Dr. John Eastman is the former Henry Salvatori Professor of Law & Community Service and former Dean at Chapman University's Dale E. Fowler School of Law, where he had been a member of the faculty since 1999, specializing in Constitutional Law, Legal History, and Property. He is a founding director of the Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence, a public interest law firm affiliated with the Claremont Institute that he founded in 1999. He has a Ph.D. in Government from the Claremont Graduate School and a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School, and a B.A. in Politics and Economics from the University of Dallas. He serves as the Chairman of the Board of the National Organization for Marriage.
Prior to joining the Chapman law faculty, Dr. Eastman served as a law clerk to the Honorable Clarence Thomas, Associate Justice, Supreme Court of the United States, and to the Honorable J. Michael Luttig, Judge, United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and practiced law with the national law firm of Kirkland & Ellis. Dr. Eastman has also represented numerous clients in important constitutional law matters and has argued before the Supreme Court. On behalf of the Claremont Institute Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence, he has participated as amicus curiae before the Supreme Court of the United States, U.S. Courts of Appeals, and State Supreme Courts in more than one hundred cases of constitutional significance, including Boy Scouts of America v. Dale, Zelman v. Simmons-Harris (the school vouchers case), Kelo v. New London, Ct. (eminent domain), and Van Orden v. Perry (the 10 Commandments case). He has also appeared as an expert legal commentator on numerous television and radio programs, including C-SPAN, Fox News, PBS, NewsHour, and The O'Reilly Factor.
Dr. John Eastman is the former Henry Salvatori Professor of Law & Community Service and former Dean at Chapman University's Dale E. Fowler School of Law, where he had been a member of the faculty since 1999, specializing in Constitutional Law, Legal History, and Property. He is a founding director of the Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence, a public interest law firm affiliated with the Claremont Institute that he founded in 1999. He has a Ph.D. in Government from the Claremont Graduate School and a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School, and a B.A. in Politics and Economics from the University of Dallas. He serves as the Chairman of the Board of the National Organization for Marriage.
Prior to joining the Chapman law faculty, Dr. Eastman served as a law clerk to the Honorable Clarence Thomas, Associate Justice, Supreme Court of the United States, and to the Honorable J. Michael Luttig, Judge, United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and practiced law with the national law firm of Kirkland & Ellis. Dr. Eastman has also represented numerous clients in important constitutional law matters and has argued before the Supreme Court. On behalf of the Claremont Institute Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence, he has participated as amicus curiae before the Supreme Court of the United States, U.S. Courts of Appeals, and State Supreme Courts in more than one hundred cases of constitutional significance, including Boy Scouts of America v. Dale, Zelman v. Simmons-Harris (the school vouchers case), Kelo v. New London, Ct. (eminent domain), and Van Orden v. Perry (the 10 Commandments case). He has also appeared as an expert legal commentator on numerous television and radio programs, including C-SPAN, Fox News, PBS, NewsHour, and The O'Reilly Factor.
Joel focuses his litigation practice on the defense of patent infringement claims and challenges to patent validity as well as disputes over trademarks, copyrights and other intellectual property. A registered patent attorney, he has deep experience in post-grant practice before the Patent Office, particularly contested review conducted in parallel with patent infringement litigation. Joel works closely with trial teams preparing patent portfolios for assertive litigation through rigorous “pre-examination” claim validity review and owner-directed re-examination and correction. He has also represented clients in copyright matters and related questions involving the rights surrounding various methods of copying, storing, reproducing and streaming digital media.
Joel litigates and advises candidates, election officials and members of the public on election law, including ballot access and integrity provisions of federal law. He has extensive experience in voter roll integrity and language minority ballot access provisions of federal election statutes. Joel has investigated and enforced statewide violations of Section 8 of the National Voter Registration Act, and implemented election day polling place observers in primary and general elections in numerous jurisdictions.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit
Judge Carlos Bea serves as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. He received his Bachelor's Degree from Stanford University in 1956 and his J.D. from Stanford Law School in 1958. Judge Bea was born in San Sebastian, Spain, and immigrated with his family to Cuba in 1939. In 1952, he represented Cuba on the Cuban National basketball team in the Helsinki Olympics. Judge Bea became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1958. He engaged in private practice in San Francisco, principally in the area of civil trials (jury and non-jury), from 1959-75 at Dunne, Phelps & Mills and from 1975-90 at Carlos Bea, A Law Corporation. He taught courses in civil litigation advocacy at Hastings College of Law and Stanford Law School. From 1990 to 2003, Judge Bea served as a judge of the San Francisco Superior Court. He was nominated by President George W. Bush to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and was confirmed in 2003.
Judge Bea and his wife Louise reside in San Francisco, where they raised their four sons, Sebastian, Alexander, Nicholas, and Dominic.
Dr. John Eastman is the former Henry Salvatori Professor of Law & Community Service and former Dean at Chapman University's Dale E. Fowler School of Law, where he had been a member of the faculty since 1999, specializing in Constitutional Law, Legal History, and Property. He is a founding director of the Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence, a public interest law firm affiliated with the Claremont Institute that he founded in 1999. He has a Ph.D. in Government from the Claremont Graduate School and a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School, and a B.A. in Politics and Economics from the University of Dallas. He serves as the Chairman of the Board of the National Organization for Marriage.
Prior to joining the Chapman law faculty, Dr. Eastman served as a law clerk to the Honorable Clarence Thomas, Associate Justice, Supreme Court of the United States, and to the Honorable J. Michael Luttig, Judge, United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and practiced law with the national law firm of Kirkland & Ellis. Dr. Eastman has also represented numerous clients in important constitutional law matters and has argued before the Supreme Court. On behalf of the Claremont Institute Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence, he has participated as amicus curiae before the Supreme Court of the United States, U.S. Courts of Appeals, and State Supreme Courts in more than one hundred cases of constitutional significance, including Boy Scouts of America v. Dale, Zelman v. Simmons-Harris (the school vouchers case), Kelo v. New London, Ct. (eminent domain), and Van Orden v. Perry (the 10 Commandments case). He has also appeared as an expert legal commentator on numerous television and radio programs, including C-SPAN, Fox News, PBS, NewsHour, and The O'Reilly Factor.
Fox Family Pavilion Distinguished Scholar in Residence, University of Pennsylvania
MARCI A. HAMILTON is a Fox Family Pavilion Distinguished Scholar in Residence in the Program for Research on Religion and Urban Civil Society at the University of Pennsylvania. She is also the founder, CEO, and Academic Director of CHILD USA, www.childusa.org, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit academic think tank at the University of Pennsylvania dedicated to interdisciplinary, evidence-based research to prevent child abuse and neglect. Before joining the program on religion at Penn, Professor Hamilton was the Paul R. Verkuil Chair in Public Law at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University.
