Professor of Law and J. Philip Johnson Faculty Fellow, University of North Dakota School of Law
Michael S. McGinniss is Professor of Law and J. Philip Johnson Faculty Fellow at the University of North Dakota School of Law, where he joined the faculty in 2010 and served as the Dean from 2019 to 2022. He chairs the executive committee for the Federalist Society's Practice Group on Professional Responsibility and Legal Education.
Before entering the legal academy, Professor McGinniss served for twelve years as a Disciplinary Counsel for the Supreme Court of Delaware. He currently teaches courses on Professional Responsibility, Advanced Legal Ethics, Civil Procedure, and Federal Courts. He also serves as Faculty Advisor for the North Dakota Law Review and the UND Law Federalist Society student chapter.
Professor McGinniss’ research and scholarship interests are wide-ranging and include lawyer and judicial ethics, lawyer discipline and regulation of the profession, constitutional law (especially First Amendment, separation of powers, and federalism), and cultural challenges faced by conservatives in the law schools and the legal profession. His most recent law review article, Declaring Independence to Secure Integrity: The Supreme Court Justices' Code of Conduct, was published in the Federalist Society Review. His article Expressing Conscience with Candor: Saint Thomas More and First Freedoms in the Legal Profession, was published in the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy.
Professor McGinniss has spoken to Federalist Society lawyer and student chapters across the country about judicial independence and ethics, especially relating to the federal courts and the United States Supreme Court Justices. In addition, he has spoken to several chapters about rising challenges to ideological diversity and targeting of conservative viewpoints in law schools and the legal profession. Although he is very pleased to speak on these and many other topics that may be of interest to lawyer and student chapters, in 2026-2027, he has particular interest in speaking on the topic “Lawyer Discipline as Political ‘Resistance’: Separation of Powers, Federalism, and the Rule of Law,” concerning his work-in-progress on the weaponization of professional disciplinary processes against conservative lawyers for political and ideological purposes.
Professor of History, Georgia Southern University
Johnathan O'Neill is Professor of History at Georgia Southern University. Professor O’Neill is the author of Originalism in American Law and Politics: A Constitutional History (2005) and Conservative Thought and American Constitutionalism Since the New Deal (2023).
Senior Fellow, Independent Institute
Dr. Stephen P. Halbrook is a Senior Fellow at the Independent Institute. He has taught legal and political philosophy at George Mason University, Howard University, and Tuskegee Institute, and he received his J.D. from the Georgetown University Law Center and Ph.D. in social philosophy from Florida State University.
The winner of three cases before the U.S. Supreme Court (Printz v. United States, United States v. Thompson/Center Arms Company, and Castillo v. United States), he has testified before the Subcommittee on the Constitution of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution, Subcommittee on Crime of the House Judiciary Committee, Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, and House Committee on the District of Columbia.
A contributor to numerous scholarly volumes, he is the author of the books, Gun Control in Nazi-Occupied France: Tyranny and Resistance; Gun Control in the Third Reich: Disarming the Jews and “Enemies of the State”; The Founders’ Second Amendment: Origins of the Right to Bear Arms; That Every Man Be Armed: Evolution of a Constitutional Right; A Right to Bear Arms; Firearms Law Deskbook: Federal and State Criminal Practice; Securing Civil Rights: Freedmen, the Fourteenth Amendment, and the Right to Bear Arms; State and Federal Bills of Rights and Constitutional Guarantees; and Target Switzerland: Swiss Armed Neutrality in World War II. Dr. Halbrook’s scholarly articles have appeared in such journals as the Arizona Journal of International and Comparative Law, Drug Law Report, George Mason University Law Review, Journal of Air Law and Commerce, Journal of Law and Policy, Law & Contemporary Problems, National Law Journal, Northern Kentucky Law Review, St. John’s Journal of Legal Commentary; Seton Hall Constitutional Law Journal, Tennessee Law Review, University of Dayton Law Review, Valparaiso University Law Review, Vermont Law Review, and William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal.
Dr. Halbrook's popular articles have appeared in such publications as the Wall Street Journal, Newsday, San Francisco Chronicle, National Review, Investor’s Business Daily, Kansas City Star, Washington Examiner, Shreveport Times, Sacramento Bee, Providence Journal, Tampa Tribune, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, History News Network, San Antonio Express-News, The Daily Caller, Detroit News, Honolulu Star Advertiser, Birmingham News, Environmental Forum, USA Today, and Washington Times. He has also appeared on numerous national TV/radio programs on CNN, Fox News Channel, Fox Business Network, Court TV, NewsMax TV, CBN, Voice of America, and C-SPAN.
Assistant Professor of Law, George Mason University, Antonin Scalia Law School
Robert Leider is an Assistant Professor of Law at Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University. His scholarly interests are in criminal law, criminal procedure, and constitutional law, especially concerning questions about the use of force and the rule of law. He has written on the law of self-defense, the constitutional allocation of military power, and gun control. Among other places, he has published in the Florida Law Review (forthcoming), the Indiana Law Journal, and the Wall Street Journal.
