District Judge, State of Texas
Cory Liu is a state district judge in Austin, Texas. He previously served as assistant general counsel to Texas Governor Greg Abbott. Mr. Liu clerked for Judge Andrew Oldham on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and Judge Danny Boggs on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. He was Editor-in-Chief of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy and is a graduate of Harvard Law School and the University of Chicago.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Third Circuit
Judge Paul Matey was appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in 2019 by President Trump.
Before his judicial service, Judge Matey was a partner at Lowenstein Sandler in New Jersey where he practiced complex commercial litigation and criminal defense. Earlier, Judge Matey was the Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary for University Hospital Newark, an academic medical center and teaching hospital.
He also served as the Deputy Chief Counsel to Governor Chris Christie, and as an Assistant United States Attorney in the District of New Jersey, where he was awarded the Justice Department’s Director’s Award for Superior Performance. He also practiced at the Washington D.C. firm of Kellogg, Hansen, Todd, Figel & Frederick, and served as a law clerk to judges on the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit and the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey.
He earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Scranton, a Jesuit University, in 1993, and his juris doctorate, summa cum laude, from Seton Hall University School of Law in 2001, where he served as Editor-in-Chief of the Seton Hall Law Review.
In 2019, Judge Matey was elected to membership in the American Law Institute and, since 2020, has lectured on administrative law and the American legal history at Seton Hall.
Julius L. Chambers Distinguished Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Civil Rights, University of North Carolina School of Law
Theodore M. Shaw is the Julius L. Chambers Distinguished Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Civil Rights at the University of North Carolina School of Law at Chapel Hill. Professor Shaw teaches Civil Procedure and Advanced Constitutional Law/Fourteenth Amendment. Before joining the faculty of UNC Law School, from 2008-2014 Professor Shaw taught at Columbia University Law School, where he was Professor of Professional Practice. During that time he was also “Of Counsel” to the law firm of Norton Rose Fulbright (formerly Fulbright & Jaworski, LLP). His practice involved civil litigation and representation of institutional clients on matters concerning diversity and civil rights.
Professor Shaw was the fifth Director-Counsel and President of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., for which he worked in various capacities over the span of twenty-six years. He has litigated education, employment, voting rights, housing, police misconduct, capital punishment and other civil rights cases in trial and appellate courts, and in the United States Supreme Court.From 1982 until 1987, he litigated education, housing, and capital punishment cases and directed LDF's education litigation docket. In 1987, under the direction of LDF's third Director-Counsel, Julius Chambers, Mr. Shaw relocated to Los Angeles to establish LDF's Western Regional Office. In 1990, Mr. Shaw left LDF to join the faculty of the University of Michigan Law School, where he taught Constitutional Law, Civil Procedure and Civil Rights. While at Michigan, he played a key role in initiating a review of the law school's admissions practices and policies, and served on the faculty committee that promulgated the admissions program that was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2003 in Grutter v. Bollinger.
In 1993, Mr. Shaw returned to LDF as Associate Director-Counsel, and in 2004, he became LDF's fifth Director-Counsel. Mr. Shaw's legal career began as a Trial Attorney in the Honors Program of the United States Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division in Washington, D.C., where he worked from 1979 until 1982.
Mr. Shaw has testified on numerous occasions before Congress and before state and local legislatures. His human rights work has taken him to Africa, Asia, Europe, and South America. In addition to teaching at Columbia and at Michigan Law School, Professor Shaw held the 1997-1998 Haywood Burns Chair at CUNY School of Law at Queens College and the 2003 Phyllis Beck Chair at Temple Law School. He was a visiting scholar at the Constitution Center in Philadelphia in 2008-2009. He is a member of the faculty of the Practicing Law Institute (PLI).
Mr. Shaw served on the Obama Transition Team after the 2008 presidential election, as team leader for the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department.
Partner, Consovoy McCarthy Park PLLC
Mr. Strawbridge provides clients with advice and representation at the pre-litigation, trial, and appellate stages. He has represented a broad range of individual and institutional clients on matters of constitutional law, financial and securities regulation, environmental laws, complex commercial disputes, and consumer protection statutes. His experience includes arbitrations, trial and appellate litigation, and administrative and regulatory proceedings.
Mr. Strawbridge served as a law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, Judge Morris Sheppard Arnold of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, and Justice Howard Dana of the Supreme Judicial Court of Maine. Previously, Mr. Strawbridge was a partner at two large international law firms. He worked as a newspaper reporter for four years before attending law school. Mr. Strawbridge is an adjunct professor for the Supreme Court Clinic at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University.
