Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law and Director, Classical Liberal Institute, New York University School of Law; Director, Classical Liberal Institute, Civitas Institute University of Texas at Austin
Richard A. Epstein is the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law, at New York University, a senior research fellow at the Civitas Institute at the University of Texas Austin, and a senior Lecturer, the University of Chicago. He received an LL.D., h.c . from the University of Ghent, 2003 , and an LLD h.c . from the University of Siegen in 2018 and the Bradley Prize in 2011. He has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 1985. He has edited both the Journal of Legal Studies (1981-1991) and the Journal of Law and Economics (1991-2001). He is also a founder and director of the Classical Liberal Institute at NYU Law School. His most recent book is The Classical Liberal Constitution: The Uncertain Quest for Limited Government (2014). His other books include Takings: Private Property and the Power of Eminent Domain ( 1985); Bargaining with the State (1993); Simple Rules for a Complex World (1995); Principles for a Free Society: Reconciling Individual Liberty and the Common Good (1998); Skepticism and Freedom: A Modern Theory of Classical Liberalism (2003); Design for Liberty: Private Property, Public Administration and the Rule of Law (2011), and most recently, The Myth of Birthright citizenship—and Beyond (2026). He has taught courses in , administrative law, antitrust, constitutional, contracts, environmental law, land use planning; real property, torts and water law. He has written and spoken extensively on a wide range of topics, and is writes a regular column for Defining Ideas.
Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law and Director, Classical Liberal Institute, New York University School of Law; Director, Classical Liberal Institute, Civitas Institute University of Texas at Austin
Richard A. Epstein is the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law, at New York University, a senior research fellow at the Civitas Institute at the University of Texas Austin, and a senior Lecturer, the University of Chicago. He received an LL.D., h.c . from the University of Ghent, 2003 , and an LLD h.c . from the University of Siegen in 2018 and the Bradley Prize in 2011. He has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 1985. He has edited both the Journal of Legal Studies (1981-1991) and the Journal of Law and Economics (1991-2001). He is also a founder and director of the Classical Liberal Institute at NYU Law School. His most recent book is The Classical Liberal Constitution: The Uncertain Quest for Limited Government (2014). His other books include Takings: Private Property and the Power of Eminent Domain ( 1985); Bargaining with the State (1993); Simple Rules for a Complex World (1995); Principles for a Free Society: Reconciling Individual Liberty and the Common Good (1998); Skepticism and Freedom: A Modern Theory of Classical Liberalism (2003); Design for Liberty: Private Property, Public Administration and the Rule of Law (2011), and most recently, The Myth of Birthright citizenship—and Beyond (2026). He has taught courses in , administrative law, antitrust, constitutional, contracts, environmental law, land use planning; real property, torts and water law. He has written and spoken extensively on a wide range of topics, and is writes a regular column for Defining Ideas.
Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law and Director, Classical Liberal Institute, New York University School of Law; Director, Classical Liberal Institute, Civitas Institute University of Texas at Austin
Richard A. Epstein is the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law, at New York University, a senior research fellow at the Civitas Institute at the University of Texas Austin, and a senior Lecturer, the University of Chicago. He received an LL.D., h.c . from the University of Ghent, 2003 , and an LLD h.c . from the University of Siegen in 2018 and the Bradley Prize in 2011. He has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 1985. He has edited both the Journal of Legal Studies (1981-1991) and the Journal of Law and Economics (1991-2001). He is also a founder and director of the Classical Liberal Institute at NYU Law School. His most recent book is The Classical Liberal Constitution: The Uncertain Quest for Limited Government (2014). His other books include Takings: Private Property and the Power of Eminent Domain ( 1985); Bargaining with the State (1993); Simple Rules for a Complex World (1995); Principles for a Free Society: Reconciling Individual Liberty and the Common Good (1998); Skepticism and Freedom: A Modern Theory of Classical Liberalism (2003); Design for Liberty: Private Property, Public Administration and the Rule of Law (2011), and most recently, The Myth of Birthright citizenship—and Beyond (2026). He has taught courses in , administrative law, antitrust, constitutional, contracts, environmental law, land use planning; real property, torts and water law. He has written and spoken extensively on a wide range of topics, and is writes a regular column for Defining Ideas.
Senior Advisor, Covington & Burling LLP
Congressman Howard Berman advises clients on a wide range of foreign affairs and domestic policy matters, including defense and national security issues, investment, intellectual property, entertainment, technology and immigration. He also serves on the board of trustees of the Asia Foundation, the board of the National Democratic Institute, the Immigration Task Force of the Bipartisan Policy Center, and the Board of Directors of the Pacific Council on International Policy.
First elected to Congress in 1982, Congressman Berman became known as one of Capitol Hill’s preeminent deal-makers. National Journal described him as “one of the most creative members of the House and one of the most clear-sighted operators in American politics.”
As the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Congressman Berman was one of Congress’ leading experts on international relations. On the Committee, he repeatedly helped build bipartisan consensus within the House, and between Congress and the Executive Branch. A long-time senior member on the House Judiciary Committee, Congressman Berman chaired the Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet and Intellectual Property, where he successfully led efforts resulting in major changes to intellectual property laws affecting the entertainment and high-tech industries.
