, and commercial cases in both trial and appellate courts.
In 2002, Justice Barrett joined the faculty of Notre Dame Law School. She continued to teach following her appointment to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in November 2017. Justice Barrett also served by appointment of the Chief Justice on the Advisory Committee for the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure from 2010 to 2016.
Justice Barrett has published widely in the areas of federal courts, constitutional law, and statutory interpretation. Her scholarship in these fields has been published in leading journals, including the Columbia, Virginia, and Texas Law Reviews.
Robert S. Stevens Professor of Law, Cornell Law School
Michael C. Dorf, the Robert S. Stevens Professor of Law at Cornell Law School, has been teaching law since 1992. He has authored or co-authored six books and over one hundred scholarly articles and essays for law journals and peer-reviewed science and social science journals. He also frequently writes for non-lawyers. In addition to occasional contributions to The New York Times, USA Today, CNN.com, The Los Angeles Times, and other wide-circulation publications, Professor Dorf has been writing a bi-weekly column since 2000 and publishes a popular blog, Dorf on Law. He received his undergraduate and law degrees from Harvard. After law school, Dorf served as a law clerk for Judge Stephen Reinhardt of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and then for Justice Anthony M. Kennedy of the U.S. Supreme Court. He has worked with several law firms and maintains an active pro bono practice mostly consisting of writing Supreme Court briefs. Before joining the Cornell faculty, Professor Dorf taught at Rutgers-Camden Law School for three years and at Columbia Law School for thirteen years.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Third Circuit
Judge Hardiman was appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit on January 9, 2007 and was confirmed by the Senate (95-0) on March 15, 2007. Prior to becoming an appellate judge, Judge Hardiman served as a trial judge on the United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania as of November 1, 2003. In 2008, Chief Justice John Roberts appointed Judge Hardiman to the Information Technology Committee of the Judicial Conference of the United States. Judge Hardiman was appointed Chairman of the IT Committee in 2013 and served in that capacity until September 2021. In 2021 he was appointed by the Director of the Administrative Office of the United States Courts to serve as Chair of the Judiciary IT Security Task Force, which completed its work in fall 2023. Chief Justice Roberts appointed Judge Hardiman to the Board of the Federal Judicial Center to serve from March 2020 until March 2024. As part of his work with the Center, Judge Hardiman now serves as Editor in Chief for the Manual for Complex Civil Litigation, Fifth.
Before entering judicial service, Judge Hardiman handled a wide variety of litigation matters in state and federal trial and appellate courts as a partner at Reed Smith LLP (1999-2003), a partner at Titus & McConomy LLP (1996-1999), and as an associate with its predecessor firm, Cindrich & Titus (1992-1996). Judge Hardiman began his legal career as an associate in the Washington, D.C. office of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom (1990-1992).
A 1987 honors graduate of the University of Notre Dame, Judge Hardiman received his law degree in 1990 from the Georgetown University Law Center, where he served as a Notes and Comments Editor on the Georgetown Law Journal. In 2012, Judge Hardiman was elected as a member of the American Law Institute and was elected to its Council in 2019 and its Executive Committee in 2025. Judge Hardiman regularly teaches a seminar on Advanced Constitutional Law at Duquesne University School of Law and a one-week course entitled “Constitutional Law: the First and Second Amendments” at Georgetown University Law Center.
A native of Waltham, Massachusetts, Judge Hardiman has chambers in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He and his wife Lori married in 1992 and have three children.
Sudler Family Professor of Constitutional Law, New York University School of Law
Richard H. Pildes is one of the nation’s leading scholars of constitutional law and a specialist in legal issues affecting democracy. He is a Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Law Institute, and has received recognition as a Guggenheim Fellow and a Carnegie Scholar. His acclaimed casebook, The Law of Democracy: Legal Structure of the Political Process (now in its fourth edition), helped create an entirely new field of study in the law schools. The Law of Democracy systematically explores legal and policy issues concerning the structure of democratic elections and institutions, such as the role of money in politics, the design of election districts, the regulation of political parties, the design of voting systems, the representation of minority interests in democratic institutions, and similar issues. He has written extensively on the rise of political polarization in the United States, the Voting Rights Act, the dysfunction of America’s political processes, the role of the Supreme Court in overseeing American democracy, the powers of the American President and Congress, and he has criticized excessively “romantic” understandings of democracy. In addition to his scholarship on these issues, he has written on national-security law, the design of the regulatory state, and American constitutional history and theory.
Respect for his expertise in these areas is reflected in frequent citations of his work in U.S. Supreme Court opinions, the translation of his work into many languages, and his frequent public lectures and appearances around the world, including his nomination with the NBC News Team for an Emmy Award for coverage of the 2000 Presidential election litigation.
His work has been translated and published in Chinese, French, Spanish, and Portuguese. In addition to his scholarship, Professor Pildes plays an active role litigating in these areas. He has won two cases before the United States Supreme Court, including a 2015 victory in Alabama Democratic Conference v. Alabama, a case involving race and redistricting. He served as counsel to a group of former chairmen of the Securities and Exchange Commission in litigation defending the constitutionality of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act; as counsel in election litigation to the Puerto Rico Electoral Commission; as counsel to the government of Puerto Rico; as a federal court-appointed independent expert on voting rights litigation; and as counsel in successful Supreme Court litigation that challenged the way the United States Tax Court operated. He was also a senior legal advisor to the 2008 and 2012 campaigns of President Obama.
Pildes received his A.B. in physical chemistry summa cum laude from Princeton, and his J.D. magna cum laude from Harvard, where he served as Supreme Court Note Editor on the Harvard Law Review. He clerked for Judge Abner J. Mikva of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and for Justice Thurgood Marshall of the U.S. Supreme Court. After practicing law in Boston, he began his academic career at the University of Michigan Law School, before joining the NYU School of Law in 2001.
James Monroe Distinguished Professor of Law and Albert Clark Tate, Jr., Professor of Law, University of Virginia School of Law
Professor Saikrishna Prakash’s scholarship focuses on separation of powers, particularly executive powers. He teaches Constitutional Law, Foreign Relations Law and Presidential Powers at the Law School.
Prakash’s most recent book, “The Living Presidency: An Originalist Argument Against Its Ever-Expanding Powers,” was published by Harvard Belknap Press in 2020. He also authored “Imperial from the Beginning: The Constitution of the Original Executive” (Yale University Press, 2015). The former book focuses on the modern presidency while the latter considers the presidency of the Founders.
Prakash has authored over 75 law review articles. Among them are “Of Synchronicity and Supreme Law” in the Harvard Law Review, “The Indefensible Duty to Defend” in the Columbia Law Review, and “50 States, 50 Attorneys General and 50 Approaches to the Duty to Defend” and “The Executive Power Over Foreign Affairs” in the Yale Law Journal.
Prakash has published op-eds in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times. At the request of Democrats and Republicans, he has testified before Congress on matters of presidential removal, the Mueller Report and how Congress might better check the presidency. He is currently a Miller Center Senior Fellow. In 2015, he received the Roger Traynor award for faculty scholarship. In the same year, he received an honorable mention from the American Society of Legal Writers for his book “Imperial from the Beginning.” He has given named lectures at William & Mary Law School, Princeton University and Toledo Law School, and keynote addresses at several conferences.
Prakash majored in economics and political science at Stanford University. At Yale Law School, he served as senior editor of the Yale Law Journal and received the John M. Olin Fellowship in Law, Economics and Public Policy. He subsequently clerked for Judge Laurence H. Silberman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and for Justice Clarence Thomas of the U.S. Supreme Court. After practicing in New York for two years, he served as a visiting professor at the University of Illinois College of Law and as an associate professor at Boston University School of Law. He then spent several years at the University of San Diego School of Law as the Herzog Research Professor of Law. Prakash has been a visiting professor at Northwestern University and the University of Chicago. He also has served as a James Madison Fellow at Princeton University and Visiting Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution of War & Peace at Stanford University.
Associate Justice, United States Supreme Court
The Honorable Amy Coney Barrett is an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. She was nominated by President Donald Trump and was confirmed on October 27, 2020. She is the fifth woman to serve on the Court.
Justice Barrett earned her J.D., summa cum laude, from Notre Dame, where she was a Kiley Fellow, earned the Hoynes Prize, the Law School’s highest honor, and served as executive editor of the Notre Dame Law Review. She clerked for Judge Laurence H. Silberman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and for Associate Justice Antonin Scalia of the U.S. Supreme Court. As an associate at Miller, Cassidy, Larroca & Lewin in Washington, D.C., she litigated constitutional, criminal, and commercial cases in both trial and appellate courts.
