Patrick Hotung Professor of Constitutional Law, Georgetown University Law Center
Randy Barnett is the Patrick Hotung Professor of Constitutional Law at Georgetown University Law Center. He has argued before the United States Supreme Court, tried murder cases to juries as a prosecutor in Chicago, and appeared as a prosecutor in the feature film Inalienable. He is the author of numerous books, including Restoring the Lost Constitution, The Structure of Liberty, Our Republican Constitution, and The Original Meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. He has published two memoirs, A Life for Liberty: The Making of an American Originalist, and Felony Review: Tales of True Crime and Corruption in Chicago. He is currently working on a new book, Freedom and Flourishing: Libertarianism for the Real World.
Samuel H. McCoy II Professor of Law, University of Virginia School of Law
John F. Duffy is the Samuel H. McCoy II Professor of Law and Class of 1966 Research Professor of Law at the University of Virginia School of Law, where he teaches administrative law, torts and intellectual property. Professor Duffy has published articles on a wide range of administrative law and regulatory issues in journals such as University of Chicago Law Review, Yale Law Journal, Stanford Law Review, Virginia Law Review, Columbia Law Review, Texas Law Review, Northwestern University Law Review, NYU Law Review, University of Pennsylvania Law Review and the Supreme Court Review. His 1998 article Administrative Common Law in Judicial Review, 77 Tex. L. Rev. 113 (1998), was one of the first articles to criticize the Chevron doctrine as being irreconcilable with § 706 of the APA; it won the American Bar Association’s Scholarship Award in Administrative Law. His 2008 article “Are Administrative Patent Judges Unconstitutional?” was covered on National Public Radio), in the New York Times (Adam Liptak, In One Flaw, Questions on Validity of 46 Judges, May 6, 2008), and in the Wall Street Journal (Dan Slater, Patently Unconstitutional, May 6, 2008). The NYT and WSJ agreed that he was “a different kind of law professor,” “one of the lucky few” whose “writings actually wind up changing the law.”
As an attorney in the courts, Duffy has twice successfully convinced the Supreme Court to overturn lower court doctrines that had been applied in many cases over decades but that were unanimously held to be irreconcilable with Supreme Court precedents. See TC Heartland v. Kraft Foods Group Brands, 581 U.S. 258 (2017); KSR v. Teleflex, 550 U.S. 398 (2007).
Prior to entering legal academics, Duffy clerked on the D.C. Circuit for Stephen Williams and on the Supreme Court for Antonin Scalia. While clerking, he became known as Justice Scalia’s “hapless law clerk,” who had been tasked with unearthing three-quarters of a century of legislative history that made “no difference” to the outcome in an otherwise forgettable case. See Conroy v. Aniskoff, 507 U.S. 511, 527-28 (1993) (Scalia, J., concurring in the judgment).
In earlier days, Duffy enjoyed being a professional blackjack player unwelcome in all Atlantic City casinos and a semi-professional road runner (best marathon time 2:24:33). He holds an A.B. in physics from Harvard and a J.D. from the University of Chicago.
Professor of Law, Washington University in St. Louis
Professor Daniel Epps teaches first-year criminal law, upper-level courses in criminal procedure, and a seminar on public law theory. His research lies at the intersection of constitutional law and theory, criminal law and procedure, and federal courts. His scholarship has appeared or will appear in the Harvard Law Review, the Yale Law Journal, the Michigan Law Review, the NYU Law Review, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, the Southern California Law Review, and the Vanderbilt Law Review, and his writing for popular audiences has appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, The Guardian, The Boston Globe, Vox, The Atlantic, and the Washington Monthly.
Professor Epps is a nationally recognized expert on the Supreme Court who is regularly quoted in the media. He has particular expertise in Supreme Court reform, where his work is influencing major policy debates. After Presidential candidate Mayor Pete Buttigieg endorsed his and Ganesh Sitaraman’s proposal to restructure the Supreme Court, the plan received widespread attention from the popular press. A pioneering legal podcaster, he currently co-hosts (with William Baude) Divided Argument, a podcast that analyzes the Court’s decisions. Professor Epps is also an experienced Supreme Court litigator; his notable practice experience includes serving as co-counsel for the defendant in Ocasio v. United States, which addressed the scope of criminal conspiracy liability for public-sector extortion, and the successful petition for certiorari and merits briefing in Walden v. Fiore. He also served as co-counsel on the brief of Prof. Stephen E. Sachs as amicus curiae in Atlantic Marine Construction Co. v. U.S. District Court, which The Green Bag Almanac & Reader included on its list of “Exemplary Legal Writing” for 2013.
