Partner, Hilgers Graben PLLC
Alice LaCour is a litigation partner at Hilgers Graben PLLC and the co-host of two legal true crime podcasts: The Prosecutors Podcast and Legal Briefs, which have been downloaded over ten million times and featured on Apple Podcast's top 100 podcasts. Recently, she served as First Assistant and Criminal Chief at the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Middle District of Alabama, where she prosecuted cases spanning from guns and drugs to complex white collar crimes. Alice also served as Counselor to the Attorney General and Senior Advisor and Counselor to Assistant Attorney General of the Civil Division. During these stints at the Justice Department, Alice also served on the confirmation teams to elevate Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court. Alice clerked for the Hon. Keith P. Ellison of the Southern District of Texas and the Hon. Jennifer Walker Elrod of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Alice received her J.D. from Yale Law School, and she graduated summa cum laude from Washington and Lee University with a degree in Economics and a concentration in Poverty and Human Capabilities.
Counsel, Consovoy McCarthy PLLC
Ms. Meehan represents clients in all phases of litigation, with a focus on constitutional litigation and appellate matters. She has assisted clients on a broad range of matters, including those involving constitutional issues, the interpretation of federal statutes and regulations, contractual disputes and other complex commercial issues.
Ms. Meehan has served as a court-appointed amicus curiae for the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals in an en banc appeal involving the federal habeas statute. She has successfully petitioned the Seventh Circuit to halt the deposition of a high-ranking public official, and she has served as trial counsel in related redistricting litigation. Previously, Ms. Meehan was a partner at Bartlit Beck, where she served as trial and appellate counsel for a variety of complex commercial disputes, patent disputes, and cases involving constitutional claims.
Ms. Meehan is a former law clerk to Justice Antonin Scalia and Justice Clarence Thomas of the U.S. Supreme Court and Judge William H. Pryor Jr. of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. She graduated with high honors from the University of Chicago Law School, where she was selected for Order of the Coif and served as Managing Editor of the Law Review. Ms. Meehan is also a graduate, summa cum laude, from the University of Missouri School of Journalism. Ms. Meehan is located in Illinois and is a member of the Illinois and District of Columbia bars. Her application to the Virginia bar is pending.
Senior Advisor and Research Fellow, The Heritage Foundation
Allen Mendenhall is a Senior Advisor for the Capital Markets Initiative and Research Fellow in the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C. Previously, he served as Associate Dean and Grady Rosier Professor in the Sorrell College of Business at Troy University, where he also directed the Manuel H. Johnson Center for Political Economy. He is also a Visiting Fellow at the Madden Center for Value Creation at Florida Atlantic University.
His books include Literature and Liberty: Essays in Libertarian Literary Criticism (2014), Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Pragmatism, and the Jurisprudence of Agon: Aesthetic Dissent and the Common Law (2017), Of Bees and Boys: Lines from a Southern Lawyer (2017), The Southern Philosopher: Collected Essays of John William Corrington (2017), Writers on Writing: Conversations with Allen Mendenhall (2019), The Three Ps of Liberty: Pragmatism, Pluralism, and Polycentricity (2020), Shouting Softly: Essays on Law, Literature, and Culture (2021), A Glooming Peace This Morning (2023, a novel), and Controversies Among Conservatives: Conversations on Conservatism, Vol. II (2024, edited with Marcus Witcher and Kevin Hughes). His monthly segment “Word to the Wise” appears on Troy Public Radio (WTSU 89.9, WRWA 88.7, WTJB 91.7), and he writes a weekly column for 1819 News, Alabama’s bold and innovative conservative news outlet.
Mendenhall holds a B.A. in English from Furman University, an M.A. in English from West Virginia University, a J.D. from West Virginia University College of Law, an LL.M. in transnational law from Temple University Beasley School of Law, and a Ph.D. in English from Auburn University.
