Professor of Law and Executive Director, Law and Economics Center, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
Donald Kochan is Professor of Law and Executive Director of the Law & Economics Center (LEC). Professor Kochan is an elected member of the American Law Institute (ALI) and serves as an Adviser to ALI's Restatement of the Law Fourth, Property project. Professor Kochan is a Nonresident Scholar at the Center for the Constitution at Georgetown University Law Center, where he was a Visiting Scholar in residence during Fall 2018. Before joining the Antonin Scalia Law School faculty, he was the Parker S. Kennedy Professor in Law at Chapman University’s Dale E. Fowler School of Law from 2004 to 2020. From 2003 to 2004, Professor Kochan was an Olin Fellow at the University of Virginia School of Law. During 2002-2003, he was a Visiting Assistant Professor of Law at George Mason’s Scalia Law School.
Professor Kochan’s scholarship focuses on areas of property law, constitutional law, administrative law, local government law, natural resources and environmental law, and law & economics. He has published several books and more than 50 scholarly articles and essays in well-regarded law journals. His work has been cited in more than a dozen state and federal court opinions, in more than 75 briefs filed in state and federal courts including more than 25 filed in the U.S. Supreme Court, in dozens of books and treatises, and in more than 800 scholarly articles.
Professor Kochan received his JD from Cornell Law School, where he was a John M. Olin Scholar in Law and Economics and managing editor of the Cornell International Law Journal. During law school, he also served as editor and executive editor of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy symposium issues in 1997 and 1998. He received his BA from Western Michigan University, magna cum laude, with majors in both political science and philosophy, where he studied as the John W. Gill Medallion Scholar and was honored as the Presidential Scholar (awarded to the top graduate in the political science department).
After graduating from law school, Professor Kochan was a law clerk to The Honorable Richard F. Suhrheinrich of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Following his clerkship, Professor Kochan was an associate with the firm of Crowell & Moring LLP in Washington, D.C., where he specialized in natural resources & environmental law as well as tort, products, and consumer civil litigation & legislative affairs.
Bell, McAndrews & Hiltachk, LLP
Appellate Counsel, Theodore Cooperstein PLLC
Theodore Cooperstein currently is an appellate attorney in the boutique law firm of Theodore Cooperstein PLLC, available for criminal and civil appeals in both state and federal courts. A former career prosecutor with twenty five years of service in the US Department of Justice, he was an Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida and the Southern District of Mississippi, and has served as a Military Intelligence Officer in the Army Reserves from 1989 to 2011, retiring with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. During the Trump Administration, he was appointed and served as the General Counsel of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Prior to joining the Southern District of Florida, Mr. Cooperstein served as a Special Assistant U.S. Attorney in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Maryland. He previously had served as Counsel to the Deputy Attorney General at the Department of Justice, and as Assistant General Counsel in the FBI Office of the General Counsel.
A.B., Dartmouth College; J.D., Stanford University; LL.M., Comparative and International Law, Georgetown University Law Center; Masters of Strategic Studies, U.S. Army War College
CEO, Asset Forfeiture Law, LLC
As a federal prosecutor, Stefan D. Cassella was one of the federal government’s leading experts on asset forfeiture and money laundering law for over thirty years. He now serves as an expert witness and consultant to law enforcement agencies and the private sector as the CEO of AssetForfeitureLaw, LLC.
As a Deputy Chief of the Justice Department’s Asset Forfeiture and Money Laundering Section and later as the Chief of the Asset Forfeiture and Money Laundering Section in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Baltimore, Maryland, Mr. Cassella litigated some of the Government’s most significant forfeiture and money laundering cases and drafted many of the federal forfeiture and money laundering statutes.
He is the author of Asset Forfeiture Law in the United States, a one-volume resource designed to lead the practitioner, prosecutor, judge and policy maker through the labyrinth of statutes, rules and cases that govern this dynamic area of the law, and of more than 40 law review articles on money laundering and forfeiture. He has trained state and federal prosecutors and agents and their counterparts in numerous foreign countries, including over 200 lectures at the National Advocacy Center at the University of South Carolina.
Mr. Cassella is also the author and publisher of the Money Laundering and Forfeiture Digest, a monthly compendium of the forfeiture and money laundering cases decided by the federal courts that is circulated to hundreds of state, federal and foreign prosecutors and lawyers, law enforcement agents, academics and policy makers in the U.S. and abroad.
