General Counsel, U.S. Department of the Air Force
William K. Lane III is the General Counsel of the Department of the Air Force. As the Chief Legal Officer and Ethics Official for the Air Force and Space Force, Mr. Lane provides oversight and guidance to 680,000 active duty, Guard, Reserve and civilian Airmen and Guardians. Mr. Lane additionally serves ex officio as Administrator of Wake Island.
Prior to his current position, Mr. Lane was a Partner with Wiley Rein, LLP, a Washington, D.C. based law firm. In his practice, Mr. Lane advocated on behalf of corporate and individual clients in a broad spectrum of appellate, constitutional, regulatory and complex commercial litigation.
During President Trump’s first administration, Mr. Lane served in the U.S. Department of Justice as Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division, representing agencies in federal court throughout the United States.
Prior to attending law school, Mr. Lane received a U.S. Army commission in 2008 and served on active duty until 2012 as a Cavalry Officer, before transitioning to the Maryland Army National Guard and ultimately the U.S. Army Reserve. During his time on active duty, Mr. Lane completed a combat deployment to Iraq in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Founding Partner, The Sander Group, PLLC; Former General Counsel, U.S. Department of the Navy
Bob is the Founding Partner of The Sander Group, PLLC, which is a National Security and Government Contracts Boutique Law Firm located in Alexandria, VA. Bob previously served as the 23rd General Counsel of the Department of the Navy after his unanimous confirmation by the U.S. Senate on December 19, 2019. As General Counsel, Bob served as the Department of the Navy’s (DON) Chief Legal Officer and head of the Office of the General Counsel (OGC) where he led a team of over 1,100 civilian and uniformed attorneys and professional support staff in 140 offices worldwide. During this time, Bob provided legal advice to the Secretary of the Navy, the Under Secretary of the Navy, the Assistant Secretaries of the Navy and their staffs, and the multiple components of the Department, including the Navy and the Marine Corps.
Previously, in July 2018, Bob became the Principal Deputy General Counsel of the Department of the Army. He then became the Chief Legal Officer for the Army serving as The Senior Official Performing the Duties of the General Counsel of the Army in June 2019. During his time with the Army Office of General Counsel, Bob’s duties included providing legal and policy advice to the Secretary of the Army, the Army Secretariat, and other Senior Army leaders.
Prior to becoming Principal Deputy General Counsel of the Army, Bob performed a detail to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence Office of General Counsel. From 2010 to 2019, Bob worked as a Federal Prosecutor in the U.S. Department of Justice, National Security Division, Counterterrorism Section. Previously, Bob served as the Chief of the Economic Crimes Unit and the Captain of the Narcotics Enforcement Team in the Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, District Attorney’s Office. Bob also served as a Special Assistant United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. As a state and federal prosecutor, Bob has handled thousands of cases, which includes trying dozens of jury trials to verdict.
In his military capacity, Bob is a Colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve Judge Advocate General’s Corps, where he serves as the Senior Legal Advisor/Staff Judge Advocate (IMA) for the Network Enterprise Technology Command and the U.S. Army Intelligence Center of Excellence at Fort Huachuca, AZ. Bob previously served as the Chief of the Procurement Fraud/Business Integrity Section for the Defense Logistics Agency at Fort Belvoir, VA and has performed duties as an Adjunct Professor at the National Intelligence University in Bethesda, Maryland. Bob previously deployed to Djibouti, Africa for 13 months as the Acting/Deputy Staff Judge Advocate for the Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa, and was deployed for six months in support of Operations Enduring and Iraqi Freedom, where he served as Trial Counsel for V Corps in Darmstadt, Germany.
Bob received his Juris Doctor Degree from the Widener University School of Law, where he was a member of Law Review for the Delaware Journal of Corporate Law and a member of the Student Bar Association. Bob also has a Master of Science of Strategic Intelligence Degree from the National Intelligence University and a Bachelor of Business Administration Degree in Finance from Temple University. Bob holds an active Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information (TS-SCI) Security Clearance.