Hamilton is the leading public intellectual critic of extreme religious liberty and its impact on vulnerable populations including children, LGBTQ, and women. The author of God vs. the Gavel: The Perils of Extreme Religious Liberty (Cambridge University Press), which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, she is also a columnist for Verdict on Justia.com. Hamilton successfully challenged the constitutionality of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (“RFRA”) at the Supreme Court in Boerne v. Flores (1997), and defeated the RFRA claim brought by the Archdiocese of Milwaukee against hundreds of child sex abuse survivors in Committee of Unsecured Creditors v. Listecki (7th Cir. 2015).
Drawing on her experience studying and advising in cases involving clergy sex abuse, Hamilton is the leading expert on child sex abuse statutes of limitations and has submitted testimony and advised legislators in every state where significant reform has occurred. She is the author of Justice Denied: What America Must Do to Protect Its Children (Cambridge University Press), which advocates for the elimination of child sex abuse statutes of limitations. She has also filed countless pro bono amicus briefs for the protection of children at the United States Supreme Court and the state supreme courts. Her textbook, Children and the Law, co-authored with Martin Gardner, will be published Fall 2017 by Carolina Academic Press, formerly Lexis/Nexis.
Hamilton clerked for United States Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and Judge Edward R. Becker of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
Hamilton has been honored with the 2016 Voice Today, Voice of Gratitude Award; the 2015 Religious Liberty Award, American Humanist Association; the 2014 Freethought Heroine Award; the National Crime Victim Bar Association’s Frank Carrington Champion of Civil Justice Award, 2012; the E. Nathaniel Gates Award for outstanding public advocacy and scholarship, 2008; and selected as a Pennsylvania Woman of the Year Award, 2012, among others. She is also frequently quoted in the national media on RFRA, RLUIPA, First Amendment, clergy sex abuse, and statute of limitations issues.
Professor Hamilton is a graduate of Vanderbilt University, B.A., summa cum laude; Pennsylvania State University, M.A. (English, fiction writing, High Honors); M.A. (Philosophy); and the University of Pennsylvania School of Law, J.D., magna cum laude, where she served as Editor-in-Chief of the University of Pennsylvania Law Review. She is a member of Phi Beta Kappa and Order of the Coif.
Partner, Briscoe Prows Kao Ivester & Bazel LLP
Tony Francois is experienced in Water and Real Property Law, Land Use and Zoning, Environmental Regulation, Natural Resources Development, Agricultural Law, and Constitutional Law. He has represented homeowners, builders, farmers and ranchers, trade associations, and water districts in administrative, civil, and criminal proceedings before state and federal administrative agencies and state and federal trial and appellate courts. He is a member of the California State Bar and the Northern, Eastern, and Central Districts of California and the Districts of New Mexico and North Dakota, and has litigated cases in federal courts in California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, North and South Dakota, Minnesota, Massachusetts, Maryland, South Carolina, and the District of Columbia, as well as the Sixth, Eighth, Ninth, and Tenth Circuit Courts of Appeals. He has appeared before the Supreme Courts of California, Idaho, Nevada, and the United States.
Prior to attending law school, he served as an infantry officer in the United States Army, and was stationed in the former West Germany during the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Tony was an Attorney at Pacific Legal Foundation from 2012 to 2021. He was a lobbyist for 10 years, first with California Farm Bureau Federation from 2003 to 2007, and then with KP Public Affairs from 2007 to 2012. He was an attorney at McQuaid, Bedford & Van Zandt in San Francisco from 1999 – 2003.
Professor of Environmental Practice and Director, California Env, UC Davis School of Law
Richard M. Frank is a Professor of Environmental Practice and Director of the California Environmental Law and Policy Center (CELPC). Formerly the executive director of the Center for Law, Energy, & the Environment (CLEE) at UC Berkeley School of Law, Frank returned to UC Davis School of Law in January 2010. In addition to leading the CELPC, he teaches classroom courses in the environmental law curriculum.
Before coming to CLEE and UC Berkeley, Professor Frank practiced law with federal and state agencies for 32 years, most of that time with the California Department of Justice. Immediately before joining Berkeley Law, he served as California's Chief Deputy Attorney General for Legal Affairs.
In 2006, Governor Schwarzenegger appointed Frank to the Delta Vision Task Force, an advisory body asked to develop policy recommendations for the Governor and Legislature, addressing environmental problems confronting the California Delta. He served in that capacity in 2007-08. In May 2009, the Chair of the California Air Resources Board appointed Frank Vice Chair of the Economic Allocation & Advisory Committee, an advisory body formed to assist the Air Resources Board in implementing California's landmark Global Warming Solutions Act (AB 32).
Professor of Law and Executive Director, Law and Economics Center, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
Donald Kochan is Professor of Law and Executive Director of the Law & Economics Center (LEC). Professor Kochan is an elected member of the American Law Institute (ALI) and serves as an Adviser to ALI's Restatement of the Law Fourth, Property project. Professor Kochan is a Nonresident Scholar at the Center for the Constitution at Georgetown University Law Center, where he was a Visiting Scholar in residence during Fall 2018. Before joining the Antonin Scalia Law School faculty, he was the Parker S. Kennedy Professor in Law at Chapman University’s Dale E. Fowler School of Law from 2004 to 2020. From 2003 to 2004, Professor Kochan was an Olin Fellow at the University of Virginia School of Law. During 2002-2003, he was a Visiting Assistant Professor of Law at George Mason’s Scalia Law School.
Professor Kochan’s scholarship focuses on areas of property law, constitutional law, administrative law, local government law, natural resources and environmental law, and law & economics. He has published several books and more than 50 scholarly articles and essays in well-regarded law journals. His work has been cited in more than a dozen state and federal court opinions, in more than 75 briefs filed in state and federal courts including more than 25 filed in the U.S. Supreme Court, in dozens of books and treatises, and in more than 800 scholarly articles.
Professor Kochan received his JD from Cornell Law School, where he was a John M. Olin Scholar in Law and Economics and managing editor of the Cornell International Law Journal. During law school, he also served as editor and executive editor of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy symposium issues in 1997 and 1998. He received his BA from Western Michigan University, magna cum laude, with majors in both political science and philosophy, where he studied as the John W. Gill Medallion Scholar and was honored as the Presidential Scholar (awarded to the top graduate in the political science department).