Professor Epps received his A.B. summa cum laude with highest distinction in Philosophy from Duke University and his J.D. magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, where he was Articles Co-Chair of the Harvard Law Review and won the John M. Olin Law & Economics prize. After law school, he clerked for Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and for Justice Anthony M. Kennedy of the Supreme Court of the United States. He then spent several years as an appellate specialist at King & Spalding LLP in Washington, D.C. While in practice, he also co-taught Supreme Court Decisionmaking at the University of Virginia School of Law. Immediately prior to joining Washington University Law, he was a Climenko Fellow and Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School.
Assistant Professor of Law, George Mason University, Antonin Scalia Law School
Robert Leider is an Assistant Professor of Law at Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University. His scholarly interests are in criminal law, criminal procedure, and constitutional law, especially concerning questions about the use of force and the rule of law. He has written on the law of self-defense, the constitutional allocation of military power, and gun control. Among other places, he has published in the Florida Law Review (forthcoming), the Indiana Law Journal, and the Wall Street Journal.
Before joining Antonin Scalia Law School, Professor Leider was at Arnold & Porter in Washington, DC. He was previously with Mayer Brown LLP and was an Olin-Searle-Smith Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. He has clerked for Judge Diane S. Sykes, of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, and Justice Clarence Thomas. Professor Leider earned a BA, summa cum laude, from The George Washington University, a JD from Yale Law School, and a PhD in Philosophy (dissertation defended with distinction) from Georgetown University. While at Yale, he served as an articles editor for the Yale Law Journal.
Professor Leider teaches criminal law and torts.
Antonin Scalia Professor of Law, Harvard Law School
Stephen E. Sachs is the Antonin Scalia Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, where he teaches civil procedure, conflict of laws, and seminars on constitutional law. His research focuses on the law and theory of constitutional interpretation, the jurisdiction of state and federal courts, the history of procedure and private law, and the role of the general common law in the U.S. legal system.
Sachs has authored numerous articles, essays, and book chapters. He is an elected member of the American Law Institute, an adviser to the ALI’s project on the Restatement of the Law (Third), Conflict of Laws, a former member of the Judicial Conference’s Advisory Committee on Appellate Rules, and a founding member of the Academic Freedom Alliance.
In 2020, Sachs received the Federalist Society’s Joseph Story Award, which recognizes a young academic who has demonstrated excellence in legal scholarship, a commitment to teaching, a concern for students, and who has made a significant public impact in a manner that advances the rule of law in a free society.
Sachs previously taught at Duke University School of Law and as a visiting professor at the University of Chicago Law School. Before entering academia, he practiced in the Washington, D.C., litigation group of Mayer Brown LLP, and he clerked for Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. as well as for Judge Stephen F. Williams of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
Sachs received his J.D. from Yale Law School, where he was executive editor of the Yale Law Journal and served both as executive editor and articles editor of the Yale Law & Policy Review. A Rhodes Scholar, he graduated from Oxford University with a first-class BA (Hons) degree in philosophy, politics, and economics. He received his A.B. degree summa cum laude in history from Harvard University, earning the Sophia Freund Prize.
Sachs is a licensed attorney in Massachusetts and the District of Columbia, and he is authorized to practice before the D.C. Circuit, the Second Circuit, the Seventh Circuit, and the Supreme Court of the United States.
Professor of Law & Helen L. Crocker Faculty Scholar, Stanford Law School
Jud Campbell joined the faculty of Stanford Law School in 2023. He previously served as a professor of law at the University of Richmond School of Law and as a visiting professor of law at the University of Chicago Law School and at Harvard Law School. His academic focus is constitutional history and First Amendment law. His publications include articles in the Stanford Law Review, Yale Law Journal, Harvard Law Review, Texas Law Review, Constitutional Commentary, and Law and History Review. After completing his J.D. at Stanford Law School, he clerked for Judge Diane S. Sykes on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, and for Judge José A. Cabranes on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He then served as the Executive Director of the Stanford Constitutional Law Center. He holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and two master’s degrees from the London School of Economics, where he studied as a Marshall Scholar.
John S. Battle Professor of Law, University of Virginia School of Law
Julia D. Mahoney teaches courses in property, government finance, constitutional law and nonprofit organizations. A graduate of Yale Law School, she joined the University of Virginia faculty as an associate professor in 1999 and is now John S. Battle Professor of Law. She has also taught at the University of Southern California Law School and the University of Chicago Law School, and before entering the legal academy, practiced law at the New York firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz. Her scholarly articles include works on land preservation, eminent domain, health care reform and property rights in human biological materials.
William L. Matheson and Robert M. Morgenthau Distinguished Professor of Law and Douglas D. Drysdale Research Professor of Law, University of Virginia School of Law
Lawrence B. Solum is an internationally recognized legal theorist who works in constitutional theory, procedure and the philosophy of law. Solum contributes to debates in constitutional theory and normative legal theory. He is especially interested in the intersection of law with the philosophy of language and with moral and political philosophy. His series of articles on constitutional originalism have shaped contemporary thinking about the great debate between originalism and constitutional theory. Solum’s original theory of the fundamental nature and purpose of law, “Virtue Jurisprudence,” has been debated and discussed in Asia, Europe and North America. He also works on problems of law and technology, including Internet governance, copyright policy and patent law. His pathbreaking article, “Legal Personhood for Artificial Intelligences,” published in the early 1990s, is widely acknowledged as far ahead of its time.
