Robert E. Scott Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus, University of Virginia School of Law; Alice McKean Young Regents Chair in Law Emeritus, University of Texas
Douglas Laycock is perhaps the nation’s leading authority on the law of religious liberty and also on the law of remedies. He has taught and written about these topics for more than four decades at the University of Chicago, the University of Texas, the University of Michigan and the University of Virginia. He retired from teaching at UVA Law School in May 2023.
Laycock has testified frequently before Congress and has argued many cases in the courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, where he has served as lead counsel in six cases and has also filed influential amicus briefs. He is the author (co-author in the most recent edition) of the leading casebook Modern American Remedies, the award-winning monograph The Death of the Irreparable Injury Rule and many articles in leading law reviews. He co-edited a collection of essays, Same-Sex Marriage and Religious Liberty.
His many writings on religious liberty have been republished in a five-volume collection:
Laycock resigned from the council and as first vice president of the American Law Institute to become co-reporter for the Restatement (Third) of Torts: Remedies. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He earned his B.A. from Michigan State University and his J.D. from the University of Chicago.
Senior Counsel, First Liberty Institute
Jordan Lorence is Senior Counsel in FLI’s Washington, D.C. office, where he represents First Liberty in strategic efforts promoting religious liberty, and works on important First Amendment projects and litigation, including those at the U.S. Supreme Court.
Lorence has a long career of litigating religious liberty cases since 1984. He has worked for many public interest law firms, including Alliance Defending Freedom, Home School Legal Defense Association, the North Star Legal Center and Concerned Women for America.
He has worked on important religious liberty cases. Lorence worked on school choice cases at the Supreme Court, such as Witters v. Washington Department of Services for the Blind (1986), and Trinity Lutheran (2016), which laid the foundation for First Liberty’s crucial win in Carson v. Makin (2022), requiring Maine to include religious schools in its school choice program.
Lorence argued before the U.S. Supreme Court in Regents of the University of Wisconsin v. Southworth (2000). He represented prolife Christian law students from the University of Wisconsin Law School who objected to the University’s requirement that they pay a mandatory student fee that funded the advocacy of student pro-abortion groups. Other Supreme Court cases Lorence has worked on include NIFLA v. Becerra (2018), protecting prolife pregnancy centers from a California statute requiring them to post signs explaining how pregnant women could obtain state-funded abortions; Masterpiece Cakeshop (2017), involving a Christian cake artist sued by the State of Colorado for declining to design a case celebrating the wedding of a same-sex couple and other cases such as Christian Legal Society v. Martinez (2012), Rosenberger v. University of Virginia (1995), Hurley v. GLIB (1995) and Lamb’s Chapel v. Center Moriches Center Moriches School District (1993).
Churches and other religious groups in New York City obtained the right to rent vacant public schools on weekends to conduct worship services after Lorence’s tenacious 20 years of litigation in Bronx Household of Faith. Lorence won protection for churches facing eviction from discriminatory zoning ordinances in Minnesota in Cornerstone Bible Church v. City of Hastings, Minnesota (1991). He also argued at the New Mexico Supreme Court one of the first cases in the nation defending a Christian wedding photographer charged by the State of New Mexico with discrimination for declining to create photos celebrating the commitment ceremony of a lesbian couple in Elane Photography v. Willock (2013).
Lorence defended home schooling families from intrusive school officials during his time working at Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) in the 1980s and 1990s. HSLDA also tasked Lorence with establishing a sister organization in Canada to protect home schooling families there. He traveled extensively in Canada from British Columbia to Prince Edward Island speaking to families how they could protect their right to home school under relevant Canadian law.
Lorence earned his undergraduate degree in journalism from Stanford University and his law degree from the University of Minnesota, his home state. Lorence was born and raised in Minnesota, where he worked one summer building Mighty Dump trucks at Tonka Toys in Mound, Minnesota. For two years immediately after he graduated from law school, Lorence served as the head administrator for a Minnesota Senate committee.
He speaks extensively on First Amendment and other legal issues. Lorence has spoken at least 75 law schools and many legal conferences. Prominent publications such as the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post and others have printed his opinion pieces on key legal issues involving religious liberty and freedom of speech. He has appeared on such media outlets as Fox News, CNN, National Public Radio, NBC’s Today Show, BBC radio and many others.
Lorence and his wife Marilyn have been married 40 years. They live in the Washington, D.C. area where they raised their seven children.
President, Becket Fund for Religious Liberty; Professor of Law and Co-Director of the Center for Religious Liberty, Catholic University; Visiting Professor, Harvard Law School
Mark joined the Becket team in 2011 and splits his time as Associate Professor at The Catholic University of America, Columbus School of Law, and as Visiting Professor at Harvard Law School. Mark teaches constitutional law, religious liberty, torts, and evidence. He has been voted Teacher of the Year three years in a row by the Law School’s Student Bar Association.
