George C. Dix Professor in Constitutional Law, Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law
John O. McGinnis is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review. He also has an MA degree from Balliol College, Oxford, in philosophy and theology. Professor McGinnis clerked on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. From 1987 to 1991, he was deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel at the Department of Justice. He is the author of Accelerating Democracy: Transforming Government Through Technology (Princeton 2013) and Originalism and the Good Constitution (Harvard 2013) (with M. Rappaport). He is a past winner of the Paul Bator award given by the Federalist Society to an outstanding academic under 40. He has been listed by the United States on the roster of panelists who may be called upon to decide World Trade Organization Disputes.
Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
ILYA SOMIN is Professor of Law at George Mason University and the B. Kenneth Simon Chair in Constitutional Studies at the Cato Institute. His research focuses on constitutional law, property law, democratic theory, federalism, and migration rights. He is the author of Free to Move: Foot Voting, Migration, and Political Freedom (Oxford University Press, revised and expanded edition, 2022), Democracy and Political Ignorance: Why Smaller Government is Smarter (Stanford University Press, revised and expanded second edition, 2016), and The Grasping Hand: Kelo v. City of New London and the Limits of Eminent Domain (University of Chicago Press, 2015, rev. paperback ed., 2016), coauthor of A Conspiracy Against Obamacare: The Volokh Conspiracy and the Health Care Case (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), and co-editor of Eminent Domain: A Comparative Perspective (Cambridge University Press, 2017). Democracy and Political Ignorance has been translated into Italian and Japanese.
Somin’s work has appeared in numerous scholarly journals, including the Yale Law Journal, Stanford Law Review, Northwestern University Law Review, Georgetown Law Journal, Critical Review, and others. Somin has also published articles in a variety of popular press outlets, including the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, CNN, NBC, The Atlantic, USA Today, Boston Globe, US News and World Report, South China Morning Post, National Law Journal and Reason. He has been quoted or interviewed by the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Time, Newsweek, The Economist, the Christian Science Monitor, the Financial Times, The Guardian, the Associated Press, CBS, MSNBC, NPR, BBC, Reuters, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Al Jazeera, and the Voice of America, among other media.
Somin’s writings have been cited in decisions by the United States Supreme Court, multiple state supreme courts and lower federal courts, and the Supreme Court of Israel. He is co-counsel for the plaintiffs in VOS Selections, Inc. v. Trump, a case challenging the constitutionality of President Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs. Somin has testified on the use of drones for targeted killing in the War on Terror before the US Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Human Rights. In 2009, he testified on property rights issues at the United States Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Somin writes regularly for the popular Volokh Conspiracy law and politics blog, now affiliated with Reason magazine (previously affiliated with the Washington Post from 2014 to 2017). From 2006 to 2013, he served as Co-Editor of the Supreme Court Economic Review, one of the country’s top-rated law and economics journals.
Somin has served as a visiting professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. He has also been a visiting professor or scholar at the Georgetown University Law Center, the University of Hamburg, Germany, the University of Torcuato Di Tella in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Uriel Reichman University in Israel, and Zhengzhou University in China. He is a University Affiliate of the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University, and an affiliated faculty member of the George Mason University Institute for Immigration Research. Before joining the faculty at George Mason, Somin was the John M. Olin Fellow in Law at Northwestern University Law School in 2002-2003. In 2001-2002, he clerked for the Hon. Judge Jerry E. Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Professor Somin earned his B.A., Summa Cum Laude, at Amherst College, M.A. in Political Science from Harvard University, and J.D. from Yale Law School.
Former Member of the European Parliament, South East England Constituency
Professor Emeritus of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
Jeremy A. Rabkin is a Professor Emeritus of Law at the Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University. Before joining the faculty in June 2007, he was for over two decades a professor in the Department of Government at Cornell University. Professor Rabkin serves on the board of directors of the Center for Individual Rights, a public interest law firm based in Washington, D.C. Previously he was a board member of the U.S. Institute of Peace and the board of academic advisors of the American Enterprise Institute.
Professor Rabkin’s books include Law Without Nations? (Princeton University Press, 2005). He authored “If You Need a Friend, Don’t Call a Cosmopolitan,” a chapter in Varieties of Sovereignty and Citizenship (Sigal R. Ben-Porath & Rogers M. Smith eds., University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012). His articles have appeared in major law reviews and political science journals and his journalistic contributions in a range of magazines and newspapers, including the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal.
Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
Eric R. Claeys is Professor of Law at the Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University. He has written widely in the fields of property, private law, and constitutional law. Professor Claeys’s current research interests focus on flourishing- and labor-based natural rights justifications for property—in American property theory, in intellectual property, and in contemporary regulation of shale gas exploration and hydraulic fracturing. He is a member of the American Law Institute, he serves on the ALI’s Members’ Consultative Group for the first Restatement of Copyright, and he also serves as an adviser to the Restatement (Fourth) of the Law of Property.
Professor Claeys received his JD from the University of Southern California Gould School of Law. He received his AB from Princeton University, and he is a former visiting fellow and current member of Princeton’s Politics Department’s James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions. After law school, Professor Claeys clerked for the Hon. Melvin Brunetti, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and the Hon. William H. Rehnquist, Chief Justice of the United States.
Professor Claeys’s main teaching interests include Property, Torts, Jurisprudence, and Intellectual Property. In recent years, he has also taught Water Law, Remedies, Estates and Trusts, Trade Secrecy, Constitutional Law, Torts, and Oil and Gas law. Spring 2018, he is teaching Torts and Jurisprudence as a Visiting Professor at Harvard Law School.
Former Member of the European Parliament, South East England Constituency
Professor Emeritus of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
Jeremy A. Rabkin is a Professor Emeritus of Law at the Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University. Before joining the faculty in June 2007, he was for over two decades a professor in the Department of Government at Cornell University. Professor Rabkin serves on the board of directors of the Center for Individual Rights, a public interest law firm based in Washington, D.C. Previously he was a board member of the U.S. Institute of Peace and the board of academic advisors of the American Enterprise Institute.
Professor Rabkin’s books include Law Without Nations? (Princeton University Press, 2005). He authored “If You Need a Friend, Don’t Call a Cosmopolitan,” a chapter in Varieties of Sovereignty and Citizenship (Sigal R. Ben-Porath & Rogers M. Smith eds., University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012). His articles have appeared in major law reviews and political science journals and his journalistic contributions in a range of magazines and newspapers, including the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal.
Frank Buckley is a Foundation Professor at George Mason University School of Law, where he has taught since 1989. Before then, he was a visiting Olin Fellow at the University of Chicago Law School. He has also taught at McGill Law School in Montreal, the Sorbonne (Paris II),and Sciences Po in Paris. His most recent books are The American Illness (Yale 2013), Fair Governance (Oxford 2009), Just Exchange (Routledge 2005) and The Morality of Laughter (Michigan 2003). His The Once and Future King will be published by Encounter Books in Spring 2014. He is a senior editor of The American Spectator. He lives in Alexandria VA with his wife, Esther.
Newsweek Senior Editor-at-Large, Syndicated Columnist, Host of "The Josh Hammer Show," Article III Project Senior Counsel, Newsweek, Salem Media, Article III Project, David Horowitz Freedom Center
Josh Hammer is the senior editor-at-large of Newsweek and host of "The Josh Hammer Show," a podcast, a syndicated radio show, and TV program on Salem News Channel. A syndicated columnist through Creators Syndicate, Josh is a frequent pundit and essayist on political, legal, and cultural issues. He is also senior counsel for the Article III Project and Internet Accountability Project, as well as a Shillman Fellow with the David Horowitz Freedom Center and a fellow with the Palm Beach Freedom Institute.
An outspoken conservative, Josh opines on conservative intellectual trends, contemporary domestic and foreign policy debates, constitutional and legal issues, and the intersection of law, politics and culture. He has been published by many leading outlets, including the Los Angeles Times, the New York Post, Daily Mail, Newsweek, the Claremont Review of Books, National Affairs, American Affairs, The New Criterion, The National Interest, National Review, RealClearPolitics, First Things, City Journal, Public Discourse, Law & Liberty, Tablet Magazine, Deseret Magazine, Compact Magazine, Chronicles Magazine, The Spectator, The American Mind, The American Conservative, The European Conservative, American Greatness, American Compass, The Federalist, Blaze Media, TomKlingenstein.com, Townhall, The Daily Wire, The Daily Signal, The Daily Caller, The Epoch Times, Anchoring Truths, Fortune, Fox Business, The Jerusalem Post, The Times of Israel, The Forward, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and the Jewish Journal. He has also had legal scholarship published by the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy and the University of St. Thomas Law Journal.
Josh is a college campus speaker through Young America's Foundation and the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, and a law school campus speaker through the Federalist Society. Prior to Newsweek and The Daily Wire, where he was an editor, Josh worked at Kirkland & Ellis LLP and clerked for the Hon. James C. Ho on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Josh has also served as a John Marshall Fellow with the Claremont Institute and as a Fellow with the James Wilson Institute. He is the former host of "America on Trial with Josh Hammer," a one-season daily podcast with The First that covered the unique legal issues surrounding the 2024 presidential election.
