Former Vice President of the United States
Vice President Richard B. Cheney has had a distinguished career as a businessman and public servant, serving four Presidents and as an elected official. Throughout his service, Mr. Cheney served with duty, honor, and unwavering leadership, gaining him the respect of the American people during trying military times.
Mr. Cheney was born in Lincoln, Nebraska, on January 30, 1941 and grew up in Casper, Wyoming. He earned his bachelor's and master's of arts degrees from the University of Wyoming. His career in public service began in 1969 when he joined the Nixon Administration, serving in a number of positions at the Cost of Living Council, at the Office of Economic Opportunity, and within the White House.
When Gerald Ford assumed the Presidency in August 1974, Mr. Cheney served on the transition team and later as Deputy Assistant to the President. In November 1975, he was named Assistant to the President and White House Chief of Staff, a position he held throughout the remainder of the Ford Administration.
I. Herman Stern Professor of Law
David Post is currently the I. Herman Stern Professor of Law at the Beasley School of Law at Temple University, where he teaches intellectual property law and the law of cyberspace. Professor Post is also an Adjunct Scholar at the Cato Institute, a Fellow at the Institute for Information Law and Policy at New York Law School, and a contributor to the influential Volokh Conspiracy blog. [More detail on Professor Post's research and writings can be found here.]
Trained originally as a physical anthropologist, Professor Post spent two years studying the feeding ecology of yellow baboons in Kenya's Amboseli National Park, and he taught at the Columbia University Department of Anthropology from 1976 through 1981. He then attended Georgetown Law Center, from which he graduated summa cum laude in 1986. After clerking with then-Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, he spent 6 years at the Washington D.C. law firm of Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering, practicing in the areas of intellectual property law and high technology commercial transactions. He then clerked again for Justice Ginsburg during her first term on the Supreme Court before joining the faculty of, first, the Georgetown University Law Center (1994-1997) and then the Temple University Law School (1997-present).
Professor Post is the author of Cyberlaw: Problems of Policy and Jurisprudence in the Information Age (3d Edition, West, 2007) (co-authored with Paul Schiff Berman and Patricia Bellia), and In Search of Jefferson's Moose: Notes on the State of Cyberspace (Oxford U. Press, forthcoming 2008), as well as numerous articles on intellectual property, the law of cyberspace, and the application of complexity theory to Internet legal questions that have appeared in the Stanford Law Review, Journal of Legal Studies, Berkeley Technology Law Journal, Esther Dyson's Release 1.0, Journal of Online Law, University of Chicago Legal Forum, Vanderbilt Law Review, Georgetown Law Journal, and numerous other publications. For four years (1994-1998) he wrote a monthly column on law and technology ("Plugging In") for the American Lawyer, and from 1998-2004 he wrote the "On the Horizon" column for InformationWeek (with Bradford Brown). He has appeared as a commentator on the Lehrer News Hour, Court TV's Supreme Court Preview, NPR's All Things Considered, BBC's World, and other television and radio shows, and recently was featured in the PBS documentary The Supreme Court. During 1996-1997 he conducted, along with two colleagues (Professors Larry Lessig and Eugene Volokh) the first Internet-wide e-mail course on "Cyberspace Law for Non-Lawyers" which attracted over 20,000 subscribers. He also sings and plays guitar, piano, banjo, and harmonica in the bands "Bad Dog," "The Dwights," and "The Zen Cohens."
Professor Post's writings can be accessed online via his publications page and personal site (http://www.davidpost.com).
J.D., Georgetown University
Ph.D. (Anthropology), Yale University
B.A., Yale University
Professor of Law, Southern Illinois University School of Law
Professor Mark F. Schultz joined the faculty in 2003. He teaches and writes primarily in the area of intellectual property.
Professor Schultz is a frequent author and speaker known for his work on the law and economics of the global intellectual property system. In one of his most influential projects, he worked with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to construct a groundbreaking global trade secret protection index (the TSPI). The TSPI is influencing policy discussions on this cutting-edge topic in capitals around the world. Other recent projects have included an empirical study that quantified for the first time the backlogs in patent offices worldwide, a report on how patented innovation is meeting global health challenges, and the construction of a new global index of copyright strength.