Before joining Antonin Scalia Law School, Professor Leider was at Arnold & Porter in Washington, DC. He was previously with Mayer Brown LLP and was an Olin-Searle-Smith Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. He has clerked for Judge Diane S. Sykes, of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, and Justice Clarence Thomas. Professor Leider earned a BA, summa cum laude, from The George Washington University, a JD from Yale Law School, and a PhD in Philosophy (dissertation defended with distinction) from Georgetown University. While at Yale, he served as an articles editor for the Yale Law Journal.
Professor Leider teaches criminal law and torts.
Professor of Law, The College of the Law, University of California San Francisco
Professor Zachary Price has taught at UC Law SF since 2013 and currently holds the Eucalyptus Foundation Endowed Chair. He joined UC Law SF following a fellowship at the Stanford Constitutional Law Center, and before entering academics, he served for three years as an attorney in the U.S. Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel. He has also worked as a litigator in private practice and clerked for Judge Catherine C. Blake of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, Judge David S. Tatel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, and Justice Anthony M. Kennedy of the U.S. Supreme Court. He graduated from Harvard Law School magna cum laude and from Stanford University with honors and distinction.
Professor Zachary S. Price teaches and writes about constitutional law, administrative law, and criminal and civil law enforcement. His book Constitutional Symmetry: Judging in a Divided Republic is forthcoming with Cambridge University Press in summer 2024. His scholarly articles include “Faithful Execution in the Fifty States” in the Georgia Law Review, “Congress’s Power Over Military Offices” in the Texas Law Review, “Funding Restrictions and Separation of Powers” in the Vanderbilt Law Review, “Enforcement Discretion and Executive Duty” in the Vanderbilt Law Review, and “NAMUDNO’s Non-Existent Principle of State Equality” in the New York University Law Review Online. Professor Price has also contributed to publications including the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Scotusblog, Notice and Comment, Administrative and Regulatory News, Law and Liberty, Balkinization, the Supreme Court of California Blog, the State and Local Government Blog, and the Take Care Blog. In fall 2023, Professor Price was the Bruce Bromley Visiting Professor of Law at Harvard Law School.
Senior Fellow, Independent Institute
Dr. Stephen P. Halbrook is a Senior Fellow at the Independent Institute. He has taught legal and political philosophy at George Mason University, Howard University, and Tuskegee Institute, and he received his J.D. from the Georgetown University Law Center and Ph.D. in social philosophy from Florida State University.
The winner of three cases before the U.S. Supreme Court (Printz v. United States, United States v. Thompson/Center Arms Company, and Castillo v. United States), he has testified before the Subcommittee on the Constitution of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution, Subcommittee on Crime of the House Judiciary Committee, Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, and House Committee on the District of Columbia.
A contributor to numerous scholarly volumes, he is the author of the books, Gun Control in Nazi-Occupied France: Tyranny and Resistance; Gun Control in the Third Reich: Disarming the Jews and “Enemies of the State”; The Founders’ Second Amendment: Origins of the Right to Bear Arms; That Every Man Be Armed: Evolution of a Constitutional Right; A Right to Bear Arms; Firearms Law Deskbook: Federal and State Criminal Practice; Securing Civil Rights: Freedmen, the Fourteenth Amendment, and the Right to Bear Arms; State and Federal Bills of Rights and Constitutional Guarantees; and Target Switzerland: Swiss Armed Neutrality in World War II. Dr. Halbrook’s scholarly articles have appeared in such journals as the Arizona Journal of International and Comparative Law, Drug Law Report, George Mason University Law Review, Journal of Air Law and Commerce, Journal of Law and Policy, Law & Contemporary Problems, National Law Journal, Northern Kentucky Law Review, St. John’s Journal of Legal Commentary; Seton Hall Constitutional Law Journal, Tennessee Law Review, University of Dayton Law Review, Valparaiso University Law Review, Vermont Law Review, and William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal.
Dr. Halbrook's popular articles have appeared in such publications as the Wall Street Journal, Newsday, San Francisco Chronicle, National Review, Investor’s Business Daily, Kansas City Star, Washington Examiner, Shreveport Times, Sacramento Bee, Providence Journal, Tampa Tribune, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, History News Network, San Antonio Express-News, The Daily Caller, Detroit News, Honolulu Star Advertiser, Birmingham News, Environmental Forum, USA Today, and Washington Times. He has also appeared on numerous national TV/radio programs on CNN, Fox News Channel, Fox Business Network, Court TV, NewsMax TV, CBN, Voice of America, and C-SPAN.
Assistant Professor of Law, George Mason University, Antonin Scalia Law School
Robert Leider is an Assistant Professor of Law at Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University. His scholarly interests are in criminal law, criminal procedure, and constitutional law, especially concerning questions about the use of force and the rule of law. He has written on the law of self-defense, the constitutional allocation of military power, and gun control. Among other places, he has published in the Florida Law Review (forthcoming), the Indiana Law Journal, and the Wall Street Journal.