Josh graduated from Duke University, where he majored in economics, and from the University of Chicago Law School. He lives in Florida, but remains an active member of the State Bar of Texas.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit
Andrew Oldham is a Circuit Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Before ascending to the bench, Judge Oldham served as General Counsel to Texas Governor Greg Abbott, where he advised the Governor on a range of issues under federal and state law and managed litigation in which the Governor was an interested party. Before that he served as Deputy Solicitor General for the State of Texas, where he represented Texas in federal courts across the country, including twice before the United States Supreme Court. Before moving to Texas, Judge Oldham was an attorney at Kellogg Hansen Todd Figel & Frederick in Washington, D.C. His practice focused on appellate litigation in federal courts of appeals throughout the country. Before entering private practice, Judge Oldham served as a law clerk to Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr., at the Supreme Court of the United States and to Judge David B. Sentelle of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He also worked as an attorney-adviser in the Office of Legal Counsel at the U.S. Department of Justice from 2006 to 2008. Judge Oldham earned a B.A. from the University of Virginia with highest honors, a Truman Scholarship for graduate school, an M. Phil., first class (with distinction), from Cambridge University, and a J.D., magna cum laude, from Harvard Law School.
Professor, University of Minnesota Law School
Ilan Wurman is the Julius E. Davis Professor of Law at the University of Minnesota, where he teaches administrative law and constitutional law. He previously taught at Arizona State University. He writes primarily on the Fourteenth Amendment, administrative law, separation of powers, and constitutionalism. His academic writing has appeared in the Yale Law Journal, the Stanford Law Review, the University of Chicago Law Review, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, the Virginia Law Review, the Duke Law Journal, the Minnesota Law Review, the Notre Dame Law Review, and the Texas Law Review among other journals.
Professor Wurman is the author of a casebook, Administrative Law Theory and Fundamentals: An Integrated Approach (Foundation Press 2d ed. 2024). He is also the author of A Debt Against the Living: An Introduction to Originalism (Cambridge 2017), and The Second Founding: An Introduction to the Fourteenth Amendment (Cambridge 2020). His next book, The Constitution of 1789: A New Introduction, is also forthcoming with Cambridge University Press.
Professor Wurman practices law with the firm Tully Bailey. He has litigated a variety of administrative law and constitutional law cases, including cases involving COVID-19 restrictions, transmission lines, and Appointments Clause challenges. He also devised winning public nuisance theories to force city governments to address the increasingly challenging public camping crises throughout the country.
Justice, Texas Fifteenth District Court of Appeals
April Farris was appointed to the Fifteenth Court of Appeals on September 1 of 2024. April previously served on the First Court of Appeals after being appointed in 2021 and elected in 2022.
Before joining the Court, April was a partner at Yetter Coleman LLP, where she handled complex appellate litigation for energy, technology, and government clients. While in private practice, she was recognized in appellate law by Law360, Best Lawyers in America, and Thompson Reuters' Super Lawyers. In 2020, she was one of five attorneys in the nation to be named a Law360 appellate Rising Star, an honor reserved for lawyers under 40.
April previously served as an Assistant Solicitor General for the State of Texas, handling appeals for various Texas agencies. She is a former councilmember for the Texas State Bar's Appellate Section and a current councilmember for the Civil Rights & Civil Liberties Section. She serves as a trustee for the Texas Supreme Court Historical Association, and she is on the board of the Garland R. Walker Inn of Court in Houston. She is a member of the State Bar of Texas Pattern Jury Charge Oversight Committee, and she is on the editorial board of The Advocate. In 2022 and 2023, she was a guest instructor for Harvard Law School's Introduction to Trial Advocacy Program. She taught Origins of the Federal Constitution with Judge Charles Eskridge at the University of Texas School of Law in 2025, and she previously taught First Amendment at South Texas College of Law.
April clerked for Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. She graduated from Harvard Law School cum laude in 2009, and she earned her bachelor's degree summa cum laude from Abilene Christian University in 2006. She was named ACU's Young Alumnus of the Year for 2025. She enjoys spending time with her husband and children, tennis, and theology.
Frank Buckley is a Foundation Professor at George Mason University School of Law, where he has taught since 1989. Before then, he was a visiting Olin Fellow at the University of Chicago Law School. He has also taught at McGill Law School in Montreal, the Sorbonne (Paris II),and Sciences Po in Paris. His most recent books are The American Illness (Yale 2013), Fair Governance (Oxford 2009), Just Exchange (Routledge 2005) and The Morality of Laughter (Michigan 2003). His The Once and Future King will be published by Encounter Books in Spring 2014. He is a senior editor of The American Spectator. He lives in Alexandria VA with his wife, Esther.
