Senior Attorney, Institute for Justice
Michael Bindas is a senior attorney with the Institute for Justice (IJ) and leads IJ’s educational choice team. In this role, he oversees a talented group of IJ attorneys who help policymakers design constitutionally defensible educational choice programs and who defend educational choice programs in courtrooms nationwide. He joined IJ in 2005.
Michael was part of IJ’s litigation team in Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, in which the U.S. Supreme Court held the exclusion of religious options from Montana’s educational choice program unconstitutional, and he led IJ’s defense of the Choice Scholarship Program for elementary and secondary students in Douglas County, Colorado. He also successfully challenged Washington’s denial of special education services to children in religious schools, as well as the state’s exclusion of sectarian options from its state work study program. Currently, he leads IJ’s team in Carson v. Makin, challenging Maine’s exclusion of religious options from its educational choice program.
Prior to leading IJ’s educational choice team, Michael litigated extensively to secure economic liberty, property rights, and freedom of speech throughout the nation. He was counsel of record at the U.S. Supreme Court for Kimbrough Fine Wine & Spirits in Tennessee Wine and Spirits Retailers Association v. Thomas, a successful challenge to Tennessee’s durational residency requirements for retail liquor licenses. He also led successful challenges to the municipal sign codes of St. Louis, Mo. and Norfolk, Va., after those cities attempted to silence protests of their abusive eminent domain practices.
Prior to joining IJ, Michael spent three years as an attorney with Perkins Coie LLP. He is a former law clerk to Judge Rhesa Hawkins Barksdale of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and served as an engineer officer in the United States Army and Pennsylvania Army National Guard before beginning his legal career.
Michael received his law degree cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 2001, where he served as Articles Editor for the Journal of Constitutional Law and was elected to the Order of the Coif. He received his undergraduate degree from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1995.
John P. Murphy Foundation Professor of Law and Associate Dean for External Engagement, University of Notre Dame Law School
Nicole Stelle Garnett is the John P. Murphy Foundation Professor of Law at Notre Dame Law School, where she also serves as the Associate Dean for External Engagement and directs the Notre Dame Education Law Project. Her teaching and research focus on education law and policy, religious liberty, and topics related to property law (especially land use and urban development policies). In addition to dozens of articles on these subjects, she is the author of Lost Classroom, Lost Community: Catholic Schools' Importance in Urban America (University of Chicago Press, 2014) and Ordering the City: Land Use, Policing and the Restoration of Urban America (Yale University Press, 2009).
Garnett received her B.A. with distinction in Political Science from Stanford University and her J.D. from Yale Law School. After law school, she clerked for the Honorable Morris S. Arnold of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit and for Associate Justice Clarence Thomas of the Supreme Court of the United States. Before joining the law school faculty in 1999, she worked for two years as a staff attorney at the Institute for Justice, a non-profit public-interest law firm in Washington, D.C., where she helped to defend the constitutionality of the nation's first private-school-choice programs.
At Notre Dame, Garnett is a faculty fellow in the Institute for Educational Initiatives, Kellogg Institute for International Studies, Fitzgerald Institute for Real Estate, and deNicola Center for Ethics and Culture. She also is an elected member of the American Law Institute and a Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
Senior Fellow, American Federation for Children
Shaka Mitchell serves as a Senior Fellow for the American Federation for Children.
He brings experience from several high-performing charter school networks, including Rocketship Education and LEAD Public schools, that serve over 2,500 students in Nashville.
Shaka began his career in education as the Associate Director of Policy and Planning at the D.C.-based Center for Education Reform. He then led outreach efforts at the Institute for Justice, a constitutional law firm based in Arlington, VA.
He is an alumnus of Belmont University where he teaches American Government and Constitutional Law as an adjunct faculty member. He earned his Juris Doctorate from the Wake Forest University School of Law where he sits on the Board of Advisors for the Journal of Law and Policy. Shaka is a co-founder of MoreMarrowDonors.org, a non-profit committed to providing scholarships to bone marrow donors who are matches for patients with various blood diseases. Shaka is the Chair of the Tennessee State Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.
He is a member of the American Enterprise Institute’s Leadership Network and Aspen Institute Civil Society Fellowship. Shaka and his wife Stephanie are members of Edgefield Church in Nashville and are active in several non-profit organizations.
