Lecturer in Law, University of Chicago Law School
Robert Gasaway is a Lecturer in Law at the University of Chicago Law School. He was formerly a Partner at Kirkland & Ellis LLP in their Washington office. He has represented and advised corporate clients on a wide variety of matters before federal courts, state courts, federal administrative agencies, and federal and state legislative bodies. Mr. Gasaway focuses his practice on appellate litigation, representing clients in the preparation of integrated, multiforum trial and appellate strategies in high-risk sets of related cases.
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.
Board Member, Center for Equal Opportunity
Roger Clegg is a Board Member at and former President and General Counsel of the Center for Equal Opportunity. He focuses on legal issues arising from civil rights laws--including the regulatory impact on business and the problems in higher education created by affirmative action. A former Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Reagan and Bush administrations, Clegg held the second highest positions in both the Civil Rights Division (1987-91) and in the Environment and Natural Resources Division (1991-93). He has held several other positions at the U.S. Justice Department, including Assistant to the Solicitor General (1985-87), Associate Deputy Attorney General (1984-85), and Acting Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Policy (1984). Clegg is a graduate of Yale University Law School (1981).
Ralph S. Tyler, Jr. Professor of Constitutional Law, Harvard Law School
Former Solicitor General of Texas
Jonathan F. Mitchell is Principal at Mitchell Law PLLC. He received his law degree with high honors from the University of Chicago Law School, where he was an articles editor of The University of Chicago Law Review and a member of the Order of the Coif.
After graduating from law school, Mr. Mitchell clerked for Judge J. Michael Luttig of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and for Justice Antonin Scalia of the Supreme Court of the United States. He then served as an Attorney-Adviser in the Office of Legal Counsel of the United States Department of Justice from 2003 through 2006. After leaving the Department of Justice, Mr. Mitchell served as a Visiting Researcher at Georgetown University Law Center, a Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Chicago Law School from 2006 through 2008, and an Assistant Professor of Law at George Mason University from 2008 through 2010.
In 2010, Mr. Mitchell was appointed Solicitor General of Texas, a position he held until January 2015. After leaving the Texas Solicitor General’s office, Mr. Mitchell served as the Searle Visiting Professor of Law at the University of Texas School of Law before joining the Hoover Institution as a Visiting Fellow from 2015 to 2016. Mr. Mitchell also served as a Visiting Professor of Law at Stanford Law School before opening his own law firm in 2018.
Mr. Mitchell has published numerous works of scholarship in top-10 law journals, and he has written articles on textualism, national-security law, criminal law and procedure, judicial review and judicial federalism, and the legality of stare decisis in constitutional adjudication.
Mr. Mitchell has argued eight times before the Supreme Court of the United States, and more than 20 times in the federal courts of appeals. He has also argued before Supreme Court of Texas and in numerous trial courts. Mr. Mitchell has authored the principal merits brief in 11 Supreme Court cases, and has written and submitted more than 20 amicus curiae briefs in the Supreme Court.
Mr. Mitchell devised the novel enforcement mechanism in the Texas Heartbeat Act, also known as Senate Bill 8, which avoids pre-enforcement judicial review by prohibiting government officials from enforcing the statute and empowering private citizens to bring lawsuits against those who violate it. This produced an end-run around Roe v. Wade and allowed Texas and other states to impose pre-viability abortion bans despite the continued existence of Roe.
Boochever and Bird Chair for the Study and Teaching of Freedom a, UC-Davis School of Law
Alan Brownstein, a nationally recognized Constitutional Law scholar, teaches Constitutional Law, Law and Religion, and Torts at UC Davis School of Law. While the primary focus of his scholarship relates to church-state issues and free exercise and establishment clause doctrine, he has also written extensively on freedom of speech, privacy and autonomy rights, and other constitutional law subjects. His articles have been published in numerous academic journals including the Stanford Law Review, Cornell Law Review, UCLA Law Review and Constitutional Commentary. Brownstein received the UC Davis School of Law's Distinguished Teaching Award in 1995 and the UC Davis Distinguished Scholarly Public Service Award in 2008. He is a member of the American Law Institute.