General Counsel, U.S. Department of the Air Force
William K. Lane III is the General Counsel of the Department of the Air Force. As the Chief Legal Officer and Ethics Official for the Air Force and Space Force, Mr. Lane provides oversight and guidance to 680,000 active duty, Guard, Reserve and civilian Airmen and Guardians. Mr. Lane additionally serves ex officio as Administrator of Wake Island.
Prior to his current position, Mr. Lane was a Partner with Wiley Rein, LLP, a Washington, D.C. based law firm. In his practice, Mr. Lane advocated on behalf of corporate and individual clients in a broad spectrum of appellate, constitutional, regulatory and complex commercial litigation.
During President Trump’s first administration, Mr. Lane served in the U.S. Department of Justice as Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division, representing agencies in federal court throughout the United States.
Prior to attending law school, Mr. Lane received a U.S. Army commission in 2008 and served on active duty until 2012 as a Cavalry Officer, before transitioning to the Maryland Army National Guard and ultimately the U.S. Army Reserve. During his time on active duty, Mr. Lane completed a combat deployment to Iraq in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Founding Partner, The Sander Group, PLLC; Former General Counsel, U.S. Department of the Navy
Bob is the Founding Partner of The Sander Group, PLLC, which is a National Security and Government Contracts Boutique Law Firm located in Alexandria, VA. Bob previously served as the 23rd General Counsel of the Department of the Navy after his unanimous confirmation by the U.S. Senate on December 19, 2019. As General Counsel, Bob served as the Department of the Navy’s (DON) Chief Legal Officer and head of the Office of the General Counsel (OGC) where he led a team of over 1,100 civilian and uniformed attorneys and professional support staff in 140 offices worldwide. During this time, Bob provided legal advice to the Secretary of the Navy, the Under Secretary of the Navy, the Assistant Secretaries of the Navy and their staffs, and the multiple components of the Department, including the Navy and the Marine Corps.
Previously, in July 2018, Bob became the Principal Deputy General Counsel of the Department of the Army. He then became the Chief Legal Officer for the Army serving as The Senior Official Performing the Duties of the General Counsel of the Army in June 2019. During his time with the Army Office of General Counsel, Bob’s duties included providing legal and policy advice to the Secretary of the Army, the Army Secretariat, and other Senior Army leaders.
Prior to becoming Principal Deputy General Counsel of the Army, Bob performed a detail to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence Office of General Counsel. From 2010 to 2019, Bob worked as a Federal Prosecutor in the U.S. Department of Justice, National Security Division, Counterterrorism Section. Previously, Bob served as the Chief of the Economic Crimes Unit and the Captain of the Narcotics Enforcement Team in the Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, District Attorney’s Office. Bob also served as a Special Assistant United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. As a state and federal prosecutor, Bob has handled thousands of cases, which includes trying dozens of jury trials to verdict.
In his military capacity, Bob is a Colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve Judge Advocate General’s Corps, where he serves as the Senior Legal Advisor/Staff Judge Advocate (IMA) for the Network Enterprise Technology Command and the U.S. Army Intelligence Center of Excellence at Fort Huachuca, AZ. Bob previously served as the Chief of the Procurement Fraud/Business Integrity Section for the Defense Logistics Agency at Fort Belvoir, VA and has performed duties as an Adjunct Professor at the National Intelligence University in Bethesda, Maryland. Bob previously deployed to Djibouti, Africa for 13 months as the Acting/Deputy Staff Judge Advocate for the Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa, and was deployed for six months in support of Operations Enduring and Iraqi Freedom, where he served as Trial Counsel for V Corps in Darmstadt, Germany.
Bob received his Juris Doctor Degree from the Widener University School of Law, where he was a member of Law Review for the Delaware Journal of Corporate Law and a member of the Student Bar Association. Bob also has a Master of Science of Strategic Intelligence Degree from the National Intelligence University and a Bachelor of Business Administration Degree in Finance from Temple University. Bob holds an active Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information (TS-SCI) Security Clearance.
