President, JCN
Carrie Campbell Severino is the president of the JCN, and co-author with Mollie Hemingway of the bestselling book Justice on Trial: The Kavanaugh Confirmation and the Future of the Court. As a go-to expert on the confirmation process, Mrs. Severino has been extensively quoted in the media. She regularly appears on television, including FOX, CNN, MSNBC, C-SPAN, and ABC’s This Week.
Severino writes and speaks on a wide range of judicial issues, including the constitutional limits on government, the federal nomination process, and state judicial selection. She has testified before Congress on constitutional questions and briefed Senators on judicial nominations, and regularly files briefs in high-profile Supreme Court cases. She was a law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and to Judge David B. Sentelle of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, and is a graduate of Harvard Law School (J.D.), Duke University (B.A., Biology), and Michigan State University (M.A., Linguistics).
Earl Warren Professor of Public Law (Emeritus), UC Berkeley School of Law
Jesse Choper served as law clerk to Chief Justice Earl Warren of the U.S. Supreme Court following graduation from law school. He taught at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania from 1957 to 1960, and at the University of Minnesota Law School from 1961 to 1965. He joined the Berkeley Law faculty in 1965. Choper has been a visiting professor at Harvard Law School, Fordham Law School, University of Milan, Free University in Amsterdam, Autonoma University in Barcelona, University of New South Wales in Sydney, University of Lucerne in Switzerland, and Catholic University of Portugal in Lisbon and Porto. He served as Berkeley Law’s dean from 1982 to 1992.
From 1979 to 1998, Choper was one of the three major lecturers at U.S. Law Week’s Annual Constitutional Law Conference in Washington, D.C. He has delivered 20 titled lectures at major universities throughout the country, including the Cooley Lectures at Michigan, the Stevens Lecture at Cornell, the Baum Lecture at Illinois, and the Lockhart Lecture at Minnesota. He has served on the executive committee of the Association of American Law Schools, and on the executive council of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (of which he was vice president for more than ten years). He was national president of the Order of the Coif and is a member of the American Law Institute. In 1998 he received the UC Berkeley Distinguished Teaching Award and the Rutter Award for Teaching Distinction at Berkeley Law in 2006. In 2005 the Berkeley Law Alumni Association presented Choper with the Faculty Lifetime Achievement Award and the University of Pennsylvania Law School gave him the James Wilson Award, its highest award for alumni.
Choper’s major publications include the books, Judicial Review and the National Political Process: A Functional Reconsideration of the Role of the Supreme Court, which received the Order of the Coif Triennial Book Award in 1982, and Securing Religious Liberty: Principles for Judicial Interpretation of the Religion Clauses. His recent publications include the thirteenth edition of his Constitutional Law casebooks; the eighth edition of his Corporations casebook; the second edition of The Supreme Court and Its Justices; “The Political Question Doctrine: Suggested Criteria,” in Duke Law Journal (2005); “Wartime Process: A Dialogue on Congressional Power to Remove Issues From the Federal Courts,” in California Law Review (2007) (co-author); and “Who’s Afraid of the Eleventh Amendment? The Limited Impact of the Court’s Sovereign Immunity Rulings,” in Columbia Law Review (2006) (co-author).
Emanuel S. Heller Professor of Law, University of California at Berkeley; Senior Research Fellow, School of Civic Leadership, Civitas Institute, University of Texas at Austin; Nonresident Senior Fellow, American Enterprise Institute
John Yoo is the Emanuel Heller Professor of Law. He is also Distinguished Visiting Scholar, School of Civic Leadership and Senior Research Fellow, Civitas Institute, at the University of Texas at Austin. He is also a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
His most recent book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Supreme Court, co-authored with Robert Delahunty, was published in 2023. Professor Yoo’s other books include Defender-in-Chief: Trump’s Fight for Presidential Power; Striking Power: How Cyber, Robots, and Space Weapons Change the Rules for War, Point of Attack: Preventive War, International Law, and Global Welfare, and Crisis and Command: A History of Executive Power from George Washington to George Bush.
Professor Yoo has published more than 100 articles in academic journals on subjects including national security, constitutional law, international law, and the Supreme Court. He also regularly contributes to the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and National Review, among others.
