Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit
On March 20, 2018, Judge Elizabeth L. Branch (Lisa) was sworn in as a United States Circuit Judge for the Eleventh Circuit.
Judge Branch attended and graduated from Davidson College in North Carolina (B.A., cum laude, 1990), and Emory University School of Law (J.D., with distinction, 1994).
After graduating from law school, Judge Branch served as a federal law clerk to The Honorable J. Owen Forrester of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia from 1994 to 1996. Following her clerkship, Judge Branch joined the litigation department of Smith, Gambrell & Russell, LLP in Atlanta as an associate and then a partner.
From 2004 to 2008, Judge Branch was a senior official in the Administration of President George W. Bush in Washington, D.C. She served first as the Associate General Counsel for Rules and Legislation at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and then as the Counselor to the Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs at the U. S. Office of Management and Budget.
She returned to Smith Gambrell in 2008 as a litigation partner. Judge Branch then was appointed to the Court of Appeals of Georgia by Governor Nathan Deal, taking office on September 4, 2012, where she served until March 19, 2018.
Judge Branch is a member of the Board of Advisors of the Atlanta Lawyers Chapter for the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies.
Senior Editor, National Review
Historian Richard Brookhiser is a senior editor of National Review, a senior fellow at the National Review Institute, and the author of several books, including Founders’ Son, Right Time, Right Place, George Washington on Leadership, What Would the Founders Do?, Gentleman Revolutionary, Rules of Civility, America’s First Dynasty, Alexander Hamilton, American, Founding Father: Rediscovering George Washington, Way of the WASP, and The Outside Story.
Clayton J. and Henry R. Barber Professor of Law, Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law and Co-Chairman, Board of Directors, The Federalist Society
STEVEN GOW CALABRESI is the Clayton J. & Henry R. Barber Professor at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law. He has also co-taught in the Fall semester at Yale Law School from 2013 to the present. Calabresi clerked for Justice Antonin Scalia and Judges Robert H. Bork and Ralph K. Winter. He was a Special Assistant to Attorney General Meese from 1985 to 1987 and worked with Ken Cribb as his deputy in 1987 on the second floor of the West Wing of the Reagan White House. Calabresi has written books on presidential power and comparative constitutional law and the origins of judicial review. He and Gary Lawson are the co-editors of a casebook on U.S. Constitutional Law, and Calabresi is also the co-editor of a casebook on comparative constitutional law. He has written over seventy law review articles since 1990.
Professor of Law, George Washington University Law School; CEO Emeritus, National Constitution Center
Jeffrey Rosen is the CEO Emeritus of the National Constitution Center, a professor of law at the George Washington University Law School, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), and a contributing editor of The Atlantic. Host of "The Blessings of Liberty" podcast, he was previously the legal affairs editor of The New Republic and a staff writer for the New Yorker.
Rosen is the author of the New York Times bestsellers The Pursuit of Happiness and Conversations with RBG. His new book is The Pursuit of Liberty: How Hamilton vs. Jefferson Ignited the Lasting Battle Over Power in America.
Rosen is a graduate of Harvard College; Oxford University, where he was a Marshall Scholar; and Yale Law School. He is an elected member of the American Philosophical Society and the American Law Institute. In 2024, the French government recognized him as a Chevalier in the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.
Partner, Arnold & Porter
Debbie Feinstein heads the firm's Global Antitrust group, and brings a wealth of experience to her practice in advising clients on a range of antitrust challenges before US antitrust authorities. She recently re-joined the firm from the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC), where she was Director of the Bureau of Competition. In that capacity, she was responsible for supervising the investigation and enforcement of the US antitrust laws against anticompetitive mergers and conduct. During her tenure from 2013 to 2017, the FTC had substantial litigation success and a number of major merger wins, including challenges to Sysco Corp.'s acquisition of rival US Foods Inc., and Staples Inc.'s merger with Office Depot Inc. She had previously served at the FTC from 1989 to 1991 as Assistant to the Director of the Bureau of Competition and Attorney Advisor.
Senior Judge, United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit
Circuit Judge Douglas H. Ginsburg was appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in 1986. After receiving his B.S. from Cornell University in 1970, and his J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School in 1973, he clerked on the D.C. Circuit and for Justice Thurgood Marshall on the United States Supreme Court. Thereafter, Judge Ginsburg was a professor at the Harvard Law School, the Deputy Assistant and then Assistant Attorney General for the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice, as well as the Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Office of Management and Budget. Concurrent with his service as a federal judge, Judge Ginsburg has taught at the University of Chicago Law School and the New York University School of Law. Judge Ginsburg is currently a Professor of Law at the George Mason University and a visiting professor at University College London, Faculty of Laws.
Judge Ginsburg is the Chairman of the International Advisory Board of the Global Antitrust Institute at the Law and Economics Center of the George Mason University School of Law. He also serves on the Advisory Boards of: Competition Policy International; the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy; the Journal of Competition Law and Economics; the Journal of Law, Economics & Policy; the Supreme Court Economic Review; the University of Chicago Law Review; the New York University Journal of Law and Liberty; and, at University College London, both the Centre for Law, Economics and Society and the Jevons Institute for Competition Law and Economics.