Director, Global Engagement; Vincent de Paul Professor of Law, DePaul University College of Law
Before joining DePaul, Dr. Alberto R. Coll served for five years as dean of the Center for Naval Warfare Studies, the U.S. Navy’s foremost strategic research center. A cum laude graduate from Princeton University in history, he earned his JD and PhD in government and foreign affairs from the University of Virginia. In 1982, Professor Coll joined the faculty at Georgetown University, and in 1986 was appointed secretary of the Navy Senior Research Fellow at the Naval War College. In 1989, he became the youngest holder of the Charles H. Stockton Chair of International Law, the college’s oldest chair. From 1990 to 1993, Professor Coll was principal deputy assistant secretary of defense, serving in the Pentagon office that oversaw the Defense Department’s policy, strategy and $3 billion budget for special operations forces and “low-intensity” conflict, including counterterrorism. For his work, he received the Secretary of Defense Medal for Outstanding Public Service. Professor Coll is the author of The Wisdom of Statecraft and editor of several other books on international relations and law. He is the author of prize-winning articles in the American Journal of International Law and the Naval War College Review, as well as articles in Foreign Policy, Washington Quarterly, Harvard Journal of International Law, the University of Pennsylvania Journal of International Law, and the UCLA Journal of International Law and Foreign Affairs. In 2004, Professor Coll received the Antonio Jose Irisarri Medal for his contribution to strengthening the rule of law and civilian control over the military in Guatemala. He has served as consultant to the Pew Charitable Trusts, the Ford Foundation, the Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs, the Rand Corp., the United States Information Agency, and numerous defense and intelligence organizations. He is a frequent commentator on American foreign policy, U.S. relations with Cuba and Latin America, and international legal and political issues. Over the past 28 years he has lectured at more than 120 universities, think tanks, government agencies, and public forums in the United States, Latin America, Europe, Asia and South Africa. Professor Coll is a member of the Virginia Bar, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Instituto de Estudios Juridicos y Politicos at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. At DePaul, he teaches courses on international law, international human rights, U.S. foreign relations, terrorism, international trade and Latin America.
Senior Fellow in Executive Power, Cato Institute
Molly Nixon is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, where she focuses on the scope, use, and history of executive power as well as its limits under the Constitution. Molly was previously an attorney with Pacific Legal Foundation’s separation of powers practice, where she litigated cases challenging congressional delegations of legislative power and executive branch overreach. Before that, she served as an Attorney-Advisor at the Department of the Interior and as Legislative Counsel for Congressman Justin Amash.
Molly holds a J.D. from New York University School of Law and a B.A. in History and International Relations from Boston University. She clerked for the U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska and practiced law at a firm in New York City for several years before moving to Washington, D.C.
Liviu Librescu Professor of Law, Columbia School of Law
Matthew C. Waxman is a nationally known authority on national security law, cybersecurity, terrorism, intelligence, and armed conflict. He brings the perspective of a former senior government official to his scholarship on war powers, the regulation of military technology, counterterrorism, surveillance, and cybersecurity.
His writing appears regularly in the Lawfare national security blog, and his expertise is frequently sought in media interviews and congressional testimony. Waxman is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, where he also serves as adjunct senior fellow for Law and Foreign Policy.
At the Law School, Waxman chairs the National Security Law Program and has co-chaired the Cybersecurity Center at Columbia’s Data Science Institute, an interdisciplinary endeavor that brings together experts from across the university to develop ways to keep data secure and private. His teaching focuses on constitutional war powers, international law, and data privacy and surveillance. In 2008, he helped create Columbia Law’s Judge Advocate (JAG) Scholars program, which brings military lawyers to the LL.M. program. He has cultivated opportunities for students to meet with alumni faculty at West Point, where he served as a senior fellow at the Lieber Institute for Law and Warfare.
