Principal, Spero Law LLC
Christopher Mills is the founder of Spero Law LLC. He was previously a partner at a national law firm and a Constitutional Law Fellow at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. He served as a law clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas on the U.S. Supreme Court during October Term 2018. He also clerked for the Honorable David B. Sentelle, then-Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. He has authored briefs and motions in the Supreme Court, courts of appeals, and trial courts, and successfully argued before the D.C. Circuit. He has served as special counsel to South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster, and is an Adjunct Professor at the Charleston School of Law.
A 2012 magna cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School, Christopher was a senior editor of the Harvard Law Review, an editor of the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, and served on the Executive Board of the Harvard Federalist Society. In 2009, he graduated Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum laude with a degree in economics from Furman University.
Christopher lives in Charleston, South Carolina with his wife, children, and golden retriever.
United States District Judge, United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida
In November 2020, the Senate confirmed Kathryn Kimball Mizelle as a United States District Judge for the Middle District of Florida. At age 33, she became the youngest Article III judge in the country. Prior to her confirmation, Judge Mizelle was in private practice at Jones Day, where she focused on complex civil and criminal litigation and appeals. Judge Mizelle previously served at the United States Department of Justice in the Office of the Associate Attorney General, in the Southern Criminal Enforcement Section of the Tax Division, and in the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia. Judge Mizelle has also taught as an adjunct professor of law at the University of Florida Levin College of Law and at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School.
Judge Mizelle earned her B.A., summa cum laude, from Covenant College, and her J.D., summa cum laude, from the University of Florida Levin College of Law. After graduation, Judge Mizelle served as a law clerk at every level of the federal judiciary: at the Supreme Court for Justice Clarence Thomas, at the D.C. Circuit for Judge Gregory G. Katsas, at the Eleventh Circuit for Chief Judge William H. Pryor Jr., and at the Middle District of Florida for Judge James S. Moody Jr.
Tocqueville Associate Professor Department of Political Science and Concurrent Associate Professor of Law, University of Notre Dame Law School
Vincent Phillip Muñoz is the Tocqueville Associate Professor of Religion & Public Life in the Department of Political Science at the University of Notre Dame. He is the founding director of Notre Dame's undergraduate minor in Constitutional Studies and directs Notre Dame's Tocqueville Program for Inquiry into Religion and Public Life.
Muñoz writes and teaches across the fields of constitutional law, American politics, and political philosophy with a focus on religious liberty and the American Founding. His first book, God and the Founders: Madison, Washington, and Jefferson (Cambridge University Press, 2009) won the Hubert Morken Award from the American Political Science Association for the best publication on religion and politics in 2009 and 2010. His First Amendment church-state case reader, Religious Liberty and the American Supreme Court: The Essential Cases and Documents (Rowman & Littlefield) was first published in 2013 (revised edition, 2015) and is being used at Notre Dame and other leading universities.
Muñoz's current project is a scholarly monograph on the natural right of religious liberty and the original meaning of the First Amendment's Religion Clauses. Articles from that project have appeared in American Political Science Review, The Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, Notre Dame Law Review, American Political Thought, and the University of Pennsylvania's Journal of Constitutional Law.
General Counsel, U.S. Department of Homeland Security
James H. Percival graduated from the University of California, Santa Barbara and the University of Virginia School of Law. Before his work at the Department of Homeland Security, he was Chief of Staff to then Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody. James previously served in a number of other roles for Attorney General Moody and as Senior Counsel at the U.S. Department of Justice. Before beginning his public service, James worked for a global law firm and clerked for Judge Emmett Ripley Cox of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. In between college and law school, James worked as a substitute teacher and as a missionary in South America.
Secretary, Florida Department of Juvenile Justice
Simone Marstiller is the secretary of the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice. Prior to being appointed secretary in January 2019 by Governor Ron DeSantis, Simone was Of Counsel with Gunster, Yoakley, Stewart, P.A., in the firm’s Tallahassee and Tampa offices, where her practice areas included appellate consulting and litigation, government affairs, procurement, and ethics and elections. She joined Gunster in 2017 after retiring from the First District Court of Appeal, where she served as a judge for six years.
