Senior State Policy Counsel, Pacific Legal Foundation
Jaimie Cavanaugh is senior state policy counsel at Pacific Legal Foundation, where she works with legislators around the country to end burdensome laws and create opportunities for individuals to thrive.
Jaimie’s prior work as a litigator led to the recognition of the right to economic liberty by the Georgia Supreme Court and ended New Jersey’s ban on selling cottage food. In Minnesota, she secured a victory for vintners who wanted to make wine with ingredients from other states and eased needlessly restrictive continuing legal education requirements for attorneys.
But there are many ways to advance liberty, and Jaimie has also spent several years assisting legislators in reforming or repealing certificate of need laws, which make it difficult or impossible to open healthcare facilities. She has published reports on certificate of need laws and written extensively about their harms. Her experience has established her as a national policy expert.
Growing up outside of Detroit, Jaimie learned that people, not government, know what’s best for themselves and their families. That’s why her work also promotes protections for private property, equality, and economic opportunity.
Jaimie studied linguistics and German at the University of Michigan before earning her J.D. from the University of Colorado. After law school, she completed a judicial fellowship with Justice Monica Márquez before spending five years as an attorney with Mountain States Legal Foundation and five years as an attorney with Institute for Justice.
Renée Flaherty is an attorney with the Institute for Justice. She joined the Institute in 2013 and litigates cases to secure property rights, economic liberty and school choice in federal and state courts.
Renée successfully represented families in defense of North Carolina’s Opportunity Scholarship Program, which was upheld by the North Carolina Supreme Court in July 2015.
Renée’s views have been published in USA Today and The Wall Street Journal.
Prior to joining the Institute for Justice, Renée worked in private practice as a tax controversy associate at the Washington, D.C., office of Bingham McCutchen, LLP. She received her law degree from Harvard Law School in 2011, where she was an editor of the Harvard Negotiation Law Review and served on the Executive Board of the Federalist Society. Renée graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy and a Bachelor of Business Administration. Renée is originally from Odessa, Texas.
Renée Flaherty is a member of the D.C. bar.
United States District Judge, United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida
On December 20, 2019, Raag Singhal received his judicial commission to serve on the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida. Judge Singhal is the first Asian American in history to serve as an Article III judge in the jurisdiction of the Eleventh Circuit (Alabama, Georgia and Florida).
Immediately prior to becoming a federal judge, Judge Singhal spent eight years as a State Circuit Court Judge in Broward County, Florida, having been appointed by then-Governor Rick Scott in 2011. During that period of time, Singhal served, at times, in the Criminal, Civil and Mental Health divisions and was fortunate enough to sit as an Associate Judge on Florida’s Fourth District Court of Appeal on four occasions.
As a lawyer, Singhal gained experience at a civil litigation firm followed by three years as an Assistant State Attorney. After that, Singhal ran a successful criminal defense practice in Fort Lauderdale for eighteen years. During that time, he handled more than two hundred jury trials including thirty first-degree murder cases.
Judge Singhal has had leadership roles in many law-related groups. He is past-President of the Broward Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and the Stephen H. Booher Chapter of the American Inns of Court. He was on the Board of Directors of the Broward County Bar Association, and is a frequent speaker at events for various local Bar groups such as the Asian Pacific American Bar Association and the Federalist Society. Singhal was also Associate Dean of the Florida College for Advanced Judicial Studies upon his elevation to the federal court system.
Judge Singhal received his law degree from Wake Forest University School of Law in 1989 where he was very active in Moot Court activities, and was on the winning team of the J. Braxton Craven National Moot Court Competition (4th Amendment). He received his undergraduate degree in Political Science from Rice University in 1986.
Senior Legal Fellow, Courts and the Constitution, Legal Policy Center, The Heritage Foundation
Zack is a Senior Legal Fellow of Courts and the Constitution at The Heritage Foundation.
He previously served for several years as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Northern District of Florida. Prior to that, he spent two years as an associate in the Washington, D.C. office of Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton, which he joined after clerking for the Hon. Emmett R. Cox on the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.
Smith received his undergraduate, master’s, and law degrees from the University of Florida. During law school, Smith served as the Editor in Chief of the Florida Law Review and served on the executive boards of several student organizations, including the UF Chapter of the Federalist Society.
