Senior Research Associate, Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, The Heritage Foundation
Seth Lucas is a Senior Research Associate at The Heritage Foundation’s Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies. Before joining Heritage, Seth served as a Paralegal at Alliance Defending Freedom, where he supported attorneys in litigation across the United States that sought to advance academic freedom and religious liberty.
Seth is a graduate of Patrick Henry College and is currently enrolled as a part-time juris doctorate candidate at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School.
Chair, Issues & Appeals, Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP
The former Solicitor General of West Virginia, Mr. Lin has been on the front lines of many precedent-setting cases in appellate courts across the country, including in a US Supreme Court victory that George Will called “the court’s most severe rebuke of a president” since the Truman administration. Having argued more than 60 appeals, he brings to clients a well-honed ability to identify the most persuasive issues for appeal and a practiced understanding of how best to frame complex legal questions in appellate courts.
With experience in the private sector and multiple branches of government, Mr. Lin’s practice has spanned a wide range of issues, including major questions of constitutional and administrative law at the federal and state levels. On behalf of more than two dozen states, he won a stay from the US Supreme Court of the EPA’s Clean Power Plan. Described by the New York Times as an “unprecedented” order, the stay was the first time the Supreme Court had ever put a regulation on hold before review by a federal appeals court. In that same case, Elbert argued before the en banc DC Circuit in an historic proceeding that one commenter quoted in E&E News compared to “the NBA All-Star Game.” At the state level, Elbert led the effort that persuaded the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals to overturn an injunction of the state’s right-to-work law.
In 2013, Mr. Lin was appointed the Solicitor General of West Virginia. During his four-and-a-half year tenure, he served as a member of the Attorney General’s senior management team, oversaw all civil and criminal appeals, and argued nearly two dozen cases in federal and state appellate courts. He authored more than twenty-five briefs in the US Supreme Court and more than forty-five formal Opinions of the Attorney General.
Earlier in his career, Mr. Lin served as a trial attorney in the Federal Programs Branch of the US Department of Justice’s Civil Division, where he received a Special Service Award. He has also been a law clerk at all three levels of the federal judiciary: for Justice Clarence Thomas on the US Supreme Court; for Judge William H. Pryor Jr. on the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit; and for Senior Judge Robert E. Keeton on the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts.
Mr. Lin speaks regularly on a wide variety of topics, including constitutional law, administrative law, environmental law, state and federal relations, the US Supreme Court, and appellate practice. He has testified before Congress, and has spoken at the national conventions of the American Bar Association, the Association of Corporate Counsel, the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association, the Federalist Society, Americans for Prosperity, and the American Legislative Exchange Council. He is an elected member of the American Law Institute, a public member of the Administrative Conference of the United States, and a fellow of the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers.
Mr. Lin is admitted to practice in the following federal courts: the Supreme Court of the United States; the First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, Ninth, Eleventh, D.C., and Federal Circuits; the District of Massachusetts; the Northern and Southern Districts of West Virginia; and the Eastern and Western Districts of Virginia.
Publius comes from the pen name Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay used when they wrote 85 publicly printed letters now known as the Federalist Papers. Hamilton chose “Publius” as a name that would represent friends of the newly proposed American republic - Publius Valeria Publicola was a Roman general who helped to found the Roman Republic. The Federalist Society continues the tradition of publishing things under the name Publius in celebration of our constitutional roots and recognition that author credit is not always necessary.
Warren Distinguished Professor of Law, University of San Diego School of Law
Michael D. Ramsey is Warren Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of San Diego School of Law, where he teaches and writes in the areas of Constitutional Law, Foreign Relations Law and International Law. He is the author of The Constitution’s Text in Foreign Affairs (Harvard University Press), co-editor of International Law in the U.S. Supreme Court: Continuity and Change (Cambridge University Press), and co-author of two casebooks, Transnational Law and Practice (2d ed., Aspen) and International Business Transactions: A Problem-Oriented Coursebook (14th ed., West). His scholarly articles have appeared in publications such as the Yale Law Journal, the University of Chicago Law Review, the Georgetown Law Journal and the American Journal of International Law. He received his B.A. magna cum laude from Dartmouth College and his J.D. summa cum laude from Stanford Law School. Prior to teaching, he served as a judicial clerk for Judge J. Clifford Wallace of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and for Justice Antonin Scalia of the United States Supreme Court, and practiced law with the law firm of Latham & Watkins, where he specialized in international finance and investment. He has taught as a visiting professor at the University of California, San Diego, in the Department of Political Science and at the University of Paris – Sorbonne, in the Department of Comparative Law.
