Newton D. Baker-Baker & Hostetler Chair in Law, Moritz College of Law, The Ohio State University
Professor Douglas A. Berman is Newton D. Baker-Baker & Hostetler Chair in Law and Executive Director of the Drug Enforcement and Policy Center, housed in the Moritz College of Law. Berman’s principal teaching and research focus is in the area of criminal law and criminal sentencing, though he also has teaching and practice experience in the fields of legislation and intellectual property. He has taught Criminal Law, Criminal Punishment and Sentencing, Criminal Procedure – Investigation, Marijuana Law, Policy & Reform Seminar, Federal and State Clemency Decision-making, The Death Penalty, Legislation, Introduction to Intellectual Property, Second Amendment Seminar, and the Legislation Clinic.
Professor Berman attended Princeton University and Harvard Law School. In law school, he was an editor and developments office chair of the Harvard Law Review and also served as a teaching assistant for a Harvard University philosophy course. After graduation from law school in 1993, Professor Berman served as a law clerk for Judge Jon O. Newman and then for Judge Guido Calabresi, both on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. After clerking, Professor Berman was a litigation associate at the law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton, and Garrison in New York City.
Professor Berman is the co-author of two casebooks. Sentencing Law and Policy: Cases, Statutes and Guidelines, published by Aspen Publishers, is now in its fifth edition. Marijuana Law and Policy was released by Carolina Academic Press in 2020. In addition to authoring numerous articles on topics ranging from capital punishment to the federal sentencing guidelines, Professor Berman has served as a managing editor of the Federal Sentencing Reporter for more than twenty five years, and also serves as an editor of the Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law.
Professor Berman is the sole creator and author of the widely-read and widely-cited blog, Sentencing Law and Policy. The blog often receives nearly 50,000 page views per month (and had over 20,000 hits the day of the Supreme Court’s major sentencing decision in United States v. Booker). Professor Berman’s work on the Sentencing Law and Policy blog, which he describes as a form of “scholarship in action,” has been profiled or discussed at length in articles appearing in the Wall Street Journal, Legal Affairs magazine, Lawyers Weekly USA, Legal Times, Columbus Monthly, and in numerous other print and online publications.
In addition, Sentencing Law and Policy has the distinction of being the first blog cited by the U.S. Supreme Court (for a document appearing exclusively on the site), and substantive analysis in particular blog posts has been cited in numerous appellate and district court rulings, in many briefs submitted to federal and state courts around the country, and in hundreds of law review articles.
Professor Berman is a member of the Council on Criminal Justice and frequently is consulted by national and state policymakers, sentencing commissioners, and public policy groups concerning sentencing law and policy reforms. He has testified before the U.S. House of Representatives and before numerous sentencing commissions. He also is frequently contacted by national and local media concerning sentencing and marijuana reform developments.
Professor Berman has appeared on national television, radio and podcast news programs and has been extensively quoted in newspaper articles appearing in nearly every major national paper and many local papers, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Legal Times, and in pieces from the Associated Press, Reuters, and Knight-Ridder news services.
Professor Berman sometimes serves as a consultant to lawyers working on important or interesting sentencing cases. In most instances, Professor Berman’s consulting has been on an ad hoc and pro bono basis, and it usually involves a quick review of draft briefs and other court filings and then providing general advice on litigation strategies. On some occasions, however, Professor Berman has been formally retained to play a more sustained role in certain cases, including being retained by law firms to provide consulting service on various cutting-edge federal sentencing issues.
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.
Associate Professor of Law, St. Thomas University College of Law
Dan Epstein is Vice President at America First Legal and an Associate Professor of Law at St. Thomas University in Miami, Florida. He also advises individuals and small businesses in affirmative and defensive actions against government overreach. Previously, he advised startups on regulatory matters as Director at a venture capital firm. His federal service includes being a Special Assistant to and Senior Associate Counsel to the President and a counsel for the House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Earlier in his career, Mr. Epstein founded and ran Cause of Action, where he represented clients in government investigations and litigated regulatory, constitutional, political, and public law matters.
He holds a Ph.D. from George Washington University in Political Economy, a J.D. from Emory University School of Law, and a B.A. from Kenyon College. He is active in the Palm Beach community as a member of the Fourth Court of Appeals Judicial Nominating Commission in Florida, a transition team member to Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, and the Chairman and Trustee of Palm Beach State College.