Solicitor General of Florida
Henry Whitaker became Florida’s Solicitor General in July 2021. He came to the position after four years of serving in the Office of Legal Counsel of the U.S. Department of Justice, including as Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General, where he advised the White House Counsel’s Office, the Attorney General, and cabinet secretaries on a range of important and complex legal issues. Before that, Solicitor General Whitaker worked on the Appellate Staff of the Civil Division of the U.S. Department of Justice for almost nine years, arguing more than 40 appeals in the federal appellate courts. He clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas of the U.S. Supreme Court and for Judge David B. Sentelle of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit after graduating magna cum laude from both Harvard Law School and Yale College.
Research Scholar in Law and Executive Director, Center for Academic Freedom and Free Speech, Yale Law School
Joe Cohn is a research scholar in law at Yale Law school and the executive director of the Center for Academic Freedom and Free Speech (CAFFS).
Cohn has served as a staff attorney at the AIDS Law Project of Pennsylvania, a staff attorney for the Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit, an adjunct professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where he supervised law students representing clients in litigation in state and federal courts, and as the interim legal director for ACLU affiliates in Nevada and Utah.
A majority of Cohn’s career has been dedicated to defending civil liberties on college campuses and free expression in society at large. As the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression’s (FIRE’s) founding legislative and policy director, from 2012 to 2023, he testified on numerous occasions in legislatures across America and in Congress, drafted legislation on campus free speech, campus due process, and academic freedom that has been enacted in states across the country. Immediately before joining CAFFS, Cohn advocated for open inquiry, viewpoint diversity, and constructive disagreement in higher education as Heterodox Academy’s director of policy.
Cohn writes extensively on civil liberties, with articles published in a wide array of media outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, Newsweek, the Hill, the New York Daily News, the Chicago Tribune, the Las Vegas Review Journal, the Minnesota Star Tribune, the Chronicle of Higher Education, Inside Higher Ed, and the Volokh Conspiracy.
He earned his bachelor of arts from the University of Nevada at Las Vegas in 2000. He is a 2004 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Carey School of Law and the Fels Institute of Government Administration, where he earned his J.D. and M.A. in Government Administration.
Political Science, Professor and Department Chair, University of Nebraska Omaha
Carson Holloway is Department Chair and Professor of Political Science at the University of Nebraska, Omaha and a Washington Fellow in the Claremont Institute’s Center for the American Way of Life. He is the author most recently of No Liberty to Libel: The Constitutional Case Against New York Times v. Sullivan (Encounter Books, 2026). He is co-editor, with Bradford P. Wilson, of The Political Writings of Alexander Hamilton (Cambridge University Press, 2017) and The Political Writings of George Washington (Cambridge University Press, 2023). He has held visiting fellowships in Princeton University’s James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions and at the Heritage Foundation. His scholarly articles have appeared in the Review of Politics, Interpretation, and Perspectives on Political Science, and he has written public commentary for The New Criterion, First Things, National Affairs, Public Discourse, National Review, Law and Liberty, The Federalist, the American Spectator, and the American Conservative.
Partner, Thomas & LoCicero PL
Carol is the managing partner in TLo's Tampa office. She practices at the trial and appellate levels, handling litigation concerning defamation and privacy, the Public Records Act, the Government in the Sunshine Law, court access and cameras in the courtroom. She leads advocacy efforts on media issues, including cameras in the courtroom, and sealed court records.
Carol is a nationally-recognized media lawyer routinely sought after as a speaker on media issues at national and statewide conferences. She often leads statewide advocacy efforts on media issues, most recently involving access to Florida courts and Florida’s anti-SLAPP law. Carol regularly renders pre-and post-publication advice on investigative news stories. She handles issues concerning newsgathering and technology – including smartphones, social media and drones. Carol has litigated many cases resulting in published opinions. In addition to media law, Carol is experienced in marketing law, web law and intellectual property matters. She manages trademark portfolios, policing programs and litigation for sophisticated corporations.
Carol is the Immediate Past Chair for the First Amendment Foundation's Board of Trustees. She is a former board member of the Junior League of Tampa, former vice-chair of the Media Law Committee of The Florida Bar, and is a governing committee member of the ABA Forum on Communications Law. She has litigated capital habeas cases with other lawyers in the firm. Carol also serves as the Program Coordinator for End 68 Hours of Hunger – Tampa, a charity dedicated to eradicating hunger among school children. She is an active member of Hyde Park Presbyterian Church.