In 2020, Judge Ginsburg was the 11th recipient of the John Sherman Award, presented by the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice in recognition of the awardee’s Lifetime Contributions to Antitrust Law and Policy.
In 2014, Judge Ginsburg received the Lifetime Achievement Award given annually by the Global Competition Review.
He is the author or co-author of several books and more than 100 articles on competition and regulation, including, most recently, Growing Convergence: The Limited Role of Antitrust in Standard Essential Patent Disputes, in CPI Antitrust Chronicle, Summer 2021, Vol. 1, No. 2.
James G. Dinan University Professor, Carey Law School, University of Pennsylvania
Herbert Hovenkamp is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and in 2008 won the Justice Department’s John Sherman Award for his lifetime contributions to antitrust law. In 2012 he served on the ABA’s Committee to advise the President-elect on antitrust matters. His principal writing includes The Opening of American Law: Neoclassical Legal Thought, 1870-1970 (Oxford, 2015); Antitrust Law (formerly with Phillip E. Areeda and Donald F. Turner) (22 vols., Aspen 2008-18); Principles of Antitrust (West, 2017); Creation Without Restraint: Promoting Liberty and Rivalry in Innovation (Oxford, 2012, with Bohannan); The Making of Competition Policy (Oxford, 2012, with Crane); The Antitrust Enterprise: Principle and Execution (Harvard, 2006); Federal Antitrust Policy: The Law of Competition and Its Practice (West, 5th ed. 2015); IP and Antitrust (2 vols., Aspen, 2017, with Janis, Lemley, Leslie, and Carrier); and Enterprise and American Law, 1836-1937 (Harvard, 1991). He has also co-authored casebooks in antitrust, property law, and a free open source casebook on innovation and competition policy. He has consulted on numerous antitrust cases for various government entities and private plaintiffs. He has two sons.
Partner, Litigation Department, Paul Hastings
Michael Murray is co-chair of the Antitrust and Competition practice at Paul Hastings and represents clients in high-stakes mergers and acquisitions and antitrust litigation and investigations. Based in the firm’s Washington, D.C. office, Michael is Chambers ranked and brings significant government antitrust and competition experience, having most recently served as the principal deputy assistant attorney general in the Antitrust Division at the Department of Justice (DOJ), where he oversaw the work of approximately 350 lawyers and 50 economists. In that capacity, Michael supervised DOJ’s merger investigations, conduct matters and litigation for several years.
Michael is the rare antitrust lawyer who maintains both an active merger control practice and a bustling litigation practice. In 2025, for example, he shepherded over $65 billion of transactions through global merger control regimes, including a litigated merger challenge in the U.S., while also representing over a dozen clients in major antitrust litigation. In that year, he won awards for both his merger work and his litigation matters. Chambers USA describes Mike for having “an encyclopedic knowledge of antitrust law [who] can recite different issues for different circuits.”
Michael also is a partner in the Appellate, Regulatory and Complex Litigation practices at Paul Hastings. He brings significant government experience to a practice consisting of preparing and litigating challenges to agency rulemaking, adjudication or other activity, having served as an associate deputy attorney general at DOJ, where he oversaw the Civil Division’s defense of high-profile rulemaking challenges and other agency actions. Earlier in his career, Michael clerked for the Honorable Justice Anthony M. Kennedy of the U.S. Supreme Court and the Honorable Judge Diarmuid F. O'Scannlain of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. He also served as an AUSA for the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Virginia.
Antitrust Partner, White & Case
Rahul Rao is a partner in the Global Antitrust Practice at White & Case and the former Deputy Director of the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Competition. He advises clients on merger clearance, government investigations, antitrust litigation, and regulatory strategy, with particular depth in healthcare, life sciences, private equity, retail, and labor markets.
At the FTC, Rahul led major merger and conduct investigations, supervised enforcement in critical sectors, and helped shape landmark policy initiatives, including the revised Merger Guidelines and the Commission’s noncompete rulemaking. Earlier, he helped establish the Washington State Attorney General’s Antitrust Division as a national leader in labor market competition enforcement.
Having served on both the federal and state enforcement front lines, Rahul brings clients a unique understanding of agency priorities, risk profiles, and strategies for navigating today’s increasingly dynamic antitrust environment.
Carolyn Craig Franklin Chair in Law; Professor of Law and Business; Affiliate Professor of Business, USC Gould School of Law and Marshall School of Business
D. Daniel Sokol is the Carolyn Craig Franklin Chair in Law and a Professor of Law and Business at the USC Gould School of Law and Marshall School of Business (marketing department). He holds a courtesy appointment in the Department of Economics. He also serves as faculty director of the Center for Transnational Law and Business and the co-director of the USC Marshall Initiative on Digital Competition. Additionally, in a part time capacity, he serves as Senior Advisor at White & Case LLP.
