Senior Attorney, Institute for Justice
Paul Avelar is the Managing Attorney of the Institute for Justice Arizona Office. He joined the Institute in March 2010 and litigates free speech, property rights, economic liberty, school choice and other constitutional cases in federal and state courts.
As the head of IJ’s national Braiding Freedom Initiative, Paul represents natural hair braiders across the country to protect their right to earn an honest living. The Initiative uses lawsuits, activism and research to remove laws that require potential braiders to undergo hundreds of costly training hours just to braid hair. Since IJ launched the Braiding Freedom Initiative in 2014, 12 additional states have freed braiders from unnecessary licensing burdens. Paul drafted the model Natural Hair Braiding Protection Act, which has been adopted in Arkansas, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Texas and South Dakota. He is currently representing braiders in Missouri, where state laws infringe upon their right to earn an honest living.
In his free speech work, Paul has challenged numerous laws that trample First Amendment rights. In Arizona Freedom Club PAC v. Bennett, he represented candidates and independent groups in a successful U.S. Supreme Court challenge to the “matching funds” provision of Arizona’s publicly financed elections system. He represented grassroots groups and individuals in Arizona, Mississippi and Washington, where state laws burdened their political speech by requiring them to register with the government, to navigate complex regulations and to face fines and possible criminal penalties merely because they talked about political issues. In Washington, Paul protected a lawyer’s right to defend, pro-bono, the First Amendment rights of political speakers. Through litigation and legislation, Paul leads the fight against abusive civil forfeiture laws in Arizona and elsewhere.
Paul also co-authored the most comprehensive published study of economic liberty protections in the Arizona Constitution. The Chief Justice of the Arizona Supreme Court appointed Paul to the Task Force on the Review of the Role and Governance Structure of the State Bar of Arizona, where he dissented from the majority report and called on leaders to substantially reform the Bar and state regulation of the practice of law. He often speaks at law schools across the country about constitutional issues and his work at IJ.
Prior to joining IJ-AZ, Paul worked as an attorney in Philadelphia. He clerked for Judge Roger Miner on the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Justice Andrew Hurwitz on the Arizona Supreme Court, and Judge Daniel Barker on the Arizona Court of Appeals.
Paul graduated manga cum laude from the Arizona State University College of Law in 2004 and was elected to the Order of the Coif. He received his undergraduate degree from Princeton University in 2000.
Policy Advisor, Heartland Institute
Jeff Stier is a policy advisor to the Heartland Institute.
He is widely quoted in the media and has written health policy op-eds for The Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, The New York Post, The Washington Examiner, and Foxnews.com. The New York Times, the Associated Press, Reuters, CNN, Fox News, CNBC, MSNBC, NPR and other major outlets have interviewed and quoted Stier on a wide range of topics.
Stier has testified at state and local legislatures throughout the U.S., at FDA scientific hearings and at the Office of Management and Budget. He has also been a voice for freedom at hearings at the United Nations and in Israel’s Knesset. During more than two decades of advancing public health and defending liberty, Stier has been a speaker at CPAC, policy retreats for elected officials and medical and legal conferences.
Stier advises leading investment firms on regulatory and legal risk.
Earlier, Mr. Stier crafted health and environmental policy in the Office of the Mayor during the Giuliani administration in New York City.
Mr. Stier serves on the boards of the non-profit Jewish International Connections and Park City Jewish Collective. While earning his law degree at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Mr. Stier served two terms as Editor-In-Chief of the Cardozo Law Forum. Jeff and his canine, BB, served as a Certified Crisis Response Strike Team with NATIONAL Crisis Response Canines, supporting survivors and first-responders.
Managing Director, Berkeley Research Group
Dan Troy is the Managing Director at Berkeley Research Group.
Prior to that, he was the Chief Business Officer, Chief Administrative Officer, and General Counsel of Valo in Boston, Massachusetts.
Prior to joining Valo, he served as the Senior Vice President & General Counsel of GlaxoSmithKline and was a member of its Corporate Executive Team. Dan joined GSK in September 2008 and was responsible for leading the company’s legal department in protecting GSK’s intellectual property; managing litigation; supporting business development transactions; and business compliance and risk management. In 2012, Dan led the integration team following the acquisition of Human Genome Sciences, which later resulted in the launch of Benlysta, the first lupus treatment in 50 years. Dan led GSK’s Contributions Committee in the US and also led the Government Affairs, Public Policy and Patient Advocacy team from 2012 until 2014.
Prior to joining GSK, he was a Partner at the Washington law firm Sidley Austin LLP, where he principally represented pharmaceutical companies and trade associations on matters related to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and government regulations. Dan was formerly Chief Counsel for the FDA, where he served as a primary liaison to the White House and the US Department of Health and Human Services.
Dan has chaired the American Bar Association's Section of Administrative Law and is a member of the American Law Institute. He currently chairs the US Chamber of Commerce Litigation Center. He has also chaired the Civil Justice Reform Group, as well as the PhRMA Law Section Executive Committee. He was the 2012 CPR Corporate Leadership Award recipient and, in 2013, was named a 'Legend in the Law' at the Burton Awards.
Dan holds a B.S. in Industrial and Labor Relations from Cornell University and a J.D. from Columbia University School of Law, where he was a member of the Law Review and a Kent Scholar. After graduation from law school, he was a law clerk for the US Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
Senior Litigation Counsel, New Civil Liberties Alliance
Margaret Harker litigates for a public interest law firm. She has significant experience in government investigations and litigation, having served in the three branches of our government. Previously, she led complex Congressional investigations for the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform—including the only government-wide investigation into federal agencies’ strategy (or lack thereof) to counter Chinese Communist Party political warfare against America.
Prior to her time on Capitol Hill, Harker served in the U.S. Department of Justice. She was an Assistant United States Attorney in both the Eastern District of Tennessee and the Eastern District of Virginia. She was a Trial Attorney in the National Security Division, Counterintelligence and Export Control Section, with an emphasis on the administration and enforcement of the Foreign Agents Registration Act.
Harker clerked for the Honorable Henry E. Hudson, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia and the Honorable Randolph A. Beales, Court of Appeals of Virginia.
Earlier in her career, she studied in Beijing, China, and worked at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s China Center.
Writer and Editor, Tablet Magazine
Park MacDougald is Editor and Senior Writer at The Scroll, Tablet’s daily afternoon newsletter, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute, and a former recipient of the Novak Fellowship from The Fund for American Studies. His writing has appeared in Tablet, City Journal, New York Magazine, The Washington Examiner, and UnHerd.