Newsweek Senior Editor-at-Large, Syndicated Columnist, Host of "The Josh Hammer Show," Article III Project Senior Counsel, Newsweek, Salem Media, Article III Project, David Horowitz Freedom Center
Josh Hammer is the senior editor-at-large of Newsweek and host of "The Josh Hammer Show," a podcast, a syndicated radio show, and TV program on Salem News Channel. A syndicated columnist through Creators Syndicate, Josh is a frequent pundit and essayist on political, legal, and cultural issues. He is also senior counsel for the Article III Project and Internet Accountability Project, as well as a Shillman Fellow with the David Horowitz Freedom Center and a fellow with the Palm Beach Freedom Institute.
An outspoken conservative, Josh opines on conservative intellectual trends, contemporary domestic and foreign policy debates, constitutional and legal issues, and the intersection of law, politics and culture. He has been published by many leading outlets, including the Los Angeles Times, the New York Post, Daily Mail, Newsweek, the Claremont Review of Books, National Affairs, American Affairs, The New Criterion, The National Interest, National Review, RealClearPolitics, First Things, City Journal, Public Discourse, Law & Liberty, Tablet Magazine, Deseret Magazine, Compact Magazine, Chronicles Magazine, The Spectator, The American Mind, The American Conservative, The European Conservative, American Greatness, American Compass, The Federalist, Blaze Media, TomKlingenstein.com, Townhall, The Daily Wire, The Daily Signal, The Daily Caller, The Epoch Times, Anchoring Truths, Fortune, Fox Business, The Jerusalem Post, The Times of Israel, The Forward, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and the Jewish Journal. He has also had legal scholarship published by the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy and the University of St. Thomas Law Journal.
Josh is a college campus speaker through Young America's Foundation and the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, and a law school campus speaker through the Federalist Society. Prior to Newsweek and The Daily Wire, where he was an editor, Josh worked at Kirkland & Ellis LLP and clerked for the Hon. James C. Ho on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Josh has also served as a John Marshall Fellow with the Claremont Institute and as a Fellow with the James Wilson Institute. He is the former host of "America on Trial with Josh Hammer," a one-season daily podcast with The First that covered the unique legal issues surrounding the 2024 presidential election.
Josh graduated from Duke University, where he majored in economics, and from the University of Chicago Law School. He lives in Florida, but remains an active member of the State Bar of Texas.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit
Andrew Oldham is a Circuit Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Before ascending to the bench, Judge Oldham served as General Counsel to Texas Governor Greg Abbott, where he advised the Governor on a range of issues under federal and state law and managed litigation in which the Governor was an interested party. Before that he served as Deputy Solicitor General for the State of Texas, where he represented Texas in federal courts across the country, including twice before the United States Supreme Court. Before moving to Texas, Judge Oldham was an attorney at Kellogg Hansen Todd Figel & Frederick in Washington, D.C. His practice focused on appellate litigation in federal courts of appeals throughout the country. Before entering private practice, Judge Oldham served as a law clerk to Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr., at the Supreme Court of the United States and to Judge David B. Sentelle of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He also worked as an attorney-adviser in the Office of Legal Counsel at the U.S. Department of Justice from 2006 to 2008. Judge Oldham earned a B.A. from the University of Virginia with highest honors, a Truman Scholarship for graduate school, an M. Phil., first class (with distinction), from Cambridge University, and a J.D., magna cum laude, from Harvard Law School.
Professor, University of Minnesota Law School
Ilan Wurman is the Julius E. Davis Professor of Law at the University of Minnesota, where he teaches administrative law and constitutional law. He previously taught at Arizona State University. He writes primarily on the Fourteenth Amendment, administrative law, separation of powers, and constitutionalism. His academic writing has appeared in the Yale Law Journal, the Stanford Law Review, the University of Chicago Law Review, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, the Virginia Law Review, the Duke Law Journal, the Minnesota Law Review, the Notre Dame Law Review, and the Texas Law Review among other journals.
Professor Wurman is the author of a casebook, Administrative Law Theory and Fundamentals: An Integrated Approach (Foundation Press 2d ed. 2024). He is also the author of A Debt Against the Living: An Introduction to Originalism (Cambridge 2017), and The Second Founding: An Introduction to the Fourteenth Amendment (Cambridge 2020). His next book, The Constitution of 1789: A New Introduction, is also forthcoming with Cambridge University Press.
Professor Wurman practices law with the firm Tully Bailey. He has litigated a variety of administrative law and constitutional law cases, including cases involving COVID-19 restrictions, transmission lines, and Appointments Clause challenges. He also devised winning public nuisance theories to force city governments to address the increasingly challenging public camping crises throughout the country.