From 2016 to 2020, he was Associate Dean and Founding Executive Director of the Blackstone & Burke Center for Law & Liberty at Faulkner University’s Thomas Goode Jones School of Law in Montgomery, Alabama. He edited Southern Literary Review for over a decade (2011–2022) and has served as a visiting scholar (2020) and trustee (2023) at the American Institute for Economic Research (AIER), an adjunct legal associate at the Cato Institute (2009), a Mises Canada Emerging Scholar with the Ludwig von Mises Institute Canada (2014), an elected member of the Mont Pelerin Society (2024), an associate of the Abbeville Institute (2011–present), a Humane Studies Fellow with the Institute for Humane Studies (2011–2012), a staff attorney for Chief Justice Roy S. Moore of the Supreme Court of Alabama (2013–2016), an Assistant Attorney General in the State of Alabama Office of Attorney General Luther Strange (2016), an AmPhil Fundraising Fellow with the Center for Civil Society of American Philanthropic (2023–2024), an Advisory Council Member of the Law & Liberty Circle at the Universidad Francisco Marroquín (2024–present), an elected member (2012) and former trustee (2018–2022) of the Philadelphia Society, an associated scholar at the Ludwig von Mises Institute (2017–present), a policy adviser for the Heartland Institute (2016–present), former president of the Alabama Association of Scholars (2017–2020), president of the Montgomery Lawyers Chapter of the Federalist Society (2013–present), and Chairman of the Board of Managers of the Alabama Center for Law & Liberty (2022–2024). In 2023, he was an inaugural recipient of the Freedom and Opportunity Academic Prize from the Heritage Foundation. In 2024, he was a Club For Growth Foundation Fellow and a Lincoln Fellow with the Claremont Institute for the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy. Alabama Governor Kay Ivey appointed him to the 2025–26 State Textbook Committee of the Alabama Department of Education.
He has taught in university English departments, business schools, a humanities department, a law school, a Japanese private school (juku), and a penitentiary, and he serves or has served on numerous boards of organizations as wide-ranging as the Alabama Public Television Foundation Authority (2019–2025), the Young Professionals Board of the Alabama Humanities Foundation (2015–2016), the Society for Law and Culture (a division of the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal) (2017–present), Trinity Christian School (2017–2020), Ivy Classical Academy (2025–present), and the Philadelphia Society (2018–2022). He served on the advisory council of the Ludwig von Mises Institute’s Master of Arts degree and Certificate Program in Austrian Economics from 2021–2023. While in private practice in Atlanta, he represented non-profit corporations and litigated cases involving real property, contracts, collections, foreclosures, restrictive covenants, and real estate transactions. He graduated from Leadership Lee County (Alabama), the Alabama State Bar Leadership Forum (Class 14), and the Atlas Leadership Academy of Atlas Network. He has authored hundreds of publications, including fiction and poetry, and studied under the creative writers Gilbert Allen, Michael Blumenthal, William Aarnes, and Chantel Acevedo.
His academic writing has appeared or is forthcoming in such peer-reviewed journals as The Journal Jurisprudence, The Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence, Public Choice, The Political Science Reviewer, Journal of Markets & Morality, Journal of Private Enterprise, The Texas Review of Law and Politics, European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy, Contemporary Pragmatism, The South Carolina Review, Academic Questions, The Independent Review, Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics, Modernist Cultures, The British Journal of American Legal Studies, and in law reviews published by Georgetown University Law Center, UC Berkeley School of Law, The University of Texas School of Law, Emory University School of Law, Indiana University Maurer School of Law, Texas A&M University School of Law, and Michigan State University College of Law.
His writing for popular media has appeared in Newsweek, Fox News, Fox Business, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Times, National Review, The American Spectator, Pacific Standard, The Hill, The Los Angeles Review of Books, The American Conservative, City Journal, The Daily Caller, The Federalist, Public Discourse, Law & Liberty, The Epoch Times, The American Mind, The Freeman, Liberty, RealClearMarkets, The University Bookman, The Daily Signal, Chronicles, The Christian Lawyer, Writer’s Digest, The Conversation, and elsewhere. He has spoken at Harvard University, Brown University, Georgetown University Law Center, Francisco Marroquín University, Furman University, George Mason University, University of British Columbia, University of Nevada-Las Vegas, Auburn University, West Virginia University, the Alabama State Capitol, the Alabama Supreme Court, and other universities and locations.
He has been quoted or cited in Fox Business, Fox News, Forbes, The Washington Post, The Washington Times, The National Review, The Daily Caller, Le Monde, Times Higher Education, The College Fix, The Blaze Media, Campus Reform, Inside Higher Education, and U.S. News and World Report, and published by such organizations as the Ludwig von Mises Institute, the Ludwig von Mises Institute Canada, the Mercatus Center, the Foundation for Economic Education, the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, the American Institute for Economic Research, the Charlemagne Institute, the Independent Institute, the Rockford Institute, the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal, the American Ideas Institute, Atlas Society, the Heartland Institute, the Abbeville Institute, the National Association of Scholars, the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal, and the Libertarian Alliance. He frequently appears on radio and television on networks as wide-ranging as Fox News, Newsmax, Alabama Public Television, NewsNation, Al Jazeera, C-SPAN, Bill O’Reilly’s “No Spin News,” NTD News, The Daily Wire, Steve Bannon’s “War Room,” and BBC World News.
