Judge, United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas
Judge Sean Jordan is a federal district judge for the Eastern District of Texas, Sherman
Division. Prior to taking the bench, Judge Jordan worked on complex civil litigation and
appellate cases for twenty-five years in both government service and private practice.
He has managed the appellate sections of two large law firms and previously served as
Principal Deputy Solicitor General in the Office of the Solicitor General of Texas.
Judge Jordan received his B.A., summa cum laude, from the University of Texas at
Austin and his J.D., with honors, from the University of Texas School of Law. Prior to
attending UT Austin, he served in the U.S. Army as an infantryman and paratrooper in
the 82nd Airborne Division.
Principal Deputy Solicitor General, Alabama Office of the Attorney General
Robert M. Overing is the Principal Deputy Solicitor General for the State of Alabama and Adjunct Professor at Faulkner University's Jones School of Law. He previously served as a law clerk to Judge Diarmuid F. O'Scannlain on the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and as Special Counsel to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. He received his J.D. from Yale Law School and graduated summa cum laude from the University of Southern California with a masters degree in Philosophy and Law.
Solicitor General of Nebraska
Cody Barnett previously served as legal counsel on Alliance Defending Freedom’s Appellate Advocacy Team, where he represented various ADF clients before appellate courts across the country.
Before joining ADF, Barnett served as the William H. Rehnquist Fellow at Cooper & Kirk PLLC. He then went on to clerk for the Honorable Amul R. Thapar and the Honorable Raymond M. Kethledge, both of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit, and for the Honorable Justin R. Walker of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.
Barnett earned his J.D. from the University of Kentucky College of Law in 2017, where he graduated first in his class. He also served as president of the Christian Legal Society and as an articles editor for the Kentucky Law Journal. He completed ADF’s Blackstone Legal Fellowship in 2017. Prior to law school, Barnett earned a Bachelor of Arts in both history and political science from Transylvania University.
Barnett is admitted to practice law in Kentucky, the District of Columbia, and before several U.S. Courts of Appeal.
Senior Counsel, U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee
Tessa E. Shurr serves as Senior Counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee (Majority).
Prior to joining the Judiciary Committee staff, Tessa served as a Litigation Associate at the Fairness Center, a non-profit law firm, where she represented clients who had been harmed by their public-sector union. Before that, she counseled high-level leadership at the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Policy on legislative and regulatory matters, assisted the U.S. Department of Defense with procurement of supplies and services, and worked on both civil and criminal cases at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania.
Tessa graduated from Penn State Dickinson Law in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. There, she served as Managing Editor of the Dickinson Law Review, one of the oldest legal journals in the United States. During her time in law school, Tessa earned CALI Excellence for the Future Awards in Advanced Federal Income Tax; Congressional Investigations; and Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, & Law. She also published an academic comment proposing a new regulatory scheme for digital assets and cryptocurrency.
Associate Professor of Law, University of Notre Dame Law School
Sherif Girgis joined Notre Dame Law School in 2021. Prior to joining Notre Dame Law, Sherif practiced law at Jones Day in Washington, D.C., where he focused on appellate and complex civil litigation. Before that, Girgis served as a law clerk to Justice Samuel Alito, Jr., of the U.S. Supreme Court and Judge Thomas B. Griffith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Now completing his Ph.D. in philosophy at Princeton, Girgis earned his J.D. at Yale Law School, where he served as an editor of the Yale Law Journal and won the Felix S. Cohen Prize for best paper in legal philosophy. Before law school, he earned a master's degree (B.Phil.) in philosophy from the University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, and his bachelor's degree in philosophy from Princeton, Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum laude. Girgis is coauthor of What Is Marriage? Man and Woman: A Defense, cited in a dissent in United States v. Windsor, and Debating Religious Liberty and Discrimination, released by Oxford University Press in 2017. His work at the intersection of philosophy and law--including criminal law, constitutional liberties, and jurisprudence--has appeared in academic and popular venues including the Yale Law Journal, the Virginia Law Review, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, the American Journal of Jurisprudence, the Cambridge Companion to Philosophy of Law, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal.
Supreme Court & Appellate Litigation Chair, Lex Politica; Of Counsel, Alliance Defending Freedom
Erin Morrow Hawley serves as Chair of Lex Politica's Supreme Court and Appellate Practice overseeing the firm’s strategic appellate litigation and critical motions practice in the trial courts. Erin is an experienced litigator who represents clients in constitutional, regulatory, and appellate matters in federal and state courts throughout the country.