Mr. Strawbridge earned a Bachelor of Journalism from the University of Missouri, and his J.D. summa cum laude from Creighton University School of Law. Mr. Strawbridge is a member of the Maine and Massachusetts bars.
District Judge, State of Texas
Cory Liu is a state district judge in Austin, Texas. He previously served as assistant general counsel to Texas Governor Greg Abbott. Mr. Liu clerked for Judge Andrew Oldham on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and Judge Danny Boggs on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. He was Editor-in-Chief of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy and is a graduate of Harvard Law School and the University of Chicago.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Third Circuit
Judge Paul Matey was appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in 2019 by President Trump.
Before his judicial service, Judge Matey was a partner at Lowenstein Sandler in New Jersey where he practiced complex commercial litigation and criminal defense. Earlier, Judge Matey was the Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary for University Hospital Newark, an academic medical center and teaching hospital.
He also served as the Deputy Chief Counsel to Governor Chris Christie, and as an Assistant United States Attorney in the District of New Jersey, where he was awarded the Justice Department’s Director’s Award for Superior Performance. He also practiced at the Washington D.C. firm of Kellogg, Hansen, Todd, Figel & Frederick, and served as a law clerk to judges on the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit and the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey.
He earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Scranton, a Jesuit University, in 1993, and his juris doctorate, summa cum laude, from Seton Hall University School of Law in 2001, where he served as Editor-in-Chief of the Seton Hall Law Review.
In 2019, Judge Matey was elected to membership in the American Law Institute and, since 2020, has lectured on administrative law and the American legal history at Seton Hall.
Julius L. Chambers Distinguished Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Civil Rights, University of North Carolina School of Law
Theodore M. Shaw is the Julius L. Chambers Distinguished Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Civil Rights at the University of North Carolina School of Law at Chapel Hill. Professor Shaw teaches Civil Procedure and Advanced Constitutional Law/Fourteenth Amendment. Before joining the faculty of UNC Law School, from 2008-2014 Professor Shaw taught at Columbia University Law School, where he was Professor of Professional Practice. During that time he was also “Of Counsel” to the law firm of Norton Rose Fulbright (formerly Fulbright & Jaworski, LLP). His practice involved civil litigation and representation of institutional clients on matters concerning diversity and civil rights.
Professor Shaw was the fifth Director-Counsel and President of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., for which he worked in various capacities over the span of twenty-six years. He has litigated education, employment, voting rights, housing, police misconduct, capital punishment and other civil rights cases in trial and appellate courts, and in the United States Supreme Court.From 1982 until 1987, he litigated education, housing, and capital punishment cases and directed LDF's education litigation docket. In 1987, under the direction of LDF's third Director-Counsel, Julius Chambers, Mr. Shaw relocated to Los Angeles to establish LDF's Western Regional Office. In 1990, Mr. Shaw left LDF to join the faculty of the University of Michigan Law School, where he taught Constitutional Law, Civil Procedure and Civil Rights. While at Michigan, he played a key role in initiating a review of the law school's admissions practices and policies, and served on the faculty committee that promulgated the admissions program that was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2003 in Grutter v. Bollinger.
In 1993, Mr. Shaw returned to LDF as Associate Director-Counsel, and in 2004, he became LDF's fifth Director-Counsel. Mr. Shaw's legal career began as a Trial Attorney in the Honors Program of the United States Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division in Washington, D.C., where he worked from 1979 until 1982.
Mr. Shaw has testified on numerous occasions before Congress and before state and local legislatures. His human rights work has taken him to Africa, Asia, Europe, and South America. In addition to teaching at Columbia and at Michigan Law School, Professor Shaw held the 1997-1998 Haywood Burns Chair at CUNY School of Law at Queens College and the 2003 Phyllis Beck Chair at Temple Law School. He was a visiting scholar at the Constitution Center in Philadelphia in 2008-2009. He is a member of the faculty of the Practicing Law Institute (PLI).
Mr. Shaw served on the Obama Transition Team after the 2008 presidential election, as team leader for the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department.
Partner, Consovoy McCarthy Park PLLC
Mr. Strawbridge provides clients with advice and representation at the pre-litigation, trial, and appellate stages. He has represented a broad range of individual and institutional clients on matters of constitutional law, financial and securities regulation, environmental laws, complex commercial disputes, and consumer protection statutes. His experience includes arbitrations, trial and appellate litigation, and administrative and regulatory proceedings.
Mr. Strawbridge served as a law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, Judge Morris Sheppard Arnold of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, and Justice Howard Dana of the Supreme Judicial Court of Maine. Previously, Mr. Strawbridge was a partner at two large international law firms. He worked as a newspaper reporter for four years before attending law school. Mr. Strawbridge is an adjunct professor for the Supreme Court Clinic at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University.