Professor Schultz is an influential voice in public policy debates regarding intellectual property. He has testified before the U.S. Congress on copyright law at the invitation of the House Judiciary Committee and has briefed the staff of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on trade secret legislation. He speaks frequently around the world about the connection between secure and effective intellectual property rights and flourishing national economies and individual lives, with invitations from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the U.S. Trade Representative, and the U.S. Copyright Office, as well as numerous academic institutions, think tanks, and industry groups. He served as an NGO delegate to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) for several years during the WIPO Development Agenda talks. He is also one of the organizers of an ongoing multilateral diplomatic dialogue on best practices in national trade secret laws, and is co-founder of the Center for Protection of Intellectual Property (CPIP) at George Mason University in Washington, D.C.
Among the awards and recognition he has received for his scholarship was the School of Law's Outstanding Scholar of the Year award in 2008. He has been a distinguished visiting scholar at the University of Botswana and a visiting professor at DePaul University College of Law.
Professor Schultz graduated with honors from the George Washington University School of Law. Following law school, he was a judicial clerk for the Hon. Daniel M. Friedman of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, D.C., and the Hon. Eric G. Bruggink of the United States Court of Federal Claims. Prior to joining academia, he practiced law for a decade, serving as outside general counsel to several tech startups and helping technology companies to expand their businesses and commercialize their intellectual property in dozens of countries. He holds a B.A. in International Economics from George Washington University and has done PhD level coursework in development economics at Southern Illinois University.
He is active in leadership roles in local and national organizations. He has served as chair of the Federalist Society's Intellectual Property Practice Group and the AALS Section on Internet and Computer Law. He is an officer of the American Bar Association's International IP Committee of the International Law Section and the American Intellectual Property Law Association’s Trade Secret Law Committee. He currently is chair of the Academic Advisory Board of the Copyright Alliance.
Professor Schultz teaches Copyright Law, Trade Secret Law, Trademark Law, and a senior seminar on Intellectual Property and Global Development. He established and directs both the Specialization in Intellectual Property Law and the IP Semester in Practice Externship Program. He also co-founded a Legal Globalization Class, offered every other year, that takes students to South Africa and Botswana after spending a semester learning about the legal system, culture, history, and politics of southern Africa. The popular course is a once-in-a-lifetime experience that introduces students to leading lawyers, judges, government officials, and human rights advocates, taking them from Cape Town to Johannesburg to Gaborone as well as many popular destinations including game reserves, national parks, the Cape of Good Hope, and the Cradle of Humankind.
Chief Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit
William H. Pryor Jr. serves as Chief Circuit Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.
In 2013–18, he served on the United States Sentencing Commission and, in 2017–18, served as Acting Chair.
He has taught as a visiting professor at the University of Alabama School of Law and previously taught as an adjunct professor at the Cumberland School of Law of Samford University.
He served as the 45th Attorney General of Alabama from 1997 to 2004. When he took office, he was the youngest attorney general in the nation. In his reelection, he received the highest percentage of votes of any statewide candidate.
He graduated magna cum laude from Tulane Law School where he finished first in the common-law curriculum and was editor in chief of the Tulane Law Review. He then served as a law clerk for Judge John Minor Wisdom of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
He is a member of The American Law Institute and an Adviser for the RESTATEMENT OF THE LAW THIRD, CONFLICT OF LAWS. He is a coauthor with Bryan Garner, Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, and several other judges of a treatise, THE LAW OF JUDICIAL PRECEDENT. He has published in the Yale Law Journal, Columbia Law Review, Virginia Law Review, Notre Dame Law Review, Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, Yale Law & Policy Review, George Mason Law Review, Florida Law Review, Alabama Law Review, Case Western Reserve Law Review, and Tulane Law Review. He has published op-eds in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, National Review, and USA Today. He has debated at National Lawyers’ Conventions of the Federalist Society (including on National Public Radio) and at the Oxford Union in the United Kingdom. And he is listed among several “widely admired judicial writers” in Bryan Garner’s The Redbook: A Manual on Legal Style.
He is a member of the Tulane Law School Hall of Fame and has received the Defender of the Constitution Award from the Heritage Foundation, the Jurist of the Year Award from the Texas Review of Law & Politics, and the St. Thomas More Award from the St. Thomas More Society of Atlanta. Judge Pryor is also a proud member of the National Society of the Sons of the American Revolution.
