Professor of Law, Widener University Commonwealth Law School
Anne Shea Ransdell and William Garland "Buck" Ransdell, Jr. Distinguished Professor of Law, University of North Carolina School of Law
Carissa Byrne Hessick joined the Carolina Law faculty in 2016. She serves as the Anne Shea Ransdell and William Garland “Buck” Ransdell, Jr. Distinguished Professor of Law and as the director of the Prosecutors and Politics Project. Her teaching and research interests include criminal law, the structure of the criminal justice system, criminal sentencing, and child pornography crimes. Hessick is the author of multiple law review articles, essays, and op eds on plea bargaining, the powers and selection of prosecutors, Sixth Amendment sentencing rights, and criminal statutes. Her work has appeared in the California Law Review, the Cornell Law Review, the L.A. Times, the UCLA Law Review, and the Virginia Law Review, among others. She founded the Prosecutors and Politics Project in 2018. And she currently serves as the Reporter for the ABA Criminal Justice Section’s Sentencing Standards Task Force.
Hessick attended Yale Law School, where she was an editor of the Yale Law Journal and winner of the Potter Stewart Prize for the Morris Tyler Moot Court of Appeals. After graduating from law school, she clerked for Judge Barbara S. Jones on the Southern District of New York and for Judge A. Raymond Randolph on the D.C. Circuit. She also worked as a litigation associate at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz in New York City. Before joining the faculty at Carolina Law, Hessick taught on the faculties at Arizona State University’s Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law and the University of Utah’s S.J. Quinney College of Law. She also spent two years as a Climenko Fellow at Harvard Law School.
Criminal Trial and Appellate Lawyer, Markus/ Moss
David Oscar Markus is a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School. David is known for his creative and unrelenting approach to cases, which leads to wins in trials and appeals. David focuses on high-stakes criminal litigation for both white collar and traditional criminal matters.
Best Lawyers named David “Lawyer of the Year” for White Collar Criminal Law in 2020 and for General Criminal Defense in 2017. And the Dade County Bar Association awarded him the “Legal Luminary” award for criminal defense, an honor voted on by members of the legal community. In 2015, the National Law Journal selected him as one of the Trailblazers for White Collar Criminal Defense in the entire country. Back when he was 29 years old (in 2002), the National Law Journal selected him as one of the top 40 litigators in the country under 40 years old, and it has recognized one of his federal trial victories as one of the top ten defense verdicts in the country that year.
In one trial victory, David not only beat all 141 counts in federal court for a doctor, but then won attorneys’ fees and costs of over $600,000 for his client in a first-of-its-kind victory. Based on that case, he was awarded the highest honor — the Rodney Thaxton “against all odds” award — by the Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. Although the 11th Circuit reversed the fee award in a number of controversial opinions, the court referred to Markus as an “elite” and “superb” attorney. In another case, David challenged the way the federal court system in Miami selected jurors (alphabetically by last name) and won, which changed the jury selection process in the District. After obtaining a fair jury, Markus’ client was found not guilty. He never stops fighting for his clients.
Based on this type of creative and unique lawyering, in 2010, David was one of eight finalists in the country for best white-collar criminal lawyer in the country by Chambers & Partners, which quoted market sources saying that David is “the whole package,” and “a creative, courageous and tenacious courtroom advocate.” And he was named to that very prestigious short list of 8 best white-collar criminal defense lawyers again in 2011 (he was the only lawyer listed who was not from a large firm). The 2012 Chambers said this: “David Markus received strong praise from peers and clients alike, who describe him as ‘a legal genius and brilliant strategist with a great demeanor.'” A recent Chambers & Partners described David as a “wickedly smart and a terrific trial lawyer. … Clients say that he is ‘thrilling’ to watch in court and that ‘his passion appreciation and enjoyment for his work are contagious.” And in 2014, that publication identified David as “one of the best trial lawyers around: very smart, highly respected and thoroughly prepared.” In 2016, Chambers said: “David Markus is one of the most talented criminal defense lawyers in Florida. He has a wealth of litigation experience and is regularly sought after for his counsel in high-stakes tax and criminal antitrust cases. Sources also describe him as an ‘extremely creative thinker and a great oral advocate’ who gets ‘tremendous results.'” Chambers has also explained: “David Markus is amazing, not only because of the strength and genius of his arguments and motions, but also because of his brilliant and astonishing performances during the hearings. Additionally, he radiates so much confidence, and that in itself soothes the usual anguish and anxiety that you endure during these types of situations. Last but not least, he is such a great human being.” In 2020, that publication said that David “is an exceptional trial lawyer,” “an incredible oral advocate” and that “he’s pretty fearless in terms of dealing with the government.”
Since 2010, David has been listed as one of the top 100 lawyers in Miami and in all of Florida by SuperLawyers. He is one of the few criminal defense lawyers to received such an honor. He is frequently named as one of the top lawyers in the Best Lawyers in America, South Florida Legal Guide, Florida Trend Magazine, Chambers & Partners, and the South Florida Business Journal. He was one of 20 lawyers named a key partner by the South Florida Business Journal in 2011 and again in 2012. The Daily Business Review named him a finalist for Most Effective Lawyer in Criminal Justice (one of three lawyers in Miami) in 2006, 2009, 2011, 2012, and 2015. He won the award in 2018. The district judges in the Southern District of Florida presented him with the Eugene Spellman Criminal Justice Act Award in 2013.
While at Harvard, David argued in front of Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy who named him best oralist. David was mentored by Alan Dershowitz while in law school. After graduating from Harvard, David served as law clerk to the Honorable Edward B. Davis, then-Chief United States District Judge, Southern District of Florida. Following his clerkship, David worked as an associate at the leading criminal defense firm in the country, Williams & Connolly in Washington, D.C., and then practiced as an Assistant Federal Public Defender in Miami.