Retired
Tom Gede retired in 2023 as a principal in Morgan Lewis Consulting LLC and of counsel to the firm. He currently consults on a variety of legal and policy matters for both public and private clients. Tom has a national reputation and distinguished background in federal Indian law. Prior to retirement, he represented clients in complex governmental matters in litigation, administrative and regulatory proceedings, including high-profile matters involving state governments. A former senior deputy in the California Attorney General’s office, Tom was amicus coordinator and Supreme Court counsel, and argued cases in the US Supreme Court, the California Supreme Court, and numerous state and federal appellate courts.
Tom also served as executive director of the Conference of Western Attorneys General (CWAG), coordinating activities on key legal and policy issues, such as federal Indian law, energy, environmental, public lands, financial services, and telecommunications, for the attorneys general of 18 western states and territories. In 2016, Tom was elected as a Member of the American Law Institute (ALI), and served as an Adviser on the Restatement of the Law Third - The Law of American Indians. Tom also taught federal Indian law as an adjunct law professor at the University of the Pacific - McGeorge School of Law. He served as an assistant editor for and the author of the Indian gaming chapter in CWAG’s American Indian Law Deskbook (2d & 3d eds.). He has been engaged in Indian gaming and Indian law matters for more than three decades, having focused on the gaming compacts with Indian tribes, as well as complex civil and criminal jurisdiction, land, natural resources, water and law enforcement issues in Indian country. He has testified before Congress on American Indian and Native Alaskan issues. In 2012 he was appointed by Speaker John Boehner to serve on the United States Indian Law and Order Commission, where he examined criminal justice issues in Indian country and Alaska, resulting in the issuance of an important report to the President and Congress.
Bell, McAndrews & Hiltachk, LLP
Ronald Reagan Distinguished Fellow Emeritus, The Heritage Foundation
Edwin Meese III, the prominent conservative leader, thinker and elder statesman, continues a quarter-century formal association with The Heritage Foundation as the leading think tank’s Ronald Reagan Distinguished Fellow Emeritus.
In that capacity, Meese oversees special projects and acts as an ambassador for Heritage within the conservative movement.
Meese was chairman of Heritage’s Center for Legal and Judicial Studies from its founding in 2001 until what he calls his “semi-retirement” on Feb. 1, 2013.
He joined Heritage in 1988 as the think tank's first Ronald Reagan Distinguished Fellow -- the only policy chair in the country to be officially named for the 40th president. His work focused on keeping President Reagan’s legacy of conservative principles alive in public debate and discourse.
The legal center now bears his name, in recognition of Meese’s contributions to the rule of law and the nation’s understanding of constitutional law. Its mission is to educate government officials, the media and the public about the Constitution and legal principles -- and how they affect public policy.
Perhaps best known as U.S. attorney general during Reagan’s second term, Meese’s service to the conservative icon stretched from the California governor’s mansion in 1966 to the White House in 1981 before he went to the Department of Justice four years later.
His Heritage “hats” kept Meese among the major conservative voices in national policy debates at an age when most men and women enjoyed quiet retirements.
In 2006, for example, Meese was named to the Iraq Study Group, a special presidential commission dedicated to examining the best resolutions for America's involvement in Iraq. In the past few years he wrote and spoke about constitutional topics ranging from religious liberty to the responsibility of Supreme Court justices.
Immediately after Reagan's death in 2004, and in the years since, Meese often agreed to major media appearances to discuss the lasting impact of his old friend, mentor and boss. He has summarized the Reagan legacy in three accomplishments: Reagan cut taxes and kept them low. He worked to defeat and end the Soviet Union and its worldwide push for communism. And he restored America's faith in itself after years of failure and "malaise."
"I admired him as a leader and cherish his friendship," Meese wrote in a 2004 essay for Heritage members and supporters. "Ronald Reagan had strong convictions. He was committed to the principles that had led to the founding of our nation. And he had the courage to follow his convictions against all odds." <[>Edwin Meese III was born Dec. 2, 1931, to Edwin Jr. and Leone Meese in Oakland, Calif. He graduated from Yale University in 1953 and holds a law degree from the University of California-Berkeley.
Meese spent much of his adult life working for Reagan, first after the former actor, sports announcer and athlete was elected as California’s governor in 1966 and then when he sought and won the presidency in 1980.
Reagan never forgot Meese's loyalty and hard work. During a press conference at which reporters questioned Meese's actions at the Justice Department, Reagan replied: "If Ed Meese is not a good man, there are no good men."
During the Reagan governorship, Meese served as executive assistant and chief of staff from 1969 through 1974 and as legal affairs secretary from 1967 through 1968. He previously was deputy district attorney in Alameda County, Calif.
