Tazewell Taylor Professor of Law and William H. Cabell Research Professor, William & Mary Law School
Jonathan H. Adler joined the William & Mary law faculty as the Tazwell Taylor Professor of Law and William H. Cabell Research Professor in 2025. Prior to joining the faculty, he was the inaugural Johan Verheij Memorial Professor of Law and the founding Director of the Coleman P. Burke Center for Environmental Law at the Case Western Reserve University School of Law.
Professor Adler is the author or editor of seven books, including Climate Liberalism: Perspectives on Liberty, Property and Pollution (Palgrave, 2023), Marijuana Federalism: Uncle Sam and Mary Jane (Brookings Institution Press, 2020), Business and the Roberts Court (Oxford University Press, 2016) and Rebuilding the Ark: New Perspectives on Endangered Species Act Reform (AEI Press, 2011).
His articles have appeared in publications ranging from the Harvard Environmental Law Review and Yale Journal on Regulation to the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and Washington Post. He has testified before Congress a dozen times, and his work has been cited in the U.S. Supreme Court. A 2024 study identified Professor Adler as the seventh most cited legal academic in administrative and environmental law from 2019 to 2023.
Professor Adler is a contributing editor to Civitas Outlook and a regular contributor to the popular legal blog, The Volokh Conspiracy. A regular commentator on constitutional and regulatory issues, he has appeared on numerous radio and television programs, ranging from the PBS Newshour and National Public Radio to the Fox News Channel and Entertainment Tonight.
Professor Adler is a senior fellow at the Property & Environment Research Center in Bozeman, Montana. In 2018, Professor Adler was elected to membership in the American Law Institute and helped co-found the organization Checks and Balances. In 2024, Professor Adler was appointed a public member of the Administrative Conference of the United States.
Professor Adler clerked for the Honorable David B. Sentelle on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
Partner and Executive Director, Christie 55 Solutions LLC
Rich Bagger is a Partner and Executive Director of Christie 55 Solutions, a New Jersey based consulting firm that provides strategic counsel to assist clients with business strategies and opportunities and with complex public policy and regulatory challenges at the state, federal and international levels. Rich is also an Adjunct Faculty member at Rutgers University and a member of the Board of Directors of Tonix Pharmaceuticals.
Prior to joining Christie 55 Solutions, Rich worked in the health sector for over 25 years, including as the senior most global Corporate Affairs executive for two major biopharmaceutical companies and as legal counsel for a large health plan. From 2012 through 2019, he was Executive Vice President of Corporate Affairs and Market Access for Celgene Corporation, as well as a member of the company’s Executive Committee. During a 16-year career with Pfizer Inc, Rich served from 2006 to 2009 on Pfizer’s senior most management team as Senior Vice President, Worldwide Public Affairs and Policy. Prior to joining Pfizer, Rich was Assistant General Counsel of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of New Jersey and before that practiced law with McCarter & English.
Rich has a record of public service that spans more than three decades. From 2012 until 2021, he served as a Commissioner of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and was Chair of the Gateway Program Development Corporation for 2017. For six months during 2016, Rich led pre-election transition planning as Executive Director of Trump for America. Rich served from 2010 to 2012 as Chief of Staff for New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, responsible for managing implementation of the Governor’s policy agenda and priorities. He was also elected to serve five terms in the New Jersey General Assembly, where he chaired the Appropriations Committee and was elected by his colleagues as Majority Conference Leader. In 2001, Rich was elected to the New Jersey Senate and served there until 2003. Before his election to the Legislature, he was a Council Member and Mayor of Westfield, New Jersey.
Rich served as Board Chair of the National Pharmaceutical Council for 2019 and is a member of the Board of Directors and Executive Committee of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, where he chaired the Global Innovation Policy Center from 2014 to 2018. He is also on the Board of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society and the Advisory Board for the Lerner Center for the Study of Pharmaceutical Management at Rutgers University Business School.
He received an A.B. degree from Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs and a J.D. degree from Rutgers University Law School.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit
Michael B. Brennan was confirmed and sworn in as a Circuit Judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in May 2018.
He previously worked as a partner in the Milwaukee law firm of Gass Weber Mullins LLC, where he tried cases and handled appeals in federal and state courts, as a judge on the Milwaukee County Circuit, where he presided over a variety of criminal and civil calendars, and as an assistant district attorney in the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s office.
Brennan’s undergraduate degree is from the University of Notre Dame, and his law degree from Northwestern University School of Law, where he was an editor on the law review and the moot court champion. He served as a law clerk on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.
Dean Emeritus and Harvey R. Miller Professor of Law & Economics, Columbia Law School
David Schizer served as Dean of Columbia Law School from 2004 to 2014, and as CEO of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, a global Jewish humanitarian organization, from 2017 to 2019. A co-chair of Columbia University's new task force on antisemitism, he also is a co-founder and co-chair of the Center for Israeli Legal Studies at Columbia Law School; co-founder and co-chair of the Richman Center for Law, Business, and Public Policy; and a Charter Trustee of Ramaz. He served as a law clerk to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the U.S. Supreme Court.
Executive Director, College Autism Network
Lee Burdette Williams has worked in higher education and student affairs for more than three decades and is now Executive Director of the College Autism Network, a nonprofit organization supporting the efforts of autistic college students and the institutions that serve them. She served previously as the Vice President for Student Affairs and Dean of Students at Wheaton College in Massachusetts and Dean of Students at the University of Connecticut.