Professor Yoo has served in all three branches of government. He was an official in the U.S. Department of Justice, where he worked on national security and terrorism issues after the 9/11 attacks. He served as general counsel of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. He has been a law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and federal appeals Judge Laurence Silberman. He has been a visiting professor at Seoul National University in South Korea, the Interdisciplinary Center in Israel, Keio University in Japan, Trento University in Italy, the University of Chicago, and the Free University of Amsterdam.
Professor Yoo supervises the Public Law and Policy Program and the California Constitution Center. He also serves on the boards of the Pacific Legal Foundation, the Federalist Society’s Separation of Powers and Federalism Division, the Universidad Cientifica del Sur Law School, and the Asia-Pacific Law Institute at Seoul National University. He is a winner of the Federalist Society’s Paul Bator award and been the Edwin Meese III Originalism Lecturer at the Heritage Foundation.
Professor Yoo graduated from Yale Law School and summa cum laude from Harvard College.
Senior Fellow and Director of Constitutional Studies, Manhattan Institute
Ilya Shapiro is a senior fellow and director of constitutional studies at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal. Previously he was executive director and senior lecturer at the Georgetown Center for the Constitution, and before that a vice president of the Cato Institute.
Shapiro is the author of Lawless: The Miseducation of America’s Elites (2025) and Supreme Disorder: Judicial Nominations and the Politics of America’s Highest Court (2020), coauthor of Religious Liberties for Corporations? (2014), and editor of 11 volumes of the Cato Supreme Court Review (2008-18). He has contributed to a variety of academic, popular, and professional publications, including the Wall Street Journal, Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, National Review, and Newsweek. He also regularly provides commentary for various media outlets, writes the Shapiro’s Gavel newsletter on Substack, and once appeared on the Colbert Report.
Shapiro has testified many times before Congress and state legislatures and has filed more than 500 amicus curiae “friend of the court” briefs in the Supreme Court. He lectures regularly on behalf of the Federalist Society, is a member of the board of fellows of the Jewish Policy Center, was an inaugural Washington Fellow at the National Review Institute, and has been an adjunct law professor at the George Washington University and University of Mississippi. He is also the chairman of the board of advisers of the Mississippi Justice Institute, a barrister in the Edward Coke Appellate Inn of Court, and a former member of the Virginia Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.
Earlier in his career, Shapiro was a special assistant/adviser to the Multi-National Force in Iraq on rule-of-law issues and practiced at Patton Boggs and Cleary Gottlieb. Before entering private practice, he clerked for Judge E. Grady Jolly of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. He holds an AB from Princeton University, an MSc from the London School of Economics, and a JD from the University of Chicago Law School.
Judge, United States District Court, Western District of Oklahoma
Patrick Wyrick serves as a United States District Court Judge for the Western District of Oklahoma. He was nominated for that position by the President, and assumed duty on April 12, 2019. Before being appointed a federal judge, Wyrick served as Vice Chief Justice of the Oklahoma Supreme Court. Prior to his appointment to the Oklahoma Supreme Court, Wyrick served six years as Oklahoma's Solicitor General.
Solicitor General of Oklahoma
Mithun Mansinghani serves as Solicitor General for the State of Oklahoma. He was appointed by Attorney General Mike Hunter in 2017 after serving for the prior two years as Deputy Solicitor General. As Solicitor General, Mr. Mansinghani leads litigation on behalf of the State in appeals, constitutional matters, and relations with the federal government and other states. This includes representing the State in cases before the Oklahoma Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court.
Prior to joining the Oklahoma Attorney General's Office, Mr. Mansinghani was a lawyer for Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher in Washington, D.C., specializing in appeals and administrative law cases. Mr. Mansinghani also served as a law clerk to the Honorable Jerry E. Smith on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. He received his bachelor's degree magna cum laude in both political science and policy studies from Rice University and his law degree with honors from Harvard Law School, where he served as editor of the Harvard Law Review.
Associate, Williams and Connolly
James McDonald is an Associate at Williams and Connolly LLP.
Mr. McDonald also serves as a visiting professor at the University of Tulsa School of Law, where he has taught classes in constitutional law, foreign relations law, the federal court system, and the Supreme Court.
During the 2009 Supreme Court term, Mr. McDonald served as a law clerk for Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., Supreme Court of the United States. Prior to that, Mr. McDonald served as Deputy Associate Counsel, Office of the White House Counsel, and in 2007-2008, he served as a law clerk for Judge Jeffrey S. Sutton, United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.
