Partner, Cooper & Kirk, PLLC
Pete Patterson is a partner at Cooper & Kirk. His practice includes appellate litigation, constitutional litigation, commercial litigation, and administrative law. In addition, Mr. Patterson for a number of years taught an appellate litigation clinic at the University of Cincinnati College of Law. Mr. Patterson has argued in the U.S. Supreme Court and in nearly every regional federal circuit court of appeals.
Mr. Patterson has extensive experience in complex matters involving important questions of constitutional, statutory, and administrative law. He frequently has represented plaintiffs in cases alleging constitutional or statutory violations by federal, state, and local government officials. He also has represented plaintiffs in class action litigation against corporations and the federal government.
Mr. Patterson joined the firm in 2009. Prior to arriving at Cooper & Kirk, he served as a law clerk to Judge Jeffrey S. Sutton of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Mr. Patterson typically works from Cincinnati, Ohio.
Mr. Patterson received his J.D. from Stanford Law School in 2006, earning Order of the Coif honors for finishing in the top 10% of his class. There, he was a member of the Stanford Law Review, serving as an Articles Editor. He also participated in litigation before the United States Supreme Court through the Stanford Supreme Court Litigation Clinic.
Mr. Patterson graduated with University Honors from Carnegie Mellon University in 2000 with a B.S. in Information and Decision Systems. While at Carnegie Mellon, he wrote a regular column for the student newspaper and was a member of the football team.
Partner, Cooper & Kirk, PLLC
Pete Patterson is a partner at Cooper & Kirk. His practice includes appellate litigation, constitutional litigation, commercial litigation, and administrative law. In addition, Mr. Patterson for a number of years taught an appellate litigation clinic at the University of Cincinnati College of Law. Mr. Patterson has argued in the U.S. Supreme Court and in nearly every regional federal circuit court of appeals.
Mr. Patterson has extensive experience in complex matters involving important questions of constitutional, statutory, and administrative law. He frequently has represented plaintiffs in cases alleging constitutional or statutory violations by federal, state, and local government officials. He also has represented plaintiffs in class action litigation against corporations and the federal government.
Mr. Patterson joined the firm in 2009. Prior to arriving at Cooper & Kirk, he served as a law clerk to Judge Jeffrey S. Sutton of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Mr. Patterson typically works from Cincinnati, Ohio.
Mr. Patterson received his J.D. from Stanford Law School in 2006, earning Order of the Coif honors for finishing in the top 10% of his class. There, he was a member of the Stanford Law Review, serving as an Articles Editor. He also participated in litigation before the United States Supreme Court through the Stanford Supreme Court Litigation Clinic.
Mr. Patterson graduated with University Honors from Carnegie Mellon University in 2000 with a B.S. in Information and Decision Systems. While at Carnegie Mellon, he wrote a regular column for the student newspaper and was a member of the football team.
Senior Fellow, Ave Maria School of Law and Host of the Four Boxes Diner Second Amendment Channel
Mark W. Smith is Visiting Fellow in Pharmaceutical Public Policy and Law in the Department of Pharmacology at the University of Oxford; Presidential Scholar and a Senior Fellow in Law and Public Policy at The King’s College; and Distinguished Scholar and Senior Fellow of Law and Public Policy at the Ave Maria School of Law.
He is a constitutional attorney and Host of the Four Boxes Diner YouTube channel—which provides scholarly and historical analyses of the Second Amendment. Mark is also a New York Times bestselling author.
Senior Fellow, Ave Maria School of Law and Host of the Four Boxes Diner Second Amendment Channel
Mark W. Smith is Visiting Fellow in Pharmaceutical Public Policy and Law in the Department of Pharmacology at the University of Oxford; Presidential Scholar and a Senior Fellow in Law and Public Policy at The King’s College; and Distinguished Scholar and Senior Fellow of Law and Public Policy at the Ave Maria School of Law.
He is a constitutional attorney and Host of the Four Boxes Diner YouTube channel—which provides scholarly and historical analyses of the Second Amendment. Mark is also a New York Times bestselling author.
Senior Fellow, Independent Institute
Dr. Stephen P. Halbrook is a Senior Fellow at the Independent Institute. He has taught legal and political philosophy at George Mason University, Howard University, and Tuskegee Institute, and he received his J.D. from the Georgetown University Law Center and Ph.D. in social philosophy from Florida State University.
The winner of three cases before the U.S. Supreme Court (Printz v. United States, United States v. Thompson/Center Arms Company, and Castillo v. United States), he has testified before the Subcommittee on the Constitution of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution, Subcommittee on Crime of the House Judiciary Committee, Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, and House Committee on the District of Columbia.