After graduating from law school, Professor Kochan was a law clerk to The Honorable Richard F. Suhrheinrich of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Following his clerkship, Professor Kochan was an associate with the firm of Crowell & Moring LLP in Washington, D.C., where he specialized in natural resources & environmental law as well as tort, products, and consumer civil litigation & legislative affairs.
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, University of Denver Sturm College of Law
Professor Justin Pidot graduated with high honors from Wesleyan University before attending Stanford Law School, where he graduated with distinction and was editor in chief of the Stanford Environmental Law Journal. Professor Pidot clerked for Judge Judith W. Rogers of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Prior to joining the University of Denver faculty, he was an appellate litigator at the Environment and Natural Resources Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, where he presented argument in more than a dozen federal appellate cases and acted as the staff attorney on two cases before the United States Supreme Court. Professor Pidot also completed a fellowship at the Georgetown Environmental Law & Policy Institute.
Professor Pidot’s scholarship and teaching focus on environmental law, natural resources law, and federal courts.
United States Court of Appeals, 9th Circuit
Milan Smith was confirmed on May 16, 2006 to the Ninth Circuit, which hears appeals from the federal district courts of Alaska, Arizona, California, Guam, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington.
Judge Smith has a distinguished record as a practicing attorney in the public and private sectors. In his private practice, Judge Smith was well recognized for his expertise in real estate law. He represented major corporations, such as Honeywell International and Toyota Motor sales USA, Inc., and a wide range of public clients, such as the Palos Verdes Unified School District, the Los Angeles State Business Authority, and non-profit organizations such as Marymount College. Judge Smith also has extensive experience in the areas of tax law, corporate law and environmental law.
In 1988, Judge Smith was appointed by Governor George Deukmejian to the California Fair Employment and Housing Commission. This Commission hears cases of alleged housing and employment discrimination and determines whether and how much recovery to award to claimants. Mr. Smith participated in dozens of such cases on such topics as racial discrimination and sexual harassment.
Judge Smith’s litigation experience encompassed not only real estate matters, but also contract, family law, tax, and administrative cases. He also had a thriving transactional practice.
Judge Smith graduated from Brigham Young University in 1966, where he received his degree cum laude. In 1969, Judge Smith received his Juris Doctor degree from the University of Chicago Law School
Doy & Dee Henley Chair and Distinguished Professor of Jurisprude, Chapman University Dale E. Fowler School of Law
Ronald D. Rotunda was the Doy & Dee Henley Chair and Distinguished Professor of Jurisprudence, at Chapman University, the Dale E. Fowler School of Law. He joined the faculty in 2008. Before that, he was University Professor and Professor of Law at George Mason University School of Law. From 2002 to 2006, he was the George Mason University Foundation Professor of Law. Before that, he was the Albert E. Jenner, Jr. Professor of Law, at the University of Illinois. He was a magna cum laude graduate of both Harvard College and Harvard Law School, where he was a member of Harvard Law Review. He joined the University of Illinois faculty in 1974 after clerking for Judge Walter R. Mansfield of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, practicing law in Washington, D.C., and serving as assistant majority counsel for the Senate Watergate Committee. He has co-authored the most widely used course book on legal ethics, Problems and Materials on Professional Responsibility(Foundation Press, 12th ed. 2014) and was the author of a leading course book on constitutional law, Modern Constitutional Law (West Academic Co., 11th ed. 2015)(Abridged & Unabridged editions). He was the coauthor of, Legal Ethics: The Lawyer's Deskbook on Professional Responsibility (ABA- West/Thompson Reuters Publishing, St. Paul, Minnesota, 2016-2017 ed.) (Jointly published by the ABA and West/Thompson Reuters Publishing) (with John Dzienkowski). Rotunda also co-authored (with John Nowak) the six-volume Treatise on Constitutional Law (West/Thompson Reuters Publishing, 5th ed. 2012)(with annual updates), and a one volume Treatise on Constitutional Law (West Academic, 8th ed. 2010). He was also the author of several other books and more than 500 articles in various law reviews, journals, newspapers, and books in this country and abroad. His works have been translated into French, Portuguese German, Romanian, Czech, Russian, Japanese, and Korean. These books and articles have been cited more than 2000 times by law reviews, by state and federal courts at every level, from trial courts to the U.S. Supreme Court, and by foreign courts in Europe, Africa, Asia, and South America. He has been interviewed on radio and television on legal issues, both in this country and abroad. In 1993 he was the Constitutional Law Adviser to the Supreme National Council of Cambodia and assisted that country in writing its first democratic constitution. He has consulted with various new democracies in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, including Moldova, Romania, and Ukraine, on their proposed constitutions and judicial codes. He chaired the subcommittee that drafted the American Bar Association's Model Rules for Lawyer Disciplinary Enforcement; was a member of the Publications Board of the A.B.A. Center for Professional Responsibility from 1994 to 2016; was a member of the A.B.A. Standing Committee on Professional Discipline (1991-1997); and was Liaison to the A.B.A. Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility (1994-1997). He was a Fulbright Professor in Venezuela in 1986 and a Fulbright Research Scholar in Italy in 1981. In 1996 he assisted the Czech Republic in drafting the first Rules of Ethics for lawyers in that country. During the Spring, 1999 semester, he was Visiting Professor at the University of Alabama School of Law, holding the John S. Stone Endowed Chair of Law. During the summer and fall of 2000, he was the Visiting Senior Fellow in Constitutional Studies at the Cato Institute, in Washington, DC. In the fall of 2001, he was visiting professor at George Mason University School of Law. During November-December, 2002, he was Visiting Scholar, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Faculty of Law, Leuven, Belgium. In May, 2004, and December, 2005, he was visiting lecturer at the Institute of Law and Economics, Institut für Recht und Ökonomik, at the University of Hamburg. From early June 2004 to May 2005, he was the Special Counsel to the Department of Defense. He was on the Panel of Contributing Editors that produced, Black's Law Dictionary (West/Thompson Reuters Publishing, 8th ed. 2004; Thomson-Reuters, 10th ed. 2014). From 2005-2006, he was a member of the Task Force on Judicial Functions of the Commission on Virginia Courts in the 21st Century: To Benefit All, to Exclude None.
In May, 2000, American Law Media, publisher of The American Lawyer, the National Law Journal, and the Legal Times picked Professor Rotunda as one of the ten most influential Illinois Lawyers. Also in 2000, a lengthy study that the University of Chicago Press published, which sought to determine the influence, productivity, and reputations of law professors over the last several decades, listed Professor Rotunda as the 17th highest in the nation. The 2002-2003 New Educational Quality Ranking of U.S. Law Schools (EQR) [the last year for which such records are available] ranks Professor Rotunda as the eleventh most cited of all law faculty in the United States. Seehttp://www.leiterrankings.com/faculty/2002faculty_impact_cites.shtml.
