Professor Emeritus of Law, Indiana University; Co-Author, The Law of Lawyering
After graduating with honors from Harvard College in 1966, and from Rutgers Law School with highest honors in 1969, W. William Hodes began practice in a small civil rights and personal injury firm in New Orleans, where he had lived as a child. During the next eight years, he worked in Newark, New Jersey, first for the Kenneth Gibson administration, and then as senior staff attorney for the Education Law Center, a public interest law firm funded by the Ford Foundation.
In 1979, Hodes returned to the legal academy, first as a Bigelow Teaching Fellow at the University of Chicago Law School, and then as a Professor of Law at the Indiana University School of Law in Indianapolis. For the next twenty years, Professor Hodes taught in the areas of Civil Procedure, Constitutonal Law, Federal Courts, Administrative Law, and Professional Responsibility. He gained a national reputation as a scholar, consultant, and expert witness in the areas of Legal Ethics and Professional Responsbility, as they were then known.
Beginning in 1985 however, those subjects began to be known as "The Law of Lawyering," after a book of that name was published, co-authored by Professor Hodes and Professor Geoffrey C. Hazard, Jr., who had served as the Reporter to the Kutak Commission that developed the Model Rules of Professional Conduct. The treatise, which is now in its fourth edition and updated twice a year by Hodes and new co-author Peter R. Jarvis of Portland, Oregon, has become a mainstay resource for both the practicing bar and the academic community, and is often cited in court and ethics committee opinions.
While in the academy, Professor Hodes took two unusual sabbatical leaves. In the Spring of 1989, Hodes, who had spent his junior high school years in Beijing and is still fluent in Chinese, was a Visiting Scholar and Lecturer at the China University of Politics and Law, teaching a course in American Civil Procedure and conducting research into Chinese People's Mediation. (The course was suspended in April, when the events leading to the June 4th Tiananmen Massacre began to unfold, and Professor Hodes began to accompany his students on protest marches.)
During the October 1996 Term of the United States Supreme Court, Professor Hodes served as law clerk to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who had been his Civil Procedure and Conflicts of Law professor some thirty years earlier, during her Rutgers days. According to knowledgeable sources, Hodes was the oldest person to have served as a law clerk since the early 19th Century.
In 1999, W. William Hodes retired from law teaching (at age 56) in order to establish the William Hodes Professional Corporation, which was later renamed The William Hodes Law Firm; he became Professor Emeritus of Law at Indiana University as the new century began. Through this solo practice, Hodes can now devote full time to providing representation, consultation, expert testimony, legal opinions, and other counsel and assistance to lawyers in the areas of The Law of Lawyering, and Constitutional, Appellate, Supreme Court, and other complex litigation.
United States District Court, Southern District of Texas
Prior to joining TXSE, Jeff served as acting general counsel of Charles Schwab and led its Office of Legislative and Regulatory Affairs in Washington, D.C. for the past two decades, managing the company's response to public policy initiatives and advocating for policies that aid individual investors. He has over four decades of securities markets experience, starting his career as an options trader at the Philadelphia Stock Exchange, then founding his own trading firm, and later serving on the exchange's Board of Governors. He also served as senior counsel in the Division of Market Regulation at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Jeff's additional experience in the securities industry includes serving as vice president for regulation and general counsel at the Cincinnati Stock Exchange and as chairman of the Operating Committee of the National Market System Plan governing Nasdaq securities. Jeff holds degrees from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and Ohio Northern School of Law.
Partner, Lehotsky Keller LLP
The New York Times recognized Scott A. Keller as a “legal heavyweight,” who “is praised by opponents as a formidable advocate.”
Mr. Keller has argued 12 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and 12 cases before the Texas Supreme Court. He is the only practicing lawyer to have argued at least 10 cases in both courts. Mr. Keller frequently represents parties in high stakes appeals, and he has argued many cases in federal courts of appeals throughout the nation. He has earned individual accolades from Lawdragon 500 Leading Litigators in America, Chambers, Legal 500, The American Lawyer, The National Law Journal, Law360, Super Lawyers, The Best Lawyers in America, and other publications.