Lee’s professional interests include student mental health, academic partnerships, learning communities and student culture. A particular interest is in the experiences of autistic students in student conduct processes. She has written extensively on these and other topics and is a frequent speaker and presenter on contemporary issues in higher education. Lee is the author of two books, Emerging Practices and Trends in Peer Education and Learning Communities in Student Affairs: Partnering for Powerful Learning. She is the director of the College Autism Summit, an annual conference that brings together professionals working to support college students with autism. Lee has taught in the student affairs graduate programs at the University of Vermont, the University of Connecticut, Appalachian State University, and the University of Maryland College Park. She received her Ph.D. in College Student Personnel Administration from the University of Maryland College Park, her M.Ed. in Counseling from Salem State University, and her B.A. from Gordon College.
Professor, University of Illinois College of Law
Robin Fretwell Wilson is the Mildred Van Voorhis Jones Chair in Law at the University of Illinois College of Law.
A scholar in family law, bioethics and law and religion, Professor Wilson has worked extensively on behalf of state and federal law reform efforts in each realm.
Across two decades, she has worked to secure laws protecting the autonomy of patients to decide when they will be used to teach intimate exams to medical students, laws now in place in 22 states—sixteen of which have been enacted since 2019.
Professor Wilson is known for bridging differences in the culture war. In 2015, she spent a month in residence with the Utah legislature, helping Utah state lawmakers to pass anti-discrimination legislation that balances religious liberty and LGBT rights. In 2019, Professor Wilson assisted the governor of Utah to craft regulations banning gay conversion therapy. In 2019, she also aided U.S. Representative Chris Stewart with portions of the “Fairness for All” he introduced in Congress. A member of the American Law Institute and a Fulbright Specialist, Professor Wilson has served as a consultant to the United Arab Emirates’ Judicial Department as they sought to create a parallel court system for the adjudication by expatriates of family law matters using the laws of their home country or of their faith traditions.
Professor Wilson is the author of 20 books, including her 2018 book, Religious Freedom, LGBT Rights, and the Prospects for Common Ground, with Yale University Professor William Eskridge, Jr., which is now in paperback at Cambridge University Press. Her other books include: The Contested Place of Religion in Family Law (Cambridge University Press, 2018, ed.), Reconceiving the Family: Critical Reflections on the American Law Institute’s Principles of the Law of Family Dissolution (Cambridge University Press, 2006, ed.); The Handbook of Children, Culture & Violence (Sage Publications, 2006, with Nancy Dowd and Dorothy Singer, eds.); Same-Sex Marriage and Religious Liberty: Emerging Conflicts (Rowman & Littlefield, 2008, with Douglas Laycock and Anthony Picarello, eds.); Health Law and Bioethics: Cases in Context (Aspen, 2008, with Joan Krause, Sandra Johnson, and Richard Saver, eds.); Domestic Relations: Cases and Materials, 8th edition (Foundation Press, 2017, with Walter Wadlington and Raymond C. O’Brien); and Understanding Family Law, 4th edition (LexisNexis, 2013, with John DeWitt Gregory and Peter N. Swisher). Her articles have appeared in the Boston College Law Review, Cornell Law Review, Emory Law Journal, Illinois Law Review, North Carolina Law Review, San Diego Law Review, U.C. Davis Law Review, and Washington and Lee Law Review, as well as in numerous peer-reviewed journals.
In 2010 and again in 2016, Professor Wilson was ranked among the Top Ten Family Law Scholars in the United States for scholarly impact. She ranks among the Top 10% of Authors in all time downloads on the Social Science Research Network. Professor Wilson’s scholarship has been cited by the Fifth, Seventh and Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, the Minnesota Court of Appeals, lower federal courts, and the Supreme Courts of Delaware, Illinois, Iowa, and Washington.
Professor Wilson’s work has been featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, National Public Radio’s All Things Considered, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, The Atlantic Monthly, U.S. News and World Report, ABA Journal, Chronicle of Higher Education, Chicago Tribune, CNN Headline News, Good Morning America, ABC News, CBS News, Philadelphia Inquirer, Essence Magazine, The American Prospect, People Magazine, The American Conservative, The Australian, and Al Jazeera, among others. She has presented her research across the world, including the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, as well as in Argentina, Brazil, Peru, Chile, China, Israel, Qatar, the Netherlands, Italy, England, Wales, Poland, Spain, Serbia, Japan, Canada, Norway, Denmark, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Turkey, and France.
Professor Wilson has seven times been honored for her work on innovative laws that respect all persons. In 2007, she received the Citizen’s Legislative Award for her work on changing Virginia’s informed consent law. In 2018, Professor Wilson received the Thomas L. Kane Religious Freedom Award from the J. Reuben Clark Law Society, which is presented annually to an individual who exemplifies the spirit of religious liberty for all and who has contributed in significant ways to the defense of religious freedom in the public square.
In 2018, Professor Wilson was honored as one of the 150 for 150: Celebrating the Accomplishments of Women at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for its sesquicentennial celebration. In 2020, Professor Wilson received the 2020 Larine Y. Cowan Make a Difference Award for Advocacy for LGBTQ Affairs, a university-wide honor given by the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Professor of Law and Michael R. Klein Distinguished Scholar Chair, University of Miami School of Law
Mary Anne Franks, Professor of Law and Michael R. Klein Distinguished Scholar Chair, is a nationally and internationally recognized expert on the intersection of civil rights and technology. She teaches classes on criminal law, criminal procedure, First Amendment law, Second Amendment law, family law, and law and technology. Professor Franks is also an Affiliated Faculty member of the University of Miami Department of Philosophy and an Affiliate Fellow of the Yale Law School Information Society Project (ISP).