A contributor to numerous scholarly volumes, he is the author of the books, Gun Control in Nazi-Occupied France: Tyranny and Resistance; Gun Control in the Third Reich: Disarming the Jews and “Enemies of the State”; The Founders’ Second Amendment: Origins of the Right to Bear Arms; That Every Man Be Armed: Evolution of a Constitutional Right; A Right to Bear Arms; Firearms Law Deskbook: Federal and State Criminal Practice; Securing Civil Rights: Freedmen, the Fourteenth Amendment, and the Right to Bear Arms; State and Federal Bills of Rights and Constitutional Guarantees; and Target Switzerland: Swiss Armed Neutrality in World War II. Dr. Halbrook’s scholarly articles have appeared in such journals as the Arizona Journal of International and Comparative Law, Drug Law Report, George Mason University Law Review, Journal of Air Law and Commerce, Journal of Law and Policy, Law & Contemporary Problems, National Law Journal, Northern Kentucky Law Review, St. John’s Journal of Legal Commentary; Seton Hall Constitutional Law Journal, Tennessee Law Review, University of Dayton Law Review, Valparaiso University Law Review, Vermont Law Review, and William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal.
Dr. Halbrook's popular articles have appeared in such publications as the Wall Street Journal, Newsday, San Francisco Chronicle, National Review, Investor’s Business Daily, Kansas City Star, Washington Examiner, Shreveport Times, Sacramento Bee, Providence Journal, Tampa Tribune, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, History News Network, San Antonio Express-News, The Daily Caller, Detroit News, Honolulu Star Advertiser, Birmingham News, Environmental Forum, USA Today, and Washington Times. He has also appeared on numerous national TV/radio programs on CNN, Fox News Channel, Fox Business Network, Court TV, NewsMax TV, CBN, Voice of America, and C-SPAN.
Senior Fellow, Independent Institute
Dr. Stephen P. Halbrook is a Senior Fellow at the Independent Institute. He has taught legal and political philosophy at George Mason University, Howard University, and Tuskegee Institute, and he received his J.D. from the Georgetown University Law Center and Ph.D. in social philosophy from Florida State University.
The winner of three cases before the U.S. Supreme Court (Printz v. United States, United States v. Thompson/Center Arms Company, and Castillo v. United States), he has testified before the Subcommittee on the Constitution of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution, Subcommittee on Crime of the House Judiciary Committee, Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, and House Committee on the District of Columbia.
A contributor to numerous scholarly volumes, he is the author of the books, Gun Control in Nazi-Occupied France: Tyranny and Resistance; Gun Control in the Third Reich: Disarming the Jews and “Enemies of the State”; The Founders’ Second Amendment: Origins of the Right to Bear Arms; That Every Man Be Armed: Evolution of a Constitutional Right; A Right to Bear Arms; Firearms Law Deskbook: Federal and State Criminal Practice; Securing Civil Rights: Freedmen, the Fourteenth Amendment, and the Right to Bear Arms; State and Federal Bills of Rights and Constitutional Guarantees; and Target Switzerland: Swiss Armed Neutrality in World War II. Dr. Halbrook’s scholarly articles have appeared in such journals as the Arizona Journal of International and Comparative Law, Drug Law Report, George Mason University Law Review, Journal of Air Law and Commerce, Journal of Law and Policy, Law & Contemporary Problems, National Law Journal, Northern Kentucky Law Review, St. John’s Journal of Legal Commentary; Seton Hall Constitutional Law Journal, Tennessee Law Review, University of Dayton Law Review, Valparaiso University Law Review, Vermont Law Review, and William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal.
Dr. Halbrook's popular articles have appeared in such publications as the Wall Street Journal, Newsday, San Francisco Chronicle, National Review, Investor’s Business Daily, Kansas City Star, Washington Examiner, Shreveport Times, Sacramento Bee, Providence Journal, Tampa Tribune, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, History News Network, San Antonio Express-News, The Daily Caller, Detroit News, Honolulu Star Advertiser, Birmingham News, Environmental Forum, USA Today, and Washington Times. He has also appeared on numerous national TV/radio programs on CNN, Fox News Channel, Fox Business Network, Court TV, NewsMax TV, CBN, Voice of America, and C-SPAN.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit
Judge Menashi was appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on November 14, 2019. Previously, he served as special assistant and associate counsel to the President in the White House and as acting general counsel at the U.S. Department of Education. He was assistant professor of law at Scalia Law School, George Mason University, where he taught administrative law and civil procedure, and a research fellow at New York University School of Law and Georgetown University Law Center. He was also a partner at Kirkland & Ellis LLP in New York, where he practiced appellate and commercial litigation, and served as a law clerk to Justice Samuel Alito on the Supreme Court of the United States and to Judge Douglas Ginsburg on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He graduated from Stanford Law School, where he was elected to Order of the Coif and served as senior articles editor of the Stanford Law Review, and from Dartmouth College, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.
