Justice, Supreme Court of Arizona
Clint Bolick was appointed by Governor Doug Ducey in January 2016 to serve on the Arizona Supreme Court and was retained by the voters in 2018 and 2024.
Prior to joining the Court, Justice Bolick litigated constitutional cases in state and federal courts from coast to coast, including the U.S. Supreme Court. Among other positions, he served as Vice President for Litigation at the Goldwater Institute and as Co-founder and Vice President for Litigation at the Institute for Justice. He has litigated in support of school choice, freedom of enterprise, private property rights, freedom of speech, and federalism, and against racial classifications and government subsidies.
Justice Bolick received his Juris Doctor degree from the University of California at Davis, where he has been recognized as a distinguished alumnus, and his Bachelor of Arts degree magna cum laude from Drew University. He serves as a research fellow with the Hoover Institution. Among other honors, he was named one of the 90 Greatest DC Lawyers in the Last 30 Years by Legal Times in 2008, received a Bradley Prize in 2006, and was recognized as one of the nation’s three lawyers of the year by American Lawyer in 2002 for his successful defense of school vouchers in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris.
Justice Bolick is a prolific author of a dozen books and hundreds of articles. Among his most recent books are Unshackled: Freeing America’s K-12 Education System: Immigration Wars: Forging an American Solution, co-authored with former Florida Governor Jeb Bush; and David’s Hammer: The Case for an Activist Judiciary. Bolick serves as an adjunct professor of constitutional law at Arizona State University’s Sandra Day O’Connor School of Law and has served as a lecturer at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.
Author
Godfrey Hodgson was director of the Reuters' Foundation Programme at Oxford University, and before that the Observer's correspondent in the United States and foreign editor of the Independent. He is the author of The Myth of American Exceptionalism (Yale University Press, 2009).
Columnist
Charles Krauthammer wrote a syndicated column for The Washington Post which appeared in more than 400 newspapers worldwide and for which he won the 1987 Pulitzer Prize. He was a FOX News commentator, appearing nightly on FOX's evening news program, Special Report with Bret Baier.
His book Things That Matter: Three Decades of Passions, Pastimes and Politics, a #1 New York Times bestseller, has sold more than a million copies. His book The Point of It All: A Lifetime of Great Loves and Endeavors is now available for order.
Born in New York City and raised in Montreal, Krauthammer was educated at McGill University (B.A. 1970), Oxford University (Commonwealth Scholar in Politics) and Harvard (M.D. 1975). While serving as chief resident in psychiatry at the Massachusetts General Hospital, he co-discovered a form of bipolar disease.
In 1978, he quit medical practice, came to Washington to help direct planning in psychiatric research in the Carter administration. In 1980, he served as a speechwriter to Vice President Walter Mondale. He joined The New Republic in 1981. Three years later his New Republic essays won the National Magazine Award for Essays and Criticism.
From 2001 to 2006, he served on the President's Council on Bioethics. He was president of The Krauthammer Foundation and chairman of Pro Musica Hebraica, an organization dedicated to the recovery and performance of lost classical Jewish music. He was also a member of Chess Journalists of America.
In his last column, he announced his terminal illness and reflected on his remarkable life. He passed away on June 21, 2018.
Essayist, Editor, and Publisher
Irving Kristol (born Jan. 20, 1920, Brooklyn, N.Y., U.S.—died Sept. 18, 2009, Arlington, Va.), American essayist, editor, and publisher, best known as an intellectual founder and leader of the neoconservative movement in the United States. His articulation and defense of conservative ideals against the dominant liberalism of the 1960s influenced generations of intellectuals and policymakers and contributed to the resurgence of the Republican Party in the late 1960s and its electoral successes in the 1980s.
Emeritus Professor of Law, George Mason University
As a professor of law and economics, Gordon Tullock brought the experience of a rich and varied professional career with him to George Mason University and the Mercatus Center. He was a member of the United States Foreign Service from 1947 until 1956, serving in China, Hong Kong, and Korea. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the Thomas Jefferson Center for Political Economy at the University of Virginia and a member of the faculties of the University of South Carolina, the University of Virginia, and Rice University, as well as a University Distinguished Professor at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Professor Tullock was the Holbert R. Harris University Professor at George Mason University from 1983-1987 and was the Karl Eller Professor of Economics and Political Science at the University of Arizona prior to joining the faculty of George Mason School of Law. He is a member of and has held offices in a variety of professional associations and has been the recipient of numerous honors over the course of his career.
Professor Tullock was the first recipient of the Lastly T. Wilkins Award, received the 1992 Frank E. Seidman Distinguished Award in Political Economy, and was presented with the 1993 Adam Smith Award. In 1996, Professor Tullock was named a member of the American Political Science Review Hall of Fame and also was honored with an Award for Outstanding Contributions in the field of law and economics by George Mason University School of Law. In January 1998, he was made a Distinguished Fellow of the American Economic Association. From founding the Public Choice Society, he has been a member of the Board and is a past president. He is also a past president of the Western Economic Association and the Southern Economic Association. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Association of Asian Studies, the Mont Pelerin Society, and the usual collection of economic associations.
