Shareholder, Greenberg Traurig, LLP
Dominic E. Draye has litigated at every level of the state and federal judiciary—from state trial court to the Supreme Court of the United States. His practice focuses on constitutional, regulatory, and environmental matters, and he has represented clients in both the public and private sectors. In the federal appellate courts, Mr. Draye has represented clients in the Second, Fifth, Seventh, Ninth, and D.C. Circuits.
Before joining Greenberg, Mr. Draye served as the Solicitor General of Arizona, where he briefed and argued the State’s highest-profile civil and criminal appeals and served as lead counsel for several multi-state coalitions litigating over agency rulemaking in the D.C. Circuit. Prior to government service, Mr. Draye was a litigator in the Washington, D.C., office of Kirkland & Ellis LLP, where his practice focused on legal issues and appeals.
Mr. Draye is a sought-after speaker on topics of administrative and constitutional law. He clerked for Hon. Edith H. Jones on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and attended the University of Pennsylvania Law School.
Assistant Attorney General, Colorado Attorney General's Office
Senior Attorney, DC, Pacific Legal Foundation
Steve Simpson joined PLF in 2019 to head up its Separation of Powers practice group.
Steve’s career in public interest law started at the Institute for Justice in 2001, where he litigated free speech, campaign finance, and economic liberty cases. Among other high-profile cases in which Steve was involved, he was co-counsel in Arizona Free Enterprise Club’s Freedom Club PAC v. Bennett, IJ’s successful Supreme Court challenge to Arizona’s public financing law for political campaigns. He was the lead litigator in SpeechNow.org v. FEC, a joint effort between IJ and the Institute for Free Speech that led to the creation of super PACs. And he was co-counsel in Swedenburg v. Kelly, IJ’s successful Supreme Court challenge to New York’s ban on the interstate shipping of wine.
In 2013, Steve moved into the policy arena as the Ayn Rand Institute’s director of Legal Studies, where he spent five years writing and speaking on a wide variety of legal and cultural issues. From there, he moved back into law as senior litigation counsel at the New Civil Liberties Alliance in Washington, D.C.
Steve has spoken and written on a wide variety of legal and policy issues. He has testified in Congress and briefed congressional staffers. He has been interviewed on scores of television and radio programs, including PBS News Hour, Stossel, and The Rubin Report. His writings have appeared in many publications, including The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post. In 2014, Steve was a Lincoln Fellow at the Claremont Institute. He is the editor of Defending Free Speech (ARI Press, 2016).
Steve earned his law degree magna cum laude from New York Law School in 1994. Following law school, he clerked for a federal district judge in the Southern District of Florida and spent several years as a litigator at Shearman & Sterling.
When he’s not at work or spending time with his wife and three daughters, Steve can usually be found mucking around in the woods at his cabin on Shenandoah Mountain.
Joseph Tartakovsky, Author of The Lives of the Constitution: Ten Exceptional Minds that Shaped America's Supreme Law.
Joseph Tartakovsky is author of The Lives of the Constitution: Ten Exceptional Minds that Shaped America’s Supreme Law (2018) and the former Deputy Solicitor General of Nevada. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Los Angeles Times.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Tenth Circuit
Judge Tymkovich, of Denver, Colorado, was nominated to the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals by President George W. Bush, and confirmed in April 2003. On October 1, 2015 he became Chief Circuit Judge and held this position until October 2022. He was Chair of the US Judicial Conference’s Committee on Judicial Resources from 2011 to 2015. Since 2008 he has been an adjunct professor of law at the University of Colorado School of Law, teaching Election Law. He is a member of the Doyle Inn of Court, the American Law Institute, and the International Society of Barristers. Since he joined the Circuit, Judge Tymkovich has hosted judicial delegations from Russia, Kazakhstan, and Afghanistan, and has also represented the United States in programs at Kiev and Yalta in Ukraine.
Distinguished Fellow and Director of Forum on Law, Culture & Society, NYU Law School
Thane Rosenbaum is an essayist, law professor, and author of the novels, How Sweet It Is!, The Stranger Within Sarah Stein, The Golems of Gotham, Second Hand Smoke, and Elijah Visible. His articles, reviews and essays appear frequently in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Haaretz, Huffington Post and Daily Beast, among other national publications.
He moderates an annual series of discussions on culture, world events and politics at the 92nd Street Ycalled The Talk Show.
He is a Distinguished Fellow at New York University School of Law where he directs the Forum on Law, Culture & Society.