Professor Brownstein has testified on several occasions before various California Senate Committees on legislation promoting religious liberty and bills that raise Establishment Clause concerns. His assistance is often sought by advocacy groups on issues relating to religious liberty and equality. He is a frequent invited lecturer at academic conferences and regularly participates as a speaker or panelist in law related programs before civic, legal, religious, and educational groups. He is the co-author of dozens of Findlaw columns discussing a range of legal issues.
A graduate of Antioch College and Harvard Law School (where he served as a Case Editor of the Harvard Law Review), Brownstein was an attorney in general litigation and corporate practice with the law firm of Tuttle & Taylor in Los Angeles before joining the UC Davis law faculty. From 1977-78, he clerked for the Honorable Frank M. Coffin, Chief Judge of the U.S. District Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit in Portland, Maine.
"Most lawyers do not practice constitutional law," Brownstein notes, "but members of the Bar bear a special responsibility for understanding constitutional doctrine and communicating its meaning to non-lawyers. The role that constitutional law plays in our society depends in part on the interplay between courts and the political culture. If judicial decisions are unintelligible to the polity and no group accepts responsibility for explaining the Constitution's evolving meaning to the polity, we undermine part of the foundation of the constitutional scheme of things."
U.S. Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit (1983-1989); U.S. Solicitor General (1989-1993)
Kenneth Starr is a former United States Federal Court of Appeals Judge, U.S. Solicitor General, and Independent Counsel. He is the former President and Chancellor of Baylor University where he held the Louise L. Morrison Chair of Constitutional Law at Baylor University Law School.
Deputy Secretary of Transportation, US Department of Transportation
Steven G. Bradbury was sworn in as the Deputy Secretary of Transportation on March 13, 2025, following his confirmation by the U.S. Senate on March 11, 2025. In this role, he oversees the Department’s operating administrations and spearheads initiatives to ensure a safe, efficient, and modern transportation system that strengthens economic productivity and global competitiveness. Deputy Secretary Bradbury also assists Secretary Duffy in managing the Department’s activities, including its workforce of over 58,000 employees and an annual budget exceeding $109 billion.
Bradbury previously served as the 23rd General Counsel of the Department of Transportation from 2017 to 2021, as the Acting Deputy Secretary from 2019, and as Acting Secretary of Transportation in 2021. As General Counsel, he was the chief legal officer, advising on all legal matters and ensuring the integrity and compliance of the Department’s policies and programs.
Before rejoining DOT, Bradbury was a Distinguished Fellow at The Heritage Foundation from December 2022 to March 2025. He has extensive experience in the public and private sector, having served as Principal Deputy and Acting Assistant Attorney General at the U.S. Department of Justice and as a partner at Kirkland & Ellis LLP and Dechert LLP. Earlier in his career, he clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas and Judge James L. Buckley.
Bradbury holds a J.D., magna cum laude, from the University of Michigan Law School and a B.A. in English from Stanford University.
Nonresident Senior Fellow, American Enterprise Institute
Jim Harper is a nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he focuses on privacy issues, and select legal and constitutional law issues.
A lawyer by training, Mr. Harper has served as counsel for the Subcommittee on Commercial, and Administrative Law of the US House Committee on the Judiciary and as counsel for the Senate Committee on Government Affairs. More recently, he worked at the Competitive Enterprise Institute and the Cato Institute, where he wrote on the intersection of business, technology, and public policy, including privacy, surveillance, data security, telecommunications, and cryptocurrencies. He also served as global policy counsel for the Bitcoin Foundation. Mr. Harper was a founding member of the Department of Homeland Security’s Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee. Early in his post-Hill career, he represented companies such as PayPal and Verisign before Congress.
Mr. Harper is the co-editor of “Terrorizing Ourselves: Why U.S. Counterterrorism Policy Is Failing and How to Fix It” (Cato Institute, 2010) and the author of “Identity Crisis: How Identification Is Overused and Misunderstood” (Cato Institute, 2006). He has written several amicus briefs in Fourth Amendment cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and has published scholarly articles in a variety of law journals. In the popular press, Mr. Harper has been published in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, among many other publications.
