Professor of Law and Faculty Director for the Georgetown Center for the Constitution, Georgetown University Law Center
Stephanie Barclay is a Professor of Law at Georgetown Law School, and the Faculty Director of the Georgetown Center for the Constitution. Her research focuses on the role our different democratic institutions play in protecting minority rights, particularly at the intersection of free speech and religious exercise. Barclay‘s work is published or is forthcoming in leading journals such as the Harvard Law Review, the Chicago Law Review, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, and the Yale Law Journal Forum. One of her articles was also selected for the 2020 Stanford/Harvard/Yale Junior Faculty Forum. Her work has been featured in many media outlets, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, USA Today, Bloomberg BNA, The Hill, and Law 360. And her work has also been cited by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Prior to joining Georgetown, Barclay was twice voted Professor of the Year. Barclay has also litigated constitutional cases at both the trial and appellate level, including before the U.S. Supreme Court. Barclay served as a law clerk to Judge N. Randy Smith on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and to Justice Neil M. Gorsuch of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Barclay is a Faculty Affiliate at the Constitutional Law Center at Stanford Law School; and she is a Nootbaar Fellow at the Nootbaar Institute on Law, Religion, and Ethics at Pepperdine University. She currently serves as the Chair for the AALS Law and Religion Section and as a Member of the Executive Committee for the AALS Constitutional Law Section. She graduated summa cum laude from BYU Law School, where she was elected to the Order of the Coif. She is completing a Ph.D. in Law at Oxford University as a Clarendon Scholar and a Tang Scholar.
Professor of History, Southern Methodist University
Kate Carté (Ph.D., history, University of Wisconsin; B.A., Haverford College) is a Professor of History at Southern Methodist University, specializing in early American and Atlantic history. She is the author of Religion and the American Revolution: An Imperial History (UNC Press for the Omohundro Institute, 2021) and Religion and Profit: Moravians in Early America (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009, paper 2011), which was awarded the 2010 Dale W. Brown Award for Outstanding Scholarship in Anabaptist and Pietist Studies. Her articles have appeared in the William and Mary Quarterly, Church History, and Early American Studies, as well as a variety of edited collections. Carté has been a Charles A. Ryskamp Fellow of the American Council of Learned Societies, an affiliate fellow of the Center for the Study of Religion at Princeton University, a Franklin Fellow of the American Philosophical Society, and a Barra Postdoctoral Fellow at the McNeil Center for Early American Studies.
Senior Counsel, Alliance Defending Freedom's Appellate Advocacy Team
Chris Schandevel serves as senior counsel on Alliance Defending Freedom’s Appellate Advocacy Team. In that role, he represents ADF clients of all stripes at the appellate level, preserving lower-court victories and seeking to overturn unjust results.
Among other clients, he has represented a faith-based pregnancy resource center and adoption agency, a Christian photographer, a college student and conservative student group, a former Planned Parenthood clinic manager, female track-and-field athletes, and a high-school French teacher. Schandevel also was on the team of attorneys who successfully represented the Thomas More Law Center in the U.S. Supreme Court. And he regularly represents clients in friend-of-the-court briefs filed in state and federal appellate courts and in the U.S. Supreme Court.
Before joining ADF, Schandevel served as an assistant attorney general in the Criminal Appeals Section at the Office of the Attorney General of Virginia. During his five years in that office, Schandevel briefed and argued 14 appeals in the Supreme Court of Virginia and more than 60 appeals in the Court of Appeals of Virginia. Before his time at the Virginia attorney general’s office, Schandevel clerked for the Honorable Stephen R. McCullough on the Court of Appeals of Virginia.
Schandevel earned his J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law in 2012. During law school, he founded a student organization called Advocates for Life at Virginia Law. He also completed ADF’s Blackstone Legal Fellowship and was commissioned as a Blackstone Fellow in 2010 after an internship with ADF’s Center for Life. Schandevel earned his B.A. in Social Work from Harding University in 2009.
A member of the state bar of Virginia, Schandevel is admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court and various state and federal trial and appellate courts.