Mark has broad experience litigating First Amendment religious exercise and free speech cases. He has represented the winning parties in a variety of Supreme Court First Amendment cases including Hobby Lobby, Little Sisters, Wheaton College, and Holt. In January 2014, Mark argued before the Supreme Court in McCullen v. Coakley, a First Amendment challenge to a Massachusetts speech restriction outside of abortion clinics. The Justices ruled in favor of his clients 9-0. Mark also led a successful eight-year litigation battle against Governor Blagojevich’s effort to force religious pharmacists to distribute the morning-after and week-after pills.
Mark’s academic writing focuses on the First and Fourteenth Amendments, and has appeared in a variety of prestigious journals, including the Harvard Law Review.
Mark is a widely sought after speaker on constitutional issues, particularly concerning abortion and the First Amendment. Professor Rienzi has been invited to discuss these issues at Harvard Law School, Columbia University Law School, Georgetown University Law Center, Boston College Law School, Notre Dame Law School, the National Press Club, and the Capitol. He has been quoted on constitutional law issues on NPR, in the Washington Times, The New York Daily News, and the Chicago Sun-Times. Mark has also been featured on the Kelly File, Fox News Sunday, Your World with Neil Cavuto, Geraldo at Large, CNN Tonight, CNN Live, Andrea Mitchell Reports, and Wall Street Journal Live.
Prior to joining Becket, Mark served as counsel for the litigation department and the intellectual property litigation practice group of WilmerHale LLP. His practice focused on complex civil and appellate litigation with a particular emphasis on intellectual property and First Amendment issues. Prior to joining WilmerHale, he served as law clerk to the Hon. Stephen F. Williams, senior circuit judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Prior to that, Mark was an editor of the Harvard Law Review, and earned his J.D. from Harvard Law School and B.A. from Princeton University, both with honors.
Senior Counsel, First Liberty Institute
Jordan Lorence is Senior Counsel in FLI’s Washington, D.C. office, where he represents First Liberty in strategic efforts promoting religious liberty, and works on important First Amendment projects and litigation, including those at the U.S. Supreme Court.
Lorence has a long career of litigating religious liberty cases since 1984. He has worked for many public interest law firms, including Alliance Defending Freedom, Home School Legal Defense Association, the North Star Legal Center and Concerned Women for America.
He has worked on important religious liberty cases. Lorence worked on school choice cases at the Supreme Court, such as Witters v. Washington Department of Services for the Blind (1986), and Trinity Lutheran (2016), which laid the foundation for First Liberty’s crucial win in Carson v. Makin (2022), requiring Maine to include religious schools in its school choice program.
Lorence argued before the U.S. Supreme Court in Regents of the University of Wisconsin v. Southworth (2000). He represented prolife Christian law students from the University of Wisconsin Law School who objected to the University’s requirement that they pay a mandatory student fee that funded the advocacy of student pro-abortion groups. Other Supreme Court cases Lorence has worked on include NIFLA v. Becerra (2018), protecting prolife pregnancy centers from a California statute requiring them to post signs explaining how pregnant women could obtain state-funded abortions; Masterpiece Cakeshop (2017), involving a Christian cake artist sued by the State of Colorado for declining to design a case celebrating the wedding of a same-sex couple and other cases such as Christian Legal Society v. Martinez (2012), Rosenberger v. University of Virginia (1995), Hurley v. GLIB (1995) and Lamb’s Chapel v. Center Moriches Center Moriches School District (1993).
Churches and other religious groups in New York City obtained the right to rent vacant public schools on weekends to conduct worship services after Lorence’s tenacious 20 years of litigation in Bronx Household of Faith. Lorence won protection for churches facing eviction from discriminatory zoning ordinances in Minnesota in Cornerstone Bible Church v. City of Hastings, Minnesota (1991). He also argued at the New Mexico Supreme Court one of the first cases in the nation defending a Christian wedding photographer charged by the State of New Mexico with discrimination for declining to create photos celebrating the commitment ceremony of a lesbian couple in Elane Photography v. Willock (2013).
Lorence defended home schooling families from intrusive school officials during his time working at Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) in the 1980s and 1990s. HSLDA also tasked Lorence with establishing a sister organization in Canada to protect home schooling families there. He traveled extensively in Canada from British Columbia to Prince Edward Island speaking to families how they could protect their right to home school under relevant Canadian law.
Lorence earned his undergraduate degree in journalism from Stanford University and his law degree from the University of Minnesota, his home state. Lorence was born and raised in Minnesota, where he worked one summer building Mighty Dump trucks at Tonka Toys in Mound, Minnesota. For two years immediately after he graduated from law school, Lorence served as the head administrator for a Minnesota Senate committee.