David is a past-president of the Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers – Miami Chapter and past-president of the Federal Bar Association, South Florida Chapter, 2007-08. He served for ten years as the Southern District of Florida’s national representative for the Criminal Justice Act Panel, and is the vice-chair of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyer’s amicus committee. David also has co-authored the Fourth Amendment Forum, published in NACDL’s The Champion. He is frequently asked to serve on committees for the Southern District of Florida.
David frequently lectures on different aspects of the criminal trial and appeal. He currently teaches a White Collar Law seminar the the University of Miami School of Law and previously taught legal writing there. David also has taught Advanced Criminal Procedure and White Collar Law at Florida International University College of Law. He often speaks to other criminal defense lawyers on ethics and zealously representing criminal defendants charged with serious crimes. His lengthy list of lectures can be found on his resume.
David is often quoted in publications around the country, including The Miami Herald, The Sun-Sentinel, The Palm Beach Post, the Daily Business Review, USA Today, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, Law.com, and CNN.com. He has written opinion pieces for numerous publications, and is the author of the popular Southern District of Florida blog, which has been described by the New Times as “the definitive source on South Florida’s federal court system.” He recently wrote a chapter in a book for lawyers; his chapter was titled “Battling Goliath, Trying to Win in the Court of Appeals.” David is also a frequent opinion contributor, arguing for criminal justice reform and for individual rights. He has written pieces in the Washington Post, USA Today, Miami Herald, law.com Newsmax, and others.
Senior Vice President for Legal Studies, Cato Institute
Clark Neily is senior vice president for legal studies at the Cato Institute. His areas of interest include constitutional law, overcriminalization, civil forfeiture, police accountability, and gun rights. Neily is the author of Terms of Engagement: How Our Courts Should Enforce the Constitution’s Promise of Limited Government. His writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and National Review Online, as well as various law reviews, including the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, George Mason Law Review, Georgetown Journal of Law and Public Policy, NYU Journal of Law and Liberty, and Texas Review of Law and Politics. Neily is a frequent guest speaker and lecturer for the Federalist Society, Institute for Humane Studies, and American Constitution Society.
Before joining Cato in 2017, Neily was a senior attorney and constitutional litigator at the Institute for Justice and director of the Institute’s Center for Judicial Engagement. He is also an adjunct professor at the University of Texas School of Law, where he teaches constitutional litigation and public-interest law.
Neily served as co-counsel in District of Columbia v. Heller, the historic case in which the Supreme Court held for the first time that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to own a gun for self-defense.
Neily began his legal career as a law clerk to Judge Royce Lamberth on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. After that he spent four years in the trial department of the Dallas-based firm Thompson & Knight. Neily received his undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Texas, where he was Chief Articles Editor of the Texas Law Review.
Anne Shea Ransdell and William Garland "Buck" Ransdell, Jr. Distinguished Professor of Law, University of North Carolina School of Law
Carissa Byrne Hessick joined the Carolina Law faculty in 2016. She serves as the Anne Shea Ransdell and William Garland “Buck” Ransdell, Jr. Distinguished Professor of Law and as the director of the Prosecutors and Politics Project. Her teaching and research interests include criminal law, the structure of the criminal justice system, criminal sentencing, and child pornography crimes. Hessick is the author of multiple law review articles, essays, and op eds on plea bargaining, the powers and selection of prosecutors, Sixth Amendment sentencing rights, and criminal statutes. Her work has appeared in the California Law Review, the Cornell Law Review, the L.A. Times, the UCLA Law Review, and the Virginia Law Review, among others. She founded the Prosecutors and Politics Project in 2018. And she currently serves as the Reporter for the ABA Criminal Justice Section’s Sentencing Standards Task Force.
Hessick attended Yale Law School, where she was an editor of the Yale Law Journal and winner of the Potter Stewart Prize for the Morris Tyler Moot Court of Appeals. After graduating from law school, she clerked for Judge Barbara S. Jones on the Southern District of New York and for Judge A. Raymond Randolph on the D.C. Circuit. She also worked as a litigation associate at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz in New York City. Before joining the faculty at Carolina Law, Hessick taught on the faculties at Arizona State University’s Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law and the University of Utah’s S.J. Quinney College of Law. She also spent two years as a Climenko Fellow at Harvard Law School.
Criminal Trial and Appellate Lawyer, Markus/ Moss
David Oscar Markus is a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School. David is known for his creative and unrelenting approach to cases, which leads to wins in trials and appeals. David focuses on high-stakes criminal litigation for both white collar and traditional criminal matters.
Best Lawyers named David “Lawyer of the Year” for White Collar Criminal Law in 2020 and for General Criminal Defense in 2017. And the Dade County Bar Association awarded him the “Legal Luminary” award for criminal defense, an honor voted on by members of the legal community. In 2015, the National Law Journal selected him as one of the Trailblazers for White Collar Criminal Defense in the entire country. Back when he was 29 years old (in 2002), the National Law Journal selected him as one of the top 40 litigators in the country under 40 years old, and it has recognized one of his federal trial victories as one of the top ten defense verdicts in the country that year.
In one trial victory, David not only beat all 141 counts in federal court for a doctor, but then won attorneys’ fees and costs of over $600,000 for his client in a first-of-its-kind victory. Based on that case, he was awarded the highest honor — the Rodney Thaxton “against all odds” award — by the Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. Although the 11th Circuit reversed the fee award in a number of controversial opinions, the court referred to Markus as an “elite” and “superb” attorney. In another case, David challenged the way the federal court system in Miami selected jurors (alphabetically by last name) and won, which changed the jury selection process in the District. After obtaining a fair jury, Markus’ client was found not guilty. He never stops fighting for his clients.