In 2002, Justice Barrett joined the faculty of Notre Dame Law School. She continued to teach following her appointment to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in November 2017. Justice Barrett also served by appointment of the Chief Justice on the Advisory Committee for the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure from 2010 to 2016.
Justice Barrett has published widely in the areas of federal courts, constitutional law, and statutory interpretation. Her scholarship in these fields has been published in leading journals, including the Columbia, Virginia, and Texas Law Reviews.
Robert S. Stevens Professor of Law, Cornell Law School
Michael C. Dorf, the Robert S. Stevens Professor of Law at Cornell Law School, has been teaching law since 1992. He has authored or co-authored six books and over one hundred scholarly articles and essays for law journals and peer-reviewed science and social science journals. He also frequently writes for non-lawyers. In addition to occasional contributions to The New York Times, USA Today, CNN.com, The Los Angeles Times, and other wide-circulation publications, Professor Dorf has been writing a bi-weekly column since 2000 and publishes a popular blog, Dorf on Law. He received his undergraduate and law degrees from Harvard. After law school, Dorf served as a law clerk for Judge Stephen Reinhardt of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and then for Justice Anthony M. Kennedy of the U.S. Supreme Court. He has worked with several law firms and maintains an active pro bono practice mostly consisting of writing Supreme Court briefs. Before joining the Cornell faculty, Professor Dorf taught at Rutgers-Camden Law School for three years and at Columbia Law School for thirteen years.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Third Circuit
Judge Hardiman was appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit on January 9, 2007 and was confirmed by the Senate (95-0) on March 15, 2007. Prior to becoming an appellate judge, Judge Hardiman served as a trial judge on the United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania as of November 1, 2003. In 2008, Chief Justice John Roberts appointed Judge Hardiman to the Information Technology Committee of the Judicial Conference of the United States. Judge Hardiman was appointed Chairman of the IT Committee in 2013 and served in that capacity until September 2021. In 2021 he was appointed by the Director of the Administrative Office of the United States Courts to serve as Chair of the Judiciary IT Security Task Force, which completed its work in fall 2023. Chief Justice Roberts appointed Judge Hardiman to the Board of the Federal Judicial Center to serve from March 2020 until March 2024. As part of his work with the Center, Judge Hardiman now serves as Editor in Chief for the Manual for Complex Civil Litigation, Fifth.
Before entering judicial service, Judge Hardiman handled a wide variety of litigation matters in state and federal trial and appellate courts as a partner at Reed Smith LLP (1999-2003), a partner at Titus & McConomy LLP (1996-1999), and as an associate with its predecessor firm, Cindrich & Titus (1992-1996). Judge Hardiman began his legal career as an associate in the Washington, D.C. office of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom (1990-1992).
A 1987 honors graduate of the University of Notre Dame, Judge Hardiman received his law degree in 1990 from the Georgetown University Law Center, where he served as a Notes and Comments Editor on the Georgetown Law Journal. In 2012, Judge Hardiman was elected as a member of the American Law Institute and was elected to its Council in 2019 and its Executive Committee in 2025. Judge Hardiman regularly teaches a seminar on Advanced Constitutional Law at Duquesne University School of Law and a one-week course entitled “Constitutional Law: the First and Second Amendments” at Georgetown University Law Center.
A native of Waltham, Massachusetts, Judge Hardiman has chambers in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He and his wife Lori married in 1992 and have three children.
Sudler Family Professor of Constitutional Law, New York University School of Law
Richard H. Pildes is one of the nation’s leading scholars of constitutional law and a specialist in legal issues affecting democracy. He is a Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Law Institute, and has received recognition as a Guggenheim Fellow and a Carnegie Scholar. His acclaimed casebook, The Law of Democracy: Legal Structure of the Political Process (now in its fourth edition), helped create an entirely new field of study in the law schools. The Law of Democracy systematically explores legal and policy issues concerning the structure of democratic elections and institutions, such as the role of money in politics, the design of election districts, the regulation of political parties, the design of voting systems, the representation of minority interests in democratic institutions, and similar issues. He has written extensively on the rise of political polarization in the United States, the Voting Rights Act, the dysfunction of America’s political processes, the role of the Supreme Court in overseeing American democracy, the powers of the American President and Congress, and he has criticized excessively “romantic” understandings of democracy. In addition to his scholarship on these issues, he has written on national-security law, the design of the regulatory state, and American constitutional history and theory.
Respect for his expertise in these areas is reflected in frequent citations of his work in U.S. Supreme Court opinions, the translation of his work into many languages, and his frequent public lectures and appearances around the world, including his nomination with the NBC News Team for an Emmy Award for coverage of the 2000 Presidential election litigation.
His work has been translated and published in Chinese, French, Spanish, and Portuguese. In addition to his scholarship, Professor Pildes plays an active role litigating in these areas. He has won two cases before the United States Supreme Court, including a 2015 victory in Alabama Democratic Conference v. Alabama, a case involving race and redistricting. He served as counsel to a group of former chairmen of the Securities and Exchange Commission in litigation defending the constitutionality of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act; as counsel in election litigation to the Puerto Rico Electoral Commission; as counsel to the government of Puerto Rico; as a federal court-appointed independent expert on voting rights litigation; and as counsel in successful Supreme Court litigation that challenged the way the United States Tax Court operated. He was also a senior legal advisor to the 2008 and 2012 campaigns of President Obama.
Pildes received his A.B. in physical chemistry summa cum laude from Princeton, and his J.D. magna cum laude from Harvard, where he served as Supreme Court Note Editor on the Harvard Law Review. He clerked for Judge Abner J. Mikva of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and for Justice Thurgood Marshall of the U.S. Supreme Court. After practicing law in Boston, he began his academic career at the University of Michigan Law School, before joining the NYU School of Law in 2001.
James Monroe Distinguished Professor of Law and Albert Clark Tate, Jr., Professor of Law, University of Virginia School of Law
Professor Saikrishna Prakash’s scholarship focuses on separation of powers, particularly executive powers. He teaches Constitutional Law, Foreign Relations Law and Presidential Powers at the Law School.
Prakash’s most recent book, “The Living Presidency: An Originalist Argument Against Its Ever-Expanding Powers,” was published by Harvard Belknap Press in 2020. He also authored “Imperial from the Beginning: The Constitution of the Original Executive” (Yale University Press, 2015). The former book focuses on the modern presidency while the latter considers the presidency of the Founders.
Prakash has authored over 75 law review articles. Among them are “Of Synchronicity and Supreme Law” in the Harvard Law Review, “The Indefensible Duty to Defend” in the Columbia Law Review, and “50 States, 50 Attorneys General and 50 Approaches to the Duty to Defend” and “The Executive Power Over Foreign Affairs” in the Yale Law Journal.
Prakash has published op-eds in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times. At the request of Democrats and Republicans, he has testified before Congress on matters of presidential removal, the Mueller Report and how Congress might better check the presidency. He is currently a Miller Center Senior Fellow. In 2015, he received the Roger Traynor award for faculty scholarship. In the same year, he received an honorable mention from the American Society of Legal Writers for his book “Imperial from the Beginning.” He has given named lectures at William & Mary Law School, Princeton University and Toledo Law School, and keynote addresses at several conferences.
Prakash majored in economics and political science at Stanford University. At Yale Law School, he served as senior editor of the Yale Law Journal and received the John M. Olin Fellowship in Law, Economics and Public Policy. He subsequently clerked for Judge Laurence H. Silberman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and for Justice Clarence Thomas of the U.S. Supreme Court. After practicing in New York for two years, he served as a visiting professor at the University of Illinois College of Law and as an associate professor at Boston University School of Law. He then spent several years at the University of San Diego School of Law as the Herzog Research Professor of Law. Prakash has been a visiting professor at Northwestern University and the University of Chicago. He also has served as a James Madison Fellow at Princeton University and Visiting Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution of War & Peace at Stanford University.
Abner J. Mikva Professor of Law and Director, Business Law Center, Loyola University Chicago School of Law
Steven Ramirez joined the law faculty at Loyola University Chicago in July 2006. Ramirez comes to Loyola from Washburn University School of Law, Topeka, Kansas, where he was the founding director of the Business and Transactional Law Center. Prior to joining the Washburn law faculty, he was a partner with Robinson Curley & Clayton, a Chicago litigation firm, specializing in corporate, securities and banking litigation. He also served as a Senior Attorney for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and as an Enforcement Attorney with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Professor Ramirez teaches Business Organizations, Securities Litigation Seminar, and other business related classes. He has published extensively in the areas of law and economics, corporate governance and financial regulation.
Senior Fellow, The Claremont Institute
Charles Kesler is a Senior Fellow of the Claremont Institute, Editor of the Claremont Review of Books, host of Claremont’s The American Mind video series, and the Dengler-Dykema Distinguished Professor of Government at Claremont McKenna College.