He is the author of Payback: The Case for Revenge and The Myth of Moral Justice: Why Our Legal System Fails to Do What's Right. He is the editor of the anthology, Law Lit, from Atticus Finch to "The Practice,": A Collection of Great Writing about the Law. His forthcoming book is entitled The High Cost of Free Speech: Rethinking the First Amendment.
Joseph Tartakovsky, Author of The Lives of the Constitution: Ten Exceptional Minds that Shaped America's Supreme Law.
Joseph Tartakovsky is author of The Lives of the Constitution: Ten Exceptional Minds that Shaped America’s Supreme Law (2018) and the former Deputy Solicitor General of Nevada. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Los Angeles Times.
Of Counsel, Fisher & Phillips, LLP
Greg Grisham has over 25 years of successful experience counseling and representing employers in all aspects of workplace law in Tennessee and across the United States.
He has helped employers avoid claims, charges and lawsuits with a focus on preventative practices. Preventative practices include counseling in situations involving discipline, termination, demotion, promotion and other workplace changes in the terms and conditions of employment, harassment investigations, wage and hour compliance, FMLA Compliance, Reasonable Accommodation assessment, supervisor training and the review of employment policies and procedures. In addition, Greg's practice includes the representation of business entities subject to Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act in Public Accommodation cases.
Greg has successfully litigated hundreds of administrative charges, employment lawsuits, and arbitration demands on behalf of employers, including federal and state law claims alleging discrimination, harassment, retaliation, wrongful termination, defamation, invasion of privacy, breach of contract, wage and hour violations and ERISA violations, among others. He also represents employers before the National Labor Relations Board in unfair labor practice proceedings. He represents employers in the enforcement of post-employment restrictive covenants such as non-compete, non-solicitation and non-disclosure agreements and related trade secret litigation. Greg's practice also includes the defense of property owners and property management companies in federal and state Housing Discrimination charges and litigation. He also advises Tennessee Public Charter Schools on education law and workplace compliance matters.
Greg has extensive experience working with insurance carriers and their insureds in the defense of EPLI claims. He is a regular speaker at public seminars on workplace law issues and has authored numerous articles on a variety of labor and employment law related topics.
Greg holds an AV Preeminent Peer Review rating from Martindale-Hubbell and has been selected for inclusion in Mid-South Super Lawyers and Best Lawyers in America for Employment Litigation-Management side. Greg was elected as a 2016 Fellow to the College of Labor and Employment Lawyers and has been selected to the “Top 20 Lawyers in Traditional Labor & Employment Law” list in conjunction with Human Resource Executive Magazine and LawDragon’s 2017 and 2018 “Most Powerful Employment Attorneys” lists and specialty guides. Greg was also named a Fellow in the American Bar Foundation in 2017.
Shareholder, Greenberg Traurig, LLP
Dominic E. Draye has litigated at every level of the state and federal judiciary—from state trial court to the Supreme Court of the United States. His practice focuses on constitutional, regulatory, and environmental matters, and he has represented clients in both the public and private sectors. In the federal appellate courts, Mr. Draye has represented clients in the Second, Fifth, Seventh, Ninth, and D.C. Circuits.
Before joining Greenberg, Mr. Draye served as the Solicitor General of Arizona, where he briefed and argued the State’s highest-profile civil and criminal appeals and served as lead counsel for several multi-state coalitions litigating over agency rulemaking in the D.C. Circuit. Prior to government service, Mr. Draye was a litigator in the Washington, D.C., office of Kirkland & Ellis LLP, where his practice focused on legal issues and appeals.
Mr. Draye is a sought-after speaker on topics of administrative and constitutional law. He clerked for Hon. Edith H. Jones on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and attended the University of Pennsylvania Law School.
Assistant Attorney General, Colorado Attorney General's Office
Distinguished Fellow and Director of Forum on Law, Culture & Society, NYU Law School
Thane Rosenbaum is an essayist, law professor, and author of the novels, How Sweet It Is!, The Stranger Within Sarah Stein, The Golems of Gotham, Second Hand Smoke, and Elijah Visible. His articles, reviews and essays appear frequently in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Haaretz, Huffington Post and Daily Beast, among other national publications.
He moderates an annual series of discussions on culture, world events and politics at the 92nd Street Ycalled The Talk Show.
He is a Distinguished Fellow at New York University School of Law where he directs the Forum on Law, Culture & Society.