He speaks extensively on First Amendment and other legal issues. Lorence has spoken at least 75 law schools and many legal conferences. Prominent publications such as the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post and others have printed his opinion pieces on key legal issues involving religious liberty and freedom of speech. He has appeared on such media outlets as Fox News, CNN, National Public Radio, NBC’s Today Show, BBC radio and many others.
Lorence and his wife Marilyn have been married 40 years. They live in the Washington, D.C. area where they raised their seven children.
Senior Counsel, First Liberty Institute
Jordan Lorence is Senior Counsel in FLI’s Washington, D.C. office, where he represents First Liberty in strategic efforts promoting religious liberty, and works on important First Amendment projects and litigation, including those at the U.S. Supreme Court.
Lorence has a long career of litigating religious liberty cases since 1984. He has worked for many public interest law firms, including Alliance Defending Freedom, Home School Legal Defense Association, the North Star Legal Center and Concerned Women for America.
He has worked on important religious liberty cases. Lorence worked on school choice cases at the Supreme Court, such as Witters v. Washington Department of Services for the Blind (1986), and Trinity Lutheran (2016), which laid the foundation for First Liberty’s crucial win in Carson v. Makin (2022), requiring Maine to include religious schools in its school choice program.
Lorence argued before the U.S. Supreme Court in Regents of the University of Wisconsin v. Southworth (2000). He represented prolife Christian law students from the University of Wisconsin Law School who objected to the University’s requirement that they pay a mandatory student fee that funded the advocacy of student pro-abortion groups. Other Supreme Court cases Lorence has worked on include NIFLA v. Becerra (2018), protecting prolife pregnancy centers from a California statute requiring them to post signs explaining how pregnant women could obtain state-funded abortions; Masterpiece Cakeshop (2017), involving a Christian cake artist sued by the State of Colorado for declining to design a case celebrating the wedding of a same-sex couple and other cases such as Christian Legal Society v. Martinez (2012), Rosenberger v. University of Virginia (1995), Hurley v. GLIB (1995) and Lamb’s Chapel v. Center Moriches Center Moriches School District (1993).
Churches and other religious groups in New York City obtained the right to rent vacant public schools on weekends to conduct worship services after Lorence’s tenacious 20 years of litigation in Bronx Household of Faith. Lorence won protection for churches facing eviction from discriminatory zoning ordinances in Minnesota in Cornerstone Bible Church v. City of Hastings, Minnesota (1991). He also argued at the New Mexico Supreme Court one of the first cases in the nation defending a Christian wedding photographer charged by the State of New Mexico with discrimination for declining to create photos celebrating the commitment ceremony of a lesbian couple in Elane Photography v. Willock (2013).
Lorence defended home schooling families from intrusive school officials during his time working at Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) in the 1980s and 1990s. HSLDA also tasked Lorence with establishing a sister organization in Canada to protect home schooling families there. He traveled extensively in Canada from British Columbia to Prince Edward Island speaking to families how they could protect their right to home school under relevant Canadian law.
Lorence earned his undergraduate degree in journalism from Stanford University and his law degree from the University of Minnesota, his home state. Lorence was born and raised in Minnesota, where he worked one summer building Mighty Dump trucks at Tonka Toys in Mound, Minnesota. For two years immediately after he graduated from law school, Lorence served as the head administrator for a Minnesota Senate committee.
He speaks extensively on First Amendment and other legal issues. Lorence has spoken at least 75 law schools and many legal conferences. Prominent publications such as the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post and others have printed his opinion pieces on key legal issues involving religious liberty and freedom of speech. He has appeared on such media outlets as Fox News, CNN, National Public Radio, NBC’s Today Show, BBC radio and many others.
Lorence and his wife Marilyn have been married 40 years. They live in the Washington, D.C. area where they raised their seven children.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit
Judge Carlos Bea serves as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. He received his Bachelor's Degree from Stanford University in 1956 and his J.D. from Stanford Law School in 1958. Judge Bea was born in San Sebastian, Spain, and immigrated with his family to Cuba in 1939. In 1952, he represented Cuba on the Cuban National basketball team in the Helsinki Olympics. Judge Bea became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1958. He engaged in private practice in San Francisco, principally in the area of civil trials (jury and non-jury), from 1959-75 at Dunne, Phelps & Mills and from 1975-90 at Carlos Bea, A Law Corporation. He taught courses in civil litigation advocacy at Hastings College of Law and Stanford Law School. From 1990 to 2003, Judge Bea served as a judge of the San Francisco Superior Court. He was nominated by President George W. Bush to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and was confirmed in 2003.
Judge Bea and his wife Louise reside in San Francisco, where they raised their four sons, Sebastian, Alexander, Nicholas, and Dominic.
