Richard and Frances Mallery Professor of Law and Faculty Director, Constitutional Law Center, Stanford Law School
Michael W. McConnell is the Richard and Frances Mallery Professor and Faculty Director of the Constitutional Law Center at Stanford Law School, and a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. From 2002 to 2009, he served as a Circuit Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. He was nominated by President George W. Bush, a Republican, and confirmed by a Democratic Senate by unanimous consent. McConnell has previously held chaired professorships at the University of Chicago and the University of Utah, and visiting professorships at Harvard and NYU. He teaches courses on constitutional law, constitutional history, First Amendment, and interpretive theory. He has published widely in the fields of constitutional law and theory, especially church and state, equal protection, and separation of powers. His book, “The President Who Would Not Be King: Executive Power Under the Constitution,” was published by Princeton University Press in 2020, based on the Tanner Lectures in Human Values, which he delivered at Princeton in 2019. His latest book, co-authored with Nathan Chapman, “Agreeing to Disagree: How the Establishment Clause Protects Religious Diversity and Freedom of Conscience,” was published by Oxford University Press in mid-2023. McConnell has argued sixteen cases in the United States Supreme Court, most recently Carney v. Adams (2020). defending a provision of the Delaware Constitution requiring political balance on that state’s courts. More recently, he was co-counsel in Gonzalez v. Google. He earned his B.A. from Michigan State University and his J.D. from the University of Chicago, and has received honorary degrees from Notre Dame University and Michigan State. He served as law clerk to Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. and D.C. Circuit Chief Judge J. Skelly Wright. He has been Assistant General Counsel of the Office of Management & Budget, Assistant to the Solicitor General of the Department of Justice, and a member of the President’s Intelligence Oversight Board. He is Senior of Counsel to the law firm Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich & Rosati, and is co-chair of Meta’s Oversight Review Board.
Associate Attorney, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP
Branton Nestor is an associate in the Orange County office of Gibson Dunn. He practices in the firm’s Litigation Department and is a member of the firm’s Appellate and Constitutional Law Practice Group.
Branton has represented clients in appellate, regulatory, and complex litigation matters across various industries. His experience spans a wide range of subject matters, including constitutional law and administrative law.
He clerked for Judge Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and Judge Julius N. Richardson on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. He graduated from Harvard Law School in 2019, and Westmont College in 2016. His scholarship has been cited at the U.S. Supreme Court.
Branton is a member of the California bar.
Assistant Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
Lael Weinberger is an assistant professor of law at George Mason University Antonin Scalia Law School. Previously, Lael clerked for Justice Neil Gorsuch on the United States Supreme Court, Judge Frank Easterbrook on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, and Chief Justice Daniel Eismann on the Idaho Supreme Court. Lael also practiced law at the Washington, D.C., office of Gibson Dunn and held fellowships at Stanford and Harvard law schools. Lael earned a law degree and a Ph.D. in history, both from the University of Chicago. Lael's academic work has appeared in journals such as the University of Chicago Law Review, Notre Dame Law Review, and Constitutional Commentary, among others. He has also written widely for broader public audiences, with his writings and reviews appearing in publications including Newsweek, National Review, Claremont Review, First Things, Christianity Today, LA Review of Books, World, and the New Rambler Review.
Richard and Frances Mallery Professor of Law and Faculty Director, Constitutional Law Center, Stanford Law School
Michael W. McConnell is the Richard and Frances Mallery Professor and Faculty Director of the Constitutional Law Center at Stanford Law School, and a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. From 2002 to 2009, he served as a Circuit Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. He was nominated by President George W. Bush, a Republican, and confirmed by a Democratic Senate by unanimous consent. McConnell has previously held chaired professorships at the University of Chicago and the University of Utah, and visiting professorships at Harvard and NYU. He teaches courses on constitutional law, constitutional history, First Amendment, and interpretive theory. He has published widely in the fields of constitutional law and theory, especially church and state, equal protection, and separation of powers. His book, “The President Who Would Not Be King: Executive Power Under the Constitution,” was published by Princeton University Press in 2020, based on the Tanner Lectures in Human Values, which he delivered at Princeton in 2019. His latest book, co-authored with Nathan Chapman, “Agreeing to Disagree: How the Establishment Clause Protects Religious Diversity and Freedom of Conscience,” was published by Oxford University Press in mid-2023. McConnell has argued sixteen cases in the United States Supreme Court, most recently Carney v. Adams (2020). defending a provision of the Delaware Constitution requiring political balance on that state’s courts. More recently, he was co-counsel in Gonzalez v. Google. He earned his B.A. from Michigan State University and his J.D. from the University of Chicago, and has received honorary degrees from Notre Dame University and Michigan State. He served as law clerk to Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. and D.C. Circuit Chief Judge J. Skelly Wright. He has been Assistant General Counsel of the Office of Management & Budget, Assistant to the Solicitor General of the Department of Justice, and a member of the President’s Intelligence Oversight Board. He is Senior of Counsel to the law firm Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich & Rosati, and is co-chair of Meta’s Oversight Review Board.
