Howard M. Holtzmann Professor of International Law, Yale Law School
Lea Brilmayer is the Howard M. Holtzmann Professor of International Law at Yale Law School. In addition to teaching Contracts to first-year students, she also teaches Conflict of Laws and International Courts and Tribunals, as well as seminars on the laws of war and on African current affairs. Her degrees include a B.A. in mathematics and a J.D. from the University of California at Berkeley, as well as an LL.M. from Columbia Law School. Brilmayer has taught at a number of different law schools as either a professor or visiting professor, including the University of Texas, the University of Chicago, the University of Michigan, Columbia Law School, Harvard Law School, and the New York University School of Law (where she led a weekly seminar on International Jurisprudence.) She is a member of the Texas and Supreme Court bars. She has given numerous endowed lectures at other American law schools and has also taught twice at the summer session of the Hague Academy of International Law.
During her first decade of teaching, her writing interests mainly concerned conflict of laws (in particular, personal jurisdiction and choice of law); federal jurisdiction; and jurisprudence. Her conflict of laws writings have included one theoretical book on the subject and a leading casebook (in the more recent editions, co-authored with Jack Goldsmith). Together with a group of Yale student contributors, she published An Introduction to Jurisdiction in the American Federal System. Her writings on the conflict of laws have resulted in her being asked on a number of occasions to testify before Congressional committees, most recently on the Full Faith and Credit implications of same sex marriage. More recently, her interests have gradually turned to international law and international relations, and she is frequently cited for her academic writings about nationalism and the international legal status of secessionist movements. Her research in international jurisprudence has also led to two books, Justifying International Acts and American Hegemony: Political Morality in a One-Superpower World.
In addition to her academic interests, Brilmayer carries on an active life in interstate and international adjudication. In addition to contributing to amicus briefs, she has served as counsel of record before the United States Supreme Court and has been an expert consultant on many lower and intermediate appellate court cases. For the last decade she has served as lead counsel in several international public (state-to-state) arbitrations dealing with island sovereignty, maritime delimitation, land boundaries, and mass claims for violations of the laws of war.
Founding Partner, Cooper & Kirk PLLC
Charles J. Cooper is a founding member and the chairman of Cooper & Kirk, PLLC, “one of the Nation’s leading litigation boutiques” (Above The Law 2017). The National Law Journal recently wrote that Mr. Cooper’s “brilliant legal career has so far spanned five decades and thrust Cooper into the spotlight in some of the most historic moments of the country’s modern history.” He has argued nine cases before the United States Supreme Court and scores of appeals before each of the 13 federal courts of appeals and several state supreme courts. He has been lead trial counsel in numerous complex, weeks-long trials in federal courts throughout the country. Named by the National Law Journal as one of the 10 best litigators in Washington D.C., Mr. Cooper’s work has been reported in numerous press accounts, and he has been called a “powerhouse attorney” (Fortune 2015), “a hard-nosed litigator” (Washington Post 2017), and “one of the country’s most in-demand civil litigators and a Washington legal institution unto himself” (The American Spectator 2014).
After graduating from the University of Alabama School of Law in 1977, where he ranked first in his class and served as Editor-in-Chief of the Alabama Law Review, Mr. Cooper began his career as a law clerk to Judge Paul Roney on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and to Justice William H. Rehnquist in 1978–79. He then practiced law in Atlanta for two years before joining the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, where he served as the Deputy Assistant Attorney General in charge of, among other things, appellate matters. In 1985 President Reagan appointed him to the position of Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel, which is the office responsible for providing legal opinions and advice to the White House, the Attorney General, and Executive Branch departments and agencies on issues covering the full spectrum of federal constitutional, statutory, and regulatory law.
In 1988 he returned to private practice as a litigation partner in the Washington, D.C. office of McGuireWoods. From 1990 until the founding of Cooper & Kirk in 1996, he was a partner at Shaw Pittman (now Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman), where he headed the firm’s Constitutional and Government Litigation Group.
Mr. Cooper has represented a wide range of public and private clients in highly complex constitutional, civil rights, antitrust, healthcare, banking, intellectual property, elections, campaign finance, administrative, commercial, and government contract cases. He has led trial teams in cases that have won judgments and settlements valued in the billions of dollars and that have established ground-breaking constitutional precedents.
Much of Mr. Cooper’s practice has involved representing high-profile clients in nationally prominent matters, including: the State of Florida in a First Amendment suit brought by the Disney Company concerning its autonomous regulatory authority over its Disney World property; the Commonwealth of Virginia in a suit seeking to enjoin the removal of noncitizens from its voter rolls; 38 members of the Duke Lacrosse team falsely accused of rape by officials of Duke University and the City of Durham; Harper Lee in a copyright dispute with the heirs of Gregory Peck; high-ranking former government officials such as former Attorneys General John Ashcroft, Jeff Sessions, and William Barr, and Ambassador John Bolton; several Governors and United States Senators; over 100 Members of Congress; and many state, territorial, and local government bodies and officials. He has also represented and advised government officials and public figures in connection with sensitive private issues that needed to be, and were, resolved discreetly without becoming matters of public record.