Senior Advisor and Research Fellow, The Heritage Foundation
Allen Mendenhall is a Senior Advisor for the Capital Markets Initiative and Research Fellow in the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C. Previously, he served as Associate Dean and Grady Rosier Professor in the Sorrell College of Business at Troy University, where he also directed the Manuel H. Johnson Center for Political Economy. He is also a Visiting Fellow at the Madden Center for Value Creation at Florida Atlantic University.
His books include Literature and Liberty: Essays in Libertarian Literary Criticism (2014), Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Pragmatism, and the Jurisprudence of Agon: Aesthetic Dissent and the Common Law (2017), Of Bees and Boys: Lines from a Southern Lawyer (2017), The Southern Philosopher: Collected Essays of John William Corrington (2017), Writers on Writing: Conversations with Allen Mendenhall (2019), The Three Ps of Liberty: Pragmatism, Pluralism, and Polycentricity (2020), Shouting Softly: Essays on Law, Literature, and Culture (2021), A Glooming Peace This Morning (2023, a novel), and Controversies Among Conservatives: Conversations on Conservatism, Vol. II (2024, edited with Marcus Witcher and Kevin Hughes). His monthly segment “Word to the Wise” appears on Troy Public Radio (WTSU 89.9, WRWA 88.7, WTJB 91.7), and he writes a weekly column for 1819 News, Alabama’s bold and innovative conservative news outlet.
Mendenhall holds a B.A. in English from Furman University, an M.A. in English from West Virginia University, a J.D. from West Virginia University College of Law, an LL.M. in transnational law from Temple University Beasley School of Law, and a Ph.D. in English from Auburn University.
From 2016 to 2020, he was Associate Dean and Founding Executive Director of the Blackstone & Burke Center for Law & Liberty at Faulkner University’s Thomas Goode Jones School of Law in Montgomery, Alabama. He edited Southern Literary Review for over a decade (2011–2022) and has served as a visiting scholar (2020) and trustee (2023) at the American Institute for Economic Research (AIER), an adjunct legal associate at the Cato Institute (2009), a Mises Canada Emerging Scholar with the Ludwig von Mises Institute Canada (2014), an elected member of the Mont Pelerin Society (2024), an associate of the Abbeville Institute (2011–present), a Humane Studies Fellow with the Institute for Humane Studies (2011–2012), a staff attorney for Chief Justice Roy S. Moore of the Supreme Court of Alabama (2013–2016), an Assistant Attorney General in the State of Alabama Office of Attorney General Luther Strange (2016), an AmPhil Fundraising Fellow with the Center for Civil Society of American Philanthropic (2023–2024), an Advisory Council Member of the Law & Liberty Circle at the Universidad Francisco Marroquín (2024–present), an elected member (2012) and former trustee (2018–2022) of the Philadelphia Society, an associated scholar at the Ludwig von Mises Institute (2017–present), a policy adviser for the Heartland Institute (2016–present), former president of the Alabama Association of Scholars (2017–2020), president of the Montgomery Lawyers Chapter of the Federalist Society (2013–present), and Chairman of the Board of Managers of the Alabama Center for Law & Liberty (2022–2024). In 2023, he was an inaugural recipient of the Freedom and Opportunity Academic Prize from the Heritage Foundation. In 2024, he was a Club For Growth Foundation Fellow and a Lincoln Fellow with the Claremont Institute for the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy. Alabama Governor Kay Ivey appointed him to the 2025–26 State Textbook Committee of the Alabama Department of Education.