Congressman Berman, a senior advisor not practicing law until admitted in the District of Columbia, will provide policy and legislative advice to clients and members of the firm.
Harry F. Byrd Professor of Politics, University of Virginia
James W. Ceaser is Harry F. Byrd Professor of Politics at the University of Virginia, where he has taught since 1976, and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. He has written several books on American politics and political thought, including Presidential Selection, Liberal Democracy and Political Science, Reconstructing America, Nature and History in American Political Development, and Designing a Polity. Professor Ceaser has served as the Academic Chairman of the Jack Miller Center since its inception in 2004. He is a regular contributor to the popular press and comments frequently on American politics for La Voix d’Amérique, the French-African outlet for the Voice of America.
U.S. Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit
Frank H. Easterbrook is a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and a Senior Lecturer at the Law School of the University of Chicago. He was Chief Judge from 2006–2013. Before joining the court in 1985, he was the Lee andBrena Freeman Professor of Law at the University of Chicago, where he taught and wrote in antitrust, securities, corporate law, jurisprudence, and criminal procedure. He has published The Economic Structure of Corporate Law (with Daniel R. Fischel) and about 100 scholarly articles. He served as Co-Editor of the Journal of Law and Economics from 1982 to 1991 and as a member of the Judicial Conference’s Standing Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure from 1991 to 1997. Before joining the faculty of the Law School in 1979, Judge Easterbrook was Deputy Solicitor General of the United States. He holds degrees from Swarthmore College (B.A. with high honors, 1970) and the University of Chicago (J.D. cum laude, 1973), and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Law Institute, the Mont Pelerin Society, Phi Beta Kappa, and the Order of the Coif.
Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School
Professor of Law Michael S. Greve joined the faculty of the Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University in fall 2012 after having served as John G. Searle Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he specialized in constitutional law, courts, and business regulation and served as chairman of the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Prior to joining AEI, Greve was founder and co-director of the Center for Individual Rights, a public interest law firm specializing in constitutional litigation.
Greve has served previously as an adjunct professor at a number of universities, including Cornell and Johns Hopkins Universities, and has been a visiting professor at Boston College since 2004. He was awarded a PhD and an MA in government by Cornell University. Greve also earned a Diploma from the University of Hamburg in Germany.
A prolific writer, Greve is the author of nine books and a multitude of articles appearing in scholarly publications, as well as numerous editorials, short articles, and book reviews. He is a frequent speaker for professional and scholarly organizations and has made many appearances on radio and television.
In addition Greve has provided congressional and state legislative testimony, has lobbied and consulted in federal agency proceedings, and has provided litigation services and management in over 30 cases, including matters before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Professor of Politics and Public Affairs, Princeton University
Frances E. Lee is jointly appointed in the Department of Politics and the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs where she is Professor of Politics and Public Affairs.
Lee has broad interests in American politics, with a special focus on congressional politics, national policymaking, party politics, and representation. She is author of Insecure Majorities: Congress and the Perpetual Campaign (2016) and Beyond Ideology: Politics, Principles, and Partisanship in the U.S. Senate (2009). She is also coauthor of Sizing Up The Senate: The Unequal Consequences of Equal Representation (1999) and a textbook, Congress and Its Members (Sage / CQ Press). Her research has appeared in the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Perspectives on Politics, Journal of Politics, Legislative Studies Quarterly, and other outlets.
Lee is editor of the Cambridge Elements Series in American Politics and a series editor for the Chicago Studies in American Politics. She was co-editor of Legislative Studies Quarterly from 2014 to 2019.
Lee earned her B.A. from the University of Southern Mississippi and her Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Sudler Family Professor of Constitutional Law, New York University School of Law
Richard H. Pildes is one of the nation’s leading scholars of constitutional law and a specialist in legal issues affecting democracy. He is a Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Law Institute, and has received recognition as a Guggenheim Fellow and a Carnegie Scholar. His acclaimed casebook, The Law of Democracy: Legal Structure of the Political Process (now in its fourth edition), helped create an entirely new field of study in the law schools. The Law of Democracy systematically explores legal and policy issues concerning the structure of democratic elections and institutions, such as the role of money in politics, the design of election districts, the regulation of political parties, the design of voting systems, the representation of minority interests in democratic institutions, and similar issues. He has written extensively on the rise of political polarization in the United States, the Voting Rights Act, the dysfunction of America’s political processes, the role of the Supreme Court in overseeing American democracy, the powers of the American President and Congress, and he has criticized excessively “romantic” understandings of democracy. In addition to his scholarship on these issues, he has written on national-security law, the design of the regulatory state, and American constitutional history and theory.
Respect for his expertise in these areas is reflected in frequent citations of his work in U.S. Supreme Court opinions, the translation of his work into many languages, and his frequent public lectures and appearances around the world, including his nomination with the NBC News Team for an Emmy Award for coverage of the 2000 Presidential election litigation.