Professor Tullock received his education at Yale University (Chinese, 1949-1951), Cornell University (Chinese, 1951-1952), and at the University of Chicago Law School (JD, 1947). He was awarded an honorary doctor of laws from the University of Chicago in 1992. He also holds honorary doctorates from Basel and Universidad Francisco Marroquin.
Howard M. Holtzmann Professor of International Law, Yale Law School
Lea Brilmayer is the Howard M. Holtzmann Professor of International Law at Yale Law School. In addition to teaching Contracts to first-year students, she also teaches Conflict of Laws and International Courts and Tribunals, as well as seminars on the laws of war and on African current affairs. Her degrees include a B.A. in mathematics and a J.D. from the University of California at Berkeley, as well as an LL.M. from Columbia Law School. Brilmayer has taught at a number of different law schools as either a professor or visiting professor, including the University of Texas, the University of Chicago, the University of Michigan, Columbia Law School, Harvard Law School, and the New York University School of Law (where she led a weekly seminar on International Jurisprudence.) She is a member of the Texas and Supreme Court bars. She has given numerous endowed lectures at other American law schools and has also taught twice at the summer session of the Hague Academy of International Law.
During her first decade of teaching, her writing interests mainly concerned conflict of laws (in particular, personal jurisdiction and choice of law); federal jurisdiction; and jurisprudence. Her conflict of laws writings have included one theoretical book on the subject and a leading casebook (in the more recent editions, co-authored with Jack Goldsmith). Together with a group of Yale student contributors, she published An Introduction to Jurisdiction in the American Federal System. Her writings on the conflict of laws have resulted in her being asked on a number of occasions to testify before Congressional committees, most recently on the Full Faith and Credit implications of same sex marriage. More recently, her interests have gradually turned to international law and international relations, and she is frequently cited for her academic writings about nationalism and the international legal status of secessionist movements. Her research in international jurisprudence has also led to two books, Justifying International Acts and American Hegemony: Political Morality in a One-Superpower World.
In addition to her academic interests, Brilmayer carries on an active life in interstate and international adjudication. In addition to contributing to amicus briefs, she has served as counsel of record before the United States Supreme Court and has been an expert consultant on many lower and intermediate appellate court cases. For the last decade she has served as lead counsel in several international public (state-to-state) arbitrations dealing with island sovereignty, maritime delimitation, land boundaries, and mass claims for violations of the laws of war.
Founding Partner, Cooper & Kirk PLLC
Charles J. Cooper is a founding member and the chairman of Cooper & Kirk, PLLC, “one of the Nation’s leading litigation boutiques” (Above The Law 2017). The National Law Journal recently wrote that Mr. Cooper’s “brilliant legal career has so far spanned five decades and thrust Cooper into the spotlight in some of the most historic moments of the country’s modern history.” He has argued nine cases before the United States Supreme Court and scores of appeals before each of the 13 federal courts of appeals and several state supreme courts. He has been lead trial counsel in numerous complex, weeks-long trials in federal courts throughout the country. Named by the National Law Journal as one of the 10 best litigators in Washington D.C., Mr. Cooper’s work has been reported in numerous press accounts, and he has been called a “powerhouse attorney” (Fortune 2015), “a hard-nosed litigator” (Washington Post 2017), and “one of the country’s most in-demand civil litigators and a Washington legal institution unto himself” (The American Spectator 2014).
After graduating from the University of Alabama School of Law in 1977, where he ranked first in his class and served as Editor-in-Chief of the Alabama Law Review, Mr. Cooper began his career as a law clerk to Judge Paul Roney on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and to Justice William H. Rehnquist in 1978–79. He then practiced law in Atlanta for two years before joining the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, where he served as the Deputy Assistant Attorney General in charge of, among other things, appellate matters. In 1985 President Reagan appointed him to the position of Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel, which is the office responsible for providing legal opinions and advice to the White House, the Attorney General, and Executive Branch departments and agencies on issues covering the full spectrum of federal constitutional, statutory, and regulatory law.
In 1988 he returned to private practice as a litigation partner in the Washington, D.C. office of McGuireWoods. From 1990 until the founding of Cooper & Kirk in 1996, he was a partner at Shaw Pittman (now Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman), where he headed the firm’s Constitutional and Government Litigation Group.
Mr. Cooper has represented a wide range of public and private clients in highly complex constitutional, civil rights, antitrust, healthcare, banking, intellectual property, elections, campaign finance, administrative, commercial, and government contract cases. He has led trial teams in cases that have won judgments and settlements valued in the billions of dollars and that have established ground-breaking constitutional precedents.