Before joining the Law School in 2008, Waxman served in senior positions at the State Department, Department of Defense, and National Security Council during the George W. Bush administration. As a National Security Council aide, he was involved in the White House response to the attacks on September 11, 2001. In 2005, as a deputy assistant secretary of defense, he pressed for full compliance with the Geneva Conventions at military detention sites. In 2006, as the State Department’s principal deputy director of policy planning, he led the United States delegation to the United Nations Human Rights Committee in Geneva.
After law school, Waxman served as a law clerk to Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter and to Judge Joel M. Flaum of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit. Earlier in his career, he worked as a defense analyst at RAND.
Emanuel S. Heller Professor of Law, University of California at Berkeley; Thomas Smith Senior Research Fellow, Civitas Institute, University of Texas at Austin
John Yoo is the Emanuel Heller Professor of Law at the University of California at Berkeley. He is also the Thomas Smith Senior Research Fellow, Civitas Institute, at the University of Texas at Austin. He is also a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
His most recent book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Supreme Court, co-authored with Robert Delahunty, was published in 2023. Professor Yoo’s other books include Defender-in-Chief: Trump’s Fight for Presidential Power; Striking Power: How Cyber, Robots, and Space Weapons Change the Rules for War; Point of Attack: Preventive War, International Law, and Global Welfare; and Crisis and Command: A History of Executive Power from George Washington to George Bush.
He is a co-author of volumes 1 and 2 of R. Rossum, G. Tarr, V. Munoz & J. Yoo American Constitution Law (Routledge, 2026), and a co-editor of the eight-volume series on the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution, We Hold These Truths, with Yuval Levin and Adam White of the American Enterprise Institute.
Professor Yoo has published more than 100 articles in academic journals on subjects including national security, constitutional law, international law, and the Supreme Court. He also regularly contributes to the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and National Review, among others.
Professor Yoo has served in all three branches of government. He was an official in the U.S. Department of Justice, where he worked on national security and terrorism issues after the 9/11 attacks. He served as general counsel of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. He has been a law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and federal appeals Judge Laurence Silberman. He has been a visiting professor at the University of Texas at Austin’s School of Civic Leadership, Seoul National University, the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya, Keio University, Trento University, the University of Chicago, and the Free University of Amsterdam.
Professor Yoo supervises the Public Law and Policy Program and the California Constitution Center. He also serves on the boards of Founding Forward, the Washington Legal Foundation, the Pacific Legal Foundation, the Ulysses Grant Institute, the Federalist Society’s Separation of Powers and Federalism Division, the Universidad Cientifica del Sur Law School, and the Asia-Pacific Law Institute at Seoul National University. He is a winner of the Federalist Society’s Paul Bator award and the Heritage Foundation’s Edwin Meese III Originalism Lectureship.
Professor Yoo graduated from Yale Law School and summa cum laude from Harvard College.
Managing Director, Berkeley Research Group (BRG)
Dr. Dasgupta served as Assistant Secretary for Trade and Economic Security, responsible for a comprehensive national security portfolio. His duties included oversight of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), Team Telecom, the Forced Labor Enforcement Task Force (FLETF), Information and Communications Technology and Services (ICTS), Arctic security initiatives, the Icebreaker Collaboration Effort (ICE) Pact, and related trade matters. Sohan Dasgupta also served as political head of the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), supporting U.S. foreign policy and national security objectives. Previously, he had served as Deputy General Counsel of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
Dr. Dasgupta holds a JD from the University of California, Berkeley, where he was elected to the Order of the Coif; a PhD in international trade and arbitration from the University of Cambridge; MSc from the University of Oxford; and BA in Economics–Operations Research and History from Columbia University. He commenced his legal career with clerkships on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia.
Dr. Dasgupta has addressed the Hungarian, Romanian, and Guatemalan parliaments, and has spoken at the invitation of Members of the U.S. Congress, the British Parliament, the European Union Parliament, the Congress of the Philippines, and the Legislative Assembly of El Salvador.