Solicitor General, Montana Attorney General's Office
Christian is currently Solicitor General of Montana, where he serves as the chief litigator and principal legal advisor to Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen. In that capacity, he manages litigation before the federal district courts, courts of appeal, and the United States Supreme Court, as well as the Montana Supreme Court. He previously served in the Trump Administration as Senior Counsel to the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Education. Prior to government service, he was a public interest constitutional litigator at Mountain States Legal Foundation and a fellow at the Institute for Justice. He clerked for Justice Caleb Stegall on the Kansas Supreme Court. He also served as Director of Publications for the Federalist Society's national headquarters.
Christian earned his B.A. in Political Science in 2009 from the University of Pennsylvania before attending the University of Kansas School of Law. Christian is admitted to practice law in Kansas and Montana. A Kansas native, he is a die-hard fan of the Kansas Jayhawks, Kansas City Chiefs, and Kansas City Royals.
Christian is a member of the Federalism & Separation of Powers Practice Group's Executive Committee.
Partner, Arnold & Porter
John Elwood is the head of Arnold & Porter’s Appellate and Supreme Court practice. He has argued before the Supreme Court nine times, and appeared before most of the federal courts of appeals. He has successfully argued cases across a broad cross-section of subjects, with particular experience in environmental law, the False Claims Act, government contracting, and federal criminal law
Mr. Elwood’s work has earned him recognition as one of Washington’s top Supreme Court lawyers (Washingtonian, 2013), as one of “a small group of lawyers” with an “outsized influence at the U.S. Supreme Court” (Reuters, 2014), and as one of the country’s most innovative lawyers (Financial Times, 2014). Chambers USA reports that “[t]he much-admired John Elwood is praised for his advocacy skills” (2013), and describes Mr. Elwood as “phenomenal” (2014), “incredibly talented” (2012), and “a much-loved and widely respected lawyer who is quick on his feet” (2010).
Before joining the firm, Mr. Elwood served in senior-level positions in the U.S. Department of Justice. Beginning as an Assistant to the Solicitor General, and continuing with the firm, he has briefed more than 20 merits cases before the Supreme Court of the United States, and has briefed approximately 135 cases at the certiorari stage. As the senior Deputy in the Office of Legal Counsel, he advised the White House and federal agencies on a range of constitutional, statutory, and regulatory issues.
Newton D. Baker-Baker & Hostetler Chair in Law, Moritz College of Law, The Ohio State University
Professor Douglas A. Berman is Newton D. Baker-Baker & Hostetler Chair in Law and Executive Director of the Drug Enforcement and Policy Center, housed in the Moritz College of Law. Berman’s principal teaching and research focus is in the area of criminal law and criminal sentencing, though he also has teaching and practice experience in the fields of legislation and intellectual property. He has taught Criminal Law, Criminal Punishment and Sentencing, Criminal Procedure – Investigation, Marijuana Law, Policy & Reform Seminar, Federal and State Clemency Decision-making, The Death Penalty, Legislation, Introduction to Intellectual Property, Second Amendment Seminar, and the Legislation Clinic.
Professor Berman attended Princeton University and Harvard Law School. In law school, he was an editor and developments office chair of the Harvard Law Review and also served as a teaching assistant for a Harvard University philosophy course. After graduation from law school in 1993, Professor Berman served as a law clerk for Judge Jon O. Newman and then for Judge Guido Calabresi, both on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. After clerking, Professor Berman was a litigation associate at the law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton, and Garrison in New York City.
Professor Berman is the co-author of two casebooks. Sentencing Law and Policy: Cases, Statutes and Guidelines, published by Aspen Publishers, is now in its fifth edition. Marijuana Law and Policy was released by Carolina Academic Press in 2020. In addition to authoring numerous articles on topics ranging from capital punishment to the federal sentencing guidelines, Professor Berman has served as a managing editor of the Federal Sentencing Reporter for more than twenty five years, and also serves as an editor of the Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law.
Professor Berman is the sole creator and author of the widely-read and widely-cited blog, Sentencing Law and Policy. The blog often receives nearly 50,000 page views per month (and had over 20,000 hits the day of the Supreme Court’s major sentencing decision in United States v. Booker). Professor Berman’s work on the Sentencing Law and Policy blog, which he describes as a form of “scholarship in action,” has been profiled or discussed at length in articles appearing in the Wall Street Journal, Legal Affairs magazine, Lawyers Weekly USA, Legal Times, Columbus Monthly, and in numerous other print and online publications.