Dr. Kesler also teaches in the Claremont Institute’s Publius Fellows Program and Lincoln Fellows Program. He received his B.A. in Social Studies and his M.A. and Ph.D. in Government from Harvard University. From 1989 to 2008, Dr. Kesler was director of CMC’s Henry Salvatori Center for the Study of Individual Freedom in the Modern World.
He is the recipient of the prestigious 2018 Bradley Prize, a high honor bestowed upon distinguished individuals who have influenced American scholarship and debate.
From September 2000 to March 2001, he served as vice chairman of the Advisory Committee to the U.S. Congress's James Madison Commemoration Commission.
He was selected in June 2000 as a member of the Scholars Commission on the Jefferson-Hemings Issue sponsored by the Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society.
Dr. Kesler is the author of I Am the Change: Barack Obama and the Crisis of Liberalism (Broadside Books); the editor of Saving the Revolution: The Federalist Papers and the American Founding (Free Press); co-editor, with John B. Kienker, of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness: Ten Years of the Claremont Review of Books (Rowman & Littlefield); and co-editor, with William F. Buckley, Jr., of Keeping the Tablets: Modern American Conservative Thought (HarperCollins). He has written extensively on American constitutionalism and political thought, and his edition of The Federalist Papers (Signet Classics) is the best-selling edition in the country.
Robert and Katheryn Dockson Professor of Public Policy and Professor Emeritus, Pepperdine University School of Public Policy
Gordon Lloyd is the Robert and Katheryn Dockson Professor of Public Policy at Pepperdine University. He earned his bachelor of arts degree in economics and political science at McGill University. He completed all the course work toward a doctorate in economics at the University of Chicago before receiving his master of arts and PhD degrees in government at Claremont Graduate School. The coauthor of three books on the American founding and sole author of a book on the political economy of the New Deal, he also has numerous articles, reviews, and opinion-editorials to his credit. His latest coauthored book, The New Deal & Modern American Conservatism: A Defining Rivalry, was published in 2013, and he most recently released as editor, Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787, in September 2014. He is the creator, with the help of the Ashbrook Center, of four highly regarded websites on the origin of the Constitution. He has received many teaching, scholarly, and leadership awards including admission to Phi Beta Kappa and the Howard White Award for Teaching Excellence at Pepperdine University. He currently serves on the National Advisory Council for the Walter and Leonore Annenberg Presidential Learning Center through the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation.
Chairman of the Board, The Ayn Rand Institute
Yaron Brook is chairman of the board of the Ayn Rand Institute. He wears many hats at the institute and travels extensively as ARI’s spokesman.
Brook can be heard weekly on The Yaron Brook Show, which airs live on the BlogTalkRadio podcast. He is also a frequent guest on national radio and television programs.
An internationally sought-after speaker and debater, Brook also pens works that make one think. As coauthor, with Don Watkins, of the national best-seller Free Market Revolution: How Ayn Rand's Ideas Can End Big Government, Brook and Watkins argue that the answer to our current economic woes lies not in "trickle-down government" but in Rand's inspiring philosophy of capitalism and self-interest. Last year, Brook and Watkins released a new book, Equal Is Unfair: America's Misguided Fight Against Income Inequality, a book that shows the real key to making America a freer, fairer, more prosperous nation is to protect and celebrate the pursuit of success―not pull down the high fliers in the name of equality. Brook is also contributing author to Neoconservatism: An Obituary for an Idea, Winning the Unwinnable War: America’s Self-Crippled Response to Islamic Totalitarianism and Big Tent: The Story of the Conservative Revolution — As Told by the Thinkers and Doers Who Made It Happen. He was a columnist at Forbes.com, and his articles have been featured in the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Investor’s Business Daily and many other publications.
Brook was born and raised in Israel. He served as a first sergeant in Israeli military intelligence and earned a BSc in civil engineering from Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, Israel. In 1987 he moved to the United States where he received his MBA and PhD in finance from the University of Texas at Austin; he became an American citizen in 2003. For seven years he was an award-winning finance professor at Santa Clara University, and in 1998 he cofounded BH Equity Research, a private equity and hedge fund manager, of which he is managing founder and director.
Brook serves on the boards of the Ayn Rand Institute, the Clemson Institute for the Study of Capitalism and CEHE (Center for Excellence in Higher Education), and he is a member of the Association of Private Enterprise Education and the Mont Pelerin Society.
Vice Chairman, Caris Life Sciences
Brian J. Brille joined Caris Life Sciences in January of 2018 as Vice Chairman of the Company. Mr. Brille currently provides executive leadership for strategic, corporate and business development activities. He is also a member of the Board of Directors.
Prior to joining Caris Life Sciences, Mr. Brille worked in various capacities for Bank of America Merrill Lynch since 2009. Most recently, Mr. Brille was based in Hong Kong and served as Chairman/President Asia Pacific for Bank of America Merrill Lynch, with responsibility for the combined Asia Pacific platform across 12 countries and 4 business lines. Prior to this, he served as Global Head of Corporate & Investment Banking at Bank of America. He was also responsible for building and leading Bank of America’s Healthcare Corporate & Investment Banking business, as well as previously establishing and leading Morgan Stanley’s Healthcare Services Group. In 2003, he was named Investment Dealer’s Digest Banker of the Year.
Mr. Brille holds a JD from Stanford Law School, a Masters of Public Policy from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and a BS in Accounting from the University of Illinois. Mr. Brille currently serves on the Asia Pacific Council of The Nature Conservancy, and is a member of the Board of Overseers of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.
Former Dean, Stanford Law School
John Hart Ely was one of the most important constitutional scholars of his generation. He was born in 1938 and died in 2003. As a summer associate following his second year at YLS, Ely assisted Abe Fortas in litigating Gideon v. Wainwright, the landmark Supreme Court decision that established a criminal defendant's right to counsel. After graduating from Yale, Ely served as a staff attorney on the Warren Commission, and then clerked for Chief Justice Earl Warren before going on to serve as a public defender in San Diego. Later in his career, he served as General Counsel of the Department of Transportation during the Ford Administration.
Ely taught at Yale Law School, Harvard Law School, Stanford Law School, and the University of Miami School of Law and served as dean at Stanford. In 1980, Ely published the highly influential Democracy and Distrust, which developed a theory of judicial review that emphasized the role of the courts in safeguarding the democratic process. In 1993, Ely published War and Responsibility, a comprehensive constitutional analysis of war powers. His last book, On Constitutional Ground, was published in 1996 and covers a variety of constitutional law issues, including federalism and criminal procedure.
Nobel Laureate
Milton Friedman, recipient of the 1976 Nobel Prize for Economic Science, was a Senior Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, from 1977 to 2006. He was also Paul Snowden Russell Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Chicago, where he taught from 1946 to 1976, and was a member of the research staff of the National Bureau of Economic Research from 1937 to 1981.
Professor Friedman was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1988 and received the National Medal of Science the same year. He is widely regarded as the leader of the Chicago School of monetary economics, which stresses the importance of the quantity of money as an instrument of government policy and as a determinant of business cycles and inflation.
In addition to his scientific work, Professor Friedman had also written extensively on public policy, always with primary emphasis on the preservation and extension of individual freedom. His most important books in this field are (with Rose D. Friedman) Capitalism and Freedom (University of Chicago Press, 1962); Bright Promises, Dismal Performance (Thomas Horton and Daughters, 1983), which consists mostly of reprints of tri-weekly columns that he wrote for Newsweek from 1966 to 1983; and (with Rose Friedman) Free to Choose (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1980), which complements a ten-part TV series of the same name, shown over PBS in early 1980, and (with Rose D. Friedman) Tyranny of the Status Quo (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1984), which complements a three-part TV series of the same name, shown over PBS in early 1984.
He was a member of the President’s Commission on an All-Volunteer Armed Force (1969-70) and of the President’s Commission on White House Fellows (1971-73). He was a member of President Reagan’s Economic Policy Advisory Board, a group of experts outside the government, named in early 1981 by President Reagan.
He had also been active in public affairs, serving as an informal economic adviser to Senator Goldwater in his unsuccessful campaign for the presidency in 1964, to Richard Nixon in his successful campaign in 1968, to President Nixon subsequently, and to Ronald Reagan in his 1980 campaign.
He had published many books and articles, most notably A Theory of the Consumption Function (University of Chicago Press, 1957), The Optimum Quantity of Money and Other Essays (Aldine, 1969), and (with A. J. Schwartz) A Monetary History of the United States (Princeton University Press, 1963), Monetary Statistics of the United States (Columbia University Press, 1970), and Monetary Trends in the United States and the United Kingdom (University of Chicago Press, 1982).
