Founder, President, and General Counsel, Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty
Rick Esenberg is the founder and current President and General Counsel of the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, a rapidly expanding law and policy organization headquartered in Milwaukee. Under Rick’s leadership, WILL has grown into one of the more active state-based think tanks and litigation centers in the country. Rick is a frequent litigator in state and federal courts and nationally recognized scholar and commentator on constitutional law, particularly the First Amendment’s guarantees of freedom of speech and religion. He is one of the leading experts on the Wisconsin Constitution and a frequent advocate before the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Rick’s work seeks to advance the rule of law and individual liberty, formed by a robust civil society that forms individual and community character, preserving the wisdom of the past and an openness to the future.
Rick’s commentary has been featured in such outlets as the Wall Street Journal, National Review, Weekly Standard, Real Clear Politics, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and Washington Examiner. Formerly on the faculty of Marquette University Law School, his scholarship has appeared in such publications as the Harvard Law Review, Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, Wake Forest Law Review and William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal. Back when they were a thing, he operated a blog called Shark and Shepherd where he tried to suggest something about the duality of man – “the Jungian thing.”
Rick holds a J.D., magna cum laude, from Harvard Law School, where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review, and a B.A., summa cum laude, in political science from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. In addition to service on the Marquette Faculty, he was formerly a litigation partner at Foley & Lardner and General Counsel of an international manufacturing firm headquartered in Wisconsin. He lives in Mequon Wisconsin with his wife Karen, golden retrievers Cooper and Riley and more books than he can find places for.
President, New England Legal Foundation
Born in New York City; educated in the New York City public schools, Columbia University and Yale Law School. Joined Ropes & Gray, LLP in Boston in 1984; became litigation partner in 1993; retired in 2004. Joined New England Legal Foundation as General Counsel in 2004 and selected as President in 2006.
Senior Special Counsel, Securities & Exchange Commission
J.B. Tarter serves as the Senior Special Counsel for the Cybersecurity Program Office at the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission. He has over a decade of government service, having previously held senior appointments in the legal offices of the U.S. Department of Energy, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the Central Intelligence Agency. Prior to his government service he was an appellate attorney with Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP, where he represented parties before the U.S. Supreme Court and numerous federal Courts of Appeals. J.B. clerked for then-Chief Judge David B. Sentelle of the U.S. Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia Circuit. He has been profiled by Forbes magazine, taught courses on Executive Power in Wartime for the State Bar of Texas, and presented on ethics and professionalism at The Judge Advocate General's Legal Center and School. A long-time member of the Federalist Society, he is a graduate of the College of Southern Idaho, Emory University, and Harvard Law School.
Partner, Shook, Hardy & Bacon
William J. Crampton is a partner in Shook, Hardy & Bacon's Global Product Liability Group in Kansas City. Bill represents and consults with clients on product liability matters throughout Europe and Latin America, and he is co-author of a chapter on "Class Action Developments Overseas" in Product Liability Litigation: Current Law, Strategies and Best Practices (2009 and 2010).
Associate, Shook, Hardy & Bacon
Silvia Kim is an associate in Shook, Hardy & Bacon's Global Product Liability Group in Kansas City. Silvia is a licensed lawyer in the United States and Costa Rica. Her litigation practice, which centers on Latin America and Asia, focuses primarily on product liability, class action and consumer protection litigation.
Milton R. Underwood Chair in Free Enterprise, Vanderbilt University Law School
Brian Fitzpatrick is the Milton R. Underwood Chair in Free Enterprise and Professor of Law at Vanderbilt Law School, where his research focuses on class action litigation, federal courts, judicial selection, and constitutional law. He is best known for his empirical studies of class action settlements as well as his book The Conservative Case for Class Actions (University of Chicago Press, 2019). Professor Fitzpatrick joined Vanderbilt's law faculty in 2007 after serving as the John M. Olin Fellow at New York University School of Law. He graduated first in his class from Harvard Law School and went on to clerk for Judge Diarmuid O'Scannlain on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and Justice Antonin Scalia on the U.S. Supreme Court. After his clerkships, Professor Fitzpatrick practiced commercial and appellate litigation for several years at Sidley Austin in Washington, D.C., and served as Special Counsel for Supreme Court Nominations to U.S. Senator John Cornyn. Before earning his law degree, Fitzpatrick graduated summa cum laude with a bachelor's of science in chemical engineering from the University of Notre Dame. He has received the Hall-Hartman Outstanding Professor Award, which recognizes excellence in classroom teaching, for his Civil Procedure and Federal Courts courses.
