State District Judge, Austin, Texas
Cory Liu is a state district judge in Austin, Texas. He previously served as assistant general counsel to Texas Governor Greg Abbott. Mr. Liu clerked for Judge Andrew Oldham on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and Judge Danny Boggs on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. He was Editor-in-Chief of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy and is a graduate of Harvard Law School and the University of Chicago.
Vice President for Legal Affairs, Goldwater Institute
Fred Gray Endowed Chair for Civil Rights and Constitutional Law, Texas Tech University School of Law
Professor Kenneth Williams is a graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law and currently the Fred Gray Endowed Chair for Civil Rights and Constitutional Law at Texas Tech University School of Law where he teaches Race, Racism and the Law, Civil Rights, Constitutional Law and Capital Punishment, Professor Williams is also a national expert on Capital Punishment. He is the author of a book on the death penalty, “Most Deserving of Death?” Professor Williams is also a co-author of a Criminal Law textbook published by the Carolina Academic Press, Criminal Law: Concepts, Crimes and Defenses. He has also authored numerous law review articles on issues related to Criminal Law Constitutional Law and the Death Penalty. Professor Williams was selected as a Fulbright Specialist and during the summer of 2013 where he taught a course on the American Legal System at the Federal University of Bahia in Brazil. Professor Williams has continued his relationship with this institution as a visiting professor. Professor Williams has also taught in summer abroad programs in Argentina, Chile and Canada. In addition to his teaching responsibilities, Professor Williams has represented several death row inmates during their federal habeas corpus proceedings. In 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court granted a writ of certiorari that Professor Williams prepared on behalf of his death sentenced client. He has also been successful before both the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas in obtaining relief for inmates who were sentenced to death in violation of their constitutional rights. Professor Williams has also made numerous media appearances discussing issues related to criminal law and capital punishment. He has been quoted in the New York Times, Washington Post, Houston Chronicle, Charlotte Observer, NBC news, USA Today, Beaumont Enterprise, Daily Beast, Virginia Pilot, Texas Tribune and Associated Press. Professor Williams has also been interviewed on News nation, Al Jazeera, and local ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox affiliates. He has also been interviewed on numerous radio programs including National Public Radio.
State District Judge, Austin, Texas
Cory Liu is a state district judge in Austin, Texas. He previously served as assistant general counsel to Texas Governor Greg Abbott. Mr. Liu clerked for Judge Andrew Oldham on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and Judge Danny Boggs on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. He was Editor-in-Chief of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy and is a graduate of Harvard Law School and the University of Chicago.
Vice President for Legal Affairs, Goldwater Institute
Fred Gray Endowed Chair for Civil Rights and Constitutional Law, Texas Tech University School of Law
Professor Kenneth Williams is a graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law and currently the Fred Gray Endowed Chair for Civil Rights and Constitutional Law at Texas Tech University School of Law where he teaches Race, Racism and the Law, Civil Rights, Constitutional Law and Capital Punishment, Professor Williams is also a national expert on Capital Punishment. He is the author of a book on the death penalty, “Most Deserving of Death?” Professor Williams is also a co-author of a Criminal Law textbook published by the Carolina Academic Press, Criminal Law: Concepts, Crimes and Defenses. He has also authored numerous law review articles on issues related to Criminal Law Constitutional Law and the Death Penalty. Professor Williams was selected as a Fulbright Specialist and during the summer of 2013 where he taught a course on the American Legal System at the Federal University of Bahia in Brazil. Professor Williams has continued his relationship with this institution as a visiting professor. Professor Williams has also taught in summer abroad programs in Argentina, Chile and Canada. In addition to his teaching responsibilities, Professor Williams has represented several death row inmates during their federal habeas corpus proceedings. In 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court granted a writ of certiorari that Professor Williams prepared on behalf of his death sentenced client. He has also been successful before both the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas in obtaining relief for inmates who were sentenced to death in violation of their constitutional rights. Professor Williams has also made numerous media appearances discussing issues related to criminal law and capital punishment. He has been quoted in the New York Times, Washington Post, Houston Chronicle, Charlotte Observer, NBC news, USA Today, Beaumont Enterprise, Daily Beast, Virginia Pilot, Texas Tribune and Associated Press. Professor Williams has also been interviewed on News nation, Al Jazeera, and local ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox affiliates. He has also been interviewed on numerous radio programs including National Public Radio.
