Law Clerk, United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas
Couselor, Florida Attorney General
Natalie Christmas currently serves as Counselor to the Attorney General for Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody. She previously served as Assistant Attorney General of Legal Policy.
Vice President and Senior Counsel, The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty
Daniel Blomberg is vice president and senior counsel for Becket. Before joining Becket, he clerked for Chief Judge Alice M. Batchelder of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and served as litigation counsel with the Alliance Defending Freedom. Daniel’s clients have included an international order of nuns, the world’s largest religious media organization, synagogues, members of the U.S. military, religious healthcare ministries, peaceful protestors, halfway houses, religious colleges, state legislators, homeless shelters, religious business owners, an art gallery, and churches. Daniel has represented a wide variety of faith groups, including Anglicans, Baptists, Catholics, Hindus, Hutterites, Jews, Lutherans, Mennonites, Muslims, Presbyterians, Russian Orthodox, and Sikhs. Cases on which he has served as counsel to a party include: Our Lady of Guadalupe v. Morrissey-Berru, 140 S. Ct. 2049 (2020); Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn v. Cuomo, 141 S. Ct. 63 (2020); Zubik v. Burwell, 136 S. Ct. 1557 (2016); Little Sisters of the Poor v. Sebelius, 134 S. Ct. 1022 (2014); Wheaton College v. Burwell, 134 S. Ct. 2806 (2014); Fellowship of Christian Athletes v. SJUSD, 82 F.4th 664 (9th Cir. 2023) (en banc); Singh v. Berger, 56 F.4th 88 (D.C. Cir. 2022); Demkovich v. St. Andrew the Apostle Parish, 3 F.4th 968 (7th Cir. 2021) (en banc); Maxon v. Fuller Theological Seminary, 2021 WL 5882035 (9th Cir. 2021); Intervarsity Christian Fellowship/USA v. University of Iowa, 5 F.4th 855, 867 (8th Cir. 2021); Business Leaders in Christ v. University of Iowa, 991 F.3d 969 (8th Cir. 2021); Whole Woman’s Health v. Smith, 896 F.3d 362 (5th Cir. 2018); Lee v. Sixth Mount Zion Baptist Church, 903 F.3d 113 (3d Cir. 2018); Gagliardi v. TJCV, 889 F.3d 728 (11th Cir. 2018); Harvest Family Church v. FEMA, 2018 WL 386192 (5th Cir. 2018); Fratello v. Archdiocese of New York, 863 F.3d 190 (2d Cir. 2017); Eternal Word Television Network v. U.S. Dep’t of HHS, 756 F.3d 1339 (11th Cir. 2014); InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA v. Bd. of Governors of Wayne State Univ., 534 F. Supp. 3d 785 (E.D. Mich. 2021); and Singh v. Carter, 168 F. Supp. 3d 216 (D.D.C. 2016).
Daniel has been featured on CNN, Huffington Post Live, Fox News, EWTN Nightly News, and CBS Evening News.
He earned his J.D. from the University of South Carolina School of Law, graduating magna cum laude. While in law school, Daniel clerked for the South Carolina Attorney General’s Office, served on a South Carolina Supreme Court task force, and interned with Judge J. Michelle Childs of the Circuit Court for the Fifth Judicial Circuit as a part of the Judicial Observation and Education program. He is a Blackstone Fellow. Daniel received his undergraduate degree from Columbia International University. He and his wife have five children and too many animals.
Partner, Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough LLP
Miles practices in the areas of appeals, business litigation, and First Amendment law. In addition to representing clients in complex civil and criminal litigation and appeals, Miles advises and represents public and private universities and serves as outside general counsel to several business and educational clients. He also represents and counsels private entities and government agencies and officials, including multiple current and former governors of South Carolina and members of Congress, on issues relating to the constitutional and statutory freedoms of speech, religion, and association. His First Amendment work has been cited by the United States Supreme Court.
Founder, TGH Litigation LLC
Before forming TGH Litigation, Andy Hirth served as Deputy General Counsel in the Missouri Attorney General's Office, where he represented the people of Missouri in many of the state's highest-profile cases. During his six and a half years with the AGO, Andy defended numerous Missouri statutes from constitutional challenge, including the Macks Creek Law and the Inter-District School Transfer Law; represented Missouri in a $1.14 billion contract dispute between 46 states and more than 30 major tobacco companies; got Missouri's natural resources damage suit over the Bridgeton Landfill fire remanded to state court; and challenged regulations imposed on Missouri farms and businesses by the federal government and the state of California.
