Legal Director, Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression
Will began defending student and faculty rights for FIRE in 2006 after graduating from New York University School of Law, where he served as an associate executive editor for the New York University Law Review. Will has appeared on national cable television and radio on behalf of FIRE and has spoken to students, faculty, administrators, and attorneys at events across the country. Will’s writing has been published by The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, the Chronicle of Higher Education, Jurist, Inside Higher Ed, Daily Journal, the Charleston Law Review, and many other outlets. Will edited the second edition of FIRE’s Guide to Due Process and Campus Justice, co-edited the second edition of FIRE’s Guide to Free Speech on Campus, and has coauthored amicus curiae briefs submitted to a number of courts, including the Supreme Court of the United States and the United States Courts of Appeals for the Third, Ninth, and Eleventh Circuits. Will has taught FIRE’s Continuing Legal Education programs in New York, Pennsylvania, and online. A member of the New York State Bar and the First Amendment Lawyers Association, Will serves as Co-Chair of the Education Subcommittee of the American Bar Association’s Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice.
Will graduated magna cum laude from New York University’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study in 2003. A proud native of Buffalo, New York, Will now lives in New Jersey with his wife and two children.
Partner, Clement & Murphy, PLLC
Erin Murphy is founding partner of Clement & Murphy, PLLC. She is widely recognized as one of the nation’s leading Supreme Court and appellate advocates. She has argued dozens of cases in appellate and trial courts throughout the country, including the Supreme Court and nearly all of the federal courts of appeals. Erin has long been ranked by Chambers & Partners rankings as a leading appellate practitioner, and the National Law Journal has named her one of the nation’s “Outstanding Women Lawyers.” Erin also has an active pro bono practice, through which she has successfully represented many religious organizations and adherents, criminal defendants, asylum applicants, adoptive parents, and more.
Erin is an adjunct professor at her alma mater the Georgetown University Law Center, a member and former officer of the Edward Coke Appellate Inn of Court, and a frequent speaker on topics relating to the Supreme Court and appellate advocacy. In her spare time, Erin serves on the board of directors of Street Law.
Judge, Arizona Court of Appeals, Division One
The Honorable Jennifer M. Perkins began service on the Arizona Court of Appeals, Division One, on October 30, 2017. At the time of her appointment by Governor Douglas Ducey, Judge Perkins was Assistant Solicitor General for the State of Arizona.
Judge Perkins was born in Portales, New Mexico, and primarily raised in Albuquerque. She attended the prestigious Albuquerque Academy from 1988-1995, before moving to Washington D.C. to attend the Elliott School of International Affairs at the George Washington University as a National Merit Scholar. Therafter, she relocated again to Dallas, Texas, and earned her juris doctor from the SMU Dedman School of Law, graduating cum laude in 2002.
Judge Perkins started her career at the law firm of Browning & Peifer (now Peifer, Hanson, Mullins, and Baker) in Albuquerque, New Mexico. While there, she litigated complex commercial matters including class action plaintiff and defense work, and assisted with employment and contract litigation. In 2003, the judge accompanied the Honorable James O. Browning in transitioning to the federal district court bench, serving as his first law clerk.
After her clerkship, Judge Perkins moved to Arizona to work for the Institute for Justice, Arizona Chapter, a public interest law firm. She spent five years with IJ-AZ litigating civil rights cases in Arizona and across the country. In 2009, the judge became Disciplinary Counsel for the Arizona Commission on Judicial Conduct, where she reviewed and prosecuted ethics complaints against state court judges throughout Arizona. After five years serving the state in this capacity, Judge Perkins entered private practice by joining an appellate law firm in Phoenix. While there, she worked on state and federal appeals involving a wide range of legal subjects, including complex business disputes, property rights, judicial ethics, and personal injury matters.
In January 2015, Judge Perkins joined the Office of the Arizona Attorney General to serve as the first Assistant Solicitor General; in that capacity, she was responsible for oversight of Attorney General Opinions and served as ethics counsel to the entire office. In addition to these two primary roles, the judge assisted on a variety of matters including trial and appellate litigation of election-related matters; federal appellate litigation with the Federalism Unit; state criminal appeals; and drafting amicus briefs on behalf of Arizona in state and federal courts.
