Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit
Patrick J. Bumatay was confirmed as a U.S. Circuit Judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in December 2019. He is based in San Diego, California.
Prior to his appointment, Judge Bumatay served as an Assistant United States Attorney in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of California, where he was a member of the Appellate and Narcotics Sections. He also served as a Counselor to the Attorney General on criminal law issues, including on national opioid strategy and combating transnational organized crime.
Judge Bumatay has also worked in the Office of the Deputy Attorney General, the Office of the Associate Attorney General, and the Office of Legal Policy at the U.S. Department of Justice. Judge Bumatay has twice received the Attorney General’s Distinguished Service Award.
Judge Bumatay previously worked as an associate at Morvillo, Abramowitz, Grand, Iason, and Bohrer in New York, New York. Judge Bumatay clerked for the Honorable Timothy M. Tymkovich of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit and the Honorable Sandra L. Townes of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York. Judge Bumatay earned his B.A., cum laude, from Yale University and his J.D. from Harvard Law School.
Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law and Director, Classical Liberal Institute, New York University School of Law; Senior Fellow, The Civitas Institute, University of Texas at Austin
Richard A. Epstein is the inaugural Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law at NYU School of Law. Prior to his joining the faculty, he was a visiting law professor at NYU from 2007 through 2009. He served as the Peter and Kirstin Bedford Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution from 2000 to 2024. Since 2024 to the present he is a senior lecturer at the Civitas Institute at the University of Texas—Austin. Epstein is also the James Parker Hall Distinguished Service Professor of Law Emeritus and a senior lecturer at the University of Chicago. His initial law school appointment was at the University of Southern California from 1968 to 1972. Epstein received an LL.D., h.c. from the University of Ghent, 2003. He has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 1985 and was a Senior Fellow of the Center for Clinical Medical Ethics at the University of Chicago Division of Biological Sciences, also from 1983. to 2022 He served as editor of the Journal of Legal Studies from 1981 to 1991, and of the Journal of Law and Economics from 1991-2001. From 2001 to 2010 he was a director of the John M. Olin Program in Law and Economics at the University of Chicago.
His newest book, The Myth of Birthright Citizenship: What the Fourteenth Amendment Really Says was published in 2026 (Encounter Books). Prior to that he has published many books including, The Dubious Morality of the Modern Administrative State (Roman & Littlefield 2020).Earlier he published th Classical Liberal Constitution: The Uncertain Quest for Limited Government (Harvard 2014) iHis previous books include Design for Liberty: Private Property, Public Administration and the Rule of Law (Harvard 2011); The Case Against the Employee Free Choice Act (Hoover 2009); Supreme Neglect: How to Revive the Constitutional Protection of Property Rights (Oxford 2008); Antitrust Decrees in Theory and Practice: Why Less is More (AEI 2007); Overdose: How Excessive Government Regulation Stifles Pharmaceutical Innovation (Yale University Press. 2006); How Progressives Rewrote the Constitution (Cato 2006); Cases and Materials on Torts (Aspen Law & Business; 8th ed. 2004); Skepticism and Freedom: A Modern Case for Classical Liberalism (University of Chicago, 2003); Torts (Aspen Law & Business 1999); Principles for a Free Society: Reconciling Individual Liberty with the Common Good (Perseus Books, 1998): Mortal Peril: Our Inalienable Rights to Health Care (Addison-Wesley, 1997); Simple Rules for a Complex World (Harvard, 1995); Bargaining With the State (Princeton, 1993); Forbidden Grounds: The Case Against Employment Discrimination Laws (Harvard , 1992); Takings: Private Property and the Power of Eminent Domain (Harvard, 1985); and Modern Products Liability Law (Greenwood Press, 1980). He has also edited(with Catherine M. Sharkey) Cases and Materials on the Law of Torts (10th edition 2012).
Professor Epstein has written numerous articles on a wide range of legal and interdisciplinary subjects. He has taught courses in administrative law, antitrust law, civil procedure, communications, constitutional law, contracts, corporations, criminal law, employment discrimination law, environmental law, food and drug law health law and policy, legal history, labor law, property, real estate development and finance, jurisprudence, labor law; land use planning, patents, individual, estate and corporate taxation, Roman Law; torts, and workers' compensation.
Professor Epstein also writes a regular column for Civitas Institute, which also sponsors his podcast, The Libertarian with Charles C.W. Cooke, and Law Talk, with Cooke and John Yoo. He also does a podcast with John Batchelor. And appears regularly on the Freedom File with Judge Andrew Napolitano.
Partner, Barr & Klein PLLC
Steve Klein, a partner at Barr & Klein PLLC, is an experienced free speech attorney who has successfully fought for the First Amendment rights of his clients against local, state and federal regulators. As a lobbyist, Steve’s advocacy has led to the successful amendment of state laws to respect political engagement and prevented the enactment of laws that burden it. Steve has published articles in several legal journals, and his commentary has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Times, The Detroit News, and other outlets. Steve earned a bachelors degree in politics at Hillsdale College and a law degree from Ave Maria School of Law, where he served as Managing Editor of the Ave Maria Law Review. He is licensed to practice law in the District of Columbia, Illinois and Michigan.
