Fmr. Chief Justice, North Carolina Supreme Court
Chief Justice Cheri Beasley has spent more than 20 years dedicated to the rule of law. She began her judicial career as a district court judge in Cumberland County, where she served for a decade before being elected to the North Carolina Court of Appeals in 2008. She served as an associate justice on the Supreme Court of North Carolina for seven years before being appointed by Governor Roy Cooper to lead the Supreme Court and North Carolina's third branch of government, the Judicial Branch. She is the first African-American woman in the Supreme Court’s 200-year history to serve as Chief Justice.
Chief Justice Beasley has spent her entire career advocating for courts that are independent, fair, and accessible, and that serve every person with dignity and respect. As Chief Justice, she is advocating for a court system that not only solves legal disputes, but also helps people better their lives. By engaging local judges, educators and law enforcement, she is helping to reform discipline in our schools and keeping kids out of our courtrooms. She is committed to expanding specialized treatment courts that better serve the needs of North Carolina’s children and families. She is also working to leverage the power of technology to make sure our courts are efficient and accessible.
She has lectured extensively to promote the administration of justice, the importance of an independent judiciary, and fair judicial selection. She is active in her community through leadership in her church, First Baptist of Raleigh, her support of hunger relief efforts, and her mentoring of students from elementary school to law school. She is a graduate of Douglass College of Rutgers University, the University of Tennessee College of Law, and Duke University School of Law where she obtained her LL.M. She and her husband, Curtis Owens, are the proud parents of twin sons, Thomas and Matthew.
Associate Justice, Supreme Court of North Carolina
Phil was born in Danville, Virginia on March 26, 1972, to Philip and Pat Berger. Phil is a 1990 graduate of Morehead High School in Eden, North Carolina. He graduated from UNC-Wilmington in 1994 with a B.A. in History, and earned his law degree from Wake Forest University School of Law in 1999.
Phil began his legal career in private practice in 1999. From 2001 through 2006, he joined his father and brother, Kevin, forming The Berger Law Firm. In 2006, Phil was elected District Attorney in the 17A Prosecutorial District and was re-elected in 2010.
While serving as District Attorney, Phil was the chair of Project SAFE Rockingham County. A collaboration with the US Attorney's Office and local law enforcement, Project SAFE implemented the “focused-deterrence” model for reducing violent crime among recidivists and gang members. In 2013-14, he served as President of the North Carolina Conference of District Attorneys. Phil represented the National District Attorneys Association in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as a Non-Governmental Observer to the United States v. Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, et al hearings.
From 2015-2016, Phil served as an Administrative Law Judge with the North Carolina Office of Administrative Hearings. He was elected to the North Carolina Court of Appeals in 2016. In 2020, Phil was elected to the Supreme Court of North Carolina.
Phil has a passion for helping young people. He serves as a volunteer assistant coach with the baseball team at Cedar Ridge High School. Phil previously coached football at the high school level, and he has also coached youth football with the Durham Firebirds and Greensboro Eagles. Phil was the founder and chair of Eden Youth Football, and he served as a board member and basketball coach with Bethany Community Middle School.
Phil is married to Jodie Church, a public school teacher. They have two children, Philip III and Will.
Associate Justice, North Carolina Supreme Court
Judge, North Carolina Court of Appeals
Lucy Inman, a judge on the North Carolina Court of Appeals, is a candidate for the North Carolina Supreme Court in 2020. Judge Inman was elected statewide to the Court of Appeals in 2014.
Judge Inman was raised in Raleigh by parents who taught her the value of hard work and respect for people of all races, faiths, and walks of life. She graduated from Sanderson High School and earned a degree in English from N.C. State University.
Judge Inman’s first career was as a newspaper reporter. While covering court proceedings, she was inspired to participate in the justice system. She then moved to Chapel Hill and earned her law degree from UNC School of Law in 1990. Her first job after law school was working as a law clerk for North Carolina Supreme Court Chief Justice Jim Exum.
Judge Inman went on to practice civil litigation for 18 years, first in Los Angeles and then back home in Raleigh. Her clients included small business owners, large corporations, famous individuals, and lesser known -- but no less important -- survivors of negligence, fraud, and sexual abuse.
In 2010, Judge Inman was appointed by Governor Beverly Perdue to serve as a special superior court judge. She served in that role for four years, presiding in hearings and jury trials across North Carolina. Since her election to the Court of Appeals, Judge Inman has authored over 400 appellate decisions in a wide variety of cases, including criminal, civil, and constitutional disputes. She has presided in thousands of other cases.