Solum received his J.D. magna cum laude from Harvard Law School and received his B.A. with highest departmental honors in philosophy from the University of California at Los Angeles. While at Harvard, he served as an editor of the Harvard Law Review. After graduation, he worked for the law firm of Cravath, Swaine, and Moore in New York, and then clerked for Judge William A. Norris of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
Prior to joining the UVA Law faculty in 2020, he was a member of the faculty at Georgetown University Law Center, the University of Illinois, the University of San Diego and Loyola Marymount University, and visited at Boston University and the University of Southern California. He regularly teaches Civil Procedure and Constitutional Law. His other teaching includes seminars in constitutional theory and the philosophy of law as well as courses in conflict of laws, federal courts, intellectual property and internet law and governance.
Harry Kalven, Jr. Professor of Law & Faculty Director, Constitutional Law Institute, University of Chicago Law School
William Baude is a Professor of Law and the Faculty Director of the Constitutional Law Institute at the University of Chicago Law School, where he teaches federal courts, constitutional law, and conflict of laws. His current research interests include different aspects of the Fourteenth Amendment (particularly both Section One and Section Three) and the nature of judicial discretion.
Among his other activities Baude is: the co-editor of two textbooks, The Constitution of the United States and Hart & Wechsler's Federal Courts in the Federal System; an Affiliated Scholar at the Center for the Study of Constitutional Originalism; a founding member of the Academic Freedom Alliance; a member of the American Law Institute; an occasional blogger at The Volokh Conspiracy; and a podcaster on Divided Argument. He also recently served on the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States.
Professor Baude received his BS in Mathematics from the University of Chicago and his JD from Yale Law School. He then clerked for then-Judge Michael McConnell on the United States Court of Appeals, and Chief Justice John Roberts on the United States Supreme Court. Before joining the Chicago faculty, he was a fellow at the Stanford Constitutional Law Center, and a lawyer in Washington, DC.
Hon. George J. Mitchell Professor in Law and Public Policy, Georgetown Law
David Cole is the Honorable George J. Mitchell Professor in Law and Public Policy and former National Legal Director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). He writes about and teaches constitutional law, freedom of speech, and constitutional criminal procedure. He is a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books and is the legal affairs correspondent for The Nation.
David has published widely in law journals and the popular press, including The Yale Law Journal, California Law Review, Stanford Law Review, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and The New Republic. He is the author or editor of ten books, several of which have won awards. Less Safe, Less Free: Why America Is Losing the War on Terror, published in 2007, and co-authored with Jules Lobel, won the Palmer Civil Liberties Prize for best book on national security and civil liberties. Enemy Aliens: Double Standards and Constitutional Freedoms in the War on Terrorism received the American Book Award in 2004. No Equal Justice: Race and Class in the American Criminal Justice System was named Best Non-Fiction Book of 1999 by the Boston Book Review and best book on an issue of national policy in1999 by the American Political Science Association.
David received his bachelor’s degree and law degree from Yale University. He worked as a staff attorney for the Center for Constitutional Rights from 1985 to 1990. He has continued to litigate as a professor and, from 2017 to 2024, as National Legal Director of the ACLU. He has litigated many significant constitutional cases at the Supreme Court, including Texas v. Johnson (1989), which extended First Amendment protection to flag burning; Bostock v. Clayton County (2020), which held that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity are prohibited forms of sex discrimination under Title VII; Mahanoy Area Sch. Dist. v. B.L. (2021), which protected student online speech from school discipline; and National Rifle Association v. Vullo (2024), which held that government officials violate the First Amendment when they use their regulatory authority to coerce private parties to blacklist a disfavored political group.
David has received two honorary degrees and numerous awards for his work, including the inaugural Norman Dorsen Presidential Prize from the ACLU for lifetime commitment to civil liberties. The late New York Times columnist Anthony Lewis called David “one of the country’s great legal voices for civil liberties today.” Nat Hentoff called him “a one-man Committee of Correspondence in the tradition of patriot Sam Adams.”