Senior Fellow, Ave Maria School of Law and Host of the Four Boxes Diner Second Amendment Channel
Mark W. Smith is Visiting Fellow in Pharmaceutical Public Policy and Law in the Department of Pharmacology at the University of Oxford; Presidential Scholar and a Senior Fellow in Law and Public Policy at The King’s College; and Distinguished Scholar and Senior Fellow of Law and Public Policy at the Ave Maria School of Law.
He is a constitutional attorney and Host of the Four Boxes Diner YouTube channel—which provides scholarly and historical analyses of the Second Amendment. Mark is also a New York Times bestselling author.
Associate Professor, Charleston School of Law
Bill Merkel joined the Charleston School of Law faculty in 2012. Merkel graduated from Johns Hopkins University with a B.A. in history in 1988 and proceeded to work as a cook in Baltimore and then as an analyst with the Department of Transportation in Washington, D.C. before returning to graduate studies in history and law.
He completed his J.D. at Columbia Law School in 1996 and then worked in appellate litigation with Wiley, Rein & Fielding in Washington, D.C. from 1997-1998. Merkel is the author, with the late Richard Uviller, of The Militia and the Right to Arms, Or, How the Second Amendment Fell Silent (Duke University Press, 2002). He taught American history at Oxford University from 2001-2003 and Comparative Introduction to American Law to foreign trained LL.M. students at Columbia Law School from 2003-2005. From 2005-2011, Merkel was an Associate Professor of Law at Washburn Law School in Topeka, Kansas, where he was named Professor of the Year by the graduating class in 2008. At Washburn, Merkel taught Constitutional Law I & II, Comparative Constitutional Law, Public International Law, and International Criminal Law and the Law of War. He received a doctorate in history from Oxford University in 2007.
Merkel has held visiting positions at the University of North Dakota School of Law in 2009 and at the University of South Carolina School of Law in 2011-12. In 2013 and 2014, Merkel taught The United States and the International Court of Justice in the Hague, Netherlands as part of the Charleston School of Law’s summer school consortium program administered by Stetson University School of Law. At the Charleston School of Law, Merkel continues to teach courses in Constitutional Law, International Law, Comparative Law, and Legal History. Merkel’s article “Jefferson’s Failed Anti-Slavery Proviso of 1784 and the Nascence of Free Soil Constitutionalism” was selected as the best submission in constitutional history by the Stanford/Yale Junior Faculty Forum in 2006. Merkel is in the process of revising his Oxford doctoral thesis “Race, Liberty, and Law: Thomas Jefferson and Slavery, 1770-1800” for publication as a book to be titled Ambiguous Beginnings: Thomas Jefferson, Slavery, and the Foundations of American Constitutionalism. Merkel has published numerous articles in journals including the Chicago-Kent Law Review, Connecticut Law Review, Lewis and Clark Law Review, Santa Clara Law Review, Seton Hall Law Review, Rutgers Law Review, and Law and History Review. His scholarship on the Second Amendment has been cited by many authors and jurists, including Justice Breyer in a dissenting opinion in McDonald v. City of Chicago. In 2013, following the successful defense of his dissertation “The Second Amendment and the Constitutional Right to Self-Defense,” Merkel was awarded a J.S.D. degree by Columbia University.
Merkel is a member of the District of Columbia, New York, and United States Supreme Court Bars.
Senior Fellow, Independent Institute
Dr. Stephen P. Halbrook is a Senior Fellow at the Independent Institute. He has taught legal and political philosophy at George Mason University, Howard University, and Tuskegee Institute, and he received his J.D. from the Georgetown University Law Center and Ph.D. in social philosophy from Florida State University.
The winner of three cases before the U.S. Supreme Court (Printz v. United States, United States v. Thompson/Center Arms Company, and Castillo v. United States), he has testified before the Subcommittee on the Constitution of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution, Subcommittee on Crime of the House Judiciary Committee, Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, and House Committee on the District of Columbia.