Mr. Strawbridge earned a Bachelor of Journalism from the University of Missouri, and his J.D. summa cum laude from Creighton University School of Law. Mr. Strawbridge is a member of the Maine and Massachusetts bars.
Professor of Law, University of Minnesota Law School
Professor James W. Coleman is a scholar of energy law. He specializes in North American energy infrastructure, transport, and trade. He is also a nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute focused on energy policy.
Professor Coleman has testified before Congress on steps to speed up energy infrastructure permits. He also worked with a team of experts as part of Alberta's Royalty Review to revise the Canadian province's management of its vast oil and gas resources.
Before joining Minnesota, Professor Coleman taught at Southern Methodist University's Dedman School of Law, the University of Calgary’s law and business schools, and Harvard Law School. Earlier, he practiced environmental and appellate law at Sidley Austin in Washington, D.C., and clerked for the Honorable Steven M. Colloton of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.
Professor Coleman received two degrees from Harvard University—a J.D. (cum laude) and B.A. in biology (magna cum laude with highest honors in the field). As a result of his undergraduate thesis on butterfly genetics, which required fieldwork in Central Asia, a species of lycaenid butterfly was named after him—Agrodiaetus ripartii colemani.
Executive Director & Secretary, American Civil Rights Project
Dan Morenoff is the executive director at the American Civil Rights Project and an adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
His work focuses on protecting and, where necessary, restoring the primacy of all Americans' shared civil rights against the identitarian alternative.
Before practicing law, Morenoff served on the legislative staff of Sen. Phil Gramm (R-TX). Morenoff holds a B.A. from Columbia College of Columbia University in the City of New York and a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School. He has also served as an officer or director of several community organizations in Dallas, Texas.
Partner, Quinn Emanuel
John F. Bash is an American attorney who served as the United States Attorney for the Western District of Texas from 2017 to 2020. After graduating from Harvard Law School, Mr. Bash clerked for Judge Kavanaugh during his first year on the bench and went on to clerk for Justice Antonin Scalia. He then served as an Assistant to the Solicitor General in the U.S. Department of Justice, where he argued ten cases in the United States Supreme Court. He also served briefly as Special Assistant to the President and Associate Counsel to the President before his appointment as United States Attorney.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit
James C. Ho is a Circuit Judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Before taking the bench on January 4, 2018, he was a partner and co-chair of the national Appellate and Constitutional Law practice group of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP.
As an appellate litigator for over a decade, including three years as the Solicitor General of Texas, Judge Ho presented 50 oral arguments in federal and state courts nationwide. He won numerous appeals, including three merits cases at the U.S. Supreme Court. He was routinely ranked among the nation’s leading lawyers by Benchmark, Chambers, Law360, The Legal 500, and The National Law Journal, among other publications. His work has been cited favorably by courts at every level of both the federal and state judiciaries. He won a Best Brief Award from the National Association of Attorneys General for every year that he served as solicitor general, and he is the only state solicitor general in history to be invited by the U.S. Supreme Court to express the views of a state.
Judge Ho has served in all three branches of the federal government. On the Senate Judiciary Committee, he served as chief counsel of the Subcommittees on the Constitution and Immigration under Senator John Cornyn. At the Justice Department, he served as Special Assistant to the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights and an attorney-advisor at the Office of Legal Counsel. He clerked for Judge Jerry E. Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and Justice Clarence Thomas of the U.S. Supreme Court.
His record of public service also includes appointments as vice chair of the Federal Judicial Evaluation Committee in Texas and co-chair of the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association Judiciary Committee, and as a member of the U.S. Magistrate Judge Merit Selection Panel for the Northern District of Texas, the U.S. delegation to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, and the Continuity of Government Commission.
In addition, Judge Ho has served as an Adjunct Professor of Law at the University of Texas School of Law, where he taught seminars on U.S. Supreme Court Litigation and Religious Liberty. He has authored numerous articles in respected law reviews nationwide, including an annual feature on exemplary judicial writing for The Green Bag Almanac & Reader. He previously served as senior editor of The Green Bag and as co-editor of Pub. L. Misc.
Judge Ho graduated from Stanford University with honors and a B.A. in Public Policy in 1995, and the University of Chicago Law School with high honors in 1999. Before law school, he was a legislative aide to California State Senator Quentin Kopp. He and his wife Allyson live in Dallas, Texas, with their twin daughter and son.
