Garwood Visiting Professor and Visiting Fellow, James Madison Pr, Cleveland-Marshall College of Law
David F. Forte is Professor of Law at Cleveland State University, where he was the inaugural holder of the Charles R. Emrick, Jr.- Calfee Halter & Griswold Endowed Chair. This fall, Professor Forte will be the Garwood Visiting Professor at Princeton University in the Department of Politics, and Visiting Fellow at the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions. He holds degrees from Harvard College, Manchester University, England, the University of Toronto and Columbia University.
During the Reagan administration, Professor Forte served as chief counsel to the United States delegation to the United Nations and alternate delegate to the Security Council. He has authored a number of briefs before the United States Supreme Court, and has frequently testified before the United States Congress and consulted with the Department of State on human rights and international affairs issues. His advice was specifically sought on the approval of the Genocide Convention, on world-wide religious persecution, and Islamic extremism. He has appeared and spoken frequently on radio and television, both nationally and internationally. In 2002, the Department of State sponsored a speaking tour for Professor Forte in Amman, Jordan, and he was also a featured speaker to the Meeting of Peoples in Rimini, Italy, a meeting which gathers over 500,000 people from all over Europe. He has also been called to testify before the state legislatures of Ohio, Kansas, and Idaho as well as the New York City Council. He has assisted in drafting a number of pieces of legislation for the Ohio General Assembly dealing with abortion, international trade, and federalism. He has sat as acting judge on the municipal court of Lakewood Ohio and was chairman of Professional Ethics Committee of the Cleveland Bar Association. He has received a number of awards for his public service, including the Cleveland Bar Association’s President’s Award, the Cleveland State University Award for Distinguished Service, the Cleveland State University Distinguished Teaching Award, and the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law Alumni Award for Faculty Excellence. He served as Consultor to the Pontifical Council for the Family under Pope St. John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI. In 2003, Dr. Forte was a Distinguished Fulbright Chair at the University of Trento and returned there in 2004 as a Visiting Professor. For the academic year, 2008-2009, Professor Forte was Senior Visiting Scholar at the Center for the Study of Religion and the Constitution in at the Witherspoon Institute in Princeton, New Jersey. He was the Robert E. Henderson Constitution Day Lecturer at the Ashbrook Center at Ashland University, and he has given over 300 invited addresses and papers at more than 100 academic institutions. His work has been cited by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Professor Forte was a Bradley Scholar at the Heritage Foundation, and Visiting Scholar at the Liberty Fund. He has been President of the Ohio Association of Scholars, was on the Board of Directors of the Philadelphia Society, and is also adjunct Scholar at the Ashbrook Center. He has been appointed to the Ohio State Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. He has also been a Civil War re-enactor and a Merit Badge Counselor for the Boy Scouts.
He writes and speaks nationally on topics such as constitutional law, religious liberty, Islamic law, the rights of families, and international affairs. He served as book review editor for the American Journal of Jurisprudence and has edited a volume entitled, Natural Law and Contemporary Public Policy, published by Georgetown University Press. His book, Islamic Law Studies: Classical and Contemporary Applications, has been published by Austin & Winfield. He is Senior Editor of The Heritage Guide to the Constitution (2006), 2d edition (2014), published by Regnery & Co, a clause by clause analysis of the Constitution of the United States.
His teaching competencies include Constitutional Law, the First Amendment, Islamic Law, Jurisprudence, Natural Law, International Law, International Human Rights, the Presidency, and Constitutional History.
Of Counsel, Fisher & Phillips, LLP
Greg Grisham has over 25 years of successful experience counseling and representing employers in all aspects of workplace law in Tennessee and across the United States.
He has helped employers avoid claims, charges and lawsuits with a focus on preventative practices. Preventative practices include counseling in situations involving discipline, termination, demotion, promotion and other workplace changes in the terms and conditions of employment, harassment investigations, wage and hour compliance, FMLA Compliance, Reasonable Accommodation assessment, supervisor training and the review of employment policies and procedures. In addition, Greg's practice includes the representation of business entities subject to Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act in Public Accommodation cases.
