Senior Vice President for Legal Studies, Cato Institute
Clark Neily is senior vice president for legal studies at the Cato Institute. His areas of interest include constitutional law, overcriminalization, civil forfeiture, police accountability, and gun rights. Neily is the author of Terms of Engagement: How Our Courts Should Enforce the Constitution’s Promise of Limited Government. His writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and National Review Online, as well as various law reviews, including the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, George Mason Law Review, Georgetown Journal of Law and Public Policy, NYU Journal of Law and Liberty, and Texas Review of Law and Politics. Neily is a frequent guest speaker and lecturer for the Federalist Society, Institute for Humane Studies, and American Constitution Society.
Before joining Cato in 2017, Neily was a senior attorney and constitutional litigator at the Institute for Justice and director of the Institute’s Center for Judicial Engagement. He is also an adjunct professor at the University of Texas School of Law, where he teaches constitutional litigation and public-interest law.
Neily served as co-counsel in District of Columbia v. Heller, the historic case in which the Supreme Court held for the first time that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to own a gun for self-defense.
Neily began his legal career as a law clerk to Judge Royce Lamberth on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. After that he spent four years in the trial department of the Dallas-based firm Thompson & Knight. Neily received his undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Texas, where he was Chief Articles Editor of the Texas Law Review.
Senior Research Fellow, Mercatus Center, George Mason University; Former General Counsel at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC)
Alden Abbott is a Senior Research Fellow at the Mercatus Center. Prior to joining Mercatus, he served as the General Counsel of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). As the Commission’s chief legal officer and adviser, he represented the agency in court and provides legal counsel to the Commission and its bureaus and offices.
Prior to rejoining the FTC in April 2018, Mr. Abbott served in executive positions at the Heritage Foundation (2014-2018) and BlackBerry (2012-2014). He also held a variety of senior positions in the U.S. federal government (in the FTC, the Commerce Department, and the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel and the Antitrust Division).
He speaks French, Spanish, and Italian.
Taft, Stettinius & Hollister Professor of Law, University of Minnesota Law School
Professor Thomas F. Cotter joined the University of Minnesota Law School faculty in 2006. He received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and in 1987 graduated magna cum laude from the University of Wisconsin Law School, where he served as Senior Articles Editor of the Wisconsin Law Review and was elected to the Order of the Coif.
From 1987-89, Professor Cotter clerked for the Honorable Lawrence W. Pierce, United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He practiced law at Cravath, Swaine & Moore in New York City from 1988-90, and at Jenner & Block in Chicago from 1990-94. From 1994-2005, he taught at the University of Florida College of Law, where he held a University of Florida Research Foundation Professorship and directed the school's Intellectual Property Law Program. From 2005-06, he was a Professor of Law at Washington and Lee University School of Law.
Professor Cotter's principal research and teaching interests are in the fields of domestic and international intellectual property law, antitrust, and law and economics. He is the author of three books—Comparative Patent Remedies: A Legal and Economic Analysis (Oxford University Press); Trademarks, Unfair Competition, and Business Torts (coauthored with Barton Beebe, Mark A. Lemley, Peter S. Menell, and Robert P. Merges) (Aspen Publishers 2011); and Intellectual Property: Economic and Legal Dimensions of Rights and Remedies (coauthored with Roger D. Blair) (Cambridge University Press 2005)—and has recently agreed to coauthor (with Jeffrey L. Harrison) a fourth, Law and Economics: Positive, Normative, and Behavioral Perspectives (3d ed., Thomson West). Altogether he has authored or coauthored over 40 other scholarly works, including articles in the California Law Review, the Georgetown Law Journal, the Iowa Law Review, the Minnesota Law Review, and the University of Illinois Law Review.
Professor of Law, University of Wyoming College of Law
George Mocsary is an expert in corporate and small-business law, and the law of firearms.
Currently, he is Professor of Law, Founder & Director of Firearms Research Center, and Director of the Business Planning Practicum and at the University of Wyoming College of Law.
Professor Mocsary teaches and writes about Agency & Partnership, Contracts, Corporations, Securities Regulation, the Second Amendment, and Firearms Law, including the intersection of Firearms Law and private law. He is a co-author of Firearms Law and the Second Amendment: Regulation, Rights, and Policy (3rd ed. 2021), the first casebook on this topic.