Partner, Boies Schiller Flexner LLP
Jesse, the former third-ranking official at the U.S. Department of Justice, helps clients with their most difficult litigation and regulatory issues─whether that means defending against an enforcement action, pursuing high-stakes litigation and appeals, navigating regulatory thickets at federal and state agencies, or crafting a comprehensive strategy to manage a crisis. He approaches these problems with the knowledge gained both from his broad private-practice experience and from having served at the highest levels of federal and state government.
Jesse has experience across a range of substantive and regulatory areas. He has sued the federal government and has also been one of its top law-enforcement officials; he has represented states and has also navigated their regulatory agencies on behalf of clients; and he has represented companies in business disputes, both as defendants and plaintiffs.
Before joining the firm, Jesse was the Acting Associate Attorney General at the United States Department of Justice. In that role, he oversaw the civil and criminal work of the Antitrust, Civil, Civil Rights, Environment and Natural Resources, and Tax Divisions. During Jesse’s tenure, the Associate’s office closely managed the Department’s most significant litigation, including matters involving large financial institutions, healthcare companies, automakers, energy companies, and state and local governments. In addition, Jesse served as Chair of DOJ’s Regulatory Reform Task Force and Vice Chair of DOJ’s Task Force on Market Integrity and Consumer Fraud. Jesse regularly provided legal and strategic advice to the highest-level decision makers in the federal government, including the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General, general counsels across the spectrum of federal agencies, and White House officials.
Jesse served for three years as the secretary of Florida’s labor, economic-development, and land-use agency, the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity. Before that, he served as Governor (now Senator) Rick Scott’s general counsel.
Jesse maintains offices in both Washington D.C. and Florida. From Washington, he focuses on federal litigation and crisis management. In Florida, in addition to federal litigation, Jesse employs his knowledge of state government and regulation to help clients in courts across the state, from trial through the Florida Supreme Court.
Jesse currently serves on the Florida Supreme Court Judicial Nominating Commission, the body that provides the governor with nominees for appointment to the Florida Supreme Court. Jesse is also a fellow at the Center for the Study of the Administrative State at the Scalia Law School at George Mason University, where he writes and speaks about administrative law.
Counsel, Clare Locke
Jered is an experienced litigator relied upon by his clients to deliver practical and exacting legal advice guided by sound business judgment. He has spent his career representing clients ranging from Fortune 500 companies to controversial high-profile figures in sensitive and sometimes existential crises requiring extraordinary discretion.
Prior to joining Clare Locke, Jered was the chief legal officer of media non-profit Project Veritas, through which he managed a team of lawyers working on reputational risk. During his time at Veritas, Jered and his team obtained over five dozen corrections and retractions and avoided countless more inaccurate articles. Jered also oversaw a portfolio of defamation lawsuits, including Project Veritas’ lawsuit against The New York Times in which Clare Locke defeated The Times’ motion to dismiss – the first defamation case to survive New York’s newly-expanded anti-SLAPP law.
Jered has successfully represented clients in litigation and appeals in federal and state courts across the country. Throughout his career, Jered has handled a variety of matters, including media liability, fraud and deceptive trade practices, financial services, construction and real estate, bankruptcy, and harassment. Jered served as lead trial counsel in securing one of 2019’s top 50 highest bench awards in the United States in a real estate dispute, and in obtaining a first-of-its-kind national injunction and receivership over a fraudster leading to federal incarceration and a permanent restraining order.
Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Minnesota
Dr. Juan Del Toro is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Psychology at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. He also holds a Research Associate affiliation with the Learning Research and Development Center (LRDC) at the University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Del Toro received his Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology with a concentration in Advanced Quantitative Analyses from New York University.
As a developmental psychologist, Dr. Del Toro examines how specific perpetrators of ethnic-racial discrimination (e.g., peers, school adults, and law enforcement) shape children’s life course trajectories. The goal of specifying perpetrators is to inform setting-specific policies and interventions working to improve the well-being of all youth.
His research includes a series of first authored publications in Child Development, American Psychologist, and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) and has been featured in the Huffington Post, Forbes, and the New York Times. Dr. Del Toro serves on the editorial boards for the Journal of Research on Adolescence, the journal for Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, and the Journal of Educational Psychology.