Erin has represented dozens of clients before the Supreme Court of the United States, served as lead counsel in high-profile cases raising novel constitutional and statutory issues, and authored numerous successful petitions for certiorari and briefs in opposition. She has argued in state and federal appellate and trial courts throughout the country, including the Supreme Court of the United States. Erin represents diverse clients in high-stakes litigation from state governments to faith-based nonprofits to Fortune 100 companies. She possesses expertise on a wide range of subject matters including administrative law, the First Amendment, religious liberty, federal jurisdiction, federal preemption, equitable jurisdiction, tax law, the Affordable Care Act, and Title IX.
Erin represents clients in cases where public communications strategy is paramount. She is a sought-after speaker and writer, has testified multiple times before Congress, and is a frequent presenter on constitutional and administrative law issues, including at the Oxford Union, the National Federalist Society Convention, and university campuses across the country. She is a frequent commentator to media outlets, including Fox News, MSNBC, the Wall Street Journal, WORLD, USA Today, the Federalist, and the Hill.
Erin previously oversaw Alliance Defending Freedom’s--where she still serves as Of Counsel--litigation strategies to empower women and protect the dignity of life, defend pregnancy centers’ First Amendment rights from government overreach, and safeguard Americans’ freedoms from the ever-encroaching administrative state.
Brenden Mann Foundation Chair in Law and Religion and Co-Director of the Nootbaar Institute for Law, Pepperdine Caruso School of Law
Professor Michael Helfand is the Brenden Mann Foundation Chair in Law and Religion and Co-Director of the Nootbaar Institute for Law, Religion and Ethics at Pepperdine Caruso School of Law. During the Spring, he serves as the Florence Rogatz Visiting Professor at Yale Law School. In addition to his academic appointments, Professor Helfand serves as the Senior Legal Advisor to the Orthodox Union’s Teach Coalition and a Senior Fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute.
An expert on questions of church and state, Professor Helfand’s work considers how U.S. law treats religious law, custom and practice. His academic articles have appeared in numerous law journals, including the Yale Law Journal, New York University Law Review, Duke Law Journal, Minnesota Law Review, Washington University Law Review, and Southern California Law Review. In addition, Professor Helfand often provides commentary on clashes between law and religion, writing for various public audience publications, including the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Forward.
Professor Helfand joined the Pepperdine Caruso Law faculty in 2010 where he has taught Contracts, Arbitration Law, Jewish Law and seminars in Law and Religion as well as Multiculturalism and the Law. Prior to joining the Pepperdine Caruso Law faculty, Professor Helfand was an associate at Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP, where his practice focused on complex commercial litigation. Before entering private practice, Professor Helfand clerked for the Honorable Julia Smith Gibbons of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.
Associate Dean and Professor of Law, Case Western Reserve University School of Law
Jessie Hill’s teaching and scholarship focus on constitutional law, civil rights, reproductive rights, and law and religion. Her articles have been published in the Michigan Law Review, Duke Law Journal, Georgetown Law Journal, and Texas Law Review, among others. She has also appeared in numerous local and national press outlets, including CNN, the New York Times, Ms. Magazine, and NPR.
She is the founding director of the Reproductive Rights Law Initiative at the School of Law, which provides education and legal support relating to reproductive rights. Her work was recently profiled in the Case Law-Med magazine. She is a recipient of the university’s Distinguished Research Award. She has also been appointed a Nootbaar Fellow in Law and Religion at Pepperdine University Caruso School of Law. In 2023, she received both the Black Law Students Association Faculty Award and the Champion for Women Award from the Cuyahoga Democratic Women’s Caucus, and she has been recognized by the ACLU of Ohio for her reproductive rights advocacy.
Professor Hill joined the faculty in 2003 after practicing First Amendment and civil rights law with the firm of Berkman, Gordon, Murray & DeVan in Cleveland. Before entering private practice, Professor Hill worked at the Reproductive Freedom Project of the National ACLU office in New York. She also served as law clerk to the Honorable Karen Nelson Moore of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. She received her JD, magna cum laude, from Harvard University and her AB, magna cum laude, from Brown University.
University Professor of Law and Religion and Director of the Eleanor H. McCullen Center for Law, Religion and Public Policy, Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law
Michael P. Moreland was appointed University Professor of Law and Religion and Director of the Eleanor H. McCullen Center for Law, Religion and Public Policy at Villanova University in 2017. Professor Moreland joined the Villanova faculty in 2006 and served as Vice Dean from 2012 to 2015. His research is primarily in the areas of torts, law and religion, constitutional law, and Catholic social thought, and he regularly teaches Torts, First Amendment, seminars in law and religion, and undergraduate courses in ethics.
