Executive in Residence, Wake Forest University School of Business
John Allison is an Executive in Residence at the Wake Forest School of Business. He is a member of the Cato Institute’s Board of Directors and Chairman of the Executive Advisory Council of the Cato Institute’s Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives. Allison was president and CEO of the Cato Institute from October 2012 to April 2015. Prior to joining Cato, Allison was chairman and CEO of BB&T Corporation, the 10th-largest financial services holding company headquartered in the United States. During his tenure as CEO from 1989 to 2008, BB&T grew from $4.5 billion to $152 billion in assets. He was recognized by theHarvard Business Reviewas one of the top 100 most successful CEOs in the world over the last decade.
Allison has received the Corning Award for Distinguished Leadership, been inducted into the North Carolina Business Hall of Fame, and received the Lifetime Achievement Award from theAmerican Banker. He is the author of The Financial Crisis and the Free Market Cure: Why Pure Capitalism Is the World Economy’s Only Hope and The Leadership Crisis and the Free Market Cure: Why the Future of Business Depends on the Return to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. In addition, he is a former Distinguished Professor of Practice at Wake Forest University School of Business, and serves on the Board of Visitors at the business schools at Wake Forest, Duke, and the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill.
Allison is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill. He received his master’s degree in management from Duke University and is also a graduate of the Stonier Graduate School of Banking. Allison is the recipient of six honorary doctorate degrees.
Wayne A. Abernathy, Wild Bells
Wayne A. Abernathy is a former U.S. Treasury Assistant Secretary for Financial Institutions under President George W. Bush, receiving the Alexander Hamilton Award in recognition of his service. In that office he was also a member of the Board of Directors of the Securities Investor Protection Corporation. Prior to his work at the Treasury, Mr. Abernathy served as Staff Director of the Senate Banking Committee, under Chairman Phil Gramm.
Following his service at the Treasury, Mr. Abernathy worked for 15 years on the staff of the American Bankers Association, as Executive Vice President for Financial Institutions Policy and Regulatory Affairs.
Previous experience with the Senate Banking Committee includes serving as Staff Director of the Subcommittee on Securities during 1995-1998. From 1989 until 1994, Mr. Abernathy was a Republican economist for the committee. He previously worked as a senior legislative assistant for Senator Gramm during 1987-1989 and as an economist for the Banking Committee’s Subcommittee on International Finance and Monetary Policy during 1981-1986, under Chairman Jake Garn.
Mr. Abernathy earned his bachelor’s degree in International Studies from The Johns Hopkins University in 1978. In 1980, he received a master’s degree in International Studies from the School of Advanced International Studies of The Johns Hopkins University.
Executive Vice President, The Federalist Society
Dean Reuter is Executive Vice President at the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies. He has served in two federal government agency Offices of the Inspector General, as Counsel to the Inspector General and Deputy Inspector General, responsible for policing the use of federal funds granted and contracted through those agencies. As such, he helped conduct and oversee criminal investigations across the country. He is the principal author of the non-fiction book, The Hidden Nazi: The Untold Story of America's Deal with the Devil, and editor of Liberty’s Nemesis: The Unchecked Expansion of the State and Confronting Terror: 9/11 and the Future of American National Security. He was appointed by the President and served as Vice-Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Corporation for National and Community Service, and recently served as an appointee on the U.S. Commission on Presidential Scholars. He is a graduate of Hood College (BA with Honors) and the University of Maryland School of Law.
Laurence H. Silberman Chair in Constitutional Governance and Senior Fellow, American Enterprise Institute; Co-Director, Antonin Scalia Law School’s C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State
Adam J. White is the Laurence H. Silberman Chair in Constitutional Governance and senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he focuses on the Supreme Court and the administrative state. Concurrently, he codirects the Antonin Scalia Law School’s C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State.
Mr. White practiced constitutional and administrative law, particularly in the regulation of energy and financial markets. He started his legal career as a law clerk for Judge David B. Sentelle at the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit.
Mr. White has written for the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Washington Post, National Affairs, Commentary, Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, and Notre Dame Law Review, among other publications. He is a regular contributor to the Yale Journal on Regulation’s Notice and Comment blog, and for many years, he was one of the Weekly Standard’s lead writers on constitutional law and the Supreme Court.
Mr. White has testified often before Congress, including before the Senate’s Committees on the Judiciary; Commerce, Science, and Transportation; and Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs and before the House’s Judiciary and Financial Services Committees. In 2018, the Senate Committee on the Judiciary called him to testify in Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings to advise senators on Kavanaugh’s approach to administrative law.
In 2021, he served on the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States, where he criticized “Court packing” and other efforts to restructure the Supreme Court. In 2017, he was appointed to serve on the Administrative Conference of the United States. He also serves on the leadership council for the American Bar Association’s Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice Section, which he will chair in 2023–24. Before joining AEI, he was a research fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and an adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
Mr. White has a JD from Harvard Law School and a bachelor of business administration from the College of Business at the University of Iowa.