Mr. Harper has a law degree from the U.C. Hastings College of the Law, where he was editor-in-chief of the Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly, and a BA from the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress
Kate Martin is a Senior Fellow at American Progress where she works on issues at the intersection of national security, civil liberties, and human rights. The New York Times’ Taking Note blog described her as “an expert on surveillance and detention, and a leading advocate for the rule of law in the so-called ‘war on terror.’” Before coming to American Progress, Ms. Martin served as director of the Center for National Security Studies for more than 20 years. She frequently testifies before Congress on national security and civil liberties issues. She is also a frequent commentator in the national media and has written extensively on these issues for the past 25 years. At the Center for National Security Studies, Martin brought lawsuits that challenged government deprivations of civil liberties. She has taught national security law and served as general counsel to the National Security Archive.
Ms. Martin is a graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law and Pomona College. Before joining the public interest world, she served as a partner at the law firm of Nussbaum, Owen & Webster.
Founder and Principal, Fillmore Global Strategies LLC
Ambassador Nathan A. Sales is the founder and principal of Fillmore Global Strategies LLC, a consultancy that provides legal and strategic advisory services on matters at the intersection of law, policy, and diplomacy.
From 2017 to 2021, Ambassador Sales served at the U.S. Department of State as Under Secretary for Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights (acting). He oversaw nine bureaus and offices led by Senate-confirmed principals, with 1,300 employees and a combined foreign assistance budget of more than $5 billion annually, and the mission of preventing and countering threats to civilian security, including terrorism, mass atrocities, and violations of human rights and the rule of law.
Concurrently, Ambassador Sales was Ambassador-at-Large and Coordinator for Counterterrorism. After being nominated by the President and unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate, he was sworn in on August 10, 2017. He served as the principal adviser to the Secretary of State on international counterterrorism matters, and led the State Department’s Counterterrorism Bureau, a 200-person team with an annual foreign assistance budget of $400 million. He was also the Special Presidential Envoy to the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS, leading U.S. relations with the 83-member Coalition and efforts to ensure the lasting defeat of ISIS in the Middle East and around the world.
While at the State Department, Ambassador Sales led the elements of the U.S. government’s China strategy promoting democratic values and human rights, including with respect to Hong Kong and Xinjiang. He oversaw the development and implementation of a wide range of U.S. government sanctions, including Global Magnitsky actions and Executive Order 13,936, targeting those responsible for undermining Hong Kong’s freedoms and autonomy. Ambassador Sales was the architect of the landmark 2017 UN Security Council Resolution 2396 on terrorist travel, and successfully pressed NATO to make counterterrorism a core Alliance mission. He led diplomatic engagements to persuade a dozen key partners in Europe and the Americas to designate Hizballah as a terrorist organization in its entirety. He launched the Western Hemisphere Counterterrorism Ministerial, in which heads of state and minister-level officials meet bianually to coordinate efforts against terrorist threats in the region. He led the U.S. government’s international efforts to combat white supremacist terrorism. Under his leadership, the State Department imposed terrorism sanctions on the Russian Imperial Movement – the first-ever U.S. designation of white supremacist terrorists.
Before joining the State Department, Ambassador Sales was Of Counsel at the law firm Kirkland & Ellis LLP (formerly Bancroft PLLC). He was also a tenured law professor, teaching and writing in the fields of administrative law, constitutional law, and national security law. His scholarship has been cited by the U.S. Supreme Court multiple times.
Ambassador Sales previously was Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. He led DHS’s efforts to draft and implement legislation that strengthened the security of and expanded the Visa Waiver Program (which allows citizens of certain countries to travel to the United States without a visa). He headed the U.S. delegation in talks with seven countries to implement the new security measures and was the Secretary of Homeland Security’s Special Envoy to South Korea.