John Henry Wigmore Professor of Law, Northwestern University School of Law
Professor Allen is the John Henry Wigmore Professor of Law at Northwestern University, in Chicago, IL. He did his undergraduate work in mathematics at Marshall University and studied law at the University of Michigan. He is an internationally recognized expert in the fields of evidence, procedure, and constitutional law. He has published five books and approximately eighty articles in major law reviews. The New York Times referred to him as one of nation's leading experts on evidence and procedure. He has been quoted in national news outlets hundreds of times, and appears regularly on national broadcast media on matters ranging from complex litigation to constitutional law to criminal justice.
Professor Allen began his career at the State University of New York, and has held professorships at the University of Iowa and Duke University prior to coming to Northwestern. He has lectured on his research at distinguished universities across the world, among them Columbia University, Cornell University, University of Chicago, University of Virginia, University of Pennsylvania, University of Michigan, Duke University, Oxford University, University of London, Leiden University, the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, University of Edinburgh, University of British Columbia, the University of Paris (Sorbonne), Parma University, Turin University, Pavia University, University of Adelaide, Australia, and Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, and UNAM, Mexico City. In 1991, he was the University Distinguished Visiting Scholar, at the University of Adelaide, South Australia. One of his books has been translated into Chinese by the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China, and he has been invited to China for a series of lectures in the summer of 2004 and the spring of 2005. He has also been invited to lecture by the governments of Mexico and Trinidad/Tobago. For the last ten years, his research has focused on the nature of juridical proof. He has been involved as a consultant on numerous cases involving complex litigation in the United States and abroad.
He is a member of the American Law Institute, has chaired the Evidence Section of the Association of American Law Schools, and was Vice-chair of the Rules of Procedure and Evidence Committee of the American Bar Association's Criminal Justice Section. He has served as a Commissioner of the Illinois Supreme Court, assigned to the Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission. He is presently on the Boards of the Constitutional Rights Foundation-Chicago, and the Yeager Society of Scholars of Marshall University. He is, or has served, on various boards and committees of civic and cultural institutions in Chicago.
Partner, Earth and Water Law; retired Yale Law School professor (1981-2025), Yangtze River Distinguished Professor, Guangzhou Law School, ChinaDistinguished Adjunct Professor at Antonin Scalia Law School
E. Donald Elliott is a Florence Rogatz Visiting Professor of Law at Yale Law School and a leading academic scholar, as well as practitioner, in the fields of administrative and environmental law. He is “one of the most well-known, well-regarded environmental law professors in the nation,” according to John Cruden, former President of the Environmental Law Institute and Assistant Attorney General, Environment and Natural Resources Division, U.S. Department of Justice during the Obama administration. Elliott has been on the Yale Law faculty since 1981 and currently teaches courses in environmental law, energy law, administrative law and civil procedure. He is also senior of counsel in the Washington D.C. office of Covington & Burling LLP, and co-chair of the firm's Environmental Practice Group. From 2003 until he joined Covington in 2013, he was a partner in Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP, chairing the firm’s worldwide Environment, Health and Safety Department.
From 1989 to 1991, Elliott served as Assistant Administrator and General Counsel of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In 1993, he was named to the first endowed chair in environmental law and policy at any major American law school, the Julien and Virginia Cornell Chair in Environmental Law and Litigation at Yale Law School. From 2003-2009, he was a member of the National Academy of Sciences Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology, which advises the federal government on environmental issues. Elliott also testifies frequently in Congress on environmental issues.
He has served as a consultant on improving the relationship of law and science to the Federal Courts Study Committee, which was chartered by Congress to make recommendations for improving the federal courts, and to the Carnegie Commission for Law, Science and Government. He co-chaired the National Environmental Policy Institute’s Committee on Improving Science at EPA.
Elliott is a Senior Fellow of the Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS) and an elected member of the American College of Environmental Lawyers and the American Law Institute. He serves on the Board of the Connecticut Fund for the Environment and as chair of its legal committee, as well on the Advisory Board for NYU’s Institute for Policy Integrity. He is a former member of the boards of the Environmental Law Institute, and the Center for Clean Air Policy. He is the author or coauthor of seven books and has published more than 70 articles in professional journals. He was named one of the top 25 environmental attorneys in the United States by the National Law Journal and is highly ranked in Chambers USA: Leading Lawyers for Business; Best Lawyers in America; D.C. Super Lawyers; Who’s Who in American Law; and Who’s Who in the World.
