Justice, Texas Fifteenth District Court of Appeals
April Farris was appointed to the Fifteenth Court of Appeals on September 1 of 2024. April previously served on the First Court of Appeals after being appointed in 2021 and elected in 2022.
Before joining the Court, April was a partner at Yetter Coleman LLP, where she handled complex appellate litigation for energy, technology, and government clients. While in private practice, she was recognized in appellate law by Law360, Best Lawyers in America, and Thompson Reuters' Super Lawyers. In 2020, she was one of five attorneys in the nation to be named a Law360 appellate Rising Star, an honor reserved for lawyers under 40.
April previously served as an Assistant Solicitor General for the State of Texas, handling appeals for various Texas agencies. She is a former councilmember for the Texas State Bar's Appellate Section and a current councilmember for the Civil Rights & Civil Liberties Section. She serves as a trustee for the Texas Supreme Court Historical Association, and she is on the board of the Garland R. Walker Inn of Court in Houston. She is a member of the State Bar of Texas Pattern Jury Charge Oversight Committee, and she is on the editorial board of The Advocate. In 2022 and 2023, she was a guest instructor for Harvard Law School's Introduction to Trial Advocacy Program. She taught Origins of the Federal Constitution with Judge Charles Eskridge at the University of Texas School of Law in 2025, and she previously taught First Amendment at South Texas College of Law.
April clerked for Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. She graduated from Harvard Law School cum laude in 2009, and she earned her bachelor's degree summa cum laude from Abilene Christian University in 2006. She was named ACU's Young Alumnus of the Year for 2025. She enjoys spending time with her husband and children, tennis, and theology.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit
Edith Jones graduated from Alamo Heights High School, where she was a National Merit Scholar. In 1971, she received her B.A. in Economics from Cornell University, graduating with honors. In 1974, she was awarded her J.D. at the University of Texas Law School, where she was a law review editor and received the Order of the Coif.
Judge Jones was the first female partner at Andrews, Kurth, Campbell & Jones (now Hunton Andrews Kurth) where she practiced various types of litigation and bankruptcy cases. Judge Jones went on the federal bench on June 1, 1985.
Judge Jones served as a former member of the National Bankruptcy Review Commission, and as a member of the Judicial Conference Commission on Bankruptcy Rules. Judge Jones served on the White House Fellows Commission. Judge Jones served on the board of the Sam Houston Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America. She has been a member of the Garland Walker Inn of Court in Houston for more than 20 years and its President for at least ten years. Judge Jones is also on the Board of the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Foundation.
Co-Chairman, The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies
Leonard is Co-Chairman and former Executive Vice President of the Federalist Society, joining the organization over 25 years ago. Since that time he has been instrumental in helping the organization top 70,000, focusing on the growth of lawyers membership, operations and activities advancing limited, constitutional government. In addition to his work at the Society, Leonard has advised President Trump on judicial selection, assisted with the Gorsuch and Kavanaugh Supreme Court selection and confirmation process, and served as a member of the transition team. He also organized the outside coalition efforts in support of the Roberts and Alito U.S. Supreme Court confirmations. Leonard was appointed by President George W. Bush to three terms to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom as chairman. He was also a U.S. Delegate to the UN Council and UN Commission on Human Rights during the Bush Administration. Leonard was the recipient of the 2009 Bradley Prize, along with the other founders and directors of the Federalist Society, for his work in advancing freedom and the rule of law. He is the coeditor of Presidential Leadership: Rating the Best and the Worst in the White House, as well as the author of opinion editorials in the New York Times,The Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post. Leonard holds degrees from Cornell University and Cornell Law School. He presently resides in Northern Virginia, where he and his wife Sally have raised their seven children.
Associate Justice, Supreme Court of the United States
Clarence Thomas, Associate Justice, was born in the Pinpoint community near Savannah, Georgia on June 23, 1948. He attended Conception Seminary from 1967-1968 and received an A.B., cum laude, from Holy Cross College in 1971 and a J.D. from Yale Law School in 1974. He was admitted to law practice in Missouri in 1974, and served as an Assistant Attorney General of Missouri, 1974-1977; an attorney with the Monsanto Company, 1977-1979; and Legislative Assistant to Senator John Danforth, 1979-1981. From 1981–1982 he served as Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights, U.S. Department of Education, and as Chairman of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 1982-1990. From 1990–1991, he served as a Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. President Bush nominated him as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court and he took his seat October 23, 1991. He married Virginia Lamp on May 30, 1987 and has one child, Jamal Adeen by a previous marriage.
