Vice President for Legal Affairs, Goldwater Institute
Executive Director, Salmon P. Chase Center for Civics, Culture, and Society, The Ohio State University
Professor Lee J. Strang serves as the inaugural executive director of the Salmon P. Chase Center for Civics, Culture, and Society at The Ohio State University.
Initiated in 2023 by the state of Ohio, the Chase Center will be an academic home at Ohio State for teaching, research, and programing on the foundations of the American constitutional order and its impact on society. As executive director, Professor Strang is responsible for organizing the center, overseeing the hiring and appointment of the center’s faculty, developing curriculum, and delivering student and academic programming. He also holds a faculty appointment in the Moritz College of Law at Ohio State.
Professor Strang is a nationally recognized legal scholar who has published dozens of articles in leading journals in the fields of constitutional law and interpretation, property law, and religion and the First Amendment. He co-edits the textbook Federal Constitutional Law, and his most recent book, Originalism’s Promise: A Natural Law Account of the American Constitution is the first book-length, natural law justification for originalism. He currently is writing on civic thought and leadership, and he is finalizing a book on the history of American Catholic legal education (with John M. Breen).
Before joining Ohio State, Professor Strang served as the inaugural director of the University of Toledo’s Institute of American Constitutional Thought & Leadership. He joined the Toledo College of Law faculty in 2008, was granted tenure in 2010, and was named John W. Stoepler Professor of Law & Values in 2015. The University of Toledo awarded Professor Strang its Outstanding Faculty Research and Scholarship Award in 2017. Before that, he was a visiting professor at Michigan State University College of Law. A graduate of the University of Iowa, where he was articles editor of the Iowa Law Review and Order of the Coif, Professor Strang holds an LL.M. degree from Harvard Law School.
Professor Strang has been a visiting scholar at the Georgetown Center for the Constitution and a visiting fellow at the James Madison Program at Princeton University. In 2016, he was appointed to the Ohio Advisory Committee of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and reappointed as chair in 2023.
Prior to teaching, Professor Strang served as a judicial clerk for Judge Alice M. Batchelder of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. He was also an associate for Jenner & Block LLP in Chicago, where he practiced in general and appellate litigation.
Professor Strang is a frequent presenter at scholarly conferences. He is the president of the Board of Trustees of Northwest Ohio Classical Academy, Ohio’s first classical charter school. He is also a regular participant in debates at law schools across the country, a contributor to the media, and a speaker to political, civic, and religious groups.
Assistant Professor of Law, United States Military Academy, West Point
Jennifer Maddocks is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Law at the United States Military Academy, West Point. She teaches the department’s course on comparative legal systems and is a Faculty Fellow with the Lieber Institute for Law and Warfare. She also serves as the Managing Editor for the Lieber Institute’s Articles of War blog.
Dr. Maddocks started her legal career in private practice, working for eight years as an employment lawyer at law firms in London and in Dorset, England. She then served for more than thirteen years as an officer in the British Army Legal Services. During her military career, Dr. Maddocks performed a range of roles including operational deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq. In addition, she spent one year assigned to the International Military Advisory and Training Team in Sierra Leone and three years at the Service Prosecuting Authority in Germany. From 2016 to 2018, Dr. Maddocks was assigned to the Stockton Center for International Law at the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. There, she commenced her PhD studies, focusing on State responsibility for international law violations involving non-State actors in armed conflict under the supervision of Professor Michael Schmitt. Following her return to the UK, Dr. Maddocks worked as the legal adviser at an operational headquarters, advising on a variety of international law issues. She was awarded her PhD in January 2022 and joined the Department of Law in September 2022.
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.
John C. Jeffries, Jr., Distinguished Professor of Law, University of Virginia School of Law
Paul B. Stephan is an expert on international business, international dispute resolution and comparative law, with an emphasis on Soviet and post-Soviet legal systems. In addition to writing prolifically in these fields, Stephan has advised governments and international organizations, taken part in cases in the Supreme Court of the United States, the federal courts, and various foreign judicial and arbitral proceedings, and lectured to professionals and scholarly groups around the world on issues raised by the globalization of the world economy. During 2006-07, he served as counselor on international law in the U.S. Department of State, and in 2020-21 as special counsel to the general counsel in the Department of Defense. He was a coordinating reporter for the American Law Institute’s Restatement (Fourth) of the Foreign Relations Law of the United States.
Stephan received his B.A. and M.A. from Yale University in 1973 and 1974, respectively, and his J.D. from the University of Virginia in 1977. Before returning to Virginia, he clerked for Judge Levin Campbell of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit and for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr. He has taught as a visiting professor at the Moscow State Institute for International Relations, the University of Vienna, Münster University, Lausanne University, Melbourne University, University of Pantheon-Assas (Paris II), Sciences Po, Paris I, the Interdisciplinary Centre Herzliya, Sydney University, the Peking University School of Transnational Law in Shenzhen, China, the University of Tartu’s Pärna College, and Liverpool University. He also has visited at Columbia Law School and Duke Law School, and served as a scholar in residence in the London office of Wilmer Hale.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Stephan took part in a variety of projects involving law reform in former socialist states. He worked in Russia, Georgia, Ukraine, Albania and Slovakia on behalf of the U.S. Treasury and in Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan on behalf of the International Monetary Fund. He also organized training programs for tax administrators and judges from all of the formerly socialist countries under the auspices of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. His casebooks on international business, international trade and investment, and Doing Business in Emerging Markets are used at law schools both in the United States and abroad. He is the co-author, with Robert Scott, of The Limits of Leviathan: Contract Theory and the Enforcement of International Law (Cambridge University Press, 2006), and the author of The World Crisis and International Law: The Knowledge Economy and the Battle for the Future (2023). His current research focuses on the legal issues related to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and legal responses to the rise of big data.