In 2001, Simone served as Assistant General Counsel to Governor Jeb Bush. In that position, she assisted the Governor’s General Counsel in overseeing the legal operations of the Governor’s agencies and advising the Governor on a wide variety of legal and policy issues.
Simone was selected in 2002 to serve as General Counsel for the Department of Management Services (DMS), the administrative agency for state government. There, she managed all legal affairs for the agency, including matters related to government procurement, outsourcing, state facility management, and collective bargaining. While serving in this capacity, Governor Bush appointed her Interim Secretary of the agency.
From DMS, Simone returned to the Governor’s Office in 2003 to serve as Deputy Chief of Staff. In 2004, Governor Bush appointed her State Chief Information Officer to head state government’s central technology planning and policy organization, and in 2005 she became Secretary of the Department of Business and Professional Regulation, the state’s largest regulatory agency.
In 2007, Attorney General Bill McCollum appointed Simone Associate Deputy Attorney General for the State of Florida. In addition to serving on the executive management team for the Office of the Attorney General, she was the agency’s General Counsel and was responsible for overseeing four agency divisions, including the Civil Rights and Opinions Divisions. When appointed to the appellate court in 2010, Simone was serving as Executive Director for the Florida Elections Commission.
Simone was born in Monrovia, Liberia, and grew up in St. Petersburg, Florida. She earned her Bachelor of Business Administration degree in 1988 from Stetson University in DeLand, Florida and her Juris Doctor, cum laude, in 1996 from Stetson University College of Law in Gulfport, Florida.
Chief of Staff and Acting Associate Attorney General, U.S. Department of Justice
Chad R. Mizelle is the Chief of Staff and Acting Associate Attorney General of the Department of Justice. Previously, Chad was the Chief Legal Officer at Affinity Partners, a global private equity firm with more than $4B under management. Before that Chad worked at Jones Day, where his practice focused on government regulation and national security issues. Previously, Chad served as the Acting General Counsel at the Department of Homeland Security, where he managed more than 2,200 lawyers. As the top lawyer at DHS, Chad directed all legal activities related to the Agency’s broad mission. Prior to serving as Acting General Counsel, Chad served as the Chief of Staff at DHS. He also served at the White House as Associate Counsel to the President and at the Department of Justice as Counsel to the Deputy Attorney General. Chad clerked for the Honorable David B. Sentelle of the D.C. Circuit. He received his J.D. from Cornell Law School and his B.A. from the University of Florida. Chad and his wife Kat reside in Tampa, Florida with their two kids.
Member, Florida House of Representatives
Rep. Paul Renner (R-Palm Coast) serves as State Representative to District 24 in the Florida House of Representatives and is slated to become House Speaker in 2022. He is currently Chair of the Rules Committee and also serves on the Appropriations Committee. Rep. Renner is a military veteran, former prosecutor, and business attorney. He began his legal career as an Assistant State Attorney, during which he prosecuted serious felony offenses. Since 1998, he has represented individuals and businesses as their advocate in a broad range of commercial settings.
In addition to his legal practice, Rep. Renner has served as a naval officer, both on active duty and in the reserves. Earlier in his career, he served in Operation Desert Storm during combat operations onboard the USS McInerney (FFG-8) and later during combat operations in Afghanistan in 2011.
Rep. Renner was raised in Northeast Florida, where he attended public school. He earned his Juris Doctorate at the University of Florida, Levin College of Law, and his Bachelor of Arts in history at Davidson College in North Carolina. He lives in Palm Coast with his wife and daughter.
Attorney General, Florida
James Uthmeier is the Attorney General of the State of Florida. Before this, he served as Chief of Staff to Governor Ron DeSantis. Previously, he was General Counsel to the Governor, overseeing litigation and judicial nominations. He also served as a senior advisor at the U.S. Department of Commerce. A Georgetown Law graduate, Uthmeier is an adjunct professor at Florida State University College of Law and co-teaches religious education in Tallahassee.
Senior Director of Strategic Partnerships, First Liberty Institute
Lisa Budzynski Ezell is the former Vice President and Director of the Federalist Society’s Lawyers Chapters. In this role, she managed a growing network of over 90 lawyers chapters nationwide, including oversight of leadership recruitment, chapter programming, state conferences, civics education outreach, and young lawyers activities. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Saint Mary’s College in Political Science and History and a Master of Public Policy from George Mason University.