Based on this type of creative and unique lawyering, in 2010, David was one of eight finalists in the country for best white-collar criminal lawyer in the country by Chambers & Partners, which quoted market sources saying that David is “the whole package,” and “a creative, courageous and tenacious courtroom advocate.” And he was named to that very prestigious short list of 8 best white-collar criminal defense lawyers again in 2011 (he was the only lawyer listed who was not from a large firm). The 2012 Chambers said this: “David Markus received strong praise from peers and clients alike, who describe him as ‘a legal genius and brilliant strategist with a great demeanor.'” A recent Chambers & Partners described David as a “wickedly smart and a terrific trial lawyer. … Clients say that he is ‘thrilling’ to watch in court and that ‘his passion appreciation and enjoyment for his work are contagious.” And in 2014, that publication identified David as “one of the best trial lawyers around: very smart, highly respected and thoroughly prepared.” In 2016, Chambers said: “David Markus is one of the most talented criminal defense lawyers in Florida. He has a wealth of litigation experience and is regularly sought after for his counsel in high-stakes tax and criminal antitrust cases. Sources also describe him as an ‘extremely creative thinker and a great oral advocate’ who gets ‘tremendous results.'” Chambers has also explained: “David Markus is amazing, not only because of the strength and genius of his arguments and motions, but also because of his brilliant and astonishing performances during the hearings. Additionally, he radiates so much confidence, and that in itself soothes the usual anguish and anxiety that you endure during these types of situations. Last but not least, he is such a great human being.” In 2020, that publication said that David “is an exceptional trial lawyer,” “an incredible oral advocate” and that “he’s pretty fearless in terms of dealing with the government.”
Since 2010, David has been listed as one of the top 100 lawyers in Miami and in all of Florida by SuperLawyers. He is one of the few criminal defense lawyers to received such an honor. He is frequently named as one of the top lawyers in the Best Lawyers in America, South Florida Legal Guide, Florida Trend Magazine, Chambers & Partners, and the South Florida Business Journal. He was one of 20 lawyers named a key partner by the South Florida Business Journal in 2011 and again in 2012. The Daily Business Review named him a finalist for Most Effective Lawyer in Criminal Justice (one of three lawyers in Miami) in 2006, 2009, 2011, 2012, and 2015. He won the award in 2018. The district judges in the Southern District of Florida presented him with the Eugene Spellman Criminal Justice Act Award in 2013.
While at Harvard, David argued in front of Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy who named him best oralist. David was mentored by Alan Dershowitz while in law school. After graduating from Harvard, David served as law clerk to the Honorable Edward B. Davis, then-Chief United States District Judge, Southern District of Florida. Following his clerkship, David worked as an associate at the leading criminal defense firm in the country, Williams & Connolly in Washington, D.C., and then practiced as an Assistant Federal Public Defender in Miami.
David is a past-president of the Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers – Miami Chapter and past-president of the Federal Bar Association, South Florida Chapter, 2007-08. He served for ten years as the Southern District of Florida’s national representative for the Criminal Justice Act Panel, and is the vice-chair of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyer’s amicus committee. David also has co-authored the Fourth Amendment Forum, published in NACDL’s The Champion. He is frequently asked to serve on committees for the Southern District of Florida.
David frequently lectures on different aspects of the criminal trial and appeal. He currently teaches a White Collar Law seminar the the University of Miami School of Law and previously taught legal writing there. David also has taught Advanced Criminal Procedure and White Collar Law at Florida International University College of Law. He often speaks to other criminal defense lawyers on ethics and zealously representing criminal defendants charged with serious crimes. His lengthy list of lectures can be found on his resume.
David is often quoted in publications around the country, including The Miami Herald, The Sun-Sentinel, The Palm Beach Post, the Daily Business Review, USA Today, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, Law.com, and CNN.com. He has written opinion pieces for numerous publications, and is the author of the popular Southern District of Florida blog, which has been described by the New Times as “the definitive source on South Florida’s federal court system.” He recently wrote a chapter in a book for lawyers; his chapter was titled “Battling Goliath, Trying to Win in the Court of Appeals.” David is also a frequent opinion contributor, arguing for criminal justice reform and for individual rights. He has written pieces in the Washington Post, USA Today, Miami Herald, law.com Newsmax, and others.
Senior Vice President for Legal Studies, Cato Institute
Clark Neily is senior vice president for legal studies at the Cato Institute. His areas of interest include constitutional law, overcriminalization, civil forfeiture, police accountability, and gun rights. Neily is the author of Terms of Engagement: How Our Courts Should Enforce the Constitution’s Promise of Limited Government. His writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and National Review Online, as well as various law reviews, including the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, George Mason Law Review, Georgetown Journal of Law and Public Policy, NYU Journal of Law and Liberty, and Texas Review of Law and Politics. Neily is a frequent guest speaker and lecturer for the Federalist Society, Institute for Humane Studies, and American Constitution Society.
Before joining Cato in 2017, Neily was a senior attorney and constitutional litigator at the Institute for Justice and director of the Institute’s Center for Judicial Engagement. He is also an adjunct professor at the University of Texas School of Law, where he teaches constitutional litigation and public-interest law.
Neily served as co-counsel in District of Columbia v. Heller, the historic case in which the Supreme Court held for the first time that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to own a gun for self-defense.