Before founding Lehotsky Keller Cohn LLP, Mr. Keller headed Baker Botts LLP’s Supreme Court Practice. He also has significant experience at the highest levels in all three branches of government. Mr. Keller served as the Solicitor General of Texas, the State’s chief appellate litigator. He was U.S. Senator Ted Cruz’s chief counsel on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Mr. Keller was a law clerk for Justice Anthony Kennedy of the Supreme Court of the United States and Chief Judge Alex Kozinski of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. He was also a Bristow Fellow in the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of the Solicitor General.
Mr. Keller represents clients in cases where public communications strategy is crucial, and he has made numerous media appearances in major outlets such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, BBC, Fox News, NPR, and Politico. As a sought after speaker and writer, Mr. Keller’s articles have appeared in the Stanford Law Review, Virginia Law Review, and Texas Law Review. He has also served as an adjunct professor of constitutional litigation, Supreme Court practice, and federal courts at the University of Texas School of Law.
Alston & Bird Professor of Law, Duke University School of Law
Professor Young teaches constitutional law, federal courts, and foreign relations law. He is one of the nation's leading authorities on the constitutional law of federalism, having written extensively on the Rehnquist Court's "Federalist Revival" and the difficulties confronting courts as they seek to draw lines between national and state authority. He also is an active commentator on foreign relations law, where he focuses on the interaction between domestic and supranational courts and the application of international law by domestic courts. Professor Young also writes on constitutional interpretation and constitutional theory. He has been known to dabble in maritime law and comparative constitutional law.
A native of Abilene, Texas, Professor Young joined the Duke Law faculty in 2008, after serving as the Charles Alan Wright Chair in Federal Courts at the University of Texas at Austin School of Law, where he had taught since 1999. He graduated from Dartmouth College in 1990 and Harvard Law School in 1993. After law school, he served as a law clerk to Judge Michael Boudin of the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals (1993-94) and to Justice David Souter of the U.S. Supreme Court (1995-96). Professor Young practiced law at Cohan, Simpson, Cowlishaw, & Wulff in Dallas, Texas (1994-95) and at Covington & Burling in Washington, D.C. (1996-98), where he specialized in appellate litigation. He has also been a visiting professor at Harvard Law School (2004-05) and Villanova University School of Law (1998-99), as well as an adjunct professor at Georgetown University Law Center (1997).
Elected to the American Law Institute in 2006, Professor Young is an active participant in both public and private litigation in his areas of interest. He has been the principal author of amicus briefs on behalf of leading constitutional scholars in several recent Supreme Court cases, including Medellin v. Texas(concerning presidential power and the authority of the International Court of Justice over domestic courts) and Gonzales v. Raich (concerning federal power to regulate medical marijuana).
Partner and Co-Chair, Constitutional and Appellate Law Practice Group, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP
Allyson N. Ho is a partner in the Dallas office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP and co‐chair of the Firm’s nationwide Appellate and Constitutional Law practice group.
Mrs. Ho is “undoubtedly one of the premier appellate lawyers in the United States” (Chambers). She has presented over 100 oral arguments in federal and state courts nationwide, including multiple high‐stakes cases on behalf of business before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Her most significant winning arguments include a U.S. Supreme Court reversal worth billions of dollars for unionized employers in the Sixth Circuit; a U.S. Supreme Court reversal limiting the power of federal regulators; a multi‐billion dollar environmental win in the Fifth Circuit; a multi‐billion dollar commercial victory for the founder of a technology company in the Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court; a billion dollar environmental win in the Houston Court of Appeals; a nine‐figure commercial victory in the Corpus Christi Court of Appeals; and a nine‐figure arbitration win in the Fifth Circuit.
Among her numerous accolades, Mrs. Ho is one of only a small group of appellate lawyers nationwide, and the only one in Texas, to be nationally ranked by Chambers every year for the past ten years (2012‐21). She is also one of the few appellate lawyers nationwide to be named to the BTI Client Service All‐Stars List, an honor bestowed by the corporate counsel community for lawyers “who stand above all the others in delivering the absolute best in client service.” She is also routinely named as a leading appellate lawyer by Benchmark, The Best Lawyers in America®, The Legal 500, Texas Super Lawyers, and D Magazine.