His work has been translated and published in Chinese, French, Spanish, and Portuguese. In addition to his scholarship, Professor Pildes plays an active role litigating in these areas. He has won two cases before the United States Supreme Court, including a 2015 victory in Alabama Democratic Conference v. Alabama, a case involving race and redistricting. He served as counsel to a group of former chairmen of the Securities and Exchange Commission in litigation defending the constitutionality of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act; as counsel in election litigation to the Puerto Rico Electoral Commission; as counsel to the government of Puerto Rico; as a federal court-appointed independent expert on voting rights litigation; and as counsel in successful Supreme Court litigation that challenged the way the United States Tax Court operated. He was also a senior legal advisor to the 2008 and 2012 campaigns of President Obama.
Pildes received his A.B. in physical chemistry summa cum laude from Princeton, and his J.D. magna cum laude from Harvard, where he served as Supreme Court Note Editor on the Harvard Law Review. He clerked for Judge Abner J. Mikva of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and for Justice Thurgood Marshall of the U.S. Supreme Court. After practicing law in Boston, he began his academic career at the University of Michigan Law School, before joining the NYU School of Law in 2001.
Executive Vice President, The Federalist Society
Dean Reuter is Executive Vice President at the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies. He has served in two federal government agency Offices of the Inspector General, as Counsel to the Inspector General and Deputy Inspector General, responsible for policing the use of federal funds granted and contracted through those agencies. As such, he helped conduct and oversee criminal investigations across the country. He is the principal author of the non-fiction book, The Hidden Nazi: The Untold Story of America's Deal with the Devil, and editor of Liberty’s Nemesis: The Unchecked Expansion of the State and Confronting Terror: 9/11 and the Future of American National Security. He was appointed by the President and served as Vice-Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Corporation for National and Community Service, and recently served as an appointee on the U.S. Commission on Presidential Scholars. He is a graduate of Hood College (BA with Honors) and the University of Maryland School of Law.
Lecturer in Law, University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School
Matthew Lee Wiener served until recently as the twice-presidentially appointed Acting Chair and Vice Chair of the Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS), as well as a member of its Council and its Executive Director. (In 2016, President Obama nominated him to be ACUS’s Chairman.)
He is now a special counsel to ACUS, co-chair of its Council on Federal Administrative Adjudication, and a lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School, where he teaches Administrative Law.
Before affiliating with ACUS, Mr. Wiener was general counsel to U.S. Senator Arlen Specter (Senate Committee on the Judiciary), counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary, a partner at Dechert LLP, and special counsel to Cuneo Gilbert & LaDuca.
He has taught courses on administrative law, administrative practice, regulation remedies, statutory interpretation, and separation of powers at the law schools of the University of Pennsylvania, Rutgers University, and George Mason University.
Mr. Wiener is an elected member of the American Law Institute, a fellow of the American Bar Foundation, and co-chair of the Adjudication Committee of the American Bar Association’s Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice.
Mr. Wiener holds a J.D. from Stanford Law School, where he was Articles Editor of the Stanford Law Review, and an A.B. from William and Mary.
Senior Advisor, Covington & Burling LLP
Congressman Howard Berman advises clients on a wide range of foreign affairs and domestic policy matters, including defense and national security issues, investment, intellectual property, entertainment, technology and immigration. He also serves on the board of trustees of the Asia Foundation, the board of the National Democratic Institute, the Immigration Task Force of the Bipartisan Policy Center, and the Board of Directors of the Pacific Council on International Policy.
First elected to Congress in 1982, Congressman Berman became known as one of Capitol Hill’s preeminent deal-makers. National Journal described him as “one of the most creative members of the House and one of the most clear-sighted operators in American politics.”
As the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Congressman Berman was one of Congress’ leading experts on international relations. On the Committee, he repeatedly helped build bipartisan consensus within the House, and between Congress and the Executive Branch. A long-time senior member on the House Judiciary Committee, Congressman Berman chaired the Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet and Intellectual Property, where he successfully led efforts resulting in major changes to intellectual property laws affecting the entertainment and high-tech industries.
Congressman Berman, a senior advisor not practicing law until admitted in the District of Columbia, will provide policy and legislative advice to clients and members of the firm.
Harry F. Byrd Professor of Politics, University of Virginia
James W. Ceaser is Harry F. Byrd Professor of Politics at the University of Virginia, where he has taught since 1976, and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. He has written several books on American politics and political thought, including Presidential Selection, Liberal Democracy and Political Science, Reconstructing America, Nature and History in American Political Development, and Designing a Polity. Professor Ceaser has served as the Academic Chairman of the Jack Miller Center since its inception in 2004. He is a regular contributor to the popular press and comments frequently on American politics for La Voix d’Amérique, the French-African outlet for the Voice of America.
U.S. Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit
Frank H. Easterbrook is a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and a Senior Lecturer at the Law School of the University of Chicago. He was Chief Judge from 2006–2013. Before joining the court in 1985, he was the Lee andBrena Freeman Professor of Law at the University of Chicago, where he taught and wrote in antitrust, securities, corporate law, jurisprudence, and criminal procedure. He has published The Economic Structure of Corporate Law (with Daniel R. Fischel) and about 100 scholarly articles. He served as Co-Editor of the Journal of Law and Economics from 1982 to 1991 and as a member of the Judicial Conference’s Standing Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure from 1991 to 1997. Before joining the faculty of the Law School in 1979, Judge Easterbrook was Deputy Solicitor General of the United States. He holds degrees from Swarthmore College (B.A. with high honors, 1970) and the University of Chicago (J.D. cum laude, 1973), and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Law Institute, the Mont Pelerin Society, Phi Beta Kappa, and the Order of the Coif.
Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School
Professor of Law Michael S. Greve joined the faculty of the Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University in fall 2012 after having served as John G. Searle Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he specialized in constitutional law, courts, and business regulation and served as chairman of the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Prior to joining AEI, Greve was founder and co-director of the Center for Individual Rights, a public interest law firm specializing in constitutional litigation.
Greve has served previously as an adjunct professor at a number of universities, including Cornell and Johns Hopkins Universities, and has been a visiting professor at Boston College since 2004. He was awarded a PhD and an MA in government by Cornell University. Greve also earned a Diploma from the University of Hamburg in Germany.
A prolific writer, Greve is the author of nine books and a multitude of articles appearing in scholarly publications, as well as numerous editorials, short articles, and book reviews. He is a frequent speaker for professional and scholarly organizations and has made many appearances on radio and television.
In addition Greve has provided congressional and state legislative testimony, has lobbied and consulted in federal agency proceedings, and has provided litigation services and management in over 30 cases, including matters before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Professor of Politics and Public Affairs, Princeton University
Frances E. Lee is jointly appointed in the Department of Politics and the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs where she is Professor of Politics and Public Affairs.
Lee has broad interests in American politics, with a special focus on congressional politics, national policymaking, party politics, and representation. She is author of Insecure Majorities: Congress and the Perpetual Campaign (2016) and Beyond Ideology: Politics, Principles, and Partisanship in the U.S. Senate (2009). She is also coauthor of Sizing Up The Senate: The Unequal Consequences of Equal Representation (1999) and a textbook, Congress and Its Members (Sage / CQ Press). Her research has appeared in the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Perspectives on Politics, Journal of Politics, Legislative Studies Quarterly, and other outlets.
Lee is editor of the Cambridge Elements Series in American Politics and a series editor for the Chicago Studies in American Politics. She was co-editor of Legislative Studies Quarterly from 2014 to 2019.
Lee earned her B.A. from the University of Southern Mississippi and her Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Sudler Family Professor of Constitutional Law, New York University School of Law
Richard H. Pildes is one of the nation’s leading scholars of constitutional law and a specialist in legal issues affecting democracy. He is a Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Law Institute, and has received recognition as a Guggenheim Fellow and a Carnegie Scholar. His acclaimed casebook, The Law of Democracy: Legal Structure of the Political Process (now in its fourth edition), helped create an entirely new field of study in the law schools. The Law of Democracy systematically explores legal and policy issues concerning the structure of democratic elections and institutions, such as the role of money in politics, the design of election districts, the regulation of political parties, the design of voting systems, the representation of minority interests in democratic institutions, and similar issues. He has written extensively on the rise of political polarization in the United States, the Voting Rights Act, the dysfunction of America’s political processes, the role of the Supreme Court in overseeing American democracy, the powers of the American President and Congress, and he has criticized excessively “romantic” understandings of democracy. In addition to his scholarship on these issues, he has written on national-security law, the design of the regulatory state, and American constitutional history and theory.
Respect for his expertise in these areas is reflected in frequent citations of his work in U.S. Supreme Court opinions, the translation of his work into many languages, and his frequent public lectures and appearances around the world, including his nomination with the NBC News Team for an Emmy Award for coverage of the 2000 Presidential election litigation.
His work has been translated and published in Chinese, French, Spanish, and Portuguese. In addition to his scholarship, Professor Pildes plays an active role litigating in these areas. He has won two cases before the United States Supreme Court, including a 2015 victory in Alabama Democratic Conference v. Alabama, a case involving race and redistricting. He served as counsel to a group of former chairmen of the Securities and Exchange Commission in litigation defending the constitutionality of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act; as counsel in election litigation to the Puerto Rico Electoral Commission; as counsel to the government of Puerto Rico; as a federal court-appointed independent expert on voting rights litigation; and as counsel in successful Supreme Court litigation that challenged the way the United States Tax Court operated. He was also a senior legal advisor to the 2008 and 2012 campaigns of President Obama.
Pildes received his A.B. in physical chemistry summa cum laude from Princeton, and his J.D. magna cum laude from Harvard, where he served as Supreme Court Note Editor on the Harvard Law Review. He clerked for Judge Abner J. Mikva of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and for Justice Thurgood Marshall of the U.S. Supreme Court. After practicing law in Boston, he began his academic career at the University of Michigan Law School, before joining the NYU School of Law in 2001.
Executive Vice President, The Federalist Society
Dean Reuter is Executive Vice President at the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies. He has served in two federal government agency Offices of the Inspector General, as Counsel to the Inspector General and Deputy Inspector General, responsible for policing the use of federal funds granted and contracted through those agencies. As such, he helped conduct and oversee criminal investigations across the country. He is the principal author of the non-fiction book, The Hidden Nazi: The Untold Story of America's Deal with the Devil, and editor of Liberty’s Nemesis: The Unchecked Expansion of the State and Confronting Terror: 9/11 and the Future of American National Security. He was appointed by the President and served as Vice-Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Corporation for National and Community Service, and recently served as an appointee on the U.S. Commission on Presidential Scholars. He is a graduate of Hood College (BA with Honors) and the University of Maryland School of Law.