Associate Justice, United States Supreme Court
Samuel A. Alito, Jr., Associate Justice, was born in Trenton, New Jersey, April 1, 1950. He married Martha-Ann Bomgardner in 1985, and has two children - Philip and Laura. He served as a law clerk for Leonard I. Garth of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit from 1976–1977. He was Assistant U.S. Attorney, District of New Jersey, 1977–1981, Assistant to the Solicitor General, U.S. Department of Justice, 1981–1985, Deputy Assistant Attorney General, U.S. Department of Justice, 1985–1987, and U.S. Attorney, District of New Jersey, 1987–1990. He was appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in 1990. President George W. Bush nominated him as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, and he took his seat January 31, 2006.
David and Mary Harrison Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus, University of Virginia School of Law
Lillian BeVier taught constitutional law (with special emphasis on First Amendment issues), intellectual property (trademark, copyright), real property and torts from 1973-2010 at the Law School, and now teaches a January Term course on judicial philosophy.
At Stanford Law School, BeVier was revising editor for the Stanford Law Review and a member of the Order of the Coif. Before coming to Virginia, she was associate professor of law at the University of Santa Clara Law School; practiced law with Spaeth Blase Valentine & Klein in Palo Alto, Calif.; served as research associate to Professor William F. Baxter at Stanford University Law School, working on the FAA-ABA study of the legal aspects of airport noise and the sonic boom; and was assistant to the general secretary and assistant staff legal counsel for Stanford University.
BeVier received the University of Virginia Alumni Association Distinguished Professor Award in 2006. The Raven Society elected her to membership in 1993 and honored her with the faculty award in 2010. She delivered the Henry Miller Memorial Lecture at Georgia State Law School in 2005, the Coen Memorial Lecture at the University of Colorado Law School in 2000, and the David C. Baum Lecture on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties at the University of Illinois Law School in 1996. In 1999, at the invitation of the Supreme Court Historical Society, she spoke to the Society on Free Expression in the Warren and Burger Courts. Suffolk University awarded her an honorary S.J.D. degree in 1998. In the fall of 2003, she was a visiting scholar at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia.
Having been nominated by President Bush and confirmed by the Senate in 2003, she served as vice-chair of the Board of Directors of the Legal Services Corporation until 2009. She serves on the national Board of Visitors of the Federalist Society. Within the Charlottesville community, BeVier has served as chair of the Board of Trustees of St. Anne’s-Belfield School and of the Martha Jefferson Hospital. She is currently chair of the board of the Martha Jefferson Health Services Corporation and of Piedmont CASA (Court-Appointed Special Advocates).
Beneficial Professor of Law, Harvard Law School
Educated at Princeton, Oxford and Columbia Law School, Charles Fried, the Beneficial Professor of Law, has been teaching at Harvard Law School since 1961. He was Solicitor General of the United States, 1985-89, and an Associate Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, 1995-99. His scholarly and teaching interests have been moved by the connection between normative theory and the concrete institutions of public and private law. During his career at Harvard he has taught Criminal Law, Commercial Law, Roman Law, Torts, Contracts, Labor Law, Constitutional Law and Federal Courts, Appellate and Supreme Court Advocacy. The author of many books and articles, his Anatomy of Values (1970), Right and Wrong (1978), and Modern Liberty (2006) develop themes in moral and political philosophy with applications to law. Contract as Promise (1980), Making Tort Law (2003, with David Rosenberg) and Saying What the Law Is: The Constitution in the Supreme Court (2004) are fundamental inquiries into broad legal institutions. Order & Law: Arguing the Reagan Revolution (1991) discusses major themes developed in Fried's time as Solicitor General. In recent years Fried has taught Constitutional Law and Contracts. During his time as a teacher he has also argued a number of major cases in state and federal courts, most notably Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, in which the Supreme Court established the standards for the use of expert and scientific evidence in federal courts.
