Executive Vice President, Goldwater Institute
Christina Sandefur is the Executive Vice President at the Goldwater Institute. She develops policies and litigates cases advancing healthcare freedom, free enterprise, private property rights, free speech, and taxpayer rights.
Christina is a co-drafter of the Right to Try initiative, now federal law, which protects terminally ill patients' right to try safe investigational treatments that have been prescribed by their physician but are not yet FDA-approved. She has won important victories for property rights in Arizona and works nationally to promote the Institute's Private Property Rights Protection Act, a state-level reform that requires government to pay owners when regulations destroy property rights and reduce property values.
Christina is the co-author of the book Cornerstone of Liberty: Private Property Rights in 21st Century America (2016). She is a frequent guest on national television and radio programs, has provided expert legal testimony to various legislative committees, and is a frequent speaker at conferences. She is the recipient of the 2018 Buckley Award in recognition of her leadership in the freedom movement, and she is an Advisory Board Member of the Network of enlightened Women. Christina serves on the board of the Phoenix Lawyers Chapter of the Federalist Society and is a member of the executive committee for the Federalist Society's Regulatory Transparency Project: FDA & Health.
Christina is a graduate of Michigan State University College of Law and Hillsdale College.
Raoul Berger Professor of Legal History at Northwestern University School of Law
Stephen Presser is a leading American legal historian and expert on shareholder liability for corporate debts. He is frequently an invited witness before committees of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives on issues of constitutional law. He holds a joint appointment with the J. L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management and also teaches in Northwestern's history department.
Associate Attorney, Gibson Dunn
David Casazza is an associate in the Washington, D.C. office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. He practices in the firm’s Appellate and Constitutional Law, and Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice groups.
Mr. Casazza has represented clients in appellate and regulatory litigation before the Supreme Court of the United States, federal appellate courts, and federal district courts. These cases have involved a wide range of subjects including separation of powers, federal rulemaking challenges, data privacy protections, anti-terrorism claims and foreign sovereign immunity, energy infrastructure permitting, and a variety of First Amendment speech and religious liberty claims. He has also represented clients in complex litigation, obtaining dismissal with prejudice of consumer class actions attacking major brand names. He has been named by Best Lawyers as a 2021 and 2022 “One to Watch” in Appellate Practice.
He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, where he served as a Managing Editor for the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy and as Executive Vice President of the Harvard Federalist Society. Mr. Casazza received an A.B. magna cum laude in history from Princeton and an M.A. in history from the Johns Hopkins University.
Mr. Casazza served as a law clerk to Justice Samuel Alito on the Supreme Court of the United States and for Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
He is a member of the bars of New York and the District of Columbia and is admitted to practice in the United States Courts of Appeals for the Third, Fourth, Fifth, and Ninth Circuits and in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.
Senior Litigation Counsel, New Civil Liberties Alliance
Throughout his 40-year career in private law practice in Washington, D.C., Richard Samp has specialized in appellate litigation with a focus on constitutional law. He served as Chief Counsel of the Washington Legal Foundation for more than 30 years. He has participated directly in more than 200 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. Mr. Samp is a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Michigan Law School and clerked for a federal judge in Detroit.
Of Counsel, Sedgwick LLP
David Dorsen is Of Counsel with Sedgwick, LLP. He served as an Assistant US Attorney in New York under Robert M. Morgenthau, and later as Assistant Chief Counsel of the Senate Watergate Committee under Senator Sam Ervin. He has taught at Duke University, North Carolina, Georgetown University Law Center, Washington DC, and George Washington University Law School, Washington DC. His book, Henry Friendly, Greatest Judge of his Era (with Richard A. Posner, 2012), won the Green Bag Award for Exemplary Legal Writing.
Warren Distinguished Professor of Law, University of San Diego School of Law
Michael D. Ramsey is Warren Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of San Diego School of Law, where he teaches and writes in the areas of Constitutional Law, Foreign Relations Law and International Law. He is the author of The Constitution’s Text in Foreign Affairs (Harvard University Press), co-editor of International Law in the U.S. Supreme Court: Continuity and Change (Cambridge University Press), and co-author of two casebooks, Transnational Law and Practice (2d ed., Aspen) and International Business Transactions: A Problem-Oriented Coursebook (14th ed., West). His scholarly articles have appeared in publications such as the Yale Law Journal, the University of Chicago Law Review, the Georgetown Law Journal and the American Journal of International Law. He received his B.A. magna cum laude from Dartmouth College and his J.D. summa cum laude from Stanford Law School. Prior to teaching, he served as a judicial clerk for Judge J. Clifford Wallace of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and for Justice Antonin Scalia of the United States Supreme Court, and practiced law with the law firm of Latham & Watkins, where he specialized in international finance and investment. He has taught as a visiting professor at the University of California, San Diego, in the Department of Political Science and at the University of Paris – Sorbonne, in the Department of Comparative Law.