Senior Counsel and Vice President of U.S. Litigation, Alliance Defending Freedom
David A. Cortman, Esq., serves as senior counsel and vice president of U.S. litigation with Alliance Defending Freedom. He joined ADF in 2005 and currently supervises a team of nearly 40 attorneys and legal staff who specialize in constitutional law, focusing on religious freedom, sanctity of life, and marriage and family.
Cortman has successfully litigated over 200 constitutional law cases in both federal and state court at all levels. He has also litigated several U.S. Supreme Court cases, including arguing before the Court in Reed v. Town of Gilbert, which resulted in a 9-0 victory, with the Court holding that the government could not discriminate against religious speech while favoring political speech. He served as lead counsel in Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia v. Pauley, which was decided in the Church's favor. He has also served as lead or co-counsel in victories at the high court in Conestoga Wood Specialties v. Burwell, successfully challenging the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services abortion pill mandate that forces employers to provide healthcare coverage that includes abortion-inducing drugs in violation of their religious convictions; Town of Greece v. Galloway, successfully defending the freedom of Americans to pray at public meetings.
Cortman earned his J.D. from Regent University School of Law in 1996, graduating magna cum laude. He is a member of the state bar in Georgia, Florida, Arizona, and the District of Columbia, and is admitted to practice in over two dozen federal courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court. He also teaches legal courses on the First Amendment and civil rights litigation.
Senior Director of Strategic Partnerships, First Liberty Institute
Lisa Budzynski Ezell is the former Vice President and Director of the Federalist Society’s Lawyers Chapters. In this role, she managed a growing network of over 90 lawyers chapters nationwide, including oversight of leadership recruitment, chapter programming, state conferences, civics education outreach, and young lawyers activities. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Saint Mary’s College in Political Science and History and a Master of Public Policy from George Mason University.
Fred H. Paulus Professor of Law, Director of the Center for Reli, Willamette University College of Law
Steven K. Green is the Fred H. Paulus Professor of Law and Affiliated Professor of History at Willamette University where he teaches courses in Constitutional Law, First Amendment, Legal History, Jurisprudence, and Criminal Law in the College of Law, and Legal History and American Religious History in the College of Liberal Arts. In addition, Professor Green directs the interdisciplinary Center for Religion, Law and Democracy, one of Willamette’s Centers of Excellence.
Professor Green joined the Willamette faculty in August 2001, after serving for 10 years as legal director and special counsel for Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a Washington, DC, public interest organization that concentrates on First Amendment issues. Professor Green has extensive litigation and appellate experience in First Amendment law involving issues such as school prayer, public funding of religious institutions, public religious displays, religious discrimination, religious free exercise and freedom of speech. He has participated in several cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, including Zelman v. Simmons-Harris (2002), the Cleveland school vouchers case; Mitchell v. Helms (2000), authorizing state-paid computers and educational equipment to religious schools; and Santa Fe Ind. Sch. Dist. v. Doe (2000), striking prayer at public school football games. He regularly submits amicus curiae (friend-of-the-court) briefs at the U.S. Supreme Court, most recently co-authoring two amicus briefs in the 2013-14 term.
In addition, Professor Green has significant legislative experience, having testified before Congress and several state legislatures. He helped draft federal and state laws affecting religious liberty interests, including the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (1993), the Religious Land-Use and Institutionalized Persons Protection Act (2000), and the Oregon Workplace Religious Freedom Act (2009).
Professor Green is a widely sought speaker at national conferences and a prolific author whose writings have been cited by the U.S. Supreme Court and lower courts. He is the author of Inventing a Christian America: The Myth of the Religious Founding (Oxford University Press, 2015), The Bible, the School, and the Constitution: The Clash that Shaped Modern Church-State Doctrine (Oxford, 2012); The Second Disestablishment: Church and State in Nineteenth Century America (Oxford, 2010), co-author of Religious Freedom and the Supreme Court (Baylor, 2008), and a contributor to the Encyclopedia of American Civil Liberties and the Yale Biographical Dictionary of American Law, among others. He is currently writing a new book on church and state in the middle of the twentieth century. Professor Green holds a PhD in American constitutional history and an MA in American religious history from the University of North Carolina, a JD from the University of Texas, and a BA in history and political science, Phi Beta Kappa, from Texas Christian University. He also took post-graduate study at Duke Law and Divinity Schools.
Professor Green serves on the public policy board of Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon. He also serves on the editorial council of the Journal of Church and State and the legal advisory committee of the National Center for Science Education. He previously served on the religious liberty committee of the National Council of Churches and as recorder for the Oregon Law Commission's study of the faith-based initiative in Oregon.
In 2014 and 2006, Professor Green received the Robert L. Misner Award for Excellence in Scholarship, which was established in memory of former College of Law Dean and Professor Robert L. Misner. Professor Green also received the 2003 Professor of the Year Award for Teaching.