Senior Director of Strategic Partnerships, First Liberty Institute
Lisa Budzynski Ezell is the former Vice President and Director of the Federalist Society’s Lawyers Chapters. In this role, she managed a growing network of over 90 lawyers chapters nationwide, including oversight of leadership recruitment, chapter programming, state conferences, civics education outreach, and young lawyers activities. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Saint Mary’s College in Political Science and History and a Master of Public Policy from George Mason University.
Secretary, Florida Department of Juvenile Justice
Simone Marstiller is the secretary of the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice. Prior to being appointed secretary in January 2019 by Governor Ron DeSantis, Simone was Of Counsel with Gunster, Yoakley, Stewart, P.A., in the firm’s Tallahassee and Tampa offices, where her practice areas included appellate consulting and litigation, government affairs, procurement, and ethics and elections. She joined Gunster in 2017 after retiring from the First District Court of Appeal, where she served as a judge for six years.
In 2001, Simone served as Assistant General Counsel to Governor Jeb Bush. In that position, she assisted the Governor’s General Counsel in overseeing the legal operations of the Governor’s agencies and advising the Governor on a wide variety of legal and policy issues.
Simone was selected in 2002 to serve as General Counsel for the Department of Management Services (DMS), the administrative agency for state government. There, she managed all legal affairs for the agency, including matters related to government procurement, outsourcing, state facility management, and collective bargaining. While serving in this capacity, Governor Bush appointed her Interim Secretary of the agency.
From DMS, Simone returned to the Governor’s Office in 2003 to serve as Deputy Chief of Staff. In 2004, Governor Bush appointed her State Chief Information Officer to head state government’s central technology planning and policy organization, and in 2005 she became Secretary of the Department of Business and Professional Regulation, the state’s largest regulatory agency.
In 2007, Attorney General Bill McCollum appointed Simone Associate Deputy Attorney General for the State of Florida. In addition to serving on the executive management team for the Office of the Attorney General, she was the agency’s General Counsel and was responsible for overseeing four agency divisions, including the Civil Rights and Opinions Divisions. When appointed to the appellate court in 2010, Simone was serving as Executive Director for the Florida Elections Commission.
Simone was born in Monrovia, Liberia, and grew up in St. Petersburg, Florida. She earned her Bachelor of Business Administration degree in 1988 from Stetson University in DeLand, Florida and her Juris Doctor, cum laude, in 1996 from Stetson University College of Law in Gulfport, Florida.
Chief of Staff and Acting Associate Attorney General, U.S. Department of Justice
Chad R. Mizelle is the Chief of Staff and Acting Associate Attorney General of the Department of Justice. Previously, Chad was the Chief Legal Officer at Affinity Partners, a global private equity firm with more than $4B under management. Before that Chad worked at Jones Day, where his practice focused on government regulation and national security issues. Previously, Chad served as the Acting General Counsel at the Department of Homeland Security, where he managed more than 2,200 lawyers. As the top lawyer at DHS, Chad directed all legal activities related to the Agency’s broad mission. Prior to serving as Acting General Counsel, Chad served as the Chief of Staff at DHS. He also served at the White House as Associate Counsel to the President and at the Department of Justice as Counsel to the Deputy Attorney General. Chad clerked for the Honorable David B. Sentelle of the D.C. Circuit. He received his J.D. from Cornell Law School and his B.A. from the University of Florida. Chad and his wife Kat reside in Tampa, Florida with their two kids.
Member, Florida House of Representatives
Rep. Paul Renner (R-Palm Coast) serves as State Representative to District 24 in the Florida House of Representatives and is slated to become House Speaker in 2022. He is currently Chair of the Rules Committee and also serves on the Appropriations Committee. Rep. Renner is a military veteran, former prosecutor, and business attorney. He began his legal career as an Assistant State Attorney, during which he prosecuted serious felony offenses. Since 1998, he has represented individuals and businesses as their advocate in a broad range of commercial settings.
In addition to his legal practice, Rep. Renner has served as a naval officer, both on active duty and in the reserves. Earlier in his career, he served in Operation Desert Storm during combat operations onboard the USS McInerney (FFG-8) and later during combat operations in Afghanistan in 2011.