Adjunct Professor, George Washington University Law School
Senior Research Scholar in Law, Yale Law School
Linda Greenhouse is Senior Research Scholar in Law at Yale Law School. She covered the Supreme Court for The New York Times between 1978 and 2008 and writes a biweekly op-ed column on law as a contributing columnist. Ms. Greenhouse received several major journalism awards during her 40-year career at the Times, including the Pulitzer Prize (1998) and the Goldsmith Career Award for Excellence in Journalism from Harvard University’s Kennedy School (2004). In 2002, the American Political Science Association gave her its Carey McWilliams Award for “a major journalistic contribution to our understanding of politics.” Her books include a biography of Justice Harry A. Blackmun, Becoming Justice Blackmun; Before Roe v. Wade: Voices That Shaped the Abortion Debate Before the Supreme Court's Ruling (with Reva B. Siegel); The U.S. Supreme Court, A Very Short Introduction, published by Oxford University Press in 2012; and The Burger Court and the Rise of the Judicial Right, with Michael J. Graetz, published in 2016. Her latest book is Just a Journalist: Reflections on the Press, Life, and the Spaces Between, published by Harvard University Press in 2017. In her extracurricular life, Ms. Greenhouse is president of the American Philosophical Society, the country's oldest learned society, which in 2005 awarded her its Henry Allen Moe Prize for writing in jurisprudence and the humanities. She also serves on the council of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the national Senate of Phi Beta Kappa, and is one of two non-lawyer honorary members elected to the American Law Institute, which in 2002 awarded her its Henry J. Friendly Medal. She has been awarded thirteen honorary degrees. She is a 1968 graduate of Radcliffe College (Harvard) and earned a Master of Studies in Law degree from Yale Law School (1978), which she attended on a Ford Foundation fellowship. She is married to Eugene R. Fidell, Florence Rogatz Lecturer in Law at Yale. Their daughter, Hannah, is a filmmaker in Los Angeles.
Partner, Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP
Kannon is the head of our Supreme Court & Appellate practice. He has argued 39 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and has argued more than 150 appeals in courts across the country, including every federal court of appeals and numerous state courts.
Kannon is ranked as a “Star Individual” in appellate law by Chambers USA, where a client notes, “It’s hard to think of enough superlatives to describe his talent, his judgment, his ability, his experience – he is as good as it gets.” Legal 500 U.S. recognizes Kannon in its Hall of Fame for appellate work. A client shares, “His work is the best in the business, and he is a wonderful human being in addition to being a world-class appellate litigator.”
In 2024 and 2022, Kannon was a finalist for the American Lawyer’s “Litigator of the Year” award. He was named “Appellate Litigator of the Year” by Benchmark Litigation in 2021 and was a 2026 finalist for that recognition.
Before entering private practice, Kannon served as an Assistant to the Solicitor General at the U.S. Department of Justice.
Partner, Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP
Kannon is the head of our Supreme Court & Appellate practice. He has argued 39 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and has argued more than 150 appeals in courts across the country, including every federal court of appeals and numerous state courts.
Kannon is ranked as a “Star Individual” in appellate law by Chambers USA, where a client notes, “It’s hard to think of enough superlatives to describe his talent, his judgment, his ability, his experience – he is as good as it gets.” Legal 500 U.S. recognizes Kannon in its Hall of Fame for appellate work. A client shares, “His work is the best in the business, and he is a wonderful human being in addition to being a world-class appellate litigator.”
In 2024 and 2022, Kannon was a finalist for the American Lawyer’s “Litigator of the Year” award. He was named “Appellate Litigator of the Year” by Benchmark Litigation in 2021 and was a 2026 finalist for that recognition.
Before entering private practice, Kannon served as an Assistant to the Solicitor General at the U.S. Department of Justice.