Emeritus Dean and Professor of Law, Lewis & Clark Law School
Professor Huffman joined the law school faculty in 1973, was appointed Acting Dean in 1993 and Dean in 1994, and returned to full time teaching in 2006. Born in Fort Benton, Montana, Jim graduated from Montana State University, the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, and the University of Chicago Law School. He has been a visiting professor at Auckland University in New Zealand, the University of Oregon, the University of Athens in Greece and Universidad Francisco Marroquin in Guatemala. He was also a fellow at the Humane Studies Institute and a Distinguished Bradley Scholar at the Heritage Foundation. Jim serves on the boards of the National Crime Victims Law Institute, the Foundation for Research on Economics and the Environment, the Classroom Law Project, and the Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Foundation. He is a member and former Chair of the Executive Committee of the Environment and Property Rights Practice Group of the Federalist Society. He is a member of the Montana Bar Association and is admitted to practice before the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and the United States Supreme Court. He is the author of more than 100 articles and chapters on a wide array of legal topics.
Senior Counsel, Troutman Pepper Locke
Harriet Miers is a member of our Litigation and Public Policy sections and a former managing partner of Locke Liddell & Sapp. She returned to the Firm in May 2007 after serving in the administration of President George W. Bush from 2001-2007 as Staff Secretary, Deputy Chief of Staff, and Counsel to the President. Prior to joining the White House, Ms. Miers had a distinguished career in her commercial litigation practice, representing a broad range of clients in varied industries. She is well-known throughout the United States, and offices principally in Dallas with Troutman Pepper Locke firm.
In 1972, after clerking for then Chief Judge of the Northern District of Texas, Joe E. Estes, Ms. Miers was the first woman hired at the Dallas Firm of Locke Purnell Boren Laney & Neely. Ms. Miers became the first woman to lead the Firm, then known as Locke Purnell Rain Harrell, when she was elected Firm President in 1996. In 1999, when Locke Purnell merged with Houston-based Liddell, Sapp, Zivley, Hill & LaBoon, she became Co- Managing Partner, a position she held until she left to join the President George W. Bush Administration.
Throughout her career, Ms. Miers has been committed to public service. She has been an elected official and has served as an appointed official at the state and national levels. Well respected as a leader in the legal community, she has served in many professional and community volunteer positions, and she is a strong advocate of pro bono and access to justice work and the advancement of minorities in the profession. In 1985, Ms. Miers was selected as the first woman to become President of the Dallas Bar Association. In 1989, Ms. Miers was elected to a two-year term as an at-large member of the Dallas City Council. After serving on the Dallas City Council, she ran for President of the State Bar of Texas, and she was elected to serve in 1992 as the first woman President of the State Bar. Appointed by then Governor George W. Bush, Ms. Miers served as Chairwoman of the Texas Lottery Commission. Her latest service role is as Chair of the Texas Access to Justice Commission, appointed by the Supreme Court of Texas.
Over the years, Ms. Miers also served in many leadership roles in the American Bar Association, including Chair of the Board of Editors of the
American Bar Journal and as the Texas State Delegate to the ABA House of Delegates.
She was appointed Assistant to the President and Staff Secretary on January 20, 2001. In 2003, she was named Assistant to the President and Deputy Chief of Staff. In that position, her responsibilities included assisting in the coordination of policy formulation within the White House. Appointed Counsel to the President in February 2005, she served as the top lawyer to the President and the White House until she resigned in February 2007.
Among her many recognitions and awards, included are: in 1979, she was honored as the Outstanding Young Lawyer by the Dallas Association of Young Lawyers; in 2005, Ms. Miers received the Sandra Day O'Connor award from the Texas Center for Legal Ethics and Professionalism; she received the Robert G. Storey Award for Distinguished Achievement from the SMU Dedman School of Law; she also has received Distinguished Alumni Awards from both SMU and the SMU Dedman School of Law; she an Honorary Doctorate from Pepperdine University School of Law; in 2023, she received the American Lawyer Lifetime Achievement Award. She also has been recognized by her peers with Best Lawyers rankings in Bet-the- Company Litigation, Commercial Litigation, and Government Relations practice.
For her work as Counsel to the President, Ms. Miers received the Department of Justice Edmund J. Randolph Award in January of 2007 for her "dedicated service to justice, the President, and the United States of America." She also received the Agency Seal Medal awarded by the Central Intelligence Agency, an award given by the CIA to people outside the Agency who have made significant contributions to the work of the Agency.