Andy graduated cum laude from the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Law in 2005, where he served as Editor-in-Chief of the Missouri Law Review and was inducted into the Order of the Coif. Andy founded and served as president of the University of Missouri-Columbia Student Chapter of the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy. He received a Burton Award for Legal Achievement and the Judge Shepard Barclay Prize for the graduating law student "who has attained the highest standing in scholarship and moral leadership."
After law school, Andy clerked for the Hon. Nanette K. Laughrey, United States District Judge for the Western District of Missouri and spent three years in private practice at Jenner & Block LLP in Chicago, Illinois. As an associate in the firm's Commercial Litigation and Supreme Court and Appellate Practice Groups, Andy represented a national over-the-road trucking company in an EEOC enforcement action alleging a pattern and practice of sexual harassment; defended a national media company from defamation and tortious interference claims by a former radio personality; and challenged the death sentence of an inmate in Florida. In 2010, Andy returned to Missouri to work for Attorney General Chris Koster.
Andy has taught Constitutional Law as an adjunct professor at the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Law. He holds a Juris Doctor and a Master's degree in English from the University of Missouri - Columbia.
Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, United States Department of Justice
Jesus A. Osete previously served as General Counsel to the Hon. John R. Ashcroft, Secretary of State of Missouri. Mr. Osete previously served as Deputy Solicitor General of Missouri and Deputy Attorney General for Special Litigation. He has presented oral argument in the U.S. Supreme Court. Before joining the Missouri Attorney General’s Office, Mr. Osete worked at Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner LLP in the Appellate and Supreme Court Group. He also clerked for the Hon. Bobby E. Shepherd of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit and the Hon. Chief Justice Zel M. Fischer of the Supreme Court of Missouri. Mr. Osete received his J.D. from Washington University in St. Louis, where he served as Senior Executive Editor of the Washington University Law Review. Before law school, Mr. Osete worked for the late Senator John McCain in the United States Senate, and received an A.B. in political science and pre-law from the University of Arizona.
Mr. Osete serves as Trustee for the Supreme Court of Missouri Historical Society and served as Vice-Chair of the Missouri Bar Appellate Practice Committee. In 2018, he was one of approximately forty individuals in the United States selected to attend the Originalism Summer Seminar at the Georgetown University Law Center. In 2019, he was one of twelve young lawyers in Missouri selected to participate in the MissouriBar’s Leadership Academy.
Partner and Co-Chair, Appellate and Supreme Court Group, Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner
Barbara is a co-chair of the Appellate and Supreme Court Group at BCLP. She is an experienced trial and appellate litigator who counsels clients through their most sensitive and challenging litigation issues, and she routinely handles politically sensitive matters and aggressively advocates for early and complete victory. Her diverse client base—she has represented politicians, fortune 500 companies, foreign sovereigns, and boards of directors—share one thing in common: They need a strong advocate, and they want to win.
Barbara practices—and wins—at all levels of the federal and state courts. Before the United States Supreme Court, Barbara has represented clients filing petitions for certiorari, opposing certiorari, and she has filed merits briefs. She has also represented amici at the certiorari and merits stages.
At the trial court level, she routinely briefs and argues complex dispositive motions in anticipation of defending those victories on appeal. She also has first chair trial experience. On complex trial teams, she has acted as appellate preservation counsel. An experienced appellate advocate, Barbara has notched victories in state and federal appellate courts, including at the United States Supreme Court.
Because some of her clients prefer confidential ADR to public civil litigation, Barbara also has alternative dispute resolution experience, including winning a major arbitration victory for a petitioner-client and successfully mediating a case that (before her involvement) had previously been pending in the court system for more than a decade.
As an example of Barbara’s value-add, she recently crafted a novel standing argument that she briefed and won on a motion to dismiss a putative class action challenging a $198 million transaction in federal court. By winning on a motion to dismiss, she saved her client the time and cost of discovery. Barbara then successfully defended the victory on appeal—after briefing, the petitioner agreed to voluntarily dismiss the appeal and the case ended.
Among other issues, she has litigated questions of constitutional law, statutory construction, administrative law, securities law, labor and employment, white collar crime, ERISA, bankruptcy, and sovereign debt.
Before joining BCLP, Barbara served as a law clerk to Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. on the United States Supreme Court and Judge Thomas B. Griffith on the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. She also previously practiced at a Supreme Court litigation boutique, where she represented clients before the United States Supreme Court and various federal courts of appeal.
