Senior Counsel and Director of Strategic Engagement, Alliance Defending Freedom
Jordan Lorence serves as senior counsel and director of strategic engagement with Alliance Defending Freedom, where he plays a key role with the Strategic Relations & Training Team. His work has encompassed a broad range of litigation, with a primary focus on religious liberty, free speech, student privacy, conscience rights of creative professionals, and the First Amendment freedoms of public university students and professors.
Lorence argued before the U.S. Supreme Court in the precedent-setting Southworth v. Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System case in 1999, challenging the university’s requirement that forced unwilling students to contribute to campus activist groups. He led the challenge to New York City’s ban on private worship services after hours in vacant public school buildings in the long-running Bronx Household of Faith v. Board of Education of the City of New York case. Lorence also defended the right of conscience in Elane Photography v. Willock at the New Mexico Supreme Court.
Lorence has made media appearances on television and radio shows including Fox News, NBC’s Today Show, and National Public Radio’s All Things Considered. His commentary has also appeared in The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The New York Daily News, The New York Post, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Washington Times, The Hill, and National Review.
Before officially joining the organization in 2001, Lorence was a productive allied attorney for many years, actively involved in significant litigation for ADF. He has also worked for the Home School Legal Defense Association, Concerned Women for America, and the American Center for Law and Justice. Lorence earned a J.D. from the University of Minnesota Law School and received a B.A. in journalism from Stanford University. He is admitted to the bar in Minnesota, Virginia, the District of Columbia, the U.S. Supreme Court, and multiple federal appellate and district courts.
Professor of Law, St. Mary's University Law School
Adam MacLeod is a Professor at St. Mary's University School of Law. He has been a visiting fellow in the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University, a fellow of the Center for Religion, Culture and Democracy, and a Senior Scholar and Thomas Edison Fellow in the Center for Intellectual Property x Innovation Policy at George Mason University. He is co-editor of Christie & Martin's Jurisprudence (4th ed. West 2020) and author of Property and Practical Reason (Cambridge University Press 2015). He has written two other books, dozens of scholarly articles, and more than one hundred essays and book reviews.
Professor MacLeod received his B.A., summa cum laude, from Gordon College and his J.D., magna cum laude, from the University of Notre Dame Law School. After law school, he served as law clerk to Chief Justice Christopher Armstrong and Justice Benjamin Kaplan of the Massachusetts Appeals Court and to Chief Judge Lewis Babcock of the United States District Court for the District of Colorado. He practiced law in the Boston area and has held appointment as a special Deputy Attorney General of Alabama and a lecturer in the Alabama Judicial College. He also serves as an Operational Auxiliarist in the U.S. Coast Guard, advising and providing operational training to Auxiliary and active-duty personnel.
State Court Docket Watch: DeWeese-Boyd v. Gordon College
Jordan Lorence
Note from the Editor: Mr. Lorence's organization, Alliance Defending Freedom, was retained by Gordon College to...
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Religious Liberty and Nondiscrimination Norms: Is Peaceful Coexistence Possible? (Part 2)
In my first blog post discussing the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights’ new report on...
Lunch with Professor Adam MacLeod
Montgomery, Alabama