Professor Moreland is the co-editor of Christianity and Private Law (Routledge, 2021), and his most recent publications include: “The Authority of Tradition: John Henry Newman and Legal Theory” in Christianity and the Making of Irish Law (Routledge, 2025); “Christianity and Torts” in The Oxford Handbook on Christianity and Law, (Oxford University Press, 2023); “Germaneness and Religious Liberty” in the Notre Dame Law Review (2023); “Contingency and Contestation in Christianity and Liberalism” in the Notre Dame Law Review (2023); “Friendship as the Primary Purpose of Law” in The American Journal of Jurisprudence 279 (2022); and “The Moral of Torts” (with Jeffrey Pojanowski) in Christianity and Private Law (Routledge, 2021).
Professor Moreland was a Visiting Professor of Law at the University of Notre Dame and the Mary Ann Remick Senior Visiting Fellow at the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture from 2015 to 2017. He was the Forbes Visiting Fellow at Princeton University in the James Madison Program during academic year 2010-11. He has served as the project leader for grants from the John Templeton Foundation and the Charles Koch Foundation. He serves as the Chair of the Federalist Society’s Religious Liberties Practice Group Executive Committee and the Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Institute for Advanced Catholic Studies at the University of Southern California.
Professor Moreland received his BA in philosophy from the University of Notre Dame, his MA and PhD in theological ethics from Boston College, and his JD from the University of Michigan Law School. Following law school, Professor Moreland clerked for the Honorable Paul J. Kelly Jr., of the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit and was an associate at Williams & Connolly LLP in Washington, DC, where he represented clients in First Amendment, professional liability, and products liability matters. Before coming to Villanova, he served as Associate Director for Domestic Policy at the White House under President George W. Bush, where he worked on a range of legal policy issues, including criminal justice, immigration, civil rights, and liability reform.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit
The Honorable Whitney Hermandorfer is a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. She was nominated to the court by President Donald Trump (R) on May 12, 2025, and confirmed by the United States Senate on July 14, 2025.
Prior to her appointment, she worked in the Office of the Tennessee Attorney General as Director of the Strategic Litigation Unit. In that role, Whitney focused on leading constitutional, statutory, and administrative-law challenges to federal agency action, as well as on defending the State in complex matters at the trial and appellate level.
Whitney previously worked at Williams & Connolly LLP in Washington, DC, where she focused on appellate and administrative-law litigation. Whitney clerked for Justice Samuel Alito in the OT 2018 Supreme Court term and for Justice Amy Coney Barrett during her inaugural OT 2020 term. Prior to that, Whitney clerked for then-Judge Kavanaugh on the D.C. Circuit, and Judge Richard Leon on the U.S. District Court for D.C. Whitney is a graduate of Princeton University and George Washington University Law School.
Vice President and Senior Counsel, The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty
Lori Windham is vice president and senior counsel at Becket, where she has represented clients on cutting-edge religious freedom issues since 2005. She has represented parties before the Supreme Court, arguing Becket’s unanimous victory on behalf of foster families in Fulton v. Philadelphia, as well as working with the Becket team on its Supreme Court victories in Hosanna-Tabor, Hobby Lobby, and Little Sisters of the Poor. She won a victory for the world’s largest religious media network in EWTN v. Azar, staving off millions of dollars in government fines under unlawful the HHS mandate. She has won more than a dozen victories in federal appellate courts, including successful defense of cities and school districts sued for accommodating religion, victories for houses of worship facing discrimination in the land use process, and overturning a multimillion-dollar judgment against a major evangelical ministry. She recently won a first-in-the-nation injunction for an adoption agency threatened with shutdown for its religious beliefs.
Recognized in Washington as an expert on religious freedom issues, Lori has testified in Congressional oversight hearings before the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee and before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. Outside Washington, Lori is sought-after speaker on First Amendment law, including appearances at Yale Law School, Harvard Law School, Stanford Law School, Georgetown University Law Center, Central European University, and many others.
In addition to these venues, Lori also defends her clients in the media, including television appearances on CBS This Morning, Hardball, CNN Tonight, On the Record, America’s Newsroom, Opinion Journal, and many others. Her work has been covered by the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and dozens of other papers. She is also a regular guest on radio, with appearances on shows ranging from Sean Hannity to NPR.
