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.
Associate Professor of Government, Van Andel Graduate School of Government, Hillsdale College in Washington, DC
Bradley C.S. Watson is Associate Professor of Government at the Van Andel Graduate School of Government of Hillsdale College in Washington, DC. Professor Watson’s books include Progressivism: The Strange History of a Radical Idea (Notre Dame, 2022/2020), Progressive Challenges to the American Constitution: A New Republic (Cambridge, 2020/2017), and Living Constitution, Dying Faith: Progressivism and the New Science of Jurisprudence (ISI, 2020/2009).
Emanuel S. Heller Professor of Law, University of California at Berkeley; Senior Research Fellow, School of Civic Leadership, Civitas Institute, University of Texas at Austin; Nonresident Senior Fellow, American Enterprise Institute
John Yoo is the Emanuel Heller Professor of Law. He is also Distinguished Visiting Scholar, School of Civic Leadership and Senior Research Fellow, Civitas Institute, at the University of Texas at Austin. He is also a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
His most recent book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Supreme Court, co-authored with Robert Delahunty, was published in 2023. Professor Yoo’s other books include Defender-in-Chief: Trump’s Fight for Presidential Power; Striking Power: How Cyber, Robots, and Space Weapons Change the Rules for War, Point of Attack: Preventive War, International Law, and Global Welfare, and Crisis and Command: A History of Executive Power from George Washington to George Bush.
Professor Yoo has published more than 100 articles in academic journals on subjects including national security, constitutional law, international law, and the Supreme Court. He also regularly contributes to the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and National Review, among others.
Professor Yoo has served in all three branches of government. He was an official in the U.S. Department of Justice, where he worked on national security and terrorism issues after the 9/11 attacks. He served as general counsel of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. He has been a law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and federal appeals Judge Laurence Silberman. He has been a visiting professor at Seoul National University in South Korea, the Interdisciplinary Center in Israel, Keio University in Japan, Trento University in Italy, the University of Chicago, and the Free University of Amsterdam.
Professor Yoo supervises the Public Law and Policy Program and the California Constitution Center. He also serves on the boards of the Pacific Legal Foundation, the Federalist Society’s Separation of Powers and Federalism Division, the Universidad Cientifica del Sur Law School, and the Asia-Pacific Law Institute at Seoul National University. He is a winner of the Federalist Society’s Paul Bator award and been the Edwin Meese III Originalism Lecturer at the Heritage Foundation.
Professor Yoo graduated from Yale Law School and summa cum laude from Harvard College.
Professorial Lecturer in Law, George Washington University Law School
Theodore C. (Ted) Hirt was an attorney in the Department of Justice's Civil Division from August 1979 to March 2016. He was in its Federal Programs Branch from 1979 to 2008 (trial attorney, senior trial counsel, assistant director), and then in its Office of Immigration Litigation from 2008 to 2016 (trial attorney and senior litigation counsel). Among his responsibilities (September 2001 to March 2016) was being an advisor to the Assistant Attorneys General for the Civil Division, who serve ex officio on the Civil Rules Advisory Committee. Mr. Hirt’s areas of specialization include First Amendment issues, internet and telecommunications law, and electronic discovery. From 1976 to 1979, he was an associate at Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Kampelman. From 1975 to 1976 he was an attorney in the Prehearing Division of the Michigan Court of Appeals.
The Wisdom of Our Ancestors
Andrew D. Graham
A review of Graham James McAleer & Alexander S. Rosenthal-Pubul, The Wisdom of Our Ancestors:...
What Is Conservative Constitutionalism? A Fractured History Reveals an Uncertain Path Forward
Bradley C. S. Watson
A review of Johnathan O’Neill, Conservative Thought and American Constitutionalism Since the New Deal (Johns Hopkins...
Originalism as King
John C. Yoo
A review of The President Who Would Not Be King: Executive Power under the Constitution,...
Have the American People Irrevocably Ceded Control of Their Government to the Modern Administrative State?
Ted Hirt
A review of Unmasking the Administrative State: The Crisis of American Politics in the Twenty-First...