Associate Professor of Government, Hillsdale College, Washington, D.C. Campus
Richard Samuelson is an Associate Professor of Government at Hillsdale College’s Washington, D.C., campus. Dr. Samuelson is an historian of the American founding and of American politics and constitutional thought. He graduated from Bates College and received his MA and PhD in American history from the University of Virginia. Dr. Samuelson taught at California State University San Bernardino from 2007 to 2022. He was the 2009-2010 Garwood Visiting Fellow at Princeton University’s James Madison Program.
Dr. Samuelson has written extensively on John Adams and on the Adams family of Massachusetts, and on the constitutional politics of the founding more largely. His work also connects the founding with more contemporary issues, with a particular focus on religious liberty, and the challenge the modern American state, and contemporary civil rights laws present to religious liberty.
His essays and reviews have appeared in The Review of Politics, The William and Mary Quarterly, Commentary, The Claremont Review of Books, The Public Interest, National Review, and other publications. He has also contributed many essays and reviews to such online publications as Mosaic, Law and Liberty, Realclearpolitics, and other platforms.
Office of the Florida Attorney General
JEFFREY DESOUSA served as the Acting Solicitor General in the Florida Attorney General’s Office, where he focused on criminal appeals and constitutional litigation, primarily in the United States and Florida Supreme Courts, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeal, and the Florida district courts. He is a member of the Florida Bar’s Appellate Court Rules Committee and the First District Appellate American Inn of Court. After graduating with honors from Georgetown Law, Jeffrey served as an appellate attorney for the Miami-Dade Public Defender’s Office. He has worked on hundreds of appellate cases and presented oral argument in approximately 70, including 18 in the Florida Supreme Court.
Senior Legal Fellow, the Meese Institute for the Rule of Law, Advancing American Freedom
Paul J. Larkin is a Senior Legal Fellow in the Meese Institute for the Rule of Law at Advancing American Freedom. Paul has held various positions in the federal and state governments throughout his career, such as being an attorney in the Organized Crime and Racketeering Section of the Criminal Division at the U.S. Department of Justice, an Assistant to the Solicitor General in the Office of the Solicitor General at the U.S. Department of Justice, Special Agent-in-Charge and Acting Director of the Criminal Investigation Division at the Environmental Protection Agency, and a member of the Parole Abolition and Sentencing Reform Commission and of the Juvenile Justice Reform Commission in the Office of Virginia Governor George Allen.
He has also worked at Verizon Communications and two law firms in Washington, D.C. His current research is principally in the fields of drug policy, criminal justice policy, and administrative law and policy. He has published numerous articles in law and public policy journals, both in print and online.
Senior Fellow, National Review
Bestselling author Andrew C. McCarthy is a contributing editor at National Review, a senior fellow at National Review Institute, and a Fox News contributor. He is a former Chief Assistant United States Attorney in the Southern District of New York and led the terrorism prosecution against the “Blind Sheikh” (Omar Abdel Rahman) and eleven other jihadists for conducting a war of urban terrorism against the United States that included the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and a plot to bomb New York City landmarks. During is 20-year career as a prosecutor, he received numerous honors, including the Justice Department’s highest awards. Andy speaks and writes widely on law and national security, radical Islam, politics, and culture. He has testified before Congress as an expert on issues of constitutional law, counterterrorism, and law-enforcement. He is a columnist for The Hill, and his essays and book reviews appear frequently at The New Criterion. His most recent New York Times bestselling book is Ball of Collusion (Encounter Books, 2019), about the Russiagate controversy (an updated version was published in 2020). His other books include Willful Blindness (2008), The Grand Jihad (2010), Spring Fever: The Illusion of Islamic Democracy (2012), and Faithless Execution (2014). He has also written several pamphlets in the Broadside series published by Encounter Books, most recently Islam and Free Speech (2015).
Member, Ifrah Law
After 27 years as a prosecutor, James (“Jim”) Trusty brings to Ifrah Law extensive experience in complex, multi-district white collar litigation, especially in matters involving RICO, The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, and The Money Laundering Control Act of 1986.
Jim has represented a wide variety of individuals and corporations in the white-collar space. He regularly represents professional athletes, both criminally and civilly, and during 2022 and 2023 he represented President Trump during pre-indictment litigation relating to the Mar-a-Lago and January 6 cases.
