Attorney, Robinson, Bradshaw & Hinson, PA
Erik Zimmerman is a commercial and appellate litigator. He previously clerked for Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. of the U.S. Supreme Court and the Honorable J. Harvie Wilkinson III of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. Aided by his experience in the judicial system, Erik represents clients at all levels of the federal and state courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, federal and state appellate and trial courts, and federal administrative agencies.
Erik has experience in a broad range of subject areas, including contract disputes, employment and labor law, ERISA, and health care and health insurance law. He also represents clients in cases involving constitutional law, communications law, fraud, the False Claims Act, product liability, punitive damages and federal preemption of state law.
Erik's representative matters include helping to secure dismissal of a multibillion dollar breach of contract action in federal district court. He also successfully represented a client in appealing a judgment of nearly $100 million to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in another contract dispute.
Erik also maintains an active pro bono practice. He has represented clients in federal and state appeals involving issues of criminal law, the Fourth Amendment and landlord-tenant law. Erik is admitted only in the District of Columbia.
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.
Professor of Legal Rhetoric, American University Washington College of Law
Professor Paul Figley is a Professor of Legal Rhetoric at the Washington College of Law where he first joined the faculty in 2006. Professor Figley has taught Legal Rhetoric, first year Torts, and upper level Advanced Lawyering Skills: Tort Litigation. He serves on the Advisory Board of the Administrative Law Review and the American University Law Review. The Student Bar Association named Washington College of Law Professor of the Year for 2012-13 and Faculty Member of the Year for 2014-15.
Professor Figley has testified before Congress, presented at scholarly symposia and conferences of national organizations and government agencies. He has written for national legal writing publications and has published articles in scholarly journals. His book, A Guide to the Federal Tort Claims Act (ABA, 2018), is now in its second edition.
Professor Figley served three decades as a litigator for the U.S. Department of Justice where he was Deputy Director of the Torts Branch for fifteen years. At Justice, Professor Figley represented the United States and its agencies in appellate and district court litigation involving torts, national security, and information law.
Professor Figley is a graduate of Franklin & Marshall College and Southern Methodist University School of Law, where he was Leading Articles Editor for the Journal of Air Law & Commerce.
Assistant Professor of Law, Emory University School of Law
Alexander "Sasha" Volokh is an assistant professor of law, joining the Emory Law faculty in Fall 2009.
Professor Volokh earned his B.S. from UCLA and his J.D. and Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University. He clerked for Judge Alex Kozinski of the Ninth Circuit and for Supreme Court Justices Sandra Day O'Connor and Samuel Alito. Before coming to Emory, he was a visiting associate professor at Georgetown University Law Center and a visiting assistant professor at University of Houston Law Center.
His interests include law and economics, administrative law and the regulatory process, environmental law and policy, and legal history. His current research topics include the private management of government services, medieval law, judicial decisionmaking and statutory interpretation.
President, Cass & Associates, PC
Ronald A. Cass is Dean Emeritus of Boston University School of Law (where he was Dean from 1990-2004), President of Cass & Associates, PC, former Vice-Chairman and Commissioner of the U.S. International Trade Commission, former faculty member at Boston University School of Law and the University of Virginia Law School, and Distinguished Senior Fellow at the C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State. Dean Cass also sits as an arbitrator for commercial, international, and intellectual property rights disputes, and is a former United States member of the Panel of Conciliators of the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes. He is a member of the Council of the Administrative Conference of the United States and has received seven presidential appointments, spanning Presidents Ronald Reagan to Donald J. Trump.
As a law professor, lecturer, and scholar, Dean Cass has been teaching and writing about a wide array of legal issues on topics such as administrative law and regulation, antitrust, constitutional law, communications, intellectual property, international trade, separation of powers, and legal process. He has published more than 160 scholarly books, chapters, articles, and papers, including a leading casebook on administrative law. Dean Cass has taught judges as well as students in schools of law, economics, business, and public policy and has held academic appointments in the United States, Europe, and Latin America.
In addition to his academic work, Dean Cass has participated in numerous important legal cases as an amicus, consultant, or expert, and has advised businesses, law firms, investment funds, and government agencies on a range of trade, antitrust, intellectual property, and regulatory issues. He has a broad range of affiliations with professional groups, and has received numerous honors, fellowships and awards.
Dean Cass is a graduate of the University of Virginia and the University of Chicago Law School.
