Former Associate Justice, United States Supreme Court
Stephen G. Breyer was born in San Francisco, California, August 15, 1938. He married Joanna Hare in 1967, and has three children - Chloe, Nell, and Michael. He received an A.B. from Stanford University, a B.A. from Magdalen College, Oxford, and an LL.B. from Harvard Law School. He served as a law clerk to Justice Arthur Goldberg of the Supreme Court of the United States during the 1964 Term, as a Special Assistant to the Assistant U.S. Attorney General for Antitrust, 1965–1967, as an Assistant Special Prosecutor of the Watergate Special Prosecution Force, 1973, as Special Counsel of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, 1974–1975, and as Chief Counsel of the committee, 1979–1980. He was an Assistant Professor, Professor of Law, and Lecturer at Harvard Law School, 1967–1994, a Professor at the Harvard University Kennedy School of Government, 1977–1980, and a Visiting Professor at the College of Law, Sydney, Australia and at the University of Rome. From 1980–1990, he served as a Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, and as its Chief Judge, 1990–1994. He also served as a member of the Judicial Conference of the United States, 1990–1994, and of the United States Sentencing Commission, 1985–1989. President Clinton nominated him as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, and he took his seat August 3, 1994. Justice Breyer retired from the Supreme Court on June 30, 2022.
Senior Fellow, Center for Equal Opportunity
Eastland is an accomplished journalist who was editor of The Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk, Va., before working in the Reagan administration as a speechwriter for Attorney General William French Smith and as director of public affairs for Attorney General Edwin Meese.
Eastland was later a resident scholar at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and the editor of Forbes MediaCritic. In 2001, he became publisher of The Weekly Standard and, in 2013, an executive editor. He is now a contributing editor at the magazine. Eastland has published seven books, including two on race preferences, Counting by Race (1979) and Ending Affirmative Action (1996). "The Center has done exceptional work on matters involving race and ethnicity," said Eastland, "and I look forward to contributing to its efforts in behalf of equal protection under the law."
CEO president and general counsel Roger Clegg recalled his work with Eastland during their days together in the Reagan Justice Department: "Terry is an expert on the media, a skilled editor, and a brilliant writer." CEO chairman and founder Linda Chavez said, "Eastland's writing on affirmative action has been among the most incisive and compelling on the issue over the years and will add depth to CEO's work in this arena."
Partner, Earth and Water Law; retired Yale Law School professor (1981-2025), Yangtze River Distinguished Professor, Guangzhou Law School, ChinaDistinguished Adjunct Professor at Antonin Scalia Law School
E. Donald Elliott is a Florence Rogatz Visiting Professor of Law at Yale Law School and a leading academic scholar, as well as practitioner, in the fields of administrative and environmental law. He is “one of the most well-known, well-regarded environmental law professors in the nation,” according to John Cruden, former President of the Environmental Law Institute and Assistant Attorney General, Environment and Natural Resources Division, U.S. Department of Justice during the Obama administration. Elliott has been on the Yale Law faculty since 1981 and currently teaches courses in environmental law, energy law, administrative law and civil procedure. He is also senior of counsel in the Washington D.C. office of Covington & Burling LLP, and co-chair of the firm's Environmental Practice Group. From 2003 until he joined Covington in 2013, he was a partner in Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP, chairing the firm’s worldwide Environment, Health and Safety Department.
From 1989 to 1991, Elliott served as Assistant Administrator and General Counsel of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In 1993, he was named to the first endowed chair in environmental law and policy at any major American law school, the Julien and Virginia Cornell Chair in Environmental Law and Litigation at Yale Law School. From 2003-2009, he was a member of the National Academy of Sciences Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology, which advises the federal government on environmental issues. Elliott also testifies frequently in Congress on environmental issues.
He has served as a consultant on improving the relationship of law and science to the Federal Courts Study Committee, which was chartered by Congress to make recommendations for improving the federal courts, and to the Carnegie Commission for Law, Science and Government. He co-chaired the National Environmental Policy Institute’s Committee on Improving Science at EPA.