In July, 2007, he was one of the main speakers at the International Judicial Conference hosted by the United States Embassy, the Supreme Court of Latvia, and the Latvian Ministry of Justice. The other main speakers were Justice Samuel Alito, the President of Latvia, the Prime Minister of Latvia, the Chief Justice of Latvia, and the Minister of Justice of Latvia. On February 27, 2008, President George W. Bush nominated Ronald D. Rotunda to become a member of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) for an initial four-year term and sent his nomination to the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs for confirmation hearings on the nominees. He was selected the Best Lawyer in Washington, DC, in 2009 in Ethics and Professional Responsibility Law, as published in November 2008 in the Washington Post in association with the Legal Times. When he moved to California, he was also selected as one of the Best Lawyers in Southern California, in 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, also in Ethics and Professional Responsibility Law as published in the Los Angeles Times, U.S. News, and American Law Media. On June 17, 2009, he became a Commissioner of the Fair Political Practices Commission, a state regulatory agency (analogous to the Federal Election Commission) that is California's independent political watchdog. He served until January 31, 2013, when his term expired. In 2012, he became a Distinguished International Research Fellow at the World Engagement Institute, a non-profit, multidisciplinary and academically-based non-governmental organization with the mission to facilitate professional global engagement for international development and poverty reduction http://www.weinstitute.org/fellows.html. In 2012, Chapman University honored him with The Chapman University Excellence In Scholarly/Creative Work Award, 2011-2012. Since 2014, he has been a member of the Editorial Board of, The International Journal of Sustainable Human Security (IJSHS), a peer-reviewed publication of the World Engagement Institute (WEI). Rotunda was a Member of the Editorial Board of ABA's Journal of Legal Education (2014 to 2016).
Dean and Jesse H. Choper Distinguished Professor of Law, UC Berkeley School of Law
Erwin Chemerinsky became the 13th Dean of Berkeley Law on July 1, 2017, when he joined the faculty as the Jesse H. Choper Distinguished Professor of Law.
Prior to assuming this position, from 2008-2017, he was the founding Dean and Distinguished Professor of Law, and Raymond Pryke Professor of First Amendment Law, at University of California, Irvine School of Law, with a joint appointment in Political Science. Before that he was the Alston and Bird Professor of Law and Political Science at Duke University from 2004-2008, and from 1983-2004 was a professor at the University of Southern California Law School, including as the Sydney M. Irmas Professor of Public Interest Law, Legal Ethics, and Political Science. He also has taught at DePaul College of Law and UCLA Law School.
He is the author of eleven books, including leading casebooks and treatises about constitutional law, criminal procedure, and federal jurisdiction. His most recent books are, We the People: A Progressive Reading of the Constitution for the Twenty-First Century (Picador Macmillan) published in November 2018, and two books published by Yale University Press in 2017, Closing the Courthouse Doors: How Your Constitutional Rights Became Unenforceable and Free Speech on Campus (with Howard Gillman).
He also is the author of more than 200 law review articles. He writes a regular column for the Sacramento Bee, monthly columns for the ABA Journal and the Daily Journal, and frequent op-eds in newspapers across the country. He frequently argues appellate cases, including in the United States Supreme Court.
In 2016, he was named a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2017, National Jurist magazine again named Dean Chemerinsky as the most influential person in legal education in the United States.
Dr. John Eastman is the former Henry Salvatori Professor of Law & Community Service and former Dean at Chapman University's Dale E. Fowler School of Law, where he had been a member of the faculty since 1999, specializing in Constitutional Law, Legal History, and Property. He is a founding director of the Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence, a public interest law firm affiliated with the Claremont Institute that he founded in 1999. He has a Ph.D. in Government from the Claremont Graduate School and a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School, and a B.A. in Politics and Economics from the University of Dallas. He serves as the Chairman of the Board of the National Organization for Marriage.
Prior to joining the Chapman law faculty, Dr. Eastman served as a law clerk to the Honorable Clarence Thomas, Associate Justice, Supreme Court of the United States, and to the Honorable J. Michael Luttig, Judge, United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and practiced law with the national law firm of Kirkland & Ellis. Dr. Eastman has also represented numerous clients in important constitutional law matters and has argued before the Supreme Court. On behalf of the Claremont Institute Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence, he has participated as amicus curiae before the Supreme Court of the United States, U.S. Courts of Appeals, and State Supreme Courts in more than one hundred cases of constitutional significance, including Boy Scouts of America v. Dale, Zelman v. Simmons-Harris (the school vouchers case), Kelo v. New London, Ct. (eminent domain), and Van Orden v. Perry (the 10 Commandments case). He has also appeared as an expert legal commentator on numerous television and radio programs, including C-SPAN, Fox News, PBS, NewsHour, and The O'Reilly Factor.
Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
ILYA SOMIN is Professor of Law at George Mason University and the B. Kenneth Simon Chair in Constitutional Studies at the Cato Institute. His research focuses on constitutional law, property law, democratic theory, federalism, and migration rights. He is the author of Free to Move: Foot Voting, Migration, and Political Freedom (Oxford University Press, revised and expanded edition, 2022), Democracy and Political Ignorance: Why Smaller Government is Smarter (Stanford University Press, revised and expanded second edition, 2016), and The Grasping Hand: Kelo v. City of New London and the Limits of Eminent Domain (University of Chicago Press, 2015, rev. paperback ed., 2016), coauthor of A Conspiracy Against Obamacare: The Volokh Conspiracy and the Health Care Case (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), and co-editor of Eminent Domain: A Comparative Perspective (Cambridge University Press, 2017). Democracy and Political Ignorance has been translated into Italian and Japanese.
Somin’s work has appeared in numerous scholarly journals, including the Yale Law Journal, Stanford Law Review, Northwestern University Law Review, Georgetown Law Journal, Critical Review, and others. Somin has also published articles in a variety of popular press outlets, including the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, CNN, NBC, The Atlantic, USA Today, Boston Globe, US News and World Report, South China Morning Post, National Law Journal and Reason. He has been quoted or interviewed by the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Time, Newsweek, The Economist, the Christian Science Monitor, the Financial Times, The Guardian, the Associated Press, CBS, MSNBC, NPR, BBC, Reuters, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Al Jazeera, and the Voice of America, among other media.
