Senior Counsel, Alliance Defending Freedom
Andrew D. Graham is senior counsel for academic and professional affairs at Alliance Defending Freedom. He develops ADF’s academic initiatives and training programs, including the Blackstone Legal Fellowship. He also regularly speaks at academic gatherings, universities, and think tanks on law, politics, and culture, and creates professional opportunities for ADF’s Blackstone Fellows.
Previously, Graham was a partner at Jackson Walker LLP, a more than 130-year-old law firm with more than 400 lawyers across Texas, where he achieved an extensive record of success in high-stakes litigation in both trial and appellate courts and was named a “Super Lawyers—Rising Star” multiple times.
Graham is an elected member and trustee of The Philadelphia Society, an elected member of The Mont Pelerin Society, and a member of The Federalist Society and the Society for Classical Learning. Additionally, he is a senior fellow at the Religious Freedom Institute, a member of the board of governors of the John Jay Institute, and a member of the advisory council for the Dallas Forum on Law, Politics, and Culture.
Graham earned his bachelor’s degree summa cum laude at Southern Methodist University (SMU), where he was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa and the Hyer Society. He then earned master’s degrees at Oxford University, where he was a member of Oriel College, and The University of Chicago before returning home to Texas to earn his law degree at The University of Texas at Austin School of Law.
He is a member of the State Bar of Texas and is admitted to practice before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and the U.S. Supreme Court.
Graham is the first person in his family to go to college and is a first-generation American who holds dual American–Australian citizenship. He and his wife, Molly (a classical Christian school educator), have three children and live in Dallas, Texas.
Professor of History, Hillsdale College
Bradley J. Birzer is Russell Amos Kirk Chair in American Studies and Professor of History, Hillsdale College. Co-founder and senior contributor of The Imaginative Conservative, he is also the author of several critically-acclaimed biographies, including those of Russell Kirk, Christopher Dawson, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Charles Carroll of Carrollton. He is also proudly a member of Tom Woods’s Liberty Classroom. Birzer and his wife, Dedra (also a professional historian), have seven children and divide their time between Michigan and South Dakota.
President, Free the People
Matt Kibbe is Co-founder and President at Free the People, an educational foundation which uses cutting-edge technology, video production and storytelling in order to turn on the next generation — “the liberty curious” to the values of liberty and cooperation. Kibbe functions as the team’s Yoda, ensuring that issues and projects don’t succumb to the dark side. He is an Executive Producer at BlazeTV where he produces the Kibbe on Liberty podcast, a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Austrian Economics Center in Vienna, and Co-Founder and Partner at Fight the Power Productions, a strategic communications firm focused on video production, social media branding, and compelling storytelling.
In 2015 he served as Senior Advisor to a Rand Paul SuperPAC, and in 2016, created AlternativePAC to support liberty candidates. In 2004 Kibbe founded FreedomWorks, where he served as President and CEO for 11 years. Steve Forbes said, “Kibbe has been to FreedomWorks what Steve Jobs was to Apple.” Previously, Kibbe worked as a Chief of Staff on Capitol Hill, as Budget Director at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and Senior Economist at the Republican National Committee. Dubbed “The Scribe” by the New York Daily News, Kibbe is the author of three books, most recently of the #2 New York Times bestseller Don’t Hurt People and Don’t Take Their Stuff: A Libertarian Manifesto.
Senior Attorney, DC, Pacific Legal Foundation
Steve Simpson joined PLF in 2019 to head up its Separation of Powers practice group.
Steve’s career in public interest law started at the Institute for Justice in 2001, where he litigated free speech, campaign finance, and economic liberty cases. Among other high-profile cases in which Steve was involved, he was co-counsel in Arizona Free Enterprise Club’s Freedom Club PAC v. Bennett, IJ’s successful Supreme Court challenge to Arizona’s public financing law for political campaigns. He was the lead litigator in SpeechNow.org v. FEC, a joint effort between IJ and the Institute for Free Speech that led to the creation of super PACs. And he was co-counsel in Swedenburg v. Kelly, IJ’s successful Supreme Court challenge to New York’s ban on the interstate shipping of wine.
In 2013, Steve moved into the policy arena as the Ayn Rand Institute’s director of Legal Studies, where he spent five years writing and speaking on a wide variety of legal and cultural issues. From there, he moved back into law as senior litigation counsel at the New Civil Liberties Alliance in Washington, D.C.