Judge Inman brings hard work and respect for all others to her personal and professional life every day. She hopes to bring these values, and equal justice for all, to the North Carolina Supreme Court.
Judge Inman and her husband Billy Warden live in Raleigh. They have two college-age children and a black lab rescue who keeps their nest from ever being empty.
Vice President of Marketing and Communications, John Locke Foundation
As Vice President of Marketing and Communications, Donna shares the foundation’s message of freedom, free markets, and limited government across media platforms. She co-hosts Carolina Journal Radio, a weekly syndicated radio show produced by JLF and heard on more than a dozen stations across North Carolina. Donna came to JLF in 2003 after freelance writing for Carolina Journal and contributing to projects for the North Carolina Education Alliance. Her career has been spent in marketing, public relations, and broadcasting, and includes time at UNC-TV and The Arizona Republic, the daily newspaper serving metropolitan Phoenix. Donna is a graduate of Arizona State University and is married to Rick Martinez. She and Rick co-host “You Don’t Say,” a daily radio talk show heard on NewsRadio 680 WPTF in the Triangle.
Chief Justice, North Carolina Supreme Court
Chief Justice Paul Newby was born in Asheboro and grew up in Jamestown, N.C. He received his B.A. degree in Public Policy Studies from Duke University and law degree from UNC-Chapel Hill School of Law.
Chief Justice Newby was first elected to the Supreme Court as an Associate Justice in 2004. He was elevated to the highest judicial office in North Carolina in the 2020 election. As Chief Justice, he is head of the Judicial Branch, a co-equal branch of state government with the Legislative and Executive branches. He is entrusted with leading the Judicial Branch and its 7,600 elected officials and employees.
He is an adjunct professor of law at Campbell University and has published a book on the North Carolina Constitution.
Chief Justice Newby’s legal experience includes private practice and corporate inhouse legal counsel. He also served almost 20 years as an Assistant United States Attorney, during which he played an integral role in conducting the undercover sting operation that recovered North Carolina’s original copy of the Bill of Rights, stolen in the aftermath of the Civil War.
Chief Justice Newby is an Eagle Scout and is the recipient of the Heroism Award (for rescuing nine people from a riptide), the God and Service Award, the Silver Beaver Award, and the Scouter of the Year Award. In 2012, he was designated a Distinguished Eagle Scout, a national honor that recognizes both his service to the Boy Scouts and his dedication to public service.
Chief Justice Newby has been married to Macon Tucker Newby since 1983, and they have four children. He is active in his local church, where he serves as a teacher and mentor to young professionals.
Associate Justice, Supreme Court of North Carolina
Tamara Patterson Barringer is the 101st Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of North Carolina.
Justice Barringer teaches Law and Ethics to Master of Accounting and Undergraduate Business students at the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, where she has served on the faculty for 15 years. Tamara also serves as the Director and Lead Faculty for the Master of Accounting Mentorship Program, a diversity, equity, and inclusion program, which she founded over a decade ago to introduce careers in accounting and business to first generation and under-represented minority undergraduate students.
Justice Barringer has also taught as an Adjunct Professor of Business Law at North Carolina State University and later designed and taught the first business law paralegal program curriculum at Meredith College.
Justice Barringer began her legal career in private practice in 1985 with Poyner and Spruill, being mentored closely by attorneys Nat Townsend, Curtis Twiddy, and Maria Lynch. She then founded the Barringer Sasser, LLP law firm in Cary in 1988 with her husband, Brent. As Managing Partner, she gained over 20 years’ experience representing entrepreneurs and small business clients in business and tax law, estate planning, and estate administration matters.
Justice Barringer served as a North Carolina Senator, representing District 17 in Southern Wake County from 2012 to 2018. She served as Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee and Chair of the Joint Legislative Committee for General Government and Information Technology Appropriations.
Justice Barringer’s lifelong mission for healthy children and families in North Carolina began when she and her husband, Brent, served as therapeutic foster parents for the Methodist Home for Children for over 10 years. Through her work in the General Assembly as Chair of the Permanency Innovation Initiative, partnering with the Dave Thomas Foundation and Wendy’s Wonderful Kids Program, 300 older North Carolina children, who had very little chance of being adopted, now have permanent, loving, and stable homes.