Greg has successfully litigated hundreds of administrative charges, employment lawsuits, and arbitration demands on behalf of employers, including federal and state law claims alleging discrimination, harassment, retaliation, wrongful termination, defamation, invasion of privacy, breach of contract, wage and hour violations and ERISA violations, among others. He also represents employers before the National Labor Relations Board in unfair labor practice proceedings. He represents employers in the enforcement of post-employment restrictive covenants such as non-compete, non-solicitation and non-disclosure agreements and related trade secret litigation. Greg's practice also includes the defense of property owners and property management companies in federal and state Housing Discrimination charges and litigation. He also advises Tennessee Public Charter Schools on education law and workplace compliance matters.
Greg has extensive experience working with insurance carriers and their insureds in the defense of EPLI claims. He is a regular speaker at public seminars on workplace law issues and has authored numerous articles on a variety of labor and employment law related topics.
Greg holds an AV Preeminent Peer Review rating from Martindale-Hubbell and has been selected for inclusion in Mid-South Super Lawyers and Best Lawyers in America for Employment Litigation-Management side. Greg was elected as a 2016 Fellow to the College of Labor and Employment Lawyers and has been selected to the “Top 20 Lawyers in Traditional Labor & Employment Law” list in conjunction with Human Resource Executive Magazine and LawDragon’s 2017 and 2018 “Most Powerful Employment Attorneys” lists and specialty guides. Greg was also named a Fellow in the American Bar Foundation in 2017.
Founding Partner, Lodestar Law and Economics PLLC
Josh is the founder of Lodestar Law and Economics, PLLC. On January 1, 2013, the U.S. Senate unanimously confirmed Wright as a Commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). He is a leading scholar in antitrust law, economics, intellectual property, regulation, and consumer protection, and has published more than 100 articles and book chapters, co-authored a leading antitrust casebook, and edited several book volumes focusing on these issues. Commentators have recognized Wright as “widely considered his generation’s greatest mind on antitrust law,” and his academic work ranks him as one of the most cited antitrust academics in the world. Wright was also awarded the Paul M. Bator Award by the Federalist Society in 2014 to “an academic who demonstrated excellence in legal scholarship, a commitment to teaching, a concern for students, and who has made a significant public impact.” Wright also served as the Executive Director of the Global Antitrust Institute, the world’s premiere academic institute focused upon antitrust education for judges and regulators and has taught hundreds of judges and thousands of regulators from dozens of countries.
Wright’s practice focuses upon helping clients solve complex competition, consumer protection, and regulatory problems by providing legal and economic analysis, strategic advice and counseling, and economic expert testimony.
Distinguished University Professor, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
University Professor Nelson Lund is the author of Rousseau’s Rejuvenation of Political Philosophy: A New Introduction. He has also written widely in the field of constitutional law, including articles on constitutional interpretation, federalism, separation of powers, the Second Amendment, the Commerce Clause, the Speech or Debate Clause, the Equal Protection Clause, and the Uniformity Clause. In addition, he has published articles in the fields of employment discrimination and civil rights, the legal regulation of medical ethics, and the application of economic analysis to legal institutions and legal ethics.
Professor Lund graduated from St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland, after which he received an MA in philosophy from the Catholic University of America and a PhD in political science from Harvard University. He left the faculty of the University of Chicago to attend its law school, where he served as executive editor of the University of Chicago Law Review and chapter chairman of the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies. After law school, he held positions at the United States Department of Justice in the Office of the Solicitor General and the Office of Legal Counsel. He also served as a law clerk to the Honorable Patrick E. Higginbotham of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and to the Honorable Sandra Day O'Connor of the United States Supreme Court. Following his clerkship with Justice O'Connor, Professor Lund served in the White House as associate counsel to the president from 1989 to 1992.
Since joining the faculty at George Mason University's Antonin Scalia Law School, Professor Lund has taught Constitutional Law, Legislation, Federal Election Law, Employment Discrimination, State and Local Government, and seminars on the Second Amendment and on a variety of topics in Jurisprudence.