Partner, O'Melveny & Myers LLP
Gregory Jacob is a partner in O’Melveny’s Washington, D.C. office. Greg Jacob represents financial services companies including banks, investment managers, health care payors, and insurers, as well as other employers, in class action and other litigation concerning ERISA and other labor and employment matters. A former Solicitor of Labor, Greg has extensive knowledge on a wide variety of labor and employment issues including ERISA, FLSA, OFCCP, and whistleblower law. He regularly litigates in federal courts throughout the country, defends clients against Department of Labor investigations, and provides counseling to plans and plan sponsors.
Prior to rejoining O’Melveny in 2021, Greg served as Counsel to Vice President Pence and Deputy Assistant to the President. He directly advised the Vice President on all legal issues relating to the Office of the Vice President, and advised the White House Coronavirus Task Force concerning the Defense Production Act and other legal issues related to bolstering the domestic supply chain.
Executive Vice President, The Federalist Society
Dean Reuter is Executive Vice President at the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies. He has served in two federal government agency Offices of the Inspector General, as Counsel to the Inspector General and Deputy Inspector General, responsible for policing the use of federal funds granted and contracted through those agencies. As such, he helped conduct and oversee criminal investigations across the country. He is the principal author of the non-fiction book, The Hidden Nazi: The Untold Story of America's Deal with the Devil, and editor of Liberty’s Nemesis: The Unchecked Expansion of the State and Confronting Terror: 9/11 and the Future of American National Security. He was appointed by the President and served as Vice-Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Corporation for National and Community Service, and recently served as an appointee on the U.S. Commission on Presidential Scholars. He is a graduate of Hood College (BA with Honors) and the University of Maryland School of Law.
United States Senator, Texas
Ted Cruz represents 28 million Texans in the U.S. Senate as a passionate fighter for limited government and economic growth. He has authored 39 legislative measures signed into law. Recent victories include expanding 529 college savings accounts to allow parents to save for K–12 public, private, and religious education, leading the effort to repeal Obamacare’s individual mandate, imposing sanctions on terrorists who use civilians as human shields, designating North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism, reauthorizing and reforming NASA, ensuring the availability of additional records to help solve civil rights cold cases, supporting thousands of Texas jobs, and leading the fight to confirm principled constitutionalists to our courts.
Senator Cruz is a graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law School, a former law clerk to Chief Justice William Rehnquist, and former solicitor general of Texas. He has argued nine cases before the Supreme Court. In November of 2018, he was re-elected to the Senate by the people of Texas.
A. W. Walker Centennial Chair in Law, University of Texas at Austin School of Law
Professor Graglia has written widely in constitutional law--especially on judicial review, constitutional interpretation, race discrimination, and affirmative action--and also teaches and writes in the area of antitrust. He is the author of Disaster by Decree: The Supreme Court Decisions on Race and the Schools (Cornell, 1976) and many articles, including recently "Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye: Of Animal Sacrifice and Religious Persecution" (Georgetown Law Journal, 1996). He has been a Visiting Professor at the University of Virginia School of Law.
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.
W. St. John Garwood and W. St. John Garwood, Jr. Centennial Chair and Professor of Government, University of Texas at Austin School of Law
Sanford Levinson, who holds the W. St. John Garwood and W. St. John Garwood, Jr. Centennial Chair in Law, joined the University of Texas Law School in 1980. Previously a member of the Department of Politics at Princeton University, he is also a Professor in the Department of Government at the University of Texas. Levinson is the author of approximately 400 articles, book reviews, or commentaries in professional and popular journals--and a regular contributor to the popular blog Balkinization. He has also written six books: Constitutional Faith (1988, winner of the Scribes Award, 2d edition 2011); Written in Stone: Public Monuments in Changing Societies (1998); Wrestling With Diversity (2003); Our Undemocratic Constitution: Where the Constitution Goes Wrong (and How We the People Can Correct It)(2006); Framed: America's 51 Constitutions and the Crisis of Governance (2012); An Argument Open to All: Reading the Federalist in the 21st Century (2015); and, with Cynthia Levinson, Fault Lines in the Constitution: The Framers, Their Fights, and teh Flaws that Affect Us Today (forthcoming, September 2017). Edited or co-edited books include a leading constitutional law casebook, Processes of Constitutional Decisionmaking (6th ed. 2015, with Paul Brest, Jack Balkin, Akhil Amar, and Reva Siegel); Nullification and Secession in Modern Constitutional Thought (2016); Reading Law and Literature: A Hermeneutic Reader (1988, with Steven Mallioux); Responding to Imperfection: The Theory and Practice of Constitutional Amendment (1995); Constitutional Stupidities, Constitutional Tragedies (1998, with William Eskridge); Legal Canons (2000, with Jack Balkin); The Louisiana Purchase and American Expansion (2005, with Batholomew Sparrow); Torture: A Collection (2004, revised paperback edition, 2006); and The Oxford Handbook on the United States Constitution (with Mark Tushnet and Mark Graber, 2015). He received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Law and Courts Section of the American Political Science Association in 2010.
He has been a visiting faculty member of the Boston University, Georgetown, Harvard, New York University, and Yale law schools in the United States and has taught abroad in programs of law in London; Paris; Jerusalem; Auckland, New Zealand; and Melbourne, Australia. He was a Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton in 1985-86 and a Member of the Ethics in the Professions Program at Harvard in 1991-92. He is also affiliated with the Shalom Hartman Institute of Jewish Philosophy in Jerusalem. A member of the American Law Institute, Levinson was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2001. He is married to Cynthia Y. Levinson, a writer of children's literature, and has two daughters and four grandchildren.