Mrs. Ho has received the Gregory S. Coleman Outstanding Appellate Lawyer Award (Texas Bar Foundation, June 22, 2018), been named a “Distinguished Leader” (Texas Lawyer, Sep. 1, 2017) and “Appellate MVP” (Law360, Nov. 23, 2015), and been recognized on the “Appellate Hot List” (National Law Journal, Nov. 16, 2015). In addition, she has been profiled in “Texas Powerhouse” (Law360, Aug. 2, 2021), “Texas Appellate Power Couple” (Texas Lawbook, January 7, 2021), “Litigators of the Week” (The American Lawyer, May 8, 2020), “Litigation Powerhouse” (Law360, Aug. 10, 2016), “Supreme Court Insider” (National Law Journal, July 21, 2016), “Supreme Court Specialists, Mostly Male, Dominated Arguments This Term” (National Law Journal, May 11, 2016), “Attorney of the Year Finalist” (Texas Lawyer, Nov. 2, 2015), “Litigation Department of the Year” (Texas Lawyer, June 1, 2015), “Employment Group of the Year” (Law360, Jan. 13, 2015), “A Supreme Month: Lawyer Credits Preparedness in Ability to Argue Two U.S. High Court Cases in Three Weeks” (Texas Lawyer, Dec. 8, 2014), “High Court Debuts for Two Lawyers” (National Law Journal, Nov. 3, 2014), “Women in Business Awards” (Dallas Business Journal, Aug 29, 2014), “Litigation Departments of the Year” (Texas Lawyer, June 2, 2014), “Winning Women” (Texas Lawyer, Aug. 22, 2011), and “High court practitioners: increasingly diverse” (National Law Journal, June 6, 2011).
Federal and State Appellate Practice
Mrs. Ho has argued a series of high stakes, landmark cases on behalf of the business community before the U.S. Supreme Court. National Law Journal called her a “Veteran SCOTUS Advocate” in the “upper echelons of Supreme Court practice.” Law360 named her a “Supreme Court Star” and “one of the nation’s preeminent appellate lawyers.” And EmpiricalSCOTUS.com ranked her among “the most successful attorneys that currently practice before the Court.” Mrs. Ho once argued two significant business cases before the Court within the span of 21 days—including a “significant ruling for employers” that “paved a new path for companies paying millions of dollars in retiree health care benefits” (Law360), as well as a landmark administrative law dispute in which “several justices agreed with Ho’s contention that SCOTUS should revisit and overrule its own precedent” (Law360). She also prevailed against the EEOC in a case that the employment defense bar called “good news for employers across the country.” And in “the most important patent case in modern history” according to patent law experts, her argument before the Court was credited for “pick[ing] up two votes that pundits thought unreachable.”
She has appeared before every federal court of appeals in the country, including en banc arguments before the Fourth and Sixth Circuits. She has successfully represented business clients in every circuit, including the First (Pruco Life Insurance Company), Second (Swiss Federation; Rite Aid), Third (Johnson & Johnson), Fourth (Genex Services), Fifth (United Space Alliance LLC; Elliott Co.; MERSCORP; 24 Hour Fitness USA, Inc.; Stream Energy; Health Management Systems), Sixth (Deutsche Bank; American Airlines; M&G Polymers), Seventh (Expedia), Eighth (Cotter), Ninth (Boeing; JP Morgan Chase Bank), Tenth (Mitchell International), Eleventh (AstraZeneca), D.C. (FedEx), and Federal (Repros Therapeutics) Circuits.
In addition, Mrs. Ho regularly appears in state appellate courts across the country. She has argued numerous cases in the Texas Supreme Court, Texas appellate courts in Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, Corpus Christi, and Eastland, and state appellate courts in Arizona, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, and West Virginia, prevailing on behalf of Ford Motor Company, PepsiCo, International Paper, Tenet, GameStop, Deutsche Bank, and Unit.
Government and Public Service Experience
Mrs. Ho has a distinguished record of experience at the highest levels of the federal government. She served as Special Assistant to President George W. Bush, Counselor to Attorney General John Ashcroft, and law clerk to Justice Sandra Day O’Connor of the U.S. Supreme Court and Judge Jacques L. Wiener Jr. of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
Her record of public service also includes appointments to various boards and commissions. Among the most notable are her election as a member of the Administrative Conference of the United States, a trustee of the United States Supreme Court Historical Society, and a trustee of the Texas Supreme Court Historical Society. She is also vice chair of the Federal Judicial Evaluation Committee, appointed by U.S. Senators John Cornyn and Ted Cruz to evaluate potential appointments of all federal judges and U.S. Attorneys in Texas, and has previously served on the U.S. Magistrate Judge Merit Selection Panel for the Northern District of Texas.
