General Counsel, United States Senator Jim Banks
Elle Bernstein serves as General Counsel to United States Senator Jim Banks (R-IN). In her capacity as General Counsel, Elle handles immigration policy, pro-life issues, and judicial nominations. Elle has served as counsel for amicus briefs on abortion and the Constitution, Title IX, and religious liberty. Her article, “Beyond Barbara: Towards A Jurisprudence of Nationhood,” is forthcoming in the Notre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics, and Public Policy.
Elle co-founded the Pro-Life Lawyers Caucus and is an executive committee member of the Federalist Society’s Immigration Practice Group. She has also held fellowships with the Claremont Institute, the James Wilson Institute, and Alliance Defending Freedom.
Previously, Elle was an Associate in the Washington, D.C. office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP and clerked for the Honorable James C. Ho of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
Elle holds a B.A. in Philosophy from the King’s College and a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School.
Senior Editor, National Review
Historian Richard Brookhiser is a senior editor of National Review, a senior fellow at the National Review Institute, and the author of several books, including Founders’ Son, Right Time, Right Place, George Washington on Leadership, What Would the Founders Do?, Gentleman Revolutionary, Rules of Civility, America’s First Dynasty, Alexander Hamilton, American, Founding Father: Rediscovering George Washington, Way of the WASP, and The Outside Story.
Professor of Law & Helen L. Crocker Faculty Scholar, Stanford Law School
Jud Campbell joined the faculty of Stanford Law School in 2023. He previously served as a professor of law at the University of Richmond School of Law and as a visiting professor of law at the University of Chicago Law School and at Harvard Law School. His academic focus is constitutional history and First Amendment law. His publications include articles in the Stanford Law Review, Yale Law Journal, Harvard Law Review, Texas Law Review, Constitutional Commentary, and Law and History Review. After completing his J.D. at Stanford Law School, he clerked for Judge Diane S. Sykes on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, and for Judge José A. Cabranes on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He then served as the Executive Director of the Stanford Constitutional Law Center. He holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and two master’s degrees from the London School of Economics, where he studied as a Marshall Scholar.
Leitner Family Professor of International Law and Co-Founder & Co-Director of the Center on Asian Americans & the Law, Fordham University School of Law
Thomas H. Lee is the Leitner Family Professor of International Law at Fordham, where he teaches civil procedure, constitutional law, federal courts, international law, and the U.S. law of civil-military relations. His meticulously researched and historically-grounded scholarship has argued that the Eleventh Amendment reflected the classical international law principle that only a sovereign state—not its citizens or subjects— has rights against other sovereign states; that the Alien Tort Statute was a national-security peacekeeping statute, not an international human-rights statute, enacted in 1789 when the United States was a militarily weak state; and that the Natural Born Citizen Clause regarding presidential eligibility reflected natural-law principles of membership by descent as well as domestic birthplace. His current research examines the nature of Article III judicial power and the role of the federal courts in American society.
He is Co-Director of the Center on Asian Americans and the Law, Special Counsel at Hughes Hubbard & Reed, and a Member of the American Law Institute. He was Special Counsel to the General Counsel of the U.S. Department of Defense, a Member of the ICSID Panel of Conciliators, Adviser to the Constitutional Court of Korea, and Visiting Professor at Columbia, Harvard, and the University of Virginia law schools, as well as Faculty Director of International and Graduate Studies at Fordham from 2006 to 2019. Before his academic career, Lee clerked for Judge Michael Boudin of the First Circuit and Justice David Souter of the Supreme Court and served as an active-duty U.S. naval cryptology officer, afloat on submarines and surface combatants and ashore in Korea, Japan, and with the National Security Agency. He holds A.B. (summa cum laude), A.M. (Regional Studies—East Asia), and J.D. degrees from Harvard, where he was Articles Chair of the Harvard Law Review and a Ph.D. candidate (ABD) in Government.
Supervising Senior Attorney, Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE)
Conor Fitzpatrick comes to FIRE by way of Detroit, Michigan, where he was a principal at Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone. Conor has extensive litigation experience at the state and federal level. He has first-chaired multiple jury trials and briefed and argued several eight-figure cases on appeal.
Conor also comes to FIRE with a track record of supporting civil liberties and the First Amendment. Before joining FIRE, he taught First Amendment law as an adjunct professor at the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law. He has extensive experience litigating First Amendment cases pro bono on behalf of the incarcerated: His First Amendment work for inmates includes trying a First Amendment free exercise case to a federal jury, which resulted in a six-figure, mid-trial settlement following his cross examination of the key defendant. In another case, Conor secured a published decision from the Sixth Circuit denying qualified immunity to five prison employees, cementing his client’s First Amendment right to peacefully criticize government employees. Conor’s work on these and other cases earned him the 2018 Richard J. Seryak Award for Pro Bono Service.