Chairman, Supreme Court and Constitutional Law Practice, Baker Botts LLP
Aaron Streett is the Chairman of Baker Botts’ Supreme Court and Constitutional Law Practice. He has presented oral argument in scores of appeals, covering the U.S. Supreme Court and courts around the country—including over 40 arguments between the Fifth and D.C. Circuits alone. Mr. Streett’s practice involves virtually all substantive areas of the law, including commercial litigation, statutory interpretation, constitutional law, administrative law, securities, and jurisdictional issues. Mr. Streett maintains an active practice in the Supreme Court of the United States, having represented parties in merits cases seven times since 2010, as well as filing numerous amicus and certiorari-stage briefs. Mr. Streett was named one of only six “Appellate MVPs” for 2014 by Law360, which had previously recognized him in 2011 as one of the top five appellate “Rising Stars” under age 40. Mr. Streett has been featured on National Law Journal’s Appellate Hot List three times in recent years and in 2021 was named Houston’s “Lawyer of the Year” for Appellate Practice by Best Lawyers magazine. Mr. Streett is an elected member of the American Law Institute and a fellow of the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers. He serves on the Board of Directors for the Fifth Circuit Bar Association and previously served as President of the Houston Lawyers Chapter of the Federalist Society. Mr. Streett speaks regularly on the Supreme Court and constitutional law to attorneys and law students around the country. Following graduation from Hillsdale College and University of Texas School of Law, Mr. Streett served as a law clerk to the Honorable David B. Sentelle of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and to the Honorable William H. Rehnquist, Chief Justice of the United States.
Justice, Texas Supreme Court
James P. Sullivan was appointed to the Texas Supreme Court by Governor Greg Abbott on January 7, 2025, after serving as his General Counsel. He is the proud husband of Alithea and father of Conan. Growing up in Austin, Judge Sully was an extra in the movie "Dazed & Confused." He was a highly unrecruited walk-on at Rice University, until an injury turned him into a debater. Once in law school, he met his wife, Alithea, on the Harvard Law Review. After graduating, he clerked on the D.C. Circuit for Judge Thomas B. Griffith. He also worked under then-Attorney General Abbott in the Office of the Solicitor General, in addition to stints as an adjunct professor at George Mason University and an appellate litigator in private practice.
Robert G. Storey Distinguished Faculty Fellow; Associate Professor of Law Co-Director, Tsai Center for Law, Science and Innovation, SMU Dedman School of Law
David O. Taylor is an Associate Professor at the SMU Dedman School of Law in Dallas, Texas. He also founded and currently serves as a Co-Director of the school’s Tsai Center for Law, Science and Innovation.
Professor Taylor earned his bachelor of science, magna cum laude, in mechanical engineering from Texas A&M University and his juris doctor, cum laude, from Harvard Law School. Prior to law school, Professor Taylor worked as an applications engineer at National Instruments Corporation in Austin, Texas. While in law school, he served as an extern for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Boston, as a member of both the Harvard Journal of Law & Technology and the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, and as President of the law school's Texas Club.
After graduating from law school, Professor Taylor clerked for the current Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, the Honorable Sharon Prost. Professor Taylor also worked for seven years at the law firm of Baker Botts LLP in its Dallas office. While at Baker Botts, Professor Taylor engaged in patent litigation in various district courts and at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. His litigation experience includes both bench and jury trials. A registered patent attorney, he also gained significant experience in the fields of intellectual property licensing and patent prosecution. During his time in practice he assisted with several advanced patent law courses at SMU Dedman School of Law, including Patent Litigation, Intellectual Property Licensing, and Patent Prosecution, and successfully represented clients in pro bono matters, including before the U.S. Court of Veterans Appeals.
At SMU, Professor Taylor teaches in the areas of contracts and patent law. His scholarship focuses on patent law, patent policy, patent litigation, and civil procedure. Professor Taylor has published articles in various journals, including the Connecticut Law Review, Georgia Law Review, New York University Law Review, and in an assortment of intellectual property specialty journals. His publications have been cited by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and various district courts.
A frequent speaker, he has made academic presentations at law schools across the United States, including Boston College, California Berkeley, Cardozo, Chicago-Kent, DePaul, Houston, Kansas, San Diego, Stanford, and Texas, and internationally in Chongqing, China; Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam; and Taipei, Taiwan. He also is a regular speaker at various continuing legal education (CLE) events, including events sponsored by the Dallas Bar Association, the Eastern District of Texas Bar Association, the Center for American and International Law, and the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies.
In addition to these activities, Professor Taylor has organized numerous symposia and conferences, helped launch SMU’s Patent and Trademark Clinics, and helped draft the proposal to secure the funding to launch the Tsai Center for Law, Science and Innovation. He serves on several law school committees and is an advisor to both the SMU Science and Technology Law Review and The International Lawyer. Professor Taylor also serves as an advisor to the law school's chapter of the Federalist Society, which regularly hosts speakers addressing hot topics in the field of constitutional law. SMU granted Professor Taylor tenure in 2016.