Somin’s writings have been cited in decisions by the United States Supreme Court, multiple state supreme courts and lower federal courts, and the Supreme Court of Israel. He is co-counsel for the plaintiffs in VOS Selections, Inc. v. Trump, a case challenging the constitutionality of President Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs. Somin has testified on the use of drones for targeted killing in the War on Terror before the US Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Human Rights. In 2009, he testified on property rights issues at the United States Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Somin writes regularly for the popular Volokh Conspiracy law and politics blog, now affiliated with Reason magazine (previously affiliated with the Washington Post from 2014 to 2017). From 2006 to 2013, he served as Co-Editor of the Supreme Court Economic Review, one of the country’s top-rated law and economics journals.
Somin has served as a visiting professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. He has also been a visiting professor or scholar at the Georgetown University Law Center, the University of Hamburg, Germany, the University of Torcuato Di Tella in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Uriel Reichman University in Israel, and Zhengzhou University in China. He is a University Affiliate of the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University, and an affiliated faculty member of the George Mason University Institute for Immigration Research. Before joining the faculty at George Mason, Somin was the John M. Olin Fellow in Law at Northwestern University Law School in 2002-2003. In 2001-2002, he clerked for the Hon. Judge Jerry E. Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Professor Somin earned his B.A., Summa Cum Laude, at Amherst College, M.A. in Political Science from Harvard University, and J.D. from Yale Law School.
Joel focuses his litigation practice on the defense of patent infringement claims and challenges to patent validity as well as disputes over trademarks, copyrights and other intellectual property. A registered patent attorney, he has deep experience in post-grant practice before the Patent Office, particularly contested review conducted in parallel with patent infringement litigation. Joel works closely with trial teams preparing patent portfolios for assertive litigation through rigorous “pre-examination” claim validity review and owner-directed re-examination and correction. He has also represented clients in copyright matters and related questions involving the rights surrounding various methods of copying, storing, reproducing and streaming digital media.
Joel litigates and advises candidates, election officials and members of the public on election law, including ballot access and integrity provisions of federal law. He has extensive experience in voter roll integrity and language minority ballot access provisions of federal election statutes. Joel has investigated and enforced statewide violations of Section 8 of the National Voter Registration Act, and implemented election day polling place observers in primary and general elections in numerous jurisdictions.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit
Judge Carlos Bea serves as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. He received his Bachelor's Degree from Stanford University in 1956 and his J.D. from Stanford Law School in 1958. Judge Bea was born in San Sebastian, Spain, and immigrated with his family to Cuba in 1939. In 1952, he represented Cuba on the Cuban National basketball team in the Helsinki Olympics. Judge Bea became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1958. He engaged in private practice in San Francisco, principally in the area of civil trials (jury and non-jury), from 1959-75 at Dunne, Phelps & Mills and from 1975-90 at Carlos Bea, A Law Corporation. He taught courses in civil litigation advocacy at Hastings College of Law and Stanford Law School. From 1990 to 2003, Judge Bea served as a judge of the San Francisco Superior Court. He was nominated by President George W. Bush to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and was confirmed in 2003.
Judge Bea and his wife Louise reside in San Francisco, where they raised their four sons, Sebastian, Alexander, Nicholas, and Dominic.
Dr. John Eastman is the former Henry Salvatori Professor of Law & Community Service and former Dean at Chapman University's Dale E. Fowler School of Law, where he had been a member of the faculty since 1999, specializing in Constitutional Law, Legal History, and Property. He is a founding director of the Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence, a public interest law firm affiliated with the Claremont Institute that he founded in 1999. He has a Ph.D. in Government from the Claremont Graduate School and a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School, and a B.A. in Politics and Economics from the University of Dallas. He serves as the Chairman of the Board of the National Organization for Marriage.
Prior to joining the Chapman law faculty, Dr. Eastman served as a law clerk to the Honorable Clarence Thomas, Associate Justice, Supreme Court of the United States, and to the Honorable J. Michael Luttig, Judge, United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and practiced law with the national law firm of Kirkland & Ellis. Dr. Eastman has also represented numerous clients in important constitutional law matters and has argued before the Supreme Court. On behalf of the Claremont Institute Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence, he has participated as amicus curiae before the Supreme Court of the United States, U.S. Courts of Appeals, and State Supreme Courts in more than one hundred cases of constitutional significance, including Boy Scouts of America v. Dale, Zelman v. Simmons-Harris (the school vouchers case), Kelo v. New London, Ct. (eminent domain), and Van Orden v. Perry (the 10 Commandments case). He has also appeared as an expert legal commentator on numerous television and radio programs, including C-SPAN, Fox News, PBS, NewsHour, and The O'Reilly Factor.
Fox Family Pavilion Distinguished Scholar in Residence, University of Pennsylvania
MARCI A. HAMILTON is a Fox Family Pavilion Distinguished Scholar in Residence in the Program for Research on Religion and Urban Civil Society at the University of Pennsylvania. She is also the founder, CEO, and Academic Director of CHILD USA, www.childusa.org, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit academic think tank at the University of Pennsylvania dedicated to interdisciplinary, evidence-based research to prevent child abuse and neglect. Before joining the program on religion at Penn, Professor Hamilton was the Paul R. Verkuil Chair in Public Law at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University.
Hamilton is the leading public intellectual critic of extreme religious liberty and its impact on vulnerable populations including children, LGBTQ, and women. The author of God vs. the Gavel: The Perils of Extreme Religious Liberty (Cambridge University Press), which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, she is also a columnist for Verdict on Justia.com. Hamilton successfully challenged the constitutionality of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (“RFRA”) at the Supreme Court in Boerne v. Flores (1997), and defeated the RFRA claim brought by the Archdiocese of Milwaukee against hundreds of child sex abuse survivors in Committee of Unsecured Creditors v. Listecki (7th Cir. 2015).
Drawing on her experience studying and advising in cases involving clergy sex abuse, Hamilton is the leading expert on child sex abuse statutes of limitations and has submitted testimony and advised legislators in every state where significant reform has occurred. She is the author of Justice Denied: What America Must Do to Protect Its Children (Cambridge University Press), which advocates for the elimination of child sex abuse statutes of limitations. She has also filed countless pro bono amicus briefs for the protection of children at the United States Supreme Court and the state supreme courts. Her textbook, Children and the Law, co-authored with Martin Gardner, will be published Fall 2017 by Carolina Academic Press, formerly Lexis/Nexis.