Fellow, National Security Institute, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
Vince Vitkowsky chaired the Executive Committee of the Federalist Society’s International and National Security Law and Policy Practice Group for over a decade. He is also a Fellow at the National Security Institute of George Mason University Law School. Vince spent 45 years in private practice, primarily in AmLaw 100/200 firms and their spin-offs. His practice included domestic and international commercial arbitration and litigation, as well as cyber risks and liabilities. Vince's current focus is on national security policy, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, and counterterrorism. He has often written and spoken on national security and other public policy issues. Among other affiliations, Vince has been an Adjunct Fellow at the Center for Law and Counterterrorism of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a member of the Executive Committee of the American Branch of the International Law Association, and Co-Chair of the Committee on Interventions and Trial Observations of the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute. He received his B.A. from Northwestern University and his J.D. from Cornell Law School.
Senior Attorney, Institute for Justice
Paul Avelar is the Managing Attorney of the Institute for Justice Arizona Office. He joined the Institute in March 2010 and litigates free speech, property rights, economic liberty, school choice and other constitutional cases in federal and state courts.
As the head of IJ’s national Braiding Freedom Initiative, Paul represents natural hair braiders across the country to protect their right to earn an honest living. The Initiative uses lawsuits, activism and research to remove laws that require potential braiders to undergo hundreds of costly training hours just to braid hair. Since IJ launched the Braiding Freedom Initiative in 2014, 12 additional states have freed braiders from unnecessary licensing burdens. Paul drafted the model Natural Hair Braiding Protection Act, which has been adopted in Arkansas, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Texas and South Dakota. He is currently representing braiders in Missouri, where state laws infringe upon their right to earn an honest living.
In his free speech work, Paul has challenged numerous laws that trample First Amendment rights. In Arizona Freedom Club PAC v. Bennett, he represented candidates and independent groups in a successful U.S. Supreme Court challenge to the “matching funds” provision of Arizona’s publicly financed elections system. He represented grassroots groups and individuals in Arizona, Mississippi and Washington, where state laws burdened their political speech by requiring them to register with the government, to navigate complex regulations and to face fines and possible criminal penalties merely because they talked about political issues. In Washington, Paul protected a lawyer’s right to defend, pro-bono, the First Amendment rights of political speakers. Through litigation and legislation, Paul leads the fight against abusive civil forfeiture laws in Arizona and elsewhere.
Paul also co-authored the most comprehensive published study of economic liberty protections in the Arizona Constitution. The Chief Justice of the Arizona Supreme Court appointed Paul to the Task Force on the Review of the Role and Governance Structure of the State Bar of Arizona, where he dissented from the majority report and called on leaders to substantially reform the Bar and state regulation of the practice of law. He often speaks at law schools across the country about constitutional issues and his work at IJ.
Prior to joining IJ-AZ, Paul worked as an attorney in Philadelphia. He clerked for Judge Roger Miner on the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Justice Andrew Hurwitz on the Arizona Supreme Court, and Judge Daniel Barker on the Arizona Court of Appeals.
Paul graduated manga cum laude from the Arizona State University College of Law in 2004 and was elected to the Order of the Coif. He received his undergraduate degree from Princeton University in 2000.
Professor of Law and Faculty Director for the Georgetown Center for the Constitution, Georgetown University Law Center
Stephanie Barclay is a Professor of Law at Georgetown Law School, and the Faculty Director of the Georgetown Center for the Constitution. Her research focuses on the role our different democratic institutions play in protecting minority rights, particularly at the intersection of free speech and religious exercise. Barclay‘s work is published or is forthcoming in leading journals such as the Harvard Law Review, the Chicago Law Review, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, and the Yale Law Journal Forum. One of her articles was also selected for the 2020 Stanford/Harvard/Yale Junior Faculty Forum. Her work has been featured in many media outlets, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, USA Today, Bloomberg BNA, The Hill, and Law 360. And her work has also been cited by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Prior to joining Georgetown, Barclay was twice voted Professor of the Year. Barclay has also litigated constitutional cases at both the trial and appellate level, including before the U.S. Supreme Court. Barclay served as a law clerk to Judge N. Randy Smith on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and to Justice Neil M. Gorsuch of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Barclay is a Faculty Affiliate at the Constitutional Law Center at Stanford Law School; and she is a Nootbaar Fellow at the Nootbaar Institute on Law, Religion, and Ethics at Pepperdine University. She currently serves as the Chair for the AALS Law and Religion Section and as a Member of the Executive Committee for the AALS Constitutional Law Section. She graduated summa cum laude from BYU Law School, where she was elected to the Order of the Coif. She is completing a Ph.D. in Law at Oxford University as a Clarendon Scholar and a Tang Scholar.
Vice President for Legal Strategy, Stand Together
Casey Mattox is Vice President for Legal Strategy at Stand Together and Senior Advisor at
Americans for Prosperity. In these roles he advocates for and creates strategies and
partnerships to ensure a constitutionally limited government that protects the civil liberties of all
Americans. Prior to joining Stand Together and AFP Casey’s legal career focused on defending
the First Amendment rights of students, faculty, healthcare workers and religious organizations.
Casey has a J.D. from Boston College School of Law and an undergraduate degree from the
University of Virginia. You can find him on Twitter at @CaseyMattox_ and on LinkedIn at
@Casey-Mattox-ST.
General Counsel, United States Senator Jim Banks
Elle Bernstein serves as General Counsel to United States Senator Jim Banks (R-IN). In her capacity as General Counsel, Elle handles immigration policy, pro-life issues, and judicial nominations. Elle has served as counsel for amicus briefs on abortion and the Constitution, Title IX, and religious liberty. Her article, “Beyond Barbara: Towards A Jurisprudence of Nationhood,” is forthcoming in the Notre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics, and Public Policy.
Elle co-founded the Pro-Life Lawyers Caucus and is an executive committee member of the Federalist Society’s Immigration Practice Group. She has also held fellowships with the Claremont Institute, the James Wilson Institute, and Alliance Defending Freedom.
Previously, Elle was an Associate in the Washington, D.C. office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP and clerked for the Honorable James C. Ho of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
Elle holds a B.A. in Philosophy from the King’s College and a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School.
Senior Editor, National Review
Historian Richard Brookhiser is a senior editor of National Review, a senior fellow at the National Review Institute, and the author of several books, including Founders’ Son, Right Time, Right Place, George Washington on Leadership, What Would the Founders Do?, Gentleman Revolutionary, Rules of Civility, America’s First Dynasty, Alexander Hamilton, American, Founding Father: Rediscovering George Washington, Way of the WASP, and The Outside Story.
Professor of Law & Helen L. Crocker Faculty Scholar, Stanford Law School
Jud Campbell joined the faculty of Stanford Law School in 2023. He previously served as a professor of law at the University of Richmond School of Law and as a visiting professor of law at the University of Chicago Law School and at Harvard Law School. His academic focus is constitutional history and First Amendment law. His publications include articles in the Stanford Law Review, Yale Law Journal, Harvard Law Review, Texas Law Review, Constitutional Commentary, and Law and History Review. After completing his J.D. at Stanford Law School, he clerked for Judge Diane S. Sykes on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, and for Judge José A. Cabranes on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He then served as the Executive Director of the Stanford Constitutional Law Center. He holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and two master’s degrees from the London School of Economics, where he studied as a Marshall Scholar.