General Counsel, Targeted Victory
Katie has provided counsel to federal and statewide candidates, national political party organizations, and multi-million dollar political and tax-exempt organizations. She also served as counsel for former Federal Election Commission Chairs Caroline Hunter and Matthew Petersen. Katie received her bachelor of arts in political science from the University of Alabama and received her law degree from the University of Georgia. For anyone confused on where her loyalties lie, she’s a die-hard Alabama fan (Roll Tide!) and will likely talk your ear off about Alabama football if you ask her about it. In her free time, Katie enjoys hiking, reality TV (especially Bravo), and exploring D.C.’s food scene.
Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Professor of Law, Ave Maria School of Law
Antony “Tony” Kolenc joined the Ave Maria School of Law faculty in 2022 as the Director of the Veterans and Servicemembers Law Clinic (VSLC), which gives students the opportunity to help those who have served in the U.S. Armed Forces, representing them in litigation, administrative proceedings, and veterans treatment courts. Professor Kolenc taught in several law schools after serving over 21 years in the United States Air Force, retiring as a Lieutenant Colonel from the Judge Advocate General’s (JAG) Corps. During his career as a JAG, he litigated both civil and criminal cases before trial and appellate courts, including the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. He has also taught at the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs and Florida Coastal School of Law as a tenured professor.
Professor Kolenc received his Juris Doctor degree in 1999, graduating at the top of his class from the University of Florida Levin College of Law. While there, he served as a senior editor on the Florida Law Review and as a competitor and coach on the Justice Campbell Thornal Moot Court Board. He also earned his Master of Arts degree in Theology and Christian Ministry from the Franciscan University of Steubenville. His professional writings have focused on matters of constitutional law and military policy, especially focusing on Freedom of Religion. His articles have appeared in several academic legal journals and magazines. He also writes a regular legal column for homeschooling families in Practical Homeschooling Magazine and has penned an award-winning historical fiction trilogy for teens. He and his wife, Alisa, homeschooled their five children. You can learn more about him at www.antonykolenc.com.
Senior Counsel, First Liberty Institute
Christopher J. Motz serves as Senior Counsel with First Liberty Institute. His practice focuses on First Amendment free exercise and Establishment Clause rights of United States service members domestically and internationally, chaplains of varying denominations, veterans, and defense industry contractors. He has also represented Catholic bishops and priests against state officials.
Chris currently serves part-time as a judge advocate in the Air Force Reserve Component, holding the rank of lieutenant colonel. Prior to that, he served as a Marine infantry officer, leading Marines on several combat tours. He has been forward deployed alongside soldiers, sailors, Marines, airmen, and Coast Guardsmen. His advocacy for the religious rights of service members has been published in the Wall Street Journal.
Before joining First Liberty, Chris served as general counsel and chief of staff to a Catholic diocese, where he led the Catholic Church’s efforts to oppose a state constitutional ballot measure reinstating Roe v. Wade, achieving a record-setting 18-point victory, a nationwide first in the wake of the Dobbs decision. Earlier in his career, he led a state Catholic conference, where he steered the successful passage of a state religious freedom restoration act. A member of the Knights of Columbus, he is a past member of the National Diocesan Attorneys Association and the National Association of State Catholic Conference Directors.
He graduated cum laude from the University of St. Thomas School of Law, where he served as editor-in-chief of the Journal of Law and Public Policy, represented a Messianic Jewish prisoner before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit with the school’s Religious Liberty Appellate Clinic, and published articles on attorney ethics and legal issues around drone strikes.
Chief Defense Counsel, U.S. Marine Corps
Colonel Iain Pedden currently serves as Chief Defense Counsel of the Marine Corps. His career experience includes trial and appellate litigation, academic instruction, constitutional advocacy, and service-level policy development within the military justice system.
Colonel Pedden’s recent litigation background includes serving as Director of the Appellate Government Division for the Navy and Marine Corps, where he led the representation of the United States in all criminal appeals within the Department of the Navy. He previously served as Chief Victims' Legal Counsel of the Marine Corps, Senior Defense Counsel, and Trial Counsel. His foundational appellate experience includes service as a clerk drafting briefs for the Illinois Attorney General’s Criminal Appeals Division in cases before the Illinois Supreme Court, the Seventh Circuit, and the United States Supreme Court.
Apart from litigation assignments, Colonel Pedden served as Associate Professor of Criminal Law at the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General’s Legal Center and School, teaching evidence and constitutional law. He later served as Branch Head of Military Justice at Headquarters Marine Corps, advising senior leaders on federal legislation, implementing the Military Justice Act of 2016, and drafting policy on criminal justice data-sharing protocols with the FBI. His operational assignments include a combat deployment to Afghanistan and service as a Staff Judge Advocate (general counsel) to the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit. He went on to command Marines providing security at diplomatic facilities in Scandinavia, Western Europe and the Mediterranean.
Colonel Pedden holds an M.S. from the National War College, an LL.M. (International Law) from the U.S. Army JAG School, and a J.D. from Loyola University Chicago. He holds certifications as Victims’ Legal Counsel and military judge and is admitted to practice in Illinois and before the Navy-Marine Corps Court of Criminal Appeals and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces.