Rep. Renner was raised in Northeast Florida, where he attended public school. He earned his Juris Doctorate at the University of Florida, Levin College of Law, and his Bachelor of Arts in history at Davidson College in North Carolina. He lives in Palm Coast with his wife and daughter.
Attorney General, Florida
James Uthmeier is the Attorney General of the State of Florida. Before this, he served as Chief of Staff to Governor Ron DeSantis. Previously, he was General Counsel to the Governor, overseeing litigation and judicial nominations. He also served as a senior advisor at the U.S. Department of Commerce. A Georgetown Law graduate, Uthmeier is an adjunct professor at Florida State University College of Law and co-teaches religious education in Tallahassee.
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.
Head of AI Policy, Abundance Institute
Neil Chilson is the Head of AI Policy at the Abundance Institute. Prior to this position, he served as a Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Growth and Opportunity. Chilson is a lawyer, computer scientist, and author of the book “Getting Out of Control: Emergent Leadership in a Complex World.”
Chilson was previously the senior research fellow for Technology and Innovation at Stand Together, where he guided efforts to understand and promote the legal and cultural paradigms that best enable people to discover, innovate, and improve all our lives.
Before Stand Together, Chilson was the Chief Technologist at the Federal Trade Commission, where he focused on the economics of privacy and blockchain-related issues. Previously, he was an attorney advisor to Acting FTC Chairman Maureen K. Ohlhausen. In both roles he advised Chairman Ohlhausen and worked with staff on nearly every major technology-related case, report, workshop, or other FTC proceeding since January 2014. Neil joined the FTC from telecom firm Wilkinson Barker Knauer. Neil is frequently quoted by the press and his work has appeared in numerous news outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, USAToday, and Newsweek. Neil has a J.D. from The George Washington Law School, a M.S. in computer science from University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and a B.S. in computer science from Harding University.
Senior Policy Analyst for Technology and Innovation, Americans for Prosperity
Billy Easley is Americans for Prosperity’s Senior Policy Analyst for technology and innovation. In this role, he reviews state and federal policy on digital free speech, privacy, government surveillance, autonomous vehicles and related policies. Previously he served as a legislative specialist for the United States Sentencing Commission where he authored a paper on the relationship between age and recidivism among federal prisoners. Billy started his career working for the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and as Senator Rand Paul’s legal counsel for technology and criminal justice policy.
Partner, Steptoe & Johnson LLP
Stewart Baker is a partner in the law firm of Steptoe & Johnson in Washington, D.C. From 2005 to 2009, he was the first Assistant Secretary for Policy at the Department of Homeland Security. His law practice covers cybersecurity, data protection, homeland security, and travel and foreign investment regulation; he has been awarded one patent.
Mr. Baker has been General Counsel of the National Security Agency and General Counsel of the commission that investigated WMD intelligence failures prior to the Iraq war. He is the author of Skating on Stilts, a book on terrorism, cybersecurity, and other technology issues; he also hosts the weekly Cyberlaw Podcast.
Managing Partner, Crabbe Brown & James LLP
Larry James has been at the heart of the Columbus business, legal, civic, and political scene for the last thirty years. He is a respected litigator, as well as an advisor to local and national leaders. In recognition of his many achievements, the law firm changed its name from Crabbe, Brown, Jones, Potts & Schmidt to Crabbe, Brown & James in January 2001.
In 2011, The Ohio State University selected Mr. James as lead counsel to represent its student athletes in NCAA investigations. In 2013, Armen Keteyian published his book The System: The Glory and Scandal of Big-Time College Football, a chapter of which is dedicated to Larry’s work in representing the OSU football players.
In 2012, Mr. James and his wife, Donna, were awarded the American Red Cross of Greater Columbus’ Humanitarians of the Year Award. In 2015, noted journalist Wil Haygood published his award-winning book Showdown: Thurgood Marshall and the Supreme Court Nomination That Changed America, which he dedicated to Mr. James.
Mr. James is a life member of the Sixth Circuit Judicial Conference, and he has served as General Counsel of the National Fraternal Order of Police since 2001.