Justice, Texas Fifteenth District Court of Appeals
April Farris was appointed to the Fifteenth Court of Appeals on September 1 of 2024. April previously served on the First Court of Appeals after being appointed in 2021 and elected in 2022.
Before joining the Court, April was a partner at Yetter Coleman LLP, where she handled complex appellate litigation for energy, technology, and government clients. While in private practice, she was recognized in appellate law by Law360, Best Lawyers in America, and Thompson Reuters' Super Lawyers. In 2020, she was one of five attorneys in the nation to be named a Law360 appellate Rising Star, an honor reserved for lawyers under 40.
April previously served as an Assistant Solicitor General for the State of Texas, handling appeals for various Texas agencies. She is a former councilmember for the Texas State Bar's Appellate Section and a current councilmember for the Civil Rights & Civil Liberties Section. She serves as a trustee for the Texas Supreme Court Historical Association, and she is on the board of the Garland R. Walker Inn of Court in Houston. She is a member of the State Bar of Texas Pattern Jury Charge Oversight Committee, and she is on the editorial board of The Advocate. In 2022 and 2023, she was a guest instructor for Harvard Law School's Introduction to Trial Advocacy Program. She taught Origins of the Federal Constitution with Judge Charles Eskridge at the University of Texas School of Law in 2025, and she previously taught First Amendment at South Texas College of Law.
April clerked for Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. She graduated from Harvard Law School cum laude in 2009, and she earned her bachelor's degree summa cum laude from Abilene Christian University in 2006. She was named ACU's Young Alumnus of the Year for 2025. She enjoys spending time with her husband and children, tennis, and theology.
Instructor of Accounting, University of Central Florida College of Business
Professor F. E. Guerra-Pujol was born in Los Angeles, Calif., to Francisco Guerra and Oilda Pujol. He attended college at the University of California at Santa Barbara, graduating with highest honors, and received his Juris Doctorate from Yale Law School. After practicing business law for several years, Professor Guerra-Pujol began his academic career at the Pontifical Catholic University of Puerto Rico. He is currently teaching at the University of Central Florida. His areas of research include markets, property rights and the philosophy of law. He is also the author of many scholarly papers, journal articles and book chapters, including “Gödel’s Loophole,” “A Bayesian Model of Litigation” and “The Poker-Litigation Game.” You can access his work here:
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=649450
Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
ILYA SOMIN is Professor of Law at George Mason University and the B. Kenneth Simon Chair in Constitutional Studies at the Cato Institute. His research focuses on constitutional law, property law, democratic theory, federalism, and migration rights. He is the author of Free to Move: Foot Voting, Migration, and Political Freedom (Oxford University Press, revised and expanded edition, 2022), Democracy and Political Ignorance: Why Smaller Government is Smarter (Stanford University Press, revised and expanded second edition, 2016), and The Grasping Hand: Kelo v. City of New London and the Limits of Eminent Domain (University of Chicago Press, 2015, rev. paperback ed., 2016), coauthor of A Conspiracy Against Obamacare: The Volokh Conspiracy and the Health Care Case (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), and co-editor of Eminent Domain: A Comparative Perspective (Cambridge University Press, 2017). Democracy and Political Ignorance has been translated into Italian and Japanese.
Somin’s work has appeared in numerous scholarly journals, including the Yale Law Journal, Stanford Law Review, Northwestern University Law Review, Georgetown Law Journal, Critical Review, and others. Somin has also published articles in a variety of popular press outlets, including the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, CNN, NBC, The Atlantic, USA Today, Boston Globe, US News and World Report, South China Morning Post, National Law Journal and Reason. He has been quoted or interviewed by the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Time, Newsweek, The Economist, the Christian Science Monitor, the Financial Times, The Guardian, the Associated Press, CBS, MSNBC, NPR, BBC, Reuters, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Al Jazeera, and the Voice of America, among other media.
Somin’s writings have been cited in decisions by the United States Supreme Court, multiple state supreme courts and lower federal courts, and the Supreme Court of Israel. He is co-counsel for the plaintiffs in VOS Selections, Inc. v. Trump, a case challenging the constitutionality of President Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs. Somin has testified on the use of drones for targeted killing in the War on Terror before the US Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Human Rights. In 2009, he testified on property rights issues at the United States Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Somin writes regularly for the popular Volokh Conspiracy law and politics blog, now affiliated with Reason magazine (previously affiliated with the Washington Post from 2014 to 2017). From 2006 to 2013, he served as Co-Editor of the Supreme Court Economic Review, one of the country’s top-rated law and economics journals.