Lori has successfully represented a wide array of clients, including a Santeria priest prohibited from making animal sacrifices, synagogues prohibited from building on their own land, and religious student organizations penalized for their religious speech. One of her most challenging cases involved travel to a remote farming community to ensure that members of the local Amish community were not jailed for using their traditional building methods.
Lori is a graduate of Harvard Law School and earned her B.A. summa cum laude at Abilene Christian University. She has served on the Board of Visitors of Abilene Christian University and received the ACU Young Alumnus of the Year award for her work at Becket. She sits on the board of Dominion Christian School and the visiting committee of the Fund for American Studies’ Summer Law Fellowship.
John Paul Stevens Professor of Law, Northwestern University School of Law
Andrew Koppelman is John Paul Stevens Professor of Law, Professor (by courtesy) of Political Science, and Philosophy Department Affiliated Faculty at Northwestern University. He received the Walder Award for Research Excellence from Northwestern, the Hart-Dworkin award in legal philosophy from the Association of American Law Schools, and the Edward S. Corwin Prize from the American Political Science Association. His scholarship focuses on issues at the intersection of law and political philosophy. He has written more than 100 scholarly articles and eight books, most recently Burning Down the House: How Libertarian Philosophy Was Corrupted by Delusion and Greed, (St. Martin’s Press). His column appears regularly at The Hill. You can find his recent work at andrewkoppelman.com.
Robert E. Scott Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus, University of Virginia School of Law; Alice McKean Young Regents Chair in Law Emeritus, University of Texas
Douglas Laycock is perhaps the nation’s leading authority on the law of religious liberty and also on the law of remedies. He has taught and written about these topics for more than four decades at the University of Chicago, the University of Texas, the University of Michigan and the University of Virginia. He retired from teaching at UVA Law School in May 2023.
Laycock has testified frequently before Congress and has argued many cases in the courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, where he has served as lead counsel in six cases and has also filed influential amicus briefs. He is the author (co-author in the most recent edition) of the leading casebook Modern American Remedies, the award-winning monograph The Death of the Irreparable Injury Rule and many articles in leading law reviews. He co-edited a collection of essays, Same-Sex Marriage and Religious Liberty.
His many writings on religious liberty have been republished in a five-volume collection:
Laycock resigned from the council and as first vice president of the American Law Institute to become co-reporter for the Restatement (Third) of Torts: Remedies. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He earned his B.A. from Michigan State University and his J.D. from the University of Chicago.
Senior Counsel, Vice President of Litigation Strategy, Alliance Defending Freedom
Jonathan Scruggs serves as senior counsel and vice president of litigation strategy with Alliance Defending Freedom. In this role, he identifies new litigation opportunities, develops new legal strategies, and improves processes across multiple litigation teams in collaboration with the chief legal counsel.
Since joining ADF in 2006, Scruggs has worked on and prevailed in a variety of cases related to Title IX, gender ideology, and people’s right to freely express their faith, including Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, 303 Creative v. Elenis, and Brush & Nib Studio v. Phoenix, which Scruggs argued at the Arizona Supreme Court. Scruggs has argued before numerous federal appellate courts and trial courts across the country and has extensive experience litigating free-speech, religious-liberty, establishment, Title IX, and equal-protection issues on behalf of students, female athletes, businesses, professionals, and non-profit entities.
Scruggs earned his B.A., summa cum laude, from Vanderbilt University in 2003 and his J.D. at Harvard Law School in 2006. He is also a 2004 Blackstone Fellow.
A member of the bars of Arizona and Tennessee, Scruggs is admitted to the U.S. Supreme Court and multiple federal district and appellate courts.
Chief Civil Counsel, Senate Judiciary Committee
Austin Rogers serves as Chief Counsel for the Senate Judiciary Committee, covering the civil portfolio for the Chairman. He obtained dual graduate degrees in Law and Theology from Duke University (summa cum laude), where he served on the Duke Law Journal and Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy. After law school, he clerked for Chief Judge Steven D. Merryday in the Middle District of Florida. Following his clerkship, he practiced law at White & Case, specializing in commercial and appellate litigation. Prior to serving as Chief Civil Counsel for the Senate Judiciary Committee, he served as Senior Counsel of Oversight and Investigations for the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Austin obtained undergraduate degrees (summa cum laude) in International Business and Theology from Southeastern University and Wheaton College, respectively, and played college soccer at both schools.
He has published First Amendment scholarship in the Duke Law Journal and the Marquette Law Review, and he has a forthcoming article that will be published in the Florida Law Review. He is a member of the District of Columbia Bar, the Republican National Lawyers Association, and the Federalist Society, where he serves in a volunteer capacity. Austin is actively involved in his church and serves on its worship team.