Lecturer in Law, University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School
Matthew Lee Wiener served until recently as the twice-presidentially appointed Acting Chair and Vice Chair of the Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS), as well as a member of its Council and its Executive Director. (In 2016, President Obama nominated him to be ACUS’s Chairman.)
He is now a special counsel to ACUS, co-chair of its Council on Federal Administrative Adjudication, and a lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School, where he teaches Administrative Law.
Before affiliating with ACUS, Mr. Wiener was general counsel to U.S. Senator Arlen Specter (Senate Committee on the Judiciary), counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary, a partner at Dechert LLP, and special counsel to Cuneo Gilbert & LaDuca.
He has taught courses on administrative law, administrative practice, regulation remedies, statutory interpretation, and separation of powers at the law schools of the University of Pennsylvania, Rutgers University, and George Mason University.
Mr. Wiener is an elected member of the American Law Institute, a fellow of the American Bar Foundation, and co-chair of the Adjudication Committee of the American Bar Association’s Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice.
Mr. Wiener holds a J.D. from Stanford Law School, where he was Articles Editor of the Stanford Law Review, and an A.B. from William and Mary.
Elihu Root Professor of Law, New York University School of Law
Stephen Gillers has been a professor of law at New York University School of Law since 1978 and Vice Dean from 1999-2004. He holds the Elihu Root chair. He does most of his research and writing on the regulation of the legal profession. His courses include Regulation of Lawyers, Evidence, and Law and Literature (with University Professor Catharine Stimpson, former dean of the graduate school).
Professor Gillers has written widely on legal and judicial ethics in law reviews and in the legal and popular press. He has taught legal ethics as a visitor at other law schools and has spoken on lawyer regulatory issues at hundreds of events in the U.S. and in Europe, Asia, and South America - often for legal ethics CLE credit - including at federal and state judicial conferences, law firms, corporate general counsel's offices, government law offices, ABA meetings, state and city bar meetings nationwide, in oral and written submissions to Congress, and in law school lectureships. For many years, four or five times each year, he has lectured on legal ethics at the New York City Bar Association CLEs.
Professor Gillers is the author of Regulation of Lawyers: Problems of Law and Ethics, a widely used law school casebook first published by Little, Brown (now Aspen) in 1985 with a 10th edition in 2015. With Roy Simon (and Andrew Perlman as of 2008 and Dana Remus as of 2016), he has edited Regulation of Lawyers: Statutes and Standards, published annually by Little, Brown, then Aspen, since 1989. He is also the author of Regulation of the Legal Profession (Aspen 2009)(the "Essentials" series).
From 2000-2002, Professor Gillers was a member of the ABA's Multijurisdictional Practice Commission which proposed rule changes (all of them accepted) to recognize the cross-border nature of legal practice. In 2009, Professor Gillers was selected to be a member of the ABA 20/20 Commission, 2010-2013, which studied the effects of technology and globalization on the regulation of lawyers leading to amendments to the Model Rules and recommended rule changes all of which were accepted. He was chair of the Policy Implementation Committee of the ABA's Center for Professional Responsibility (2004-2008) and was a member from 2002-2010. He was a member of the International Issues Committee of the ABA Section on Legal Education (2008-2009) and
In 2011, he received the Michael Franck Award from the ABA’s Center for Professional Responsibility. The Award is given annually for “significant contributions to the work of the organized bar….noteworthy scholarly contributions made in academic settings, [and] creative judicial or legislative initiatives undertaken to advance the professionalism of lawyers…are also given consideration.” The American Bar Foundation gave him the Outstanding Scholar Award in 2015.
Following a clerkship with Chief Judge Gus J. Solomon in Federal District Court in Portland, Oregon, Professor Gillers practiced law for nine years in various settings in New York City before joining the NYU Law School faculty. He is often quoted on issues of legal ethics in the legal and popular media.
Professor Gillers' latest scholarship is A Rule to Forbid Bias and Harassment in Law Practice: A Guide for State Courts Considering Model Rule 8.4(g), 30 Geo. J. Legal Ethics ____ (2017); Guns, Fruits, Drugs, and Documents: A Criminal Defense Lawyer's Responsibility for Real Evidence, 63 Stan. L. Rev. 813 (2011); A Profession, If You Can Keep It: How Information Technology and Fading Borders Are Reshaping the Law Marketplace and What We Should Do About It, 63 Hastings L. J. 953 (2012); How To Make Rules for Lawyers: The Professional Responsibility of the Legal Profession, 40 Pepperdine L. Rev. 365 (2013)(Symposium issue on The Lawyer of the Future); and Lowering the Bar: How Lawyer Discipline in New York Fails to Protect the Public, 17 J. Legis. & Public Policy 485 (2014).