In 1998 Chief Justice Rehnquist appointed Mr. Cooper to the Standing Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure of the Judicial Conference of the United States, where he served for three terms. He also served as a Public Member, appointed by President George H.W. Bush, of the National Commission on Judicial Discipline and Removal. He is a member of numerous professional associations, including the American Law Institute (since 1993) and the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers (since 1996). He is also an active member of the Federalist Society and the Republican National Lawyers Association, which in 2010 named him Republican Lawyer of the Year and in 2016 honored him with its Edwin Meese III Award.
Mr. Cooper has published scores of articles and spoken extensively on constitutional and legal policy topics. He has appeared before congressional committees on 26 occasions, testifying as an expert on a wide variety of legal issues, including the Chevron doctrine of judicial deference to administrative agencies, the diversity of citizenship jurisdiction of federal courts, statehood bills for Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia, and the impeachment of President Clinton.
U.S. Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit
Frank H. Easterbrook is a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and a Senior Lecturer at the Law School of the University of Chicago. He was Chief Judge from 2006–2013. Before joining the court in 1985, he was the Lee andBrena Freeman Professor of Law at the University of Chicago, where he taught and wrote in antitrust, securities, corporate law, jurisprudence, and criminal procedure. He has published The Economic Structure of Corporate Law (with Daniel R. Fischel) and about 100 scholarly articles. He served as Co-Editor of the Journal of Law and Economics from 1982 to 1991 and as a member of the Judicial Conference’s Standing Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure from 1991 to 1997. Before joining the faculty of the Law School in 1979, Judge Easterbrook was Deputy Solicitor General of the United States. He holds degrees from Swarthmore College (B.A. with high honors, 1970) and the University of Chicago (J.D. cum laude, 1973), and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Law Institute, the Mont Pelerin Society, Phi Beta Kappa, and the Order of the Coif.
Senior Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit
Patrick Errol Higginbotham is a federal judge on senior status with the United States Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit. He joined the court in 1982 after being nominated by President Ronald Reagan.
Contributing Writer, Vanity Fair
Michael Kinsley is a Contributing Writer for Vanity Fair, where his column appears monthly. Over a long career in the media, he has been Managing Editor of the Washington Monthly, Editor of the New Republic, and Editorial and Opinion Editor of the Los Angeles Times. He was the Founding Editor of Slate, one of the first on-line magazines. For over six years Kinsley was the liberal host of Crossfire, a CNN show where he sparred with Pat Buchanan five days a week. He played a similar role for many years with William F. Buckley on PBS’s Firing Line. He has written for The New Yorker, Conde Nast Traveler, and other publications.
U.S. Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit
Stephen Roy Reinhardt is a federal appeals judge with the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco. He joined the Court in 1980 after being nominated by President Jimmy Carter.
Born in New York City, New York, Reinhardt graduated from Pomona College with his Bachelor's degree in 1951 and later received a Bachelors of Laws degree, LL.B, from Yale Law School in 1954. Reinhardt served in the U.S. Air Force from 1954 to 1956 before becoming a law clerk for the Honorable Luther Youngdahl in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia until 1957. Reinhardt was a private practice attorney in the State of California from 1957 to 1980. Reinhardt was nominated to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit by President Jimmy Carter on November 30, 1979, to a new seat created by 92 Stat. 1629, which was approved by Congress. Reinhardt was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on September 11, 1980 and received commission on September 11, 1980.
Howard M. Holtzmann Professor of International Law, Yale Law School
Lea Brilmayer is the Howard M. Holtzmann Professor of International Law at Yale Law School. In addition to teaching Contracts to first-year students, she also teaches Conflict of Laws and International Courts and Tribunals, as well as seminars on the laws of war and on African current affairs. Her degrees include a B.A. in mathematics and a J.D. from the University of California at Berkeley, as well as an LL.M. from Columbia Law School. Brilmayer has taught at a number of different law schools as either a professor or visiting professor, including the University of Texas, the University of Chicago, the University of Michigan, Columbia Law School, Harvard Law School, and the New York University School of Law (where she led a weekly seminar on International Jurisprudence.) She is a member of the Texas and Supreme Court bars. She has given numerous endowed lectures at other American law schools and has also taught twice at the summer session of the Hague Academy of International Law.
During her first decade of teaching, her writing interests mainly concerned conflict of laws (in particular, personal jurisdiction and choice of law); federal jurisdiction; and jurisprudence. Her conflict of laws writings have included one theoretical book on the subject and a leading casebook (in the more recent editions, co-authored with Jack Goldsmith). Together with a group of Yale student contributors, she published An Introduction to Jurisdiction in the American Federal System. Her writings on the conflict of laws have resulted in her being asked on a number of occasions to testify before Congressional committees, most recently on the Full Faith and Credit implications of same sex marriage. More recently, her interests have gradually turned to international law and international relations, and she is frequently cited for her academic writings about nationalism and the international legal status of secessionist movements. Her research in international jurisprudence has also led to two books, Justifying International Acts and American Hegemony: Political Morality in a One-Superpower World.