Ambassador Sales also served at the Office of Legal Policy at the U.S. Department of Justice, where he worked on regulatory initiatives, counterterrorism, and judicial confirmations. In 2005, he managed DOJ’s “war room” for the confirmation of Chief Justice John Roberts. He received the Attorney General’s Award for Exceptional Service – the Justice Department’s highest honor – for his role in drafting the USA PATRIOT Act, as well as the Attorney General’s Distinguished Service Award for his work on judicial confirmations.
In addition to his work at Fillmore Global Strategies, Ambassador Sales is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and a senior advisor at the Soufan Group, a global intelligence and security consultancy. He serves on a number of advisory boards, including for the Counter-Extremism Project (a nonprofit and nonpartisan international policy organization formed to combat the growing threat from extremist ideologies), the Secure Community Network (the official safety and security organization for the North American Jewish community), and the Sue J. Henry Center for Pre-Law Education at Miami University.
An Ohio native, Ambassador Sales received his B.A., summa cum laude, from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He earned his J.D., magna cum laude, from Duke Law School, where he was Research Editor of the Duke Law Journal and joined the Order of the Coif. After law school, he clerked for the Honorable David B. Sentelle of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit.
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 Fellow, Governance Studies, The Brookings Institution
Benjamin Wittes is a senior fellow in Governance Studies at The Brookings Institution. He co-founded and is the editor-in-chief of the Lawfare blog, which is devoted to sober and serious discussion of "Hard National Security Choices," and is a member of the Hoover Institution's Task Force on National Security and Law. He is the author of Detention and Denial: The Case for Candor After Guantanamo, published in November 2011, co-editor of Constitution 3.0: Freedom and Technological Change, published in December 2011, and editor of Campaign 2012: Twelve Independent Ideas for Improving American Public Policy (Brookings Institution Press, May 2012). He is also writing a book on data and technology proliferation and their implications for security. He is the author of Law and the Long War: The Future of Justice in the Age of Terror, published in June 2008 by The Penguin Press, and the editor of the 2009 Brookings book, Legislating the War on Terror: An Agenda for Reform.
His previous books include Starr: A Reassessment, published in 2002 by Yale University Press, and Confirmation Wars: Preserving Independent Courts in Angry Times, published in 2006 by Rowman & Littlefield and the Hoover Institution.
Between 1997 and 2006, he served as an editorial writer for The Washington Post specializing in legal affairs. Before joining the editorial page staff of The Washington Post, Wittes covered the Justice Department and federal regulatory agencies as a reporter and news editor at Legal Times. His writing has also appeared in a wide range of journals and magazines including The Atlantic, Slate, The New Republic, The Wilson Quarterly, The Weekly Standard, Policy Review, and First Things.
Benjamin Wittes was born in Boston, Massachusetts. He graduated from Oberlin College in 1990, and he has a black belt in taekwondo.
Professor, The University of South Dakota School of Law
Patrick Garry is a professor of law at The University of South Dakota and the Director of the Hagemann Center for Legal & Public Policy Research.
Professor Garry has published more than forty scholarly articles and authored ten books, many of which have been the subject of numerous conferences and symposia. Professor Garry has been invited on several occasions to testify before Congress on legal and constitutional matters, and he is a frequent speaker at Federalist Society sponsored events. Aside from his public speaking appearances, Professor Garry often writes for popular audience websites, magazines, and newspapers, including the Chicago Tribune and Washington Times. These writings offer commentary and analysis of current political and legal issues.
Professor Garry received his Ph.D. and J.D. from the University of Minnesota. And he has been invited to teach as a visiting professor at the George Washington University Law School, the University of Utah School of Law, the University of Missouri School of Law, and the University of St. Thomas School of Law.
Senior Policy Counsel and Deputy Director, Project on Freedom, S, the Center for Democracy and Technology
Harley Geiger is Senior Counsel and Deputy Director of the Freedom, Security and Surveillance Project at the Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT). Mr. Geiger works on issues related to civil liberties and government surveillance, computer crime, and cybersecurity.