Partner, Clement & Murphy, PLLC
Paul served as the 43rd Solicitor General of the United States from June 2005 until June 2008. Before his confirmation as Solicitor General, he served as Acting Solicitor General for nearly a year and as Principal Deputy Solicitor General for over three years.
Paul has argued over 100 cases before the United States Supreme Court, including McConnell v. FEC, Tennessee v. Lane, United States v. Booker, MGM v. Grokster, Hobby Lobby v. Burwell, Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis, Rucho v. Common Cause, Facebook v. Duguid, and TransUnion v. Ramirez. Paul has argued more Supreme Court cases since 2000 than any lawyer in or out of government. He has also argued many important cases in the lower courts, including Walker v. Cheney, United States v. Moussaoui and NFL v. Brady.
Paul’s practice focuses on appellate matters, constitutional litigation and strategic counseling. He represents a broad array of clients in the Supreme Court and in federal and state appellate courts. Last year, for example, he successfully argued Supreme Court cases involving significant issues of energy regulation, statutory interpretation, state sovereign immunity and Article III standing, and successfully argued a trademark appeal in the Fourth Circuit, and a constitutional appeal before the en banc Eleventh Circuit.
Paul focuses on high-stakes appeals. In recent years, he successfully defended a $1.2 billion jury verdict for clients in a Tenth Circuit case, while securing the reversal of an over $2 billion jury verdict for another client in the Seventh Circuit and the approval of a nearly $1 billion dollar class action settlement in the Third Circuit. He has initiated major administrative law challenges and constitutional litigation against the federal government, such as the successful challenge to the HHS drug-pricing rule and threatened challenges that led to the withdrawal of the Treasury Department’s proposed cryptocurrency regulations. He also counsels clients on a variety of strategic legal questions, whether arising from pending legislation, government inquiries or ongoing litigation.
Paul has undertaken substantial pro bono engagements in the Supreme Court, such as twice successfully representing the defendant in Bond v. United States and successfully representing the Omaha Tribe in Nebraska v. Parker, the guardian ad litem in Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl, the defendant in Sekhar v. United States, a high school football coach in Kennedy v. Bremerton, and the Little Sisters of the Poor. Paul’s pro bono representation also precipitated the federal government’s confession of error in United States v. Rojas.
Following law school, Paul clerked for Judge Laurence H. Silberman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and for Associate Justice Antonin Scalia of the U.S. Supreme Court. After his clerkships, he went on to serve as Chief Counsel of the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution, Federalism and Property Rights.
Paul is a Distinguished Lecturer in Law at the Georgetown University Law Center, where he has taught in various capacities since 1998. He also serves as a Senior Fellow of the Law Center’s Supreme Court Institute. He is the Justice Joseph Story Distinguished Practitioner in Residence at the Gray Center at Scalia Law School.
Senior Fellow, Governance Studies, The Brookings Institution
William A. Galston holds the Ezra K. Zilkha Chair in the Brookings Institution’s Governance Studies Program, where he serves as a senior fellow. A former policy advisor to President Clinton and presidential candidates, Galston is an expert on domestic policy, political campaigns, and elections. His current research focuses on designing a new social contract and the implications of political polarization.
He is also College Park Professor at the University of Maryland. Prior to January 2006, he was Saul Stern Professor and Acting Dean at the School of Public Policy, University of Maryland, director of the Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy, founding director of the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE), and executive director of the National Commission on Civic Renewal, co-chaired by William Bennett and Sam Nunn. A participant in six presidential campaigns, he served from 1993 to 1995 as Deputy Assistant to President Clinton for Domestic Policy. From 1969 to 1970 Galston served as a member of the United States Marine Corps and was honorably discharged.
Galston is the author of eight books and more than 100 articles in the fields of political theory, public policy, and American politics. His most recent books are Liberal Pluralism (Cambridge, 2002), The Practice of Liberal Pluralism (Cambridge, 2004), and Public Matters (Rowman & Littlefield, 2005). A winner of the American Political Science Association’s Hubert H. Humphrey Award, he was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2004.
Galston has appeared on all the principal television networks and is a frequent commentator on NPR. He writes a weekly column for the Wall Street Journal.
President and CEO, Americans United for Separation of Church and State
Rachel Laser is the President and CEO at Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
As a religious minority – she was raised as a Reform Jew – Rachel personally understands how much it matters that our laws treat everyone fairly and equally. She is an advocate for racial justice and has led workshops, given speeches and worked with schools and universities to challenge racism and expose privilege.