A contributor to numerous scholarly volumes, he is the author of the books, Gun Control in Nazi-Occupied France: Tyranny and Resistance; Gun Control in the Third Reich: Disarming the Jews and “Enemies of the State”; The Founders’ Second Amendment: Origins of the Right to Bear Arms; That Every Man Be Armed: Evolution of a Constitutional Right; A Right to Bear Arms; Firearms Law Deskbook: Federal and State Criminal Practice; Securing Civil Rights: Freedmen, the Fourteenth Amendment, and the Right to Bear Arms; State and Federal Bills of Rights and Constitutional Guarantees; and Target Switzerland: Swiss Armed Neutrality in World War II. Dr. Halbrook’s scholarly articles have appeared in such journals as the Arizona Journal of International and Comparative Law, Drug Law Report, George Mason University Law Review, Journal of Air Law and Commerce, Journal of Law and Policy, Law & Contemporary Problems, National Law Journal, Northern Kentucky Law Review, St. John’s Journal of Legal Commentary; Seton Hall Constitutional Law Journal, Tennessee Law Review, University of Dayton Law Review, Valparaiso University Law Review, Vermont Law Review, and William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal.
Dr. Halbrook's popular articles have appeared in such publications as the Wall Street Journal, Newsday, San Francisco Chronicle, National Review, Investor’s Business Daily, Kansas City Star, Washington Examiner, Shreveport Times, Sacramento Bee, Providence Journal, Tampa Tribune, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, History News Network, San Antonio Express-News, The Daily Caller, Detroit News, Honolulu Star Advertiser, Birmingham News, Environmental Forum, USA Today, and Washington Times. He has also appeared on numerous national TV/radio programs on CNN, Fox News Channel, Fox Business Network, Court TV, NewsMax TV, CBN, Voice of America, and C-SPAN.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit
Judge Menashi was appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on November 14, 2019. Previously, he served as special assistant and associate counsel to the President in the White House and as acting general counsel at the U.S. Department of Education. He was assistant professor of law at Scalia Law School, George Mason University, where he taught administrative law and civil procedure, and a research fellow at New York University School of Law and Georgetown University Law Center. He was also a partner at Kirkland & Ellis LLP in New York, where he practiced appellate and commercial litigation, and served as a law clerk to Justice Samuel Alito on the Supreme Court of the United States and to Judge Douglas Ginsburg on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He graduated from Stanford Law School, where he was elected to Order of the Coif and served as senior articles editor of the Stanford Law Review, and from Dartmouth College, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.
Associate Professor, Charleston School of Law
Bill Merkel joined the Charleston School of Law faculty in 2012. Merkel graduated from Johns Hopkins University with a B.A. in history in 1988 and proceeded to work as a cook in Baltimore and then as an analyst with the Department of Transportation in Washington, D.C. before returning to graduate studies in history and law.
He completed his J.D. at Columbia Law School in 1996 and then worked in appellate litigation with Wiley, Rein & Fielding in Washington, D.C. from 1997-1998. Merkel is the author, with the late Richard Uviller, of The Militia and the Right to Arms, Or, How the Second Amendment Fell Silent (Duke University Press, 2002). He taught American history at Oxford University from 2001-2003 and Comparative Introduction to American Law to foreign trained LL.M. students at Columbia Law School from 2003-2005. From 2005-2011, Merkel was an Associate Professor of Law at Washburn Law School in Topeka, Kansas, where he was named Professor of the Year by the graduating class in 2008. At Washburn, Merkel taught Constitutional Law I & II, Comparative Constitutional Law, Public International Law, and International Criminal Law and the Law of War. He received a doctorate in history from Oxford University in 2007.
Merkel has held visiting positions at the University of North Dakota School of Law in 2009 and at the University of South Carolina School of Law in 2011-12. In 2013 and 2014, Merkel taught The United States and the International Court of Justice in the Hague, Netherlands as part of the Charleston School of Law’s summer school consortium program administered by Stetson University School of Law. At the Charleston School of Law, Merkel continues to teach courses in Constitutional Law, International Law, Comparative Law, and Legal History. Merkel’s article “Jefferson’s Failed Anti-Slavery Proviso of 1784 and the Nascence of Free Soil Constitutionalism” was selected as the best submission in constitutional history by the Stanford/Yale Junior Faculty Forum in 2006. Merkel is in the process of revising his Oxford doctoral thesis “Race, Liberty, and Law: Thomas Jefferson and Slavery, 1770-1800” for publication as a book to be titled Ambiguous Beginnings: Thomas Jefferson, Slavery, and the Foundations of American Constitutionalism. Merkel has published numerous articles in journals including the Chicago-Kent Law Review, Connecticut Law Review, Lewis and Clark Law Review, Santa Clara Law Review, Seton Hall Law Review, Rutgers Law Review, and Law and History Review. His scholarship on the Second Amendment has been cited by many authors and jurists, including Justice Breyer in a dissenting opinion in McDonald v. City of Chicago. In 2013, following the successful defense of his dissertation “The Second Amendment and the Constitutional Right to Self-Defense,” Merkel was awarded a J.S.D. degree by Columbia University.