In addition to her academic interests, Brilmayer carries on an active life in interstate and international adjudication. In addition to contributing to amicus briefs, she has served as counsel of record before the United States Supreme Court and has been an expert consultant on many lower and intermediate appellate court cases. For the last decade she has served as lead counsel in several international public (state-to-state) arbitrations dealing with island sovereignty, maritime delimitation, land boundaries, and mass claims for violations of the laws of war.
Founding Partner, Cooper & Kirk PLLC
Charles J. Cooper is a founding member and the chairman of Cooper & Kirk, PLLC, “one of the Nation’s leading litigation boutiques” (Above The Law 2017). The National Law Journal recently wrote that Mr. Cooper’s “brilliant legal career has so far spanned five decades and thrust Cooper into the spotlight in some of the most historic moments of the country’s modern history.” He has argued nine cases before the United States Supreme Court and scores of appeals before each of the 13 federal courts of appeals and several state supreme courts. He has been lead trial counsel in numerous complex, weeks-long trials in federal courts throughout the country. Named by the National Law Journal as one of the 10 best litigators in Washington D.C., Mr. Cooper’s work has been reported in numerous press accounts, and he has been called a “powerhouse attorney” (Fortune 2015), “a hard-nosed litigator” (Washington Post 2017), and “one of the country’s most in-demand civil litigators and a Washington legal institution unto himself” (The American Spectator 2014).
After graduating from the University of Alabama School of Law in 1977, where he ranked first in his class and served as Editor-in-Chief of the Alabama Law Review, Mr. Cooper began his career as a law clerk to Judge Paul Roney on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and to Justice William H. Rehnquist in 1978–79. He then practiced law in Atlanta for two years before joining the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, where he served as the Deputy Assistant Attorney General in charge of, among other things, appellate matters. In 1985 President Reagan appointed him to the position of Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel, which is the office responsible for providing legal opinions and advice to the White House, the Attorney General, and Executive Branch departments and agencies on issues covering the full spectrum of federal constitutional, statutory, and regulatory law.
In 1988 he returned to private practice as a litigation partner in the Washington, D.C. office of McGuireWoods. From 1990 until the founding of Cooper & Kirk in 1996, he was a partner at Shaw Pittman (now Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman), where he headed the firm’s Constitutional and Government Litigation Group.
Mr. Cooper has represented a wide range of public and private clients in highly complex constitutional, civil rights, antitrust, healthcare, banking, intellectual property, elections, campaign finance, administrative, commercial, and government contract cases. He has led trial teams in cases that have won judgments and settlements valued in the billions of dollars and that have established ground-breaking constitutional precedents.
Much of Mr. Cooper’s practice has involved representing high-profile clients in nationally prominent matters, including: the State of Florida in a First Amendment suit brought by the Disney Company concerning its autonomous regulatory authority over its Disney World property; the Commonwealth of Virginia in a suit seeking to enjoin the removal of noncitizens from its voter rolls; 38 members of the Duke Lacrosse team falsely accused of rape by officials of Duke University and the City of Durham; Harper Lee in a copyright dispute with the heirs of Gregory Peck; high-ranking former government officials such as former Attorneys General John Ashcroft, Jeff Sessions, and William Barr, and Ambassador John Bolton; several Governors and United States Senators; over 100 Members of Congress; and many state, territorial, and local government bodies and officials. He has also represented and advised government officials and public figures in connection with sensitive private issues that needed to be, and were, resolved discreetly without becoming matters of public record.
In 1998 Chief Justice Rehnquist appointed Mr. Cooper to the Standing Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure of the Judicial Conference of the United States, where he served for three terms. He also served as a Public Member, appointed by President George H.W. Bush, of the National Commission on Judicial Discipline and Removal. He is a member of numerous professional associations, including the American Law Institute (since 1993) and the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers (since 1996). He is also an active member of the Federalist Society and the Republican National Lawyers Association, which in 2010 named him Republican Lawyer of the Year and in 2016 honored him with its Edwin Meese III Award.
Mr. Cooper has published scores of articles and spoken extensively on constitutional and legal policy topics. He has appeared before congressional committees on 26 occasions, testifying as an expert on a wide variety of legal issues, including the Chevron doctrine of judicial deference to administrative agencies, the diversity of citizenship jurisdiction of federal courts, statehood bills for Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia, and the impeachment of President Clinton.
U.S. Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit
Frank H. Easterbrook is a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and a Senior Lecturer at the Law School of the University of Chicago. He was Chief Judge from 2006–2013. Before joining the court in 1985, he was the Lee andBrena Freeman Professor of Law at the University of Chicago, where he taught and wrote in antitrust, securities, corporate law, jurisprudence, and criminal procedure. He has published The Economic Structure of Corporate Law (with Daniel R. Fischel) and about 100 scholarly articles. He served as Co-Editor of the Journal of Law and Economics from 1982 to 1991 and as a member of the Judicial Conference’s Standing Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure from 1991 to 1997. Before joining the faculty of the Law School in 1979, Judge Easterbrook was Deputy Solicitor General of the United States. He holds degrees from Swarthmore College (B.A. with high honors, 1970) and the University of Chicago (J.D. cum laude, 1973), and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Law Institute, the Mont Pelerin Society, Phi Beta Kappa, and the Order of the Coif.
