Partner, First & Fourteenth PLLC
Michael Francisco is a public and commercial litigator with extensive appellate experience who often serves as a strategic advisor to clients facing acute legal challenges. He has represented clients nationally for public impact litigation, bet-the-company lawsuits, and in defense of constitutional rights. Michael served as a law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch and Judge Timothy Tymkovich of the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.
Michael regularly takes on challenging matters where citizens must rely on the judiciary to vindicate their rights. His experience runs the gambit from successfully seeking injunctive relief, winning critical legal motions, defending judgments on appeal, overturning multi-million-dollar judgments, and obtaining discretionary high court review. He relishes the opportunity to develop a well-crafted legal strategy to solve the most novel and complex problems that may arise.
Michael has deep experience with political litigation representing candidates, voters, political parties, and advocacy organizations for ballot access, election administration, campaign finance, and for the unfortunate trend of criminalization of political activity.
After deciding to pursue a legal career to defend religious liberty, Michael has regularly engaged in constitutional litigation under the religion clauses and the free speech clause. He has been involved in many recent U.S. Supreme Court cases involving these core freedoms, including Groff v. DeJoy, 303 Creative v. Elenis, Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, National Institute of Family & Life Advocates v. Becerra, Trinity Lutheran Church v. Pauley, and similar cases in lower courts on topics ranging from the ministerial exception, church property disputes, to religious land use disputes.
As an appellate advocate Michael frequently handles matters before the U.S. Supreme Court, federal courts of appeals, and Colorado appellate courts. He has argued four times before the Colorado Supreme Court and briefed 19 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Michael also frequently advises clients on strategic public matters challenging federal government authority and overreach. He has regularly litigated business disputes, employment matters, as well as represented clients before state and federal administrative agencies or arbitration panels.
Prior to joining First & Fourteenth, Michael was a partner at McGuireWoods, LLP in Washington D.C., representing litigation, white collar, and government investigation clients.
At home Michael is married with four children and he enjoys many outdoor activities, ranging from competitive shooting to fixing his jeep.
Vice President for Legal Strategy, Stand Together
Casey Mattox is Vice President for Legal Strategy at Stand Together and Senior Advisor at
Americans for Prosperity. In these roles he advocates for and creates strategies and
partnerships to ensure a constitutionally limited government that protects the civil liberties of all
Americans. Prior to joining Stand Together and AFP Casey’s legal career focused on defending
the First Amendment rights of students, faculty, healthcare workers and religious organizations.
Casey has a J.D. from Boston College School of Law and an undergraduate degree from the
University of Virginia. You can find him on Twitter at @CaseyMattox_ and on LinkedIn at
@Casey-Mattox-ST.
Special Counsel, Campus Advocacy, Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE)
One of FIRE’s longest-serving employees, Robert Shibley began at FIRE straight out of Duke Law School in 2003, with the intention of doing nonprofit work for a couple of years before finding a permanent job. This lasted 19 years, including six as FIRE’s executive director. During his time at FIRE, Robert launched FIRE’s first major litigation initiative, traveled to dozens of campuses to speak about the First Amendment and Title IX issues on campus, and oversaw FIRE’s expansion into off-campus issues before a stint representing students and faculty members in private practice at the firm of Allen Harris PLLC.
Having realized things on campus were even worse than he had believed, Robert returned to FIRE as Special Counsel for Campus Advocacy in order to finish the job he started: restoring free speech and due process to America’s college campuses. Robert is the author of Twisting Title IX, from Encounter Books. His writing has appeared everywhere from The Wall Street Journal to The Washington Post, USA Today, and TIME, and he has appeared on national and international broadcasts including the BBC and NPR, The O’Reilly Factor, CNN Tonight, Tucker Carlson Tonight, and (perhaps most famously) Dr. Phil.
Associate, Consovoy McCarthy PLLC
Ms. Bates assists clients with a variety of litigation and appellate matters that encompass constitutional law, administrative law, and commercial litigation. Before joining the firm, Ms. Bates was a law clerk to Judge Kyle Duncan of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. She previously served as a Legal Policy Analyst at the Heritage Foundation, where she researched and wrote about the courts, judicial nominations, and various constitutional issues. She also co-hosted Heritage’s SCOTUS 101 podcast. She earned her B.A. magna cum laude in Politics from Hillsdale College, and her J.D. from the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University. Ms. Bates is a member of the Virginia Bar.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit
Judge Duncan received his B.A. from Louisiana State University in 1994, his J.D. from the Paul M. Hebert Law Center at Louisiana State University in 1997, and his LL.M. from Columbia Law School in 2004.