Dr. Franks is the author of the award-winning book, The Cult of the Constitution: Our Deadly Devotion to Guns and Free Speech (Stanford Press, 2019). In 2020, she was awarded a grant from the Knight Foundation to support research for her second book, Fearless Speech (expected 2022). Her scholarship has appeared in the Harvard Law Review, the California Law Review, and UCLA Law Review, among others. Dr. Franks has also authored numerous articles for the popular press, including the New York Times, the Atlantic, the Washington Post, and Newsweek. She has delivered more than a hundred lectures to a range of audiences around the world, including law schools, domestic violence organizations, law firms, and tech companies. She was named a member of the American Law Institute in October 2018.
Dr. Franks is the President and Legislative & Tech Policy Director of the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative, a nonprofit organization dedicated to combating online abuse and discrimination. In 2013, she drafted the first model criminal statute on nonconsensual pornography (sometimes referred to as “revenge porn”), which has served as the template for multiple state laws and for pending federal legislation on the issue. She also served as the reporter for the Uniform Law Commission’s 2018 Uniform Civil Remedies for the Unauthorized Disclosure of Intimate Images Act. Dr. Franks is a principal investigator for a 2020 National Science Foundation grant project, COVID-19 and sexual cyberviolence: Impact on general users and vulnerable populations. She regularly advises legislators, tech industry leaders, and advocacy organizations on issues relating to online privacy, sexual exploitation, extortion, harassment, and threats.
Dr. Franks holds a J.D. from Harvard Law School as well as a doctorate and a master’s degree from Oxford University, where she studied as a Rhodes Scholar. She previously taught at the University of Chicago Law School as a Bigelow Fellow and Lecturer in Law and at Harvard University as a lecturer in social studies and philosophy.
Maurice and Hilda Friedman Professor of Law, Columbia Law School; CEO, New Civil Liberties Alliance
Philip Hamburger is the Maurice and Hilda Friedman Professor of Law at Columbia Law School, and Chief Executive Officer at the New Civil Liberties Alliance. Before coming to Columbia, he was the John P. Wilson Professor at the University of Chicago Law School.
He writes on constitutional law and its history—with particular emphasis on religious liberty, freedom of speech and the press, judicial office, administrative power, and unconstitutional conditions.
His books are Separation of Church and State (Harvard 2002), Law and Judicial Duty (Harvard 2008), Is Administrative Law Unlawful? (Chicago 2014), The Administrative Threat (Encounter 2017), and Liberal Suppression: Section 501(c)(3) and the Taxation of Speech (Chicago 2018). A forthcoming book is Purchasing Submission: Conditions, Power, and Freedom (Harvard 2021).
He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and he has served on the board of directors of the American Society for Legal History. He has twice received the Sutherland Prize for the most significant contribution to English legal history, and has been awarded the Henry Paolucci - Walter Bagehot Book Award, the Hayek Book Prize, and the Bradley Prize.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit
Judge Katsas was appointed to the D.C. Circuit in December 2017. He graduated from Princeton University and Harvard Law School, where he was an executive editor on the Harvard Law Review. Between 1989 and 1992, he served as a law clerk to Judge Edward Becker on the Third Circuit, to then-Judge Clarence Thomas on the D.C. Circuit, and to Justice Thomas on the Supreme Court. Between 1992 and 2001, he was an associate and then partner in the Washington office of Jones Day, where he specialized in appellate and complex civil litigation. Between 2001 and 2009, he served in many senior positions in the Department of Justice, including as Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division and as Acting Associate Attorney General. In 2009, he returned to Jones Day. From January to December 2017, he served as Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy Counsel to the President.
Before joining the bench, Judge Katsas argued more than 75 appeals, including three cases in the Supreme Court, 13 cases in the D.C. Circuit, and cases in every other federal court of appeals. By appointment of the Chief Justice, he served on the Advisory Committee on Appellate Rules from 2013 to 2017. In 2016, he was elected to membership in the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers.
Thomas M. Siebel Senior Fellow, The Hoover Institution, Stanford University; Gary T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus, UCLA School of Law
Eugene Volokh is the Thomas M. Siebel Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution (Stanford), as well as the Gary T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus and Distinguished Research Professor at UCLA School of Law. He recently retired from teaching at UCLA, after 30 years there, and is now focusing on research.
Volokh is the author of the textbooks The First Amendment and Related Statutes (8th ed. 2023), and Academic Legal Writing (5th ed. 2016), as well as over 100 academic law journal articles, mostly on First Amendment law. He is a member of The American Law Institute; the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Free Speech Law; and the creator and coauthor of The Volokh Conspiracy, a leading legal blog founded in 2002 (hosted at the Washington Post from 2014 to 2017 and now at Reason Magazine).
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit
Michael B. Brennan was confirmed and sworn in as a Circuit Judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in May 2018.
He previously worked as a partner in the Milwaukee law firm of Gass Weber Mullins LLC, where he tried cases and handled appeals in federal and state courts, as a judge on the Milwaukee County Circuit, where he presided over a variety of criminal and civil calendars, and as an assistant district attorney in the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s office.
Brennan’s undergraduate degree is from the University of Notre Dame, and his law degree from Northwestern University School of Law, where he was an editor on the law review and the moot court champion. He served as a law clerk on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.
Dean Emeritus and Harvey R. Miller Professor of Law & Economics, Columbia Law School
David Schizer served as Dean of Columbia Law School from 2004 to 2014, and as CEO of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, a global Jewish humanitarian organization, from 2017 to 2019. A co-chair of Columbia University's new task force on antisemitism, he also is a co-founder and co-chair of the Center for Israeli Legal Studies at Columbia Law School; co-founder and co-chair of the Richman Center for Law, Business, and Public Policy; and a Charter Trustee of Ramaz. He served as a law clerk to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the U.S. Supreme Court.
