Raoul Berger Professor of Legal History at Northwestern University School of Law
Stephen Presser is a leading American legal historian and expert on shareholder liability for corporate debts. He is frequently an invited witness before committees of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives on issues of constitutional law. He holds a joint appointment with the J. L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management and also teaches in Northwestern's history department.
Warren Distinguished Professor of Law, University of San Diego School of Law
B.A. 1965, Williams College
LL.B. 1968, Yale University
Assistant Professor of Law, University of Richmond School of Law
Paul Crane served as a Bigelow Fellow at the University of Chicago Law School before coming to Richmond Law to teach in the criminal law field. He also worked as an Assistant United States Attorney in the District of Columbia, and as a Bristow Fellow for the Office of the Solicitor General of the United States. Professor Crane earned his B.A., M.A., and J.D. from the University of Virginia before clerking for Judge Wilkinson on the Fourth Circuit and Chief Justice Roberts on the Supreme Court.
Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law and Director, Classical Liberal Institute, New York University School of Law; Director, Classical Liberal Institute, Civitas Institute University of Texas at Austin
Richard A. Epstein is the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law, at New York University, a senior research fellow at the Civitas Institute at the University of Texas Austin, and a senior Lecturer, the University of Chicago. He received an LL.D., h.c . from the University of Ghent, 2003 , and an LLD h.c . from the University of Siegen in 2018 and the Bradley Prize in 2011. He has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 1985. He has edited both the Journal of Legal Studies (1981-1991) and the Journal of Law and Economics (1991-2001). He is also a founder and director of the Classical Liberal Institute at NYU Law School. His most recent book is The Classical Liberal Constitution: The Uncertain Quest for Limited Government (2014). His other books include Takings: Private Property and the Power of Eminent Domain ( 1985); Bargaining with the State (1993); Simple Rules for a Complex World (1995); Principles for a Free Society: Reconciling Individual Liberty and the Common Good (1998); Skepticism and Freedom: A Modern Theory of Classical Liberalism (2003); Design for Liberty: Private Property, Public Administration and the Rule of Law (2011), and most recently, The Myth of Birthright citizenship—and Beyond (2026). He has taught courses in , administrative law, antitrust, constitutional, contracts, environmental law, land use planning; real property, torts and water law. He has written and spoken extensively on a wide range of topics, and is writes a regular column for Defining Ideas.
Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit
Hon. Jennifer Mascott served as Associate Professor of Law and Director of the Separation of Powers Institute at The Catholic University of America’s Columbus School of Law before her appointment to the federal bench. On July 16, 2025, President Donald J. Trump nominated her to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit (Delaware), and she was confirmed on October 9, 2025.
Prior to her confirmation, Judge Mascott wrote extensively in administrative and constitutional law, statutory interpretation, and the separation of powers. Her scholarship—published in leading journals including the Stanford Law Review, Notre Dame Law Review, and Supreme Court Review—was cited by the U.S. Supreme Court and multiple federal courts. She also contributed Supreme Court commentary for NBC Universal.
Before joining Catholic Law, she was an Assistant Professor and Co-Director of The C. Boyden Gray Center at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School. In 2022 she became co-author of Beermann, Cass & Diver’s Administrative Law: Cases and Materials (9th ed.). In 2023 she received the Justice Joseph Story Award for excellence in scholarship, teaching, and advancing the rule of law.
Judge Mascott also served as a Council Member of the ABA’s Administrative Law Section and as a Public Member of the Administrative Conference of the United States. She frequently testified before Congress on executive power, regulatory reform, and judicial jurisdiction, and participated in multiple Supreme Court confirmation hearings.
From 2019 to 2021, she took leave from academia to serve as Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel and later as Associate Deputy Attorney General, where she argued federal cases and assisted with Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation. Earlier in her career, she clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas and for then-Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh on the D.C. Circuit.
Judge Mascott earned her J.D. summa cum laude from the George Washington University Law School and her B.A. from the same institution.
Olin-Darling Fellow, Stanford Law School
Lance Sorenson is currently the Olin-Darling Fellow at Stanford Law School.. He has a law degree from Pepperdine University and is a PhD candidate in Legal History at the University of Nevada Las Vegas. He is interested in legal systems and structures, particularly in the American West. His dissertation analyzes iterations of United States’ federalism as part of westward expansion.