Author of "The Nixon Conspiracy" (2021) and "The Real Watergate Scandal" (2015)
Geoff Shepard worked on President Nixon’s White House staff for five years, including serving as deputy counsel on his Watergate defense team. He testified as a government chain-of-custody witness in the Plumbers Trial and was subpoenaed for the same purpose in the Cover-up Trial. He possesses a “clearance letter” from the special prosecutor, stating he was never the object of an investigation by that office. Geoff has spent much of the past fifteen year researching and writing about the Watergate scandal. He has published three books, authored dozens of essays and made over fifty presentations challenging Watergate’s conventional narrative. Much of his work is based on recently uncovered internal files of the Watergate Special Prosecution Force, including their infamous “Road Map” that was the basis for the grand jury naming Nixon a cover-up co-conspirator and for the House Judiciary Committee urging his impeachment.
Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law and Director, Classical Liberal Institute, New York University School of Law; Director, Classical Liberal Institute, Civitas Institute University of Texas at Austin
Richard A. Epstein is the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law, at New York University, a senior research fellow at the Civitas Institute at the University of Texas Austin, and a senior Lecturer, the University of Chicago. He received an LL.D., h.c . from the University of Ghent, 2003 , and an LLD h.c . from the University of Siegen in 2018 and the Bradley Prize in 2011. He has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 1985. He has edited both the Journal of Legal Studies (1981-1991) and the Journal of Law and Economics (1991-2001). He is also a founder and director of the Classical Liberal Institute at NYU Law School. His most recent book is The Classical Liberal Constitution: The Uncertain Quest for Limited Government (2014). His other books include Takings: Private Property and the Power of Eminent Domain ( 1985); Bargaining with the State (1993); Simple Rules for a Complex World (1995); Principles for a Free Society: Reconciling Individual Liberty and the Common Good (1998); Skepticism and Freedom: A Modern Theory of Classical Liberalism (2003); Design for Liberty: Private Property, Public Administration and the Rule of Law (2011), and most recently, The Myth of Birthright citizenship—and Beyond (2026). He has taught courses in , administrative law, antitrust, constitutional, contracts, environmental law, land use planning; real property, torts and water law. He has written and spoken extensively on a wide range of topics, and is writes a regular column for Defining Ideas.
Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law and Director, Classical Liberal Institute, New York University School of Law; Director, Classical Liberal Institute, Civitas Institute University of Texas at Austin
Richard A. Epstein is the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law, at New York University, a senior research fellow at the Civitas Institute at the University of Texas Austin, and a senior Lecturer, the University of Chicago. He received an LL.D., h.c . from the University of Ghent, 2003 , and an LLD h.c . from the University of Siegen in 2018 and the Bradley Prize in 2011. He has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 1985. He has edited both the Journal of Legal Studies (1981-1991) and the Journal of Law and Economics (1991-2001). He is also a founder and director of the Classical Liberal Institute at NYU Law School. His most recent book is The Classical Liberal Constitution: The Uncertain Quest for Limited Government (2014). His other books include Takings: Private Property and the Power of Eminent Domain ( 1985); Bargaining with the State (1993); Simple Rules for a Complex World (1995); Principles for a Free Society: Reconciling Individual Liberty and the Common Good (1998); Skepticism and Freedom: A Modern Theory of Classical Liberalism (2003); Design for Liberty: Private Property, Public Administration and the Rule of Law (2011), and most recently, The Myth of Birthright citizenship—and Beyond (2026). He has taught courses in , administrative law, antitrust, constitutional, contracts, environmental law, land use planning; real property, torts and water law. He has written and spoken extensively on a wide range of topics, and is writes a regular column for Defining Ideas.
Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law and Director, Classical Liberal Institute, New York University School of Law; Director, Classical Liberal Institute, Civitas Institute University of Texas at Austin
Richard A. Epstein is the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law, at New York University, a senior research fellow at the Civitas Institute at the University of Texas Austin, and a senior Lecturer, the University of Chicago. He received an LL.D., h.c . from the University of Ghent, 2003 , and an LLD h.c . from the University of Siegen in 2018 and the Bradley Prize in 2011. He has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 1985. He has edited both the Journal of Legal Studies (1981-1991) and the Journal of Law and Economics (1991-2001). He is also a founder and director of the Classical Liberal Institute at NYU Law School. His most recent book is The Classical Liberal Constitution: The Uncertain Quest for Limited Government (2014). His other books include Takings: Private Property and the Power of Eminent Domain ( 1985); Bargaining with the State (1993); Simple Rules for a Complex World (1995); Principles for a Free Society: Reconciling Individual Liberty and the Common Good (1998); Skepticism and Freedom: A Modern Theory of Classical Liberalism (2003); Design for Liberty: Private Property, Public Administration and the Rule of Law (2011), and most recently, The Myth of Birthright citizenship—and Beyond (2026). He has taught courses in , administrative law, antitrust, constitutional, contracts, environmental law, land use planning; real property, torts and water law. He has written and spoken extensively on a wide range of topics, and is writes a regular column for Defining Ideas.
Senior Advisor, Covington & Burling LLP
Congressman Howard Berman advises clients on a wide range of foreign affairs and domestic policy matters, including defense and national security issues, investment, intellectual property, entertainment, technology and immigration. He also serves on the board of trustees of the Asia Foundation, the board of the National Democratic Institute, the Immigration Task Force of the Bipartisan Policy Center, and the Board of Directors of the Pacific Council on International Policy.