Professor Sokol is among the top 10 most cited antitrust law professors in the past five years. He focuses his teaching and scholarship on complex business issues from early stage start-ups to multinational businesses and the issues that businesses face regarding competition: antitrust, data breaches, corporate governance, digital platforms, compliance, innovation, M&A, digital transformation, and global business regulation.
He is a member of the American Law Institute. He also serves as academic advisor to the United States Chamber of Commerce and as a non-governmental Advisor to the International Competition Network. His work has appeared in a variety of journals: Strategic Management Journal, Journal of Law and Economics, Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Harvard Business Review, Sloan Management Review, Michigan Law Review and Northwestern Law Review, among others.
Legal Director, Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression
Will began defending student and faculty rights for FIRE in 2006 after graduating from New York University School of Law, where he served as an associate executive editor for the New York University Law Review. Will has appeared on national cable television and radio on behalf of FIRE and has spoken to students, faculty, administrators, and attorneys at events across the country. Will’s writing has been published by The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, the Chronicle of Higher Education, Jurist, Inside Higher Ed, Daily Journal, the Charleston Law Review, and many other outlets. Will edited the second edition of FIRE’s Guide to Due Process and Campus Justice, co-edited the second edition of FIRE’s Guide to Free Speech on Campus, and has coauthored amicus curiae briefs submitted to a number of courts, including the Supreme Court of the United States and the United States Courts of Appeals for the Third, Ninth, and Eleventh Circuits. Will has taught FIRE’s Continuing Legal Education programs in New York, Pennsylvania, and online. A member of the New York State Bar and the First Amendment Lawyers Association, Will serves as Co-Chair of the Education Subcommittee of the American Bar Association’s Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice.
Will graduated magna cum laude from New York University’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study in 2003. A proud native of Buffalo, New York, Will now lives in New Jersey with his wife and two children.
Partner, Clement & Murphy, PLLC
Erin Murphy is founding partner of Clement & Murphy, PLLC. She is widely recognized as one of the nation’s leading Supreme Court and appellate advocates. She has argued dozens of cases in appellate and trial courts throughout the country, including the Supreme Court and nearly all of the federal courts of appeals. Erin has long been ranked by Chambers & Partners rankings as a leading appellate practitioner, and the National Law Journal has named her one of the nation’s “Outstanding Women Lawyers.” Erin also has an active pro bono practice, through which she has successfully represented many religious organizations and adherents, criminal defendants, asylum applicants, adoptive parents, and more.
Erin is an adjunct professor at her alma mater the Georgetown University Law Center, a member and former officer of the Edward Coke Appellate Inn of Court, and a frequent speaker on topics relating to the Supreme Court and appellate advocacy. In her spare time, Erin serves on the board of directors of Street Law.
Judge, Arizona Court of Appeals, Division One
The Honorable Jennifer M. Perkins began service on the Arizona Court of Appeals, Division One, on October 30, 2017. At the time of her appointment by Governor Douglas Ducey, Judge Perkins was Assistant Solicitor General for the State of Arizona.
Judge Perkins was born in Portales, New Mexico, and primarily raised in Albuquerque. She attended the prestigious Albuquerque Academy from 1988-1995, before moving to Washington D.C. to attend the Elliott School of International Affairs at the George Washington University as a National Merit Scholar. Therafter, she relocated again to Dallas, Texas, and earned her juris doctor from the SMU Dedman School of Law, graduating cum laude in 2002.
Judge Perkins started her career at the law firm of Browning & Peifer (now Peifer, Hanson, Mullins, and Baker) in Albuquerque, New Mexico. While there, she litigated complex commercial matters including class action plaintiff and defense work, and assisted with employment and contract litigation. In 2003, the judge accompanied the Honorable James O. Browning in transitioning to the federal district court bench, serving as his first law clerk.
After her clerkship, Judge Perkins moved to Arizona to work for the Institute for Justice, Arizona Chapter, a public interest law firm. She spent five years with IJ-AZ litigating civil rights cases in Arizona and across the country. In 2009, the judge became Disciplinary Counsel for the Arizona Commission on Judicial Conduct, where she reviewed and prosecuted ethics complaints against state court judges throughout Arizona. After five years serving the state in this capacity, Judge Perkins entered private practice by joining an appellate law firm in Phoenix. While there, she worked on state and federal appeals involving a wide range of legal subjects, including complex business disputes, property rights, judicial ethics, and personal injury matters.
In January 2015, Judge Perkins joined the Office of the Arizona Attorney General to serve as the first Assistant Solicitor General; in that capacity, she was responsible for oversight of Attorney General Opinions and served as ethics counsel to the entire office. In addition to these two primary roles, the judge assisted on a variety of matters including trial and appellate litigation of election-related matters; federal appellate litigation with the Federalism Unit; state criminal appeals; and drafting amicus briefs on behalf of Arizona in state and federal courts.
Associate Professor of Government, Hillsdale College, Washington, D.C. Campus
Richard Samuelson is an Associate Professor of Government at Hillsdale College’s Washington, D.C., campus. Dr. Samuelson is an historian of the American founding and of American politics and constitutional thought. He graduated from Bates College and received his MA and PhD in American history from the University of Virginia. Dr. Samuelson taught at California State University San Bernardino from 2007 to 2022. He was the 2009-2010 Garwood Visiting Fellow at Princeton University’s James Madison Program.
