Legal Director & General Counsel, Criminal Justice Legal Foundation
Kent S. Scheidegger has been the Legal Director of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation since December 1986. He also served as Chairman of the Criminal Law Practice Group of the Federalist Society 2003 to 2005. His articles on criminal and constitutional law have been published in law reviews, national legal publications, and congressional reports. Legal arguments authored by Mr. Scheidegger have been cited and incorporated in several precedent-setting United States Supreme Court decisions.
After receiving a degree in physics with honors from New Mexico State University in 1976, Mr. Scheidegger served for six years in the United States Air Force as a Nuclear Research Officer. He took his law degree with distinction from the University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law in 1982 and practiced civil law in Northern California. He was general counsel of California Cooler, Inc. from 1984 until 1986, when he joined the Foundation.
Senior Counsel, Becket Fund for Religious Liberty
William J. Haun is Senior Counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty and a Nonresident Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). At Becket, Will litigates nationwide in defense of religious liberty for all faith traditions, particularly before the U.S. Supreme Court and in other federal and state appellate courts. His litigation includes being a member of the U.S. Supreme Court team that prevailed 9-0 for Catholic Social Services in Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, arguing before multiple federal appellate courts, federal district courts, and the Supreme Court of Texas. At AEI, Will writes and researches on constitutionalism and self-government’s prerequisites, especially the role of religion in securing and preserving freedom.
Before joining Becket and AEI, Will practiced appellate and antitrust law at two international law firms—Shearman & Sterling and Hunton & Williams. He also served as a law clerk to Judge Janice Rogers Brown of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and Judge Claude Hilton of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. Will often writes on constitutional law issues, including in the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, the Catholic University Law Review, National Affairs, Law & Liberty, National Review Online, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post. He also speaks on these topics, including at the Catholic University of America, Columbus School of Law, Princeton University, the University of Virginia School of Law, and the University of Chicago Law School. He received his J.D. from the Catholic University of America, cum laude, where he was a published member of the Law Review. He received his B.A. from American University in political science, cum laude. He lives in Maryland with his wife and children, where they enjoy sailing, cheering on their favorite baseball teams, and discovering the great traditions of their Catholic faith.
Charles Evans Hughes Professor of Law, Columbia Law School
THOMAS W. MERRILL is the Charles Evans Hughes Professor of Law at Columbia Law School. He previously taught at Northwestern University School of Law and Yale Law School. He has undergraduate degrees from Grinnell College and Oxford University, where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar, and a law degree from the University of Chicago. He clerked on the D.C. Circuit (for Chief Judge David Bazelon) and the U.S. Supreme Court (for Justice Harry Blackmun). From 1987-1990 he served as Deputy Solicitor General, U.S. Department of Justice. Professor Merrill’s writings related to property include Property: Principles and Policies (Foundation Press Second Edition, 2012) (with Henry E. Smith); Property: The Oxford Introductions to U.S. Law (Oxford U. Press, 2010); Property: Takings (Foundation Press, 2002)(with David Dana); and numerous articles, including “The Economics of Public Use” (Cornell Law Review 1986); “The Landscape of Constitutional Property” (Virginia Law Review 2000); and “The Character of the Governmental Action” (Vermont Law Review 2012). He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
William T. Comfort, III Professor of Law, New York University School of Law
Roderick Hills teaches and writes in public law areas, including constitutional law, local government law, land-use regulation, administrative law, and statutory interpretation. His focus in each area is on the rules and policies governing division of powers between central and subcentral governments. He holds bachelor’s and law degrees from Yale University. Following law school, he served as a law clerk for Judge Patrick Higginbotham of the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and practiced law in Colorado. Hills previously taught at the University of Michigan Law School from 1994 to 2006. He is a member of the state bar of New York and the U.S. Supreme Court.
