Managing Partner, Boyden Gray PLLC
Michael Buschbacher is the managing partner of Boyden Gray PLLC. He represents public and private companies, trade associations, non-profits, and individuals in high-stakes litigation and administrative proceedings, with a particular focus on environmental and energy matters.
In addition to trial-level work, Mr. Buschbacher maintains an active appellate practice, both as merits counsel and as counsel for amici curiae. He has written amicus briefs quoted by the Seventh and Ninth Circuits. And his Supreme Court advocacy has been cited by The New Yorker, The New York Times, and E&E News. Mr. Buschbacher’s commentary on legal issues has been published in The Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, and The American Conservative.
Before joining the firm, Mr. Buschbacher served at the U.S. Department of Justice as counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for the Environment and Natural Resources Division. There, he advised senior Department leadership, served as the lead attorney on several lawsuits, and helped draft policy memoranda for the Department on the proper scope and procedure for environmental enforcement. Prior to serving in the government, Mr. Buschbacher was an associate in the D.C. office of Sidley Austin.
Mr. Buschbacher is a former clerk to Judge Alice M. Batchelder of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and to Magistrate Judge Paul R. Cherry of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Indiana.
Mr. Buschbacher holds a B.A. in Music and Germanic Studies from Indiana University and a J.D., magna cum laude, from Notre Dame Law School.
Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law and Director, Classical Liberal Institute, New York University School of Law; Senior Fellow, The 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.
Professor of Law, Associate Dean for Global Programs, Faculty Director for the Neukom Center for the Rule of Law, Stanford University
Diego A. Zambrano’s primary research and teaching interests lie in the areas of civil procedure and comparative law. A central focus of his research is private enforcement—the distinctively American phenomenon of regulating major policy areas through private litigation rather than public agencies. Professor Zambrano is authoring a book on this subject, How Americans Enforce the Law, which traces the historical roots of this regulatory approach and evaluates where private enforcement is effective and where it falls short, including his critique of its use in areas like environmental law. He also has an interest in comparative constitutional law and legal developments related to Latin America. Professor Zambrano is the Associate Dean for Global Programs and faculty director of the Neukom Center for the Rule of Law. In 2021, Professor Zambrano received the Barbara Allen Babcock Award for Excellence in Teaching.
Professor Zambrano’s scholarship has appeared or is forthcoming at the Columbia Law Review, University of Chicago Law Review, Michigan Law Review, Northwestern University Law Review, Stanford Law Review, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, and Virginia Law Review, among other journals, and has been honored by the American Association of Law Schools (AALS) and the National Civil Justice Institute. Professor Zambrano is a co-author of the leading casebook Civil Procedure: A Modern Approach (8th ed. 2024) (with Marcus, Pfander, and Redish). In addition, Professor Zambrano served as chair of the Federal Courts Section of the AALS. He also writes about legal issues for broader public audiences, with his contributions appearing in the Journal of Democracy, Wall Street Journal, BBC News, and Lawfare.
After graduating with honors from Harvard Law School in 2013, Professor Zambrano spent three years as an associate at Cleary Gottlieb in New York, focusing on transnational litigation and arbitration. Before joining Stanford Law School in 2018, Professor Zambrano was a Bigelow Teaching Fellow at the University of Chicago Law School.
Professor Zambrano’s forthcoming publications include: “Common Informers and Government by Lawsuit” and “Boring Constitutionalism.” For a list of recent papers, visit his SSRN page.
Partner, Holtzman Vogel Baran Torchinsky & Josefiak PLLC
Abhishek (Abhi) Kambli is a partner at Holtzman Vogel who represents clients in high-stakes appellate and complex litigation, constitutional challenges, and matters involving state attorneys general and federal agencies. He is one of a handful of lawyers nationally who has both led federal litigation from inside the Department of Justice and multi-state coalition work from a State Attorney General’s office—giving clients a 360-degree perspective on government enforcement, regulatory challenges, and constitutional advocacy.
Prior to joining Holtzman Vogel, Abhi served as Deputy Associate Attorney General at the United States Department of Justice, where he acted as lead counsel in high-priority matters for the Trump Administration, oversaw the Department’s civil components on behalf of the Associate Attorney General, advised the White House Counsel’s Office and federal agencies on litigation risk and strategy, and developed the Department’s national affirmative civil litigation strategy.
Earlier, he served as Deputy Attorney General and Division Chief of the Special Litigation and Constitutional Issues Division at the Kansas Attorney General’s Office, where he launched the division and led multi-state coalitions in trial and appellate courts nationwide, including the United States Supreme Court. He began his career as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Southern District of Indiana, prosecuting more than 100 federal cases from investigation through appeal.
Abhi is also a Lieutenant Colonel in the United States Air Force Judge Advocate General's Corps, having served on active duty and in the reserves since 2013. His military service includes criminal trials as both prosecutor and defense attorney, appellate representation before the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, and representation of a high-profile detainee before the Military Commissions at Guantánamo Bay.