Elliott is a Senior Fellow of the Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS) and an elected member of the American College of Environmental Lawyers and the American Law Institute. He serves on the Board of the Connecticut Fund for the Environment and as chair of its legal committee, as well on the Advisory Board for NYU’s Institute for Policy Integrity. He is a former member of the boards of the Environmental Law Institute, and the Center for Clean Air Policy. He is the author or coauthor of seven books and has published more than 70 articles in professional journals. He was named one of the top 25 environmental attorneys in the United States by the National Law Journal and is highly ranked in Chambers USA: Leading Lawyers for Business; Best Lawyers in America; D.C. Super Lawyers; Who’s Who in American Law; and Who’s Who in the World.
He earned both his B.A., summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, and his J.D. from Yale. Following graduation, he was a law clerk for Gerhard Gesell in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, and for Chief Judge David Bazelon of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit
LAURENCE HIRSCH SILBERMAN, senior circuit judge; recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, June 19, 2008; born in York, PA, October 12, 1935; son of William Silberman and Anna (Hirsch); married to Rosalie G. Gaull on April 28, 1957 (deceased), married Patricia Winn on January 5, 2008; children: Robert Steven Silberman, Katherine DeBoer Fischer, and Anne Gaull Otis; B.A., Dartmouth College, 1957; LL.B., Harvard Law School, 1961; admitted to Hawaii Bar, 1962; District of Columbia Bar, 1973; associate, Moore, Torkildson and Rice, 1961–64; partner (Moore, Silberman and Schulze), Honolulu, 1964–67; attorney, National Labor Relations Board, Office of General Counsel, Appellate Division, 1967–69; Solicitor, Department of Labor, 1969–70; Under Secretary of Labor, 1970–73; partner, Steptoe and Johnson, 1973–74; Deputy Attorney General of the United States, 1974–75; Ambassador to Yugoslavia, 1975–77; President’s Special Envoy on ILO Affairs, 1976; senior fellow, American Enterprise Institute, 1977–78; visiting fellow, 1978–85; managing partner, Morrison and Foerster, 1978–79 and 1983–85; executive vice president, Crocker National Bank, 1979–83; lecturer, University of Hawaii, 1962–63; board of directors, Commission on Present Danger, 1978–85, Institute for Educational Affairs, New York, NY, 1981–85, member: General Advisory Committee on Arms Control and Disarmament, 1981–85; Defense Policy Board, 1981–85; vice chairman, State Department’s Commission on Security and Economic Assistance, 1983–84; American Bar Association (Labor Law Committee, 1965–72, Corporations and Banking Committee, 1973, Law and National Security Advisory Committee, 1981–85); Hawaii Bar Association Ethics Committee, 1965–67; Council on Foreign Relations, 1977–present; Judicial Conference Committee on Court Administration and Case Management, 1994; member, U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Court of Review, 1996–2003; Adjunct Professor of Law (Administrative Law and Labor Law) Georgetown Law Center, 1987–94; 1997; Adjunct Professor of Law, Harvard Law School, 1994-95, Adjunct Professor of Law, New York University Law School, 1995–96; Distinguished Visitor from the Judiciary, Georgetown Law Center, 2003–2019; co-chairman of the President’s Commission on The Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction, 2004–05; appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit by President Reagan on October 28, 1985.
Former Associate Justice, United States Supreme Court
Stephen G. Breyer was born in San Francisco, California, August 15, 1938. He married Joanna Hare in 1967, and has three children - Chloe, Nell, and Michael. He received an A.B. from Stanford University, a B.A. from Magdalen College, Oxford, and an LL.B. from Harvard Law School. He served as a law clerk to Justice Arthur Goldberg of the Supreme Court of the United States during the 1964 Term, as a Special Assistant to the Assistant U.S. Attorney General for Antitrust, 1965–1967, as an Assistant Special Prosecutor of the Watergate Special Prosecution Force, 1973, as Special Counsel of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, 1974–1975, and as Chief Counsel of the committee, 1979–1980. He was an Assistant Professor, Professor of Law, and Lecturer at Harvard Law School, 1967–1994, a Professor at the Harvard University Kennedy School of Government, 1977–1980, and a Visiting Professor at the College of Law, Sydney, Australia and at the University of Rome. From 1980–1990, he served as a Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, and as its Chief Judge, 1990–1994. He also served as a member of the Judicial Conference of the United States, 1990–1994, and of the United States Sentencing Commission, 1985–1989. President Clinton nominated him as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, and he took his seat August 3, 1994. Justice Breyer retired from the Supreme Court on June 30, 2022.
