Vice President, Edwin Meese III Institute for the Rule of Law, Advancing American Freedom
John G. Malcolm oversees Advancing American Freedom’s work to increase understanding of the Constitution and the rule of law as Vice President of the organization’s Edwin Meese III Institute for the Rule of Law. Malcolm brings to the challenge a wealth of legal expertise and experience in both the public and private sectors.
Prior to joining Advancing American Freedom in 2025, Malcolm was the Vice President of the Institute for Constitutional Government and the Director of the Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at the Heritage Foundation. Prior to joining Heritage in 2012, Malcolm was general counsel at the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, as well as a distinguished practitioner in residence at Pepperdine Law School. From 2004 to 2009, Malcolm was executive vice president and director of worldwide anti-piracy operations for the Motion Picture Association.
Malcolm served as a deputy assistant attorney general in the Department of Justice’s Criminal Division from 2001 to 2004, where he oversaw sections on computer crime and intellectual property, domestic security, child exploitation and obscenity, and special investigations. Immediately prior to that, he was a founding partner in the Atlanta law firm of Malcolm & Schroeder, LLP.
From 1990 to 1997, Malcolm was an assistant U.S. attorney in Atlanta, assigned to the fraud and public corruption section, and also an associate independent counsel, investigating fraud and abuse in the Department of Housing and Urban Development. He was honored with the Director’s Award for Superior Performance for his work in connection with the successful prosecution of Walter Leroy Moody Jr., who assassinated an 11th Circuit judge and the head of the Savannah chapter of the NAACP.
A graduate of Harvard Law School and Columbia College, Malcolm began his career as a law clerk to a federal district court judge and a federal appellate court judge, and as an associate at the Atlanta-based law firm of Sutherland, Asbill & Brennan (new Eversheds Sutherland).
Malcolm, who resides in Washington, D.C., serves on the Board of Trustees of the Washington National Opera and is a Senate-confirmed member of the Board of Directors of the Legal Services Corporation, the largest funder of civil legal aid in the United States.
Emanuel S. Heller Professor of Law, University of California at Berkeley; Thomas Smith Senior Research Fellow, The 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.
Partner, Paul Hastings
Chris Carr is a partner in the San Francisco office of Paul Hastings LLP and chairs the firm’s Environment and Energy Practice Group. He is widely regarded as one of the leading infrastructure development, environmental, and energy lawyers in the United States. Drawing on his experience with the U.S. Department of the Interior and the U.S. Department of State, Mr. Carr represents businesses, landowners, public agencies, and nonprofits in all areas of environmental and natural resources law, including energy and infrastructure, water, forestry, agriculture, mining, and coastal and marine resources.
In particular, his practice focuses on permitting and litigation under the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA), the Clean Water Act, and the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), and their California counterparts: the California ESA, the Porter-Cologne Water Quality Control Act, and the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). He has deep expertise and broad experience in local, state, federal, and international laws, regulations, initiatives, and programs addressing climate change and driving the energy transition.
Mr. Carr frequently defends permits, approvals, and environmental review documents for energy and other infrastructure projects in federal and state courts, and defends against “citizen suits” brought under federal and state environmental statutes for all manner of land and resources development.
Mr. Carr was Chair of Morrison and Foerster’s Global Energy & Environment Practice and Co-chair of its Cleantech Practice Group from 2010 – 2017. He is a regular speaker at Berkeley Law and Stanford Law School. Mr. Carr received his J.D. and Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley.
He has published widely in the area of environmental regulation, and is frequently interviewed by the broadcast and print media for his views, including:
United States Attorney, Eastern District of California
Mr. Grant was appointed by Attorney General Pam Bondi to serve as the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of California beginning on August 11, 2025. Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 546(d), he was further appointed by the district court effective December 9, 2025.
Mr. Grant is a veteran of the Department of Justice, having served twice in Washington, D.C.: from 1991 to 1993 as an Attorney-Adviser in the Office of Legal Counsel, and from 2017 to 2021 as a Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Environment and Natural Resources Division (ENRD). During his tenure at ENRD, he supervised more than a hundred Department litigators advancing the interests of the United States and its agencies in both enforcement and defensive matters, both civil and criminal.
In addition to his service in the Department, Mr. Grant has decades of experience in private practice in Washington, D.C. and Sacramento. That experience includes arguments in the U.S. Supreme Court, the California Supreme Court, and numerous other federal and state courts.
Mr. Grant served as a law clerk to Chief Justice Warren E. Burger (retired) and Associate Justice Clarence Thomas during the Supreme Court’s October 1994 Term. Earlier he served as a law clerk to Judge Edith H. Jones of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in Houston, Texas.
Mr. Grant grew up in Modesto, California and raised his family in Sacramento County. He attended the University of California, Berkeley, from which he earned a bachelor’s degree in economics (1986) and a law degree (1990).
Partner, Holland & Knight
Jennifer Hernandez has practiced land use and environmental law for more than 30 years, and leads Holland & Knight's West Coast Land Use and Environmental Group. Ms. Hernandez divides her time between the firm's San Francisco and Los Angeles offices.
