Senior Counsel and VP, Appellate Advocacy, Alliance Defending Freedom
John Bursch is senior counsel and vice president of appellate advocacy with Alliance Defending Freedom. Bursch has argued 12 U.S. Supreme Court cases and more than 30 state supreme court cases since 2011, and a recent study concluded that among all frequent Supreme Court advocates who did not work for the federal government, he had the 3rd highest success rate for persuading justices to adopt his legal position.
Bursch served as solicitor general for the state of Michigan from 2011-2013. He has argued multiple Michigan Supreme Court cases in eight of the last ten terms and has successfully litigated hundreds of matters nationwide, including six with at least $1 billion at stake. As part of his private firm, Bursch Law PLLC, he has represented Fortune 500 companies, foreign and domestic governments, top public officials, and industry associations in high-profile cases, primarily on appeal. He was inducted into the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers and serves as a member of the American Law Institute. His work has resulted in repeated listings in Michigan Super Lawyers and Best Lawyers.
Before entering private practice, Bursch served as a law clerk to the Honorable James B. Loken on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit. He received his J.D. magna cum laude in 1997 from the University of Minnesota Law School, where he served as Chief Note & Comment Editor for the Minnesota Law Review. Prior to that, he attended Western Michigan University, where he received degrees in mathematics and music performance summa cum laude.
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.
Partner, Conner & Winters
Donn C. Meindertsma is a partner in the Washington, DC office of Conner & Winters.
Professor of Law and Co-Director, Ordered Liberty Program, University of Louisville
Luke Milligan is a Professor of Law and criminal defense lawyer who works from the U.S. and Hungary.
He was previously with Williams & Connolly in Washington, D.C., where he practiced white-collar criminal defense. Published widely on the law of criminal procedure, his scholarship on the Fourth Amendment inspired the establishment of a litigation and public relations center at one of the world’s top public interest firms, the Institute for Justice, in Arlington, Virginia. He is a co-founder of the Ordered Liberty Program (with Prof. Justin Walker, now Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit). He sits on the Board of Advisors of the Cato Supreme Court Review in Washington, D.C.
He’s been a visiting professor at Emory University School of Law, as well as on the law faculties of the University of Lisbon and the University of Milan. In Hungary, he is the founder and co-director of the Ordered Liberty School in Central Europe, based at Ludovika University in Budapest.
Of Counsel to a U.S.-based law firm, he’s represented individuals in a wide array of state and federal prosecutions. In 2020 and 2021, he fought the COVID-19 mandates in the U.S. He was lead counsel to U.S. Senator Rand Paul in landmark separation-of-powers litigation, stripping the Governor of Kentucky of “inherent authority” under the constitution, and, in turn, bringing an end to all statewide COVID-19 orders (notably, curfews, capacity limits, and masking requirements). He holds a tenured faculty position at the University of Louisville, where he teaches Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure, Jurisprudence, and Natural Law & Natural Rights. He’s been named Professor of the Year by alumni and hooding professor by five graduating classes.
He began his career as law clerk to the Hon. Edith Brown Clement of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and the Hon. Martin L.C. Feldman of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana. He received a J.D., with honors, from Emory University, where he was Articles Editor of the Emory Law Journal.
He and his wife, Sarah Peterson, have three sons, John, Mark, and Luke, Jr.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit
On March 20, 2018, Judge Elizabeth L. Branch (Lisa) was sworn in as a United States Circuit Judge for the Eleventh Circuit.
Judge Branch attended and graduated from Davidson College in North Carolina (B.A., cum laude, 1990), and Emory University School of Law (J.D., with distinction, 1994).
After graduating from law school, Judge Branch served as a federal law clerk to The Honorable J. Owen Forrester of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia from 1994 to 1996. Following her clerkship, Judge Branch joined the litigation department of Smith, Gambrell & Russell, LLP in Atlanta as an associate and then a partner.