Executive Director, College Autism Network
Lee Burdette Williams has worked in higher education and student affairs for more than three decades and is now Executive Director of the College Autism Network, a nonprofit organization supporting the efforts of autistic college students and the institutions that serve them. She served previously as the Vice President for Student Affairs and Dean of Students at Wheaton College in Massachusetts and Dean of Students at the University of Connecticut.
Lee’s professional interests include student mental health, academic partnerships, learning communities and student culture. A particular interest is in the experiences of autistic students in student conduct processes. She has written extensively on these and other topics and is a frequent speaker and presenter on contemporary issues in higher education. Lee is the author of two books, Emerging Practices and Trends in Peer Education and Learning Communities in Student Affairs: Partnering for Powerful Learning. She is the director of the College Autism Summit, an annual conference that brings together professionals working to support college students with autism. Lee has taught in the student affairs graduate programs at the University of Vermont, the University of Connecticut, Appalachian State University, and the University of Maryland College Park. She received her Ph.D. in College Student Personnel Administration from the University of Maryland College Park, her M.Ed. in Counseling from Salem State University, and her B.A. from Gordon College.
Professor, University of Illinois College of Law
Robin Fretwell Wilson is the Mildred Van Voorhis Jones Chair in Law at the University of Illinois College of Law.
A scholar in family law, bioethics and law and religion, Professor Wilson has worked extensively on behalf of state and federal law reform efforts in each realm.
Across two decades, she has worked to secure laws protecting the autonomy of patients to decide when they will be used to teach intimate exams to medical students, laws now in place in 22 states—sixteen of which have been enacted since 2019.
Professor Wilson is known for bridging differences in the culture war. In 2015, she spent a month in residence with the Utah legislature, helping Utah state lawmakers to pass anti-discrimination legislation that balances religious liberty and LGBT rights. In 2019, Professor Wilson assisted the governor of Utah to craft regulations banning gay conversion therapy. In 2019, she also aided U.S. Representative Chris Stewart with portions of the “Fairness for All” he introduced in Congress. A member of the American Law Institute and a Fulbright Specialist, Professor Wilson has served as a consultant to the United Arab Emirates’ Judicial Department as they sought to create a parallel court system for the adjudication by expatriates of family law matters using the laws of their home country or of their faith traditions.
Professor Wilson is the author of 20 books, including her 2018 book, Religious Freedom, LGBT Rights, and the Prospects for Common Ground, with Yale University Professor William Eskridge, Jr., which is now in paperback at Cambridge University Press. Her other books include: The Contested Place of Religion in Family Law (Cambridge University Press, 2018, ed.), Reconceiving the Family: Critical Reflections on the American Law Institute’s Principles of the Law of Family Dissolution (Cambridge University Press, 2006, ed.); The Handbook of Children, Culture & Violence (Sage Publications, 2006, with Nancy Dowd and Dorothy Singer, eds.); Same-Sex Marriage and Religious Liberty: Emerging Conflicts (Rowman & Littlefield, 2008, with Douglas Laycock and Anthony Picarello, eds.); Health Law and Bioethics: Cases in Context (Aspen, 2008, with Joan Krause, Sandra Johnson, and Richard Saver, eds.); Domestic Relations: Cases and Materials, 8th edition (Foundation Press, 2017, with Walter Wadlington and Raymond C. O’Brien); and Understanding Family Law, 4th edition (LexisNexis, 2013, with John DeWitt Gregory and Peter N. Swisher). Her articles have appeared in the Boston College Law Review, Cornell Law Review, Emory Law Journal, Illinois Law Review, North Carolina Law Review, San Diego Law Review, U.C. Davis Law Review, and Washington and Lee Law Review, as well as in numerous peer-reviewed journals.
In 2010 and again in 2016, Professor Wilson was ranked among the Top Ten Family Law Scholars in the United States for scholarly impact. She ranks among the Top 10% of Authors in all time downloads on the Social Science Research Network. Professor Wilson’s scholarship has been cited by the Fifth, Seventh and Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, the Minnesota Court of Appeals, lower federal courts, and the Supreme Courts of Delaware, Illinois, Iowa, and Washington.
Professor Wilson’s work has been featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, National Public Radio’s All Things Considered, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, The Atlantic Monthly, U.S. News and World Report, ABA Journal, Chronicle of Higher Education, Chicago Tribune, CNN Headline News, Good Morning America, ABC News, CBS News, Philadelphia Inquirer, Essence Magazine, The American Prospect, People Magazine, The American Conservative, The Australian, and Al Jazeera, among others. She has presented her research across the world, including the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, as well as in Argentina, Brazil, Peru, Chile, China, Israel, Qatar, the Netherlands, Italy, England, Wales, Poland, Spain, Serbia, Japan, Canada, Norway, Denmark, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Turkey, and France.
Professor Wilson has seven times been honored for her work on innovative laws that respect all persons. In 2007, she received the Citizen’s Legislative Award for her work on changing Virginia’s informed consent law. In 2018, Professor Wilson received the Thomas L. Kane Religious Freedom Award from the J. Reuben Clark Law Society, which is presented annually to an individual who exemplifies the spirit of religious liberty for all and who has contributed in significant ways to the defense of religious freedom in the public square.
In 2018, Professor Wilson was honored as one of the 150 for 150: Celebrating the Accomplishments of Women at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for its sesquicentennial celebration. In 2020, Professor Wilson received the 2020 Larine Y. Cowan Make a Difference Award for Advocacy for LGBTQ Affairs, a university-wide honor given by the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Partner and Executive Director, Christie 55 Solutions LLC
Rich Bagger is a Partner and Executive Director of Christie 55 Solutions, a New Jersey based consulting firm that provides strategic counsel to assist clients with business strategies and opportunities and with complex public policy and regulatory challenges at the state, federal and international levels. Rich is also an Adjunct Faculty member at Rutgers University and a member of the Board of Directors of Tonix Pharmaceuticals.