Vice President for Public Policy and Engagement, Child Trends
Kristen Harper brings to Child Trends a wealth of expertise in utilizing research to drive policy decision making and promote better outcomes for youth. She serves as a strategic advisor working to continuously improve the policy relevance of Child Trends’ portfolio and connect researchers with local, state, and federal officials. Kristen is also a nationally recognized expert on education policy, racial and ethnic disparities in education, school discipline policy, and school health and climate, and has been cited and quoted by The Wall Street Journal, the Associated Press, Politico, Education Week, U.S. News & World Report, and The 74, among other publications. Kristen is a proud member of the 2019-2021 class of the Annie E. Casey Foundations’ Child and Family Fellowship.
Currently, Kristen is the principal investigator of a study to examine how shifts in Medicaid policy have influenced reimbursements for school-based health services and school capacity to promote health equity. She serves as a senior advisor for multiple projects—funded by the U.S. Department of Education, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation—dedicated to improving school health, school safety, and adolescent health. Kristen previously led a project to build a framework to assess how states support children and youth with special health care needs.
Kristen came to Child Trends after serving for seven years in the U.S. Department of Education, where she was a chief architect of the agency’s efforts to improve conditions for learning. As a senior policy advisor for the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS), she authored federal regulations to reduce racial and ethnic disparities in the identification, placement, and discipline of children with disabilities. In this role, Kristen also directed the Department’s efforts to promote alternatives to suspension under the Supportive School Discipline Initiative, a partnership launched in 2011 between the U.S. Departments of Education and Justice to address exclusionary and punitive discipline. Her leadership in addressing school discipline continued under the federal My Brother’s Keeper initiative, a taskforce launched in 2014 to improve outcomes for young men and boys of color. Prior to OSERS, Kristen served in the Department’s elementary and secondary education offices advancing policy initiatives to improve school climate and conditions for learning. With her guidance, the Department established, in 2010, the first federal grant to support the use of survey measurement to improve school climate programming.
Executive Director & Secretary, American Civil Rights Project
Dan Morenoff is the executive director at the American Civil Rights Project and an adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
His work focuses on protecting and, where necessary, restoring the primacy of all Americans' shared civil rights against the identitarian alternative.
Before practicing law, Morenoff served on the legislative staff of Sen. Phil Gramm (R-TX). Morenoff holds a B.A. from Columbia College of Columbia University in the City of New York and a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School. He has also served as an officer or director of several community organizations in Dallas, Texas.
Legal Fellow, Center for the Separation of Powers, Pacific Legal Foundation
Alison Somin joined Pacific Legal Foundation in May 2020 as a legal fellow in the Center for the Separation of Powers and part of the equality before the law practice group.
Before joining the Pacific Legal Foundation team, Alison was a special assistant and counsel for over a decade to Gail Heriot, a member of the bipartisan United States Commission on Civil Rights. She also has deep roots in the liberty movement. Alison was a Koch Associate at the National Federation for Independent Business Legal Foundation and, during law school, completed summer clerkships at the Institute for Justice and the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation. She holds a J.D. from Emory University School of Law and an A.B. in history from Dartmouth College.
Her work has been published in the San Francisco Chronicle, the Daily Journal, Texas Journal of Law and Politics, and The Federalist Society’s Engage magazine and blog.
She lives in northern Virginia with her husband Ilya; two children; and golden retriever Willow. In her spare time, she enjoys reading, baking and cooking, children’s art projects, and training and exercising Willow.
Former Assistant to the President and Deputy Counsel to the President, Former NSC Legal Advisor
John C. Jeffries, Jr., Distinguished Professor of Law, University of Virginia School of Law
Paul B. Stephan is an expert on international business, international dispute resolution and comparative law, with an emphasis on Soviet and post-Soviet legal systems. In addition to writing prolifically in these fields, Stephan has advised governments and international organizations, taken part in cases in the Supreme Court of the United States, the federal courts, and various foreign judicial and arbitral proceedings, and lectured to professionals and scholarly groups around the world on issues raised by the globalization of the world economy. During 2006-07, he served as counselor on international law in the U.S. Department of State, and in 2020-21 as special counsel to the general counsel in the Department of Defense. He was a coordinating reporter for the American Law Institute’s Restatement (Fourth) of the Foreign Relations Law of the United States.
