Executive Director, Center for Election Confidence
Lisa L. Dixon serves as the Executive Director of the Center for Election Confidence (formerly known as Lawyers Democracy Fund). Lisa is also a consultant for the Republican National Lawyers Association, serving as their Legal Counsel. Previously, Lisa practiced at Holtzman Vogel, where she specialized in tax-exempt organizations, campaign finance and election law, and lobbying compliance.
During law school, she interned for the Office of Chief Counsel, Procedure and Administration, at the Internal Revenue Service and at the Center for Law and Religious Freedom. Before law school, she served as the Assistant Student Division Director at The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies and interned at The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Legal and Judicial Studies.
Lisa earned a J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law, an M.A. in History from the University of Virginia, and a B.A. in History from Hillsdale College. After 18 years on the East Coast, mostly in northern Virginia, she recently returned to her native Michigan, where she lives with her husband and three sons.
Professor, Political Science and Public Administration, University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Dr. Martha Kropf is Professor of Political Science & Public Administration at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Her Ph.D. is from American University in Washington, DC in Political Science (fields: American Politics, Public Policy and Public Economics). She worked two years at the University of Maryland Survey Research Center (Project Coordinator) and taught at the University of Missouri-Kansas City before coming to UNC Charlotte. Her areas of research include the study of elections and election reform, voting and political mobilization. She has published in the Journal of Politics, Political Research Quarterly and Public Opinion Quarterly. Her work has been funded by the National Science Foundation and the Aspen Institute.
Attorney
Maya M. Noronha is a civil rights attorney.
As special counsel for external affairs at First Liberty Institute, Maya worked for the largest legal organization in the United States dedicated exclusively to defending religious liberty for all Americans.
Previously, Maya worked at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, as acting chief of staff of the Administration for Children and Families; principal advisor to the Commissioner of the Administration on Children, Youth, and Families; and senior advisor to the Director of the Office for Civil Rights and regulatory reform officer. She provided advice on federal civil rights laws that prohibit discrimination on the basis of conscience, religion, race, color, national origin, limited English proficiency, sex, disability, age, and health information in both health care and human services.
In the area of election law, Maya has advised officials elected to or candidates for President, U.S. Senate, U.S. House of Representatives, Governor, state legislature, city council, and magisterial district judge. She practiced law at Baker Hostetler LLP, where she was on the Political Law and Federal Advocacy Teams, advising clients on voting rights, redistricting, election integrity, campaign finance, financial reporting, ethics compliance, as well as conducting trial and appellate litigation. She also has delivered legislative testimony, planned continuing legal education conferences on election law, and published about voting rights and election administration.
In addition to addressing the Federalist Society, she has delivered remarks to the White House Initiative on Asian American Pacific Islanders, United States Senate, Women in Government Relations, Georgetown University, George Mason University School of Law, the Columbus School of Law at the Catholic University of America, and Arizona State University Cronkite School of Journalism.
Maya is in Phi Beta Kappa, a member of the Alpha Sigma Nu Jesuit Honor Society, and a John Carroll Scholar. Forbes Magazine recognized Maya as one of its 30 under 30 in Law and Public Policy.
She serves concurrently on the Federalist Society’s Free Speech & Election Law Executive Committee and the American Bar Association’s Standing Committee on Election Law.
Education
· J.D., Georgetown University Law Center, 2011
· A.B., Georgetown University, 2005
Senior Fellow, Cato Institute
Walter Olson is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute’s Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies and is known for his writing on the American legal system. His books include The Rule of Lawyers, on mass litigation, The Excuse Factory, on lawsuits in the workplace, and most recently Schools for Misrule, on the state of the law schools. His first book, The Litigation Explosion, was one of the most widely discussed general-audience books on law of its time. It led the Washington Post to dub him “intellectual guru of tort reform.” Active on social media, he is known as the founder and principal writer of what is generally considered the oldest blog on law as well as one of the most popular, Overlawyered.com. He has advised many public officials from the White House to town councils and in 2015 was named by Gov. Larry Hogan to be co-chair of the Maryland Redistricting Reform Commission, which issued its report recommendations later that year to acclaim across the state.
Before joining Cato, Olson was a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and an editor at the magazine Regulation, then edited by future Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. Olson’s more than 400 broadcast appearances include all the major networks, NPR, the BBC, The Diane Rehm Show, and Oprah.
Attorney, Institute for Justice
John Wrench is a Constitutional Law Fellow at the Institute for Justice.
John grew up outside of Ithaca, New York, and received his law degree from the Case Western Reserve University School of Law in 2019. During law school, he served as editor in chief of the Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law and was a member of the Federalist Society. John interned in his law school’s First Amendment Litigation Clinic and was a judicial extern to the Honorable Paul E. Davison in the Southern District of New York. John graduated from Pace University in 2015 with a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy and Religious Studies.
Joshua Dunlap, a member of Pierce Atwood’s Litigation Group and Appellate & Amici team, focuses his practice on civil litigation at both the trial and appellate levels. He appears in federal as well as state court, representing clients in various commercial litigation matters.
Joshua regularly defends clients in complex litigation, including class actions and multidistrict litigation. Much of his practice has involved representing financial institutions, manufacturers, retailers, and other institutional clients in state and national consumer class actions involving various issues, including bank overdrafts, products liability, and electronic data breaches.
Joshua also represents clients before federal and state appeals courts, and has argued and won before the Maine Supreme Judicial Court. Joshua is a former federal court of appeals law clerk, having clerked for the Hon. Paul J. Kelly Jr. on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. He has also acted as law clerk for two Special Masters appointed by the U.S. Supreme Court in original jurisdiction proceedings.
Does Ranked Choice Voting Help or Hurt?
Lisa L. Dixon, Martha Kropf, Maya Noronha, Walter K. Olson
Ranked choice voting, also known as instant runoff voting, is a voting method where voters...
Maine Supreme Court Endorses Flexible Balancing Test for Analyzing Speedy Trial Claims Under the Maine Constitution
John Wrench
In Winchester v. State, the Maine Supreme Court considered whether criminal cases that took between...
Topics
Docket Watch: Maine Senate v. Secretary of State
In Maine Senate v. Secretary of State, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court (referred to as...
Maine Senate v. Secretary of State
Joshua D. Dunlap
In Maine Senate v. Secretary of State, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court (referred to as the...