Neily began his legal career as a law clerk to Judge Royce Lamberth on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. After that he spent four years in the trial department of the Dallas-based firm Thompson & Knight. Neily received his undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Texas, where he was Chief Articles Editor of the Texas Law Review.
Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
Helen Alvaré is a Professor of Law at Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University, where she teaches Family Law, Law and Religion, and Property Law. She publishes on matters concerning marriage, parenting, non-marital households, and the First Amendment religion clauses. She is faculty advisor to the law school’s Civil Rights Law Journal, and the Latino/a Law Student Association, a Member of the Holy See’s Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life (Vatican City), a board member of Catholic Relief Services, a member of the Executive Committee of the AALS’ Section on Law and Religion, and an ABC news consultant. She cooperates with the Permanent Observer Mission of the Holy See to the United Nations as a speaker and a delegate to various United Nations conferences concerning women and the family.
In addition to her books, and her publications in law reviews and other academic journals, Professor Alvaré publishes regularly in news outlets including the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Huffington Post, and CNN.com. She also speaks at academic and professional conferences in the United States, Europe, Latin America and Australia.
Prior to joining the faculty of Scalia Law, Professor Alvaré taught at the Columbus School of Law at the Catholic University of America; represented the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops before legislative bodies, academic audiences and the media; and was a litigation attorney for the Philadelphia law firm of Stradley, Ronon, Stevens & Young.
Professor Alvaré received her law degree from Cornell University School of Law and her master’s degree in Systematic Theology from the Catholic University of America.
McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence; Director, James Madison Program, Princeton University
Robert P. George is McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University. He has several times been a Visiting Professor at Harvard Law School. He has served as Chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom and on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and the President’s Council on Bioethics. He has also served as the U.S. member of UNESCO’s World Commission on the Ethics of Scientific Knowledge and Technology. He was a Judicial Fellow at the Supreme Court of the United States, where he received the Justice Tom C. Clark Award. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Swarthmore, he holds the degrees of J.D. and M.T.S. from Harvard University and the degrees of D.Phil., B.C.L., D.C.L., and D.Litt. from Oxford University, in addition to twenty-one honorary doctorates. He is a recipient of the U.S. Presidential Citizens Medal, the Honorific Medal for the Defense of Human Rights of the Republic of Poland, the Canterbury Medal of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, the Bradley Prize, the Irving Kristol Award of the American Enterprise Institute, and Princeton University’s President’s Award for Distinguished Teaching. His books include Making Men Moral: Civil Liberties and Public Morality and In Defense of Natural Law (both published by Oxford University Press), as well as The Clash of Orthodoxies and Conscience and Its Enemies (both published by ISI Books).
Senior Research Scholar in Law, Yale Law School
Linda Greenhouse is Senior Research Scholar in Law at Yale Law School. She covered the Supreme Court for The New York Times between 1978 and 2008 and writes a biweekly op-ed column on law as a contributing columnist. Ms. Greenhouse received several major journalism awards during her 40-year career at the Times, including the Pulitzer Prize (1998) and the Goldsmith Career Award for Excellence in Journalism from Harvard University’s Kennedy School (2004). In 2002, the American Political Science Association gave her its Carey McWilliams Award for “a major journalistic contribution to our understanding of politics.” Her books include a biography of Justice Harry A. Blackmun, Becoming Justice Blackmun; Before Roe v. Wade: Voices That Shaped the Abortion Debate Before the Supreme Court's Ruling (with Reva B. Siegel); The U.S. Supreme Court, A Very Short Introduction, published by Oxford University Press in 2012; and The Burger Court and the Rise of the Judicial Right, with Michael J. Graetz, published in 2016. Her latest book is Just a Journalist: Reflections on the Press, Life, and the Spaces Between, published by Harvard University Press in 2017. In her extracurricular life, Ms. Greenhouse is president of the American Philosophical Society, the country's oldest learned society, which in 2005 awarded her its Henry Allen Moe Prize for writing in jurisprudence and the humanities. She also serves on the council of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the national Senate of Phi Beta Kappa, and is one of two non-lawyer honorary members elected to the American Law Institute, which in 2002 awarded her its Henry J. Friendly Medal. She has been awarded thirteen honorary degrees. She is a 1968 graduate of Radcliffe College (Harvard) and earned a Master of Studies in Law degree from Yale Law School (1978), which she attended on a Ford Foundation fellowship. She is married to Eugene R. Fidell, Florence Rogatz Lecturer in Law at Yale. Their daughter, Hannah, is a filmmaker in Los Angeles.
Co-Dean and Professor of Law, Rutgers Law School in Camden
Kimberly Mutcherson is Co-Dean and Professor of Law at Rutgers Law School in Camden. Her scholarly work is at the intersection of family law, health law, and bioethics. She writes on issues related to reproductive justice, with a focus on assisted reproduction, abortion, and maternal-fetal decision-making.
Professor Mutcherson teaches Family Law, Torts, South African Constitutional Law, and Bioethics, Babies, & Babymaking. She has served as a Senior Fellow/Sabbatical Visitor at the Center for Gender and Sexuality Law at Columbia Law School, a Visiting Scholar at the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, and as a fellow at the Institute for Research on Women at Rutgers University. She won a Center for Reproductive Rights Innovation in Scholarship Award in 2013 and a Chancellor’s Teaching Excellence Award in 2011.