Somin has served as a visiting professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. He has also been a visiting professor or scholar at the Georgetown University Law Center, the University of Hamburg, Germany, the University of Torcuato Di Tella in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Uriel Reichman University in Israel, and Zhengzhou University in China. He is a University Affiliate of the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University, and an affiliated faculty member of the George Mason University Institute for Immigration Research. Before joining the faculty at George Mason, Somin was the John M. Olin Fellow in Law at Northwestern University Law School in 2002-2003. In 2001-2002, he clerked for the Hon. Judge Jerry E. Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Professor Somin earned his B.A., Summa Cum Laude, at Amherst College, M.A. in Political Science from Harvard University, and J.D. from Yale Law School.
Director, Damon Key Leong Kupchak Hastert
Robert H. Thomas is a land use and appellate lawyer, and focuses on regulatory takings, eminent domain, water rights, and election and political law cases. He has tried cases and appeals in Hawaii, California, and the federal courts. For a list of reported cases in which he’s been involved, go here.
Robert is also the inaugural Joseph T. Waldo Visiting Chair in Property Rights Law at the William & Mary Law School in Williamsburg, Virginia, where he teaches courses on eminent domain, property rights, and other property-related courses.
Robert received his LLM, with honors, from Columbia Law School where he was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar, and his JD from the University of Hawaii School of Law where he served as editor of the Law Review. Robert taught law at the University of Santa Clara School of Law, and was an exam grader and screener for the California Committee of Bar Examiners.
He was the Chair (2017-18) of the American Bar Association’s Section on State & Local Government Law, was the long-time Chair of the Section’s Eminent Domain Law Committee, and currently chairs the Regulatory Takings Committee.
He is the Hawaii member of Owners’ Counsel of America, a national network of the most experienced eminent domain and property rights lawyers. Membership in OCA is by invitation only, and is limited to a single attorney from each state. He is also the Co-Planning Chair of the American Law Institute-CLE’s annual three-day conference on condemnation law, Eminent Domain and Land Valuation Litigation. Robert is also the Managing Attorney for the Pacific Legal Foundation Hawaii Center, and is listed in Best Lawyers in Eminent Domain and Condemnation Law, and Land Use & Zoning Law, and in Super Lawyers in Appellate Law, Land Use/Zoning, and Government/Cities/Municipalities.
He is also a frequent speaker on land use and eminent domain issues in Hawaii and nationwide. Robert regularly publishes scholarly and practical articles in his area of practice. For a partial list, go here. His blog on land use, property, and takings law, inversecondemnation.com, is one of the most widely-read blogs on those subjects.
Co-Founder & Former CTO, CrowdStrike
With more than a decade of experience in the field of information security, Alperovitch is a leading inventor of numerous patent-pending technologies and has conducted extensive research on reputation systems, spam detection, public-key and identity-based cryptography, and network intrusion detection and prevention.
As a recognized authority on online organized criminal activity, cyber warfare, and cybersecurity, Alperovitch has significant experience working as a subject matter expert with all levels of US and international law enforcement on analysis, investigations, and profiling of transnational organized criminal activities and cyberthreats from terrorist and nation-state adversaries. He is frequently quoted as an expert source in national publications, including the Associated Press, NBC, the New York Times, USA Today, and the Washington Post.
Alperovitch holds a master’s degree in information security and a bachelor’s degree in computer science, both from Georgia Institute of Technology.
Founder and Executive Director, National Security Institute; Assistant Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
Jamil N. Jaffer is the Founder and Executive Director of the National Security Institute at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University where he also serves as an Assistant Professor of Law, Director of the National Security Law and Policy Program, and Director of the Cyber, Intelligence, and National Security LLM Program. Jamil also teaches classes on counterterrorism, intelligence, surveillance, cybersecurity, and other national security matters, as well as a summer course held abroad with U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil M. Gorsuch. Jamil is also affiliated with Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation and previously served as a Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution from 2016 to 2019.
Jamil is also a Venture Partner with Paladin Capital Group, where he assists the firm with investments across the full range of its themes and theses, including a focus on dual-use national security technologies. Jamil also serves on the board of directors of RangeForce, a cybersecurity training and readiness platform startup and Tozny, a digital identity startup, and on the advisory boards of U.S. Strategic Metals, North America’s largest primary producer of cobalt, a critical mineral used in EV batteries, aerospace, and other national security applications; and Constella Intelligence, a deep and dark web intelligence startup. Jamil also serves as an advisor to Beacon Global Strategies, a strategic advisory firm and Duco, a technology platform startup that connects corporations with geopolitical and international business experts. Jamil is also the managing director of Trigraph Caveat Capital, a private investment vehicle.