Prior to joining Christie 55 Solutions, Rich worked in the health sector for over 25 years, including as the senior most global Corporate Affairs executive for two major biopharmaceutical companies and as legal counsel for a large health plan. From 2012 through 2019, he was Executive Vice President of Corporate Affairs and Market Access for Celgene Corporation, as well as a member of the company’s Executive Committee. During a 16-year career with Pfizer Inc, Rich served from 2006 to 2009 on Pfizer’s senior most management team as Senior Vice President, Worldwide Public Affairs and Policy. Prior to joining Pfizer, Rich was Assistant General Counsel of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of New Jersey and before that practiced law with McCarter & English.
Rich has a record of public service that spans more than three decades. From 2012 until 2021, he served as a Commissioner of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and was Chair of the Gateway Program Development Corporation for 2017. For six months during 2016, Rich led pre-election transition planning as Executive Director of Trump for America. Rich served from 2010 to 2012 as Chief of Staff for New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, responsible for managing implementation of the Governor’s policy agenda and priorities. He was also elected to serve five terms in the New Jersey General Assembly, where he chaired the Appropriations Committee and was elected by his colleagues as Majority Conference Leader. In 2001, Rich was elected to the New Jersey Senate and served there until 2003. Before his election to the Legislature, he was a Council Member and Mayor of Westfield, New Jersey.
Rich served as Board Chair of the National Pharmaceutical Council for 2019 and is a member of the Board of Directors and Executive Committee of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, where he chaired the Global Innovation Policy Center from 2014 to 2018. He is also on the Board of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society and the Advisory Board for the Lerner Center for the Study of Pharmaceutical Management at Rutgers University Business School.
He received an A.B. degree from Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs and a J.D. degree from Rutgers University Law School.
Partner and Executive Director, Christie 55 Solutions LLC
Rich Bagger is a Partner and Executive Director of Christie 55 Solutions, a New Jersey based consulting firm that provides strategic counsel to assist clients with business strategies and opportunities and with complex public policy and regulatory challenges at the state, federal and international levels. Rich is also an Adjunct Faculty member at Rutgers University and a member of the Board of Directors of Tonix Pharmaceuticals.
Prior to joining Christie 55 Solutions, Rich worked in the health sector for over 25 years, including as the senior most global Corporate Affairs executive for two major biopharmaceutical companies and as legal counsel for a large health plan. From 2012 through 2019, he was Executive Vice President of Corporate Affairs and Market Access for Celgene Corporation, as well as a member of the company’s Executive Committee. During a 16-year career with Pfizer Inc, Rich served from 2006 to 2009 on Pfizer’s senior most management team as Senior Vice President, Worldwide Public Affairs and Policy. Prior to joining Pfizer, Rich was Assistant General Counsel of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of New Jersey and before that practiced law with McCarter & English.
Rich has a record of public service that spans more than three decades. From 2012 until 2021, he served as a Commissioner of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and was Chair of the Gateway Program Development Corporation for 2017. For six months during 2016, Rich led pre-election transition planning as Executive Director of Trump for America. Rich served from 2010 to 2012 as Chief of Staff for New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, responsible for managing implementation of the Governor’s policy agenda and priorities. He was also elected to serve five terms in the New Jersey General Assembly, where he chaired the Appropriations Committee and was elected by his colleagues as Majority Conference Leader. In 2001, Rich was elected to the New Jersey Senate and served there until 2003. Before his election to the Legislature, he was a Council Member and Mayor of Westfield, New Jersey.
Rich served as Board Chair of the National Pharmaceutical Council for 2019 and is a member of the Board of Directors and Executive Committee of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, where he chaired the Global Innovation Policy Center from 2014 to 2018. He is also on the Board of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society and the Advisory Board for the Lerner Center for the Study of Pharmaceutical Management at Rutgers University Business School.
He received an A.B. degree from Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs and a J.D. degree from Rutgers University Law School.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit
Michael B. Brennan was confirmed and sworn in as a Circuit Judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in May 2018.
He previously worked as a partner in the Milwaukee law firm of Gass Weber Mullins LLC, where he tried cases and handled appeals in federal and state courts, as a judge on the Milwaukee County Circuit, where he presided over a variety of criminal and civil calendars, and as an assistant district attorney in the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s office.
Brennan’s undergraduate degree is from the University of Notre Dame, and his law degree from Northwestern University School of Law, where he was an editor on the law review and the moot court champion. He served as a law clerk on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.
Dean Emeritus and Harvey R. Miller Professor of Law & Economics, Columbia Law School
David Schizer served as Dean of Columbia Law School from 2004 to 2014, and as CEO of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, a global Jewish humanitarian organization, from 2017 to 2019. A co-chair of Columbia University's new task force on antisemitism, he also is a co-founder and co-chair of the Center for Israeli Legal Studies at Columbia Law School; co-founder and co-chair of the Richman Center for Law, Business, and Public Policy; and a Charter Trustee of Ramaz. He served as a law clerk to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the U.S. Supreme Court.
Executive Director, College Autism Network
Lee Burdette Williams has worked in higher education and student affairs for more than three decades and is now Executive Director of the College Autism Network, a nonprofit organization supporting the efforts of autistic college students and the institutions that serve them. She served previously as the Vice President for Student Affairs and Dean of Students at Wheaton College in Massachusetts and Dean of Students at the University of Connecticut.