Much of Mr. Cooper’s practice has involved representing high-profile clients in nationally prominent matters, including: the State of Florida in a First Amendment suit brought by the Disney Company concerning its autonomous regulatory authority over its Disney World property; the Commonwealth of Virginia in a suit seeking to enjoin the removal of noncitizens from its voter rolls; 38 members of the Duke Lacrosse team falsely accused of rape by officials of Duke University and the City of Durham; Harper Lee in a copyright dispute with the heirs of Gregory Peck; high-ranking former government officials such as former Attorneys General John Ashcroft, Jeff Sessions, and William Barr, and Ambassador John Bolton; several Governors and United States Senators; over 100 Members of Congress; and many state, territorial, and local government bodies and officials. He has also represented and advised government officials and public figures in connection with sensitive private issues that needed to be, and were, resolved discreetly without becoming matters of public record.
In 1998 Chief Justice Rehnquist appointed Mr. Cooper to the Standing Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure of the Judicial Conference of the United States, where he served for three terms. He also served as a Public Member, appointed by President George H.W. Bush, of the National Commission on Judicial Discipline and Removal. He is a member of numerous professional associations, including the American Law Institute (since 1993) and the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers (since 1996). He is also an active member of the Federalist Society and the Republican National Lawyers Association, which in 2010 named him Republican Lawyer of the Year and in 2016 honored him with its Edwin Meese III Award.
Mr. Cooper has published scores of articles and spoken extensively on constitutional and legal policy topics. He has appeared before congressional committees on 26 occasions, testifying as an expert on a wide variety of legal issues, including the Chevron doctrine of judicial deference to administrative agencies, the diversity of citizenship jurisdiction of federal courts, statehood bills for Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia, and the impeachment of President Clinton.
U.S. Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit
Frank H. Easterbrook is a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and a Senior Lecturer at the Law School of the University of Chicago. He was Chief Judge from 2006–2013. Before joining the court in 1985, he was the Lee andBrena Freeman Professor of Law at the University of Chicago, where he taught and wrote in antitrust, securities, corporate law, jurisprudence, and criminal procedure. He has published The Economic Structure of Corporate Law (with Daniel R. Fischel) and about 100 scholarly articles. He served as Co-Editor of the Journal of Law and Economics from 1982 to 1991 and as a member of the Judicial Conference’s Standing Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure from 1991 to 1997. Before joining the faculty of the Law School in 1979, Judge Easterbrook was Deputy Solicitor General of the United States. He holds degrees from Swarthmore College (B.A. with high honors, 1970) and the University of Chicago (J.D. cum laude, 1973), and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Law Institute, the Mont Pelerin Society, Phi Beta Kappa, and the Order of the Coif.
Senior Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit
Patrick Errol Higginbotham is a federal judge on senior status with the United States Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit. He joined the court in 1982 after being nominated by President Ronald Reagan.
Contributing Writer, Vanity Fair
Michael Kinsley is a Contributing Writer for Vanity Fair, where his column appears monthly. Over a long career in the media, he has been Managing Editor of the Washington Monthly, Editor of the New Republic, and Editorial and Opinion Editor of the Los Angeles Times. He was the Founding Editor of Slate, one of the first on-line magazines. For over six years Kinsley was the liberal host of Crossfire, a CNN show where he sparred with Pat Buchanan five days a week. He played a similar role for many years with William F. Buckley on PBS’s Firing Line. He has written for The New Yorker, Conde Nast Traveler, and other publications.
U.S. Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit
Stephen Roy Reinhardt is a federal appeals judge with the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco. He joined the Court in 1980 after being nominated by President Jimmy Carter.
Born in New York City, New York, Reinhardt graduated from Pomona College with his Bachelor's degree in 1951 and later received a Bachelors of Laws degree, LL.B, from Yale Law School in 1954. Reinhardt served in the U.S. Air Force from 1954 to 1956 before becoming a law clerk for the Honorable Luther Youngdahl in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia until 1957. Reinhardt was a private practice attorney in the State of California from 1957 to 1980. Reinhardt was nominated to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit by President Jimmy Carter on November 30, 1979, to a new seat created by 92 Stat. 1629, which was approved by Congress. Reinhardt was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on September 11, 1980 and received commission on September 11, 1980.
Fighting a Left Turn on Rights: The Battle Against the Bill Lann Lee Nomination
Clint Bolick
When Deval Patrick announced his resignation last year as Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights,...
Panel V: The Virtues and Vices of Democracy in Conducting Foreign Affairs [Archive Collection]
Foreign Affairs and the Constitution
Washington, DCPanel V: The Conflict Between Text and Precedent in Constitutional Adjudication [Archive Collection]
1987 National Student Symposium
Chicago, IL