Senior Counsel, The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty
Joe Davis joined Becket in 2017 as Legal Counsel. His work at Becket has included appellate litigation in both federal and state courts, including representing religious entities and governments sued because of their openness to religious expression in precedent-setting victories before the Third, Fifth, Seventh, and Eleventh Circuits. Joe has appeared in national media to discuss religious liberty issues, including on Fox News and numerous radio and print outlets, and his academic work on topics related to religious liberty has been published at venues including the Yale Law Journal Forum and the Notre Dame Law Review Online.
Before joining Becket, Joe worked as a litigator at Jones Walker LLP in New Orleans, Louisiana, where he worked on a variety of matters from commercial and criminal litigation to bankruptcy. From 2014 to 2015, he clerked for the Honorable E. Grady Jolly of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
Joe graduated summa cum laude from the University of Virginia School of Law in 2014, where he served on the Virginia Law Review and was elected to the Order of the Coif. While in law school, Joe studied religious liberty law with one of the top religious liberty scholars and litigators in the nation. He also worked as a researcher for the law school’s Supreme Court Litigation Clinic. Before going to law school, Joe received his B.A. in Economics with a minor in Religion, summa cum laude, from Mississippi State University.
Joe is married to his high school sweetheart. When he’s not helping her corral their four young children, he tends to be reading the classics, watching college football, or listening to his vinyl collection.
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.
Richard and Frances Mallery Professor of Law and Faculty Director, Constitutional Law Center, Stanford Law School
Michael W. McConnell is the Richard and Frances Mallery Professor and Faculty Director of the Constitutional Law Center at Stanford Law School, and a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. From 2002 to 2009, he served as a Circuit Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. He was nominated by President George W. Bush, a Republican, and confirmed by a Democratic Senate by unanimous consent. McConnell has previously held chaired professorships at the University of Chicago and the University of Utah, and visiting professorships at Harvard and NYU. He teaches courses on constitutional law, constitutional history, First Amendment, and interpretive theory. He has published widely in the fields of constitutional law and theory, especially church and state, equal protection, and separation of powers. His book, “The President Who Would Not Be King: Executive Power Under the Constitution,” was published by Princeton University Press in 2020, based on the Tanner Lectures in Human Values, which he delivered at Princeton in 2019. His latest book, co-authored with Nathan Chapman, “Agreeing to Disagree: How the Establishment Clause Protects Religious Diversity and Freedom of Conscience,” was published by Oxford University Press in mid-2023. McConnell has argued sixteen cases in the United States Supreme Court, most recently Carney v. Adams (2020). defending a provision of the Delaware Constitution requiring political balance on that state’s courts. More recently, he was co-counsel in Gonzalez v. Google. He earned his B.A. from Michigan State University and his J.D. from the University of Chicago, and has received honorary degrees from Notre Dame University and Michigan State. He served as law clerk to Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. and D.C. Circuit Chief Judge J. Skelly Wright. He has been Assistant General Counsel of the Office of Management & Budget, Assistant to the Solicitor General of the Department of Justice, and a member of the President’s Intelligence Oversight Board. He is Senior of Counsel to the law firm Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich & Rosati, and is co-chair of Meta’s Oversight Review Board.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit
Judge Nelson was confirmed to the Ninth Circuit in October 2018, as the youngest Circuit Judge to serve from Idaho and he has chambers in his hometown of Idaho Falls. Prior to his confirmation, Judge Nelson served for nine years as General Counsel of Idaho Falls-based Melaleuca, Inc., a consumer goods company. He previously worked in Washington, DC, where he served in all three branches of the federal government, including as Special Counsel for Supreme Court nominations to the Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee; Deputy General Counsel to the White House Office of Management and Budget; Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Environment and Natural Resources Division of the United States Department of Justice; and a law clerk to Judge Henderson of the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. He has argued in most of the federal courts of appeals and worked on dozens of Supreme Court briefs. He started in the Washington, DC office of Sidley Austin as an appellate lawyer, after clerking for Judges Mosk and Brower of the Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal at The Hague, and for now-Judge Tom Griffith, then-Senate Legal Counsel, during the impeachment trial of President Clinton. Judge Nelson earned his B.A. from Brigham Young University and his J.D., with honors, from BYU Law School. Judge Nelson has been a member of the Federalist Society since 1998.
Justice, Supreme Court of Arizona
Clint Bolick was appointed by Governor Doug Ducey in January 2016 to serve on the Arizona Supreme Court and was retained by the voters in 2018 and 2024.
