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South Texas

  • Home
  • South Texas
Sep 8 2025
Monday 12:30 p.m. CDT    

From South Texas to the Bench

South Texas Student Chapter

Houston, TX
Speakers:
Josh Blackman • Reed O'Connor • Drew B. Tipton
Topics:
Constitution • Federal Courts • Jurisprudence • State Constitutions
Sponsors:
South Texas Student Chapter
  • In-Person Event
Feb 13 2020
Thursday 9:00 a.m. EDT    

Originalism & Precedent: Exploring Paths to Reform

Virginia Student Chapter

Charlottesville , VA
Speakers:
J. Joel Alicea • Stephanie Barclay • Lillian R. BeVier • Josh Blackman • Jud Campbell • Tara Leigh Grove • John C. Harrison • William J. Haun • Kurt T. Lash • Julia D. Mahoney • Kevin C. Newsom • John Ohlendorf • Micah J. Schwartzman • Eric W. Treene • Adam White
Topics:
Constitution
Sponsors:
Virginia Student Chapter
  • In-Person Event
Feb 23 2017
Thursday 6:00 p.m. EDT    

The Future of Federalism

Washington, DC
Speakers:
Josh Blackman • Peter Edelman • Jeffrey Rosen
Topics:
Federalism & Separation of Powers
Sponsors:
Georgetown Law Student Chapter
  • In-Person Event
Oct 27 2016
Thursday 11:30 a.m.    

Obamacare, Religious Liberty, and Executive Power

Montgomery, Alabama
Speakers:
Josh Blackman
Topics:
Religious Liberties • Federalism & Separation of Powers
Sponsors:
Montgomery Lawyer Chapter
  • In-Person Event
Apr 15 2009
Wednesday 12:00 p.m.    

What Should We Do About the Mortgage and Foreclosure Crisis?

Speakers:
Michael Dokupil • Matthew J. Festa • Todd J. Zywicki
Topics:
Financial Services & E-Commerce • Civil Rights
Sponsors:
South Texas Student Chapter • Houston Lawyer Chapter
  • In-Person Event
James Madison Portrait
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Speaker Information
Josh Blackman

Josh Blackman

Professor of Law, South Texas College of Law Houston

Biography

Josh Blackman is a national thought leader on constitutional law and the United States Supreme Court. Josh’s work was quoted during two presidential impeachment trials. He has testified before Congress and advises federal and state lawmakers. Josh regularly appears on TV, including NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox, and the BBC. Josh is also a frequent guest on NPR and other syndicated radio programs. He has published commentaries in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and leading national publications.

Since 2012, Josh has served as a professor  at the South Texas College of Law Houston. He holds the Centennial Chair of Constitutional Law. Josh is an Adjunct Fellow at the Manhattan Institute. Josh has written more than seven dozen law review articles that have been cited more than a thousand times. Josh was selected as the Jurist of the Year by the Texas Journal of Law & Public Policy, received the inaugural Meese III Originalism Award, and was awarded the Inaugural Joseph Story Award. Josh was selected by Forbes Magazine for the “30 Under 30” in Law and Policy. Josh is the President of the Harlan Institute, and founded FantasySCOTUS, the Internet’s Premier Supreme Court Fantasy League. He blogs at the Volokh Conspiracyand posts@JoshMBlackman.

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Speaker Information
Reed O'Connor

Reed O'Connor

U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas

Biography

Reed Charles O'Connor is a federal judge on the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas. He joined the court in 2007 after being nominated by President George W. Bush.

A native of Houston, Texas, O'Connor graduated from the University of Houston with his bachelor's degree in 1986 and from South Texas College of Law with his J.D. in 1989. 

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Speaker Information
Drew B. Tipton

Drew B. Tipton

Judge, United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas

Biography

Prior to joining the bench, Drew Tipton was a partner at Baker Hostetler, LLP in Houston, Texas, where his practice focused on complex labor and employment and trade secret litigation.  Before joining Baker Hostetler in 1999, Judge Tipton was in private practice with Marek, Griffin, & Knaupp, LLP and Littler Mendelson, PC.  Judge Tipton also served 5 years in the United States Marine Corps Reserve.  Upon graduation from law school, Judge Tipton served as a law clerk to Judge John D. Rainey of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas. Judge Tipton earned his B.A. from Texas A&M University and his J.D. from South Texas College of Law Houston.

