Judicial Law Clerk, United States Court of Appeals
Natasha Babazadeh is a judicial law clerk for the United States Court of Appeals. She was the 2017 EPIC Law Fellow in Appellate Advocacy at the Electronic Privacy Information Center. She is a graduate from UCLA School of Law's David J. Epstein Program in Public Interest Law and Policy. Natasha has worked on First and Fourth Amendment issues related to national security, privacy, technology and criminal justice as an intern for the ACLU's Speech Privacy and Technology Project, the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, and Amnesty International USA. At UCLA, she served as the Editor-in-Chief for the Journal of International Law and Foreign Affairs. She also co-Founded and served as co-President of the Digital Governance and Technology Association of Law, where she organized events surrounding Russia's involvement in the U.S. election and ICANN's transition out of U.S. government oversight. Natasha is a 2014 summa cum laude graduate of New York University, where she studied international politics and human rights and received the NYU President's Service Award.
Ronald N. Boyce Presidential Professor of Criminal Law and University Distinguished Professor of Law, The University of Utah College of Law
Paul G. Cassell is an internationally recognized legal scholar on criminal and civil justice, crime victims' rights, constitutional law, evidence, judicial process, and other legal issues. Cassell received a B.A. (1981) and a J.D. (1984) from Stanford University, where he graduated Order of the Coif and was President of the Stanford Law Review. He clerked for then-Judge Antonin Scalia when Scalia was on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (1984-85) and for Chief Justice Warren Burger of the United States Supreme Court (1985-86). Cassell then served as an Associate Deputy Attorney General with the U.S. Justice Department (1986-88) and as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia (1988 to 1991). Cassell joined the faculty at the College of Law in 1992, where he taught full-time until he was sworn in as a U.S. District Court Judge for the District of Utah in July 2002. In November 2007, he resigned his judgeship to return full-time to the College of Law to teach, write, and litigate concerning issues relating to crime victims' rights and criminal and civil justice reform. Professor Cassell has also published numerous law review articles in journals such as the Stanford Law Review, the Michigan Law Review, the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, and the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology. He is a co-author of the nation's only law school textbook on crime victims' rights, Victims in Criminal Procedure (various editions, most recently in its fifth edition published in 2025). Professor Cassell has argued pro bono cases relating to criminal procedure and crime victims' rights before the United States Supreme Court, the 2nd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, and D.C. Circuits (including the 5th and 11th Circuits en banc), several U.S. District Courts, the Utah Supreme Court, and the Arizona Supreme Court. In 2020, Cassell received the Ronald Wilson Reagan Public Policy Award - National Crime Victims' Service Award from the U.S. Department of Justice. Cassell is a member of the American Law Institute, a fellow of the American Bar Foundation, and an inaugural member of the Council on Criminal Justice. He is also an occasional blogger at The Volokh Conspiracy.
Senior Legal Fellow, Edwin Meese III Institute for the Rule of Law, Advancing American Freedom
Senior Vice President for Legal Studies, Cato Institute
Clark Neily is senior vice president for legal studies at the Cato Institute. His areas of interest include constitutional law, overcriminalization, civil forfeiture, police accountability, and gun rights. Neily is the author of Terms of Engagement: How Our Courts Should Enforce the Constitution’s Promise of Limited Government. His writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and National Review Online, as well as various law reviews, including the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, George Mason Law Review, Georgetown Journal of Law and Public Policy, NYU Journal of Law and Liberty, and Texas Review of Law and Politics. Neily is a frequent guest speaker and lecturer for the Federalist Society, Institute for Humane Studies, and American Constitution Society.
Before joining Cato in 2017, Neily was a senior attorney and constitutional litigator at the Institute for Justice and director of the Institute’s Center for Judicial Engagement. He is also an adjunct professor at the University of Texas School of Law, where he teaches constitutional litigation and public-interest law.
Neily served as co-counsel in District of Columbia v. Heller, the historic case in which the Supreme Court held for the first time that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to own a gun for self-defense.
Neily began his legal career as a law clerk to Judge Royce Lamberth on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. After that he spent four years in the trial department of the Dallas-based firm Thompson & Knight. Neily received his undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Texas, where he was Chief Articles Editor of the Texas Law Review.
Professor of Law, Stanford Law School
Orin S. Kerr is a Professor of Law at Stanford Law School, where he teaches and writes in the areas of criminal procedure and computer crime law. Kerr earned mechanical engineering degrees from Princeton University and Stanford University before graduating with a J.D. from Harvard Law School. He is a former law clerk to Justice Anthony M. Kennedy at the United States Supreme Court and Judge Leonard I. Garth of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
Professor, University of Illinois College of Law
Robin Fretwell Wilson is the Mildred Van Voorhis Jones Chair in Law at the University of Illinois College of Law.