Prior to his appointment at Wyoming, he served as an Associate Professor of Law at the Southern Illinois University School of Law and spent two years as a Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Connecticut School of Law. He practiced corporate and bankruptcy law at Cravath, Swaine and Moore in New York, and clerked for the Honorable Harris L. Hartz of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.
Professor Mocsary holds a J.D. from Fordham Law School and an M.B.A. from the University of Rochester Simon School of Business. At Fordham, he graduated first in his class, and served as Notes and Articles Editor of the Fordham Law Review. He has published in the George Washington Law Review, George Mason Law Review, Fordham Law Review, Duke Law Journal Online, and other journals. His work has been cited by the Supreme Court of the United States, several U.S. Courts of Appeals, the Supreme Court of Illinois, the Delaware Court of Chancery, and other courts.
Professor Emerita of Law, George Mason University Antonin Scalia School of Law
Professor Emerita Joyce Lee Malcolm is an historian and constitutional scholar active in the area of constitutional history, focusing on the development of individual rights in Great Britain and America. She is the author of eight books, most recently The Tragedy of Benedict Arnold: An American Life, May 2018. Professor Malcolm has written many books and articles on gun control, the Second Amendment, and individual rights. Her work was cited several times in the recent U.S. Supreme Court opinion in District of Columbia v. Heller.
Professor Malcolm has previously taught at Princeton University, Bentley College, Boston University, Northeastern University and Cambridge University. She was also a Senior Advisor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Security Studies Program, a Visiting Scholar at Massachusetts Center for Renaissance Studies, and is a Bye Fellow at Robinson College, Cambridge University.
Her seventh book, Peter's War: A New England Slave Boy and the American Revolution, was published by Yale University Press in 2009. "Magna Carta in America: Entrenched," a chapter authored by Professor Malcolm, appears in Magna Carta: The Foundation of Freedom 1215-2015 (Nicholas Vincent, Third Millennium Publishing). Her essays have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, USA Today, The Boston Globe and other newspapers.
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.
Professor of Law, University of San Diego School of Law (Retired)
Gail Heriot is a recently retired law professor from the University of San Diego. She also served as a member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights from 2007 to 2025. She is also the chairman of the board of the American Civil Rights Project and the chair emerita of the Civil Rights practice group at the Federalist Society for Law & Public Policy.
Professor Heriot is a prolific writer in the area of civil rights. She is the author of many law review articles. She is also the editor (along with Maimon Schwarzschild) of the 2021 anthology, A Dubious Expediency: How Race Preferences Damage Higher Education. Her upcoming book is entitled, Why We Walk on Eggshell: How Our Civil Rights Laws Helped Bring About the Woke Era—And the Trump Era, Too.
Her writings for a general audience have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the San Diego Union-Tribune, the National Review and many other newspapers and magazines.
In 1996, she co-chaired the successful “Yes on Proposition 209” campaign, which amended the California Constitution to prohibit state-sponsored discrimination or preferential treatment based on race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin. In 2020, she co-chaired the “No on Proposition 16” campaign, which successfully prevented Proposition 209’s repeal.
Dean and Sol & Lillian Goldman Professor of Law, Yale Law School
Robert Post is Dean and Sol & Lillian Goldman Professor of Law at Yale Law School. Before coming to Yale, he taught at the University of California at Berkeley School of Law. Dean Post’s subject areas are constitutional law, First Amendment, legal history, and equal protection. He has written and edited numerous books, including Citizens Divided: A Constitutional Theory of Campaign Finance Reform (2014), which was originally delivered as the Tanner Lectures at Harvard in 2013. Other books include, Democracy, Expertise, Academic Freedom: A First Amendment Jurisprudence for the Modern State (2012); For the Common Good: Principles of American Academic Freedom (with Matthew M. Finkin, 2009); Prejudicial Appearances: The Logic of American Antidiscrimination Law (with K. Anthony Appiah, Judith Butler, Thomas C. Grey & Reva Siegel, 2001); and Constitutional Domains: Democracy, Community, Management (1995).