Arthur Kaplan Professor of Law, Co-Director, Floersheimer Center, Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law
Professor Michael E. Herz joined the faculty of the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of LAw from the Environmental Defense Fund, where he was a staff attorney for three years. Previously, he clerked for Associate Justice Byron R. White of the U.S. Supreme Court and for Chief Judge Levin H. Campbell of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. Professor Herz was Cardozo's Vice Dean from 2006 to 2009 and served as Senior Associate Dean from 1996 to 2000; he is currently the co-director of Cardozo's Floersheimer Center for Constitutional Democracy. He was a visiting professor at New York University School of Law from 2000 to 2001 and 2005 to 2006, has taught at Columbia and Princeton, and spent a year as a Fellow in Princeton's Program in Law and Public Affairs. Professor Herz is a former Chair of the ABA's Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice and serves as a public member of the Administrative Conference of the United States.
Associate, King & Spalding
Brian Callanan is an associate in the national appellate practice at King & Spalding. He has participated in cases before the Supreme Court, federal courts of appeals, and state and federal trial courts.
Mr. Callanan has drafted appellate briefs and critical motions in matters involving a broad range of complex legal issues. He has considerable experience litigating against federal agencies and advising clients on administrative law matters. He has represented clients before, or in litigation against, agencies including the Department of Transportation, National Labor Relations Board, Securities & Exchange Commission, Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Federal Reserve, Department of Health & Human Services, and Food & Drug Administration. Among other successes, he participated in an Administrative Procedure Act challenge that prompted a federal agency to withdraw the costliest regulatory mandate in the history of the U.S. railroad industry. He co-chairs the Rulemaking Committee of the American Bar Association’s administrative law section and is a member of the Executive Committee of the Federalist Society’s administrative law section.
Before joining King & Spalding, Mr. Callanan was general counsel to U.S. Senator Rob Portman. In that position, he served as principal adviser on tax policy, regulatory policy, and legal issues cutting across all substantive areas. He developed and drafted bipartisan legislation on a range of issues, including bipartisan bills to reform the rulemaking process, to strengthen economic analysis by independent regulatory agencies, to reform the federal permitting process for major infrastructure projects, and to expedite the sale of excess federal property. He advised Senator Portman in connection with his work on the Finance Committee and the Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs Committee. During the same period, he served as staff director of a Senate oversight subcommittee with jurisdiction over all aspects of federal contracting.
Previously, Mr. Callanan was a litigation associate at another major law firm in Washington, D.C.
Mr. Callanan served as a law clerk to Judge A. Raymond Randolph of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He received his J.D., cum laude, from Harvard Law School in 2008. At Harvard, Mr. Callanan served as Articles Editor of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy. Before law school, he served as a speechwriter in the U.S. Senate. Mr. Callanan earned his undergraduate degree, magna cum laude, from Claremont McKenna College, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.
President, Becket Fund for Religious Liberty; Professor of Law and Co-Director of the Center for Religious Liberty, Catholic University; Visiting Professor, Harvard Law School
Mark joined the Becket team in 2011 and splits his time as Associate Professor at The Catholic University of America, Columbus School of Law, and as Visiting Professor at Harvard Law School. Mark teaches constitutional law, religious liberty, torts, and evidence. He has been voted Teacher of the Year three years in a row by the Law School’s Student Bar Association.
Mark has broad experience litigating First Amendment religious exercise and free speech cases. He has represented the winning parties in a variety of Supreme Court First Amendment cases including Hobby Lobby, Little Sisters, Wheaton College, and Holt. In January 2014, Mark argued before the Supreme Court in McCullen v. Coakley, a First Amendment challenge to a Massachusetts speech restriction outside of abortion clinics. The Justices ruled in favor of his clients 9-0. Mark also led a successful eight-year litigation battle against Governor Blagojevich’s effort to force religious pharmacists to distribute the morning-after and week-after pills.
Mark’s academic writing focuses on the First and Fourteenth Amendments, and has appeared in a variety of prestigious journals, including the Harvard Law Review.
Mark is a widely sought after speaker on constitutional issues, particularly concerning abortion and the First Amendment. Professor Rienzi has been invited to discuss these issues at Harvard Law School, Columbia University Law School, Georgetown University Law Center, Boston College Law School, Notre Dame Law School, the National Press Club, and the Capitol. He has been quoted on constitutional law issues on NPR, in the Washington Times, The New York Daily News, and the Chicago Sun-Times. Mark has also been featured on the Kelly File, Fox News Sunday, Your World with Neil Cavuto, Geraldo at Large, CNN Tonight, CNN Live, Andrea Mitchell Reports, and Wall Street Journal Live.