Rachel has written op-eds for major publications, including The New York Times and The Washington Post, and appeared on high-profile media outlets, including MSNBC, Fox News, CNBC, and ABC.
Before joining AU, Rachel served as the deputy director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism (the RAC), running interfaith campaigns on LGBTQ+ equality, immigration reform, gun-violence prevention, and paid sick, family and medical leave.
She directed the Culture Program at Third Way, a Washington, D.C., progressive think tank specializing in understanding and reaching moderates. There, she launched the “Come Let Us Reason Together” initiative, which mobilized evangelical Christians and liberals to find shared values and work together on abortion and LGBTQ+ equality.
As senior counsel at the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC), Rachel founded and ran the Pharmacy Refusal Project, which put protections in place to ensure that birth control prescriptions are filled – without delay or judgment. She advocated for judicial appointments with a proven record on women’s equality, and lobbied in favor of reproductive health bills.
Rachel is a graduate of Harvard University and the University of Chicago Law School. She is also a former national board member of Reproductive Freedom for All (previously NARAL Pro-Choice America).
Rachel lives in Washington, D.C. She and her husband have three children and a dog, Teddy.
President, March for Life Education and Defense Fund
Jennie Bradley Lichter is President of the March for Life Education and Defense Fund, the iconic organization committed to restoring a culture of life in the United States most notably through the annual March for Life in Washington, D.C. – the world’s largest annual human rights event – and through the growing State March for Life program.
Jennie has wide-ranging legal and policy experience in the public, private, and nonprofit sectors, including at the highest levels of the federal government. In the first Trump Administration, she served in the White House as a Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy Director of the White House Domestic Policy Council (DPC). In that role she supervised rulemaking and policy efforts on a vast array of issues arising from the Departments of Education, Labor, Health & Human Services, Justice, Housing & Urban Development, Interior, and others. Jennie led policy initiatives across the federal government to protect religious liberty, encourage faith-based partnerships, and defend the dignity of life. She also led DPC’s work on regulatory and administrative state reform.
Prior to her White House service, Jennie worked on policy issues and federal judicial (including Supreme Court) confirmation efforts in the Office of Legal Policy at the U.S. Department of Justice.
Jennie has worked in higher education as Deputy General Counsel for The Catholic University of America, where was also a Fellow at the Center for Religious Liberty in the University’s Columbus School of Law. She previously served as in-house counsel for the Archdiocese of Washington, and as an associate at Jones Day.
Jennie clerked for Judge David B. Sentelle on the D.C. Circuit and for Judge Steven M. Colloton on the Eighth Circuit in Des Moines. She graduated from the University of Notre Dame and from Harvard Law School. Prior to law school she was a research assistant in Bioethics at a D.C. think tank, and earned a graduate degree in Theology & Religious Studies from the University of Cambridge.
President, Becket Fund for Religious Liberty; Professor of Law and Co-Director of the Center for Religious Liberty, Catholic University; Visiting Professor, Harvard Law School
Mark joined the Becket team in 2011 and splits his time as Associate Professor at The Catholic University of America, Columbus School of Law, and as Visiting Professor at Harvard Law School. Mark teaches constitutional law, religious liberty, torts, and evidence. He has been voted Teacher of the Year three years in a row by the Law School’s Student Bar Association.
Mark has broad experience litigating First Amendment religious exercise and free speech cases. He has represented the winning parties in a variety of Supreme Court First Amendment cases including Hobby Lobby, Little Sisters, Wheaton College, and Holt. In January 2014, Mark argued before the Supreme Court in McCullen v. Coakley, a First Amendment challenge to a Massachusetts speech restriction outside of abortion clinics. The Justices ruled in favor of his clients 9-0. Mark also led a successful eight-year litigation battle against Governor Blagojevich’s effort to force religious pharmacists to distribute the morning-after and week-after pills.
Mark’s academic writing focuses on the First and Fourteenth Amendments, and has appeared in a variety of prestigious journals, including the Harvard Law Review.
Mark is a widely sought after speaker on constitutional issues, particularly concerning abortion and the First Amendment. Professor Rienzi has been invited to discuss these issues at Harvard Law School, Columbia University Law School, Georgetown University Law Center, Boston College Law School, Notre Dame Law School, the National Press Club, and the Capitol. He has been quoted on constitutional law issues on NPR, in the Washington Times, The New York Daily News, and the Chicago Sun-Times. Mark has also been featured on the Kelly File, Fox News Sunday, Your World with Neil Cavuto, Geraldo at Large, CNN Tonight, CNN Live, Andrea Mitchell Reports, and Wall Street Journal Live.