After graduating from law school, he clerked for Louisiana-based Circuit Judge John Malcolm Duhé Jr. of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
From 2008–2012, Duncan served as Appellate Chief for Louisiana's Attorney General's office. From 2012–2014, he served as general counsel of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. From 2004-2008, he was an assistant professor of law at the University of Mississippi School of Law.
Before becoming a judge, Duncan practiced at the Washington, D.C. firm of Schaerr Duncan LLP, where he was a founding partner. He was appointed by President Trump to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit on May 1, 2018.
General Counsel, U.S. Department of Homeland Security
James H. Percival graduated from the University of California, Santa Barbara and the University of Virginia School of Law. Before his work at the Department of Homeland Security, he was Chief of Staff to then Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody. James previously served in a number of other roles for Attorney General Moody and as Senior Counsel at the U.S. Department of Justice. Before beginning his public service, James worked for a global law firm and clerked for Judge Emmett Ripley Cox of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. In between college and law school, James worked as a substitute teacher and as a missionary in South America.
Senior Fellow and Director of Constitutional Studies, Manhattan Institute
Ilya Shapiro is a senior fellow and director of constitutional studies at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal. Previously he was executive director and senior lecturer at the Georgetown Center for the Constitution, and before that a vice president of the Cato Institute.
Shapiro is the author of Lawless: The Miseducation of America’s Elites (2025) and Supreme Disorder: Judicial Nominations and the Politics of America’s Highest Court (2020), coauthor of Religious Liberties for Corporations? (2014), and editor of 11 volumes of the Cato Supreme Court Review (2008-18). He has contributed to a variety of academic, popular, and professional publications, including the Wall Street Journal, Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, National Review, and Newsweek. He also regularly provides commentary for various media outlets, writes the Shapiro’s Gavel newsletter on Substack, and once appeared on the Colbert Report.
Shapiro has testified many times before Congress and state legislatures and has filed more than 500 amicus curiae “friend of the court” briefs in the Supreme Court. He lectures regularly on behalf of the Federalist Society, is a member of the board of fellows of the Jewish Policy Center, was an inaugural Washington Fellow at the National Review Institute, and has been an adjunct law professor at the George Washington University and University of Mississippi. He is also the chairman of the board of advisers of the Mississippi Justice Institute, a barrister in the Edward Coke Appellate Inn of Court, and a former member of the Virginia Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.
Earlier in his career, Shapiro was a special assistant/adviser to the Multi-National Force in Iraq on rule-of-law issues and practiced at Patton Boggs and Cleary Gottlieb. Before entering private practice, he clerked for Judge E. Grady Jolly of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. He holds an AB from Princeton University, an MSc from the London School of Economics, and a JD from the University of Chicago Law School.
Senior Litigation Counsel, New Civil Liberties Alliance
Margaret Harker litigates for a public interest law firm. She has significant experience in government investigations and litigation, having served in the three branches of our government. Previously, she led complex Congressional investigations for the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform—including the only government-wide investigation into federal agencies’ strategy (or lack thereof) to counter Chinese Communist Party political warfare against America.
Prior to her time on Capitol Hill, Harker served in the U.S. Department of Justice. She was an Assistant United States Attorney in both the Eastern District of Tennessee and the Eastern District of Virginia. She was a Trial Attorney in the National Security Division, Counterintelligence and Export Control Section, with an emphasis on the administration and enforcement of the Foreign Agents Registration Act.
Harker clerked for the Honorable Henry E. Hudson, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia and the Honorable Randolph A. Beales, Court of Appeals of Virginia.
Earlier in her career, she studied in Beijing, China, and worked at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s China Center.
Writer and Editor, Tablet Magazine
Park MacDougald is Editor and Senior Writer at The Scroll, Tablet’s daily afternoon newsletter, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute, and a former recipient of the Novak Fellowship from The Fund for American Studies. His writing has appeared in Tablet, City Journal, New York Magazine, The Washington Examiner, and UnHerd.
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.
Assistant Professor of Law, The Ohio State University - Moritz College of Law
Bridget Dooling is a nationally recognized expert on administrative law and regulatory policy. Her scholarship on regulatory matters has been or will be published in leading legal journals including the Duke Law Journal, the Administrative Law Review, the Minnesota Law Review Headnotes, the American University Law Review and The Annals of Health Law.
