Vice President, Edwin Meese III Institute for the Rule of Law, Advancing American Freedom
John G. Malcolm oversees Advancing American Freedom’s work to increase understanding of the Constitution and the rule of law as Vice President of the organization’s Edwin Meese III Institute for the Rule of Law. Malcolm brings to the challenge a wealth of legal expertise and experience in both the public and private sectors.
Prior to joining Advancing American Freedom in 2025, Malcolm was the Vice President of the Institute for Constitutional Government and the Director of the Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at the Heritage Foundation. Prior to joining Heritage in 2012, Malcolm was general counsel at the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, as well as a distinguished practitioner in residence at Pepperdine Law School. From 2004 to 2009, Malcolm was executive vice president and director of worldwide anti-piracy operations for the Motion Picture Association.
Malcolm served as a deputy assistant attorney general in the Department of Justice’s Criminal Division from 2001 to 2004, where he oversaw sections on computer crime and intellectual property, domestic security, child exploitation and obscenity, and special investigations. Immediately prior to that, he was a founding partner in the Atlanta law firm of Malcolm & Schroeder, LLP.
From 1990 to 1997, Malcolm was an assistant U.S. attorney in Atlanta, assigned to the fraud and public corruption section, and also an associate independent counsel, investigating fraud and abuse in the Department of Housing and Urban Development. He was honored with the Director’s Award for Superior Performance for his work in connection with the successful prosecution of Walter Leroy Moody Jr., who assassinated an 11th Circuit judge and the head of the Savannah chapter of the NAACP.
A graduate of Harvard Law School and Columbia College, Malcolm began his career as a law clerk to a federal district court judge and a federal appellate court judge, and as an associate at the Atlanta-based law firm of Sutherland, Asbill & Brennan (new Eversheds Sutherland).
Malcolm, who resides in Washington, D.C., serves on the Board of Trustees of the Washington National Opera and is a Senate-confirmed member of the Board of Directors of the Legal Services Corporation, the largest funder of civil legal aid in the United States.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit
Judge Readler earned his undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Michigan. After graduating, he served as a law clerk to Judge Alan Norris of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Judge Readler then began practicing law in the Columbus office of the international law firm Jones Day, eventually spending ten years as a partner in the firm’s Issues and Appeals Practice Group. While at Jones Day, Judge Readler appeared in state and federal trial and appellate courts around the country, most frequently the Supreme Court of Ohio and the Sixth Circuit. Judge Readler also successfully argued before the United States Supreme Court in McQuiggin v. Perkins on behalf of an inmate claiming actual innocence. His other pro bono representations include representing capital defendants before the Tenth Circuit and the Supreme Court of Ohio, as well as representing defendants sentenced to life in prison before the Sixth Circuit. While at Jones Day, Judge Readler traveled to Nairobi with Lawyers Without Borders to train Kenyan lawyers in prosecuting domestic violence cases, and he was also a recipient of the American Marshall Memorial Fellowship awarded by the German Marshall Fund of the United States. Following his career in private practice, Judge Readler served as Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division of the United States Department of Justice from 2017 to 2019. In that role, Judge Readler led and supervised over 1,000 lawyers in the Department’s largest litigating division, briefing and arguing several cases on behalf of the United States in federal courts across the country, including high-profile cases significant to the Administration and the Department. In March 2019, Judge Readler was confirmed to serve as a Circuit Judge on the Sixth Circuit. He resides in Columbus.
Agnes Williams Sesquicentennial Professor of Federal Courts, Georgetown Law
Stephen I. Vladeck is a professor of law at the Georgetown University Law Center, and is a nationally recognized expert on the federal courts; the Supreme Court; national security law; and military justice.
Vladeck is author of the New York Times bestselling book, “The Shadow Docket: How the Supreme Court Uses Stealth Rulings to Amass Power and Undermine the Republic,” which won the 2023 Writers’ League of Texas Book Award for Non-Fiction and was a finalist for the 2024 ABA Silver Gavel Award for Media and the Arts. Vladeck is also a highly regarded appellate advocate, having argued three cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and over a dozen before various lower federal civilian and military courts. He has received numerous awards for his influential and widely cited legal scholarship, his prolific popular writing, his teaching, and his service to the legal profession—including the 2024 University of Texas President’s Research Impact Award and his selection by the Order of the Coif to serve as its Distinguished Visiting Professor for 2025.