Visiting Professor of Public and International Affairs, Charles and Marie Robertson Visiting Professor, Princeton School of Public and International Affairs
Martin S. Flaherty is a longtime is Visiting Professor at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs, where he was Fellow in the Program in Law and Public Affairs. He is also Leitner Family Professor of International Human Rights Law and Founding Co-Director of the Leitner Center for International Law and Justice at Fordham Law School. Professor Flaherty also currently teaches at Columbia Law School and Barnard College. Previously he has taught at China University of Political Science and Law and the National Judges College in Beijing, Sungkyunkwan University in Seoul, Queen’s University Belfast. Professor Flaherty earlier served as a law clerk for Justice Byron R. White of the U.S. Supreme Court and Chief Judge John Gibbons of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
Flaherty received a J.D. from Columbia Law School, where he was Book Reviews and Articles Editor of the Columbia Law Review, an M.A. and M.Phil., with distinction, from Yale (in history), and B.A. summa cum laude from Princeton. For the Leitner Center, Human Rights First, and the New York City Bar Association, he has led or participated in human rights missions to Northern Ireland, Turkey, Hong Kong, Mexico, Malaysia, Kenya, Romania and China. Professor Flaherty is currently the President of the American Association of the International Commission of Jurists, https://www.aaicj.org, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and a legal expert advisor at the Sixth Committee of the United Nations General Assembly.
Flaherty’s scholarly publications focus upon international human rights, foreign affairs, and constitutional law and history, and appear in such journals as the Columbia Law Review, the Yale Law Journal, the Michigan Law Review, the University of Chicago Law Review, Constitutional Commentary, the Harvard Journal of Law and Policy, and the Harvard Human Rights Journal. He has written, appeared, or been quoted in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Yorker, The Boston Globe, The Daily News, Newsday, the PBS Newshour, CNN, MSNBC, and NPR. He is also the author of the Restoring the Global Judiciary: Why the Supreme Court Should Rule in Foreign Affairs (Princeton University Press, 2019).
Professor Emeritus of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
Jeremy A. Rabkin is a Professor Emeritus of Law at the Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University. Before joining the faculty in June 2007, he was for over two decades a professor in the Department of Government at Cornell University. Professor Rabkin serves on the board of directors of the Center for Individual Rights, a public interest law firm based in Washington, D.C. Previously he was a board member of the U.S. Institute of Peace and the board of academic advisors of the American Enterprise Institute.
Professor Rabkin’s books include Law Without Nations? (Princeton University Press, 2005). He authored “If You Need a Friend, Don’t Call a Cosmopolitan,” a chapter in Varieties of Sovereignty and Citizenship (Sigal R. Ben-Porath & Rogers M. Smith eds., University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012). His articles have appeared in major law reviews and political science journals and his journalistic contributions in a range of magazines and newspapers, including the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal.
Professor of Law, South Texas College of Law Houston
Josh Blackman is a national thought leader on constitutional law and the United States Supreme Court. Josh’s work was quoted during two presidential impeachment trials. He has testified before Congress and advises federal and state lawmakers. Josh regularly appears on TV, including NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox, and the BBC. Josh is also a frequent guest on NPR and other syndicated radio programs. He has published commentaries in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and leading national publications.
Since 2012, Josh has served as a professor at the South Texas College of Law Houston. He holds the Centennial Chair of Constitutional Law. Josh is an Adjunct Fellow at the Manhattan Institute. Josh has written more than seven dozen law review articles that have been cited more than a thousand times. Josh was selected as the Jurist of the Year by the Texas Journal of Law & Public Policy, received the inaugural Meese III Originalism Award, and was awarded the Inaugural Joseph Story Award. Josh was selected by Forbes Magazine for the “30 Under 30” in Law and Policy. Josh is the President of the Harlan Institute, and founded FantasySCOTUS, the Internet’s Premier Supreme Court Fantasy League. He blogs at the Volokh Conspiracyand posts@JoshMBlackman.