Senior Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit
Patrick Errol Higginbotham is a federal judge on senior status with the United States Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit. He joined the court in 1982 after being nominated by President Ronald Reagan.
Contributing Writer, Vanity Fair
Michael Kinsley is a Contributing Writer for Vanity Fair, where his column appears monthly. Over a long career in the media, he has been Managing Editor of the Washington Monthly, Editor of the New Republic, and Editorial and Opinion Editor of the Los Angeles Times. He was the Founding Editor of Slate, one of the first on-line magazines. For over six years Kinsley was the liberal host of Crossfire, a CNN show where he sparred with Pat Buchanan five days a week. He played a similar role for many years with William F. Buckley on PBS’s Firing Line. He has written for The New Yorker, Conde Nast Traveler, and other publications.
U.S. Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit
Stephen Roy Reinhardt is a federal appeals judge with the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco. He joined the Court in 1980 after being nominated by President Jimmy Carter.
Born in New York City, New York, Reinhardt graduated from Pomona College with his Bachelor's degree in 1951 and later received a Bachelors of Laws degree, LL.B, from Yale Law School in 1954. Reinhardt served in the U.S. Air Force from 1954 to 1956 before becoming a law clerk for the Honorable Luther Youngdahl in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia until 1957. Reinhardt was a private practice attorney in the State of California from 1957 to 1980. Reinhardt was nominated to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit by President Jimmy Carter on November 30, 1979, to a new seat created by 92 Stat. 1629, which was approved by Congress. Reinhardt was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on September 11, 1980 and received commission on September 11, 1980.
John M. Olin University Professor Emeritus, Georgetown University
Walter Berns is the John M. Olin University Professor Emeritus at Georgetown University and a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. He has taught at the University of Toronto, the University of Chicago (where he earned a Ph.D. in political science), and at Cornell and Yale Universities. His government service includes membership on the National Council on the Humanities, the Council of Scholars in the Library of Congress, the Judicial Fellows Commission, and in 1983 he was the alternate United States representative to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. He has been a Guggenheim, Rockefeller, and Fulbright Fellow and a Phi Beta Kappa lecturer. He is the author of numerous articles on American government and politics in both professional and popular journals; his many books include In Defense of Liberal Democracy, The First Amendment and the Future of American Democracy, Taking the Constitution Seriously, and Making Patriots. President George W. Bush awarded him the 2005 National Humanities Medal for his scholarship on the history of the constitution.
Partner, O'Melveny & Myers LLP
Walter Dellinger is an influential authority on appellate and Supreme Court decisions, lending his experience as a former Solicitor General and decades of legal knowledge to amicus briefs, a multitude of pro bono clients, and public and private companies involved in bet-the-company litigation. A frequent commentator for the Wall Street Journal, Slate, and major television networks, Walter holds the designation of the Douglas B. Maggs Emeritus Professor of Law at Duke University. He was named one of the 100 Most Influential Lawyers in America by the National Law Journal and recognized with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Lawyer.
Walter, who formerly served as O’Melveny’s Diversity and Inclusion Partner, helped convince the US Supreme Court that proponents of Proposition 8, California's ban on same-sex marriage, did not have standing to appeal a court order invalidating it. That ruling, Hollingsworth v. Perry, cleared the way for marriage equality in California and eventually nationwide.
Walter served as Assistant Attorney General and head of the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) from 1993 to 1996. He was acting Solicitor General for the 1996-97 Term of the US Supreme Court. During that time, Walter argued nine cases before the Court, the most by any Solicitor General in more than 20 years. His arguments included cases dealing with physician-assisted suicide, the line item veto, the cable television act, the Brady Act, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and the constitutionality of remedial services for parochial school children.
Walter has served as Special Counsel to the Board of Directors of the New York Stock Exchange in connection with the NYSE’s transformation into a publicly held company and its acquisition of an electronic trading company.
After serving in early 1993 in the White House as an advisor to the President on constitutional issues, Walter was nominated by the President to be Assistant Attorney General. He was confirmed by the Senate in October 1993 and served for three years. As head of the OLC, Walter issued opinions on a wide variety of issues, including: the President's authority to deploy United States forces in Haiti and Bosnia; whether the trade agreements required treaty ratification; and a major review of separation of powers questions. He provided extensive legal advice on questions arising out of the shutdown of the federal government, on national debt ceiling issues, and on loan guarantees for Mexico.