Justice Barringer’s life journey began on her family’s farm in Patterson Springs, Cleveland County, North Carolina, growing up with three younger sisters outside Shelby. After graduating from Crest High School in 1977, she became the first member of her family to ever graduate from college when she earned her Bachelor of Science in Business Administration with Highest Honors in 1981 from the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She earned her Juris Doctor with Honors from the UNC School of Law in 1985, after serving on the North Carolina Law Review and being inducted into the Order of the Coif.
Justice Barringer is married to her college sweetheart, Brent, and have three adopted children, Jessica, John Charles, and Emily, and two rescue dogs, Lilah and Baloo.
Fmr. Chief Justice, North Carolina Supreme Court
Chief Justice Cheri Beasley has spent more than 20 years dedicated to the rule of law. She began her judicial career as a district court judge in Cumberland County, where she served for a decade before being elected to the North Carolina Court of Appeals in 2008. She served as an associate justice on the Supreme Court of North Carolina for seven years before being appointed by Governor Roy Cooper to lead the Supreme Court and North Carolina's third branch of government, the Judicial Branch. She is the first African-American woman in the Supreme Court’s 200-year history to serve as Chief Justice.
Chief Justice Beasley has spent her entire career advocating for courts that are independent, fair, and accessible, and that serve every person with dignity and respect. As Chief Justice, she is advocating for a court system that not only solves legal disputes, but also helps people better their lives. By engaging local judges, educators and law enforcement, she is helping to reform discipline in our schools and keeping kids out of our courtrooms. She is committed to expanding specialized treatment courts that better serve the needs of North Carolina’s children and families. She is also working to leverage the power of technology to make sure our courts are efficient and accessible.
She has lectured extensively to promote the administration of justice, the importance of an independent judiciary, and fair judicial selection. She is active in her community through leadership in her church, First Baptist of Raleigh, her support of hunger relief efforts, and her mentoring of students from elementary school to law school. She is a graduate of Douglass College of Rutgers University, the University of Tennessee College of Law, and Duke University School of Law where she obtained her LL.M. She and her husband, Curtis Owens, are the proud parents of twin sons, Thomas and Matthew.
Associate Justice, Supreme Court of North Carolina
Phil was born in Danville, Virginia on March 26, 1972, to Philip and Pat Berger. Phil is a 1990 graduate of Morehead High School in Eden, North Carolina. He graduated from UNC-Wilmington in 1994 with a B.A. in History, and earned his law degree from Wake Forest University School of Law in 1999.
Phil began his legal career in private practice in 1999. From 2001 through 2006, he joined his father and brother, Kevin, forming The Berger Law Firm. In 2006, Phil was elected District Attorney in the 17A Prosecutorial District and was re-elected in 2010.
While serving as District Attorney, Phil was the chair of Project SAFE Rockingham County. A collaboration with the US Attorney's Office and local law enforcement, Project SAFE implemented the “focused-deterrence” model for reducing violent crime among recidivists and gang members. In 2013-14, he served as President of the North Carolina Conference of District Attorneys. Phil represented the National District Attorneys Association in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as a Non-Governmental Observer to the United States v. Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, et al hearings.
From 2015-2016, Phil served as an Administrative Law Judge with the North Carolina Office of Administrative Hearings. He was elected to the North Carolina Court of Appeals in 2016. In 2020, Phil was elected to the Supreme Court of North Carolina.
Phil has a passion for helping young people. He serves as a volunteer assistant coach with the baseball team at Cedar Ridge High School. Phil previously coached football at the high school level, and he has also coached youth football with the Durham Firebirds and Greensboro Eagles. Phil was the founder and chair of Eden Youth Football, and he served as a board member and basketball coach with Bethany Community Middle School.
Phil is married to Jodie Church, a public school teacher. They have two children, Philip III and Will.
Associate Justice, North Carolina Supreme Court
Judge, North Carolina Court of Appeals
Lucy Inman, a judge on the North Carolina Court of Appeals, is a candidate for the North Carolina Supreme Court in 2020. Judge Inman was elected statewide to the Court of Appeals in 2014.
Judge Inman was raised in Raleigh by parents who taught her the value of hard work and respect for people of all races, faiths, and walks of life. She graduated from Sanderson High School and earned a degree in English from N.C. State University.
Judge Inman’s first career was as a newspaper reporter. While covering court proceedings, she was inspired to participate in the justice system. She then moved to Chapel Hill and earned her law degree from UNC School of Law in 1990. Her first job after law school was working as a law clerk for North Carolina Supreme Court Chief Justice Jim Exum.