Assistant Professor of Law, Stanford Law School
David Freeman Engstrom’s scholarship focuses on the design of public institutions, particularly regarding civil rights, as well as topics in administrative law, employment law, complex litigation, constitutional federalism, and law and education. Current work includes a book exploring the pre-Title VII, state-level origins of American employment discrimination law; a quantitative analysis of disability discrimination laws; and a project examining the qui tam provisions of the False Claims Act.
Previously, Professor Engstrom ’02 was a law clerk to Judge Diane P. Wood of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and a John M. Olin Fellow in Law, Economics, and Public Policy at Yale Law School. He also practiced for four years, most of it at Kellogg, Huber, Hansen, Todd, Evans & Figel, where he represented clients before the U.S. Supreme Court, U.S. Courts of Appeals, and various trial courts and administrative agencies. Earlier in his career, he worked on education, early childhood, and civil rights issues at the Edward Zigler Center at Yale University and the Hewlett Foundation and taught high school and coached football in the Mississippi Delta.
Founding Partner, Boyden Gray & Associates
Ambassador C. Boyden Gray is the founding partner of Boyden Gray & Associates, a law and strategy firm in Washington, D.C., focused on constitutional and regulatory issues.
Mr. Gray worked in the White House for twelve years, first as counsel to the Vice President during the Reagan administration and then as White House Counsel to President George H.W. Bush. In the Reagan administration, he was Counsel to the Presidential Task Force on Regulatory Relief, for which he wrote the original Executive Order 12291 requiring cost-benefit analysis and White House review of regulations (later renumbered as current EO 12866). In the George H.W. Bush Administration, Mr. Gray was in charge of judicial selection and was also instrumental in the enactment of the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990, the Energy Policy Act of 1992, and a cap-and-trade system for acid rain emissions. In 1993, he received the Presidential Citizens Medal. Under President George W. Bush, Mr. Gray was U.S. Ambassador to the European Union and U.S. Special Envoy to Europe for Eurasian Energy.
Mr. Gray practiced law for 25 years at the law firm of Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering and was chairman of the Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice Section of the American Bar Association from 2000 to 2002. Early in his career, Mr. Gray helped to develop the Business Roundtable and served as its first counsel. He is an adjunct professor at Antonin Scalia Law School and a former adjunct professor at NYU Law School (teaching energy and environmental law). Mr. Gray is on the Board of Directors of the Atlantic Council, the Federalist Society, Reason Foundation, and the Trust for the National Mall.
Mr. Gray earned his A.B. magna cum laude from Harvard, where he was an editor of the Crimson, and his J.D. with high honors from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was editor-in-chief of the Law Review. Mr. Gray served in the United States Marine Corps, and after law school, he clerked for Earl Warren, Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court.
Judge, Contra Costa County Superior Court in California
Judge Haight was appointed to Contra Costa County Superior Court by Governor Pete Wilson in 1993.