Thomas P. O’Neill, Jr. Professor of American Politics, Boston College; Co-Chair , Harvard Program on Constitutional Government
R. Shep Melnick is the Thomas P. O’Neill, Jr. Professor of American Politics at Boston College and co-chair of the Harvard Program on Constitutional Government. He is the author of The Crucible of Desegregation: The Uncertain Search for Educational Equality (Univeristy of Chicago Press, 2023); The Transformation of Title IX: Regulating Gender Equality in Education, (Brookings, 2018), Between the Lines: Interpreting Welfare Rights (Brookings,1994), and Regulation and the Courts: The Case of the Clean Air Act (Brookings, 1983), as well as many articles on courts, agencies, and public policy. He is currently completing a book on education and the civil rights state. In 2012 he received the American Political Science Association Law and Courts Section’s “Lasting Contribution” award. He received his BA and PhD from Harvard, and taught at Harvard and Brandeis before moving to Boston College. He has also been a Research Associate at Brookings, President of the New England Political Science Association, and an elected member of the NH House of Representatives.
Freelance Journalist and Author
Stuart Taylor, Jr. is a Washington writer focusing on legal and policy issues and a National Journal contributing editor. He occasionally practices law.
Taylor has coauthored three books. All have been acclaimed by commentators across the ideological spectrum. In January 2017, KC Johnson and Taylor authored The Campus Rape Frenzy: The Attack on Due Process at America's Universities. In 2012, Richard Sander and Taylor authored Mismatch: How Affirmative Action Hurts Students It's Intended to Help, and Why Universities Won't Admit It. In 2007, Taylor and Johnson authored Until Proven Innocent: Political Correctness and the Shameful Injustices of the Duke Lacrosse Rape Fraud. Sander and Taylor have also filed amicus briefs in Supreme Court cases involving admissions preferences.
Since 1980, Taylor has done reporting and commentary about issues ranging from the biggest Supreme Court cases to race, voting rights, mindlessly excessive criminal penalties, guilt-presuming campus rape processes, journalistic bias, the death penalty, war powers, gerrymandering, guns, polarization, civil liberties, national security, torture, campaign finance, education, impeachment, and other issues. He has often been called one of the nation's best legal journalists and is known for challenging both liberal and conservative conventional wisdom.
Taylor was a reporter for The New York Times from 1980-1988, covering legal affairs and then the Supreme Court. He wrote commentaries and long features for The American Lawyer, Legal Times and their affiliates from 1989-1997, and for National Journal and Newsweek from 1998 through 2010. He has written (less often) on a freelance basis for numerous publications since 2010. He has written op-eds for The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, USA Today, and The New York Daily News and longer commentaries for RealClearPolitics, The Atlantic, The New Republic, the (late) Weekly Standard, National Review, Slate, The Daily Beast, Harper’s, Reader’s Digest, Time and other magazines. He has been interviewed on all major television and radio networks. He taught “Law and the News Media” at Stanford Law School in 2011 and 2012 and practices law on occasion.
Taylor graduated from Princeton University in 1970 with an A.B. in History. After working as a reporter for the Baltimore Evening Sun and Sun from 1971-1974, he moved to Harvard Law School, was a Harvard Law Review note editor, and graduated in 1977 at the top of his class, with high honors. He also won a Frederick Sheldon Traveling Fellowship and traveled around the world in 1977-1978 while studying freedom of the press in the United Kingdom and Kenya.
Taylor practiced law with Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering, in Washington, D.C., from 1977-1980 before returning to journalism in 1980 by joining the Washington Bureau of The New York Times.
Taylor's journalism honors include the 2009 Northern California Innocence Project Media Award for his work on the Duke lacrosse rape fraud; a 2002 National Headliner Award for best special magazine column on one subject; and a share of The American Lawyer’s National Magazine Award for a March 1990 special issue on the drug war. He was a National Magazine Award finalist in 1993 and 1997 and was nominated by The New York Times for a Pulitzer Prize in 1988.
Professor of Law, University of Michigan Law School
Prof. Samuel Bagenstos, who serves as professor of law, specializes in civil rights law, public law, and litigation. From 2009-2011, he was a political appointee in the U.S. Department of Justice, where he served as the Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, the number-two official in the Civil Rights Division. His accomplishments included the promulgation of the 2010 Americans with Disabilities Act regulations—the first comprehensive update of those regulations since they were first promulgated in 1991—and the reinvigoration of the Civil Rights Division's enforcement of the Supreme Court's decision in Olmstead v. L.C., which guarantees people with disabilities the right to live and receive services in the most integrated setting appropriate. He led the negotiations of significant Olmstead v. L.C., which guarantees people with disabilities the right to live and receive services in the most integrated setting appropriate. He led the negotiations of significant Olmsteadsettlements with the states of Delaware and Georgia, which guarantee appropriate, community-based services to thousands of people with disabilities. He also personally argued major cases in federal district courts and courts of appeals.