Associate Professor and C. Boyden Gray Distinguished Scholar, University of North Carolina School of Law
Mark Storslee joined the Carolina Law faculty in 2025 and serves as Associate Professor and C. Boyden Gray Distinguished Scholar. His teaching and research interests include constitutional law, civil procedure, administrative law, and federal courts. Among other topics, his scholarship focuses on constitutional history, religious freedom, and First Amendment law generally. Storslee’s work has appeared in publications such as the University of Chicago Law Review, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, the University of Virginia Law Review, Vanderbilt University Law Review, and the Journal of Law & Religion.
Storslee holds a J.D. from Stanford Law School and a Ph.D. in Religious Studies (ethics) from the University of Virginia. He also holds masters degrees from Duke University and the University of Edinburgh and a B.A. from Furman University. After law school, Storslee clerked for Judge Diarmuid O’Scannlain on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and later for Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch on the United States Supreme Court. He previously taught at Penn State Law School and Emory Law School, and served as the Executive Director of the Constitutional Law Center at Stanford Law School. He also worked as an appellate litigator at Williams & Connolly LLP.
Senior Counsel, Alliance Defending Freedom
Andrew D. Graham is senior counsel for academic and professional affairs at Alliance Defending Freedom. He develops ADF’s academic initiatives and training programs, including the Blackstone Legal Fellowship. He also regularly speaks at academic gatherings, universities, and think tanks on law, politics, and culture, and creates professional opportunities for ADF’s Blackstone Fellows.
Previously, Graham was a partner at Jackson Walker LLP, a more than 130-year-old law firm with more than 400 lawyers across Texas, where he achieved an extensive record of success in high-stakes litigation in both trial and appellate courts and was named a “Super Lawyers—Rising Star” multiple times.
Graham is an elected member and trustee of The Philadelphia Society, an elected member of The Mont Pelerin Society, and a member of The Federalist Society and the Society for Classical Learning. Additionally, he is a senior fellow at the Religious Freedom Institute, a member of the board of governors of the John Jay Institute, and a member of the advisory council for the Dallas Forum on Law, Politics, and Culture.
Graham earned his bachelor’s degree summa cum laude at Southern Methodist University (SMU), where he was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa and the Hyer Society. He then earned master’s degrees at Oxford University, where he was a member of Oriel College, and The University of Chicago before returning home to Texas to earn his law degree at The University of Texas at Austin School of Law.
He is a member of the State Bar of Texas and is admitted to practice before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and the U.S. Supreme Court.
Graham is the first person in his family to go to college and is a first-generation American who holds dual American–Australian citizenship. He and his wife, Molly (a classical Christian school educator), have three children and live in Dallas, Texas.
John Tamny is editor of RealClearMarkets and Forbes Opinions, a senior economic adviser to H.C. Wainwright Economics, and a senior economic adviser to Toreador Research and Trading (www.trtadvisors.com).
Former Adjunct Professor of Law; former Special Counsel to the President; former federal prosecutor, Georgetown Law (ret.)
Bill Otis is a former Adjunct Professor of Law at Georgetown University, a one-time federal prosecutor, and a former Special White House Counsel for President George H. W. Bush. After graduating from Stanford Law School, he started his career in the Criminal Division of the Justice Department, then became chief of appeals for the US Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Virginia. In the 1980's he served on the Department's "Train the Trainer" team, which taught US Attorneys Offices across the county how to implement the then-new Sentencing Reform Act. He has held several posts in the federal government, including Special Assistant to the Secretary of Energy and Counselor to the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration, in addition to the White House post. He has testified before Congress on issues in criminal procedure, illegal drugs, the US Sentencing Commission, and the death penalty, and has given numerous media interviews on those and other subjects. He currently teaches a seminar at Georgetown Law titled "Conservatism in Law in America" with his wife, Federalist Society co-founder Lee Liberman Otis.