Professor Taylor serves in various leadership positions. He is a member of the Advisory Council for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. He serves on the Executive Board of the Institute for Law and Technology at the Center for American and International Law. He also is currently the Reporter for the Patentable Subject Matter Task Force of the American Intellectual Property Law Association (AIPLA), and he serves as a member of the AIPLA's Amicus Committee. He is a Director of the Intellectual Property Law Section of the Dallas Bar Association (DBA), and he previously served as the Chair of the Computer Law Section of the DBA. In addition to these leadership activities, Professor Taylor has served as an expert and consultant in various intellectual property disputes.
He has received several accolades. Professor Taylor is the recipient of a Thomas Edison Innovation Fellowship from the Center for the Protection of Intellectual Property at the George Mason University Antonin Scalia Law School. He has also been named a founding Barrister of the Honorable Barbara M.G. Lynn American Inn of Court, an Honorary Barrister of the SMU Dedman School of Law Board of Advocates, and an Outstanding Graduate of the Irving Independent School District. In addition to these awards, he has received numerous research and course development grants.
Outside of his work at the law school and the field of intellectual property law, Professor Taylor has engaged in public service with diverse groups including Advocates for Community Transformation, Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children, and the Veterans Consortium Pro Bono Program.
Professor Taylor is married. Together with his wife Rachel, he enjoys spending time with his three children: Caroline, Emily, and Joshua.
Partner, Quinn Emanuel
John F. Bash is an American attorney who served as the United States Attorney for the Western District of Texas from 2017 to 2020. After graduating from Harvard Law School, Mr. Bash clerked for Judge Kavanaugh during his first year on the bench and went on to clerk for Justice Antonin Scalia. He then served as an Assistant to the Solicitor General in the U.S. Department of Justice, where he argued ten cases in the United States Supreme Court. He also served briefly as Special Assistant to the President and Associate Counsel to the President before his appointment as United States Attorney.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit
James C. Ho is a Circuit Judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Before taking the bench on January 4, 2018, he was a partner and co-chair of the national Appellate and Constitutional Law practice group of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP.
As an appellate litigator for over a decade, including three years as the Solicitor General of Texas, Judge Ho presented 50 oral arguments in federal and state courts nationwide. He won numerous appeals, including three merits cases at the U.S. Supreme Court. He was routinely ranked among the nation’s leading lawyers by Benchmark, Chambers, Law360, The Legal 500, and The National Law Journal, among other publications. His work has been cited favorably by courts at every level of both the federal and state judiciaries. He won a Best Brief Award from the National Association of Attorneys General for every year that he served as solicitor general, and he is the only state solicitor general in history to be invited by the U.S. Supreme Court to express the views of a state.
Judge Ho has served in all three branches of the federal government. On the Senate Judiciary Committee, he served as chief counsel of the Subcommittees on the Constitution and Immigration under Senator John Cornyn. At the Justice Department, he served as Special Assistant to the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights and an attorney-advisor at the Office of Legal Counsel. He clerked for Judge Jerry E. Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and Justice Clarence Thomas of the U.S. Supreme Court.
His record of public service also includes appointments as vice chair of the Federal Judicial Evaluation Committee in Texas and co-chair of the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association Judiciary Committee, and as a member of the U.S. Magistrate Judge Merit Selection Panel for the Northern District of Texas, the U.S. delegation to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, and the Continuity of Government Commission.
In addition, Judge Ho has served as an Adjunct Professor of Law at the University of Texas School of Law, where he taught seminars on U.S. Supreme Court Litigation and Religious Liberty. He has authored numerous articles in respected law reviews nationwide, including an annual feature on exemplary judicial writing for The Green Bag Almanac & Reader. He previously served as senior editor of The Green Bag and as co-editor of Pub. L. Misc.
Judge Ho graduated from Stanford University with honors and a B.A. in Public Policy in 1995, and the University of Chicago Law School with high honors in 1999. Before law school, he was a legislative aide to California State Senator Quentin Kopp. He and his wife Allyson live in Dallas, Texas, with their twin daughter and son.