Judge Inman went on to practice civil litigation for 18 years, first in Los Angeles and then back home in Raleigh. Her clients included small business owners, large corporations, famous individuals, and lesser known -- but no less important -- survivors of negligence, fraud, and sexual abuse.
In 2010, Judge Inman was appointed by Governor Beverly Perdue to serve as a special superior court judge. She served in that role for four years, presiding in hearings and jury trials across North Carolina. Since her election to the Court of Appeals, Judge Inman has authored over 400 appellate decisions in a wide variety of cases, including criminal, civil, and constitutional disputes. She has presided in thousands of other cases.
Judge Inman brings hard work and respect for all others to her personal and professional life every day. She hopes to bring these values, and equal justice for all, to the North Carolina Supreme Court.
Judge Inman and her husband Billy Warden live in Raleigh. They have two college-age children and a black lab rescue who keeps their nest from ever being empty.
Vice President of Marketing and Communications, John Locke Foundation
As Vice President of Marketing and Communications, Donna shares the foundation’s message of freedom, free markets, and limited government across media platforms. She co-hosts Carolina Journal Radio, a weekly syndicated radio show produced by JLF and heard on more than a dozen stations across North Carolina. Donna came to JLF in 2003 after freelance writing for Carolina Journal and contributing to projects for the North Carolina Education Alliance. Her career has been spent in marketing, public relations, and broadcasting, and includes time at UNC-TV and The Arizona Republic, the daily newspaper serving metropolitan Phoenix. Donna is a graduate of Arizona State University and is married to Rick Martinez. She and Rick co-host “You Don’t Say,” a daily radio talk show heard on NewsRadio 680 WPTF in the Triangle.
Chief Justice, North Carolina Supreme Court
Chief Justice Paul Newby was born in Asheboro and grew up in Jamestown, N.C. He received his B.A. degree in Public Policy Studies from Duke University and law degree from UNC-Chapel Hill School of Law.
Chief Justice Newby was first elected to the Supreme Court as an Associate Justice in 2004. He was elevated to the highest judicial office in North Carolina in the 2020 election. As Chief Justice, he is head of the Judicial Branch, a co-equal branch of state government with the Legislative and Executive branches. He is entrusted with leading the Judicial Branch and its 7,600 elected officials and employees.
He is an adjunct professor of law at Campbell University and has published a book on the North Carolina Constitution.
Chief Justice Newby’s legal experience includes private practice and corporate inhouse legal counsel. He also served almost 20 years as an Assistant United States Attorney, during which he played an integral role in conducting the undercover sting operation that recovered North Carolina’s original copy of the Bill of Rights, stolen in the aftermath of the Civil War.
Chief Justice Newby is an Eagle Scout and is the recipient of the Heroism Award (for rescuing nine people from a riptide), the God and Service Award, the Silver Beaver Award, and the Scouter of the Year Award. In 2012, he was designated a Distinguished Eagle Scout, a national honor that recognizes both his service to the Boy Scouts and his dedication to public service.
Chief Justice Newby has been married to Macon Tucker Newby since 1983, and they have four children. He is active in his local church, where he serves as a teacher and mentor to young professionals.
Associate Justice, Supreme Court of North Carolina
Tamara Patterson Barringer is the 101st Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of North Carolina.
Justice Barringer teaches Law and Ethics to Master of Accounting and Undergraduate Business students at the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, where she has served on the faculty for 15 years. Tamara also serves as the Director and Lead Faculty for the Master of Accounting Mentorship Program, a diversity, equity, and inclusion program, which she founded over a decade ago to introduce careers in accounting and business to first generation and under-represented minority undergraduate students.
Justice Barringer has also taught as an Adjunct Professor of Business Law at North Carolina State University and later designed and taught the first business law paralegal program curriculum at Meredith College.
Justice Barringer began her legal career in private practice in 1985 with Poyner and Spruill, being mentored closely by attorneys Nat Townsend, Curtis Twiddy, and Maria Lynch. She then founded the Barringer Sasser, LLP law firm in Cary in 1988 with her husband, Brent. As Managing Partner, she gained over 20 years’ experience representing entrepreneurs and small business clients in business and tax law, estate planning, and estate administration matters.
