Vice President of Law & Policy, Property and Environment Research Center
Jonathan Wood is vice president of law and policy at the Property and Environment Research Center (PERC). An attorney, Jonathan has litigated environmental and property-rights cases in the Supreme Court of the United States, federal and state appellate courts, and trial courts across the country. His writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, National Review, Reason, and other outlets. And his research has been published in journals such as Environmental Law Reporter, Yale Journal on Regulation Notice & Comment, Pace Environmental Law Review, and California Western Law Review.
Prior to coming to PERC, Jonathan was a senior attorney at Pacific Legal Foundation, where he litigated cases concerning the Endangered Species Act, Clean Water Act, and other federal environmental laws. He was co-counsel for forest landowners in Weyerhaeuser Co. v. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, in which the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that private land could not be arbitrarily regulated as critical habitat under the ESA. He also led a successful effort to reform regulation of threatened species to better align the incentives of private landowners with the interests of rare species.
Jonathan has testified before several congressional committees on wildlife conservation and endangered species topics. He has also appeared on national television and radio, including NPR’s All Things Considered, C-Span’s Washington Journal, Stossel, Fox News, and Hill.TV.
Jonathan has a law degree from the New York University School of Law, a masters degree in economic policy from the London School of Economics, and a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Texas. He is on the executive committee for the Federalist Society’s Environmental Law and Property Rights Practice Group and a steering committee member for the Environmental Law Institute’s Emerging Leaders Initiative.
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.
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.
Garwood Visiting Professor and Visiting Fellow, James Madison Pr, Cleveland-Marshall College of Law
David F. Forte is Professor of Law at Cleveland State University, where he was the inaugural holder of the Charles R. Emrick, Jr.- Calfee Halter & Griswold Endowed Chair. This fall, Professor Forte will be the Garwood Visiting Professor at Princeton University in the Department of Politics, and Visiting Fellow at the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions. He holds degrees from Harvard College, Manchester University, England, the University of Toronto and Columbia University.
During the Reagan administration, Professor Forte served as chief counsel to the United States delegation to the United Nations and alternate delegate to the Security Council. He has authored a number of briefs before the United States Supreme Court, and has frequently testified before the United States Congress and consulted with the Department of State on human rights and international affairs issues. His advice was specifically sought on the approval of the Genocide Convention, on world-wide religious persecution, and Islamic extremism. He has appeared and spoken frequently on radio and television, both nationally and internationally. In 2002, the Department of State sponsored a speaking tour for Professor Forte in Amman, Jordan, and he was also a featured speaker to the Meeting of Peoples in Rimini, Italy, a meeting which gathers over 500,000 people from all over Europe. He has also been called to testify before the state legislatures of Ohio, Kansas, and Idaho as well as the New York City Council. He has assisted in drafting a number of pieces of legislation for the Ohio General Assembly dealing with abortion, international trade, and federalism. He has sat as acting judge on the municipal court of Lakewood Ohio and was chairman of Professional Ethics Committee of the Cleveland Bar Association. He has received a number of awards for his public service, including the Cleveland Bar Association’s President’s Award, the Cleveland State University Award for Distinguished Service, the Cleveland State University Distinguished Teaching Award, and the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law Alumni Award for Faculty Excellence. He served as Consultor to the Pontifical Council for the Family under Pope St. John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI. In 2003, Dr. Forte was a Distinguished Fulbright Chair at the University of Trento and returned there in 2004 as a Visiting Professor. For the academic year, 2008-2009, Professor Forte was Senior Visiting Scholar at the Center for the Study of Religion and the Constitution in at the Witherspoon Institute in Princeton, New Jersey. He was the Robert E. Henderson Constitution Day Lecturer at the Ashbrook Center at Ashland University, and he has given over 300 invited addresses and papers at more than 100 academic institutions. His work has been cited by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Professor Forte was a Bradley Scholar at the Heritage Foundation, and Visiting Scholar at the Liberty Fund. He has been President of the Ohio Association of Scholars, was on the Board of Directors of the Philadelphia Society, and is also adjunct Scholar at the Ashbrook Center. He has been appointed to the Ohio State Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. He has also been a Civil War re-enactor and a Merit Badge Counselor for the Boy Scouts.