Founding Partner, Lodestar Law and Economics PLLC
Josh is the founder of Lodestar Law and Economics, PLLC. On January 1, 2013, the U.S. Senate unanimously confirmed Wright as a Commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). He is a leading scholar in antitrust law, economics, intellectual property, regulation, and consumer protection, and has published more than 100 articles and book chapters, co-authored a leading antitrust casebook, and edited several book volumes focusing on these issues. Commentators have recognized Wright as “widely considered his generation’s greatest mind on antitrust law,” and his academic work ranks him as one of the most cited antitrust academics in the world. Wright was also awarded the Paul M. Bator Award by the Federalist Society in 2014 to “an academic who demonstrated excellence in legal scholarship, a commitment to teaching, a concern for students, and who has made a significant public impact.” Wright also served as the Executive Director of the Global Antitrust Institute, the world’s premiere academic institute focused upon antitrust education for judges and regulators and has taught hundreds of judges and thousands of regulators from dozens of countries.
Wright’s practice focuses upon helping clients solve complex competition, consumer protection, and regulatory problems by providing legal and economic analysis, strategic advice and counseling, and economic expert testimony.
Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law and Director, Classical Liberal Institute, New York University School of Law; Director, Classical Liberal Institute, Civitas Institute University of Texas at Austin
Richard A. Epstein is the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law, at New York University, a senior research fellow at the Civitas Institute at the University of Texas Austin, and a senior Lecturer, the University of Chicago. He received an LL.D., h.c . from the University of Ghent, 2003 , and an LLD h.c . from the University of Siegen in 2018 and the Bradley Prize in 2011. He has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 1985. He has edited both the Journal of Legal Studies (1981-1991) and the Journal of Law and Economics (1991-2001). He is also a founder and director of the Classical Liberal Institute at NYU Law School. His most recent book is The Classical Liberal Constitution: The Uncertain Quest for Limited Government (2014). His other books include Takings: Private Property and the Power of Eminent Domain ( 1985); Bargaining with the State (1993); Simple Rules for a Complex World (1995); Principles for a Free Society: Reconciling Individual Liberty and the Common Good (1998); Skepticism and Freedom: A Modern Theory of Classical Liberalism (2003); Design for Liberty: Private Property, Public Administration and the Rule of Law (2011), and most recently, The Myth of Birthright citizenship—and Beyond (2026). He has taught courses in , administrative law, antitrust, constitutional, contracts, environmental law, land use planning; real property, torts and water law. He has written and spoken extensively on a wide range of topics, and is writes a regular column for Defining Ideas.
Executive Director, Alliance For Consumers
O.H. leads Alliance For Consumers, which fights to ensure that consumer protection efforts, class action lawsuits, and attorney general enforcement actions are consistent with the rule of law and benefit everyday consumers, not just class action lawyers and career bureaucrats.
His work with AFC builds off his time with the Arizona Attorney General's Office under Attorney General Mark Brnovich, where he not only defended constitutional questions and served as the State's lead counsel in the U.S. Supreme Court, but also had the privilege of leading Arizona's consumer protection lawsuit against Google over the tracking of consumers' location, and the successful case against Volkswagen over well-publicized diesel-related consumer deception.
O.H. is a 2010 graduate of Harvard Law School. Before joining Attorney General Brnovich in 2016, O.H. practiced at WilmerHale and Ropes & Gray in Boston and clerked for the Hon. J.L. Edmondson of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in Atlanta, Georgia.
Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit
Hon. Jennifer Mascott served as Associate Professor of Law and Director of the Separation of Powers Institute at The Catholic University of America’s Columbus School of Law before her appointment to the federal bench. On July 16, 2025, President Donald J. Trump nominated her to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit (Delaware), and she was confirmed on October 9, 2025.
Prior to her confirmation, Judge Mascott wrote extensively in administrative and constitutional law, statutory interpretation, and the separation of powers. Her scholarship—published in leading journals including the Stanford Law Review, Notre Dame Law Review, and Supreme Court Review—was cited by the U.S. Supreme Court and multiple federal courts. She also contributed Supreme Court commentary for NBC Universal.