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Third Circuit
Judge Hardiman was appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit on January 9, 2007 and was confirmed by the Senate (95-0) on March 15, 2007. Prior to becoming an appellate judge, Judge Hardiman served as a trial judge on the United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania as of November 1, 2003. In 2008, Chief Justice John Roberts appointed Judge Hardiman to the Information Technology Committee of the Judicial Conference of the United States. Judge Hardiman was appointed Chairman of the IT Committee in 2013 and served in that capacity until September 2021. In 2021 he was appointed by the Director of the Administrative Office of the United States Courts to serve as Chair of the Judiciary IT Security Task Force, which completed its work in fall 2023. Chief Justice Roberts appointed Judge Hardiman to the Board of the Federal Judicial Center to serve from March 2020 until March 2024. As part of his work with the Center, Judge Hardiman now serves as Editor in Chief for the Manual for Complex Civil Litigation, Fifth.
Before entering judicial service, Judge Hardiman handled a wide variety of litigation matters in state and federal trial and appellate courts as a partner at Reed Smith LLP (1999-2003), a partner at Titus & McConomy LLP (1996-1999), and as an associate with its predecessor firm, Cindrich & Titus (1992-1996). Judge Hardiman began his legal career as an associate in the Washington, D.C. office of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom (1990-1992).
A 1987 honors graduate of the University of Notre Dame, Judge Hardiman received his law degree in 1990 from the Georgetown University Law Center, where he served as a Notes and Comments Editor on the Georgetown Law Journal. In 2012, Judge Hardiman was elected as a member of the American Law Institute and was elected to its Council in 2019 and its Executive Committee in 2025. Judge Hardiman regularly teaches a seminar on Advanced Constitutional Law at Duquesne University School of Law and a one-week course entitled “Constitutional Law: the First and Second Amendments” at Georgetown University Law Center.
A native of Waltham, Massachusetts, Judge Hardiman has chambers in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He and his wife Lori married in 1992 and have three children.
Senior Fellow and Director of Constitutional Studies, Manhattan Institute
Ilya Shapiro is a senior fellow and director of constitutional studies at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal. Previously he was executive director and senior lecturer at the Georgetown Center for the Constitution, and before that a vice president of the Cato Institute.
Shapiro is the author of Lawless: The Miseducation of America’s Elites (2025) and Supreme Disorder: Judicial Nominations and the Politics of America’s Highest Court (2020), coauthor of Religious Liberties for Corporations? (2014), and editor of 11 volumes of the Cato Supreme Court Review (2008-18). He has contributed to a variety of academic, popular, and professional publications, including the Wall Street Journal, Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, National Review, and Newsweek. He also regularly provides commentary for various media outlets, writes the Shapiro’s Gavel newsletter on Substack, and once appeared on the Colbert Report.
Shapiro has testified many times before Congress and state legislatures and has filed more than 500 amicus curiae “friend of the court” briefs in the Supreme Court. He lectures regularly on behalf of the Federalist Society, is a member of the board of fellows of the Jewish Policy Center, was an inaugural Washington Fellow at the National Review Institute, and has been an adjunct law professor at the George Washington University and University of Mississippi. He is also the chairman of the board of advisers of the Mississippi Justice Institute, a barrister in the Edward Coke Appellate Inn of Court, and a former member of the Virginia Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.
Earlier in his career, Shapiro was a special assistant/adviser to the Multi-National Force in Iraq on rule-of-law issues and practiced at Patton Boggs and Cleary Gottlieb. Before entering private practice, he clerked for Judge E. Grady Jolly of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. He holds an AB from Princeton University, an MSc from the London School of Economics, and a JD from the University of Chicago Law School.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit
Judge Nelson was confirmed to the Ninth Circuit in October 2018, as the youngest Circuit Judge to serve from Idaho and he has chambers in his hometown of Idaho Falls. Prior to his confirmation, Judge Nelson served for nine years as General Counsel of Idaho Falls-based Melaleuca, Inc., a consumer goods company. He previously worked in Washington, DC, where he served in all three branches of the federal government, including as Special Counsel for Supreme Court nominations to the Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee; Deputy General Counsel to the White House Office of Management and Budget; Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Environment and Natural Resources Division of the United States Department of Justice; and a law clerk to Judge Henderson of the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. He has argued in most of the federal courts of appeals and worked on dozens of Supreme Court briefs. He started in the Washington, DC office of Sidley Austin as an appellate lawyer, after clerking for Judges Mosk and Brower of the Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal at The Hague, and for now-Judge Tom Griffith, then-Senate Legal Counsel, during the impeachment trial of President Clinton. Judge Nelson earned his B.A. from Brigham Young University and his J.D., with honors, from BYU Law School. Judge Nelson has been a member of the Federalist Society since 1998.
Vice President and Senior Counsel, The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty
Eric Rassbach is Vice President and Senior Counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, where he has served since 2003. He has briefed over 90 cases at the United States Supreme Court and has led or been a part of Becket litigation teams in each of Becket’s pathbreaking victories there, including Hosanna-Tabor, Hobby Lobby, Holt v. Hobbs, Zubik v. Burwell, Agudath Israel of America v. Cuomo, and Fulton v. Philadelphia. In 2020, Eric argued Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey-Berru to the Supreme Court, garnering a 7-2 win for his Catholic school clients. Eric has also briefed and argued cases in federal appeals courts and state supreme courts across the nation. Eric has also represented clients in appeals to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France and in the highest courts of several other countries.