Senior Counsel & Director of the Center for Religious Schools, Alliance Defending Freedom
Gregory S. Baylor serves as senior counsel with Alliance Defending Freedom, where he is the director of the Center for Religious Schools and senior counsel with the Center for Public Policy.
Since joining ADF in 2009, Baylor has focused on defending and advancing the religious freedom of faith-based educational institutions through advice, education, legislative and public advocacy, and representation in disputes. He has testified about religious liberty issues three times before congressional committees and numerous times before state legislative committees.
Greg serves on the board of directors of the International Alliance for Christian Education, the board of directors of the Association for Biblical Higher Education, the board of directors of the Association for Christian Schools International, the board of advisors of the Museum of the Bible, and advisory board of the Center for Academic Faithfulness and Flourishing.
Greg earned his Juris Doctor in 1990 from Duke University School of Law, where he graduated Order of the Coif, with high honors, and served on the editorial board of the Duke Law Journal. He received his bachelor’s degree in Honors English in 1987 from Dartmouth College. Following graduation from law school, he served as law clerk to the Hon. Jerry E. Smith on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. He practiced labor and employment law at two large international law firms for three years before joining the staff of Christian Legal Society’s Center for Law and Religious Freedom, where he served for 15 years prior to joining ADF. He lives in Northern Virginia with his wife (a medical doctor) and two daughters.
Senior Counsel, First Liberty Institute
Jordan Lorence is Senior Counsel in FLI’s Washington, D.C. office, where he represents First Liberty in strategic efforts promoting religious liberty, and works on important First Amendment projects and litigation, including those at the U.S. Supreme Court.
Lorence has a long career of litigating religious liberty cases since 1984. He has worked for many public interest law firms, including Alliance Defending Freedom, Home School Legal Defense Association, the North Star Legal Center and Concerned Women for America.
He has worked on important religious liberty cases. Lorence worked on school choice cases at the Supreme Court, such as Witters v. Washington Department of Services for the Blind (1986), and Trinity Lutheran (2016), which laid the foundation for First Liberty’s crucial win in Carson v. Makin (2022), requiring Maine to include religious schools in its school choice program.
Lorence argued before the U.S. Supreme Court in Regents of the University of Wisconsin v. Southworth (2000). He represented prolife Christian law students from the University of Wisconsin Law School who objected to the University’s requirement that they pay a mandatory student fee that funded the advocacy of student pro-abortion groups. Other Supreme Court cases Lorence has worked on include NIFLA v. Becerra (2018), protecting prolife pregnancy centers from a California statute requiring them to post signs explaining how pregnant women could obtain state-funded abortions; Masterpiece Cakeshop (2017), involving a Christian cake artist sued by the State of Colorado for declining to design a case celebrating the wedding of a same-sex couple and other cases such as Christian Legal Society v. Martinez (2012), Rosenberger v. University of Virginia (1995), Hurley v. GLIB (1995) and Lamb’s Chapel v. Center Moriches Center Moriches School District (1993).
Churches and other religious groups in New York City obtained the right to rent vacant public schools on weekends to conduct worship services after Lorence’s tenacious 20 years of litigation in Bronx Household of Faith. Lorence won protection for churches facing eviction from discriminatory zoning ordinances in Minnesota in Cornerstone Bible Church v. City of Hastings, Minnesota (1991). He also argued at the New Mexico Supreme Court one of the first cases in the nation defending a Christian wedding photographer charged by the State of New Mexico with discrimination for declining to create photos celebrating the commitment ceremony of a lesbian couple in Elane Photography v. Willock (2013).
Lorence defended home schooling families from intrusive school officials during his time working at Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) in the 1980s and 1990s. HSLDA also tasked Lorence with establishing a sister organization in Canada to protect home schooling families there. He traveled extensively in Canada from British Columbia to Prince Edward Island speaking to families how they could protect their right to home school under relevant Canadian law.
Lorence earned his undergraduate degree in journalism from Stanford University and his law degree from the University of Minnesota, his home state. Lorence was born and raised in Minnesota, where he worked one summer building Mighty Dump trucks at Tonka Toys in Mound, Minnesota. For two years immediately after he graduated from law school, Lorence served as the head administrator for a Minnesota Senate committee.
He speaks extensively on First Amendment and other legal issues. Lorence has spoken at least 75 law schools and many legal conferences. Prominent publications such as the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post and others have printed his opinion pieces on key legal issues involving religious liberty and freedom of speech. He has appeared on such media outlets as Fox News, CNN, National Public Radio, NBC’s Today Show, BBC radio and many others.
Lorence and his wife Marilyn have been married 40 years. They live in the Washington, D.C. area where they raised their seven children.