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Speaker Information
J. Joel Alicea

J. Joel Alicea

St. Robert Bellarmine Professor of Law, The Catholic University of America Columbus School of Law; Nonresident Fellow, American Enterprise Institute, The Catholic University of America

Biography

José Joel Alicea is the inaugural St. Robert Bellarmine Professor of Law, Associate Dean for Faculty Research, and Director of the Law School’s Center for the Constitution and the Catholic Intellectual Tradition. He has also served as a Visiting Professor at Duke Law School and Notre Dame Law School. Prior to joining the Catholic Law faculty, Professor Alicea practiced law for several years at the law firm of Cooper & Kirk, PLLC, where he specialized in constitutional litigation. He previously served as a law clerk for Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., on the United States Supreme Court and for Judge Diarmuid F. O'Scannlain on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Professor Alicea’s scholarship has focused on constitutional theory. His scholarship has appeared, or is forthcoming, in the Yale Law Journal, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, the Virginia Law Review, and the Notre Dame Law Review, among other publications. He has also been active in public debates about constitutional law, testifying before Congress and publishing essays in places like The New York Times, City Journal, and National Affairs.

Professor Alicea is a Fellow at the Columbus School of Law's Center for Religious Liberty and a Nonresident Fellow at The American Enterprise Institute. He is the recipient of several research and teaching awards, including the student-selected Professor of the Year teaching award.

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Speaker Information
Stephanie Barclay

Stephanie Barclay

Professor of Law and Faculty Director for the Georgetown Center for the Constitution, Georgetown University Law Center

Biography

Stephanie Barclay is a Professor of Law at Georgetown Law School, and the Faculty Director of the Georgetown Center for the Constitution. Her research focuses on the role our different democratic institutions play in protecting minority rights, particularly at the intersection of free speech and religious exercise. Barclay‘s work is published or is forthcoming in leading journals such as the Harvard Law Review, the Chicago Law Review, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, and the Yale Law Journal Forum. One of her articles was also selected for the 2020 Stanford/Harvard/Yale Junior Faculty Forum. Her work has been featured in many media outlets, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, USA Today, Bloomberg BNA, The Hill, and Law 360. And her work has also been cited by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Prior to joining Georgetown, Barclay was twice voted Professor of the Year. Barclay has also litigated constitutional cases at both the trial and appellate level, including before the U.S. Supreme Court. Barclay served as a law clerk to Judge N. Randy Smith on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and to Justice Neil M. Gorsuch of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Barclay is a Faculty Affiliate at the Constitutional Law Center at Stanford Law School; and she is a Nootbaar Fellow at the Nootbaar Institute on Law, Religion, and Ethics at Pepperdine University. She currently serves as the Chair for the AALS Law and Religion Section and as a Member of the Executive Committee for the AALS Constitutional Law Section. She graduated summa cum laude from BYU Law School, where she was elected to the Order of the Coif. She is completing a Ph.D. in Law at Oxford University as a Clarendon Scholar and a Tang Scholar.

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Lillian R. BeVier

Lillian R. BeVier

David and Mary Harrison Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus, University of Virginia School of Law

Biography

Lillian BeVier taught constitutional law (with special emphasis on First Amendment issues), intellectual property (trademark, copyright), real property and torts from 1973-2010 at the Law School, and now teaches a January Term course on judicial philosophy.

At Stanford Law School, BeVier was revising editor for the Stanford Law Review and a member of the Order of the Coif. Before coming to Virginia, she was associate professor of law at the University of Santa Clara Law School; practiced law with Spaeth Blase Valentine & Klein in Palo Alto, Calif.; served as research associate to Professor William F. Baxter at Stanford University Law School, working on the FAA-ABA study of the legal aspects of airport noise and the sonic boom; and was assistant to the general secretary and assistant staff legal counsel for Stanford University.

