Former Adjunct Professor of Law; former Special Counsel to the President; former federal prosecutor, Georgetown Law (ret.)
Bill Otis is a former Adjunct Professor of Law at Georgetown University, a one-time federal prosecutor, and a former Special White House Counsel for President George H. W. Bush. After graduating from Stanford Law School, he started his career in the Criminal Division of the Justice Department, then became chief of appeals for the US Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Virginia. In the 1980's he served on the Department's "Train the Trainer" team, which taught US Attorneys Offices across the county how to implement the then-new Sentencing Reform Act. He has held several posts in the federal government, including Special Assistant to the Secretary of Energy and Counselor to the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration, in addition to the White House post. He has testified before Congress on issues in criminal procedure, illegal drugs, the US Sentencing Commission, and the death penalty, and has given numerous media interviews on those and other subjects. He currently teaches a seminar at Georgetown Law titled "Conservatism in Law in America" with his wife, Federalist Society co-founder Lee Liberman Otis.
Edward Rood Eminent Scholar Chair, Professor of Law, and Senior Fellow, Hamilton Center for Classical and Civic Education, University of Florida Levin College of Law
Professor Stinneford researches, teaches, and consults about legal ethics, criminal law, criminal procedure, and constitutional law. His work has been cited by the United States Supreme Court, several state supreme courts and federal courts of appeal, and numerous scholars. It has been published in numerous scholarly journals including the Georgetown Law Journal, the Northwestern University Law Review, the Virginia Law Review, the Notre Dame Law Review, and the William & Mary Law Review. The Stanford-Yale Junior faculty forum selected one of his articles as the best paper in the category of Constitutional History, and the AALS Criminal Justice Section named another article as the best paper in its Junior Scholars Paper Competition. In the fall of 2015, he was a Visiting Scholar at the Georgetown Law Center, Center for the Constitution.
John Stinneford was the inaugural Director and serves as a Senior Fellow of the Hamilton Center for Classical and Civic Education at the University of Florida. The Hamilton Center is a new academic unit whose mission is to promote civic education and civic discourse and to foster intellectual diversity. Its core purpose is to help students develop the knowledge, habits of thought, analytical skills, and character to be citizens and leaders in a free society. It will do so through curriculum, public programming, and (in conjunction with the Florida Department of Education) teacher training. Its curriculum will focus primarily on the Western intellectual tradition and the American founding.
Before joining the Florida faculty in 2009, Stinneford clerked for the Hon. James Moran of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, served as an Assistant United States Attorney, and practiced law with Winston & Strawn in Chicago. Stinneford teaches first-year courses in Criminal Law and Constitutional Law, and upper-level courses in Professional Responsibility, Criminal Procedure, Federal Criminal Law, Law & Literature, and White Collar Crime.
Edward Rood Eminent Scholar Chair, Professor of Law, and Senior Fellow, Hamilton Center for Classical and Civic Education, University of Florida Levin College of Law
Professor Stinneford researches, teaches, and consults about legal ethics, criminal law, criminal procedure, and constitutional law. His work has been cited by the United States Supreme Court, several state supreme courts and federal courts of appeal, and numerous scholars. It has been published in numerous scholarly journals including the Georgetown Law Journal, the Northwestern University Law Review, the Virginia Law Review, the Notre Dame Law Review, and the William & Mary Law Review. The Stanford-Yale Junior faculty forum selected one of his articles as the best paper in the category of Constitutional History, and the AALS Criminal Justice Section named another article as the best paper in its Junior Scholars Paper Competition. In the fall of 2015, he was a Visiting Scholar at the Georgetown Law Center, Center for the Constitution.
John Stinneford was the inaugural Director and serves as a Senior Fellow of the Hamilton Center for Classical and Civic Education at the University of Florida. The Hamilton Center is a new academic unit whose mission is to promote civic education and civic discourse and to foster intellectual diversity. Its core purpose is to help students develop the knowledge, habits of thought, analytical skills, and character to be citizens and leaders in a free society. It will do so through curriculum, public programming, and (in conjunction with the Florida Department of Education) teacher training. Its curriculum will focus primarily on the Western intellectual tradition and the American founding.
Before joining the Florida faculty in 2009, Stinneford clerked for the Hon. James Moran of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, served as an Assistant United States Attorney, and practiced law with Winston & Strawn in Chicago. Stinneford teaches first-year courses in Criminal Law and Constitutional Law, and upper-level courses in Professional Responsibility, Criminal Procedure, Federal Criminal Law, Law & Literature, and White Collar Crime.