Hamilton clerked for United States Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and Judge Edward R. Becker of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
Hamilton has been honored with the 2016 Voice Today, Voice of Gratitude Award; the 2015 Religious Liberty Award, American Humanist Association; the 2014 Freethought Heroine Award; the National Crime Victim Bar Association’s Frank Carrington Champion of Civil Justice Award, 2012; the E. Nathaniel Gates Award for outstanding public advocacy and scholarship, 2008; and selected as a Pennsylvania Woman of the Year Award, 2012, among others. She is also frequently quoted in the national media on RFRA, RLUIPA, First Amendment, clergy sex abuse, and statute of limitations issues.
Professor Hamilton is a graduate of Vanderbilt University, B.A., summa cum laude; Pennsylvania State University, M.A. (English, fiction writing, High Honors); M.A. (Philosophy); and the University of Pennsylvania School of Law, J.D., magna cum laude, where she served as Editor-in-Chief of the University of Pennsylvania Law Review. She is a member of Phi Beta Kappa and Order of the Coif.
Joel focuses his litigation practice on the defense of patent infringement claims and challenges to patent validity as well as disputes over trademarks, copyrights and other intellectual property. A registered patent attorney, he has deep experience in post-grant practice before the Patent Office, particularly contested review conducted in parallel with patent infringement litigation. Joel works closely with trial teams preparing patent portfolios for assertive litigation through rigorous “pre-examination” claim validity review and owner-directed re-examination and correction. He has also represented clients in copyright matters and related questions involving the rights surrounding various methods of copying, storing, reproducing and streaming digital media.
Joel litigates and advises candidates, election officials and members of the public on election law, including ballot access and integrity provisions of federal law. He has extensive experience in voter roll integrity and language minority ballot access provisions of federal election statutes. Joel has investigated and enforced statewide violations of Section 8 of the National Voter Registration Act, and implemented election day polling place observers in primary and general elections in numerous jurisdictions.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit
Judge Carlos Bea serves as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. He received his Bachelor's Degree from Stanford University in 1956 and his J.D. from Stanford Law School in 1958. Judge Bea was born in San Sebastian, Spain, and immigrated with his family to Cuba in 1939. In 1952, he represented Cuba on the Cuban National basketball team in the Helsinki Olympics. Judge Bea became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1958. He engaged in private practice in San Francisco, principally in the area of civil trials (jury and non-jury), from 1959-75 at Dunne, Phelps & Mills and from 1975-90 at Carlos Bea, A Law Corporation. He taught courses in civil litigation advocacy at Hastings College of Law and Stanford Law School. From 1990 to 2003, Judge Bea served as a judge of the San Francisco Superior Court. He was nominated by President George W. Bush to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and was confirmed in 2003.
Judge Bea and his wife Louise reside in San Francisco, where they raised their four sons, Sebastian, Alexander, Nicholas, and Dominic.
Dr. John Eastman is the former Henry Salvatori Professor of Law & Community Service and former Dean at Chapman University's Dale E. Fowler School of Law, where he had been a member of the faculty since 1999, specializing in Constitutional Law, Legal History, and Property. He is a founding director of the Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence, a public interest law firm affiliated with the Claremont Institute that he founded in 1999. He has a Ph.D. in Government from the Claremont Graduate School and a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School, and a B.A. in Politics and Economics from the University of Dallas. He serves as the Chairman of the Board of the National Organization for Marriage.
Prior to joining the Chapman law faculty, Dr. Eastman served as a law clerk to the Honorable Clarence Thomas, Associate Justice, Supreme Court of the United States, and to the Honorable J. Michael Luttig, Judge, United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and practiced law with the national law firm of Kirkland & Ellis. Dr. Eastman has also represented numerous clients in important constitutional law matters and has argued before the Supreme Court. On behalf of the Claremont Institute Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence, he has participated as amicus curiae before the Supreme Court of the United States, U.S. Courts of Appeals, and State Supreme Courts in more than one hundred cases of constitutional significance, including Boy Scouts of America v. Dale, Zelman v. Simmons-Harris (the school vouchers case), Kelo v. New London, Ct. (eminent domain), and Van Orden v. Perry (the 10 Commandments case). He has also appeared as an expert legal commentator on numerous television and radio programs, including C-SPAN, Fox News, PBS, NewsHour, and The O'Reilly Factor.
Fox Family Pavilion Distinguished Scholar in Residence, University of Pennsylvania
MARCI A. HAMILTON is a Fox Family Pavilion Distinguished Scholar in Residence in the Program for Research on Religion and Urban Civil Society at the University of Pennsylvania. She is also the founder, CEO, and Academic Director of CHILD USA, www.childusa.org, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit academic think tank at the University of Pennsylvania dedicated to interdisciplinary, evidence-based research to prevent child abuse and neglect. Before joining the program on religion at Penn, Professor Hamilton was the Paul R. Verkuil Chair in Public Law at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University.
Hamilton is the leading public intellectual critic of extreme religious liberty and its impact on vulnerable populations including children, LGBTQ, and women. The author of God vs. the Gavel: The Perils of Extreme Religious Liberty (Cambridge University Press), which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, she is also a columnist for Verdict on Justia.com. Hamilton successfully challenged the constitutionality of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (“RFRA”) at the Supreme Court in Boerne v. Flores (1997), and defeated the RFRA claim brought by the Archdiocese of Milwaukee against hundreds of child sex abuse survivors in Committee of Unsecured Creditors v. Listecki (7th Cir. 2015).
Drawing on her experience studying and advising in cases involving clergy sex abuse, Hamilton is the leading expert on child sex abuse statutes of limitations and has submitted testimony and advised legislators in every state where significant reform has occurred. She is the author of Justice Denied: What America Must Do to Protect Its Children (Cambridge University Press), which advocates for the elimination of child sex abuse statutes of limitations. She has also filed countless pro bono amicus briefs for the protection of children at the United States Supreme Court and the state supreme courts. Her textbook, Children and the Law, co-authored with Martin Gardner, will be published Fall 2017 by Carolina Academic Press, formerly Lexis/Nexis.
Hamilton clerked for United States Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and Judge Edward R. Becker of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
Hamilton has been honored with the 2016 Voice Today, Voice of Gratitude Award; the 2015 Religious Liberty Award, American Humanist Association; the 2014 Freethought Heroine Award; the National Crime Victim Bar Association’s Frank Carrington Champion of Civil Justice Award, 2012; the E. Nathaniel Gates Award for outstanding public advocacy and scholarship, 2008; and selected as a Pennsylvania Woman of the Year Award, 2012, among others. She is also frequently quoted in the national media on RFRA, RLUIPA, First Amendment, clergy sex abuse, and statute of limitations issues.