From January 1981 to February 1985, Meese held the position of counsellor to the president -- the senior job on the White House staff -- and functioned as Reagan's chief policy adviser. In 1985, he received Government Executive magazine's annual award for excellence in management.
Meese served as the 75th attorney general of the United States from February 1985 to August 1988. As the nation's chief law enforcement officer, he directed the Justice Department and led international efforts to combat terrorism, drug trafficking and organized crime.
Meese’s relationship with Heritage began when he met with senior management to discuss the think tank's landmark policy guide, Mandate for Leadership, prepared for the incoming administration. Meese later recalled that Reagan personally handed out copies of the 1,093-page book to members of his Cabinet and asked them to read it. Nearly two-thirds of Mandate's 2,000 recommendations would be adopted or attempted by the Reagan administration.
More than a decade after joining Heritage, Meese assumed the chairmanship of its Center for Legal and Judicial Studies. Under his guidance, the center counseled White House staffers, Justice Department officials and Senate Judiciary Committee members on the importance of filling judicial vacancies with qualified men and women who are committed to interpreting the Constitution according to the founding document's original meaning.
The center became known for hosting "moot court" practice sessions to sharpen the arguments of attorneys slated to bring important cases before the Supreme Court. Those cases addressed constitutional issues ranging from property rights to racial preferences in primary and secondary schools to restrictions on free speech in campaign finance law.
Meese headed the legal center's Advisory Board for the writing and editing of the best-selling book, The Heritage Guide to the Constitution (Regnery, 2005). In it, 109 experts walked readers through a clause-by-clause analysis of the Constitution. Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) was among those keeping the reference work handy during Judiciary Committee hearings on Supreme Court nominees.
Meese's other books include “Leadership, Ethics and Policing” (Prentice Hall, 2004); “Making America Safer” (Heritage, 1997); and “With Reagan: The Inside Story” (Regnery Gateway, 1992).He wrote the Introduction to a well-received 2010 book on the “overcriminalization” trend, “One Nation Under Arrest,” by Heritage veterans Paul Rosenzweig and Brian W. Walsh.
He also is a distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University in California and lectures, writes and consults throughout the United States on a variety of subjects.
As both attorney general and counsellor to Reagan, Meese was a member of the Cabinet and the National Security Council. He served as chairman of the Domestic Policy Council and the National Drug Policy Board. After Reagan won the White House in the 1980 election, Meese headed the transition team. During the campaign, he was the Reagan-Bush Committee's senior official.
Meese had a career outside government and politics. From 1977 to 1981, he was a law professor at the University of San Diego, where he also directed the Center for Criminal Justice Policy and Management.
He was an executive in the aerospace and transportation industry as vice president for administration of Rohr Industries Inc. in Chula Vista, Calif. He left Rohr to return to the practice of law, doing corporate and general work in San Diego County.
A retired colonel in the Army Reserve, Meese remains active in numerous civic and educational organizations.
He and his wife, Ursula, have two grown children and reside in McLean, Va.
Henry R. Silverman Professor of Law and Professor of Philosophy, University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School
Anita L. Allen is the Henry R. Silverman Professor of Law and Professor of Philosophy. A graduate of Harvard Law School with a PhD from the University of Michigan in Philosophy, Allen is internationally renown as an expert on philosophical dimensions of privacy and data protection law, ethics, bioethics, legal philosophy, women’s rights, and diversity in higher education. She was Penn’s Vice Provost for Faculty from 2013-2020, and chaired the Provost's Arts Advisory Council. Allen is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine, the American Law Institute and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2018-19 she served as President of the Eastern Division of the American Philosiphical Association.
From 2010 to 2017, Allen served on President Obama’s Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues. She was presented the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in 2015, and chaired its Board, 2019-2022. Allen has served on the faculty of the School of Criticism and Theory at Cornell, for which she is an advisor. A two-year term as an Associate of the Johns Hopkins Humanities Center concluded in 2018. She has been a visiting Professor at Tel Aviv University, Waseda University, Villanova, the University of Arizona, Harvard and Yale, and a Law and Public Affairs Fellow at Princeton. She was awarded an honorary Doctorate from Tilburg University (Netherlands) in 2019. She has written over a hundred articles and chapters, and her books include Unpopular Privacy: What Must We Hide (Oxford, 2011); Privacy Law and Society (Thomson/West, 2017); The New Ethics: A Guided Tour of the 21st Century Moral Landscape (Miramax/Hyperion, 2004); Why Privacy Isn’t Everything: Feminist Reflections on Personal Accountability (Rowman and Littlefield, 2003), and Uneasy Access: Privacy of Women in a Free Society (1988). Allen has given hundreds of talks all over the world and appeared on television, radio and written for major media. She currently serves on the Board of the National Constitution Center, and has served on numerous other boards and professional advisory boards, including the Pennsylvania Board of Continuing Judicial Education, the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics, the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, the AALS Executive Committee, the Maternity Care Coalition and the West Philadelphia Alliance for Children. She is a member of the Pennsylvania and New York bars, and formerly taught at Georgetown University Law Center for ten years and the University of Pittsburgh, after practicing briefly at Carvath, Swaine & Moore.