Senior Counsel, Storzer and Associates; Adjunct Professor at the Catholic University of America Columbus School of Law
Eric Treene is Senior Counsel at Storzer and Associates in Washington, D.C., and an Adjunct Professor at the Catholic University of America School of Canon Law. He served for 19 years in four administrations in the U.S. Department of Justice as Special Counsel for Religious Discrimination, where he provided leadership for the Department on a wide range of religious liberty issues, including developing and overseeing the Department’s enforcement program for the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA), testifying before the U.S. Senate on religious hate crimes and developing training programs to protect places of worship from violence, and leading the Department’s efforts to protect religious liberty rights during the COVID-19 epidemic. Prior to serving at the Department of Justice, Mr. Treene was Litigation Director at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty in Washington, D.C, and was a law clerk to the Hon. John M. Walker, Jr. on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He is a graduate of Amherst College and Harvard Law School.
Partner, Jenner & Block LLP
Adam Unikowsky is a partner in Jenner & Block LLP’s Appellate & Supreme Court Practice Group, where he has worked since 2011.
Prior to his time at Jenner & Block, Mr. Unikowsky served as a Judicial Law Clerk to former Justice Antonin Scalia. He also previously clerked for Judge Douglas Ginsberg at the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
Mr. Unikowsky got his JD from Harvard University, following achieving his Masters of Engineering & Bachelors of Science from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Senior Counsel, Alliance Defending Freedom
Julie Marie Blake serves as senior counsel for regulatory litigation at Alliance Defending Freedom. Over the last decade, she has been on the front lines of high-profile, precedent-setting cases challenging federal overreach in courts across the country.
Blake served as deputy solicitor general for the state of Missouri from 2017 to 2020 and as assistant solicitor general for the state of West Virginia from 2013 to 2017. In these roles, she argued 26 federal and state appeals, including before the en banc U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. She received the Best Brief Award from National Association of Attorneys General for her U.S. Supreme Court advocacy.
Before entering government service in 2013, Blake was a litigation associate at Baker Botts L.L.P., where she served as volunteer amicus counsel in several ADF cases, including Town of Greece v. Galloway.
Following law school, she served as a law clerk for Judge Paul J. Kelly, Jr. on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. She received her J.D. magna cum laude from Notre Dame Law School in 2009. She received her B.A. in Politics and Theology & Religious Studies phi beta kappa from the Catholic University of America in 2006. She is a 2007 Blackstone Fellow.
Blake is admitted to practice in multiple states, the Supreme Court, and in many federal district and appellate courts.
Professor from Practice, Georgetown University Law Center
Director, The Conscience Project
Andrea Picciotti-Bayer is Director of the Conscience Project.
Andrea got her start as a trial and appellate attorney in the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. Prior to leading the Conscience Project, she served as the legal advisor for the Catholic Association, filing amicus briefs with federal courts of appeal and the U.S. Supreme Court in key religious freedom and free speech cases.
Andrea appears frequently in the media to discuss religious freedom controversies and legal victories, and in 2021 she received First Place for Best Coverage — Religious Liberty Issues from the Catholic Media Association. Andrea is a legal analyst for EWTN News and a regular columnist for the National Catholic Register. Her writing has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, National Review, Fox News, Newsweek, CNN en Español and other well-regarded publications. She has also joined Fox News, Newsmax and a variety of other shows to share expert commentary.
Andrea lived in Colombia for more than a decade. She has ten children and lives in the Washington, DC area.
Vice President, Practice Groups, The Federalist Society
Vice President and Executive Director, Napa Legal Institute
Mary Margaret serves as Napa Legal Institute's Vice President & Executive Director. She joined Napa Legal in 2019, serving most recently as the organization’s Senior Counsel. Before working at Napa Legal, Mary Margaret was an associate attorney with a Chicago-based law firm which specialized in nonprofits and tax-exempt organizations. While there, Mary Margaret helped clients with legal guidance on matters including corporate formation, governance, and tax and regulatory compliance. Prior to serving the nonprofit sector, Mary Margaret focused her career in finance. While in law school, she worked at the CME Group and Dimensional Fund Advisors on financial compliance matters, implementation of U.S. sanctions programs, and cyber-security risk management. She is particularly interested in the intersection of business and law and helping nonprofit organizations navigate the complexities involved in that area. Mary Margaret attended Texas A&M University on a National Merit Scholarship and received an undergraduate degree with honors in Finance and Business. Mary Margaret earned CALI awards for her work in Constitutional Lawand Administrative Law while studying at Chicago Kent Law School. Mary Margaret also studied Spanish law during a semester at the University of Navarra in Pamplona, and she received a certificate in Legal Spanish from American University Washington College of Law. She is an ADF Blackstone Fellow.