She received her B.A. in history from the University of Pennsylvania and her J.D. from Columbia Law School where she was a Stone Scholar. At Columbia, she received the Samuel I. Rosenman Prize for excellence in public law courses and outstanding qualities of citizenship and leadership in the law school. She also received the Kirkland and Ellis Fellowship for post-graduate public interest work. Prior to joining the faculty at Rutgers School of Law in 2002, Professor Mutcherson was an Acting Assistant Professor of Lawyering at the New York University School of Law, a consulting attorney at the Center for Reproductive Law and Policy (now the Center for Reproductive Rights), and a Staff Attorney at the HIV Law Project.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, D.C. Circuit
Judge Randolph was confirmed by the Senate and appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit by President George H. W. Bush in July 1990.
Judge Randolph received his B.S. degree in 1966 from Drexel University, majoring in economics and basic engineering. At Drexel, he was president of the debate society, vice president of the Student Senate, and a member of the varsity wrestling squad. In 1969, he received his J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, summa cum laude. Judge Randolph ranked first in his law school class all three years and was managing editor of the Law Review.
After graduation, Judge Randolph served as a law clerk to Judge Henry J. Friendly of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York.
Admitted to the California Bar in 1970 (and to the District of Columbia bar in 1973), Judge Randolph worked as Assistant to the Solicitor General, U.S. Department of Justice, in Washington, D.C., 1970-1973.
After two years in private practice, Judge Randolph was named Deputy Solicitor General of the United States, a position he held from 1975-1977.
In 1979, Judge Randolph was appointed Special Counsel to the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct (the Ethics Committee) of the United States House of Representatives, remaining in this position until 1980.
In the 1980s, Judge Randolph held a number of positions while in private practice, including Special Assistant Attorney General for the states of New Mexico (1985 90), Utah (1986-1990) and Montana (1983-1990). He also served as a Member of the Advisory Panel of the Federal Courts Study Committee.
From 1971-1990, Judge Randolph argued 23 times in the United States Supreme Court, winning 20 of his cases.
As an Adjunct Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center from 1974-1978 he taught courses in civil procedure and injunctions. In 1992 he taught a course in constitutional law. He is a Distinguished Adjunct Professor of Law at George Mason School of Law and for the past ten years has been teaching First Amendment law. He also serves on the Judicial Advisory Board of the George Mason University Law and Economics Center.
From 1993 through 1995 Judge Randolph was a member of the Committee on Codes of Conduct of the Judicial Conference of the United States, and from 1995 to 1998 served as the Committee's chairman. He also served as the judicial liaison to the American Bar Association’s Administrative Law Section.
Judge Randolph is a member of the Board of Visitors at Drexel University Law School and was named to the “Drexel One Hundred” as a leading alumnus. In 2002 he was presented the James Wilson Award by the University of Pennsylvania Law School. In November 2005 he delivered the Fifth Annual Barbara K. Olson Memorial Lecture at the Annual Lawyers Convention of the Federalist Society. He has published numerous articles, the most recent of which is in the June 2006 issue of the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy.
Judge Randolph is married to the Honorable Eileen J. O’Connor, formerly Assistant Attorney General, Tax Division, U.S. Department of Justice. His son John Trevor Randolph is an investment banker in New York. His daughter Cynthia Lee Randolph is an artist living in San Francisco.
Former United States National Security Advisor
Zbigniew Brzezinski (born 1928) was assistant to the president of the United States for national security affairs during the Carter administration (1977-1980). Later he was associated with the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington D.C. He authored several books through which he expounded his philosophies as well as his political beliefs and ideals.
Former United States National Security Advisor
Zbigniew Brzezinski (born 1928) was assistant to the president of the United States for national security affairs during the Carter administration (1977-1980). Later he was associated with the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington D.C. He authored several books through which he expounded his philosophies as well as his political beliefs and ideals.
George C. Dix Professor in Constitutional Law, Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law
John O. McGinnis is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review. He also has an MA degree from Balliol College, Oxford, in philosophy and theology. Professor McGinnis clerked on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. From 1987 to 1991, he was deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel at the Department of Justice. He is the author of Accelerating Democracy: Transforming Government Through Technology (Princeton 2013) and Originalism and the Good Constitution (Harvard 2013) (with M. Rappaport). He is a past winner of the Paul Bator award given by the Federalist Society to an outstanding academic under 40. He has been listed by the United States on the roster of panelists who may be called upon to decide World Trade Organization Disputes.
Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
ILYA SOMIN is Professor of Law at George Mason University and the B. Kenneth Simon Chair in Constitutional Studies at the Cato Institute. His research focuses on constitutional law, property law, democratic theory, federalism, and migration rights. He is the author of Free to Move: Foot Voting, Migration, and Political Freedom (Oxford University Press, revised and expanded edition, 2022), Democracy and Political Ignorance: Why Smaller Government is Smarter (Stanford University Press, revised and expanded second edition, 2016), and The Grasping Hand: Kelo v. City of New London and the Limits of Eminent Domain (University of Chicago Press, 2015, rev. paperback ed., 2016), coauthor of A Conspiracy Against Obamacare: The Volokh Conspiracy and the Health Care Case (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), and co-editor of Eminent Domain: A Comparative Perspective (Cambridge University Press, 2017). Democracy and Political Ignorance has been translated into Italian and Japanese.
Somin’s work has appeared in numerous scholarly journals, including the Yale Law Journal, Stanford Law Review, Northwestern University Law Review, Georgetown Law Journal, Critical Review, and others. Somin has also published articles in a variety of popular press outlets, including the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, CNN, NBC, The Atlantic, USA Today, Boston Globe, US News and World Report, South China Morning Post, National Law Journal and Reason. He has been quoted or interviewed by the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Time, Newsweek, The Economist, the Christian Science Monitor, the Financial Times, The Guardian, the Associated Press, CBS, MSNBC, NPR, BBC, Reuters, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Al Jazeera, and the Voice of America, among other media.