Leitner Family Professor of International Law and Co-Founder & Co-Director of the Center on Asian Americans & the Law, Fordham University School of Law
Thomas H. Lee is the Leitner Family Professor of International Law at Fordham, where he teaches civil procedure, constitutional law, federal courts, international law, and the U.S. law of civil-military relations. His meticulously researched and historically-grounded scholarship has argued that the Eleventh Amendment reflected the classical international law principle that only a sovereign state—not its citizens or subjects— has rights against other sovereign states; that the Alien Tort Statute was a national-security peacekeeping statute, not an international human-rights statute, enacted in 1789 when the United States was a militarily weak state; and that the Natural Born Citizen Clause regarding presidential eligibility reflected natural-law principles of membership by descent as well as domestic birthplace. His current research examines the nature of Article III judicial power and the role of the federal courts in American society.
He is Co-Director of the Center on Asian Americans and the Law, Special Counsel at Hughes Hubbard & Reed, and a Member of the American Law Institute. He was Special Counsel to the General Counsel of the U.S. Department of Defense, a Member of the ICSID Panel of Conciliators, Adviser to the Constitutional Court of Korea, and Visiting Professor at Columbia, Harvard, and the University of Virginia law schools, as well as Faculty Director of International and Graduate Studies at Fordham from 2006 to 2019. Before his academic career, Lee clerked for Judge Michael Boudin of the First Circuit and Justice David Souter of the Supreme Court and served as an active-duty U.S. naval cryptology officer, afloat on submarines and surface combatants and ashore in Korea, Japan, and with the National Security Agency. He holds A.B. (summa cum laude), A.M. (Regional Studies—East Asia), and J.D. degrees from Harvard, where he was Articles Chair of the Harvard Law Review and a Ph.D. candidate (ABD) in Government.
Member, Board of Governors , Federal Reserve System
Michael S. Barr took office as a member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System on July 19, 2022, for an unexpired term ending January 31, 2032. Mr. Barr served as the Vice Chair for Supervision of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System from July 19, 2022, to February 28, 2025.
Prior to his appointment to the Board, Mr. Barr was the Joan and Sanford Weill Dean of the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, the Frank Murphy Collegiate Professor of Public Policy, the Roy F. and Jean Humphrey Proffitt Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School, and the founder and faculty director of the University of Michigan's Center on Finance, Law & Policy. At the University of Michigan Law School, Mr. Barr taught financial regulation and international finance and co-founded the International Transactions Clinic and the Detroit Neighborhood Entrepreneurs Project.
Mr. Barr served as the U.S. Department of the Treasury's assistant secretary for financial institutions, 2009-2010. Under President William J. Clinton, he served as the Treasury Secretary's special assistant, as deputy assistant secretary of the Treasury, as special adviser to the President, and as a special adviser and counselor on the policy planning staff at the U.S. Department of State.
Additionally, Mr. Barr served as a law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter during October Term 1993, and previously to the Honorable Pierre N. Leval, then of the Southern District of New York.
Mr. Barr received a BA in history from Yale University, an MPhil in international relations from Oxford University, and a JD from Yale Law School.
Partner, Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP; Special Professor of Law, Maurice A. Dean School of Law, Hofstra University
Gary E. Kalbaugh is a nationally recognized leader in commodities, futures, and derivatives law.
Gary is a partner in the New York office of Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP as well as a Special Professor of Law at the Maurice A. Deane School of Law at Hofstra University, where he teaches derivatives law and banking law.
A preeminent authority in the derivatives field, Gary is the author of the principal treatise Derivatives Law and Regulation (3rd ed. 2021) and serves as Editor-in-Chief of the Futures and Derivatives Law Report, the foremost industry publication. He is a past chair of the New York City Bar Association’s Committee on the Regulation of Futures and Derivatives and has over 15 years of experience as a professor teaching derivatives and banking law.
Gary is the leading derivatives lawyer in the digital assets space, and one of few to truly understand the technical side of emerging financial technology. He serves on the CFTC’s Future of Finance Subcommittee, reflecting his recognized leadership at the intersection of financial regulation and emerging technologies. A frequent speaker, writer, and commentator on derivatives, banking law, artificial intelligence, and digital assets regulation, he has served as conference co-chair for the American Bar Association’s “Artificial Intelligence and Derivatives Market” conference and regularly speaks at major industry conferences on cutting-edge issues in financial regulation and technology. Gary is sought after as a thought leader on the evolving landscape of digital asset regulation and the regulatory implications of AI in financial markets.
At ING, Gary served as Deputy General Counsel and Director, where he chaired swap dealer and security-based swap dealer regulatory committees and provided strategic leadership on U.S., European, and other regulations impacting the organization. He had global responsibility for U.S. derivatives regulatory issues and maintained strong relationships with regulators. Gary also co-developed ING legal’s global artificial intelligence training program and was responsible for U.S. regulatory issues relating to ING’s blockchain-based pilot programs and crypto initiatives.
Previously, Gary served as a lecturer-in-law at Columbia Law School and held senior roles at WestLB, where he was executive director, counsel, and chief U.S. data protection officer and chaired the global Dodd-Frank and underwriting committees. He began his career as an associate at a notable international firm.
Chief Executive Officer, Blockchain Association
Summer Mersinger is CEO of Blockchain Association, where she leads advocacy efforts to advance digital asset innovation and policy in Washington. She previously served as a Commissioner of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, nominated by President Biden and unanimously confirmed by the Senate. With over 20 years of experience in public policy and government affairs, Summer has held senior roles at the CFTC, on Capitol Hill as Chief of Staff to Senator John Thune, and in the private sector.
Senior Fellow, Mises Institute
Alex J. Pollock is a Senior Fellow with the Mises Institute, providing thought and policy leadership on financial issues and the study of financial systems. His work includes cycles of booms and busts, financial crises with their political responses, housing finance, government-sponsored enterprises, risk and uncertainty, central banking, banking and financial regulation, corporate governance, retirement finance, student loans, and the politics of finance.
He previously served as the Principal Deputy Director of the Office of Financial Research in the U.S. Treasury Department 2019-2021. He was a Distinguished Senior Fellow with the R Street Institute 2015-2019 and 2021, and a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, 2004-2015. Among the many aspects of his AEI work, he developed the One Page Mortgage Form to give borrowers in clear form the key information they need in order to know what they are committing themselves to. He was President and CEO of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago from 1991 to 2004. There he invented the Mortgage Partnership Finance program, which successfully created front-end mortgage credit risk sharing beginning in 1997. His decades of banking experience include being a Visiting Scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, 1991.