Colonel Pedden’s participation in programming, unless noted otherwise, is in his personal capacity. The views expressed are those of the speaker and do not necessarily represent the views of the Department of War, the Department of the Navy, the Marine Corps, or the U.S. Government.
Special Counsel, Office of the Secretary of Defense, U.S. Department of Defense
Justice, Texas First Court of Appeals
Susanna Dokupil was elected to the First Court of Appeals in November 2024. With over two decades of experience, Susanna’s career has spanned all three branches of government as well as private practice. She has been a Special Counsel and Assistant Solicitor General in the Office of the Attorney General of Texas as well as a Special Counsel to the United States Senate Judiciary Committee and a law clerk to the Hon. Jerry Smith on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
In her role as Special Counsel at the Texas Attorney General’s office, Susanna led teams of litigators focused on protecting Texas’s interests against agency regulations that exceeded the agency’s statutory and constitutional power. As an Assistant Solicitor General, she drafted briefs before the Fifth Circuit and United States Supreme Court, primarily focused on First Amendment issues. Susanna’s experience in private practice has combined traditional commercial litigation with advising technology companies and founders on strategic communications.
Susanna has been a prolific speaker and writer on law and public policy topics, including articles in The Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, The Texas Review of Law & Politics, American Enterprise, the Washington Times, and the Houston Chronicle, among others.
Susanna is a graduate of Harvard Law School and also holds degrees from The George Washington University and Baylor University. She lives in Houston and has four children.
Partner, Schaerr | Jaffe LLP
Erik Jaffe has been involved in appeals on a broad range of legal issues, including First Amendment challenges to campaign finance reform, Commerce Clause challenges to Health Care Reform and other federal legislation, Equal Protection Clause challenges to affirmative action in education, First Amendment challenges to school vouchers, Fifth Amendment challenges to takings of property, Second Amendment challenges to restrictions on gun ownership, and a wide variety of cases involving patents, copyrights, ERISA, securities fraud, federal preemption, environmental regulation, and other state and federal constitutional and statutory matters. He has represented businesses and non-profit groups, Judges, Senators, former government officials, Nobel Prize winners, and a broad cross-section of private individuals. Mr. Jaffe has been involved in over 120 Supreme Court matters, including filing over 30 cert. petitions, representing half-a-dozen parties on the merits, and filing over 70 amicus briefs at both the cert. and merits stages.
A 1990 graduate of the Columbia University School of Law, Mr. Jaffe was a law clerk to Judge Douglas H. Ginsburg of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit from 1990 to 1991. Following that clerkship he spent five years in litigation practice with the Washington, D.C. law firm of Williams & Connolly. In the summer of 1996 he left Williams & Connolly to clerk for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. At the end of that clerkship he started his own practice, and he was a sole practitioner from 1997 to 2018. He joined the firm of Schaerr | Jaffe LLP in 2018.
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).
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.
Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Professor of Law, Ave Maria School of Law
Antony “Tony” Kolenc joined the Ave Maria School of Law faculty in 2022 as the Director of the Veterans and Servicemembers Law Clinic (VSLC), which gives students the opportunity to help those who have served in the U.S. Armed Forces, representing them in litigation, administrative proceedings, and veterans treatment courts. Professor Kolenc taught in several law schools after serving over 21 years in the United States Air Force, retiring as a Lieutenant Colonel from the Judge Advocate General’s (JAG) Corps. During his career as a JAG, he litigated both civil and criminal cases before trial and appellate courts, including the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. He has also taught at the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs and Florida Coastal School of Law as a tenured professor.
Professor Kolenc received his Juris Doctor degree in 1999, graduating at the top of his class from the University of Florida Levin College of Law. While there, he served as a senior editor on the Florida Law Review and as a competitor and coach on the Justice Campbell Thornal Moot Court Board. He also earned his Master of Arts degree in Theology and Christian Ministry from the Franciscan University of Steubenville. His professional writings have focused on matters of constitutional law and military policy, especially focusing on Freedom of Religion. His articles have appeared in several academic legal journals and magazines. He also writes a regular legal column for homeschooling families in Practical Homeschooling Magazine and has penned an award-winning historical fiction trilogy for teens. He and his wife, Alisa, homeschooled their five children. You can learn more about him at www.antonykolenc.com.
Senior Counsel, First Liberty Institute
Christopher J. Motz serves as Senior Counsel with First Liberty Institute. His practice focuses on First Amendment free exercise and Establishment Clause rights of United States service members domestically and internationally, chaplains of varying denominations, veterans, and defense industry contractors. He has also represented Catholic bishops and priests against state officials.
Chris currently serves part-time as a judge advocate in the Air Force Reserve Component, holding the rank of lieutenant colonel. Prior to that, he served as a Marine infantry officer, leading Marines on several combat tours. He has been forward deployed alongside soldiers, sailors, Marines, airmen, and Coast Guardsmen. His advocacy for the religious rights of service members has been published in the Wall Street Journal.