Chauncey Stillman Professor of Law, University of Michigan Law School
Carl E. Schneider, '79, the Chauncey Stillman Professor of Law and Professor of Internal Medicine, teaches courses on law and medicine, regulating research, property, law and morals, the sociology and ethics of the legal profession, and writing briefs. He holds a joint appointment in U-M’s Medical School.
A central theme in his scholarship criticizes some dominant regulatory ideas, particularly those in the law of medicine. For example, his book The Censor's Hand: The Misregulation of Human Subject Research (MIT Press, 2015), examines a regulatory system whose usefulness is widely assumed but quite unproved and argues that that system is so perversely constructed that it cannot help doing more harm than good. Another example is More Than You Wanted to Know: The Failure of Mandated Disclosure (Princeton University Press, 2014), coauthored with Omri Ben-Shahar. It explains why government-mandated disclosure may be the most adored, most used, and least successful regulatory method in our time. His The Practice of Autonomy: Patients, Doctors, and Medical Decisions (Oxford University Press, 1998), which analyzes the malign effects of making patient autonomy the regulatory summum bonum, is another example of the project.
Professor Schneider is also the coauthor of two innovative casebooks: With Marsha Garrison, he wrote The Law of Bioethics: Individual Autonomy and Social Regulation (West, 2015, 3rd edition), a pioneering casebook in what was then a new field. With Margaret F. Brinig, he wrote An Invitation to Family Law (West, 2007, 3rd edition). This casebook approaches family law conceptually: Each chapter discusses an area of family law, and each chapter introduces students to a systematic discussion of a recurring jurisprudential issue (like the problem of rules and discretion, or the legal principle of autonomy).
Professor Schneider served two terms on the President's Bioethics Council. He has been a visiting professor at Cambridge University, the University of Tokyo, Kyoto University, and the United States Air Force Academy (twice).
Simeon E. Baldwin Professor Emeritus of Law, Yale Law School
Peter H. Schuck is the Simeon E. Baldwin Professor Emeritus of Law and Professor (Adjunct) of Law at Yale Law School where he has held the chair since 1984. He has also served as Deputy Dean. His major fields of teaching and research are tort law; immigration, citizenship, and refugee law; groups, diversity, and law; and administrative law. His most recent books include Targeting in Social Programs: Avoiding Bad Bets, Removing Bad Apples; Meditations of a Militant Moderate: Cool Views on Hot Topics; Immigration Stories; Foundations of Administrative Law; Diversity in America: Keeping Government at a Safe Distance; and The Limits of Law: Essays on Democratic Governance. He is also co-editor, with James Q. Wilson, of Understanding America. He is a member of the American Law Institute's advisory committee for the Restatement of Torts (Third), Basic Principles, and a contributing editor to The American Lawyer. Prior to joining Yale, he was Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation in the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. Professor Schuck holds a B.A. from Cornell, a J.D. from Harvard Law School, an LL.M. in International Law from N.Y.U., and an M.A. in Government from Harvard.
Senior Litigation Counsel, American Center for Law and Justice
Walter M. Weber is Senior Counsel for the ACLJ in the Washington, D.C. office. A highly regarded legal writer, Weber received his bachelor’s degree from Princeton University and his law degree from Yale Law School.
Weber emphasizes First Amendment law and has written briefs in many landmark cases at the Supreme Court including NOW v. Scheidler, Lamb’s Chapel v. Center Moriches School District and Bray v. Alexandria Women’s Health Clinic.
Weber has argued more than a dozen times in appeals before federal and state courts. Prior to joining the ACLJ, Weber served as a staff attorney with the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights.
Professor of Law, Dean Emerita, and Co-Director, Sports Law Track - Graduate Program in Entertainment, Arts and Sports Law LL.M., University of Miami School of Law
Patricia D. White is a Professor of Law and was the University of Miami School of Law's eleventh dean from 2009-2019. Her legal career spans over four decades as an attorney and educator. She was the first woman law school dean in Arizona and the longest serving one in the history of Arizona State University’s Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law. Her prominence in the field of legal education has led to her being recognized as one of the most influential and innovative people in legal education by National Jurist magazine in 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013 and in the 2012 ranking she was named the top woman on the list.