Professor Hamilton is a graduate of Vanderbilt University, B.A., summa cum laude; Pennsylvania State University, M.A. (English, fiction writing, High Honors); M.A. (Philosophy); and the University of Pennsylvania School of Law, J.D., magna cum laude, where she served as Editor-in-Chief of the University of Pennsylvania Law Review. She is a member of Phi Beta Kappa and Order of the Coif.
Partner, Briscoe Prows Kao Ivester & Bazel LLP
Tony Francois is experienced in Water and Real Property Law, Land Use and Zoning, Environmental Regulation, Natural Resources Development, Agricultural Law, and Constitutional Law. He has represented homeowners, builders, farmers and ranchers, trade associations, and water districts in administrative, civil, and criminal proceedings before state and federal administrative agencies and state and federal trial and appellate courts. He is a member of the California State Bar and the Northern, Eastern, and Central Districts of California and the Districts of New Mexico and North Dakota, and has litigated cases in federal courts in California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, North and South Dakota, Minnesota, Massachusetts, Maryland, South Carolina, and the District of Columbia, as well as the Sixth, Eighth, Ninth, and Tenth Circuit Courts of Appeals. He has appeared before the Supreme Courts of California, Idaho, Nevada, and the United States.
Prior to attending law school, he served as an infantry officer in the United States Army, and was stationed in the former West Germany during the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Tony was an Attorney at Pacific Legal Foundation from 2012 to 2021. He was a lobbyist for 10 years, first with California Farm Bureau Federation from 2003 to 2007, and then with KP Public Affairs from 2007 to 2012. He was an attorney at McQuaid, Bedford & Van Zandt in San Francisco from 1999 – 2003.
Professor of Environmental Practice and Director, California Env, UC Davis School of Law
Richard M. Frank is a Professor of Environmental Practice and Director of the California Environmental Law and Policy Center (CELPC). Formerly the executive director of the Center for Law, Energy, & the Environment (CLEE) at UC Berkeley School of Law, Frank returned to UC Davis School of Law in January 2010. In addition to leading the CELPC, he teaches classroom courses in the environmental law curriculum.
Before coming to CLEE and UC Berkeley, Professor Frank practiced law with federal and state agencies for 32 years, most of that time with the California Department of Justice. Immediately before joining Berkeley Law, he served as California's Chief Deputy Attorney General for Legal Affairs.
In 2006, Governor Schwarzenegger appointed Frank to the Delta Vision Task Force, an advisory body asked to develop policy recommendations for the Governor and Legislature, addressing environmental problems confronting the California Delta. He served in that capacity in 2007-08. In May 2009, the Chair of the California Air Resources Board appointed Frank Vice Chair of the Economic Allocation & Advisory Committee, an advisory body formed to assist the Air Resources Board in implementing California's landmark Global Warming Solutions Act (AB 32).
Professor of Law and Executive Director, Law and Economics Center, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
Donald Kochan is Professor of Law and Executive Director of the Law & Economics Center (LEC). Professor Kochan is an elected member of the American Law Institute (ALI) and serves as an Adviser to ALI's Restatement of the Law Fourth, Property project. Professor Kochan is a Nonresident Scholar at the Center for the Constitution at Georgetown University Law Center, where he was a Visiting Scholar in residence during Fall 2018. Before joining the Antonin Scalia Law School faculty, he was the Parker S. Kennedy Professor in Law at Chapman University’s Dale E. Fowler School of Law from 2004 to 2020. From 2003 to 2004, Professor Kochan was an Olin Fellow at the University of Virginia School of Law. During 2002-2003, he was a Visiting Assistant Professor of Law at George Mason’s Scalia Law School.
Professor Kochan’s scholarship focuses on areas of property law, constitutional law, administrative law, local government law, natural resources and environmental law, and law & economics. He has published several books and more than 50 scholarly articles and essays in well-regarded law journals. His work has been cited in more than a dozen state and federal court opinions, in more than 75 briefs filed in state and federal courts including more than 25 filed in the U.S. Supreme Court, in dozens of books and treatises, and in more than 800 scholarly articles.
Professor Kochan received his JD from Cornell Law School, where he was a John M. Olin Scholar in Law and Economics and managing editor of the Cornell International Law Journal. During law school, he also served as editor and executive editor of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy symposium issues in 1997 and 1998. He received his BA from Western Michigan University, magna cum laude, with majors in both political science and philosophy, where he studied as the John W. Gill Medallion Scholar and was honored as the Presidential Scholar (awarded to the top graduate in the political science department).
After graduating from law school, Professor Kochan was a law clerk to The Honorable Richard F. Suhrheinrich of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Following his clerkship, Professor Kochan was an associate with the firm of Crowell & Moring LLP in Washington, D.C., where he specialized in natural resources & environmental law as well as tort, products, and consumer civil litigation & legislative affairs.
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, University of Denver Sturm College of Law
Professor Justin Pidot graduated with high honors from Wesleyan University before attending Stanford Law School, where he graduated with distinction and was editor in chief of the Stanford Environmental Law Journal. Professor Pidot clerked for Judge Judith W. Rogers of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Prior to joining the University of Denver faculty, he was an appellate litigator at the Environment and Natural Resources Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, where he presented argument in more than a dozen federal appellate cases and acted as the staff attorney on two cases before the United States Supreme Court. Professor Pidot also completed a fellowship at the Georgetown Environmental Law & Policy Institute.
Professor Pidot’s scholarship and teaching focus on environmental law, natural resources law, and federal courts.
United States Court of Appeals, 9th Circuit
Milan Smith was confirmed on May 16, 2006 to the Ninth Circuit, which hears appeals from the federal district courts of Alaska, Arizona, California, Guam, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington.
Judge Smith has a distinguished record as a practicing attorney in the public and private sectors. In his private practice, Judge Smith was well recognized for his expertise in real estate law. He represented major corporations, such as Honeywell International and Toyota Motor sales USA, Inc., and a wide range of public clients, such as the Palos Verdes Unified School District, the Los Angeles State Business Authority, and non-profit organizations such as Marymount College. Judge Smith also has extensive experience in the areas of tax law, corporate law and environmental law.
In 1988, Judge Smith was appointed by Governor George Deukmejian to the California Fair Employment and Housing Commission. This Commission hears cases of alleged housing and employment discrimination and determines whether and how much recovery to award to claimants. Mr. Smith participated in dozens of such cases on such topics as racial discrimination and sexual harassment.
Judge Smith’s litigation experience encompassed not only real estate matters, but also contract, family law, tax, and administrative cases. He also had a thriving transactional practice.