BeVier received the University of Virginia Alumni Association Distinguished Professor Award in 2006. The Raven Society elected her to membership in 1993 and honored her with the faculty award in 2010. She delivered the Henry Miller Memorial Lecture at Georgia State Law School in 2005, the Coen Memorial Lecture at the University of Colorado Law School in 2000, and the David C. Baum Lecture on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties at the University of Illinois Law School in 1996. In 1999, at the invitation of the Supreme Court Historical Society, she spoke to the Society on Free Expression in the Warren and Burger Courts. Suffolk University awarded her an honorary S.J.D. degree in 1998. In the fall of 2003, she was a visiting scholar at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia.

Having been nominated by President Bush and confirmed by the Senate in 2003, she served as vice-chair of the Board of Directors of the Legal Services Corporation until 2009. She serves on the national Board of Visitors of the Federalist Society. Within the Charlottesville community, BeVier has served as chair of the Board of Trustees of St. Anne’s-Belfield School and of the Martha Jefferson Hospital. She is currently chair of the board of the Martha Jefferson Health Services Corporation and of Piedmont CASA (Court-Appointed Special Advocates).

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Speaker Information
Josh Blackman

Josh Blackman

Professor of Law, South Texas College of Law Houston

Biography

Josh Blackman is a national thought leader on constitutional law and the United States Supreme Court. Josh’s work was quoted during two presidential impeachment trials. He has testified before Congress and advises federal and state lawmakers. Josh regularly appears on TV, including NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox, and the BBC. Josh is also a frequent guest on NPR and other syndicated radio programs. He has published commentaries in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and leading national publications.

Since 2012, Josh has served as a professor  at the South Texas College of Law Houston. He holds the Centennial Chair of Constitutional Law. Josh is an Adjunct Fellow at the Manhattan Institute. Josh has written more than seven dozen law review articles that have been cited more than a thousand times. Josh was selected as the Jurist of the Year by the Texas Journal of Law & Public Policy, received the inaugural Meese III Originalism Award, and was awarded the Inaugural Joseph Story Award. Josh was selected by Forbes Magazine for the “30 Under 30” in Law and Policy. Josh is the President of the Harlan Institute, and founded FantasySCOTUS, the Internet’s Premier Supreme Court Fantasy League. He blogs at the Volokh Conspiracyand posts@JoshMBlackman.

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Speaker Information
Jud Campbell

Jud Campbell

Professor of Law & Helen L. Crocker Faculty Scholar, Stanford Law School

Biography

Jud Campbell joined the faculty of Stanford Law School in 2023. He previously served as a professor of law at the University of Richmond School of Law and as a visiting professor of law at the University of Chicago Law School and at Harvard Law School. His academic focus is constitutional history and First Amendment law. His publications include articles in the Stanford Law Review, Yale Law Journal, Harvard Law Review, Texas Law Review, Constitutional Commentary, and Law and History Review. After completing his J.D. at Stanford Law School, he clerked for Judge Diane S. Sykes on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, and for Judge José A. Cabranes on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He then served as the Executive Director of the Stanford Constitutional Law Center. He holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and two master’s degrees from the London School of Economics, where he studied as a Marshall Scholar.

 

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Tara Leigh Grove

Tara Leigh Grove

Vinson & Elkins Chair in Law, University of Texas at Austin School of Law

Biography

Tara Leigh Grove is the Vinson & Elkins Chair in Law at the University of Texas School of Law. Grove graduated summa cum laude from Duke University and magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, where she served as the Supreme Court Chair of the Harvard Law Review. Grove clerked for Judge Emilio Garza on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, and then spent four years as an attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Division, Appellate Staff, where she argued fifteen cases in the courts of appeals.

Grove’s research focuses on the federal judiciary, interpretive theory, and the constitutional separation of powers. She has published with such prestigious law journals as the Harvard Law Review, the Yale Law Journal, the Columbia Law Review, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, the New York University Law Review, the University of Chicago Law Review, the Virginia Law Review, the Texas Law Review, the Cornell Law Review, the Northwestern University Law Review, and the Vanderbilt Law Review. Grove has received awards for both her research and her teaching.