President and CEO, The Buckeye Institute
Robert Alt is the President and Chief Executive Officer of The Buckeye Institute where he has catalyzed exponential growth since he took the organization’s helm in 2012. He has since founded Buckeye’s renowned Economic Research Center and established its impactful Legal Center.
Alt is a distinguished scholar and attorney with particular expertise in legal policy, criminal justice, national security, and constitutional law. He previously worked for former U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese III, regularly provides commentary on television and radio programs, and his writings have appeared in countless outlets.
In 2004, Alt spent five months in Iraq as an embedded war correspondent.
Alt has testified before Congress multiple times—including at the confirmation hearings for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan—the Federal Election Commission regarding matters of constitutional and administrative law, and numerous state legislatures.
Alt serves as an officer on the boards of The Philadelphia Society and the Federalist Society’s Columbus Lawyers Chapter. He taught national security law, criminal law, and legislation at Case Western Reserve University School of Law, as well as constitutional law and political parties and interest groups at Ashland University.
Alt earned his Doctor of Law degree from The University of Chicago Law School, where he was Symposium Editor and the winner of the Mulroy Prize for Excellence in Appellate Advocacy as well as research assistant to Professor Richard Epstein. Following law school, he clerked for Judge Alice Batchelder on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Alt graduated with his Bachelor of Arts in philosophy and political science magna cum laude from Azusa Pacific University where he also won the Outstanding Senior Award in Political Science.
Alt is an accomplished high-altitude alpinist and endurance athlete who has successfully climbed 6.75 of the famed Seven Summits of the World including Mount Everest. He is the creator of PROFOUND CLIMBING™ and a frequent speaker across the country and around the world on legal and public policy topics as well as effective leadership, management, decision-making, and teamwork in contexts ranging from extraordinary life/death situations to ordinary professional/business settings.
Senior Vice President, Strategic Initiatives & Special Counsel to the President, Alliance Defending Freedom
Ryan Bangert serves as senior vice president for strategic initiatives and special counsel to the president at Alliance Defending Freedom. He oversees ADF’s Blackstone Legal Fellowship and Research & Innovation Team. He also advises executive leadership on strategic initiatives.
Before joining ADF, Bangert served as deputy first assistant attorney general and deputy for legal counsel in the office of the Texas attorney general, and as deputy for civil litigation for Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley. Prior to his government service, Bangert was a litigation partner at Baker Botts L.L.P., where he was a member of the firm’s commercial litigation and appellate practice sections.
Bangert has been published at First Things, Civitas Outlook, Law & Liberty, National Review, Daily Wire, The Hill, Washington Examiner, The Federalist, Fox News, and the American Reformer. He speaks nationally on constitutional, cultural, and religious liberty issues. He also serves as Visiting Faculty in Law at the University of Austin.
He earned his J.D. from Southern Methodist University, where he was a Hatton Sumners scholar and graduated first in his class. Following law school, he clerked for the Honorable Patrick E. Higginbotham on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Partner, Schaerr | Jaffe LLP
Erik Jaffe has been involved in appeals on a broad range of legal issues, including First Amendment challenges to campaign finance reform, Commerce Clause challenges to Health Care Reform and other federal legislation, Equal Protection Clause challenges to affirmative action in education, First Amendment challenges to school vouchers, Fifth Amendment challenges to takings of property, Second Amendment challenges to restrictions on gun ownership, and a wide variety of cases involving patents, copyrights, ERISA, securities fraud, federal preemption, environmental regulation, and other state and federal constitutional and statutory matters. He has represented businesses and non-profit groups, Judges, Senators, former government officials, Nobel Prize winners, and a broad cross-section of private individuals. Mr. Jaffe has been involved in over 120 Supreme Court matters, including filing over 30 cert. petitions, representing half-a-dozen parties on the merits, and filing over 70 amicus briefs at both the cert. and merits stages.
A 1990 graduate of the Columbia University School of Law, Mr. Jaffe was a law clerk to Judge Douglas H. Ginsburg of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit from 1990 to 1991. Following that clerkship he spent five years in litigation practice with the Washington, D.C. law firm of Williams & Connolly. In the summer of 1996 he left Williams & Connolly to clerk for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. At the end of that clerkship he started his own practice, and he was a sole practitioner from 1997 to 2018. He joined the firm of Schaerr | Jaffe LLP in 2018.
Partner, Schaerr Jaffe LLP
Gene Schaerr specializes in handling—and usually winning—civil appeals, writ proceedings and similar matters, both in appellate courts and in the law-focused proceedings at the trial-court or agency level that often determine success or failure on appeal. He has argued and won dozens of cases in a variety of forums—including the U.S. Supreme Court (where he has argued six cases), every federal circuit, and numerous federal district courts and state appellate courts. His win rate in the dozens of federal appeals he has argued in the past six years is over 75 percent.