Senior Vice President for Legal Studies, Cato Institute
Clark Neily is senior vice president for legal studies at the Cato Institute. His areas of interest include constitutional law, overcriminalization, civil forfeiture, police accountability, and gun rights. Neily is the author of Terms of Engagement: How Our Courts Should Enforce the Constitution’s Promise of Limited Government. His writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and National Review Online, as well as various law reviews, including the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, George Mason Law Review, Georgetown Journal of Law and Public Policy, NYU Journal of Law and Liberty, and Texas Review of Law and Politics. Neily is a frequent guest speaker and lecturer for the Federalist Society, Institute for Humane Studies, and American Constitution Society.
Before joining Cato in 2017, Neily was a senior attorney and constitutional litigator at the Institute for Justice and director of the Institute’s Center for Judicial Engagement. He is also an adjunct professor at the University of Texas School of Law, where he teaches constitutional litigation and public-interest law.
Neily served as co-counsel in District of Columbia v. Heller, the historic case in which the Supreme Court held for the first time that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to own a gun for self-defense.
Neily began his legal career as a law clerk to Judge Royce Lamberth on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. After that he spent four years in the trial department of the Dallas-based firm Thompson & Knight. Neily received his undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Texas, where he was Chief Articles Editor of the Texas Law Review.
Senior 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.
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.
CEO, Asset Forfeiture Law, LLC
As a federal prosecutor, Stefan D. Cassella was one of the federal government’s leading experts on asset forfeiture and money laundering law for over thirty years. He now serves as an expert witness and consultant to law enforcement agencies and the private sector as the CEO of AssetForfeitureLaw, LLC.
As a Deputy Chief of the Justice Department’s Asset Forfeiture and Money Laundering Section and later as the Chief of the Asset Forfeiture and Money Laundering Section in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Baltimore, Maryland, Mr. Cassella litigated some of the Government’s most significant forfeiture and money laundering cases and drafted many of the federal forfeiture and money laundering statutes.
He is the author of Asset Forfeiture Law in the United States, a one-volume resource designed to lead the practitioner, prosecutor, judge and policy maker through the labyrinth of statutes, rules and cases that govern this dynamic area of the law, and of more than 40 law review articles on money laundering and forfeiture. He has trained state and federal prosecutors and agents and their counterparts in numerous foreign countries, including over 200 lectures at the National Advocacy Center at the University of South Carolina.
Mr. Cassella is also the author and publisher of the Money Laundering and Forfeiture Digest, a monthly compendium of the forfeiture and money laundering cases decided by the federal courts that is circulated to hundreds of state, federal and foreign prosecutors and lawyers, law enforcement agents, academics and policy makers in the U.S. and abroad.
Trial Attorney, Civil Rights Division, United States Department of Justice (incoming)
Adam Griffin is a graduate of the University of North Carolina School of Law. During law school, he served as a research assistant to Professor Stephen E. Sachs and UNC Law Dean Martin Brinkley. After law school, he spent two years litigating for liberty at the Institute for Justice as an inaugural Law and Liberty Fellow. He served as a law clerk to Chief Judge Richard E. Myers in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina, and is now a separation-of-powers attorney at Pacific Legal Foundation.
Senior Attorney, Institute for Justice
Rob Johnson is a senior attorney at the Institute for Justice, where he litigates to protect private property, free speech, and other individual rights. Rob is a nationally-recognized expert on civil forfeiture. He previously represented a series of small business owners who had their entire bank accounts seized by the IRS, and he launched an initiative that resulted in the IRS reopening hundreds of closed forfeiture cases and returning millions of dollars. He has also litigated cases challenging the constitutionality of civil forfeiture procedures, and he scored a victory striking down a forfeiture program as a violation of due process.
Beyond civil forfeiture, Rob has litigated cases defending a range of constitutional rights. He was part of teams that successfully challenged occupational licensing requirements for tour guides in Savannah and Charleston. He also developed a class action lawsuit fighting the NYPD’s use of a draconian “no-fault eviction” statute to coerce residents to waive their constitutional rights, which led New York City to reform the challenged law.
Rob’s writing has been published in the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Politico, and Reason, among other venues. Rob has testified about occupational licensing before the House and Senate Judiciary Committees and has twice testified about civil forfeiture before the House Ways & Means Oversight Subcommittee. He has also testified before state legislatures across the country.
