Nick Ohnell Fellow, The Manhattan Institute
Rafael Mangual is the Nick Ohnell Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a contributing editor of City Journal, and a member of the Council on Criminal Justice. His first book, Criminal (In)Justice, was released in July 2022. He has authored and coauthored a number of MI reports and op-eds on issues ranging from urban crime and jail violence to broader matters of criminal and civil justice reform. His work has been featured and mentioned in a wide array of publications, including the Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, New York Post, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Philadelphia Inquirer and City Journal. Mangual also regularly appears on Fox News and has made a number of national and local television and radio appearances on outlets such as C-SPAN and Bloomberg Radio. In 2020, he was appointed to serve a four-year term as a member of the New York State Advisory Committee of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.
Prior to joining MI in 2015, Rafael worked in corporate communications for the International Trademark Association. He holds a B.A. in corporate communications from the City University of New York’s Baruch College and a J.D. from DePaul University in Chicago, where he was president of the Federalist Society and vice president of the Appellate Moot Court team. After graduating from law school, Mangual was inducted into the Order of the Barristers, a national honor society for excellence in oral and written advocacy.
Vice President of Litigation, Southeastern Legal Foundation
Braden H. Boucek serves as Director of Litigation at the Southeastern Legal Foundation (SLF). His cases at SLF focus on restoring constitutional balance, equal protection, the First Amendment, and property rights. He is an avid defender of America's Founding and a constitutional law professor. He has also actively litigated school choice cases.
Prior to joining SLF, he served as Vice President of Legal Affairs at the Beacon Center of Tennessee, where he worked on economic liberty, dedicated himself to Tennessee's unique constitutional rights, and protecting the free speech rights of professionals.
Braden has been a litigator since 2001. Previously, Braden was an Assistant U.S. Attorney in both Nashville and Memphis for over nine years. During that time, he handled hundreds of cases ranging from Organized Crime, Drug Trafficking, Fraud, Counterfeiting, Terrorism and Immigration offenses. Braden has been recognized by his office for performance, winning both the Special Achievement award and Distinguished Service award. Two of his investigations were recognized as the district’s “Case of the Year” by the Department of Justice’s Organized Crime and Drug Enforcement Task Force. For nearly five years before joining the Department of Justice, Braden served as a prosecutor for the State of Tennessee, first as an Assistant Attorney General and later as an Assistant District Attorney. He has been lead counsel in many jury trials at both the state and federal level. He has also argued dozens of cases before state and federal appellate courts, including the Tennessee Supreme Court and Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. Braden also served as an extern for the Florida Supreme Court. He obtained his J.D. at Florida State University College of Law, and his B.A. at the University of Richmond.
Partner, Adams and Reese LLP
Lucian Pera’s practice focuses on legal ethics work, media law, and commercial litigation.
Lucian is one of the nation’s leading legal ethics practitioners. For more than 30 years, Lucian has represented lawyers, law firms, clients, and those who do business with lawyers and law firms, on the widest possible array of issues relating to legal ethics and the regulation of lawyers. His practice is national in scope.
The ABA Center for Professional Responsibility recently bestowed on him the prestigious Michael Franck Award, their highest award for work in the field of ethics and professional responsibility over his career. For twenty years, in addition to his work as a practicing ethics lawyer, he has been a leader at the highest levels of the ABA on revisions to the Model Rules of Professional Conduct and other important lawyer conduct issues.
Vice President for Litigation & General Counsel, Goldwater Institute
Jon Riches is the Vice President for Litigation for the Goldwater Institute’s Scharf-Norton Center for Constitutional Litigation and General Counsel for the Institute. He litigates in federal and state trial and appellate courts in the areas of economic liberty, regulatory reform, free speech, taxpayer protections, public labor issues, government transparency, and school choice, among others.
Jon has developed and authored several pieces of legislation, including the landmark Right to Earn a Living Act, which provides some of the greatest protections in the country to job-seekers and entrepreneurs facing arbitrary licensing regulations. He also developed legislation eliminating deference to administrative agencies in Arizona—a first-of-its-kind regulatory reform that can serve as a model for the rest of the country.
His work at the Institute has been covered by national media, including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, CBS This Morning, Bloomberg News, and Politico. Jon is also a member of the Federalist Society’s Regulatory Transparency Project: State and Local Working Group.
Prior to joining the Goldwater Institute, Jon served on active duty in the U.S. Navy Judge Advocate General’s (JAG) Corps. While on active duty, Jon represented hundreds of clients, litigated dozens of court-martial cases, and advised commanders on a vast array of legal issues.
He previously clerked for Sen. Jon Kyl on the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, worked for the Rules Committee in the Arizona State Senate, and clerked in the Office of Counsel to the President at the White House. Jon received his B.A. from Boston College, where he graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa. He earned his J.D. from the University of Arizona, James E. Rogers College of Law.
