Partner, Bruning Law Group, LLC
Katie Spohn is a partner at Bruning Law Group in Lincoln, Nebraska. Prior to co-founding Bruning Law Group, Spohn served at the Nebraska Attorney General’s Office for 12 years, with the last 2 years serving as Nebraska’s Deputy Attorney General. In that role, she was tasked with handling the State’s most complex civil litigation cases, specializing in nationally-significant issues of constitutional law. Spohn was an integral part of numerous multi-state challenges to federal regulation and played a critical role in the states’ challenge to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. In September 2014, Spohn led the victory in defending the constitutionality of a law regulating the Keystone XL pipeline before the Nebraska Supreme Court.
Prior to serving as Deputy Attorney General, Spohn was Section Chief for the Agriculture, Environment and Natural Resources Section and Special Counsel to the Attorney General where she gained extensive litigation experience prosecuting environmental violations and defending the constitutionality of state statutes on subjects ranging from a corporate farming prohibition to statutes seeking to protect unborn children.
Spohn earned her B.S. in Agri-Business and J.D. from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She is admitted to the Nebraska State Bar; the 8th, 11th and D.C. Circuit Courts of Appeals; and the United States Supreme Court. She lives on a farm outside of Lincoln, Neb., with her husband Scott and three children, Zach, Jacob and Valerie.
Senior Advisor, Covington & Burling
Senator Jon Kyl advises companies on domestic and international policies that influence U.S. and multi-national businesses and assists corporate clients on tax, health care, national security, and intellectual property matters, among others.
Jon served in the U.S. Senate from 1995 to 2013, retiring as the second-highest ranking Republican senator. He returned to the Senate in September 2018 after being appointed to succeed the late John McCain, and retired again at the end of 2018.
During Jon’s 26 years in Congress, he built a reputation for mastering the complexities of legislative policy and coalition building, first in the House of Representatives and then in the Senate. In 2010, Time magazine called him one of the 100 most influential people in the world, noting his "encyclopedic knowledge of domestic and foreign policy, and his hard work and leadership" and his "power to persuade."
Jon sat on the powerful Senate Finance Committee and was the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism. A member of the Republican Leadership for well over a decade, Jon chaired the Senate Republican Policy Committee and the Senate Republican Conference, before becoming Senate Republican Whip. In filling Senator McCain’s seat, he served on the Armed Services and Homeland Security Committees.
Welpton & Wise Professor of Law, University of Nebraska College of Law
Professor Rick Duncan is the Welpton & Wise Professor of Law at the University Of Nebraska College Of Law. He is a graduate of the Cornell Law School and served as an editor of the Cornell Law Review. He teaches Constitutional Law with a special emphasis on the law of religious freedom, free speech, and federalism. Duncan has written numerous books, articles, and commentaries on a wide variety of legal topics. His recent publications include an article on Justice Scalia’s legacy, another on Kermit Gosnell and Roe v. Wade, a piece on the Electoral College and Federalism, a 2019 piece on Masterpiece Cakeshop and the First Amendment, and three recent articles on the “no compelled speech” doctrine as a First Amendment defense against authoritarianism and tyranny. His most recent article, on School Choice and the First Amendment, will be published in 2023 in Case Western Law Review. He is also the co-author of a book on Secured Transactions under Article 9 of the UCC. He served as Chairman of the Nebraska Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights during the Reagan Administration. He also loves to speak at Federalist Society meetings around the country on life, liberty, and the pursuit of federalism.
Duncan has five children, five grandchildren, and a wonderful wife who help him pursue happiness. He loves lifting weights (particularly going heavy on the incline bench press), attending Broadway musicals and plays, including Hamilton: An American Musical which he has seen 12 times (possibly a Nebraska record). He regularly reads both the Bible and the New York Times because it is important to keep up with what both sides have to say. He loves following major league baseball, especially the San Diego Padres. And his favorite legal aphorism is “first come rights then comes government to secure those rights.”
Professor of Law, Brooklyn Law School
Professor Tebbe teaches courses on constitutional law, religious freedom, legal theory, and professional responsibility. His scholarship focuses on the relationship between religious traditions and constitutional law, both in the United States and abroad. His articles have appeared in Georgetown Law Journal, Journal of Religion, Michigan Law Review, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, and, most recently, Virginia Law Review. He is a past Chair of the Law and Religion Section of the Association of American Law Schools and he is co-organizer of the Annual Law and Religion Roundtable. He is regularly called on by media outlets to discuss questions of religious freedom and general constitutional law.