Vladeck is CNN’s Supreme Court analyst and editor and author of “One First,” a popular weekly newsletter about the Supreme Court. Together with Bobby Chesney, Vladeck co-hosts the popular and award-winning “National Security Law Podcast.” He is also a co-author of Aspen Publishers’ leading national security law and counterterrorism law casebooks. And he is a member of the Board of Trustees of EarthJustice—the nation’s premier nonprofit public interest environmental law organization.
Vladeck graduated from Yale Law School in 2004—where he was executive editor of the Yale Law Journal and won the Harlan Fiske Stone Prize for outstanding moot court oralist and shared the Potter Stewart Prize for best moot court team performance. After law school, he clerked for the Honorable Marsha S. Berzon on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and the Honorable Rosemary Barkett on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. He earned a B.A. summa cum laude with Highest Distinction in History and Mathematics from Amherst College in 2001—where he wrote his senior thesis on “Leipzig’s Shadow: The War Crimes Trials of the First World War and Their Implications from Nuremberg to the Present.” A native New Yorker and hopeless Mets fan, Vladeck lives in the District with his wife, Karen (Founder and Managing Partner of Risepoint Search Partners); their daughters, Madeleine and Sydney; and their eleven-year-old pug, Roxanna.
Partner, Holtzman Vogel
Joe Burns is a partner with Holtzman Vogel and focuses his practice on representing candidates and party committees in election cases throughout New York State.
Prior to joining the firm, Joe served as Deputy Director of Election Operations at the New York State Board of Elections. In this role, he worked with county Boards of Elections, candidates, and party committees, and was involved in New York State's transition from lever to optical scan voting. He also conducted hearings for the NYSBOE and represented it in court proceedings.
Additionally, Joe has served as an attorney for the Erie County and New York State Republican Committees, and has also represented candidates for a variety of public offices throughout New York State, including candidates for U.S. Congress and New York State Supreme Court.
From 2018 to 2024, Joe was the Deputy Administrative Director for the Erie County Water Authority; and from 2015 to 2018, he was the Secretary to the Erie County Water Authority.
A life-long resident of Upstate New York and active member of the Western New York community, Joe served as vice chair of the Erie County Charter Revision Commission in 2016 and was a member of the Erie County Advisory Commission on Reapportionment in 2021. City and State named Joe to its Upstate Power 100 list in 2024, and in 2025, Joe was named as one of New York State’s Law Power 100 by City and State.
Joe is a frequent commentator and author on New York State and national politics, and election law.
Chief Deputy Solicitor General, Office of Florida Attorney General
Daniel Bell serves as Chief Deputy Solicitor General in the Florida Office of the Attorney General. He has also served as General Counsel to the Florida House of Representatives, and took a leave of absence from government service to manage Blake Masters' U.S. Senate campaign in 2020.
Before government service, Mr. Bell was a litigator at Williams & Connolly LLP in Washington, D.C. He graduated from Florida State University with degrees in economics and history and from Stanford Law School, after which he clerked for Judges Alex Kozinski and Paul Watford of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
Mr, Bell is a Florida native, husband, and father of three girls.
Constitutional Scholarship Director and Senior Legal Analyst, Pacific Legal Foundation
Anastasia Boden is Director of Constitutional Scholarship at Pacific Legal Foundation, where she leads the organization’s Supreme Court commentary and directs scholarly analysis in support of the firm’s litigation. She has represented entrepreneurs and small businesses nationwide in challenges to onerous licensing regimes, anti-competitive titling restrictions, Certificate of Need (“competitor’s veto”) laws, and other forms of unnecessary red tape that block economic opportunity.
Prior to this role, Anastasia developed nearly a dozen constitutional challenges to Certificate of Need laws across the country, helping spur legislative reform in Montana, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. Her victories include a ruling invalidating Houston’s busking restrictions, multiple appellate decisions expanding access to the courts for civil rights plaintiffs, and the legislative repeal of Virginia’s happy-hour advertising ban.
Her writings on law and liberty have been featured in USA Today, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, Forbes, and more, and she has appeared on Headline News, CBS News, Fox News, ReasonTV, Newsmax, and John Stossel. In 2020, she was featured on Libertarian Party presidential candidate Jo Jorgensen’s Supreme Court shortlist.
