Associate Professor, University of Colorado Boulder
Rabea Benhalim is an Associate Professor at the University of Colorado Law School. Prior to joining the Colorado faculty, she was the 2017-2019 William H. Hastie Fellow at the University of Wisconsin Law School. She teaches a variety of law courses including Contracts, Secured Transactions, and Islamic Law. Her research focuses on two areas of inquiry: (1) The development of Jewish and Islamic law in the modern era and (2) the application of Islamic law in commercial contexts. Within these areas, her current work investigates how secular environments affect interpretations and development of religious law, especially for minority religions.
Professor Benhalim's prior work experience as a lawyer and policy expert includes positions at the Brookings Institution, Mayer Brown LLP, Maersk Oil, and the Carter Center. She holds a J.D. from the University of Texas, an L.L.M. from the University of Wisconsin Law School, a Master of Public Policy Degree from the University of Michigan, and a B.A. from the University of Texas at Dallas. She is a PhD candidate in Islamic Studies at the University of Texas at Austin.
Professor of Law, Ohio Northern University Pettit College of Law
Scott Gerber clerked for U.S. District Judge Ernest C. Torres of the District of Rhode Island and practiced with the Boston-based law firm Bingham, Dana & Gould. He is a member of the Massachusetts, Colorado and Virginia bars as well as the U.S. Supreme Court bar. He is the 2002, 2009, 2011 and 2012 winner of the Fowler V. Harper Award for excellence in legal scholarship and the 2004, 2013 and 2016 recipient of the Daniel S. Guy Award for excellence in legal journalism. He held the Ella & Ernest Fisher chair in law at Ohio Northern University from 2008-10. He has served on the Ohio Advisory Committee of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights since 2008 and was appointed to the Association of American Law Schools Committee to Review Scholarly Papers for the 2018 Annual Meeting. He is an associated scholar at Brown University's Political Theory Project. StateStats.org named him one of the top law professors in Ohio. He was on sabbatical as a visiting professor at Brown University's Political Theory Project during the 2018-19 academic year.
Assistant Professor of Political Science, Old Dominion University
Professor of Law, St. Mary's University Law School
Adam MacLeod is a Professor at St. Mary's University School of Law. He has been a visiting fellow in the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University, a fellow of the Center for Religion, Culture and Democracy, and a Senior Scholar and Thomas Edison Fellow in the Center for Intellectual Property x Innovation Policy at George Mason University. He is co-editor of Christie & Martin's Jurisprudence (4th ed. West 2020) and author of Property and Practical Reason (Cambridge University Press 2015). He has written two other books, dozens of scholarly articles, and more than one hundred essays and book reviews.
Professor MacLeod received his B.A., summa cum laude, from Gordon College and his J.D., magna cum laude, from the University of Notre Dame Law School. After law school, he served as law clerk to Chief Justice Christopher Armstrong and Justice Benjamin Kaplan of the Massachusetts Appeals Court and to Chief Judge Lewis Babcock of the United States District Court for the District of Colorado. He practiced law in the Boston area and has held appointment as a special Deputy Attorney General of Alabama and a lecturer in the Alabama Judicial College. He also serves as an Operational Auxiliarist in the U.S. Coast Guard, advising and providing operational training to Auxiliary and active-duty personnel.
Sheila M. McDevitt Professor of Law and Faculty Director of the Election Law Center, Florida State University College of Law
Professor Morley joined FSU Law in 2018, and teaches and writes in the areas of election law, constitutional law, remedies, and the federal courts. He is best known for his work on election emergencies and post-election litigation, nationwide and other defendant-oriented injunctions, the jurisdiction of the federal courts and their equitable powers more generally. He has testified before congressional committees, made presentations to election officials for the U.S. Election Assistance Commission and participated in bipartisan blue-ribbon groups to develop election reforms. The governor of Florida also appointed Professor Morley to the Criminal Punishment Code Task Force, to propose potential revisions to the legislature.
The U.S. Supreme Court has cited several of his articles, and he was counsel of record for the successful Petitioner in a landmark campaign finance case. Professor Morley has appeared on C-SPAN, Court TV, Fox News and numerous local news programs, and has been quoted in the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Roll Call, Politico, U.S. News and World Report, and a wide range of other national publications. His work has been published in many of the nation’s top law reviews, including the Georgetown Law Journal, Northwestern University Law Review, Boston University Law Review and Emory Law Journal.
Before joining FSU Law, Professor Morley was a Climenko Fellow and Lecturer in Law at Harvard Law School. Prior to his experience in academia, he served in government as special assistant to the General Counsel of the Army at the Pentagon, as well as a law clerk for Judge Gerald B. Tjoflat of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. During his tenure with the Army General Counsel’s office, he was awarded the Meritorious Civilian Service Award and the Army Staff Lapel Pin. He also worked as an associate at Williams & Connolly LLP and the Supreme Court & Appellate group of Winston & Strawn, LLP, both in Washington, D.C.