Assistant Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
Lael Weinberger is an assistant professor of law at George Mason University Antonin Scalia Law School. Previously, Lael clerked for Justice Neil Gorsuch on the United States Supreme Court, Judge Frank Easterbrook on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, and Chief Justice Daniel Eismann on the Idaho Supreme Court. Lael also practiced law at the Washington, D.C., office of Gibson Dunn and held fellowships at Stanford and Harvard law schools. Lael earned a law degree and a Ph.D. in history, both from the University of Chicago. Lael's academic work has appeared in journals such as the University of Chicago Law Review, Notre Dame Law Review, and Constitutional Commentary, among others. He has also written widely for broader public audiences, with his writings and reviews appearing in publications including Newsweek, National Review, Claremont Review, First Things, Christianity Today, LA Review of Books, World, and the New Rambler Review.
Professor, University of Minnesota Law School
Ilan Wurman is the Julius E. Davis Professor of Law at the University of Minnesota, where he teaches administrative law and constitutional law. He previously taught at Arizona State University. He writes primarily on the Fourteenth Amendment, administrative law, separation of powers, and constitutionalism. His academic writing has appeared in the Yale Law Journal, the Stanford Law Review, the University of Chicago Law Review, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, the Virginia Law Review, the Duke Law Journal, the Minnesota Law Review, the Notre Dame Law Review, and the Texas Law Review among other journals.
Professor Wurman is the author of a casebook, Administrative Law Theory and Fundamentals: An Integrated Approach (Foundation Press 2d ed. 2024). He is also the author of A Debt Against the Living: An Introduction to Originalism (Cambridge 2017), and The Second Founding: An Introduction to the Fourteenth Amendment (Cambridge 2020). His next book, The Constitution of 1789: A New Introduction, is also forthcoming with Cambridge University Press.
Professor Wurman practices law with the firm Tully Bailey. He has litigated a variety of administrative law and constitutional law cases, including cases involving COVID-19 restrictions, transmission lines, and Appointments Clause challenges. He also devised winning public nuisance theories to force city governments to address the increasingly challenging public camping crises throughout the country.
Warren Distinguished Professor of Law, University of San Diego School of Law
B.A. 1965, Williams College
LL.B. 1968, Yale University
Assistant Professor of Law, University of Richmond School of Law
Paul Crane served as a Bigelow Fellow at the University of Chicago Law School before coming to Richmond Law to teach in the criminal law field. He also worked as an Assistant United States Attorney in the District of Columbia, and as a Bristow Fellow for the Office of the Solicitor General of the United States. Professor Crane earned his B.A., M.A., and J.D. from the University of Virginia before clerking for Judge Wilkinson on the Fourth Circuit and Chief Justice Roberts on the Supreme Court.
Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law and Director, Classical Liberal Institute, New York University School of Law; Director, Classical Liberal Institute, Civitas Institute University of Texas at Austin
Richard A. Epstein is the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law, at New York University, a senior research fellow at the Civitas Institute at the University of Texas Austin, and a senior Lecturer, the University of Chicago. He received an LL.D., h.c . from the University of Ghent, 2003 , and an LLD h.c . from the University of Siegen in 2018 and the Bradley Prize in 2011. He has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 1985. He has edited both the Journal of Legal Studies (1981-1991) and the Journal of Law and Economics (1991-2001). He is also a founder and director of the Classical Liberal Institute at NYU Law School. His most recent book is The Classical Liberal Constitution: The Uncertain Quest for Limited Government (2014). His other books include Takings: Private Property and the Power of Eminent Domain ( 1985); Bargaining with the State (1993); Simple Rules for a Complex World (1995); Principles for a Free Society: Reconciling Individual Liberty and the Common Good (1998); Skepticism and Freedom: A Modern Theory of Classical Liberalism (2003); Design for Liberty: Private Property, Public Administration and the Rule of Law (2011), and most recently, The Myth of Birthright citizenship—and Beyond (2026). He has taught courses in , administrative law, antitrust, constitutional, contracts, environmental law, land use planning; real property, torts and water law. He has written and spoken extensively on a wide range of topics, and is writes a regular column for Defining Ideas.
Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit
Hon. Jennifer Mascott served as Associate Professor of Law and Director of the Separation of Powers Institute at The Catholic University of America’s Columbus School of Law before her appointment to the federal bench. On July 16, 2025, President Donald J. Trump nominated her to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit (Delaware), and she was confirmed on October 9, 2025.
Prior to her confirmation, Judge Mascott wrote extensively in administrative and constitutional law, statutory interpretation, and the separation of powers. Her scholarship—published in leading journals including the Stanford Law Review, Notre Dame Law Review, and Supreme Court Review—was cited by the U.S. Supreme Court and multiple federal courts. She also contributed Supreme Court commentary for NBC Universal.
Before joining Catholic Law, she was an Assistant Professor and Co-Director of The C. Boyden Gray Center at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School. In 2022 she became co-author of Beermann, Cass & Diver’s Administrative Law: Cases and Materials (9th ed.). In 2023 she received the Justice Joseph Story Award for excellence in scholarship, teaching, and advancing the rule of law.
Judge Mascott also served as a Council Member of the ABA’s Administrative Law Section and as a Public Member of the Administrative Conference of the United States. She frequently testified before Congress on executive power, regulatory reform, and judicial jurisdiction, and participated in multiple Supreme Court confirmation hearings.
From 2019 to 2021, she took leave from academia to serve as Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel and later as Associate Deputy Attorney General, where she argued federal cases and assisted with Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation. Earlier in her career, she clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas and for then-Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh on the D.C. Circuit.
Judge Mascott earned her J.D. summa cum laude from the George Washington University Law School and her B.A. from the same institution.
Olin-Darling Fellow, Stanford Law School
Lance Sorenson is currently the Olin-Darling Fellow at Stanford Law School.. He has a law degree from Pepperdine University and is a PhD candidate in Legal History at the University of Nevada Las Vegas. He is interested in legal systems and structures, particularly in the American West. His dissertation analyzes iterations of United States’ federalism as part of westward expansion.
Assistant Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
Lael Weinberger is an assistant professor of law at George Mason University Antonin Scalia Law School. Previously, Lael clerked for Justice Neil Gorsuch on the United States Supreme Court, Judge Frank Easterbrook on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, and Chief Justice Daniel Eismann on the Idaho Supreme Court. Lael also practiced law at the Washington, D.C., office of Gibson Dunn and held fellowships at Stanford and Harvard law schools. Lael earned a law degree and a Ph.D. in history, both from the University of Chicago. Lael's academic work has appeared in journals such as the University of Chicago Law Review, Notre Dame Law Review, and Constitutional Commentary, among others. He has also written widely for broader public audiences, with his writings and reviews appearing in publications including Newsweek, National Review, Claremont Review, First Things, Christianity Today, LA Review of Books, World, and the New Rambler Review.
Professor, University of Minnesota Law School
Ilan Wurman is the Julius E. Davis Professor of Law at the University of Minnesota, where he teaches administrative law and constitutional law. He previously taught at Arizona State University. He writes primarily on the Fourteenth Amendment, administrative law, separation of powers, and constitutionalism. His academic writing has appeared in the Yale Law Journal, the Stanford Law Review, the University of Chicago Law Review, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, the Virginia Law Review, the Duke Law Journal, the Minnesota Law Review, the Notre Dame Law Review, and the Texas Law Review among other journals.
Professor Wurman is the author of a casebook, Administrative Law Theory and Fundamentals: An Integrated Approach (Foundation Press 2d ed. 2024). He is also the author of A Debt Against the Living: An Introduction to Originalism (Cambridge 2017), and The Second Founding: An Introduction to the Fourteenth Amendment (Cambridge 2020). His next book, The Constitution of 1789: A New Introduction, is also forthcoming with Cambridge University Press.
Professor Wurman practices law with the firm Tully Bailey. He has litigated a variety of administrative law and constitutional law cases, including cases involving COVID-19 restrictions, transmission lines, and Appointments Clause challenges. He also devised winning public nuisance theories to force city governments to address the increasingly challenging public camping crises throughout the country.