Walter has published articles on constitutional issues for scholarly journals including the Harvard Law Review, the Yale Law Journal, and the Duke Law Journal, and has written for the New York Times, the Washington Post, Newsweek, the New Republic, and the London Times. He has been a visiting professor at the Catholic University of Belgium and has given lectures to university faculties in Florence, Siena, Nuremberg, Copenhagen, Leiden, Utrecht, Tilburg, Mexico, and Rio de Janeiro, and has delivered major lectures at Stanford, Yale, Harvard, Michigan, Berkeley, Penn, Duke, Chicago, and other US law schools. He has testified more than 25 times before committees of Congress.
In private practice, Walter’s arguments before the United States Supreme Court have included Exxon Shipping Co. v. Baker, Morgan Stanley Capital Group Inc. v. Public Utility District No. 1 of Snohomish County, Alabama v. North Carolina, Hosanna-Tabor v. EEOC, Heller v. District of Columbia, Jackson v. Birmingham School District, Brown v. Legal Foundation of Washington, US Airways v. Barnett, Utah v. Evans, Hunt v. Cromartie, and Hunt v. Easley. His most notable Court of Appeals and state supreme court arguments include Martha Stewart v. United States, Whiteside v. United States, and Exxon v. Alabama, LCI v. Phillips.
Senior Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit
Patrick Errol Higginbotham is a federal judge on senior status with the United States Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit. He joined the court in 1982 after being nominated by President Ronald Reagan.
John M. Olin University Professor Emeritus, Georgetown University
Walter Berns is the John M. Olin University Professor Emeritus at Georgetown University and a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. He has taught at the University of Toronto, the University of Chicago (where he earned a Ph.D. in political science), and at Cornell and Yale Universities. His government service includes membership on the National Council on the Humanities, the Council of Scholars in the Library of Congress, the Judicial Fellows Commission, and in 1983 he was the alternate United States representative to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. He has been a Guggenheim, Rockefeller, and Fulbright Fellow and a Phi Beta Kappa lecturer. He is the author of numerous articles on American government and politics in both professional and popular journals; his many books include In Defense of Liberal Democracy, The First Amendment and the Future of American Democracy, Taking the Constitution Seriously, and Making Patriots. President George W. Bush awarded him the 2005 National Humanities Medal for his scholarship on the history of the constitution.
Partner, O'Melveny & Myers LLP
Walter Dellinger is an influential authority on appellate and Supreme Court decisions, lending his experience as a former Solicitor General and decades of legal knowledge to amicus briefs, a multitude of pro bono clients, and public and private companies involved in bet-the-company litigation. A frequent commentator for the Wall Street Journal, Slate, and major television networks, Walter holds the designation of the Douglas B. Maggs Emeritus Professor of Law at Duke University. He was named one of the 100 Most Influential Lawyers in America by the National Law Journal and recognized with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Lawyer.
Walter, who formerly served as O’Melveny’s Diversity and Inclusion Partner, helped convince the US Supreme Court that proponents of Proposition 8, California's ban on same-sex marriage, did not have standing to appeal a court order invalidating it. That ruling, Hollingsworth v. Perry, cleared the way for marriage equality in California and eventually nationwide.
Walter served as Assistant Attorney General and head of the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) from 1993 to 1996. He was acting Solicitor General for the 1996-97 Term of the US Supreme Court. During that time, Walter argued nine cases before the Court, the most by any Solicitor General in more than 20 years. His arguments included cases dealing with physician-assisted suicide, the line item veto, the cable television act, the Brady Act, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and the constitutionality of remedial services for parochial school children.
Walter has served as Special Counsel to the Board of Directors of the New York Stock Exchange in connection with the NYSE’s transformation into a publicly held company and its acquisition of an electronic trading company.
After serving in early 1993 in the White House as an advisor to the President on constitutional issues, Walter was nominated by the President to be Assistant Attorney General. He was confirmed by the Senate in October 1993 and served for three years. As head of the OLC, Walter issued opinions on a wide variety of issues, including: the President's authority to deploy United States forces in Haiti and Bosnia; whether the trade agreements required treaty ratification; and a major review of separation of powers questions. He provided extensive legal advice on questions arising out of the shutdown of the federal government, on national debt ceiling issues, and on loan guarantees for Mexico.
Walter has published articles on constitutional issues for scholarly journals including the Harvard Law Review, the Yale Law Journal, and the Duke Law Journal, and has written for the New York Times, the Washington Post, Newsweek, the New Republic, and the London Times. He has been a visiting professor at the Catholic University of Belgium and has given lectures to university faculties in Florence, Siena, Nuremberg, Copenhagen, Leiden, Utrecht, Tilburg, Mexico, and Rio de Janeiro, and has delivered major lectures at Stanford, Yale, Harvard, Michigan, Berkeley, Penn, Duke, Chicago, and other US law schools. He has testified more than 25 times before committees of Congress.
In private practice, Walter’s arguments before the United States Supreme Court have included Exxon Shipping Co. v. Baker, Morgan Stanley Capital Group Inc. v. Public Utility District No. 1 of Snohomish County, Alabama v. North Carolina, Hosanna-Tabor v. EEOC, Heller v. District of Columbia, Jackson v. Birmingham School District, Brown v. Legal Foundation of Washington, US Airways v. Barnett, Utah v. Evans, Hunt v. Cromartie, and Hunt v. Easley. His most notable Court of Appeals and state supreme court arguments include Martha Stewart v. United States, Whiteside v. United States, and Exxon v. Alabama, LCI v. Phillips.