He was a coordinator of Sidley Austin's appellate practice from 1993 until 2005, and from 2005 until 2014 was the chair of the nationwide appellate practice at Winston & Strawn—a practice he led to numerous recognitions in such publications as the Appellate Hot List. His personal practice successes have won him repeated recognition in such publications as Best Lawyers in Washington, D.C., Legal 500, D.C. Superlawyers, and Best Lawyers in America. In January 2014, Mr. Schaerr formed his own boutique litigation firm so that he could serve his clients without the conflicts and inefficiencies inherent in big-firm law practice.
Substantively, Mr. Schaerr's experience includes not only virtually every area of federal law, defamation, higher education law, immigration, insurance coverage, labor and employment, patent and trademark, privacy, product liability and warranty, statutory interpretation and tax.He has represented clients in virtually every sector, including automotive, communications, energy, financial services, health care, higher education, insurance, maritime, pharmaceuticals, technology and state and local government. He also teaches courses in Supreme Court litigation, religious freedom litigation and advanced litigation skills as an adjunct professor of law at the Brigham Young University law school.
Mr. Schaerr began law practice in 1987 following clerkships on the U.S. Supreme Court (for Chief Justice Warren Burger and Justice Antonin Scalia) and on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (for then- Judge Kenneth Starr). He graduated in 1985 from the Yale Law School, where he was Editor-in-Chief of the Yale Journal on Regulation and Senior Editor of the Yale Law Journal. From 1991 to 1993, he served in the White House as Associate Counsel to the President, where he had responsibility for a wide range of constitutional and administrative-law issues, including those involving economic regulation, higher education, separation of powers, federalism and religious freedom. He serves as Chairman of the Constitutional Sources Project, a digital resource providing free public access to historical materials relevant to the U.S. Constitution.
General Counsel, Center for Individual Rights
Darpana Sheth joined CIR as General Counsel in May 2025. She is a nationally recognized constitutional litigator with over two decades of experience serving in in leadership roles at other nonprofit organizations.
Before joining CIR, Darpana served for four years as Vice President of Litigation for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. Prior to that, Darpana was a Senior Attorney with the Institute for Justice, where she also served as Director of the Institute’s National Initiative to End Forfeiture Abuse.
Before finding her calling as a public-interest attorney, Darpana served as an Assistant Attorney General for the State of New York and worked in private practice as a litigation associate at the Manhattan law firm of Chadbourne & Parke, LLP. She also served as law clerk to the Honorable Jerome A. Holmes of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.
A native of Philadelphia, Darpana graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and History. She earned her law degree from Georgetown University Law Center.
Senior Attorney, Institute for Free Speech
Owen Yeates is a Senior Attorney on the litigation team and plays an important role in their regulatory, legislative, and policy work. Owen joined the Institute in 2015 as a Staff Attorney and was promoted in 2021 to Senior Attorney and Deputy Vice President for Litigation, after serving as Acting Legal Director following the departure of Allen Dickerson to the Federal Election Commission. From May 2022 to May 2025, Owen served as a Deputy District Attorney for Multnomah County, Oregon. He re-joined the Institute for Free Speech as a Senior Attorney in May 2025.
He received his J.D. from Stanford Law School after completing a Ph.D. in Political Science at Duke University and a B.S., summa cum laude, in Physics from Brigham Young University. Owen clerked for the Honorable Scott Matheson, Jr., of the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit (2012-2013), the Honorable J. Jerome Farris of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (2011-2012), and the Honorable James L. Robart of the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington (Summer 2012). After clerking, he was a litigation associate in intellectual property law at Klarquist Sparkman, LLP, in Portland, Oregon, where he was involved with the Legal Aid Society of Oregon’s domestic violence program. Before law school, he taught Ancient Political Theory, American Politics, Theories of Human Freedom, and Religion and American Politics at Brigham Young University and Wake Forest University. During law school, Owen interned with the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the U.S. Department of Defense, and he worked with the school’s Three Strikes Clinic and Domestic Violence pro bono program.
Owen is licensed to practice law in the District of Columbia, Oregon, Utah (inactive), and Washington state (inactive). He is admitted to practice before the United States Supreme Court; the United States Courts of Appeals for the Third, Sixth, Eighth, Ninth, Tenth, Eleventh, and D.C. Circuits; and the United States District Courts for the Districts of Colorado, Columbia, Oregon, and Utah, as well as the Eastern District of Texas and the Western District of Tennessee.
Vice President and Deputy Chief Counsel, U.S. Chamber Litigation Center, U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Jennifer B. Dickey is vice president and deputy chief counsel at the U.S. Chamber Litigation Center, the litigation arm of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Dickey handles a variety of litigation matters for the Chamber.
Dickey joined the Chamber following her service as Acting Assistant Attorney General and Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Civil Division at the U.S. Department of Justice. She also previously served as Deputy Associate Attorney General, providing strategic oversight of the Civil Division, Civil Rights Division, and Foreign Claims Settlement Commission, as well as Special Assistant to the President and Associate Counsel to the President. In the latter capacity, she provided legal advice on a wide array of executive actions and rulemakings, civil litigation, and judicial nominations.
Dickey also practiced law at Kirkland & Ellis LLP before her government service. She was a commercial and appellate litigator, representing businesses in federal and state courts.