Dr. Samuelson has written extensively on John Adams and on the Adams family of Massachusetts, and on the constitutional politics of the founding more largely. His work also connects the founding with more contemporary issues, with a particular focus on religious liberty, and the challenge the modern American state, and contemporary civil rights laws present to religious liberty.
His essays and reviews have appeared in The Review of Politics, The William and Mary Quarterly, Commentary, The Claremont Review of Books, The Public Interest, National Review, and other publications. He has also contributed many essays and reviews to such online publications as Mosaic, Law and Liberty, Realclearpolitics, and other platforms.
Visiting Fellow in Bioethics, Ethics & Public Policy Center
Alexander Raikin is a Visiting Fellow in the Bioethics, Technology and Human Flourishing Program at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. His research focuses on the dignity of human life and end-of-life issues, especially on its impact on the field of medicine and broader ethical questions of social belonging.
For tips, please send an email to araikin+tips@eppc.org.
His writing has been widely cited in major publications such as The Atlantic and the New York Times and in academic journals in the United States, Canada, UK, and France. He wrote cover stories for National Review and The New Atlantis, while his other bylines include City Journal, Plough, and the Washington Free Beacon. Raikin frequently speaks on national radio and on major podcasts.
Last year, Raikin was an inaugural Richard John Neuhaus Fellow at the Public Interest Fellowship and EPPC. He was a Tikvah Summer Fellow and a Killam scholar with Fulbright at American University. He graduated from Carleton University with a bachelor’s degree in public policy. Raikin is a proud member of Kesher Israel synagogue and lives with his wife in Washington, D.C.
Senior Fellow, Cato Institute
Jeffrey A. Singer is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and works in the Department of Health Policy Studies. He is principal and founder of Valley Surgical Clinics Ltd., the largest and oldest group private surgical practice in Arizona, and has been in private practice as a general surgeon for more than 35 years.
He is also a visiting fellow at the Goldwater Institute in Phoenix. Singer is a member of the Board of Scientific Advisors of the American Council on Science and Health. From 1994 to 2016, he was a regular contributor to Arizona Medicine, the journal of the Arizona Medical Association. He served on the Advisory Board Council of the Center for Political Thought and Leadership at Arizona State University from 2014 to 2018 and is an adjunct instructor in the Program on Political History and Leadership at ASU. He writes and speaks extensively on regional and national public policy, with a specific focus on the areas of health care policy and the harmful effects of drug prohibition.
He received his BA from Brooklyn College (City University of New York) and his MD from New York Medical College. He is a fellow of the American College of Surgeons.
Managing Director, Berkeley Research Group
Dan Troy is Managing Director and an expert witness on FDA matters at Berkeley Research Group. Previously he served as Chief Counsel of the US Food and Drug Administration and General Counsel of GlaxoSmithKline PLC.
Director, Global Engagement; Vincent de Paul Professor of Law, DePaul University College of Law
Before joining DePaul, Dr. Alberto R. Coll served for five years as dean of the Center for Naval Warfare Studies, the U.S. Navy’s foremost strategic research center. A cum laude graduate from Princeton University in history, he earned his JD and PhD in government and foreign affairs from the University of Virginia. In 1982, Professor Coll joined the faculty at Georgetown University, and in 1986 was appointed secretary of the Navy Senior Research Fellow at the Naval War College. In 1989, he became the youngest holder of the Charles H. Stockton Chair of International Law, the college’s oldest chair. From 1990 to 1993, Professor Coll was principal deputy assistant secretary of defense, serving in the Pentagon office that oversaw the Defense Department’s policy, strategy and $3 billion budget for special operations forces and “low-intensity” conflict, including counterterrorism. For his work, he received the Secretary of Defense Medal for Outstanding Public Service. Professor Coll is the author of The Wisdom of Statecraft and editor of several other books on international relations and law. He is the author of prize-winning articles in the American Journal of International Law and the Naval War College Review, as well as articles in Foreign Policy, Washington Quarterly, Harvard Journal of International Law, the University of Pennsylvania Journal of International Law, and the UCLA Journal of International Law and Foreign Affairs. In 2004, Professor Coll received the Antonio Jose Irisarri Medal for his contribution to strengthening the rule of law and civilian control over the military in Guatemala. He has served as consultant to the Pew Charitable Trusts, the Ford Foundation, the Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs, the Rand Corp., the United States Information Agency, and numerous defense and intelligence organizations. He is a frequent commentator on American foreign policy, U.S. relations with Cuba and Latin America, and international legal and political issues. Over the past 28 years he has lectured at more than 120 universities, think tanks, government agencies, and public forums in the United States, Latin America, Europe, Asia and South Africa. Professor Coll is a member of the Virginia Bar, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Instituto de Estudios Juridicos y Politicos at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. At DePaul, he teaches courses on international law, international human rights, U.S. foreign relations, terrorism, international trade and Latin America.