Lee’s professional interests include student mental health, academic partnerships, learning communities and student culture. A particular interest is in the experiences of autistic students in student conduct processes. She has written extensively on these and other topics and is a frequent speaker and presenter on contemporary issues in higher education. Lee is the author of two books, Emerging Practices and Trends in Peer Education and Learning Communities in Student Affairs: Partnering for Powerful Learning. She is the director of the College Autism Summit, an annual conference that brings together professionals working to support college students with autism. Lee has taught in the student affairs graduate programs at the University of Vermont, the University of Connecticut, Appalachian State University, and the University of Maryland College Park. She received her Ph.D. in College Student Personnel Administration from the University of Maryland College Park, her M.Ed. in Counseling from Salem State University, and her B.A. from Gordon College.
Professor, University of Illinois College of Law
Robin Fretwell Wilson is the Mildred Van Voorhis Jones Chair in Law at the University of Illinois College of Law.
A scholar in family law, bioethics and law and religion, Professor Wilson has worked extensively on behalf of state and federal law reform efforts in each realm.
Across two decades, she has worked to secure laws protecting the autonomy of patients to decide when they will be used to teach intimate exams to medical students, laws now in place in 22 states—sixteen of which have been enacted since 2019.
Professor Wilson is known for bridging differences in the culture war. In 2015, she spent a month in residence with the Utah legislature, helping Utah state lawmakers to pass anti-discrimination legislation that balances religious liberty and LGBT rights. In 2019, Professor Wilson assisted the governor of Utah to craft regulations banning gay conversion therapy. In 2019, she also aided U.S. Representative Chris Stewart with portions of the “Fairness for All” he introduced in Congress. A member of the American Law Institute and a Fulbright Specialist, Professor Wilson has served as a consultant to the United Arab Emirates’ Judicial Department as they sought to create a parallel court system for the adjudication by expatriates of family law matters using the laws of their home country or of their faith traditions.
Professor Wilson is the author of 20 books, including her 2018 book, Religious Freedom, LGBT Rights, and the Prospects for Common Ground, with Yale University Professor William Eskridge, Jr., which is now in paperback at Cambridge University Press. Her other books include: The Contested Place of Religion in Family Law (Cambridge University Press, 2018, ed.), Reconceiving the Family: Critical Reflections on the American Law Institute’s Principles of the Law of Family Dissolution (Cambridge University Press, 2006, ed.); The Handbook of Children, Culture & Violence (Sage Publications, 2006, with Nancy Dowd and Dorothy Singer, eds.); Same-Sex Marriage and Religious Liberty: Emerging Conflicts (Rowman & Littlefield, 2008, with Douglas Laycock and Anthony Picarello, eds.); Health Law and Bioethics: Cases in Context (Aspen, 2008, with Joan Krause, Sandra Johnson, and Richard Saver, eds.); Domestic Relations: Cases and Materials, 8th edition (Foundation Press, 2017, with Walter Wadlington and Raymond C. O’Brien); and Understanding Family Law, 4th edition (LexisNexis, 2013, with John DeWitt Gregory and Peter N. Swisher). Her articles have appeared in the Boston College Law Review, Cornell Law Review, Emory Law Journal, Illinois Law Review, North Carolina Law Review, San Diego Law Review, U.C. Davis Law Review, and Washington and Lee Law Review, as well as in numerous peer-reviewed journals.
In 2010 and again in 2016, Professor Wilson was ranked among the Top Ten Family Law Scholars in the United States for scholarly impact. She ranks among the Top 10% of Authors in all time downloads on the Social Science Research Network. Professor Wilson’s scholarship has been cited by the Fifth, Seventh and Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, the Minnesota Court of Appeals, lower federal courts, and the Supreme Courts of Delaware, Illinois, Iowa, and Washington.
Professor Wilson’s work has been featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, National Public Radio’s All Things Considered, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, The Atlantic Monthly, U.S. News and World Report, ABA Journal, Chronicle of Higher Education, Chicago Tribune, CNN Headline News, Good Morning America, ABC News, CBS News, Philadelphia Inquirer, Essence Magazine, The American Prospect, People Magazine, The American Conservative, The Australian, and Al Jazeera, among others. She has presented her research across the world, including the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, as well as in Argentina, Brazil, Peru, Chile, China, Israel, Qatar, the Netherlands, Italy, England, Wales, Poland, Spain, Serbia, Japan, Canada, Norway, Denmark, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Turkey, and France.
Professor Wilson has seven times been honored for her work on innovative laws that respect all persons. In 2007, she received the Citizen’s Legislative Award for her work on changing Virginia’s informed consent law. In 2018, Professor Wilson received the Thomas L. Kane Religious Freedom Award from the J. Reuben Clark Law Society, which is presented annually to an individual who exemplifies the spirit of religious liberty for all and who has contributed in significant ways to the defense of religious freedom in the public square.
In 2018, Professor Wilson was honored as one of the 150 for 150: Celebrating the Accomplishments of Women at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for its sesquicentennial celebration. In 2020, Professor Wilson received the 2020 Larine Y. Cowan Make a Difference Award for Advocacy for LGBTQ Affairs, a university-wide honor given by the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Professor of Law and Michael R. Klein Distinguished Scholar Chair, University of Miami School of Law
Mary Anne Franks, Professor of Law and Michael R. Klein Distinguished Scholar Chair, is a nationally and internationally recognized expert on the intersection of civil rights and technology. She teaches classes on criminal law, criminal procedure, First Amendment law, Second Amendment law, family law, and law and technology. Professor Franks is also an Affiliated Faculty member of the University of Miami Department of Philosophy and an Affiliate Fellow of the Yale Law School Information Society Project (ISP).