Earlier in her career, Dickey served as a law clerk for the Honorable Clarence Thomas of the Supreme Court of the United States and the Honorable William H. Pryor Jr. of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.
Dickey earned her law degree magna cum laude from Duke University School of Law, where she was an Executive Editor of the Duke Law Journal, and her undergraduate degree magna cum laude from Dartmouth College.
Associate Counsel, The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL)
Lauren Greuel is Associate Counsel at WILL. She focuses on legal and policy issues related to K-12 education in Wisconsin.
Lauren returned to Wisconsin this year after receiving her law degree, from Regent University School of Law in Virginia Beach, VA. She also holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Economy, from Hillsdale College in Hillsdale, MI.
Lauren worked for WILL from 2018-2020 as a policy intern and is happy to return as an attorney—to continue to fight for an education system that is student-centered and prioritizes the freedom of families to choose the best education for their children.
Executive Director & Secretary, American Civil Rights Project
Dan Morenoff is the executive director at the American Civil Rights Project and an adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
His work focuses on protecting and, where necessary, restoring the primacy of all Americans' shared civil rights against the identitarian alternative.
Before practicing law, Morenoff served on the legislative staff of Sen. Phil Gramm (R-TX). Morenoff holds a B.A. from Columbia College of Columbia University in the City of New York and a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School. He has also served as an officer or director of several community organizations in Dallas, Texas.
Founding Partner, Benbrook Law Group
Brad has litigated business and public policy matters throughout the United States for over 25 years. He represents businesses of all sizes in civil litigation and disputes with administrative agencies. Brad also regularly represents individuals and groups in constitutional and public policy litigation in the trial and appellate courts. He regularly submits amicus briefs on behalf of clients at the Supreme Court of the United States on significant cases. Brad is often hired as special litigation counsel in complex family law, bankruptcy, and trust and estate litigation.
After graduating from law school, Brad worked as a judicial clerk for Judge J.L. Edmondson of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in Atlanta. Brad received his law degree from the University of California at Berkeley after graduating from Stanford University, where he was a four-year letterman on the golf team.
Constitutional Scholarship Director and Senior Legal Analyst, Pacific Legal Foundation
Anastasia Boden is Director of Constitutional Scholarship at Pacific Legal Foundation, where she leads the organization’s Supreme Court commentary and directs scholarly analysis in support of the firm’s litigation. She has represented entrepreneurs and small businesses nationwide in challenges to onerous licensing regimes, anti-competitive titling restrictions, Certificate of Need (“competitor’s veto”) laws, and other forms of unnecessary red tape that block economic opportunity.
Prior to this role, Anastasia developed nearly a dozen constitutional challenges to Certificate of Need laws across the country, helping spur legislative reform in Montana, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. Her victories include a ruling invalidating Houston’s busking restrictions, multiple appellate decisions expanding access to the courts for civil rights plaintiffs, and the legislative repeal of Virginia’s happy-hour advertising ban.
Her writings on law and liberty have been featured in USA Today, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, Forbes, and more, and she has appeared on Headline News, CBS News, Fox News, ReasonTV, Newsmax, and John Stossel. In 2020, she was featured on Libertarian Party presidential candidate Jo Jorgensen’s Supreme Court shortlist.
Anastasia earned her BA with dean’s honors from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and her JD from Georgetown University Law Center, where she was research assistant to Professor Randy E. Barnett—the “intellectual godfather” of the constitutional challenge to Obamacare. She is the co-creator of the podcast Dissed, about infamous Supreme Court dissents. She authors the biweekly newsletter SCOTUS Scoop and the column, “In Dissent” for SCOTUSblog.
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.
Director of Equality and Opportunity Litigation, Pacific Legal Foundation
Joshua directs the litigation for PLF’s Equality and Opportunity Program, where he fights to dismantle unconstitutional barriers to opportunity, freeing individuals to rise based on their choices, character, and ability.
Joshua joined PLF as an attorney in 2007. His litigation practice has covered all PLF subject areas with a particular focus on equality and opportunity. Joshua argued PLF’s 13th case before the United States Supreme Court, Cedar Point Nursery v. Hassid, where the court ruled that a California regulation that allowed union organizers onto private property violated the Fifth Amendment’s Takings Clause. Other litigation highlights of his include ending a decades-long racial quota in Hartford, Connecticut, lifting a ban on boys’ dancing in Minnesota, and vindicating an entrepreneur’s right to start a moving business in Kentucky.
Joshua’s writings have been published by the USA Today, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post. And his research has been published in journals such as Texas Review of Law & Politics, Alabama Civil Rights & Civil Liberties Law Review, Journal of Civil Rights & Economic Development, and Northern Illinois University Law Review. He has appeared on national television and radio, including PBS Newshour, NPR’s All things Considered, Stossel, and Univision.
Joshua earned his BA with distinction from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a triple major in political science, international relations, and German. He earned his JD cum laude from Michigan State College of Law where he was on the law review and trial practice institute. Joshua lives in Sacramento, California with his wife and three children. He loves playing chess and rooting for Wisconsin sports teams.