Prior to joining Ifrah Law, Jim had a long career in public service, most recently as Chief of the Organized Crime Section at the United States Department of Justice. For seven years, Jim was ultimately responsible for investigating and prosecuting regional, national, and international cases, supervising significant pleadings, and providing strategic and tactical guidance in investigations and multi-defendant trials. In addition to running the RICO Review Unit, which reviewed and approved all criminal RICO cases brought by federal prosecutors, he also was in charge of establishing and promoting policies focused on immigration reform, firearms trafficking, proposed Congressional testimony for DOJ officials, and internet gambling. Significant and sensitive matters on which he worked include the post-conviction review of the Alaska corruption case related to U.S. v. Theodore Stevens and the investigation into allegations of misconduct by a sitting U.S. Attorney and one of her subordinates.
Prior to his work at DOJ, Jim acted as Assistant U.S. Attorney in Greenbelt, Maryland, where he investigated and prosecuted a wide variety of white-collar and other criminal cases, including The Washington area Sniper investigation. He also prosecuted three death penalty cases and was a member of the Attorney General’s Capital Review Committee, responsible for assessing capital-eligible cases such as the Boston Marathon Bomber and the Charleston Church massacre.
In 2018, Jim was appointed by the Governor of Maryland to serve on The Task Force to Study Maryland’s Criminal Gang Statutes. The Task Force assessed the efficacy of existing state laws as they apply to gang-related criminal activity in the state and presented its findings and recommendations to the Governor.
General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer, Arete Advisors, LLC
Partner, DeMarco Law, PLLC
Joseph V. DeMarco is a partner at DeMarco Law, PLLC where he focuses on counseling clients on complex issues involving information privacy and security, theft of intellectual property, computer intrusions, on-line fraud, and the lawful use of new technology. His years of experience in private practice and in government handling the most difficult cybercrime investigations handled by the United States Attorney’s Office have made him one of the nation’s most sought-after lawyers on Internet crime and the law relating to emerging technologies. In addition to his counsel practice, Mr. DeMarco serves as an Arbitrator, resolving complex commercial and high-technology disputes between businesses. He is on the National Panel of Neutrals of the American Arbitration Association (AAA) and Federal Arbitration, Inc. (FedArb).
From 1997 to 2007, Mr. DeMarco served an Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, where he founded and headed the Computer Hacking and Intellectual Property (CHIPs) Program, a group of five prosecutors dedicated to investigating and prosecuting violations of federal cybercrime laws and intellectual property offenses. Under his leadership, CHIPs prosecutions grew from a trickle in 1997 to a top priority of the United States Attorney’s Office, encompassing all forms of criminal activity affecting e-commerce and critical infrastructures including computer hacking crimes; transmission of Internet worms and viruses; electronic theft of trade secrets; illegal use of “spyware”; web-based frauds; unlawful Internet gambling; and criminal copyright and trademark infringement offenses. As a recognized thought leader in the field, Mr. DeMarco was frequently asked to counsel prosecutors and law enforcement agents regarding novel investigative and surveillance techniques and methodologies, and regularly provided advice to the United States Attorney concerning the Office’s most sensitive computer-related investigations. In 2001, Mr. DeMarco also served as a visiting Trial Attorney at the Department of Justice Computer Crimes and Intellectual Property Section in Washington, D.C., where he focused his work on Internet privacy, gaming, and theft of intellectual property.
Since 2002, Mr. DeMarco has served as an Adjunct Professor at Columbia Law School, where he teaches the upper-class Internet and Computer Crimes seminar. He has been invited to speak throughout the world on cybercrime, e-commerce, and IP enforcement. He has lectured on the subject of cybercrime at Harvard Law School, the Practicing Law Institute, the National Advocacy Center, and at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia, and has served as an instructor on cybercrime to judges attending the New York State Judicial Institute.
Prior to joining the United States Attorney’s Office, Mr. DeMarco was a litigation associate at Cravath, Swaine & Moore in New York City, where he concentrated his work on intellectual property, antitrust, and securities law issues for various high-technology clients. Prior to that, Mr. DeMarco served as law clerk to the Honorable J. Daniel Mahoney, United States Circuit Judge for the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.
Mr. DeMarco holds a J.D. magna cum laude from New York University School of Law. At NYU he was a member of the NYU Law Review. He received his B.S.F.S. summa cum laude from the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.
Professor of Law, Emeritus, Washington and Lee University School of Law
David Bruck directed Washington and Lee's death penalty defense clinic, the Virginia Capital Case Clearinghouse, from 2004 to 2020. Prior to coming to W&L, Bruck practiced criminal law in South Carolina for 28 years, and specialized in the defense of capital cases at the trial, appellate and post-conviction stages. Over the course of his career, he has served as Richland County (Columbia, S.C.) Public Defender, as Chief Attorney of the South Carolina Office of Appellate Defense, and since 1992 as Federal Death Penalty Resource Counsel to the federal defender system nationwide.