As an academic, Prof. Bagenstos has published articles in journals such as the Yale Law Journal, the Columbia Law Review, the California Law Review, the Virginia Law Review, and many others. He also has published two books: Law and the Contradictions of the Disability Rights Movement (2009, Yale University Press); and Disability Rights Law: Cases and Materials (2010, Foundation Press). In his "spare time," Prof. Bagenstos remains an active appellate and Supreme Court litigator in civil rights and federalism cases. In one of the most notable cases he has argued, United States v. Georgia, 546 U.S. 151 (2006), the U.S. Supreme Court upheld, as applied to his client's case, the constitutionality of Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Prof. Bagenstos has also testified before Congress on several occasions, including in support of the Fair Pay Restoration Act, the ADA Amendments Act, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, as well as on the application of the ADA to advancing technology and the problem of mental illness in prisons.
Prior to joining the Michigan Law faculty, Prof. Bagenstos was a professor of law, and, from 2007 to 2008, also associate dean for research and faculty development at Washington University School of Law. He has been on the faculty of Harvard Law School, and was a visiting professor at UCLA School of Law. He clerked for Judge Stephen Reinhardt on the Ninth Circuit for one year, and then joined the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. Following that position, he served as law clerk for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg of the U.S. Supreme Court. In 1993, Prof. Bagenstos earned his JD, magna cum laude, from Harvard, where he received the Fay Diploma and was articles office co-chair for the Harvard Law Review.
Frederick M. Baron Chair in Law and Co-Director, Center on Lawyers, Civil Justice and the Media, The University of Texas at Austin School of Law
Professor Baker's wide-ranging scholarly and teaching interests include Professional Responsibility (especially issues involving "aggregate" litigation and group settlements), attorneys' fees, mass tort litigation, "Mega-settlements," and State and Local Government Law. She is often called upon by lawyers to serve as a consultant and/or expert witness on issues of legal ethics, mass tort settlements, settlement fund allocations, and attorneys' fees. Professor Baker has also been a court-appointed allocation Special Master in mass tort settlements. She is an elected member of the American Law Institute.
Professor Baker is the author or co-author of dozens of articles and book chapters, which have appeared in the Columbia Law Review, Cornell Law Review, Duke Law Journal, Texas Law Review, and the Virginia Law Review, among many others. Her most recent publications include "Mass Torts and the Pursuit of Ethical Finality" (Fordham Law Review, 2017, symposium contribution); "Aggregate Settlements and Attorney Liability" (Hofstra Law Review, 2016, symposium contribution); and "Is the Price Right? An Empirical Study of Fee-Setting in Securities Class Actions" (Columbia Law Review, 2015) (with Michael A. Perino and Charles Silver) (selected by Corporate Practice Commentator as one of the "Top Ten Corporate and Securities Articles of 2016"). Professor Baker is also the co-author of a leading law school text, Local Government Law: Cases and Materials (Foundation Press, 5th ed. 2015) (with Clayton P. Gillette and David Schleicher).
A graduate of Yale Law School, Yale College, and Oxford University (Marshall Scholar), she was a Law Clerk to the Hon. Amalya L. Kearse, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit (1985-86 Term). A two-time world champion in tournament bridge, Professor Baker won gold medals at the 2018 World Bridge Championships (McConnell Cup) in Orlando, Florida and at the 2014 World Championships (McConnell Cup) in Sanya, China. She won a silver medal at the 2009 World Bridge Championships (Venice Cup) in Sao Paulo, Brazil. She is also a sixteen-time North American champion and won a gold medal at the 2015 European Open Championships.
Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School
Professor of Law Michael S. Greve joined the faculty of the Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University in fall 2012 after having served as John G. Searle Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he specialized in constitutional law, courts, and business regulation and served as chairman of the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Prior to joining AEI, Greve was founder and co-director of the Center for Individual Rights, a public interest law firm specializing in constitutional litigation.
Greve has served previously as an adjunct professor at a number of universities, including Cornell and Johns Hopkins Universities, and has been a visiting professor at Boston College since 2004. He was awarded a PhD and an MA in government by Cornell University. Greve also earned a Diploma from the University of Hamburg in Germany.
A prolific writer, Greve is the author of nine books and a multitude of articles appearing in scholarly publications, as well as numerous editorials, short articles, and book reviews. He is a frequent speaker for professional and scholarly organizations and has made many appearances on radio and television.
In addition Greve has provided congressional and state legislative testimony, has lobbied and consulted in federal agency proceedings, and has provided litigation services and management in over 30 cases, including matters before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Former Secretary; U.S. Department of Labor
Rene Alexander Acosta is an American attorney and politician, who served as the 27th United States Secretary of Labor from 2017 to 2019.
Secretary Acosta is the son of Cuban refugees, a native of Miami, and first-generation college graduate. He earned his undergraduate and law degrees from Harvard University.
Following law school, he worked as a law clerk for Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr., at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. He then worked at the law firm of Kirkland & Ellis and went on to teach at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia School of Law.
Secretary Acosta has served in three presidentially appointed, Senate-confirmed positions. In 2002, he was appointed to serve as a member of the National Labor Relations Board, where he participated in or authored more than 125 opinions. In 2003, he was appointed Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, and from 2005 to 2009 he served as the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida.