Senior Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit
Patrick Errol Higginbotham is a federal judge on senior status with the United States Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit. He joined the court in 1982 after being nominated by President Ronald Reagan.
John M. Olin University Professor Emeritus, Georgetown University
Walter Berns is the John M. Olin University Professor Emeritus at Georgetown University and a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. He has taught at the University of Toronto, the University of Chicago (where he earned a Ph.D. in political science), and at Cornell and Yale Universities. His government service includes membership on the National Council on the Humanities, the Council of Scholars in the Library of Congress, the Judicial Fellows Commission, and in 1983 he was the alternate United States representative to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. He has been a Guggenheim, Rockefeller, and Fulbright Fellow and a Phi Beta Kappa lecturer. He is the author of numerous articles on American government and politics in both professional and popular journals; his many books include In Defense of Liberal Democracy, The First Amendment and the Future of American Democracy, Taking the Constitution Seriously, and Making Patriots. President George W. Bush awarded him the 2005 National Humanities Medal for his scholarship on the history of the constitution.
Partner, O'Melveny & Myers LLP
Walter Dellinger is an influential authority on appellate and Supreme Court decisions, lending his experience as a former Solicitor General and decades of legal knowledge to amicus briefs, a multitude of pro bono clients, and public and private companies involved in bet-the-company litigation. A frequent commentator for the Wall Street Journal, Slate, and major television networks, Walter holds the designation of the Douglas B. Maggs Emeritus Professor of Law at Duke University. He was named one of the 100 Most Influential Lawyers in America by the National Law Journal and recognized with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Lawyer.
Walter, who formerly served as O’Melveny’s Diversity and Inclusion Partner, helped convince the US Supreme Court that proponents of Proposition 8, California's ban on same-sex marriage, did not have standing to appeal a court order invalidating it. That ruling, Hollingsworth v. Perry, cleared the way for marriage equality in California and eventually nationwide.
Walter served as Assistant Attorney General and head of the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) from 1993 to 1996. He was acting Solicitor General for the 1996-97 Term of the US Supreme Court. During that time, Walter argued nine cases before the Court, the most by any Solicitor General in more than 20 years. His arguments included cases dealing with physician-assisted suicide, the line item veto, the cable television act, the Brady Act, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and the constitutionality of remedial services for parochial school children.
Walter has served as Special Counsel to the Board of Directors of the New York Stock Exchange in connection with the NYSE’s transformation into a publicly held company and its acquisition of an electronic trading company.
After serving in early 1993 in the White House as an advisor to the President on constitutional issues, Walter was nominated by the President to be Assistant Attorney General. He was confirmed by the Senate in October 1993 and served for three years. As head of the OLC, Walter issued opinions on a wide variety of issues, including: the President's authority to deploy United States forces in Haiti and Bosnia; whether the trade agreements required treaty ratification; and a major review of separation of powers questions. He provided extensive legal advice on questions arising out of the shutdown of the federal government, on national debt ceiling issues, and on loan guarantees for Mexico.
Walter has published articles on constitutional issues for scholarly journals including the Harvard Law Review, the Yale Law Journal, and the Duke Law Journal, and has written for the New York Times, the Washington Post, Newsweek, the New Republic, and the London Times. He has been a visiting professor at the Catholic University of Belgium and has given lectures to university faculties in Florence, Siena, Nuremberg, Copenhagen, Leiden, Utrecht, Tilburg, Mexico, and Rio de Janeiro, and has delivered major lectures at Stanford, Yale, Harvard, Michigan, Berkeley, Penn, Duke, Chicago, and other US law schools. He has testified more than 25 times before committees of Congress.
In private practice, Walter’s arguments before the United States Supreme Court have included Exxon Shipping Co. v. Baker, Morgan Stanley Capital Group Inc. v. Public Utility District No. 1 of Snohomish County, Alabama v. North Carolina, Hosanna-Tabor v. EEOC, Heller v. District of Columbia, Jackson v. Birmingham School District, Brown v. Legal Foundation of Washington, US Airways v. Barnett, Utah v. Evans, Hunt v. Cromartie, and Hunt v. Easley. His most notable Court of Appeals and state supreme court arguments include Martha Stewart v. United States, Whiteside v. United States, and Exxon v. Alabama, LCI v. Phillips.
Senior Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit
Patrick Errol Higginbotham is a federal judge on senior status with the United States Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit. He joined the court in 1982 after being nominated by President Ronald Reagan.
