Solicitor General, Tennessee Attorney General's Office
Matt Rice serves as the Solicitor General of Tennessee. Before joining the State, Matt worked in private practice at Williams & Connolly LLP. He clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas on the United States Supreme Court as well as Judge Sandra Ikuta on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Before his legal career, Matt played professional baseball in the Tampa Bay Rays organization.
Beauchamp Brogan Distinguished Professor of Law, University of Tennessee College of Law
Professor Reynolds is one of the most prolific scholars on the UT faculty. His special interests are law and technology and constitutional law issues and his work has appeared in a wide variety of publications, including the Columbia Law Review, the Virginia Law Review, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, the Wisconsin Law Review, the William and Mary Law Review, the Southern California Law Review, the Harvard Journal of Law and Technology, The Columbia Human Rights Law Review, Law and Policy in International Business, Jurimetrics, the Journal of Space Law, and the High Technology Law Journal. Professor Reynolds has also written in the New York Times, the Washington Post, The Atlantic, the Washington Times, the Los Angeles Times, Road & Track, Urb, and the Wall Street Journal, as well as other popular publications. He was for many years a contributing editor at Popular Mechanics magazine, and today writes a regular column for USA Today. He is the co-author of Outer Space: Problems of Law and Policy, and The Appearance of Impropriety: How the Ethics Wars Have Undermined American Government, Business, and Society. His most recent books are The Social Media Upheaval, The Judiciary’s Class War, and The New School: How the Information Age Will Save American Education from Itself.
Professor Reynolds has testified before Congressional committees on space law, international trade, and domestic terrorism. He has been executive chairman of the National Space Society and a member of the White House Advisory Panel on Space Policy. A member of the UT faculty since 1989, Professor Reynolds has received the Harold C. Warner Outstanding Faculty Scholarship Award in W. Allen Separk Outstanding Faculty Scholarship Award, and the Carden Award for Outstanding Scholarship.
A songwriter and producer for such bands as Mobius Dick, The Nebraska Guitar Militia, and The Defenders Of The Faith, Professor Reynolds is a member of the American Society of Composers and Performers and a former member of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences.
Professor Reynolds blogs at InstaPundit.com.
Associate, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP
Stephen Hammer is a litigation associate in the Dallas office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher.
Before joining the firm, Mr. Hammer served as a law clerk to Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. of the Supreme Court of the United States, Judge Gregory G. Katsas of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, and Judge Jeffrey S. Sutton of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.
Mr. Hammer graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, where he served as managing editor of the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy. Before law school, Mr. Hammer served as an infantry officer in the 82nd Airborne Division of the United States Army. His military decorations include the Bronze Star. Mr. Hammer received an M.Phil. in theology from the University of Oxford, where he studied on a Rhodes scholarship. He received an A.B. summa cum laude in classics from Princeton University and graduated as Latin salutatorian.
Mr. Hammer is a member of the Texas and District of Columbia bars.
District Judge, United States District Court, District of Kansas
The President nominated Toby Crouse to become a judge for the United States District Court for the District of Kansas on May 21, 2020. The Senate confirmed his nomination on November 17, 2020. President Trump signed his commission on December 2, 2020. He was sworn in December 8, 2020.
From 2018 to 2020, Judge Crouse served as the Solicitor General for the State of Kansas. In that role, he presented two arguments to the United States Supreme Court, Kahler v. Kansas, 140 S. Ct. 1021 (2020), and Kansas v. Glover, 140 S. Ct. 1183 (2020). In addition, he established a solo practice focusing on appellate and constitutional litigation.
Before representing the State of Kansas, he maintained a private practice for fifteen years. Both during law school and after graduation, he worked with and learned from the lawyers at Foulston Siefkin LLP, where he was a partner for seven years, Shook, Hardy & Bacon, LLP, and Bremyer & Wise, LLC (now Wise & Reber, L.C.).
Following law school, Judge Crouse served as a law clerk to two federal judges. From 2002 to 2003, he clerked for the Honorable Mary Beck Briscoe of the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. He clerked for the Honorable Monti L. Belot of the United States District Court for the District of Kansas from 2000 to 2002.