Joshua is a member of the bar only in the state of California.
United States District Judge, Eastern District of Texas
Prior to taking the bench, Judge Barker served as Deputy Solicitor General of Texas, arguing appeals and public-law cases for the State. Before his state-government service, Judge Barker was an appellate and IP partner at Yetter Coleman in Houston. Before that, he spent four years in the Appellate Section of the DOJ’s Criminal Division. While there, he taught appellate advocacy at the National Advocacy Center, completed a Pegasus Scholarship with the English Inns of Court, and served on detail as a Special Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia. Judge Barker served as a law clerk to Judge William Bryson on the Federal Circuit and Chief Judge John Walker on the Second Circuit. He earned his B.S. in computer engineering summa cum laude from Texas A&M and his J.D. from the University of Texas, where he graduated first in his class.
Clinical Professor, The University of Texas at Austin School of Law
John Greil co-teaches the Law and Religion Clinic, where he supervises student-led representations of clients in need of litigation, transaction, and consulting services. He is an active trial-level and appellate litigator in state and federal court and regularly supports clients in the United States Supreme Court. An expert on law and religion, Professor Greil also teaches a seminar titled Understanding Conservative Legal Thought. Before joining the faculty, he practiced at Vinson & Elkins LLP and clerked on the federal district and court of appeals.
Partner and Co-Chair, Constitutional and Appellate Law Practice Group, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP
Allyson N. Ho is a partner in the Dallas office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP and co‐chair of the Firm’s nationwide Appellate and Constitutional Law practice group.
Mrs. Ho is “undoubtedly one of the premier appellate lawyers in the United States” (Chambers). She has presented over 100 oral arguments in federal and state courts nationwide, including multiple high‐stakes cases on behalf of business before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Her most significant winning arguments include a U.S. Supreme Court reversal worth billions of dollars for unionized employers in the Sixth Circuit; a U.S. Supreme Court reversal limiting the power of federal regulators; a multi‐billion dollar environmental win in the Fifth Circuit; a multi‐billion dollar commercial victory for the founder of a technology company in the Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court; a billion dollar environmental win in the Houston Court of Appeals; a nine‐figure commercial victory in the Corpus Christi Court of Appeals; and a nine‐figure arbitration win in the Fifth Circuit.
Among her numerous accolades, Mrs. Ho is one of only a small group of appellate lawyers nationwide, and the only one in Texas, to be nationally ranked by Chambers every year for the past ten years (2012‐21). She is also one of the few appellate lawyers nationwide to be named to the BTI Client Service All‐Stars List, an honor bestowed by the corporate counsel community for lawyers “who stand above all the others in delivering the absolute best in client service.” She is also routinely named as a leading appellate lawyer by Benchmark, The Best Lawyers in America®, The Legal 500, Texas Super Lawyers, and D Magazine.
Mrs. Ho has received the Gregory S. Coleman Outstanding Appellate Lawyer Award (Texas Bar Foundation, June 22, 2018), been named a “Distinguished Leader” (Texas Lawyer, Sep. 1, 2017) and “Appellate MVP” (Law360, Nov. 23, 2015), and been recognized on the “Appellate Hot List” (National Law Journal, Nov. 16, 2015). In addition, she has been profiled in “Texas Powerhouse” (Law360, Aug. 2, 2021), “Texas Appellate Power Couple” (Texas Lawbook, January 7, 2021), “Litigators of the Week” (The American Lawyer, May 8, 2020), “Litigation Powerhouse” (Law360, Aug. 10, 2016), “Supreme Court Insider” (National Law Journal, July 21, 2016), “Supreme Court Specialists, Mostly Male, Dominated Arguments This Term” (National Law Journal, May 11, 2016), “Attorney of the Year Finalist” (Texas Lawyer, Nov. 2, 2015), “Litigation Department of the Year” (Texas Lawyer, June 1, 2015), “Employment Group of the Year” (Law360, Jan. 13, 2015), “A Supreme Month: Lawyer Credits Preparedness in Ability to Argue Two U.S. High Court Cases in Three Weeks” (Texas Lawyer, Dec. 8, 2014), “High Court Debuts for Two Lawyers” (National Law Journal, Nov. 3, 2014), “Women in Business Awards” (Dallas Business Journal, Aug 29, 2014), “Litigation Departments of the Year” (Texas Lawyer, June 2, 2014), “Winning Women” (Texas Lawyer, Aug. 22, 2011), and “High court practitioners: increasingly diverse” (National Law Journal, June 6, 2011).