He publishes regularly in legal journals and other publications; recent articles and chapters include “Theorizing Disagreement: Reconceiving the Relationship Between Law and Politics” (California Law Review, 2010); “Constructing the European Polity: ERTA and the Open Skies Judgments” in The Past and Future of EU Law: The Classics of EU Law Revisited on the 50th Anniversary of the Rome Treaty (Miguel Poiares Maduro & Loïc Azuolai eds., 2010); “Roe Rage: Democratic Constitutionalism and Backlash” (with Reva Siegel, Harvard Civil-Rights Civil-Liberties Law Review, 2007); “Federalism, Positive Law, and the Emergence of the American Administrative State: Prohibition in the Taft Court Era” (William & Mary Law Review, 2006); “Foreword: Fashioning the Legal Constitution: Culture, Courts, and Law” (Harvard Law Review, 2003); and “Subsidized Speech” (Yale Law Journal, 1996). He is a member of the American Philosophical Society and the American Law Institute and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is a former member of the Board of Directors of the American Constitution Society.
Gary R. Trombley Family White-Collar Crime Research Professor, Stetson University College of Law
A former deputy prosecutor and criminal defense attorney, Professor Ellen S. Podgor teaches in the areas of white collar crime, criminal law and international criminal law. She has previously taught other courses, such as professional responsibility, criminal procedure, law and sexual orientation seminar, and advocacy. She served as Stetson's inaugural Associate Dean of Faculty Development and Electronic Education and also served as a LeRoy Highbaugh Sr. Research Chair. She is the co-author of numerous books including White Collar Crime in a Nutshell,Understanding International Criminal Law, and Mastering Criminal Law. She has authored more than 50 law review articles and essays in the areas of computer crime, international criminal law, lawyer's ethics, criminal discovery, prosecutorial discretion, corporate criminality, and other white collar crime topics. These have been published in journals such as the Hastings Law Journal, Washington & Lee Law Review, Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review, Yale Law Journal Pocket Part, Washington University Law Review, Fordham Law Review, Cardozo Law Review, U.C. Davis Law Review, American University Law Review, Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics, American Criminal Law Review, Vanderbilt En Banc, Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, and many others.
Podgor has been interviewed on National Public Radio and been quoted in newspapers across the country, including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, LA Times, National Law Journal, Chicago Tribune, andBusiness Week. She is the editor of the highly ranked White Collar Crime Prof Blog. She is the chair of the Advisory Committee of the NACDL White-Collar Criminal Defense College at Stetson.
She has taught at other law schools including Georgia State University College of Law and St. Thomas University College of Law, and been a visiting professor at University of Georgia School of Law, George Washington University Law School and held a visiting endowed chair position at University of Alabama School of Law. She also was a visiting scholar at Yale Law School. Podgor served for six years as a member of the board of directors of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) and presently serves on the board of directors of the International Society for the Reform of Criminal Law (ISRCL) and the board of trustees for the Southeastern Association of Law Schools (SEALS). She is a past chair of the Criminal Justice Section of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) and is an honorary member of the American Board of Criminal Lawyers. Professor Podgor is a member of the American Law Institute.
In 2010, Podgor received the Robert C. Heeney Award, the highest honor given by the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. She is also the recipient of the Dickerson-Brown Award for Excellence in Faculty Scholarship.
Florida First District Court of Appeal
Stephanie Williams Ray is a judge on the Florida First District Court of Appeal. She was appointed by Governor Rick Scott in June 2011. She was retained in 2012 and her current term expires in January of 2019.
Partner, Holland & Knight
William Shepherd is a trial lawyer in Holland & Knight's West Palm Beach and Washington, D.C., offices. Mr. Shepherd, who also serves as executive partner of the firm's West Palm Beach office, represents clients involved in civil and criminal government investigations. He also assists the general counsel of public and private companies in conducting sensitive internal investigations and compliance matters. In addition to his enforcement practice, Mr. Shepherd handles complex civil litigation in related subject matters. Prior to joining the firm, Mr. Shepherd served, at the appointment of the attorney general, as the statewide prosecutor of Florida and earlier in his career, as a prosecutor in Miami, Florida.
Chambers USA – America's Leading Business Lawyers guide has recognized Mr. Shepherd since 2013 for Litigation: White Collar Crime & Government Investigations.