He earned both his B.A., summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, and his J.D. from Yale. Following graduation, he was a law clerk for Gerhard Gesell in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, and for Chief Judge David Bazelon of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
Founder, President, and General Counsel, Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty
Rick Esenberg is the founder and current President and General Counsel of the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, a rapidly expanding law and policy organization headquartered in Milwaukee. Under Rick’s leadership, WILL has grown into one of the more active state-based think tanks and litigation centers in the country. Rick is a frequent litigator in state and federal courts and nationally recognized scholar and commentator on constitutional law, particularly the First Amendment’s guarantees of freedom of speech and religion. He is one of the leading experts on the Wisconsin Constitution and a frequent advocate before the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Rick’s work seeks to advance the rule of law and individual liberty, formed by a robust civil society that forms individual and community character, preserving the wisdom of the past and an openness to the future.
Rick’s commentary has been featured in such outlets as the Wall Street Journal, National Review, Weekly Standard, Real Clear Politics, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and Washington Examiner. Formerly on the faculty of Marquette University Law School, his scholarship has appeared in such publications as the Harvard Law Review, Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, Wake Forest Law Review and William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal. Back when they were a thing, he operated a blog called Shark and Shepherd where he tried to suggest something about the duality of man – “the Jungian thing.”
Rick holds a J.D., magna cum laude, from Harvard Law School, where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review, and a B.A., summa cum laude, in political science from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. In addition to service on the Marquette Faculty, he was formerly a litigation partner at Foley & Lardner and General Counsel of an international manufacturing firm headquartered in Wisconsin. He lives in Mequon Wisconsin with his wife Karen, golden retrievers Cooper and Riley and more books than he can find places for.
United States Attorney General
Attorney General Merrick B. Garland was sworn in as the 86th Attorney General of the United States on March 11, 2021. As the nation’s chief law enforcement officer, Attorney General Garland leads the Justice Department’s 115,000 employees, who work across the United States and in more than 50 countries worldwide. Under his leadership, the Department of Justice is dedicated to upholding the rule of law, keeping our country safe, and protecting the civil rights of all Americans.
Immediately preceding his confirmation as Attorney General, Attorney General Garland was a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He was appointed to that position in 1997, served as Chief Judge of the Circuit from 2013-20, and served as Chair of the Executive Committee of the Judicial Conference of the United States from 2017-20. In 2016, President Obama nominated him for the position of Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court.
Before becoming a federal judge, Attorney General Garland spent a substantial part of his professional life at the Department of Justice. He served in both career and non-career positions under five Attorneys General, including as Special Assistant to the Attorney General, Assistant United States Attorney, Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Criminal Division, and Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General. In those roles, his responsibilities spanned the work of the Department, including criminal, civil, and national security matters. They also included direct supervision of investigations and prosecutions of national importance, including the Oklahoma City bombing, Unabomber, and Montana Freemen cases.
Earlier in his career, Attorney General Garland was a partner in the law firm of Arnold & Porter, where his practice involved civil and criminal litigation, antitrust, and administrative law. He also taught antitrust at Harvard Law School and published law review articles on both antitrust and administrative law.
Attorney General Garland graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College and magna cum laude from Harvard Law School. Following law school, he clerked for Judge Henry J. Friendly of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and for Justice William J. Brennan, Jr., of the United States Supreme Court.
Louis and Harriet Ancel Professor of Law and Public Policy, Northwestern University School of Law
Martin H. Redish, the Louis and Harriet Ancel Professor of Law and Public Policy at Northwestern University School of Law, teaches and writes on the subjects of federal jurisdiction, civil procedure, freedom of expression and constitutional law. In addition, he is Senior Counsel to the law firm of Sidley Austin LLP.
Professor Redish received his AB with highest honors in political science from the University of Pennsylvania and his JD magna cum laude from Harvard Law School.
Described in a review of his book, The Federal Courts in the Political Order, as "without a doubt the foremost scholar on issues of federal court jurisdiction in this generation," Professor Redish is the author or co-author of more than 80 articles and 15 books. Professor Redish's book entitled, The Logic of Persecution: Free Expression and the McCarthy Era, was published by Stanford University Press in the summer of 2005. His book entitled Wholesale Justice: Constitutional Democracy and the Problem of the Class Action Lawsuit, was published by Stanford University Press in 2009. Professor Redish was recently listed in a study conducted by William S. Hein & Company as the sixteenth most cited legal scholar of all time. He has also been consistently recognized by the Institute for Scientific Information for being among the most highly cited researchers worldwide. As a visiting professor at the University of Michigan Law School he won the L. Hart Wright Outstanding Teacher Award. He has also won the Robert Childress Memorial Award for Teaching Excellence, the Dean's Teaching Award, the First Year Course Professor Award, and the Student Bar Association Faculty Appreciation Award at Northwestern.