Founder, Chairman, and CEO, Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law
Hon. Kenneth L. Marcus is an internationally recognized expert in civil and human rights, as well as a leader in the fight against anti-Semitism on and off university campuses. He is the Founder, Chairman, and CEO of The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, the leading civil rights legal organization fighting against anti-Semitism. The New York Times has called him “The Man Who Helped Redefine Campus Anti-Semitism.” He been described, in that paper, as “the single most effective and respected force” to combat anti-Semitism.
During his public service career, Marcus served as Assistant U.S. Secretary of Education for Civil Rights; Staff Director at the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights; and General Deputy Assistant U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity.
In academia, he serves as Professorial Lecturer in Law at George Washington University. He formerly held the Lillie and Nathan Ackerman Chair in Equality and Justice in America at the City University of New York’s Bernard M. Baruch College, served as Visiting Research Professor of Political Science at Yeshiva University, and was a Board of Visitors member George Mason University and Distinguished Senior Fellow at that university’s law school. He is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Contemporary Antisemitism and previously served as Associate Editor of the Journal for the Study of Anti-Semitism.
Marcus is also author of The Definition of Anti-Semitism (Oxford University Press) and Jewish Identity and Civil Rights in America (Cambridge University Press). He has published widely in academic journals as well as in more popular venues such as The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Newsweek, USA Today, and Politico. He is a graduate of Williams College and the University of California at Berkeley School of Law.
Earlier in his career, he was a litigation partner in two major law firms, where he conducted complex commercial and constitutional litigation. He also serves as Chairman emeritus of the Executive Committee of the Federalist Society for Law & Public Policy Civil Rights Practice Group.
Associate Professor of Government; Pre-Law Advisor, Patrick Henry College
James Madison Distinguished Professor of Law and Class of 1941 Research Professor of Law, University of Virginia School of Law
Professor John C. Harrison is the James Madison Distinguished Professor of Law and Class of 1941 Research Professor of Law at the University of Virginia School of Law. He joined the faculty at University of Virginia in 1993 as an associate professor of law after a distinguished career with the U.S. Department of Justice. His teaching subjects include constitutional history, federal courts, remedies, corporations, civil procedure, legislation and property. In 2008 he was on leave from the Law School to serve as counselor on international law in the Office of the Legal Adviser at the U.S. Department of State.
A 1977 graduate of the University of Virginia, Harrison earned his law degree in 1980 at Yale, where he served as editor of the Yale Law Journal and editor and articles editor of the Yale Studies in World Public Order. He was an associate at Patton Boggs & Blow in Washington, D.C., and clerked for Judge Robert Bork on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He worked with the Department of Justice from 1983-93, serving in numerous capacities, including deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel (1990-93).
Professor Emeritus of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
Jeremy A. Rabkin is a Professor Emeritus of Law at the Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University. Before joining the faculty in June 2007, he was for over two decades a professor in the Department of Government at Cornell University. Professor Rabkin serves on the board of directors of the Center for Individual Rights, a public interest law firm based in Washington, D.C. Previously he was a board member of the U.S. Institute of Peace and the board of academic advisors of the American Enterprise Institute.
Professor Rabkin’s books include Law Without Nations? (Princeton University Press, 2005). He authored “If You Need a Friend, Don’t Call a Cosmopolitan,” a chapter in Varieties of Sovereignty and Citizenship (Sigal R. Ben-Porath & Rogers M. Smith eds., University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012). His articles have appeared in major law reviews and political science journals and his journalistic contributions in a range of magazines and newspapers, including the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal.
Emanuel S. Heller Professor of Law, University of California at Berkeley; Thomas Smith Senior Research Fellow, Civitas Institute, University of Texas at Austin
John Yoo is the Emanuel Heller Professor of Law at the University of California at Berkeley. He is also the Thomas Smith Senior Research Fellow, Civitas Institute, at the University of Texas at Austin. He is also a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
His most recent book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Supreme Court, co-authored with Robert Delahunty, was published in 2023. Professor Yoo’s other books include Defender-in-Chief: Trump’s Fight for Presidential Power; Striking Power: How Cyber, Robots, and Space Weapons Change the Rules for War; Point of Attack: Preventive War, International Law, and Global Welfare; and Crisis and Command: A History of Executive Power from George Washington to George Bush.