Prior to joining the Court, Justice Bolick litigated constitutional cases in state and federal courts from coast to coast, including the U.S. Supreme Court. Among other positions, he served as Vice President for Litigation at the Goldwater Institute and as Co-founder and Vice President for Litigation at the Institute for Justice. He has litigated in support of school choice, freedom of enterprise, private property rights, freedom of speech, and federalism, and against racial classifications and government subsidies.
Justice Bolick received his Juris Doctor degree from the University of California at Davis, where he has been recognized as a distinguished alumnus, and his Bachelor of Arts degree magna cum laude from Drew University. He serves as a research fellow with the Hoover Institution. Among other honors, he was named one of the 90 Greatest DC Lawyers in the Last 30 Years by Legal Times in 2008, received a Bradley Prize in 2006, and was recognized as one of the nation’s three lawyers of the year by American Lawyer in 2002 for his successful defense of school vouchers in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris.
Justice Bolick is a prolific author of a dozen books and hundreds of articles. Among his most recent books are Unshackled: Freeing America’s K-12 Education System: Immigration Wars: Forging an American Solution, co-authored with former Florida Governor Jeb Bush; and David’s Hammer: The Case for an Activist Judiciary. Bolick serves as an adjunct professor of constitutional law at Arizona State University’s Sandra Day O’Connor School of Law and has served as a lecturer at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.
Associate Professor of Law, Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law, Arizona State University
Jonathan Green is an Associate Professor of Law at Arizona State University teaching Civil Procedure and Statutory Interpretation. His scholarship focuses on the history of political and legal thought. He is especially interested in the history of constitutionalism, theories of interpretation, and the concept of judicial power. His research has been published in the Arizona State Law Journal, the Journal of the History of Ideas, Modern Intellectual History, and the Historical Journal.
Prior to joining the ASU faculty in 2024, Professor Green was a Harry A. Bigelow Fellow at the University of Chicago. He previously clerked for Judge Neomi Rao of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, and worked as a litigation associate at DLA Piper in Philadelphia.
Professor Green holds a J.D. from Yale Law School, where he was an editor of the Yale Law Journal. He received his PhD from the University of Cambridge, where he was a joint recipient of Prince Consort & Thirwall Prize, awarded annually for the best dissertation in the Cambridge History Faculty. He also received his MPhil from Cambridge, and earned his B.A., summa cum laude, from Northwestern University.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
Anthony Johnstone serves as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Judge Johnstone previously served as the Helen and David Mason Professor of Law and an affiliated Professor of Public Administration at the University of Montana, Alexander Blewett III School of Law in Missoula since 2011. As a professor he taught federal and state constitutional law and legislation, as well as a federal judicial clinic. Johnstone also has served as trial and appellate counsel in federal and state courts, including the Ninth Circuit and the Supreme Court of the United States, most recently with Johnstone PLLC. He served the Montana Department of Justice as state solicitor from 2008 to 2011 and assistant attorney general from 2004 to 2008. Johnstone entered practice as an associate at Cravath, Swaine & Moore in New York from 2000 to 2003. Born to Montanans in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Johnstone received his Bachelor of Arts from Yale University in 1995 and his Juris Doctor, with honors, from the University of Chicago Law School in 1999. Following law school, he clerked for Ninth Circuit Judge Sidney R. Thomas in Billings, Montana from 1999 to 2000.
Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit
Judge Walker was appointed to the United States Court of Appeals in September 2020. A graduate of Duke University and Harvard Law School, he clerked for then-Judge Brett Kavanaugh and Justice Anthony Kennedy. In 2019, he was appointed to the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Kentucky. Prior to that, he practiced at Gibson Dunn & Crutcher (D.C.) and Dinsmore & Shohl (Louisville). He has taught law in several states and foreign countries.
Justice, Texas Supreme Court
Evan Young is a Justice of the Supreme Court of Texas. Governor Greg Abbott, who appointed Young to fill an unexpired term, swore him into office on November 10, 2021. Justice Young was elected to a full term in November 2022.
Young graduated summa cum laude from Duke University in 1999, where he was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. He was a British Marshall Scholar at Oxford University, where he completed his studies in 2001 and earned a First Class Honours degree in Modern History, focusing on British constitutional history. He earned his law degree from Yale Law School in 2004.
Young then worked as a lawyer in the judicial and executive branches of the federal government. He first served as a law clerk to Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, and then to Justice Antonin Scalia at the U.S. Supreme Court. In 2006, after his clerkship with Justice Scalia ended, Justice Young became Counsel to the Attorney General at the U.S. Department of Justice, serving in the Office of the Attorney General under Attorneys General Alberto R. Gonzales and Michael B. Mukasey. While on the Attorney General’s staff, he accepted a detail to the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq, where he was the Deputy Rule of Law Coordinator. In that position he worked to assist the Iraqi government in its efforts to strengthen its legal regime, including, for example, its courts and prison system.