Professor Redish has appeared as an expert witness before numerous congressional committees. In addition, he has made frequent appearances in the national media, including the Today Show, ABC and NBC National News, CNN, Court TV, CSPAN and National Public Radio.
Former Solicitor General of Texas
Jonathan F. Mitchell is Principal at Mitchell Law PLLC. He received his law degree with high honors from the University of Chicago Law School, where he was an articles editor of The University of Chicago Law Review and a member of the Order of the Coif.
After graduating from law school, Mr. Mitchell clerked for Judge J. Michael Luttig of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and for Justice Antonin Scalia of the Supreme Court of the United States. He then served as an Attorney-Adviser in the Office of Legal Counsel of the United States Department of Justice from 2003 through 2006. After leaving the Department of Justice, Mr. Mitchell served as a Visiting Researcher at Georgetown University Law Center, a Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Chicago Law School from 2006 through 2008, and an Assistant Professor of Law at George Mason University from 2008 through 2010.
In 2010, Mr. Mitchell was appointed Solicitor General of Texas, a position he held until January 2015. After leaving the Texas Solicitor General’s office, Mr. Mitchell served as the Searle Visiting Professor of Law at the University of Texas School of Law before joining the Hoover Institution as a Visiting Fellow from 2015 to 2016. Mr. Mitchell also served as a Visiting Professor of Law at Stanford Law School before opening his own law firm in 2018.
Mr. Mitchell has published numerous works of scholarship in top-10 law journals, and he has written articles on textualism, national-security law, criminal law and procedure, judicial review and judicial federalism, and the legality of stare decisis in constitutional adjudication.
Mr. Mitchell has argued eight times before the Supreme Court of the United States, and more than 20 times in the federal courts of appeals. He has also argued before Supreme Court of Texas and in numerous trial courts. Mr. Mitchell has authored the principal merits brief in 11 Supreme Court cases, and has written and submitted more than 20 amicus curiae briefs in the Supreme Court.
Mr. Mitchell devised the novel enforcement mechanism in the Texas Heartbeat Act, also known as Senate Bill 8, which avoids pre-enforcement judicial review by prohibiting government officials from enforcing the statute and empowering private citizens to bring lawsuits against those who violate it. This produced an end-run around Roe v. Wade and allowed Texas and other states to impose pre-viability abortion bans despite the continued existence of Roe.
President, JCN
Carrie Campbell Severino is the president of the JCN, and co-author with Mollie Hemingway of the bestselling book Justice on Trial: The Kavanaugh Confirmation and the Future of the Court. As a go-to expert on the confirmation process, Mrs. Severino has been extensively quoted in the media. She regularly appears on television, including FOX, CNN, MSNBC, C-SPAN, and ABC’s This Week.
Severino writes and speaks on a wide range of judicial issues, including the constitutional limits on government, the federal nomination process, and state judicial selection. She has testified before Congress on constitutional questions and briefed Senators on judicial nominations, and regularly files briefs in high-profile Supreme Court cases. She was a law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and to Judge David B. Sentelle of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, and is a graduate of Harvard Law School (J.D.), Duke University (B.A., Biology), and Michigan State University (M.A., Linguistics).
Associate Professor of Law, University of Colorado Law School
Scott Moss joined CU Law School in 2007 after six years as an attorney in New York City and three years as a professor at Marquette Law School, where he was the 2007 recipient of the James D. Ghiardi Faculty Award for Outstanding Teaching, Student Body Support, and Scholarship. In New York, Professor Moss was a law clerk to U.S. District Judge Constance Baker Motley and then a plaintiff's employment lawyer at Outten & Golden LLP, the largest plaintiff-side employment law practice in the country, where he litigated individual and class action cases of discrimination, harassment, and minimum/overtime wage violations. He also has argued and briefed appeals of employment cases and has undertaken pro bono projects such as First Amendment right-to-protest litigation with the New York Civil Liberties Union, low-income worker clinics in lower Manhattan, and court-sponsored mediations for pro se litigants. Professor Moss received his J.D. (magna cum laude) in 1998 from Harvard Law School, where he was a Senior Editor of the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review; his B.A. (Economics) and M.A. (Media Studies) are from Stanford University. Professor Moss's research interests have included employment law, discrimination, constitutional law, various civil procedure rules, and economic analysis of all of the preceding topics.