Anastasia earned her BA with dean’s honors from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and her JD from Georgetown University Law Center, where she was research assistant to Professor Randy E. Barnett—the “intellectual godfather” of the constitutional challenge to Obamacare. She is the co-creator of the podcast Dissed, about infamous Supreme Court dissents. She authors the biweekly newsletter SCOTUS Scoop and the column, “In Dissent” for SCOTUSblog.
Founding Partner, Lawson Huck Gonzalez, PLLC
Alan Lawson retired from the Florida Supreme Court in late 2022 after a 35-year legal and judicial career, founding the firm with his partners in early 2023.
Earlier in his legal career, Alan practiced as an associate and partner with a major Florida law firm, Steel Hector & Davis, and with the Orange County Attorney’s Office. In these capacities, Alan handled a wide array of case types in state and federal court, and before administrative agencies, including construction, government procurement, eminent domain, contract claims, public utility regulatory proceedings, business disputes, and class action defense, attaining a Martindale-Hubbell “AV” rating. This rating reflects a peer-review ranking at the highest level of professional excellence for legal knowledge, communication skills and ethical standards.
In 2002, Alan was appointed by then-Governor Jeb Bush as a Judge of the Ninth Judicial Circuit and served there for four years, presiding over more than 100 jury trials. Alan was then appointed by Governor Bush to the Fifth District Court of Appeal, where he served for eleven years, including a term as Chief Judge. In 2016, Governor Rick Scott appointed Alan to the Florida Supreme Court, where he served until his retirement from the bench. Throughout his career, Alan received numerous awards and recognitions, and has maintained a reputation for diligence, excellence, skill and professionalism.
Associate Professor of Law, University of Florida Levin College of Law
Professor Marshfield teaches and writes in the areas of local government law, state constitutional law, and constitutional change. His research has appeared in the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, Northwestern University Law Review, Boston University Law Review and the Michigan Law Review, among others. His state constitutional law research has been cited by the New Jersey Supreme Court, and his research into constitutional change has been cited by leading scholars in law reviews, textbooks, and academic journals. Professor Marshfield has also served as a consultant to foreign officials regarding issues of constitutional revision, and he has advised public policy groups regarding voter awareness and ballot issues.
Before joining the University of Florida, Professor Marshfield taught at the University of Nebraska College of Law, where he twice won Professor of the Year for this teaching. Professor Marshfield also taught at the University of Arkansas School of Law and practiced as a commercial litigator with Latham & Watkins LLP and Saul Ewing LLP. He clerked for Judge Robert B. Kugler, United States District Judge for the District of New Jersey, and Chief Justice James R. Zazzali of the Supreme Court of the State of New Jersey.
Professor Marshfield grew up in Durban, South Africa.
United States District Judge, Middle District of Florida
Judge Moe currently serves as a United States District Judge for the Middle District Of Florida.
At the time then-Governor Rick Scott appointed her to the bench in 2017, Judge Moe was an equity shareholder at Bush Ross, P.A. She was AV-rated by Martindale-Hubbell and was recognized by Best Lawyers in America, Florida Trend: Legal Elite, and Florida Super Lawyers in the field of commercial litigation. As a lawyer, her trial experience included jury and non-jury cases in state and federal court and in arbitration. Her last trial in private practice involved a dispute between the State of Florida and the Seminole Indian Tribe over the Tribe’s Class III gaming compact. While her clients were most often business people engaged in or trying to avoid business disputes, she also handled pro bono cases on behalf of a nun, a convicted murderer serving three life sentences in federal prison, and a participant in the Middle District of Florida’s Intensive Re-Entry Program. She is a past president of the Tampa Bay Chapter of the Federal Bar Association and a past chair of a Florida Bar Grievance Committee.
Prior to entering private practice, she clerked for United States District Judge Virginia M. Hernandez Covington in the Middle District of Florida. During law school, she was editor-in-chief of the law review and interned for Justice Kenneth B. Bell during his service on the Florida Supreme Court and the Honorable Jeffrey Hotham on the Maricopa County Superior Court. She is an honors graduate of the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University, Furman University, and Cambridge Christian School (formerly known as Seminole Presbyterian School).
Counsel, Liberty Justice Center
Reilly Stephens is Counsel at Liberty Justice Center, a national nonprofit public-interest litigation firm that brings cases around the country to protect economic liberty, educational freedom, property rights, free speech, and other fundamental rights..