Howard M. Holtzmann Professor of International Law, Yale Law School
Lea Brilmayer is the Howard M. Holtzmann Professor of International Law at Yale Law School. In addition to teaching Contracts to first-year students, she also teaches Conflict of Laws and International Courts and Tribunals, as well as seminars on the laws of war and on African current affairs. Her degrees include a B.A. in mathematics and a J.D. from the University of California at Berkeley, as well as an LL.M. from Columbia Law School. Brilmayer has taught at a number of different law schools as either a professor or visiting professor, including the University of Texas, the University of Chicago, the University of Michigan, Columbia Law School, Harvard Law School, and the New York University School of Law (where she led a weekly seminar on International Jurisprudence.) She is a member of the Texas and Supreme Court bars. She has given numerous endowed lectures at other American law schools and has also taught twice at the summer session of the Hague Academy of International Law.
During her first decade of teaching, her writing interests mainly concerned conflict of laws (in particular, personal jurisdiction and choice of law); federal jurisdiction; and jurisprudence. Her conflict of laws writings have included one theoretical book on the subject and a leading casebook (in the more recent editions, co-authored with Jack Goldsmith). Together with a group of Yale student contributors, she published An Introduction to Jurisdiction in the American Federal System. Her writings on the conflict of laws have resulted in her being asked on a number of occasions to testify before Congressional committees, most recently on the Full Faith and Credit implications of same sex marriage. More recently, her interests have gradually turned to international law and international relations, and she is frequently cited for her academic writings about nationalism and the international legal status of secessionist movements. Her research in international jurisprudence has also led to two books, Justifying International Acts and American Hegemony: Political Morality in a One-Superpower World.
In addition to her academic interests, Brilmayer carries on an active life in interstate and international adjudication. In addition to contributing to amicus briefs, she has served as counsel of record before the United States Supreme Court and has been an expert consultant on many lower and intermediate appellate court cases. For the last decade she has served as lead counsel in several international public (state-to-state) arbitrations dealing with island sovereignty, maritime delimitation, land boundaries, and mass claims for violations of the laws of war.
Founding Partner, Cooper & Kirk PLLC
Charles J. Cooper is a founding member and the chairman of Cooper & Kirk, PLLC, “one of the Nation’s leading litigation boutiques” (Above The Law 2017). The National Law Journal recently wrote that Mr. Cooper’s “brilliant legal career has so far spanned five decades and thrust Cooper into the spotlight in some of the most historic moments of the country’s modern history.” He has argued nine cases before the United States Supreme Court and scores of appeals before each of the 13 federal courts of appeals and several state supreme courts. He has been lead trial counsel in numerous complex, weeks-long trials in federal courts throughout the country. Named by the National Law Journal as one of the 10 best litigators in Washington D.C., Mr. Cooper’s work has been reported in numerous press accounts, and he has been called a “powerhouse attorney” (Fortune 2015), “a hard-nosed litigator” (Washington Post 2017), and “one of the country’s most in-demand civil litigators and a Washington legal institution unto himself” (The American Spectator 2014).
After graduating from the University of Alabama School of Law in 1977, where he ranked first in his class and served as Editor-in-Chief of the Alabama Law Review, Mr. Cooper began his career as a law clerk to Judge Paul Roney on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and to Justice William H. Rehnquist in 1978–79. He then practiced law in Atlanta for two years before joining the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, where he served as the Deputy Assistant Attorney General in charge of, among other things, appellate matters. In 1985 President Reagan appointed him to the position of Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel, which is the office responsible for providing legal opinions and advice to the White House, the Attorney General, and Executive Branch departments and agencies on issues covering the full spectrum of federal constitutional, statutory, and regulatory law.
In 1988 he returned to private practice as a litigation partner in the Washington, D.C. office of McGuireWoods. From 1990 until the founding of Cooper & Kirk in 1996, he was a partner at Shaw Pittman (now Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman), where he headed the firm’s Constitutional and Government Litigation Group.
Mr. Cooper has represented a wide range of public and private clients in highly complex constitutional, civil rights, antitrust, healthcare, banking, intellectual property, elections, campaign finance, administrative, commercial, and government contract cases. He has led trial teams in cases that have won judgments and settlements valued in the billions of dollars and that have established ground-breaking constitutional precedents.
Much of Mr. Cooper’s practice has involved representing high-profile clients in nationally prominent matters, including: the State of Florida in a First Amendment suit brought by the Disney Company concerning its autonomous regulatory authority over its Disney World property; the Commonwealth of Virginia in a suit seeking to enjoin the removal of noncitizens from its voter rolls; 38 members of the Duke Lacrosse team falsely accused of rape by officials of Duke University and the City of Durham; Harper Lee in a copyright dispute with the heirs of Gregory Peck; high-ranking former government officials such as former Attorneys General John Ashcroft, Jeff Sessions, and William Barr, and Ambassador John Bolton; several Governors and United States Senators; over 100 Members of Congress; and many state, territorial, and local government bodies and officials. He has also represented and advised government officials and public figures in connection with sensitive private issues that needed to be, and were, resolved discreetly without becoming matters of public record.