Before joining First Liberty, Chris served as general counsel and chief of staff to a Catholic diocese, where he led the Catholic Church’s efforts to oppose a state constitutional ballot measure reinstating Roe v. Wade, achieving a record-setting 18-point victory, a nationwide first in the wake of the Dobbs decision. Earlier in his career, he led a state Catholic conference, where he steered the successful passage of a state religious freedom restoration act. A member of the Knights of Columbus, he is a past member of the National Diocesan Attorneys Association and the National Association of State Catholic Conference Directors.
He graduated cum laude from the University of St. Thomas School of Law, where he served as editor-in-chief of the Journal of Law and Public Policy, represented a Messianic Jewish prisoner before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit with the school’s Religious Liberty Appellate Clinic, and published articles on attorney ethics and legal issues around drone strikes.
Chief Defense Counsel, U.S. Marine Corps
Colonel Iain Pedden currently serves as Chief Defense Counsel of the Marine Corps. His career experience includes trial and appellate litigation, academic instruction, constitutional advocacy, and service-level policy development within the military justice system.
Colonel Pedden’s recent litigation background includes serving as Director of the Appellate Government Division for the Navy and Marine Corps, where he led the representation of the United States in all criminal appeals within the Department of the Navy. He previously served as Chief Victims' Legal Counsel of the Marine Corps, Senior Defense Counsel, and Trial Counsel. His foundational appellate experience includes service as a clerk drafting briefs for the Illinois Attorney General’s Criminal Appeals Division in cases before the Illinois Supreme Court, the Seventh Circuit, and the United States Supreme Court.
Apart from litigation assignments, Colonel Pedden served as Associate Professor of Criminal Law at the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General’s Legal Center and School, teaching evidence and constitutional law. He later served as Branch Head of Military Justice at Headquarters Marine Corps, advising senior leaders on federal legislation, implementing the Military Justice Act of 2016, and drafting policy on criminal justice data-sharing protocols with the FBI. His operational assignments include a combat deployment to Afghanistan and service as a Staff Judge Advocate (general counsel) to the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit. He went on to command Marines providing security at diplomatic facilities in Scandinavia, Western Europe and the Mediterranean.
Colonel Pedden holds an M.S. from the National War College, an LL.M. (International Law) from the U.S. Army JAG School, and a J.D. from Loyola University Chicago. He holds certifications as Victims’ Legal Counsel and military judge and is admitted to practice in Illinois and before the Navy-Marine Corps Court of Criminal Appeals and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces.
Colonel Pedden’s participation in programming, unless noted otherwise, is in his personal capacity. The views expressed are those of the speaker and do not necessarily represent the views of the Department of War, the Department of the Navy, the Marine Corps, or the U.S. Government.
Special Counsel, Office of the Secretary of Defense, U.S. Department of Defense
Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Professor of Law, Ave Maria School of Law
Antony “Tony” Kolenc joined the Ave Maria School of Law faculty in 2022 as the Director of the Veterans and Servicemembers Law Clinic (VSLC), which gives students the opportunity to help those who have served in the U.S. Armed Forces, representing them in litigation, administrative proceedings, and veterans treatment courts. Professor Kolenc taught in several law schools after serving over 21 years in the United States Air Force, retiring as a Lieutenant Colonel from the Judge Advocate General’s (JAG) Corps. During his career as a JAG, he litigated both civil and criminal cases before trial and appellate courts, including the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. He has also taught at the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs and Florida Coastal School of Law as a tenured professor.
Professor Kolenc received his Juris Doctor degree in 1999, graduating at the top of his class from the University of Florida Levin College of Law. While there, he served as a senior editor on the Florida Law Review and as a competitor and coach on the Justice Campbell Thornal Moot Court Board. He also earned his Master of Arts degree in Theology and Christian Ministry from the Franciscan University of Steubenville. His professional writings have focused on matters of constitutional law and military policy, especially focusing on Freedom of Religion. His articles have appeared in several academic legal journals and magazines. He also writes a regular legal column for homeschooling families in Practical Homeschooling Magazine and has penned an award-winning historical fiction trilogy for teens. He and his wife, Alisa, homeschooled their five children. You can learn more about him at www.antonykolenc.com.
Senior Counsel, First Liberty Institute
Christopher J. Motz serves as Senior Counsel with First Liberty Institute. His practice focuses on First Amendment free exercise and Establishment Clause rights of United States service members domestically and internationally, chaplains of varying denominations, veterans, and defense industry contractors. He has also represented Catholic bishops and priests against state officials.
Chris currently serves part-time as a judge advocate in the Air Force Reserve Component, holding the rank of lieutenant colonel. Prior to that, he served as a Marine infantry officer, leading Marines on several combat tours. He has been forward deployed alongside soldiers, sailors, Marines, airmen, and Coast Guardsmen. His advocacy for the religious rights of service members has been published in the Wall Street Journal.