He writes and speaks nationally on topics such as constitutional law, religious liberty, Islamic law, the rights of families, and international affairs. He served as book review editor for the American Journal of Jurisprudence and has edited a volume entitled, Natural Law and Contemporary Public Policy, published by Georgetown University Press. His book, Islamic Law Studies: Classical and Contemporary Applications, has been published by Austin & Winfield. He is Senior Editor of The Heritage Guide to the Constitution (2006), 2d edition (2014), published by Regnery & Co, a clause by clause analysis of the Constitution of the United States.
His teaching competencies include Constitutional Law, the First Amendment, Islamic Law, Jurisprudence, Natural Law, International Law, International Human Rights, the Presidency, and Constitutional History.
Senior Attorney, Pacific Legal Foundation
Oliver Dunford joined the Pacific Legal Foundation in March 2017. He litigates across the country to defend and advance individual liberty and the rule of law. Oliver’s cases involve the separation of powers, economic liberty, property rights, and the First Amendment.
Oliver remains inspired by the Classical Liberal ideals upon which our Founders declared independence and secured the blessings of liberty. The Constitution’s promises, however, are not self-executing. As James Madison explained, “In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.” Oliver feels lucky that his work helps oblige the government to control itself—to the end that all individuals may pursue their rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Before joining PLF, Oliver clerked at the Ohio Supreme Court and the Ohio Court of Appeals, and spent more than a decade in private practice working on complex commercial litigation. Originally from Cleveland, Oliver is a graduate of the University of Dayton and Cleveland-Marshall College of Law, where he was a managing editor for the Cleveland State Law Review. Oliver is admitted to the state bars of Florida, California, and Ohio, as well as several federal courts including the United States Supreme Court.
Oliver spends all of his free time following the Cleveland Indians.
Senior Attorney and Director, Election Integrity Project, Judicial Watch
Robert Popper joined Judicial Watch in September 2013 as a senior attorney and as director of Judicial Watch’s Election Integrity Project. Prior to joining Judicial Watch, Mr. Popper worked for eight years, five as deputy chief of the Voting Section, in the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, in which capacity he garnered numerous professional awards. Before that, Mr. Popper worked as a private attorney in New York City for 17 years, where his practice extended to a wide range of legal matters, including voting rights. Mr. Popper served as counsel in a successful constitutional challenge alleging racial segregation in the design of New York’s congressional districts, and successfully defended the appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. Mr. Popper is a published author on the topic of voting rights law. He developed a legal standard relating to gerrymandering that is widely cited by experts and was adopted by the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission. He has testified before the Missouri Senate Redistricting Committee and the Pennsylvania House State Government Committee; and he has spoken about voting rights to a conference of U.S. Attorneys at the National Advocacy Center, to state officials, and to countless local community representatives. Mr. Popper is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and Northwestern University Law School. He is admitted to practice in the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York, the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and the U.S. Supreme Court.
Professor of Law, The George Washington University Law School
Emily Hammond is a nationally recognized expert in energy law, environmental law, and administrative law. A former environmental engineer, she brings technical fluency to cutting-edge issues at the intersection of law, science, and policy. Professor Hammond’s scholarship focuses on regulatory process, the responses of various legal institutions to scientific uncertainty, electricity markets, climate change, and the law of water quality. Her articles have appeared in numerous top-ranked journals, including the Columbia Law Review, the Duke Law Journal, the Michigan Law Review, and the Vanderbilt Law Review. She is a co-author of one of the nation’s leading energy law texts, Energy, Economics and the Environment, and the environmental law text Environmental Protection: Law and Policy, in addition to a variety of book chapters and shorter works.
An elected member of the American Law Institute, Professor Hammond is also past chair of the American Association of Law Schools’ Administrative Law Section and a member scholar of the Center for Progressive Reform. She has consulted on various energy, environmental, and administrative law matters, authored amicus briefs, and testified before Congress on these issues. Professor Hammond actively collaborates with other researchers from a variety of disciplines within her field, and she is a past Distinguished Young Environmental Scholar recipient at the Stegner Center, University of Utah.