He has taught in university English departments, business schools, a humanities department, a law school, a Japanese private school (juku), and a penitentiary, and he serves or has served on numerous boards of organizations as wide-ranging as the Alabama Public Television Foundation Authority (2019–2025), the Young Professionals Board of the Alabama Humanities Foundation (2015–2016), the Society for Law and Culture (a division of the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal) (2017–present), Trinity Christian School (2017–2020), Ivy Classical Academy (2025–present), and the Philadelphia Society (2018–2022). He served on the advisory council of the Ludwig von Mises Institute’s Master of Arts degree and Certificate Program in Austrian Economics from 2021–2023. While in private practice in Atlanta, he represented non-profit corporations and litigated cases involving real property, contracts, collections, foreclosures, restrictive covenants, and real estate transactions. He graduated from Leadership Lee County (Alabama), the Alabama State Bar Leadership Forum (Class 14), and the Atlas Leadership Academy of Atlas Network. He has authored hundreds of publications, including fiction and poetry, and studied under the creative writers Gilbert Allen, Michael Blumenthal, William Aarnes, and Chantel Acevedo.
His academic writing has appeared or is forthcoming in such peer-reviewed journals as The Journal Jurisprudence, The Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence, Public Choice, The Political Science Reviewer, Journal of Markets & Morality, Journal of Private Enterprise, The Texas Review of Law and Politics, European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy, Contemporary Pragmatism, The South Carolina Review, Academic Questions, The Independent Review, Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics, Modernist Cultures, The British Journal of American Legal Studies, and in law reviews published by Georgetown University Law Center, UC Berkeley School of Law, The University of Texas School of Law, Emory University School of Law, Indiana University Maurer School of Law, Texas A&M University School of Law, and Michigan State University College of Law.
His writing for popular media has appeared in Newsweek, Fox News, Fox Business, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Times, National Review, The American Spectator, Pacific Standard, The Hill, The Los Angeles Review of Books, The American Conservative, City Journal, The Daily Caller, The Federalist, Public Discourse, Law & Liberty, The Epoch Times, The American Mind, The Freeman, Liberty, RealClearMarkets, The University Bookman, The Daily Signal, Chronicles, The Christian Lawyer, Writer’s Digest, The Conversation, and elsewhere. He has spoken at Harvard University, Brown University, Georgetown University Law Center, Francisco Marroquín University, Furman University, George Mason University, University of British Columbia, University of Nevada-Las Vegas, Auburn University, West Virginia University, the Alabama State Capitol, the Alabama Supreme Court, and other universities and locations.
He has been quoted or cited in Fox Business, Fox News, Forbes, The Washington Post, The Washington Times, The National Review, The Daily Caller, Le Monde, Times Higher Education, The College Fix, The Blaze Media, Campus Reform, Inside Higher Education, and U.S. News and World Report, and published by such organizations as the Ludwig von Mises Institute, the Ludwig von Mises Institute Canada, the Mercatus Center, the Foundation for Economic Education, the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, the American Institute for Economic Research, the Charlemagne Institute, the Independent Institute, the Rockford Institute, the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal, the American Ideas Institute, Atlas Society, the Heartland Institute, the Abbeville Institute, the National Association of Scholars, the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal, and the Libertarian Alliance. He frequently appears on radio and television on networks as wide-ranging as Fox News, Newsmax, Alabama Public Television, NewsNation, Al Jazeera, C-SPAN, Bill O’Reilly’s “No Spin News,” NTD News, The Daily Wire, Steve Bannon’s “War Room,” and BBC World News.
Former Secretary; U.S. Department of Labor
Rene Alexander Acosta is an American attorney and politician, who served as the 27th United States Secretary of Labor from 2017 to 2019.
Secretary Acosta is the son of Cuban refugees, a native of Miami, and first-generation college graduate. He earned his undergraduate and law degrees from Harvard University.
Following law school, he worked as a law clerk for Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr., at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. He then worked at the law firm of Kirkland & Ellis and went on to teach at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia School of Law.
Secretary Acosta has served in three presidentially appointed, Senate-confirmed positions. In 2002, he was appointed to serve as a member of the National Labor Relations Board, where he participated in or authored more than 125 opinions. In 2003, he was appointed Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, and from 2005 to 2009 he served as the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida.
Prior to his tenure at the Department of Labor, Secretary Acosta served as the dean of the FIU College of Law.
Secretary Acosta has twice been named one of the nation’s 50 most influential Hispanics by Hispanic Business magazine. He was also named to the list of 100 most influential individuals in business ethics in 2008. In 2013, the South Florida Hispanic Chamber of Commerce presented him with the Chairman’s Higher Education Award in recognition of his “outstanding achievements, leadership and determination throughout a lifetime of caring and giving back to the community.”
Secretary Acosta and his wife enjoy spending time together as a family, raising their two daughters.