Prior to joining Becket, Mark served as counsel for the litigation department and the intellectual property litigation practice group of WilmerHale LLP. His practice focused on complex civil and appellate litigation with a particular emphasis on intellectual property and First Amendment issues. Prior to joining WilmerHale, he served as law clerk to the Hon. Stephen F. Williams, senior circuit judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Prior to that, Mark was an editor of the Harvard Law Review, and earned his J.D. from Harvard Law School and B.A. from Princeton University, both with honors.
General Counsel, Prospera Group
Dranias serves as NeWay Capital LLC’s General Counsel, handling all corporate legal matters. Prior to this, he was Senior Litigation Counsel with the Government Accountability & Special Litigation Unit of the Arizona Attorney General. He also serves as Policy Advisor and Research Fellow with the Heartland Institute, as an expert and Speaker’s Bureau member with the Federalist Society, a Law and Civil Liberties Speaker for Students for Liberty, a Council of Scholars member with Compact for America Educational Foundation, as well as an Adjunct Instructor teaching Business Ethics and Law at Grand Canyon University.
Previously, Dranias served as President & Executive Director of Compact for America Educational Foundation where he led national efforts to organize the states to propose and ratify a federal Balanced Budget Amendment. Prior to that, Dranias was General Counsel, Policy Development Director and Constitutional Policy Director at the Goldwater Institute. Dranias led the Institute’s successful challenge to Arizona’s system of government campaign financing to the U.S. Supreme Court. Prior to that, he was an attorney with the Institute for Justice for three years and an attorney in private practice in Chicago for eight years, where he served as Young Lawyers Section co-editor of the Chicago Bar Association Record and earned the Oliver Wendell Holmes Award for his service.
Senior Fellow and Director of Constitutional Studies, Manhattan Institute
Ilya Shapiro is a senior fellow and director of constitutional studies at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal. Previously he was executive director and senior lecturer at the Georgetown Center for the Constitution, and before that a vice president of the Cato Institute.
Shapiro is the author of Lawless: The Miseducation of America’s Elites (2025) and Supreme Disorder: Judicial Nominations and the Politics of America’s Highest Court (2020), coauthor of Religious Liberties for Corporations? (2014), and editor of 11 volumes of the Cato Supreme Court Review (2008-18). He has contributed to a variety of academic, popular, and professional publications, including the Wall Street Journal, Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, National Review, and Newsweek. He also regularly provides commentary for various media outlets, writes the Shapiro’s Gavel newsletter on Substack, and once appeared on the Colbert Report.
Shapiro has testified many times before Congress and state legislatures and has filed more than 500 amicus curiae “friend of the court” briefs in the Supreme Court. He lectures regularly on behalf of the Federalist Society, is a member of the board of fellows of the Jewish Policy Center, was an inaugural Washington Fellow at the National Review Institute, and has been an adjunct law professor at the George Washington University and University of Mississippi. He is also the chairman of the board of advisers of the Mississippi Justice Institute, a barrister in the Edward Coke Appellate Inn of Court, and a former member of the Virginia Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.
Earlier in his career, Shapiro was a special assistant/adviser to the Multi-National Force in Iraq on rule-of-law issues and practiced at Patton Boggs and Cleary Gottlieb. Before entering private practice, he clerked for Judge E. Grady Jolly of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. He holds an AB from Princeton University, an MSc from the London School of Economics, and a JD from the University of Chicago Law School.
Associate, King & Spalding
Brian Callanan is an associate in the national appellate practice at King & Spalding. He has participated in cases before the Supreme Court, federal courts of appeals, and state and federal trial courts.
Mr. Callanan has drafted appellate briefs and critical motions in matters involving a broad range of complex legal issues. He has considerable experience litigating against federal agencies and advising clients on administrative law matters. He has represented clients before, or in litigation against, agencies including the Department of Transportation, National Labor Relations Board, Securities & Exchange Commission, Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Federal Reserve, Department of Health & Human Services, and Food & Drug Administration. Among other successes, he participated in an Administrative Procedure Act challenge that prompted a federal agency to withdraw the costliest regulatory mandate in the history of the U.S. railroad industry. He co-chairs the Rulemaking Committee of the American Bar Association’s administrative law section and is a member of the Executive Committee of the Federalist Society’s administrative law section.