Before joining First Liberty, Chris served as general counsel and chief of staff to a Catholic diocese, where he led the Catholic Church’s efforts to oppose a state constitutional ballot measure reinstating Roe v. Wade, achieving a record-setting 18-point victory, a nationwide first in the wake of the Dobbs decision. Earlier in his career, he led a state Catholic conference, where he steered the successful passage of a state religious freedom restoration act. A member of the Knights of Columbus, he is a past member of the National Diocesan Attorneys Association and the National Association of State Catholic Conference Directors.
He graduated cum laude from the University of St. Thomas School of Law, where he served as editor-in-chief of the Journal of Law and Public Policy, represented a Messianic Jewish prisoner before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit with the school’s Religious Liberty Appellate Clinic, and published articles on attorney ethics and legal issues around drone strikes.
Chief Defense Counsel, U.S. Marine Corps
Colonel Iain Pedden currently serves as Chief Defense Counsel of the Marine Corps. His career experience includes trial and appellate litigation, academic instruction, constitutional advocacy, and service-level policy development within the military justice system.
Colonel Pedden’s recent litigation background includes serving as Director of the Appellate Government Division for the Navy and Marine Corps, where he led the representation of the United States in all criminal appeals within the Department of the Navy. He previously served as Chief Victims' Legal Counsel of the Marine Corps, Senior Defense Counsel, and Trial Counsel. His foundational appellate experience includes service as a clerk drafting briefs for the Illinois Attorney General’s Criminal Appeals Division in cases before the Illinois Supreme Court, the Seventh Circuit, and the United States Supreme Court.
Apart from litigation assignments, Colonel Pedden served as Associate Professor of Criminal Law at the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General’s Legal Center and School, teaching evidence and constitutional law. He later served as Branch Head of Military Justice at Headquarters Marine Corps, advising senior leaders on federal legislation, implementing the Military Justice Act of 2016, and drafting policy on criminal justice data-sharing protocols with the FBI. His operational assignments include a combat deployment to Afghanistan and service as a Staff Judge Advocate (general counsel) to the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit. He went on to command Marines providing security at diplomatic facilities in Scandinavia, Western Europe and the Mediterranean.
Colonel Pedden holds an M.S. from the National War College, an LL.M. (International Law) from the U.S. Army JAG School, and a J.D. from Loyola University Chicago. He holds certifications as Victims’ Legal Counsel and military judge and is admitted to practice in Illinois and before the Navy-Marine Corps Court of Criminal Appeals and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces.
Colonel Pedden’s participation in programming, unless noted otherwise, is in his personal capacity. The views expressed are those of the speaker and do not necessarily represent the views of the Department of War, the Department of the Navy, the Marine Corps, or the U.S. Government.
Special Counsel, Office of the Secretary of Defense, U.S. Department of Defense
Senior Vice President, Strategic Initiatives & Special Counsel to the President, Alliance Defending Freedom
Ryan Bangert serves as senior vice president for strategic initiatives and special counsel to the president at Alliance Defending Freedom. He oversees ADF’s Blackstone Legal Fellowship and Research & Innovation Team. He also advises executive leadership on strategic initiatives.
Before joining ADF, Bangert served as deputy first assistant attorney general and deputy for legal counsel in the office of the Texas attorney general, and as deputy for civil litigation for Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley. Prior to his government service, Bangert was a litigation partner at Baker Botts L.L.P., where he was a member of the firm’s commercial litigation and appellate practice sections.
Bangert has been published at First Things, Civitas Outlook, Law & Liberty, National Review, Daily Wire, The Hill, Washington Examiner, The Federalist, Fox News, and the American Reformer. He speaks nationally on constitutional, cultural, and religious liberty issues. He also serves as Visiting Faculty in Law at the University of Austin.
He earned his J.D. from Southern Methodist University, where he was a Hatton Sumners scholar and graduated first in his class. Following law school, he clerked for the Honorable Patrick E. Higginbotham on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Partner, Schaerr | Jaffe LLP
Erik Jaffe has been involved in appeals on a broad range of legal issues, including First Amendment challenges to campaign finance reform, Commerce Clause challenges to Health Care Reform and other federal legislation, Equal Protection Clause challenges to affirmative action in education, First Amendment challenges to school vouchers, Fifth Amendment challenges to takings of property, Second Amendment challenges to restrictions on gun ownership, and a wide variety of cases involving patents, copyrights, ERISA, securities fraud, federal preemption, environmental regulation, and other state and federal constitutional and statutory matters. He has represented businesses and non-profit groups, Judges, Senators, former government officials, Nobel Prize winners, and a broad cross-section of private individuals. Mr. Jaffe has been involved in over 120 Supreme Court matters, including filing over 30 cert. petitions, representing half-a-dozen parties on the merits, and filing over 70 amicus briefs at both the cert. and merits stages.
A 1990 graduate of the Columbia University School of Law, Mr. Jaffe was a law clerk to Judge Douglas H. Ginsburg of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit from 1990 to 1991. Following that clerkship he spent five years in litigation practice with the Washington, D.C. law firm of Williams & Connolly. In the summer of 1996 he left Williams & Connolly to clerk for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. At the end of that clerkship he started his own practice, and he was a sole practitioner from 1997 to 2018. He joined the firm of Schaerr | Jaffe LLP in 2018.