He is a co-author of volumes 1 and 2 of R. Rossum, G. Tarr, V. Munoz & J. Yoo American Constitution Law (Routledge, 2026), and a co-editor of the eight-volume series on the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution, We Hold These Truths, with Yuval Levin and Adam White of the American Enterprise Institute.
Professor Yoo has published more than 100 articles in academic journals on subjects including national security, constitutional law, international law, and the Supreme Court. He also regularly contributes to the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and National Review, among others.
Professor Yoo has served in all three branches of government. He was an official in the U.S. Department of Justice, where he worked on national security and terrorism issues after the 9/11 attacks. He served as general counsel of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. He has been a law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and federal appeals Judge Laurence Silberman. He has been a visiting professor at the University of Texas at Austin’s School of Civic Leadership, Seoul National University, the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya, Keio University, Trento University, the University of Chicago, and the Free University of Amsterdam.
Professor Yoo supervises the Public Law and Policy Program and the California Constitution Center. He also serves on the boards of Founding Forward, the Washington Legal Foundation, the Pacific Legal Foundation, the Ulysses Grant Institute, the Federalist Society’s Separation of Powers and Federalism Division, the Universidad Cientifica del Sur Law School, and the Asia-Pacific Law Institute at Seoul National University. He is a winner of the Federalist Society’s Paul Bator award and the Heritage Foundation’s Edwin Meese III Originalism Lectureship.
Professor Yoo graduated from Yale Law School and summa cum laude from Harvard College.
Associate, Arent Fox LLP
Christopher Bowen is an attorney with a Arent Fox LLP where he focuses on government contractor litigation and counseling, including bid protests, contract claims, audits, individual and company debarments and suspensions, security clearances, NISPOM compliance during mergers and acquisitions, and False Claims Act lawsuits. Prior to joining the law firm, Mr. Bowen was an attorney with the United States Department of Justice, where he handled government contract litigation, as well as Fifth Amendment Takings Clause and smuggling claims. He has argued before the United States Court of Appeal for the Federal Circuit, the United States Court of Federal Claims, and the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. He has filed briefs with the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, the United States District Courts for the District of Colorado and the Northern District of California, and the United States Court of International Trade. Mr. Bowen attended Dartmouth College and the George Washington University Law School, and clerked for the Honorable Diane S. Sykes on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.
Super Lawyers has recognized Christopher Bowen as a “Rising Star” for both 2014 and 2015.
Senior Fellow, National Security Institute, Antonin Scalia School of Law, George Mason University; Retired Professor, Distinguished Fellow and Co-Founder, Center for National Security Law, University of Virginia School of Law (1987-2020)
Robert F. Turner holds both professional and academic doctorates from the University of Virginia School of Law. He co-founded the Center for National Security Law with Professor John Norton Moore in April 1981 and served as its associate director for 39 years, except for two periods of government service in the 1980s and during 1994-95, when he occupied the Charles H. Stockton Chair of International Law at the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. He retired from UVA in January 2020 and currently serves as a non-resident senior fellow at the GMU National Security Institute. He also served briefly in 2020 as President of the Crime Prevention Research Center—one of the most respected pro-Second Amendment groups in the country—while its founder, Dr. John Lott, was on leave of absence.
A former Army captain and veteran of two tours in Vietnam, Turner served as a research associate and public affairs fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace before spending five years in the mid-1970s as national security adviser to U.S. Senator Robert P. Griffin, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (where Turner anticipated by seven years the Supreme Court’s landmark INS v. Chadha decision, striking down legislative vetoes). He also served in the executive branch during the Reagan administration as a member of the Senior Executive Service, first in the Pentagon as special assistant to the undersecretary of defense for policy, then in the White House as counsel to the President's Intelligence Oversight Board, and at the State Department as principal deputy and then acting assistant secretary for legislative affairs. In 1986, he became the first president of the congressionally established United States Institute of Peace.
