Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit
Michael B. Brennan was confirmed and sworn in as a Circuit Judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in May 2018.
He previously worked as a partner in the Milwaukee law firm of Gass Weber Mullins LLC, where he tried cases and handled appeals in federal and state courts, as a judge on the Milwaukee County Circuit, where he presided over a variety of criminal and civil calendars, and as an assistant district attorney in the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s office.
Brennan’s undergraduate degree is from the University of Notre Dame, and his law degree from Northwestern University School of Law, where he was an editor on the law review and the moot court champion. He served as a law clerk on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit
Judge Sykes was nominated to the Seventh Circuit by President George W. Bush and confirmed by the Senate in 2004. Prior to her appointment to the federal bench, Judge Sykes served as a justice on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Governor Tommy G. Thompson appointed her in September 1999 to fill a mid-term vacancy on the state supreme court, and she was elected to a full ten-year term in April 2000. From 1992-1999, Judge Sykes served on the state trial bench in Milwaukee County (elected in 1992 and re-elected in 1998). From 1985-1992, Judge Sykes practiced law with the Milwaukee firm of Whyte & Hirschboeck, S.C., and from 1984-1985, was a law clerk to Federal Judge Terence T. Evans.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee area, Judge Sykes earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University in 1980 and a law degree from Marquette University Law School in 1984. Between college and law school, Judge Sykes worked as a reporter for The Milwaukee Journal.
Judge Sykes has two sons.
Chairman & CEO, The Abraham Group
Secretary Spencer Abraham is Chairman & CEO of The Abraham Group.
He served as the tenth Secretary of Energy of United States from 2001-2005. He helped President George W. Bush devise America’s first national energy plan in over a decade and oversaw its implementation. As part of this plan, he led efforts to broaden America’s international energy partnerships as well as forge closer ties to key oil producing nations.
Secretary Abraham has been a close observer of world energy markets, and under his leadership the Department of Energy conducted a number of important short and long-term studies of world oil, gas, electricity and other markets.
According to the Presidential Management Agenda scorecard, the Department of Energy went from “worst to first” of well-run agencies under Secretary Abraham’s leadership.
Prior to being a Cabinet Member, Secretary Abraham served as an effective and highly productive U.S. Senator from Michigan for six years. In the Senate, he was a member of the Senate Commerce, Judiciary and Budget Committees and served as chairman of the Senate Immigration Subcommittee and the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Manufacturing and Competitiveness. He was also a senior official in the Administration of former President George H.W. Bush as Deputy Chief of Staff to the Vice President.
Secretary Abraham is a member of the Board of Directors of Occidental Petroleum, NRG Energy, PBF Energy, Uranium Energy Corp and Two Harbors Investment Corporation.
In addition, he is a frequent commentator on FOX News, CNN and Bloomberg TV as well as a periodic contributor of op-ed articles to the Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Weekly Standard and other publications.
Spencer Abraham and his wife, Jane, are the parents of adult children. He holds a law degree from Harvard University, where he co-founded the Federalist Society, and is a native of East Lansing, Michigan.
Chief Deputy Attorney General
Ryan Newman is currently Chief Deputy Attorney General for Florida Office of the Attorney General.
During the first Trump Administration, he served as Counselor to the United States Attorney General for national security and international affairs, Deputy General Counsel (Legal Counsel) for the Department of Defense, and Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Policy at the Department of Justice. Prior to serving in the Executive Branch, Ryan was Chief Counsel to United States Senator Ted Cruz during the 114th Congress.
Ryan served as a law clerk to the Honorable Samuel A. Alito, Jr. on the United States Supreme Court, the Honorable Richard J. Leon on the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, and the Honorable J.L. Edmondson on the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.
Prior to law school, Ryan was an armor officer in the United States Army assigned to the 1st Squadron, 10th U.S. Cavalry Regiment (Buffalo Soldiers). He deployed to Iraq in 2003 for Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Ryan graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1998. He earned his law degree with high honors from The University of Texas School of Law in 2007.
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.