Young returned to Texas and joined the Austin office of Baker Botts L.L.P. in 2009. His practice focused on trial and appellate litigation. He argued cases before both the Supreme Court of the United States and the Supreme Court of Texas, as well as many federal and state appellate courts. He represented clients across the country before every level of the state and federal judiciary.
Before joining the Texas Supreme Court, Young was appointed in 2017 by Governor Abbott and confirmed by the Texas Senate to serve as a member of the Texas Judicial Council, which is the policy-making body for the Texas Judiciary. In 2015, the Texas Supreme Court appointed him to the Supreme Court Advisory Committee, which assists the Court in drafting the rules that govern litigation in Texas courts. He served on both until his elevation to the bench.
Justice Young is an elected member of the American Law Institute and a member of the Texas Philosophical Society. He has been an adjunct law professor for many years at the University of Texas School of Law, where he has frequently taught the Federal Courts and Religious Liberty courses. He also has been an adjunct professor at the Unversity of Austin (UATX) and at the University of Mississippi School of Law. He served as Chair of the State Bar of Texas Business Law Section, Chair of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children's Texas Regional Office, and Trustee of the Texas Supreme Court Historical Society.
Justice Young and his wife, Tobi, live in Austin with their daughter.
Director, Project on Criminal Justice, Cato Institute
Matthew Cavedon is the Director of the Cato Institute’s Project on Criminal Justice. He focuses on reforming plea-driven mass adjudication, ensuring police accountability, and defending constitutional criminal originalism. Cavedon’s scholarship has been published (or is forthcoming in) publications including the Arizona State Law Journal, Cato Supreme Court Review, Seattle University Law Review, and Georgetown Journal of Law and Public Policy. Formerly a Georgia public defender and fellow at the Institute for Justice, Cavedon has taught law school courses on criminal law and procedure, as well as the First Amendment. Cavedon clerked for a U.S. district court and the Supreme Court of Georgia. He came to Cato following a fellowship at the Emory University Center for the Study of Law and Religion.
Senior Counsel, Chair, Religious Institutions and Education Practice Groups, First Liberty Institute
Jeremy Dys, Esq., is Senior Counsel for First Liberty.
Dys earned his law degree from West Virginia University College of Law in 2005. After law school, Dys clerked for the Hon. Russell M. Clawges, Jr., chief judge of the Circuit Court of Monongalia County in Morgantown, West Virginia. For six years prior to joining First Liberty Institute, Dys led a public policy organization where he led research and advocacy efforts on matters of life, marriage, and religious freedom.
Dys graduated from Taylor University in 2001 with a Bachelor of Arts, cum laude, degree in Communication Studies, with minors in U.S. History and Philosophy. During his undergraduate career, Dys studied at the American Studies Program in Washington, D.C., where he interned with the late David Orgon Coolidge as part of the Marriage Law Project of the Ethics and Public Policy Center.
In support of his clients, Dys has made numerous appearances in local, state, and national television, print, and radio outlets. His written commentaries have been featured at the Wall Street Journal, FoxNews.com, New York Daily News, TheHill.com, Des Moines Register, Dallas Morning News, DailySignal.com, Washington Examiner, Indianapolis Star, Charleston Gazette-Mail, Outcomes Magazine, TheFederalist.com, and others.
Supreme Court & Appellate Litigation Chair, Lex Politica; Of Counsel, Alliance Defending Freedom
Erin Morrow Hawley serves as Chair of Lex Politica's Supreme Court and Appellate Practice overseeing the firm’s strategic appellate litigation and critical motions practice in the trial courts. Erin is an experienced litigator who represents clients in constitutional, regulatory, and appellate matters in federal and state courts throughout the country.
Erin has represented dozens of clients before the Supreme Court of the United States, served as lead counsel in high-profile cases raising novel constitutional and statutory issues, and authored numerous successful petitions for certiorari and briefs in opposition. She has argued in state and federal appellate and trial courts throughout the country, including the Supreme Court of the United States. Erin represents diverse clients in high-stakes litigation from state governments to faith-based nonprofits to Fortune 100 companies. She possesses expertise on a wide range of subject matters including administrative law, the First Amendment, religious liberty, federal jurisdiction, federal preemption, equitable jurisdiction, tax law, the Affordable Care Act, and Title IX.