Justice William J. Brennan, Jr., Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law Center
Lisa Heinzerling is the Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. Professor of Law at Georgetown University. Her primary specialties are administrative law and environmental law. She is the author of several books, including Priceless: On Knowing the Price of Everything and the Value of Nothing, a critique of the use of cost-benefit analysis in environmental policy. Professor Heinzerling has received the Georgetown University President's Award for Distinguished Scholar-Teachers, the faculty teaching award at Georgetown Law, and several awards related to her scholarship and advocacy in environmental law. She was the lead author of the winning briefs in Massachusetts v. EPA, in which the Supreme Court held that the Clean Air Act gives EPA the authority to regulate greenhouse gases. From January 2009 to July 2009, Heinzerling served as Senior Climate Policy Counsel to the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency and then, from July 2009 to December 2010, she served as Associate Administrator of EPA’s Office of Policy. She was a law clerk to Judge Richard A. Posner of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Richard and Frances Mallery Professor of Law and Faculty Director, Constitutional Law Center, Stanford Law School
Michael W. McConnell is the Richard and Frances Mallery Professor and Faculty Director of the Constitutional Law Center at Stanford Law School, and a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. From 2002 to 2009, he served as a Circuit Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. He was nominated by President George W. Bush, a Republican, and confirmed by a Democratic Senate by unanimous consent. McConnell has previously held chaired professorships at the University of Chicago and the University of Utah, and visiting professorships at Harvard and NYU. He teaches courses on constitutional law, constitutional history, First Amendment, and interpretive theory. He has published widely in the fields of constitutional law and theory, especially church and state, equal protection, and separation of powers. His book, “The President Who Would Not Be King: Executive Power Under the Constitution,” was published by Princeton University Press in 2020, based on the Tanner Lectures in Human Values, which he delivered at Princeton in 2019. His latest book, co-authored with Nathan Chapman, “Agreeing to Disagree: How the Establishment Clause Protects Religious Diversity and Freedom of Conscience,” was published by Oxford University Press in mid-2023. McConnell has argued sixteen cases in the United States Supreme Court, most recently Carney v. Adams (2020). defending a provision of the Delaware Constitution requiring political balance on that state’s courts. More recently, he was co-counsel in Gonzalez v. Google. He earned his B.A. from Michigan State University and his J.D. from the University of Chicago, and has received honorary degrees from Notre Dame University and Michigan State. He served as law clerk to Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. and D.C. Circuit Chief Judge J. Skelly Wright. He has been Assistant General Counsel of the Office of Management & Budget, Assistant to the Solicitor General of the Department of Justice, and a member of the President’s Intelligence Oversight Board. He is Senior of Counsel to the law firm Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich & Rosati, and is co-chair of Meta’s Oversight Review Board.
Assistant Professor of Law, Stanford Law School
David Freeman Engstrom’s scholarship focuses on the design of public institutions, particularly regarding civil rights, as well as topics in administrative law, employment law, complex litigation, constitutional federalism, and law and education. Current work includes a book exploring the pre-Title VII, state-level origins of American employment discrimination law; a quantitative analysis of disability discrimination laws; and a project examining the qui tam provisions of the False Claims Act.
Previously, Professor Engstrom ’02 was a law clerk to Judge Diane P. Wood of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and a John M. Olin Fellow in Law, Economics, and Public Policy at Yale Law School. He also practiced for four years, most of it at Kellogg, Huber, Hansen, Todd, Evans & Figel, where he represented clients before the U.S. Supreme Court, U.S. Courts of Appeals, and various trial courts and administrative agencies. Earlier in his career, he worked on education, early childhood, and civil rights issues at the Edward Zigler Center at Yale University and the Hewlett Foundation and taught high school and coached football in the Mississippi Delta.
Founding Partner, Boyden Gray & Associates
Ambassador C. Boyden Gray is the founding partner of Boyden Gray & Associates, a law and strategy firm in Washington, D.C., focused on constitutional and regulatory issues.
Mr. Gray worked in the White House for twelve years, first as counsel to the Vice President during the Reagan administration and then as White House Counsel to President George H.W. Bush. In the Reagan administration, he was Counsel to the Presidential Task Force on Regulatory Relief, for which he wrote the original Executive Order 12291 requiring cost-benefit analysis and White House review of regulations (later renumbered as current EO 12866). In the George H.W. Bush Administration, Mr. Gray was in charge of judicial selection and was also instrumental in the enactment of the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990, the Energy Policy Act of 1992, and a cap-and-trade system for acid rain emissions. In 1993, he received the Presidential Citizens Medal. Under President George W. Bush, Mr. Gray was U.S. Ambassador to the European Union and U.S. Special Envoy to Europe for Eurasian Energy.
Mr. Gray practiced law for 25 years at the law firm of Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering and was chairman of the Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice Section of the American Bar Association from 2000 to 2002. Early in his career, Mr. Gray helped to develop the Business Roundtable and served as its first counsel. He is an adjunct professor at Antonin Scalia Law School and a former adjunct professor at NYU Law School (teaching energy and environmental law). Mr. Gray is on the Board of Directors of the Atlantic Council, the Federalist Society, Reason Foundation, and the Trust for the National Mall.