Prior to joining Becket, Mark served as counsel for the litigation department and the intellectual property litigation practice group of WilmerHale LLP. His practice focused on complex civil and appellate litigation with a particular emphasis on intellectual property and First Amendment issues. Prior to joining WilmerHale, he served as law clerk to the Hon. Stephen F. Williams, senior circuit judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Prior to that, Mark was an editor of the Harvard Law Review, and earned his J.D. from Harvard Law School and B.A. from Princeton University, both with honors.
Partner, Dechert LLP
Michael H. McGinley, Global Co-Chair of the Securities and Complex Litigation practice group at Dechert, focuses his practice on high-stakes litigation, specifically appellate and complex commercial matters. Mr. McGinley has experience representing clients at every level of the federal judiciary, as well as in numerous federal agencies and state courts. In early 2025, he argued three cases before the United States Supreme Court in a span of four months.
He has litigated a wide range of issues, including federal jurisdiction, Chevron deference, federalism, preemption, antitrust, arbitration, labor law, tort law, antidumping and trade-remedy disputes, securities and corporate law, contract rights, voting rights, free speech, religious freedom and many other constitutional issues. Mr. McGinley also regularly advises individual, corporate and government clients on strategic, criminal defense, and regulatory matters.
Prior to joining Dechert, Mr. McGinley served as Associate Counsel and Special Assistant to the President in the White House Counsel's Office, where his primary responsibilities included the review of major legislative and regulatory actions and the confirmation of judicial nominees, including Justice Gorsuch. During his time in the White House, Mr. McGinley worked closely with the Department of Justice, the Office of Management and Budget, a number of federal agencies, and various congressional committees. He also previously served as a law clerk to Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. of the Supreme Court of the United States and to then-Judge Neil M. Gorsuch, of the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.
Mr. McGinley has been ranked by Chambers USA in Band 1 for appellate litigation in Pennsylvania and recognized by The Legal 500 for his expertise in financial services litigation, general commercial disputes, and international litigation. He was named an “Appellate MVP of the Year” for 2025 by Law360, and his appellate victories helped earn Dechert a place on the National Law Journal’s “Appellate Hot List” in 2025. Mr. McGinley is named among the Financial Times’ Top 10 “Most Innovative Legal Practitioners in North America” as part of the FT’s Innovative Lawyers Awards 2025 for North America.
Mr. McGinley is an elected member of the American Law Institute. He was appointed by the President to the governing Council of the Administrative Conference of the United States, which is an independent agency charged with convening experts from the public and private sectors to recommend improvements to administrative process and procedure. He also serves as the Co-Chair of the American Bar Association’s Administrative Rulemaking Committee.
Executive General Counsel, First Liberty Institute
Hiram Sasser is Executive General Counsel for First Liberty Institute, where he oversees First Liberty’s litigation and media efforts. Sasser’s practice focuses on First Amendment and other constitutional and civil rights issues relating to religious liberty. Sasser served as co-counsel in seven victories before the United States Supreme Court, including Groff v. DeJoy (landmark case overturning the “de minimis cost” test for Title VII in place almost 50 years), Kennedy v. Bremerton (landmark case overturning 50 years of Establishment Clause precedent), Carson v. Makin (overturning 40 years of Maine’s discrimination against parents choosing faith-based schools), American Legion v. American Humanist Association (landmark case ending Establishment Clause attacks on veterans’ memorials with religious imagery), Klein v. Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries (granted, vacated, and remanded (twice) in religious wedding service case), and Sause v. Bauer (summary reversal revoking qualified immunity for police who ordered a citizen not to pray in her own home).
In addition to his legal duties, Sasser develops, coordinates, and implements successful media strategies on behalf of his clients. This includes numerous appearances on ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox News, CNN, and the BBC as well as being heard on various radio stations throughout the United States, Asia, Africa, and Europe.
In 2016, Sasser took a leave of absence to serve a temporary assignment as the Chief of Staff for the Attorney General of Texas. He currently serves as an Adjunct Professor of Law at both The University of Texas at Austin School of Law (teaching Religious Liberty) and Oklahoma City University School of Law (teaching Civil Rights Procedure).