Merkel is a member of the District of Columbia, New York, and United States Supreme Court Bars.
Senior Fellow, Ave Maria School of Law and Host of the Four Boxes Diner Second Amendment Channel
Mark W. Smith is Visiting Fellow in Pharmaceutical Public Policy and Law in the Department of Pharmacology at the University of Oxford; Presidential Scholar and a Senior Fellow in Law and Public Policy at The King’s College; and Distinguished Scholar and Senior Fellow of Law and Public Policy at the Ave Maria School of Law.
He is a constitutional attorney and Host of the Four Boxes Diner YouTube channel—which provides scholarly and historical analyses of the Second Amendment. Mark is also a New York Times bestselling author.
Distinguished University Professor, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
University Professor Nelson Lund is the author of Rousseau’s Rejuvenation of Political Philosophy: A New Introduction. He has also written widely in the field of constitutional law, including articles on constitutional interpretation, federalism, separation of powers, the Second Amendment, the Commerce Clause, the Speech or Debate Clause, the Equal Protection Clause, and the Uniformity Clause. In addition, he has published articles in the fields of employment discrimination and civil rights, the legal regulation of medical ethics, and the application of economic analysis to legal institutions and legal ethics.
Professor Lund graduated from St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland, after which he received an MA in philosophy from the Catholic University of America and a PhD in political science from Harvard University. He left the faculty of the University of Chicago to attend its law school, where he served as executive editor of the University of Chicago Law Review and chapter chairman of the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies. After law school, he held positions at the United States Department of Justice in the Office of the Solicitor General and the Office of Legal Counsel. He also served as a law clerk to the Honorable Patrick E. Higginbotham of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and to the Honorable Sandra Day O'Connor of the United States Supreme Court. Following his clerkship with Justice O'Connor, Professor Lund served in the White House as associate counsel to the president from 1989 to 1992.
Since joining the faculty at George Mason University's Antonin Scalia Law School, Professor Lund has taught Constitutional Law, Legislation, Federal Election Law, Employment Discrimination, State and Local Government, and seminars on the Second Amendment and on a variety of topics in Jurisprudence.
Litigation Update: Koons v. Platkin
Peter A. Patterson
Koons v. Platkin is a challenge to certain provisions of New Jersey Bill A4769/S3214 –...
Litigation Update: Koons v. Platkin
Peter A. Patterson
Koons v. Platkin is a challenge to certain provisions of New Jersey Bill A4769/S3214 –...
Courthouse Steps Oral Argument: United States v. Rahimi
Mark W. Smith
United States v. Rahimi, set to be argued before the Supreme Court this fall, raises...
Courthouse Steps Oral Argument: United States v. Rahimi
Mark W. Smith
United States v. Rahimi, set to be argued before the Supreme Court this fall, raises...
Topics
The Second Amendment, From Bruen to Rahimi
On November 7, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in United States v....
Topics
A Response to Stephen Halbrook’s Response on Bruen
Stephen P. Halbrook is a giant in the field of Second Amendment studies, and I...
Text-and-History or Means-End Scrutiny? A Response to Professor Nelson Lund's Critique of Bruen
Stephen P. Halbrook
Federalist Society Review, Volume 24
Professor Nelson Lund’s “Bruen’s Preliminary Preservation of the Second Amendment,” recently published in the Federalist...
Special Session II: Second Amendment: Aftermath of Bruen; What's Next at the State Level?
Stephen P. Halbrook, Steven J. Menashi, Mark W. Smith, William G. Merkel
National Lawyers Convention 2022
In June 2022, the Supreme Court decided the much-anticipated case, New York State Rifle and...
Special Session II: Second Amendment: Aftermath of Bruen; What's Next at the State Level?
Stephen P. Halbrook, Steven J. Menashi, William G. Merkel, Mark W. Smith
National Lawyers Convention 2022
In June 2022, the Supreme Court decided the much-anticipated case, New York State Rifle and...
Bruen’s Preliminary Preservation of the Second Amendment
Nelson Lund
Federalist Society Review, Volume 23
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right...