Eric believes passionately in the right of all people to the full measure of religious liberty and has represented members of almost every religious group present in the United States, including Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, Jains, Jews, Muslims, Native Americans, Santeros, and Sikhs, as well as many governmental entities targeted for accommodating religion.
Eric frequently comments on church-state issues in the media, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and other major press outlets. He has published legal scholarship in the Harvard Law Review Forum, the Tennessee Law Review, the Illinois Law Review, the Cato Supreme Court Review, and other legal journals, and often speaks to law school audiences.
Before joining Becket, Eric worked at Baker Botts LLP in Houston, where he worked in international project finance. He also served as a law clerk to United States District Court Judge Lee Rosenthal in Houston, Texas.
Eric graduated from Haverford College with a degree in Comparative Literature, is a member of Fitzwilliam College, University of Cambridge, and is a graduate of Harvard Law School. Eric was a 2012-2013 Wasserstein Public Interest Fellow at Harvard Law School. He is Visiting Professor and Executive Director of The Hugh and Hazel Darling Foundation Religious Liberty Clinic at Pepperdine University Caruso School of Law in Malibu, where he leads students in litigating cases in American courts. He is also an Associated Scholar with the Centre for Religious Freedom at Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland. Eric is admitted in Texas, DC, California, and Ireland.
Professor of Law & Helen L. Crocker Faculty Scholar, Stanford Law School
Jud Campbell joined the faculty of Stanford Law School in 2023. He previously served as a professor of law at the University of Richmond School of Law and as a visiting professor of law at the University of Chicago Law School and at Harvard Law School. His academic focus is constitutional history and First Amendment law. His publications include articles in the Stanford Law Review, Yale Law Journal, Harvard Law Review, Texas Law Review, Constitutional Commentary, and Law and History Review. After completing his J.D. at Stanford Law School, he clerked for Judge Diane S. Sykes on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, and for Judge José A. Cabranes on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He then served as the Executive Director of the Stanford Constitutional Law Center. He holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and two master’s degrees from the London School of Economics, where he studied as a Marshall Scholar.
John S. Battle Professor of Law, University of Virginia School of Law
Julia D. Mahoney teaches courses in property, government finance, constitutional law and nonprofit organizations. A graduate of Yale Law School, she joined the University of Virginia faculty as an associate professor in 1999 and is now John S. Battle Professor of Law. She has also taught at the University of Southern California Law School and the University of Chicago Law School, and before entering the legal academy, practiced law at the New York firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz. Her scholarly articles include works on land preservation, eminent domain, health care reform and property rights in human biological materials.
William L. Matheson and Robert M. Morgenthau Distinguished Professor of Law and Douglas D. Drysdale Research Professor of Law, University of Virginia School of Law
Lawrence B. Solum is an internationally recognized legal theorist who works in constitutional theory, procedure and the philosophy of law. Solum contributes to debates in constitutional theory and normative legal theory. He is especially interested in the intersection of law with the philosophy of language and with moral and political philosophy. His series of articles on constitutional originalism have shaped contemporary thinking about the great debate between originalism and constitutional theory. Solum’s original theory of the fundamental nature and purpose of law, “Virtue Jurisprudence,” has been debated and discussed in Asia, Europe and North America. He also works on problems of law and technology, including Internet governance, copyright policy and patent law. His pathbreaking article, “Legal Personhood for Artificial Intelligences,” published in the early 1990s, is widely acknowledged as far ahead of its time.
Solum received his J.D. magna cum laude from Harvard Law School and received his B.A. with highest departmental honors in philosophy from the University of California at Los Angeles. While at Harvard, he served as an editor of the Harvard Law Review. After graduation, he worked for the law firm of Cravath, Swaine, and Moore in New York, and then clerked for Judge William A. Norris of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
Prior to joining the UVA Law faculty in 2020, he was a member of the faculty at Georgetown University Law Center, the University of Illinois, the University of San Diego and Loyola Marymount University, and visited at Boston University and the University of Southern California. He regularly teaches Civil Procedure and Constitutional Law. His other teaching includes seminars in constitutional theory and the philosophy of law as well as courses in conflict of laws, federal courts, intellectual property and internet law and governance.
Harry Kalven, Jr. Professor of Law & Faculty Director, Constitutional Law Institute, University of Chicago Law School
William Baude is a Professor of Law and the Faculty Director of the Constitutional Law Institute at the University of Chicago Law School, where he teaches federal courts, constitutional law, and conflict of laws. His current research interests include different aspects of the Fourteenth Amendment (particularly both Section One and Section Three) and the nature of judicial discretion.