Justice Barringer served as a North Carolina Senator, representing District 17 in Southern Wake County from 2012 to 2018. She served as Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee and Chair of the Joint Legislative Committee for General Government and Information Technology Appropriations.
Justice Barringer’s lifelong mission for healthy children and families in North Carolina began when she and her husband, Brent, served as therapeutic foster parents for the Methodist Home for Children for over 10 years. Through her work in the General Assembly as Chair of the Permanency Innovation Initiative, partnering with the Dave Thomas Foundation and Wendy’s Wonderful Kids Program, 300 older North Carolina children, who had very little chance of being adopted, now have permanent, loving, and stable homes.
Justice Barringer’s life journey began on her family’s farm in Patterson Springs, Cleveland County, North Carolina, growing up with three younger sisters outside Shelby. After graduating from Crest High School in 1977, she became the first member of her family to ever graduate from college when she earned her Bachelor of Science in Business Administration with Highest Honors in 1981 from the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She earned her Juris Doctor with Honors from the UNC School of Law in 1985, after serving on the North Carolina Law Review and being inducted into the Order of the Coif.
Justice Barringer is married to her college sweetheart, Brent, and have three adopted children, Jessica, John Charles, and Emily, and two rescue dogs, Lilah and Baloo.
Tazewell Taylor Professor of Law and William H. Cabell Research Professor, William & Mary Law School
Jonathan H. Adler joined the William & Mary law faculty as the Tazwell Taylor Professor of Law and William H. Cabell Research Professor in 2025. Prior to joining the faculty, he was the inaugural Johan Verheij Memorial Professor of Law and the founding Director of the Coleman P. Burke Center for Environmental Law at the Case Western Reserve University School of Law.
Professor Adler is the author or editor of seven books, including Climate Liberalism: Perspectives on Liberty, Property and Pollution (Palgrave, 2023), Marijuana Federalism: Uncle Sam and Mary Jane (Brookings Institution Press, 2020), Business and the Roberts Court (Oxford University Press, 2016) and Rebuilding the Ark: New Perspectives on Endangered Species Act Reform (AEI Press, 2011).
His articles have appeared in publications ranging from the Harvard Environmental Law Review and Yale Journal on Regulation to the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and Washington Post. He has testified before Congress a dozen times, and his work has been cited in the U.S. Supreme Court. A 2024 study identified Professor Adler as the seventh most cited legal academic in administrative and environmental law from 2019 to 2023.
Professor Adler is a contributing editor to Civitas Outlook and a regular contributor to the popular legal blog, The Volokh Conspiracy. A regular commentator on constitutional and regulatory issues, he has appeared on numerous radio and television programs, ranging from the PBS Newshour and National Public Radio to the Fox News Channel and Entertainment Tonight.
Professor Adler is a senior fellow at the Property & Environment Research Center in Bozeman, Montana. In 2018, Professor Adler was elected to membership in the American Law Institute and helped co-found the organization Checks and Balances. In 2024, Professor Adler was appointed a public member of the Administrative Conference of the United States.
Professor Adler clerked for the Honorable David B. Sentelle on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
Professor of Law, University of Minnesota Law School
Professor James W. Coleman is a scholar of energy law. He specializes in North American energy infrastructure, transport, and trade. He is also a nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute focused on energy policy.
Professor Coleman has testified before Congress on steps to speed up energy infrastructure permits. He also worked with a team of experts as part of Alberta's Royalty Review to revise the Canadian province's management of its vast oil and gas resources.
Before joining Minnesota, Professor Coleman taught at Southern Methodist University's Dedman School of Law, the University of Calgary’s law and business schools, and Harvard Law School. Earlier, he practiced environmental and appellate law at Sidley Austin in Washington, D.C., and clerked for the Honorable Steven M. Colloton of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.
Professor Coleman received two degrees from Harvard University—a J.D. (cum laude) and B.A. in biology (magna cum laude with highest honors in the field). As a result of his undergraduate thesis on butterfly genetics, which required fieldwork in Central Asia, a species of lycaenid butterfly was named after him—Agrodiaetus ripartii colemani.