In 2021, Grove served on the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States, a bipartisan commission created by President Biden and charged with examining proposals for Supreme Court reform. Since 2022, Grove has worked on the Princeton Initiative on Reclaiming the Constitutional Powers of Congress, which brings together former members of Congress, political scientists, and law professors. Grove serves as the Co-Chair of the section on the Appointments Process for the Princeton Initiative. Grove is a co-author of Low & Jeffries' Federal Courts and the Law of Federal-State Relations, a leading federal courts casebook, and she has served as the Chair of the Federal Courts Section of the Association of American Law Schools. Grove has been a visiting professor at both Harvard Law School and Northwestern Pritzker School of Law.

 
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Speaker Information
John C. Harrison

John C. Harrison

James Madison Distinguished Professor of Law and Class of 1941 Research Professor of Law, University of Virginia School of Law

Biography

Professor John C. Harrison is the James Madison Distinguished Professor of Law and Class of 1941 Research Professor of Law at the University of Virginia School of Law. He joined the faculty at University of Virginia in 1993 as an associate professor of law after a distinguished career with the U.S. Department of Justice. His teaching subjects include constitutional history, federal courts, remedies, corporations, civil procedure, legislation and property. In 2008 he was on leave from the Law School to serve as counselor on international law in the Office of the Legal Adviser at the U.S. Department of State.

A 1977 graduate of the University of Virginia, Harrison earned his law degree in 1980 at Yale, where he served as editor of the Yale Law Journal and editor and articles editor of the Yale Studies in World Public Order. He was an associate at Patton Boggs & Blow in Washington, D.C., and clerked for Judge Robert Bork on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He worked with the Department of Justice from 1983-93, serving in numerous capacities, including deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel (1990-93).

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Speaker Information
William J. Haun

William J. Haun

Senior Counsel, Becket Fund for Religious Liberty

Biography

William J. Haun is Senior Counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty and a Nonresident Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). At Becket, Will litigates nationwide in defense of religious liberty for all faith traditions, particularly before the U.S. Supreme Court and in other federal and state appellate courts. His litigation includes being a member of the U.S. Supreme Court team that prevailed 9-0 for Catholic Social Services in Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, arguing before multiple federal appellate courts, federal district courts, and the Supreme Court of Texas. At AEI, Will writes and researches on constitutionalism and self-government’s prerequisites, especially the role of religion in securing and preserving freedom.

 

Before joining Becket and AEI, Will practiced appellate and antitrust law at two international law firms—Shearman & Sterling and Hunton & Williams. He also served as a law clerk to Judge Janice Rogers Brown of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and Judge Claude Hilton of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. Will often writes on constitutional law issues, including in the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, the Catholic University Law Review, National Affairs, Law & Liberty, National Review Online, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post. He also speaks on these topics, including at the Catholic University of America, Columbus School of Law, Princeton University, the University of Virginia School of Law, and the University of Chicago Law School. He received his J.D. from the Catholic University of America, cum laude, where he was a published member of the Law Review. He received his B.A. from American University in political science, cum laude. He lives in Maryland with his wife and children, where they enjoy sailing, cheering on their favorite baseball teams, and discovering the great traditions of their Catholic faith.

 

 

 

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Kurt T. Lash

Kurt T. Lash

E. Claiborne Robins Distinguished Chair in Law, University of Richmond School of Law

Biography

Professor Kurt Lash teaches and writes about constitutional law. Founder and director of the Richmond Program on the American Constitution, Professor Lash has published widely on the subjects of constitutional law and constitutional history, including The Fourteenth Amendment and the Privileges or Immunities of American Citizenship (Cambridge University Press, 2014), The Lost History of the Ninth Amendment (Oxford University Press, 2009), and The American First Amendment in the Twenty-first Century: Cases and Materials(with William W. Van Alstyne) (5th ed., Foundation Press, 2014). An elected member of the American Law Institute, Professor Lash’s work has appeared in numerous legal journals including the Stanford Law Journal, Georgetown Law Journal, Virginia Law Review, andNotre Dame Law Review. He has been a visiting professor at Northwestern University School of Law and is the former director of the University of Illinois College of Law Program in Constitutional Theory, History, and Law.

