Distinguished Research Professor, Center for Citizenship and Constitutional Government, University of Notre Dame
Donald L. Drakeman is Distinguished Research Professor in the Center for Citizenship and Constitutional Government at the University of Notre Dame, and a Fellow of the Centre for Health Leadership and Enterprise at the University of Cambridge. His writings have been cited by the Supreme Courts of the United States and the Philippines. He has published seven books, including The Hollow Core of Constitutional Theory (Cambridge University Press, 2021), Why We Need the Humanities (Palgrave, 2016), and Church, State, and Original Intent (Cambridge University Press, 2010). He received an A.B. magna cum laude from Dartmouth College; a J.D. from Columbia Law School, where he was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar; and a Ph.D. from Princeton University. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, and he was the founding chair of the Advisory Council for the James Madison Program on American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University.
Associate Justice, Alabama Supreme Court
James L. “Jay” Mitchell was elected to the Alabama Supreme Court in 2018.
Prior to serving on the Supreme Court, Justice Mitchell was an accomplished litigation attorney with Maynard, Cooper & Gale, P.C. During his time in private practice, he tried a number of complex cases to verdict, successfully handled appeals, and obtained favorable settlements for clients. He was rated as one of the top litigators in the United States and Alabama, and received the highest possible rating for professional ethics. He also served on Maynard, Cooper & Gale’s executive committee, helping to lead strategic and growth initiatives for the firm.
Justice Mitchell was born in Mobile and grew up in South Alabama and in Homewood. He is a graduate of Homewood High School and received his Bachelor of Arts with honors from Birmingham-Southern College, where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa, served as president of the student body, and played forward on the school’s 1995 national championship basketball team. He holds a Master of Arts from University College in Dublin, Ireland, and received his law degree from the University of Virginia School of Law.
Justice Mitchell has long been active in organizations that benefit the community and enhance the legal profession. In addition to his service with other organizations, he is a member of the Rotary Club of Birmingham and serves on the board of directors at Cornerstone School, an inner city Christian school. He is also a member of the Federalist Society.
Justice Mitchell and his wife, Elizabeth, have been married for 20 years and have four children. They reside in Homewood and are longtime members of Church of the Highlands.
Senior Fellow in Constitutional Jurisprudence, Independence Institute
Professor Robert G. Natelson is a constitutional scholar and author.
Rob’s constitutional scholarship has been cited repeatedly by justices and parties at the U.S. Supreme Court—as well as by federal appeals courts, and at least 18 state supreme courts.
Rob’s research into the Constitution’s original meaning has carried him to libraries throughout the United States and in Britain, including four months at Oxford University. His books and articles span many different parts of the Constitution, including groundbreaking studies of the Necessary and Proper Clause, the Indian Commerce Clause, federalism, Founding-Era interpretation, regulation of elections, and the amendment process of Article V. He created the first-ever online bibliography for 18th century materials used in constitutional research. He is a contributing author to the Encyclopedia of the Supreme Court of the United States (on Magna Carta). He contributed eight essays to the third edition of the Heritage Guide to the Constitution: five on the amendment procedure and one each on the Guarantee Clause, the Postal Clause, and the Recess Appointments Clause.
U.S. Supreme Court justices have relied explicitly on Rob’s research in 41 citations in 13 separate cases.
Senior Research Fellow in Anglo-American Relations, Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom, The Heritage Foundation
Theodore "Ted" R. Bromund studies and writes on Anglo-American relations, U.S. and British relations with Europe and the European Union, America’s leadership role in the world, and international organizations and treaties as senior research fellow in The Heritage Foundation’s Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom.
Bromund, who joined Heritage in 2008, previously served nine years as associate director of International Security Studies at Yale University, a center dedicated to the study and teaching of diplomatic history and grand strategy. He was a lecturer in history beginning in 1999, and in international affairs for the master of arts program beginning in 2004.
A columnist for Newsday, Forbes, and Great Britain’s Yorkshire Post, Bromund also writes regularly for National Review, The Weekly Standard, and FoxNews.com, and, in Britain, CapX. He has been interviewed or cited by BBC News, CBS News, Fox News Channel, CNN, Fox Business, Politifact, Radio Free Europe, The Christian Science Monitor, Time, and Financial Times, among others.
Besides contributing articles to scholarly journals, Bromund is the author of a chapter on former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and the fall of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in the book The Blair Legacy: Politics, Policy, Governance, and Foreign Affairs (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009).
In 2013, Bromund was recognized by the Second Amendment Foundation as its Scholar of the Year for his analysis of the Arms Trade Treaty.
Bromund received his doctorate in history in 1999 from Yale. His thesis on Britain’s first application to the European Economic Community won the Samuel H. Beer Dissertation Prize from the American Political Science Association’s British Politics Group. In 2016, he received Heritage’s Joseph Shattan Award in recognition of the quality of his writing.
He is an adjunct professor of strategic studies in the Strategic Studies Program at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, where he teaches courses on grand strategy. He also holds two master’s degrees in history from Yale as well as a bachelor of arts degree from Iowa’s Grinnell College.
A native of Wooster, Ohio, he currently resides in Washington, D.C.