Professor of Law and Executive Director, Law and Economics Center, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
Donald Kochan is Professor of Law and Executive Director of the Law & Economics Center (LEC). Professor Kochan is an elected member of the American Law Institute (ALI) and serves as an Adviser to ALI's Restatement of the Law Fourth, Property project. Professor Kochan is a Nonresident Scholar at the Center for the Constitution at Georgetown University Law Center, where he was a Visiting Scholar in residence during Fall 2018. Before joining the Antonin Scalia Law School faculty, he was the Parker S. Kennedy Professor in Law at Chapman University’s Dale E. Fowler School of Law from 2004 to 2020. From 2003 to 2004, Professor Kochan was an Olin Fellow at the University of Virginia School of Law. During 2002-2003, he was a Visiting Assistant Professor of Law at George Mason’s Scalia Law School.
Professor Kochan’s scholarship focuses on areas of property law, constitutional law, administrative law, local government law, natural resources and environmental law, and law & economics. He has published several books and more than 50 scholarly articles and essays in well-regarded law journals. His work has been cited in more than a dozen state and federal court opinions, in more than 75 briefs filed in state and federal courts including more than 25 filed in the U.S. Supreme Court, in dozens of books and treatises, and in more than 800 scholarly articles.
Professor Kochan received his JD from Cornell Law School, where he was a John M. Olin Scholar in Law and Economics and managing editor of the Cornell International Law Journal. During law school, he also served as editor and executive editor of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy symposium issues in 1997 and 1998. He received his BA from Western Michigan University, magna cum laude, with majors in both political science and philosophy, where he studied as the John W. Gill Medallion Scholar and was honored as the Presidential Scholar (awarded to the top graduate in the political science department).
After graduating from law school, Professor Kochan was a law clerk to The Honorable Richard F. Suhrheinrich of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Following his clerkship, Professor Kochan was an associate with the firm of Crowell & Moring LLP in Washington, D.C., where he specialized in natural resources & environmental law as well as tort, products, and consumer civil litigation & legislative affairs.
President and CEO, The Buckeye Institute
Robert Alt is the President and Chief Executive Officer of The Buckeye Institute where he has catalyzed exponential growth since he took the organization’s helm in 2012. He has since founded Buckeye’s renowned Economic Research Center and established its impactful Legal Center.
Alt is a distinguished scholar and attorney with particular expertise in legal policy, criminal justice, national security, and constitutional law. He previously worked for former U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese III, regularly provides commentary on television and radio programs, and his writings have appeared in countless outlets.
In 2004, Alt spent five months in Iraq as an embedded war correspondent.
Alt has testified before Congress multiple times—including at the confirmation hearings for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan—the Federal Election Commission regarding matters of constitutional and administrative law, and numerous state legislatures.
Alt serves as an officer on the boards of The Philadelphia Society and the Federalist Society’s Columbus Lawyers Chapter. He taught national security law, criminal law, and legislation at Case Western Reserve University School of Law, as well as constitutional law and political parties and interest groups at Ashland University.
Alt earned his Doctor of Law degree from The University of Chicago Law School, where he was Symposium Editor and the winner of the Mulroy Prize for Excellence in Appellate Advocacy as well as research assistant to Professor Richard Epstein. Following law school, he clerked for Judge Alice Batchelder on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Alt graduated with his Bachelor of Arts in philosophy and political science magna cum laude from Azusa Pacific University where he also won the Outstanding Senior Award in Political Science.
Alt is an accomplished high-altitude alpinist and endurance athlete who has successfully climbed 6.75 of the famed Seven Summits of the World including Mount Everest. He is the creator of PROFOUND CLIMBING™ and a frequent speaker across the country and around the world on legal and public policy topics as well as effective leadership, management, decision-making, and teamwork in contexts ranging from extraordinary life/death situations to ordinary professional/business settings.
President and CEO, The Buckeye Institute
Robert Alt is the President and Chief Executive Officer of The Buckeye Institute where he has catalyzed exponential growth since he took the organization’s helm in 2012. He has since founded Buckeye’s renowned Economic Research Center and established its impactful Legal Center.
Alt is a distinguished scholar and attorney with particular expertise in legal policy, criminal justice, national security, and constitutional law. He previously worked for former U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese III, regularly provides commentary on television and radio programs, and his writings have appeared in countless outlets.
In 2004, Alt spent five months in Iraq as an embedded war correspondent.
Alt has testified before Congress multiple times—including at the confirmation hearings for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan—the Federal Election Commission regarding matters of constitutional and administrative law, and numerous state legislatures.
Alt serves as an officer on the boards of The Philadelphia Society and the Federalist Society’s Columbus Lawyers Chapter. He taught national security law, criminal law, and legislation at Case Western Reserve University School of Law, as well as constitutional law and political parties and interest groups at Ashland University.