Among other things, Jamil currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Greater Washington Board of Trade, the Board of Advisors for the Global Cyber Alliance, and the Advisory Board of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies’ Center on Cyber and Tech Innovation, the Executive Committee of the Reagan Institute Strategy Group. Jamil is also a Fellow at the Academy for Judaic, Christian, and Islamic Studies, an advisor to the Concordia Summit, and is a member of the Board of Directors for the Center for Intelligence Policy, the Board of Directors of Speech First, and the Executive Committee of the International Law and National Security Practice Group of the Federalist Society.
Immediately prior to his current positions, from 2015-2021, Jamil served as a senior business leader at IronNet Cybersecurity, helping take the company from a bootstrapped first-year technology products startup through two rounds of venture capital fundraising, growing from 40 employees to over 300, and through its listing on New York Stock Exchange. In his role as IronNet's Senior Vice President for Strategy, Partnerships & Corporate Development, Jamil worked directly for the co-CEOs of the company, Gen (ret.) Keith B. Alexander, the former Director of the National Security Agency and Founding Commander of U.S. Cyber Command, and Bill Welch, the former COO of Zscaler and Duo; in that role, Jamil led all of the company’s strategic and technology partnership efforts, including developing go-to-market and technology integration plans with some of the largest cloud platforms and cybersecurity companies in the market, evaluating potential acquisition targets, and developing overall corporate strategy and thought leadership around collective security and collaborative defense in the cyber arena.
Prior to his time at IronNet, Jamil served on the leadership team of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee as Chief Counsel and Senior Advisor under Chairman Bob Corker (R-TN), where he worked on key national security and foreign policy issues, including leading the drafting of the proposed Authorization for the Use of Military Force against ISIS in 2014 and 2015, the AUMF against Syria in 2013, and revisions to the 9/11 AUMF against al Qaeda. Jamil was also the lead architect of the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act and two sanctions laws against Russia for its first intervention in Ukraine.
Prior to joining SFRC, Jamil served as Senior Counsel to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence under Chairman Mike Rogers (R-MI) where he led the committee’s oversight of NSA surveillance, NRO intelligence issues, and NGA analytic and collection matters, as well as intelligence community-wide counterterrorism issues. Jamil was also the lead architect of the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, the nation’s first cyber threat intelligence sharing legislation that was signed into law in 2015.
In the Bush Administration, Jamil served in the White House as an Associate Counsel to the President, handling Defense Department, State Department, and intelligence community matters, and serving as one of the White House Counsel’s primary representatives to the National Security Council Deputies Committee.
Prior to the White House, Jamil served on the leadership team of the Justice Department’s National Security Division as Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for National Security, where he focused on counterterrorism and intelligence matters. At NSD, Jamil helped lead the division’s work on In re: Directives, the first ever two-party litigated matter in the FISA Court and the second case before the FISA Court of Review in its 30-year history. Jamil also led NSD’s efforts on the President’s Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative (CNCI), including the drafting of NSPD-54/HSPD-23, and related classified matters, and advised the National Security Agency (NSA) and U.S. Cyber Command’s predecessor organization, the Joint Function Component Command for Network Warfare (JFCC-NW), on matters related to cyber intelligence collection and offensive cyber activities. For his work on these matters, Jamil was awarded the Assistant Attorney General’s Award for Special Initiative and was among the group of lawyers awarded the Director of National Intelligence’s 2008 Legal Award (Team of the Year – Cyber Legal).
Jamil also served in other positions in the Justice Department, including in the Office of Legal Policy, where he worked on the confirmations of Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. and Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. to the United States Supreme Court.
Jamil also served as a lawyer in private practice at Kellogg Huber, a Washington, DC-based litigation boutique, as a policy advisor to Congressman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), and as a staff member or senior advisor on a number of political campaigns, including two presidential campaigns and a presidential transition team. While in law school, Jamil was a member of the University of Chicago Law Review, managing editor of the Chicago Journal of International Law, and National Symposium Editor of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy. Following law school, Jamil served as a law clerk to Judge Edith H. Jones of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and, later in his career, as a law clerk to then-Judge Neil M. Gorsuch when he first joined the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit as well as a law clerk to Justice Neil Gorsuch when he joined the U.S. Supreme Court.
Jamil has published multiple op-eds and academic articles on national security, foreign policy, cybersecurity, counterterrorism, encryption, and intelligence matters, and is the co-author of a book chapter with former NSA Director Gen. (Ret.) Keith B. Alexander on national security and the press in National Security, Leaks, and the Freedom of the Press: The Pentagon Papers Fifty Years On (2021) and a book chapter with former CIA Director Gen. (ret.) Mike Hayden on ISIS, al Qaeda, and other international terrorist groups in Choosing to Lead: American Foreign Policy for a Disordered World (2015). Jamil has also written book chapters on cybersecurity and surveillance, as well as op-eds and policy papers with former Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey, former National Counterterrorism Center Director Matt Olsen, and Congressman Mike Waltz (R-FL), among others.