Partner, Schaerr Jaffe LLP
Gene Schaerr specializes in handling—and usually winning—civil appeals, writ proceedings and similar matters, both in appellate courts and in the law-focused proceedings at the trial-court or agency level that often determine success or failure on appeal. He has argued and won dozens of cases in a variety of forums—including the U.S. Supreme Court (where he has argued six cases), every federal circuit, and numerous federal district courts and state appellate courts. His win rate in the dozens of federal appeals he has argued in the past six years is over 75 percent.
He was a coordinator of Sidley Austin's appellate practice from 1993 until 2005, and from 2005 until 2014 was the chair of the nationwide appellate practice at Winston & Strawn—a practice he led to numerous recognitions in such publications as the Appellate Hot List. His personal practice successes have won him repeated recognition in such publications as Best Lawyers in Washington, D.C., Legal 500, D.C. Superlawyers, and Best Lawyers in America. In January 2014, Mr. Schaerr formed his own boutique litigation firm so that he could serve his clients without the conflicts and inefficiencies inherent in big-firm law practice.
Substantively, Mr. Schaerr's experience includes not only virtually every area of federal law, defamation, higher education law, immigration, insurance coverage, labor and employment, patent and trademark, privacy, product liability and warranty, statutory interpretation and tax.He has represented clients in virtually every sector, including automotive, communications, energy, financial services, health care, higher education, insurance, maritime, pharmaceuticals, technology and state and local government. He also teaches courses in Supreme Court litigation, religious freedom litigation and advanced litigation skills as an adjunct professor of law at the Brigham Young University law school.
Mr. Schaerr began law practice in 1987 following clerkships on the U.S. Supreme Court (for Chief Justice Warren Burger and Justice Antonin Scalia) and on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (for then- Judge Kenneth Starr). He graduated in 1985 from the Yale Law School, where he was Editor-in-Chief of the Yale Journal on Regulation and Senior Editor of the Yale Law Journal. From 1991 to 1993, he served in the White House as Associate Counsel to the President, where he had responsibility for a wide range of constitutional and administrative-law issues, including those involving economic regulation, higher education, separation of powers, federalism and religious freedom. He serves as Chairman of the Constitutional Sources Project, a digital resource providing free public access to historical materials relevant to the U.S. Constitution.
General Counsel, Center for Individual Rights
Darpana Sheth joined CIR as General Counsel in May 2025. She is a nationally recognized constitutional litigator with over two decades of experience serving in in leadership roles at other nonprofit organizations.
Before joining CIR, Darpana served for four years as Vice President of Litigation for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. Prior to that, Darpana was a Senior Attorney with the Institute for Justice, where she also served as Director of the Institute’s National Initiative to End Forfeiture Abuse.
Before finding her calling as a public-interest attorney, Darpana served as an Assistant Attorney General for the State of New York and worked in private practice as a litigation associate at the Manhattan law firm of Chadbourne & Parke, LLP. She also served as law clerk to the Honorable Jerome A. Holmes of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.
A native of Philadelphia, Darpana graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and History. She earned her law degree from Georgetown University Law Center.
Senior Attorney, Institute for Free Speech
Owen Yeates is a Senior Attorney on the litigation team and plays an important role in their regulatory, legislative, and policy work. Owen joined the Institute in 2015 as a Staff Attorney and was promoted in 2021 to Senior Attorney and Deputy Vice President for Litigation, after serving as Acting Legal Director following the departure of Allen Dickerson to the Federal Election Commission. From May 2022 to May 2025, Owen served as a Deputy District Attorney for Multnomah County, Oregon. He re-joined the Institute for Free Speech as a Senior Attorney in May 2025.
He received his J.D. from Stanford Law School after completing a Ph.D. in Political Science at Duke University and a B.S., summa cum laude, in Physics from Brigham Young University. Owen clerked for the Honorable Scott Matheson, Jr., of the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit (2012-2013), the Honorable J. Jerome Farris of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (2011-2012), and the Honorable James L. Robart of the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington (Summer 2012). After clerking, he was a litigation associate in intellectual property law at Klarquist Sparkman, LLP, in Portland, Oregon, where he was involved with the Legal Aid Society of Oregon’s domestic violence program. Before law school, he taught Ancient Political Theory, American Politics, Theories of Human Freedom, and Religion and American Politics at Brigham Young University and Wake Forest University. During law school, Owen interned with the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the U.S. Department of Defense, and he worked with the school’s Three Strikes Clinic and Domestic Violence pro bono program.
Owen is licensed to practice law in the District of Columbia, Oregon, Utah (inactive), and Washington state (inactive). He is admitted to practice before the United States Supreme Court; the United States Courts of Appeals for the Third, Sixth, Eighth, Ninth, Tenth, Eleventh, and D.C. Circuits; and the United States District Courts for the Districts of Colorado, Columbia, Oregon, and Utah, as well as the Eastern District of Texas and the Western District of Tennessee.
Research Scholar in Law and Executive Director, Center for Academic Freedom and Free Speech, Yale Law School
Joe Cohn is a research scholar in law at Yale Law school and the executive director of the Center for Academic Freedom and Free Speech (CAFFS).