Professor Friedman was a past president of the American Economic Association, the Western Economic Association, and the Mont Pelerin Society, and is a member of the American Philosophical Society and of the National Academy of Sciences.
He also had been awarded honorary degrees by universities in the United States, Japan, Israel, and Guatemala, as well as the Grand Cordon of the First Class Order of the Sacred Treasure by the Japanese government in 1986.
Friedman received a B.A. in 1932 from Rutgers University, an M.A. in 1933 from the University of Chicago, and a Ph.D. in 1946 from Columbia University.
He and his wife established the Milton and Rose D. Friedman Foundation, for the purpose of promoting parental choice of the schools their children attend. The Foundation is based in Indianapolis and its president and chief executive officer is Robert C. Enlow.
He and his wife published their memoirs: Milton and Rose D. Friedman, Two Lucky People: Memoirs (University of Chicago Press, 1998).
On November 16, 2006, Dr. Friedman passed away at the age of 94 in San Francisco.
Vice Chairman, Caris Life Sciences
Brian J. Brille joined Caris Life Sciences in January of 2018 as Vice Chairman of the Company. Mr. Brille currently provides executive leadership for strategic, corporate and business development activities. He is also a member of the Board of Directors.
Prior to joining Caris Life Sciences, Mr. Brille worked in various capacities for Bank of America Merrill Lynch since 2009. Most recently, Mr. Brille was based in Hong Kong and served as Chairman/President Asia Pacific for Bank of America Merrill Lynch, with responsibility for the combined Asia Pacific platform across 12 countries and 4 business lines. Prior to this, he served as Global Head of Corporate & Investment Banking at Bank of America. He was also responsible for building and leading Bank of America’s Healthcare Corporate & Investment Banking business, as well as previously establishing and leading Morgan Stanley’s Healthcare Services Group. In 2003, he was named Investment Dealer’s Digest Banker of the Year.
Mr. Brille holds a JD from Stanford Law School, a Masters of Public Policy from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and a BS in Accounting from the University of Illinois. Mr. Brille currently serves on the Asia Pacific Council of The Nature Conservancy, and is a member of the Board of Overseers of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.
Former Dean, Stanford Law School
John Hart Ely was one of the most important constitutional scholars of his generation. He was born in 1938 and died in 2003. As a summer associate following his second year at YLS, Ely assisted Abe Fortas in litigating Gideon v. Wainwright, the landmark Supreme Court decision that established a criminal defendant's right to counsel. After graduating from Yale, Ely served as a staff attorney on the Warren Commission, and then clerked for Chief Justice Earl Warren before going on to serve as a public defender in San Diego. Later in his career, he served as General Counsel of the Department of Transportation during the Ford Administration.
Ely taught at Yale Law School, Harvard Law School, Stanford Law School, and the University of Miami School of Law and served as dean at Stanford. In 1980, Ely published the highly influential Democracy and Distrust, which developed a theory of judicial review that emphasized the role of the courts in safeguarding the democratic process. In 1993, Ely published War and Responsibility, a comprehensive constitutional analysis of war powers. His last book, On Constitutional Ground, was published in 1996 and covers a variety of constitutional law issues, including federalism and criminal procedure.
Nobel Laureate
Milton Friedman, recipient of the 1976 Nobel Prize for Economic Science, was a Senior Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, from 1977 to 2006. He was also Paul Snowden Russell Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Chicago, where he taught from 1946 to 1976, and was a member of the research staff of the National Bureau of Economic Research from 1937 to 1981.
Professor Friedman was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1988 and received the National Medal of Science the same year. He is widely regarded as the leader of the Chicago School of monetary economics, which stresses the importance of the quantity of money as an instrument of government policy and as a determinant of business cycles and inflation.
In addition to his scientific work, Professor Friedman had also written extensively on public policy, always with primary emphasis on the preservation and extension of individual freedom. His most important books in this field are (with Rose D. Friedman) Capitalism and Freedom (University of Chicago Press, 1962); Bright Promises, Dismal Performance (Thomas Horton and Daughters, 1983), which consists mostly of reprints of tri-weekly columns that he wrote for Newsweek from 1966 to 1983; and (with Rose Friedman) Free to Choose (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1980), which complements a ten-part TV series of the same name, shown over PBS in early 1980, and (with Rose D. Friedman) Tyranny of the Status Quo (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1984), which complements a three-part TV series of the same name, shown over PBS in early 1984.
He was a member of the President’s Commission on an All-Volunteer Armed Force (1969-70) and of the President’s Commission on White House Fellows (1971-73). He was a member of President Reagan’s Economic Policy Advisory Board, a group of experts outside the government, named in early 1981 by President Reagan.
He had also been active in public affairs, serving as an informal economic adviser to Senator Goldwater in his unsuccessful campaign for the presidency in 1964, to Richard Nixon in his successful campaign in 1968, to President Nixon subsequently, and to Ronald Reagan in his 1980 campaign.
He had published many books and articles, most notably A Theory of the Consumption Function (University of Chicago Press, 1957), The Optimum Quantity of Money and Other Essays (Aldine, 1969), and (with A. J. Schwartz) A Monetary History of the United States (Princeton University Press, 1963), Monetary Statistics of the United States (Columbia University Press, 1970), and Monetary Trends in the United States and the United Kingdom (University of Chicago Press, 1982).
Professor Friedman was a past president of the American Economic Association, the Western Economic Association, and the Mont Pelerin Society, and is a member of the American Philosophical Society and of the National Academy of Sciences.
He also had been awarded honorary degrees by universities in the United States, Japan, Israel, and Guatemala, as well as the Grand Cordon of the First Class Order of the Sacred Treasure by the Japanese government in 1986.
Friedman received a B.A. in 1932 from Rutgers University, an M.A. in 1933 from the University of Chicago, and a Ph.D. in 1946 from Columbia University.
He and his wife established the Milton and Rose D. Friedman Foundation, for the purpose of promoting parental choice of the schools their children attend. The Foundation is based in Indianapolis and its president and chief executive officer is Robert C. Enlow.
He and his wife published their memoirs: Milton and Rose D. Friedman, Two Lucky People: Memoirs (University of Chicago Press, 1998).
On November 16, 2006, Dr. Friedman passed away at the age of 94 in San Francisco.
Chief Academic Officer & Vice Chancellor for Strategic Initiatives, State University System of Florida
Jason Jewell chairs the Department of Humanities at Faulkner University, where he directs online degree programs based on the Great Books at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. On campus he teaches courses in the humanities and social/behavioral science departments and the Great Books Honors Program.
He received a Ph.D. in humanities from Florida State University, an M.A. in history from Pepperdine University, and a B.A. in history and music from Harding University.
He is associate editor of the Journal of Faith and the Academy and a member of the editorial board of two other academic journals. He is a contributor to Christian Faith and Social Justice: Five Views (Bloomsbury, 2014) and The Inklings and King Arthur (2018), and he has contributed to six academic journals and five encyclopedias. His writing has also appeared in numerous magazines and popular journals..
In addition to directing honors students in the GBH program, Jacobs serves as a Faulkner Foundations teacher, a sponsor for Alpha Chi National Honor Society, and a sponsor for Images in Ink, an annual creative arts publication published by the university every spring. He also serves on the board of Cornerstone Classical Christian Academy, a private k-12 school that works with the same spiritual and academic mindset as guides him at Faulkner.
“I am convinced,” he says, “that learning centered around Christ and a classical or Great Books methodology promotes a more virtuous human being, allowing one to know God better and love His creation better, too. It is my deep hope to instill this sort of learning in future generations. One simply cannot argue with the sort of excellence and deep Christian charity such education promotes. As such, I can think of no better expenditure of my time than working among my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ and reading and discussing great books with as many and as varied students as possible.”
Senior Advisor and Research Fellow, The Heritage Foundation
Allen Mendenhall is a Senior Advisor for the Capital Markets Initiative and Research Fellow in the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C. Previously, he served as Associate Dean and Grady Rosier Professor in the Sorrell College of Business at Troy University, where he also directed the Manuel H. Johnson Center for Political Economy. He is also a Visiting Fellow at the Madden Center for Value Creation at Florida Atlantic University.
His books include Literature and Liberty: Essays in Libertarian Literary Criticism (2014), Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Pragmatism, and the Jurisprudence of Agon: Aesthetic Dissent and the Common Law (2017), Of Bees and Boys: Lines from a Southern Lawyer (2017), The Southern Philosopher: Collected Essays of John William Corrington (2017), Writers on Writing: Conversations with Allen Mendenhall (2019), The Three Ps of Liberty: Pragmatism, Pluralism, and Polycentricity (2020), Shouting Softly: Essays on Law, Literature, and Culture (2021), A Glooming Peace This Morning (2023, a novel), and Controversies Among Conservatives: Conversations on Conservatism, Vol. II (2024, edited with Marcus Witcher and Kevin Hughes). His monthly segment “Word to the Wise” appears on Troy Public Radio (WTSU 89.9, WRWA 88.7, WTJB 91.7), and he writes a weekly column for 1819 News, Alabama’s bold and innovative conservative news outlet.