U.S. Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit
Frank H. Easterbrook is a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and a Senior Lecturer at the Law School of the University of Chicago. He was Chief Judge from 2006–2013. Before joining the court in 1985, he was the Lee andBrena Freeman Professor of Law at the University of Chicago, where he taught and wrote in antitrust, securities, corporate law, jurisprudence, and criminal procedure. He has published The Economic Structure of Corporate Law (with Daniel R. Fischel) and about 100 scholarly articles. He served as Co-Editor of the Journal of Law and Economics from 1982 to 1991 and as a member of the Judicial Conference’s Standing Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure from 1991 to 1997. Before joining the faculty of the Law School in 1979, Judge Easterbrook was Deputy Solicitor General of the United States. He holds degrees from Swarthmore College (B.A. with high honors, 1970) and the University of Chicago (J.D. cum laude, 1973), and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Law Institute, the Mont Pelerin Society, Phi Beta Kappa, and the Order of the Coif.
Former Executive Director, Federal Defender Program
Mr. MacCarthy graduated at the top of his class from St. Joseph's College in 1955, with a B.A. in Philosophy. After serving as a Lieutenant in the Marines, he attended law school at DePaul, graduating again in the top ten percent of his class in 1960. Following graduation, he served as an Assistant Professor of contracts and real property before beginning a clerkship to former Chief Judge William J. Campbell of the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois and serving as Illinois Special Assistant Attorney General, specializing in civil trials and appeals. In 1966, he began serving as Executive Director of the Federal Defender Program in the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. He was selected for the position by the judges of the District Court and the deans of the six Chicago law schools. As Executive Director, Mr. MacCarthy was primarily responsible for the administration of the unique and highly successful program that provides counsel for some 1500 defendants each year who are charged with federal crimes but are unable to afford private counsel. Since its beginning, the office is frequently reported as being one of the best defender offices in the nation. Always a strong believer in mentoring, Mr. MacCarthy has authored and published over twenty legal articles. Terrence MacCarthy is a member of the American, Illinois, Chicago, Federal and Seventh Circuit Bar Associations, the Illinois Attorneys for Criminal Justice, the National College of Criminal Defense, the National Legal Aid & Defender Association and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers serving on the Board of each. He has been awarded the DePaul University College of Law 1994 Alumni Service Award, the 1993 National Association of Criminal Lawyers Distinguished Service Award, the Illinois Attorneys for Criminal Justice 1993 Annual Award for Extraordinary Contribution to the Goals and Ideals of the Association, the California Attorneys for Criminal Justice 1990 Annual Award for Significant Contribution to Criminal Justice and the 1989 University of Virginia School of Law William J. Brennan, Jr. Award, presented to him by Justice Brennan.
President, Education Executives, LLC
Ilene H. Nagel is President of Education Executives, LLC, a consulting firm that specializes in the search for AAU and research university presidents, provosts, and deans, as well as the search for senior leaders of distinguished scientific organizations. In addition, Ilene has led the search for the VP for Health Sciences and/or Dean of Medicine for Hopkins, Stanford, UCLA, the University of Michigan, Harvard, Emory, UVA, Brown, UT Southwestern, UAB, Stony Brook, SUNY Buffalo, Indiana University, among others, as well as a variety of chair searches for academic medical centers, and the search for the CEO of the hospital systems for Stanford and for UCLA.
From 2005-2016, Ilene led the Higher Education practice for Russell Reynolds Associates, an internationally renowned executive search firm; her clients included Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Lehigh, USC, Northwestern, the University of Pennsylvania, NYU, Johns Hopkins, Duke, Georgetown, Washington University, Brown, Emory, UCLA, UVA, UCSD, the University of Michigan, the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, UT Austin, the University of Minnesota, and a host of others, including, but not limited to the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, the Smithsonian, the Moore Foundation, and Brookhaven National Laboratory.