Professor Tebbe served as a Visiting Professor of Law at Cornell Law School during the fall of 2012. He joined Brooklyn Law School from St. John's University School of Law, where he received a Dean's Teaching Award. Before teaching, he clerked for Judge John M. Walker Jr. of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and practiced law at the American Civil Liberties Union and at Davis Polk & Wardwell. He was also a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Cape Town.
Welpton & Wise Professor of Law, University of Nebraska College of Law
Professor Rick Duncan is the Welpton & Wise Professor of Law at the University Of Nebraska College Of Law. He is a graduate of the Cornell Law School and served as an editor of the Cornell Law Review. He teaches Constitutional Law with a special emphasis on the law of religious freedom, free speech, and federalism. Duncan has written numerous books, articles, and commentaries on a wide variety of legal topics. His recent publications include an article on Justice Scalia’s legacy, another on Kermit Gosnell and Roe v. Wade, a piece on the Electoral College and Federalism, a 2019 piece on Masterpiece Cakeshop and the First Amendment, and three recent articles on the “no compelled speech” doctrine as a First Amendment defense against authoritarianism and tyranny. His most recent article, on School Choice and the First Amendment, will be published in 2023 in Case Western Law Review. He is also the co-author of a book on Secured Transactions under Article 9 of the UCC. He served as Chairman of the Nebraska Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights during the Reagan Administration. He also loves to speak at Federalist Society meetings around the country on life, liberty, and the pursuit of federalism.
Duncan has five children, five grandchildren, and a wonderful wife who help him pursue happiness. He loves lifting weights (particularly going heavy on the incline bench press), attending Broadway musicals and plays, including Hamilton: An American Musical which he has seen 12 times (possibly a Nebraska record). He regularly reads both the Bible and the New York Times because it is important to keep up with what both sides have to say. He loves following major league baseball, especially the San Diego Padres. And his favorite legal aphorism is “first come rights then comes government to secure those rights.”
Guy Anderson Chair and Professor of Law, Brigham Young University Law School
Professor Gedicks holds the Guy Anderson Chair, one of three endowed chairs at the Law School. He is widely published on law and religion, constitutional law, and constitutional interpretation, including two books,The Rhetoric of Church and State: A Critical Analysis of Religion Clause Jurisprudence (Duke University Press, 1995), and Choosing the Dream: The Future of Religion in American Public Life (Greenwood Press, 1991) (with Roger Hendrix).
Professor Gedicks is an active defender of the contraception mandate of the Affordable Care Act and opposes efforts by owners of for-profit businesses to obtain religious exemptions from the mandate. See "One Cheer for Hobby Lobby: Improbably Alternatives, Trutly Strict Scrutiny, and Third-Party Employee Burdens," 38 Harvard Journal of Law & Gender 153 (2015); "RFRA Exemptions from the Contraception Mandate: An Unconstitutional Accommodation of Religion," 49 Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review (Spring 2014); (with Rebecca Van Tassell); "Invisible Women" Why an Exemption for Hobby Lobby Would Violate the Establishment Clause," 67 Vanderbilt Law Review En Banc 51 (2014) (with Andrew Koppelman); and "With Religious LIberty for All: A Defense of the Affordable Care Act's Contraception Coverage Mandate," 6 Advance 135 (Fall 2012). He was principal author and counsel of record on a U.S. Supreme Court amicus brief filed for himself and twenty other church-state scholars in the Hobby Lobbyand Conestoga Wood cases, arguing that for-profit employer exemptions would violate the Establishment Clause, and also published a widely read op-ed in the Washington Post making the same argument, "Paying for the Boss's Religion" (January 20, 2014).
Other recent publications include "Cross, Crucifix, Culture: An Approach to the Constitutional Meaning of Confessional Symbols," 13 First Amendment Law Review (forthcoming 2015) (with Pasquale Annicchino); "Incorporation of the Establishment Clause Against the States: A Logical, Textual, and HIstorical Account," 88Indiana Law Journal 699 (2013); and "Narrative Pluralism and Doctrinal Incoherence in Hosanna-Tabor," 64 Mercer Law Review 405 (2013). Professor Gedicks is currently working with Professors Robert Tuttle, Micah Schwartzman, and Nelson Tebbe on a freedom of religion casebook for West Publishing.