Prior to joining the GW law faculty, Professor Hammond served on the faculties at Wake Forest University and the University of Oklahoma College of Law, where she served as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Associate Director of the Law Center, and won numerous teaching awards. She has visited at the University of Texas, Florida State University, and the University of Georgia. Before entering academia, Professor Hammond practiced with law with Bondurant, Mixson & Elmore, LLP in Atlanta, Georgia, and clerked for Judge Richard W. Story of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.
BS, Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University
JD, University of Georgia
Partner, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, and Former United States Secretary of Labor
Eugene Scalia is a partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, co-chair of the firm’s Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice Group, and a senior member of the firm’s Labor and Employment Practice Group and Financial Institutions Practice Group. He returned to the firm after serving as U.S. Secretary of Labor from September 2019 to January 2021.
Mr. Scalia has a nationally-prominent practice in two areas: Labor and employment law, and advice and litigation regarding the regulatory obligations of federal administrative agencies. He also has extensive appellate experience. Federal regulatory actions he has challenged include the SEC’s “proxy access” rule; the CFTC’s “position limits’” rule; MetLife’s designation as “too big to fail” by the Financial Services Oversight Council; the Labor Department’s “fiduciary” rule; and OSHA’s “cooperative compliance program.”
As Labor Secretary, Mr. Scalia engaged at the highest level with national employment policy and matters affecting the financial services industry and international trade, overseeing the enforcement and administration of more than 180 federal employment laws covering more than 150 million workers and 10 million workplaces. He also served as Chair of the Board of Directors of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation and as a member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force. He was closely involved in the drafting and implementation of the CARES Act and other coronavirus-related legislation. Laws administered by the Labor Department also include the workplace safety requirements of OSHA and the Mine Safety and Health Administration, federal minimum wage and overtime protections, the anti-discrimination requirements applicable to federal contractors, and ERISA’s protection of the more than $11 trillion held in employee retirement plans and health plans.
Mr. Scalia served from 2002 to 2003 as Solicitor of the U.S. Department of Labor, with responsibility for all Labor Department litigation and legal advice on rulemakings and administrative law. He is the only person to have served as both Solicitor and Secretary of Labor.
He also served at the U.S. Department of Justice as a Special Assistant to the Attorney General, receiving the Department’s Edmund J. Randolph Award in 1993.
In private practice, Mr. Scalia has represented employers in high-profile matters under the National Labor Relations Act and in class actions and collective actions under Title VII, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, ERISA, and federal and state wage hour laws. He has extensive experience in federal district court, the courts of appeals, and in the arbitration of employment disputes. He has been a leading authority on “whistleblower” investigations and litigation since the 2002 enactment of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Mr. Scalia also counsels employers on reductions-in-force and the proper conduct of harassment and discrimination investigations. He has provided pro bono representation to workers in discrimination matters, wrongful separation disputes, and other matters.
Mr. Scalia is a Senior Fellow of the Administrative Conference of the United States, a federal agency that makes recommendations to Congress and the Executive Branch on ways to improve the administrative process. He is the author of more than 30 articles and papers on labor and employment law, administrative law, and other subjects. Among other accolades, he has been named an “Employment MVP,” a “Securities MVP,” and an “Appellate MVP” by Law360. The National Law Journal recognized Mr. Scalia as a “Visionary” for his litigation against financial regulatory agencies, and the Nation magazine has called him a “fearsome litigator.” He has been a Lecturer in labor and employment law at the University of Chicago Law School.
Mr. Scalia graduated cum laude from the University of Chicago Law School, where he was editor-in-chief of the Law Review. He graduated With Distinction from the University of Virginia in 1985 and was a speechwriter for Education Secretary William J. Bennett before attending law school. Mr. Scalia and his wife Trish have seven children.
Professor of Law, The George Washington University Law School
Emily Hammond is a nationally recognized expert in energy law, environmental law, and administrative law. A former environmental engineer, she brings technical fluency to cutting-edge issues at the intersection of law, science, and policy. Professor Hammond’s scholarship focuses on regulatory process, the responses of various legal institutions to scientific uncertainty, electricity markets, climate change, and the law of water quality. Her articles have appeared in numerous top-ranked journals, including the Columbia Law Review, the Duke Law Journal, the Michigan Law Review, and the Vanderbilt Law Review. She is a co-author of one of the nation’s leading energy law texts, Energy, Economics and the Environment, and the environmental law text Environmental Protection: Law and Policy, in addition to a variety of book chapters and shorter works.