In her free time, Barbara teaches a class on the United States Supreme Court as an adjunct law professor at Washington University in St. Louis. She also serves on the Steering Committee for the St. Louis Chapter of the Federalist Society.
Barbara earned her J.D. from Stanford Law School, where she was the Editor-in-Chief of the Stanford Journal of Law, Business, and Finance, the President of the Federalist Society, and a member of the law school’s student government. While in law school, Barbara was a moot court semi-finalist and a teaching assistant at Stanford Law School and Stanford’s Graduate School of Business.
Prior to attending law school, Barbara spent two years in the White House Counsel’s Office working for President George W. Bush. She graduated magna cum laude and with honors, from Wake Forest University, with a B.A. in economics and political science.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit
Judge William Duane Benton is a federal judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit. He joined the court in 2004 after being nominated by former President George W. Bush. Prior to his appointment, Judge Benton served as the chief justice of the Missouri Supreme Court. During his service on the court he received his masters of laws from the University of Virginia, completed the senior executives program at Harvard University’s John F Kennedy School of Government, and completed a post-graduate appellate judges course at New York University’s Institute of Judicial Administration.
Prior to serving on the Supreme Court of Missouri, Judge Benton was appointed by then-Governor John Ashcroft as director of the state’s department of revenue. Judge Benton also worked as a judge advocate general for the United States Navy, during which time he received his master’s degree in business administration and accountancy from the University of Memphis.
Judge Benton earned his law degree from Yale Law School and was the managing editor of the Yale Law Journal.
Senior Judge, United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri
Stephen N. Limbaugh, Jr., is a Senior U. S. District Judge for the Eastern District of Missouri. He formerly served as prosecuting attorney of Cape Girardeau County, as Circuit Judge for the 32nd Judicial Circuit, and as a judge and chief justice on the Supreme Court of Missouri. He was appointed to the federal bench in 2008 by President George W. Bush, and has since served as the resident district judge in the Rush Hudson Limbaugh, Sr. United States Courthouse in Cape Girardeau, named after his grandfather. Judge Limbaugh's father, Stephen N. Limbaugh, Sr., is a retired U. S. District Judge, and his son, Christopher K. Limbaugh, is a judge on the Circuit Court of Cole County.
Judge, United States District Court, Eastern District of Missouri.
Matthew T. Schelp serves as a United States District Judge for Eastern District of Missouri. Schelp began his tenure In August 2020 when he replaced District Judge Stephen N. Limbaugh, Jr.
Before being sworn in, Schelp served in a variety of roles in both the public and private sector. Most recently, he was a partner at the firm of Husch Blackwell, where he chaired the firm’s government compliance, investigations and litigation practice group. Prior to his time at Husch Blackwell, Schelp served as an Assistant United States Attorney, and as a Judge Advocate in the United States Navy’s Judge Advocate General Corps. Schelp received both his bachelor's and law degrees from the University of Missouri.
Judge, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Missouri
Judge Cristian M. Stevens was appointed by Governor Mike Parson to the Missouri Court of Appeals-Eastern District in October 2021. Before taking the bench, Judge Stevens was the First Assistant Attorney General to Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt. He is a sixth-generation Missourian, raised in St. Charles County, and a graduate of the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Law, where he was editor-in-chief of the Missouri Law Review. Upon graduation, he served as law clerk to the Honorable Pasco M. Bowman II, Chief Judge of the Eighth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, in Kansas City, Missouri. He has practiced law at several large law firms in St. Louis. He was a federal prosecutor for 15 years at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Missouri, where he led the investigation of the August 9, 2014, officer-involved shooting in Ferguson, Missouri. Judge Stevens is married with three children, a parishioner of the Catholic Church, and a member of the Federalist Society.
Missouri Court of Appeals, Eastern District of Missouri
John P. Torbitzky is a judge on the Missouri Court of Appeals, Eastern District. Torbitzky served as a law clerk to the Honorable Zel M. Fischer on the Supreme Court of Missouri before entering private practice. He was appointed to the court in 2021 by Governor Michael L. Parson.
Principal, Spero Law LLC
Christopher Mills is the founder of Spero Law LLC. He was previously a partner at a national law firm and a Constitutional Law Fellow at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. He served as a law clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas on the U.S. Supreme Court during October Term 2018. He also clerked for the Honorable David B. Sentelle, then-Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. He has authored briefs and motions in the Supreme Court, courts of appeals, and trial courts, and successfully argued before the D.C. Circuit. He has served as special counsel to South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster, and is an Adjunct Professor at the Charleston School of Law.