Chairman, Supreme Court and Constitutional Law Practice, Baker Botts LLP
Aaron Streett is the Chairman of Baker Botts’ Supreme Court and Constitutional Law Practice. He has presented oral argument in scores of appeals, covering the U.S. Supreme Court and courts around the country—including over 40 arguments between the Fifth and D.C. Circuits alone. Mr. Streett’s practice involves virtually all substantive areas of the law, including commercial litigation, statutory interpretation, constitutional law, administrative law, securities, and jurisdictional issues. Mr. Streett maintains an active practice in the Supreme Court of the United States, having represented parties in merits cases seven times since 2010, as well as filing numerous amicus and certiorari-stage briefs. Mr. Streett was named one of only six “Appellate MVPs” for 2014 by Law360, which had previously recognized him in 2011 as one of the top five appellate “Rising Stars” under age 40. Mr. Streett has been featured on National Law Journal’s Appellate Hot List three times in recent years and in 2021 was named Houston’s “Lawyer of the Year” for Appellate Practice by Best Lawyers magazine. Mr. Streett is an elected member of the American Law Institute and a fellow of the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers. He serves on the Board of Directors for the Fifth Circuit Bar Association and previously served as President of the Houston Lawyers Chapter of the Federalist Society. Mr. Streett speaks regularly on the Supreme Court and constitutional law to attorneys and law students around the country. Following graduation from Hillsdale College and University of Texas School of Law, Mr. Streett served as a law clerk to the Honorable David B. Sentelle of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and to the Honorable William H. Rehnquist, Chief Justice of the United States.
Justice, Texas Supreme Court
James P. Sullivan was appointed to the Texas Supreme Court by Governor Greg Abbott on January 7, 2025, after serving as his General Counsel. He is the proud husband of Alithea and father of Conan. Growing up in Austin, Judge Sully was an extra in the movie "Dazed & Confused." He was a highly unrecruited walk-on at Rice University, until an injury turned him into a debater. Once in law school, he met his wife, Alithea, on the Harvard Law Review. After graduating, he clerked on the D.C. Circuit for Judge Thomas B. Griffith. He also worked under then-Attorney General Abbott in the Office of the Solicitor General, in addition to stints as an adjunct professor at George Mason University and an appellate litigator in private practice.
Robert G. Storey Distinguished Faculty Fellow; Associate Professor of Law Co-Director, Tsai Center for Law, Science and Innovation, SMU Dedman School of Law
David O. Taylor is an Associate Professor at the SMU Dedman School of Law in Dallas, Texas. He also founded and currently serves as a Co-Director of the school’s Tsai Center for Law, Science and Innovation.
Professor Taylor earned his bachelor of science, magna cum laude, in mechanical engineering from Texas A&M University and his juris doctor, cum laude, from Harvard Law School. Prior to law school, Professor Taylor worked as an applications engineer at National Instruments Corporation in Austin, Texas. While in law school, he served as an extern for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Boston, as a member of both the Harvard Journal of Law & Technology and the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, and as President of the law school's Texas Club.
After graduating from law school, Professor Taylor clerked for the current Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, the Honorable Sharon Prost. Professor Taylor also worked for seven years at the law firm of Baker Botts LLP in its Dallas office. While at Baker Botts, Professor Taylor engaged in patent litigation in various district courts and at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. His litigation experience includes both bench and jury trials. A registered patent attorney, he also gained significant experience in the fields of intellectual property licensing and patent prosecution. During his time in practice he assisted with several advanced patent law courses at SMU Dedman School of Law, including Patent Litigation, Intellectual Property Licensing, and Patent Prosecution, and successfully represented clients in pro bono matters, including before the U.S. Court of Veterans Appeals.
At SMU, Professor Taylor teaches in the areas of contracts and patent law. His scholarship focuses on patent law, patent policy, patent litigation, and civil procedure. Professor Taylor has published articles in various journals, including the Connecticut Law Review, Georgia Law Review, New York University Law Review, and in an assortment of intellectual property specialty journals. His publications have been cited by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and various district courts.
A frequent speaker, he has made academic presentations at law schools across the United States, including Boston College, California Berkeley, Cardozo, Chicago-Kent, DePaul, Houston, Kansas, San Diego, Stanford, and Texas, and internationally in Chongqing, China; Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam; and Taipei, Taiwan. He also is a regular speaker at various continuing legal education (CLE) events, including events sponsored by the Dallas Bar Association, the Eastern District of Texas Bar Association, the Center for American and International Law, and the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies.
In addition to these activities, Professor Taylor has organized numerous symposia and conferences, helped launch SMU’s Patent and Trademark Clinics, and helped draft the proposal to secure the funding to launch the Tsai Center for Law, Science and Innovation. He serves on several law school committees and is an advisor to both the SMU Science and Technology Law Review and The International Lawyer. Professor Taylor also serves as an advisor to the law school's chapter of the Federalist Society, which regularly hosts speakers addressing hot topics in the field of constitutional law. SMU granted Professor Taylor tenure in 2016.