An elected member of the American Law Institute, Professor Hammond is also past chair of the American Association of Law Schools’ Administrative Law Section and a member scholar of the Center for Progressive Reform. She has consulted on various energy, environmental, and administrative law matters, authored amicus briefs, and testified before Congress on these issues. Professor Hammond actively collaborates with other researchers from a variety of disciplines within her field, and she is a past Distinguished Young Environmental Scholar recipient at the Stegner Center, University of Utah.
Prior to joining the GW law faculty, Professor Hammond served on the faculties at Wake Forest University and the University of Oklahoma College of Law, where she served as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Associate Director of the Law Center, and won numerous teaching awards. She has visited at the University of Texas, Florida State University, and the University of Georgia. Before entering academia, Professor Hammond practiced with law with Bondurant, Mixson & Elmore, LLP in Atlanta, Georgia, and clerked for Judge Richard W. Story of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.
BS, Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University
JD, University of Georgia
Partner, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, and Former United States Secretary of Labor
Eugene Scalia is a partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, co-chair of the firm’s Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice Group, and a senior member of the firm’s Labor and Employment Practice Group and Financial Institutions Practice Group. He returned to the firm after serving as U.S. Secretary of Labor from September 2019 to January 2021.
Mr. Scalia has a nationally-prominent practice in two areas: Labor and employment law, and advice and litigation regarding the regulatory obligations of federal administrative agencies. He also has extensive appellate experience. Federal regulatory actions he has challenged include the SEC’s “proxy access” rule; the CFTC’s “position limits’” rule; MetLife’s designation as “too big to fail” by the Financial Services Oversight Council; the Labor Department’s “fiduciary” rule; and OSHA’s “cooperative compliance program.”
As Labor Secretary, Mr. Scalia engaged at the highest level with national employment policy and matters affecting the financial services industry and international trade, overseeing the enforcement and administration of more than 180 federal employment laws covering more than 150 million workers and 10 million workplaces. He also served as Chair of the Board of Directors of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation and as a member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force. He was closely involved in the drafting and implementation of the CARES Act and other coronavirus-related legislation. Laws administered by the Labor Department also include the workplace safety requirements of OSHA and the Mine Safety and Health Administration, federal minimum wage and overtime protections, the anti-discrimination requirements applicable to federal contractors, and ERISA’s protection of the more than $11 trillion held in employee retirement plans and health plans.
Mr. Scalia served from 2002 to 2003 as Solicitor of the U.S. Department of Labor, with responsibility for all Labor Department litigation and legal advice on rulemakings and administrative law. He is the only person to have served as both Solicitor and Secretary of Labor.
He also served at the U.S. Department of Justice as a Special Assistant to the Attorney General, receiving the Department’s Edmund J. Randolph Award in 1993.
In private practice, Mr. Scalia has represented employers in high-profile matters under the National Labor Relations Act and in class actions and collective actions under Title VII, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, ERISA, and federal and state wage hour laws. He has extensive experience in federal district court, the courts of appeals, and in the arbitration of employment disputes. He has been a leading authority on “whistleblower” investigations and litigation since the 2002 enactment of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Mr. Scalia also counsels employers on reductions-in-force and the proper conduct of harassment and discrimination investigations. He has provided pro bono representation to workers in discrimination matters, wrongful separation disputes, and other matters.
Mr. Scalia is a Senior Fellow of the Administrative Conference of the United States, a federal agency that makes recommendations to Congress and the Executive Branch on ways to improve the administrative process. He is the author of more than 30 articles and papers on labor and employment law, administrative law, and other subjects. Among other accolades, he has been named an “Employment MVP,” a “Securities MVP,” and an “Appellate MVP” by Law360. The National Law Journal recognized Mr. Scalia as a “Visionary” for his litigation against financial regulatory agencies, and the Nation magazine has called him a “fearsome litigator.” He has been a Lecturer in labor and employment law at the University of Chicago Law School.
Mr. Scalia graduated cum laude from the University of Chicago Law School, where he was editor-in-chief of the Law Review. He graduated With Distinction from the University of Virginia in 1985 and was a speechwriter for Education Secretary William J. Bennett before attending law school. Mr. Scalia and his wife Trish have seven children.
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