From 2014-2017, Rob served as IJ’s first Elfie Gallun Fellow for Freedom and the Constitution. In that role, Rob wrote and spoke about the vital role the U.S. Constitution plays in protecting our most precious freedoms. He is currently at work on a book about the Fourteenth Amendment.
Rob studied literature and anthropology at Columbia University, and he studied law at Harvard Law School. Upon graduation, he clerked for Chief Judge Alex Kozinski on the Ninth Circuit and for Justice Anthony Kennedy on the Supreme Court.
Rob lives in Cleveland with his wife and two daughters—all named after characters in Shakespeare plays—and is an amateur large format photographer.
David B. Smith, PLLC
David B. Smith has over 35 years of white collar criminal experience. He has litigated scores of cases and argued more than one hundred federal criminal appeals as a federal prosecutor and defense attorney, including extensive experience with civil and criminal litigation in the Supreme Court of the United States. Mr. Smith has been repeatedly named in the list of preeminent lawyers in the field of white collar criminal defense by Best Lawyers in America (2012-2021) and Virginia Super Lawyers (2009-2020), and has received the President’s Commendation for outstanding service from the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers in 1993, 1994, and 2004. He served for nine years on the Board of the NACDL and has been Chair of its Forfeiture Committee since 1990. He is also a Vice-Chair of its Amicus Committee.
For nearly a decade prior to entering private practice, Mr. Smith was a prosecutor in the Criminal Division of the United States Department of Justice and at the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia, where he was involved in complex white collar criminal investigations, trials, and appeals involving defense procurement fraud, congressional bribery, espionage, tax evasion, mail fraud, false claims and other crimes. In 1995-1996, Mr. Smith served as an Associate Independent Counsel in the investigation of Michael Espy, the former secretary of agriculture.
Mr. Smith is regarded as the foremost expert in the country on asset forfeiture law and practice. He is the author of the leading two-volume legal treatise on forfeiture, Prosecution and Defense of Forfeiture Cases (2020), published by Matthew Bender, and co-author of Civil RICO (2020), also published by Matthew Bender. He has testified before congressional committees several times with respect to forfeiture, restitution, and money laundering legislation. Mr. Smith has regularly counseled the Senate and House Judiciary Committees on forfeiture legislation, and was heavily involved in drafting the Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act of 2000. He has also assisted the federal advisory committees in writing the procedural rules governing criminal and civil forfeiture proceedings. In 2000-2001, Mr. Smith was appointed by Senator Richard Shelby (R. Ala.), the Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, to serve as a Commissioner with the Judicial Review Commission on Foreign Asset Control.
Session II: SCOTUS after the Barrett Confirmation
Christopher E. Mills, Kathryn Kimball Mizelle, Vincent Phillip Munoz, Eliot Bradford Peace, James Hamilton Percival
On January 30, 2021, The Federalist Society's Florida lawyers chapters hosted their annual Florida Chapters...
Session I: Covid and Separation of Powers
Simone Marstiller, Chad Mizelle, Paul Renner, James William Uthmeier, Lisa Ezell
On January 30, 2021, The Federalist Society's Florida lawyers chapters hosted their annual Florida Chapters...
Session I: Covid and Separation of Powers
Lisa Ezell, Simone Marstiller, Chad Mizelle, Paul Renner, James William Uthmeier
On January 30, 2021, The Federalist Society's Florida lawyers chapters hosted their annual Florida Chapters...
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The Federalist Society’s James Kent Summer Academy is a program for law students and recent...
Courthouse Steps Oral Argument Teleforum: Lange v. California
TeleforumDefending American Law from Chinese Interference
Nashville Lawyers Chapter - Online Event
Federalist Papers Book Club: The Federalist [Session 5]
Federalist ##39 and 45 (Compound Republic; limited number of powers)
Federalist Papers Book Club: The Federalist [Session 5]
John S. Baker
Slide deck 1 Federalist Papers Book Club will run weekly on Tuesday evenings for 10...
Deep Dive Episode 163 – Shapers of Cyber Speech: Silicon Valley and American Discourse
Neil Chilson, Billy Easley, Stewart A. Baker
In January, Twitter and Facebook removed President Trump and many of his followers' accounts while...
Undue Delay or Due Process? Does the Due Process Clause Require a Prompt Post-Seizure Hearing When the Government Seizes an Individual’s Property?
Teleforum