Professor Taylor serves in various leadership positions. He is a member of the Advisory Council for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. He serves on the Executive Board of the Institute for Law and Technology at the Center for American and International Law. He also is currently the Reporter for the Patentable Subject Matter Task Force of the American Intellectual Property Law Association (AIPLA), and he serves as a member of the AIPLA's Amicus Committee. He is a Director of the Intellectual Property Law Section of the Dallas Bar Association (DBA), and he previously served as the Chair of the Computer Law Section of the DBA. In addition to these leadership activities, Professor Taylor has served as an expert and consultant in various intellectual property disputes.
He has received several accolades. Professor Taylor is the recipient of a Thomas Edison Innovation Fellowship from the Center for the Protection of Intellectual Property at the George Mason University Antonin Scalia Law School. He has also been named a founding Barrister of the Honorable Barbara M.G. Lynn American Inn of Court, an Honorary Barrister of the SMU Dedman School of Law Board of Advocates, and an Outstanding Graduate of the Irving Independent School District. In addition to these awards, he has received numerous research and course development grants.
Outside of his work at the law school and the field of intellectual property law, Professor Taylor has engaged in public service with diverse groups including Advocates for Community Transformation, Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children, and the Veterans Consortium Pro Bono Program.
Professor Taylor is married. Together with his wife Rachel, he enjoys spending time with his three children: Caroline, Emily, and Joshua.
District Judge, State of Texas
Cory Liu is a state district judge in Austin, Texas. He previously served as assistant general counsel to Texas Governor Greg Abbott. Mr. Liu clerked for Judge Andrew Oldham on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and Judge Danny Boggs on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. He was Editor-in-Chief of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy and is a graduate of Harvard Law School and the University of Chicago.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Third Circuit
Judge Paul Matey was appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in 2019 by President Trump.
Before his judicial service, Judge Matey was a partner at Lowenstein Sandler in New Jersey where he practiced complex commercial litigation and criminal defense. Earlier, Judge Matey was the Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary for University Hospital Newark, an academic medical center and teaching hospital.
He also served as the Deputy Chief Counsel to Governor Chris Christie, and as an Assistant United States Attorney in the District of New Jersey, where he was awarded the Justice Department’s Director’s Award for Superior Performance. He also practiced at the Washington D.C. firm of Kellogg, Hansen, Todd, Figel & Frederick, and served as a law clerk to judges on the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit and the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey.
He earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Scranton, a Jesuit University, in 1993, and his juris doctorate, summa cum laude, from Seton Hall University School of Law in 2001, where he served as Editor-in-Chief of the Seton Hall Law Review.
In 2019, Judge Matey was elected to membership in the American Law Institute and, since 2020, has lectured on administrative law and the American legal history at Seton Hall.
Julius L. Chambers Distinguished Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Civil Rights, University of North Carolina School of Law
Theodore M. Shaw is the Julius L. Chambers Distinguished Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Civil Rights at the University of North Carolina School of Law at Chapel Hill. Professor Shaw teaches Civil Procedure and Advanced Constitutional Law/Fourteenth Amendment. Before joining the faculty of UNC Law School, from 2008-2014 Professor Shaw taught at Columbia University Law School, where he was Professor of Professional Practice. During that time he was also “Of Counsel” to the law firm of Norton Rose Fulbright (formerly Fulbright & Jaworski, LLP). His practice involved civil litigation and representation of institutional clients on matters concerning diversity and civil rights.
Professor Shaw was the fifth Director-Counsel and President of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., for which he worked in various capacities over the span of twenty-six years. He has litigated education, employment, voting rights, housing, police misconduct, capital punishment and other civil rights cases in trial and appellate courts, and in the United States Supreme Court.From 1982 until 1987, he litigated education, housing, and capital punishment cases and directed LDF's education litigation docket. In 1987, under the direction of LDF's third Director-Counsel, Julius Chambers, Mr. Shaw relocated to Los Angeles to establish LDF's Western Regional Office. In 1990, Mr. Shaw left LDF to join the faculty of the University of Michigan Law School, where he taught Constitutional Law, Civil Procedure and Civil Rights. While at Michigan, he played a key role in initiating a review of the law school's admissions practices and policies, and served on the faculty committee that promulgated the admissions program that was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2003 in Grutter v. Bollinger.
In 1993, Mr. Shaw returned to LDF as Associate Director-Counsel, and in 2004, he became LDF's fifth Director-Counsel. Mr. Shaw's legal career began as a Trial Attorney in the Honors Program of the United States Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division in Washington, D.C., where he worked from 1979 until 1982.