Prior to his tenure at the Department of Labor, Secretary Acosta served as the dean of the FIU College of Law.
Secretary Acosta has twice been named one of the nation’s 50 most influential Hispanics by Hispanic Business magazine. He was also named to the list of 100 most influential individuals in business ethics in 2008. In 2013, the South Florida Hispanic Chamber of Commerce presented him with the Chairman’s Higher Education Award in recognition of his “outstanding achievements, leadership and determination throughout a lifetime of caring and giving back to the community.”
Secretary Acosta and his wife enjoy spending time together as a family, raising their two daughters.
Professor Emeritus, Paul M. Hebert Law Center, Louisiana State University
In memoriam
Dr. John Baker is Professor Emeritus of Law, and previously the Dale E. Bennett Professor of Law, at Louisiana State University Law School. He is currently Visiting Professor at Peking University School of Transnational Law (via Zoom) and has been Visiting Professor at The Center for the Constitution, Georgetown Law School (2013-2020). He has also been a Visiting Fellow at Oriel College, the University of Oxford (2012-2014) and taught at Blackfriars Hall, Oxford in 2014. Dr. Baker has also been an adjunct Fellow at the Heritage Foundation (Spring, 2008) and a Distinguished Scholar at the Catholic University of America Law School (2011-12). He has taught at Tulane Law School, George Mason Law School, Pepperdine Law School, New York Law School, Hong Kong University, and the University of Dallas, School of Management and also taught and/or lectured in 17 foreign countries. Notable among his foreign visits are the
following: Visiting Professor at the University of Lyon III (France) (1999-2011); Visiting Professor at the Universidad de los Andes, Chile (2012), as a Fulbright Specialist (2006); and a Fulbright Scholar at various universities in the Philippines. Dr. Baker received his J.D., with honors, from the University of Michigan Law School and his B.A., magna cum laude, from the University of Dallas. He also earned a Ph.D. in Political Thought from the University of London. Baker has taught over a dozen different subjects, mostly courses in public law. His main areas of interest are Constitutional Law (particularly federalism and separation of powers), Criminal Law, Anti-Terrorism Law, International Law, Health Care Law, Mediation, and Comparative Law.
In addition to law review articles and book chapters, Dr. Baker’s academic publications include Hall's Criminal Law: Cases and Materials (with Benson, Force and George; 5th ed. Michie, 1993); An Introduction to the Law of the United States (ed. with Levasseur; University Press of America, 1992). He has also published on Forbes.com, FoxNews.com, in The Washington Times, and a number of times in The Wall Street Journal. He argues in federal court, including two oral arguments in the U.S. Supreme Court. For many years, he co-taught courses for the Federalist Society on separation of powers with the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. In September 2016, he co-taught a Supreme Court seminar in China with Justice Samuel Alito. Following law school, he served as a law clerk in federal district court and as an assistant district attorney in New Orleans before joining LSU in 1975. While a professor, he has been as a consultant to USAID, USIA (since rolled into the State Department), the Justice Department, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Separation of Powers, and the Office of Planning in the White House. He served on an ABA Task Force which issued the report, The Federalization of Crime (1998) and later as a consultant to the “Bi-Partisan Task Force on the Over- federalization of Crime” (2012-2014) created by the U.S. House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime. Dr. Baker was a co-founder of the first iteration (1995) of Stratfor Inc., a global intelligence agency. He co-authored its first book: The Intelligence Edge (with Friedman, Friedman and Chapman; Crown Books/Random House 1997). In 2022, he began a short, weekly video podcast available on YouTube and Rumble, The Baker Brief.
Professor of Law, Georgetown Law
After graduating from Cornell Law School summa cum laude, Professor O’Sullivan clerked for Chief Judge Levin Campbell of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit and then for Justice Sandra Day O’Connor of the United States Supreme Court. She spent five years with Davis Polk & Wardwell in New York, where she worked on mergers and acquisitions litigation as well as white-collar criminal defense matters. Her experience at Davis Polk included work on U.S. v. REI, a lengthy and complex public corruption case, and the BCCI case, where she worked with Robert Fiske in the defense of First American Bank, Clark Clifford, and Robert Altman. In 1991, Professor O’Sullivan joined the Criminal Division of the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York as an Assistant United States Attorney. There, she spent most of her time prosecuting major white-collar crimes. She and another AUSA successfully prosecuted the largest bank fraud case in the country at the time and the first to be brought under the financial kingpin statute. Professor O’Sullivan was then recruited by Robert Fiske, the newly appointed independent counsel for the Whitewater investigation, to join his staff in Little Rock, Arkansas, as associate counsel. She worked for Mr. Fiske, and briefly for Ken Starr, before commencing her teaching career at Georgetown in 1995. Also in 1995, on appointment by the Supreme Court, she successfully briefed and argued a case on behalf of an indigent petitioner in a case pending before that Court.
Professor O’Sullivan has written many articles and the leading casebook on white-collar crime and is a recognized expert on both the federal sentencing guidelines and white collar criminal law. Professor O’Sullivan is increasingly interested in the subject of cross-border criminality and law enforcement. With Professors David Luban and David Stewart, she published a casebook on International and Transnational Criminal Law. She has taught international criminal law in London and Dublin as well as Georgetown. In 2010, she served as a visiting professional at, and then a consultant for, the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court.