Bruck has argued seven death penalty cases in the United States Supreme Court, including Skipper v. South Carolina, 476 U.S. 1 (1986), and Simmons v. South Carolina, 512 U.S. 154 (1994), and over 70 capital appeals in state and lower federal courts. He has represented capital defendants at trial in more than 20 cases, including State v. Susan Smith (1995), in which he and co-counsel Judy Clarke obtained a life sentence after their client was convicted of drowning her two small children.
Bruck has testified before U.S. Congressional committees on death penalty-related legislation on nine occasions, has presented CLE trainings and federal judicial workshops on capital litigation in more than thirty states and U.S. territories, and since 2005 has served as Chair of the National Consortium for Capital Defense Training. In 1996 the ABA Section of Litigation selected Bruck to receive the John Minor Wisdom Public Service & Professionalism Award, and in 2001 he received the Significant Contributions to Criminal Justice Award from the California Attorneys for Criminal Justice.
Retired Assistant United States Attorney
Steve Mellin is a recently retired federal prosecutor. He worked for the Department of Justice for over 30 years in offices all over the United States. His career focused on prosecuting violent criminals, including terrorism and death penalty homicide cases. While working in Alexandria, Virginia, Mr. Mellin was involved in the 9-11 terrorism investigations and prosecutions. While at Main Justice, he worked on numerous death penalty cases across the US, culminated his terrorism work with the successful prosecution of the Boston Marathon bomber.
Steve is a graduate of the University of Texas and George Mason University School of Law.
Partner, Ashcroft Law Firm
With more than 20 years government experience, Johnny Sutton has acquired expertise as a front-line trial prosecutor and a top policy advisor to a Governor and a President. Mr. Sutton runs the Austin office of the Ashcroft Law Firm which specializes in internal investigations, white-collar criminal defense and helping companies comply with federal law.
From November 2001 to April 2009, Sutton led one of the largest and busiest United States Attorney’s Offices in the nation. The Western District of Texas covers 93,000 square miles, 68 counties and 660 miles of U.S.-Mexico border. As U.S. Attorney, Mr. Sutton managed more than 300 employees, a $28 million annual budget and directed 43,000 federal prosecutions and thousands of civil cases. Under Mr. Sutton’s leadership, the office led the nation in drug convictions, was second in illegal alien prosecutions, won more than 105 public corruption convictions and sent nearly 400 violent criminal gang members to prison.
In 2003, then-United States Attorney General John Ashcroft appointed Mr. Sutton to the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee—a panel of 17 U.S. Attorneys that advise the General and help carry out the President’s national goals. Sutton served from 2003 until 2009 and was chairman for nearly two years.
After leading the Bush-Cheney Department of Justice Transition Team in 2000, Mr. Sutton was named Associate Deputy Attorney General. He held the position until becoming U.S. Attorney.
From 1995 to 2000, Mr. Sutton served as the Criminal Justice Policy Director for then-Governor George W. Bush. Mr. Sutton was the chief policy advisor to the Governor on all criminal justice issues.
From 1988 to 1995, Mr. Sutton was a prosecutor in the Harris County District Attorney’s Office (Houston, TX) where he tried more than 60 first chair felony jury trials and had only three acquittals. He also successfully tried 17 murder jury trials, including seven for capital murder.
Mr. Sutton attended the University of Texas at Austin on a baseball scholarship where he was a two year lettermen and the starting left fielder for the 1983 University of Texas National Championship baseball team. Mr. Sutton was voted the Most Valuable Player of the NCAA Central Regional Baseball Tournament in 1983. Mr. Sutton is fluent in Spanish and conversant in Portuguese.
Mr. Sutton has dedicated his career to defending the innocent and standing up for the rule of law.
Member, Ifrah Law
After 27 years as a prosecutor, James (“Jim”) Trusty brings to Ifrah Law extensive experience in complex, multi-district white collar litigation, especially in matters involving RICO, The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, and The Money Laundering Control Act of 1986.
Jim has represented a wide variety of individuals and corporations in the white-collar space. He regularly represents professional athletes, both criminally and civilly, and during 2022 and 2023 he represented President Trump during pre-indictment litigation relating to the Mar-a-Lago and January 6 cases.