President, Becket Fund for Religious Liberty; Professor of Law and Co-Director of the Center for Religious Liberty, Catholic University; Visiting Professor, Harvard Law School
Mark joined the Becket team in 2011 and splits his time as Associate Professor at The Catholic University of America, Columbus School of Law, and as Visiting Professor at Harvard Law School. Mark teaches constitutional law, religious liberty, torts, and evidence. He has been voted Teacher of the Year three years in a row by the Law School’s Student Bar Association.
Mark has broad experience litigating First Amendment religious exercise and free speech cases. He has represented the winning parties in a variety of Supreme Court First Amendment cases including Hobby Lobby, Little Sisters, Wheaton College, and Holt. In January 2014, Mark argued before the Supreme Court in McCullen v. Coakley, a First Amendment challenge to a Massachusetts speech restriction outside of abortion clinics. The Justices ruled in favor of his clients 9-0. Mark also led a successful eight-year litigation battle against Governor Blagojevich’s effort to force religious pharmacists to distribute the morning-after and week-after pills.
Mark’s academic writing focuses on the First and Fourteenth Amendments, and has appeared in a variety of prestigious journals, including the Harvard Law Review.
Mark is a widely sought after speaker on constitutional issues, particularly concerning abortion and the First Amendment. Professor Rienzi has been invited to discuss these issues at Harvard Law School, Columbia University Law School, Georgetown University Law Center, Boston College Law School, Notre Dame Law School, the National Press Club, and the Capitol. He has been quoted on constitutional law issues on NPR, in the Washington Times, The New York Daily News, and the Chicago Sun-Times. Mark has also been featured on the Kelly File, Fox News Sunday, Your World with Neil Cavuto, Geraldo at Large, CNN Tonight, CNN Live, Andrea Mitchell Reports, and Wall Street Journal Live.
Prior to joining Becket, Mark served as counsel for the litigation department and the intellectual property litigation practice group of WilmerHale LLP. His practice focused on complex civil and appellate litigation with a particular emphasis on intellectual property and First Amendment issues. Prior to joining WilmerHale, he served as law clerk to the Hon. Stephen F. Williams, senior circuit judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Prior to that, Mark was an editor of the Harvard Law Review, and earned his J.D. from Harvard Law School and B.A. from Princeton University, both with honors.
Counsel, Becket Fund for Religious Liberty
Amanda Salz is counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, where her practice focuses on First Amendment litigation at both the trial and appellate levels. She is also a member of the Federalist Society’s Religious Liberties Executive Committee.
Before joining Becket, Amanda worked as an associate at Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP. As a member of the firm’s appellate group, Amanda litigated many cases involving constitutional and administrative issues. In addition to her experience in private practice, Amanda clerked for the Honorable Andrew S. Oldham of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and the Honorable Reed C. O’Connor of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas.
Senior Counsel, First Liberty Institute
Stephanie N. Taub serves as Senior Counsel with First Liberty Institute, focusing on litigation, appellate advocacy, and legal education.
While at First Liberty, her article on the rights of faith-based organizations under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 has been published in the Texas Review of Law and Politics. She has also authored pieces published in National Review, the Daily Signal, the Washington Times, the Des Moines Register, and the New York Daily News. In 2017, Taub was named one of 15 recipients of the James Wilson Fellowship in natural law.
Before joining First Liberty, Taub worked as a law clerk to the Honorable Reed O’Connor in the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of Texas.
Taub is a Harvard Law School graduate in the class of 2014 and a Blackstone Fellow in the class of 2012. During law school, she served as Co-President of the HLS Christian Fellowship and Managing Technical Editor of the Harvard Human Rights Journal. Taub spent her law school summers defending religious liberty in public interest law firms and clerking in the Texas Office of Solicitor General.
For her undergraduate studies at the University of Southern California, Taub graduated summa cum laude, majoring in Business Administration with a minor in Philosophy.
Counsel, First Liberty Institute
Kayla Toney is Associate Counsel with First Liberty Institute, concentrating on religious liberty matters and First Amendment rights for clients of all faiths.
Prior to joining First Liberty, Kayla litigated religious freedom cases as a Constitutional Law Fellow at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. She clerked for Judge Gregory E. Maggs on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, where she gained valuable experience in the military justice system. Kayla also worked as a litigation associate in the D.C. office of Winston & Strawn LLP, where she enjoyed working on pro bono religious liberty matters.
Kayla earned her law degree from George Washington University, where she served as president of the Federalist Society chapter, a member of the GW International Law Review, and a writing fellow. She graduated summa cum laude from Grove City College with a degree in history and economics.
A native of Michigan, Kayla is based in First Liberty’s Washington, D.C. office and is licensed to practice law in Virginia and D.C.
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