Professor Dooling teaches courses on legislation and regulation, administrative law and other regulatory topics. She is a Senior Fellow at the Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS) and recently served on the Council of the American Bar Association’s Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice.
Prior to joining the faculty at Ohio State, Dooling was a research professor with the George Washington University Regulatory Studies Center and a professor of law (by courtesy) at GW Law. Before that, Professor Dooling spent over 10 years in the federal government as a deputy chief, senior policy analyst and attorney for the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs at the U.S. Office of Management and Budget.
Professor of Law and Associate Dean, Boston College Law School; Nonresident Senior Fellow, American Enterprise Institute, Boston College Law School
Professor Lyons is a Professor and Associate Dean at Boston College Law School. He specializes in telecommunications and tech policy, energy, and administrative law. Before joining the faculty, he practiced at the firm of Munger, Tolles and Olson in Los Angeles. He also clerked for the Judge Cynthia Holcomb Hall of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Professor Lyons is also a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he has written over 250 blog posts on tech policy issues, including net neutrality, telecommunications regulation, First Amendment issues with tech regulation, and generative AI.
Professor of Law, Brooklyn Law School
Professor Mulligan teaches Internet law, intellectual property law, and trusts & estates. Her research addresses efforts to adapt intellectual property law for the digital age, the relationship between law and technology, and theories of constitutional interpretation. Recently, she has written about the Internet of Things, robot punishment, and early translations of the Constitution.
While at Brooklyn, Professor Mulligan researched as a visiting scholar at the Georgetown Center for the Constitution and taught as a visiting associate professor at Yale Law School. Previously, she taught at the University of Georgia and was a postdoctoral associate and lecturer in law at the Information Society Project at Yale Law School. Her scholarship has been published in a variety of journals and law reviews, including Georgia Law Review, SMU Law Review, and Constitutional Commentary.
Professor Mulligan earned her bachelor’s degree cum laude and her law degree cum laude from Harvard University, where she worked as a production and article editor for the Harvard Journal of Law & Technology. Before entering academia, she served as a law clerk for Judge Charles F. Lettow of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.
Professor of Law, University of Michigan Law School
Christopher J. Walker is a Professor of Law at the University of Michigan. Prior to joining Michigan law faculty in 2022, he spent a decade teaching at The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law. He previously clerked for Justice Anthony Kennedy of the U.S. Supreme Court, worked on the Civil Appellate Staff at the U.S. Department of Justice, and served on the Senate Judiciary Committee staff for the Gorsuch Supreme Court confirmation. Professor Walker’s research focuses on administrative law, regulation, and law and policy at the agency level. Outside the law school, he chaired the American Bar Association’s Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice in 2020-21 and served as one of forty Public Members of the Administrative Conference of the United States from 2016-2022, and he continues to serve in both organizations in various capacities. He also works of counsel at the U.S. Chamber Litigation Center. In 2022, he received the Federalist Society’s Joseph Story Award.
Professor of Law, Texas A&M University School of Law
Daniel E. Walters is an a Professor of Law at the Texas A&M University School of Law. Prior to joining the Texas A&M faculty, he was an Assistant Professor of Law at Penn State Law, and before that a Regulation Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania Carey School of Law. He earned a JD from the University of Michigan Law School and a PhD in political science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He clerked for the Honorable M. Margaret McKeown on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. He is also admitted to practice law (but inactive) in Illinois.
Professor Walters writes about administrative and regulatory law, with a particular focus on the implications of democratic theory for the administrative state, on public participation in administrative processes, on deference doctrines, on empirical studies of administrative behavior, and on the court-agency relationship. He also writes about climate change and energy law, with an emphasis on electric transmission lines, grid governance, the food-climate nexus, and climate legislation. His articles have appeared in many of the top journals in law and public administration, including the Yale Law Journal, the Stanford Law Review, the Michigan Law Review, the Cornell Law Review, the Georgetown Law Journal, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, the Southern California Law Review, the Emory Law Journal, the Iowa Law Review, the Harvard Environmental Law Review, the Administrative Law Review, Ecology Law Quarterly, and the Journal of Public Administration Research & Theory (JPART), among others. He is a co-editor, with Cary Coglianese, of a forthcoming book: Regulation in a Turbulent Era. He is a former winner of the Richard D. Cudahy Writing Competition on Administrative & Regulatory Law (student category) and the Beryl A. Radin Award for best article in JPART, and his work has been included in the Environmental Law Institute’s Environmental Law & Policy Review’s list of top environmental law review articles.