In addition, Sentencing Law and Policy has the distinction of being the first blog cited by the U.S. Supreme Court (for a document appearing exclusively on the site), and substantive analysis in particular blog posts has been cited in numerous appellate and district court rulings, in many briefs submitted to federal and state courts around the country, and in hundreds of law review articles.
Professor Berman is a member of the Council on Criminal Justice and frequently is consulted by national and state policymakers, sentencing commissioners, and public policy groups concerning sentencing law and policy reforms. He has testified before the U.S. House of Representatives and before numerous sentencing commissions. He also is frequently contacted by national and local media concerning sentencing and marijuana reform developments.
Professor Berman has appeared on national television, radio and podcast news programs and has been extensively quoted in newspaper articles appearing in nearly every major national paper and many local papers, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Legal Times, and in pieces from the Associated Press, Reuters, and Knight-Ridder news services.
Professor Berman sometimes serves as a consultant to lawyers working on important or interesting sentencing cases. In most instances, Professor Berman’s consulting has been on an ad hoc and pro bono basis, and it usually involves a quick review of draft briefs and other court filings and then providing general advice on litigation strategies. On some occasions, however, Professor Berman has been formally retained to play a more sustained role in certain cases, including being retained by law firms to provide consulting service on various cutting-edge federal sentencing issues.
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.
Associate Justice, Supreme Court of the United States
Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh was born in Washington, D.C., on February 12, 1965. He married Ashley Estes in 2004, and they have two daughters - Margaret and Liza. He received a B.A. from Yale College in 1987 and a J.D. from Yale Law School in 1990. He served as a law clerk for Judge Walter Stapleton of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit from 1990-1991, for Judge Alex Kozinski of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit from 1991-1992, and for Justice Anthony M. Kennedy of the U.S. Supreme Court during the 1993 Term. In 1992-1993, he was an attorney in the Office of the Solicitor General of the United States. From 1994 to 1997 and for a period in 1998, he was Associate Counsel in the Office of Independent Counsel. He was a partner at a Washington, D.C., law firm from 1997 to 1998 and again from 1999 to 2001. From 2001 to 2003, he was Associate Counsel and then Senior Associate Counsel to President George W. Bush. From 2003 to 2006, he was Assistant to the President and Staff Secretary for President Bush. He was appointed a Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in 2006. President Donald J. Trump nominated him as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, and he took his seat on October 6, 2018.
Senior Staff Attorney, Public Knowledge
John Bergmayer specializes in telecommunications, Internet, and intellectual property issues. He advocates for the public interest before courts and policymakers, and works to make sure that all stakeholders--including ordinary citizens, artists, and technological innovators--have a say in shaping emerging digital policies. He is a member of the Colorado bar and a graduate of the University of Colorado Law School.
President, The Free State Foundation
Randolph J. May is Founder and President of The Free State Foundation. The Free State Foundation is an independent, non-profit free market-oriented think tank founded in 2006.
From October 1999-May 2006, May was a Senior Fellow and Director of Communications Policy Studies at The Progress & Freedom Foundation, a Washington, DC-based think tank. Prior to joining PFF, he practiced communications, administrative, and regulatory law as a partner at major national law firms. From 1978 to 1981, May served as Assistant General Counsel and Associate General Counsel at the Federal Communication Commission.
May has held numerous leadership positions in bar associations. He is a past Chair of the American Bar Association’s Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice. He is a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration. Mr. May also has served as a Public Member of the Administrative Conference of the United States and currently is a Senior Fellow at ACUS.
Mr. May has published more than two hundred articles and essays on communications, administrative and constitutional law topics. He is author of A Call for a Radical New Communications Policy: Proposals for Free Market Reform, and co-author of #CommActUpdate: A Communications Law Fit for the Digital Age and The Constitutional Foundations of Intellectual Property. Mr. May is editor of two books, Communications Law and Policy in the Digital Age: The Next Five Years and New Directions in Communications Policy. In addition, he is the co-editor of two other books, Net Neutrality or Net Neutering: Should Broadband Internet Services Be Regulated? and Communications Deregulation and FCC Reform. In the past, Mr. May has written regular columns on legal and regulatory affairs for Legal Times and the National Law Journal, leading national legal periodicals.
He received his A.B. from Duke University and his J.D. from Duke Law School, where he serves as a member of the Board of Visitors.