Erin represents clients in cases where public communications strategy is paramount. She is a sought-after speaker and writer, has testified multiple times before Congress, and is a frequent presenter on constitutional and administrative law issues, including at the Oxford Union, the National Federalist Society Convention, and university campuses across the country. She is a frequent commentator to media outlets, including Fox News, MSNBC, the Wall Street Journal, WORLD, USA Today, the Federalist, and the Hill.
Erin previously oversaw Alliance Defending Freedom’s--where she still serves as Of Counsel--litigation strategies to empower women and protect the dignity of life, defend pregnancy centers’ First Amendment rights from government overreach, and safeguard Americans’ freedoms from the ever-encroaching administrative state.
Vice President for Legal Strategy, Stand Together
Casey Mattox is Vice President for Legal Strategy at Stand Together and Senior Advisor at
Americans for Prosperity. In these roles he advocates for and creates strategies and
partnerships to ensure a constitutionally limited government that protects the civil liberties of all
Americans. Prior to joining Stand Together and AFP Casey’s legal career focused on defending
the First Amendment rights of students, faculty, healthcare workers and religious organizations.
Casey has a J.D. from Boston College School of Law and an undergraduate degree from the
University of Virginia. You can find him on Twitter at @CaseyMattox_ and on LinkedIn at
@Casey-Mattox-ST.
Founder, Libertas-West Project
Karen Lugo is a constitutional law consultant and national security analyst. She was Director of the Center for Tenth Amendment at Texas Public Policy Foundation from 2013 to 2015. When living in California, she was Co-Director of the Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence Center. From 2005 – 2012, she was a clinical visiting and adjunct professor at Chapman University School of Law where she co-taught the advanced Constitutional Law Clinic. Karen has co-authored and written circuit-level and Supreme Court amicus briefs on such issues as FISA Surveillance, Healthcare Reform, Arizona’s Border Security, Gay Marriage, The Ten Commandments, Eminent Domain, Christian Clubs on University Campuses, and Material Support for Terrorists.
Karen is the founder of the Libertas-West Project, a center for study Islamic integration and radicalization issues. In this capacity, she consulted with the Center for Security Policy to write a book on local over-watch of mosque construction and community engagement called: Mosques in America: A Guide to Accountable Permit Hearings and Continuing Citizen Oversight.
Karen writes and speaks for European and American groups on the importance of basing assimilation efforts on principles of Western exceptionalism. She presented a policy brief to the French Conseil d’Etat analyzing the legal implications of banning the burqa. Ms. Lugo has written one of the most comprehensive overviews of sharia law in American courts, American Family Law and Sharia-Compliant Marriages, for the Federalist Society law journal, Engage. She has written several white papers on the American Law for American Courts legislation and sharia tribunals in America.
Ms. Lugo was an appointee to the California Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. She also taught a Human Rights law course on the contrast between French and English Enlightenment theories in Strasbourg, France.
Until moving from California, Ms. Lugo was a member of the David Horowitz Freedom Center Board of Directors. She was also a regular guest on the Orange County PBS local issues debate program, Inside OC, and she is a contributor to Pajamas Media, National Review Online, City Journal, American Spectator, American Greatness, Townhall.com, American Thinker, Daily Caller, and Family Security Matters. She has been interviewed by dozens of radio hosts and has spoken for civic groups on constitutional and cultural concerns.
Legal Counsel, Alliance Defending Freedom International
Lorcán Price is legal counsel with ADF International in Strasbourg, France, where he heads litigation efforts at the European Court of Human Rights and handles needs that involve the Council of Europe and the Venice Commission. Prior to joining ADF International in 2015, Lorcán worked at the Irish Parliament as a speechwriter and then as a practicing barrister in Dublin, Ireland. He received his B.A. in philosophy from the National University of Ireland–Galway, achieved the degree of Barrister Advocate at the Honourable Society of the Kings Inns–Dublin, and obtained his Masters in Law degree from Trinity College–Dublin with an emphasis on European competition law and commercial insolvency law. He also is a well-known speaker and author for the pro-life movement in Ireland.
James L. Oberstar Professor of Law and Public Policy, University of St. Thomas School of Law
Senior Litigation Counsel, Washington Legal Foundation
Zac joined WLF in 2025 as Senior Litigation Counsel. In that role, he regularly represents WLF and other clients as counsel of record in cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and the federal appellate courts. Before arriving at WLF, Zac served as counsel to Commissioner Allen Dickerson of the Federal Election Commission. Zac also spent eight years litigating First Amendment cases as a staff attorney for the Institute for Free Speech, where he represented clients in federal and state cases across the country. He received his J.D. from George Mason University’s School of Law, where he participated in GMU’s Wiley Rein Supreme Court clinic.