Associate Attorney, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP
Branton Nestor is an associate in the Orange County office of Gibson Dunn. He practices in the firm’s Litigation Department and is a member of the firm’s Appellate and Constitutional Law Practice Group.
Branton has represented clients in appellate, regulatory, and complex litigation matters across various industries. His experience spans a wide range of subject matters, including constitutional law and administrative law.
He clerked for Judge Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and Judge Julius N. Richardson on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. He graduated from Harvard Law School in 2019, and Westmont College in 2016. His scholarship has been cited at the U.S. Supreme Court.
Branton is a member of the California bar.
Assistant Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
Lael Weinberger is an assistant professor of law at George Mason University Antonin Scalia Law School. Previously, Lael clerked for Justice Neil Gorsuch on the United States Supreme Court, Judge Frank Easterbrook on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, and Chief Justice Daniel Eismann on the Idaho Supreme Court. Lael also practiced law at the Washington, D.C., office of Gibson Dunn and held fellowships at Stanford and Harvard law schools. Lael earned a law degree and a Ph.D. in history, both from the University of Chicago. Lael's academic work has appeared in journals such as the University of Chicago Law Review, Notre Dame Law Review, and Constitutional Commentary, among others. He has also written widely for broader public audiences, with his writings and reviews appearing in publications including Newsweek, National Review, Claremont Review, First Things, Christianity Today, LA Review of Books, World, and the New Rambler Review.
Senior Research Fellow, Mercatus Center, George Mason University; Former General Counsel at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC)
Alden Abbott is a Senior Research Fellow at the Mercatus Center. Prior to joining Mercatus, he served as the General Counsel of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). As the Commission’s chief legal officer and adviser, he represented the agency in court and provides legal counsel to the Commission and its bureaus and offices.
Prior to rejoining the FTC in April 2018, Mr. Abbott served in executive positions at the Heritage Foundation (2014-2018) and BlackBerry (2012-2014). He also held a variety of senior positions in the U.S. federal government (in the FTC, the Commerce Department, and the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel and the Antitrust Division).
He speaks French, Spanish, and Italian.
Professor of Law and Journalism, University of Florida
Professor Jane Bambauer is the Brechner Eminent Scholar at the Levin College of Law and at the College of Journalism and Communications. She teaches Torts, First Amendment, Media Law, Criminal Procedure, and Privacy Law.
Professor Bambauer’s research assesses the social costs and benefits of Big Data, AI, and predictive algorithms. Her work analyzes how the regulation of these new information technologies will affect free speech, privacy, law enforcement, health and safety, competitive markets, and government accountability. Professor Bambauer’s research has been featured in over 20 scholarly publications, including the Stanford Law Review, the Michigan Law Review, the California Law Review, and the Journal of Empirical Legal Studies. Her work has also been featured in media outlets, including the Washington Post, the New York Times, Fox News, and Lawfare, where she is a contributing editor.
Professor Bambauer currently serves as the Chair of the National AI Advisory Committee Subcommittee on Law Enforcement, and she has previously served as the deputy director of the Center for Quantum Networks, a multi-institutional engineering research center funded by the National Science Foundation. She holds a B.S. in Mathematics from Yale College and a J.D. from Yale Law School.
Senior Counsel for Law and Policy, Committee for Justice
Jeff is a registered patent attorney and an intellectual property and innovation policy professional with a unique combination of training and real-world experience. Jeff is also currently a PhD candidate at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public and International Affairs (GSPIA). His dissertation is entitled “An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of American Innovation: An Austrian Economics Perspective.”
Jeff maintains an active intellectual property law practice in the life sciences space. While counseling clients and working on his dissertation and other scholarship, Jeff remains active in the policy analysis and advocacy space. He currently serves as the President of the Association for American Innovation and a member and former Chair of the Public Policy Legal Task Force (PPLTF) for the Association of University of Technology Managers (AUTM).