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Julia D. Mahoney

Julia D. Mahoney

John S. Battle Professor of Law, University of Virginia School of Law

Biography

Julia D. Mahoney teaches courses in property, government finance, constitutional law and nonprofit organizations. A graduate of Yale Law School, she joined the University of Virginia faculty as an associate professor in 1999 and is now John S. Battle Professor of Law. She has also taught at the University of Southern California Law School and the University of Chicago Law School, and before entering the legal academy, practiced law at the New York firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz. Her scholarly articles include works on land preservation, eminent domain, health care reform and property rights in human biological materials.

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Kevin C. Newsom

Kevin C. Newsom

Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit

Biography

Judge Kevin C. Newsom is a member of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. He sits in Birmingham, Alabama.

Before his appointment to the bench, Judge Newsom was the head of the appellate practice group at Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP and, before that, the Solicitor General of Alabama. As a practicing lawyer, Judge Newsom argued four cases in the Supreme Court of the United States, and nearly 40 more in the United States Courts of Appeals and state supreme and appellate courts.

Judge Newsom graduated summa cum laude from Samford University and magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, where he was an articles editor on the Harvard Law Review. Following law school, Judge Newsom clerked for Judge Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and Justice David H. Souter of the Supreme Court of the United States.

Judge Newsom teaches at Harvard Law School, Yale Law School, Stanford Law School, and the University of Chicago Law School. His published work has appeared in the Yale Law Journal and the Harvard Law Review.

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John Ohlendorf

John Ohlendorf

Partner, Cooper & Kirk PLLC

Biography

John Ohlendorf has extensive experience with every aspect of litigation, from arguing discovery disputes and cross-examining trial witnesses to working on appeals at all levels of the state and federal judicial systems. Mr. Ohlendorf has written dozens of briefs in the United States Supreme Court and has argued numerous cases, including appeals in both state and federal court. While much of his career has focused on appellate advocacy, he has also developed deep experience litigating at the trial-court level, consistent with the Firm’s frequent approach of handling a matter over its entire lifespan, from the filing of the complaint to proceedings in the Supreme Court.

Mr. Ohlendorf’s litigation experience is wide-ranging, but it includes a particular focus on constitutional law and suits against the government. He has litigated multiple claims involving the separation of powers, the Appointments Clause, freedom of speech, the Second Amendment, the Due Process Clause, the Equal Protection Clause, and the Takings Clause. He has been heavily involved in over thirty matters defending the right to keep and bear arms, and he was Counsel of Record on an amicus brief in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, a recent Supreme Court case involving the Second Amendment right to carry a firearm, that was singled out by Justice Kavanaugh during the oral argument as very helpful to his consideration of the case. Mr. Ohlendorf has also litigated many cases involving administrative law and government contracts.

Before coming to Cooper & Kirk, Mr. Ohlendorf clerked for Judge Raymond Gruender of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, taught at Northwestern University School of Law as an Olin-Searle-Smith Fellow, and then at Georgetown University Law Center as a Visiting Lecturer and Fellow at the Georgetown Center for the Constitution. His articles have been published in the Notre Dame Law Review, the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, National Affairs (with Joel Alicea), the Georgia Law Review, and the Maine Law Review. He received a J.D. from Harvard Law School, magna cum laude, in 2010, where he was an Editor for the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, and graduated with a B.A. from Bethany Lutheran College, summa cum laude, in 2007.

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Micah J. Schwartzman

Micah J. Schwartzman

Hardy Cross Dillard Professor of Law; Martha Lubin Karsh and Bruce A. Karsh Bicentennial Professor of Law; Director, Karsh Center for Law and Democracy, University of Virginia School of Law

Biography

Micah Schwartzman is the Hardy Cross Dillard Professor of Law, a Martha Lubin Karsh and Bruce A. Karsh Bicentennial Professor of Law, and director of the Karsh Center for Law and Democracy at the University of Virginia School of Law. Schwartzman’s scholarship focuses on law and religion, jurisprudence, and constitutional law. He co-edited The Rise of Corporate Religious Liberty (Oxford University Press) and is co-authoring a forthcoming casebook on Constitutional Law and Religion.