F. Elwood and Eleanor Davis Professor Emeritus of Law, The George Washington University Law School
Professor Lupu joined the law school in 1990. After graduating from law school, where he was case editor of the Harvard Law Review, he practiced law with the Boston firm of Hill & Barlow and then joined the law faculty at Boston University, where he taught from 1973 to 1989. During that time, he also served as a visiting professor at Northeastern University and at the University of California, Berkeley. In 1989–90, he was the professor-in-residence on the Appellate Staff of the Civil Division of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Professor Lupu is a nationally recognized scholar in constitutional law, with an emphasis in his writings on the religion clauses of the First Amendment. Together with his colleague Professor Robert Tuttle, Professor Lupu is the co-author of Secular Government, Religious People (Eerdmans Pub. Co., 2014) and many law journal articles.
Senior Counsel and Vice President of U.S. Litigation, Alliance Defending Freedom
David A. Cortman, Esq., serves as senior counsel and vice president of U.S. litigation with Alliance Defending Freedom. He joined ADF in 2005 and currently supervises a team of nearly 40 attorneys and legal staff who specialize in constitutional law, focusing on religious freedom, sanctity of life, and marriage and family.
Cortman has successfully litigated over 200 constitutional law cases in both federal and state court at all levels. He has also litigated several U.S. Supreme Court cases, including arguing before the Court in Reed v. Town of Gilbert, which resulted in a 9-0 victory, with the Court holding that the government could not discriminate against religious speech while favoring political speech. He served as lead counsel in Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia v. Pauley, which was decided in the Church's favor. He has also served as lead or co-counsel in victories at the high court in Conestoga Wood Specialties v. Burwell, successfully challenging the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services abortion pill mandate that forces employers to provide healthcare coverage that includes abortion-inducing drugs in violation of their religious convictions; Town of Greece v. Galloway, successfully defending the freedom of Americans to pray at public meetings.
Cortman earned his J.D. from Regent University School of Law in 1996, graduating magna cum laude. He is a member of the state bar in Georgia, Florida, Arizona, and the District of Columbia, and is admitted to practice in over two dozen federal courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court. He also teaches legal courses on the First Amendment and civil rights litigation.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit
Judge Carlos Bea serves as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. He received his Bachelor's Degree from Stanford University in 1956 and his J.D. from Stanford Law School in 1958. Judge Bea was born in San Sebastian, Spain, and immigrated with his family to Cuba in 1939. In 1952, he represented Cuba on the Cuban National basketball team in the Helsinki Olympics. Judge Bea became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1958. He engaged in private practice in San Francisco, principally in the area of civil trials (jury and non-jury), from 1959-75 at Dunne, Phelps & Mills and from 1975-90 at Carlos Bea, A Law Corporation. He taught courses in civil litigation advocacy at Hastings College of Law and Stanford Law School. From 1990 to 2003, Judge Bea served as a judge of the San Francisco Superior Court. He was nominated by President George W. Bush to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and was confirmed in 2003.
Judge Bea and his wife Louise reside in San Francisco, where they raised their four sons, Sebastian, Alexander, Nicholas, and Dominic.
Senior Counsel and Vice President of U.S. Litigation, Alliance Defending Freedom
David A. Cortman, Esq., serves as senior counsel and vice president of U.S. litigation with Alliance Defending Freedom. He joined ADF in 2005 and currently supervises a team of nearly 40 attorneys and legal staff who specialize in constitutional law, focusing on religious freedom, sanctity of life, and marriage and family.
Cortman has successfully litigated over 200 constitutional law cases in both federal and state court at all levels. He has also litigated several U.S. Supreme Court cases, including arguing before the Court in Reed v. Town of Gilbert, which resulted in a 9-0 victory, with the Court holding that the government could not discriminate against religious speech while favoring political speech. He served as lead counsel in Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia v. Pauley, which was decided in the Church's favor. He has also served as lead or co-counsel in victories at the high court in Conestoga Wood Specialties v. Burwell, successfully challenging the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services abortion pill mandate that forces employers to provide healthcare coverage that includes abortion-inducing drugs in violation of their religious convictions; Town of Greece v. Galloway, successfully defending the freedom of Americans to pray at public meetings.
Cortman earned his J.D. from Regent University School of Law in 1996, graduating magna cum laude. He is a member of the state bar in Georgia, Florida, Arizona, and the District of Columbia, and is admitted to practice in over two dozen federal courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court. He also teaches legal courses on the First Amendment and civil rights litigation.
Senior Director of Strategic Partnerships, First Liberty Institute
Lisa Budzynski Ezell is the former Vice President and Director of the Federalist Society’s Lawyers Chapters. In this role, she managed a growing network of over 90 lawyers chapters nationwide, including oversight of leadership recruitment, chapter programming, state conferences, civics education outreach, and young lawyers activities. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Saint Mary’s College in Political Science and History and a Master of Public Policy from George Mason University.