Somin’s writings have been cited in decisions by the United States Supreme Court, multiple state supreme courts and lower federal courts, and the Supreme Court of Israel. He is co-counsel for the plaintiffs in VOS Selections, Inc. v. Trump, a case challenging the constitutionality of President Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs. Somin has testified on the use of drones for targeted killing in the War on Terror before the US Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Human Rights. In 2009, he testified on property rights issues at the United States Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Somin writes regularly for the popular Volokh Conspiracy law and politics blog, now affiliated with Reason magazine (previously affiliated with the Washington Post from 2014 to 2017). From 2006 to 2013, he served as Co-Editor of the Supreme Court Economic Review, one of the country’s top-rated law and economics journals.
Somin has served as a visiting professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. He has also been a visiting professor or scholar at the Georgetown University Law Center, the University of Hamburg, Germany, the University of Torcuato Di Tella in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Uriel Reichman University in Israel, and Zhengzhou University in China. He is a University Affiliate of the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University, and an affiliated faculty member of the George Mason University Institute for Immigration Research. Before joining the faculty at George Mason, Somin was the John M. Olin Fellow in Law at Northwestern University Law School in 2002-2003. In 2001-2002, he clerked for the Hon. Judge Jerry E. Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Professor Somin earned his B.A., Summa Cum Laude, at Amherst College, M.A. in Political Science from Harvard University, and J.D. from Yale Law School.
Distinguished Fellow, Hudson Institute
Christopher DeMuth is a distinguished fellow at Hudson Institute. He was president of the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research (AEI) from 1986 to 2008 and was the D.C. Searle Senior Fellow at AEI from 2008 to 2011.
Mr. DeMuth was raised in Kenilworth, Illinois, and attended the Lawrenceville School (1964), Harvard College (A.B. 1968), and the University of Chicago Law School (J.D. 1973). He served as staff assistant to President Richard M. Nixon from 1969 to 1970, working first for Daniel P. Moynihan (then assistant to the President for Urban Affairs) on urban policy matters and then as chairman of the White House Task Force on Environmental Policy. Following law school, he practiced regulatory, antitrust, and general corporate law with Sidley & Austin in Chicago (1973-1976) and was associate general counsel of the Consolidated Rail Corporation (Conrail) in Philadelphia (1976-1977).
From 1977 to 1981, Mr. DeMuth was lecturer in public policy at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and director of the Harvard Faculty Project on Regulation. There he taught courses on law, economics, and regulatory policy and conducted and sponsored research on health, safety, environmental, and economic regulation.
Returning to Washington in 1981, Mr. DeMuth served as administrator for information and regulatory affairs in the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, and as executive director of the Presidential Task Force on Regulatory Relief during President Ronald Reagan’s first term of office. From 1984 to 1986, he was managing director of Lexecon Inc., a law-and-economics consulting firm; in 1986, he was also publisher and editor-in-chief of Regulation magazine. He was elected president of the American Enterprise Institute in December 1986.
Many of Mr. DeMuth’s articles, lectures, and occasional talks are posted on his website (https://www.ccdemuth.com).
John S. Battle Professor of Law, University of Virginia School of Law
Julia D. Mahoney teaches courses in property, government finance, constitutional law and nonprofit organizations. A graduate of Yale Law School, she joined the University of Virginia faculty as an associate professor in 1999 and is now John S. Battle Professor of Law. She has also taught at the University of Southern California Law School and the University of Chicago Law School, and before entering the legal academy, practiced law at the New York firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz. Her scholarly articles include works on land preservation, eminent domain, health care reform and property rights in human biological materials.
John Marshall Harlan II Professor of Law Emerita, New York Law School; Former President, American Civil Liberties Union
Nadine Strossen, New York Law School Professor Emerita and Senior Fellow at FIRE (the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression), was national President of the American Civil Liberties Union from 1991 to 2008. An internationally acclaimed free speech scholar and advocate, who regularly addresses diverse audiences and provides media commentary around the world, Strossen is also the Host and Project Consultant for Free To Speak, a 3-hour documentary film series distributed on public television in 2023. Her books about free speech include: Free Speech: What Everyone Needs to Know® (Oxford University Press 2023); HATE: Why We Should Resist It with Free Speech, Not Censorship (Oxford University Press 2018); and Defending Pornography: Free Speech, Sex, and the Fight for Women’s Rights (Scribner 1995), which was republished with a new Preface in 2024 as part of the NYU Classics Series. Her many honors and awards include the National Coalition Against Censorship’s Judy Blume Lifetime Achievement Award for Free Speech. She serves on the Advisory Boards of several organizations that do free speech work, including: ACLU, Academic Freedom Alliance, Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism (FAIR), Heterodox Academy, National Coalition Against Censorship, and the University of Austin.
Martha Lubin Karsh and Bruce A. Karsh Bicentennial Professor of Law; Director, Human Rights Program; Senior Fellow, Miller Center, University of Virginia School of Law
Mila Versteeg joined the Law School in 2011. Her research and teaching interests include comparative constitutional law, public international law and empirical legal studies. Most of her research deals with the origins, evolution and effectiveness of provisions in the world’s constitutions. Her publications have, amongst others, appeared in the California Law Review, the New York University Law Review, the University of Chicago Law Review, the American Political Science Review, the American Journal of Political Science, the Journal of Legal Studies, the Journal of Law and Economics, the American Journal of International Law, and the Journal of Law, Economics and Organizations. A number of her works have been translated into Chinese, Portuguese and Turkish.
In 2017, Versteeg was named an Andrew Carnegie Fellow, which provided her with a $200,000 award to expand her research into the world's constitutions to better understand how constitutional rights are enforced in different countries.