Vice President for Legal Affairs, Goldwater Institute
Director, ENRD, Pacific Legal Foundation
Mark Miller is the Director of the Environment and Natural Resources practice group at Pacific Legal Foundation, where he leads the firm’s efforts to protect individuals and small businesses from government overreach in matters involving land and water, and its efforts to encourage America to better harness its abundant natural resources, including energy resources, minerals, timber, and grazing lands. Mark first joined PLF in 2014.
A seasoned appellate specialist, Mark has litigated several high-profile cases for PLF, including Weyerhaeuser v. United States Fish & Wildlife Service, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers v. Hawkes Co., and United States v. Robertson, all of them unanimous Supreme Court of the United States wins for property owners fighting federal overreach via the Clean Water Act and Endangered Species Act.
In 2020, Mark left PLF to serve as General Counsel and later Chief of Staff for then-South-Dakota Governor Kristi Noem. As Noem’s longest-serving chief of staff, he worked behind the scenes to advance limited government, cut red tape, defend individual rights, and promote free-market principles. In 2023, he returned home to PLF.
A frequent commentator and public speaker, Mark regularly appears in print, on radio and TV, and before legislative committees across the country. His commentary and work has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, CBS News, The View, CBN, and Fox News. He is a regular guest each Thursday morning on SiriusXM’s POTUS channel, offering insight on Supreme Court cases and trends.
Mark earned both his undergraduate and law degrees with honors from the University of Florida. He clerked for U.S. District Judge Henry Lee Adams, Jr., and Florida state appellate Judge Emerson R. Thompson, Jr.—two mentors who deepened his commitment to the Bill of Rights, especially the Fourth, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments.
Mark serves on the Board of Trustees for the University of Florida College of Law, and he is a member of the boards of directors for both Americans United for Life, the nation’s oldest pro-life non-profit law firm, and Farm of the Child USA, a nonprofit that supports an orphanage and school for children in need in Honduras called La Finca del Niño.
Partner, Quinn Emanuel
John F. Bash is an American attorney who served as the United States Attorney for the Western District of Texas from 2017 to 2020. After graduating from Harvard Law School, Mr. Bash clerked for Judge Kavanaugh during his first year on the bench and went on to clerk for Justice Antonin Scalia. He then served as an Assistant to the Solicitor General in the U.S. Department of Justice, where he argued ten cases in the United States Supreme Court. He also served briefly as Special Assistant to the President and Associate Counsel to the President before his appointment as United States Attorney.
Managing Attorney of the Washington Office, Institute for Justice
William R. Maurer is the Managing Attorney of the Washington state office of the Institute for Justice, which engages in litigation in the areas of economic liberty, private property rights, educational choice, & freedom of speech.
Maurer is an advocate against the criminalization of poverty and the governmental use of the criminal and civil enforcement systems to raise revenue. He was lead counsel in a class action challenging the use of tickets to raise revenue in the city of Pagedale, Missouri. The suit resulted in a federal consent decree that reformed the city’s ticketing and municipal court system. He regularly speaks, teaches, and writes about the abuse of fines and fees in the criminal justice system. He was a participant in summits on taxation by citation put on by the White House and Department of Justice during the Obama Administration. His work on the issue includes serving as an advisory board member of the Fines and Fees Justice Center.
In addition to his work on criminal and civil justice reform, Maurer is a First Amendment litigator. In 2011, he successfully argued before the U.S. Supreme Court that Arizona’s punitive campaign financing regime was unconstitutional. Before the Washington Supreme Court, he successfully argued against efforts to classify radio commentary as a contribution under the state’s campaign finance law.
His cases and advocacy have been covered in the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Economist, the Wall Street Journal, and other major media outlets.
Maurer was named a “Washington Superlawyer” by Washington Law & Politics Magazine for several years. He is a chapter author in numerous legal reference works and has written several articles for law reviews and legal publications across the country.
Prior to joining IJ-WA, Maurer clerked for Washington Supreme Court Justice Richard Sanders and then practiced law at Perkins Coie LLP. Maurer received his law degree in 1994 from the University of Wisconsin – Madison, where he was an editor of the Wisconsin Law Review. He received his BA from Bard College in 1989.
Partner, King & Spalding LLP
Former U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of California, a 34-county district with an area that stretches from the Oregon border to Bakersfield, Greg Scott is an experienced trial lawyer who represents major companies facing government investigations and litigation, with a focus in the healthcare, retail, and construction industries. He has extensive knowledge on matters involving consumer protection, construction disputes, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and the False Claims Act (FCA).