Ms. Hernandez is the only California lawyer ranked by her clients and peers in Chambers USA in the top tier of both land use/zoning and environmental lawyers. In addition, she was recognized as the top environmental litigator of the year in the San Francisco Bay Area by Best Lawyers, and received a California Lawyer of the Year award from the State Bar of California for her work on California's largest and most innovative land use and conservation agreement between her private landowner client and five major environmental organizations, including the Sierra Club and Natural Resources Defense Council. She also has received numerous civil rights awards for her work on overcoming environmentalist opposition to housing and other projects needed and supported by minority communities.
During his tenure as mayor of San Francisco, Willie Brown named October 9, 2002, as "Jennifer Hernandez Day" in San Francisco in honor of her work as a "warrior on the Brownfields" to restore and redevelop former industrial lands. Ms. Hernandez is the longest-serving minority board member (23 years) of the California League of Conservation voters, was appointed by President Clinton to serve as a trustee for the Presidio National Park in San Francisco, and serves on the board of directors for California Forward and Sustainable Conservation.
Ms. Hernandez works for private sector, public agency and nonprofit clients on a broad range of projects in Bay Area, Southern California and Central Valley communities, including infill and master-planned mixed-use housing and commercial projects, university and research facilities, transportation and infrastructure projects, renewable and other energy projects, and local agency plan and ordinance updates. She has written three books, and more than 50 articles, on environmental and land use topics, and regularly teaches land use, environmental and climate law in law and business schools, colleges and seminars. She also serves on the firm's Directors Committee and received the firm's highest honor – the Chesterfield Smith Award – for her community service.
Ms. Hernandez graduated with honors from Harvard University and Stanford Law School, and clerked for Region 20 of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) before beginning her land use and environmental law career. Ms. Hernandez is the daughter and granddaughter of steelworkers and was raised in Pittsburg, California. She and her husband live in Berkeley and Los Angeles.
Founder & President, Arizona Strategies
Karrin Taylor Robson is a respected and long-time Arizona business leader and land-use expert. She is Founder and President of Arizona Strategies, a premier land use strategy firm headquartered in Phoenix. Throughout her extensive career, she has entitled more than 35,000 acres including more than 45,000 homes and over 25 million square feet of commercial uses.
Karrin has worked with national organizations representing major landowners and stakeholders across the country to advance balanced federal environmental law and policy on endangered species acts and wetlands issues. In addition, she has advanced multiple public-private partnerships, leveraging private sector capital to deliver public infrastructure and other public benefits.
Karrin has also served on the boards of numerous government, community and economic development organizations. In June 2017, she was appointed by Governor Doug Ducey to the Arizona Board of Regents which is responsible for the governance of the state’s public universities, Arizona State University, Northern Arizona University and the University of Arizona. She served as the Chair of the Joe Foss Institute, Vice Chair of the Greater Phoenix Economic Council, trustee of Boys and Girls Club of Metro Phoenix Foundation, and a board member of the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and invisionAZ. Karrin currently serves as a member of the Civic Leaders Group for the Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force, a member of the Arizona-Mexico Commission and a member of the board of American Council of Trustees and Alumni.
Prior to forming Arizona Strategies, Karrin served as Executive Vice President of DMB Associates, Inc., a Scottsdale based master-planned community developer where she was responsible for ongoing land use entitlement matters and other value-enhancing efforts for its communities and businesses.
Earlier in her career, Karrin was a principal with the law firm of Biskind, Hunt & Taylor, P.L.C., where she practiced in the areas of land use, development and zoning law representing large landowners on significant and complex land use cases.
Her deep Arizona history and professional experience have shaped her perspective on our culture today and helped define her personal priorities. She believes that being actively involved in the community is a prerequisite for being an American.
Through her numerous professional, community and philanthropic commitments, Karrin advocates daily for building and sustaining a dynamic and diverse economy, protecting property rights and creating value in real estate, developing a world-class education system with options for all types of learners, fostering civic engagement and supporting the men and women who serve in our military.
Karrin is the mother of four, a grandmother, and the wife of Ed Robson. In the most recent chapter of her career, Karrin was a candidate for Governor of Arizona.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit
Lawrence VanDyke serves as a circuit judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Prior to that appointment in January 2020, he served as a Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Environment and Natural Resources Division of the United States Department of Justice. Before that, he served consecutively as the Solicitor General of two western states – Nevada and Montana. At the beginning of his legal career, he worked as an attorney in the Appellate and Constitutional Issues practice group at Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, LLP.
Judge VanDyke received his law degree magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, where he was an editor on the Harvard Law Review. He has engineering and theology undergraduate degrees and a masters degree in engineering management. He served as a law clerk to the Honorable Janice Rogers Brown of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Judge VanDyke and his wife Cheryl live in Reno, Nevada, and they have three children.
Conservatives Talk Presidential Power: The Hunter Biden Investigations
John G. Malcolm, John C. Yoo
John Malcolm and John Yoo continue their discussion of presidential power with a focus on...
Panel 1: The Not So Wild West? How Regulations Have Affected Land Use in the Western States
Chris Carr, Eric Grant, Jennifer L. Hernandez, Karrin Taylor Robson, Lawrence VanDyke
The rising cost of housing and the regulatory state are some of the major issues...
End of Summer Social
Chicago Lawyers Chapter
Rosemont, IL