Dr. Franks is the author of the award-winning book, The Cult of the Constitution: Our Deadly Devotion to Guns and Free Speech (Stanford Press, 2019). In 2020, she was awarded a grant from the Knight Foundation to support research for her second book, Fearless Speech (expected 2022). Her scholarship has appeared in the Harvard Law Review, the California Law Review, and UCLA Law Review, among others. Dr. Franks has also authored numerous articles for the popular press, including the New York Times, the Atlantic, the Washington Post, and Newsweek. She has delivered more than a hundred lectures to a range of audiences around the world, including law schools, domestic violence organizations, law firms, and tech companies. She was named a member of the American Law Institute in October 2018.
Dr. Franks is the President and Legislative & Tech Policy Director of the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative, a nonprofit organization dedicated to combating online abuse and discrimination. In 2013, she drafted the first model criminal statute on nonconsensual pornography (sometimes referred to as “revenge porn”), which has served as the template for multiple state laws and for pending federal legislation on the issue. She also served as the reporter for the Uniform Law Commission’s 2018 Uniform Civil Remedies for the Unauthorized Disclosure of Intimate Images Act. Dr. Franks is a principal investigator for a 2020 National Science Foundation grant project, COVID-19 and sexual cyberviolence: Impact on general users and vulnerable populations. She regularly advises legislators, tech industry leaders, and advocacy organizations on issues relating to online privacy, sexual exploitation, extortion, harassment, and threats.
Dr. Franks holds a J.D. from Harvard Law School as well as a doctorate and a master’s degree from Oxford University, where she studied as a Rhodes Scholar. She previously taught at the University of Chicago Law School as a Bigelow Fellow and Lecturer in Law and at Harvard University as a lecturer in social studies and philosophy.
Maurice and Hilda Friedman Professor of Law, Columbia Law School; CEO, New Civil Liberties Alliance
Philip Hamburger is the Maurice and Hilda Friedman Professor of Law at Columbia Law School, and Chief Executive Officer at the New Civil Liberties Alliance. Before coming to Columbia, he was the John P. Wilson Professor at the University of Chicago Law School.
He writes on constitutional law and its history—with particular emphasis on religious liberty, freedom of speech and the press, judicial office, administrative power, and unconstitutional conditions.
His books are Separation of Church and State (Harvard 2002), Law and Judicial Duty (Harvard 2008), Is Administrative Law Unlawful? (Chicago 2014), The Administrative Threat (Encounter 2017), and Liberal Suppression: Section 501(c)(3) and the Taxation of Speech (Chicago 2018). A forthcoming book is Purchasing Submission: Conditions, Power, and Freedom (Harvard 2021).
He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and he has served on the board of directors of the American Society for Legal History. He has twice received the Sutherland Prize for the most significant contribution to English legal history, and has been awarded the Henry Paolucci - Walter Bagehot Book Award, the Hayek Book Prize, and the Bradley Prize.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit
Judge Katsas was appointed to the D.C. Circuit in December 2017. He graduated from Princeton University and Harvard Law School, where he was an executive editor on the Harvard Law Review. Between 1989 and 1992, he served as a law clerk to Judge Edward Becker on the Third Circuit, to then-Judge Clarence Thomas on the D.C. Circuit, and to Justice Thomas on the Supreme Court. Between 1992 and 2001, he was an associate and then partner in the Washington office of Jones Day, where he specialized in appellate and complex civil litigation. Between 2001 and 2009, he served in many senior positions in the Department of Justice, including as Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division and as Acting Associate Attorney General. In 2009, he returned to Jones Day. From January to December 2017, he served as Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy Counsel to the President.
Before joining the bench, Judge Katsas argued more than 75 appeals, including three cases in the Supreme Court, 13 cases in the D.C. Circuit, and cases in every other federal court of appeals. By appointment of the Chief Justice, he served on the Advisory Committee on Appellate Rules from 2013 to 2017. In 2016, he was elected to membership in the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers.
Thomas M. Siebel Senior Fellow, The Hoover Institution, Stanford University; Gary T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus, UCLA School of Law
Eugene Volokh is the Thomas M. Siebel Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution (Stanford), as well as the Gary T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus and Distinguished Research Professor at UCLA School of Law. He recently retired from teaching at UCLA, after 30 years there, and is now focusing on research.
Volokh is the author of the textbooks The First Amendment and Related Statutes (8th ed. 2023), and Academic Legal Writing (5th ed. 2016), as well as over 100 academic law journal articles, mostly on First Amendment law. He is a member of The American Law Institute; the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Free Speech Law; and the creator and coauthor of The Volokh Conspiracy, a leading legal blog founded in 2002 (hosted at the Washington Post from 2014 to 2017 and now at Reason Magazine).
Professor of Law and Michael R. Klein Distinguished Scholar Chair, University of Miami School of Law
Mary Anne Franks, Professor of Law and Michael R. Klein Distinguished Scholar Chair, is a nationally and internationally recognized expert on the intersection of civil rights and technology. She teaches classes on criminal law, criminal procedure, First Amendment law, Second Amendment law, family law, and law and technology. Professor Franks is also an Affiliated Faculty member of the University of Miami Department of Philosophy and an Affiliate Fellow of the Yale Law School Information Society Project (ISP).
Dr. Franks is the author of the award-winning book, The Cult of the Constitution: Our Deadly Devotion to Guns and Free Speech (Stanford Press, 2019). In 2020, she was awarded a grant from the Knight Foundation to support research for her second book, Fearless Speech (expected 2022). Her scholarship has appeared in the Harvard Law Review, the California Law Review, and UCLA Law Review, among others. Dr. Franks has also authored numerous articles for the popular press, including the New York Times, the Atlantic, the Washington Post, and Newsweek. She has delivered more than a hundred lectures to a range of audiences around the world, including law schools, domestic violence organizations, law firms, and tech companies. She was named a member of the American Law Institute in October 2018.