Mendenhall holds a B.A. in English from Furman University, an M.A. in English from West Virginia University, a J.D. from West Virginia University College of Law, an LL.M. in transnational law from Temple University Beasley School of Law, and a Ph.D. in English from Auburn University.
From 2016 to 2020, he was Associate Dean and Founding Executive Director of the Blackstone & Burke Center for Law & Liberty at Faulkner University’s Thomas Goode Jones School of Law in Montgomery, Alabama. He edited Southern Literary Review for over a decade (2011–2022) and has served as a visiting scholar (2020) and trustee (2023) at the American Institute for Economic Research (AIER), an adjunct legal associate at the Cato Institute (2009), a Mises Canada Emerging Scholar with the Ludwig von Mises Institute Canada (2014), an elected member of the Mont Pelerin Society (2024), an associate of the Abbeville Institute (2011–present), a Humane Studies Fellow with the Institute for Humane Studies (2011–2012), a staff attorney for Chief Justice Roy S. Moore of the Supreme Court of Alabama (2013–2016), an Assistant Attorney General in the State of Alabama Office of Attorney General Luther Strange (2016), an AmPhil Fundraising Fellow with the Center for Civil Society of American Philanthropic (2023–2024), an Advisory Council Member of the Law & Liberty Circle at the Universidad Francisco Marroquín (2024–present), an elected member (2012) and former trustee (2018–2022) of the Philadelphia Society, an associated scholar at the Ludwig von Mises Institute (2017–present), a policy adviser for the Heartland Institute (2016–present), former president of the Alabama Association of Scholars (2017–2020), president of the Montgomery Lawyers Chapter of the Federalist Society (2013–present), and Chairman of the Board of Managers of the Alabama Center for Law & Liberty (2022–2024). In 2023, he was an inaugural recipient of the Freedom and Opportunity Academic Prize from the Heritage Foundation. In 2024, he was a Club For Growth Foundation Fellow and a Lincoln Fellow with the Claremont Institute for the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy. Alabama Governor Kay Ivey appointed him to the 2025–26 State Textbook Committee of the Alabama Department of Education.
He has taught in university English departments, business schools, a humanities department, a law school, a Japanese private school (juku), and a penitentiary, and he serves or has served on numerous boards of organizations as wide-ranging as the Alabama Public Television Foundation Authority (2019–2025), the Young Professionals Board of the Alabama Humanities Foundation (2015–2016), the Society for Law and Culture (a division of the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal) (2017–present), Trinity Christian School (2017–2020), Ivy Classical Academy (2025–present), and the Philadelphia Society (2018–2022). He served on the advisory council of the Ludwig von Mises Institute’s Master of Arts degree and Certificate Program in Austrian Economics from 2021–2023. While in private practice in Atlanta, he represented non-profit corporations and litigated cases involving real property, contracts, collections, foreclosures, restrictive covenants, and real estate transactions. He graduated from Leadership Lee County (Alabama), the Alabama State Bar Leadership Forum (Class 14), and the Atlas Leadership Academy of Atlas Network. He has authored hundreds of publications, including fiction and poetry, and studied under the creative writers Gilbert Allen, Michael Blumenthal, William Aarnes, and Chantel Acevedo.
His academic writing has appeared or is forthcoming in such peer-reviewed journals as The Journal Jurisprudence, The Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence, Public Choice, The Political Science Reviewer, Journal of Markets & Morality, Journal of Private Enterprise, The Texas Review of Law and Politics, European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy, Contemporary Pragmatism, The South Carolina Review, Academic Questions, The Independent Review, Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics, Modernist Cultures, The British Journal of American Legal Studies, and in law reviews published by Georgetown University Law Center, UC Berkeley School of Law, The University of Texas School of Law, Emory University School of Law, Indiana University Maurer School of Law, Texas A&M University School of Law, and Michigan State University College of Law.
His writing for popular media has appeared in Newsweek, Fox News, Fox Business, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Times, National Review, The American Spectator, Pacific Standard, The Hill, The Los Angeles Review of Books, The American Conservative, City Journal, The Daily Caller, The Federalist, Public Discourse, Law & Liberty, The Epoch Times, The American Mind, The Freeman, Liberty, RealClearMarkets, The University Bookman, The Daily Signal, Chronicles, The Christian Lawyer, Writer’s Digest, The Conversation, and elsewhere. He has spoken at Harvard University, Brown University, Georgetown University Law Center, Francisco Marroquín University, Furman University, George Mason University, University of British Columbia, University of Nevada-Las Vegas, Auburn University, West Virginia University, the Alabama State Capitol, the Alabama Supreme Court, and other universities and locations.
He has been quoted or cited in Fox Business, Fox News, Forbes, The Washington Post, The Washington Times, The National Review, The Daily Caller, Le Monde, Times Higher Education, The College Fix, The Blaze Media, Campus Reform, Inside Higher Education, and U.S. News and World Report, and published by such organizations as the Ludwig von Mises Institute, the Ludwig von Mises Institute Canada, the Mercatus Center, the Foundation for Economic Education, the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, the American Institute for Economic Research, the Charlemagne Institute, the Independent Institute, the Rockford Institute, the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal, the American Ideas Institute, Atlas Society, the Heartland Institute, the Abbeville Institute, the National Association of Scholars, the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal, and the Libertarian Alliance. He frequently appears on radio and television on networks as wide-ranging as Fox News, Newsmax, Alabama Public Television, NewsNation, Al Jazeera, C-SPAN, Bill O’Reilly’s “No Spin News,” NTD News, The Daily Wire, Steve Bannon’s “War Room,” and BBC World News.
Chief Academic Officer & Vice Chancellor for Strategic Initiatives, State University System of Florida
Jason Jewell chairs the Department of Humanities at Faulkner University, where he directs online degree programs based on the Great Books at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. On campus he teaches courses in the humanities and social/behavioral science departments and the Great Books Honors Program.
He received a Ph.D. in humanities from Florida State University, an M.A. in history from Pepperdine University, and a B.A. in history and music from Harding University.
He is associate editor of the Journal of Faith and the Academy and a member of the editorial board of two other academic journals. He is a contributor to Christian Faith and Social Justice: Five Views (Bloomsbury, 2014) and The Inklings and King Arthur (2018), and he has contributed to six academic journals and five encyclopedias. His writing has also appeared in numerous magazines and popular journals..
In addition to directing honors students in the GBH program, Jacobs serves as a Faulkner Foundations teacher, a sponsor for Alpha Chi National Honor Society, and a sponsor for Images in Ink, an annual creative arts publication published by the university every spring. He also serves on the board of Cornerstone Classical Christian Academy, a private k-12 school that works with the same spiritual and academic mindset as guides him at Faulkner.
“I am convinced,” he says, “that learning centered around Christ and a classical or Great Books methodology promotes a more virtuous human being, allowing one to know God better and love His creation better, too. It is my deep hope to instill this sort of learning in future generations. One simply cannot argue with the sort of excellence and deep Christian charity such education promotes. As such, I can think of no better expenditure of my time than working among my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ and reading and discussing great books with as many and as varied students as possible.”
Senior Advisor and Research Fellow, The Heritage Foundation
Allen Mendenhall is a Senior Advisor for the Capital Markets Initiative and Research Fellow in the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C. Previously, he served as Associate Dean and Grady Rosier Professor in the Sorrell College of Business at Troy University, where he also directed the Manuel H. Johnson Center for Political Economy. He is also a Visiting Fellow at the Madden Center for Value Creation at Florida Atlantic University.
His books include Literature and Liberty: Essays in Libertarian Literary Criticism (2014), Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Pragmatism, and the Jurisprudence of Agon: Aesthetic Dissent and the Common Law (2017), Of Bees and Boys: Lines from a Southern Lawyer (2017), The Southern Philosopher: Collected Essays of John William Corrington (2017), Writers on Writing: Conversations with Allen Mendenhall (2019), The Three Ps of Liberty: Pragmatism, Pluralism, and Polycentricity (2020), Shouting Softly: Essays on Law, Literature, and Culture (2021), A Glooming Peace This Morning (2023, a novel), and Controversies Among Conservatives: Conversations on Conservatism, Vol. II (2024, edited with Marcus Witcher and Kevin Hughes). His monthly segment “Word to the Wise” appears on Troy Public Radio (WTSU 89.9, WRWA 88.7, WTJB 91.7), and he writes a weekly column for 1819 News, Alabama’s bold and innovative conservative news outlet.