Before becoming a search consultant, Ilene had more than 30 years’ experience as an academic, with professorial appointments in several AAU research universities. Most recently, Ilene served as the Executive Vice Chancellor (chief academic officer) at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Before joining the University of California, Ilene was Dean of the Graduate School and Associate Provost for Research at the University of Maryland, College Park. Previously, she was on the law faculty at Indiana University, Bloomington, where she was a tenured Full Professor, with a joint appointment in the College of Arts and Sciences. During her 20+ year tenure at Indiana University, Ilene took several leaves of absence to accept a variety of visiting faculty appointments at Yale Law School, Cambridge University, Columbia University School of Law, and George Washington University’s National Law Center.
Ilene received her B.A., magna cum laude, from Hunter College, and her M.A. and Ph.D. from New York University. She did a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Minnesota, and received her Master’s of Legal Studies from Stanford Law School. She was a Guggenheim Fellow at Yale Law School, a Visiting Scholar at the Bellagio Conference Center in Italy, and a Visiting Scholar at Cambridge University.
In addition to her academic appointments, Ilene was nominated by the President, and confirmed by the United States Senate to serve a 6-year term in the federal judiciary, as a Member of the United States Sentencing Commission. She ultimately served for 9 years, full time, from 1985-1994, under three United States presidents, while retaining her faculty appointments on a part time basis.
Ilene serves as a corporate board member of Strada Education Network, an Indiana based Higher Education company, as well as a member of the Board of CGS (the Celerian Group), a subsidiary of Blue Cross Blue Shield of South Carolina. In addition, Ilene served for several terms on the Board of the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, and on the Board of Santa Barbara Visiting Nurse and Hospice Association. She is a past and now honorary member of the Board of the Santa Barbara International Film Festival, and a prior member of the Alfred University Board of Trustees. She is also presently serving as a Board member of the Cape Ann Museum, and the Birnam Wood Golf Club.
Ilene and her husband, contemporary sculptor Aristides Burton Demetrios, reside in Montecito, California. Aris is a graduate of Harvard University; he is the son of Virginia Lee Burton, renowned children’s book author and illustrator, and George Demetrios, a classical sculptor.
Former Associate Justice, United States Supreme Court
Stephen G. Breyer was born in San Francisco, California, August 15, 1938. He married Joanna Hare in 1967, and has three children - Chloe, Nell, and Michael. He received an A.B. from Stanford University, a B.A. from Magdalen College, Oxford, and an LL.B. from Harvard Law School. He served as a law clerk to Justice Arthur Goldberg of the Supreme Court of the United States during the 1964 Term, as a Special Assistant to the Assistant U.S. Attorney General for Antitrust, 1965–1967, as an Assistant Special Prosecutor of the Watergate Special Prosecution Force, 1973, as Special Counsel of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, 1974–1975, and as Chief Counsel of the committee, 1979–1980. He was an Assistant Professor, Professor of Law, and Lecturer at Harvard Law School, 1967–1994, a Professor at the Harvard University Kennedy School of Government, 1977–1980, and a Visiting Professor at the College of Law, Sydney, Australia and at the University of Rome. From 1980–1990, he served as a Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, and as its Chief Judge, 1990–1994. He also served as a member of the Judicial Conference of the United States, 1990–1994, and of the United States Sentencing Commission, 1985–1989. President Clinton nominated him as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, and he took his seat August 3, 1994. Justice Breyer retired from the Supreme Court on June 30, 2022.
