Attorney, Institute for Justice
Anya Bidwell (née Cherkasova) leads IJ’s Project on Immunity and Accountability (“PIA”). Through this project, Anya works to promote judicial engagement and ensure that government officials are held to account when they violate individuals’ constitutional rights. Anya also serves as an adviser on the American Law Institute’s Restatement of the Law, Constitutional Torts project.
One of Anya’s PIA cases—Gonzalez v. Trevino—was heard by the United States Supreme Court on March 20, 2024. She argued the case for the petitioner, with the goal of convincing the Justices that retaliatory arrests not involving on-the-spot decisions by police officers should be actionable under the First Amendment regardless of probable cause. The decision is expected in June.
This was Anya’s third appearance before the U.S. Supreme Court. She second-chaired Brownback v. King (an excessive force case) and Tennessee Wine & Spirits Retailers Association v. Thomas (a commerce clause case) in November 2020 and January 2019 respectfully.
Before joining IJ, Anya worked for a top national law firm, handling cases in trial and appellate courts. She earned her J.D. with honors from the University of Texas. Two years prior to entering law school, Anya received a master’s degree in Global Policy Studies, also from the University of Texas, and wrote a thesis on asymmetric warfare.
Anya spent her childhood in Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan. At 16, she left her family behind and came to America on a university scholarship. Her upbringing motivated her to study law and become an advocate for a strong, independent judiciary.
Anya’s work has been featured in numerous publications, including the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, USA Today, and the Guardian. She is also the host of live recordings of our Short Circuit podcast and a co-producer of our documentary-style podcast Bound by Oath.
Environmental Law Attorney, DLA Piper
Garrett Kral is an attorney in DLA Piper’s Washington, DC, office, and a member of the Regulatory and Government Affairs Practice Group. His practice includes regulatory counseling, enforcement defense, and complex civil litigation on matters arising under major federal environmental statutes.
Garrett builds on a strong background in environmental science, a familiarity with technical processes involved in industrial operations, and valuable insights gained by serving in each branch of the federal government. With this experience, he advances the business objectives of Fortune 500 companies while limiting exposure and risk. Garrett is regarded as a strategic advisor to such clients on matters of environmental law and policy.
Executive Director & Secretary, American Civil Rights Project
Dan Morenoff is the executive director at the American Civil Rights Project and an adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
His work focuses on protecting and, where necessary, restoring the primacy of all Americans' shared civil rights against the identitarian alternative.
Before practicing law, Morenoff served on the legislative staff of Sen. Phil Gramm (R-TX). Morenoff holds a B.A. from Columbia College of Columbia University in the City of New York and a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School. He has also served as an officer or director of several community organizations in Dallas, Texas.
Professor Emeritus of Political Science and Professor Emeritus of Public Policy, Univ. of Maryland Baltimore County
George R. La Noue is Professor Emeritus of Political Science and Professor Emeritus of Public Policy at the University of Maryland Baltimore County. He has served as a trial expert in twenty cases involving public procurement preferences. For thirty years, he was Director of the Project on Civil Rights and Public Contracts at UMBC which recently contributed 289 public contracting disparity studies to the Library of Congress. He has been a consultant to nine governments and trial expert in thirty cases where the validity of disparity studies was at issue.
Prof. La Noue can be reached by email at [email protected].
Roberto is a 2018 graduate of the University of Chicago Law School.
Associate Justice, Arkansas Supreme Court
Nicholas Bronni was appointed to the Arkansas Supreme Court by Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders on December 20, 2024, and he began his service on January 1, 2025.
Before being appointed to the bench, Justice Bronni served as the Solicitor General of Arkansas. In that role, he successfully argued two cases in the United States Supreme Court: Delaware v. Pennsylvania, 598 U.S. 115 (2023), an original jurisdiction case concerning unclaimed property; and Rutledge v. PCMA, 592 U.S. 80 (2020), an ERISA preemption case. Justice Bronni also successfully argued numerous cases before federal and state appellate courts, including Arkansas Times v. Waldrip, 37 F.4th 1386 (8th Cir. 2022) (en banc), which upheld Arkansas's law barring state contractors from boycotting Israel; and Arkansas State Conf. NAACP v. Arkansas Bd. of Apportionment, 86 F.4th 1204 (8th Cir. 2023), a landmark case holding that Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act is not privately enforceable. As Solicitor General, Justice Bronni received the National Association of Attorneys General's 2024 Best Supreme Court Brief Award for his multistate amicus brief in Muldrow v. City of St. Louis, Missouri, 601 U.S. 346 (2024).
Justice Bronni received his law degree with magna cum laude honors from the University of Michigan Law School. At Michigan, he was an editor of the Michigan Law Review and was elected to the Order of the Coif. He received his undergraduate degree, summa cum laude, and with special departmental honors from the Elliott School of International Affairs at the George Washington University.