B.A., Stanford
M.A., Stanford
J.D., Harvard
Sudler Family Professor of Constitutional Law, New York University School of Law
Richard H. Pildes is one of the nation’s leading scholars of constitutional law and a specialist in legal issues affecting democracy. He is a Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Law Institute, and has received recognition as a Guggenheim Fellow and a Carnegie Scholar. His acclaimed casebook, The Law of Democracy: Legal Structure of the Political Process (now in its fourth edition), helped create an entirely new field of study in the law schools. The Law of Democracy systematically explores legal and policy issues concerning the structure of democratic elections and institutions, such as the role of money in politics, the design of election districts, the regulation of political parties, the design of voting systems, the representation of minority interests in democratic institutions, and similar issues. He has written extensively on the rise of political polarization in the United States, the Voting Rights Act, the dysfunction of America’s political processes, the role of the Supreme Court in overseeing American democracy, the powers of the American President and Congress, and he has criticized excessively “romantic” understandings of democracy. In addition to his scholarship on these issues, he has written on national-security law, the design of the regulatory state, and American constitutional history and theory.
Respect for his expertise in these areas is reflected in frequent citations of his work in U.S. Supreme Court opinions, the translation of his work into many languages, and his frequent public lectures and appearances around the world, including his nomination with the NBC News Team for an Emmy Award for coverage of the 2000 Presidential election litigation.
His work has been translated and published in Chinese, French, Spanish, and Portuguese. In addition to his scholarship, Professor Pildes plays an active role litigating in these areas. He has won two cases before the United States Supreme Court, including a 2015 victory in Alabama Democratic Conference v. Alabama, a case involving race and redistricting. He served as counsel to a group of former chairmen of the Securities and Exchange Commission in litigation defending the constitutionality of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act; as counsel in election litigation to the Puerto Rico Electoral Commission; as counsel to the government of Puerto Rico; as a federal court-appointed independent expert on voting rights litigation; and as counsel in successful Supreme Court litigation that challenged the way the United States Tax Court operated. He was also a senior legal advisor to the 2008 and 2012 campaigns of President Obama.
Pildes received his A.B. in physical chemistry summa cum laude from Princeton, and his J.D. magna cum laude from Harvard, where he served as Supreme Court Note Editor on the Harvard Law Review. He clerked for Judge Abner J. Mikva of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and for Justice Thurgood Marshall of the U.S. Supreme Court. After practicing law in Boston, he began his academic career at the University of Michigan Law School, before joining the NYU School of Law in 2001.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit
David Stras became a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit on January 31, 2018. Before serving on the Eighth Circuit, Judge Stras was an Associate Justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court, a position he occupied from July 1, 2010 until his appointment to the Eighth Circuit.
Prior to becoming a judge, Stras was a member of the faculty of the University of Minnesota Law School from 2004 through 2010. He taught and wrote in the areas of federal courts and jurisdiction, constitutional law, criminal law, and law and politics.
Judge Stras received his Bachelor of Arts degree, with highest distinction, in 1995 and his Master of Business Administration in 1999, both from the University of Kansas. He also received his law degree from the University of Kansas School of Law in 1999, where he served as Editor-in-Chief of the Criminal Procedure Edition of the Kansas Law Review.
Following law school, Stras clerked for The Honorable Melvin Brunetti of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and then for The Honorable J. Michael Luttig of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
From 2001 to 2002, he practiced white-collar criminal and appellate litigation with the Washington, D.C., office of Sidley Austin Brown & Wood. Following his year in practice, he clerked for The Honorable Clarence Thomas of the Supreme Court of the United States.
Managing Partner, Brown Wegner LLP
Mr. Brown leads a law firm in California focused on trials and appeals in intellectual property and other complex commercial disputes. Previously, he practiced for more than a decade in the Intellectual Property Group at Jones Day, was an Adjunct Professor at Chapman University School of Law, and served a judicial law clerk to a federal district judge in Los Angeles. Mr. Brown has been named a Southern California Super Lawyer for ten years, was listed among the Top 50 Lawyers in Orange County several years. He is a Master in the Howard T. Markey Intellectual Property American Inn of Court.
Education
Lawyer, Helmer & Friedman LLP
Andrew H. Friedman is a partner with the law firm of Helmer & Friedman LLP, primarily represents employees in all aspects of employment law. He is author of the definitive reference volume: Litigating Employment Discrimination Cases (James Publishing, 2005-09). Mr. Friedman received his J.D. degree from Cornell Law School and his B.A. degree in history and psychology, cum laude, from Vanderbilt University. Mr. Friedman has received the highest possible Martindale-Hubblerating ("AV"), indicating that he is ranked at the highest level of professional excellence. Law & Politics Magazine and the publishers of Los Angeles Magazine selected Mr. Friedman as a 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010 Southern California "Super Lawyer" in the category of Labor and Employment Law. He is a prolific author and editor of many employment-related publications including and he has also written many law review articles. He is a popular speaker and moderator on employment law issues.