Senior Fellow in Executive Power, Cato Institute
Molly Nixon is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, where she focuses on the scope, use, and history of executive power as well as its limits under the Constitution. Molly was previously an attorney with Pacific Legal Foundation’s separation of powers practice, where she litigated cases challenging congressional delegations of legislative power and executive branch overreach. Before that, she served as an Attorney-Advisor at the Department of the Interior and as Legislative Counsel for Congressman Justin Amash.
Molly holds a J.D. from New York University School of Law and a B.A. in History and International Relations from Boston University. She clerked for the U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska and practiced law at a firm in New York City for several years before moving to Washington, D.C.
Liviu Librescu Professor of Law, Columbia School of Law
Matthew C. Waxman is a nationally known authority on national security law, cybersecurity, terrorism, intelligence, and armed conflict. He brings the perspective of a former senior government official to his scholarship on war powers, the regulation of military technology, counterterrorism, surveillance, and cybersecurity.
His writing appears regularly in the Lawfare national security blog, and his expertise is frequently sought in media interviews and congressional testimony. Waxman is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, where he also serves as adjunct senior fellow for Law and Foreign Policy.
At the Law School, Waxman chairs the National Security Law Program and has co-chaired the Cybersecurity Center at Columbia’s Data Science Institute, an interdisciplinary endeavor that brings together experts from across the university to develop ways to keep data secure and private. His teaching focuses on constitutional war powers, international law, and data privacy and surveillance. In 2008, he helped create Columbia Law’s Judge Advocate (JAG) Scholars program, which brings military lawyers to the LL.M. program. He has cultivated opportunities for students to meet with alumni faculty at West Point, where he served as a senior fellow at the Lieber Institute for Law and Warfare.
Before joining the Law School in 2008, Waxman served in senior positions at the State Department, Department of Defense, and National Security Council during the George W. Bush administration. As a National Security Council aide, he was involved in the White House response to the attacks on September 11, 2001. In 2005, as a deputy assistant secretary of defense, he pressed for full compliance with the Geneva Conventions at military detention sites. In 2006, as the State Department’s principal deputy director of policy planning, he led the United States delegation to the United Nations Human Rights Committee in Geneva.
After law school, Waxman served as a law clerk to Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter and to Judge Joel M. Flaum of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit. Earlier in his career, he worked as a defense analyst at RAND.
Emanuel S. Heller Professor of Law, University of California at Berkeley; Thomas Smith Senior Research Fellow, Civitas Institute, University of Texas at Austin
John Yoo is the Emanuel Heller Professor of Law at the University of California at Berkeley. He is also the Thomas Smith Senior Research Fellow, Civitas Institute, at the University of Texas at Austin. He is also a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
His most recent book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Supreme Court, co-authored with Robert Delahunty, was published in 2023. Professor Yoo’s other books include Defender-in-Chief: Trump’s Fight for Presidential Power; Striking Power: How Cyber, Robots, and Space Weapons Change the Rules for War; Point of Attack: Preventive War, International Law, and Global Welfare; and Crisis and Command: A History of Executive Power from George Washington to George Bush.
He is a co-author of volumes 1 and 2 of R. Rossum, G. Tarr, V. Munoz & J. Yoo American Constitution Law (Routledge, 2026), and a co-editor of the eight-volume series on the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution, We Hold These Truths, with Yuval Levin and Adam White of the American Enterprise Institute.
Professor Yoo has published more than 100 articles in academic journals on subjects including national security, constitutional law, international law, and the Supreme Court. He also regularly contributes to the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and National Review, among others.
Professor Yoo has served in all three branches of government. He was an official in the U.S. Department of Justice, where he worked on national security and terrorism issues after the 9/11 attacks. He served as general counsel of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. He has been a law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and federal appeals Judge Laurence Silberman. He has been a visiting professor at the University of Texas at Austin’s School of Civic Leadership, Seoul National University, the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya, Keio University, Trento University, the University of Chicago, and the Free University of Amsterdam.
Professor Yoo supervises the Public Law and Policy Program and the California Constitution Center. He also serves on the boards of Founding Forward, the Washington Legal Foundation, the Pacific Legal Foundation, the Ulysses Grant Institute, the Federalist Society’s Separation of Powers and Federalism Division, the Universidad Cientifica del Sur Law School, and the Asia-Pacific Law Institute at Seoul National University. He is a winner of the Federalist Society’s Paul Bator award and the Heritage Foundation’s Edwin Meese III Originalism Lectureship.
Professor Yoo graduated from Yale Law School and summa cum laude from Harvard College.