In 1998 Chief Justice Rehnquist appointed Mr. Cooper to the Standing Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure of the Judicial Conference of the United States, where he served for three terms. He also served as a Public Member, appointed by President George H.W. Bush, of the National Commission on Judicial Discipline and Removal. He is a member of numerous professional associations, including the American Law Institute (since 1993) and the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers (since 1996). He is also an active member of the Federalist Society and the Republican National Lawyers Association, which in 2010 named him Republican Lawyer of the Year and in 2016 honored him with its Edwin Meese III Award.
Mr. Cooper has published scores of articles and spoken extensively on constitutional and legal policy topics. He has appeared before congressional committees on 26 occasions, testifying as an expert on a wide variety of legal issues, including the Chevron doctrine of judicial deference to administrative agencies, the diversity of citizenship jurisdiction of federal courts, statehood bills for Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia, and the impeachment of President Clinton.
U.S. Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit
Frank H. Easterbrook is a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and a Senior Lecturer at the Law School of the University of Chicago. He was Chief Judge from 2006–2013. Before joining the court in 1985, he was the Lee andBrena Freeman Professor of Law at the University of Chicago, where he taught and wrote in antitrust, securities, corporate law, jurisprudence, and criminal procedure. He has published The Economic Structure of Corporate Law (with Daniel R. Fischel) and about 100 scholarly articles. He served as Co-Editor of the Journal of Law and Economics from 1982 to 1991 and as a member of the Judicial Conference’s Standing Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure from 1991 to 1997. Before joining the faculty of the Law School in 1979, Judge Easterbrook was Deputy Solicitor General of the United States. He holds degrees from Swarthmore College (B.A. with high honors, 1970) and the University of Chicago (J.D. cum laude, 1973), and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Law Institute, the Mont Pelerin Society, Phi Beta Kappa, and the Order of the Coif.
Senior Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit
Patrick Errol Higginbotham is a federal judge on senior status with the United States Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit. He joined the court in 1982 after being nominated by President Ronald Reagan.
Contributing Writer, Vanity Fair
Michael Kinsley is a Contributing Writer for Vanity Fair, where his column appears monthly. Over a long career in the media, he has been Managing Editor of the Washington Monthly, Editor of the New Republic, and Editorial and Opinion Editor of the Los Angeles Times. He was the Founding Editor of Slate, one of the first on-line magazines. For over six years Kinsley was the liberal host of Crossfire, a CNN show where he sparred with Pat Buchanan five days a week. He played a similar role for many years with William F. Buckley on PBS’s Firing Line. He has written for The New Yorker, Conde Nast Traveler, and other publications.
U.S. Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit
Stephen Roy Reinhardt is a federal appeals judge with the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco. He joined the Court in 1980 after being nominated by President Jimmy Carter.
Born in New York City, New York, Reinhardt graduated from Pomona College with his Bachelor's degree in 1951 and later received a Bachelors of Laws degree, LL.B, from Yale Law School in 1954. Reinhardt served in the U.S. Air Force from 1954 to 1956 before becoming a law clerk for the Honorable Luther Youngdahl in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia until 1957. Reinhardt was a private practice attorney in the State of California from 1957 to 1980. Reinhardt was nominated to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit by President Jimmy Carter on November 30, 1979, to a new seat created by 92 Stat. 1629, which was approved by Congress. Reinhardt was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on September 11, 1980 and received commission on September 11, 1980.
Topics
Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton: Regulating Access to Adult Content Doesn’t Justify Flouting the First Amendment and Long-Established Precedent
This term, the Supreme Court will review the Fifth Circuit’s decision in Free Speech Coalition...
Panel V: The Conflict Between Text and Precedent in Constitutional Adjudication [Archive Collection]
Lea Brilmayer, Charles J. Cooper, Frank H. Easterbrook, Patrick E. Higginbotham, Michael Kinsley, Stephen Reinhardt
On April 3-5, 1987, the Federalist Society's Chicago Student Chapter hosted the sixth annual National...
Panel V: The Conflict Between Text and Precedent in Constitutional Adjudication [Archive Collection]
Lea Brilmayer, Charles J. Cooper, Frank H. Easterbrook, Patrick E. Higginbotham, Michael Kinsley, Stephen Reinhardt
On April 3-5, 1987, the Federalist Society's Chicago Student Chapter hosted the sixth annual National...
Can the Death Penalty be Administered Constitutionally? [Archive Collection]
Walter Berns, Walter E. Dellinger, Patrick E. Higginbotham
On September 9-10, 1988, The Federalist Society hosted its second annual National Lawyers Convention at...
Can the Death Penalty be Administered Constitutionally? [Archive Collection]
Walter Berns, Walter E. Dellinger, Patrick E. Higginbotham
On September 9-10, 1988, The Federalist Society hosted its second annual National Lawyers Convention at...
Some Thoughts on Class Action Litigation
During the Federalist Society's November 1998 National Lawyers Convention in Washington, D.C., the Litigation Practice...
Can the Death Penalty be Administered Constitutionally? [Archive Collection]
Second Annual National Lawyers Convention
Washington, DCPanel V: The Conflict Between Text and Precedent in Constitutional Adjudication [Archive Collection]
1987 National Student Symposium
Chicago, IL