Associate Professor of Law, Temple University Beasley School of Law
Jacob Schuman is an Associate Professor at Temple University Beasley School of Law, where he teaches Constitutional Law, Evidence, and the Law of the Police. His scholarship focuses on the law of community supervision and has been published or is forthcoming in the Stanford Law Review, New York University Law Review, Michigan Law Review, Virginia Law Review, American Criminal Law Review, Philadelphia Inquirer, and New Republic.
Professor Schuman’s scholarship is regularly cited by courts, scholars, journalists, and advocates, including by federal judges on the Second, Fourth, and Seventh Circuit U.S. Courts of Appeals. It has also won plaudits across the ideological spectrum, from the American Constitution Society to the Federalist Society. He has filed amicus briefs based on his work on behalf of clients such as the National Association of Federal Defenders and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.
Prior to joining Temple Law, Professor Schuman served in the appellate unit of the Federal Community Defender Office in Philadelphia, where he represented indigent criminal defendants before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. He also worked as a white-collar criminal defense lawyer in Washington, D.C. After graduating magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, he clerked for the Honorable Michael Boudin on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit and the Honorable James Boasberg on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
Legal Counsel, Center for Free Speech, Alliance Defending Freedom
Logan Spena serves as legal counsel for the Center for Free Speech at Alliance Defending Freedom, where he works to defend free speech and combat global censorship and coercion.
Before joining ADF, Spena served as Deputy Policy Director in the Missouri governor’s office where he oversaw the state’s regulatory reform efforts and worked to approve legislation on many issues including education, foster care, and protecting the unborn.
Spena graduated from the University of Virginia School of Law in 2016, where he served on the Editorial Board of the Virginia Law Review. Spena earned his B.A. in Government: Political Theory from Patrick Henry College in 2012. Spena is a member of the bars of Virginia and Missouri.
Director of Clinical and Experiential Learning, Clinical Professor of Law & Director of the Criminal and Juvenile Justice Clinic, University of Chicago Law School
Erica Zunkel is a Clinical Professor of Law and directs the Criminal and Juvenile Justice Clinic. Under Professor Zunkel’s supervision, law students represent indigent individuals in criminal trial courts, on appeal, and in post-conviction proceedings, and pursue policy and impact projects to effect system change. Professor Zunkel’s Excessive Sentences Project is an initiative that aims to free prisoners serving lengthy sentences through the use of second look mechanisms such as compassionate release, parole, and clemency. Zunkel and her clinic students have secured the early release of 17 individuals, resulting in hundreds of years in prison saved for their clients. In recognition of her post-conviction work, Zunkel received the 2024 Excellence in Pro Bono Service Award from the United States Northern District of Illinois District Court and the Federal Bar Association.
Zunkel’s case and research interests include post-conviction remedies for excessive sentences in the federal and state systems, mandatory minimums, and sentencing. In 2022, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker appointed Professor Zunkel to be a Commissioner on the Illinois Torture Inquiry and Relief Commission, which examines claims of police torture.
Before coming to the Law School in 2012, Professor Zunkel was a federal public defender in San Diego, California and a law clerk for U.S. District Court Judge Martha Vázquez in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She received her B.A. from Cornell University and her J.D. from the University of California-Berkeley School of Law.
Counsel, First Liberty Institute
Kayla Toney is Associate Counsel with First Liberty Institute, concentrating on religious liberty matters and First Amendment rights for clients of all faiths.
Prior to joining First Liberty, Kayla litigated religious freedom cases as a Constitutional Law Fellow at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. She clerked for Judge Gregory E. Maggs on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, where she gained valuable experience in the military justice system. Kayla also worked as a litigation associate in the D.C. office of Winston & Strawn LLP, where she enjoyed working on pro bono religious liberty matters.
Kayla earned her law degree from George Washington University, where she served as president of the Federalist Society chapter, a member of the GW International Law Review, and a writing fellow. She graduated summa cum laude from Grove City College with a degree in history and economics.
A native of Michigan, Kayla is based in First Liberty’s Washington, D.C. office and is licensed to practice law in Virginia and D.C.