Lawyer, Girardi and Keese
Thomas V. Girardi is widely regarded by his peers as one of the nation's top trial lawyers and with nearly fifty years of experience representing victims, Mr. Girardi has obtained numerous multi-million dollar verdicts and settlements, handling claims involving wrongful death, commercial litigation, products liability, bad faith insurance, and toxic torts. In 2003, he received the most prestigious honor of being inducted into the Trial Lawyer Hall of Fame by the California State Bar. Mr. Girardi is a Member of the Board of Directors and former President of the prestigious International Academy of Trial Lawyers, an invitation-only worldwide organization, limited to 500 trial lawyers. Mr. Girardi is also the first trial lawyer to be appointed to the California Judicial Council, the policymaking body of the state courts. Mr. Girardi is a frequent speaker, writer, and commentator on employment law issues and appears weekly "Champions of Justice" radio show on KRLA 870 AM in Southern California.
Lawyer, Proskauer Rose
Anthony J. Oncidi heads the Labor & Employment Law Group in the Los Angeles office of Proskauer Rose. Tony represents employers and management in all aspects of labor relations and employment law. A substantial portion of Tony’s practice involves the defense of employers in large class actions, employment discrimination, harassment and wrongful termination litigation in state and federal court as well as arbitration proceedings, including FINRA matters. Tony is the author of the treatise titled Employment Discrimination Depositions (Juris Pub’g 2009), co-author of Proskauer on Privacy (PLI 2009), and, since 1990, has been a regular columnist for the official publication of the Labor and Employment Law Section of the State Bar of California and the Los Angeles Daily Journal. Tony also is a regular commentator on employment-related issues for radio, television, and print media. He is an appointed Hearing Examiner for the Los Angeles Police Commission Board of Rights and has served as an Adjunct Professor of Law and a guest lecturer at USC Law School and a guest lecturer at UCLA Law School.
Attorney and Legal Commentator
John Shu is an attorney and legal commentator. His focus areas include constitutional law, securities & corporate law, antitrust law, administrative law, politics, and international affairs. Mr. Shu has lectured and published on a wide variety of issues.
Mr. Shu served President George H.W. Bush and President George W. Bush. He also served Judge Stanley Sporkin, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, who was Director of Enforcement at the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission and General Counsel at the Central Intelligence Agency, and Judge Paul Roney, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, who was Presiding Judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review.
Mr. Shu is a member of the National Committee on U.S. - China Relations, the Pacific Council on International Policy, and the Foreign Policy Association.
John Henry Wigmore Professor of Law, Northwestern University School of Law
Professor Allen is the John Henry Wigmore Professor of Law at Northwestern University, in Chicago, IL. He did his undergraduate work in mathematics at Marshall University and studied law at the University of Michigan. He is an internationally recognized expert in the fields of evidence, procedure, and constitutional law. He has published five books and approximately eighty articles in major law reviews. The New York Times referred to him as one of nation's leading experts on evidence and procedure. He has been quoted in national news outlets hundreds of times, and appears regularly on national broadcast media on matters ranging from complex litigation to constitutional law to criminal justice.
Professor Allen began his career at the State University of New York, and has held professorships at the University of Iowa and Duke University prior to coming to Northwestern. He has lectured on his research at distinguished universities across the world, among them Columbia University, Cornell University, University of Chicago, University of Virginia, University of Pennsylvania, University of Michigan, Duke University, Oxford University, University of London, Leiden University, the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, University of Edinburgh, University of British Columbia, the University of Paris (Sorbonne), Parma University, Turin University, Pavia University, University of Adelaide, Australia, and Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, and UNAM, Mexico City. In 1991, he was the University Distinguished Visiting Scholar, at the University of Adelaide, South Australia. One of his books has been translated into Chinese by the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China, and he has been invited to China for a series of lectures in the summer of 2004 and the spring of 2005. He has also been invited to lecture by the governments of Mexico and Trinidad/Tobago. For the last ten years, his research has focused on the nature of juridical proof. He has been involved as a consultant on numerous cases involving complex litigation in the United States and abroad.
He is a member of the American Law Institute, has chaired the Evidence Section of the Association of American Law Schools, and was Vice-chair of the Rules of Procedure and Evidence Committee of the American Bar Association's Criminal Justice Section. He has served as a Commissioner of the Illinois Supreme Court, assigned to the Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission. He is presently on the Boards of the Constitutional Rights Foundation-Chicago, and the Yeager Society of Scholars of Marshall University. He is, or has served, on various boards and committees of civic and cultural institutions in Chicago.