Mr. Shepherd was elected to serve as chair of the 20,000 member Criminal Justice Section of the American Bar Association and served as a member of its Global Anti-Corruption Task Force and as division director of its White Collar Crime Division.
Professor of Law and Assistant Director, Criminal Justice Center, University of Florida Levin College of Law
Professor Stinneford teaches and writes about legal ethics, criminal law, criminal procedure, and constitutional law. His work has been cited by the United States Supreme Court, several state supreme courts and federal courts of appeal, and numerous scholars. It has published in numerous scholarly journals including the Georgetown Law Journal, the Northwestern University Law Review, the Virginia Law Review, the Notre Dame Law Review, and the William & Mary Law Review. The Stanford-Yale Junior faculty forum selected one of his articles as the best paper in the category of Constitutional History, and the AALS Criminal Justice Section named another article as the best paper in its Junior Scholars Paper Competition. In the fall of 2015, he was a Visiting Scholar at the Georgetown Law Center, Center for the Constitution.
Before joining the Florida faculty in 2009, Stinneford clerked for the Hon. James Moran of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, served as an Assistant United States Attorney, and practiced law with Winston & Strawn in Chicago. Stinneford teaches first-year courses in Criminal Law and Constitutional Law, and upper-level courses in Professional Responsibility, Criminal Procedure, Federal Criminal Law, Law & Literature, and White Collar Crime.
Owner, Sukhia Law Firm PLC
After 29 years of legal practice in which he served as a Law Clerk at the Florida Supreme Court and U.S. Court of Appeals, as the United States Attorney for the Northern District of Florida, and as a senior partner in one of Florida's oldest and largest statewide firms, Ken Sukhia began his own firm in the State Capital in 2008. Mr. Sukhia was appointed U.S. Attorney by President George H.W. Bush, and has served as litigation counsel to numerous corporations and prominent officials, including President George W. Bush, Governor Charlie Crist, Governor Jeb Bush, Ralph Nader, Tenet Healthcare, Dupont Industries, Caremark Rx, Nationwide, General Electric, and The Florida Senate.
During his career, Ken Sukhia has represented some of the country's top corporations and officials in high profile and complex litigation. He has extensive experience in a wide range of legal areas, including public and private practice, civil and criminal law, state and federal court, and trial and appellate litigation. Florida The Miami Herald has described Mr. Sukhia as a “powerhouse Florida lawyer." This observation is evidenced by the remarkable number of prominent officials and entities who have turned to Mr. Sukhia to represent them in their most vital matters.
Mr. Sukhia is recognized as an “AV Preeminent rated" attorney by Martindale-Hubbell, is named in the Best Lawyers and “Super Lawyers" publications in the top 5% of his profession, and has regularly been named in Who's Who Among American Lawyers. His firm is named in The US News and World Reports list of the top law firms handling white-collar matters. He has given numerous speeches to legal and civic organizations and has testified four times before the United States House and Senate Judiciary Committees on criminal justice issues in Florida. Mr. Sukhia graduated with high honors from the University of Florida Law School in 1978 and received his undergraduate degree with distinction in all subjects from Cornell University in 1975.
Principal Attorney, Woodring Law Firm
Mr. Daniel Woodring has lived in Florida for almost 30 years, but was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In Florida, he has lived and worked in Pensacola, Clearwater, Jacksonville, Gainesville and Tallahassee. His wife Jean, who is also an attorney, was born in Miami, and grew up in Ft. Myers. They have a son and a daughter.
Mr. Woodring is recognized as a Florida Super Lawyer, an honor given to fewer than 5% of Florida Attorneys, and holds an Avvo “Superb” rating. Mr. Woodring also has an AV Preeminent® Peer Reviewrating. AV®, AV Preeminent® are registered certification marks of Reed Elsevier Properties Inc., used in accordance with the Martindale-Hubbell certification procedures, standards and policies, and the ratings are explained at www.martindale.com/ratings.
Mr. Woodring is a member of the Florida and Georgia Bars, and is admitted to practice before the Florida Federal Southern, Middle and Northern District Courts, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court. He has worked at the trial level on cases in many of Florida’s 20 judicial circuits, in addition to cases in state administrative tribunals. He has argued cases at the Florida Supreme Court and Florida District Courts of Appeal, and has briefed cases at the U.S. Supreme Court.