Before joining Catholic Law, she was an Assistant Professor and Co-Director of The C. Boyden Gray Center at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School. In 2022 she became co-author of Beermann, Cass & Diver’s Administrative Law: Cases and Materials (9th ed.). In 2023 she received the Justice Joseph Story Award for excellence in scholarship, teaching, and advancing the rule of law.
Judge Mascott also served as a Council Member of the ABA’s Administrative Law Section and as a Public Member of the Administrative Conference of the United States. She frequently testified before Congress on executive power, regulatory reform, and judicial jurisdiction, and participated in multiple Supreme Court confirmation hearings.
From 2019 to 2021, she took leave from academia to serve as Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel and later as Associate Deputy Attorney General, where she argued federal cases and assisted with Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation. Earlier in her career, she clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas and for then-Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh on the D.C. Circuit.
Judge Mascott earned her J.D. summa cum laude from the George Washington University Law School and her B.A. from the same institution.
Associate Justice, Supreme Court of the United States
Clarence Thomas, Associate Justice, was born in the Pinpoint community near Savannah, Georgia on June 23, 1948. He attended Conception Seminary from 1967-1968 and received an A.B., cum laude, from Holy Cross College in 1971 and a J.D. from Yale Law School in 1974. He was admitted to law practice in Missouri in 1974, and served as an Assistant Attorney General of Missouri, 1974-1977; an attorney with the Monsanto Company, 1977-1979; and Legislative Assistant to Senator John Danforth, 1979-1981. From 1981–1982 he served as Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights, U.S. Department of Education, and as Chairman of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 1982-1990. From 1990–1991, he served as a Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. President Bush nominated him as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court and he took his seat October 23, 1991. He married Virginia Lamp on May 30, 1987 and has one child, Jamal Adeen by a previous marriage.
Justice, Texas Fifteenth District Court of Appeals
April Farris was appointed to the Fifteenth Court of Appeals on September 1 of 2024. April previously served on the First Court of Appeals after being appointed in 2021 and elected in 2022.
Before joining the Court, April was a partner at Yetter Coleman LLP, where she handled complex appellate litigation for energy, technology, and government clients. While in private practice, she was recognized in appellate law by Law360, Best Lawyers in America, and Thompson Reuters' Super Lawyers. In 2020, she was one of five attorneys in the nation to be named a Law360 appellate Rising Star, an honor reserved for lawyers under 40.
April previously served as an Assistant Solicitor General for the State of Texas, handling appeals for various Texas agencies. She is a former councilmember for the Texas State Bar's Appellate Section and a current councilmember for the Civil Rights & Civil Liberties Section. She serves as a trustee for the Texas Supreme Court Historical Association, and she is on the board of the Garland R. Walker Inn of Court in Houston. She is a member of the State Bar of Texas Pattern Jury Charge Oversight Committee, and she is on the editorial board of The Advocate. In 2022 and 2023, she was a guest instructor for Harvard Law School's Introduction to Trial Advocacy Program. She taught Origins of the Federal Constitution with Judge Charles Eskridge at the University of Texas School of Law in 2025, and she previously taught First Amendment at South Texas College of Law.
April clerked for Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. She graduated from Harvard Law School cum laude in 2009, and she earned her bachelor's degree summa cum laude from Abilene Christian University in 2006. She was named ACU's Young Alumnus of the Year for 2025. She enjoys spending time with her husband and children, tennis, and theology.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit
Edith Jones graduated from Alamo Heights High School, where she was a National Merit Scholar. In 1971, she received her B.A. in Economics from Cornell University, graduating with honors. In 1974, she was awarded her J.D. at the University of Texas Law School, where she was a law review editor and received the Order of the Coif.
Judge Jones was the first female partner at Andrews, Kurth, Campbell & Jones (now Hunton Andrews Kurth) where she practiced various types of litigation and bankruptcy cases. Judge Jones went on the federal bench on June 1, 1985.
Judge Jones served as a former member of the National Bankruptcy Review Commission, and as a member of the Judicial Conference Commission on Bankruptcy Rules. Judge Jones served on the White House Fellows Commission. Judge Jones served on the board of the Sam Houston Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America. She has been a member of the Garland Walker Inn of Court in Houston for more than 20 years and its President for at least ten years. Judge Jones is also on the Board of the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Foundation.