Partner, Balch & Bingham LLP
General Counsel to the Mississippi Manufacturers Association, Pepper Crutcher advises and advocates for a wide range of Southeast U.S., private sector employers. Pepper regularly defends employment litigation, including class and collective actions, and both defends and prosecutes unfair competition claims. Pepper’s labor law practice involves all types of NLRB proceedings, labor contract negotiation and arbitration. Pepper also helps employers, insurers, brokers, administrators and providers achieve Affordable Care Act compliance and appeal ACA tax assessments.
Mr. Crutcher has been rated "AV" by Martindale Hubbell and since 2004 has been selected to be included in Chambers USA America's Leading Lawyers for Business: The Client's Guide (Employment, Mississippi). He is also listed in The Best Lawyers in America for Intellectual Property Law and Labor & Employment Law.
Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law and Director, Classical Liberal Institute, New York University School of Law; Director, Classical Liberal Institute, Civitas Institute University of Texas at Austin
Richard A. Epstein is the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law, at New York University, a senior research fellow at the Civitas Institute at the University of Texas Austin, and a senior Lecturer, the University of Chicago. He received an LL.D., h.c . from the University of Ghent, 2003 , and an LLD h.c . from the University of Siegen in 2018 and the Bradley Prize in 2011. He has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 1985. He has edited both the Journal of Legal Studies (1981-1991) and the Journal of Law and Economics (1991-2001). He is also a founder and director of the Classical Liberal Institute at NYU Law School. His most recent book is The Classical Liberal Constitution: The Uncertain Quest for Limited Government (2014). His other books include Takings: Private Property and the Power of Eminent Domain ( 1985); Bargaining with the State (1993); Simple Rules for a Complex World (1995); Principles for a Free Society: Reconciling Individual Liberty and the Common Good (1998); Skepticism and Freedom: A Modern Theory of Classical Liberalism (2003); Design for Liberty: Private Property, Public Administration and the Rule of Law (2011), and most recently, The Myth of Birthright citizenship—and Beyond (2026). He has taught courses in , administrative law, antitrust, constitutional, contracts, environmental law, land use planning; real property, torts and water law. He has written and spoken extensively on a wide range of topics, and is writes a regular column for Defining Ideas.
George Maverick Bunker Professor of Management, Sloan School of, MIT
Thomas A. Kochan is the George Maverick Bunker Professor of Management at MIT's Sloan School of Management and Co-Director of both the MIT Workplace Center and of the Institute for Work and Employment Research. He came to MIT in 1980 as a Professor of Industrial Relations. From 1988 to 1991 he served as Head of the Behavioral and Policy Sciences Area in the Sloan School. Prof. Kochan came to MIT from Cornell University where he was on the faculty of the School of Industrial and Labor Relations from 1973 to 1980.
In 1973, he received his Ph.D. in Industrial Relations from the University of Wisconsin. Since then he has served as a third-party mediator, fact finder, and arbitrator and as a consultant to a variety of government and private sector organizations and labor-management groups. He was a consultant for one year to the Secretary of Labor in the Department of Labor’s Office of Policy Evaluation and Research.
He has done research on a variety of topics related to industrial relations and human resource management in the public and private sector. Some of his recent books include: Restoring the American Dream: A Working Families’ Agenda for America; Management: Inventing and Delivering its Future; Working in America: A Blueprint for the Labor Market, Learning from Saturn; Managing for the Future: Organizational Behavior and Processes, 3rd edition, 2004; An Introduction to Collective Bargaining and Industrial Relations, 3rd ed. 2003; In 1988 his book, The Transformation of American Industrial Relations received the annual award from the Academy of Management for the best scholarly book on management.
Professor Kochan is a Past President of both the International Industrial Relations Association and the Industrial Relations Research Association (IRRA). In 2001 he was listed in Who’s Who in America and in 2000 he was listed in Blackwell’s Dictionary of Management Scholars. In 1999 he was awarded Doctor Honoris Cause from the University de San Martin de Porres de Lima. He received the Heneman Career Achievement Award from the Human Resources Division of the Academy of Management in 1996. He was elected to the National Academy of Human Resources in 1997. He was named the Centennial Visiting Professor from The London School of Economics in 1995. From 1993 to 1995 he served as a member of the Clinton Administration's Commission on the Future of Worker/Management Relations.