Partner, Earth and Water Law; retired Yale Law School professor (1981-2025), Yangtze River Distinguished Professor, Guangzhou Law School, ChinaDistinguished Adjunct Professor at Antonin Scalia Law School
E. Donald Elliott is a Florence Rogatz Visiting Professor of Law at Yale Law School and a leading academic scholar, as well as practitioner, in the fields of administrative and environmental law. He is “one of the most well-known, well-regarded environmental law professors in the nation,” according to John Cruden, former President of the Environmental Law Institute and Assistant Attorney General, Environment and Natural Resources Division, U.S. Department of Justice during the Obama administration. Elliott has been on the Yale Law faculty since 1981 and currently teaches courses in environmental law, energy law, administrative law and civil procedure. He is also senior of counsel in the Washington D.C. office of Covington & Burling LLP, and co-chair of the firm's Environmental Practice Group. From 2003 until he joined Covington in 2013, he was a partner in Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP, chairing the firm’s worldwide Environment, Health and Safety Department.
From 1989 to 1991, Elliott served as Assistant Administrator and General Counsel of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In 1993, he was named to the first endowed chair in environmental law and policy at any major American law school, the Julien and Virginia Cornell Chair in Environmental Law and Litigation at Yale Law School. From 2003-2009, he was a member of the National Academy of Sciences Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology, which advises the federal government on environmental issues. Elliott also testifies frequently in Congress on environmental issues.
He has served as a consultant on improving the relationship of law and science to the Federal Courts Study Committee, which was chartered by Congress to make recommendations for improving the federal courts, and to the Carnegie Commission for Law, Science and Government. He co-chaired the National Environmental Policy Institute’s Committee on Improving Science at EPA.
Elliott is a Senior Fellow of the Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS) and an elected member of the American College of Environmental Lawyers and the American Law Institute. He serves on the Board of the Connecticut Fund for the Environment and as chair of its legal committee, as well on the Advisory Board for NYU’s Institute for Policy Integrity. He is a former member of the boards of the Environmental Law Institute, and the Center for Clean Air Policy. He is the author or coauthor of seven books and has published more than 70 articles in professional journals. He was named one of the top 25 environmental attorneys in the United States by the National Law Journal and is highly ranked in Chambers USA: Leading Lawyers for Business; Best Lawyers in America; D.C. Super Lawyers; Who’s Who in American Law; and Who’s Who in the World.
He earned both his B.A., summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, and his J.D. from Yale. Following graduation, he was a law clerk for Gerhard Gesell in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, and for Chief Judge David Bazelon of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
Founder, President, and General Counsel, Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty
Rick Esenberg is the founder and current President and General Counsel of the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, a rapidly expanding law and policy organization headquartered in Milwaukee. Under Rick’s leadership, WILL has grown into one of the more active state-based think tanks and litigation centers in the country. Rick is a frequent litigator in state and federal courts and nationally recognized scholar and commentator on constitutional law, particularly the First Amendment’s guarantees of freedom of speech and religion. He is one of the leading experts on the Wisconsin Constitution and a frequent advocate before the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Rick’s work seeks to advance the rule of law and individual liberty, formed by a robust civil society that forms individual and community character, preserving the wisdom of the past and an openness to the future.
Rick’s commentary has been featured in such outlets as the Wall Street Journal, National Review, Weekly Standard, Real Clear Politics, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and Washington Examiner. Formerly on the faculty of Marquette University Law School, his scholarship has appeared in such publications as the Harvard Law Review, Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, Wake Forest Law Review and William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal. Back when they were a thing, he operated a blog called Shark and Shepherd where he tried to suggest something about the duality of man – “the Jungian thing.”
Rick holds a J.D., magna cum laude, from Harvard Law School, where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review, and a B.A., summa cum laude, in political science from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. In addition to service on the Marquette Faculty, he was formerly a litigation partner at Foley & Lardner and General Counsel of an international manufacturing firm headquartered in Wisconsin. He lives in Mequon Wisconsin with his wife Karen, golden retrievers Cooper and Riley and more books than he can find places for.
United States Attorney General
Attorney General Merrick B. Garland was sworn in as the 86th Attorney General of the United States on March 11, 2021. As the nation’s chief law enforcement officer, Attorney General Garland leads the Justice Department’s 115,000 employees, who work across the United States and in more than 50 countries worldwide. Under his leadership, the Department of Justice is dedicated to upholding the rule of law, keeping our country safe, and protecting the civil rights of all Americans.
Immediately preceding his confirmation as Attorney General, Attorney General Garland was a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He was appointed to that position in 1997, served as Chief Judge of the Circuit from 2013-20, and served as Chair of the Executive Committee of the Judicial Conference of the United States from 2017-20. In 2016, President Obama nominated him for the position of Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court.