Before joining Antonin Scalia Law School, Professor Leider was at Arnold & Porter in Washington, DC. He was previously with Mayer Brown LLP and was an Olin-Searle-Smith Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. He has clerked for Judge Diane S. Sykes, of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, and Justice Clarence Thomas. Professor Leider earned a BA, summa cum laude, from The George Washington University, a JD from Yale Law School, and a PhD in Philosophy (dissertation defended with distinction) from Georgetown University. While at Yale, he served as an articles editor for the Yale Law Journal.
Professor Leider teaches criminal law and torts.
Professor of Law, The College of the Law, University of California San Francisco
Professor Zachary Price has taught at UC Law SF since 2013 and currently holds the Eucalyptus Foundation Endowed Chair. He joined UC Law SF following a fellowship at the Stanford Constitutional Law Center, and before entering academics, he served for three years as an attorney in the U.S. Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel. He has also worked as a litigator in private practice and clerked for Judge Catherine C. Blake of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, Judge David S. Tatel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, and Justice Anthony M. Kennedy of the U.S. Supreme Court. He graduated from Harvard Law School magna cum laude and from Stanford University with honors and distinction.
Professor Zachary S. Price teaches and writes about constitutional law, administrative law, and criminal and civil law enforcement. His book Constitutional Symmetry: Judging in a Divided Republic is forthcoming with Cambridge University Press in summer 2024. His scholarly articles include “Faithful Execution in the Fifty States” in the Georgia Law Review, “Congress’s Power Over Military Offices” in the Texas Law Review, “Funding Restrictions and Separation of Powers” in the Vanderbilt Law Review, “Enforcement Discretion and Executive Duty” in the Vanderbilt Law Review, and “NAMUDNO’s Non-Existent Principle of State Equality” in the New York University Law Review Online. Professor Price has also contributed to publications including the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Scotusblog, Notice and Comment, Administrative and Regulatory News, Law and Liberty, Balkinization, the Supreme Court of California Blog, the State and Local Government Blog, and the Take Care Blog. In fall 2023, Professor Price was the Bruce Bromley Visiting Professor of Law at Harvard Law School.
Vice Chairman, External and Regulatory Affairs, Millennium Management
Dan Berkovitz is Vice Chairman, External and Regulatory Affairs at Millennium, and is a
member of the Firm’s Compliance, Legal & Ethics Oversight Committee.
From 2021 to 2023 Dan served as General Counsel of the U.S. Securities and Exchange
Commission and from 2018 to 2021 he served as a Commissioner of the U.S. Commodity
Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). He was also previously a partner and co-chair of the
Futures and Derivatives practice at the law firm of WilmerHale, General Counsel of the CFTC,
senior counsel for the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, and a Deputy
Assistant Secretary in the Office of Environmental Management at the U.S. Department of
Energy. Currently, Dan also is a Lecturer in Law at Columbia University Law School, where he
teaches derivatives regulation.
Dan received an A.B. in Physics from Princeton University and a J.D. from the University of
California College of the Law, San Francisco, formerly known as Hastings College of the Law.
Partner, Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP
Jeffrey T. Dinwoodie is a member of the Financial Institutions Group at Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP. Mr. Dinwoodie previously served as Chief Counsel to the Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and as Head of the Office of Financial Institutions at the U.S. Department of the Treasury.
Mr. Dinwoodie has broad experience advising financial institutions, companies and investors, as well as government officials, across multiple disciplines. His practice focuses on advising clients on financial regulation and compliance, enforcement and examinations, and M&A and other corporate transactions. Mr. Dinwoodie’s practice also covers policy and regulatory strategy matters. Mr. Dinwoodie’s clients include established institutions, emerging companies and entrepreneurs—and his work spans both traditional finance and innovation‑related and crypto asset issues.
General Counsel, Commodity Futures Trading Commission
Rob Schwartz is the General Counsel at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. In that role, Mr. Schwartz leads the agency’s Office of the General Counsel and serves as the Commission’s chief legal advisor. He was appointed General Counsel in January 2022 after serving for a year as Acting General Counsel.
Since joining the CFTC in 2011, Mr. Schwartz has served primarily as the CFTC’s chief litigator, in the position of Deputy General Counsel for Litigation, Enforcement and Adjudication. He has successfully represented the CFTC in numerous critically significant cases, including several lawsuits challenging the agency’s implementation of the Dodd-Frank Act, many appeals in enforcement actions, and bankruptcies of CFTC registrants.
Mr. Schwartz joined the CFTC from private practice where he represented businesses and individuals in enforcement actions and investigations by the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board and other government agencies, as well as in private civil actions at all levels of the federal judicial system covering a broad range of business issues. Prior to that, Mr. Schwartz served as a law clerk to the Honorable Amalya L. Kearse of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Mr. Schwartz holds a JD, magna cum laude, from New York University School of Law and a BA in Political Science from Tufts University.
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