Professor O’Sullivan is a member of the American Law Institute and has served as a member of, and reporter for, such projects as the ABA’s revision of the Standards for Criminal Justice on Guilty Pleas and the U.S. Sentencing Commission’s Ad Hoc Advisory Group on the Sentencing Guidelines applicable to Organizations.
Former Adjunct Professor of Law; former Special Counsel to the President; former federal prosecutor, Georgetown Law (ret.)
Bill Otis is a former Adjunct Professor of Law at Georgetown University, a one-time federal prosecutor, and a former Special White House Counsel for President George H. W. Bush. After graduating from Stanford Law School, he started his career in the Criminal Division of the Justice Department, then became chief of appeals for the US Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Virginia. In the 1980's he served on the Department's "Train the Trainer" team, which taught US Attorneys Offices across the county how to implement the then-new Sentencing Reform Act. He has held several posts in the federal government, including Special Assistant to the Secretary of Energy and Counselor to the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration, in addition to the White House post. He has testified before Congress on issues in criminal procedure, illegal drugs, the US Sentencing Commission, and the death penalty, and has given numerous media interviews on those and other subjects. He currently teaches a seminar at Georgetown Law titled "Conservatism in Law in America" with his wife, Federalist Society co-founder Lee Liberman Otis.
Leroy G. Denman, Jr. Regents Professor in Real Property Law, The University of Texas School of Law
Professor Blais is a Co-Director of the Supreme Court Clinic. In addition, she teaches Administrative Law, Environmental Law, and Property. Her research focuses on the allocation of property rights and natural resources and the decision making processes underlying these allocations. During her tenure at UT Law School she has served as Associate Dean of Academic Affairs and been a Co-founder of three clinics: the Capital Punishment Clinic, the Environmental Law Clinic, and the Supreme Court Clinic. Her articles have appeared in such journals as the Fordham Urban Law Journal, Texas Law Review, the University of Illinois Law Review, and the Southern California Law Review.
Before joining the Texas faculty in 1991, Professor Blais served as a law clerk to the Honorable Harry A. Blackmun of the United States Supreme Court and the Hon. Wm. Wayne Justice of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. She also practiced environmental law with the public interest firm Hall & Phillips in Los Angeles.
Professor of Law, Vermont Law School
John Echeverria is a Professor of Law at Vermont Law School where he teaches Property, Public Law and a wide range of environmental and natural resource law courses. Prior to joining the Vermont Law School faculty in 2009, he served for 12 years as Executive Director of the Georgetown Environmental Law & Policy Institute at Georgetown University Law Center. He also was General Counsel of the National Audubon Society and General Counsel and Conservation Director of American Rivers, Inc., and was an Associate for four years in the Washington, D.C. office of Hughes, Hubbard & Reed. He served for one year as law clerk to the Honorable Gerhard A. Gesell of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia immediately after graduating from law school.
Professor Echeverria has written several books and numerous scholarly articles on environmental and natural resource law topics. He has published pieces for more general audiences in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Christian Science Monitor. He has represented state and local governments, environmental organizations, and planning groups in a variety of legal matters at all levels of the federal and state court systems. In 2007, Professor Echeverria received the Jefferson Fordham Advocacy Award from the American Bar Association to recognize outstanding excellence within the area of state and local government law over a lifetime of achievement. In addition to teaching at Vermont Law School, he has served as a Visiting Professor at Harvard Law School and Georgetown University Law Center.
Professor Echeverria received a JD degree from the Yale Law School. He received a Master’s degree from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies as well as a BA degree from Yale College (summa cum laude).
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 Emeritus of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
Jeremy A. Rabkin is a Professor Emeritus of Law at the Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University. Before joining the faculty in June 2007, he was for over two decades a professor in the Department of Government at Cornell University. Professor Rabkin serves on the board of directors of the Center for Individual Rights, a public interest law firm based in Washington, D.C. Previously he was a board member of the U.S. Institute of Peace and the board of academic advisors of the American Enterprise Institute.
Professor Rabkin’s books include Law Without Nations? (Princeton University Press, 2005). He authored “If You Need a Friend, Don’t Call a Cosmopolitan,” a chapter in Varieties of Sovereignty and Citizenship (Sigal R. Ben-Porath & Rogers M. Smith eds., University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012). His articles have appeared in major law reviews and political science journals and his journalistic contributions in a range of magazines and newspapers, including the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal.
Executive in Residence, Wake Forest University School of Business
John Allison is an Executive in Residence at the Wake Forest School of Business. He is a member of the Cato Institute’s Board of Directors and Chairman of the Executive Advisory Council of the Cato Institute’s Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives. Allison was president and CEO of the Cato Institute from October 2012 to April 2015. Prior to joining Cato, Allison was chairman and CEO of BB&T Corporation, the 10th-largest financial services holding company headquartered in the United States. During his tenure as CEO from 1989 to 2008, BB&T grew from $4.5 billion to $152 billion in assets. He was recognized by theHarvard Business Reviewas one of the top 100 most successful CEOs in the world over the last decade.