Special Counsel, Hunton Andrews Kurth
After serving on the United State Court of Appeals for the D. C. Circuit from 2005, Judge Griffith stepped down from the bench in 2020. Currently he is a Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School, a Fellow at the Wheatley Institute at Brigham Young University, and Special Counsel in the Washington, DC office of the law firm of Hunton Andrews Kurth. Most recently, he was a member of President Biden's Commission on the Supreme Court. He is the author of Civic Charity and the Constitution , and the co-author, along with former judges Michael Luttig and Michael McConnell, of Lost, Not Stolen: The Conservative Case that Trump Lost and Biden Won the 2020 Presidential Election. https://lostnotstolen.org/ . Before being appointed to the D. C. Circuit, Judge Griffith was the General Counsel at BYU; Senate Legal Counsel, the non-partisan chief legal officer of the U. S. Senate; and a partner at Wiley, Rein & Fielding. Long active in rule-of-law programs in former communist nations, Judge Griffith is a member of the international advisory board of the CEELI Institute in Prague. He is a graduate of BYU and the University of Virginia School of Law and is a member of the American Law Institute.
Associate Justice, Supreme Court of the United States
Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh was born in Washington, D.C., on February 12, 1965. He married Ashley Estes in 2004, and they have two daughters - Margaret and Liza. He received a B.A. from Yale College in 1987 and a J.D. from Yale Law School in 1990. He served as a law clerk for Judge Walter Stapleton of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit from 1990-1991, for Judge Alex Kozinski of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit from 1991-1992, and for Justice Anthony M. Kennedy of the U.S. Supreme Court during the 1993 Term. In 1992-1993, he was an attorney in the Office of the Solicitor General of the United States. From 1994 to 1997 and for a period in 1998, he was Associate Counsel in the Office of Independent Counsel. He was a partner at a Washington, D.C., law firm from 1997 to 1998 and again from 1999 to 2001. From 2001 to 2003, he was Associate Counsel and then Senior Associate Counsel to President George W. Bush. From 2003 to 2006, he was Assistant to the President and Staff Secretary for President Bush. He was appointed a Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in 2006. President Donald J. Trump nominated him as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, and he took his seat on October 6, 2018.
Partner, Arnold & Porter
John Elwood is the head of Arnold & Porter’s Appellate and Supreme Court practice. He has argued before the Supreme Court nine times, and appeared before most of the federal courts of appeals. He has successfully argued cases across a broad cross-section of subjects, with particular experience in environmental law, the False Claims Act, government contracting, and federal criminal law
Mr. Elwood’s work has earned him recognition as one of Washington’s top Supreme Court lawyers (Washingtonian, 2013), as one of “a small group of lawyers” with an “outsized influence at the U.S. Supreme Court” (Reuters, 2014), and as one of the country’s most innovative lawyers (Financial Times, 2014). Chambers USA reports that “[t]he much-admired John Elwood is praised for his advocacy skills” (2013), and describes Mr. Elwood as “phenomenal” (2014), “incredibly talented” (2012), and “a much-loved and widely respected lawyer who is quick on his feet” (2010).
Before joining the firm, Mr. Elwood served in senior-level positions in the U.S. Department of Justice. Beginning as an Assistant to the Solicitor General, and continuing with the firm, he has briefed more than 20 merits cases before the Supreme Court of the United States, and has briefed approximately 135 cases at the certiorari stage. As the senior Deputy in the Office of Legal Counsel, he advised the White House and federal agencies on a range of constitutional, statutory, and regulatory issues.
Controversial Sentencing in the Antwuan Ball Case - Podcast
Douglas A. Berman, Paul G. Cassell
In 2005, Washington, D.C. resident Antwuan Ball was indicted for a massive drug conspiracy and...
Controversial Sentencing in the Antwuan Ball Case
TeleforumRedressing Politicized Spending
Daniel Z. Epstein
Note from the Editor: This article is about politicized spending in the federal discretionary budget. ...
Judging on the D.C. Circuit
Cancelled: Recess Appointments and NLRB v. Noel Canning
Des MoinesThe Internet: To Regulate, or Not to Regulate
TeleforumBreakfast with D.C. Circuit Judge Thomas Griffith
Washington, District of ColumbiaThe Second Highest Court in the Land: Judging on the DC Circuit
Recess Appointments in the Supreme Court: Noel Canning - Podcast
Christian Corrigan, John P. Elwood
In NLRB v. Noel Canning, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit held...
Recess Appointments in the Supreme Court: Noel Canning
Teleforum