Partner, Sullivan & Cromwell LLP; Former Head of External Affairs, BlackRock
Dalia Blass is the Senior Investment Management Partner and a partner in S&C’s Financial Services Group at Sullivan & Cromwell LLP. Her practice focuses on providing strategic and regulatory advice to asset managers, registered and private funds, fund boards and their service providers across the range of regulatory, governance, compliance, examination and enforcement matters they face. ry landscape facing asset managers.
Ms. Blass joined the Firm in 2023 from BlackRock, where she was Senior Managing Director, Global Head of External Affairs and a member of BlackRock’s Global Executive Committee.
Prior to BlackRock, Ms. Blass served as the Director of the Division of Investment Management at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Under her leadership, the Division of Investment Management finalized more than 70 regulatory initiatives to modernize the regulatory framework for investment companies and investment advisers, improve the investor experience through modernized disclosure and outreach efforts, elevate the standards of conduct for financial professionals, and re-evaluate the role and responsibilities of fund boards of directors. Ms. Blass was a member of the SEC’s senior-level COVID-19 Market Monitoring Group and contributed to the staff’s report on the U.S. Credit Markets Interconnectedness and Effects of the COVID-19 Economic Shock. She also co-chaired the Financial Stability Board’s Technical Experts Group on Money Market Funds. A summary of Division of Investment Management Activities under Ms. Blass is available here.
Ms. Blass previously served in a number of leadership roles in the Division of Investment Management for a total of 14 years at the SEC. She has received the SEC’s Distinguished Service Award and the Manuel F. Cohen Award and was also named in Barron’s inaugural list of the 100 Most Influential Women in U.S. Finance.
Retired Edgar S. Woolard, Jr. Chair in Corporate Governance, University of Delaware
Professor Elson is the Edgar S. Woolard, Jr., Chair in Corporate Governance and the Director of the John L. Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance at the University of Delaware. He is also "Of Counsel" to the law firm of Holland & Knight. He formerly served as a Professor of Law at Stetson University College of Law in St. Petersburg, Florida from 1990 until 2001. His fields of expertise include corporations, securities regulation and corporate governance. He is a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Virginia Law School, and has served as a law clerk to Judges J. Harvie Wilkinson III and Elbert P. Tuttle of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth and Eleventh Circuits. He has been a Visiting Professor at the University of Illinois College of Law, the Cornell Law School, and the University of Maryland School of Law, and is a Salvatori Fellow at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C. and a member of the American Law Institute. Professor Elson has written extensively on the subject of boards of directors. He is a frequent contributor on corporate governance issues to various scholarly and popular publications. He served on the National Association of Corporate Directors' Commissions on Director Compensation, Director Professionalism, CEO Succession, Audit Committees, Strategic Planning and Director Evaluation, was a member of its Best Practices Council on Coping With Fraud and Other Illegal Activity, and presently serves on that organization’s Advisory Council. He is Vice Chairman of the ABA Business Law Section’s Committee on Corporate Governance and a member of its Committee on Corporate Laws. Additionally, Professor Elson served as an adviser and consultant to Towers Perrin, the international human resource management consultants, a director of Circon Corporation, a medical products maker; Sunbeam Corporation, the consumer products manufacturer; Nuevo Energy Company, an independent oil and natural gas producer, the Investor Responsibility Research Center, a non-profit corporate governance research organization, Alderwoods Group, an international death care services provider and is presently, a member of the Board of Directors of AutoZone, Inc., the national automobile parts retailer, HealthSouth Corporation, a healthcare services provider.
Senior Advisor and Research Fellow, The Heritage Foundation
Allen Mendenhall is a Senior Advisor for the Capital Markets Initiative and Research Fellow in the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C. Previously, he served as Associate Dean and Grady Rosier Professor in the Sorrell College of Business at Troy University, where he also directed the Manuel H. Johnson Center for Political Economy. He is also a Visiting Fellow at the Madden Center for Value Creation at Florida Atlantic University.