Mr. Gray earned his A.B. magna cum laude from Harvard, where he was an editor of the Crimson, and his J.D. with high honors from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was editor-in-chief of the Law Review. Mr. Gray served in the United States Marine Corps, and after law school, he clerked for Earl Warren, Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court.
Judge, Contra Costa County Superior Court in California
Judge Haight was appointed to Contra Costa County Superior Court by Governor Pete Wilson in 1993.
Justice William J. Brennan, Jr., Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law Center
Lisa Heinzerling is the Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. Professor of Law at Georgetown University. Her primary specialties are administrative law and environmental law. She is the author of several books, including Priceless: On Knowing the Price of Everything and the Value of Nothing, a critique of the use of cost-benefit analysis in environmental policy. Professor Heinzerling has received the Georgetown University President's Award for Distinguished Scholar-Teachers, the faculty teaching award at Georgetown Law, and several awards related to her scholarship and advocacy in environmental law. She was the lead author of the winning briefs in Massachusetts v. EPA, in which the Supreme Court held that the Clean Air Act gives EPA the authority to regulate greenhouse gases. From January 2009 to July 2009, Heinzerling served as Senior Climate Policy Counsel to the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency and then, from July 2009 to December 2010, she served as Associate Administrator of EPA’s Office of Policy. She was a law clerk to Judge Richard A. Posner of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Richard and Frances Mallery Professor of Law and Faculty Director, Constitutional Law Center, Stanford Law School
Michael W. McConnell is the Richard and Frances Mallery Professor and Faculty Director of the Constitutional Law Center at Stanford Law School, and a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. From 2002 to 2009, he served as a Circuit Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. He was nominated by President George W. Bush, a Republican, and confirmed by a Democratic Senate by unanimous consent. McConnell has previously held chaired professorships at the University of Chicago and the University of Utah, and visiting professorships at Harvard and NYU. He teaches courses on constitutional law, constitutional history, First Amendment, and interpretive theory. He has published widely in the fields of constitutional law and theory, especially church and state, equal protection, and separation of powers. His book, “The President Who Would Not Be King: Executive Power Under the Constitution,” was published by Princeton University Press in 2020, based on the Tanner Lectures in Human Values, which he delivered at Princeton in 2019. His latest book, co-authored with Nathan Chapman, “Agreeing to Disagree: How the Establishment Clause Protects Religious Diversity and Freedom of Conscience,” was published by Oxford University Press in mid-2023. McConnell has argued sixteen cases in the United States Supreme Court, most recently Carney v. Adams (2020). defending a provision of the Delaware Constitution requiring political balance on that state’s courts. More recently, he was co-counsel in Gonzalez v. Google. He earned his B.A. from Michigan State University and his J.D. from the University of Chicago, and has received honorary degrees from Notre Dame University and Michigan State. He served as law clerk to Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. and D.C. Circuit Chief Judge J. Skelly Wright. He has been Assistant General Counsel of the Office of Management & Budget, Assistant to the Solicitor General of the Department of Justice, and a member of the President’s Intelligence Oversight Board. He is Senior of Counsel to the law firm Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich & Rosati, and is co-chair of Meta’s Oversight Review Board.
Patrick Hotung Professor of Constitutional Law, Georgetown University Law Center
Randy Barnett is the Patrick Hotung Professor of Constitutional Law at Georgetown University Law Center. He has argued before the United States Supreme Court, tried murder cases to juries as a prosecutor in Chicago, and appeared as a prosecutor in the feature film Inalienable. He is the author of numerous books, including Restoring the Lost Constitution, The Structure of Liberty, Our Republican Constitution, and The Original Meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. He has published two memoirs, A Life for Liberty: The Making of an American Originalist, and Felony Review: Tales of True Crime and Corruption in Chicago. He is currently working on a new book, Freedom and Flourishing: Libertarianism for the Real World.