Judge Smith graduated from Brigham Young University in 1966, where he received his degree cum laude. In 1969, Judge Smith received his Juris Doctor degree from the University of Chicago Law School
Partner, Briscoe Prows Kao Ivester & Bazel LLP
Tony Francois is experienced in Water and Real Property Law, Land Use and Zoning, Environmental Regulation, Natural Resources Development, Agricultural Law, and Constitutional Law. He has represented homeowners, builders, farmers and ranchers, trade associations, and water districts in administrative, civil, and criminal proceedings before state and federal administrative agencies and state and federal trial and appellate courts. He is a member of the California State Bar and the Northern, Eastern, and Central Districts of California and the Districts of New Mexico and North Dakota, and has litigated cases in federal courts in California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, North and South Dakota, Minnesota, Massachusetts, Maryland, South Carolina, and the District of Columbia, as well as the Sixth, Eighth, Ninth, and Tenth Circuit Courts of Appeals. He has appeared before the Supreme Courts of California, Idaho, Nevada, and the United States.
Prior to attending law school, he served as an infantry officer in the United States Army, and was stationed in the former West Germany during the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Tony was an Attorney at Pacific Legal Foundation from 2012 to 2021. He was a lobbyist for 10 years, first with California Farm Bureau Federation from 2003 to 2007, and then with KP Public Affairs from 2007 to 2012. He was an attorney at McQuaid, Bedford & Van Zandt in San Francisco from 1999 – 2003.
Professor of Environmental Practice and Director, California Env, UC Davis School of Law
Richard M. Frank is a Professor of Environmental Practice and Director of the California Environmental Law and Policy Center (CELPC). Formerly the executive director of the Center for Law, Energy, & the Environment (CLEE) at UC Berkeley School of Law, Frank returned to UC Davis School of Law in January 2010. In addition to leading the CELPC, he teaches classroom courses in the environmental law curriculum.
Before coming to CLEE and UC Berkeley, Professor Frank practiced law with federal and state agencies for 32 years, most of that time with the California Department of Justice. Immediately before joining Berkeley Law, he served as California's Chief Deputy Attorney General for Legal Affairs.
In 2006, Governor Schwarzenegger appointed Frank to the Delta Vision Task Force, an advisory body asked to develop policy recommendations for the Governor and Legislature, addressing environmental problems confronting the California Delta. He served in that capacity in 2007-08. In May 2009, the Chair of the California Air Resources Board appointed Frank Vice Chair of the Economic Allocation & Advisory Committee, an advisory body formed to assist the Air Resources Board in implementing California's landmark Global Warming Solutions Act (AB 32).
Professor of Law and Executive Director, Law and Economics Center, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
Donald Kochan is Professor of Law and Executive Director of the Law & Economics Center (LEC). Professor Kochan is an elected member of the American Law Institute (ALI) and serves as an Adviser to ALI's Restatement of the Law Fourth, Property project. Professor Kochan is a Nonresident Scholar at the Center for the Constitution at Georgetown University Law Center, where he was a Visiting Scholar in residence during Fall 2018. Before joining the Antonin Scalia Law School faculty, he was the Parker S. Kennedy Professor in Law at Chapman University’s Dale E. Fowler School of Law from 2004 to 2020. From 2003 to 2004, Professor Kochan was an Olin Fellow at the University of Virginia School of Law. During 2002-2003, he was a Visiting Assistant Professor of Law at George Mason’s Scalia Law School.
Professor Kochan’s scholarship focuses on areas of property law, constitutional law, administrative law, local government law, natural resources and environmental law, and law & economics. He has published several books and more than 50 scholarly articles and essays in well-regarded law journals. His work has been cited in more than a dozen state and federal court opinions, in more than 75 briefs filed in state and federal courts including more than 25 filed in the U.S. Supreme Court, in dozens of books and treatises, and in more than 800 scholarly articles.
Professor Kochan received his JD from Cornell Law School, where he was a John M. Olin Scholar in Law and Economics and managing editor of the Cornell International Law Journal. During law school, he also served as editor and executive editor of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy symposium issues in 1997 and 1998. He received his BA from Western Michigan University, magna cum laude, with majors in both political science and philosophy, where he studied as the John W. Gill Medallion Scholar and was honored as the Presidential Scholar (awarded to the top graduate in the political science department).
After graduating from law school, Professor Kochan was a law clerk to The Honorable Richard F. Suhrheinrich of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Following his clerkship, Professor Kochan was an associate with the firm of Crowell & Moring LLP in Washington, D.C., where he specialized in natural resources & environmental law as well as tort, products, and consumer civil litigation & legislative affairs.
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, University of Denver Sturm College of Law
Professor Justin Pidot graduated with high honors from Wesleyan University before attending Stanford Law School, where he graduated with distinction and was editor in chief of the Stanford Environmental Law Journal. Professor Pidot clerked for Judge Judith W. Rogers of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Prior to joining the University of Denver faculty, he was an appellate litigator at the Environment and Natural Resources Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, where he presented argument in more than a dozen federal appellate cases and acted as the staff attorney on two cases before the United States Supreme Court. Professor Pidot also completed a fellowship at the Georgetown Environmental Law & Policy Institute.
Professor Pidot’s scholarship and teaching focus on environmental law, natural resources law, and federal courts.
United States Court of Appeals, 9th Circuit
Milan Smith was confirmed on May 16, 2006 to the Ninth Circuit, which hears appeals from the federal district courts of Alaska, Arizona, California, Guam, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington.
Judge Smith has a distinguished record as a practicing attorney in the public and private sectors. In his private practice, Judge Smith was well recognized for his expertise in real estate law. He represented major corporations, such as Honeywell International and Toyota Motor sales USA, Inc., and a wide range of public clients, such as the Palos Verdes Unified School District, the Los Angeles State Business Authority, and non-profit organizations such as Marymount College. Judge Smith also has extensive experience in the areas of tax law, corporate law and environmental law.
In 1988, Judge Smith was appointed by Governor George Deukmejian to the California Fair Employment and Housing Commission. This Commission hears cases of alleged housing and employment discrimination and determines whether and how much recovery to award to claimants. Mr. Smith participated in dozens of such cases on such topics as racial discrimination and sexual harassment.
Judge Smith’s litigation experience encompassed not only real estate matters, but also contract, family law, tax, and administrative cases. He also had a thriving transactional practice.
Judge Smith graduated from Brigham Young University in 1966, where he received his degree cum laude. In 1969, Judge Smith received his Juris Doctor degree from the University of Chicago Law School
The October 2015 Term of the Supreme Court and the Legacy of Justice Antonin Scalia
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2016 Annual Western Chapters Conference
Simi Valley, CAFederalism, the Environment, Land Use, and Energy Independence
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