Allison has received the Corning Award for Distinguished Leadership, been inducted into the North Carolina Business Hall of Fame, and received the Lifetime Achievement Award from theAmerican Banker. He is the author of The Financial Crisis and the Free Market Cure: Why Pure Capitalism Is the World Economy’s Only Hope and The Leadership Crisis and the Free Market Cure: Why the Future of Business Depends on the Return to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. In addition, he is a former Distinguished Professor of Practice at Wake Forest University School of Business, and serves on the Board of Visitors at the business schools at Wake Forest, Duke, and the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill.
Allison is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill. He received his master’s degree in management from Duke University and is also a graduate of the Stonier Graduate School of Banking. Allison is the recipient of six honorary doctorate degrees.
Allan Shivers Chair in the Law of Banking and Finance, University of Texas School of Law
Professor Henry T. C. Hu holds the Allan Shivers Chair in the Law of Banking and Finance at the University of Texas Law School. Appointed by U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Mary L. Schapiro, he was the inaugural Director of the SEC's Division of Risk, Strategy, and Financial Innovation (2009-2011). The first new Division in 37 years, "Risk Fin" was created to provide sophisticated, interdisciplinary analysis across the entire spectrum of SEC activities, including policymaking, rulemaking, enforcement, and examinations. See, e.g., (1) Kara Scannell, At SEC, Scholar Who Saw It Coming, Wall Street Journal, Jan. 25, 2010, at page C1; and (2) CNBC's "Squawk Box" - Feb. 23, 2011 (as the "guest host"): (a) Fmr. SEC 'Risk Czar' Speaks Out, http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=1811142035&play=1 and (b)Containing the Next Crisis, http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=15840232?video=1811216641&play=1. Interested in the law and economics of capital markets, financial innovation, and governance of corporations and financial institutions, he has written on asset allocation; corporate and financial institution compensation, disclosure, governance, objectives, and risk management; debt, equity, and hybrid "decoupling" through credit default swaps, equity swaps, securitization, stock lending, and other means; director fiduciary duties; financial innovation’s challenges to bank and corporate decision-making, business and legal concepts, and financial stability; individual investors and retirement security; model risk; regulation of banks, derivatives, hedge funds, and mutual funds; systemic risk; and Warren Buffett. The writings have appeared in law reviews (e.g., Columbia Law Review, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, and Yale Law Journal), finance and specialist journals (e.g.,European Financial Management, Journal of Applied Corporate Finance, and Risk), and newspapers (e.g., Financial Times, New York Times, and Wall Street Journal).
In research, his latest article (Too Complex to Depict? -- pertinent links at "Recent Publications" below -- argues that the SEC disclosure paradigm, in place since the Depression, is increasingly undermined by innovations in financial theory and practice, and offers ways forward. The article sets out a fresh conception of the paradigm, and shows that the paradigm must metamorphosize to one that relies both on an "intermediary depiction" model and a “pure information” model—and the full spectrum of strategies between these opposite extremes. (An afterword analyzes the unfolding JPMorgan Chase Chief Investment Office derivatives situation.) Prior research includes early articles on the risks posed by derivatives, articles on the corporate objective, and recent articles on "decoupling." A 1993 Yale Law Journal article receiving renewed attention in the wake of the global financial crisis showed how cognitive bias, compensation, financial "science," and other factors can lead major banks to take undue risks and make other mistakes as to complex derivatives. In recognition of a 1995 article on the corporate objective and hedging, an exchange-traded index derivative introduced in 1996 was assigned the ticker symbol of "HUI". Today, the "HUI" (NYSE Arca Gold BUGS Index) lives on not as a derivative but as what is often considered one of the world's two most widely-followed indexes for gold mining stocks. Recent articles (starting in 2006) offered the first systematic analysis of debt and equity "decoupling," and coined terms that have come into worldwide use such as "empty voter," "empty creditor," and "hidden (morphable) ownership." This decoupling research was featured in a lead front-page story in the Wall Street Journal and stories in the Economist, theFinancial Times, and the New York Times. On August 1, 2009, the "empty voting amendments" to the Delaware General Corporation Law became effective. On July 14, 2010, the SEC issued its most comprehensive review of the proxy voting infrastructure in 30 years, including analysis of decoupling issues.
Professor Hu teaches corporate law, modern finance and governance, and securities regulation. He has also taught them at Harvard Law School, where he was the Bruce W. Nichols Visiting Professor of Law for the 1997-98 academic year. He has been chair of the Association of American Law Schools' Business Associations Section and a member of the Legal Advisory Board of the NASD (now FINRA), the NASD and NASDAQ Market Regulation Committees, and the Board of Trustees of the Center for American and International Law. He is on the Editorial Board of the Oxford University Press's Capital Markets Law Journal. He has testified before Congress, including on behalf of the SEC as to landmark derivatives legislation. In 2010, the National Association of Corporate Directors named him as one of the 100 most influential people in corporate governance ("Directorship 100"), based on a survey of 15,000 directors and executives. He holds a B.S. (Molecular Biophysics & Biochemistry), M.A. (Economics), and J.D., all from Yale.