Professor Morley earned his J.D. from Yale Law School in 2003, where he was a senior editor on the Yale Law Journal; served on the moot court board; and received the Thurman Arnold Prize for Best Oralist in the Morris Tyler Moot Court of Appeals.
James Wilson Endowed Professor, Pepperdine University
In law school, Robert Pushaw served as Notes Editor of the Yale Law Journal and received an Olin Foundation Fellowship. After graduation, he clerked for Judge James Buckley of the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, then worked as an employment lawyer for Davis Wright Tremaine in Seattle.
Joining the University of Missouri School of Law faculty in 1992, Professor Pushaw taught Constitutional Law, Federal Courts and Contracts. In 1998, he won the Blackwell Sanders Distinguished Faculty Achievement Award as the law school's top teacher. In 2000, Pushaw received the William Kemper Fellowship for Teaching Excellence, the University of Missouri's highest teaching honor. He came to Pepperdine in 2001, and won the School of Law's Annual Teaching Award in 2007.
Executive Director, Salmon P. Chase Center for Civics, Culture, and Society, The Ohio State University
Professor Lee J. Strang serves as the inaugural executive director of the Salmon P. Chase Center for Civics, Culture, and Society at The Ohio State University.
Initiated in 2023 by the state of Ohio, the Chase Center will be an academic home at Ohio State for teaching, research, and programing on the foundations of the American constitutional order and its impact on society. As executive director, Professor Strang is responsible for organizing the center, overseeing the hiring and appointment of the center’s faculty, developing curriculum, and delivering student and academic programming. He also holds a faculty appointment in the Moritz College of Law at Ohio State.
Professor Strang is a nationally recognized legal scholar who has published dozens of articles in leading journals in the fields of constitutional law and interpretation, property law, and religion and the First Amendment. He co-edits the textbook Federal Constitutional Law, and his most recent book, Originalism’s Promise: A Natural Law Account of the American Constitution is the first book-length, natural law justification for originalism. He currently is writing on civic thought and leadership, and he is finalizing a book on the history of American Catholic legal education (with John M. Breen).
Before joining Ohio State, Professor Strang served as the inaugural director of the University of Toledo’s Institute of American Constitutional Thought & Leadership. He joined the Toledo College of Law faculty in 2008, was granted tenure in 2010, and was named John W. Stoepler Professor of Law & Values in 2015. The University of Toledo awarded Professor Strang its Outstanding Faculty Research and Scholarship Award in 2017. Before that, he was a visiting professor at Michigan State University College of Law. A graduate of the University of Iowa, where he was articles editor of the Iowa Law Review and Order of the Coif, Professor Strang holds an LL.M. degree from Harvard Law School.
Professor Strang has been a visiting scholar at the Georgetown Center for the Constitution and a visiting fellow at the James Madison Program at Princeton University. In 2016, he was appointed to the Ohio Advisory Committee of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and reappointed as chair in 2023.
Prior to teaching, Professor Strang served as a judicial clerk for Judge Alice M. Batchelder of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. He was also an associate for Jenner & Block LLP in Chicago, where he practiced in general and appellate litigation.
Professor Strang is a frequent presenter at scholarly conferences. He is the president of the Board of Trustees of Northwest Ohio Classical Academy, Ohio’s first classical charter school. He is also a regular participant in debates at law schools across the country, a contributor to the media, and a speaker to political, civic, and religious groups.
Executive Director, Ohio Dental Association
David J. Owsiany is the executive director of the Ohio Dental Association and a past president of the Columbus Lawyers Chapter of the Federalist Society.
He has served as CEO of a statewide health care association, president of the Buckeye Institute, chief of policy for the Ohio Department of Insurance, judicial law clerk for the Illinois Appellate Court, and staffer on the United State Senate Judiciary Committee.
Mr. Owsiany has written dozens of articles on legal and public policy issues for various publications, including the University of Toledo Law Review, the Federalist Society's State Court Docket Watch, Columbus Dispatch, Cincinnati Enquirer, Crain’s Cleveland Business, and Akron Beacon Journal.
Owsiany received his J.D. from Washington University School of Law in St. Louis and B.A. from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
Assistant Professor of Law, Emory University School of Law
Alexander "Sasha" Volokh is an assistant professor of law, joining the Emory Law faculty in Fall 2009.
Professor Volokh earned his B.S. from UCLA and his J.D. and Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University. He clerked for Judge Alex Kozinski of the Ninth Circuit and for Supreme Court Justices Sandra Day O'Connor and Samuel Alito. Before coming to Emory, he was a visiting associate professor at Georgetown University Law Center and a visiting assistant professor at University of Houston Law Center.
His interests include law and economics, administrative law and the regulatory process, environmental law and policy, and legal history. His current research topics include the private management of government services, medieval law, judicial decisionmaking and statutory interpretation.
Works in Progress Mini-Conference
Faculty Division Mini-Conference
Panel 1
Faculty Mini-Conference
North Carolina Board of Dental Examiners v. Federal Trade Commission
David J. Owsiany, Alexander Volokh
Note from the Editor: The Federalist Society is pleased to present two different perspectives on the North...