Counsel, Becket Fund for Religious Liberty
Amanda Salz is counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, where her practice focuses on First Amendment litigation at both the trial and appellate levels. She is also a member of the Federalist Society’s Religious Liberties Executive Committee.
Before joining Becket, Amanda worked as an associate at Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP. As a member of the firm’s appellate group, Amanda litigated many cases involving constitutional and administrative issues. In addition to her experience in private practice, Amanda clerked for the Honorable Andrew S. Oldham of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and the Honorable Reed C. O’Connor of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas.
Senior Counsel, Alliance Defending Freedom
Julie Marie Blake serves as senior counsel for regulatory litigation at Alliance Defending Freedom. Over the last decade, she has been on the front lines of high-profile, precedent-setting cases challenging federal overreach in courts across the country.
Blake served as deputy solicitor general for the state of Missouri from 2017 to 2020 and as assistant solicitor general for the state of West Virginia from 2013 to 2017. In these roles, she argued 26 federal and state appeals, including before the en banc U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. She received the Best Brief Award from National Association of Attorneys General for her U.S. Supreme Court advocacy.
Before entering government service in 2013, Blake was a litigation associate at Baker Botts L.L.P., where she served as volunteer amicus counsel in several ADF cases, including Town of Greece v. Galloway.
Following law school, she served as a law clerk for Judge Paul J. Kelly, Jr. on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. She received her J.D. magna cum laude from Notre Dame Law School in 2009. She received her B.A. in Politics and Theology & Religious Studies phi beta kappa from the Catholic University of America in 2006. She is a 2007 Blackstone Fellow.
Blake is admitted to practice in multiple states, the Supreme Court, and in many federal district and appellate courts.
Professor from Practice, Georgetown University Law Center
Director, The Conscience Project
Andrea Picciotti-Bayer is Director of the Conscience Project.
Andrea got her start as a trial and appellate attorney in the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. Prior to leading the Conscience Project, she served as the legal advisor for the Catholic Association, filing amicus briefs with federal courts of appeal and the U.S. Supreme Court in key religious freedom and free speech cases.
Andrea appears frequently in the media to discuss religious freedom controversies and legal victories, and in 2021 she received First Place for Best Coverage — Religious Liberty Issues from the Catholic Media Association. Andrea is a legal analyst for EWTN News and a regular columnist for the National Catholic Register. Her writing has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, National Review, Fox News, Newsweek, CNN en Español and other well-regarded publications. She has also joined Fox News, Newsmax and a variety of other shows to share expert commentary.
Andrea lived in Colombia for more than a decade. She has ten children and lives in the Washington, DC area.
Vice President, Practice Groups, The Federalist Society
Vice President and Executive Director, Napa Legal Institute
Mary Margaret serves as Napa Legal Institute's Vice President & Executive Director. She joined Napa Legal in 2019, serving most recently as the organization’s Senior Counsel. Before working at Napa Legal, Mary Margaret was an associate attorney with a Chicago-based law firm which specialized in nonprofits and tax-exempt organizations. While there, Mary Margaret helped clients with legal guidance on matters including corporate formation, governance, and tax and regulatory compliance. Prior to serving the nonprofit sector, Mary Margaret focused her career in finance. While in law school, she worked at the CME Group and Dimensional Fund Advisors on financial compliance matters, implementation of U.S. sanctions programs, and cyber-security risk management. She is particularly interested in the intersection of business and law and helping nonprofit organizations navigate the complexities involved in that area. Mary Margaret attended Texas A&M University on a National Merit Scholarship and received an undergraduate degree with honors in Finance and Business. Mary Margaret earned CALI awards for her work in Constitutional Lawand Administrative Law while studying at Chicago Kent Law School. Mary Margaret also studied Spanish law during a semester at the University of Navarra in Pamplona, and she received a certificate in Legal Spanish from American University Washington College of Law. She is an ADF Blackstone Fellow.