Managing Director, Berkeley Research Group (BRG)
Dr. Dasgupta served as Assistant Secretary for Trade and Economic Security, responsible for a comprehensive national security portfolio. His duties included oversight of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), Team Telecom, the Forced Labor Enforcement Task Force (FLETF), Information and Communications Technology and Services (ICTS), Arctic security initiatives, the Icebreaker Collaboration Effort (ICE) Pact, and related trade matters. Sohan Dasgupta also served as political head of the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), supporting U.S. foreign policy and national security objectives. Previously, he had served as Deputy General Counsel of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
Dr. Dasgupta holds a JD from the University of California, Berkeley, where he was elected to the Order of the Coif; a PhD in international trade and arbitration from the University of Cambridge; MSc from the University of Oxford; and BA in Economics–Operations Research and History from Columbia University. He commenced his legal career with clerkships on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia.
Dr. Dasgupta has addressed the Hungarian, Romanian, and Guatemalan parliaments, and has spoken at the invitation of Members of the U.S. Congress, the British Parliament, the European Union Parliament, the Congress of the Philippines, and the Legislative Assembly of El Salvador.
Visiting Professor of Public and International Affairs, Charles and Marie Robertson Visiting Professor, Princeton School of Public and International Affairs
Martin S. Flaherty is a longtime is Visiting Professor at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs, where he was Fellow in the Program in Law and Public Affairs. He is also Leitner Family Professor of International Human Rights Law and Founding Co-Director of the Leitner Center for International Law and Justice at Fordham Law School. Professor Flaherty also currently teaches at Columbia Law School and Barnard College. Previously he has taught at China University of Political Science and Law and the National Judges College in Beijing, Sungkyunkwan University in Seoul, Queen’s University Belfast. Professor Flaherty earlier served as a law clerk for Justice Byron R. White of the U.S. Supreme Court and Chief Judge John Gibbons of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
Flaherty received a J.D. from Columbia Law School, where he was Book Reviews and Articles Editor of the Columbia Law Review, an M.A. and M.Phil., with distinction, from Yale (in history), and B.A. summa cum laude from Princeton. For the Leitner Center, Human Rights First, and the New York City Bar Association, he has led or participated in human rights missions to Northern Ireland, Turkey, Hong Kong, Mexico, Malaysia, Kenya, Romania and China. Professor Flaherty is currently the President of the American Association of the International Commission of Jurists, https://www.aaicj.org, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and a legal expert advisor at the Sixth Committee of the United Nations General Assembly.
Flaherty’s scholarly publications focus upon international human rights, foreign affairs, and constitutional law and history, and appear in such journals as the Columbia Law Review, the Yale Law Journal, the Michigan Law Review, the University of Chicago Law Review, Constitutional Commentary, the Harvard Journal of Law and Policy, and the Harvard Human Rights Journal. He has written, appeared, or been quoted in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Yorker, The Boston Globe, The Daily News, Newsday, the PBS Newshour, CNN, MSNBC, and NPR. He is also the author of the Restoring the Global Judiciary: Why the Supreme Court Should Rule in Foreign Affairs (Princeton University Press, 2019).
Professor Emeritus of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
Jeremy A. Rabkin is a Professor Emeritus of Law at the Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University. Before joining the faculty in June 2007, he was for over two decades a professor in the Department of Government at Cornell University. Professor Rabkin serves on the board of directors of the Center for Individual Rights, a public interest law firm based in Washington, D.C. Previously he was a board member of the U.S. Institute of Peace and the board of academic advisors of the American Enterprise Institute.
Professor Rabkin’s books include Law Without Nations? (Princeton University Press, 2005). He authored “If You Need a Friend, Don’t Call a Cosmopolitan,” a chapter in Varieties of Sovereignty and Citizenship (Sigal R. Ben-Porath & Rogers M. Smith eds., University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012). His articles have appeared in major law reviews and political science journals and his journalistic contributions in a range of magazines and newspapers, including the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal.
Vice President for Legal Affairs, Goldwater Institute
Executive Director, Salmon P. Chase Center for Civics, Culture, and Society, The Ohio State University
Professor Lee J. Strang serves as the inaugural executive director of the Salmon P. Chase Center for Civics, Culture, and Society at The Ohio State University.
Initiated in 2023 by the state of Ohio, the Chase Center will be an academic home at Ohio State for teaching, research, and programing on the foundations of the American constitutional order and its impact on society. As executive director, Professor Strang is responsible for organizing the center, overseeing the hiring and appointment of the center’s faculty, developing curriculum, and delivering student and academic programming. He also holds a faculty appointment in the Moritz College of Law at Ohio State.
Professor Strang is a nationally recognized legal scholar who has published dozens of articles in leading journals in the fields of constitutional law and interpretation, property law, and religion and the First Amendment. He co-edits the textbook Federal Constitutional Law, and his most recent book, Originalism’s Promise: A Natural Law Account of the American Constitution is the first book-length, natural law justification for originalism. He currently is writing on civic thought and leadership, and he is finalizing a book on the history of American Catholic legal education (with John M. Breen).
Before joining Ohio State, Professor Strang served as the inaugural director of the University of Toledo’s Institute of American Constitutional Thought & Leadership. He joined the Toledo College of Law faculty in 2008, was granted tenure in 2010, and was named John W. Stoepler Professor of Law & Values in 2015. The University of Toledo awarded Professor Strang its Outstanding Faculty Research and Scholarship Award in 2017. Before that, he was a visiting professor at Michigan State University College of Law. A graduate of the University of Iowa, where he was articles editor of the Iowa Law Review and Order of the Coif, Professor Strang holds an LL.M. degree from Harvard Law School.