Nicholas Rosenbaum Professor of Law, University of Colorado Law School
Hal Bruff was Dean of the University of Colorado Law School 1996-2003. Professor Bruff, a native of Colorado, received his B.A. in American history and literature from Williams College, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He received his J.D. magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, and was an editor of the Harvard Law Review. After graduation, he served as a lieutenant in the U.S. Coast Guard Reserve in San Francisco, performing general duties as a legal officer. Hal has served on the law faculties of Arizona State University, the University of Texas (as the John S. Redditt Professor of Law), and the George Washington University Law School (as the Donald Rothschild Research Professor of Law). From 1979 to 1981, he served as senior attorney and advisor for the Office of Legal Counsel in the U.S. Department of Justice. In this position, he advised the DOJ, the White House, and executive agencies on issues of constitutional and administrative law. He also served as consultant to the chairman of the President's Commission on the accident at Three Mile Island. He has testified before Congress on numerous occasions in his areas of expertise. Professor Bruff's research and teaching interests include constitutional and administrative law. He has co-authored a casebook on separation of powers law, and has written two books about separation of powers and numerous law review articles. His recent public service activities include work on the Council of the Administrative Law Section of the American Bar Association and on Colorado's Judicial Advisory Council.
Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law and Director, Classical Liberal Institute, New York University School of Law; Director, Classical Liberal Institute, 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.
Learned Hand Professor of Law, Emeritus, Harvard Law School
Mary Ann Glendon is the Learned Hand Professor of Law, emerita, at Harvard University, and a former U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See. She writes in the fields of human rights, comparative law, and political theory. Glendon chaired the U.S. State Department Commission on Unalienable Rights (2019-2020) and served as a member of the Commission on International Religious Freedom (2012-2016), and the U.S. President's Council on Bioethics (2001-2004). She received the National Humanities Medal in 2006. In 1991 she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She was President of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences from 2003 to 2013, a member of the Board of Supervisors of the Institute of Religious Works (Vatican Bank) from 2013 to 2018, and represented the Holy See at various conferences including the 1995 U.N. Women's conference in Beijing where she headed the Vatican delegation. Glendon has contributed to legal and social thought in several widely translated works, bringing a comparative approach to a variety of subjects. They include The Forum and the Tower (2011), a series of biographical essays exploring the relation between political philosophy and politics-in-action; Traditions in Turmoil (2006), a collection of essays on law, culture and human rights; A World Made New: Eleanor Roosevelt and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (2001), a history of the framing of the UDHR; A Nation Under Lawyers (1996), a portrait of turbulence in the legal profession, analyzing the implications of changes in legal culture for a democratic polity that entrusts crucial roles to legally trained men and women; Rights Talk (1991), a critique of the impoverishment of political discourse; The Transformation of Family Law (1989), winner of the legal academy’s highest honor, the Order of the Coif Triennial Book Award; Abortion and Divorce in Western Law (1987), winner of the Scribes Book Award for best writing on a legal subject; The New Family and the New Property (1981), and textbooks on comparative legal traditions.
Robert E. Scott Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus, University of Virginia School of Law; Alice McKean Young Regents Chair in Law Emeritus, University of Texas
Douglas Laycock is perhaps the nation’s leading authority on the law of religious liberty and also on the law of remedies. He has taught and written about these topics for more than four decades at the University of Chicago, the University of Texas, the University of Michigan and the University of Virginia. He retired from teaching at UVA Law School in May 2023.
Laycock has testified frequently before Congress and has argued many cases in the courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, where he has served as lead counsel in six cases and has also filed influential amicus briefs. He is the author (co-author in the most recent edition) of the leading casebook Modern American Remedies, the award-winning monograph The Death of the Irreparable Injury Rule and many articles in leading law reviews. He co-edited a collection of essays, Same-Sex Marriage and Religious Liberty.
His many writings on religious liberty have been republished in a five-volume collection:
Laycock resigned from the council and as first vice president of the American Law Institute to become co-reporter for the Restatement (Third) of Torts: Remedies. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He earned his B.A. from Michigan State University and his J.D. from the University of Chicago.
Partner, Baker Botts L.L.P.