Federal and State Appellate Practice
Mrs. Ho has argued a series of high stakes, landmark cases on behalf of the business community before the U.S. Supreme Court. National Law Journal called her a “Veteran SCOTUS Advocate” in the “upper echelons of Supreme Court practice.” Law360 named her a “Supreme Court Star” and “one of the nation’s preeminent appellate lawyers.” And EmpiricalSCOTUS.com ranked her among “the most successful attorneys that currently practice before the Court.” Mrs. Ho once argued two significant business cases before the Court within the span of 21 days—including a “significant ruling for employers” that “paved a new path for companies paying millions of dollars in retiree health care benefits” (Law360), as well as a landmark administrative law dispute in which “several justices agreed with Ho’s contention that SCOTUS should revisit and overrule its own precedent” (Law360). She also prevailed against the EEOC in a case that the employment defense bar called “good news for employers across the country.” And in “the most important patent case in modern history” according to patent law experts, her argument before the Court was credited for “pick[ing] up two votes that pundits thought unreachable.”
She has appeared before every federal court of appeals in the country, including en banc arguments before the Fourth and Sixth Circuits. She has successfully represented business clients in every circuit, including the First (Pruco Life Insurance Company), Second (Swiss Federation; Rite Aid), Third (Johnson & Johnson), Fourth (Genex Services), Fifth (United Space Alliance LLC; Elliott Co.; MERSCORP; 24 Hour Fitness USA, Inc.; Stream Energy; Health Management Systems), Sixth (Deutsche Bank; American Airlines; M&G Polymers), Seventh (Expedia), Eighth (Cotter), Ninth (Boeing; JP Morgan Chase Bank), Tenth (Mitchell International), Eleventh (AstraZeneca), D.C. (FedEx), and Federal (Repros Therapeutics) Circuits.
In addition, Mrs. Ho regularly appears in state appellate courts across the country. She has argued numerous cases in the Texas Supreme Court, Texas appellate courts in Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, Corpus Christi, and Eastland, and state appellate courts in Arizona, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, and West Virginia, prevailing on behalf of Ford Motor Company, PepsiCo, International Paper, Tenet, GameStop, Deutsche Bank, and Unit.
Government and Public Service Experience
Mrs. Ho has a distinguished record of experience at the highest levels of the federal government. She served as Special Assistant to President George W. Bush, Counselor to Attorney General John Ashcroft, and law clerk to Justice Sandra Day O’Connor of the U.S. Supreme Court and Judge Jacques L. Wiener Jr. of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
Her record of public service also includes appointments to various boards and commissions. Among the most notable are her election as a member of the Administrative Conference of the United States, a trustee of the United States Supreme Court Historical Society, and a trustee of the Texas Supreme Court Historical Society. She is also vice chair of the Federal Judicial Evaluation Committee, appointed by U.S. Senators John Cornyn and Ted Cruz to evaluate potential appointments of all federal judges and U.S. Attorneys in Texas, and has previously served on the U.S. Magistrate Judge Merit Selection Panel for the Northern District of Texas.
Other Background Information
An active pro bono litigator, Mrs. Ho works most frequently with the First Liberty Institute and as amicus counsel for the State and Local Legal Center, the National Organization for Victim Assistance, and the National Crime Victim Law Institute. She is a frequent public speaker and active member of the Federalist Society, the American Law Institute, and the Washington Legal Foundation’s Legal Policy Advisory Board.
Mrs. Ho graduated from Duke University magna cum laude with a B.A. in English, Rice University with an M.A. and Ph.D. in English Literature, and the University of Chicago Law School with high honors. She was a member of the Law Review and Order of the Coif. She and her husband Jim, a federal judge, have a twin daughter and son.
Managing Attorney, Institute for Justice
Arif Panju serves as a managing attorney with the Institute for Justice. He leads IJ’s Texas office and litigates cases involving free speech, property rights, economic liberty, and educational choice.
Arif is co-counsel in the case of Carson v. Makin in the U.S. Supreme Court. Carson is a challenge to Maine’s exclusion of religious educational options from the state’s school choice program.
Arif’s work has resulted in court victories in both federal and state court. He vindicated the free speech rights of tour guides in Billups v. City of Charleston. He secured a victory for economic liberty in Brantley v. Kuntz, freeing hairbraiding schools in Texas from onerous restrictions and paving the way for the abolishment of the state’s braiding license at the Texas Legislature. In Patel v. Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation, Arif helped secure a landmark victory in the Texas Supreme Court, establishing a new test for reviewing the constitutionality of economic regulations.
Arif’s work at IJ has been featured by outlets including The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, The Atlantic, Texas Tribune, and dozens more nationwide. His opinions and views on legal issues have been published in several outlets, including the Dallas Morning News, Austin American-Statesman, and USA Today. Arif sits on the board for the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas.
Arif graduated law school with honors from Southern Methodist University. During law school he clerked on the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary. Arif lives in Austin, Texas.
Partner, Lehotsky Cohn LLP
Will Thompson handles clients’ most sensitive and complicated matters. He specializes in complex litigation and solving time-sensitive problems.
Mr. Thompson has represented clients at every stage of complex litigation. He has first-chaired trials in state and federal court and led trial teams through multiple, high-profile evidentiary hearings on preliminary injunctions. He has handled complicated commercial matters, including antitrust, class-action, and constitutional issues. For example, Mr. Thompson represented major construction firms in a multi-billion-dollar construction dispute that resulted in no liability for his clients. He also has argued an expedited appeal in the Fifth Circuit and successfully obtained multiple emergency stays of lower-court orders.