Fred H. Paulus Professor of Law, Director of the Center for Reli, Willamette University College of Law
Steven K. Green is the Fred H. Paulus Professor of Law and Affiliated Professor of History at Willamette University where he teaches courses in Constitutional Law, First Amendment, Legal History, Jurisprudence, and Criminal Law in the College of Law, and Legal History and American Religious History in the College of Liberal Arts. In addition, Professor Green directs the interdisciplinary Center for Religion, Law and Democracy, one of Willamette’s Centers of Excellence.
Professor Green joined the Willamette faculty in August 2001, after serving for 10 years as legal director and special counsel for Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a Washington, DC, public interest organization that concentrates on First Amendment issues. Professor Green has extensive litigation and appellate experience in First Amendment law involving issues such as school prayer, public funding of religious institutions, public religious displays, religious discrimination, religious free exercise and freedom of speech. He has participated in several cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, including Zelman v. Simmons-Harris (2002), the Cleveland school vouchers case; Mitchell v. Helms (2000), authorizing state-paid computers and educational equipment to religious schools; and Santa Fe Ind. Sch. Dist. v. Doe (2000), striking prayer at public school football games. He regularly submits amicus curiae (friend-of-the-court) briefs at the U.S. Supreme Court, most recently co-authoring two amicus briefs in the 2013-14 term.
In addition, Professor Green has significant legislative experience, having testified before Congress and several state legislatures. He helped draft federal and state laws affecting religious liberty interests, including the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (1993), the Religious Land-Use and Institutionalized Persons Protection Act (2000), and the Oregon Workplace Religious Freedom Act (2009).
Professor Green is a widely sought speaker at national conferences and a prolific author whose writings have been cited by the U.S. Supreme Court and lower courts. He is the author of Inventing a Christian America: The Myth of the Religious Founding (Oxford University Press, 2015), The Bible, the School, and the Constitution: The Clash that Shaped Modern Church-State Doctrine (Oxford, 2012); The Second Disestablishment: Church and State in Nineteenth Century America (Oxford, 2010), co-author of Religious Freedom and the Supreme Court (Baylor, 2008), and a contributor to the Encyclopedia of American Civil Liberties and the Yale Biographical Dictionary of American Law, among others. He is currently writing a new book on church and state in the middle of the twentieth century. Professor Green holds a PhD in American constitutional history and an MA in American religious history from the University of North Carolina, a JD from the University of Texas, and a BA in history and political science, Phi Beta Kappa, from Texas Christian University. He also took post-graduate study at Duke Law and Divinity Schools.
Professor Green serves on the public policy board of Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon. He also serves on the editorial council of the Journal of Church and State and the legal advisory committee of the National Center for Science Education. He previously served on the religious liberty committee of the National Council of Churches and as recorder for the Oregon Law Commission's study of the faith-based initiative in Oregon.
In 2014 and 2006, Professor Green received the Robert L. Misner Award for Excellence in Scholarship, which was established in memory of former College of Law Dean and Professor Robert L. Misner. Professor Green also received the 2003 Professor of the Year Award for Teaching.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit
Judge Carlos Bea serves as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. He received his Bachelor's Degree from Stanford University in 1956 and his J.D. from Stanford Law School in 1958. Judge Bea was born in San Sebastian, Spain, and immigrated with his family to Cuba in 1939. In 1952, he represented Cuba on the Cuban National basketball team in the Helsinki Olympics. Judge Bea became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1958. He engaged in private practice in San Francisco, principally in the area of civil trials (jury and non-jury), from 1959-75 at Dunne, Phelps & Mills and from 1975-90 at Carlos Bea, A Law Corporation. He taught courses in civil litigation advocacy at Hastings College of Law and Stanford Law School. From 1990 to 2003, Judge Bea served as a judge of the San Francisco Superior Court. He was nominated by President George W. Bush to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and was confirmed in 2003.
Judge Bea and his wife Louise reside in San Francisco, where they raised their four sons, Sebastian, Alexander, Nicholas, and Dominic.
Senior Counsel and Vice President of U.S. Litigation, Alliance Defending Freedom
David A. Cortman, Esq., serves as senior counsel and vice president of U.S. litigation with Alliance Defending Freedom. He joined ADF in 2005 and currently supervises a team of nearly 40 attorneys and legal staff who specialize in constitutional law, focusing on religious freedom, sanctity of life, and marriage and family.
Cortman has successfully litigated over 200 constitutional law cases in both federal and state court at all levels. He has also litigated several U.S. Supreme Court cases, including arguing before the Court in Reed v. Town of Gilbert, which resulted in a 9-0 victory, with the Court holding that the government could not discriminate against religious speech while favoring political speech. He served as lead counsel in Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia v. Pauley, which was decided in the Church's favor. He has also served as lead or co-counsel in victories at the high court in Conestoga Wood Specialties v. Burwell, successfully challenging the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services abortion pill mandate that forces employers to provide healthcare coverage that includes abortion-inducing drugs in violation of their religious convictions; Town of Greece v. Galloway, successfully defending the freedom of Americans to pray at public meetings.