Partner, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, and Former United States Secretary of Labor
Eugene Scalia is a partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, co-chair of the firm’s Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice Group, and a senior member of the firm’s Labor and Employment Practice Group and Financial Institutions Practice Group. He returned to the firm after serving as U.S. Secretary of Labor from September 2019 to January 2021.
Mr. Scalia has a nationally-prominent practice in two areas: Labor and employment law, and advice and litigation regarding the regulatory obligations of federal administrative agencies. He also has extensive appellate experience. Federal regulatory actions he has challenged include the SEC’s “proxy access” rule; the CFTC’s “position limits’” rule; MetLife’s designation as “too big to fail” by the Financial Services Oversight Council; the Labor Department’s “fiduciary” rule; and OSHA’s “cooperative compliance program.”
As Labor Secretary, Mr. Scalia engaged at the highest level with national employment policy and matters affecting the financial services industry and international trade, overseeing the enforcement and administration of more than 180 federal employment laws covering more than 150 million workers and 10 million workplaces. He also served as Chair of the Board of Directors of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation and as a member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force. He was closely involved in the drafting and implementation of the CARES Act and other coronavirus-related legislation. Laws administered by the Labor Department also include the workplace safety requirements of OSHA and the Mine Safety and Health Administration, federal minimum wage and overtime protections, the anti-discrimination requirements applicable to federal contractors, and ERISA’s protection of the more than $11 trillion held in employee retirement plans and health plans.
Mr. Scalia served from 2002 to 2003 as Solicitor of the U.S. Department of Labor, with responsibility for all Labor Department litigation and legal advice on rulemakings and administrative law. He is the only person to have served as both Solicitor and Secretary of Labor.
He also served at the U.S. Department of Justice as a Special Assistant to the Attorney General, receiving the Department’s Edmund J. Randolph Award in 1993.
In private practice, Mr. Scalia has represented employers in high-profile matters under the National Labor Relations Act and in class actions and collective actions under Title VII, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, ERISA, and federal and state wage hour laws. He has extensive experience in federal district court, the courts of appeals, and in the arbitration of employment disputes. He has been a leading authority on “whistleblower” investigations and litigation since the 2002 enactment of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Mr. Scalia also counsels employers on reductions-in-force and the proper conduct of harassment and discrimination investigations. He has provided pro bono representation to workers in discrimination matters, wrongful separation disputes, and other matters.
Mr. Scalia is a Senior Fellow of the Administrative Conference of the United States, a federal agency that makes recommendations to Congress and the Executive Branch on ways to improve the administrative process. He is the author of more than 30 articles and papers on labor and employment law, administrative law, and other subjects. Among other accolades, he has been named an “Employment MVP,” a “Securities MVP,” and an “Appellate MVP” by Law360. The National Law Journal recognized Mr. Scalia as a “Visionary” for his litigation against financial regulatory agencies, and the Nation magazine has called him a “fearsome litigator.” He has been a Lecturer in labor and employment law at the University of Chicago Law School.
Mr. Scalia graduated cum laude from the University of Chicago Law School, where he was editor-in-chief of the Law Review. He graduated With Distinction from the University of Virginia in 1985 and was a speechwriter for Education Secretary William J. Bennett before attending law school. Mr. Scalia and his wife Trish have seven children.
General Counsel, Change to Win
Patrick J. Szymanski is General Counsel for Change to Win, an alliance of seven Unions representing 6 million members in the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico. The seven unions are the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, the Laborers’ International Union of North America, the Service Employees International Union, the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America, the United Farm Workers, the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, and UNITE HERE.
Pat was raised in Detroit, Michigan, where his father was a professional football player, an elected state official and later a state court judge. His father is a member of the Polish Sports Hall of Fame and in 2007 was selected as a member of the Wall Street Journal Law Blog Football Hall Fame. His mother was a Detroit public school teacher and editor of The Polish World, a bilingual newspaper published in Hamtramck, Michigan. Pat attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, dropped out in the late 60’s and later received his undergraduate degree from Wayne State University where he majored in mathematics. He received his law degree from Wayne State University Law School in 1976.