Professor Walters is an active volunteer in several professional organizations, including the ABA Section of Administrative Law & Regulatory Practice (the Section) and the Foundation for Natural Resources and Energy Law (FNREL). Since 2020, he has served as the Editor-in-Chief of Administrative & Regulatory Law News, the ABA Section’s quarterly magazine, and in 2023 he was recently elected to a three-year term on the Section’s Council of Advisors. He has served since 2022 on the Natural Resources Law Teacher’s Planning Committee within FNREL, and before that he was a Trustee with the organization from 2021-2022.
Professor of Law and J. Philip Johnson Faculty Fellow, University of North Dakota School of Law
Michael S. McGinniss is Professor of Law and J. Philip Johnson Faculty Fellow at the University of North Dakota School of Law, where he joined the faculty in 2010 and served as the Dean from 2019 to 2022. He chairs the executive committee for the Federalist Society's Practice Group on Professional Responsibility and Legal Education.
Before entering the legal academy, Professor McGinniss served for twelve years as a Disciplinary Counsel for the Supreme Court of Delaware. He currently teaches courses on Professional Responsibility, Advanced Legal Ethics, Civil Procedure, and Federal Courts. He also serves as Faculty Advisor for the North Dakota Law Review and the UND Law Federalist Society student chapter.
Professor McGinniss’ research and scholarship interests are wide-ranging and include lawyer and judicial ethics, lawyer discipline and regulation of the profession, constitutional law (especially First Amendment, separation of powers, and federalism), and cultural challenges faced by conservatives in the law schools and the legal profession. His most recent law review article, Declaring Independence to Secure Integrity: The Supreme Court Justices' Code of Conduct, was published in the Federalist Society Review. His article Expressing Conscience with Candor: Saint Thomas More and First Freedoms in the Legal Profession, was published in the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy.
Professor McGinniss has spoken to Federalist Society lawyer and student chapters across the country about judicial independence and ethics, especially relating to the federal courts and the United States Supreme Court Justices. In addition, he has spoken to several chapters about rising challenges to ideological diversity and targeting of conservative viewpoints in law schools and the legal profession. Although he is very pleased to speak on these and many other topics that may be of interest to lawyer and student chapters, in 2026-2027, he has particular interest in speaking on the topic “Lawyer Discipline as Political ‘Resistance’: Separation of Powers, Federalism, and the Rule of Law,” concerning his work-in-progress on the weaponization of professional disciplinary processes against conservative lawyers for political and ideological purposes.
Syndicated Columnist
New York political commentor Deroy Murdock is a Fox News Contributor, a Contributing Editor with National Review Online, an emeritus Media Fellow with the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace at Stanford University; and a Senior Fellow with the Atlas Network, which supports and connects some 500 free-market think tanks in the USA and some 95 countries world-wide. Mr. Murdock’s weekly column — “This Opinion Just In…” — appears in the New York Post, the Washington Times, the New Hampshire Union-Leader, and other newspapers across America. He has appeared on radio shows across America and presents commentaries on Fox News Radio’s podcast, The Rundown. He is a veteran of the 1980 and 1984 Reagan for President campaigns and Steve Forbes’ 2000 White House bid.
As a popular public speaker, he has lectured or debated at the Cato Institute, the Council on Foreign Relations; Harvard Medical School, the Heritage Foundation; the National Academy of Sciences; Dartmouth, Stanford, and Tulane universities; and various fora, from Bogotá to Buenos Aires to Budapest. He is a native of Los Angeles, a graduate of Georgetown University, and a resident of Manhattan, where he earned an MBA from New York University. His program included a semester of study at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Deroy Murdock hopes that someday the free society will bring him — and every American — more leisure time to experience fine dining, motion pictures, skiing, live music, and the priceless joys of family, friends, and loved ones.
Syndicated Columnist
New York political commentor Deroy Murdock is a Fox News Contributor, a Contributing Editor with National Review Online, an emeritus Media Fellow with the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace at Stanford University; and a Senior Fellow with the Atlas Network, which supports and connects some 500 free-market think tanks in the USA and some 95 countries world-wide. Mr. Murdock’s weekly column — “This Opinion Just In…” — appears in the New York Post, the Washington Times, the New Hampshire Union-Leader, and other newspapers across America. He has appeared on radio shows across America and presents commentaries on Fox News Radio’s podcast, The Rundown. He is a veteran of the 1980 and 1984 Reagan for President campaigns and Steve Forbes’ 2000 White House bid.