Professor Gedicks has lectured in Italian at universities throughout Italy, including the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart (at both its Milan and Piacenza campuses), the Graduate Institute of Sant'Anna in Pisa, and the Universities of Alessandria, Como, Florence, Genoa, Milan, Salerno, Siena, and Turin. He was a Visiting Research Fellow for the ReligioWest project at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy during November and December 2012.
Professor Gedicks grew up in New Jersey and southern California. Following graduation from law school and a clerkship on the Ninth Circuit, he practiced corporation and securities law in Phoenix, Arizona, until he entered law teaching. Professor Gedicks joined the BYU law faculty in 1990 after four years at Mercer University in Macon, Georgia, and a year at the University of Denver. He has been a visiting professor at the law schools of the University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill), the University of Notre Dame, and the University of Utah.
Boochever and Bird Chair for the Study and Teaching of Freedom a, UC-Davis School of Law
Alan Brownstein, a nationally recognized Constitutional Law scholar, teaches Constitutional Law, Law and Religion, and Torts at UC Davis School of Law. While the primary focus of his scholarship relates to church-state issues and free exercise and establishment clause doctrine, he has also written extensively on freedom of speech, privacy and autonomy rights, and other constitutional law subjects. His articles have been published in numerous academic journals including the Stanford Law Review, Cornell Law Review, UCLA Law Review and Constitutional Commentary. Brownstein received the UC Davis School of Law's Distinguished Teaching Award in 1995 and the UC Davis Distinguished Scholarly Public Service Award in 2008. He is a member of the American Law Institute.
Professor Brownstein has testified on several occasions before various California Senate Committees on legislation promoting religious liberty and bills that raise Establishment Clause concerns. His assistance is often sought by advocacy groups on issues relating to religious liberty and equality. He is a frequent invited lecturer at academic conferences and regularly participates as a speaker or panelist in law related programs before civic, legal, religious, and educational groups. He is the co-author of dozens of Findlaw columns discussing a range of legal issues.
A graduate of Antioch College and Harvard Law School (where he served as a Case Editor of the Harvard Law Review), Brownstein was an attorney in general litigation and corporate practice with the law firm of Tuttle & Taylor in Los Angeles before joining the UC Davis law faculty. From 1977-78, he clerked for the Honorable Frank M. Coffin, Chief Judge of the U.S. District Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit in Portland, Maine.
"Most lawyers do not practice constitutional law," Brownstein notes, "but members of the Bar bear a special responsibility for understanding constitutional doctrine and communicating its meaning to non-lawyers. The role that constitutional law plays in our society depends in part on the interplay between courts and the political culture. If judicial decisions are unintelligible to the polity and no group accepts responsibility for explaining the Constitution's evolving meaning to the polity, we undermine part of the foundation of the constitutional scheme of things."
Welpton & Wise Professor of Law, University of Nebraska College of Law
Professor Rick Duncan is the Welpton & Wise Professor of Law at the University Of Nebraska College Of Law. He is a graduate of the Cornell Law School and served as an editor of the Cornell Law Review. He teaches Constitutional Law with a special emphasis on the law of religious freedom, free speech, and federalism. Duncan has written numerous books, articles, and commentaries on a wide variety of legal topics. His recent publications include an article on Justice Scalia’s legacy, another on Kermit Gosnell and Roe v. Wade, a piece on the Electoral College and Federalism, a 2019 piece on Masterpiece Cakeshop and the First Amendment, and three recent articles on the “no compelled speech” doctrine as a First Amendment defense against authoritarianism and tyranny. His most recent article, on School Choice and the First Amendment, will be published in 2023 in Case Western Law Review. He is also the co-author of a book on Secured Transactions under Article 9 of the UCC. He served as Chairman of the Nebraska Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights during the Reagan Administration. He also loves to speak at Federalist Society meetings around the country on life, liberty, and the pursuit of federalism.