Jeff has a bachelor’s degree chemical and biomedical engineering with concentrations in molecular biology and fermentation technology and from Carnegie Mellon. He also has a master’s degree in industrial administration (business) from Carnegie Mellon where he concentrated on international management, marketing and finance. He earned his law degree from the Duquesne University School of Law with a focus on intellectual property law.
Postgraduate Research Fellow, Mercatus Center, George Mason University
Satya Marar is a Research Fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University where he was formerly an MA Fellow. He holds an MA in Economics from George Mason University and a BA in writing and an LLB with Honors in law from Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. He is currently pursuing an LLM in US law at George Mason University. He has previously worked at Reason Foundation and the Australian Taxpayers’ Alliance. His research interests include antitrust & competition policy, intellectual property, trade and technology policy.
Founding Partner, Benbrook Law Group
Brad has litigated business and public policy matters throughout the United States for over 25 years. He represents businesses of all sizes in civil litigation and disputes with administrative agencies. Brad also regularly represents individuals and groups in constitutional and public policy litigation in the trial and appellate courts. He regularly submits amicus briefs on behalf of clients at the Supreme Court of the United States on significant cases. Brad is often hired as special litigation counsel in complex family law, bankruptcy, and trust and estate litigation.
After graduating from law school, Brad worked as a judicial clerk for Judge J.L. Edmondson of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in Atlanta. Brad received his law degree from the University of California at Berkeley after graduating from Stanford University, where he was a four-year letterman on the golf team.
Professor of Law, Widener University Commonwealth Law School
Founding Partner, Benbrook Law Group
Brad has litigated business and public policy matters throughout the United States for over 25 years. He represents businesses of all sizes in civil litigation and disputes with administrative agencies. Brad also regularly represents individuals and groups in constitutional and public policy litigation in the trial and appellate courts. He regularly submits amicus briefs on behalf of clients at the Supreme Court of the United States on significant cases. Brad is often hired as special litigation counsel in complex family law, bankruptcy, and trust and estate litigation.
After graduating from law school, Brad worked as a judicial clerk for Judge J.L. Edmondson of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in Atlanta. Brad received his law degree from the University of California at Berkeley after graduating from Stanford University, where he was a four-year letterman on the golf team.
Professor of Law, Widener University Commonwealth Law School
Professor and Director, Prolife Center, University of St. Thomas School of Law
Teresa Collett, J.D., is professor at the University of St. Thomas School of Law, where she serves as director of the school's Prolife Center. Collett received her doctorate at the University of Oklahoma College of Law. As a well-known advocate for the protection of human life and the family, Collett specializes in the subjects of marriage, religion and bioethics in her research.
Collett has published numerous legal articles and is the co-author of a law casebook on professional responsibility and co-editor of a collection of essays exploring “catholic” and “Catholic” perspectives on American law. She is an elected member of the American Law Institute, and has testified before committees of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, as well as before legislative committees in several states.
In 2009, Pope Benedict XVI appointed Collett to a five-year term on the Pontifical Council for the Family. Her appointment was renewed by His Holiness Pope Francis until 2016 when the responsibilities of the Council were assumed by the Dicastery for the Laity, Family and Life. In 2013, she served as a delegate to the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) for the Mission of the Holy See to the United Nations.
She represented Congressman Ron Paul and various medical groups in the defense of the U.S. federal ban of partial-birth abortion, and the governors of Minnesota and North Dakota defending the N.H. requirement of state parental involvement prior to performance of an abortion on a minor before the U.S. Supreme Court. Collett is often asked to represent the interests of government officials before federal appellate courts. She has served as special attorney general for the states of Oklahoma and Kansas, as well as assisting other state attorneys general in defending laws protecting human life and marriage. Prior to joining St. Thomas in 2003, Collett taught at the South Texas College of Law, where she established the nation's first annual symposium on legal ethics.
Vice President for Legal Strategy, Stand Together
Casey Mattox is Vice President for Legal Strategy at Stand Together and Senior Advisor at
Americans for Prosperity. In these roles he advocates for and creates strategies and
partnerships to ensure a constitutionally limited government that protects the civil liberties of all
Americans. Prior to joining Stand Together and AFP Casey’s legal career focused on defending
the First Amendment rights of students, faculty, healthcare workers and religious organizations.