White chairs the ABA's Commission on the Future of Legal Education, which aims to influence dramatic changes in the legal profession over the next decade. Under White’s leadership, Miami Law has also been recognized by Pre-Law Magazine as one the “20 Most Innovative Law Schools” in 2017. Similarly, Innovation 800, published in 2017 by Cambridge University, included Miami Law as a "Leader in Learning" and one of the most innovative law schools. The London-based Financial Times, considered one of the premiere international daily newspapers with a special emphasis on business and economic news, has also tipped its hat to Miami Law’s innovation. In its “FT Special Report on Innovative Law Schools”, it ranked Miami Law as one of the most innovative law schools in the world in 2015 and 2016. Innovation accolades also came for Miami Law's specialty areas, such as the Billboard Magazine 2017 ranking of Miami Law as a top school for music law in the U.S. The Legal Services Innovation Index ranked the University of Miami Law in the top four for law schools delivering innovation and technology programs in 2017.
After becoming the dean of Miami Law in 2009, White continued her longstanding commitment to students, the transformation of legal education and public service. She transformed Miami Law’s student services program, including adding the unique Student Development Program, the AskUs Fellows initiative, Academic Achievement Program and the Office of Professionalism to name a few. She established the LawWithoutWalls program, linking students and faculty from over 30 academic institutions around the world to examine issues and develop new solutions in legal education and practice; and Legal Corps a novel fellowship program that placed new law school graduates in not for profit and public sector organizations across the nations and the globe.
Under White's leadership, the number of clinics at Miami Law more than doubled, bringing the total to 10. In 2011 Miami Law was honored by the American Bar Association Law Student Division with the Judy M. Weightman Memorial Public Interest Award, in recognition of the law school's strong commitment to public interest through the HOPE Public Interest Resource Center. She has won many awards, including the 2012 Equal Justice Leadership Award, given by Legal Services of Greater Miami for her commitment to public service, and the Judge Learned Hand Award for distinguished public service, from the Arizona chapter of the American Jewish Committee.
White received degrees in philosophy and law (B.A. 1971, J.D. 1974, M.A. 1974) from the University of Michigan. While attending law school, she was also a graduate student in philosophy and an associate editor of the law review. She began her legal practice in Washington, D.C., at Steptoe & Johnson and then moved to Caplin & Drysdale. Georgetown University Law hired White onto the faculty in 1979, and in 1988 she joined her alma mater, the University of Michigan. While at Michigan, she was of counsel to the Detroit firm Bodman, Longley & Dahling, and served for a year as tax advisor to the Economic Study Committee of Major League Baseball. In 1994, she joined the law faculty at the University of Utah, and was of counsel to Parsons, Behle & Latimer. She is a member of the bars of the District of Columbia, Michigan, and Utah, and is an elected Fellow of the American College of Tax Counsel.
During her career, White has worked in the areas of tax law, torts, bioethics, philosophy of law, and trusts and estates, and has published in prominent law and bioethics journals.
Defending First Principles and Missing a Golden Opportunity
Andrew Siff
In Toledo Area AFL-CIO v. Pizza, 154 F.3d 307 (6th Cir. 1998), the Sixth Circuit...
Ripeness, Permitting, and Public Choice
Donald J. Kochan
This article attempts to explain the incentives involved in the permitting process in light of...
Recent Developments
On January 4, 1999, the California Supreme Court made it easier for out-of-state residents to...
Proposition 226 Paycheck Protection: the California Experience
Charles H. Bell
"Paycheck Protection" legislation has been introduced in nearly a dozen states and in Congress in...
The Emerging Interplay Between Law Enforcement and Intelligence Gathering
Theodore Cooperstein
The Intelligence Authorization Act of 1996 amended the National Security Act of 1947 to permit...
Forfeiture is Reasonable, and It Works
Stefan D. Cassella
*Note: In the Spring 1997 issue of the Criminal Law & Procedure Practice Group Newsletter,...
Supreme Court Reaffirms State Sovereignty
Thomas F. Gede
The most significant decision involving federalism that was handed down during the October 1995 Term--indeed,...
A Practitioner's View of Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Committee v. Federal Election Commission
Charles H. Bell
The Supreme Court decision in Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Committee v. Federal Election Commission may...
Banquet Address by Edwin Meese III
1989 National Student Symposium
Ann Arbor, MIPanel V: Ownership of Life
1989 National Student Symposium
Ann Arbor, MI