Counsel, Becket Fund for Religious Liberty
Amanda Salz is counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, where her practice focuses on First Amendment litigation at both the trial and appellate levels. She is also a member of the Federalist Society’s Religious Liberties Executive Committee.
Before joining Becket, Amanda worked as an associate at Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP. As a member of the firm’s appellate group, Amanda litigated many cases involving constitutional and administrative issues. In addition to her experience in private practice, Amanda clerked for the Honorable Andrew S. Oldham of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and the Honorable Reed C. O’Connor of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas.
Vice President and Executive Director, Napa Legal Institute
Mary Margaret serves as Napa Legal Institute's Vice President & Executive Director. She joined Napa Legal in 2019, serving most recently as the organization’s Senior Counsel. Before working at Napa Legal, Mary Margaret was an associate attorney with a Chicago-based law firm which specialized in nonprofits and tax-exempt organizations. While there, Mary Margaret helped clients with legal guidance on matters including corporate formation, governance, and tax and regulatory compliance. Prior to serving the nonprofit sector, Mary Margaret focused her career in finance. While in law school, she worked at the CME Group and Dimensional Fund Advisors on financial compliance matters, implementation of U.S. sanctions programs, and cyber-security risk management. She is particularly interested in the intersection of business and law and helping nonprofit organizations navigate the complexities involved in that area. Mary Margaret attended Texas A&M University on a National Merit Scholarship and received an undergraduate degree with honors in Finance and Business. Mary Margaret earned CALI awards for her work in Constitutional Lawand Administrative Law while studying at Chicago Kent Law School. Mary Margaret also studied Spanish law during a semester at the University of Navarra in Pamplona, and she received a certificate in Legal Spanish from American University Washington College of Law. She is an ADF Blackstone Fellow.
Counsel, Becket Fund for Religious Liberty
Amanda Salz is counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, where her practice focuses on First Amendment litigation at both the trial and appellate levels. She is also a member of the Federalist Society’s Religious Liberties Executive Committee.
Before joining Becket, Amanda worked as an associate at Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP. As a member of the firm’s appellate group, Amanda litigated many cases involving constitutional and administrative issues. In addition to her experience in private practice, Amanda clerked for the Honorable Andrew S. Oldham of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and the Honorable Reed C. O’Connor of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas.
Free Exercise, History and Tradition, and Preferred Pronouns: Key Takeaways from Vlaming v. West Point School Board
Topics
The Duty to Address “Sex-based Harassment”: Part II in a Series on the Biden Administration’s Final Title IX Rule
On April 29, 2024, the Department of Education published a 423-page final rule in the...
Topics
The Redefinition of Sex-based Discrimination: Part I in a Series on the Biden Administration’s Final Title IX Rule
On April 29, 2024, the Department of Education published a 423-page final rule in the...
Breakout Panel 1 - Testing the Tension: How Do Nondiscrimination Regulations Interact with Religious Freedom?
Julie Marie Blake, Martin S. Lederman, Andrea Picciotti-Bayer, Elizabeth Slattery
This session will discuss the Biden administration’s efforts to expand sex nondiscrimination protections to cover...
Breakout Panel 1 - Testing the Tension: How Do Nondiscrimination Regulations Interact with Religious Freedom?
EBRXII
Washington, DCTopics
Presidential Signature Requirements as a Tool for Enforcing Democratic Accountability
In a world with an ever more powerful administrative state, how can we prevent civil...
Litigation Update: Chen et al v. Hillsdale College & Buettner-Hartsoe v. Baltimore Lutheran
Mary Margaret Bush, Amanda Salz
Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 applies to educational institutions at all levels...
Litigation Update: Chen et al v. Hillsdale College & Buettner-Hartsoe v. Baltimore Lutheran
Mary Margaret Bush, Amanda Salz
Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 applies to educational institutions at all levels...
Litigation Update: Chen et al v. Hillsdale College & Buettner-Hartsoe v. Baltimore Lutheran
Topics
EEOC Enforcement Guidance on Harassment in the Workplace: Proposed Updates Raise Concerns
On October 2, 2023, the EEOC published proposed “Enforcement Guidance on Harassment in the Workplace.”...