His books include Literature and Liberty: Essays in Libertarian Literary Criticism (2014), Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Pragmatism, and the Jurisprudence of Agon: Aesthetic Dissent and the Common Law (2017), Of Bees and Boys: Lines from a Southern Lawyer (2017), The Southern Philosopher: Collected Essays of John William Corrington (2017), Writers on Writing: Conversations with Allen Mendenhall (2019), The Three Ps of Liberty: Pragmatism, Pluralism, and Polycentricity (2020), Shouting Softly: Essays on Law, Literature, and Culture (2021), A Glooming Peace This Morning (2023, a novel), and Controversies Among Conservatives: Conversations on Conservatism, Vol. II (2024, edited with Marcus Witcher and Kevin Hughes). His monthly segment “Word to the Wise” appears on Troy Public Radio (WTSU 89.9, WRWA 88.7, WTJB 91.7), and he writes a weekly column for 1819 News, Alabama’s bold and innovative conservative news outlet.
Mendenhall holds a B.A. in English from Furman University, an M.A. in English from West Virginia University, a J.D. from West Virginia University College of Law, an LL.M. in transnational law from Temple University Beasley School of Law, and a Ph.D. in English from Auburn University.
From 2016 to 2020, he was Associate Dean and Founding Executive Director of the Blackstone & Burke Center for Law & Liberty at Faulkner University’s Thomas Goode Jones School of Law in Montgomery, Alabama. He edited Southern Literary Review for over a decade (2011–2022) and has served as a visiting scholar (2020) and trustee (2023) at the American Institute for Economic Research (AIER), an adjunct legal associate at the Cato Institute (2009), a Mises Canada Emerging Scholar with the Ludwig von Mises Institute Canada (2014), an elected member of the Mont Pelerin Society (2024), an associate of the Abbeville Institute (2011–present), a Humane Studies Fellow with the Institute for Humane Studies (2011–2012), a staff attorney for Chief Justice Roy S. Moore of the Supreme Court of Alabama (2013–2016), an Assistant Attorney General in the State of Alabama Office of Attorney General Luther Strange (2016), an AmPhil Fundraising Fellow with the Center for Civil Society of American Philanthropic (2023–2024), an Advisory Council Member of the Law & Liberty Circle at the Universidad Francisco Marroquín (2024–present), an elected member (2012) and former trustee (2018–2022) of the Philadelphia Society, an associated scholar at the Ludwig von Mises Institute (2017–present), a policy adviser for the Heartland Institute (2016–present), former president of the Alabama Association of Scholars (2017–2020), president of the Montgomery Lawyers Chapter of the Federalist Society (2013–present), and Chairman of the Board of Managers of the Alabama Center for Law & Liberty (2022–2024). In 2023, he was an inaugural recipient of the Freedom and Opportunity Academic Prize from the Heritage Foundation. In 2024, he was a Club For Growth Foundation Fellow and a Lincoln Fellow with the Claremont Institute for the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy. Alabama Governor Kay Ivey appointed him to the 2025–26 State Textbook Committee of the Alabama Department of Education.
He has taught in university English departments, business schools, a humanities department, a law school, a Japanese private school (juku), and a penitentiary, and he serves or has served on numerous boards of organizations as wide-ranging as the Alabama Public Television Foundation Authority (2019–2025), the Young Professionals Board of the Alabama Humanities Foundation (2015–2016), the Society for Law and Culture (a division of the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal) (2017–present), Trinity Christian School (2017–2020), Ivy Classical Academy (2025–present), and the Philadelphia Society (2018–2022). He served on the advisory council of the Ludwig von Mises Institute’s Master of Arts degree and Certificate Program in Austrian Economics from 2021–2023. While in private practice in Atlanta, he represented non-profit corporations and litigated cases involving real property, contracts, collections, foreclosures, restrictive covenants, and real estate transactions. He graduated from Leadership Lee County (Alabama), the Alabama State Bar Leadership Forum (Class 14), and the Atlas Leadership Academy of Atlas Network. He has authored hundreds of publications, including fiction and poetry, and studied under the creative writers Gilbert Allen, Michael Blumenthal, William Aarnes, and Chantel Acevedo.
His academic writing has appeared or is forthcoming in such peer-reviewed journals as The Journal Jurisprudence, The Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence, Public Choice, The Political Science Reviewer, Journal of Markets & Morality, Journal of Private Enterprise, The Texas Review of Law and Politics, European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy, Contemporary Pragmatism, The South Carolina Review, Academic Questions, The Independent Review, Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics, Modernist Cultures, The British Journal of American Legal Studies, and in law reviews published by Georgetown University Law Center, UC Berkeley School of Law, The University of Texas School of Law, Emory University School of Law, Indiana University Maurer School of Law, Texas A&M University School of Law, and Michigan State University College of Law.