Senior Attorney and Director, Election Integrity Project, Judicial Watch
Robert Popper joined Judicial Watch in September 2013 as a senior attorney and as director of Judicial Watch’s Election Integrity Project. Prior to joining Judicial Watch, Mr. Popper worked for eight years, five as deputy chief of the Voting Section, in the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, in which capacity he garnered numerous professional awards. Before that, Mr. Popper worked as a private attorney in New York City for 17 years, where his practice extended to a wide range of legal matters, including voting rights. Mr. Popper served as counsel in a successful constitutional challenge alleging racial segregation in the design of New York’s congressional districts, and successfully defended the appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. Mr. Popper is a published author on the topic of voting rights law. He developed a legal standard relating to gerrymandering that is widely cited by experts and was adopted by the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission. He has testified before the Missouri Senate Redistricting Committee and the Pennsylvania House State Government Committee; and he has spoken about voting rights to a conference of U.S. Attorneys at the National Advocacy Center, to state officials, and to countless local community representatives. Mr. Popper is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and Northwestern University Law School. He is admitted to practice in the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York, the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and the U.S. Supreme Court.
Partner, Troutman Pepper Hamilton Sanders LLP
Misha leads Troutman Peppers' national appellate and Supreme Court practice. Most recently, he successfully obtained orders from the Supreme Court blocking an unconstitutional restriction on places of worship, as well as overturning a lower court order that had blocked several state election laws. He has also argued and prevailed before the Supreme Court in Gill v. Whitford, one of the most significant redistricting cases in decades, as well as Murr v. Wisconsin, a high-stakes regulatory taking case.
Before joining Troutman, Misha served as Solicitor General of the State of Wisconsin. Misha previously served as a law clerk for the Honorable Anthony M. Kennedy of the Supreme Court, Janice Rogers Brown of the D.C. Circuit, and Alex Kozinski of the 9th Circuit. He graduated from Georgetown University Law Center, where he was President of the Federalist Society Chapter.
Partner, Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP
Kannon is the head of our Supreme Court & Appellate practice. He has argued 39 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and has argued more than 150 appeals in courts across the country, including every federal court of appeals and numerous state courts.
Kannon is ranked as a “Star Individual” in appellate law by Chambers USA, where a client notes, “It’s hard to think of enough superlatives to describe his talent, his judgment, his ability, his experience – he is as good as it gets.” Legal 500 U.S. recognizes Kannon in its Hall of Fame for appellate work. A client shares, “His work is the best in the business, and he is a wonderful human being in addition to being a world-class appellate litigator.”
In 2024 and 2022, Kannon was a finalist for the American Lawyer’s “Litigator of the Year” award. He was named “Appellate Litigator of the Year” by Benchmark Litigation in 2021 and was a 2026 finalist for that recognition.
Before entering private practice, Kannon served as an Assistant to the Solicitor General at the U.S. Department of Justice.
Biggs v. Betlach: Protecting Taxpayer Rights
Christina Sandefur
The Supreme Court’s 2012 decision National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius held that the federal government...
Practicing Before the Supreme Court
Yale Student Chapter
New Haven, CTThe Principled Scalia: A Liberal Friend on Scalia’s Liberal Opinions
Stephen B. Presser
A Review of: The Unexpected Scalia: A Conservative Justice’s Liberal Opinions, by David M. Dorsen...
Topics
Docket Watch: Bormuth v. County of Jackson
If you’re looking for evidence that Establishment Clause jurisprudence is a mess, look no further...
Gill v. Whitford - Post-Argument SCOTUScast
David W. Casazza
On October 3, 2017, the Supreme Court heard argument in Gill v. Whitford, a case...
Supreme Court Term Roundup and Preview
Indianapolis Lawyers Chapter
Indianapolis, INJennings v. Rodriguez - Post-Argument SCOTUScast
Richard A. Samp
On October 3, 2017, the Supreme Court heard reargument in Jennings v. Rodriguez, a class-action...
Redistricting
Capitol Hill Chapter Event
Washington, DCPreview of the 2017-2018 Supreme Court Term
Columbia Student Chapter
New York City, NYThe Unexpected Scalia: A Conservative Justice's Liberal Opinions
David M. Dorsen, Michael D. Ramsey, Alan B. Morrison
Antonin Scalia was one of the most important, outspoken, and controversial Justices in the past...