U.S. Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit
Frank H. Easterbrook is a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and a Senior Lecturer at the Law School of the University of Chicago. He was Chief Judge from 2006–2013. Before joining the court in 1985, he was the Lee andBrena Freeman Professor of Law at the University of Chicago, where he taught and wrote in antitrust, securities, corporate law, jurisprudence, and criminal procedure. He has published The Economic Structure of Corporate Law (with Daniel R. Fischel) and about 100 scholarly articles. He served as Co-Editor of the Journal of Law and Economics from 1982 to 1991 and as a member of the Judicial Conference’s Standing Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure from 1991 to 1997. Before joining the faculty of the Law School in 1979, Judge Easterbrook was Deputy Solicitor General of the United States. He holds degrees from Swarthmore College (B.A. with high honors, 1970) and the University of Chicago (J.D. cum laude, 1973), and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Law Institute, the Mont Pelerin Society, Phi Beta Kappa, and the Order of the Coif.
Former Executive Director, Federal Defender Program
Mr. MacCarthy graduated at the top of his class from St. Joseph's College in 1955, with a B.A. in Philosophy. After serving as a Lieutenant in the Marines, he attended law school at DePaul, graduating again in the top ten percent of his class in 1960. Following graduation, he served as an Assistant Professor of contracts and real property before beginning a clerkship to former Chief Judge William J. Campbell of the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois and serving as Illinois Special Assistant Attorney General, specializing in civil trials and appeals. In 1966, he began serving as Executive Director of the Federal Defender Program in the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. He was selected for the position by the judges of the District Court and the deans of the six Chicago law schools. As Executive Director, Mr. MacCarthy was primarily responsible for the administration of the unique and highly successful program that provides counsel for some 1500 defendants each year who are charged with federal crimes but are unable to afford private counsel. Since its beginning, the office is frequently reported as being one of the best defender offices in the nation. Always a strong believer in mentoring, Mr. MacCarthy has authored and published over twenty legal articles. Terrence MacCarthy is a member of the American, Illinois, Chicago, Federal and Seventh Circuit Bar Associations, the Illinois Attorneys for Criminal Justice, the National College of Criminal Defense, the National Legal Aid & Defender Association and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers serving on the Board of each. He has been awarded the DePaul University College of Law 1994 Alumni Service Award, the 1993 National Association of Criminal Lawyers Distinguished Service Award, the Illinois Attorneys for Criminal Justice 1993 Annual Award for Extraordinary Contribution to the Goals and Ideals of the Association, the California Attorneys for Criminal Justice 1990 Annual Award for Significant Contribution to Criminal Justice and the 1989 University of Virginia School of Law William J. Brennan, Jr. Award, presented to him by Justice Brennan.
President, Education Executives, LLC
Ilene H. Nagel is President of Education Executives, LLC, a consulting firm that specializes in the search for AAU and research university presidents, provosts, and deans, as well as the search for senior leaders of distinguished scientific organizations. In addition, Ilene has led the search for the VP for Health Sciences and/or Dean of Medicine for Hopkins, Stanford, UCLA, the University of Michigan, Harvard, Emory, UVA, Brown, UT Southwestern, UAB, Stony Brook, SUNY Buffalo, Indiana University, among others, as well as a variety of chair searches for academic medical centers, and the search for the CEO of the hospital systems for Stanford and for UCLA.
From 2005-2016, Ilene led the Higher Education practice for Russell Reynolds Associates, an internationally renowned executive search firm; her clients included Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Lehigh, USC, Northwestern, the University of Pennsylvania, NYU, Johns Hopkins, Duke, Georgetown, Washington University, Brown, Emory, UCLA, UVA, UCSD, the University of Michigan, the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, UT Austin, the University of Minnesota, and a host of others, including, but not limited to the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, the Smithsonian, the Moore Foundation, and Brookhaven National Laboratory.
Before becoming a search consultant, Ilene had more than 30 years’ experience as an academic, with professorial appointments in several AAU research universities. Most recently, Ilene served as the Executive Vice Chancellor (chief academic officer) at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Before joining the University of California, Ilene was Dean of the Graduate School and Associate Provost for Research at the University of Maryland, College Park. Previously, she was on the law faculty at Indiana University, Bloomington, where she was a tenured Full Professor, with a joint appointment in the College of Arts and Sciences. During her 20+ year tenure at Indiana University, Ilene took several leaves of absence to accept a variety of visiting faculty appointments at Yale Law School, Cambridge University, Columbia University School of Law, and George Washington University’s National Law Center.