Prior to joining Ifrah Law, Jim had a long career in public service, most recently as Chief of the Organized Crime Section at the United States Department of Justice. For seven years, Jim was ultimately responsible for investigating and prosecuting regional, national, and international cases, supervising significant pleadings, and providing strategic and tactical guidance in investigations and multi-defendant trials. In addition to running the RICO Review Unit, which reviewed and approved all criminal RICO cases brought by federal prosecutors, he also was in charge of establishing and promoting policies focused on immigration reform, firearms trafficking, proposed Congressional testimony for DOJ officials, and internet gambling. Significant and sensitive matters on which he worked include the post-conviction review of the Alaska corruption case related to U.S. v. Theodore Stevens and the investigation into allegations of misconduct by a sitting U.S. Attorney and one of her subordinates.
Prior to his work at DOJ, Jim acted as Assistant U.S. Attorney in Greenbelt, Maryland, where he investigated and prosecuted a wide variety of white-collar and other criminal cases, including The Washington area Sniper investigation. He also prosecuted three death penalty cases and was a member of the Attorney General’s Capital Review Committee, responsible for assessing capital-eligible cases such as the Boston Marathon Bomber and the Charleston Church massacre.
In 2018, Jim was appointed by the Governor of Maryland to serve on The Task Force to Study Maryland’s Criminal Gang Statutes. The Task Force assessed the efficacy of existing state laws as they apply to gang-related criminal activity in the state and presented its findings and recommendations to the Governor.
Senior Vice President, Strategic Initiatives & Special Counsel to the President, Alliance Defending Freedom
Ryan Bangert serves as senior vice president for strategic initiatives and special counsel to the president at Alliance Defending Freedom. He oversees ADF’s Blackstone Legal Fellowship and Research & Innovation Team. He also advises executive leadership on strategic initiatives.
Before joining ADF, Bangert served as deputy first assistant attorney general and deputy for legal counsel in the office of the Texas attorney general, and as deputy for civil litigation for Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley. Prior to his government service, Bangert was a litigation partner at Baker Botts L.L.P., where he was a member of the firm’s commercial litigation and appellate practice sections.
Bangert has been published at First Things, Civitas Outlook, Law & Liberty, National Review, Daily Wire, The Hill, Washington Examiner, The Federalist, Fox News, and the American Reformer. He speaks nationally on constitutional, cultural, and religious liberty issues. He also serves as Visiting Faculty in Law at the University of Austin.
He earned his J.D. from Southern Methodist University, where he was a Hatton Sumners scholar and graduated first in his class. Following law school, he clerked for the Honorable Patrick E. Higginbotham on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit
Patrick J. Bumatay was confirmed as a U.S. Circuit Judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in December 2019. He is based in San Diego, California.
Prior to his appointment, Judge Bumatay served as an Assistant United States Attorney in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of California, where he was a member of the Appellate and Narcotics Sections. He also served as a Counselor to the Attorney General on criminal law issues, including on national opioid strategy and combating transnational organized crime.
Judge Bumatay has also worked in the Office of the Deputy Attorney General, the Office of the Associate Attorney General, and the Office of Legal Policy at the U.S. Department of Justice. Judge Bumatay has twice received the Attorney General’s Distinguished Service Award.
Judge Bumatay previously worked as an associate at Morvillo, Abramowitz, Grand, Iason, and Bohrer in New York, New York. Judge Bumatay clerked for the Honorable Timothy M. Tymkovich of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit and the Honorable Sandra L. Townes of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York. Judge Bumatay earned his B.A., cum laude, from Yale University and his J.D. from Harvard Law School.
Chief Legal Officer, Castle Island Ventures
Gus Coldebella is the Chief Legal Officer of Castle Island Ventures, a venture capital firm focused on early-stage investing in blockchain technology, where he handles legal, regulatory, policy, and compliance matters for the firm.
Over a career spanning private practice, government, and technology, he has served as a law firm partner, prosecutor, senior federal official, general counsel, and venture capital partner. He previously served as acting general counsel of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in the George W. Bush administration, leading a team of 1,700 lawyers, and focusing on all major security issues confronting the nation. His private-sector leadership roles have included chief legal officer of Circle; general counsel of Paradigm; partner at True Ventures; and partner in Goodwin Procter’s litigation and investigations practice.
Coldebella holds a J.D. from Cornell Law School and a B.A. from Colgate University, where he later served as vice chair of the Board of Trustees and president of the Alumni Council. He teaches “Artificial Intelligence: Law and Policy” at Boston College Law School.
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