A former three-term chairman of the ABA Standing Committee on Law and National Security (and for many years editor of the ABA National Security Law Report), Turner also chaired the Executive-Congressional Relations Subcommittee of the ABA Section on International Law and Practice and chaired or co-chaired the National Security Law Subcommittee of the Federalist Society’s International and National Security Law Practice Group for several years.
Turner taught undergraduate courses at Virginia on international law, U.S. foreign policy, the Vietnam War and foreign policy and the law in what is now the Woodrow Wilson Department of Politics. In addition, he co-taught National Security Law and advanced national security law seminars on the Indochina War and on war and peace with Moore at the Law School.
The author or editor of 18 books and monographs (including co-editor of the Center's 1,600-page National Security Law & Policy casebook, National Security Law Documents, and Legal Issues in the Struggle Against Terror) and numerous articles in law reviews and other professional journals, Turner has also contributed articles to most of the major U.S. newspapers, including The New York Times and USA Today. In an op-ed published in The International Herald Tribune in September 1990, he and Moore were the first to call for a war-crimes trial for Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and for international controls over Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, and the following month he wrote the lead story in The Washington Post Sunday Outlook Section, “Killing Saddam: Would It Be a Crime?,” arguing that Hussein would be a lawful target during Operation Desert Storm. (His reasoning contributed to the modern legal justification for drone strikes targeting specific terrorist leaders.) Three years before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Turner published an op-ed in USA Today entitled: “In Self-defense, U.S. Has Right to Kill bin Laden.”
In July 2007, he co-authored an article in The Washington Post with former U.S. Marine Corps Commandant General P.X. Kelley, “War Crimes and the White House,” criticizing the use of unlawful “enhanced interrogation techniques” by the Central Intelligence Agency. On the 40th anniversary of the fall of Saigon he authored an article in The Wall Street Journal, “Saigon’s Fall Still Echoes Today,” noting that after the war ended, Hanoi admitted it had made a decision in 1959 to open the Ho Chi Minh Trail and start sending troops, weapons and supplies into South Vietnam to overthrow its government — just as the United States had charged. In 2010 Turner received the first “person of the year” award from SACEI, a major Vietnamese-American human rights organization.
A frequent lecturer and debater, Turner has spoken at more than 100 law schools around the nation and in other fora — taking on as many as four opponents at a time. His debate opponents have included former or future deans of Yale, Stanford, the University of Chicago and Berkeley law schools. Following a 1987 debate against Dean Harlan Cleveland (Rhodes Scholar, U.S. Ambassador to NATO, and Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient) in which Turner defended the legality of U.S. support for the Nicaraguan contras during the Reagan Administration, the host student debating societies awarded Turner the victory by an 85-to-15 percent margin.
Turner has also written and lectured widely on University of Virginia founder and America’s third president Thomas Jefferson. In 2000-2001 he chaired the Jefferson-Hemings Scholars Commission. In his 2012 book Master of the Mountain, Jefferson critic Henry Wiencek described Turner as “Jefferson’s chief scholarly defender."
A former distinguished lecturer at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, Turner is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Academy of Political Science, the Committee on the Present Danger, The Heterodox Academy, and other professional organizations. He maintained a 4.0 gpa as a graduate student at Stanford in History and Political Science and in the UVA Department of Government and Foreign Affairs and was the first person admitted directly to the UVA academic law doctorate (SJD) program without first being required to earn an LL.M. master’s degree. He was selected for inclusion in Who’s Who in American Law less than two years after graduating from law school and Who’s Who in the World before he reached the age of 40. Turner has testified before more than a dozen different congressional committees on issues of international or constitutional law and other topics.
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