David McIntosh is a leader for the principles of limited constitutional government and individual freedom. He is president of the Club for Growth, the leading advocate for economic liberty.
Former Congressman David McIntosh represented Indiana's 2nd Congressional District in the United States Congress from 1995-2001. As a Freshman, David chaired the Subcommittee on Regulatory Relief. He passed the Congressional Review Act and held extensive oversight and field hearings to build a record of public support for regulatory relief initiatives in energy, biotechnology, pharmaceutical, healthcare, transportation and technology sectors. Another issue that he championed was the elimination of the marriage penalty in the Federal Tax Code.
David served during the Reagan administration as special assistant to Attorney General Edwin Meese III, and as special assistant to President Reagan for Domestic Affairs. During the first Bush administration, he served as executive director of the President's Council on Competitiveness and assistant to the Vice President. The Competitiveness Council coordinated the cost/benefit review of major regulations and promoted legal reform measures.
David is a co-founder of the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy and serves on the Board of Directors. He remains active with several free market and conservative think tanks and grassroots organizations. David has also had stints at the Hudson Institute and as a Professor of Economics at Ball State School of Business.
Prior to the Club for Growth, David was a partner at Mayer Brown, LLP in Washington, DC.
David graduated from the University of Chicago Law School in 1983, and Yale University, BA, cum laude, in 1980. He and his wife, Ruthie, are the proud parents of Ellie age 17 and Davey age 13.
Executive Vice President and Senior Counselor to the President, The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies
B.A., Yale; J.D., University of Chicago. Lee Liberman Otis is the Executive Vice President and Senior Counselor to the President at the Federalist Society. She also serves as a member of the American Law Institute (ALI), a senior fellow of the Administrative Conference (ACUS), and as the co-chair of the National Constitution Center's Coalition of Freedom Advisory Board. She previously was a special assistant and an Associate Deputy Attorney General at the U.S. Department of Justice, General Counsel of the Department of Energy, an associate in the appellate section of Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue, an associate counsel to President George H.W. Bush, and a law clerk to Associate Justice Antonin Scalia. She also served as an assistant professor of law at George Mason, where she taught legislation, federal jurisdiction, constitutional law, civil procedure, and appellate advocacy. Ms. Otis has been an important member of the Federalist Society team since the organization’s beginnings. Together with David McIntosh, she led the effort to start what became the Chicago chapter of the Society. She also helped organize the Society’s first conference at Yale, its second conference at Chicago, and its first Lawyers Division chapter in Washington DC, as well as the effort to incorporate the Society, recruit its permanent staff, and obtain its early funding. She was a Founding Director of the Federalist Society.
Richard and Frances Mallery Professor of Law and Faculty Director, Constitutional Law Center, Stanford Law School
Michael W. McConnell is the Richard and Frances Mallery Professor and Faculty Director of the Constitutional Law Center at Stanford Law School, and a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. From 2002 to 2009, he served as a Circuit Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. He was nominated by President George W. Bush, a Republican, and confirmed by a Democratic Senate by unanimous consent. McConnell has previously held chaired professorships at the University of Chicago and the University of Utah, and visiting professorships at Harvard and NYU. He teaches courses on constitutional law, constitutional history, First Amendment, and interpretive theory. He has published widely in the fields of constitutional law and theory, especially church and state, equal protection, and separation of powers. His book, “The President Who Would Not Be King: Executive Power Under the Constitution,” was published by Princeton University Press in 2020, based on the Tanner Lectures in Human Values, which he delivered at Princeton in 2019. His latest book, co-authored with Nathan Chapman, “Agreeing to Disagree: How the Establishment Clause Protects Religious Diversity and Freedom of Conscience,” was published by Oxford University Press in mid-2023. McConnell has argued sixteen cases in the United States Supreme Court, most recently Carney v. Adams (2020). defending a provision of the Delaware Constitution requiring political balance on that state’s courts. More recently, he was co-counsel in Gonzalez v. Google. He earned his B.A. from Michigan State University and his J.D. from the University of Chicago, and has received honorary degrees from Notre Dame University and Michigan State. He served as law clerk to Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. and D.C. Circuit Chief Judge J. Skelly Wright. He has been Assistant General Counsel of the Office of Management & Budget, Assistant to the Solicitor General of the Department of Justice, and a member of the President’s Intelligence Oversight Board. He is Senior of Counsel to the law firm Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich & Rosati, and is co-chair of Meta’s Oversight Review Board.
Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit
Don Willett serves on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
Before joining the federal bench, Judge Willett served 13 years on the Supreme Court
of Texas. His career spans decades of public service, including roles as legal counsel to
a Texas Attorney General, a Texas Governor, a U.S. Attorney General, and the
President of the United States.
Raised by a heroic widowed mom in a doublewide trailer in a town of 32, Judge
Willett is his family’s first college graduate. He earned a triple-major B.B.A. from Baylor
University—where he serves on the Board of Regents—and three degrees from Duke
University—where he serves on the Board of Visitors: a J.D. with honors, an A.M. in
political science, and an LL.M. in judicial studies. After law school, he clerked on the
Fifth Circuit and practiced at Haynes and Boone before entering public service.
Judge Willett publishes widely in both leading law reviews and national media, including
The Yale Law Journal, The University of Pennsylvania Law Review, and The Wall Street
Journal. The longtime editor-in-chief of Judicature—the Scholarly Journal for Judges, he
holds academic appointments at various law schools and has received more than a
dozen Green Bag honors for “exemplary legal writing.” He was named Distinguished
Jurist of the Year by the Texas Review of Law & Politics, and he is a member of the
American Law Institute and a Life Fellow of the American, Texas, and Austin Bar
Foundations.
A onetime bull rider and professional drummer, Judge Willett was named “Tweeter
Laureate of Texas” in 2015. He is the namesake of Don R. Willett Elementary
School—home of mighty Willett Wranglers—located just a mile from where he grew up.
He and his radiant wife, Tiffany have three children—Jacob, Shane-David, and
Geneviève—plus the family pup, Amicus.
Justice, Supreme Court of Arizona
Clint Bolick was appointed by Governor Doug Ducey in January 2016 to serve on the Arizona Supreme Court and was retained by the voters in 2018 and 2024.
Prior to joining the Court, Justice Bolick litigated constitutional cases in state and federal courts from coast to coast, including the U.S. Supreme Court. Among other positions, he served as Vice President for Litigation at the Goldwater Institute and as Co-founder and Vice President for Litigation at the Institute for Justice. He has litigated in support of school choice, freedom of enterprise, private property rights, freedom of speech, and federalism, and against racial classifications and government subsidies.
Justice Bolick received his Juris Doctor degree from the University of California at Davis, where he has been recognized as a distinguished alumnus, and his Bachelor of Arts degree magna cum laude from Drew University. He serves as a research fellow with the Hoover Institution. Among other honors, he was named one of the 90 Greatest DC Lawyers in the Last 30 Years by Legal Times in 2008, received a Bradley Prize in 2006, and was recognized as one of the nation’s three lawyers of the year by American Lawyer in 2002 for his successful defense of school vouchers in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris.
Justice Bolick is a prolific author of a dozen books and hundreds of articles. Among his most recent books are Unshackled: Freeing America’s K-12 Education System: Immigration Wars: Forging an American Solution, co-authored with former Florida Governor Jeb Bush; and David’s Hammer: The Case for an Activist Judiciary. Bolick serves as an adjunct professor of constitutional law at Arizona State University’s Sandra Day O’Connor School of Law and has served as a lecturer at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.
Chairman & CEO, The Abraham Group
Secretary Spencer Abraham is Chairman & CEO of The Abraham Group.
He served as the tenth Secretary of Energy of United States from 2001-2005. He helped President George W. Bush devise America’s first national energy plan in over a decade and oversaw its implementation. As part of this plan, he led efforts to broaden America’s international energy partnerships as well as forge closer ties to key oil producing nations.
Secretary Abraham has been a close observer of world energy markets, and under his leadership the Department of Energy conducted a number of important short and long-term studies of world oil, gas, electricity and other markets.