Pollock was a director of the CME Group 2004-2019 and of Ascendium Education Group 1989-2019. He is a director and past-chairman of the Great Books Foundation and a past president of the International Union for Housing Finance.
He is the co-author of Surprised Again! - The COVID Crisis and the New Market Bubble (2022), and the author of Finance and Philosophy—Why We’re Always Surprised (2018) and Boom and Bust: Financial Cycles and Human Prosperity (2011), as well as numerous articles and Congressional testimony.
Pollock is a graduate of Williams College, the University of Chicago, and Princeton University.
His work is available on alexjpollock.com.
Partner and General Counsel, Multicoin Capital
Greg Xethalis is a Partner and General Counsel of Multicoin Capital. He manages all legal and policy functions for the firm and works with our portfolio companies on legal and policy strategy. Prior to joining Multicoin, Greg was a partner in the Investment Management and FinTech practices at Chapman and Cutler LLP with 12 years of experience counseling clients on digital asset matters. Greg is a Director of the Blockchain Association, the DeFi Education Foundation, KindlyMD and the Fordham Law Alumni Association, and Senior Lecturing Fellow at Duke University School of Law, where he teaches Fintech and Blockchain Law and Policy.
Hon. George J. Mitchell Professor in Law and Public Policy, Georgetown Law
David Cole is the Honorable George J. Mitchell Professor in Law and Public Policy and former National Legal Director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). He writes about and teaches constitutional law, freedom of speech, and constitutional criminal procedure. He is a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books and is the legal affairs correspondent for The Nation.
David has published widely in law journals and the popular press, including The Yale Law Journal, California Law Review, Stanford Law Review, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and The New Republic. He is the author or editor of ten books, several of which have won awards. Less Safe, Less Free: Why America Is Losing the War on Terror, published in 2007, and co-authored with Jules Lobel, won the Palmer Civil Liberties Prize for best book on national security and civil liberties. Enemy Aliens: Double Standards and Constitutional Freedoms in the War on Terrorism received the American Book Award in 2004. No Equal Justice: Race and Class in the American Criminal Justice System was named Best Non-Fiction Book of 1999 by the Boston Book Review and best book on an issue of national policy in1999 by the American Political Science Association.
David received his bachelor’s degree and law degree from Yale University. He worked as a staff attorney for the Center for Constitutional Rights from 1985 to 1990. He has continued to litigate as a professor and, from 2017 to 2024, as National Legal Director of the ACLU. He has litigated many significant constitutional cases at the Supreme Court, including Texas v. Johnson (1989), which extended First Amendment protection to flag burning; Bostock v. Clayton County (2020), which held that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity are prohibited forms of sex discrimination under Title VII; Mahanoy Area Sch. Dist. v. B.L. (2021), which protected student online speech from school discipline; and National Rifle Association v. Vullo (2024), which held that government officials violate the First Amendment when they use their regulatory authority to coerce private parties to blacklist a disfavored political group.
David has received two honorary degrees and numerous awards for his work, including the inaugural Norman Dorsen Presidential Prize from the ACLU for lifetime commitment to civil liberties. The late New York Times columnist Anthony Lewis called David “one of the country’s great legal voices for civil liberties today.” Nat Hentoff called him “a one-man Committee of Correspondence in the tradition of patriot Sam Adams.”
Partner, BakerHostetler, Adjunct Fellow, The Manhattan Institute
Andrew Grossman leads BakerHostetler’s Appellate and Major Motion team. He has appeared before the U.S. Supreme Court, nearly all the federal courts of appeals, as well as some state appellate courts, litigating high-profile and complex commercial, administrative and constitutional issues.
Andrew works with practice groups across BakerHostetler to identify and tackle complex issues, advise on administrative law and strategy, tee up issues for appeal and tackle appeals. He has developed and implemented litigation and administrative strategies for clients in several fields and industries.
In addition to his practice, Andrew advises members of Congress on matters of constitutional and administrative law, having testified more than a dozen times before the House and Senate Judiciary Committees. He has been a frequent legal commentator on radio and television, having appeared on Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, NPR and its affiliates, CBN and elsewhere. His legal commentary has also appeared in dozens of magazines and newspapers, including The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The Washington Post, The Washington Times and many others.
Andrew is a Senior Legal Fellow at the Buckeye Institute, an Adjunct Fellow the Manhattan Institute and a member of the leadership of the Federalist Society. He previously served as an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute’s Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies and a legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation’s Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies. He clerked for Judge Edith H. Jones on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
Partner, Schaerr | Jaffe LLP
Erik Jaffe has been involved in appeals on a broad range of legal issues, including First Amendment challenges to campaign finance reform, Commerce Clause challenges to Health Care Reform and other federal legislation, Equal Protection Clause challenges to affirmative action in education, First Amendment challenges to school vouchers, Fifth Amendment challenges to takings of property, Second Amendment challenges to restrictions on gun ownership, and a wide variety of cases involving patents, copyrights, ERISA, securities fraud, federal preemption, environmental regulation, and other state and federal constitutional and statutory matters. He has represented businesses and non-profit groups, Judges, Senators, former government officials, Nobel Prize winners, and a broad cross-section of private individuals. Mr. Jaffe has been involved in over 120 Supreme Court matters, including filing over 30 cert. petitions, representing half-a-dozen parties on the merits, and filing over 70 amicus briefs at both the cert. and merits stages.
A 1990 graduate of the Columbia University School of Law, Mr. Jaffe was a law clerk to Judge Douglas H. Ginsburg of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit from 1990 to 1991. Following that clerkship he spent five years in litigation practice with the Washington, D.C. law firm of Williams & Connolly. In the summer of 1996 he left Williams & Connolly to clerk for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. At the end of that clerkship he started his own practice, and he was a sole practitioner from 1997 to 2018. He joined the firm of Schaerr | Jaffe LLP in 2018.
Director of the Higher Education Reform Initiative, America First Policy Institute
Dr. Christopher Schorr, Ph.D., is from San Diego, California and serves as Director for AFPI’s Higher Education Reform Initiative. In this role, Chris works to develop the Initiative’s research agenda and advance its policy priorities, including eliminating divisive DEI and gender theory-based practices, promoting academic freedom, combating antisemitism, and reforming student loans and accreditation. Prior to joining AFPI, Chris supported the Defense Health Board, a Department of Defense federal advisory committee, as a research analyst. He coauthored the Amazon best seller Black Eye for America: How Critical Race Theory is Burning Down the House.
Chris is a Marine veteran of the Iraq War. He received his Ph.D. and M.A. degrees in American Government from Georgetown University, and his B.A. in political science (summa cum laude) from the University of California, San Diego. With three children, Chris’s “free time” is largely accounted for; however, he and his wife enjoy reading, fitness, shooting, and the outdoors.