Prior to joining LJC, Reilly was a legal associate in the Cato Institute’s Center for Constitutional Studies. During law school, he served as a law clerk at the Institute for Justice and for the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Center for Class Action Fairness.
A native of Baltimore, Reilly holds a J.D. from the Georgetown University Law Center, where he served as Senior Articles Editor of the Georgetown Journal of Law & Public Policy, and an M.A. in International Relations from the University of St. Andrews, Scotland.
Partner, Holtzman Vogel
Joe Burns is a partner with Holtzman Vogel and focuses his practice on representing candidates and party committees in election cases throughout New York State.
Prior to joining the firm, Joe served as Deputy Director of Election Operations at the New York State Board of Elections. In this role, he worked with county Boards of Elections, candidates, and party committees, and was involved in New York State's transition from lever to optical scan voting. He also conducted hearings for the NYSBOE and represented it in court proceedings.
Additionally, Joe has served as an attorney for the Erie County and New York State Republican Committees, and has also represented candidates for a variety of public offices throughout New York State, including candidates for U.S. Congress and New York State Supreme Court.
From 2018 to 2024, Joe was the Deputy Administrative Director for the Erie County Water Authority; and from 2015 to 2018, he was the Secretary to the Erie County Water Authority.
A life-long resident of Upstate New York and active member of the Western New York community, Joe served as vice chair of the Erie County Charter Revision Commission in 2016 and was a member of the Erie County Advisory Commission on Reapportionment in 2021. City and State named Joe to its Upstate Power 100 list in 2024, and in 2025, Joe was named as one of New York State’s Law Power 100 by City and State.
Joe is a frequent commentator and author on New York State and national politics, and election law.
UC Foundation Assistant Professor, U.T. Chattanooga
Dr. John Eastman is the former Henry Salvatori Professor of Law & Community Service and former Dean at Chapman University's Dale E. Fowler School of Law, where he had been a member of the faculty since 1999, specializing in Constitutional Law, Legal History, and Property. He is a founding director of the Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence, a public interest law firm affiliated with the Claremont Institute that he founded in 1999. He has a Ph.D. in Government from the Claremont Graduate School and a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School, and a B.A. in Politics and Economics from the University of Dallas. He serves as the Chairman of the Board of the National Organization for Marriage.
Prior to joining the Chapman law faculty, Dr. Eastman served as a law clerk to the Honorable Clarence Thomas, Associate Justice, Supreme Court of the United States, and to the Honorable J. Michael Luttig, Judge, United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and practiced law with the national law firm of Kirkland & Ellis. Dr. Eastman has also represented numerous clients in important constitutional law matters and has argued before the Supreme Court. On behalf of the Claremont Institute Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence, he has participated as amicus curiae before the Supreme Court of the United States, U.S. Courts of Appeals, and State Supreme Courts in more than one hundred cases of constitutional significance, including Boy Scouts of America v. Dale, Zelman v. Simmons-Harris (the school vouchers case), Kelo v. New London, Ct. (eminent domain), and Van Orden v. Perry (the 10 Commandments case). He has also appeared as an expert legal commentator on numerous television and radio programs, including C-SPAN, Fox News, PBS, NewsHour, and The O'Reilly Factor.
United States District Court, Central District of California
Andrew Guilford is a federal judge for the United States District Court for the Central District of California. He joined the court in 2006 after being nominated by President George W. Bush.
Born in Santa Monica, California, Guilford graduated from the University of California-Los Angeles with his Bachelor's Degree in 1972 and his Juris Doctor degree in 1975.
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).
Partner, Wiley Rein LLP
Tom has over 15 years’ experience in private practice and public service at the federal and state levels representing clients in high-stakes appellate and regulatory litigation matters. Tom has argued appeals in the Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, D.C. and Federal Circuits, and the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals.
Prior to joining Wiley, Tom was the General Counsel at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), where he served as the agency’s chief legal officer and briefed dozens of appeals – personally arguing two – in the federal courts of appeals in constitutional and administrative law challenges to the FCC’s orders. Tom managed a team of over 70 attorneys and staff and provided consultation and advice on a wide range of practice areas relating to the FCC’s work, including administrative law, appellate and trial litigation, bankruptcy, ethics, fiscal law, fraud, labor and employment, and public records requests. He has spent his career advising clients on all stages of federal agency rulemaking, adjudication, and litigation, in fields ranging from communications to environmental law to securities to labor and employment. He frequently speaks and writes on legal issues and his articles have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, National Review, Forbes, and Newark Star-Ledger.