Professor Strang has been a visiting scholar at the Georgetown Center for the Constitution and a visiting fellow at the James Madison Program at Princeton University. In 2016, he was appointed to the Ohio Advisory Committee of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and reappointed as chair in 2023.
Prior to teaching, Professor Strang served as a judicial clerk for Judge Alice M. Batchelder of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. He was also an associate for Jenner & Block LLP in Chicago, where he practiced in general and appellate litigation.
Professor Strang is a frequent presenter at scholarly conferences. He is the president of the Board of Trustees of Northwest Ohio Classical Academy, Ohio’s first classical charter school. He is also a regular participant in debates at law schools across the country, a contributor to the media, and a speaker to political, civic, and religious groups.
Senior Legal Fellow, Pacific Legal Foundation
Ethan Blevins is a senior legal fellow working primarily on equality and opportunity issues and property rights on PLF’s Constitutional Scholarship team. He previously worked as a staff attorney with PLF, mostly suing his favorite defendant, the City of Seattle. He earned a nickname from The Seattle Times as “the sharpest pin around to the council’s liberal bubble.” He’s had a lifelong dream to earn a superhero name, so he proudly accepts the teasing title of “The Pin” from his coworkers.
In addition to his legal work, Ethan has spoken and written on a variety of legal and policy issues. He has appeared on numerous radio and television programs, and his writings have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Seattle Times, The Salt Lake Tribune, The Hill, and other major publications.
Ethan’s introduction to liberty began as a teenager when he read Arthur Koestler’s chilling account of communism in Darkness at Noon. He was living in China at the time, and he saw firsthand the corruption and poverty wrought by dictatorship.
He felt inspired to dedicate his legal career to fighting for liberty after clerking for then-Justice Don Willett on the Texas Supreme Court, a judge known for his fierce commitment to constitutional rights (and his Twitter presence).
Ethan earned his law degree cum laude from Duke School of Law, as well as a master’s degree in international and comparative law. He writes poetry and fiction and has completed two fantasy novels, with several other books always in the works. He also enjoys mnemonics, comic books, gaming, and playing the ukulele. He lives in Bountiful, Utah, with his wife and four kids.
Ethan is a member of the bar only in the states of Montana, Utah and Washington.
Partner, Briscoe Prows Kao Ivester & Bazel LLP
Tony Francois is experienced in Water and Real Property Law, Land Use and Zoning, Environmental Regulation, Natural Resources Development, Agricultural Law, and Constitutional Law. He has represented homeowners, builders, farmers and ranchers, trade associations, and water districts in administrative, civil, and criminal proceedings before state and federal administrative agencies and state and federal trial and appellate courts. He is a member of the California State Bar and the Northern, Eastern, and Central Districts of California and the Districts of New Mexico and North Dakota, and has litigated cases in federal courts in California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, North and South Dakota, Minnesota, Massachusetts, Maryland, South Carolina, and the District of Columbia, as well as the Sixth, Eighth, Ninth, and Tenth Circuit Courts of Appeals. He has appeared before the Supreme Courts of California, Idaho, Nevada, and the United States.
Prior to attending law school, he served as an infantry officer in the United States Army, and was stationed in the former West Germany during the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Tony was an Attorney at Pacific Legal Foundation from 2012 to 2021. He was a lobbyist for 10 years, first with California Farm Bureau Federation from 2003 to 2007, and then with KP Public Affairs from 2007 to 2012. He was an attorney at McQuaid, Bedford & Van Zandt in San Francisco from 1999 – 2003.
U.S. Court of Federal Claims and Jurist-In-Residence Professor of Law, The University of Akron School of Law
Judge Ryan T. Holte was sworn in as a judge on the United States Court of Federal Claims in July 2019. Prior to confirmation he served as the David L. Brennan Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Intellectual Property Law and Technology at The University of Akron School of Law (2017-2019) and an assistant professor of law at Southern Illinois University School of Law (2013-2017). Judge Holte has written and presented widely on patent law subjects and empirical legal studies of Federal Circuit and district court patent law cases. His most recent articles were published in the Iowa Law Review (2019), George Mason Law Review (2018), and Washington Law Review (2017).
In practice, Judge Holte served for six years as general counsel and partner of an electrical engineering technology company and is co-inventor of multiple patents related to Systems and Methods for Countering Satellite-Navigated Munitions. Prior to entering academia, Judge Holte practiced as a litigation attorney at the Federal Trade Commission and an associate in the Intellectual Property Practice Group at Jones Day. Prior to practice, he served as a law clerk to Judge Stanley F. Birch, Jr. on the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit and as a law clerk to Judge Loren A. Smith on the United States Court of Federal Claims.
Judge Holte received his JD from the University of California Davis School of Law and his BS, magna cum laude, in engineering from the California Maritime Academy where he was a First Class graduate of the Corps of Cadets Third Engineering Division and sailed as a U.S. Merchant Marine oiler.
