Legal Director & General Counsel, Criminal Justice Legal Foundation
Kent S. Scheidegger has been the Legal Director of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation since December 1986. He also served as Chairman of the Criminal Law Practice Group of the Federalist Society 2003 to 2005. His articles on criminal and constitutional law have been published in law reviews, national legal publications, and congressional reports. Legal arguments authored by Mr. Scheidegger have been cited and incorporated in several precedent-setting United States Supreme Court decisions.
After receiving a degree in physics with honors from New Mexico State University in 1976, Mr. Scheidegger served for six years in the United States Air Force as a Nuclear Research Officer. He took his law degree with distinction from the University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law in 1982 and practiced civil law in Northern California. He was general counsel of California Cooler, Inc. from 1984 until 1986, when he joined the Foundation.
Professor of Law, University of San Diego School of Law (Retired)
Gail Heriot is a recently retired law professor from the University of San Diego. She also served as a member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights from 2007 to 2025. She is also the chairman of the board of the American Civil Rights Project and the chair emerita of the Civil Rights practice group at the Federalist Society for Law & Public Policy.
Professor Heriot is a prolific writer in the area of civil rights. She is the author of many law review articles. She is also the editor (along with Maimon Schwarzschild) of the 2021 anthology, A Dubious Expediency: How Race Preferences Damage Higher Education. Her upcoming book is entitled, Why We Walk on Eggshell: How Our Civil Rights Laws Helped Bring About the Woke Era—And the Trump Era, Too.
Her writings for a general audience have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the San Diego Union-Tribune, the National Review and many other newspapers and magazines.
In 1996, she co-chaired the successful “Yes on Proposition 209” campaign, which amended the California Constitution to prohibit state-sponsored discrimination or preferential treatment based on race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin. In 2020, she co-chaired the “No on Proposition 16” campaign, which successfully prevented Proposition 209’s repeal.
Independent Analyst, None
Allison Hayward most recently served as the Head of Case Selection at the Oversight Board. Previously, she was a Commissioner at the California Fair Political Practices Commission, a Board Member at the Office of Congressional Ethics, and an Assistant Professor of Law at George Mason University School of Law. She also previously worked as Chief of Staff and Counsel in the office of Federal Election Commission Commissioner Bradley A. Smith and practiced election law in California and in Washington DC.
In 1994-1995, Professor Hayward was a judicial clerk for the Honorable Danny J. Boggs, United States Court of Appeal for the Sixth Circuit.
She is a member of the State Bar of California and the District of Columbia Bar.
Senior Counsel - Intellectual Property, Baker Hughes Company
After nearly two decades exclusively as an Intellectual Property Attorney, I have recently branched out my repertoire to become an Entrepreneur (in addition to a solo legal practice).
As an Intellectual Property Attorney, I counsel my clients on various Intellectual Property (IP) related issues concerning acquisition, maintenance and enforcement, including litigation (whether in court or in front of an administrative law judge) and licensing (from non-disclosure agreements to asset purchase agreements). For my clients, I have expanded my expertise to include consultation from a business point-of-view, assisting my clients in not only the legal issues relating to IP, but also the strategic issues associated with monetizing an IP portfolio.
As an Entrepreneur, I own a Property Management business, focusing on residential homes in the Central Texas area. Additionally, I own a boutique fitness studio in Austin, Texas, specializing in kickboxing.
Bell, McAndrews & Hiltachk, LLP
Richard and Frances Mallery Professor of Law and Faculty Director, Constitutional Law Center, Stanford Law School
Michael W. McConnell is the Richard and Frances Mallery Professor and Faculty Director of the Constitutional Law Center at Stanford Law School, and a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. From 2002 to 2009, he served as a Circuit Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. He was nominated by President George W. Bush, a Republican, and confirmed by a Democratic Senate by unanimous consent. McConnell has previously held chaired professorships at the University of Chicago and the University of Utah, and visiting professorships at Harvard and NYU. He teaches courses on constitutional law, constitutional history, First Amendment, and interpretive theory. He has published widely in the fields of constitutional law and theory, especially church and state, equal protection, and separation of powers. His book, “The President Who Would Not Be King: Executive Power Under the Constitution,” was published by Princeton University Press in 2020, based on the Tanner Lectures in Human Values, which he delivered at Princeton in 2019. His latest book, co-authored with Nathan Chapman, “Agreeing to Disagree: How the Establishment Clause Protects Religious Diversity and Freedom of Conscience,” was published by Oxford University Press in mid-2023. McConnell has argued sixteen cases in the United States Supreme Court, most recently Carney v. Adams (2020). defending a provision of the Delaware Constitution requiring political balance on that state’s courts. More recently, he was co-counsel in Gonzalez v. Google. He earned his B.A. from Michigan State University and his J.D. from the University of Chicago, and has received honorary degrees from Notre Dame University and Michigan State. He served as law clerk to Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. and D.C. Circuit Chief Judge J. Skelly Wright. He has been Assistant General Counsel of the Office of Management & Budget, Assistant to the Solicitor General of the Department of Justice, and a member of the President’s Intelligence Oversight Board. He is Senior of Counsel to the law firm Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich & Rosati, and is co-chair of Meta’s Oversight Review Board.
ABA Briefs in the 1997-98 Supreme Court Term
Kent Scheidegger
In the Supreme Court’s 1997-98 term, the American Bar Association continued its past record of...
Tobacco-Free FDA
For 58 of the past 60 years, since Congress passed the 1938 Food, Drug and...
Legislative Alert: The Kennedy Hate Crimes Prevention Act
Gail L. Heriot
Americans reacted with revulsion when they learned of the brutal murders in Jasper, Texas and...
State Immunity From Federal Copyright and Trademark Suits: The Chavez Decision
Robert R. Long
In April, the Fifth Circuit held in Denise Chavez v. Arte Publico Press, 139 F.3d...
FDA Modernization and Accountability Act of 1997: A Blueprint for Reform
Nick Littlefield, Sharon Webb
On the afternoon of Sunday, November 9, 1997, in the middle of the long Veterans...
Election Law Observer
Allison R. Hayward
Cases, cases, casesSeveral recent court decisions should be of interest to activists and campaign finance...
Of Juries And Shampoo: The Supreme Court And The Copyright Act
Timothy M. Morella
This past March, the U. S. Supreme Court decided a pair of copyright cases, both...
Critical Infrastructure Protection: A New Era of National Security
Walter Gary Sharp
Computers and computer-dependent systems permeate everyone's daily life. From local, state, and federal government decision...
Proposition 226 Paycheck Protection: the California Experience
Charles H. Bell
"Paycheck Protection" legislation has been introduced in nearly a dozen states and in Congress in...
A Constitutional Campaign Finance Plan
Michael W. McConnell
Reprinted with permission of The Wall Street Journal © 1997 Dow Jones & Company, Inc....