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Eric W. Treene

Eric W. Treene

Senior Counsel, Storzer and Associates; Adjunct Professor at the Catholic University of America Columbus School of Law

Biography

Eric Treene is Senior Counsel at Storzer and Associates in Washington, D.C., and an Adjunct Professor at the Catholic University of America School of Canon Law. He served for 19 years in four administrations in the U.S. Department of Justice as Special Counsel for Religious Discrimination, where he provided leadership for the Department on a wide range of religious liberty issues, including developing and overseeing the Department’s enforcement program for the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA), testifying before the U.S. Senate on religious hate crimes and developing training programs to protect places of worship from violence, and leading the Department’s efforts to protect religious liberty rights during the COVID-19 epidemic. Prior to serving at the Department of Justice, Mr. Treene was Litigation Director at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty in Washington, D.C, and was a law clerk to the Hon. John M. Walker, Jr. on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He is a graduate of Amherst College and Harvard Law School.
 

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Adam White

Adam White

Laurence H. Silberman Chair in Constitutional Governance and Senior Fellow, American Enterprise Institute; Co-Director, Antonin Scalia Law School’s C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State

Biography

Adam J. White is the Laurence H. Silberman Chair in Constitutional Governance and senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he focuses on the Supreme Court and the administrative state. Concurrently, he codirects the Antonin Scalia Law School’s C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State.

Mr. White practiced constitutional and administrative law, particularly in the regulation of energy and financial markets. He started his legal career as a law clerk for Judge David B. Sentelle at the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit.

Mr. White has written for the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Washington Post, National Affairs, Commentary, Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, and Notre Dame Law Review, among other publications. He is a regular contributor to the Yale Journal on Regulation’s Notice and Comment blog, and for many years, he was one of the Weekly Standard’s lead writers on constitutional law and the Supreme Court.

Mr. White has testified often before Congress, including before the Senate’s Committees on the Judiciary; Commerce, Science, and Transportation; and Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs and before the House’s Judiciary and Financial Services Committees. In 2018, the Senate Committee on the Judiciary called him to testify in Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings to advise senators on Kavanaugh’s approach to administrative law.

In 2021, he served on the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States, where he criticized “Court packing” and other efforts to restructure the Supreme Court. In 2017, he was appointed to serve on the Administrative Conference of the United States. He also serves on the leadership council for the American Bar Association’s Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice Section, which he will chair in 2023–24. Before joining AEI, he was a research fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and an adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute.

Mr. White has a JD from Harvard Law School and a bachelor of business administration from the College of Business at the University of Iowa.

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Josh Blackman

Josh Blackman

Professor of Law, South Texas College of Law Houston

Biography

Josh Blackman is a national thought leader on constitutional law and the United States Supreme Court. Josh’s work was quoted during two presidential impeachment trials. He has testified before Congress and advises federal and state lawmakers. Josh regularly appears on TV, including NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox, and the BBC. Josh is also a frequent guest on NPR and other syndicated radio programs. He has published commentaries in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and leading national publications.

Since 2012, Josh has served as a professor  at the South Texas College of Law Houston. He holds the Centennial Chair of Constitutional Law. Josh is an Adjunct Fellow at the Manhattan Institute. Josh has written more than seven dozen law review articles that have been cited more than a thousand times. Josh was selected as the Jurist of the Year by the Texas Journal of Law & Public Policy, received the inaugural Meese III Originalism Award, and was awarded the Inaugural Joseph Story Award. Josh was selected by Forbes Magazine for the “30 Under 30” in Law and Policy. Josh is the President of the Harlan Institute, and founded FantasySCOTUS, the Internet’s Premier Supreme Court Fantasy League. He blogs at the Volokh Conspiracyand posts@JoshMBlackman.