Before becoming a federal judge, Attorney General Garland spent a substantial part of his professional life at the Department of Justice. He served in both career and non-career positions under five Attorneys General, including as Special Assistant to the Attorney General, Assistant United States Attorney, Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Criminal Division, and Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General. In those roles, his responsibilities spanned the work of the Department, including criminal, civil, and national security matters. They also included direct supervision of investigations and prosecutions of national importance, including the Oklahoma City bombing, Unabomber, and Montana Freemen cases.
Earlier in his career, Attorney General Garland was a partner in the law firm of Arnold & Porter, where his practice involved civil and criminal litigation, antitrust, and administrative law. He also taught antitrust at Harvard Law School and published law review articles on both antitrust and administrative law.
Attorney General Garland graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College and magna cum laude from Harvard Law School. Following law school, he clerked for Judge Henry J. Friendly of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and for Justice William J. Brennan, Jr., of the United States Supreme Court.
Louis and Harriet Ancel Professor of Law and Public Policy, Northwestern University School of Law
Martin H. Redish, the Louis and Harriet Ancel Professor of Law and Public Policy at Northwestern University School of Law, teaches and writes on the subjects of federal jurisdiction, civil procedure, freedom of expression and constitutional law. In addition, he is Senior Counsel to the law firm of Sidley Austin LLP.
Professor Redish received his AB with highest honors in political science from the University of Pennsylvania and his JD magna cum laude from Harvard Law School.
Described in a review of his book, The Federal Courts in the Political Order, as "without a doubt the foremost scholar on issues of federal court jurisdiction in this generation," Professor Redish is the author or co-author of more than 80 articles and 15 books. Professor Redish's book entitled, The Logic of Persecution: Free Expression and the McCarthy Era, was published by Stanford University Press in the summer of 2005. His book entitled Wholesale Justice: Constitutional Democracy and the Problem of the Class Action Lawsuit, was published by Stanford University Press in 2009. Professor Redish was recently listed in a study conducted by William S. Hein & Company as the sixteenth most cited legal scholar of all time. He has also been consistently recognized by the Institute for Scientific Information for being among the most highly cited researchers worldwide. As a visiting professor at the University of Michigan Law School he won the L. Hart Wright Outstanding Teacher Award. He has also won the Robert Childress Memorial Award for Teaching Excellence, the Dean's Teaching Award, the First Year Course Professor Award, and the Student Bar Association Faculty Appreciation Award at Northwestern.
Professor Redish has appeared as an expert witness before numerous congressional committees. In addition, he has made frequent appearances in the national media, including the Today Show, ABC and NBC National News, CNN, Court TV, CSPAN and National Public Radio.
A Modest Proposal for Human Limitations on Cyberdiscovery
Rick M. Esenberg
Note from the Editor: In December 2010, the Federalist Society heard from a number of...
Business Cases and the Roberts Supreme Court
Martin J. Newhouse
The statement that the Supreme Court under Chief Justice Roberts, and more specifically the Court...
Supreme Court Narrowly Interprets the Relitigation Exception of the Anti-Injunction Act
J.B. Tarter
In Smith v. Bayer Corp.,1 the Supreme Court unanimously held that a federal district court...
Piecing Together the Puzzle of Mexican Class Actions
William J. Crampton, Silvia Kim
After several years of debate, a long-awaited class action bill in Mexico became law. On...
Wal-Mart v. Dukes - Post-Decision SCOTUScast
Brian T. Fitzpatrick
On June 20, 2011, the Supreme Court announced its decision in Wal-Mart v. Dukes, a...
Panel on the Wal-Mart Gender Discrimination Lawsuit
Irvine, CaliforniaChanging the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure: Has the Time Come?
Ronald J. Allen, E. Donald Elliott, Rick M. Esenberg, Merrick B. Garland, Martin Redish
Pleading standards have been one area of concern in recent years for the U.S. Supreme...
Changing the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure: Has the Time Come?
Litigation Practice Group
Washington, DCShady Grove Orthopedic Associates, P. A. v. Allstate Ins. Co. - Post-Decision SCOTUScast
Jonathan Mitchell
On March 23, 2010, the Supreme Court announced its decision in Shady Grove Orthopedic Associates,...
Justice Stevens’ Retirement & Filling the Vacancy
Carrie Campbell Severino, Scott Moss, Richard H. Pildes, David R. Stras
Updated: 9 AM, May 5, 2010 On Friday, April 9, 2010, Justice John Paul Stevens...