He graduated from the University of Florida, College of Law with a Juris Doctorate, Cum Laude, and received his B.A. degree from Clearwater Christian College, Summa Cum Laude.
After law school, Mr. Woodring was in private practice doing general civil and appellate work. He then left for a two year appellate clerkship at the First District Court of Appeal. During his time at the court, he worked on cases including, but not limited to: criminal; family law; administrative law; workers’ compensation; business and civil law; constitutional law.
Mr. Woodring next worked as a counsel in the Executive Office of the Governor, Office of the General Counsel. During his time in Governor Bush’s Legal Office he had diverse responsibilities, including oversight and strategic litigation management of significant legal matters at numerous Governor’s agencies, including the Department of Education, Department of Management Services, Department of Business and Professional Regulation, Department of Health, Agency for Health Care Administration, Department of Children and Families, Department of Community Affairs, Department of Elder affairs, Agency for Workforce Innovation, Department of Transportation, and the Department of State.
He was also legally responsible for topics as disparate as emergency operations; advising the Governor on the selection of judges; implementation of civil service reform; reform of workers’ compensation; budget and appropriation matters; Indian gaming law; and legally advising the Florida Cabinet sitting in its many capacities, such as the Florida Land and Water Adjudicatory Commission.
Mr. Daniel Woodring was then offered the opportunity to be General Counsel for the Florida Department of Education, which encompassed Pre-K though 12th grade, community colleges(now State colleges) and the Florida University System. He was also the first General Counsel for the Florida Board of Governors, when that Board was constitutionally created to manage the State University System.
During almost five years at the Department of Education, Mr. Woodring advised and litigated on matters including, but not limited to: constitutional challenges to Florida’s education programs, including Opportunity Scholarships and the charter school approval and appeal process; doing away with race as a preference in university admissions and state contracting; teacher and professional discipline cases; union, labor and employment matters; state procurement and bid protest proceedings; administrative rule challenges and rule making proceedings; IDEA and Section 504 proceedings; public records, government in the sunshine and ethical matters; contract negotiations and disputes.
Since 2007, Mr. Woodring has been back in private practice as the principal of the Woodring Law Firm, located in Tallahassee, Florida, but with a statewide practice, including Pensacola, Jacksonville, Gainesville, Tampa Bay, Orlando, West Palm Beach, Ft. Myers, Ft. Lauderdale, and Miami. He concentrates his practice on appeals; constitutional cases in both state and federal court; education law matters, including charter school represention; Business litigation; and state administrative matters, including state procurement, regulation and licensing, rule challenges and proposed rule making, although he also handles cases in many other areas.
Please look at the individual practice areas on the left menu for more information.
Mr. Woodring is a member of the Appellate, Administrative, and Governmental Lawyer sections of the Florida Bar and served as Chair of the Education Law Committee of the Florida Bar.
Gary R. Trombley Family White-Collar Crime Research Professor, Stetson University College of Law
A former deputy prosecutor and criminal defense attorney, Professor Ellen S. Podgor teaches in the areas of white collar crime, criminal law and international criminal law. She has previously taught other courses, such as professional responsibility, criminal procedure, law and sexual orientation seminar, and advocacy. She served as Stetson's inaugural Associate Dean of Faculty Development and Electronic Education and also served as a LeRoy Highbaugh Sr. Research Chair. She is the co-author of numerous books including White Collar Crime in a Nutshell,Understanding International Criminal Law, and Mastering Criminal Law. She has authored more than 50 law review articles and essays in the areas of computer crime, international criminal law, lawyer's ethics, criminal discovery, prosecutorial discretion, corporate criminality, and other white collar crime topics. These have been published in journals such as the Hastings Law Journal, Washington & Lee Law Review, Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review, Yale Law Journal Pocket Part, Washington University Law Review, Fordham Law Review, Cardozo Law Review, U.C. Davis Law Review, American University Law Review, Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics, American Criminal Law Review, Vanderbilt En Banc, Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, and many others.
Podgor has been interviewed on National Public Radio and been quoted in newspapers across the country, including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, LA Times, National Law Journal, Chicago Tribune, andBusiness Week. She is the editor of the highly ranked White Collar Crime Prof Blog. She is the chair of the Advisory Committee of the NACDL White-Collar Criminal Defense College at Stetson.
