Senior Attorney, Pacific Legal Foundation
Brian Hodges is a Senior Attorney at PLF’s Pacific Northwest office in Bellevue, Washington. Brian focuses his practice on defending of the right of individuals to make reasonable use of their property, free of unnecessary and oppressive regulations.
In 2013, Brian second-chaired Koontz v. St. Johns River Water Management District before the U.S. Supreme Court, a case that placed constitutional limits on the government’s common practice of demanding that landowners fund unrelated public projects in exchange for a permit approval. And in the 2008 case, Citizens’ Alliance for Property Rights v. Sims, Brian successfully challenged a Seattle-area ordinance that required all rural property owners to dedicate at least half their land as conservation areas as a mandatory condition of any new development without any showing that rural development would impact the environment.
Brian graduated from Seattle University of Law in 2001 with honors. After which, he served as a judicial clerk at the Washington State Court of Appeals, then entered private practice where he focused on appellate advocacy for several years before joining PLF in 2006.
Brian came to the liberty movement by an uncommon route: the arts. Brian played guitar and keyboards in several Seattle-area bands before eventually studying music composition and literature at the University of Washington—earning two Bachelor’s Degrees and a Master of Arts. Through that experience, he came to firmly believe that the goal of art—indeed, the goal of any creative ambition—is to maximize individual freedom and expression, tempered by personal responsibility and ownership, rather than outside oversight or arbitrary restriction. Carrying that philosophy into law school naturally led him to fight for individual rights.
Shareholder, Brownstein, Hyatt, Farber, Shreck
With more than 20 years of experience both as a first-chair litigator and in public service, Greg Brower’s practice focuses on civil and criminal litigation, as well as regulatory and enforcement actions, corporate investigations, cybersecurity matters and federal and state government relations.
Most recently, Greg served as the assistant director for the Office of Congressional Affairs at the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), serving as the FBI’s chief liaison to Congress on a wide range of critical oversight and investigative matters. He previously served as the FBI’s Deputy General Counsel, managing a diverse portfolio of legal matters, including litigation, privacy, procurement, compliance and ethics. During his time as a senior FBI executive, spanning two administrations, he worked closely with high-ranking officials in the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), the U.S. intelligence community and with key leaders on Capitol Hill. Greg is a regular commentator and contributor on national security, legal and cybersecurity issues, regularly appearing on CNN and MSNBC, and he is the featured contributor on white collar crime and corporate compliance for the Washington Legal Foundation’s Legal Pulse blog.
Greg has a long history of public service. At the federal level, he previously served as the U.S. Attorney for the District of Nevada, and as both General Counsel and Inspector General at the U.S. Government Publishing Office. Greg also served at DOJ as Legislative Counsel in the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys. At the state level, he has served in a variety of public policy roles, including five terms in the Nevada Legislature, where he was chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He has also served on the Nevada Gaming Policy Committee, the Nevada Advisory Commission on the Administration of Justice, the Nevada Sentencing Commission and the Nevada Juvenile Justice Commission.
Throughout his career, Greg has served the Nevada legal community as an adjunct professor of law at the William S. Boyd School of Law at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where he has taught courses in national security law and trial advocacy. Before attending law school, Greg served in the U.S. Navy as a Surface Warfare Officer.
Executive Director, National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers
Norman Reimer is the Executive Director of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL). Prior to assuming this post, he practiced as a criminal defense lawyer for 28 years, most recently at Gould Reimer Walsh Goffin Cohn LLP in New York City.
Legal Fellow, Center for the Separation of Powers, Pacific Legal Foundation
Alison Somin joined Pacific Legal Foundation in May 2020 as a legal fellow in the Center for the Separation of Powers and part of the equality before the law practice group.
Before joining the Pacific Legal Foundation team, Alison was a special assistant and counsel for over a decade to Gail Heriot, a member of the bipartisan United States Commission on Civil Rights. She also has deep roots in the liberty movement. Alison was a Koch Associate at the National Federation for Independent Business Legal Foundation and, during law school, completed summer clerkships at the Institute for Justice and the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation. She holds a J.D. from Emory University School of Law and an A.B. in history from Dartmouth College.