According to the Presidential Management Agenda scorecard, the Department of Energy went from “worst to first” of well-run agencies under Secretary Abraham’s leadership.
Prior to being a Cabinet Member, Secretary Abraham served as an effective and highly productive U.S. Senator from Michigan for six years. In the Senate, he was a member of the Senate Commerce, Judiciary and Budget Committees and served as chairman of the Senate Immigration Subcommittee and the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Manufacturing and Competitiveness. He was also a senior official in the Administration of former President George H.W. Bush as Deputy Chief of Staff to the Vice President.
Secretary Abraham is a member of the Board of Directors of Occidental Petroleum, NRG Energy, PBF Energy, Uranium Energy Corp and Two Harbors Investment Corporation.
In addition, he is a frequent commentator on FOX News, CNN and Bloomberg TV as well as a periodic contributor of op-ed articles to the Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Weekly Standard and other publications.
Spencer Abraham and his wife, Jane, are the parents of adult children. He holds a law degree from Harvard University, where he co-founded the Federalist Society, and is a native of East Lansing, Michigan.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit
Judge Katsas was appointed to the D.C. Circuit in December 2017. He graduated from Princeton University and Harvard Law School, where he was an executive editor on the Harvard Law Review. Between 1989 and 1992, he served as a law clerk to Judge Edward Becker on the Third Circuit, to then-Judge Clarence Thomas on the D.C. Circuit, and to Justice Thomas on the Supreme Court. Between 1992 and 2001, he was an associate and then partner in the Washington office of Jones Day, where he specialized in appellate and complex civil litigation. Between 2001 and 2009, he served in many senior positions in the Department of Justice, including as Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division and as Acting Associate Attorney General. In 2009, he returned to Jones Day. From January to December 2017, he served as Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy Counsel to the President.
Before joining the bench, Judge Katsas argued more than 75 appeals, including three cases in the Supreme Court, 13 cases in the D.C. Circuit, and cases in every other federal court of appeals. By appointment of the Chief Justice, he served on the Advisory Committee on Appellate Rules from 2013 to 2017. In 2016, he was elected to membership in the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers.
Alida graduated from Duke University with a degree in history and earned her J.D. from the Georgetown University Law Center.
Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law and Director, Julis-Rabinowitz Program on Jewish and Israeli Law, Harvard Law School
Noah Feldman specializes in constitutional studies, with a particular emphasis on the relationship between law and religion, free speech, constitutional design, and the history of legal theory. Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, he is also a Senior Fellow of the Society of Fellows at Harvard. In 2003 he served as senior constitutional advisor to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, and subsequently advised members of the Iraqi Governing Council on the drafting of the Transitional Administrative Law or interim constitution. He received his A.B. summa cum laude in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations from Harvard University in 1992. Selected as a Rhodes Scholar, he earned a D.Phil. in Oriental Studies from Oxford University in 1994. From 1999 to 2002, he was a Junior Fellow of the Society of Fellows at Harvard. Before that he served as a law clerk to Justice David H. Souter of the U.S. Supreme Court (1998 to 1999) and to Chief Judge Harry T. Edwards of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (1997 to 1998). He received his J.D. from Yale Law School in 1997, serving as Book Reviews Editor of the Yale Law Journal. He’s the author of eight books: The Three Lives of James Madison: Genius, Partisan, President (Random House, 2017); Cool War: The Future of Global Competition (Random House, 2013); Scorpions: The Battles and Triumphs of FDR’s Great Supreme Court Justices (Twelve Publishing, 2010); The Fall and Rise of the Islamic State (Princeton University Press, 2008); Divided By God: America's Church-State Problem and What We Should Do About It (Farrar, Straus & Giroux 2005); What We Owe Iraq: War and the Ethics of Nation building (Princeton University Press 2004); and After Jihad: America and the Struggle for Islamic Democracy (Farrar, Straus & Giroux 2003. He also co-authored two textbooks with Kathleen Sullivan: Constitutional Law, Twentieth Edition (Foundation Press, Fall 2019) and First Amendment (Foundation Press, 2016).