Senior Fellow and Director of Constitutional Studies, Manhattan Institute
Ilya Shapiro is a senior fellow and director of constitutional studies at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal. Previously he was executive director and senior lecturer at the Georgetown Center for the Constitution, and before that a vice president of the Cato Institute.
Shapiro is the author of Lawless: The Miseducation of America’s Elites (2025) and Supreme Disorder: Judicial Nominations and the Politics of America’s Highest Court (2020), coauthor of Religious Liberties for Corporations? (2014), and editor of 11 volumes of the Cato Supreme Court Review (2008-18). He has contributed to a variety of academic, popular, and professional publications, including the Wall Street Journal, Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, National Review, and Newsweek. He also regularly provides commentary for various media outlets, writes the Shapiro’s Gavel newsletter on Substack, and once appeared on the Colbert Report.
Shapiro has testified many times before Congress and state legislatures and has filed more than 500 amicus curiae “friend of the court” briefs in the Supreme Court. He lectures regularly on behalf of the Federalist Society, is a member of the board of fellows of the Jewish Policy Center, was an inaugural Washington Fellow at the National Review Institute, and has been an adjunct law professor at the George Washington University and University of Mississippi. He is also the chairman of the board of advisers of the Mississippi Justice Institute, a barrister in the Edward Coke Appellate Inn of Court, and a former member of the Virginia Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.
Earlier in his career, Shapiro was a special assistant/adviser to the Multi-National Force in Iraq on rule-of-law issues and practiced at Patton Boggs and Cleary Gottlieb. Before entering private practice, he clerked for Judge E. Grady Jolly of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. He holds an AB from Princeton University, an MSc from the London School of Economics, and a JD from the University of Chicago Law School.
Managing Director, BGR Group
Sean Cooksey, a former senior official in the Trump administration and on Capitol Hill, works as a Managing Director with BGR Group’s Commerce and Infrastructure Practice. He brings a wealth of executive branch, legislative, and private sector experience to his work with clients on issues ranging from congressional oversight and investigations, competition and antitrust matters, intellectual property and technology policy, and litigation support.
Prior to joining the BGR team, Sean was Counsel to Vice President JD Vance. In this role, he served as the Vice President’s chief legal adviser and a senior policy staffer within the White House. As part of the Trump-Vance administration, he regularly advised the Vice President and senior White House staff on constitutional law, domestic policy, ethics, and executive and judicial nominations.
Previously, Sean was a member of the Federal Election Commission, after being nominated by President Trump in 2020. Sean served on the FEC for four years and was elected Chairman for the 2024 presidential election year, overseeing an agency of 300 staff to administer federal campaign-finance law.
Sean began his political career in the United States Senate, where he served as General Counsel for Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Deputy Chief Counsel for Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX). During his tenure in both offices, Sean worked on the Senate’s Committee on the Judiciary on some of the Senate’s most high-stakes matters, including major legislation and two Supreme Court confirmations.
Prior to his Senate service, Sean worked at an international law firm in Washington, D.C., where his practice focused on appeals and constitutional law. He also served as a law clerk for Judge Jerry E. Smith of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in Houston, Texas.
Sean has appeared on television, on radio, and in print in outlets such as The Ingraham Angle, Varney & Co., Morning Edition, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Axios, and Politico. He speaks regularly at major conferences, including the Republican National Lawyers Association and the National Association of Business PACs.
Founder and Executive Director, National Security Institute; Assistant Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
Jamil N. Jaffer is the Founder and Executive Director of the National Security Institute at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University where he also serves as an Assistant Professor of Law, Director of the National Security Law and Policy Program, and Director of the Cyber, Intelligence, and National Security LLM Program. Jamil also teaches classes on counterterrorism, intelligence, surveillance, cybersecurity, and other national security matters, as well as a summer course held abroad with U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil M. Gorsuch. Jamil is also affiliated with Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation and previously served as a Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution from 2016 to 2019.
Jamil is also a Venture Partner with Paladin Capital Group, where he assists the firm with investments across the full range of its themes and theses, including a focus on dual-use national security technologies. Jamil also serves on the board of directors of RangeForce, a cybersecurity training and readiness platform startup and Tozny, a digital identity startup, and on the advisory boards of U.S. Strategic Metals, North America’s largest primary producer of cobalt, a critical mineral used in EV batteries, aerospace, and other national security applications; and Constella Intelligence, a deep and dark web intelligence startup. Jamil also serves as an advisor to Beacon Global Strategies, a strategic advisory firm and Duco, a technology platform startup that connects corporations with geopolitical and international business experts. Jamil is also the managing director of Trigraph Caveat Capital, a private investment vehicle.
Among other things, Jamil currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Greater Washington Board of Trade, the Board of Advisors for the Global Cyber Alliance, and the Advisory Board of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies’ Center on Cyber and Tech Innovation, the Executive Committee of the Reagan Institute Strategy Group. Jamil is also a Fellow at the Academy for Judaic, Christian, and Islamic Studies, an advisor to the Concordia Summit, and is a member of the Board of Directors for the Center for Intelligence Policy, the Board of Directors of Speech First, and the Executive Committee of the International Law and National Security Practice Group of the Federalist Society.
Immediately prior to his current positions, from 2015-2021, Jamil served as a senior business leader at IronNet Cybersecurity, helping take the company from a bootstrapped first-year technology products startup through two rounds of venture capital fundraising, growing from 40 employees to over 300, and through its listing on New York Stock Exchange. In his role as IronNet's Senior Vice President for Strategy, Partnerships & Corporate Development, Jamil worked directly for the co-CEOs of the company, Gen (ret.) Keith B. Alexander, the former Director of the National Security Agency and Founding Commander of U.S. Cyber Command, and Bill Welch, the former COO of Zscaler and Duo; in that role, Jamil led all of the company’s strategic and technology partnership efforts, including developing go-to-market and technology integration plans with some of the largest cloud platforms and cybersecurity companies in the market, evaluating potential acquisition targets, and developing overall corporate strategy and thought leadership around collective security and collaborative defense in the cyber arena.
Prior to his time at IronNet, Jamil served on the leadership team of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee as Chief Counsel and Senior Advisor under Chairman Bob Corker (R-TN), where he worked on key national security and foreign policy issues, including leading the drafting of the proposed Authorization for the Use of Military Force against ISIS in 2014 and 2015, the AUMF against Syria in 2013, and revisions to the 9/11 AUMF against al Qaeda. Jamil was also the lead architect of the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act and two sanctions laws against Russia for its first intervention in Ukraine.
Prior to joining SFRC, Jamil served as Senior Counsel to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence under Chairman Mike Rogers (R-MI) where he led the committee’s oversight of NSA surveillance, NRO intelligence issues, and NGA analytic and collection matters, as well as intelligence community-wide counterterrorism issues. Jamil was also the lead architect of the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, the nation’s first cyber threat intelligence sharing legislation that was signed into law in 2015.