Ilene received her B.A., magna cum laude, from Hunter College, and her M.A. and Ph.D. from New York University. She did a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Minnesota, and received her Master’s of Legal Studies from Stanford Law School. She was a Guggenheim Fellow at Yale Law School, a Visiting Scholar at the Bellagio Conference Center in Italy, and a Visiting Scholar at Cambridge University.
In addition to her academic appointments, Ilene was nominated by the President, and confirmed by the United States Senate to serve a 6-year term in the federal judiciary, as a Member of the United States Sentencing Commission. She ultimately served for 9 years, full time, from 1985-1994, under three United States presidents, while retaining her faculty appointments on a part time basis.
Ilene serves as a corporate board member of Strada Education Network, an Indiana based Higher Education company, as well as a member of the Board of CGS (the Celerian Group), a subsidiary of Blue Cross Blue Shield of South Carolina. In addition, Ilene served for several terms on the Board of the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, and on the Board of Santa Barbara Visiting Nurse and Hospice Association. She is a past and now honorary member of the Board of the Santa Barbara International Film Festival, and a prior member of the Alfred University Board of Trustees. She is also presently serving as a Board member of the Cape Ann Museum, and the Birnam Wood Golf Club.
Ilene and her husband, contemporary sculptor Aristides Burton Demetrios, reside in Montecito, California. Aris is a graduate of Harvard University; he is the son of Virginia Lee Burton, renowned children’s book author and illustrator, and George Demetrios, a classical sculptor.
R. B. Price and Isabelle Wade & Paul C. Lyda Professor Emeritus of Law, University of Missouri School of Law
Carl H. Esbeck is R.B. Price Professor and Isabelle Wade & Paul C. Lyda Professor of Law emeritus at the University of Missouri. After attending Cornell University School of Law where he served as an editor on the Cornell Law Review, he held a judicial clerkship with the Honorable Howard C. Bratton, chief judge of the U.S. District Court in New Mexico.
Professor Esbeck publishes widely in the area of religious liberty and church-state relations. He is recognized as the progenitor of "Charitable Choice," an integral part of the 1996 Federal Welfare Reform Act, later made a part of the faith-based initiative and equal-treatment regulations under presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. In addition, he has taken the lead in recognizing that the modern Supreme Court has applied the Establishment Clause not as a personal right, but as a structural limit on the government's authority in disputes involving church governance. While on leave from 1999 to 2002, Professor Esbeck directed the Center for Law & Religious Freedom (CLRF) and later served as Senior Counsel to the Deputy Attorney General at the U.S. Department of Justice. While directing the CLRF, Professor Esbeck was a central part of the congressional advocacy behind the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 (RLUIPA). While at the Department of Justice one of his duties was to direct a task force to remove barriers to the equal-treatment of faith-based organizations applying for social service grants. He is the author of Disestablishment and Religious Dissent: Church-State Relations in the New American States, 1776 - 1833 (U. of MO Press, 2019).
Mike Jayne is an attorney for the U.S. Department of Education. Previously, he worked for the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.
Senior Counsel, Litigation, Defense of Freedom Institute
Don Daugherty is Senior Counsel, Litigation, at the Defense of Freedom Institute for Policy Studies. He previously served as a Senior Counsel at the Institute for Free Speech and the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty. Before that, he was a partner at three of Wisconsin’s largest firms, with nearly 30 years of trial and appellate litigation experience. He has been consistently recognized as among the “Best Lawyers in America,” as well as Wisconsin’s “Super Lawyers.” He received his B.A. from the University of Virginia and his J.D. from Northwestern University Law School. After law school, he served as a clerk to the Honorable Roger J. Miner of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
Don is on the Board of Advisors for the Milwaukee Lawyers’ Chapter of the Federalist Society, and on the Executive Committee of the Federalist Society’s Litigation Practice Group.
Senior Fellow, Independent Institute
Dr. Stephen P. Halbrook is a Senior Fellow at the Independent Institute. He has taught legal and political philosophy at George Mason University, Howard University, and Tuskegee Institute, and he received his J.D. from the Georgetown University Law Center and Ph.D. in social philosophy from Florida State University.