When not thinking about the First Amendment, Conor enjoys reading, running, and eating sushi. He also avidly supports Detroit’s sports teams, but he rarely enjoys it.
Vice President for Legal Strategy, Stand Together
Casey Mattox is Vice President for Legal Strategy at Stand Together and Senior Advisor at
Americans for Prosperity. In these roles he advocates for and creates strategies and
partnerships to ensure a constitutionally limited government that protects the civil liberties of all
Americans. Prior to joining Stand Together and AFP Casey’s legal career focused on defending
the First Amendment rights of students, faculty, healthcare workers and religious organizations.
Casey has a J.D. from Boston College School of Law and an undergraduate degree from the
University of Virginia. You can find him on Twitter at @CaseyMattox_ and on LinkedIn at
@Casey-Mattox-ST.
Senior Fellow and Director of Constitutional Studies, Manhattan Institute
Ilya Shapiro is a senior fellow and director of constitutional studies at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal. Previously he was executive director and senior lecturer at the Georgetown Center for the Constitution, and before that a vice president of the Cato Institute.
Shapiro is the author of Lawless: The Miseducation of America’s Elites (2025) and Supreme Disorder: Judicial Nominations and the Politics of America’s Highest Court (2020), coauthor of Religious Liberties for Corporations? (2014), and editor of 11 volumes of the Cato Supreme Court Review (2008-18). He has contributed to a variety of academic, popular, and professional publications, including the Wall Street Journal, Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, National Review, and Newsweek. He also regularly provides commentary for various media outlets, writes the Shapiro’s Gavel newsletter on Substack, and once appeared on the Colbert Report.
Shapiro has testified many times before Congress and state legislatures and has filed more than 500 amicus curiae “friend of the court” briefs in the Supreme Court. He lectures regularly on behalf of the Federalist Society, is a member of the board of fellows of the Jewish Policy Center, was an inaugural Washington Fellow at the National Review Institute, and has been an adjunct law professor at the George Washington University and University of Mississippi. He is also the chairman of the board of advisers of the Mississippi Justice Institute, a barrister in the Edward Coke Appellate Inn of Court, and a former member of the Virginia Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.
Earlier in his career, Shapiro was a special assistant/adviser to the Multi-National Force in Iraq on rule-of-law issues and practiced at Patton Boggs and Cleary Gottlieb. Before entering private practice, he clerked for Judge E. Grady Jolly of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. He holds an AB from Princeton University, an MSc from the London School of Economics, and a JD from the University of Chicago Law School.
Howard Adler, Nome
Howard B. Adler is a retired partner at the international law firm Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher LLP. From 2019-21, he served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for the Financial Stability Oversight Council. He is the co-author of Surprised Again! The COVID Crisis and the New Market Bubble (2023).
Senior Fellow in Constitutional Jurisprudence, Independence Institute
Professor Robert G. Natelson is a constitutional scholar and author.
Rob’s constitutional scholarship has been cited repeatedly by justices and parties at the U.S. Supreme Court—as well as by federal appeals courts, and at least 18 state supreme courts.
Rob’s research into the Constitution’s original meaning has carried him to libraries throughout the United States and in Britain, including four months at Oxford University. His books and articles span many different parts of the Constitution, including groundbreaking studies of the Necessary and Proper Clause, the Indian Commerce Clause, federalism, Founding-Era interpretation, regulation of elections, and the amendment process of Article V. He created the first-ever online bibliography for 18th century materials used in constitutional research. He is a contributing author to the Encyclopedia of the Supreme Court of the United States (on Magna Carta). He contributed eight essays to the third edition of the Heritage Guide to the Constitution: five on the amendment procedure and one each on the Guarantee Clause, the Postal Clause, and the Recess Appointments Clause.
U.S. Supreme Court justices have relied explicitly on Rob’s research in 41 citations in 13 separate cases.
Senior Fellow, Independent Institute
Dr. Stephen P. Halbrook is a Senior Fellow at the Independent Institute. He has taught legal and political philosophy at George Mason University, Howard University, and Tuskegee Institute, and he received his J.D. from the Georgetown University Law Center and Ph.D. in social philosophy from Florida State University.