Among his other activities Baude is: the co-editor of two textbooks, The Constitution of the United States and Hart & Wechsler's Federal Courts in the Federal System; an Affiliated Scholar at the Center for the Study of Constitutional Originalism; a founding member of the Academic Freedom Alliance; a member of the American Law Institute; an occasional blogger at The Volokh Conspiracy; and a podcaster on Divided Argument. He also recently served on the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States.
Professor Baude received his BS in Mathematics from the University of Chicago and his JD from Yale Law School. He then clerked for then-Judge Michael McConnell on the United States Court of Appeals, and Chief Justice John Roberts on the United States Supreme Court. Before joining the Chicago faculty, he was a fellow at the Stanford Constitutional Law Center, and a lawyer in Washington, DC.
Hon. George J. Mitchell Professor in Law and Public Policy, Georgetown Law
David Cole is the Honorable George J. Mitchell Professor in Law and Public Policy and former National Legal Director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). He writes about and teaches constitutional law, freedom of speech, and constitutional criminal procedure. He is a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books and is the legal affairs correspondent for The Nation.
David has published widely in law journals and the popular press, including The Yale Law Journal, California Law Review, Stanford Law Review, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and The New Republic. He is the author or editor of ten books, several of which have won awards. Less Safe, Less Free: Why America Is Losing the War on Terror, published in 2007, and co-authored with Jules Lobel, won the Palmer Civil Liberties Prize for best book on national security and civil liberties. Enemy Aliens: Double Standards and Constitutional Freedoms in the War on Terrorism received the American Book Award in 2004. No Equal Justice: Race and Class in the American Criminal Justice System was named Best Non-Fiction Book of 1999 by the Boston Book Review and best book on an issue of national policy in1999 by the American Political Science Association.
David received his bachelor’s degree and law degree from Yale University. He worked as a staff attorney for the Center for Constitutional Rights from 1985 to 1990. He has continued to litigate as a professor and, from 2017 to 2024, as National Legal Director of the ACLU. He has litigated many significant constitutional cases at the Supreme Court, including Texas v. Johnson (1989), which extended First Amendment protection to flag burning; Bostock v. Clayton County (2020), which held that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity are prohibited forms of sex discrimination under Title VII; Mahanoy Area Sch. Dist. v. B.L. (2021), which protected student online speech from school discipline; and National Rifle Association v. Vullo (2024), which held that government officials violate the First Amendment when they use their regulatory authority to coerce private parties to blacklist a disfavored political group.
David has received two honorary degrees and numerous awards for his work, including the inaugural Norman Dorsen Presidential Prize from the ACLU for lifetime commitment to civil liberties. The late New York Times columnist Anthony Lewis called David “one of the country’s great legal voices for civil liberties today.” Nat Hentoff called him “a one-man Committee of Correspondence in the tradition of patriot Sam Adams.”
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Third Circuit
Judge Hardiman was appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit on January 9, 2007 and was confirmed by the Senate (95-0) on March 15, 2007. Prior to becoming an appellate judge, Judge Hardiman served as a trial judge on the United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania as of November 1, 2003. In 2008, Chief Justice John Roberts appointed Judge Hardiman to the Information Technology Committee of the Judicial Conference of the United States. Judge Hardiman was appointed Chairman of the IT Committee in 2013 and served in that capacity until September 2021. In 2021 he was appointed by the Director of the Administrative Office of the United States Courts to serve as Chair of the Judiciary IT Security Task Force, which completed its work in fall 2023. Chief Justice Roberts appointed Judge Hardiman to the Board of the Federal Judicial Center to serve from March 2020 until March 2024. As part of his work with the Center, Judge Hardiman now serves as Editor in Chief for the Manual for Complex Civil Litigation, Fifth.
Before entering judicial service, Judge Hardiman handled a wide variety of litigation matters in state and federal trial and appellate courts as a partner at Reed Smith LLP (1999-2003), a partner at Titus & McConomy LLP (1996-1999), and as an associate with its predecessor firm, Cindrich & Titus (1992-1996). Judge Hardiman began his legal career as an associate in the Washington, D.C. office of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom (1990-1992).
A 1987 honors graduate of the University of Notre Dame, Judge Hardiman received his law degree in 1990 from the Georgetown University Law Center, where he served as a Notes and Comments Editor on the Georgetown Law Journal. In 2012, Judge Hardiman was elected as a member of the American Law Institute and was elected to its Council in 2019 and its Executive Committee in 2025. Judge Hardiman regularly teaches a seminar on Advanced Constitutional Law at Duquesne University School of Law and a one-week course entitled “Constitutional Law: the First and Second Amendments” at Georgetown University Law Center.
A native of Waltham, Massachusetts, Judge Hardiman has chambers in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He and his wife Lori married in 1992 and have three children.