Cohn has served as a staff attorney at the AIDS Law Project of Pennsylvania, a staff attorney for the Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit, an adjunct professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where he supervised law students representing clients in litigation in state and federal courts, and as the interim legal director for ACLU affiliates in Nevada and Utah.
A majority of Cohn’s career has been dedicated to defending civil liberties on college campuses and free expression in society at large. As the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression’s (FIRE’s) founding legislative and policy director, from 2012 to 2023, he testified on numerous occasions in legislatures across America and in Congress, drafted legislation on campus free speech, campus due process, and academic freedom that has been enacted in states across the country. Immediately before joining CAFFS, Cohn advocated for open inquiry, viewpoint diversity, and constructive disagreement in higher education as Heterodox Academy’s director of policy.
Cohn writes extensively on civil liberties, with articles published in a wide array of media outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, Newsweek, the Hill, the New York Daily News, the Chicago Tribune, the Las Vegas Review Journal, the Minnesota Star Tribune, the Chronicle of Higher Education, Inside Higher Ed, and the Volokh Conspiracy.
He earned his bachelor of arts from the University of Nevada at Las Vegas in 2000. He is a 2004 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Carey School of Law and the Fels Institute of Government Administration, where he earned his J.D. and M.A. in Government Administration.
Senior Counsel, Director of Center for Academic Freedom, Alliance Defending Freedom
Tyson Langhofer serves as senior counsel and director of the Center for Academic Freedom with Alliance Defending Freedom.
Langhofer represents students and faculty at public high schools and colleges in defending their First Amendment rights. For example, in Denton v. Hecht, he successfully defended a Florida State University student after he was removed as Student Senate President simply for sharing his Catholic views in a private group chat. In Cross v. Loudoun County Public Schools, he successfully defended an elementary school gym teacher after the school suspended him for peacefully sharing his views on a proposed policy at a public school board meeting.
Langhofer has extensive experience in civil litigation and constitutional law. Before joining ADF, Langhofer was a partner with Stinson LLP, where he worked as a commercial litigation attorney from 2000 until he joined ADF in 2015.
Langhofer is Peer Review Rated AV® Preeminent in Martindale-Hubbell. He is a sought-after speaker on legal and cultural issues. He regularly comments on free speech issues in television, radio, and print media. He has appeared as a guest and written pieces for numerous major media outlets, including The Washington Post, The Washington Times, USA Today, Townhall, The Federalist, and The Daily Wire.
Langhofer earned his Juris Doctor from Regent University School of Law in 1999, graduating cum laude. Langhofer is admitted to practice in multiple states, the Supreme Court, and numerous federal district and appellate courts.
Director, Independent Women's Law Center; Owner, MPL Strategies
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.
Justice, Texas First Court of Appeals
Susanna Dokupil was elected to the First Court of Appeals in November 2024. With over two decades of experience, Susanna’s career has spanned all three branches of government as well as private practice. She has been a Special Counsel and Assistant Solicitor General in the Office of the Attorney General of Texas as well as a Special Counsel to the United States Senate Judiciary Committee and a law clerk to the Hon. Jerry Smith on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
In her role as Special Counsel at the Texas Attorney General’s office, Susanna led teams of litigators focused on protecting Texas’s interests against agency regulations that exceeded the agency’s statutory and constitutional power. As an Assistant Solicitor General, she drafted briefs before the Fifth Circuit and United States Supreme Court, primarily focused on First Amendment issues. Susanna’s experience in private practice has combined traditional commercial litigation with advising technology companies and founders on strategic communications.
Susanna has been a prolific speaker and writer on law and public policy topics, including articles in The Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, The Texas Review of Law & Politics, American Enterprise, the Washington Times, and the Houston Chronicle, among others.
Susanna is a graduate of Harvard Law School and also holds degrees from The George Washington University and Baylor University. She lives in Houston and has four children.
Partner, Schaerr | Jaffe LLP
Erik Jaffe has been involved in appeals on a broad range of legal issues, including First Amendment challenges to campaign finance reform, Commerce Clause challenges to Health Care Reform and other federal legislation, Equal Protection Clause challenges to affirmative action in education, First Amendment challenges to school vouchers, Fifth Amendment challenges to takings of property, Second Amendment challenges to restrictions on gun ownership, and a wide variety of cases involving patents, copyrights, ERISA, securities fraud, federal preemption, environmental regulation, and other state and federal constitutional and statutory matters. He has represented businesses and non-profit groups, Judges, Senators, former government officials, Nobel Prize winners, and a broad cross-section of private individuals. Mr. Jaffe has been involved in over 120 Supreme Court matters, including filing over 30 cert. petitions, representing half-a-dozen parties on the merits, and filing over 70 amicus briefs at both the cert. and merits stages.
A 1990 graduate of the Columbia University School of Law, Mr. Jaffe was a law clerk to Judge Douglas H. Ginsburg of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit from 1990 to 1991. Following that clerkship he spent five years in litigation practice with the Washington, D.C. law firm of Williams & Connolly. In the summer of 1996 he left Williams & Connolly to clerk for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. At the end of that clerkship he started his own practice, and he was a sole practitioner from 1997 to 2018. He joined the firm of Schaerr | Jaffe LLP in 2018.
