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.
Professor of Law, South Texas College of Law Houston
Josh Blackman is a national thought leader on constitutional law and the United States Supreme Court. Josh’s work was quoted during two presidential impeachment trials. He has testified before Congress and advises federal and state lawmakers. Josh regularly appears on TV, including NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox, and the BBC. Josh is also a frequent guest on NPR and other syndicated radio programs. He has published commentaries in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and leading national publications.
Since 2012, Josh has served as a professor at the South Texas College of Law Houston. He holds the Centennial Chair of Constitutional Law. Josh is an Adjunct Fellow at the Manhattan Institute. Josh has written more than seven dozen law review articles that have been cited more than a thousand times. Josh was selected as the Jurist of the Year by the Texas Journal of Law & Public Policy, received the inaugural Meese III Originalism Award, and was awarded the Inaugural Joseph Story Award. Josh was selected by Forbes Magazine for the “30 Under 30” in Law and Policy. Josh is the President of the Harlan Institute, and founded FantasySCOTUS, the Internet’s Premier Supreme Court Fantasy League. He blogs at the Volokh Conspiracyand posts@JoshMBlackman.
Senior Litigation Counsel, New Civil Liberties Alliance
Peggy Little, Senior Counsel at New Civil Liberties Alliance, a new public interest law firm challenging the administrative state founded in 2017 by Professor Philip Hamburger, has over three decades of experience as a trial and appellate litigator in complex, high-stakes regulatory, mass-tort, class-action, products liability, securities, commercial and civil rights litigation representing individuals and high-profile litigants including Fortune 50 companies, financial institutions, public companies, and universities in state and federal courts, including the United States Supreme Court.
Peggy is a graduate of Yale College and Yale Law School, where she was awarded the Potter Stewart Prize. She was a law clerk to the Hon. Ralph K. Winter on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Prior to starting her own trial and appellate law firm in 1997, where she was appellate consulting counsel to the New Haven firefighters in Ricci v.DeStefano, a landmark 2009 United States Supreme Court decision, Peggy was a partner at Tyler, Cooper & Alcorn in New Haven, Connecticut. From 2004 to early 2018, Peggy directed, part-time, the Federalist Society Pro Bono Center.
Peggy has participated in many national conferences and symposia addressing issues of current importance in constitutional law – specifically state and federal constitutional questions regarding the separation of powers and the first amendment – and regularly speaks, blogs and publishes on the topic of the unconstitutional exercise of governmental power. In May of 2017, she presented her paper, Pirates at the Parchment Gates, to a conference of state and federal judges at the Law and Economics Center at the Antonin Scalia Law School. Her work has been published by law reviews, legal publications, the Federalist Society, the Wall Street Journal, Law and Liberty and the Manhattan Institute.
Recent publications include: How the SEC silences its critics, The SEC should listen to Sen. Cotton, Lucia v. SEC, Opening Salvos in the Opioid Litigation Wars, Straight Dope on the Opioid Crisis
Vice President, Practice Groups, The Federalist Society
Founder, Civic Renaissance; Adjunct Professor, Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy
ALEXANDRA O. HUDSON is a writer, popular speaker, and the founder of Civic Renaissance, a publication and intellectual community dedicated to beauty, goodness and truth. She was named the 2020 Novak Journalism Fellow, and contributes to Fox News, CBS News, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, TIME Magazine, POLITICO Magazine, and Newsweek. She earned a master's degree in public policy at the London School of Economics as a Rotary Scholar, and is an adjunct professor at the Indiana University Lilly School of Philanthropy. She is also the creator of a series for The Teaching Company called Storytelling and The Human Condition. Her first book, The Soul of Civility: Timeless Principles to Heal Society and Ourselves, is forthcoming from St. Martin’s press this October. She lives in Indianapolis, IN with her husband and children.
Founder, Civic Renaissance; Adjunct Professor, Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy
ALEXANDRA O. HUDSON is a writer, popular speaker, and the founder of Civic Renaissance, a publication and intellectual community dedicated to beauty, goodness and truth. She was named the 2020 Novak Journalism Fellow, and contributes to Fox News, CBS News, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, TIME Magazine, POLITICO Magazine, and Newsweek. She earned a master's degree in public policy at the London School of Economics as a Rotary Scholar, and is an adjunct professor at the Indiana University Lilly School of Philanthropy. She is also the creator of a series for The Teaching Company called Storytelling and The Human Condition. Her first book, The Soul of Civility: Timeless Principles to Heal Society and Ourselves, is forthcoming from St. Martin’s press this October. She lives in Indianapolis, IN with her husband and children.
Senior Fellow and Director of Constitutional Studies, Manhattan Institute
Ilya Shapiro is a senior fellow and director of constitutional studies at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal. Previously he was executive director and senior lecturer at the Georgetown Center for the Constitution, and before that a vice president of the Cato Institute.
Shapiro is the author of Lawless: The Miseducation of America’s Elites (2025) and Supreme Disorder: Judicial Nominations and the Politics of America’s Highest Court (2020), coauthor of Religious Liberties for Corporations? (2014), and editor of 11 volumes of the Cato Supreme Court Review (2008-18). He has contributed to a variety of academic, popular, and professional publications, including the Wall Street Journal, Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, National Review, and Newsweek. He also regularly provides commentary for various media outlets, writes the Shapiro’s Gavel newsletter on Substack, and once appeared on the Colbert Report.
Shapiro has testified many times before Congress and state legislatures and has filed more than 500 amicus curiae “friend of the court” briefs in the Supreme Court. He lectures regularly on behalf of the Federalist Society, is a member of the board of fellows of the Jewish Policy Center, was an inaugural Washington Fellow at the National Review Institute, and has been an adjunct law professor at the George Washington University and University of Mississippi. He is also the chairman of the board of advisers of the Mississippi Justice Institute, a barrister in the Edward Coke Appellate Inn of Court, and a former member of the Virginia Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.
Earlier in his career, Shapiro was a special assistant/adviser to the Multi-National Force in Iraq on rule-of-law issues and practiced at Patton Boggs and Cleary Gottlieb. Before entering private practice, he clerked for Judge E. Grady Jolly of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. He holds an AB from Princeton University, an MSc from the London School of Economics, and a JD from the University of Chicago Law School.
Judge, Contra Costa County Superior Court in California
Judge Haight was appointed to Contra Costa County Superior Court by Governor Pete Wilson in 1993.
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