Steve has spoken and written on a wide variety of legal and policy issues. He has testified in Congress and briefed congressional staffers. He has been interviewed on scores of television and radio programs, including PBS News Hour, Stossel, and The Rubin Report. His writings have appeared in many publications, including The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post. In 2014, Steve was a Lincoln Fellow at the Claremont Institute. He is the editor of Defending Free Speech (ARI Press, 2016).
Steve earned his law degree magna cum laude from New York Law School in 1994. Following law school, he clerked for a federal district judge in the Southern District of Florida and spent several years as a litigator at Shearman & Sterling.
When he’s not at work or spending time with his wife and three daughters, Steve can usually be found mucking around in the woods at his cabin on Shenandoah Mountain.
Professor of History, Hillsdale College
Bradley J. Birzer is Russell Amos Kirk Chair in American Studies and Professor of History, Hillsdale College. Co-founder and senior contributor of The Imaginative Conservative, he is also the author of several critically-acclaimed biographies, including those of Russell Kirk, Christopher Dawson, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Charles Carroll of Carrollton. He is also proudly a member of Tom Woods’s Liberty Classroom. Birzer and his wife, Dedra (also a professional historian), have seven children and divide their time between Michigan and South Dakota.
President, Free the People
Matt Kibbe is Co-founder and President at Free the People, an educational foundation which uses cutting-edge technology, video production and storytelling in order to turn on the next generation — “the liberty curious” to the values of liberty and cooperation. Kibbe functions as the team’s Yoda, ensuring that issues and projects don’t succumb to the dark side. He is an Executive Producer at BlazeTV where he produces the Kibbe on Liberty podcast, a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Austrian Economics Center in Vienna, and Co-Founder and Partner at Fight the Power Productions, a strategic communications firm focused on video production, social media branding, and compelling storytelling.
In 2015 he served as Senior Advisor to a Rand Paul SuperPAC, and in 2016, created AlternativePAC to support liberty candidates. In 2004 Kibbe founded FreedomWorks, where he served as President and CEO for 11 years. Steve Forbes said, “Kibbe has been to FreedomWorks what Steve Jobs was to Apple.” Previously, Kibbe worked as a Chief of Staff on Capitol Hill, as Budget Director at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and Senior Economist at the Republican National Committee. Dubbed “The Scribe” by the New York Daily News, Kibbe is the author of three books, most recently of the #2 New York Times bestseller Don’t Hurt People and Don’t Take Their Stuff: A Libertarian Manifesto.
Senior Attorney, DC, Pacific Legal Foundation
Steve Simpson joined PLF in 2019 to head up its Separation of Powers practice group.
Steve’s career in public interest law started at the Institute for Justice in 2001, where he litigated free speech, campaign finance, and economic liberty cases. Among other high-profile cases in which Steve was involved, he was co-counsel in Arizona Free Enterprise Club’s Freedom Club PAC v. Bennett, IJ’s successful Supreme Court challenge to Arizona’s public financing law for political campaigns. He was the lead litigator in SpeechNow.org v. FEC, a joint effort between IJ and the Institute for Free Speech that led to the creation of super PACs. And he was co-counsel in Swedenburg v. Kelly, IJ’s successful Supreme Court challenge to New York’s ban on the interstate shipping of wine.
In 2013, Steve moved into the policy arena as the Ayn Rand Institute’s director of Legal Studies, where he spent five years writing and speaking on a wide variety of legal and cultural issues. From there, he moved back into law as senior litigation counsel at the New Civil Liberties Alliance in Washington, D.C.
Steve has spoken and written on a wide variety of legal and policy issues. He has testified in Congress and briefed congressional staffers. He has been interviewed on scores of television and radio programs, including PBS News Hour, Stossel, and The Rubin Report. His writings have appeared in many publications, including The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post. In 2014, Steve was a Lincoln Fellow at the Claremont Institute. He is the editor of Defending Free Speech (ARI Press, 2016).
Steve earned his law degree magna cum laude from New York Law School in 1994. Following law school, he clerked for a federal district judge in the Southern District of Florida and spent several years as a litigator at Shearman & Sterling.
When he’s not at work or spending time with his wife and three daughters, Steve can usually be found mucking around in the woods at his cabin on Shenandoah Mountain.
The Wisdom of Our Ancestors
Andrew D. Graham
A review of Graham James McAleer & Alexander S. Rosenthal-Pubul, The Wisdom of Our Ancestors:...
FS-2112
Northwestern Law Student Chapter
FS-2112
Brad Birzer, Matt Kibbe, Steve Simpson
The Federalist Society's Student Division &The Northwestern Law Student Chapter Present You Don't Get Freedom...