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).
Boochever and Bird Distinguished Professor of Law, UC Davis School of Law
Ash Bhagwat joined the UC Davis School of Law faculty in 2011. Prior to joining UC Davis, he taught at UC Hastings College of the Law for seventeen years. Bhagwat is the author of The Myth of Rights, published by the Oxford University Press in 2010, as well as numerous books, articles, and book chapters on a wide variety of subjects, ranging from the structure of constitutional rights, to free speech law, to the California Electricity Crisis. Journals his articles have appeared in include the Yale Law Journal, the Supreme Court Review, the California Law Review, the Administrative Law Review, and the University of Illinois Law Review.
Bhagwat is a summa cum laude graduate of Yale University, where he received a B.A. with Honors in History. He is also a graduate of The University of Chicago Law School, where he served as Articles Editor of the University of Chicago Law Review. He then completed clerkships with Judge Richard A. Posner of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, and Associate Justice Anthony M. Kennedy of the United States Supreme Court. Prior to joining the Hastings faculty, Bhagwat practiced appellate and regulatory law for two years in the Washington, D.C. offices of the Sidley & Austin law firm.
In May of 2011, Governor Jerry Brown appointed Bhagwat to serve on the Board of Governors of the California Independent System Operator, a public benefit corporation responsible for running the high-voltage electricity grid in California. In 2003, he was awarded the Rutter Award for Teaching Excellence at UC Hastings. Bhagwat is a member of the American Law Institute.
Managing Attorney of the Washington Office, Institute for Justice
William R. Maurer is the Managing Attorney of the Washington state office of the Institute for Justice, which engages in litigation in the areas of economic liberty, private property rights, educational choice, & freedom of speech.
Maurer is an advocate against the criminalization of poverty and the governmental use of the criminal and civil enforcement systems to raise revenue. He was lead counsel in a class action challenging the use of tickets to raise revenue in the city of Pagedale, Missouri. The suit resulted in a federal consent decree that reformed the city’s ticketing and municipal court system. He regularly speaks, teaches, and writes about the abuse of fines and fees in the criminal justice system. He was a participant in summits on taxation by citation put on by the White House and Department of Justice during the Obama Administration. His work on the issue includes serving as an advisory board member of the Fines and Fees Justice Center.
In addition to his work on criminal and civil justice reform, Maurer is a First Amendment litigator. In 2011, he successfully argued before the U.S. Supreme Court that Arizona’s punitive campaign financing regime was unconstitutional. Before the Washington Supreme Court, he successfully argued against efforts to classify radio commentary as a contribution under the state’s campaign finance law.
His cases and advocacy have been covered in the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Economist, the Wall Street Journal, and other major media outlets.
Maurer was named a “Washington Superlawyer” by Washington Law & Politics Magazine for several years. He is a chapter author in numerous legal reference works and has written several articles for law reviews and legal publications across the country.
Prior to joining IJ-WA, Maurer clerked for Washington Supreme Court Justice Richard Sanders and then practiced law at Perkins Coie LLP. Maurer received his law degree in 1994 from the University of Wisconsin – Madison, where he was an editor of the Wisconsin Law Review. He received his BA from Bard College in 1989.
Senior Legal Fellow, Edwin Meese III Institute for the Rule of Law, Advancing American Freedom
From Pamphlets to PACs: Campaign Finance and the Founding-Era Tradition of Political Speech
The Founders Gave Us the Tools Series
Service Members & the First Amendment
Antony Kolenc, Christopher J. Motz, Iain Pedden, Thomas N. Wheatley
Recent litigation has resurfaced longstanding debates over the scope of First Amendment protections for members...
Service Members & the First Amendment
Antony Kolenc, Christopher J. Motz, Iain Pedden, Thomas N. Wheatley
Recent litigation has resurfaced longstanding debates over the scope of First Amendment protections for members...
Corporate Speech in the Crosshairs: New Frontiers in First Amendment Law
Ryan L. Bangert, Erik S. Jaffe, Gene C. Schaerr, Darpana Sheth Nunziata, Owen Yeates
For decades, the First Amendment has protected the rights of individuals, associations, and businesses to...
Service Members & the First Amendment
Academic Freedom and the First Amendment: Who Decides What Is Taught?
Joe Cohn, Tyson Langhofer, May Mailman, Casey Mattox
In 2022, Florida enacted the Stop WOKE (Wrongs to Our Kids and Employees) Act,...
Government Speech and the First Amendment: Does the Government’s Own Expression Have Limits?
Susanna Dokupil, Erik S. Jaffe, Eugene Volokh
The government-speech doctrine generally permits the government to select and promote its own messages without...
Government Speech and the First Amendment: Does the Government’s Own Expression Have Limits?
Shouted Down: When Protest Becomes Censorship
Anonymity, Masking, and Civil Rights
Ashutosh Bhagwat, William R. Maurer, Hans A. Von Spakovsky
Since September 2025, California, Washington, and Oregon have barred federal agents from wearing masks. Other states...