Before joining Lehotsky Cohn LLP, Mr. Thompson served as Acting Chief of the Special Litigation Unit at the Texas Attorney General’s Office, where he gained extensive trial litigation experience. He secured multiple injunctions against federal agency action and successfully challenged local regulations as preempted by state law in both federal and state courts. Mr. Thompson also successfully defended Texas’s redistricting maps against constitutional challenges in both federal and state courts.
Mr. Thompson also previously served as an Assistant General Counsel to Texas Governor Greg Abbott. In that role, he provided in-house counsel to the Governor on numerous regulatory matters, including writing and submitting comments on proposed federal regulatory actions and monitoring state regulatory agencies. He also oversaw outside litigation teams representing the Governor in court.
Mr. Thompson was formerly a litigator at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP. He was a law clerk for Judge Andrew S. Oldham of the U.S. Court of Appeals for Fifth Circuit and Judge Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
Partner, Holtzman Vogel Baran Torchinsky & Josefiak PLLC
Abhishek (Abhi) Kambli is a partner at Holtzman Vogel who represents clients in high-stakes appellate and complex litigation, constitutional challenges, and matters involving state attorneys general and federal agencies. He is one of a handful of lawyers nationally who has both led federal litigation from inside the Department of Justice and multi-state coalition work from a State Attorney General’s office—giving clients a 360-degree perspective on government enforcement, regulatory challenges, and constitutional advocacy.
Prior to joining Holtzman Vogel, Abhi served as Deputy Associate Attorney General at the United States Department of Justice, where he acted as lead counsel in high-priority matters for the Trump Administration, oversaw the Department’s civil components on behalf of the Associate Attorney General, advised the White House Counsel’s Office and federal agencies on litigation risk and strategy, and developed the Department’s national affirmative civil litigation strategy.
Earlier, he served as Deputy Attorney General and Division Chief of the Special Litigation and Constitutional Issues Division at the Kansas Attorney General’s Office, where he launched the division and led multi-state coalitions in trial and appellate courts nationwide, including the United States Supreme Court. He began his career as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Southern District of Indiana, prosecuting more than 100 federal cases from investigation through appeal.
Abhi is also a Lieutenant Colonel in the United States Air Force Judge Advocate General's Corps, having served on active duty and in the reserves since 2013. His military service includes criminal trials as both prosecutor and defense attorney, appellate representation before the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, and representation of a high-profile detainee before the Military Commissions at Guantánamo Bay.
Senior Vice President, Strategic Initiatives & Special Counsel to the President, Alliance Defending Freedom
Ryan Bangert serves as senior vice president for strategic initiatives and special counsel to the president at Alliance Defending Freedom. He oversees ADF’s Blackstone Legal Fellowship and Research & Innovation Team. He also advises executive leadership on strategic initiatives.
Before joining ADF, Bangert served as deputy first assistant attorney general and deputy for legal counsel in the office of the Texas attorney general, and as deputy for civil litigation for Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley. Prior to his government service, Bangert was a litigation partner at Baker Botts L.L.P., where he was a member of the firm’s commercial litigation and appellate practice sections.
Bangert has been published at First Things, Civitas Outlook, Law & Liberty, National Review, Daily Wire, The Hill, Washington Examiner, The Federalist, Fox News, and the American Reformer. He speaks nationally on constitutional, cultural, and religious liberty issues. He also serves as Visiting Faculty in Law at the University of Austin.
He earned his J.D. from Southern Methodist University, where he was a Hatton Sumners scholar and graduated first in his class. Following law school, he clerked for the Honorable Patrick E. Higginbotham on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Partner, Schaerr | Jaffe LLP
Erik Jaffe has been involved in appeals on a broad range of legal issues, including First Amendment challenges to campaign finance reform, Commerce Clause challenges to Health Care Reform and other federal legislation, Equal Protection Clause challenges to affirmative action in education, First Amendment challenges to school vouchers, Fifth Amendment challenges to takings of property, Second Amendment challenges to restrictions on gun ownership, and a wide variety of cases involving patents, copyrights, ERISA, securities fraud, federal preemption, environmental regulation, and other state and federal constitutional and statutory matters. He has represented businesses and non-profit groups, Judges, Senators, former government officials, Nobel Prize winners, and a broad cross-section of private individuals. Mr. Jaffe has been involved in over 120 Supreme Court matters, including filing over 30 cert. petitions, representing half-a-dozen parties on the merits, and filing over 70 amicus briefs at both the cert. and merits stages.
A 1990 graduate of the Columbia University School of Law, Mr. Jaffe was a law clerk to Judge Douglas H. Ginsburg of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit from 1990 to 1991. Following that clerkship he spent five years in litigation practice with the Washington, D.C. law firm of Williams & Connolly. In the summer of 1996 he left Williams & Connolly to clerk for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. At the end of that clerkship he started his own practice, and he was a sole practitioner from 1997 to 2018. He joined the firm of Schaerr | Jaffe LLP in 2018.