First elected to Congress in 1982, Congressman Berman became known as one of Capitol Hill’s preeminent deal-makers. National Journal described him as “one of the most creative members of the House and one of the most clear-sighted operators in American politics.”
As the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Congressman Berman was one of Congress’ leading experts on international relations. On the Committee, he repeatedly helped build bipartisan consensus within the House, and between Congress and the Executive Branch. A long-time senior member on the House Judiciary Committee, Congressman Berman chaired the Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet and Intellectual Property, where he successfully led efforts resulting in major changes to intellectual property laws affecting the entertainment and high-tech industries.
Congressman Berman, a senior advisor not practicing law until admitted in the District of Columbia, will provide policy and legislative advice to clients and members of the firm.
Harry F. Byrd Professor of Politics, University of Virginia
James W. Ceaser is Harry F. Byrd Professor of Politics at the University of Virginia, where he has taught since 1976, and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. He has written several books on American politics and political thought, including Presidential Selection, Liberal Democracy and Political Science, Reconstructing America, Nature and History in American Political Development, and Designing a Polity. Professor Ceaser has served as the Academic Chairman of the Jack Miller Center since its inception in 2004. He is a regular contributor to the popular press and comments frequently on American politics for La Voix d’Amérique, the French-African outlet for the Voice of America.
U.S. Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit
Frank H. Easterbrook is a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and a Senior Lecturer at the Law School of the University of Chicago. He was Chief Judge from 2006–2013. Before joining the court in 1985, he was the Lee andBrena Freeman Professor of Law at the University of Chicago, where he taught and wrote in antitrust, securities, corporate law, jurisprudence, and criminal procedure. He has published The Economic Structure of Corporate Law (with Daniel R. Fischel) and about 100 scholarly articles. He served as Co-Editor of the Journal of Law and Economics from 1982 to 1991 and as a member of the Judicial Conference’s Standing Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure from 1991 to 1997. Before joining the faculty of the Law School in 1979, Judge Easterbrook was Deputy Solicitor General of the United States. He holds degrees from Swarthmore College (B.A. with high honors, 1970) and the University of Chicago (J.D. cum laude, 1973), and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Law Institute, the Mont Pelerin Society, Phi Beta Kappa, and the Order of the Coif.
Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School
Professor of Law Michael S. Greve joined the faculty of the Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University in fall 2012 after having served as John G. Searle Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he specialized in constitutional law, courts, and business regulation and served as chairman of the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Prior to joining AEI, Greve was founder and co-director of the Center for Individual Rights, a public interest law firm specializing in constitutional litigation.
Greve has served previously as an adjunct professor at a number of universities, including Cornell and Johns Hopkins Universities, and has been a visiting professor at Boston College since 2004. He was awarded a PhD and an MA in government by Cornell University. Greve also earned a Diploma from the University of Hamburg in Germany.
A prolific writer, Greve is the author of nine books and a multitude of articles appearing in scholarly publications, as well as numerous editorials, short articles, and book reviews. He is a frequent speaker for professional and scholarly organizations and has made many appearances on radio and television.
In addition Greve has provided congressional and state legislative testimony, has lobbied and consulted in federal agency proceedings, and has provided litigation services and management in over 30 cases, including matters before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Professor of Politics and Public Affairs, Princeton University
Frances E. Lee is jointly appointed in the Department of Politics and the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs where she is Professor of Politics and Public Affairs.
Lee has broad interests in American politics, with a special focus on congressional politics, national policymaking, party politics, and representation. She is author of Insecure Majorities: Congress and the Perpetual Campaign (2016) and Beyond Ideology: Politics, Principles, and Partisanship in the U.S. Senate (2009). She is also coauthor of Sizing Up The Senate: The Unequal Consequences of Equal Representation (1999) and a textbook, Congress and Its Members (Sage / CQ Press). Her research has appeared in the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Perspectives on Politics, Journal of Politics, Legislative Studies Quarterly, and other outlets.
Lee is editor of the Cambridge Elements Series in American Politics and a series editor for the Chicago Studies in American Politics. She was co-editor of Legislative Studies Quarterly from 2014 to 2019.
Lee earned her B.A. from the University of Southern Mississippi and her Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Sudler Family Professor of Constitutional Law, New York University School of Law
Richard H. Pildes is one of the nation’s leading scholars of constitutional law and a specialist in legal issues affecting democracy. He is a Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Law Institute, and has received recognition as a Guggenheim Fellow and a Carnegie Scholar. His acclaimed casebook, The Law of Democracy: Legal Structure of the Political Process (now in its fourth edition), helped create an entirely new field of study in the law schools. The Law of Democracy systematically explores legal and policy issues concerning the structure of democratic elections and institutions, such as the role of money in politics, the design of election districts, the regulation of political parties, the design of voting systems, the representation of minority interests in democratic institutions, and similar issues. He has written extensively on the rise of political polarization in the United States, the Voting Rights Act, the dysfunction of America’s political processes, the role of the Supreme Court in overseeing American democracy, the powers of the American President and Congress, and he has criticized excessively “romantic” understandings of democracy. In addition to his scholarship on these issues, he has written on national-security law, the design of the regulatory state, and American constitutional history and theory.