Versteeg earned her B.A. in public administration and first law degree from Tilburg University in the Netherlands in 2006. She earned her LL.M. from Harvard Law School in 2007 and a D.Phil. in socio-legal studies in 2011 from the University of Oxford, where she was a Gregory Kulkes Scholar at Balliol College and recipient of an Arts and the Humanities Research Council Award.
Prior to joining the Law School, Versteeg was an Olin Fellow and lecturer in law at the University of Chicago Law School. Versteeg previously worked at the U.N. Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute in Turin and at the Southern Africa Litigation Centre in Johannesburg. While at UVA, Versteeg has been a visiting associate professor at the University of Chicago Law School (fall 2013) and Columbia Law School (spring 2016), and a visiting professor at the law schools of Hebrew University, the University of Hamburg (summer 2015) and Tel Aviv University (spring 2017).
Thomas M. Siebel Senior Fellow, The Hoover Institution, Stanford University; Gary T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus, UCLA School of Law
Eugene Volokh is the Thomas M. Siebel Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution (Stanford), as well as the Gary T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus and Distinguished Research Professor at UCLA School of Law. He recently retired from teaching at UCLA, after 30 years there, and is now focusing on research.
Volokh is the author of the textbooks The First Amendment and Related Statutes (8th ed. 2023), and Academic Legal Writing (5th ed. 2016), as well as over 100 academic law journal articles, mostly on First Amendment law. He is a member of The American Law Institute; the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Free Speech Law; and the creator and coauthor of The Volokh Conspiracy, a leading legal blog founded in 2002 (hosted at the Washington Post from 2014 to 2017 and now at Reason Magazine).
Distinguished Fellow, Hudson Institute
Christopher DeMuth is a distinguished fellow at Hudson Institute. He was president of the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research (AEI) from 1986 to 2008 and was the D.C. Searle Senior Fellow at AEI from 2008 to 2011.
Mr. DeMuth was raised in Kenilworth, Illinois, and attended the Lawrenceville School (1964), Harvard College (A.B. 1968), and the University of Chicago Law School (J.D. 1973). He served as staff assistant to President Richard M. Nixon from 1969 to 1970, working first for Daniel P. Moynihan (then assistant to the President for Urban Affairs) on urban policy matters and then as chairman of the White House Task Force on Environmental Policy. Following law school, he practiced regulatory, antitrust, and general corporate law with Sidley & Austin in Chicago (1973-1976) and was associate general counsel of the Consolidated Rail Corporation (Conrail) in Philadelphia (1976-1977).
From 1977 to 1981, Mr. DeMuth was lecturer in public policy at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and director of the Harvard Faculty Project on Regulation. There he taught courses on law, economics, and regulatory policy and conducted and sponsored research on health, safety, environmental, and economic regulation.
Returning to Washington in 1981, Mr. DeMuth served as administrator for information and regulatory affairs in the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, and as executive director of the Presidential Task Force on Regulatory Relief during President Ronald Reagan’s first term of office. From 1984 to 1986, he was managing director of Lexecon Inc., a law-and-economics consulting firm; in 1986, he was also publisher and editor-in-chief of Regulation magazine. He was elected president of the American Enterprise Institute in December 1986.
Many of Mr. DeMuth’s articles, lectures, and occasional talks are posted on his website (https://www.ccdemuth.com).
John S. Battle Professor of Law, University of Virginia School of Law
Julia D. Mahoney teaches courses in property, government finance, constitutional law and nonprofit organizations. A graduate of Yale Law School, she joined the University of Virginia faculty as an associate professor in 1999 and is now John S. Battle Professor of Law. She has also taught at the University of Southern California Law School and the University of Chicago Law School, and before entering the legal academy, practiced law at the New York firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz. Her scholarly articles include works on land preservation, eminent domain, health care reform and property rights in human biological materials.
John Marshall Harlan II Professor of Law Emerita, New York Law School; Former President, American Civil Liberties Union
Nadine Strossen, New York Law School Professor Emerita and Senior Fellow at FIRE (the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression), was national President of the American Civil Liberties Union from 1991 to 2008. An internationally acclaimed free speech scholar and advocate, who regularly addresses diverse audiences and provides media commentary around the world, Strossen is also the Host and Project Consultant for Free To Speak, a 3-hour documentary film series distributed on public television in 2023. Her books about free speech include: Free Speech: What Everyone Needs to Know® (Oxford University Press 2023); HATE: Why We Should Resist It with Free Speech, Not Censorship (Oxford University Press 2018); and Defending Pornography: Free Speech, Sex, and the Fight for Women’s Rights (Scribner 1995), which was republished with a new Preface in 2024 as part of the NYU Classics Series. Her many honors and awards include the National Coalition Against Censorship’s Judy Blume Lifetime Achievement Award for Free Speech. She serves on the Advisory Boards of several organizations that do free speech work, including: ACLU, Academic Freedom Alliance, Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism (FAIR), Heterodox Academy, National Coalition Against Censorship, and the University of Austin.
Martha Lubin Karsh and Bruce A. Karsh Bicentennial Professor of Law; Director, Human Rights Program; Senior Fellow, Miller Center, University of Virginia School of Law
Mila Versteeg joined the Law School in 2011. Her research and teaching interests include comparative constitutional law, public international law and empirical legal studies. Most of her research deals with the origins, evolution and effectiveness of provisions in the world’s constitutions. Her publications have, amongst others, appeared in the California Law Review, the New York University Law Review, the University of Chicago Law Review, the American Political Science Review, the American Journal of Political Science, the Journal of Legal Studies, the Journal of Law and Economics, the American Journal of International Law, and the Journal of Law, Economics and Organizations. A number of her works have been translated into Chinese, Portuguese and Turkish.