Before joining King & Spalding, Mr. Callanan was general counsel to U.S. Senator Rob Portman. In that position, he served as principal adviser on tax policy, regulatory policy, and legal issues cutting across all substantive areas. He developed and drafted bipartisan legislation on a range of issues, including bipartisan bills to reform the rulemaking process, to strengthen economic analysis by independent regulatory agencies, to reform the federal permitting process for major infrastructure projects, and to expedite the sale of excess federal property. He advised Senator Portman in connection with his work on the Finance Committee and the Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs Committee. During the same period, he served as staff director of a Senate oversight subcommittee with jurisdiction over all aspects of federal contracting.
Previously, Mr. Callanan was a litigation associate at another major law firm in Washington, D.C.
Mr. Callanan served as a law clerk to Judge A. Raymond Randolph of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He received his J.D., cum laude, from Harvard Law School in 2008. At Harvard, Mr. Callanan served as Articles Editor of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy. Before law school, he served as a speechwriter in the U.S. Senate. Mr. Callanan earned his undergraduate degree, magna cum laude, from Claremont McKenna College, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.
President, Cass & Associates, PC
Ronald A. Cass is Dean Emeritus of Boston University School of Law (where he was Dean from 1990-2004), President of Cass & Associates, PC, former Vice-Chairman and Commissioner of the U.S. International Trade Commission, former faculty member at Boston University School of Law and the University of Virginia Law School, and Distinguished Senior Fellow at the C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State. Dean Cass also sits as an arbitrator for commercial, international, and intellectual property rights disputes, and is a former United States member of the Panel of Conciliators of the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes. He is a member of the Council of the Administrative Conference of the United States and has received seven presidential appointments, spanning Presidents Ronald Reagan to Donald J. Trump.
As a law professor, lecturer, and scholar, Dean Cass has been teaching and writing about a wide array of legal issues on topics such as administrative law and regulation, antitrust, constitutional law, communications, intellectual property, international trade, separation of powers, and legal process. He has published more than 160 scholarly books, chapters, articles, and papers, including a leading casebook on administrative law. Dean Cass has taught judges as well as students in schools of law, economics, business, and public policy and has held academic appointments in the United States, Europe, and Latin America.
In addition to his academic work, Dean Cass has participated in numerous important legal cases as an amicus, consultant, or expert, and has advised businesses, law firms, investment funds, and government agencies on a range of trade, antitrust, intellectual property, and regulatory issues. He has a broad range of affiliations with professional groups, and has received numerous honors, fellowships and awards.
Dean Cass is a graduate of the University of Virginia and the University of Chicago Law School.
Arthur Kaplan Professor of Law, Co-Director, Floersheimer Center, Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law
Professor Michael E. Herz joined the faculty of the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of LAw from the Environmental Defense Fund, where he was a staff attorney for three years. Previously, he clerked for Associate Justice Byron R. White of the U.S. Supreme Court and for Chief Judge Levin H. Campbell of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. Professor Herz was Cardozo's Vice Dean from 2006 to 2009 and served as Senior Associate Dean from 1996 to 2000; he is currently the co-director of Cardozo's Floersheimer Center for Constitutional Democracy. He was a visiting professor at New York University School of Law from 2000 to 2001 and 2005 to 2006, has taught at Columbia and Princeton, and spent a year as a Fellow in Princeton's Program in Law and Public Affairs. Professor Herz is a former Chair of the ABA's Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice and serves as a public member of the Administrative Conference of the United States.
Gelboim v. Bank of America Corporation - Post-Argument SCOTUScast
Erik R. Zimmerman
On December 9, 2014, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in Gelboim v. Bank of...
The Little Sisters of the Poor and the HHS Mandate
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Teresa Stanton Collett
On December 3, 2014, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in Young v. United Parcel...
Article V and the Compact for a Balanced Budget
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Paul Figley
On December 10, 2014, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in two related cases: United...
Department of Transportation v. Association of American Railroads - Post-Argument SCOTUScast
Alexander Volokh
On December 8, 2014, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in Department of Transportation v....
Supreme Court Preview
Mineola, New YorkAmtrak and the Non-Delegation Doctrine in the Supreme Court
TeleforumAmtrak and the Resurgence of the Non-Delegation Doctrine? - Podcast
Ronald A. Cass, Michael E. Herz, Brian Richard Callanan
Congress passed the Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act (PRIIA) in 2008. Section 207 of...
Amtrak and the Resurgence of the Non-Delegation Doctrine?
Teleforum