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Peter Edelman

Georgetown University Law Center

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Jeffrey Rosen

Jeffrey Rosen

President & CEO, National Constitution Center

Biography

Jeffrey Rosen is the President and Chief Executive Officer of the National Constitution Center, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization whose mission is to educate the public about the U.S. Constitution. Located steps from Independence Hall in Historic Philadelphia, the Center engages millions of citizens as an interactive museum, national town hall, and provider of nonpartisan resources for civic education. Rosen became President and CEO in 2013 and has developed the Center’s acclaimed Interactive Constitution, which brings together the top conservative and liberal legal scholars in America to discuss areas of agreement and disagreement about every clause of the Constitution. The online resource has received more than 15 million hits since launching in 2015.

Rosen is also professor at The George Washington University Law School and a contributing editor of The Atlantic. He is a highly regarded journalist whose essays and commentaries have appeared in the New York Times Magazine, on National Public Radio, in the New Republic, where he was the legal affairs editor, and The New Yorker, where he was a staff writer. The Chicago Tribune named him one of the 10 best magazine journalists in America and a reviewer for the Los Angeles Timescalled him “the nation’s most widely read and influential legal commentator.”

Rosen is the author of six books including, most recently, a biography of William Howard Taft, published as part of the American Presidents Series. His other books include Louis D. Brandeis: American Prophet; The Supreme Court: The Personalities and Rivalries that Defined America; The Most Democratic Branch: How the Courts Serve America; The Naked Crowd: Reclaiming Security and Freedom in an Anxious Age; and The Unwanted Gaze: The Destruction of Privacy in America. He is co-editor of Constitution 3.0: Freedom and Technological Change.

Rosen is a graduate of Harvard College; Oxford University, where he was a Marshall Scholar; and Yale Law School.

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Josh Blackman

Josh Blackman

Professor of Law, South Texas College of Law Houston

Biography

Josh Blackman is a national thought leader on constitutional law and the United States Supreme Court. Josh’s work was quoted during two presidential impeachment trials. He has testified before Congress and advises federal and state lawmakers. Josh regularly appears on TV, including NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox, and the BBC. Josh is also a frequent guest on NPR and other syndicated radio programs. He has published commentaries in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and leading national publications.

Since 2012, Josh has served as a professor  at the South Texas College of Law Houston. He holds the Centennial Chair of Constitutional Law. Josh is an Adjunct Fellow at the Manhattan Institute. Josh has written more than seven dozen law review articles that have been cited more than a thousand times. Josh was selected as the Jurist of the Year by the Texas Journal of Law & Public Policy, received the inaugural Meese III Originalism Award, and was awarded the Inaugural Joseph Story Award. Josh was selected by Forbes Magazine for the “30 Under 30” in Law and Policy. Josh is the President of the Harlan Institute, and founded FantasySCOTUS, the Internet’s Premier Supreme Court Fantasy League. He blogs at the Volokh Conspiracyand posts@JoshMBlackman.

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Michael Dokupil

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Matthew J. Festa

Matthew J. Festa

Professor of Law, South Texas College of Law Houston

Biography

Matt Festa teaches and researches in the areas of property law and land use, state & local government, energy & environmental law, trusts & estates, legal history, and national security law. His scholarship focuses on the relation between property rights and public control in land use planning and government regulation; on the role of property rights in constitutional law and history; and on property and the rule of law in contemporary international affairs.

Professor Festa joined the South Texas College of Law Houston faculty in 2007, after serving as a visiting assistant professor at the University of Georgia School of Law. Prior to teaching, he practiced in litigation, land use, environmental, and energy law at Locke Lord LLP. He served as a law clerk to federal judges on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Prof. Festa attended Vanderbilt University, where he was the Executive Editor of the Vanderbilt Law Review and earned a masters’ degree in history. Prior to law school he served in the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division, and earned a masters’ degree in public administration. He earned his undergraduate degree in history and English at the University of Notre Dame.

Professor Festa currently serves as a judge advocate in the U.S. Army Reserve, where he is an Adjunct Professor in the Department of International & Operational Law at the ABA-accredited Judge Advocate General’s Legal Center and School, and is also an Instructor with the Defense Institute of International Legal Studies. He is the editor of the Land Use Prof Blog, and lives in the “Unzoned City” of Houston with his spouse, who teaches at Rice University, and their two children.

