Senior Counsel, Becket Fund for Religious Liberty
Nick Reaves joined Becket in 2018. His practice centers on First Amendment appellate litigation. Nick has played a leading role in multiple religious freedom cases at the U.S. Supreme Court and has argued in federal appellate and trial courts across the country. He has represented individuals and organizations of many faith traditions—including Sikhs, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and Christians—in their pursuit of the fundamental right to freely practice their religion.
In 2022, Nick was appointed as a Visiting Clinical Lecturer in Law at Yale Law School, where he co-directs Yale Law School’s Free Exercise Clinic. His scholarly work has been published in the Yale Law Journal Forum, the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy Per Curiam, the Virginia Journal of Social Policy & the Law, and the Notre Dame Law Review Reflection, among other leading legal journals. His writing has also been cited by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Recognized as a sought-after voice on religious freedom, Nick has spoken at institutions such as the University of Notre Dame, the University of Virginia, and Princeton Theological Seminary. He has also provided expert testimony before both the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
Before joining Becket, Nick practiced trial and appellate litigation as an associate at Jones Day and clerked for Chief Judge D. Brooks Smith on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
Nick earned his J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law, where he served on the Managing Board of the Virginia Law Review and was elected to the Order of the Coif. He also graduated magna cum laude from the University of Notre Dame as a member of the Glynn Family Honors Program.
Paralegal, Becket
Matthew is a paralegal at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, where he's worked since 2022. He supports the attorney team with editing, legal research, and administrative duties.
Before Becket, Matthew’s legal experience included internships with the Federalist Society and the Champaign County Public Defender’s Office.
Matthew graduated from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign magna cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in Political Science with minors in Legal Studies and Philosophy. His senior honors thesis empirically evaluated the effects of state legislation on religious liberty litigation.
Outside of work, Matthew has continued studying philosophy, law, and policy. He is currently a Richard John Neuhaus Fellow with the Public Interest Fellowship. Previously, he participated in the Hertog Foundation’s The Supreme Court & American Politics cohort as a Fellow.
In his free time, Matthew enjoys volunteering at his parish, trips to the Library of Congress manuscript room, café hopping with a book in hand around the DMV, and training for the Chicago Marathon.
Charles Yates is an attorney in Pacific Legal Foundation’s environmental practice group, where he litigates to defend private property rights and uphold the structural protections guaranteed by the Constitution’s separation of powers.
His inspiration to focus on environmental law comes from the special case of government overreach it presents, where individual rights too often give way to collectivist notions and where misguided government policies create a cure worse than the disease. Charles has a particularly strong belief in the important role that the productive use of natural resources plays for human flourishing. To these ends, his practice at PLF focuses primarily on the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act, and related regulatory issues.
Charles credits his strong belief in the principles of individual liberty and limited, constitutional government to his family. His personal philosophy developed further while studying the works of Adam Smith, John Locke, James Madison, and other classical liberals. Born and raised in Australia, Charles has always admired the U.S. Constitution as the purest and most enduring application of the ideals of individual liberty and limited government. It was these influences that impressed upon him the desire to pursue a career in public interest litigation.
After obtaining a B.A. in political science and international relations from the University of Western Australia, Charles moved to the U.S., where he earned his J.D. magna cum laude from the University of Baltimore School of Law. During law school, he served as president of his school’s chapter of The Federalist Society and was an editor of the University of Baltimore Law Review. Other highlights from his law school days include an internship at the Cato Institute and a clerkship at the Institute for Justice.
Charles lives in Sacramento with his wife Maxine. In his spare time, he enjoys reading and playing the bass guitar.
President, Phoenix Center for Advanced Legal and Economic Public Policy Studies
Lawrence J. Spiwak is President of the Phoenix Center for Advanced Legal & Economic Public Policy Studies, a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization that studies broad public-policy issues related to governance, social and economic conditions, with a particular emphasis on the law and economics of the digital age. Mr. Spiwak is a prolific scholar whose work is frequently cited by policymakers, major news media and academic journals around the world, and is in the top 1.3%of authors downloaded on the Social Science Research Network. Mr. Spiwak currently serves as the co-chair of the Federal Communications Bar Association’s (FCBA) committee responsible for overseeing the FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS LAW JOURNAL and is a member of the program committee of the Telecommunications Policy Research Conference (“TPRC”). Mr. Spiwak is also the recipient of the FCBA’s Distinguished Service Award. Prior to joining the Phoenix Center, Mr. Spiwak was a Senior Attorney with the Competition Division in the FCC’s Office of General Counsel from 1994-1998. While in college, Mr. Spiwak was accepted into the Presidential Stay-In School program where he was responsible for delivering classified and confidential material among senior White House and Reagan Administration officials and received a full FBI security clearance. Mr. Spiwak received his B.A. with Special Honors from the George Washington University and his J.D. from the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. Mr. Spiwak is a member in good standing of the bars of New York, Massachusetts, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
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