Other Background Information
An active pro bono litigator, Mrs. Ho works most frequently with the First Liberty Institute and as amicus counsel for the State and Local Legal Center, the National Organization for Victim Assistance, and the National Crime Victim Law Institute. She is a frequent public speaker and active member of the Federalist Society, the American Law Institute, and the Washington Legal Foundation’s Legal Policy Advisory Board.
Mrs. Ho graduated from Duke University magna cum laude with a B.A. in English, Rice University with an M.A. and Ph.D. in English Literature, and the University of Chicago Law School with high honors. She was a member of the Law Review and Order of the Coif. She and her husband Jim, a federal judge, have a twin daughter and son.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit
Judge Smith was appointed U.S. Circuit Judge for the Fifth Circuit by President Reagan and entered on duty in January 1988. He attended public schools in Lubbock, Texas, and graduated from Yale University, receiving a B.A. in 1969 and a J.D. in 1972.
Judge Smith was a Law Clerk to U.S. District Judge Halbert Woodward, Northern District of Texas, 1972-1973; with the Houston law firm of Fulbright & Jaworski as an Associate, 1973-1981, and as Partner, 1981-1984; and as City Attorney, City of Houston, 1984-1988. He was Chairman, Civil Service Commission, City of Houston, 1982-1984; and a Director, Harris County Housing Authority, 1978-1980.
Judge Smith lives in Houston and is married to Mary Jane Smith and has four children: Ruth Ann, Clark, J.J., and Brandon. He formerly was Chair of the Advisory Committee on Federal Rules of Evidence of the Judicial Conference of the United States. He assists LexisNexis/Matthew Bender & Co. in periodic revisions of several chapters of Moore’s Federal Practice.
District Judge, United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas
Judge Brantley Starr was appointed to United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas in August 2019. Before his appointment, Judge Starr was the Deputy First Assistant Attorney General of Texas. Prior to that appointment, he served as Deputy Attorney General for Legal Counsel. From 2011 to 2015, Judge Starr served as career staff attorney to Texas Supreme Court Justice Eva Guzman. From 2008 to 2011, he practiced at King & Spalding, LLP. He served in the Office of the Solicitor General from 2006 to 2008. Prior to that, Judge Starr clerked for then-Justice Don Willett on the Texas Supreme Court after serving at the Office of the Attorney General. Judge Starr received his law degree from the University of Texas School of Law and his bachelor of arts degree from Abilene Christian University in 2001. Judge Starr has taught the Origins of the Constitution Class at the University of Texas law, Texas A&M law, and SMU law.
President, Students for Fair Admissions
Edward Blum is the president of Students for Fair Admissions, a membership organization whose mission is to eliminate racial and ethnic classifications and preferences in school admissions. Shortly after SFFA’s inception in 2014, the group challenged in federal court the racial admissions policies at Harvard and the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. In 2023, the United States Supreme Court struck down the use of race as an admissions factor at all colleges and universities.
He is the president of the newly formed American Alliance for Equal Rights which has filed over a dozen lawsuits challenging the use of race by corporations, law firms, venture capital firms and cultural institutions. Mr. Blum also serves as the President of the Project on Fair Representation, a nonprofit legal foundation formed in 2005 that has provided counsel in a number of race-related U.S. Supreme Court cases including, Shelby Co. Alabama v. Holder, Fisher v. University of Texas (I and II) and Evenwel v. Abbott.
Since 2005, Blum has been a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute where he studies legal and policy issues relating to race and ethnicity. He is the author of a book on the Voting Rights Act, numerous essays and law review articles, and is a frequent contributor to the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, and National Review, among others.
Vice President, Edwin Meese III Institute for the Rule of Law, Advancing American Freedom
John G. Malcolm oversees Advancing American Freedom’s work to increase understanding of the Constitution and the rule of law as Vice President of the organization’s Edwin Meese III Institute for the Rule of Law. Malcolm brings to the challenge a wealth of legal expertise and experience in both the public and private sectors.