Jamil has previously taught graduate-level courses in intelligence law and policy at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs and the National Intelligence University, served an outside advisor to the Cyberspace Solarium Commission, and has recently testified before committees of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives on China, cybersecurity, counterterrorism, and other national security matters. Jamil has also recently appeared on a range of national television and radio outlets including CNN, Fox News, Fox Business, MSNBC, Bloomberg, PBS, Voice of America, and National Public Radio, and in various print and online publications, including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and the Washington Post on a range of national security matters including cybersecurity, counterterrorism, surveillance, encryption, privacy, and foreign policy issues.
Jamil holds degrees from UCLA (BA, cum laude), the University of Chicago Law School (JD, with honors), and the United States Naval War College (MA, with distinction).
Laurence H. Silberman Chair in Constitutional Governance and Senior Fellow, American Enterprise Institute; Co-Director, Antonin Scalia Law School’s C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State
Adam J. White is the Laurence H. Silberman Chair in Constitutional Governance and senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he focuses on the Supreme Court and the administrative state. Concurrently, he codirects the Antonin Scalia Law School’s C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State.
Mr. White practiced constitutional and administrative law, particularly in the regulation of energy and financial markets. He started his legal career as a law clerk for Judge David B. Sentelle at the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit.
Mr. White has written for the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Washington Post, National Affairs, Commentary, Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, and Notre Dame Law Review, among other publications. He is a regular contributor to the Yale Journal on Regulation’s Notice and Comment blog, and for many years, he was one of the Weekly Standard’s lead writers on constitutional law and the Supreme Court.
Mr. White has testified often before Congress, including before the Senate’s Committees on the Judiciary; Commerce, Science, and Transportation; and Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs and before the House’s Judiciary and Financial Services Committees. In 2018, the Senate Committee on the Judiciary called him to testify in Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings to advise senators on Kavanaugh’s approach to administrative law.
In 2021, he served on the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States, where he criticized “Court packing” and other efforts to restructure the Supreme Court. In 2017, he was appointed to serve on the Administrative Conference of the United States. He also serves on the leadership council for the American Bar Association’s Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice Section, which he will chair in 2023–24. Before joining AEI, he was a research fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and an adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
Mr. White has a JD from Harvard Law School and a bachelor of business administration from the College of Business at the University of Iowa.
Director, Clean Air, Climate & Clean Energy Program, Natural Resources Defense Council
John Walke has spearheaded the organization’s national clean-air advocacy before Congress, in the courts, at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and before the public since 2000. Before joining NRDC, he spent three years working as an attorney in the EPA’s Office of General Counsel, where he handled cases related to permitting, air toxins, monitoring, and enforcement under the Clean Air Act. Prior to that, he was an associate in a private law firm based in Washington, D.C. Walke is a graduate of Duke University and Harvard Law School. He is based in Washington, D.C.
Deputy Secretary of Transportation, US Department of Transportation
Steven G. Bradbury was sworn in as the Deputy Secretary of Transportation on March 13, 2025, following his confirmation by the U.S. Senate on March 11, 2025. In this role, he oversees the Department’s operating administrations and spearheads initiatives to ensure a safe, efficient, and modern transportation system that strengthens economic productivity and global competitiveness. Deputy Secretary Bradbury also assists Secretary Duffy in managing the Department’s activities, including its workforce of over 58,000 employees and an annual budget exceeding $109 billion.
Bradbury previously served as the 23rd General Counsel of the Department of Transportation from 2017 to 2021, as the Acting Deputy Secretary from 2019, and as Acting Secretary of Transportation in 2021. As General Counsel, he was the chief legal officer, advising on all legal matters and ensuring the integrity and compliance of the Department’s policies and programs.
Before rejoining DOT, Bradbury was a Distinguished Fellow at The Heritage Foundation from December 2022 to March 2025. He has extensive experience in the public and private sector, having served as Principal Deputy and Acting Assistant Attorney General at the U.S. Department of Justice and as a partner at Kirkland & Ellis LLP and Dechert LLP. Earlier in his career, he clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas and Judge James L. Buckley.
Bradbury holds a J.D., magna cum laude, from the University of Michigan Law School and a B.A. in English from Stanford University.
Book Review: Free to Move: Foot Voting, Migration, and Political Freedom
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