She has taught at other law schools including Georgia State University College of Law and St. Thomas University College of Law, and been a visiting professor at University of Georgia School of Law, George Washington University Law School and held a visiting endowed chair position at University of Alabama School of Law. She also was a visiting scholar at Yale Law School. Podgor served for six years as a member of the board of directors of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) and presently serves on the board of directors of the International Society for the Reform of Criminal Law (ISRCL) and the board of trustees for the Southeastern Association of Law Schools (SEALS). She is a past chair of the Criminal Justice Section of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) and is an honorary member of the American Board of Criminal Lawyers. Professor Podgor is a member of the American Law Institute.
In 2010, Podgor received the Robert C. Heeney Award, the highest honor given by the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. She is also the recipient of the Dickerson-Brown Award for Excellence in Faculty Scholarship.
Florida First District Court of Appeal
Stephanie Williams Ray is a judge on the Florida First District Court of Appeal. She was appointed by Governor Rick Scott in June 2011. She was retained in 2012 and her current term expires in January of 2019.
Partner, Holland & Knight
William Shepherd is a trial lawyer in Holland & Knight's West Palm Beach and Washington, D.C., offices. Mr. Shepherd, who also serves as executive partner of the firm's West Palm Beach office, represents clients involved in civil and criminal government investigations. He also assists the general counsel of public and private companies in conducting sensitive internal investigations and compliance matters. In addition to his enforcement practice, Mr. Shepherd handles complex civil litigation in related subject matters. Prior to joining the firm, Mr. Shepherd served, at the appointment of the attorney general, as the statewide prosecutor of Florida and earlier in his career, as a prosecutor in Miami, Florida.
Chambers USA – America's Leading Business Lawyers guide has recognized Mr. Shepherd since 2013 for Litigation: White Collar Crime & Government Investigations.
Mr. Shepherd was elected to serve as chair of the 20,000 member Criminal Justice Section of the American Bar Association and served as a member of its Global Anti-Corruption Task Force and as division director of its White Collar Crime Division.
Professor of Law and Assistant Director, Criminal Justice Center, University of Florida Levin College of Law
Professor Stinneford teaches and writes about legal ethics, criminal law, criminal procedure, and constitutional law. His work has been cited by the United States Supreme Court, several state supreme courts and federal courts of appeal, and numerous scholars. It has published in numerous scholarly journals including the Georgetown Law Journal, the Northwestern University Law Review, the Virginia Law Review, the Notre Dame Law Review, and the William & Mary Law Review. The Stanford-Yale Junior faculty forum selected one of his articles as the best paper in the category of Constitutional History, and the AALS Criminal Justice Section named another article as the best paper in its Junior Scholars Paper Competition. In the fall of 2015, he was a Visiting Scholar at the Georgetown Law Center, Center for the Constitution.
Before joining the Florida faculty in 2009, Stinneford clerked for the Hon. James Moran of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, served as an Assistant United States Attorney, and practiced law with Winston & Strawn in Chicago. Stinneford teaches first-year courses in Criminal Law and Constitutional Law, and upper-level courses in Professional Responsibility, Criminal Procedure, Federal Criminal Law, Law & Literature, and White Collar Crime.
Owner, Sukhia Law Firm PLC
After 29 years of legal practice in which he served as a Law Clerk at the Florida Supreme Court and U.S. Court of Appeals, as the United States Attorney for the Northern District of Florida, and as a senior partner in one of Florida's oldest and largest statewide firms, Ken Sukhia began his own firm in the State Capital in 2008. Mr. Sukhia was appointed U.S. Attorney by President George H.W. Bush, and has served as litigation counsel to numerous corporations and prominent officials, including President George W. Bush, Governor Charlie Crist, Governor Jeb Bush, Ralph Nader, Tenet Healthcare, Dupont Industries, Caremark Rx, Nationwide, General Electric, and The Florida Senate.
During his career, Ken Sukhia has represented some of the country's top corporations and officials in high profile and complex litigation. He has extensive experience in a wide range of legal areas, including public and private practice, civil and criminal law, state and federal court, and trial and appellate litigation. Florida The Miami Herald has described Mr. Sukhia as a “powerhouse Florida lawyer." This observation is evidenced by the remarkable number of prominent officials and entities who have turned to Mr. Sukhia to represent them in their most vital matters.