In the Bush Administration, Jamil served in the White House as an Associate Counsel to the President, handling Defense Department, State Department, and intelligence community matters, and serving as one of the White House Counsel’s primary representatives to the National Security Council Deputies Committee.
Prior to the White House, Jamil served on the leadership team of the Justice Department’s National Security Division as Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for National Security, where he focused on counterterrorism and intelligence matters. At NSD, Jamil helped lead the division’s work on In re: Directives, the first ever two-party litigated matter in the FISA Court and the second case before the FISA Court of Review in its 30-year history. Jamil also led NSD’s efforts on the President’s Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative (CNCI), including the drafting of NSPD-54/HSPD-23, and related classified matters, and advised the National Security Agency (NSA) and U.S. Cyber Command’s predecessor organization, the Joint Function Component Command for Network Warfare (JFCC-NW), on matters related to cyber intelligence collection and offensive cyber activities. For his work on these matters, Jamil was awarded the Assistant Attorney General’s Award for Special Initiative and was among the group of lawyers awarded the Director of National Intelligence’s 2008 Legal Award (Team of the Year – Cyber Legal).
Jamil also served in other positions in the Justice Department, including in the Office of Legal Policy, where he worked on the confirmations of Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. and Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. to the United States Supreme Court.
Jamil also served as a lawyer in private practice at Kellogg Huber, a Washington, DC-based litigation boutique, as a policy advisor to Congressman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), and as a staff member or senior advisor on a number of political campaigns, including two presidential campaigns and a presidential transition team. While in law school, Jamil was a member of the University of Chicago Law Review, managing editor of the Chicago Journal of International Law, and National Symposium Editor of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy. Following law school, Jamil served as a law clerk to Judge Edith H. Jones of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and, later in his career, as a law clerk to then-Judge Neil M. Gorsuch when he first joined the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit as well as a law clerk to Justice Neil Gorsuch when he joined the U.S. Supreme Court.
Jamil has published multiple op-eds and academic articles on national security, foreign policy, cybersecurity, counterterrorism, encryption, and intelligence matters, and is the co-author of a book chapter with former NSA Director Gen. (Ret.) Keith B. Alexander on national security and the press in National Security, Leaks, and the Freedom of the Press: The Pentagon Papers Fifty Years On (2021) and a book chapter with former CIA Director Gen. (ret.) Mike Hayden on ISIS, al Qaeda, and other international terrorist groups in Choosing to Lead: American Foreign Policy for a Disordered World (2015). Jamil has also written book chapters on cybersecurity and surveillance, as well as op-eds and policy papers with former Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey, former National Counterterrorism Center Director Matt Olsen, and Congressman Mike Waltz (R-FL), among others.
Jamil has previously taught graduate-level courses in intelligence law and policy at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs and the National Intelligence University, served an outside advisor to the Cyberspace Solarium Commission, and has recently testified before committees of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives on China, cybersecurity, counterterrorism, and other national security matters. Jamil has also recently appeared on a range of national television and radio outlets including CNN, Fox News, Fox Business, MSNBC, Bloomberg, PBS, Voice of America, and National Public Radio, and in various print and online publications, including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and the Washington Post on a range of national security matters including cybersecurity, counterterrorism, surveillance, encryption, privacy, and foreign policy issues.
Jamil holds degrees from UCLA (BA, cum laude), the University of Chicago Law School (JD, with honors), and the United States Naval War College (MA, with distinction).
Professor of Cyber Security and Policy, Tufts University
Susan Landau is Professor of Cyber Security and Policy in the Department of Computer Science, Tufts University. Earlier, as Bridge Professor of Cyber Security and Policy at the Fletcher School and School of Engineering, she founded Tufts's innovative MS degree in Cybersecurity and Public Policy. Prior to Tufts, Landau was Senior Staff Privacy Analyst at Google, Distinguished Engineer at Sun Microsystems, and faculty member at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and Wesleyan University.
An interdisciplinary scholar, Landau works at the intersection of privacy, surveillance, cybersecurity, and the law. She has testified before Congress and briefed US and European policymakers on encryption, Landau and Whitfield Diffie won the McGannon Book Award for Social and Ethical Relevance in Communication Policy Research for Privacy on the Line: The Politics of Wiretapping and Encryption. She received the Surveillance Studies Book Prize for Surveillance or Security? The Risks Posed by New Wiretapping Technologies, the USENIX Lifetime Achievement Award, shared with Steven Bellovin and Matt Blaze, and the American Mathematical Society's Bertrand Russell Prize. Landau has served on committees of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, on the National Science Foundation Computer and Information Science Engineering Advisory Board, the National Institute of Standards and Technology Information Security and Privacy Advisory Board, and on mathematics and computer science journal editorial boards. Landau received her BA from Princeton, MS from Cornell, and PhD from MIT.
Strategic Council, Silverado Policy Accelerator; former Republican Deputy Staff Director, U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
Tara Caroselli McFeely is a senior national security executive with expertise spanning defense, intelligence, and technology policy, political, and budgetary domains. She serves on the Strategic Council at Silverado Policy Accelerator, advising on innovative, data-driven national security policy initiatives, and is an Adjunct Professor in the Master of Science in Foreign Service program at Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service.
In government, she most recently served as the Republican Deputy Staff Director on the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) driving the national security and intelligence policy and Executive Branch oversight strategic direction. She also co-led the professional staff oversight functions of the policies and programs of the U.S. intelligence enterprise spanning six Departments: Defense, Energy, Homeland Security, Justice, Treasury, State; and two independent agencies: the Central Intelligence Agency and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Prior to this role she served as the SSCI Budget Director, leading the staff oversight of the Intelligence Community (IC) and Defense Intelligence Enterprise annual $100.0+ billion budget and programs. Formerly, she was the SSCI Chairman’s Senior Advisor for Counterterrorism and the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s intelligence programs.
In the research domain, Ms. McFeely was the Deputy Director of the Intelligence Analyses Division at the Institute for Defense Analyses. In this role she led a large team of senior social sciences and STEM researchers on complex multidisciplinary research and analysis projects.
At Booz Allen Hamilton, she was a senior advisor for multiple IC and Department of Defense clients. She also led numerous multifaceted contracts across the U.S. Government landscape globally, including multilateral counter-Biological Weapons (BW) program initiatives.
Ms. McFeely began her career serving globally in the U.S. Navy, initially as a Surface Warfare Officer conducting U.S. 2nd Fleet and NATO operations across the Atlantic, and subsequently as a Naval Intelligence Officer supporting operations in the Balkans and the Global War on Terror.
Ms. McFeely has a Bachelor of Science in Political Science from the U.S. Naval Academy where she was a letterwoman on the Women’s Varsity Basketball Team. She also has a Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy (MALD) from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University.