Thomas R. Phillips is a partner in the Austin office of Baker Botts L.L.P.,
concentrating in general litigation, including appellate, trial strategy, and alternate
dispute resolution. He was appointed and then elected Chief Justice of the Supreme
Court of Texas in 1988, being one of the first four Republicans (along with Kent Hance,
Eugene Cook, and Bathan Hecht) to win a down-ballot statewide race since
Reconstruction. He was re-elected in 1990, 1996, and 2002 before leaving the Court in
2004.
While in office, Phillips served as president of the Conference of Chief Justices in
1997-98 and as a member of the Federal-State Relations Committee of the
Administrative Conference of the United States and the Institutions of Democracy
Judicial Branch Commission of the Annenberg Public Policy Center. After returning to
private life, he served on the Carter-Baker Commission on Federal Election Reform, the
Texas Historical Commission, the Texas State Historical Society, and the Judicial
Districts Board.
A native of Dallas, Phillips earned a B.A. from Baylor University in 1971 and a
J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1974. He has been awarded honorary doctoral
degrees from St. Edward’s University and Texas Tech University. Prior to becoming
Chief Justice, he practiced law in Houston and served as judge of the 280th District
Court in Harris County. Texas.
He resides with his wife, Dr. Lyn B. Phillips, in a historic home in Bastrop.
Founding Partner, Cooper & Kirk PLLC
Charles J. Cooper is a founding member and the chairman of Cooper & Kirk, PLLC, “one of the Nation’s leading litigation boutiques” (Above The Law 2017). The National Law Journal recently wrote that Mr. Cooper’s “brilliant legal career has so far spanned five decades and thrust Cooper into the spotlight in some of the most historic moments of the country’s modern history.” He has argued nine cases before the United States Supreme Court and scores of appeals before each of the 13 federal courts of appeals and several state supreme courts. He has been lead trial counsel in numerous complex, weeks-long trials in federal courts throughout the country. Named by the National Law Journal as one of the 10 best litigators in Washington D.C., Mr. Cooper’s work has been reported in numerous press accounts, and he has been called a “powerhouse attorney” (Fortune 2015), “a hard-nosed litigator” (Washington Post 2017), and “one of the country’s most in-demand civil litigators and a Washington legal institution unto himself” (The American Spectator 2014).
After graduating from the University of Alabama School of Law in 1977, where he ranked first in his class and served as Editor-in-Chief of the Alabama Law Review, Mr. Cooper began his career as a law clerk to Judge Paul Roney on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and to Justice William H. Rehnquist in 1978–79. He then practiced law in Atlanta for two years before joining the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, where he served as the Deputy Assistant Attorney General in charge of, among other things, appellate matters. In 1985 President Reagan appointed him to the position of Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel, which is the office responsible for providing legal opinions and advice to the White House, the Attorney General, and Executive Branch departments and agencies on issues covering the full spectrum of federal constitutional, statutory, and regulatory law.
In 1988 he returned to private practice as a litigation partner in the Washington, D.C. office of McGuireWoods. From 1990 until the founding of Cooper & Kirk in 1996, he was a partner at Shaw Pittman (now Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman), where he headed the firm’s Constitutional and Government Litigation Group.
Mr. Cooper has represented a wide range of public and private clients in highly complex constitutional, civil rights, antitrust, healthcare, banking, intellectual property, elections, campaign finance, administrative, commercial, and government contract cases. He has led trial teams in cases that have won judgments and settlements valued in the billions of dollars and that have established ground-breaking constitutional precedents.
Much of Mr. Cooper’s practice has involved representing high-profile clients in nationally prominent matters, including: the State of Florida in a First Amendment suit brought by the Disney Company concerning its autonomous regulatory authority over its Disney World property; the Commonwealth of Virginia in a suit seeking to enjoin the removal of noncitizens from its voter rolls; 38 members of the Duke Lacrosse team falsely accused of rape by officials of Duke University and the City of Durham; Harper Lee in a copyright dispute with the heirs of Gregory Peck; high-ranking former government officials such as former Attorneys General John Ashcroft, Jeff Sessions, and William Barr, and Ambassador John Bolton; several Governors and United States Senators; over 100 Members of Congress; and many state, territorial, and local government bodies and officials. He has also represented and advised government officials and public figures in connection with sensitive private issues that needed to be, and were, resolved discreetly without becoming matters of public record.