Mr. Sukhia is recognized as an “AV Preeminent rated" attorney by Martindale-Hubbell, is named in the Best Lawyers and “Super Lawyers" publications in the top 5% of his profession, and has regularly been named in Who's Who Among American Lawyers. His firm is named in The US News and World Reports list of the top law firms handling white-collar matters. He has given numerous speeches to legal and civic organizations and has testified four times before the United States House and Senate Judiciary Committees on criminal justice issues in Florida. Mr. Sukhia graduated with high honors from the University of Florida Law School in 1978 and received his undergraduate degree with distinction in all subjects from Cornell University in 1975.
Principal Attorney, Woodring Law Firm
Mr. Daniel Woodring has lived in Florida for almost 30 years, but was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In Florida, he has lived and worked in Pensacola, Clearwater, Jacksonville, Gainesville and Tallahassee. His wife Jean, who is also an attorney, was born in Miami, and grew up in Ft. Myers. They have a son and a daughter.
Mr. Woodring is recognized as a Florida Super Lawyer, an honor given to fewer than 5% of Florida Attorneys, and holds an Avvo “Superb” rating. Mr. Woodring also has an AV Preeminent® Peer Reviewrating. AV®, AV Preeminent® are registered certification marks of Reed Elsevier Properties Inc., used in accordance with the Martindale-Hubbell certification procedures, standards and policies, and the ratings are explained at www.martindale.com/ratings.
Mr. Woodring is a member of the Florida and Georgia Bars, and is admitted to practice before the Florida Federal Southern, Middle and Northern District Courts, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court. He has worked at the trial level on cases in many of Florida’s 20 judicial circuits, in addition to cases in state administrative tribunals. He has argued cases at the Florida Supreme Court and Florida District Courts of Appeal, and has briefed cases at the U.S. Supreme Court.
He graduated from the University of Florida, College of Law with a Juris Doctorate, Cum Laude, and received his B.A. degree from Clearwater Christian College, Summa Cum Laude.
After law school, Mr. Woodring was in private practice doing general civil and appellate work. He then left for a two year appellate clerkship at the First District Court of Appeal. During his time at the court, he worked on cases including, but not limited to: criminal; family law; administrative law; workers’ compensation; business and civil law; constitutional law.
Mr. Woodring next worked as a counsel in the Executive Office of the Governor, Office of the General Counsel. During his time in Governor Bush’s Legal Office he had diverse responsibilities, including oversight and strategic litigation management of significant legal matters at numerous Governor’s agencies, including the Department of Education, Department of Management Services, Department of Business and Professional Regulation, Department of Health, Agency for Health Care Administration, Department of Children and Families, Department of Community Affairs, Department of Elder affairs, Agency for Workforce Innovation, Department of Transportation, and the Department of State.
He was also legally responsible for topics as disparate as emergency operations; advising the Governor on the selection of judges; implementation of civil service reform; reform of workers’ compensation; budget and appropriation matters; Indian gaming law; and legally advising the Florida Cabinet sitting in its many capacities, such as the Florida Land and Water Adjudicatory Commission.
Mr. Daniel Woodring was then offered the opportunity to be General Counsel for the Florida Department of Education, which encompassed Pre-K though 12th grade, community colleges(now State colleges) and the Florida University System. He was also the first General Counsel for the Florida Board of Governors, when that Board was constitutionally created to manage the State University System.
During almost five years at the Department of Education, Mr. Woodring advised and litigated on matters including, but not limited to: constitutional challenges to Florida’s education programs, including Opportunity Scholarships and the charter school approval and appeal process; doing away with race as a preference in university admissions and state contracting; teacher and professional discipline cases; union, labor and employment matters; state procurement and bid protest proceedings; administrative rule challenges and rule making proceedings; IDEA and Section 504 proceedings; public records, government in the sunshine and ethical matters; contract negotiations and disputes.