From 2012-2014, Mr. Geiger served as Senior Legislative Counsel for U.S. Representative Zoe Lofgren of California. There he was the lead staffer for technology and Internet issues, and was instrumental in helping develop Rep. Lofgren’s Internet freedom agenda, including legislation to reform the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, ECPA, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, and copyright laws.
From 2008-2012, Mr. Geiger worked at CDT as Staff Attorney and Senior Policy Counsel, focusing on surveillance, consumer privacy, health information technology, and data security. Prior to working at CDT, Mr. Geiger clerked with the Bureau of Consumer Protection at the Federal Trade Commission, where he worked on information security public awareness campaigns. In 2007, Mr. Geiger clerked with the Electronic Privacy Information Center, where he worked on health privacy, telephone network security, employee verification, and human rights issues. In 2006, he clerked with the Minority Leader of the Missouri House of Representatives, where he testified before a Missouri Senate Committee on technology policy.
Mr. Geiger earned a BA in Journalism, MA in Journalism, and JD from the University of Missouri – Columbia. He is CIPP/US certified and Politico named him one of the Emerging Tech Leaders of 2013.
Professor of Law, Roger Williams University School of Law
As an expert in National Security Law, Professor Peter Margulies focuses on the delicate balance between liberty, equality, and security in issues involving law and terrorism. Professor Margulies has written almost a dozen articles discussing the War on Terror. He currently works with RWU Law Professor Jared Goldstein, along with litigators from the law firm Edwards Angell Palmer & Dodge, in representing two Afghan detainees. Professor Margulies led a national conference entitled “Legal Dilemmas in A Dangerous World: Law, Terrorism and National Security” held at RWU.
Professor Margulies also has an extensive background in immigration law and has represented Haitian refugees and conducted outreach to community legal service providers.
Peter Marguiles teaches Immigration Law, National Security Law and Professional Responsibility. He has filed amicus briefs in high-visibility cases with the U.S. Supreme Court and has been frequently cited in the New York Times, the National Law Journal and other media outlets.
Senior Fellow, Cato Institute
Julian Sanchez is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and studies issues at the busy intersection of technology, privacy, and civil liberties, with a particular focus on national security and intelligence surveillance. Before joining Cato, Sanchez served as the Washington editor for the technology news site Ars Technica, where he covered surveillance, intellectual property, and telecom policy. He has also worked as a writer for The Economist’s blog Democracy in America and as an editor for Reason magazine, where he remains a contributing editor.
Sanchez has written on privacy and technology for a wide array of national publications, ranging from the National Review to The Nation, and is a founding editor of the policy blog Just Security. He studied philosophy and political science at New York University.
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.
Partner, Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP
Kenneth Wainstein is a partner at Davis Polk & Wardwell, where he focuses his practice on corporate internal investigations and civil and criminal enforcement proceedings. Ken spent over 20 years in a variety of law enforcement and national security positions in the government. Between 1989 and 2001, Ken served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in both the Southern District of New York and the District of Columbia, where he handled criminal prosecutions ranging from public corruption to gang prosecution cases and held a variety of supervisory positions, including Acting United States Attorney. In 2001, he was appointed Director of the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys, where he provided oversight and support to the 94 U.S. Attorneys’ Offices. Between 2002 and 2004, Ken served as General Counsel of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and then as Chief of Staff to Director Robert S. Mueller III. In 2004, Ken was appointed and then confirmed as United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, where he had the privilege to lead the largest United States Attorney’s Office in the country. In 2006, the U.S. Senate confirmed Ken as the first Assistant Attorney General for National Security. In that position, Ken established and led the new National Security Division, which consolidated DOJ’s law enforcement and intelligence activities on counterterrorism and counterintelligence matters. In 2008, after 19 years at the Justice Department, Ken was named Homeland Security Advisor by President George W. Bush. In this capacity, he coordinated the nation’s counterterrorism, homeland security, infrastructure protection, and disaster response and recovery efforts. He advised the President, convened and chaired meetings of the Cabinet Officers on the Homeland Security Council, and oversaw the inter-agency coordination process for homeland security and counterterrorism programs.
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