The winner of three cases before the U.S. Supreme Court (Printz v. United States, United States v. Thompson/Center Arms Company, and Castillo v. United States), he has testified before the Subcommittee on the Constitution of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution, Subcommittee on Crime of the House Judiciary Committee, Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, and House Committee on the District of Columbia.
A contributor to numerous scholarly volumes, he is the author of the books, Gun Control in Nazi-Occupied France: Tyranny and Resistance; Gun Control in the Third Reich: Disarming the Jews and “Enemies of the State”; The Founders’ Second Amendment: Origins of the Right to Bear Arms; That Every Man Be Armed: Evolution of a Constitutional Right; A Right to Bear Arms; Firearms Law Deskbook: Federal and State Criminal Practice; Securing Civil Rights: Freedmen, the Fourteenth Amendment, and the Right to Bear Arms; State and Federal Bills of Rights and Constitutional Guarantees; and Target Switzerland: Swiss Armed Neutrality in World War II. Dr. Halbrook’s scholarly articles have appeared in such journals as the Arizona Journal of International and Comparative Law, Drug Law Report, George Mason University Law Review, Journal of Air Law and Commerce, Journal of Law and Policy, Law & Contemporary Problems, National Law Journal, Northern Kentucky Law Review, St. John’s Journal of Legal Commentary; Seton Hall Constitutional Law Journal, Tennessee Law Review, University of Dayton Law Review, Valparaiso University Law Review, Vermont Law Review, and William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal.
Dr. Halbrook's popular articles have appeared in such publications as the Wall Street Journal, Newsday, San Francisco Chronicle, National Review, Investor’s Business Daily, Kansas City Star, Washington Examiner, Shreveport Times, Sacramento Bee, Providence Journal, Tampa Tribune, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, History News Network, San Antonio Express-News, The Daily Caller, Detroit News, Honolulu Star Advertiser, Birmingham News, Environmental Forum, USA Today, and Washington Times. He has also appeared on numerous national TV/radio programs on CNN, Fox News Channel, Fox Business Network, Court TV, NewsMax TV, CBN, Voice of America, and C-SPAN.
Partner, Clement & Murphy, PLLC
Paul served as the 43rd Solicitor General of the United States from June 2005 until June 2008. Before his confirmation as Solicitor General, he served as Acting Solicitor General for nearly a year and as Principal Deputy Solicitor General for over three years.
Paul has argued over 100 cases before the United States Supreme Court, including McConnell v. FEC, Tennessee v. Lane, United States v. Booker, MGM v. Grokster, Hobby Lobby v. Burwell, Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis, Rucho v. Common Cause, Facebook v. Duguid, and TransUnion v. Ramirez. Paul has argued more Supreme Court cases since 2000 than any lawyer in or out of government. He has also argued many important cases in the lower courts, including Walker v. Cheney, United States v. Moussaoui and NFL v. Brady.
Paul’s practice focuses on appellate matters, constitutional litigation and strategic counseling. He represents a broad array of clients in the Supreme Court and in federal and state appellate courts. Last year, for example, he successfully argued Supreme Court cases involving significant issues of energy regulation, statutory interpretation, state sovereign immunity and Article III standing, and successfully argued a trademark appeal in the Fourth Circuit, and a constitutional appeal before the en banc Eleventh Circuit.
Paul focuses on high-stakes appeals. In recent years, he successfully defended a $1.2 billion jury verdict for clients in a Tenth Circuit case, while securing the reversal of an over $2 billion jury verdict for another client in the Seventh Circuit and the approval of a nearly $1 billion dollar class action settlement in the Third Circuit. He has initiated major administrative law challenges and constitutional litigation against the federal government, such as the successful challenge to the HHS drug-pricing rule and threatened challenges that led to the withdrawal of the Treasury Department’s proposed cryptocurrency regulations. He also counsels clients on a variety of strategic legal questions, whether arising from pending legislation, government inquiries or ongoing litigation.