Since 2007, Mr. Woodring has been back in private practice as the principal of the Woodring Law Firm, located in Tallahassee, Florida, but with a statewide practice, including Pensacola, Jacksonville, Gainesville, Tampa Bay, Orlando, West Palm Beach, Ft. Myers, Ft. Lauderdale, and Miami. He concentrates his practice on appeals; constitutional cases in both state and federal court; education law matters, including charter school represention; Business litigation; and state administrative matters, including state procurement, regulation and licensing, rule challenges and proposed rule making, although he also handles cases in many other areas.
Please look at the individual practice areas on the left menu for more information.
Mr. Woodring is a member of the Appellate, Administrative, and Governmental Lawyer sections of the Florida Bar and served as Chair of the Education Law Committee of the Florida Bar.
Partner, Phelps Dunbar LLP
Mike Hurst is a partner with Phelps Dunbar LLP where he optimizes his in-depth knowledge of the court system, investigative and prosecutorial agencies, the regulatory arena, and the public policy realm to help clients facing government investigations, enforcement actions, regulatory matters, general litigation and policy issues. Mike currently serves as the General Counsel of the Republican National Committee and as Chairman of the Mississippi Republican Party. He previously served as the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Mississippi from 2017-2021, and with over 20 years of experience before judges, juries and policy makers, handling some of the largest and most high-profile cases in Mississippi, he's known for untangling the most complex legal issues.
As U.S. Attorney, Mike was described as a “hard charger,” leading efforts to combat violent crime, human trafficking and public corruption, among many other issues, throughout Mississippi. He almost tripled prosecutions in the U.S. Attorney’s Office over a three-year period, resulting in the most indictments and federal defendants indicted in a one-year period in Mississippi history. He created innovative and national award-winning crime-fighting solutions, like “Project EJECT,” and he established the first statewide, multilevel and multidisciplinary human trafficking body, the Mississippi Human Trafficking Council, to comprehensively and holistically address this criminal scourge.
During his tenure as U.S. Attorney, Mike oversaw some of the biggest cases in Mississippi history: the largest health care fraud scheme (Wade Walters, et. al.), the largest Ponzi scheme (Lamar Adams), the largest False Claims Act health care fraud settlement (Region 8), and the largest nursing home False Claim Act settlement (Hyperion). In addition, as Chief Federal Law Enforcement Officer for the Southern District, Mike coordinated the largest single-state immigration worksite enforcement operation in our nation’s history, involving hundreds of federal law enforcement agents covering seven different locations operated by multiple companies.
Mike’s no show pony – he’s a work horse. Before his tenure as U.S. Attorney, Mike was an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Mississippi for more than eight years. He handled some of the most difficult and complex cases in that office, dealing with white collar crimes, public corruption and financial fraud, including numerous jury trials before almost every federal judge in the Southern District.
He also has experience in the private sector. He has practiced law in Washington, D.C., and has served as a litigator and general counsel for a conservative nonprofit. He also has extensive experience in public policy, having served as the Legislative Director to a U.S. Congressman and as Counsel to the House Judiciary Committee.
Mike has also testified before both the United States Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives on issues ranging from crime to Presidential pardons. He has worked on all sides of the legal, regulatory, investigative, prosecutorial and policy spectrum. The incredible insight gained from this varied experience enables him to find a path forward for clients, no matter how complicated the case.
Red Tape and Runaway Government: How the Regulatory State Burdens the Poor and Stifles the American Dream
Crime & Punishment
Ellen S. Podgor, Stephanie Ray, William N. Shepherd, John F. Stinneford, Kenneth W. Sukhia, Daniel Woodring
In recent years there has been a debate across the ideological spectrum about the reach...
Crime & Punishment
Ellen S. Podgor, Stephanie Ray, William N. Shepherd, John F. Stinneford, Kenneth W. Sukhia, Daniel Woodring
In recent years there has been a debate across the ideological spectrum about the reach...
Is the Long Arm of the Law Shrinking? Geographic Boundaries for the Approval of Wiretaps and Bugs and the Shifting Jurisdictional Reach of Federal Judges to Authorize Electronic Surveillance
Mike Hurst
Recent court decisions from around the country are raising serious questions as to the potential...
Law and Innovation: The Case for Patent Law
Guns, Bird Feathers and Overcriminalization
Gun Rights v. Gun Control
Richard Epstein on The Classical Liberal Constitution
Palo Alto, CaliforniaAffirmative Action
Free Speech on Campus