Assistant Professor of Law, Stanford Law School
David Freeman Engstrom’s scholarship focuses on the design of public institutions, particularly regarding civil rights, as well as topics in administrative law, employment law, complex litigation, constitutional federalism, and law and education. Current work includes a book exploring the pre-Title VII, state-level origins of American employment discrimination law; a quantitative analysis of disability discrimination laws; and a project examining the qui tam provisions of the False Claims Act.
Previously, Professor Engstrom ’02 was a law clerk to Judge Diane P. Wood of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and a John M. Olin Fellow in Law, Economics, and Public Policy at Yale Law School. He also practiced for four years, most of it at Kellogg, Huber, Hansen, Todd, Evans & Figel, where he represented clients before the U.S. Supreme Court, U.S. Courts of Appeals, and various trial courts and administrative agencies. Earlier in his career, he worked on education, early childhood, and civil rights issues at the Edward Zigler Center at Yale University and the Hewlett Foundation and taught high school and coached football in the Mississippi Delta.
Founding Partner, Boyden Gray & Associates
Ambassador C. Boyden Gray is the founding partner of Boyden Gray & Associates, a law and strategy firm in Washington, D.C., focused on constitutional and regulatory issues.
Mr. Gray worked in the White House for twelve years, first as counsel to the Vice President during the Reagan administration and then as White House Counsel to President George H.W. Bush. In the Reagan administration, he was Counsel to the Presidential Task Force on Regulatory Relief, for which he wrote the original Executive Order 12291 requiring cost-benefit analysis and White House review of regulations (later renumbered as current EO 12866). In the George H.W. Bush Administration, Mr. Gray was in charge of judicial selection and was also instrumental in the enactment of the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990, the Energy Policy Act of 1992, and a cap-and-trade system for acid rain emissions. In 1993, he received the Presidential Citizens Medal. Under President George W. Bush, Mr. Gray was U.S. Ambassador to the European Union and U.S. Special Envoy to Europe for Eurasian Energy.
Mr. Gray practiced law for 25 years at the law firm of Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering and was chairman of the Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice Section of the American Bar Association from 2000 to 2002. Early in his career, Mr. Gray helped to develop the Business Roundtable and served as its first counsel. He is an adjunct professor at Antonin Scalia Law School and a former adjunct professor at NYU Law School (teaching energy and environmental law). Mr. Gray is on the Board of Directors of the Atlantic Council, the Federalist Society, Reason Foundation, and the Trust for the National Mall.
Mr. Gray earned his A.B. magna cum laude from Harvard, where he was an editor of the Crimson, and his J.D. with high honors from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was editor-in-chief of the Law Review. Mr. Gray served in the United States Marine Corps, and after law school, he clerked for Earl Warren, Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court.
Judge, Contra Costa County Superior Court in California
Judge Haight was appointed to Contra Costa County Superior Court by Governor Pete Wilson in 1993.