Paul has undertaken substantial pro bono engagements in the Supreme Court, such as twice successfully representing the defendant in Bond v. United States and successfully representing the Omaha Tribe in Nebraska v. Parker, the guardian ad litem in Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl, the defendant in Sekhar v. United States, a high school football coach in Kennedy v. Bremerton, and the Little Sisters of the Poor. Paul’s pro bono representation also precipitated the federal government’s confession of error in United States v. Rojas.
Following law school, Paul clerked for Judge Laurence H. Silberman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and for Associate Justice Antonin Scalia of the U.S. Supreme Court. After his clerkships, he went on to serve as Chief Counsel of the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution, Federalism and Property Rights.
Paul is a Distinguished Lecturer in Law at the Georgetown University Law Center, where he has taught in various capacities since 1998. He also serves as a Senior Fellow of the Law Center’s Supreme Court Institute. He is the Justice Joseph Story Distinguished Practitioner in Residence at the Gray Center at Scalia Law School.
Deputy Secretary of Agriculture, U.S. Department of Agriculture
Judge Stephen Alexander Vaden was appointed as the Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture on July 7, 2025. Alongside Secretary Brooke L. Rollins, Deputy Secretary Vaden leads the Department’s operations and implements policies that support America’s food and farm systems. A native of Union City, Tennessee, Deputy Secretary Vaden brings expertise in agricultural policy, law, and rural development. Previously, he served as a judge on the U.S. Court of International Trade and as General Counsel of USDA. Throughout Deputy Secretary Vaden’s time as General Counsel, he led successful Supreme Court litigation, advanced regulatory reform, and supported the implementation of the 2018 Farm Bill. He is a graduate of Yale Law School and Vanderbilt University. A public servant with strong agricultural roots, Deputy Secretary Vaden is committed to revitalizing rural America and ensuring an abundant, affordable, and safe U.S. food supply.
Senior Attorney, Pacific Legal Foundation
Glenn Roper joined Pacific Legal Foundation in 2019. Based in Colorado, he litigates across the country on behalf of individuals and organizations to advance the principles of individual freedom, separation of powers, and the rule of law.
With experience in both private practice and government, Roper has seen the dangers posed to liberty when agencies, bureaucrats, and politicians ignore individual rights in favor of expediency or advancing a political agenda. His interest in combating those dangers spans PLF’s practice areas, including equal protection, separation of powers, environmental law, property rights, and the First Amendment.
Although he grew up in California’s Central Valley, Roper has spent most of his career in the Mountain West. Immediately prior to joining PLF, he served as Deputy Solicitor General in Colorado’s Office of the Attorney General, where he handled select appellate and constitutional litigation on behalf of the State and its agencies and officials. Before joining the Attorney General’s Office, Roper was a partner in a Denver law firm, where he focused on complex civil litigation, e-discovery, and appellate matters. He previously served as Deputy Associate Counsel in the White House Counsel’s Office for President George W. Bush and as a law clerk to Judge David M. Ebel of the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals. He graduated first in his class from Brigham Young University Law School.
Panel I: Agency Autonomy and the Unitary Executive [Archive Collection]
Stephen G. Breyer, Terry H. Eastland, E. Donald Elliott, Laurence H. Silberman
On January 19-20, 1990, The Federalist Society hosted a conference at the Mayflower Hotel in...
Equality vs. Discretion in Sentencing [Archive Collection]
Stephen G. Breyer, Frank H. Easterbrook, Terence F. MacCarthy, Ilene H. Nagel
On September 9-10, 1988, The Federalist Society hosted its second annual National Lawyers Convention at...
Equality vs. Discretion in Sentencing [Archive Collection]
Stephen G. Breyer, Frank H. Easterbrook, Terence F. MacCarthy, Ilene H. Nagel
On September 9-10, 1988, The Federalist Society hosted its second annual National Lawyers Convention at...
Topics
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Note from the Editor: The Federalist Society takes no positions on particular legal and public...
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Note from the Editor: The Federalist Society takes no positions on particular legal and public...
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Note from the Editor: The Federalist Society takes no positions on particular legal and public...