 

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Todd J. Zywicki

Todd J. Zywicki

George Mason University Foundation Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University

Biography

TODD J. ZYWICKI is George Mason University Foundation Professor of Law at Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University and Research Fellow of the George Mason Law and Economics Center. During the Fall 2023 semester he served as the Visiting Scholar in Conservative Thought and Policy for the Bruce Benson Center for the Study of Western Civilization at the University of Colorado-Boulder. From 2020-2021 he was Chair of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Taskforce on Federal Consumer Financial Law. In 2021 he was inducted to the American College of Consumer Financial Services Lawyers. He is also a Senior Fellow of the F.A. Hayek Program for the Advanced Study of Politics, Philosophy, and Economics at George Mason University and a former Senior Fellow of the Cato Institute. From 2015-2017 he was Executive Director of the George Mason Law and Economics Center. He served as Co-Editor of the Supreme Court Economic Review from 2006-2017. From 2003-2004, Professor Zywicki served as the Director of the Office of Policy Planning at the Federal Trade Commission. He has also taught at Vanderbilt University Law School, Georgetown University Law Center, Boston College Law School, Mississippi College School of Law, and China University of Political Science and Law.   

Professor Zywicki clerked for Judge Jerry E. Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and worked as an associate at Alston & Bird in Atlanta, Georgia, where he practiced bankruptcy and commercial law. He received his J.D. from the University of Virginia, where he was executive editor of the Virginia Tax Review and John M. Olin Scholar in Law and Economics. Professor Zywicki also received an M.A. in Economics from Clemson University and an A.B. cum Laude with high honors in his major from Dartmouth College.

Professor Zywicki is also a Lone Mountain Fellow of the Property and Environment Research Center, a Fellow of the International Centre for Economic Research in Turin, Italy, and a former Senior Fellow of the Goldwater Institute. During the Fall 2008 Semester Professor Zywicki was the Searle Fellow of the George Mason University School of Law and was a 2008-09 W. Glenn Campbell and Rita Ricardo-Campbell National Fellow and the Arch W. Shaw National Fellow at the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace.  He has lectured and consulted with government officials around the world, including Iceland, Italy, Japan, and Guatemala. In 2006 Professor Zywicki served as a Member of the United States Department of Justice Study Group on “Identifying Fraud, Abuse and Errors in the United States Bankruptcy System.”

Professor Zywicki is the author of more than 130 articles in leading law reviews and peer-reviewed economics journals. He is one of the Top 10 most-cited law professors in the field of Commercial Law and one of the Top 25 law professors on Twitter as measured by engagement levels. He is one of the Top 50 Most Downloaded Law Authors at the Social Science Research Network. He has testified multiple times before Congress on issues of consumer bankruptcy law and consumer credit and is a frequent commentator on legal issues in the print and broadcast media, including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, The Washington Post, The Washington Times, Nightline, The Newshour with Jim Lehrer, Neil Cavuto Show, Fox & Friends, Smerconish, Fox News @ Night with Shannon Bream, Fox Business, CNN, CNBC, Bloomberg News, BBC, The Diane Rehm Show, Lou Dobbs Show, Jerry Doyle Show, and The Laura Ingraham Show.

Professor Zywicki is former Chairman and a current member of the Board of Directors of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and is a member of the Board of Directors of the Institute for Humane Studies, Bill of Rights Institute, the Executive Committee for the Federalist Society's Financial Institutions and E-Commerce Practice Group, the Board of Trustees of the Foundation for Research on Economics and the Environment. He formerly served on the Governing Board and the Advisory Council for the Financial Services Research Program at George Washington University School of Business.  He is currently the Chair of the Academic Advisory Council for the following organizations: The Bill of Rights Institute, the film “We the People in IMAX,” and the McCormick-Tribune Foundation “Freedom Museum” in Chicago, Illinois.  He is a member of the Board of Visitors of Ralston College and was a member of the Board of Trustees of Yorktown University. From 2005-2009 he served as an elected Alumni Trustee of the Dartmouth College Board of Trustees.

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