Professor of Law and Faculty Director for the Georgetown Center for the Constitution, Georgetown University Law Center
Stephanie Barclay is a Professor of Law at Georgetown Law School, and the Faculty Director of the Georgetown Center for the Constitution. Her research focuses on the role our different democratic institutions play in protecting minority rights, particularly at the intersection of free speech and religious exercise. Barclay‘s work is published or is forthcoming in leading journals such as the Harvard Law Review, the Chicago Law Review, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, and the Yale Law Journal Forum. One of her articles was also selected for the 2020 Stanford/Harvard/Yale Junior Faculty Forum. Her work has been featured in many media outlets, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, USA Today, Bloomberg BNA, The Hill, and Law 360. And her work has also been cited by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Prior to joining Georgetown, Barclay was twice voted Professor of the Year. Barclay has also litigated constitutional cases at both the trial and appellate level, including before the U.S. Supreme Court. Barclay served as a law clerk to Judge N. Randy Smith on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and to Justice Neil M. Gorsuch of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Barclay is a Faculty Affiliate at the Constitutional Law Center at Stanford Law School; and she is a Nootbaar Fellow at the Nootbaar Institute on Law, Religion, and Ethics at Pepperdine University. She currently serves as the Chair for the AALS Law and Religion Section and as a Member of the Executive Committee for the AALS Constitutional Law Section. She graduated summa cum laude from BYU Law School, where she was elected to the Order of the Coif. She is completing a Ph.D. in Law at Oxford University as a Clarendon Scholar and a Tang Scholar.
John P. Murphy Foundation Professor of Law and Associate Dean for External Engagement, University of Notre Dame Law School
Nicole Stelle Garnett is the John P. Murphy Foundation Professor of Law at Notre Dame Law School, where she also serves as the Associate Dean for External Engagement and directs the Notre Dame Education Law Project. Her teaching and research focus on education law and policy, religious liberty, and topics related to property law (especially land use and urban development policies). In addition to dozens of articles on these subjects, she is the author of Lost Classroom, Lost Community: Catholic Schools' Importance in Urban America (University of Chicago Press, 2014) and Ordering the City: Land Use, Policing and the Restoration of Urban America (Yale University Press, 2009).
Garnett received her B.A. with distinction in Political Science from Stanford University and her J.D. from Yale Law School. After law school, she clerked for the Honorable Morris S. Arnold of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit and for Associate Justice Clarence Thomas of the Supreme Court of the United States. Before joining the law school faculty in 1999, she worked for two years as a staff attorney at the Institute for Justice, a non-profit public-interest law firm in Washington, D.C., where she helped to defend the constitutionality of the nation's first private-school-choice programs.
At Notre Dame, Garnett is a faculty fellow in the Institute for Educational Initiatives, Kellogg Institute for International Studies, Fitzgerald Institute for Real Estate, and deNicola Center for Ethics and Culture. She also is an elected member of the American Law Institute and a Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit
Judge Menashi was appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on November 14, 2019. Previously, he served as special assistant and associate counsel to the President in the White House and as acting general counsel at the U.S. Department of Education. He was assistant professor of law at Scalia Law School, George Mason University, where he taught administrative law and civil procedure, and a research fellow at New York University School of Law and Georgetown University Law Center. He was also a partner at Kirkland & Ellis LLP in New York, where he practiced appellate and commercial litigation, and served as a law clerk to Justice Samuel Alito on the Supreme Court of the United States and to Judge Douglas Ginsburg on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He graduated from Stanford Law School, where he was elected to Order of the Coif and served as senior articles editor of the Stanford Law Review, and from Dartmouth College, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.
Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals, Second Circuit
On April 10, 2026, President Trump nominated Matthew Schwartz to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He was confirmed on July 14, 2026.
Prior to his appointment, Matthew Schwartz was a partner in the Firm’s Litigation Group. He joined the Firm in 2007 after clerking for Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. of the U.S. Supreme Court. He was elected partner in 2011.
Mr. Schwartz’s wide-ranging practice comprises complex litigation, arbitration, and government investigations in the areas of securities law, M&A, derivative suits, antitrust, bank regulation, contracts, constitutional law, administrative law and general commercial litigation. He has represented some of the world’s leading corporations, financial institutions, and industry organizations. Mr. Schwartz provides regular advice on legislation and regulations in the AI, banking, FinTech, and payments fields.
Matt also regularly speaks and writes on legal ethics issues.
Founder and Director, James Wilson Institute on Natural Rights & the American Founding
Hadley Arkes joined the faculty of Amherst College in 1966. He became the Edward Ney Professor of Jurisprudence in 1987, and held that chair until he retired officially in July 2015. But he has not retired from writing and speaking. He has carried that teaching into a new phase; he has become the Founder and Director of the James Wilson Institute on Natural Rights and the American Founding in Washington, D.C. He has written eight books, mostly with Princeton and Cambridge University Presss. Among the books at Princeton have been: The Philosopher in the City (1981), First Things (1986), Beyond the Constitution (1990), and The Return of George Sutherland (1994). With Cambridge Press he has done Natural Rights and the Right to Choose (2002), and Constitutional Illusions & Anchoring Truths: The Touchstone of the Natural Law (2010). His most recent book, with Regnery Press is Mere Natural Law (2023) His articles have appeared in professional journals, but apart from his writing in more scholarly formats, he has become known to a wider audience through his writings in the Wall Street Journal, National Review, Civitas and First Things, a journal that took its name from his book of that title.
He was the main advocate, and architect, of the bill that became known as the Born-Alive Infants’ Protection Act. The account of his experience, in moving the bill through Congress, is contained as an epilogue or memoir in his book, Natural Rights & the Right to Choose. Arkes first prepared his proposal as part of the debating kit assembled for the first George Bush in 1988. The purpose of that proposal was to offer the “most modest first step” of all in legislating on abortion, and opening a conversation even with people who called themselves “pro-choice.” Professor Arkes proposed to begin simply by preserving the life of a child who survived an abortion–contrary to the holding of one federal judge, that such a child was not protected by the laws. Professor Arkes led the testimony on the bill before the Judiciary Committee of the U.S. House in July 2000, then again in July 2001. The legislative calendar was upended in the aftermath of September 11th, but in March 2002, the bill was brought to the floor of the House, where it passed unanimously. To the surprise of Professor Arkes, the bill was brought to the floor of the Senate on July 18 by the Deputy Majority Leader, Harry Reid, and passed in the same way. On August 5, President Bush signed the bill into law with Professor Arkes in attendance.
Professor Arkes was the founder, at Amherst, of the Committee for the American Founding, a group of alumni and students seeking to preserve, at Amherst, the doctrines of “natural rights” taught by the American Founders and Lincoln. That interest has been carried over now to the founding of a new center for the jurisprudence of natural law, in Washington, D.C.: the James Wilson Institute on Natural Rights and the American Founding, named for one of the premier minds among the American Founders. Professor Arkes has drawn to this project a cluster of accomplished federal judges who have wanted to get a firmer hold on the natural law, and brought them together with some gifted teachers of philosophy and law. The new institute will be sponsoring lectures and seminars in Washington and other parts of the country. The purpose of this new James Wilson Institute is to teach anew, to lawyers, judges, and students those principles of law that furnished the guide to the American Founders as they set about framing a Constitution. And the hope is to restore, to a new generation, the furnishings of mind of the men who formed this regime.