Associate Counsel, Clement & Murphy, PLLC
Kevin’s practice focuses on briefing complex legal issues at all levels of the federal court system. Before joining Clement & Murphy, Kevin served as a Trial Attorney in the Department of Justice’s Civil Division, where he briefed and argued high-profile cases challenging federal laws as well as Executive Branch policies and decisions. Those cases involved both merits and discovery issues concerning a wide range of constitutional provisions, the Administrative Procedure Act, the Privacy Act, the Freedom of Information Act, Title VII, and various national security issues, including habeas litigation involving Guantanamo Bay detainees.
Kevin earned his J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, where he was an Executive Editor of the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, a member of the Supreme Court Clinic, a Littleton Fellow in legal writing, and a member of the Moot Court Board. After graduating from Penn, Kevin clerked for Judge David Sentelle of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, Judge D. Brooks Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, and Judge Royce Lamberth of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
Partner, Briard Bonichot & Associés
Stéphane Bonichot is a Partner at Briard Bonichot & Associés, a Paris-based firm renowned for its work before France’s highest courts. A member of the Paris Bar since 2010, he represents clients across a wide spectrum of legal fields, including civil and commercial law, banking and financial matters, securities, competition, intellectual property, criminal law, and international economic law, with particular expertise in Franco-German legal issues. He holds dual master’s degrees in French and German law from the University of Cologne and the University of Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne, as well as a master’s in Law and Economic Globalization from Sciences Po Paris and Paris I. He also earned an LL.M. from the London School of Economics and Political Science and is completing advanced training at the Institut de formation et de recherche des avocats aux Conseils (IFRAC).
Senior Counsel, Alliance Defending Freedom International
Dr. Adina Portaru serves as senior counsel, Europe, for ADF International in Belgium, where she leads the work of our Brussels and Strasbourg teams with a particular focus on advocacy at the international organisations and institutions in Europe.
Independent scholar and journalist
John Rosenthal is a journalist and political analyst who has been covering European
politics for the last two decades. His writings have appeared in such publications as Policy
Review, World Affairs, The Weekly Standard, World Politics Review, Al-Monitor and Brussels
Signal, as well as in French and German in publications like Les Temps Modernes and Die
Weltwoche. He holds a PhD in philosophy and previously taught political philosophy and the
history of European philosophy at schools in both the United States and Europe.
He is the author of “Make Speech Free Again: How the U.S. can defeat E.U. censorship” in
the Spring 2025 issue of the Claremont Review of Books.
Professor of Law, University of San Diego School of Law
Maimon Schwarzschild is Professor of Law at the University of San Diego, where he has taught
since 1982. He has published extensively on constitutional law, jurisprudence, law and religion,
and civil rights. He is an English barrister and an American lawyer: he was an attorney in the
Civil Rights Division of the US Department of Justice from 1976 to 1981 and practised as a
barrister in London in the 1980s. He was a visiting professor at the Sorbonne for several years,
and has been a visiting professor at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He is a Director of the
Institute of Law and Religion at the University of San Diego and a member of the editorial board
of Law and Philosophy. With Gail Heriot he recently co-edited a volume entitled “A Dubious
Expediency: How Race Preferences Damage Higher Education”, published by Encounter Books.
President, TechFreedom
Berin Szoka serves as President of TechFreedom. Previously, he was a Senior Fellow and the Director of the Center for Internet Freedom at The Progress & Freedom Foundation. Before joining PFF, he was an Associate in the Communications Practice Group at Latham & Watkins LLP, where he advised clients on regulations affecting the Internet and telecommunications industries. Before joining Latham's Communications Practice Group, Szoka practiced at Lawler Metzger Milkman & Keeney, LLC, a boutique telecommunications law firm in Washington, and clerked for the Hon. H. Dale Cook, Senior U.S. District Judge for the Northern District of Oklahoma. Szoka received his Bachelor's degree in economics from Duke University and his juris doctor from the University of Virginia School of Law, where he served as Submissions Editor of the Virginia Journal of Law and Technology. He is admitted to practice law in the District of Columbia and California (inactive).
President and CEO, Americans United for Separation of Church and State
Rachel Laser is the President and CEO at Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
As a religious minority – she was raised as a Reform Jew – Rachel personally understands how much it matters that our laws treat everyone fairly and equally. She is an advocate for racial justice and has led workshops, given speeches and worked with schools and universities to challenge racism and expose privilege.
Rachel has written op-eds for major publications, including The New York Times and The Washington Post, and appeared on high-profile media outlets, including MSNBC, Fox News, CNBC, and ABC.
Before joining AU, Rachel served as the deputy director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism (the RAC), running interfaith campaigns on LGBTQ+ equality, immigration reform, gun-violence prevention, and paid sick, family and medical leave.