Senior Fellow and Director of Constitutional Studies, Manhattan Institute
Ilya Shapiro is a senior fellow and director of constitutional studies at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal. Previously he was executive director and senior lecturer at the Georgetown Center for the Constitution, and before that a vice president of the Cato Institute.
Shapiro is the author of Lawless: The Miseducation of America’s Elites (2025) and Supreme Disorder: Judicial Nominations and the Politics of America’s Highest Court (2020), coauthor of Religious Liberties for Corporations? (2014), and editor of 11 volumes of the Cato Supreme Court Review (2008-18). He has contributed to a variety of academic, popular, and professional publications, including the Wall Street Journal, Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, National Review, and Newsweek. He also regularly provides commentary for various media outlets, writes the Shapiro’s Gavel newsletter on Substack, and once appeared on the Colbert Report.
Shapiro has testified many times before Congress and state legislatures and has filed more than 500 amicus curiae “friend of the court” briefs in the Supreme Court. He lectures regularly on behalf of the Federalist Society, is a member of the board of fellows of the Jewish Policy Center, was an inaugural Washington Fellow at the National Review Institute, and has been an adjunct law professor at the George Washington University and University of Mississippi. He is also the chairman of the board of advisers of the Mississippi Justice Institute, a barrister in the Edward Coke Appellate Inn of Court, and a former member of the Virginia Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.
Earlier in his career, Shapiro was a special assistant/adviser to the Multi-National Force in Iraq on rule-of-law issues and practiced at Patton Boggs and Cleary Gottlieb. Before entering private practice, he clerked for Judge E. Grady Jolly of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. He holds an AB from Princeton University, an MSc from the London School of Economics, and a JD from the University of Chicago Law School.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit
Judge Nelson was confirmed to the Ninth Circuit in October 2018, as the youngest Circuit Judge to serve from Idaho and he has chambers in his hometown of Idaho Falls. Prior to his confirmation, Judge Nelson served for nine years as General Counsel of Idaho Falls-based Melaleuca, Inc., a consumer goods company. He previously worked in Washington, DC, where he served in all three branches of the federal government, including as Special Counsel for Supreme Court nominations to the Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee; Deputy General Counsel to the White House Office of Management and Budget; Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Environment and Natural Resources Division of the United States Department of Justice; and a law clerk to Judge Henderson of the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. He has argued in most of the federal courts of appeals and worked on dozens of Supreme Court briefs. He started in the Washington, DC office of Sidley Austin as an appellate lawyer, after clerking for Judges Mosk and Brower of the Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal at The Hague, and for now-Judge Tom Griffith, then-Senate Legal Counsel, during the impeachment trial of President Clinton. Judge Nelson earned his B.A. from Brigham Young University and his J.D., with honors, from BYU Law School. Judge Nelson has been a member of the Federalist Society since 1998.
Vice President and Senior Counsel, The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty
Eric Rassbach is Vice President and Senior Counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, where he has served since 2003. He has briefed over 90 cases at the United States Supreme Court and has led or been a part of Becket litigation teams in each of Becket’s pathbreaking victories there, including Hosanna-Tabor, Hobby Lobby, Holt v. Hobbs, Zubik v. Burwell, Agudath Israel of America v. Cuomo, and Fulton v. Philadelphia. In 2020, Eric argued Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey-Berru to the Supreme Court, garnering a 7-2 win for his Catholic school clients. Eric has also briefed and argued cases in federal appeals courts and state supreme courts across the nation. Eric has also represented clients in appeals to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France and in the highest courts of several other countries.
Eric believes passionately in the right of all people to the full measure of religious liberty and has represented members of almost every religious group present in the United States, including Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, Jains, Jews, Muslims, Native Americans, Santeros, and Sikhs, as well as many governmental entities targeted for accommodating religion.
Eric frequently comments on church-state issues in the media, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and other major press outlets. He has published legal scholarship in the Harvard Law Review Forum, the Tennessee Law Review, the Illinois Law Review, the Cato Supreme Court Review, and other legal journals, and often speaks to law school audiences.
Before joining Becket, Eric worked at Baker Botts LLP in Houston, where he worked in international project finance. He also served as a law clerk to United States District Court Judge Lee Rosenthal in Houston, Texas.