Partner, Jones Day
Ben Ginsberg represents numerous political parties, political campaigns, candidates, members of Congress and state legislatures, governors, corporations, trade associations, vendors, donors, and individuals participating in the political process. He represents a variety of clients on election law issues, particularly those involving federal and state campaign finance laws, ethics and gifts rules, pay-to-play laws, election administration, government investigations, redistricting, communications law, and election recounts and contests.
Prior to joining Jones Day in 2014, Mr. Ginsberg served as national counsel to the Bush-Cheney presidential campaigns in the 2004 and 2000 election cycles and played a central role in the 2000 Florida recount. In 2012 and 2008, he served as national counsel to the Romney for President campaign. He also has represented the campaigns and leadership PACs of numerous members of the Senate and House as well as the national party committees. He serves as counsel to the Republican Governors Association and has extensive experience on the state legislative level through Republican redistricting efforts.
Before entering law school, Mr. Ginsberg spent five years as a newspaper reporter at The Boston Globe, Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, The Berkshire Eagle (Massachusetts), and The Riverside Press-Enterprise (California). He has been a guest lecturer at the Stanford University Law School, a Fellow at Harvard University's Institute of Politics, and an adjunct professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center. Mr. Ginsberg recently served as co-chair of the Presidential Commission on Election Administration.
Georgetown University Law Center, J.D., 1982
University of Pennsylvania, A.B., 1974
Attorney and Legal Commentator
John Shu is an attorney and legal commentator. His focus areas include constitutional law, securities & corporate law, antitrust law, administrative law, politics, and international affairs. Mr. Shu has lectured and published on a wide variety of issues.
Mr. Shu served President George H.W. Bush and President George W. Bush. He also served Judge Stanley Sporkin, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, who was Director of Enforcement at the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission and General Counsel at the Central Intelligence Agency, and Judge Paul Roney, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, who was Presiding Judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review.
Mr. Shu is a member of the National Committee on U.S. - China Relations, the Pacific Council on International Policy, and the Foreign Policy Association.
Daniel Webster Debate Series: Do Nationwide Injunctions Undermine the President's Lawful Authority?
John G. Malcolm, Chad A. Readler, Stephen I. Vladeck
The Federalist Society's Georgetown Law Chapter'sDaniel Webster Debate Series presents Daniel Webster Debate Series:Do...
New York High Court Orders New Maps Before Election
Joseph Thomas Burns
On December 12, 2023, the New York State Court of Appeals (New York’s highest court)...
Panel II: Amending the Florida Constitution: Ballot Initiatives and Judicial Review
Daniel Bell, Anastasia P. Boden, Alan Lawson, Jonathan L. Marshfield, Anne-Leigh Gaylord Moe
The citizen-initiative process allows the People of Florida to propose amendments to the state constitution,...
Constitutional Bar on Retrospective Laws Limits Claims Under Colorado's Child Sex Abuse Statute
Reilly Stephens
The Colorado Supreme Court recently issued a decision in Aurora Public Schools v. A.S. finding...
State Court Docket Watch: Harkenrider v. Hochul
Joseph Thomas Burns
On April 27, 2022, the New York State Court of Appeals invalidated the Congressional and...
How the Founders’ Natural Law Theory Illuminates the Original Meaning of Free Exercise
Kody Cooper
In Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, the Supreme Court will consider whether Philadelphia’s 2018 policy...
Born in the USA: A Debate on the Meaning of the Constitution’s Citizenship Clauses
John C. Eastman, Andrew J. Guilford, Eugene Volokh
Zoom Webinar ID: Webinar ID: 941 2457 3082 Please click the link below to join...
Legislative Authority to Adjust Judicial Benefits Under the New Jersey Constitution
Thomas M. Johnson
The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies is an organization of 40,000 lawyers,...
Judicial Selection Litigation in New York
Benjamin L. Ginsberg, John Hilton
As this series of articles demonstrates, judicial selection is a hot topic in many states...
Same-Sex Marriage in the State Courts
John Shu
Gay marriage litigation continues to occur in several states. In the first half of 2006,...