Duncan has five children, five grandchildren, and a wonderful wife who help him pursue happiness. He loves lifting weights (particularly going heavy on the incline bench press), attending Broadway musicals and plays, including Hamilton: An American Musical which he has seen 12 times (possibly a Nebraska record). He regularly reads both the Bible and the New York Times because it is important to keep up with what both sides have to say. He loves following major league baseball, especially the San Diego Padres. And his favorite legal aphorism is “first come rights then comes government to secure those rights.”
Welpton & Wise Professor of Law, University of Nebraska College of Law
Professor Rick Duncan is the Welpton & Wise Professor of Law at the University Of Nebraska College Of Law. He is a graduate of the Cornell Law School and served as an editor of the Cornell Law Review. He teaches Constitutional Law with a special emphasis on the law of religious freedom, free speech, and federalism. Duncan has written numerous books, articles, and commentaries on a wide variety of legal topics. His recent publications include an article on Justice Scalia’s legacy, another on Kermit Gosnell and Roe v. Wade, a piece on the Electoral College and Federalism, a 2019 piece on Masterpiece Cakeshop and the First Amendment, and three recent articles on the “no compelled speech” doctrine as a First Amendment defense against authoritarianism and tyranny. His most recent article, on School Choice and the First Amendment, will be published in 2023 in Case Western Law Review. He is also the co-author of a book on Secured Transactions under Article 9 of the UCC. He served as Chairman of the Nebraska Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights during the Reagan Administration. He also loves to speak at Federalist Society meetings around the country on life, liberty, and the pursuit of federalism.
Duncan has five children, five grandchildren, and a wonderful wife who help him pursue happiness. He loves lifting weights (particularly going heavy on the incline bench press), attending Broadway musicals and plays, including Hamilton: An American Musical which he has seen 12 times (possibly a Nebraska record). He regularly reads both the Bible and the New York Times because it is important to keep up with what both sides have to say. He loves following major league baseball, especially the San Diego Padres. And his favorite legal aphorism is “first come rights then comes government to secure those rights.”
Professor of Law, University of South Carolina Joseph F. Rice School of Law
Derek Black is a professor of law and the Ernest F. Hollings Chair in Constitutional Law at the University of South Carolina School of Law. He also directs the law school’s Constitutional Law Center. His areas of expertise include education law and policy, constitutional law, and civil rights. The focus of his current scholarship is the intersection of constitutional law and public education, particularly as it pertains to educational equality and fairness for disadvantaged students. His research has been published in the Yale Law Journal, Stanford Law Review, NYU Law Review, California Law Review, Cornell Law Review, Northwestern University Law Review, Vanderbilt Law Review and dozens of others. His work has been cited by federal courts and various briefs before the U.S. Supreme Court. Based on that research, he offers expert witness testimony in school funding, voucher, and federal education policy litigation.
He is the author of a leading education law casebook, Education Law: Equality, Fairness, and Reform, and two other books aimed at wider audiences, Schoolhouse Burning: Public Education and the Assault on American Democracy and Ending Zero Tolerance: The Crisis of Absolute School Discipline.
He began his career teaching at Howard University School of Law, where he founded and directed the Education Rights Center. Prior to teaching, he litigated education cases at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.
Welpton & Wise Professor of Law, University of Nebraska College of Law
Professor Rick Duncan is the Welpton & Wise Professor of Law at the University Of Nebraska College Of Law. He is a graduate of the Cornell Law School and served as an editor of the Cornell Law Review. He teaches Constitutional Law with a special emphasis on the law of religious freedom, free speech, and federalism. Duncan has written numerous books, articles, and commentaries on a wide variety of legal topics. His recent publications include an article on Justice Scalia’s legacy, another on Kermit Gosnell and Roe v. Wade, a piece on the Electoral College and Federalism, a 2019 piece on Masterpiece Cakeshop and the First Amendment, and three recent articles on the “no compelled speech” doctrine as a First Amendment defense against authoritarianism and tyranny. His most recent article, on School Choice and the First Amendment, will be published in 2023 in Case Western Law Review. He is also the co-author of a book on Secured Transactions under Article 9 of the UCC. He served as Chairman of the Nebraska Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights during the Reagan Administration. He also loves to speak at Federalist Society meetings around the country on life, liberty, and the pursuit of federalism.