Mr. McDonald earned his A.B., Cum Laude, in economics, from Harvard University in 2004 and his J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law in 2007. While at the University of Virginia School of Law, he was the Articles Development Editor for the Virginia Law Review.
Senior Fellow and Director of Constitutional Studies, Manhattan Institute
Ilya Shapiro is a senior fellow and director of constitutional studies at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal. Previously he was executive director and senior lecturer at the Georgetown Center for the Constitution, and before that a vice president of the Cato Institute.
Shapiro is the author of Lawless: The Miseducation of America’s Elites (2025) and Supreme Disorder: Judicial Nominations and the Politics of America’s Highest Court (2020), coauthor of Religious Liberties for Corporations? (2014), and editor of 11 volumes of the Cato Supreme Court Review (2008-18). He has contributed to a variety of academic, popular, and professional publications, including the Wall Street Journal, Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, National Review, and Newsweek. He also regularly provides commentary for various media outlets, writes the Shapiro’s Gavel newsletter on Substack, and once appeared on the Colbert Report.
Shapiro has testified many times before Congress and state legislatures and has filed more than 500 amicus curiae “friend of the court” briefs in the Supreme Court. He lectures regularly on behalf of the Federalist Society, is a member of the board of fellows of the Jewish Policy Center, was an inaugural Washington Fellow at the National Review Institute, and has been an adjunct law professor at the George Washington University and University of Mississippi. He is also the chairman of the board of advisers of the Mississippi Justice Institute, a barrister in the Edward Coke Appellate Inn of Court, and a former member of the Virginia Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.
Earlier in his career, Shapiro was a special assistant/adviser to the Multi-National Force in Iraq on rule-of-law issues and practiced at Patton Boggs and Cleary Gottlieb. Before entering private practice, he clerked for Judge E. Grady Jolly of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. He holds an AB from Princeton University, an MSc from the London School of Economics, and a JD from the University of Chicago Law School.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit
Judge Katsas was appointed to the D.C. Circuit in December 2017. He graduated from Princeton University and Harvard Law School, where he was an executive editor on the Harvard Law Review. Between 1989 and 1992, he served as a law clerk to Judge Edward Becker on the Third Circuit, to then-Judge Clarence Thomas on the D.C. Circuit, and to Justice Thomas on the Supreme Court. Between 1992 and 2001, he was an associate and then partner in the Washington office of Jones Day, where he specialized in appellate and complex civil litigation. Between 2001 and 2009, he served in many senior positions in the Department of Justice, including as Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division and as Acting Associate Attorney General. In 2009, he returned to Jones Day. From January to December 2017, he served as Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy Counsel to the President.
Before joining the bench, Judge Katsas argued more than 75 appeals, including three cases in the Supreme Court, 13 cases in the D.C. Circuit, and cases in every other federal court of appeals. By appointment of the Chief Justice, he served on the Advisory Committee on Appellate Rules from 2013 to 2017. In 2016, he was elected to membership in the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers.
Dr. John Eastman is the former Henry Salvatori Professor of Law & Community Service and former Dean at Chapman University's Dale E. Fowler School of Law, where he had been a member of the faculty since 1999, specializing in Constitutional Law, Legal History, and Property. He is a founding director of the Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence, a public interest law firm affiliated with the Claremont Institute that he founded in 1999. He has a Ph.D. in Government from the Claremont Graduate School and a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School, and a B.A. in Politics and Economics from the University of Dallas. He serves as the Chairman of the Board of the National Organization for Marriage.
Prior to joining the Chapman law faculty, Dr. Eastman served as a law clerk to the Honorable Clarence Thomas, Associate Justice, Supreme Court of the United States, and to the Honorable J. Michael Luttig, Judge, United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and practiced law with the national law firm of Kirkland & Ellis. Dr. Eastman has also represented numerous clients in important constitutional law matters and has argued before the Supreme Court. On behalf of the Claremont Institute Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence, he has participated as amicus curiae before the Supreme Court of the United States, U.S. Courts of Appeals, and State Supreme Courts in more than one hundred cases of constitutional significance, including Boy Scouts of America v. Dale, Zelman v. Simmons-Harris (the school vouchers case), Kelo v. New London, Ct. (eminent domain), and Van Orden v. Perry (the 10 Commandments case). He has also appeared as an expert legal commentator on numerous television and radio programs, including C-SPAN, Fox News, PBS, NewsHour, and The O'Reilly Factor.