A scholar in family law, bioethics and law and religion, Professor Wilson has worked extensively on behalf of state and federal law reform efforts in each realm.
Across two decades, she has worked to secure laws protecting the autonomy of patients to decide when they will be used to teach intimate exams to medical students, laws now in place in 22 states—sixteen of which have been enacted since 2019.
Professor Wilson is known for bridging differences in the culture war. In 2015, she spent a month in residence with the Utah legislature, helping Utah state lawmakers to pass anti-discrimination legislation that balances religious liberty and LGBT rights. In 2019, Professor Wilson assisted the governor of Utah to craft regulations banning gay conversion therapy. In 2019, she also aided U.S. Representative Chris Stewart with portions of the “Fairness for All” he introduced in Congress. A member of the American Law Institute and a Fulbright Specialist, Professor Wilson has served as a consultant to the United Arab Emirates’ Judicial Department as they sought to create a parallel court system for the adjudication by expatriates of family law matters using the laws of their home country or of their faith traditions.
Professor Wilson is the author of 20 books, including her 2018 book, Religious Freedom, LGBT Rights, and the Prospects for Common Ground, with Yale University Professor William Eskridge, Jr., which is now in paperback at Cambridge University Press. Her other books include: The Contested Place of Religion in Family Law (Cambridge University Press, 2018, ed.), Reconceiving the Family: Critical Reflections on the American Law Institute’s Principles of the Law of Family Dissolution (Cambridge University Press, 2006, ed.); The Handbook of Children, Culture & Violence (Sage Publications, 2006, with Nancy Dowd and Dorothy Singer, eds.); Same-Sex Marriage and Religious Liberty: Emerging Conflicts (Rowman & Littlefield, 2008, with Douglas Laycock and Anthony Picarello, eds.); Health Law and Bioethics: Cases in Context (Aspen, 2008, with Joan Krause, Sandra Johnson, and Richard Saver, eds.); Domestic Relations: Cases and Materials, 8th edition (Foundation Press, 2017, with Walter Wadlington and Raymond C. O’Brien); and Understanding Family Law, 4th edition (LexisNexis, 2013, with John DeWitt Gregory and Peter N. Swisher). Her articles have appeared in the Boston College Law Review, Cornell Law Review, Emory Law Journal, Illinois Law Review, North Carolina Law Review, San Diego Law Review, U.C. Davis Law Review, and Washington and Lee Law Review, as well as in numerous peer-reviewed journals.
In 2010 and again in 2016, Professor Wilson was ranked among the Top Ten Family Law Scholars in the United States for scholarly impact. She ranks among the Top 10% of Authors in all time downloads on the Social Science Research Network. Professor Wilson’s scholarship has been cited by the Fifth, Seventh and Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, the Minnesota Court of Appeals, lower federal courts, and the Supreme Courts of Delaware, Illinois, Iowa, and Washington.
Professor Wilson’s work has been featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, National Public Radio’s All Things Considered, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, The Atlantic Monthly, U.S. News and World Report, ABA Journal, Chronicle of Higher Education, Chicago Tribune, CNN Headline News, Good Morning America, ABC News, CBS News, Philadelphia Inquirer, Essence Magazine, The American Prospect, People Magazine, The American Conservative, The Australian, and Al Jazeera, among others. She has presented her research across the world, including the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, as well as in Argentina, Brazil, Peru, Chile, China, Israel, Qatar, the Netherlands, Italy, England, Wales, Poland, Spain, Serbia, Japan, Canada, Norway, Denmark, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Turkey, and France.
Professor Wilson has seven times been honored for her work on innovative laws that respect all persons. In 2007, she received the Citizen’s Legislative Award for her work on changing Virginia’s informed consent law. In 2018, Professor Wilson received the Thomas L. Kane Religious Freedom Award from the J. Reuben Clark Law Society, which is presented annually to an individual who exemplifies the spirit of religious liberty for all and who has contributed in significant ways to the defense of religious freedom in the public square.