Chair, Issues & Appeals, Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP
The former Solicitor General of West Virginia, Mr. Lin has been on the front lines of many precedent-setting cases in appellate courts across the country, including in a US Supreme Court victory that George Will called “the court’s most severe rebuke of a president” since the Truman administration. Having argued more than 60 appeals, he brings to clients a well-honed ability to identify the most persuasive issues for appeal and a practiced understanding of how best to frame complex legal questions in appellate courts.
With experience in the private sector and multiple branches of government, Mr. Lin’s practice has spanned a wide range of issues, including major questions of constitutional and administrative law at the federal and state levels. On behalf of more than two dozen states, he won a stay from the US Supreme Court of the EPA’s Clean Power Plan. Described by the New York Times as an “unprecedented” order, the stay was the first time the Supreme Court had ever put a regulation on hold before review by a federal appeals court. In that same case, Elbert argued before the en banc DC Circuit in an historic proceeding that one commenter quoted in E&E News compared to “the NBA All-Star Game.” At the state level, Elbert led the effort that persuaded the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals to overturn an injunction of the state’s right-to-work law.
In 2013, Mr. Lin was appointed the Solicitor General of West Virginia. During his four-and-a-half year tenure, he served as a member of the Attorney General’s senior management team, oversaw all civil and criminal appeals, and argued nearly two dozen cases in federal and state appellate courts. He authored more than twenty-five briefs in the US Supreme Court and more than forty-five formal Opinions of the Attorney General.
Earlier in his career, Mr. Lin served as a trial attorney in the Federal Programs Branch of the US Department of Justice’s Civil Division, where he received a Special Service Award. He has also been a law clerk at all three levels of the federal judiciary: for Justice Clarence Thomas on the US Supreme Court; for Judge William H. Pryor Jr. on the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit; and for Senior Judge Robert E. Keeton on the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts.
Mr. Lin speaks regularly on a wide variety of topics, including constitutional law, administrative law, environmental law, state and federal relations, the US Supreme Court, and appellate practice. He has testified before Congress, and has spoken at the national conventions of the American Bar Association, the Association of Corporate Counsel, the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association, the Federalist Society, Americans for Prosperity, and the American Legislative Exchange Council. He is an elected member of the American Law Institute, a public member of the Administrative Conference of the United States, and a fellow of the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers.
Mr. Lin is admitted to practice in the following federal courts: the Supreme Court of the United States; the First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, Ninth, Eleventh, D.C., and Federal Circuits; the District of Massachusetts; the Northern and Southern Districts of West Virginia; and the Eastern and Western Districts of Virginia.
Federal Law and State Common Law Preemption Questions at the Texas Supreme Court
Seth Lucas
Courts are divided on whether federal regulations of rail carriers preempt state common law negligence...
Courthouse Steps: Christie v. National Collegiate Athletic Association
Elbert Lin
On Monday, December 4, 2017, the Supreme Court will hear oral argument in Christie v. National...
Courthouse Steps: Christie v. National Collegiate Athletic Association
Federalism & Separation of Powers Practice Group and Regulatory Transparency Project Teleforum
TeleforumMississippi Supreme Court and the “Era Of Judicial Supremacy”
Publius
As the 1980s began, some critics alleged that Mississippi’s government was afflicted with inertia, and...
Can the President Terminate the ABM Treaty?
Michael D. Ramsey
President Bush has signaled his intent to withdraw from the treaty between the United States...