Jon served as a presidentially appointed Panel Member on the Federal Service Impasses Panel. He is an officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve and an Adjunct Professor at Arizona State University School of Law. Jon is a native of Phoenix.
Senior Counsel, Nixon Peabody
Stephen P. Younger, past president of the New York State Bar Association, is a seasoned litigator and trial lawyer in the firm’s Complex Disputes practice. He focuses his practice on commercial, securities, and real estate disputes.
Senior Research Associate, Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, The Heritage Foundation
Seth Lucas is a Senior Research Associate at The Heritage Foundation’s Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies. Before joining Heritage, Seth served as a Paralegal at Alliance Defending Freedom, where he supported attorneys in litigation across the United States that sought to advance academic freedom and religious liberty.
Seth is a graduate of Patrick Henry College and is currently enrolled as a part-time juris doctorate candidate at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School.
Vice President of Litigation, Southeastern Legal Foundation
Braden H. Boucek serves as Director of Litigation at the Southeastern Legal Foundation (SLF). His cases at SLF focus on restoring constitutional balance, equal protection, the First Amendment, and property rights. He is an avid defender of America's Founding and a constitutional law professor. He has also actively litigated school choice cases.
Prior to joining SLF, he served as Vice President of Legal Affairs at the Beacon Center of Tennessee, where he worked on economic liberty, dedicated himself to Tennessee's unique constitutional rights, and protecting the free speech rights of professionals.
Braden has been a litigator since 2001. Previously, Braden was an Assistant U.S. Attorney in both Nashville and Memphis for over nine years. During that time, he handled hundreds of cases ranging from Organized Crime, Drug Trafficking, Fraud, Counterfeiting, Terrorism and Immigration offenses. Braden has been recognized by his office for performance, winning both the Special Achievement award and Distinguished Service award. Two of his investigations were recognized as the district’s “Case of the Year” by the Department of Justice’s Organized Crime and Drug Enforcement Task Force. For nearly five years before joining the Department of Justice, Braden served as a prosecutor for the State of Tennessee, first as an Assistant Attorney General and later as an Assistant District Attorney. He has been lead counsel in many jury trials at both the state and federal level. He has also argued dozens of cases before state and federal appellate courts, including the Tennessee Supreme Court and Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. Braden also served as an extern for the Florida Supreme Court. He obtained his J.D. at Florida State University College of Law, and his B.A. at the University of Richmond.
Partner, Adams and Reese LLP
Lucian Pera’s practice focuses on legal ethics work, media law, and commercial litigation.
Lucian is one of the nation’s leading legal ethics practitioners. For more than 30 years, Lucian has represented lawyers, law firms, clients, and those who do business with lawyers and law firms, on the widest possible array of issues relating to legal ethics and the regulation of lawyers. His practice is national in scope.
The ABA Center for Professional Responsibility recently bestowed on him the prestigious Michael Franck Award, their highest award for work in the field of ethics and professional responsibility over his career. For twenty years, in addition to his work as a practicing ethics lawyer, he has been a leader at the highest levels of the ABA on revisions to the Model Rules of Professional Conduct and other important lawyer conduct issues.
Vice President for Litigation & General Counsel, Goldwater Institute
Jon Riches is the Vice President for Litigation for the Goldwater Institute’s Scharf-Norton Center for Constitutional Litigation and General Counsel for the Institute. He litigates in federal and state trial and appellate courts in the areas of economic liberty, regulatory reform, free speech, taxpayer protections, public labor issues, government transparency, and school choice, among others.
Jon has developed and authored several pieces of legislation, including the landmark Right to Earn a Living Act, which provides some of the greatest protections in the country to job-seekers and entrepreneurs facing arbitrary licensing regulations. He also developed legislation eliminating deference to administrative agencies in Arizona—a first-of-its-kind regulatory reform that can serve as a model for the rest of the country.
His work at the Institute has been covered by national media, including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, CBS This Morning, Bloomberg News, and Politico. Jon is also a member of the Federalist Society’s Regulatory Transparency Project: State and Local Working Group.
Prior to joining the Goldwater Institute, Jon served on active duty in the U.S. Navy Judge Advocate General’s (JAG) Corps. While on active duty, Jon represented hundreds of clients, litigated dozens of court-martial cases, and advised commanders on a vast array of legal issues.
He previously clerked for Sen. Jon Kyl on the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, worked for the Rules Committee in the Arizona State Senate, and clerked in the Office of Counsel to the President at the White House. Jon received his B.A. from Boston College, where he graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa. He earned his J.D. from the University of Arizona, James E. Rogers College of Law.
Jon served as a presidentially appointed Panel Member on the Federal Service Impasses Panel. He is an officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve and an Adjunct Professor at Arizona State University School of Law. Jon is a native of Phoenix.