Associate Professor of Government, Hillsdale College, Washington, D.C. Campus
Richard Samuelson is an Associate Professor of Government at Hillsdale College’s Washington, D.C., campus. Dr. Samuelson is an historian of the American founding and of American politics and constitutional thought. He graduated from Bates College and received his MA and PhD in American history from the University of Virginia. Dr. Samuelson taught at California State University San Bernardino from 2007 to 2022. He was the 2009-2010 Garwood Visiting Fellow at Princeton University’s James Madison Program.
Dr. Samuelson has written extensively on John Adams and on the Adams family of Massachusetts, and on the constitutional politics of the founding more largely. His work also connects the founding with more contemporary issues, with a particular focus on religious liberty, and the challenge the modern American state, and contemporary civil rights laws present to religious liberty.
His essays and reviews have appeared in The Review of Politics, The William and Mary Quarterly, Commentary, The Claremont Review of Books, The Public Interest, National Review, and other publications. He has also contributed many essays and reviews to such online publications as Mosaic, Law and Liberty, Realclearpolitics, and other platforms.
Justice, Alabama Supreme Court
Justice William B. Sellers was appointed by Governor Kay Ivey in May 2017. He was elected to a full term in 2018 and re-elected in 2024. His current term expires in 2031.
Justice Sellers received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Hillsdale College in 1985, a Juris Doctorate from the University of Alabama in 1988, and a Masters of Laws in Taxation from New York University in 1989. Justice Sellers practiced law in Montgomery for 28 years. He maintained a general business practice with emphasis on taxation, business organizations and finance. A major part of Justice Sellers's practice involved tax litigation.
Justice Sellers is a member of numerous civic organizations and professional associations. In 2012, he received the President's Award for service to the Alabama Bar Association. In 2013, Governor Robert Bentley appointed Justice Sellers to the Alabama State Council on the Arts. In August 2014, Justice Sellers was elected chairman of the Fair Ballot Commission. He is past president of the Rotary Club of Montgomery, past chairman of the Montgomery Area Business Committee for the Arts, chairman of the River Region United Way Campaign in 2008, and past chairman of the YMCA of Greater Montgomery. Justice Sellers was a member of the Electoral College in 2004, 2008, 2012, and 2016.
Justice Sellers is admitted to practice before the United States Supreme Court, the Supreme Court of Alabama, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, the United States District Courts for the Middle and Northern Districts of Alabama, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, and the United States Tax Court. He is a member of the Alabama State Bar, the Montgomery County Bar Association, and the District of Columbia Bar. Since 2014, he has served as the community liaison with the International Officers School at Maxwell Air Force Base.
Justice Sellers and his wife, Lee, have been married for 37 years. They are members of Trinity Presbyterian Church and have three adult children and two grandchildren.
Vice President for Legal Affairs, Goldwater Institute
Remembering Gordon Wood: The Revolution, the Constitution, and the Work of History
Lisa Branch, Richard Brookhiser, Steven G. Calabresi, Jeffrey Rosen
Gordon S. Wood, who passed away in June, was one of the nation’s most influential...
Revisiting Philadelphia National Bank: The Structural Presumption and the Future of Merger Review
Debbie Feinstein, Douglas H. Ginsburg, Herbert Hovenkamp, Michael Murray, Rahul Rao, D. Daniel Sokol
The 1963 Supreme Court case United States v. Philadelphia National Bank established a "structural presumption": if a merger...
Lessons From John Adams: Defending Unpopular Clients from the Founding Era to the Present
William Creeley, Erin E. Murphy, Jennifer Perkins, Richard Samuelson
In this Federalist Society America 250 series, experts analyze modern legal and policy debates through...
Comfort Care or Hastened Death? Assisted Suicide and the Medicare Hospice Benefit
Alexander Raikin, Jeffrey A. Singer, Daniel E. Troy
Assisted suicide is a contested issue in American law and medicine, raising questions over individual...
What Was the Founders' Design for National Security Beyond the Battlefield?
Alberto R. Coll, Molly Nixon, Matthew Waxman, John C. Yoo
In this Federalist Society America 250 series, experts analyze modern legal and policy debates through...
What Would the Founders Think of the War in Iran?
Sohan Dasgupta, Martin Flaherty, Jeremy A. Rabkin
In this Federalist Society America 250 series, experts analyze modern legal and policy debates through...
New Parchment, Old Rights: From Runnymede to Philadelphia
Birmingham Lawyer Chapter
Homewood, ALProclaiming Liberty with Tim Sandefur
Timothy Sandefur, Lee J. Strang
As America celebrates the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, Proclaiming Liberty by Timothy...
Proclaiming Liberty with Timothy Sandefur - NM
New Mexico Lawyer Chapter
Albuquerque, NMPublic Lands at the Founding
Ethan Blevins, Tony Francois, Ryan T. Holte, Richard Samuelson
In this Federalist Society America 250 series, experts analyze modern legal and policy debates through...