Justice William J. Brennan, Jr., Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law Center
Lisa Heinzerling is the Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. Professor of Law at Georgetown University. Her primary specialties are administrative law and environmental law. She is the author of several books, including Priceless: On Knowing the Price of Everything and the Value of Nothing, a critique of the use of cost-benefit analysis in environmental policy. Professor Heinzerling has received the Georgetown University President's Award for Distinguished Scholar-Teachers, the faculty teaching award at Georgetown Law, and several awards related to her scholarship and advocacy in environmental law. She was the lead author of the winning briefs in Massachusetts v. EPA, in which the Supreme Court held that the Clean Air Act gives EPA the authority to regulate greenhouse gases. From January 2009 to July 2009, Heinzerling served as Senior Climate Policy Counsel to the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency and then, from July 2009 to December 2010, she served as Associate Administrator of EPA’s Office of Policy. She was a law clerk to Judge Richard A. Posner of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Richard and Frances Mallery Professor of Law and Faculty Director, Constitutional Law Center, Stanford Law School
Michael W. McConnell is the Richard and Frances Mallery Professor and Faculty Director of the Constitutional Law Center at Stanford Law School, and a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. From 2002 to 2009, he served as a Circuit Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. He was nominated by President George W. Bush, a Republican, and confirmed by a Democratic Senate by unanimous consent. McConnell has previously held chaired professorships at the University of Chicago and the University of Utah, and visiting professorships at Harvard and NYU. He teaches courses on constitutional law, constitutional history, First Amendment, and interpretive theory. He has published widely in the fields of constitutional law and theory, especially church and state, equal protection, and separation of powers. His book, “The President Who Would Not Be King: Executive Power Under the Constitution,” was published by Princeton University Press in 2020, based on the Tanner Lectures in Human Values, which he delivered at Princeton in 2019. His latest book, co-authored with Nathan Chapman, “Agreeing to Disagree: How the Establishment Clause Protects Religious Diversity and Freedom of Conscience,” was published by Oxford University Press in mid-2023. McConnell has argued sixteen cases in the United States Supreme Court, most recently Carney v. Adams (2020). defending a provision of the Delaware Constitution requiring political balance on that state’s courts. More recently, he was co-counsel in Gonzalez v. Google. He earned his B.A. from Michigan State University and his J.D. from the University of Chicago, and has received honorary degrees from Notre Dame University and Michigan State. He served as law clerk to Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. and D.C. Circuit Chief Judge J. Skelly Wright. He has been Assistant General Counsel of the Office of Management & Budget, Assistant to the Solicitor General of the Department of Justice, and a member of the President’s Intelligence Oversight Board. He is Senior of Counsel to the law firm Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich & Rosati, and is co-chair of Meta’s Oversight Review Board.
Lafler v. Cooper and Missouri v. Frye - Post-Decision SCOTUScast
Kent Scheidegger
On March 21, 2012 the Supreme Court announced its decisions in Lafler v. Cooper and Missouri v. Frye....
A Tavern Debate
Chicago, IllinoisObamacare Daily Oral Argument Briefing - Wednesday
The Philosopher in Action: A Tribute to the Honorable Edwin Meese III
William J. Haun
In December 2011, former U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese celebrated his 80th birthday. While his...
A Religious Organization's Autonomy in Matters of Self-Governance: Hosanna-Tabor and the First Amendment
In the second week of January, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its unanimous decision...
PPL Montana, LLC v. Montana - Post-Decision SCOTUScast
Thomas W. Merrill
On February 22, 2012, the Supreme Court announced its decision in PPL Montana, LLC v. Montana....
Douglas v. Independent Living Center of Southern California - Post-Decision SCOTUScast
Roderick M. Hills
On February 22, 2012, the Supreme Court announced its decision in Douglas v. Independent Living Center...
Panel 2: Congress vs. Agencies: Balancing Checks and Efficiency: Gridlock, Organized Interests, and Regulatory Capture
David Engstrom, C. Boyden Gray, Lois Haight Herrington, Lisa Heinzerling, Michael W. McConnell, Michael Reynolds
The administrative state is often defended as a necessary response to modern conditions that make...
Panel 2: Congress vs. Agencies: Balancing Checks and Efficiency: Gridlock, Organized Interests, and Regulatory Capture
David Engstrom, C. Boyden Gray, Lois Haight Herrington, Lisa Heinzerling, Michael W. McConnell, Michael Reynolds
The administrative state is often defended as a necessary response to modern conditions that make...
Panel 2: Congress vs. Agencies: Balancing Checks and Efficiency: Gridlock, Organized Interests, and Regulatory Capture
2012 National Student Symposium
Stanford, CA