From 2004 to 2008, Judge Branch was a senior official in the Administration of President George W. Bush in Washington, D.C. She served first as the Associate General Counsel for Rules and Legislation at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and then as the Counselor to the Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs at the U. S. Office of Management and Budget.
She returned to Smith Gambrell in 2008 as a litigation partner. Judge Branch then was appointed to the Court of Appeals of Georgia by Governor Nathan Deal, taking office on September 4, 2012, where she served until March 19, 2018.
Judge Branch is a member of the Board of Advisors of the Atlanta Lawyers Chapter for the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies.
Assistant Professor of Law, UCLA Law
Beth Colgan is Assistant Professor of Law at UCLA School of Law. Her primary research and teaching interests are in criminal law and procedure and juvenile justice. Prior to joining the Law School, she was a Thomas C. Grey Fellow and Lecturer in Law at Stanford Law School.
Professor Colgan earned her B.A. from Stanford University and her J.D. from Northwestern University School of Law, where she was Note and Comment Editor of the Northwestern Law Review, a member of the National Moot Court Team, and the recipient of the Wigmore Key award. After law school, she worked as an associate for Perkins Coie LLP (2000-05), where she litigated a variety of matters in federal and state court and engaged in extensive pro bono work focusing primarily on access to competent indigent defense counsel in rural Washington and post-conviction representation of juveniles tried in adult criminal courts. From 2006-11, Professor Colgan worked as the Managing Attorney of the Institutions Project at Columbia Legal Services, representing juveniles and adults confined in prisons, jails, mental health facilities, and immigration detention in civil rights litigation, collateral appeals, and legislative advocacy. Professor Colgan has been recognized for her work on criminal and juvenile justice reform, including the Washington State Bar Association Thomas Neville Pro Bono Award, the Northwestern University Children & Family Justice Center Alumni Award, and the Stanford Law School Pro Bono Distinction Award. She continues to serve the criminal justice community as a consultant on issues related to punishment, access to counsel, and juvenile justice.
Professor Colgan’s scholarship centers on the relationship between constitutional interpretation and the practical effects of the law. She is particularly interested in the intersection between criminal law and poverty, the treatment of juveniles in juvenile and adult criminal contexts, and the systemic consequences of constitutional interpretation (e.g., underfunding of indigent defense systems). Her recent scholarship has appeared in the California Law Review, Iowa Law Review, Stanford Journal of Civil Rights & Civil Liberties, UCLA Law Review, and William and Mary Law Review.
Amelia D. Lewis Professor of Constitutional and Criminal Law, Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law at Arizona State University
Erik Luna is the Amelia D. Lewis Professor of Constitutional and Criminal Law in the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law at Arizona State University.
Professor Luna teaches and writes primarily in the areas of criminal law and criminal procedure. Luna has received two Fulbright awards. In 2000, he served as the senior Fulbright Scholar to New Zealand at Victoria University Law School (Wellington, NZ). In 2016-17, he was the Fulbright Distinguished Chair at the University of Birmingham (Birmingham, UK). Luna has also been a visiting scholar with the Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Criminal Law (Freiburg, DE), a visiting professor with the Cuban Society of Penal Sciences (Havana, CU), a visiting professional in the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (The Hague, NL), and a research fellow with the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (Bonn, DE). Prior to coming to ASU, Luna was the Sydney & Frances Lewis Professor of Law at Washington and Lee University, and before that, he was the Hugh B. Brown Chair in Law at the University of Utah. Luna is a member of the American Law Institute and an adjunct scholar with the Cato Institute. He graduated summa cum laude from the University of Southern California and received his J.D. with honors from Stanford Law School. Upon graduation, Luna was a prosecutor in the San Diego District Attorney’s Office and a fellow and lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School.
Executive Vice President, Goldwater Institute
Christina Sandefur is the Executive Vice President at the Goldwater Institute. She develops policies and litigates cases advancing healthcare freedom, free enterprise, private property rights, free speech, and taxpayer rights.