Judge Crouse is a lifelong Kansan. He obtained his law degree from the University of Kansas School of Law and his undergraduate degree from Kansas State University.
Director of Health Policy Studies, Cato Institute
Michael F. Cannon is the Cato Institute’s director of health policy studies. His scholarship spans public health; regulation of clinicians, medical facilities, pharmaceuticals, and medical devices; employer‐sponsored and other private health insurance; Medicare; Medicaid; CHIP; the Veterans Health Administration; medical malpractice litigation; administrative law; international health systems; political philosophy; and more. Cannon is “an influential health‐care wonk” (Washington Post) and “the most famous libertarian health care scholar” (Washington Examiner). Washingtonian magazine named Cannon one of Washington, DC’s “Most Influential People” in 2021, 2022, and 2023.
Cannon has appeared on ABC, Al Jazeera, BBC, CBS, CNN, CNBC, C‑SPAN, Fox News Channel, NPR, and other broadcast media. His articles have appeared in the Wall Street Journal; the New York Times; USA Today; the Washington Post; the Los Angeles Times; SCOTUSBlog; Forum for Health Economics and Policy; JAMA Internal Medicine; Health Matrix: Journal of Law‐Medicine; Harvard Health Policy Review; the Yale Journal of Health Policy, Law, and Ethics; the Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law; and Quinnipiac Health Law Journal. His latest book is Recovery: A Guide to Reforming the U.S. Health Sector.
Cannon was previously a domestic policy analyst for the U.S. Senate Republican Policy Committee, where he advised the Senate leadership on health, education, labor, welfare, and the Second Amendment. He is a member of the Board of Advisers of Harvard Health Policy Review and the Federalist Society Regulatory Transparency Project’s FDA & Health Working Group.
Cannon holds an MA in economics and a JM in law and economics from George Mason University and a BA in American government from the University of Virginia.
Vice President and Director of Litigation, EdChoice
Thomas M. Fisher served as a Deputy Attorney General for 22 years and as Indiana’s first Solicitor General from 2005-2023. In that role he handled high profile litigation for the State, defended state statutes against constitutional attack, advised the Attorney General on a range of legal policy issues, and managed the State’s U.S. Supreme Court docket. A two-time recipient of the National Association of Attorneys General Best Brief Award, Fisher has argued five times before the High Court.
His U.S. Supreme Court experience also includes authorship of dozens of cert-stage and merits-stage amicus curiae briefs on a wide range of issues. In addition, Fisher has argued dozens of important and high-profile cases before both the Indiana Supreme Court and the Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals. Fisher is a Fellow of the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers and was recently named a Sagamore of the Wabash by Governor Eric Holcomb.
A native Hoosier, Fisher is a graduate of Wabash College and Indiana University Maurer School of Law, where he serves as an Adjunct Professor of Law.
2024 Supreme Court Roundup feat. Matt Rice
Memphis Lawyers Chapter
Memphis, TNThoughts on Our Ruling Class Monoculture
Knoxville Lawyers Chapter
Knoxville, TNRecent Developments in Religious Liberty Law
Tyler Lawyers Chapter
Tyler, TXA Foundational Canon in Alabama
Huntsville Lawyers Chapter
Huntsville, ALBig Brother Watching—The Constitutionality of NSA Surveillance
Columbia Lawyers Chapters
Columbia, SCBig Brother Watching—The Constitutionality of NSA Surveillance
Greenville Lawyers Chapter
Greenville, SCState of Kansas at SCOTUS: Sunflower State's Three Arguments During OT2019
Topeka, KSIs Health Care a Right?
Evansville Lawyers Chapter
Evansville , INTimbs v. Indiana – A Rebuttal & A Preview of the 2019 Term of the United States Supreme Court
Evansville Lawyers Chapter
Evansville, INTimbs v. Indiana and the Uncertain Future of Civil Forfeiture
Evansville Lawyers Chapter
Evansville, IN