Greg represents corporations under investigation by state district attorneys concerning potential violations of consumer protection laws, as well as corporations operating senior assisted livingfacilities under investigation by the state attorney general regarding potential violations of elder abuse laws. In addition, he represents construction companies under investigation by state district attorneys when employees are involved in serious accidents at worksites.
A retired Lieutenant Colonel after serving more than 20 years in the California Army National Guard & United States Army Reserve, Greg went on to become a deputy district attorney in Contra Costa County and twice-elected District Attorney of Shasta County. He also served as an Adjunct Professor of National Security Law at the University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law following his first term as U.S. Attorney for the E.D. of California. Between his two terms as U.S. Attorney for the E.D. of California, Greg was the vice chair of the white-collar defense and corporate investigations practice at an AmLaw 50 firm.
Chief Policy Counsel, Council on Criminal Justice and Senior Advisor, Right on Crime
Marc A. Levin is the Chief Policy Counsel for the Council on Criminal Justice (counciloncj.org) and Senior Advisor for Right on Crime.
An attorney and accomplished author on legal and public policy issues, Marc began the Foundation’s criminal justice program in 2005. This work contributed to nationally praised policy changes that have been followed by dramatic declines in crime and incarceration in Texas. Building on this success, in 2010, Levin developed the concept for the Right on Crime initiative, a TPPF project in partnership with Prison Fellowship and the American Conservative Union Foundation. Right on Crime has become the national clearinghouse for conservative criminal justice reforms and has contributed to the adoption of policies in dozens of states that fight crime, support victims, and protect taxpayers.
In 2014, Levin was named one of the “Politico 50” in the magazine’s annual “list of thinkers, doers, and dreamers who really matter in this age of gridlock and dysfunction.”
Marc has testified on criminal justice policy on four occasions before Congress and has testified before legislatures in states including Texas, Nevada, Kansas, Wisconsin, and California. He also has met personally with leaders such as U.S. Presidents, Speakers of the House, and the Justice Commtitee of the United Kingdom Parliament to share his ideas on criminal justice reform. In 2007, he was honored in a resolution unanimously passed by the Texas House of Representatives that stated, “Mr. Levin’s intellect is unparalleled and his research is impeccable.”
Since 2005, Marc has published dozens of policy papers on topics such as sentencing, probation, parole, reentry, and overcriminalization which are available on the TPPF website. Levin’s articles on law and public policy have been featured in publications such as the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Texas Review of Law & Politics, National Law Journal, New York Daily News, Jerusalem Post, Toronto Star, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Philadelphia Inquirer, San Francisco Chronicle, Washington Times, Los Angeles Daily Journal, Charlotte Observer, Dallas Morning News, Houston Chronicle, Austin American-Statesman, San Antonio Express-News and Reason Magazine.
In 1999, Marc graduated with honors from the University of Texas with a B.A. in Plan II Honors and Government. In 2002, Marc received his J.D. with honors from the University of Texas School of Law. Marc was a Charles G. Koch Summer Fellow in 1996. He served as a law clerk to Judge Will Garwood on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and Staff Attorney at the Texas Supreme Court.
Vice President for the Program on Technology, Criminal Justice and Civil Liberties, Lincoln Network
Arthur Rizer is the Vice President for the Program on Technology, Criminal Justice and Civil Liberties at Lincoln Network. In addition to his work at Lincoln, Arthur is a visiting lecturer at University College London, and an adjunct professor at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School. Arthur is also a member of Columbia University Justice Lab’s Executive Session for the Future of Justice Policy, the Federalist Society’s Executive Committee of the Criminal Law Practice Group, the Virginia Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, and other advisory bodies.
Before joining Lincoln, Arthur was founding director of the R Street Institute’s program on criminal justice and civil liberties. Prior to that, Arthur taught at West Virginia University’s College of Law, and was a visiting professor at Georgetown University Law Center. He also served as a trial attorney with the U.S. Justice Department, primarily as a federal prosecutor in the Criminal Division, where he targeted command-and-control drug cartel leaders and narco-terrorists. He also served as a prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of California and in the civil division. Earlier in his career, Arthur served in the U.S. Army, originally enlisting as a private before later receiving a commission. He served as an armor officer, later becoming the commander of a military police company and a Reserve Officers’ Training Corps assistant professor. He deployed to Fallujah, Iraq, with the mission to train the Iraqi Infantry and served as an MP acting battalion commander and executive officer. He retired as a lieutenant colonel from the U.S. Army (WVNG). During his Army career, Arthur received the Bronze Star, Purple Heart, Meritorious Service and Iraq Campaign medals.