Partner, Schaerr Jaffe LLP
Gene Schaerr specializes in handling—and usually winning—civil appeals, writ proceedings and similar matters, both in appellate courts and in the law-focused proceedings at the trial-court or agency level that often determine success or failure on appeal. He has argued and won dozens of cases in a variety of forums—including the U.S. Supreme Court (where he has argued six cases), every federal circuit, and numerous federal district courts and state appellate courts. His win rate in the dozens of federal appeals he has argued in the past six years is over 75 percent.
He was a coordinator of Sidley Austin's appellate practice from 1993 until 2005, and from 2005 until 2014 was the chair of the nationwide appellate practice at Winston & Strawn—a practice he led to numerous recognitions in such publications as the Appellate Hot List. His personal practice successes have won him repeated recognition in such publications as Best Lawyers in Washington, D.C., Legal 500, D.C. Superlawyers, and Best Lawyers in America. In January 2014, Mr. Schaerr formed his own boutique litigation firm so that he could serve his clients without the conflicts and inefficiencies inherent in big-firm law practice.
Substantively, Mr. Schaerr's experience includes not only virtually every area of federal law, defamation, higher education law, immigration, insurance coverage, labor and employment, patent and trademark, privacy, product liability and warranty, statutory interpretation and tax.He has represented clients in virtually every sector, including automotive, communications, energy, financial services, health care, higher education, insurance, maritime, pharmaceuticals, technology and state and local government. He also teaches courses in Supreme Court litigation, religious freedom litigation and advanced litigation skills as an adjunct professor of law at the Brigham Young University law school.
Mr. Schaerr began law practice in 1987 following clerkships on the U.S. Supreme Court (for Chief Justice Warren Burger and Justice Antonin Scalia) and on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (for then- Judge Kenneth Starr). He graduated in 1985 from the Yale Law School, where he was Editor-in-Chief of the Yale Journal on Regulation and Senior Editor of the Yale Law Journal. From 1991 to 1993, he served in the White House as Associate Counsel to the President, where he had responsibility for a wide range of constitutional and administrative-law issues, including those involving economic regulation, higher education, separation of powers, federalism and religious freedom. He serves as Chairman of the Constitutional Sources Project, a digital resource providing free public access to historical materials relevant to the U.S. Constitution.
General Counsel, Center for Individual Rights
Darpana Sheth joined CIR as General Counsel in May 2025. She is a nationally recognized constitutional litigator with over two decades of experience serving in in leadership roles at other nonprofit organizations.
Before joining CIR, Darpana served for four years as Vice President of Litigation for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. Prior to that, Darpana was a Senior Attorney with the Institute for Justice, where she also served as Director of the Institute’s National Initiative to End Forfeiture Abuse.
Before finding her calling as a public-interest attorney, Darpana served as an Assistant Attorney General for the State of New York and worked in private practice as a litigation associate at the Manhattan law firm of Chadbourne & Parke, LLP. She also served as law clerk to the Honorable Jerome A. Holmes of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.
A native of Philadelphia, Darpana graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and History. She earned her law degree from Georgetown University Law Center.
Senior Attorney, Institute for Free Speech
Owen Yeates is a Senior Attorney on the litigation team and plays an important role in their regulatory, legislative, and policy work. Owen joined the Institute in 2015 as a Staff Attorney and was promoted in 2021 to Senior Attorney and Deputy Vice President for Litigation, after serving as Acting Legal Director following the departure of Allen Dickerson to the Federal Election Commission. From May 2022 to May 2025, Owen served as a Deputy District Attorney for Multnomah County, Oregon. He re-joined the Institute for Free Speech as a Senior Attorney in May 2025.
He received his J.D. from Stanford Law School after completing a Ph.D. in Political Science at Duke University and a B.S., summa cum laude, in Physics from Brigham Young University. Owen clerked for the Honorable Scott Matheson, Jr., of the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit (2012-2013), the Honorable J. Jerome Farris of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (2011-2012), and the Honorable James L. Robart of the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington (Summer 2012). After clerking, he was a litigation associate in intellectual property law at Klarquist Sparkman, LLP, in Portland, Oregon, where he was involved with the Legal Aid Society of Oregon’s domestic violence program. Before law school, he taught Ancient Political Theory, American Politics, Theories of Human Freedom, and Religion and American Politics at Brigham Young University and Wake Forest University. During law school, Owen interned with the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the U.S. Department of Defense, and he worked with the school’s Three Strikes Clinic and Domestic Violence pro bono program.
Owen is licensed to practice law in the District of Columbia, Oregon, Utah (inactive), and Washington state (inactive). He is admitted to practice before the United States Supreme Court; the United States Courts of Appeals for the Third, Sixth, Eighth, Ninth, Tenth, Eleventh, and D.C. Circuits; and the United States District Courts for the Districts of Colorado, Columbia, Oregon, and Utah, as well as the Eastern District of Texas and the Western District of Tennessee.
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