She directed the Culture Program at Third Way, a Washington, D.C., progressive think tank specializing in understanding and reaching moderates. There, she launched the “Come Let Us Reason Together” initiative, which mobilized evangelical Christians and liberals to find shared values and work together on abortion and LGBTQ+ equality.
As senior counsel at the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC), Rachel founded and ran the Pharmacy Refusal Project, which put protections in place to ensure that birth control prescriptions are filled – without delay or judgment. She advocated for judicial appointments with a proven record on women’s equality, and lobbied in favor of reproductive health bills.
Rachel is a graduate of Harvard University and the University of Chicago Law School. She is also a former national board member of Reproductive Freedom for All (previously NARAL Pro-Choice America).
Rachel lives in Washington, D.C. She and her husband have three children and a dog, Teddy.
Associate Clinical Professor and Director of the Lindsay and Matt Moroun Religious Liberty Clinic, Notre Dame Law School
John Meiser is an associate clinical professor of law and the director of the Law School's Lindsay and Matt Moroun Religious Liberty Clinic. He researches and teaches courses focused on religious liberty, litigation practice, and federal courts.
University Professor of Law and Religion and Director of the Eleanor H. McCullen Center for Law, Religion and Public Policy, Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law
Michael P. Moreland was appointed University Professor of Law and Religion and Director of the Eleanor H. McCullen Center for Law, Religion and Public Policy at Villanova University in 2017. Professor Moreland joined the Villanova faculty in 2006 and served as Vice Dean from 2012 to 2015. His research is primarily in the areas of torts, law and religion, constitutional law, and Catholic social thought, and he regularly teaches Torts, First Amendment, seminars in law and religion, and undergraduate courses in ethics.
Professor Moreland is the co-editor of Christianity and Private Law (Routledge, 2021), and his most recent publications include: “The Authority of Tradition: John Henry Newman and Legal Theory” in Christianity and the Making of Irish Law (Routledge, 2025); “Christianity and Torts” in The Oxford Handbook on Christianity and Law, (Oxford University Press, 2023); “Germaneness and Religious Liberty” in the Notre Dame Law Review (2023); “Contingency and Contestation in Christianity and Liberalism” in the Notre Dame Law Review (2023); “Friendship as the Primary Purpose of Law” in The American Journal of Jurisprudence 279 (2022); and “The Moral of Torts” (with Jeffrey Pojanowski) in Christianity and Private Law (Routledge, 2021).
Professor Moreland was a Visiting Professor of Law at the University of Notre Dame and the Mary Ann Remick Senior Visiting Fellow at the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture from 2015 to 2017. He was the Forbes Visiting Fellow at Princeton University in the James Madison Program during academic year 2010-11. He has served as the project leader for grants from the John Templeton Foundation and the Charles Koch Foundation. He serves as the Chair of the Federalist Society’s Religious Liberties Practice Group Executive Committee and the Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Institute for Advanced Catholic Studies at the University of Southern California.
Professor Moreland received his BA in philosophy from the University of Notre Dame, his MA and PhD in theological ethics from Boston College, and his JD from the University of Michigan Law School. Following law school, Professor Moreland clerked for the Honorable Paul J. Kelly Jr., of the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit and was an associate at Williams & Connolly LLP in Washington, DC, where he represented clients in First Amendment, professional liability, and products liability matters. Before coming to Villanova, he served as Associate Director for Domestic Policy at the White House under President George W. Bush, where he worked on a range of legal policy issues, including criminal justice, immigration, civil rights, and liability reform.
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Cory R. Liu, Timothy Sandefur, Kenneth Williams
As the nation marked the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, renewed attention has...
Did the Constitution Lay the Groundwork for Abolition?
Cory R. Liu, Timothy Sandefur, Kenneth Williams
As the nation marked the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, renewed attention has...
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Joseph Davis, Douglas Laycock, Michael W. McConnell, Ryan D. Nelson
In this Federalist Society America250 series, experts analyze modern legal and policy debates through the...
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FACE Act
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Litigation Update: Prosecutor v. Päivi Räsänen
Karen J. Lugo, Lorcán Price
Päivi Räsänen, a Finnish parliamentarian, has been criminally prosecuted for expressing her Christian beliefs on marriage...
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Kayla Ann Toney, Kevin Wynosky
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The European Union’s Digital Services Act applies to digital platforms and service providers offering services...
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Rachel Laser, John A. Meiser, Michael P. Moreland
In Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board v. Drummond, the U.S. Supreme Court took up the...