Casey has a J.D. from Boston College School of Law and an undergraduate degree from the
University of Virginia. You can find him on Twitter at @CaseyMattox_ and on LinkedIn at
@Casey-Mattox-ST.
Richard and Frances Mallery Professor of Law and Faculty Director, Constitutional Law Center, Stanford Law School
Michael W. McConnell is the Richard and Frances Mallery Professor and Faculty Director of the Constitutional Law Center at Stanford Law School, and a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. From 2002 to 2009, he served as a Circuit Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. He was nominated by President George W. Bush, a Republican, and confirmed by a Democratic Senate by unanimous consent. McConnell has previously held chaired professorships at the University of Chicago and the University of Utah, and visiting professorships at Harvard and NYU. He teaches courses on constitutional law, constitutional history, First Amendment, and interpretive theory. He has published widely in the fields of constitutional law and theory, especially church and state, equal protection, and separation of powers. His book, “The President Who Would Not Be King: Executive Power Under the Constitution,” was published by Princeton University Press in 2020, based on the Tanner Lectures in Human Values, which he delivered at Princeton in 2019. His latest book, co-authored with Nathan Chapman, “Agreeing to Disagree: How the Establishment Clause Protects Religious Diversity and Freedom of Conscience,” was published by Oxford University Press in mid-2023. McConnell has argued sixteen cases in the United States Supreme Court, most recently Carney v. Adams (2020). defending a provision of the Delaware Constitution requiring political balance on that state’s courts. More recently, he was co-counsel in Gonzalez v. Google. He earned his B.A. from Michigan State University and his J.D. from the University of Chicago, and has received honorary degrees from Notre Dame University and Michigan State. He served as law clerk to Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. and D.C. Circuit Chief Judge J. Skelly Wright. He has been Assistant General Counsel of the Office of Management & Budget, Assistant to the Solicitor General of the Department of Justice, and a member of the President’s Intelligence Oversight Board. He is Senior of Counsel to the law firm Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich & Rosati, and is co-chair of Meta’s Oversight Review Board.
Associate Attorney, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP
Branton Nestor is an associate in the Orange County office of Gibson Dunn. He practices in the firm’s Litigation Department and is a member of the firm’s Appellate and Constitutional Law Practice Group.
Branton has represented clients in appellate, regulatory, and complex litigation matters across various industries. His experience spans a wide range of subject matters, including constitutional law and administrative law.
He clerked for Judge Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and Judge Julius N. Richardson on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. He graduated from Harvard Law School in 2019, and Westmont College in 2016. His scholarship has been cited at the U.S. Supreme Court.
Branton is a member of the California bar.
Assistant Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
Lael Weinberger is an assistant professor of law at George Mason University Antonin Scalia Law School. Previously, Lael clerked for Justice Neil Gorsuch on the United States Supreme Court, Judge Frank Easterbrook on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, and Chief Justice Daniel Eismann on the Idaho Supreme Court. Lael also practiced law at the Washington, D.C., office of Gibson Dunn and held fellowships at Stanford and Harvard law schools. Lael earned a law degree and a Ph.D. in history, both from the University of Chicago. Lael's academic work has appeared in journals such as the University of Chicago Law Review, Notre Dame Law Review, and Constitutional Commentary, among others. He has also written widely for broader public audiences, with his writings and reviews appearing in publications including Newsweek, National Review, Claremont Review, First Things, Christianity Today, LA Review of Books, World, and the New Rambler Review.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, 8th Circuit
Leonard Steven Grasz is an American attorney and jurist serving as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.
A graduate of the University of Nebraska–Lincoln and the University of Nebraska College of Law, Grasz spent eleven years as the state of Nebraska's Chief Deputy Attorney General. He was a senior partner at the law firm of Husch Blackwell prior to his appointment to the federal judiciary.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit
David Stras became a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit on January 31, 2018. Before serving on the Eighth Circuit, Judge Stras was an Associate Justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court, a position he occupied from July 1, 2010 until his appointment to the Eighth Circuit.
Prior to becoming a judge, Stras was a member of the faculty of the University of Minnesota Law School from 2004 through 2010. He taught and wrote in the areas of federal courts and jurisdiction, constitutional law, criminal law, and law and politics.