As a popular public speaker, he has lectured or debated at the Cato Institute, the Council on Foreign Relations; Harvard Medical School, the Heritage Foundation; the National Academy of Sciences; Dartmouth, Stanford, and Tulane universities; and various fora, from Bogotá to Buenos Aires to Budapest. He is a native of Los Angeles, a graduate of Georgetown University, and a resident of Manhattan, where he earned an MBA from New York University. His program included a semester of study at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Deroy Murdock hopes that someday the free society will bring him — and every American — more leisure time to experience fine dining, motion pictures, skiing, live music, and the priceless joys of family, friends, and loved ones.
Founder, Civic Renaissance; Adjunct Professor, Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy
ALEXANDRA O. HUDSON is a writer, popular speaker, and the founder of Civic Renaissance, a publication and intellectual community dedicated to beauty, goodness and truth. She was named the 2020 Novak Journalism Fellow, and contributes to Fox News, CBS News, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, TIME Magazine, POLITICO Magazine, and Newsweek. She earned a master's degree in public policy at the London School of Economics as a Rotary Scholar, and is an adjunct professor at the Indiana University Lilly School of Philanthropy. She is also the creator of a series for The Teaching Company called Storytelling and The Human Condition. Her first book, The Soul of Civility: Timeless Principles to Heal Society and Ourselves, is forthcoming from St. Martin’s press this October. She lives in Indianapolis, IN with her husband and children.
Syndicated Columnist
New York political commentor Deroy Murdock is a Fox News Contributor, a Contributing Editor with National Review Online, an emeritus Media Fellow with the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace at Stanford University; and a Senior Fellow with the Atlas Network, which supports and connects some 500 free-market think tanks in the USA and some 95 countries world-wide. Mr. Murdock’s weekly column — “This Opinion Just In…” — appears in the New York Post, the Washington Times, the New Hampshire Union-Leader, and other newspapers across America. He has appeared on radio shows across America and presents commentaries on Fox News Radio’s podcast, The Rundown. He is a veteran of the 1980 and 1984 Reagan for President campaigns and Steve Forbes’ 2000 White House bid.
As a popular public speaker, he has lectured or debated at the Cato Institute, the Council on Foreign Relations; Harvard Medical School, the Heritage Foundation; the National Academy of Sciences; Dartmouth, Stanford, and Tulane universities; and various fora, from Bogotá to Buenos Aires to Budapest. He is a native of Los Angeles, a graduate of Georgetown University, and a resident of Manhattan, where he earned an MBA from New York University. His program included a semester of study at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Deroy Murdock hopes that someday the free society will bring him — and every American — more leisure time to experience fine dining, motion pictures, skiing, live music, and the priceless joys of family, friends, and loved ones.
The First Amendment and White House Press Access
Michael Francisco, Casey Mattox, Robert Shibley
On September 18, President Trump announced that he was "banning" CNN, MS NOW, and Politico...
Shouted Down: When Protest Becomes Censorship
Tiffany H. Bates, Stuart Kyle Duncan, James Hamilton Percival, Ilya Shapiro
Colleges and universities have long been understood as marketplaces of ideas, carrying with them a...
Foreign Influence Operations and National Security
Margaret Harker, Park MacDougald, Vincent Vitkowsky
Foreign influence operations have become increasingly important in geopolitical competition and American national security. China...
Panel: Abundance and the Law
Bridget Dooling, Daniel Lyons, Christina M. Mulligan, Christopher J. Walker, Daniel E. Walters
Prof. Bridget Dooling, Assistant Professor of Law, Michael E. Moritz College of Law, Ohio State University...
Welcome Remarks by AALS President-Elect Danielle Conway
Event Video: Welcome Remarks by AALS President-Elect Danielle Conway
CANCELLED - President Donald J. Trump: His second term, so far
Louisville Lawyers Chapter
Louisville, KYPresident Donald J. Trump: His second term, so far
Central Kentucky Lawyers Chapter
Lexington, KYCivility Beyond Politeness (Rescheduled)
Orange County Federalist Society
Irvine, CADeroy Murdock: The Case for Color Neutrality
Orange County Lawyers Chapter
Irvine, CADeclaring Independence to Secure Integrity: The Supreme Court Justices' Code of Conduct
Michael S. McGinniss
[T]he judiciary is beyond comparison the weakest of the three departments of power; that it...