Eric graduated from Haverford College with a degree in Comparative Literature, is a member of Fitzwilliam College, University of Cambridge, and is a graduate of Harvard Law School. Eric was a 2012-2013 Wasserstein Public Interest Fellow at Harvard Law School. He is Visiting Professor and Executive Director of The Hugh and Hazel Darling Foundation Religious Liberty Clinic at Pepperdine University Caruso School of Law in Malibu, where he leads students in litigating cases in American courts. He is also an Associated Scholar with the Centre for Religious Freedom at Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland. Eric is admitted in Texas, DC, California, and Ireland.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit
Judge Nelson was confirmed to the Ninth Circuit in October 2018, as the youngest Circuit Judge to serve from Idaho and he has chambers in his hometown of Idaho Falls. Prior to his confirmation, Judge Nelson served for nine years as General Counsel of Idaho Falls-based Melaleuca, Inc., a consumer goods company. He previously worked in Washington, DC, where he served in all three branches of the federal government, including as Special Counsel for Supreme Court nominations to the Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee; Deputy General Counsel to the White House Office of Management and Budget; Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Environment and Natural Resources Division of the United States Department of Justice; and a law clerk to Judge Henderson of the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. He has argued in most of the federal courts of appeals and worked on dozens of Supreme Court briefs. He started in the Washington, DC office of Sidley Austin as an appellate lawyer, after clerking for Judges Mosk and Brower of the Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal at The Hague, and for now-Judge Tom Griffith, then-Senate Legal Counsel, during the impeachment trial of President Clinton. Judge Nelson earned his B.A. from Brigham Young University and his J.D., with honors, from BYU Law School. Judge Nelson has been a member of the Federalist Society since 1998.
Vice President and Senior Counsel, The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty
Eric Rassbach is Vice President and Senior Counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, where he has served since 2003. He has briefed over 90 cases at the United States Supreme Court and has led or been a part of Becket litigation teams in each of Becket’s pathbreaking victories there, including Hosanna-Tabor, Hobby Lobby, Holt v. Hobbs, Zubik v. Burwell, Agudath Israel of America v. Cuomo, and Fulton v. Philadelphia. In 2020, Eric argued Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey-Berru to the Supreme Court, garnering a 7-2 win for his Catholic school clients. Eric has also briefed and argued cases in federal appeals courts and state supreme courts across the nation. Eric has also represented clients in appeals to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France and in the highest courts of several other countries.
Eric believes passionately in the right of all people to the full measure of religious liberty and has represented members of almost every religious group present in the United States, including Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, Jains, Jews, Muslims, Native Americans, Santeros, and Sikhs, as well as many governmental entities targeted for accommodating religion.
Eric frequently comments on church-state issues in the media, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and other major press outlets. He has published legal scholarship in the Harvard Law Review Forum, the Tennessee Law Review, the Illinois Law Review, the Cato Supreme Court Review, and other legal journals, and often speaks to law school audiences.
Before joining Becket, Eric worked at Baker Botts LLP in Houston, where he worked in international project finance. He also served as a law clerk to United States District Court Judge Lee Rosenthal in Houston, Texas.
Eric graduated from Haverford College with a degree in Comparative Literature, is a member of Fitzwilliam College, University of Cambridge, and is a graduate of Harvard Law School. Eric was a 2012-2013 Wasserstein Public Interest Fellow at Harvard Law School. He is Visiting Professor and Executive Director of The Hugh and Hazel Darling Foundation Religious Liberty Clinic at Pepperdine University Caruso School of Law in Malibu, where he leads students in litigating cases in American courts. He is also an Associated Scholar with the Centre for Religious Freedom at Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland. Eric is admitted in Texas, DC, California, and Ireland.
General Law and Applied Topics
6th Annual UVA Originalism Symposium
Charlottesville, VARupe Debate: Resolved: Originalism Should Embrace the General Law
Jud Campbell, Julia D. Mahoney, Lawrence Solum
How should textualists search for the original meaning of laws when the text alone does...
Rupe Debate: Resolved: Originalism Should Embrace the General Law
6th Annual UVA Originalism Symposium
Charlottesville, VAIntroduction: Originalism and the General Law
William Baude
Does constitutional interpretation require more than just text? What happens when the text runs out?...
Introduction: Originalism and the General Law
6th Annual UVA Originalism Symposium
Charlottesville, VADaniel Webster Debate Series: Is the Trump Administration Taking the Right Approach to Civil Rights and Free Speech on Campus?
David D. Cole, Thomas M. Hardiman, Ilya Shapiro
The Federalist Society's Georgetown Law Chapter'sDaniel Webster Debate Series presents Daniel Webster Debate Series:Do...
Daniel Webster Debate Series: Is the Trump Administration Taking the Right Approach to Civil Rights and Free Speech on Campus?
Courthouse Steps Oral Argument: Catholic Charities Bureau, Inc. v. Wisconsin Labor & Industry Review Commission
Ryan D. Nelson, Eric Rassbach
On March 31, 2025, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Catholic Charities Bureau...
Courthouse Steps Oral Argument: Catholic Charities Bureau, Inc. v. Wisconsin Labor & Industry Review Commission
Ryan D. Nelson, Eric Rassbach
On March 31, 2025, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Catholic Charities Bureau...
Courthouse Steps Oral Argument: Catholic Charities Bureau, Inc. v. Wisconsin Labor & Industry Review Commission