Arthur is the author of three books: Lincoln’s Counsel (2010); The National Security Implications of Immigration Law (2013); and Jefferson’s Pen: The Art of Persuasion (2016).
Arthur earned his bachelor’s degree in political science from Pacific Lutheran University; a master of laws, with distinction, from Georgetown University’s Law Center; and his JD, magna cum laude, from Gonzaga University School of Law. He is also a graduate of the U.S. Marine Corps’ Command Staff College. He is in the final stages of a doctorate at the University of Oxford, Faculty of Law, Centre of Criminology that focuses on policing.
Assistant Professor of Law and Assistant Director of the Academic Success Program, Vermont Law School
Professor Richard Sala is the Assistant Director of the Academic Success Program and an Assistant Professor of Law. He joined the VLS faculty in 2019.
Professor Sala enlisted in the United States Marine Corps in 1997, and served as an infantryman for more than a decade, achieving the rank of Staff Sergeant. Professor Sala’s enlisted time included service with Marine Corps Ground Defense/Security Force, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, 2nd Battalion, 6th Marines, Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, and 6th Marines Regimental Headquarters, Camp Lejeune, North Carolina —during which time he deployed with the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit, Special Operations Capable, participating in operations in and around the former Yugoslavia, including Operation Dynamic Response in Kosovo.
In 2001, Professor Sala was selected for commissioned service through the Broadened Opportunity for Officer Selection and Training program. Professor Sala graduated from the University of Colorado in 2003 with bachelor’s degrees in Political Science and International Affairs, a minor in Italian, and a certificate in Central and Eastern European History. He was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in 2007 through the Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps program. After completing The Basic School and Infantry Officer Course, he reported to 1st Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, in Camp Pendleton, California, where he served as a platoon commander, and company executive officer with Company C—completing a deployment in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
In 2010, Professor Sala was selected for service a Judge Advocate through the Excess Leave Program. He attended Vermont Law School graduating with a Juris Doctorate (Cum Laude) and a Masters in Environmental Law and Policy (Magna Cum Laude). He was also the recipient of the Maximilian W. Kempner Award.
After completing law school, Professor Sala reported to Legal Services Support Team, Camp Pendleton where he served as a criminal prosecutor with Legal Team Echo and later, as a criminal prosecutor and Officer-in-Charge of Legal Team Delta.
In 2015, Professor Sala joined 1st Battalion, 4th Marines aboard Camp Pendleton, California, where he served as Judge Advocate to the Commanding Officer of Marine Rotational Force-Darwin—completing a deployment to Darwin, Australia in support of bilateral and multilateral training with the Australian Defense Force and regional allies and partners throughout the Indo-Pacific.
Upon returning from Australia, Professor Sala served as Assistant Deputy Staff Judge Advocate to the Commanding General of the 1st Marine Division.
In 2016, Professor Sala was selected to serve as Assistant Professor and Marine Officer Instructor at the University of Rochester where he also earned a Masters in Business Administration from the University of Rochester’s Simon Business School.
Professor Sala retired from the United States Marine Corps in 2018.
Upon retiring, Professor Sala joined the New Hampshire Department of Justice serving as the Attorney to the Commissioner of the New Hampshire Department of Education.
His personal decorations include the Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal (x2) and the Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal (x2). He is also the recipient of the Lieutenant Colonel Vic Taylor/Major General Edwin B. Wheeler Award for being the Distinguished Graduate of Infantry Officer’s Course, Class 2-08.
Professor of Law, Co-Director of the Center on the Structural Constitution, Texas A&M University School of Law
Katherine Mims Crocker is a Professor of Law and Faculty Co-Director of the Center on the Structural Constitution at Texas A&M University School of Law. She is also an affiliate of the Stanford Constitutional Law Center. Her scholarship focuses on federal courts, civil-rights litigation, constitutional law, and state and local-government law. She has also taught courses in civil procedure, property, and judicial decision making. Professor Crocker has published papers (or has work forthcoming) in leading journals including the Duke Law Journal, Harvard Law Review, Michigan Law Review, Minnesota Law Review, Notre Dame Law Review, Virginia Law Review, and Washington University Law Review.
Before joining Texas A&M, Professor Crocker was on the faculty at William & Mary Law School and completed a fellowship at Duke Law School. She also practiced at McGuireWoods LLP in Richmond, Virginia, where she concentrated on appellate litigation. Professor Crocker clerked for Justice Antonin Scalia of the Supreme Court of the United States and Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. She received her law degree from the University of Virginia, where she graduated first in her class and was an Articles Development Editor on the Virginia Law Review. She earned her undergraduate degree from Harvard University cum laude.
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