His writing for popular media has appeared in Newsweek, Fox News, Fox Business, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Times, National Review, The American Spectator, Pacific Standard, The Hill, The Los Angeles Review of Books, The American Conservative, City Journal, The Daily Caller, The Federalist, Public Discourse, Law & Liberty, The Epoch Times, The American Mind, The Freeman, Liberty, RealClearMarkets, The University Bookman, The Daily Signal, Chronicles, The Christian Lawyer, Writer’s Digest, The Conversation, and elsewhere. He has spoken at Harvard University, Brown University, Georgetown University Law Center, Francisco Marroquín University, Furman University, George Mason University, University of British Columbia, University of Nevada-Las Vegas, Auburn University, West Virginia University, the Alabama State Capitol, the Alabama Supreme Court, and other universities and locations.
He has been quoted or cited in Fox Business, Fox News, Forbes, The Washington Post, The Washington Times, The National Review, The Daily Caller, Le Monde, Times Higher Education, The College Fix, The Blaze Media, Campus Reform, Inside Higher Education, and U.S. News and World Report, and published by such organizations as the Ludwig von Mises Institute, the Ludwig von Mises Institute Canada, the Mercatus Center, the Foundation for Economic Education, the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, the American Institute for Economic Research, the Charlemagne Institute, the Independent Institute, the Rockford Institute, the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal, the American Ideas Institute, Atlas Society, the Heartland Institute, the Abbeville Institute, the National Association of Scholars, the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal, and the Libertarian Alliance. He frequently appears on radio and television on networks as wide-ranging as Fox News, Newsmax, Alabama Public Television, NewsNation, Al Jazeera, C-SPAN, Bill O’Reilly’s “No Spin News,” NTD News, The Daily Wire, Steve Bannon’s “War Room,” and BBC World News.
Clinical Professor of Law, Cornell Law School
William A. Jacobson is a Clinical Professor of Law and Director of the Securities Law Clinic.
He is a 1981 graduate of Hamilton College and a 1984 graduate of Harvard Law School. At Harvard he was Senior Editor of the Harvard International Law Journal and Director of Litigation for the Harvard Prison Legal Assistance Project.
Prior to joining the Cornell law faculty in 2007, Professor Jacobson had a highly successful civil litigation and arbitration practice in Providence, Rhode Island, concentrating in investment, employment, and business disputes in the securities industry, including many high profile cases reported in leading newspapers and magazines.
Professor Jacobson has argued cases in numerous federal and state courts, including the Courts of Appeal for the First, Fifth and Sixth Circuits, and the Rhode Island Supreme Court.
Professor Jacobson has a national reputation as a leading practitioner in securities arbitration. He was Treasurer, and is a former member of the Executive Committee and Board of Directors of the Public Investors Arbitration Bar Association, a professional organization of attorneys dedicated to protecting public investors. He frequently is quoted in national media on issues related to investment fraud and investor protection, and in the past has served as one of a small number of private practice attorneys who trained new arbitrators for the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.
Professor Jacobson is co-author of the Securities Arbitration Desk Reference (Thomson-Reuters), updated annually.
Professor Jacobson also is the founder and publisher of Legal Insurrection, a popular politics and law website. He is frequently quoted in the media on political and legal topics, has authored many Op-Eds in major publications, and appears on television and radio to discuss politics and the law.
Montgomery Lawyers Chapter October Luncheon
Montgomery Lawyers Chapter
Montgomery, ALPanel I: Developments on DEI Policy in Alabama
2024 Alabama Chapters Conference
Homewood, ALESG, Ain't Easy as 1, 2, 3
Huntsville Lawyers Chapter
Huntsville, ALPanel 2: Evaluating Fiduciary Responsibility in the Age of ESG
Fernandina Beach, FLA Conversation and Luncheon with Andrew Sorrell
Montgomery Lawyers Chapter
Montgomery, ALPractice of Law: ABA Model Rule 8.4(g) and Its History in Light of the Constitution.
Montgomery Lawyers Chapter
Montgomery , ALThe Equal Protection Project: Challenging DEI Discrimination
Montgomery Federalist Society
Montgomery, ALThe Next American Economy: Nation, State, and Markets in an Uncertain World
Montgomery Lawyers Chapter
Montgomery, ALLuncheon with Justice Greg Cook
Montgomery Lawyers Chapter
Montgomery, ALModern State or Federation: an American Dilemma
Montgomery Lawyers Chapter
Montgomery, AL