Co-Chairman, The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies
Leonard is Co-Chairman and former Executive Vice President of the Federalist Society, joining the organization over 25 years ago. Since that time he has been instrumental in helping the organization top 70,000, focusing on the growth of lawyers membership, operations and activities advancing limited, constitutional government. In addition to his work at the Society, Leonard has advised President Trump on judicial selection, assisted with the Gorsuch and Kavanaugh Supreme Court selection and confirmation process, and served as a member of the transition team. He also organized the outside coalition efforts in support of the Roberts and Alito U.S. Supreme Court confirmations. Leonard was appointed by President George W. Bush to three terms to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom as chairman. He was also a U.S. Delegate to the UN Council and UN Commission on Human Rights during the Bush Administration. Leonard was the recipient of the 2009 Bradley Prize, along with the other founders and directors of the Federalist Society, for his work in advancing freedom and the rule of law. He is the coeditor of Presidential Leadership: Rating the Best and the Worst in the White House, as well as the author of opinion editorials in the New York Times,The Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post. Leonard holds degrees from Cornell University and Cornell Law School. He presently resides in Northern Virginia, where he and his wife Sally have raised their seven children.
Associate Justice, Supreme Court of the United States
Clarence Thomas, Associate Justice, was born in the Pinpoint community near Savannah, Georgia on June 23, 1948. He attended Conception Seminary from 1967-1968 and received an A.B., cum laude, from Holy Cross College in 1971 and a J.D. from Yale Law School in 1974. He was admitted to law practice in Missouri in 1974, and served as an Assistant Attorney General of Missouri, 1974-1977; an attorney with the Monsanto Company, 1977-1979; and Legislative Assistant to Senator John Danforth, 1979-1981. From 1981–1982 he served as Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights, U.S. Department of Education, and as Chairman of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 1982-1990. From 1990–1991, he served as a Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. President Bush nominated him as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court and he took his seat October 23, 1991. He married Virginia Lamp on May 30, 1987 and has one child, Jamal Adeen by a previous marriage.
Executive Director, Alliance For Consumers
O.H. leads Alliance For Consumers, which fights to ensure that consumer protection efforts, class action lawsuits, and attorney general enforcement actions are consistent with the rule of law and benefit everyday consumers, not just class action lawyers and career bureaucrats.
His work with AFC builds off his time with the Arizona Attorney General's Office under Attorney General Mark Brnovich, where he not only defended constitutional questions and served as the State's lead counsel in the U.S. Supreme Court, but also had the privilege of leading Arizona's consumer protection lawsuit against Google over the tracking of consumers' location, and the successful case against Volkswagen over well-publicized diesel-related consumer deception.
O.H. is a 2010 graduate of Harvard Law School. Before joining Attorney General Brnovich in 2016, O.H. practiced at WilmerHale and Ropes & Gray in Boston and clerked for the Hon. J.L. Edmondson of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in Atlanta, Georgia.
Gregory S. Coleman Memorial Lecture: Justice Clarence Thomas
April Farris, Edith H. Jones, Leonard A. Leo, Clarence Thomas
On September 7-8, 2018, the Federalist Society's Fort Worth Lawyers Chapter hosted the fourth annual...
Gregory S. Coleman Memorial Lecture: Justice Clarence Thomas
2018 Texas Chapters Conference
Fort Worth, TX2018 Texas Chapters Conference
Fort Worth, TXOhio v. American Express: The Decision [SCOTUSbrief]
Joshua D. Wright
How does antitrust law apply to multisided markets like credit card platforms and ridesharing companies?...
The Supreme Court Tackles Patent Reform: Inter Partes Review Under the AIA Undermines the Structural Protections Offered by Article III Courts
Richard A. Epstein
Note from the Editor: This article criticizes Justice Clarence Thomas’ opinion in Oil States. It...
The Federalist Paper, Summer 2018
One of our marquee annual events, the National Student Symposium, was held in March at...
Ohio v. American Express Co.
Oramel H. Skinner
In 2010, 17 states and the federal government sued three major credit card companies, American...
Ohio v. American Express Co.
Corporations, Securities, & Antitrust Practice Group
TeleforumTopics
Originalism and the Contract Clause
In Sveen v. Melin, decided on June 11, Justice Neil Gorsuch attempted to reopen an...
A Conversation with Justice Thomas
Jenn L. Mascott, Clarence Thomas
The Georgetown Student Chapter hosted this conversation with Justice Thomas during the 2018 National...