A 2012 magna cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School, Christopher was a senior editor of the Harvard Law Review, an editor of the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, and served on the Executive Board of the Harvard Federalist Society. In 2009, he graduated Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum laude with a degree in economics from Furman University.
Christopher lives in Charleston, South Carolina with his wife, children, and golden retriever.
Legal Fellow, Spero Law LLC
Anna Edwards graduated magna cum laude from Regent University School of Law where she was named the 2022 Most Outstanding Graduate and where she served as the Executive Editor of Regent Law Review. During her time in law school she has worked as a legal intern for the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Legal Policy, as law clerk on the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, and as a legal fellow at Spero Law, LLC. Following graduation, Anna is completing several federal clerkships. Specifically, Anna will serve as a law clerk for the Honorable Paul B. Matey of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit during the 2024-2025 term. Anna is a native of South Carolina and received her B.S. in Economics from Clemson University in 2019.
Shareholder, Haynsworth Sinkler Boyd, P.A.
A versatile litigation and appellate attorney with deep ties to his native Charleston, South Carolina, Mac McQuillin blends an established government and business litigation practice with an emerging practice as a certified South Carolina Mediator. In addition to his law practice, Mac was elected in 2014 to serve on the Berkeley County School District Board (the fourth largest school district in South Carolina) and currently serves as the school board’s Vice Chairman and Chairman of the Facilities and Capital Planning Committee.
Prior to Haynsworth Sinkler Boyd, Mac served as a law clerk to then South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, where he researched existing and proposed legislation and its impact on South Carolina. He also advised the Governor’s Chief Legal Counsel on various legal matters involving the Executive Office. Mac also clerked for South Carolina Senator George E. (Chip) Campsen III. While working for Senator Campsen, he was responsible for constituent research and provided assistance during Senate debates on tort reform.
Mac is listed in The Best Lawyers in America© Commercial Litigation (2020-2021) and South Carolina Super Lawyers® “Rising Stars” Business Litigation (2014-2020). In 2017, Mac was awarded the South Carolina Lawyers Weekly Leadership in Law Award and recognized by Charleston Business Magazine as one of the “Legal Elite of the Lowcountry” for Government Affairs.
Mac is a frequent speaker on government and litigation topics, including “Local Government Litigation Update – Impact Fee Litigation, Opioid Litigation (State and Federal) and FOIA,” “Legal Issues Affecting Local Government and Municipalities,” and “Recent Developments Under the South Carolina Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).”
Mac received his law degree, with honors, from the University of South Carolina School of Law (Order of Coif) and undergraduate degree from the University of South Carolina.
Transporting Abortifacients Across State Lines: Prospects for Indictment and Extradition
Paul Linton
On January 31, 2025, a Louisiana grand jury indicted a New York physician—Dr. Margaret Carpenter—for...
Daniel Webster Debate Series: Does the First Amendment Permit (or Require?) Public Funding of Religious Charter Schools?
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Jared C. Huber
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South Carolina Supreme Court Upholds Heartbeat Abortion Ban
Natalie Christmas
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Litigation Update: Rogers v. HHS & Maddonna v. HHS
Daniel Blomberg, Miles Coleman
Miracle Hill Ministries is one of nearly two dozen private entities with which the state...
Panel 3: Post-Dobbs Abortion Legislation in Missouri
J. Andrew Hirth, Jesus A. Osete, Barbara Smith Tyson
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Panel 2: The Role of a Judge - A Conversation with Federal and State Appellate Judges and Federal District Court Judges
Duane Benton, Stephen N. Limbaugh, Matthew T. Schelp, Cristian M. Stevens, John Torbitzky
Our distinguished panel of judges discussed the unique roles of both appellate judges and trial...
Topics
Rights to Privacy and Life Were Compatible until Roe
Half a century ago, the U.S. Supreme Court held that a federal constitutional right...
State Court Docket Watch: Wilson v. City of Columbia
Christopher E. Mills, Anna Edwards
In Wilson v. City of Columbia,[1] the South Carolina Supreme Court held that a city...
State Court Docket Watch: Adams v. McMaster
Stafford (Mac) J. McQuillin
Background In early March, South Carolina’s Governor, Henry McMaster, issued a State of Emergency following...