Cortman earned his J.D. from Regent University School of Law in 1996, graduating magna cum laude. He is a member of the state bar in Georgia, Florida, Arizona, and the District of Columbia, and is admitted to practice in over two dozen federal courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court. He also teaches legal courses on the First Amendment and civil rights litigation.
Senior Director of Strategic Partnerships, First Liberty Institute
Lisa Budzynski Ezell is the former Vice President and Director of the Federalist Society’s Lawyers Chapters. In this role, she managed a growing network of over 90 lawyers chapters nationwide, including oversight of leadership recruitment, chapter programming, state conferences, civics education outreach, and young lawyers activities. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Saint Mary’s College in Political Science and History and a Master of Public Policy from George Mason University.
Fred H. Paulus Professor of Law, Director of the Center for Reli, Willamette University College of Law
Steven K. Green is the Fred H. Paulus Professor of Law and Affiliated Professor of History at Willamette University where he teaches courses in Constitutional Law, First Amendment, Legal History, Jurisprudence, and Criminal Law in the College of Law, and Legal History and American Religious History in the College of Liberal Arts. In addition, Professor Green directs the interdisciplinary Center for Religion, Law and Democracy, one of Willamette’s Centers of Excellence.
Professor Green joined the Willamette faculty in August 2001, after serving for 10 years as legal director and special counsel for Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a Washington, DC, public interest organization that concentrates on First Amendment issues. Professor Green has extensive litigation and appellate experience in First Amendment law involving issues such as school prayer, public funding of religious institutions, public religious displays, religious discrimination, religious free exercise and freedom of speech. He has participated in several cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, including Zelman v. Simmons-Harris (2002), the Cleveland school vouchers case; Mitchell v. Helms (2000), authorizing state-paid computers and educational equipment to religious schools; and Santa Fe Ind. Sch. Dist. v. Doe (2000), striking prayer at public school football games. He regularly submits amicus curiae (friend-of-the-court) briefs at the U.S. Supreme Court, most recently co-authoring two amicus briefs in the 2013-14 term.
In addition, Professor Green has significant legislative experience, having testified before Congress and several state legislatures. He helped draft federal and state laws affecting religious liberty interests, including the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (1993), the Religious Land-Use and Institutionalized Persons Protection Act (2000), and the Oregon Workplace Religious Freedom Act (2009).
Professor Green is a widely sought speaker at national conferences and a prolific author whose writings have been cited by the U.S. Supreme Court and lower courts. He is the author of Inventing a Christian America: The Myth of the Religious Founding (Oxford University Press, 2015), The Bible, the School, and the Constitution: The Clash that Shaped Modern Church-State Doctrine (Oxford, 2012); The Second Disestablishment: Church and State in Nineteenth Century America (Oxford, 2010), co-author of Religious Freedom and the Supreme Court (Baylor, 2008), and a contributor to the Encyclopedia of American Civil Liberties and the Yale Biographical Dictionary of American Law, among others. He is currently writing a new book on church and state in the middle of the twentieth century. Professor Green holds a PhD in American constitutional history and an MA in American religious history from the University of North Carolina, a JD from the University of Texas, and a BA in history and political science, Phi Beta Kappa, from Texas Christian University. He also took post-graduate study at Duke Law and Divinity Schools.
Professor Green serves on the public policy board of Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon. He also serves on the editorial council of the Journal of Church and State and the legal advisory committee of the National Center for Science Education. He previously served on the religious liberty committee of the National Council of Churches and as recorder for the Oregon Law Commission's study of the faith-based initiative in Oregon.
In 2014 and 2006, Professor Green received the Robert L. Misner Award for Excellence in Scholarship, which was established in memory of former College of Law Dean and Professor Robert L. Misner. Professor Green also received the 2003 Professor of the Year Award for Teaching.
Trinity Lutheran and the Future of Religious Liberty
Debate—State Blaine Amendments
Carlos T. Bea, David A. Cortman, Lisa Ezell, Steven Green
The Supreme Court has agreed to hear oral arguments in Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v....
Debate—State Blaine Amendments
Carlos T. Bea, David A. Cortman, Lisa Ezell, Steven Green
The Supreme Court has agreed to hear oral arguments in Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v....
Are Universities the Worst Violaters of First Amendment Freedoms Today?
Religious Liberty
Debate—State Blaine Amendments
2017 Annual Western Chapters Conference
Simi Valley, CA2017 Annual Western Chapters Conference
Simi Valley, CARecent Developments in Religious Liberty Law
Religious Liberty
George Washington Student Chapter
Washington, DCMoot Court: Trinity Lutheran v. Pauley