Alt earned his Doctor of Law degree from The University of Chicago Law School, where he was Symposium Editor and the winner of the Mulroy Prize for Excellence in Appellate Advocacy as well as research assistant to Professor Richard Epstein. Following law school, he clerked for Judge Alice Batchelder on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Alt graduated with his Bachelor of Arts in philosophy and political science magna cum laude from Azusa Pacific University where he also won the Outstanding Senior Award in Political Science.
Alt is an accomplished high-altitude alpinist and endurance athlete who has successfully climbed 6.75 of the famed Seven Summits of the World including Mount Everest. He is the creator of PROFOUND CLIMBING™ and a frequent speaker across the country and around the world on legal and public policy topics as well as effective leadership, management, decision-making, and teamwork in contexts ranging from extraordinary life/death situations to ordinary professional/business settings.
Sheila M. McDevitt Professor of Law and Faculty Director of the Election Law Center, Florida State University College of Law
Professor Morley joined FSU Law in 2018, and teaches and writes in the areas of election law, constitutional law, remedies, and the federal courts. He is best known for his work on election emergencies and post-election litigation, nationwide and other defendant-oriented injunctions, the jurisdiction of the federal courts and their equitable powers more generally. He has testified before congressional committees, made presentations to election officials for the U.S. Election Assistance Commission and participated in bipartisan blue-ribbon groups to develop election reforms. The governor of Florida also appointed Professor Morley to the Criminal Punishment Code Task Force, to propose potential revisions to the legislature.
The U.S. Supreme Court has cited several of his articles, and he was counsel of record for the successful Petitioner in a landmark campaign finance case. Professor Morley has appeared on C-SPAN, Court TV, Fox News and numerous local news programs, and has been quoted in the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Roll Call, Politico, U.S. News and World Report, and a wide range of other national publications. His work has been published in many of the nation’s top law reviews, including the Georgetown Law Journal, Northwestern University Law Review, Boston University Law Review and Emory Law Journal.
Before joining FSU Law, Professor Morley was a Climenko Fellow and Lecturer in Law at Harvard Law School. Prior to his experience in academia, he served in government as special assistant to the General Counsel of the Army at the Pentagon, as well as a law clerk for Judge Gerald B. Tjoflat of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. During his tenure with the Army General Counsel’s office, he was awarded the Meritorious Civilian Service Award and the Army Staff Lapel Pin. He also worked as an associate at Williams & Connolly LLP and the Supreme Court & Appellate group of Winston & Strawn, LLP, both in Washington, D.C.
Professor Morley earned his J.D. from Yale Law School in 2003, where he was a senior editor on the Yale Law Journal; served on the moot court board; and received the Thurman Arnold Prize for Best Oralist in the Morris Tyler Moot Court of Appeals.
David Boies Professor of Law, Yale Law School
Alida graduated from Duke University with a degree in history and earned her J.D. from the Georgetown University Law Center.
Professor of Law, Widener University Commonwealth Law School
Vice President and Counsel for Privacy and Cyber Policy, CrowdStrike
Drew Bagley, CIPP/E, CrowdStrike Vice President and Counsel for Privacy and Cyber Policy, is responsible for leading CrowdStrike’s data protection initiatives, privacy strategy and global policy engagement. He serves on the Europol Advisory Group on Internet Security and the U.S. Department of State’s International Telecommunications Advisory Committee. Recently, Drew helped lead the ICANN Competition, Consumer Choice, and Consumer Trust Review Team, which assessed the expansion of the Internet’s Domain Name System. Prior to joining CrowdStrike, Drew served in the Office of the General Counsel at the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He is a member of the New York State Bar and a former German Chancellor Fellow. Drew has taught at the University of Maryland, University of Leipzig, and University of Florida and holds degrees from the University of Miami (JD) and the University of Florida (MA, BS, and BA).
Head of AI Policy, Abundance Institute
Neil Chilson is the Head of AI Policy at the Abundance Institute. Prior to this position, he served as a Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Growth and Opportunity. Chilson is a lawyer, computer scientist, and author of the book “Getting Out of Control: Emergent Leadership in a Complex World.”
Chilson was previously the senior research fellow for Technology and Innovation at Stand Together, where he guided efforts to understand and promote the legal and cultural paradigms that best enable people to discover, innovate, and improve all our lives.