Senior Counsel, Nixon Peabody
Stephen P. Younger, past president of the New York State Bar Association, is a seasoned litigator and trial lawyer in the firm’s Complex Disputes practice. He focuses his practice on commercial, securities, and real estate disputes.
Former Acting Assistant Attorney General, United States Department of Justice; Partner, Winston & Strawn LLP
Jonathan “Jon” Brightbill is a trial and appellate lawyer in Winston’s Washington, D.C. office, and a partner in the firm’s Litigation and White Collar, Regulatory Defense, and Investigations Practices. He represents public and private companies, corporate officers, and other individuals across white collar, regulatory defense, and government and internal investigation matters and rulemaking challenges, as well as complex commercial disputes, citizen suits, and class actions. His commercial litigation experience encompasses business disputes, false advertising, consumer protection and fraud, FCA, and extensive class action defense work; antitrust and unfair competition matters; and intellectual property litigation, such as trademarks, patents, and trade secrets.
Jon served as the Nation’s lead environmental civil and criminal enforcement official and litigator, as Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Environment & Natural Resources Division (“ENRD”) of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). Jon led ENRD’s 425 lawyers, overseeing 6,500 active matters and managing an annual budget of more than $150 million. Jon brings highly experienced executive leadership from among the most senior level of DOJ on white collar and regulatory enforcement, as well as on federal policymaking and rulemaking development and challenges. He speaks with authority on government decision-making processes, and the arguments and perspectives that move regulators and enforcers, best advising and positioning clients to deal with challenges.
Jon argued many of the government’s most significant cases during his time with the DOJ. This included the Navigable Waters Protection Rule and Clean Water Rule Repeal (10th Cir., district courts), the Affordable Clean Energy Rule and Clean Power Plan Repeal (D.C. Cir), defense of EPA actions on pesticide tolerances under FIFRA and the FDCA (9th Cir. en banc), among numerous others. Jon represented the United States in trial courts in both enforcement and defensive cases, including federal enforcement action against Jeffrey Lowe and the Tiger King Park, of Netflix fame, securing a first-of-its-kind injunction for violations of the Endangered Species Act and Animal Welfare Act. Jon directed the litigation and briefing of scores of additional federal cases nationwide, covering all of the major environmental and natural resources statutes, such as the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, FIFRA (pesticides), FDCA (food safety), TSCA (toxics), CERCLA (land remediation), RCRA (waste), National Environmental Policy Act, Federal Land Policy and Management Act, and numerous other land- and resource-management statutes.
Jon has unmatched experience litigating legal and technical issues relating to climate change. He argued in the courts of appeals, including the D.C. Circuit, regarding the most significant climate change regulations by EPA, as well as the preemptive scope of the Clean Air Act. Jon also litigated climate change-related credit and trading schemes and international agreements in district court. During Jon’s time in leadership at ENRD, it successfully defeated one of the most wide-ranging lawsuits regarding climate change to date—obtaining a stay pending interlocutory appeal and dismissal just weeks before a scheduled three-month trial on federal government liability for climate change.
An accomplished trial lawyer, prior to working at DOJ, Jon was a partner in the Washington, D.C. office of another global law firm. He not only represents clients in court, but creatively counsels corporations on balancing business needs and realities with a broad range of litigation risks and compliance obligations. Jon is also an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University Law Center. He served on the American Bar Association’s E-Discovery Working Group for Bankruptcy Practice, and was a frequent lecturer for District of Columbia Bar Association Continuing Legal Education Programs.
Jon served as an appellate clerk for the Honorable D. Brooks Smith, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, after graduating magna cum laude from the Georgetown University Law Center. He worked in state government as an Executive Policy Specialist for air, waste, land remediation, and radiation matters at the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.
Associate, Winston & Strawn LLP
Spencer draws on his experience as a former trial and appellate clerk to litigate white collar, commercial, administrative law, and constitutional matters at every stage.
Michael J. Woodrum is an Associate at Winston & Strawn LLP.
Senior Fellow, Stand Together Trust
Vikrant Reddy is a senior fellow at Stand Together Trust, specializing in the area of criminal justice reform. Reddy previously served as a senior policy analyst at the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF), where he managed the launch of TPPF’s national Right on Crime initiative in 2010. He has worked as a research assistant at the Cato Institute, as a judicial clerk to the Hon. Gina M. Benavides in Texas, and as an attorney in private practice. He is a member of the State Bar of Texas, and he serves on the Executive Committee of the Criminal Law Practice Group of the Federalist Society. He is also an appointee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights Texas State Advisory Committee.
Reddy’s research and scholarly opinions have appeared in a range of national media outlets, including USA Today, National Review, The Federalist, and others.
Reddy earned his law degree from the Southern Methodist University School of Law. He received his undergraduate degree from the University of Texas at Austin.
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