Duncan has five children, five grandchildren, and a wonderful wife who help him pursue happiness. He loves lifting weights (particularly going heavy on the incline bench press), attending Broadway musicals and plays, including Hamilton: An American Musical which he has seen 12 times (possibly a Nebraska record). He regularly reads both the Bible and the New York Times because it is important to keep up with what both sides have to say. He loves following major league baseball, especially the San Diego Padres. And his favorite legal aphorism is “first come rights then comes government to secure those rights.”
Welpton & Wise Professor of Law, University of Nebraska College of Law
Professor Rick Duncan is the Welpton & Wise Professor of Law at the University Of Nebraska College Of Law. He is a graduate of the Cornell Law School and served as an editor of the Cornell Law Review. He teaches Constitutional Law with a special emphasis on the law of religious freedom, free speech, and federalism. Duncan has written numerous books, articles, and commentaries on a wide variety of legal topics. His recent publications include an article on Justice Scalia’s legacy, another on Kermit Gosnell and Roe v. Wade, a piece on the Electoral College and Federalism, a 2019 piece on Masterpiece Cakeshop and the First Amendment, and three recent articles on the “no compelled speech” doctrine as a First Amendment defense against authoritarianism and tyranny. His most recent article, on School Choice and the First Amendment, will be published in 2023 in Case Western Law Review. He is also the co-author of a book on Secured Transactions under Article 9 of the UCC. He served as Chairman of the Nebraska Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights during the Reagan Administration. He also loves to speak at Federalist Society meetings around the country on life, liberty, and the pursuit of federalism.
Duncan has five children, five grandchildren, and a wonderful wife who help him pursue happiness. He loves lifting weights (particularly going heavy on the incline bench press), attending Broadway musicals and plays, including Hamilton: An American Musical which he has seen 12 times (possibly a Nebraska record). He regularly reads both the Bible and the New York Times because it is important to keep up with what both sides have to say. He loves following major league baseball, especially the San Diego Padres. And his favorite legal aphorism is “first come rights then comes government to secure those rights.”
Welpton & Wise Professor of Law, University of Nebraska College of Law
Professor Rick Duncan is the Welpton & Wise Professor of Law at the University Of Nebraska College Of Law. He is a graduate of the Cornell Law School and served as an editor of the Cornell Law Review. He teaches Constitutional Law with a special emphasis on the law of religious freedom, free speech, and federalism. Duncan has written numerous books, articles, and commentaries on a wide variety of legal topics. His recent publications include an article on Justice Scalia’s legacy, another on Kermit Gosnell and Roe v. Wade, a piece on the Electoral College and Federalism, a 2019 piece on Masterpiece Cakeshop and the First Amendment, and three recent articles on the “no compelled speech” doctrine as a First Amendment defense against authoritarianism and tyranny. His most recent article, on School Choice and the First Amendment, will be published in 2023 in Case Western Law Review. He is also the co-author of a book on Secured Transactions under Article 9 of the UCC. He served as Chairman of the Nebraska Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights during the Reagan Administration. He also loves to speak at Federalist Society meetings around the country on life, liberty, and the pursuit of federalism.
Duncan has five children, five grandchildren, and a wonderful wife who help him pursue happiness. He loves lifting weights (particularly going heavy on the incline bench press), attending Broadway musicals and plays, including Hamilton: An American Musical which he has seen 12 times (possibly a Nebraska record). He regularly reads both the Bible and the New York Times because it is important to keep up with what both sides have to say. He loves following major league baseball, especially the San Diego Padres. And his favorite legal aphorism is “first come rights then comes government to secure those rights.”
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.
Keystone XL in the Nebraska Supreme Court
TeleforumNorth 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...
Post-Election Wrap-Up with Sen. Jon Kyl
Phoenix, ArizonaBurwell v. Hobby Lobby: A Crafty Decision
Why Religious Liberty is More than a Hobby (Lobby)
Hobby Lobby and Its Future Implications
Should the Hobby Lobby Decision Have Been Unanimous?
Pittsburgh, PennsylvaniaWhy School Choice Is Essential for Freedom of Thought and Religious Liberty
Gosnell and the Law
Religious Liberty and Libertarianism: Protecting Religious Liberty by Protecting Everyone's Liberty