Partner, Grossman Young & Hammond
Sandra Grossman is a partner at Grossman Young & Hammond, LLC, located in Bethesda, Maryland. She is a skilled immigration litigator with over a decade of experience in all matters related to the practice of immigration law. She is known for providing top-notch, personalized service to both individual and corporate clients with complex immigration cases and highly specialized needs. Her pragmatic and creative approach to immigration challenges has earned her an international reputation as a lawyer who can get the job done for the most discriminating of clients.
Sandra has developed a unique practice that addresses complex inadmissibility issues, often involving matters before INTERPOL, high-profile clients, politically sensitive matters, and diplomatic issues with foreign policy implications, and requiring knowledge and expertise on a range of issues involving public international law and U.S. domestic law. Sandra is fiercely dedicated to guiding her clients through the complex maze of U.S. immigration laws in order to find workable solutions to achieve their goals.
Sandra has successfully represented individuals in diverse aspects of immigration law before the immigration courts, the Board of Immigration Appeals, and the Federal District Courts. She also represents clients in the areas of deportation defense, detention and bond issues, the immigration consequences of criminal convictions, requests under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), waivers of inadmissibility, asylum, and adjustment of status and naturalization applications, among other matters. Her experience includes representation of clients in lawsuits to prompt U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) action on long-delayed applications, including applications for naturalization, adjustment of status, waivers, and replacement green cards.
The Washingtonian Magazine recognized Sandra as one of “Washington’s Top Lawyers.” She is an active member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), a former adjunct professor in immigration law at the Washington College of Law at American University, and a member of the Editorial Board of Bender’s Immigration Bulletin. Sandra regularly handles pro-bono client matters and offers reduced rate services for such organizations as the Maryland Immigrant Rights Coalition (MIRC), CASA de Maryland, Catholic Charities, and Identity.
Sandra is a native Spanish and English speaker and is conversant in French.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit
Judge O’Scannlain was appointed United States Circuit Judge for the Ninth Circuit by President Reagan on September 26, 1986. He received a J.D. degree in 1963 from Harvard Law School and a B.A. in 1957 from St. John’s University. He also earned the LL.M. (Judicial Process) degree at University of Virginia Law School in 1992. He was awarded the LL.D. (honoris causa) degree by the University of Notre Dame in 2002, the LL.D. (honoris causa) degree by Lewis & Clark College in 2003 and the LL.D. (honoris causa) degree by the University of Portland in 2011.
As a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, Judge O’Scannlain has participated in over 6,000 federal cases and has written hundreds of published opinions on a broad range of subjects including constitutional law, international law, securities law, administrative law, and criminal law. He hears appeals in San Francisco (court headquarters), as well as in Los Angeles (Pasadena), Portland, Seattle, Anchorage and Honolulu. The late Chief Justice Rehnquist appointed Judge O'Scannlain to the Federal Judicial Center's Advisory Committee on Appellate Judge Education. In 2009, Chief Justice Roberts appointed Judge O’Scannlain to the International Judicial Relations Committee of the U.S. Judicial Conference and subsequently appointed him Chairman in 2010.
President George W. Bush appointed Judge O’Scannlain to the Board of Trustees of the James Madison Memorial Fellowship Foundation in 2004. Pope Benedict XVI conferred the Order of Saint Gregory the Great on Judge and Mrs. O’Scannlain in 2007.
Judge O’Scannlain’s professional interests also include judicial administration and reform, and continuing legal education. Judge O’Scannlain is former Chair of the Judicial Division of the American Bar Association and has previously chaired the ABA’s Appellate Judges Conference, its Committee on Appellate Practice, and its 9th Appellate Practice Institute. He has testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on several occasions, the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts and Intellectual Property, and the Commission on Structural Alternatives for the Federal Courts of Appeals on the subject of court reorganization. In addition to serving as a faculty member at numerous federal appellate practice seminars for judges and attorneys, including New York University Law School’s Institute for Judicial Administration, Judge O’Scannlain is an Adjunct Professor at Lewis & Clark Law School where he teaches a seminar on the Supreme Court. He has served as a Moot Court Judge at distinguished law schools across the United States including Harvard, Yale Stanford, Boalt Hall (Berkeley Law), Virginia, Cornell, Notre Dame, Fordham, Alabama, University of Southern California, King Hall (U.C. Davis) and Loyola Marymount University and in China at Xiamen and Renmin Universities.
Between graduation from Harvard and investiture as a federal judge, Judge O’Scannlain was primarily engaged in private law practice. Between 1969 and 1974, he was consecutively the Deputy Attorney General of Oregon, the Public Utility Commissioner of Oregon, and Director of the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality. He retired from the U.S. Army Reserve in 1978 as a Major after 23 years Reserve and National Guard service, including four years as an enlisted man.
A first generation Irish-American son of immigrant parents from Sligo and Derry, Judge O’Scannlain is married to the former Maura Nolan and has eight children: Sean, Jane, Brendan, Kevin, Megan, Christopher, Anne, and Kate, and nineteen grandchildren. His chambers are in the Pioneer Courthouse in Portland, Oregon.
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