Deputy Attorney General and Director of the Civil Rights Enforcement Division, Office of the Tennessee Attorney General
Judge, Arizona Court of Appeals, Division One
The Honorable Jennifer M. Perkins began service on the Arizona Court of Appeals, Division One, on October 30, 2017. At the time of her appointment by Governor Douglas Ducey, Judge Perkins was Assistant Solicitor General for the State of Arizona.
Judge Perkins was born in Portales, New Mexico, and primarily raised in Albuquerque. She attended the prestigious Albuquerque Academy from 1988-1995, before moving to Washington D.C. to attend the Elliott School of International Affairs at the George Washington University as a National Merit Scholar. Therafter, she relocated again to Dallas, Texas, and earned her juris doctor from the SMU Dedman School of Law, graduating cum laude in 2002.
Judge Perkins started her career at the law firm of Browning & Peifer (now Peifer, Hanson, Mullins, and Baker) in Albuquerque, New Mexico. While there, she litigated complex commercial matters including class action plaintiff and defense work, and assisted with employment and contract litigation. In 2003, the judge accompanied the Honorable James O. Browning in transitioning to the federal district court bench, serving as his first law clerk.
After her clerkship, Judge Perkins moved to Arizona to work for the Institute for Justice, Arizona Chapter, a public interest law firm. She spent five years with IJ-AZ litigating civil rights cases in Arizona and across the country. In 2009, the judge became Disciplinary Counsel for the Arizona Commission on Judicial Conduct, where she reviewed and prosecuted ethics complaints against state court judges throughout Arizona. After five years serving the state in this capacity, Judge Perkins entered private practice by joining an appellate law firm in Phoenix. While there, she worked on state and federal appeals involving a wide range of legal subjects, including complex business disputes, property rights, judicial ethics, and personal injury matters.
In January 2015, Judge Perkins joined the Office of the Arizona Attorney General to serve as the first Assistant Solicitor General; in that capacity, she was responsible for oversight of Attorney General Opinions and served as ethics counsel to the entire office. In addition to these two primary roles, the judge assisted on a variety of matters including trial and appellate litigation of election-related matters; federal appellate litigation with the Federalism Unit; state criminal appeals; and drafting amicus briefs on behalf of Arizona in state and federal courts.
Executive Vice President, Goldwater Institute
Christina Sandefur is the Executive Vice President at the Goldwater Institute. She develops policies and litigates cases advancing healthcare freedom, free enterprise, private property rights, free speech, and taxpayer rights.
Christina is a co-drafter of the Right to Try initiative, now federal law, which protects terminally ill patients' right to try safe investigational treatments that have been prescribed by their physician but are not yet FDA-approved. She has won important victories for property rights in Arizona and works nationally to promote the Institute's Private Property Rights Protection Act, a state-level reform that requires government to pay owners when regulations destroy property rights and reduce property values.
Christina is the co-author of the book Cornerstone of Liberty: Private Property Rights in 21st Century America (2016). She is a frequent guest on national television and radio programs, has provided expert legal testimony to various legislative committees, and is a frequent speaker at conferences. She is the recipient of the 2018 Buckley Award in recognition of her leadership in the freedom movement, and she is an Advisory Board Member of the Network of enlightened Women. Christina serves on the board of the Phoenix Lawyers Chapter of the Federalist Society and is a member of the executive committee for the Federalist Society's Regulatory Transparency Project: FDA & Health.
Christina is a graduate of Michigan State University College of Law and Hillsdale College.
Senior Editor, National Review
Historian Richard Brookhiser is a senior editor of National Review, a senior fellow at the National Review Institute, and the author of several books, including Founders’ Son, Right Time, Right Place, George Washington on Leadership, What Would the Founders Do?, Gentleman Revolutionary, Rules of Civility, America’s First Dynasty, Alexander Hamilton, American, Founding Father: Rediscovering George Washington, Way of the WASP, and The Outside Story.
Appellate Division of the NYS Supreme Court, Second Judicial Department
Is the FDA Trying to Ban Direct-to-Consumer Drug Ads?
Paul Avelar, Jeff Stier, Dan Troy
The Trump Administration has been exploring new ways to tighten requirements for direct-to-consumer advertisements for...
Foreign Influence Operations and National Security
Margaret Harker, Park MacDougald, Vincent Vitkowsky
Foreign influence operations have become increasingly important in geopolitical competition and American national security. China...
America 250: The New York Lawyers - The Impact of Hamilton, Jay, & Morris on the American Founding
New York City Lawyer Chapter
New York City, NYCourthouse Steps Decision: Chiles v. Salazar
Paul Avelar, Stephanie Barclay, Casey Mattox
Chiles v. Salazar addressed whether a Colorado law prohibiting “conversion therapy” violates the First...
What Were the Founders' Views of Citizenship?
Elle Rogers Bernstein, Richard Brookhiser, Jud Campbell, Thomas Lee
In this Federalist Society America250 series, experts analyze modern legal and policy debates through the...
The GENIUS Act in Practice: Key Questions for Stablecoin Regulation
Michael S. Barr, Gary Kalbaugh, Summer Mersinger, Alex J. Pollock, Greg Xethalis
The GENIUS Act of 2025 was a watershed moment in the legal framework for stablecoins,...
Combating Antisemitism on College Campuses: A Look at the Trump Administration's Civil Rights Enforcement Efforts One Year In
David D. Cole, Andrew Grossman, Erik S. Jaffe, Christopher Schorr, Ilya Shapiro
In March 2025, the U.S. Department of Education began investigating dozens of colleges - including...
Foreign State Actors, Security, and Privacy: What is the Future of End-to-End Encryption?
Sean Cooksey, Jamil N. Jaffer, Susan Landau, Tara C. McFeely
The 2015 terrorist attack in San Bernardino, California kicked off a debate over whether U.S....
Plenary Panel 4: Justice Alito’s Impact on Religious Liberties & Speech
Stephanie Barclay, Nicole Stelle Garnett, Steven J. Menashi, Matthew A. Schwartz
This panel will analyze Justice Alito’s contributions to the Supreme Court’s religious liberty and free...
Panel IV: Mandates, Medicine, and Liberty: The Legal Battle Over Bodily Autonomy and the Right to Choose
Hadley P. Arkes, Steven J. Griffin, Jennifer Perkins, Christina Sandefur
Featuring: Prof. Hadley P. Arkes, Founder and Director, The James Wilson Institute Mr. Steven Griffin, Deputy Attorney...