Prior to joining Advancing American Freedom in 2025, Malcolm was the Vice President of the Institute for Constitutional Government and the Director of the Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at the Heritage Foundation. Prior to joining Heritage in 2012, Malcolm was general counsel at the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, as well as a distinguished practitioner in residence at Pepperdine Law School. From 2004 to 2009, Malcolm was executive vice president and director of worldwide anti-piracy operations for the Motion Picture Association.
Malcolm served as a deputy assistant attorney general in the Department of Justice’s Criminal Division from 2001 to 2004, where he oversaw sections on computer crime and intellectual property, domestic security, child exploitation and obscenity, and special investigations. Immediately prior to that, he was a founding partner in the Atlanta law firm of Malcolm & Schroeder, LLP.
From 1990 to 1997, Malcolm was an assistant U.S. attorney in Atlanta, assigned to the fraud and public corruption section, and also an associate independent counsel, investigating fraud and abuse in the Department of Housing and Urban Development. He was honored with the Director’s Award for Superior Performance for his work in connection with the successful prosecution of Walter Leroy Moody Jr., who assassinated an 11th Circuit judge and the head of the Savannah chapter of the NAACP.
A graduate of Harvard Law School and Columbia College, Malcolm began his career as a law clerk to a federal district court judge and a federal appellate court judge, and as an associate at the Atlanta-based law firm of Sutherland, Asbill & Brennan (new Eversheds Sutherland).
Malcolm, who resides in Washington, D.C., serves on the Board of Trustees of the Washington National Opera and is a Senate-confirmed member of the Board of Directors of the Legal Services Corporation, the largest funder of civil legal aid in the United States.
Joseph Tartakovsky, Author of The Lives of the Constitution: Ten Exceptional Minds that Shaped America's Supreme Law.
Joseph Tartakovsky is author of The Lives of the Constitution: Ten Exceptional Minds that Shaped America’s Supreme Law (2018) and the former Deputy Solicitor General of Nevada. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Los Angeles Times.
President, Students for Fair Admissions
Edward Blum is the president of Students for Fair Admissions, a membership organization whose mission is to eliminate racial and ethnic classifications and preferences in school admissions. Shortly after SFFA’s inception in 2014, the group challenged in federal court the racial admissions policies at Harvard and the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. In 2023, the United States Supreme Court struck down the use of race as an admissions factor at all colleges and universities.
He is the president of the newly formed American Alliance for Equal Rights which has filed over a dozen lawsuits challenging the use of race by corporations, law firms, venture capital firms and cultural institutions. Mr. Blum also serves as the President of the Project on Fair Representation, a nonprofit legal foundation formed in 2005 that has provided counsel in a number of race-related U.S. Supreme Court cases including, Shelby Co. Alabama v. Holder, Fisher v. University of Texas (I and II) and Evenwel v. Abbott.
Since 2005, Blum has been a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute where he studies legal and policy issues relating to race and ethnicity. He is the author of a book on the Voting Rights Act, numerous essays and law review articles, and is a frequent contributor to the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, and National Review, among others.
Assistant Attorney General & Senior Trial Counsel to the Criminal Bureau, Massachusetts Attorney General
General Counsel, House Committee on Homeland Security
Steven Giaier is General Counsel for the Committee on Homeland Security in the U.S. House of Representative. In this role, he serves as the lead staff member on the Committee for all legal issues and legislation action. Over the past several years, he has written several of the most substantial pieces of legislation to move through the Committee and be enacted into law, including the Visa Waiver Program Improvement and Terrorist Travel Prevention Act and the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Authorization Act. Mr. Giaier formerly served as parliamentary advisor to Congressman Peter King during King’s tenure as chairman of the Homeland Security Committee from 2011-2013. He recently coauthored “Turf Wars: How a Jurisdictional Quagmire in Congress Compromises Homeland Security,” published by the New York University Journal of Legislation and Public Policy in the summer of 2015.
Ethics CLE Teleforum 2017
Recent Developments Impacting the Ethical Practice of Law
TeleforumPanel Three: Federalism as a Check on Executive Authority
2017 Annual Texas Chapters Conference
Houston, TXPanel One: Executive Power Over Immigration
2017 Annual Texas Chapters Conference
Houston, TXThe State of Oil and Gas Regulation in Texas
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