In 2018, Professor Wilson was honored as one of the 150 for 150: Celebrating the Accomplishments of Women at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for its sesquicentennial celebration. In 2020, Professor Wilson received the 2020 Larine Y. Cowan Make a Difference Award for Advocacy for LGBTQ Affairs, a university-wide honor given by the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
General Counsel, ACT | The App Association
I lead the App Association's legislative initiatives on behalf of 5,000 small mobile software and connected device companies in the app economy. My portfolio includes consumer privacy; broadband deployment; cybersecurity matters; standards-essential patent issues; connected health; and digital trade issues. I also advise on executive branch and judiciary projects related to telecommunications, connected health, intellectual property, and workforce development.
Senior Vice President for Legal Studies, Cato Institute
Clark Neily is senior vice president for legal studies at the Cato Institute. His areas of interest include constitutional law, overcriminalization, civil forfeiture, police accountability, and gun rights. Neily is the author of Terms of Engagement: How Our Courts Should Enforce the Constitution’s Promise of Limited Government. His writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and National Review Online, as well as various law reviews, including the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, George Mason Law Review, Georgetown Journal of Law and Public Policy, NYU Journal of Law and Liberty, and Texas Review of Law and Politics. Neily is a frequent guest speaker and lecturer for the Federalist Society, Institute for Humane Studies, and American Constitution Society.
Before joining Cato in 2017, Neily was a senior attorney and constitutional litigator at the Institute for Justice and director of the Institute’s Center for Judicial Engagement. He is also an adjunct professor at the University of Texas School of Law, where he teaches constitutional litigation and public-interest law.
Neily served as co-counsel in District of Columbia v. Heller, the historic case in which the Supreme Court held for the first time that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to own a gun for self-defense.
Neily began his legal career as a law clerk to Judge Royce Lamberth on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. After that he spent four years in the trial department of the Dallas-based firm Thompson & Knight. Neily received his undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Texas, where he was Chief Articles Editor of the Texas Law Review.
Professor of Law, South Texas College of Law Houston
Josh Blackman is a national thought leader on constitutional law and the United States Supreme Court. Josh’s work was quoted during two presidential impeachment trials. He has testified before Congress and advises federal and state lawmakers. Josh regularly appears on TV, including NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox, and the BBC. Josh is also a frequent guest on NPR and other syndicated radio programs. He has published commentaries in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and leading national publications.
Since 2012, Josh has served as a professor at the South Texas College of Law Houston. He holds the Centennial Chair of Constitutional Law. Josh is an Adjunct Fellow at the Manhattan Institute. Josh has written more than seven dozen law review articles that have been cited more than a thousand times. Josh was selected as the Jurist of the Year by the Texas Journal of Law & Public Policy, received the inaugural Meese III Originalism Award, and was awarded the Inaugural Joseph Story Award. Josh was selected by Forbes Magazine for the “30 Under 30” in Law and Policy. Josh is the President of the Harlan Institute, and founded FantasySCOTUS, the Internet’s Premier Supreme Court Fantasy League. He blogs at the Volokh Conspiracyand posts@JoshMBlackman.
Reasonable Expectation of Privacy [Legal Terms]
Natasha Babazadeh
Natasha Babazadeh, Judicial Law Clerk at U.S. Courts of Appeals, defines “Reasonable Expectation of Privacy”...
Mapp v. Ohio [SCOTUSbrief]
Paul G. Cassell
When police officers commit an unconstitutional search, should the evidence they obtained be usable in...
Does the Voter ID Requirement Safeguard the Election Process? [POLICYbrief]
Hans A. Von Spakovsky
Voter identification laws have been the subject of heated debate. Do voter ID requirements prevent...
Should Jurors Be Instructed About Jury Nullification? [POLICYbrief]
Clark Neily, Orin S. Kerr
When a member of a jury believes a defendant is guilty and chooses to acquit...
June Medical Services LLC v. Russo [SCOTUSbrief]
Robin Fretwell Wilson
Prof. Robin Fretwell Wilson speaks for this video in her personal capacity. Her views do...
Betting on Loot Boxes: Is Regulation a Winning Issue? [POLICYbrief]
Graham Dufault
Loot boxes are a type of microtransaction found in video games that have caused controversy...
Can Judges Change the Verdict of a Runaway Jury? [POLICYbrief]
Clark Neily
Perhaps you've heard of the term “runaway jury,” but what does it mean? Clark Neily,...
Topics
Presidential Use of Social Media as a Means of Formulating Military Policy
There is ample historical precedent for a president, pursuant to his authority as commander-in-chief, to...
New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. City of New York, New York [SCOTUSbrief]
Josh Blackman
For the first time in nearly a decade, the Supreme Court is taking another look...
Topics
2019 National Lawyers Convention Digital Survival Guide
This "Survival Guide" is your one-stop-shop for all things digital at the National Lawyers Convention....