Associate Professor, Northern Illinois University
Evan Bernick joined the NIU Law faculty in 2021. He teaches courses in constitutional law, criminal law, criminal procedure, administrative law and legislation.
From 2020 to 2021, Professor Bernick was a visiting professor at the Georgetown University Law Center and the executive director of the Georgetown Center for the Constitution. Before that, he served as a clerk to Judge Diane S. Sykes of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. From April 2017 to April 2019, he was a visiting lecturer at Georgetown and a resident fellow of the Center for the Constitution.
His scholarship covers a range of topics, from constitutional law, to philosophy of law, to social movements, to law enforcement. He has published with the Georgetown Law Journal, the Notre Dame Law Review, the William and Mary Law Review and the George Mason Law Review, among other journals. His book, The Original Meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment: Its Letter and Spirit (2021), with Randy E. Barnett, was published by Harvard University Press under its Belknap imprint "for books of long-lasting importance, superior in scholarship and physical production, chosen whether or not they might be profitable."
Professor Bernick received his bachelor's degree in 2008 from the University of Chicago, where he studied philosophy and graduated with honors. He received his juris doctorate in 2011 from the University of Chicago Law School.
Managing Director, Lexpat Global Services
Adam R. Pearlman is the Founder and Managing Director of Lexpat Global Services, an international law and consulting services firm specializing in security, defense, investigations, compliance, and training. A Special Advisor to and member of the Executive Committee of the Federalist Society’s International and National Security Law Practice Group, he is National Security Law expert and a proven senior leader with more than fifteen years of experience across the U.S. Departments of Justice, Defense, and State, in the White House, and with the U.S. Federal Judiciary.
Most recently, he served as the Senior Advisor for Legal Policy in the State Department’s Bureau of Counterterrorism, where he counseled senior officials on matters covering the entire spectrum of programs and operations to counter terrorism and violent extremism. While participating in sensitive diplomatic engagements and helping to coordinate military operations, he also advised in the development of sanctions policy and initiatives to build legal and operational capacity in partner nations. Mr. Pearlman also managed the Bureau’s participation in federal litigation and led U.S. delegations in multilateral forums concerning criminal justice and rule of law.
A former Associate Deputy General Counsel of the Department of Defense, Mr. Pearlman was agency counsel for complex civil and criminal national security matters in federal and military courts, and led the Supreme Court and appellate unit of the team dedicated to litigating classified counterterrorism cases. His earlier service in the Department of Justice spanned four litigating divisions and the Office of the Deputy Attorney General. His diverse experience included reviewing complex international transactions and mergers, and advising on immigration removal proceedings, human rights abuses, and terrorist financing investigations. Mr. Pearlman also served with distinction in Iraq as an early advisor to the Iraqi High Tribunal’s prosecution of Saddam Hussein. He was a law clerk for The Honorable Royce C. Lamberth, and during law school interned in the White House Counsel’s Office.
Mr. Pearlman is a Term Member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a Visiting Fellow at the National Security Institute at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School, a member of the American Bar Association’s Africa Law Initiative Council, and a member of the Center for Strategic & International Studies’ Project on Nuclear Issues. He is a former National Security Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, vice chairman of the ABA Section of International Law’s committees on national security, and aerospace and defense, and also previously served as a liaison to the Board of Directors of the ABA’s Rule of Law Initiative. He has been co-editor of the U.S. Intelligence Community Law Sourcebook since 2011 and has published articles in the Harvard National Security Journal, Stanford Law & Policy Review, and Intelligence & National Security.
Mr. Pearlman earned his B.A., with honors, from UCLA, and his J.D., with honors, from The George Washington University Law School, where he was a member of the International Law Review. He also earned a Master of Science of Strategic Intelligence degree from the National Intelligence University, where he was the inaugural recipient of the Kornblum Award for national security law and ethics. Mr. Pearlman speaks and reads Portuguese at the intermediate level and holds certificates in international human rights law from the University of Oxford and in U.S. and international anti-corruption law from American University’s Washington College of Law. He is admitted to the State Bars of California and Virginia, as well as to the Bar of the United States Supreme Court.
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