Stephan received his B.A. and M.A. from Yale University in 1973 and 1974, respectively, and his J.D. from the University of Virginia in 1977. Before returning to Virginia, he clerked for Judge Levin Campbell of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit and for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr. He has taught as a visiting professor at the Moscow State Institute for International Relations, the University of Vienna, Münster University, Lausanne University, Melbourne University, University of Pantheon-Assas (Paris II), Sciences Po, Paris I, the Interdisciplinary Centre Herzliya, Sydney University, the Peking University School of Transnational Law in Shenzhen, China, the University of Tartu’s Pärna College, and Liverpool University. He also has visited at Columbia Law School and Duke Law School, and served as a scholar in residence in the London office of Wilmer Hale.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Stephan took part in a variety of projects involving law reform in former socialist states. He worked in Russia, Georgia, Ukraine, Albania and Slovakia on behalf of the U.S. Treasury and in Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan on behalf of the International Monetary Fund. He also organized training programs for tax administrators and judges from all of the formerly socialist countries under the auspices of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. His casebooks on international business, international trade and investment, and Doing Business in Emerging Markets are used at law schools both in the United States and abroad. He is the co-author, with Robert Scott, of The Limits of Leviathan: Contract Theory and the Enforcement of International Law (Cambridge University Press, 2006), and the author of The World Crisis and International Law: The Knowledge Economy and the Battle for the Future (2023). His current research focuses on the legal issues related to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and legal responses to the rise of big data.
Fellow, National Security Institute, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
Vince Vitkowsky chaired the Executive Committee of the Federalist Society’s International and National Security Law and Policy Practice Group for over a decade. He is also a Fellow at the National Security Institute of George Mason University Law School. Vince spent 45 years in private practice, primarily in AmLaw 100/200 firms and their spin-offs. His practice included domestic and international commercial arbitration and litigation, as well as cyber risks and liabilities. Vince's current focus is on national security policy, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, and counterterrorism. He has often written and spoken on national security and other public policy issues. Among other affiliations, Vince has been an Adjunct Fellow at the Center for Law and Counterterrorism of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a member of the Executive Committee of the American Branch of the International Law Association, and Co-Chair of the Committee on Interventions and Trial Observations of the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute. He received his B.A. from Northwestern University and his J.D. from Cornell Law School.
Chairman and Founder, Institute for Free Speech; Josiah H. Blackmore II/Shirley M. Nault Designated Professor of Law, Capital University Law School
Attorney, Bass, Berry & Sims
Hunter K. Yoches is an Attorney in the Labor & Employment Section of Bass, Berry & Sims in Nashville, Tennessee.
Hunter represents management in all aspects of labor and employment law and related litigation. He regularly defends employers against various claims and counsels clients on a wide range of day-to-day employment matters. Hunter has experience litigating cases and counseling clients regarding federal and state employment laws, including collective and class action litigation, contract disputes, and compliance issues. He advises clients related to wage and hour laws, discrimination laws, unfair labor practices, and more, helping employers remain compliant with the constantly changing laws and regulations that impact the workplace.
Prior to joining Bass, Berry & Sims, Hunter practiced at King & Ballow in Nashville, where he focused on labor and employment law matters and litigation. Following law school, he served as a law clerk to Chief Judge Thomas E. Johnston of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia.
Hunter received his law degree from the University of Memphis, Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law. He also received a Master of Arts in Political Science at the University of Memphis, completing the dual-degree program while in law school. Hunter earned a Bachelor of Arts in Law & Politics, with a minor in Biology, from Freed-Hardeman University, where has was a scholarship athlete on the men’s soccer team.
A Conversation and Luncheon with Andrew Sorrell
Montgomery Lawyers Chapter
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2023 Annual Mike Lewis Memorial Teleforum: Big Data and the Law of War
Panel II: U.S. Supreme Court Review
Raag Singhal, Zack Smith, Henry Charles Whitaker
Featuring: Zack Smith, Legal Fellow and Manager, Supreme Court and Appellate Advocacy Program, Meese Center, The...
Panel I: New York Times v. Sullivan
Joe Cohn, Carson Holloway, Carol Jean Locicero, Jesse Panuccio, Jered Ede
In 1964, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its opinion in New York Times v. Sullivan...
Debate, Network, Achieve: An Introduction to the Federalist Society
California-UCLA Student Chapter
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Efforts to achieve “environmental justice” have been a top priority of the Biden Administration and...
Deep Dive Episode 276 - Race & School Discipline
Juan Del Toro, Kristen Harper, Dan Morenoff, Alison E. Somin
During President Obama’s second term, the U.S. Education Department began sharing studies indicating that black...