In 1998 Chief Justice Rehnquist appointed Mr. Cooper to the Standing Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure of the Judicial Conference of the United States, where he served for three terms. He also served as a Public Member, appointed by President George H.W. Bush, of the National Commission on Judicial Discipline and Removal. He is a member of numerous professional associations, including the American Law Institute (since 1993) and the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers (since 1996). He is also an active member of the Federalist Society and the Republican National Lawyers Association, which in 2010 named him Republican Lawyer of the Year and in 2016 honored him with its Edwin Meese III Award.
Mr. Cooper has published scores of articles and spoken extensively on constitutional and legal policy topics. He has appeared before congressional committees on 26 occasions, testifying as an expert on a wide variety of legal issues, including the Chevron doctrine of judicial deference to administrative agencies, the diversity of citizenship jurisdiction of federal courts, statehood bills for Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia, and the impeachment of President Clinton.
A. W. Walker Centennial Chair in Law, University of Texas at Austin School of Law
Professor Graglia has written widely in constitutional law--especially on judicial review, constitutional interpretation, race discrimination, and affirmative action--and also teaches and writes in the area of antitrust. He is the author of Disaster by Decree: The Supreme Court Decisions on Race and the Schools (Cornell, 1976) and many articles, including recently "Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye: Of Animal Sacrifice and Religious Persecution" (Georgetown Law Journal, 1996). He has been a Visiting Professor at the University of Virginia School of Law.
Michael R. Klein Professor of Law, Harvard Law School
Randall Kennedy is Michael R. Klein Professor at Harvard Law School where he teaches courses on contracts, criminal law, and the regulation of race relations. He was born in Columbia, South Carolina. For his education he attended St. Albans School, Princeton University, Oxford University, and Yale Law School. He served as a law clerk for Judge J. Skelly Wright of the United States Court of Appeals and for Justice Thurgood Marshall of the United States Supreme Court. He is a member of the bar of the District of Columbia and the Supreme Court of the United States. Awarded the 1998 Robert F. Kennedy Book Award for Race, Crime, and the Law, Mr Kennedy writes for a wide range of scholarly and general interest publications. His other books are For Discrimination: Race, Affirmative Action, and the Law (2013), The Persistence of the Color Line: Racial Politics and the Obama Presidency (2011), Sellout: The Politics of Racial Betrayal (2008), Interracial Intimacies: Sex, Marriage, Identity, and Adoption (2003), and Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word (2002). A member of the American Law Institute, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Association, Mr. Kennedy is also a Trustee emeritus of Princeton University.
Remarks of Vice President Richard Cheney
Richard B. Cheney
Thank you very much. I appreciate the warm welcome. I realize you've adjusted your schedule...
Special Forum: The State of Legal Education
2000 National Lawyers Convention
Washington, DCBringing Law to New Frontiers: Cyberspace
David G. Post, Andrew Shapiro, Mark F. Schultz
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 1998 PROCEEDINGS Following are excerpts from one of the Intellectual Property Practice...
Novel Government Lawsuits Against Industries: An Assault on the Rule of Law
William H. Pryor
Presentation by Bill Pryor, Attorney General of Alabama Tuesday, June 22, 1999, U.S. Chamber of...
The Board of Directors: Succeeding in the Future
James Melican
The subject that I would like to address today is the role of the board...
The Role of the Lawyer in the Criminal Justice System
Samuel A. Alito
The remarks below are extended excerpts from a presentation made by Judge Alito at the...
FDA Modernization and Accountability Act of 1997: A Blueprint for Reform
Nick Littlefield, Sharon Webb
On the afternoon of Sunday, November 9, 1997, in the middle of the long Veterans...
Book Review: Money Meltdown: Restoring Order to the Global Currency System by Judy Shelton
Aaron A. Goach
Money Meltdown: Restoring Order to the Global Currency Systemby Judy SheltonFree Press/Macmillan 1994 (399 pages) If...
Panel I: Philosophical Foundations of The Federalist: The Nature of Law and the Nature of Man [Archive Collection]
1992 National Student Symposium
Austin, TXPanel III: The Effects Test—Quotas or Elimination of Racism?
1990 National Student Symposium
Stanford, CA