In 2017, Versteeg was named an Andrew Carnegie Fellow, which provided her with a $200,000 award to expand her research into the world's constitutions to better understand how constitutional rights are enforced in different countries.
Versteeg earned her B.A. in public administration and first law degree from Tilburg University in the Netherlands in 2006. She earned her LL.M. from Harvard Law School in 2007 and a D.Phil. in socio-legal studies in 2011 from the University of Oxford, where she was a Gregory Kulkes Scholar at Balliol College and recipient of an Arts and the Humanities Research Council Award.
Prior to joining the Law School, Versteeg was an Olin Fellow and lecturer in law at the University of Chicago Law School. Versteeg previously worked at the U.N. Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute in Turin and at the Southern Africa Litigation Centre in Johannesburg. While at UVA, Versteeg has been a visiting associate professor at the University of Chicago Law School (fall 2013) and Columbia Law School (spring 2016), and a visiting professor at the law schools of Hebrew University, the University of Hamburg (summer 2015) and Tel Aviv University (spring 2017).
Thomas M. Siebel Senior Fellow, The Hoover Institution, Stanford University; Gary T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus, UCLA School of Law
Eugene Volokh is the Thomas M. Siebel Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution (Stanford), as well as the Gary T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus and Distinguished Research Professor at UCLA School of Law. He recently retired from teaching at UCLA, after 30 years there, and is now focusing on research.
Volokh is the author of the textbooks The First Amendment and Related Statutes (8th ed. 2023), and Academic Legal Writing (5th ed. 2016), as well as over 100 academic law journal articles, mostly on First Amendment law. He is a member of The American Law Institute; the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Free Speech Law; and the creator and coauthor of The Volokh Conspiracy, a leading legal blog founded in 2002 (hosted at the Washington Post from 2014 to 2017 and now at Reason Magazine).
Partner, Clement & Murphy, PLLC
Paul served as the 43rd Solicitor General of the United States from June 2005 until June 2008. Before his confirmation as Solicitor General, he served as Acting Solicitor General for nearly a year and as Principal Deputy Solicitor General for over three years.
Paul has argued over 100 cases before the United States Supreme Court, including McConnell v. FEC, Tennessee v. Lane, United States v. Booker, MGM v. Grokster, Hobby Lobby v. Burwell, Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis, Rucho v. Common Cause, Facebook v. Duguid, and TransUnion v. Ramirez. Paul has argued more Supreme Court cases since 2000 than any lawyer in or out of government. He has also argued many important cases in the lower courts, including Walker v. Cheney, United States v. Moussaoui and NFL v. Brady.
Paul’s practice focuses on appellate matters, constitutional litigation and strategic counseling. He represents a broad array of clients in the Supreme Court and in federal and state appellate courts. Last year, for example, he successfully argued Supreme Court cases involving significant issues of energy regulation, statutory interpretation, state sovereign immunity and Article III standing, and successfully argued a trademark appeal in the Fourth Circuit, and a constitutional appeal before the en banc Eleventh Circuit.
Paul focuses on high-stakes appeals. In recent years, he successfully defended a $1.2 billion jury verdict for clients in a Tenth Circuit case, while securing the reversal of an over $2 billion jury verdict for another client in the Seventh Circuit and the approval of a nearly $1 billion dollar class action settlement in the Third Circuit. He has initiated major administrative law challenges and constitutional litigation against the federal government, such as the successful challenge to the HHS drug-pricing rule and threatened challenges that led to the withdrawal of the Treasury Department’s proposed cryptocurrency regulations. He also counsels clients on a variety of strategic legal questions, whether arising from pending legislation, government inquiries or ongoing litigation.
Paul has undertaken substantial pro bono engagements in the Supreme Court, such as twice successfully representing the defendant in Bond v. United States and successfully representing the Omaha Tribe in Nebraska v. Parker, the guardian ad litem in Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl, the defendant in Sekhar v. United States, a high school football coach in Kennedy v. Bremerton, and the Little Sisters of the Poor. Paul’s pro bono representation also precipitated the federal government’s confession of error in United States v. Rojas.
Following law school, Paul clerked for Judge Laurence H. Silberman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and for Associate Justice Antonin Scalia of the U.S. Supreme Court. After his clerkships, he went on to serve as Chief Counsel of the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution, Federalism and Property Rights.
Paul is a Distinguished Lecturer in Law at the Georgetown University Law Center, where he has taught in various capacities since 1998. He also serves as a Senior Fellow of the Law Center’s Supreme Court Institute. He is the Justice Joseph Story Distinguished Practitioner in Residence at the Gray Center at Scalia Law School.
Deputy Secretary of Agriculture, U.S. Department of Agriculture
Judge Stephen Alexander Vaden was appointed as the Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture on July 7, 2025. Alongside Secretary Brooke L. Rollins, Deputy Secretary Vaden leads the Department’s operations and implements policies that support America’s food and farm systems. A native of Union City, Tennessee, Deputy Secretary Vaden brings expertise in agricultural policy, law, and rural development. Previously, he served as a judge on the U.S. Court of International Trade and as General Counsel of USDA. Throughout Deputy Secretary Vaden’s time as General Counsel, he led successful Supreme Court litigation, advanced regulatory reform, and supported the implementation of the 2018 Farm Bill. He is a graduate of Yale Law School and Vanderbilt University. A public servant with strong agricultural roots, Deputy Secretary Vaden is committed to revitalizing rural America and ensuring an abundant, affordable, and safe U.S. food supply.
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