David McIntosh is a leader for the principles of limited constitutional government and individual freedom. He is president of the Club for Growth, the leading advocate for economic liberty.
Former Congressman David McIntosh represented Indiana's 2nd Congressional District in the United States Congress from 1995-2001. As a Freshman, David chaired the Subcommittee on Regulatory Relief. He passed the Congressional Review Act and held extensive oversight and field hearings to build a record of public support for regulatory relief initiatives in energy, biotechnology, pharmaceutical, healthcare, transportation and technology sectors. Another issue that he championed was the elimination of the marriage penalty in the Federal Tax Code.
David served during the Reagan administration as special assistant to Attorney General Edwin Meese III, and as special assistant to President Reagan for Domestic Affairs. During the first Bush administration, he served as executive director of the President's Council on Competitiveness and assistant to the Vice President. The Competitiveness Council coordinated the cost/benefit review of major regulations and promoted legal reform measures.
David is a co-founder of the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy and serves on the Board of Directors. He remains active with several free market and conservative think tanks and grassroots organizations. David has also had stints at the Hudson Institute and as a Professor of Economics at Ball State School of Business.
Prior to the Club for Growth, David was a partner at Mayer Brown, LLP in Washington, DC.
David graduated from the University of Chicago Law School in 1983, and Yale University, BA, cum laude, in 1980. He and his wife, Ruthie, are the proud parents of Ellie age 17 and Davey age 13.
Executive Vice President and Senior Counselor to the President, The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies
B.A., Yale; J.D., University of Chicago. Lee Liberman Otis is the Executive Vice President and Senior Counselor to the President at the Federalist Society. She also serves as a member of the American Law Institute (ALI), a senior fellow of the Administrative Conference (ACUS), and as the co-chair of the National Constitution Center's Coalition of Freedom Advisory Board. She previously was a special assistant and an Associate Deputy Attorney General at the U.S. Department of Justice, General Counsel of the Department of Energy, an associate in the appellate section of Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue, an associate counsel to President George H.W. Bush, and a law clerk to Associate Justice Antonin Scalia. She also served as an assistant professor of law at George Mason, where she taught legislation, federal jurisdiction, constitutional law, civil procedure, and appellate advocacy. Ms. Otis has been an important member of the Federalist Society team since the organization’s beginnings. Together with David McIntosh, she led the effort to start what became the Chicago chapter of the Society. She also helped organize the Society’s first conference at Yale, its second conference at Chicago, and its first Lawyers Division chapter in Washington DC, as well as the effort to incorporate the Society, recruit its permanent staff, and obtain its early funding. She was a Founding Director of the Federalist Society.
2022 Judge Rudolph T. Randa Lecture and Award
Milwaukee Lawyers Chapter
Milwaukee, WI40 FOR 40 Session 3 — Harvard
E. Spencer Abraham
The Federalist Society’s Student Division &Harvard Law School Student Chapterpresent 40 FOR 40:Celebrating the 40th...
40 FOR 40 Session 3 — Harvard
Harvard Law School Student Chapter
A Conversation with Ryan Newman, General Counsel to Governor Ron DeSantis
Tampa Bay Lawyers Chapter
Tampa, FLRemembering Judge Silberman
Gregory G. Katsas, Alida Kass
As we continue remembering Judge Laurence Silberman and his contributions to the law, Judge Gregory...
Genius, Partisan, President | Madison and the Fight for the Constitution [The FedSoc Films Podcast]
Noah Feldman
In this episode of the FedSoc Films Podcast, Samantha interviews Noah Feldman, Felix Frankfurter Professor...
40 FOR 40 Session 2 — Chicago
David M. McIntosh, Lee Liberman Otis
The Federalist Society's Student Division & University of Chicago Law School Student Chapter present 40...
40 FOR 40 Session 2 — Chicago
Chicago Law School Student Chapter
Ten Year Anniversary Gala and Thomas M. Cooley Judicial Lecture
Washington, DCA Lunch Lecture with Justice Clint Bolick of the Arizona Supreme Court
New Orleans Lawyers Chapter
New Orleans, LA