He is the author of Payback: The Case for Revenge and The Myth of Moral Justice: Why Our Legal System Fails to Do What's Right. He is the editor of the anthology, Law Lit, from Atticus Finch to "The Practice,": A Collection of Great Writing about the Law. His forthcoming book is entitled The High Cost of Free Speech: Rethinking the First Amendment.
Senior Attorney, DC, Pacific Legal Foundation
Steve Simpson joined PLF in 2019 to head up its Separation of Powers practice group.
Steve’s career in public interest law started at the Institute for Justice in 2001, where he litigated free speech, campaign finance, and economic liberty cases. Among other high-profile cases in which Steve was involved, he was co-counsel in Arizona Free Enterprise Club’s Freedom Club PAC v. Bennett, IJ’s successful Supreme Court challenge to Arizona’s public financing law for political campaigns. He was the lead litigator in SpeechNow.org v. FEC, a joint effort between IJ and the Institute for Free Speech that led to the creation of super PACs. And he was co-counsel in Swedenburg v. Kelly, IJ’s successful Supreme Court challenge to New York’s ban on the interstate shipping of wine.
In 2013, Steve moved into the policy arena as the Ayn Rand Institute’s director of Legal Studies, where he spent five years writing and speaking on a wide variety of legal and cultural issues. From there, he moved back into law as senior litigation counsel at the New Civil Liberties Alliance in Washington, D.C.
Steve has spoken and written on a wide variety of legal and policy issues. He has testified in Congress and briefed congressional staffers. He has been interviewed on scores of television and radio programs, including PBS News Hour, Stossel, and The Rubin Report. His writings have appeared in many publications, including The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post. In 2014, Steve was a Lincoln Fellow at the Claremont Institute. He is the editor of Defending Free Speech (ARI Press, 2016).
Steve earned his law degree magna cum laude from New York Law School in 1994. Following law school, he clerked for a federal district judge in the Southern District of Florida and spent several years as a litigator at Shearman & Sterling.
When he’s not at work or spending time with his wife and three daughters, Steve can usually be found mucking around in the woods at his cabin on Shenandoah Mountain.
Joseph Tartakovsky, Author of The Lives of the Constitution: Ten Exceptional Minds that Shaped America's Supreme Law.
Joseph Tartakovsky is author of The Lives of the Constitution: Ten Exceptional Minds that Shaped America’s Supreme Law (2018) and the former Deputy Solicitor General of Nevada. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Los Angeles Times.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Tenth Circuit
Judge Tymkovich, of Denver, Colorado, was nominated to the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals by President George W. Bush, and confirmed in April 2003. On October 1, 2015 he became Chief Circuit Judge and held this position until October 2022. He was Chair of the US Judicial Conference’s Committee on Judicial Resources from 2011 to 2015. Since 2008 he has been an adjunct professor of law at the University of Colorado School of Law, teaching Election Law. He is a member of the Doyle Inn of Court, the American Law Institute, and the International Society of Barristers. Since he joined the Circuit, Judge Tymkovich has hosted judicial delegations from Russia, Kazakhstan, and Afghanistan, and has also represented the United States in programs at Kiev and Yalta in Ukraine.
President and General Counsel, Public Interest Legal Foundation
J. Christian Adams is the President and General Counsel of the Public Interest Legal Foundation. He served from 2005 to 2010 in the Voting Section at the United States Department of Justice Voting Section. President Trump appointed Adams to the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity. President Trump also appointed Adams as a Commissioner to the United States Commission on Civil Rights where he also now serves with a term through 2025. He has been involved in election law lawsuits in 33 states and the territory of Guam. He has represented multiple presidential campaigns in election litigation. He has a law degree from the University of South Carolina School of Law. He is a member of the South Carolina and Virginia Bars.
Professor of Law, South Texas College of Law Houston
Josh Blackman is a national thought leader on constitutional law and the United States Supreme Court. Josh’s work was quoted during two presidential impeachment trials. He has testified before Congress and advises federal and state lawmakers. Josh regularly appears on TV, including NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox, and the BBC. Josh is also a frequent guest on NPR and other syndicated radio programs. He has published commentaries in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and leading national publications.