Judge Stras received his Bachelor of Arts degree, with highest distinction, in 1995 and his Master of Business Administration in 1999, both from the University of Kansas. He also received his law degree from the University of Kansas School of Law in 1999, where he served as Editor-in-Chief of the Criminal Procedure Edition of the Kansas Law Review.
Following law school, Stras clerked for The Honorable Melvin Brunetti of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and then for The Honorable J. Michael Luttig of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
From 2001 to 2002, he practiced white-collar criminal and appellate litigation with the Washington, D.C., office of Sidley Austin Brown & Wood. Following his year in practice, he clerked for The Honorable Clarence Thomas of the Supreme Court of the United States.
Dr. John Eastman is the former Henry Salvatori Professor of Law & Community Service and former Dean at Chapman University's Dale E. Fowler School of Law, where he had been a member of the faculty since 1999, specializing in Constitutional Law, Legal History, and Property. He is a founding director of the Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence, a public interest law firm affiliated with the Claremont Institute that he founded in 1999. He has a Ph.D. in Government from the Claremont Graduate School and a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School, and a B.A. in Politics and Economics from the University of Dallas. He serves as the Chairman of the Board of the National Organization for Marriage.
Prior to joining the Chapman law faculty, Dr. Eastman served as a law clerk to the Honorable Clarence Thomas, Associate Justice, Supreme Court of the United States, and to the Honorable J. Michael Luttig, Judge, United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and practiced law with the national law firm of Kirkland & Ellis. Dr. Eastman has also represented numerous clients in important constitutional law matters and has argued before the Supreme Court. On behalf of the Claremont Institute Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence, he has participated as amicus curiae before the Supreme Court of the United States, U.S. Courts of Appeals, and State Supreme Courts in more than one hundred cases of constitutional significance, including Boy Scouts of America v. Dale, Zelman v. Simmons-Harris (the school vouchers case), Kelo v. New London, Ct. (eminent domain), and Van Orden v. Perry (the 10 Commandments case). He has also appeared as an expert legal commentator on numerous television and radio programs, including C-SPAN, Fox News, PBS, NewsHour, and The O'Reilly Factor.
Founding Partner, Benbrook Law Group
Brad has litigated business and public policy matters throughout the United States for over 25 years. He represents businesses of all sizes in civil litigation and disputes with administrative agencies. Brad also regularly represents individuals and groups in constitutional and public policy litigation in the trial and appellate courts. He regularly submits amicus briefs on behalf of clients at the Supreme Court of the United States on significant cases. Brad is often hired as special litigation counsel in complex family law, bankruptcy, and trust and estate litigation.
After graduating from law school, Brad worked as a judicial clerk for Judge J.L. Edmondson of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in Atlanta. Brad received his law degree from the University of California at Berkeley after graduating from Stanford University, where he was a four-year letterman on the golf team.
Professor of Law, Widener University Commonwealth Law School
How Does the First Amendment Protect Churches in Court?
Michael W. McConnell, Branton J. Nestor, Lael Weinberger
The First Amendment’s church autonomy doctrine sets a structural constitutional barrier keeping the State...
How Does the First Amendment Protect Churches in Court?
Michael W. McConnell, Branton J. Nestor, Lael Weinberger
The First Amendment’s church autonomy doctrine sets a structural constitutional barrier keeping the State...
When Should We Recognize Something as a Property Right?
Alden F. Abbott, Jane Bambauer, Jeffrey E. Depp, Satya Marar
America has historically led the way in intangible property rights. We were the first country...
How Does the First Amendment Protect Churches in Court?
The Bench at 250: A Conversation with Judges Grasz and Stras
Nebraska Lawyer & Student Chapters
Ashland, NEThe Citizenship Clause at a Crossroads: A Conversation with Professor John Eastman
Orange County Lawyer Chapter
Irvine, CACourthouse Steps Decision: Louisiana v. Callais
Bradley A. Benbrook, Michael R. Dimino
In Louisiana v. Callais, the Supreme Court struck down Louisiana's congressional map, holding that...
Courthouse Steps Decision: Louisiana v. Callais
Bradley A. Benbrook, Michael R. Dimino
In Louisiana v. Callais, the Supreme Court struck down Louisiana's congressional map, holding that...
Courthouse Steps Decision: Louisiana v. Callais
Courthouse Steps Decision: First Choice Women's Resource Centers v. Davenport
Teresa Stanton Collett, Casey Mattox
In First Choice Women’s Resource Centers, Inc. v. Davenport, the New Jersey Attorney General, Matthew...