Dr. Franks is the President and Legislative & Tech Policy Director of the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative, a nonprofit organization dedicated to combating online abuse and discrimination. In 2013, she drafted the first model criminal statute on nonconsensual pornography (sometimes referred to as “revenge porn”), which has served as the template for multiple state laws and for pending federal legislation on the issue. She also served as the reporter for the Uniform Law Commission’s 2018 Uniform Civil Remedies for the Unauthorized Disclosure of Intimate Images Act. Dr. Franks is a principal investigator for a 2020 National Science Foundation grant project, COVID-19 and sexual cyberviolence: Impact on general users and vulnerable populations. She regularly advises legislators, tech industry leaders, and advocacy organizations on issues relating to online privacy, sexual exploitation, extortion, harassment, and threats.
Dr. Franks holds a J.D. from Harvard Law School as well as a doctorate and a master’s degree from Oxford University, where she studied as a Rhodes Scholar. She previously taught at the University of Chicago Law School as a Bigelow Fellow and Lecturer in Law and at Harvard University as a lecturer in social studies and philosophy.
Maurice and Hilda Friedman Professor of Law, Columbia Law School; CEO, New Civil Liberties Alliance
Philip Hamburger is the Maurice and Hilda Friedman Professor of Law at Columbia Law School, and Chief Executive Officer at the New Civil Liberties Alliance. Before coming to Columbia, he was the John P. Wilson Professor at the University of Chicago Law School.
He writes on constitutional law and its history—with particular emphasis on religious liberty, freedom of speech and the press, judicial office, administrative power, and unconstitutional conditions.
His books are Separation of Church and State (Harvard 2002), Law and Judicial Duty (Harvard 2008), Is Administrative Law Unlawful? (Chicago 2014), The Administrative Threat (Encounter 2017), and Liberal Suppression: Section 501(c)(3) and the Taxation of Speech (Chicago 2018). A forthcoming book is Purchasing Submission: Conditions, Power, and Freedom (Harvard 2021).
He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and he has served on the board of directors of the American Society for Legal History. He has twice received the Sutherland Prize for the most significant contribution to English legal history, and has been awarded the Henry Paolucci - Walter Bagehot Book Award, the Hayek Book Prize, and the Bradley Prize.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit
Judge Katsas was appointed to the D.C. Circuit in December 2017. He graduated from Princeton University and Harvard Law School, where he was an executive editor on the Harvard Law Review. Between 1989 and 1992, he served as a law clerk to Judge Edward Becker on the Third Circuit, to then-Judge Clarence Thomas on the D.C. Circuit, and to Justice Thomas on the Supreme Court. Between 1992 and 2001, he was an associate and then partner in the Washington office of Jones Day, where he specialized in appellate and complex civil litigation. Between 2001 and 2009, he served in many senior positions in the Department of Justice, including as Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division and as Acting Associate Attorney General. In 2009, he returned to Jones Day. From January to December 2017, he served as Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy Counsel to the President.
Before joining the bench, Judge Katsas argued more than 75 appeals, including three cases in the Supreme Court, 13 cases in the D.C. Circuit, and cases in every other federal court of appeals. By appointment of the Chief Justice, he served on the Advisory Committee on Appellate Rules from 2013 to 2017. In 2016, he was elected to membership in the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers.
Thomas M. Siebel Senior Fellow, The Hoover Institution, Stanford University; Gary T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus, UCLA School of Law
Eugene Volokh is the Thomas M. Siebel Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution (Stanford), as well as the Gary T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus and Distinguished Research Professor at UCLA School of Law. He recently retired from teaching at UCLA, after 30 years there, and is now focusing on research.
Volokh is the author of the textbooks The First Amendment and Related Statutes (8th ed. 2023), and Academic Legal Writing (5th ed. 2016), as well as over 100 academic law journal articles, mostly on First Amendment law. He is a member of The American Law Institute; the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Free Speech Law; and the creator and coauthor of The Volokh Conspiracy, a leading legal blog founded in 2002 (hosted at the Washington Post from 2014 to 2017 and now at Reason Magazine).
Tenth Annual Executive Branch Review Conference —EBRX
The Administrative State, Law, and Culture
Washington, DCFedSoc Study Break: Chevron Deference
30 Minutes. Your Questions. Their Answers.
Showcase Panel III: Corporate and Academic Management Today
Michael B. Brennan, David M. Schizer, Lee Burdette Williams, Robin Fretwell Wilson, Richard Bagger
The 2021 National Lawyers Convention took place November 11-13, 2021 at the Mayflower Hotel in...
Showcase Panel III: Corporate and Academic Management Today
Richard Bagger, Michael B. Brennan, David M. Schizer, Lee Burdette Williams, Robin Fretwell Wilson
The 2021 National Lawyers Convention took place November 11-13, 2021 at the Mayflower Hotel in...
Showcase Panel III: Corporate and Academic Management Today
2021 National Lawyers Convention
Washington, DCThe Shareholder and Stakeholder Symposium
Washington, DCTextual Challenges of Section 230
Mary Anne Franks, Philip A. Hamburger, Gregory G. Katsas, Eugene Volokh
This panel addressed the textual questions of §230: is the statute correctly understood to permit...
Textual Challenges of Section 230
Mary Anne Franks, Philip A. Hamburger, Gregory G. Katsas, Eugene Volokh
This panel addressed the textual questions of §230: is the statute correctly understood to permit...
Textual Challenges of Section 230
Freedom of Thought Six-Part Zoom Webinar Series: Part 2
TeleforumTextual Challenges of Section 230
Freedom of Thought Six-Part Series: Part 2
Teleforum