Her work has been published in the San Francisco Chronicle, the Daily Journal, Texas Journal of Law and Politics, and The Federalist Society’s Engage magazine and blog.
She lives in northern Virginia with her husband Ilya; two children; and golden retriever Willow. In her spare time, she enjoys reading, baking and cooking, children’s art projects, and training and exercising Willow.
Distinguished University Professor, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
University Professor Nelson Lund is the author of Rousseau’s Rejuvenation of Political Philosophy: A New Introduction. He has also written widely in the field of constitutional law, including articles on constitutional interpretation, federalism, separation of powers, the Second Amendment, the Commerce Clause, the Speech or Debate Clause, the Equal Protection Clause, and the Uniformity Clause. In addition, he has published articles in the fields of employment discrimination and civil rights, the legal regulation of medical ethics, and the application of economic analysis to legal institutions and legal ethics.
Professor Lund graduated from St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland, after which he received an MA in philosophy from the Catholic University of America and a PhD in political science from Harvard University. He left the faculty of the University of Chicago to attend its law school, where he served as executive editor of the University of Chicago Law Review and chapter chairman of the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies. After law school, he held positions at the United States Department of Justice in the Office of the Solicitor General and the Office of Legal Counsel. He also served as a law clerk to the Honorable Patrick E. Higginbotham of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and to the Honorable Sandra Day O'Connor of the United States Supreme Court. Following his clerkship with Justice O'Connor, Professor Lund served in the White House as associate counsel to the president from 1989 to 1992.
Since joining the faculty at George Mason University's Antonin Scalia Law School, Professor Lund has taught Constitutional Law, Legislation, Federal Election Law, Employment Discrimination, State and Local Government, and seminars on the Second Amendment and on a variety of topics in Jurisprudence.
Bruce C. Hafen Professor of Law, Brigham Young University, J. Reuben Clark Law School
Conservative & Libertarian Legal Scholarship: Corporate Law
[Return to Table of Contents] X. Corporate Law Foundational Materials Foundations of Corporate Law (Roberta...
Conservative & Libertarian Legal Scholarship: Civil Procedure
[Return to Table of Contents] VIII. Civil Procedure The Role of the Federal Judge Charles...
Conservative & Libertarian Legal Scholarship: Administrative & Regulatory Practice
[Return to Table of Contents] VI. Administrative & Regulatory Practice Introductory Materials Peter Schuck, Foundations...
Conservative & Libertarian Legal Scholarship: Torts
[Return to Table of Contents] IV. Torts Foundational Materials FOUNDATIONS OF TORT LAW (Saul Levmore,...
Koontz v. St. Johns River Water Management District and Its Implications for Takings Law
Brian T. Hodges
Note from the Editor: This article is about the Supreme Court's decision in Koontz v....
Maryland v. King: Possibly The Most Important Criminal Procedure Case in Decades
Greg Brower, Norman Reimer
Maryland v. King: Possibly The Most Important Criminal Procedure Case in Decades An Exchange Between...
A Lady or a Tiger?: Thoughts on Fisher v. University of Texas and the Future of Race Preferences in America
Alison E. Somin
Note from the Editor: This article is about the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Fisher...
Book Review: Cosmic Constitutional Theory: Why Americans Are Losing Their Inalienable Right to Self-Governance
Nelson Lund
Other Reviews of Cosmic Constitutional Theory: •Marc O. Degirolami, The New Republic, Sept. 2012: http://www.newrepublic.com/book/review/cosmic-constitutional-theory-judicial-restraint...
The Supreme Court: Defending Marriage or The End of Marriage?
Jackson, Mississippi“Conscience Exemptions”
Lynn Wardle
Note from the Editor: This paper discusses the meaning, history, and present application of conscience...