Mr. Shaw has testified on numerous occasions before Congress and before state and local legislatures. His human rights work has taken him to Africa, Asia, Europe, and South America. In addition to teaching at Columbia and at Michigan Law School, Professor Shaw held the 1997-1998 Haywood Burns Chair at CUNY School of Law at Queens College and the 2003 Phyllis Beck Chair at Temple Law School. He was a visiting scholar at the Constitution Center in Philadelphia in 2008-2009. He is a member of the faculty of the Practicing Law Institute (PLI).
Mr. Shaw served on the Obama Transition Team after the 2008 presidential election, as team leader for the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department.
Partner, Consovoy McCarthy Park PLLC
Mr. Strawbridge provides clients with advice and representation at the pre-litigation, trial, and appellate stages. He has represented a broad range of individual and institutional clients on matters of constitutional law, financial and securities regulation, environmental laws, complex commercial disputes, and consumer protection statutes. His experience includes arbitrations, trial and appellate litigation, and administrative and regulatory proceedings.
Mr. Strawbridge served as a law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, Judge Morris Sheppard Arnold of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, and Justice Howard Dana of the Supreme Judicial Court of Maine. Previously, Mr. Strawbridge was a partner at two large international law firms. He worked as a newspaper reporter for four years before attending law school. Mr. Strawbridge is an adjunct professor for the Supreme Court Clinic at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University.
Mr. Strawbridge earned a Bachelor of Journalism from the University of Missouri, and his J.D. summa cum laude from Creighton University School of Law. Mr. Strawbridge is a member of the Maine and Massachusetts bars.
Justice, Texas Supreme Court
James P. Sullivan was appointed to the Texas Supreme Court by Governor Greg Abbott on January 7, 2025, after serving as his General Counsel. He is the proud husband of Alithea and father of Conan. Growing up in Austin, Judge Sully was an extra in the movie "Dazed & Confused." He was a highly unrecruited walk-on at Rice University, until an injury turned him into a debater. Once in law school, he met his wife, Alithea, on the Harvard Law Review. After graduating, he clerked on the D.C. Circuit for Judge Thomas B. Griffith. He also worked under then-Attorney General Abbott in the Office of the Solicitor General, in addition to stints as an adjunct professor at George Mason University and an appellate litigator in private practice.
Texas Supreme Court
Justice Jimmy Blacklock was appointed to the Texas Supreme Court in January 2018 by Governor Greg Abbott. Before that, Jimmy served as Governor Abbott’s General Counsel and in the Attorney General’s Office under then-AG Abbott. While at the AG’s Office, he handled appeals and trials of constitutional cases in state and federal court involving matters such as federalism, religious liberty, and the separation of powers. As Deputy Attorney General for Legal Counsel, he oversaw the Open Records and Opinions divisions of the AG’s Office. Earlier in his career, Jimmy was appointed by President George W. Bush to serve in the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, and he worked in private practice in Houston and Austin. He clerked for Judge Jerry Smith on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit after graduating from U.T.-Austin (B.A., Plan II/History) and Yale Law School. He was born in Houston and now lives in Austin with his wife and three daughters.
Justice, Texas Supreme Court
Brett Busby was appointed to the Supreme Court of Texas in 2019, confirmed unanimously by the Texas Senate, and elected to a full term in 2020. He previously practiced as an appellate litigator in Houston, served on the Fourteenth Court of Appeals and the Texas Multi-District Litigation Panel, and taught at U.T. Law School as an adjunct professor.
Brett is a seventh-generation Texan, third-generation Eagle Scout, and life-long violinist who grew up in Amarillo and Austin. After graduating with high honors from Duke University and Columbia Law School, he served as a law clerk to Justices Byron R. White (Ret.) and John Paul Stevens, U.S. Supreme Court, and to Judge Gerald Bard Tjoflat, U.S. Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit.
In private practice, Brett presented oral argument in the U.S. Supreme Court and handled dozens of appeals in that Court, the Supreme Court of Texas, and federal and state appellate courts. He is board-certified in civil appellate law, and his fellow Texas appellate lawyers elected him as Chair of the State Bar of Texas Appellate Section in 2018. He has also served as Chair of the Texas Bar Committee on Pattern Jury Charges (Business, Consumer, Insurance, and Employment) and as a Director of the Texas Young Lawyers Association.
Brett serves as the Court’s liaison to the Texas Access to Justice Commission and Foundation, which help assure that Texans with limited means have access to basic civil legal services. He received the 2022 Judicial Civic Education Award from the American Lawyers Alliance for his work on the Teach Texas judicial civics program, a partnership with the Houston Bar Association and the Texas Supreme Court Historical Society that sends lawyers and judges to teach seventh graders about our court system and Texas legal history. The Texas Association of Civil Trial and Appellate Specialists named him Appellate Judge of the Year in 2018.
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