Since 2012, Josh has served as a professor at the South Texas College of Law Houston. He holds the Centennial Chair of Constitutional Law. Josh is an Adjunct Fellow at the Manhattan Institute. Josh has written more than seven dozen law review articles that have been cited more than a thousand times. Josh was selected as the Jurist of the Year by the Texas Journal of Law & Public Policy, received the inaugural Meese III Originalism Award, and was awarded the Inaugural Joseph Story Award. Josh was selected by Forbes Magazine for the “30 Under 30” in Law and Policy. Josh is the President of the Harlan Institute, and founded FantasySCOTUS, the Internet’s Premier Supreme Court Fantasy League. He blogs at the Volokh Conspiracyand posts@JoshMBlackman.
William S. Boyd Professor of Law, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, William S. Boyd School of Law
Dr. Leslie C. Griffin is the William S. Boyd Professor of Law at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, William S. Boyd School of Law. Professor Griffin, who teaches constitutional law, is known for her interdisciplinary work in law and religion. She holds a Ph.D. in Religious Studies from Yale University and a J.D. from Stanford Law School. She is author of the Foundation Press casebook Law and Religion: Cases and Materials (5th edition, 2022) with Andrew L. Seidel. Practicing Bioethics Law (2d ed. 2021) is co-authored with Joan H. Krause, Dan K. Moore Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of North Carolina School of Law. She and University of Pennsylvania Professor Marci Hamilton published Learning Constitutional Law (Cognella Press, 2023).
She wrote the recent book chapter, Bambi Trauma—Surviving TBI Twice, in Traumatic Brain Injury—Challenges (Dr. Ioannis Mavroudis & Alin Ciobica, eds., IntechOpen, 2024), https://www.intechopen.com/online-first/1179800#. And Catholic Sexual Abuse in Louisiana is in the University of Detroit Mercy Law Review, volume 101, p. 375 (2024).
Another article is What Did Those Sixteen Justices Say?, 58 Willamette L. Rev. 163 (2022). A book chapter entitled Rewritten Opinion, Means v. United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, is in the book Feminist Judgments: Rewritten Health Law Opinions (S. Mohapatra & L. Wiley, eds., Cambridge University Press, 2022). Other recent articles include What is Ethical Discharge?, 10:3 Narrative Inquiry in Bioethics 193 (2020); What Can We Expect of Law and Religion in 2020?, 79 SMU L. Rev. F. 73 (2020); Traumatic Brain Injury: Compassionate Care, Not Clinical Nihilism, 6:2 Journal of Hospital Ethics 87 (Fall 2019) (with Carole S. Anhalt); Conquering Brain Injury, 34:5 Journal of Head Trauma Rehabilitation 366 (2019), Religious Freedom, Human Rights, and Peaceful Coexistence, 50 Loyola University Chicago Law Journal 77 (2018), Pre-or Post Mortem?, 18 Nevada Law Journal 221 (2017). Her rewritten opinion about the abortion funding case, Harris v. McRae, 448 U.S. 297 (1980), is in Feminist Judgments: Rewritten Opinions of the United States Supreme Court (L. Berger, B. Crawford & K. Stanchi, eds., Cambridge University Press, 2016).
Griffin has written numerous amicus briefs defending children's and employees' religious freedom. She blogs for Justia's Verdict column, and posts occasionally on Petrie-Flom’s health law blog.
Other writings include Marriage Rights and Religious Exemptions in the United States, Oxford Handbooks Online (2017), Beyond the Basketball Court: How Brittney Griner’s In My Skin Illustrates Title IX’s Failure to Protect LGBT Athletes at Religious Institutions, 34 Law and Inequality 489 (2016), A Word of Warning from A Woman: Arbitrary, Categorical, and Hidden Religious Exemptions Threaten LGBT Rights, 7 Ala. C.R. & C.L.L. Rev. 97 (2015), and The Catholic Bishops vs. the Contraceptive Mandate, Religions 2015, 6, 1411–1432.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit
Lawrence VanDyke serves as a circuit judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Prior to that appointment in January 2020, he served as a Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Environment and Natural Resources Division of the United States Department of Justice. Before that, he served consecutively as the Solicitor General of two western states – Nevada and Montana. At the beginning of his legal career, he worked as an attorney in the Appellate and Constitutional Issues practice group at Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, LLP.
Judge VanDyke received his law degree magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, where he was an editor on the Harvard Law Review. He has engineering and theology undergraduate degrees and a masters degree in engineering management. He served as a law clerk to the Honorable Janice Rogers Brown of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Judge VanDyke and his wife Cheryl live in Reno, Nevada, and they have three children.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit
Lawrence VanDyke serves as a circuit judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Prior to that appointment in January 2020, he served as a Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Environment and Natural Resources Division of the United States Department of Justice. Before that, he served consecutively as the Solicitor General of two western states – Nevada and Montana. At the beginning of his legal career, he worked as an attorney in the Appellate and Constitutional Issues practice group at Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, LLP.
