JOHN L. RYDER concentrates his practice in the areas of bankruptcy and commercial litigation. He has represented secured lenders, unsecured creditor's committees, trustees and debtors in the bankruptcy process. He has participated in a number of major bankruptcies including: The Julien Companies, Microwave Products, Wexner & Jacobson, Wang's, XpertTune, Braniff and others.
He served as Shelby County Delinquent Tax Attorney (1990-1994) and was a member of the Shelby County Home Rule Charter Commission (1984-1985). He is a member of the Memphis (Chairman, Bankruptcy Section, 1985) and Tennessee (Chairman, Commercial, Banking and Bankruptcy Section, 1986) Bar Associations, and the American Bankruptcy Institute and Mid-South Commercial Law Institute (Director, 1989-Present). He also serves as an Assistant County Attorney. Mr. Ryder is listed in the Best Lawyers in America. He has also been recognized by Business Tennessee as being among 101 Best Lawyers in Tennessee.
Vanderbilt University (J.D., 1974)
Wabash College (A.B., 1971)
Milton R. Underwood Chair in Free Enterprise, Vanderbilt University Law School
Brian Fitzpatrick is the Milton R. Underwood Chair in Free Enterprise and Professor of Law at Vanderbilt Law School, where his research focuses on class action litigation, federal courts, judicial selection, and constitutional law. He is best known for his empirical studies of class action settlements as well as his book The Conservative Case for Class Actions (University of Chicago Press, 2019). Professor Fitzpatrick joined Vanderbilt's law faculty in 2007 after serving as the John M. Olin Fellow at New York University School of Law. He graduated first in his class from Harvard Law School and went on to clerk for Judge Diarmuid O'Scannlain on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and Justice Antonin Scalia on the U.S. Supreme Court. After his clerkships, Professor Fitzpatrick practiced commercial and appellate litigation for several years at Sidley Austin in Washington, D.C., and served as Special Counsel for Supreme Court Nominations to U.S. Senator John Cornyn. Before earning his law degree, Fitzpatrick graduated summa cum laude with a bachelor's of science in chemical engineering from the University of Notre Dame. He has received the Hall-Hartman Outstanding Professor Award, which recognizes excellence in classroom teaching, for his Civil Procedure and Federal Courts courses.
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.
Distinguished Professor of Law, Jamie L. Whitten Chair of Law and Government, University of Mississippi School of Law
Professor Ronald J. Rychlak is the Jamie L. Whitten Chair of Law and Government and Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of Mississippi. He is a legal advisor to the Holy See’s delegation to the United Nations and chair of the Mississippi Advisory Committee to the U.S. Civil Rights Commission. He serves as the university’s Faculty Athletic Representative and is on the executive committee of the Southeastern Conference (SEC). In 2019 he received the university’s highest research and publication recognition, the “Distinguished Research and Creative Achievement Award” based upon his reputation for scholarly activity and leadership roles in professional societies. In 2023, he received the Algernon Sydney Sullivan Award, the University’s highest award in honor of service, for “placing service to others and the community before oneself, while embodying the qualities of honesty, morality, ethics, integrity, responsibility, determination, courage, and compassion.” In 2024, he was voted “Outstanding Law Professor” by the law school student body.
Ron is the author, co-author, or editor of twelve books and over 100 articles. The Congregation for the Causes of Saints at the Vatican called his book, Hitler, the War, and the Pope “definitive” in its response to charges made against the leader of the Catholic Church during World War II. He has been published in Notre Dame Law Review, UCLA Law Review, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and numerous other periodicals and journals. Media appearances include CNN, ABC, Fox News, The National Geographic TV Network, The Military Channel, C-SPAN, and more.
Ron and his wife Claire are proud of their six children, two sons-in-law, one daughter-in-law, and three granddaughters. They live in Oxford, Mississippi.
Professor of Law, High Point School of Law
Scott Gaylord directs High Point Law’s Appellate Litigation Clinic and serves as a Professor of Law, teaching Constitutional Law and related upper-level elective courses. The Appellate Clinic works with students to write and file briefs in significant court cases, including appeals before the United States Supreme Court.
Professor Gaylord is a prominent Constitutional Law scholar with an impressive background in both academia and legal practice. He has authored or co-authored 18 substantial law review articles, co-authored a Constitutional Law casebook, and has written more than 35 amicus briefs to the U.S. Supreme Court and federal circuit courts on prominent national cases involving religious liberty and free speech. He is a frequent speaker on constitutional law and First Amendment topics at law schools across the country and has regularly provided commentary on ongoing constitutional issues to national media outlets, including th eNew York Times, USA Today, the Diane Rehm Show, NPR, The National Constitution Center, and Bloomberg Law.
Professor Gaylord also started an appellate advocacy clinic at his former law school and currently serves on the North Carolina Chief Justice’s Commission on Professionalism, along with holding many other service and leadership roles. Prior to joining the academy in 2007, he practiced complex civil and commercial litigation with the Charlotte firm of Robinson Bradshaw & Hinson, and he clerked for Judge Edith H. Jones on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
Professor Gaylord earned his B.A. in philosophy and English, summa cum laude, from Colgate University, his Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and his J.D. from Notre Dame Law School, where he also graduated summa cum laude.
Assistant City Attorney, City of Arlington City Attorney's Office
Joshua Skinner is an assistant city attorney with the City of Arlington, Texas, with almost two decades of experience in civil rights, employment litigation, local government defense, and appellate advocacy.
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