President, Cass & Associates, PC
Ronald A. Cass is Dean Emeritus of Boston University School of Law (where he was Dean from 1990-2004), President of Cass & Associates, PC, former Vice-Chairman and Commissioner of the U.S. International Trade Commission, former faculty member at Boston University School of Law and the University of Virginia Law School, and Distinguished Senior Fellow at the C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State. Dean Cass also sits as an arbitrator for commercial, international, and intellectual property rights disputes, and is a former United States member of the Panel of Conciliators of the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes. He is a member of the Council of the Administrative Conference of the United States and has received seven presidential appointments, spanning Presidents Ronald Reagan to Donald J. Trump.
As a law professor, lecturer, and scholar, Dean Cass has been teaching and writing about a wide array of legal issues on topics such as administrative law and regulation, antitrust, constitutional law, communications, intellectual property, international trade, separation of powers, and legal process. He has published more than 160 scholarly books, chapters, articles, and papers, including a leading casebook on administrative law. Dean Cass has taught judges as well as students in schools of law, economics, business, and public policy and has held academic appointments in the United States, Europe, and Latin America.
In addition to his academic work, Dean Cass has participated in numerous important legal cases as an amicus, consultant, or expert, and has advised businesses, law firms, investment funds, and government agencies on a range of trade, antitrust, intellectual property, and regulatory issues. He has a broad range of affiliations with professional groups, and has received numerous honors, fellowships and awards.
Dean Cass is a graduate of the University of Virginia and the University of Chicago Law School.
Vice President, Practice Groups, The Federalist Society
Adjunct Professor of Business, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, V, Dartmouth College
Bernard Avishai is an Adjunct Professor of Business at Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He lives in Jerusalem and the United States. He has taught at Duke University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and Dartmouth College, and was director of the Zell Entrepreneurship Program at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya in Israel. From 1998 to 2001 he was International Director of Intellectual Capital at KPMG LLP. Before this he headed product development at Monitor Group, with which he is still associated. From 1986 to 1991 he was technology editor of Harvard Business Review. A Guggenheim Fellow, Avishai holds a doctorate in political economy from the University of Toronto. Before turning to management, he covered the Middle East as a journalist. He has written many articles and commentaries for The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, Harvard Business Review, Harper's Magazine and other publications. He is the author of three books on Israel, including the widely read The Tragedy of Zionism, and the 2008 The Hebrew Republic.
Senior Fellow, Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Professor, Arizona State University
Orde Kittrie is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and professor of law at the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law at Arizona State University. He is a leading expert on nonproliferation law and policy with a focus on Iran sanctions, and an expert on international law, particularly as it relates to the Middle East. Kittrie is author of Lawfare: Law as a Weapon of War (Oxford University Press, 2016), which describes how and why law is becoming an increasingly powerful and prevalent weapon of war, through examples of lawfare use by the U.S., China, Israel, the Palestinians, as well as non-governmental organizations and individuals.
Prior to entering academia, Prof. Kittrie served for eleven years at the Department of State, where he received the Department’s Superior Honor Award and its Meritorious Honor Award. As the Department's lead nuclear affairs attorney, Prof. Kittrie helped negotiate five U.S.-Russia nuclear agreements and a UN treaty to combat nuclear terrorism. Prof. Kittrie also served as director of the department’s Office of International Anti-Crime Programs, as the department’s lead attorney for strategic trade controls, and as a lead attorney for public affairs and public diplomacy. He also served as Special Assistant to the Under Secretary of State for Economic, Business and Agricultural Affairs.
Prof. Kittrie has testified before various Senate and House committees, and served on a special National Academies of Science committee to make recommendations on preventing nuclear, chemical, and biological proliferation. He has also testified before several state legislatures regarding divestment and other legislation related to foreign affairs.
His work has been featured in leading outlets including The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and Foreign Affairs, and he has done on-air commentary for networks and stations including NBC, ABC, Fox, PBS, and Al Jazeera. He is also the author of numerous scholarly articles.