Mendenhall holds a B.A. in English from Furman University, an M.A. in English from West Virginia University, a J.D. from West Virginia University College of Law, an LL.M. in transnational law from Temple University Beasley School of Law, and a Ph.D. in English from Auburn University.
From 2016 to 2020, he was Associate Dean and Founding Executive Director of the Blackstone & Burke Center for Law & Liberty at Faulkner University’s Thomas Goode Jones School of Law in Montgomery, Alabama. He edited Southern Literary Review for over a decade (2011–2022) and has served as a visiting scholar (2020) and trustee (2023) at the American Institute for Economic Research (AIER), an adjunct legal associate at the Cato Institute (2009), a Mises Canada Emerging Scholar with the Ludwig von Mises Institute Canada (2014), an elected member of the Mont Pelerin Society (2024), an associate of the Abbeville Institute (2011–present), a Humane Studies Fellow with the Institute for Humane Studies (2011–2012), a staff attorney for Chief Justice Roy S. Moore of the Supreme Court of Alabama (2013–2016), an Assistant Attorney General in the State of Alabama Office of Attorney General Luther Strange (2016), an AmPhil Fundraising Fellow with the Center for Civil Society of American Philanthropic (2023–2024), an Advisory Council Member of the Law & Liberty Circle at the Universidad Francisco Marroquín (2024–present), an elected member (2012) and former trustee (2018–2022) of the Philadelphia Society, an associated scholar at the Ludwig von Mises Institute (2017–present), a policy adviser for the Heartland Institute (2016–present), former president of the Alabama Association of Scholars (2017–2020), president of the Montgomery Lawyers Chapter of the Federalist Society (2013–present), and Chairman of the Board of Managers of the Alabama Center for Law & Liberty (2022–2024). In 2023, he was an inaugural recipient of the Freedom and Opportunity Academic Prize from the Heritage Foundation. In 2024, he was a Club For Growth Foundation Fellow and a Lincoln Fellow with the Claremont Institute for the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy. Alabama Governor Kay Ivey appointed him to the 2025–26 State Textbook Committee of the Alabama Department of Education.
He has taught in university English departments, business schools, a humanities department, a law school, a Japanese private school (juku), and a penitentiary, and he serves or has served on numerous boards of organizations as wide-ranging as the Alabama Public Television Foundation Authority (2019–2025), the Young Professionals Board of the Alabama Humanities Foundation (2015–2016), the Society for Law and Culture (a division of the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal) (2017–present), Trinity Christian School (2017–2020), Ivy Classical Academy (2025–present), and the Philadelphia Society (2018–2022). He served on the advisory council of the Ludwig von Mises Institute’s Master of Arts degree and Certificate Program in Austrian Economics from 2021–2023. While in private practice in Atlanta, he represented non-profit corporations and litigated cases involving real property, contracts, collections, foreclosures, restrictive covenants, and real estate transactions. He graduated from Leadership Lee County (Alabama), the Alabama State Bar Leadership Forum (Class 14), and the Atlas Leadership Academy of Atlas Network. He has authored hundreds of publications, including fiction and poetry, and studied under the creative writers Gilbert Allen, Michael Blumenthal, William Aarnes, and Chantel Acevedo.
His academic writing has appeared or is forthcoming in such peer-reviewed journals as The Journal Jurisprudence, The Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence, Public Choice, The Political Science Reviewer, Journal of Markets & Morality, Journal of Private Enterprise, The Texas Review of Law and Politics, European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy, Contemporary Pragmatism, The South Carolina Review, Academic Questions, The Independent Review, Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics, Modernist Cultures, The British Journal of American Legal Studies, and in law reviews published by Georgetown University Law Center, UC Berkeley School of Law, The University of Texas School of Law, Emory University School of Law, Indiana University Maurer School of Law, Texas A&M University School of Law, and Michigan State University College of Law.
His writing for popular media has appeared in Newsweek, Fox News, Fox Business, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Times, National Review, The American Spectator, Pacific Standard, The Hill, The Los Angeles Review of Books, The American Conservative, City Journal, The Daily Caller, The Federalist, Public Discourse, Law & Liberty, The Epoch Times, The American Mind, The Freeman, Liberty, RealClearMarkets, The University Bookman, The Daily Signal, Chronicles, The Christian Lawyer, Writer’s Digest, The Conversation, and elsewhere. He has spoken at Harvard University, Brown University, Georgetown University Law Center, Francisco Marroquín University, Furman University, George Mason University, University of British Columbia, University of Nevada-Las Vegas, Auburn University, West Virginia University, the Alabama State Capitol, the Alabama Supreme Court, and other universities and locations.
He has been quoted or cited in Fox Business, Fox News, Forbes, The Washington Post, The Washington Times, The National Review, The Daily Caller, Le Monde, Times Higher Education, The College Fix, The Blaze Media, Campus Reform, Inside Higher Education, and U.S. News and World Report, and published by such organizations as the Ludwig von Mises Institute, the Ludwig von Mises Institute Canada, the Mercatus Center, the Foundation for Economic Education, the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, the American Institute for Economic Research, the Charlemagne Institute, the Independent Institute, the Rockford Institute, the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal, the American Ideas Institute, Atlas Society, the Heartland Institute, the Abbeville Institute, the National Association of Scholars, the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal, and the Libertarian Alliance. He frequently appears on radio and television on networks as wide-ranging as Fox News, Newsmax, Alabama Public Television, NewsNation, Al Jazeera, C-SPAN, Bill O’Reilly’s “No Spin News,” NTD News, The Daily Wire, Steve Bannon’s “War Room,” and BBC World News.
Director, Independent Women's Law Center, Independent Women's
Jennifer C. Braceras, a member of the Federalist Society Board of Visitors, is the director of Independent Women’s Law Center and a former member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.
Ms. Braceras is a graduate of the Harvard Law School, where she served as an editor of the Law Review. After law school, she clerked for two federal judges and practiced labor and employment law with the Boston law firm Ropes & Gray.
A long time political columnist and editor, Ms. Braceras's writing has appeared in a variety of publications, including the Wall Street Journal, the Boston Globe, the Hill, and National Review Online. She co-hosts At the Bar, a bimonthly virtual happy hour discussion about issues at the intersection of law, politics, and culture.
Former Associate Justice, Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
Judith Cathy Arnold Cowin is a retired justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. She was born in Boston. Cowin received her undergraduate degree from Wellesley College and her J.D. degree from Harvard Law School.
Senior Lecturer on Law, Harvard Law School
Nancy Gertner is a former U.S. federal judge who built her career around standing up for women’s rights, civil liberties and justice for all. Gertner was appointed to the federal bench of the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts by President Bill Clinton in 1994. She retired from the bench in 2011 to teach at Harvard Law School.
Named one of “The Most Influential Lawyers of the Past 25 Years” by Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly, Gertner has written and spoken throughout the U.S., Europe and Asia. She has published widely on sentencing, discrimination, and forensic evidence; women’s rights; and the jury system. Her autobiography, “In Defense of Women: Memoirs of an Unrepentant Advocate,” was published in 2011.
She is a graduate of Barnard College, Columbia University, and holds a M.A in Political Science and J.D. from Yale University. She has received numerous awards, including the Margaret Brent Award from the ABA commission on the status of Women, Massachusetts Bar Association’s Hennessey Award for judicial excellence in 2011; the Morton A. Brody Distinguished Judicial Service Award from Colby College in 2010; the National Association of Women Lawyers’ highest honor, the Arabella Babb Mansfield Award, in 2011,The Women's Bar Association's highest award, The Lelia Robinson Award, in 2012, and, in 2008, the Thurgood Marshall Award from the American Bar Association, Section of Individual Rights and Responsibilities, which recognized her contributions to advancing human rights and civil liberties. The Marshall award has been given to one other woman, Justice Ruth Ginsburg.
In November 2014, she gave the Pope and John lecture at Northwestern University. In October 2014, she was a resident scholar at the Rockefeller Foundation in Bellagio, Italy; In September she gave the keynote address at the 18th Anniversary Celebration of the Jewish Women’s archive (September 14, 2014).
Gertner is presently working on her second book, Incomplete Sentences, concerning the men who she sentenced over her 17 year career as a federal judge. In addition to writing about them, highlighting the unfairness and disproportionality of their sentences, she is assisting in clemency petitions where appropriate.
Drawing on her wide ranging experience in practice and as a judge, Gertner also consults and litigates in civil right cases (she is of counsel to Neufeld, Scheck & Brustin, a civil rights firm in New York City), white collar criminal case (she is of counsel to Fick and Marx, a white collar criminal defense firm in Boston), as well as in employment discrimination and false claims cases.