The winner of three cases before the U.S. Supreme Court (Printz v. United States, United States v. Thompson/Center Arms Company, and Castillo v. United States), he has testified before the Subcommittee on the Constitution of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution, Subcommittee on Crime of the House Judiciary Committee, Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, and House Committee on the District of Columbia.
A contributor to numerous scholarly volumes, he is the author of the books, Gun Control in Nazi-Occupied France: Tyranny and Resistance; Gun Control in the Third Reich: Disarming the Jews and “Enemies of the State”; The Founders’ Second Amendment: Origins of the Right to Bear Arms; That Every Man Be Armed: Evolution of a Constitutional Right; A Right to Bear Arms; Firearms Law Deskbook: Federal and State Criminal Practice; Securing Civil Rights: Freedmen, the Fourteenth Amendment, and the Right to Bear Arms; State and Federal Bills of Rights and Constitutional Guarantees; and Target Switzerland: Swiss Armed Neutrality in World War II. Dr. Halbrook’s scholarly articles have appeared in such journals as the Arizona Journal of International and Comparative Law, Drug Law Report, George Mason University Law Review, Journal of Air Law and Commerce, Journal of Law and Policy, Law & Contemporary Problems, National Law Journal, Northern Kentucky Law Review, St. John’s Journal of Legal Commentary; Seton Hall Constitutional Law Journal, Tennessee Law Review, University of Dayton Law Review, Valparaiso University Law Review, Vermont Law Review, and William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal.
Dr. Halbrook's popular articles have appeared in such publications as the Wall Street Journal, Newsday, San Francisco Chronicle, National Review, Investor’s Business Daily, Kansas City Star, Washington Examiner, Shreveport Times, Sacramento Bee, Providence Journal, Tampa Tribune, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, History News Network, San Antonio Express-News, The Daily Caller, Detroit News, Honolulu Star Advertiser, Birmingham News, Environmental Forum, USA Today, and Washington Times. He has also appeared on numerous national TV/radio programs on CNN, Fox News Channel, Fox Business Network, Court TV, NewsMax TV, CBN, Voice of America, and C-SPAN.
Professor of Law, Trinity College Dublin
Catherine Donnelly undertook her LL.B. in Trinity College Dublin and is a former scholar of the College. She then completed a B.C.L. in Oxford, at Magdalen College, followed by an LL.M. and Fellowship in Harvard. She practised as a litigation attorney at Davis Polk & Wardwell in New York from 1999-2001 and was admitted to both the New York State and Federal Bars (Eastern and Southern Districts). During this time, she also taught an asylum law workshop at Columbia Law School and worked on pro bono projects for the Yale Law Clinic and Human Rights Watch.
From 2001-2004, she completed a D.Phil. in Oxford, again at Magdalen College, during part of which time she held a college lectureship shared between Corpus Christi College and St John's College, Oxford.
She joined the Law Faculty of the University of Oxford in 2005 as a University Lecturer and Fellow in Law at Wadham College, teaching Administrative, Constitutional and European Community Law. She joined the Law School in Trinity College in January 2007. She was elected to Fellowship of the College in 2011 and is an Associate Professor.
She has published and presented conference papers in the areas of human rights law, European Union law, administrative law, election law, constitutional law, comparative law, procurement law and public-private partnerships and is an author of De Smiths’ Judicial Review.
Catherine combines her academic work with practice as a barrister. She was called to the Bar of England and Wales in 2003 (Gray's Inn) and from 2004-2005, she undertook pupillage at Blackstone Chambers, and became a member of Blackstone Chambers in 2008.
She began practice at the Bar of Ireland in 2008, and was called to the Inner Bar and became a Senior Counsel in 2021. She has appeared in cases before the Court of Justice and General Court of the European Union, the European Court of Human Rights, and the national courts, including acting for the Data Protection Commissioner in the Schrems II litigation on EU-US data transfers and for Ireland in the Apple State Aid appeal. She practises in the areas of EU, Constitutional, Administrative and Commercial Law.
Laurence H. Silberman Chair in Constitutional Governance, American Enterprise Institute; Executive Director, Antonin Scalia Law School’s C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State
Adam J. White is the Laurence H. Silberman Chair in Constitutional Governance and senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he focuses on the Supreme Court and the administrative state. He also directs the Antonin Scalia Law School’s C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State.
He writes on regulation and constitutional government for a variety of publications. He practiced law in Washington, D.C., after clerking for the D.C. Circuit's Judge David Sentelle. He also has been chairman of the ABA's Administrative Law Section.
In 2021, he served on the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States, where he criticized “Court packing” and other efforts to restructure the Supreme Court.
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