Sam Harris Professor of Corporate Law, Corporate Finance, and Securities Law, Yale Law School
Jonathan R. Macey is Sam Harris Professor of Corporate Law, Corporate Finance, and Securities Law at Yale University, and Professor in the Yale School of Management. From 1991 – 2004, Professor Macey was J. DuPratt White Professor of Law, Director of the John M. Olin Program in Law and Economics at Cornell Law School, and Professor of Law and Business at the Cornell University Johnson Graduate School of Business. Professor Macey earned his B.A. cum laude from Harvard in 1977, and his J.D. from Yale Law School in 1982, where he was Article and Book Review editor of The Yale Law Journal. In 1996, Professor Macey received a Ph.D. honoris causa from the Stockholm School of Economics. Following law school, Professor Macey was law clerk to Judge Henry J. Friendly on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
Professor Macey is the author of several books including the two-volume treatise, Macey on Corporation Laws, published in 1998 (Aspen Law & Business), and co-author of two leading casebooks, Corporations: Including Partnerships and Limited Liability Companies (2003 Thomson West), which is in its eighth edition, and Banking Law and Regulation (2002 Aspen Law & Business), which is now in its third edition. He also is the author of over 100 scholarly articles. His recent articles have appeared in the Banking Law Journal, the University of Chicago Law Review, the Stanford Law Review, The Yale Law Journal, the Cornell Law Review, the Journal of Law and Economics, and the Brookings Wharton Papers on Financial Institutions. He has published numerous editorials in such publications as The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, The Los Angeles Times, and The National Law Journal.
Professor Macey has taught at major universities throughout the world, including Bocconi University (Milan), the University of Tokyo; the University of Toronto; the University of Turin, the University of Amsterdam Department of Finance, and the Stockholm School of Economics, Department of Law. He also has been Professor of Law at the University of Chicago (1990) and Visiting Professor of Law at Harvard Law School (1999). Professor Macey is a Senior Research Fellow at the International Centre for Economic Research (ICER) in Turin, Italy. Professor Macey also serves on the Academic Advisory Board (Comitato Scientifico) of the Associazione Disiano Preite for the study of corporate law (per lo studio del diritto dell’impresa). In 1995, Professor Macey was awarded the Paul M. Bator prize for excellence in Teaching, Scholarship and Public Service by the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy. In 1996, he received a Ph.D., honoris causa from the Stockholm School of Economics. And in 1998, he received the D.P. Jacobs prize for the most significant paper in volume 6 of the Journal of Financial Intermediation for his paper (co-authored with Maureen O’Hara), “The Law & Economics of Best Execution.”
In 1999 Professor Macey was made an honorary Fellow of the Society For Advanced Legal Studies. In 2000, Professor Macey became a member of the Legal Advisory Committee to the Board of Directors of the New York Stock Exchange. In 2001 Professor Macey was appointed a Bertil Daniellson Distinguished Visiting Professor in Banking and Finance at the Stockholm School of Economics. In 2002 Professor Macey was appointed to the Economic Advisory Board of the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD). In 2004 Professor Macey was awarded a Teaching Award by the Yale Law Women in recognition of his “commitment to excellence in teaching, mentoring and inspiring.” In 2005 Professor Macey became a member of the Board of Editors of Thomson West Publishing Company.
Benjamin Mazur Summer Research Professor of Law Affiliated Faculty, Ford Motor Company Center for Global Citizenship, Northwestern University School of Law
Jide Nzelibe joined Northwestern's faculty as an assistant professor in 2004 became a full Professor in 2008. He served as the Bigelow Teaching Fellow and Lecturer in Law at the University of Chicago before joining Northwestern Law. In addition to his JD from Yale Law School, he also holds an MPA in international relations from Princeton University, where he was awarded a fellowship from the Woodrow Wilson Foundation and a pre-doctoral fellowship from the Ford Foundation. His research and teaching interests include international trade, foreign relations law, public and private international law and contracts.
The Financial Crisis and the Free Market Cure - Podcast
John A. Allison, Wayne A. Abernathy, Dean Reuter
John Allison, recently retired from running prosperous BB&T bank to run one of Washington’s most...
Dodd-Frank Litigation Update: Amended Complaint - Podcast
Adam White, Gregory Frederick Jacob, Dean Reuter
Last year, several parties filed a constitutional challenge to parts of the Dodd-Frank financial reform...
Boots and Barbecue Reception and Banquet
2013 National Student Symposium
Austin, TXPanel V: Civil Rights Laws
2013 National Student Symposium
Austin, TXPanel IV: Limitations Attached to Federal Money
2013 National Student Symposium
Austin, TXPanel III: Federalization of Criminal Law
2013 National Student Symposium
Austin, TXPanel II: Environmental and Property Laws
2013 National Student Symposium
Austin, TXPanel I: Crony Capitalism
2013 National Student Symposium
Austin, TX2013 National Student Symposium
The Federal Leviathan: Is There Any Area of Modern Life to Which Federal Government Power Does Not Extend?
Austin, TXEngage Volume 14, Issue 1 February 2013
*Online Only Issue CIVIL RIGHTS Same-Sex Marriage: A Variety of Perspectives on United States v....