Judge VanDyke received his law degree magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, where he was an editor on the Harvard Law Review. He has engineering and theology undergraduate degrees and a masters degree in engineering management. He served as a law clerk to the Honorable Janice Rogers Brown of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Judge VanDyke and his wife Cheryl live in Reno, Nevada, and they have three children.
Patrick Hotung Professor of Constitutional Law, Georgetown University Law Center
Randy Barnett is the Patrick Hotung Professor of Constitutional Law at Georgetown University Law Center. He has argued before the United States Supreme Court, tried murder cases to juries as a prosecutor in Chicago, and appeared as a prosecutor in the feature film Inalienable. He is the author of numerous books, including Restoring the Lost Constitution, The Structure of Liberty, Our Republican Constitution, and The Original Meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. He has published two memoirs, A Life for Liberty: The Making of an American Originalist, and Felony Review: Tales of True Crime and Corruption in Chicago. He is currently working on a new book, Freedom and Flourishing: Libertarianism for the Real World.
Partner, Cooper & Kirk PLLC
Adam Paul Laxalt is a partner at Cooper & Kirk which he joined in March 2019. Mr. Laxalt served as Nevada’s 33rd Attorney General from 2015-2019. Mr. Laxalt graduated Magna Cum Laude from Georgetown University and also graduated from Georgetown University Law Center. He is a former Navy and Iraq War veteran. Mr. Laxalt also served as an Assistant Professor of Law at the U.S. Naval Academy.
As Nevada’s Attorney General and top law-enforcement officer, Mr. Laxalt supervised all criminal and civil matters for Nevada’s largest law office. He provided strategic direction and supervision of almost 400 employees, thousands of legal matters, and nearly 50 trials. Mr. Laxalt served as chief legal counsel for the state of Nevada, as well as to Constitutional Officers, state agencies, boards, and commissions. He managed approximately $1.2 billion in potential civil liabilities for the state.
As a former member of the military, Laxalt’s support of service members culminated in the creation of the Office of Military Legal Assistance, a first-of-its-kind program that provides Nevada’s military members with free legal representation. The program was recently named a “Best Practice Program” by the Department of Defense with a recommendation for duplication in states throughout the country, and to date, has helped military personnel and veterans handle over 210 pro bono matters.
Consistent with his commitment to defending our nation’s constitutional principles and protecting the important role of the States in our federalist system of government, Laxalt created Nevada’s first ever Federalism Unit within the Attorney General’s Office. To protect the interests of Nevadans, the Federalism Unit has challenged multiple occasions of unlawful federal overreach, including the Environmental Protection Agency’s Waters of the United States Rule, the Bureau of Land Management’s Sage Grouse Plan, and other instances of unilateral federal executive orders. The Unit has also filed friend of the court briefs on many important issues including public roads, Environmental Protection Agency overreach, federal interference with Nevada’s criminal justice system and Second Amendment issues.
Free Speech Absolutism: Have We Gone Too Far?
Dominic Draye, Joseph A. Peters, Steve Simpson, Joseph Tartakovsky, Timothy M. Tymkovich, Thane Rosenbaum
No clause in the Constitution draws more judicial encomia to liberty than the Free Speech...
Free Speech Absolutism: Have We Gone Too Far?
2018 Annual Western Chapters Conference
Simi Valley, CANevada Recall
Civil Rights Practice Group
TeleforumCollective Liberty: How the Pursuit of Equality is Collapsing Speech and Religion
State Religion Clauses after Trinity Lutheran: Are the States' Constitutions Unconstitutional?
Irvine, CaliforniaA Day in the Life of the Solicitor General"
Davila v. Davis & McWilliams v. Dunn - Post-Decision SCOTUScast
Joseph Tartakovsky
In June 2017, the Supreme Court decided two cases involving habeas corpus petitions filed by...
Inaugural Fed Soc Lawyers Chapter Lunch
Reno, NevadaThe Fight Over ABA Rule 8.4(g) Proceeds to the States
As has been noted, the American Bar Association has proposed the adoption of a new...
Beyond the Red-Blue Divide: An Overview of Current Trends in State Non-Compete Law
J. Gregory Grisham
Introduction Covenants not to compete (“non-competes”)[1] have a long history dating back to the medieval...