Respect for his expertise in these areas is reflected in frequent citations of his work in U.S. Supreme Court opinions, the translation of his work into many languages, and his frequent public lectures and appearances around the world, including his nomination with the NBC News Team for an Emmy Award for coverage of the 2000 Presidential election litigation.
His work has been translated and published in Chinese, French, Spanish, and Portuguese. In addition to his scholarship, Professor Pildes plays an active role litigating in these areas. He has won two cases before the United States Supreme Court, including a 2015 victory in Alabama Democratic Conference v. Alabama, a case involving race and redistricting. He served as counsel to a group of former chairmen of the Securities and Exchange Commission in litigation defending the constitutionality of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act; as counsel in election litigation to the Puerto Rico Electoral Commission; as counsel to the government of Puerto Rico; as a federal court-appointed independent expert on voting rights litigation; and as counsel in successful Supreme Court litigation that challenged the way the United States Tax Court operated. He was also a senior legal advisor to the 2008 and 2012 campaigns of President Obama.
Pildes received his A.B. in physical chemistry summa cum laude from Princeton, and his J.D. magna cum laude from Harvard, where he served as Supreme Court Note Editor on the Harvard Law Review. He clerked for Judge Abner J. Mikva of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and for Justice Thurgood Marshall of the U.S. Supreme Court. After practicing law in Boston, he began his academic career at the University of Michigan Law School, before joining the NYU School of Law in 2001.
Executive Vice President, The Federalist Society
Dean Reuter is Executive Vice President at the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies. He has served in two federal government agency Offices of the Inspector General, as Counsel to the Inspector General and Deputy Inspector General, responsible for policing the use of federal funds granted and contracted through those agencies. As such, he helped conduct and oversee criminal investigations across the country. He is the principal author of the non-fiction book, The Hidden Nazi: The Untold Story of America's Deal with the Devil, and editor of Liberty’s Nemesis: The Unchecked Expansion of the State and Confronting Terror: 9/11 and the Future of American National Security. He was appointed by the President and served as Vice-Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Corporation for National and Community Service, and recently served as an appointee on the U.S. Commission on Presidential Scholars. He is a graduate of Hood College (BA with Honors) and the University of Maryland School of Law.
Lecturer in Law, University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School
Matthew Lee Wiener served until recently as the twice-presidentially appointed Acting Chair and Vice Chair of the Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS), as well as a member of its Council and its Executive Director. (In 2016, President Obama nominated him to be ACUS’s Chairman.)
He is now a special counsel to ACUS, co-chair of its Council on Federal Administrative Adjudication, and a lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School, where he teaches Administrative Law.
Before affiliating with ACUS, Mr. Wiener was general counsel to U.S. Senator Arlen Specter (Senate Committee on the Judiciary), counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary, a partner at Dechert LLP, and special counsel to Cuneo Gilbert & LaDuca.
He has taught courses on administrative law, administrative practice, regulation remedies, statutory interpretation, and separation of powers at the law schools of the University of Pennsylvania, Rutgers University, and George Mason University.
Mr. Wiener is an elected member of the American Law Institute, a fellow of the American Bar Foundation, and co-chair of the Adjudication Committee of the American Bar Association’s Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice.
Mr. Wiener holds a J.D. from Stanford Law School, where he was Articles Editor of the Stanford Law Review, and an A.B. from William and Mary.
Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association - Post-Decision SCOTUScast
Richard A. Epstein
On March 29, 2016, the Supreme Court decided Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association. A group...
The Criminalization of Politics: The Legacy of Watergate
Supreme Court Splits 4-4 on Major Union Case -- Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association - Podcast
Richard A. Epstein
On Tuesday, March 29, the U.S. Supreme Court announced a 4-4 decision in Friedrichs v....
Regulation & Innovation
The Case Against Employment Discrimination Laws
Richard Epstein on The Classical Liberal Constitution
Palo Alto, CaliforniaFriedrichs v. California Teachers Association - Post-Argument SCOTUScast
Richard A. Epstein
On January 11, 2016, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in Friedrichs v. California Teachers...
Showcase Panel III: ROUNDTABLE: Can Changes in Incentives Significantly Address Congressional Dysfunction?
Howard L. Berman, James W. Ceaser, Frank H. Easterbrook, Michael S. Greve, Frances E. Lee, Richard H. Pildes, Dean Reuter, Matthew Lee Wiener
Over the years, and especially recently, it appears as though members of Congress primarily need...
Showcase Panel III: ROUNDTABLE: Can Changes in Incentives Significantly Address Congressional Dysfunction?
Howard L. Berman, James W. Ceaser, Frank H. Easterbrook, Michael S. Greve, Frances E. Lee, Richard H. Pildes, Dean Reuter, Matthew Lee Wiener
Over the years, and especially recently, it appears as though members of Congress primarily need...
Showcase Panel III: ROUNDTABLE: Can Changes in Incentives Significantly Address Congressional Dysfunction?
2015 National Lawyers Convention
Washington, DC