He was a lawyer in the Enforcement Division of the National Labor Relations Board in Washington, D.C., from 1976 through 1978 and again from 1983 through 1988 where he briefed and argued cases before the United States District Courts and Courts of Appeal and briefed cases before the United States Supreme Court.
From 1978 through 1983 he was attorney with the San Francisco office of Beeson, Tayer & Bodine where he advised and represented Teamsters Local Unions and Joint Councils in Northern California, other labor organizations and related benefit funds in negotiations, internal affairs, arbitration cases and proceedings before various state and federal agencies and courts. From 1988 through 2002 he was an attorney and partner at the Washington, D.C., law firm of Baptiste & Wilder where he continued the practice of labor law representing primarily Teamster affiliates, related benefit funds and individual officers and members.
Pat became counsel to the Campaign of James P. Hoffa for presidency of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters in late 1995 and represented the Campaign throughout the 1996 Election, at the 1996 Teamsters International Convention, and in litigation that led to the 1998 Teamsters Rerun Election. He was named Teamsters General Counsel by General President Hoffa in March 1999 and served in that position until late 2005 when he became General Counsel to Change to Win.
He is a member of the bar in Michigan, California and the District of Columbia, the bar of the United States Supreme Court, and the bars of several federal district and appellate courts.
Robert S. Kerr, Sr. Professor of Constitutional Law, Oklahoma City University School of Law
From 2005-2006 Professor Spiropoulos was the Senior Counselor to the Speaker of the Oklahoma House of Representatives, where his duties included serving as chief policy advisor and negotiator. Professor Spiropoulos clerked for Judge Danny Boggs of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and practiced law with the Chicago firm of Gardner, Carton & Douglas before joining the faculty. He has been a Heritage Foundation Salvatori Fellow and, from 2011 to 2023, was the Milton Friedman Fellow at the the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs. He was the reporter for the Uniform Interstate Enforcement of Domestic-Violence Protection Orders Act.
Professor Spiropoulos received his B.A. degree from Carleton College and his M.A. and J.D. degrees from the University of Chicago (Phi Beta Kappa). He teaches Constitutional Law, Legislation & Regulation, State and Local Government, and Constitutional Theory.
Forgotten Cases: Worthen v. Thomas and the Contract Clause
David F. Forte
Note from the Editor: This article discusses the history of interpretation of the Contract Clause and...
Beyond the Red-Blue Divide: An Overview of Current Trends in State Non-Compete Law
J. Gregory Grisham
Introduction Covenants not to compete (“non-competes”)[1] have a long history dating back to the medieval...
Net Neutrality Meets Regulatory Economics 101
Joshua D. Wright
Note from the Editor: This article reproduces then-Commissioner Joshua D. Wright's remarks at the Federalist...
Conservative & Libertarian Legal Scholarship: Contracts
[Return to Table of Contents] III. Contracts Foundational Materials Useful collections of readings on contract law...
Book Review: Cosmic Constitutional Theory: Why Americans Are Losing Their Inalienable Right to Self-Governance
Nelson Lund
Other Reviews of Cosmic Constitutional Theory: •Marc O. Degirolami, The New Republic, Sept. 2012: http://www.newrepublic.com/book/review/cosmic-constitutional-theory-judicial-restraint...
Affordable Care Act Compliance: Say “Hello” to Collective Bargaining Obligations
R. Pepper Crutcher, R Crutcher
Related Links: UC Berkely Labor Center, The Affordable Care Act: A Guide for Union Negotiators...
The Employee Free Choice Act
Richard A. Epstein, Thomas Kochan, Eugene Scalia, Patrick Szymanski
On March 10, 2009, the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) was re-introduced to Congress by...
State AGs Hiring Private Attorneys to Assist in Government Lawsuits
Andrew Spiropoulos
In recent years, much attention has been paid to the phenomenon of state attorneys general...
IGWG: Beyond its Mandate?
John S. Gardner
Letter from the Editor . . . The Federalist Society takes seriously its responsibility as...