Prof. Kittrie has been a guest speaker of the International Atomic Energy Agency, NATO, various U.S. federal agencies, the British Foreign & Commonwealth Office, the Belgian Royal Military Academy, and the Royal Military College of Canada. He has also lectured at over a dozen universities including Harvard, Yale, Columbia University, Georgetown, Johns Hopkins, King’s College London, and the University of Pennsylvania.
Prof. Kittrie is a graduate of the University of Michigan Law School, and a former Ford Foundation fellow in Egypt, Israel, Jordan, and Syria. Prior to law school, he served as press spokesman and legislative assistant to U.S. Congresswoman Connie Morella. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
- See more at: http://www.defenddemocracy.org/about-fdd/team-overview/orde-kittrie/#sthash.aVtyFegm.dpuf
Professor of Law and Director, Center for the Middle East and International Law, George Mason University Antonin Scalia Law School
Professor of Law Eugene Kontorovich is one of the world’s preeminent experts on universal jurisdiction and maritime piracy, as well as international law and the Israel-Arab conflict. He is also the Director of Scalia Law School's Center for the Middle East and International Law. Professor Kontorovich joined the Scalia Law School from Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law where he was a Professor of Law from 2011 to 2018 and an Associate Professor from 2007 to 2011. Previously, he was a Visiting Professor at the University of Chicago from 2005 to 2007 and an Assistant Professor at George Mason School of Law from 2003 to 2007.
Professor Kontorovich has published over thirty major scholarly articles and book chapters in leading law reviews and peer-reviewed journals in the United States and Europe, including the American Journal of International Law, International Review of Law & Economics, Stanford Law Review, California Law Review, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, and Virginia Law Review. His scholarship has been cited in leading foreign relations and international law
His expertise is often sought out and quoted by major news organizations such the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, NPR News, The New Yorker, Los Angeles Times, and numerous television and radio programs. Prof. Kontorovich’s popular writings have appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, POLITICO, Commentary, Haaretz, and numerous other leading publications. He is also a regular contributor to the Washington Post’s Volokh Conspiracy legal blog.
He attended the University of Chicago for college and law school. After law school, he clerked for Judge Richard Posner on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. He has been honored with a fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, in 2011-12, and with the Federalist Society’s prestigious Bator Award, given annually to a young scholar (under 40), for outstanding scholarship and teaching.
2019 National Student Symposium
The Resurgence of Economic Liberty
Phoenix, AZThe Tenacity of Transformation Theory, and Why Constitutional History Deserves Better
Stephen B. Presser
A review of The Second Creation: Fixing the American Constitution in the Founding Era, by...
Young Legal Scholars Paper Presentations
Lawrence Alexander, Vincent Buccola, Paul Crane, Richard A. Epstein, Jenn L. Mascott, Lance Sorenson, Lael Weinberger, Ilan Wurman
On January 3, 2019, the Federalist Society hosted the Young Legal Scholars Paper Presentations. The...
Young Legal Scholars Paper Presentations
Lawrence Alexander, Vincent Buccola, Paul Crane, Richard A. Epstein, Jenn L. Mascott, Lance Sorenson, Lael Weinberger, Ilan Wurman
On January 3, 2019, the Federalist Society hosted the Young Legal Scholars Paper Presentations. The...
Deference to Agency Rule Interpretations: Problems of Expanding Constitutionally Questionable Authority in the Administrative State
Ronald A. Cass
Note from the Editor: This article argues that, while judicial deference to agency decisions is...
Topics
Affirmative Action Confusion at the College of Charleston
Fast Action! On July 29, 2018, the Charleston Post and Courier ran a story entitled Affirmative...
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Morrison v. Olson Oral Argument Rewind: Everything Old Is New Again
Historian-turned-politician Sen. Ben Sasse (NE) likes a good historical coincidence. And last week, on April...
The UNSCR 2334 Against Israel: What Is President Trump To Do?
TeleforumFisher v. UT–Austin and the Future of Racial Preferences in College Admissions
Elizabeth Slattery
Note from the Editor: This article discusses the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Fisher v. University...
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On Heightening the Contradictions of Grutter v. Bollinger: Thoughts on the Fisher v. UT Oral Argument
Yesterday, Justice Scalia's controversial question about mismatch theory at the Fisher v. UT oral argument...