Before Stand Together, Chilson was the Chief Technologist at the Federal Trade Commission, where he focused on the economics of privacy and blockchain-related issues. Previously, he was an attorney advisor to Acting FTC Chairman Maureen K. Ohlhausen. In both roles he advised Chairman Ohlhausen and worked with staff on nearly every major technology-related case, report, workshop, or other FTC proceeding since January 2014. Neil joined the FTC from telecom firm Wilkinson Barker Knauer. Neil is frequently quoted by the press and his work has appeared in numerous news outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, USAToday, and Newsweek. Neil has a J.D. from The George Washington Law School, a M.S. in computer science from University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and a B.S. in computer science from Harding University.
Faculty Fellow, Center for Law, Science & Innovation, Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law, Arizona State University
Dr. Klein is a Faculty Fellow at the Center for Law, Science & Innovation at the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law at Arizona State University. He is also Principal at Roger D. Klein, MD JD Consulting and Klein & Klein Co., L.P.A. He was formerly Chief Medical Officer at OmniSeq, an oncology focused genomic profiling company that was recently acquired by LabCorp. Previously, Roger was the Medical Director at the Molecular Oncology division at the Cleveland Clinic. He was also the Chair of the Professional Relations Committee at the Association for Molecular Pathology. Prior to joining the Cleveland Clinic, he served as Medical Director of Molecular Oncology at the BloodCenter of Wisconsin where he led the center’s Diagnostic Laboratories’ initiative focused on DNA- and RNA-based testing for evaluation of cancer patients.
Dr. Klein has been an advisor to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). He has participated in and assumed leadership roles in many professional society committees and corporate advisory boards and is a policy advisor to the Heartland Institute.
Dr. Klein is licensed to practice medicine in Ohio, Florida, and Wisconsin. Additionally, he is licensed to practice law in the District of Columbia and Ohio. Roger obtained his Molecular Genetic Pathology certification at Mayo Medical School following completion of his M.D. Yale University School of Medicine. He obtained his J.D. from Yale Law School.
North Carolina Supreme Court Candidate Forum
Cheri Beasley, Phil Berger, Mark Davis, Lucy Inman, Donna Martinez, Paul Newby, Tamara Patterson Barringer
Triangle and Cape Fear Lawyers Chapters
On September 10, 2020, The Federalist Society's Triangle and Cape Fear Lawyers Chapters hosted a...
North Carolina Supreme Court Candidate Forum
Cheri Beasley, Phil Berger, Mark Davis, Lucy Inman, Donna Martinez, Paul Newby, Tamara Patterson Barringer
Triangle and Cape Fear Lawyers Chapters
On September 10, 2020, The Federalist Society's Triangle and Cape Fear Lawyers Chapters hosted a...
Deep Dive Episode 128 – Can States Trump Interstate Commerce?
Jonathan H. Adler, James W. Coleman, Donald J. Kochan
A Regulatory Transparency Project Teleforum
Asserting their sovereign interests or “states' rights,” many states are increasingly attempting to inject state...
Criminal Law Update: A Survey of State Law Changes in 2019
Robert Alt
Criminal Justice Update
Note from the Editor: The Federalist Society takes no positions on particular legal and public...
Criminal Law Update: A Survey of State Law Changes in 2019
Robert Alt
Criminal Justice Update
Note from the Editor: The Federalist Society takes no positions on particular legal and public...
Chiafalo v. Washington: The Decision [SCOTUSbrief]
Michael T. Morley
Short video featuring Michael Morley
In the wake of the 2016 presidential election, members of the electoral college in Washington...
What are the Limits of Federal Power During an Emergency? [POLICYbrief]
Keith E. Whittington
Short video featuring Keith Whittington
Does the Constitution limit the power of the federal government during emergencies just as it...
California's AB-5 Law: Who can be considered an "independent contractor"?
Alida Kass
Regulatory Transparency Project's Fourth Branch Video
In 2019, California passed AB-5, a law that mandates that most workers should be considered...
The National Popular Vote v. the Electoral College [POLICYbrief]
Michael R. Dimino
Short video featuring Michael Dimino
What is the National Popular Vote Compact and how would it affect the election of...
Deep Dive Episode 117 – How to Approach Data Collection and Breaches in the Age of COVID-19
Drew Bagley, Neil Chilson, Roger D. Klein
Regulatory Transparency Project Teleforum
In an effort to combat the spread of COVID-19 and contain its impact, nations across...