Death Penalty Policy Director of the ACLU of Northern California
Natasha Minsker is the Death Penalty Policy Director of the ACLU of Northern California. In this position, Ms. Minsker uses a multi-disciplinary approach to promote the goal of reforming capital sentencing procedures and the eventually ending the death penalty in California. Previously, Ms. Minsker spent five years at the Alameda County Public Defender’s Office, the first year as a research attorney in the Capital Defense Unit and the remaining four years as a Deputy Public Defender, handling all types of misdemeanor, felony, and juvenile cases. Ms. Minsker also served as staff attorney to the Judicial Council of California’s Task Force on Criminal Jury Instructions, helping the committee research and draft more than 700 new criminal jury instructions. She clerked for the Honorable Martha Vazquez, Chief Judge of the Federal District Court of New Mexico, and is a graduate of Stanford Law School.
The ACLU of Northern California is the largest of the ACLU affiliates, representing more than 55,000 members.
Legal Director & General Counsel, Criminal Justice Legal Foundation
Kent S. Scheidegger has been the Legal Director of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation since December 1986. He also served as Chairman of the Criminal Law Practice Group of the Federalist Society 2003 to 2005. His articles on criminal and constitutional law have been published in law reviews, national legal publications, and congressional reports. Legal arguments authored by Mr. Scheidegger have been cited and incorporated in several precedent-setting United States Supreme Court decisions.
After receiving a degree in physics with honors from New Mexico State University in 1976, Mr. Scheidegger served for six years in the United States Air Force as a Nuclear Research Officer. He took his law degree with distinction from the University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law in 1982 and practiced civil law in Northern California. He was general counsel of California Cooler, Inc. from 1984 until 1986, when he joined the Foundation.
University Distinguished Professor, University of Houston Law Center
Professor Dow joined the University of Houston Law Center faculty in 1988. He graduated with a B.A. in History from Rice University, and earned his M.A. in History and his law degree from Yale. Upon graduation, he clerked for the Honorable Carolyn Dineen King, judge on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Professor Dow has handled more than fifty appeals, including more than 25 death penalty appeals. His areas of expertise include contracts, constitutional law, and death penalty law. He has written extensively on these subjects as well as on equal protection, law and literature, and federal jurisdiction.
Former President & CEO, The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies
Eugene B. Meyer, former President and CEO of the Federalist Society, has served as Executive Director, CEO, and/or President of the organization for more than 40 years. He is responsible for shepherding the organization from a small group of law students to a community of 90,000 lawyers, law students, academics, judges, and others interested in the rule of law. The Society now includes a Student Chapter at nearly every ABA-accredited law school in the country and Lawyers Chapters in 220 major cities across the nation. Gene earned his B.A. in history at Yale in 1975 and his M.A. in political science from the London School of Economics in 1976. Gene currently serves on the boards of the U.S. Chess Center, the Holman Foundation, the Sarah Scaife Foundation, and the advisory board of the Adam Smith Society. He holds the title of International Chess Master.
Former Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals, DC Circuit
Robert Heron Bork served as Solicitor General, acting Attorney General, and judge for the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Judge Bork passed away in December 2012.
Tribute to Judge Robert Bork by John McGinnis - Event Audio/Video
Celebration of the Life of Robert Heron Bork 1927-2012
Judge Robert H. Bork: His Life and Legacy - Practice Group Podcast
A Conference Discussing the Contributions of Judge Robert H. Bork - June 26, 2007
How Did the Founders View the Role of Education?
Michael Bindas, Nicole Stelle Garnett, Shaka Laurence Mitchell, Mark Storslee
In this Federalist Society America 250 series, experts analyze modern legal and policy debates through...
The Wisdom of Our Ancestors
Andrew D. Graham
A review of Graham James McAleer & Alexander S. Rosenthal-Pubul, The Wisdom of Our Ancestors:...
Book Review: Bad History, Worse Policy: How a False Narrative about the Financial Crisis Led to the Dodd-Frank Act
John Tamny
Related Links: Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, Final Report of the National Commission on the Causes...
Death Penalty
William G. Otis, Natasha Minsker, Kent Scheidegger, David Dow
On June 25, 2008 the Supreme Court decided Kennedy v. Louisiana, holding that the Eighth...
2003 Barbara K. Olson Memorial Lecture - Transcript
Eugene B. Meyer, Robert H. Bork
Address by Robert H. Bork, Senior Fellow, American Enterprise Instituteand Co-Chairman, Federalist Society Board of...