Prior to returning home to Arkansas, Justice Bronni was a Senior Litigation Counsel with the Appellate Litigation Group at the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. He was also an associate with Gibson Dunn and Crutcher LLP in Washington, DC. Justice Bronni clerked for the Honorable Jay S. Bybee of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
Vice President for the Program on Technology, Criminal Justice and Civil Liberties, Lincoln Network
Arthur Rizer is the Vice President for the Program on Technology, Criminal Justice and Civil Liberties at Lincoln Network. In addition to his work at Lincoln, Arthur is a visiting lecturer at University College London, and an adjunct professor at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School. Arthur is also a member of Columbia University Justice Lab’s Executive Session for the Future of Justice Policy, the Federalist Society’s Executive Committee of the Criminal Law Practice Group, the Virginia Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, and other advisory bodies.
Before joining Lincoln, Arthur was founding director of the R Street Institute’s program on criminal justice and civil liberties. Prior to that, Arthur taught at West Virginia University’s College of Law, and was a visiting professor at Georgetown University Law Center. He also served as a trial attorney with the U.S. Justice Department, primarily as a federal prosecutor in the Criminal Division, where he targeted command-and-control drug cartel leaders and narco-terrorists. He also served as a prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of California and in the civil division. Earlier in his career, Arthur served in the U.S. Army, originally enlisting as a private before later receiving a commission. He served as an armor officer, later becoming the commander of a military police company and a Reserve Officers’ Training Corps assistant professor. He deployed to Fallujah, Iraq, with the mission to train the Iraqi Infantry and served as an MP acting battalion commander and executive officer. He retired as a lieutenant colonel from the U.S. Army (WVNG). During his Army career, Arthur received the Bronze Star, Purple Heart, Meritorious Service and Iraq Campaign medals.
Arthur is the author of three books: Lincoln’s Counsel (2010); The National Security Implications of Immigration Law (2013); and Jefferson’s Pen: The Art of Persuasion (2016).
Arthur earned his bachelor’s degree in political science from Pacific Lutheran University; a master of laws, with distinction, from Georgetown University’s Law Center; and his JD, magna cum laude, from Gonzaga University School of Law. He is also a graduate of the U.S. Marine Corps’ Command Staff College. He is in the final stages of a doctorate at the University of Oxford, Faculty of Law, Centre of Criminology that focuses on policing.
Brett Tolman, the former U.S. Attorney for Utah and former chief counsel for crime and terrorism in the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, founded the Tolman Group and focuses on public policy and reforming government.
President, Phoenix Center for Advanced Legal and Economic Public Policy Studies
Lawrence J. Spiwak is President of the Phoenix Center for Advanced Legal & Economic Public Policy Studies, a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization that studies broad public-policy issues related to governance, social and economic conditions, with a particular emphasis on the law and economics of the digital age. Mr. Spiwak is a prolific scholar whose work is frequently cited by policymakers, major news media and academic journals around the world, and is in the top 1.3%of authors downloaded on the Social Science Research Network. Mr. Spiwak currently serves as the co-chair of the Federal Communications Bar Association’s (FCBA) committee responsible for overseeing the FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS LAW JOURNAL and is a member of the program committee of the Telecommunications Policy Research Conference (“TPRC”). Mr. Spiwak is also the recipient of the FCBA’s Distinguished Service Award. Prior to joining the Phoenix Center, Mr. Spiwak was a Senior Attorney with the Competition Division in the FCC’s Office of General Counsel from 1994-1998. While in college, Mr. Spiwak was accepted into the Presidential Stay-In School program where he was responsible for delivering classified and confidential material among senior White House and Reagan Administration officials and received a full FBI security clearance. Mr. Spiwak received his B.A. with Special Honors from the George Washington University and his J.D. from the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. Mr. Spiwak is a member in good standing of the bars of New York, Massachusetts, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
Mike Jayne is an attorney for the U.S. Department of Education. Previously, he worked for the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.
The Nevada Supreme Court Recognizes a Damages Remedy Directly Under Its State Constitution
Anya Bidwell
Last year, two state supreme courts, within five months of each other, issued two decisions...
Environmental Law in the Supreme Court: Highlights from the October 2020 Term
Garrett Kral
The Supreme Court decided nine important environmental law cases during its October 2020 term. This...
Mistaken Heritage: How a Statutory Misreading Has Denied Congress’ Intended Beneficiaries Protection for Half a Century
Dan Morenoff
When the Voting Rights Act (VRA) came up for renewal of its pre-clearance mechanism for...
Topics
The Paid Sick Leave Act: Dead and Loving It
The Paid Sick Leave Act, embedded in the Families First Coronavirus Response Act, temporarily compelled...
The Race Card in ARPA’s Food Supply Deck
George R. La Noue
It is an old aphorism that a prudent person should not watch the making of...
Negative Legislation
Roberto J. Borgert
Modern commentators have spilled much ink on the undemocratic nature of congressional delegations to executive...
State Court Docket Watch: Myers v. Yamato Kogyo Co.
Nicholas Bronni
When should courts defer to an agency’s interpretation of a statute? At the federal level,...
Seeking Success: Reforming America’s Community Supervision System
Arthur Rizer, Brett Tolman
Note from the Editor: The Federalist Society takes no positions on particular legal and public...
Ensuring Due Process at the Surface Transportation Board
Lawrence J. Spiwak
Note from the Editor: The Federalist Society takes no positions on particular legal and public...
As Far As Reasonably Practicable: Reimagining the Role of Congress in Agency Rulemaking
Mike Jayne
Note from the Editor: The Federalist Society takes no positions on particular legal and public...