Drawing on her judicial experience, Gertner engages in mediation and arbitration with Resolutions, LLC. (with Eric Green) and the Southeast Regional Mediation, Arbitration and Compliance Association (with Bill Nettles and Paul Zwier).
Attorney, Allen Harris Law
Samantha Harris is a nationally recognized attorney advising students and faculty on issues of campus due process, Title IX, free speech, and academic freedom. Drawing on more than 15 years at the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), where she served as Vice President for Policy Research, she guides students, faculty, administrators, and attorneys through complex disciplinary and constitutional issues involving free speech, fair hearings, and faculty-student rights.
A graduate of Princeton University and the University of Pennsylvania Law School (Articles Editor, Journal of Constitutional Law), Samantha clerked for the Hon. Jay C. Waldman in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and began her legal career at Pepper Hamilton LLP. At FIRE, she led efforts to reform campus policies and defended individuals in high-profile Title IX and free speech disputes.
Now at Allen Harris PLLC, a firm focused on Title IX and campus defense, Samantha represents students and professors in investigations, hearings, appeals, and related litigation. Samantha’s practice emphasizes strategic advocacy in campus disciplinary systems and litigation-ready defense in federal court. Her blend of policy experience, legal skill, and media visibility positions her as a leading resource for issues at the intersection of education law and constitutional rights.
U. S. District Court Judge, District of Massachusetts
Nominated by Barack H. Obama on November 30, 2011, to a seat vacated by Nancy Gertner; Confirmed by the Senate on June 4, 2012, and received commission on June 6, 2012.
U. S. Magistrate Judge, U. S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, 2006-2012
Op-Ed Columnist, The Boston Globe
Jeff Jacoby, who has been a columnist for The Boston Globe since 1994, is a conservative writer with a national reputation.
A native of Cleveland, Jeff has degrees from George Washington University and from Boston University Law School. Before entering journalism, he (briefly) practiced law at the prominent firm of Baker & Hostetler, worked on several political campaigns in Massachusetts, and was an assistant to Dr. John Silber, the president of Boston University. In 1999, Jeff became the first recipient of the Breindel Prize, a major award for excellence in opinion journalism. In 2014, he was included in the “Forward 50,” a list of the most influential American Jews.
Author, Lawyer and Social Critic
Wendy Kaminer, a lawyer and social critic, writes about law, liberty, feminism, religion, and popular culture. Her latest book is Worst Instincts: Cowardice, Conformity and the ACLU, (Beacon Press.) A former Guggenheim fellow and recipient of the Smith College Medal, she is the author of seven previous books, including Free for All: Defending Liberty in America Today; Sleeping with Extra-Terrestrials: The Rise of Irrationalism and Perils of Piety; True Love Waits: Essays and Criticism; It’s All the Rage: Crime and Culture; I’m Dysfunctional, You’re Dysfunctional: The Recovery Movement & Other Self-Help Fashions; and A Fearful Freedom: Women’s Flight from Equality.
Her articles and reviews, dating back to the 1980s, have appeared in numerous publications including The New York Times, The Atlantic Monthly, The Wall Street Journal, The Village Voice, The American Prospect, Dissent, The Nation, The Wilson Quarterly, Free Inquiry, Slate.com, thefreeforall.net and spiked-online.com. Her commentaries have aired on National Public Radio.
Before embarking on her writing career, Ms. Kaminer briefly practiced law, as a criminal defense attorney for the New York Legal Aid Society and a staff attorney in the New York City Mayor's Office. Law has remained one of her primary subjects, and her writings on such apparently disparate topics as feminism, criminal justice, free speech, religion, spirituality, and popular culture are shaped by common concerns for liberty, individualism, ethics, and rationality. A former board member of the American Civil Liberties Union, Kaminer is an ardent civil libertarian and currently serves on the advisory boards of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education and the Secular Coalition for America. She does not twitter.
Partner, McCarter & English, LLP
Daniel Kelly brings over thirty years of experience to the firm’s government contracts group. His practice combines both counseling and acting as an advocate on behalf of clients doing business in the government marketplace. Dan has knowledge of the government contracting process both on a federal and state level, and the specific laws, regulations, contract clauses and dispute resolution mechanisms in this specialized area. He provides advice and guidance to clients who are in the government supply chain, either as prime contractors, subcontractors or vendors. He reviews government solicitations with clients, prepares proposals, and negotiates teaming arrangements and subcontracts with other suppliers. He helps clients build and enhance their compliance programs. He assists clients in protecting their intellectual property and proprietary information concerning their businesses when doing business with the government. He advocates for clients who wrongfully were passed over for a contract award. He prepares claims arising under government contracts as a result of change orders, delays, and terminations for default or convenience. Dan’s practice extends to a broad spectrum of industries and federal and state authorities for whom they supply research, products and services, including emerging and established biomedical, intelligence, pharma, security, and textile R&D, manufacturing and production houses working under prime and subcontracts, SBIRs, CRADAs, OTAs, and grants for DoD and civilian agencies; Medicare and Medicaid audit and investigation service providers; commercial software developers who modify their software for military applications; professional services providers; and raw materials and component suppliers to large military prime contractors.
Dan is the author of the August 2018 edition Thomson Reuters’ Briefing Papers, which provides a comprehensive review of patent rights under “Other Transaction Agreements” (OTAs) with DoD and NASA. Heavily promoted by Congress, and only partially understood by industry, OTAs are quickly becoming DoD’s and NASA’s contractual vehicle of choice to lure commercial companies to sell the Government their latest and greatest technologies. However, OTAs are not governed by standard government contracts laws and regulations, meaning there are significant changes to the common provisions of ownership and license rights incident to government contracts and grants. The Briefing Paper should be required reading before entities enter into an OTA as a vehicle for developing new technologies for NASA and DoD to ensure their company’s intellectual property efforts are properly protected
In the matters, AdvanceMed Corporation, B-415360,B-415360.2,B-415360.3 (Dec 19, 2017), and AdvanceMed Corporation, B-414373.3 (Jan 10, 2018) Dan and the Government Contracts team at McCarter successfully defended its client Health Integrity, LLC (now Qlarant) against protests launched at the Government Accountability Office challenging awards by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) for Medicare and Medicaid audit and program integrity services.
Dan serves on the Board of Directors for NCMA Boston (National Contract Management Association) and NDIA New England (National Defense Industrial Association), and is a frequent speaker at NCMA and NDIA events.
Dan serves as an adjunct member of the faculty at Suffolk University Law School where he has taught Government Contracts.
Dan receives Mentor of the Year Award in recognition of his contributions and support to NCMA Boston Chapter’s 2017-2018 Program Year.
U.S. Attorney, District of Massachusetts
Before his appointment as U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts, Andrew Lelling was a federal prosecutor for over 15 years, serving first in the Civil Rights Division at the Justice Department and later at the U.S. Attorney’s Offices for the Eastern District of Virginia and the District of Massachusetts.
During his time as a prosecutor in the District of Massachusetts, Mr. Lelling served as Senior Litigation Counsel and as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Economic Crimes Unit and on the Organized Crime and Drug Enforcement Task Force. He was the lead prosecutor in a number of complex fraud, immigration and international drug trafficking investigations including, most recently, the successful prosecution of one of the largest pyramid schemes ever charged by the Department of Justice, which involved over a million victims worldwide and losses of $3 billion. In addition, Mr. Lelling has prosecuted major drug trafficking organizations, domestic branches of Mexican drug cartels, and global drug traffickers based in Eastern Europe. In his role as the Senior Litigation Counsel, Mr. Lelling developed enforcement policy for criminal prosecutions and trained prosecutors and law enforcement officers on criminal practice.
Before serving as a federal prosecutor, Mr. Lelling was Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division, focusing on criminal civil rights enforcement, voting rights enforcement actions, and civil investigations of major city police departments. In this role, Mr. Lelling led the Department’s investigation of the 2000 Presidential election in Florida and negotiated human rights issues with the Chinese government. In addition, Mr. Lelling advised on the drafting of the USA PATRIOT Act in the wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and led the Department’s task force for responding to backlash crimes.
Before joining the Justice Department, Mr. Lelling was a senior litigation associate at Goodwin Procter in Boston and a litigation associate at LeBoeuf, Lamb, Greene & MacRae in New York. He also clerked for the U.S. District Court Chief Judge B. Avant Edenfield in the Southern District of Georgia.
Mr. Lelling graduated cum laude from University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1994 and received a Bachelor of Arts in Literature & Rhetoric from Binghamton University in 1991. He is a member of the Federalist Society and a former member of the Boston Bar Journal’s Board of Editors.