Partner, Baker Hostetler LLP
David Rivkin is a member of the firm's litigation, international and environmental teams and is co-leader of the firm's national appellate practice. He has extensive experience in constitutional, administrative and international law litigation and has been involved in numerous high-profile cases. With his prior experience in the government sector, David draws on a wealth of knowledge when providing compliance advice to companies and handling enforcement proceedings before government agencies on issues arising out of multilateral and unilateral sanctions, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), anti-boycott issues, bankruptcy and financial fraud matters, and environmental and energy issues.
David has developed and implemented legislative, regulatory and litigation initiatives for two presidential administrations. Over the years, he has published hundreds of articles, op-eds, book reviews and book chapters on a variety of international, legal, constitutional, defense, arms control, foreign policy, environmental and energy issues for various newspapers and magazines, including The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The New York Times, USA Today and The Los Angeles Times, and has been a frequent commentator and guest on TV and radio shows including ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox News, NPR and PBS.
Partner, Baker & Hostetler LLP
Lee A. Casey focuses on federal environmental, constitutional and international law and Alien Tort Statute issues. He also advises clients on compliance issues under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), U.S. trade sanctions regimes, and federal ethics requirements. Mr. Casey’s practice includes federal, district and appellate court litigation, as well as matters before federal agencies. Prior to joining BakerHostetler, Mr. Casey was an associate with Hunton & Williams, practicing in international, environmental and constitutional law. From 2004 through 2007 he served as an member of the United Nations Subcommission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights.
From 1986 to 1993, Mr. Casey served in various capacities in the federal government, including the Office of Legal Policy (1986-90) and the Office of Legal Counsel (1992-93) at the U.S. Department of Justice and served as Deputy Associate General Counsel at the U.S. Department of Energy (1990-92). The Office of Legal Counsel is responsible for advising the Attorney General and the White House on issues of constitutional law and statutory interpretation. The Office of Legal Policy served as a strategic “think tank” for the Reagan Justice Department and was responsible for reviewing candidates for appointments to the federal bench.
Before joining the government in 1986, Mr. Casey was an associate in the Los Angeles firm of Mitchell, Silberberg & Knupp, practicing in the litigation section, with an emphasis on copyright, contract and First Amendment issues. From 1984 to 1985, Mr. Casey served as Law Clerk to the Honorable Alex Kozinski, then Chief Judge of the United States Claims Court. From 1982 to 1984, he practiced at the Detroit firm of Dykema Gossett, focusing on corporate, securities, commercial and intellectual property litigation, and from 1990 through 1994, he served as an Adjunct Professor of Law at George Mason University School of Law in Arlington, Virginia.
Among the chapters, articles and papers that Mr. Casey has authored or co-authored are: “International Law and the Nation-State at the U.N.,” Reclaiming the Language of Freedom at the United Nations: A Guide for U.S. Policymakers, The Heritage Foundation (2006) (with David B. Rivkin, Jr.); “The Dangerous Myth of Universal Jurisdiction,” A Country I Do Not Recognize (ed. Robert H. Bork) (2005) (with David B. Rivkin, Jr.); “Leashing the Dogs of War,” The National Interest (Fall 2003) (with David B. Rivkin, Jr.); “The Limits of Legitimacy: The Rome Statute’s Unlawful Application to Non-State Parties,” 44 Va.J.Int’l L. 63 (Fall 2003) (with David B. Rivkin, Jr.); “Devil’s Advocates: The Danger of Judging Lawyers By Their Clients,” Policy Review (Feb. and Mar. 2002) (with David B. Rivkin, Jr.); “The Case Against the International Criminal Court,” 25 Fordham Int’l L.J. 840 (2002); “Europe in the Balance: The Alarmingly Undemocratic Drift of the European Union,” Policy Review (June and July 2001) (with David B. Rivkin Jr.); “Against an International Criminal Court,” Commentary, May 1998 (with David B. Rivkin, Jr.); “Federalism (Cont’d.),” Commentary, December 1996 (with David B. Rivkin, Jr.); “Presidents and War Powers: Another View,” Common Sense, Winter 1996 (with David B. Rivkin, Jr.); “How Binding Are Contracts?” The American Enterprise, Nov./Dec. 1993 (with David B. Rivkin, Jr.); and “Pirate Constitutionalism: An Essay in Self-Government,” 8 J. of L. & Politics 477 (1992).
Mr. Casey is a member of the California, Michigan and District of Columbia Bar Associations.
Partner, Baker & Hostetler LLP
Darin Bartram focuses his practice in the areas of constitutional litigation and appellate work, with particular experience in environmental law.
Proclaiming Liberty with Tim Sandefur
Timothy Sandefur, Lee J. Strang
As America celebrates the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, Proclaiming Liberty by Timothy...
Navigating Self-Defense and International Law in Gaza
Jennifer Maddocks, Jeremy A. Rabkin, Paul B. Stephan
This webinar will explore the complex legal and humanitarian aspects surrounding recent events in the...
Unlawful Belligerency and its Implications Under International Law
David B. Rivkin, Lee A. Casey, Darin R. Bartram
By: Lee A. Casey, David B. Rivkin, Jr. & Darin R. Bartram* President Bush's Military...