Practice Group Leader - Complex Trial & Appellate Litigation, Choate Hall & Stewart LLP
For more than thirty years, Joan Lukey has tried complex business litigation, employment and other cases in state and federal court in Massachusetts and New Hampshire and nationwide. She has tried approximately 100 jury trials and a myriad of bench trials and arbitrations in all aspects of business disputes. In addition, she is an accomplished appellate lawyer, having argued approximately 60 federal and state appeals.
Since 1983, Ms. Lukey has been selected by her peers for each edition of The Best Lawyers in America in the areas of business, bet-the-company, commercial, personal injury, employment and First Amendment litigation. She has also been routinely recognized for the last several years in Chambers USA and Chambers Global as a Band One Litigator.
Ms. Lukey is a past President of the prestigious American College of Trial Lawyers, the first woman ever to hold this position. Before joining Choate in 2014, she was a partner at Ropes & Gray in the Complex Business Litigation Practice Group from 2008 until 2014, after almost thirty years as a partner at WilmerHale. She has served twice as a Massachusetts Special Assistant Attorney General and has written extensively on issues of Gubernatorial and Presidential Executive Privilege.
Founding Artistic Director, Commonwealth Shakespeare Company
Steven Maler is the Founding Artistic Director of Commonwealth Shakespeare Company (CSC). At CSC he has been directing Free Shakespeare on the Boston Common productions since 1996, including Love’s Labour’s Lost, King Lear, Twelfth Night, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Coriolanus, All’s Well That Ends Well, Othello, The Comedy of Errors, As You Like It, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Taming of the Shrew, Hamlet, Much Ado About Nothing, Macbeth, Henry V, The Tempest, Julius Caesar, and Romeo & Juliet. In collaboration with Boston Landmarks Orchestra, he directed A Midsummer Night’s Dream, featuring the Overture and Incidental Music of Felix Mendelssohn, as well as concert stagings of The Boys from Syracuse and Kiss Me, Kate at Boston’s iconic Hatch Shell.
In a joint venture between CSC and Google, he most recently directed a Virtual Reality adaption of Hamlet entitled Hamlet 360: Thy Father’s Spirit, which is currently available for viewing on Boston public media producer WGBH’s YouTube channel.
Other CSC works include the critically acclaimed production of Ariel Dorfman’s Death and the Maiden, the world premiere of Jake Broder’s Our American Hamlet, and the world premiere of Robert Brustein’s The Last Will. He directed Peter Eötvös’s operatic treatment of Tony Kushner’s Angels in America (U.S. Premiere) and Thomas Adès’ Powder Her Face, The Turn of the Screw at New Repertory Theatre, Santaland Diaries and Chay Yew’s Porcelain at SpeakEasy Stage Company, Top Girls and Weldon Rising at Coyote Theatre, and The L.A. Plays by Han Ong at A.R.T. His New York City credits include the New York Musical Theatre Festival production of Without You, written by and starring Anthony Rapp. The production has been seen in Boston, Edinburgh, Toronto, London and Seoul.
He received the Elliot Norton Award for Sustained Excellence as well as for Best Production, Twelfth Night;Outstanding Director, A Midsummer Night’s Dream; Best Production, Suburbia; Best Solo Performance, John Kuntz’s Starf***ers (which also won Best Solo Performance Award at New York International Fringe Festival).
His feature film “The Autumn Heart”, starring Tyne Daly and Ally Sheedy, was in the Dramatic Competition at the Sundance Film Festival.
U.S. District Court Judge, District of Massachusetts
Nominated by William J. Clinton on April 4, 1995, to a new seat created by 104 Stat. 5089; Confirmed by the Senate on May 25, 1995, and received commission on May 26, 1995.
Associate Artistic Director, Commonwealth Shakespeare Company
Adam Sanders is the Associate Artistic Director at Commonwealth Shakespeare Company, theater-in-residence at Babson College. He serves as director of the Apprentice Program, and is the director and originator of CSC2, a cohort of early-career actors. Directing credits for CSC include: Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Julius Caesar (CSC2 Company), Symphonic Shakespeare, (in collaboration with Boston Landmarks Orchestra at the Boston Hatch Shell); co-director: Kiss Me Kate, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and The Boys From Syracuse (also BLO/Hatch Shell collaborations), co-director/dramaturg: Shakespeare and Leadership (2013 – 2017), and CSCs unprecedented Shakespeare at Fenway performance in 2014; director: Shakespeare and the Law (2017). At Babson College, Adam is the Associate Director of the Sorenson Center for the Arts where he supports the artistic development of undergraduate students within a business focused curriculum. Adam holds a Master of Arts in theater education from Emerson College and is a Master of Business Administration candidate at Babson College.
United States District Judge for the District of Massachusetts
Patti B. Saris is the Chief United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts. She is also the former Chair of the United States Sentencing Commission.
U.S. District Court Judge, District of Massachusetts
F. Dennis Saylor IV is a federal judge for the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts. He joined the court in 2004 after being nominated by President George W. Bush. At the time of appointment, Saylor served as Special Counsel & Chief of Staff to the Assistant Attorney General in the Criminal Division of the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, DC. Saylor also serves on the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. His term runs from May 19, 2011 until May 18, 2018.
U.S. District Court Judge, District of Massachusetts
Douglas Preston Woodlock is a federal judge for the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts. He joined the court in 1986 after being nominated by President Ronald Reagan. At the time of appointment, Woodlock served as Chairman of the Massachusetts Committee for Public Counsel Services.
U.S. District Court Judge, District of Massachusetts
Rya Weickert Zobel is a federal judge of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts. She joined the court in 1979 after being nominated by President Jimmy Carter. At the time of her appointment, Zobel was a private practice attorney inMassachusetts.
Showcase Panel II: Why, or Why Not, Be an Originalist?
Amy Coney Barrett, Michael C. Dorf, Thomas M. Hardiman, Richard H. Pildes, Saikrishna Prakash
2019 National Lawyers Convention
On November 15, 2019, the Federalist Society hosted the second showcase panel of the 2019...
Showcase Panel II: Why, or Why Not, Be an Originalist?
Amy Coney Barrett, Michael C. Dorf, Thomas M. Hardiman, Richard H. Pildes, Saikrishna Prakash
2019 National Lawyers Convention
On November 15, 2019, the Federalist Society hosted the second showcase panel of the 2019...
Is Social Justice Just? The Justice of Economic Opportunity [POLICYbrief]
Steven A. Ramirez
Short video featuring Steven Ramirez
Is there an economic cost to injustice? Does economic opportunity contribute to social justice? In...
Brutus v. Publius: The Fight Over the Judiciary
Charles R. Kesler, Gordon Lloyd
Documentary short featuring Charles Kesler and Gordon Lloyd
Before the United States Constitution was ratified, the Founding Fathers famously debated the merits and...
Is Social Justice Just? Why Income Inequality is Just [POLICYbrief]
Yaron Brook
Short video featuring Yaron Brook
Is income inequality just? In this POLICYbrief episode, Yaron Brook of the Ayn Rand Institute...
Keynote Address by Milton Friedman [Archive Collection]
Brian J. Brille, John Hart Ely, Milton Friedman
1986 National Student Symposium
On March 7, 1986, The Federalist Society hosted its annual National Student Symposium at Stanford...
Keynote Address by Milton Friedman [Archive Collection]
Brian J. Brille, John Hart Ely, Milton Friedman
1986 National Student Symposium
On March 7, 1986, The Federalist Society hosted its annual National Student Symposium at Stanford...
Justice versus Social Justice
Jason Jewell, Allen P. Mendenhall
Montgomery Lawyers Chapter
On August 22, 2019, the Federalist Society's Montgomery Lawyers Chapter hosted an event at the...
Justice versus Social Justice
Jason Jewell, Allen P. Mendenhall
Montgomery Lawyers Chapter
On August 22, 2019, the Federalist Society's Montgomery Lawyers Chapter hosted an event at the...
Shakespeare and the Law 2019 - Belief and the Burden of Proof through the Lens of Six of the Bard's Plays
Jennifer C. Braceras, Judith A. Cowin, Nancy Gertner, Samantha Harris, Timothy Hillman, Jeff Jacoby, Wendy Kaminer, Daniel J. Kelly, Andrew E. Lelling, Joan Lukey, Steven Maler, George O'Toole, Adam Sanders, Patti B. Saris, Dennis Saylor IV, Douglas P. Woodlock, Rya W. Zobel
The Boston Lawyers Chapter, McCarter & English, and Commonwealth Shakespeare Company
The Federalist Society, McCarter & English,and Commonwealth Shakespeare Company present Shakespeare and the Law 2019...