Christina is a co-drafter of the Right to Try initiative, now federal law, which protects terminally ill patients' right to try safe investigational treatments that have been prescribed by their physician but are not yet FDA-approved. She has won important victories for property rights in Arizona and works nationally to promote the Institute's Private Property Rights Protection Act, a state-level reform that requires government to pay owners when regulations destroy property rights and reduce property values.
Christina is the co-author of the book Cornerstone of Liberty: Private Property Rights in 21st Century America (2016). She is a frequent guest on national television and radio programs, has provided expert legal testimony to various legislative committees, and is a frequent speaker at conferences. She is the recipient of the 2018 Buckley Award in recognition of her leadership in the freedom movement, and she is an Advisory Board Member of the Network of enlightened Women. Christina serves on the board of the Phoenix Lawyers Chapter of the Federalist Society and is a member of the executive committee for the Federalist Society's Regulatory Transparency Project: FDA & Health.
Christina is a graduate of Michigan State University College of Law and Hillsdale College.
Senior Fellow, Arthur F. Burns Fellow in Financial Policy Studies, American Enterprise Institute
Peter J. Wallison holds the Arthur F. Burns Chair in Financial Policy Studies and is co-director of AEI’s program on Financial Policy Studies. Prior to joining AEI, he practiced banking, corporate and financial law at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher in Washington, D.C., and New York. Mr. Wallison has held a number of government positions. From June 1981 to January 1985, he was General Counsel of the United States Treasury Department, where he had a significant role in the development of the Reagan Administration's proposals for deregulation in the financial services industry. During 1986 and 1987, Mr. Wallison was White House counsel to President Ronald Reagan, and between 1972 and 1976, he served first as Special Assistant to New York's Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller and, subsequently, as counsel to Mr. Rockefeller as vice president of the United States.
Mr. Wallison was admitted to practice before the courts of New York and the District of Columbia, and is retired from practice in New York. He continues to be a member of the District of Columbia Bar Association. He received his undergraduate degree from Harvard College in 1963 and law degree from Harvard Law School in 1966.
Mr. Wallison is the author of Ronald Reagan: The Power of Conviction and the Success of His Presidency, published in December 2002 by Westview Press. On campaign finance, he is the author (with Joel Gora) of Better Parties, Better Government, (AEI Press 2009). On financial or regulatory matters, he is the author of Back From the Brink, a proposal for a private deposit insurance system, and co-author of Nationalizing Mortgage Risk: The Growth of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac; The GAAP Gap: Corporate Disclosure in the Internet Age; Competitive Equity: A Better Way to Organize Mutual Funds; Bad History, Worse Policy: How a False Narrative about the Financial Crisis Led to the Dodd-Frank Act (AEI Press 2013); and Hidden In Plain Sight: What Caused the World’s Worst Financial Crisis and Why it Could Happen Again (Encounter Books 2015). His most recent book is Judicial Fortitude: The Last Chance to Rein in the Administrative State, published by Encounter Books in October 2018.
He testifies frequently before committees of Congress, and is a frequent contributor to the op-ed pages of the Wall Street Journal and other print and online journals. He has also been a speaker at many conferences on financial services, housing, the causes of the financial crisis, the Dodd-Frank Act, accounting, and corporate governance, and was a member of the Shadow Financial Regulatory Committee between 1995 and 2015. He was a member of the SEC Advisory Committee on Improvements to Financial Reporting (2008), co-Chair of the Pew Financial Reform Task Force (2009), and a member of the congressionally- appointed Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (2009-2011). In May 2011, for his work in financial policy, Mr. Wallison received an honorary doctorate in Humane Letters from the University of Colorado.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit
On March 20, 2018, Judge Elizabeth L. Branch (Lisa) was sworn in as a United States Circuit Judge for the Eleventh Circuit.
Judge Branch attended and graduated from Davidson College in North Carolina (B.A., cum laude, 1990), and Emory University School of Law (J.D., with distinction, 1994).
After graduating from law school, Judge Branch served as a federal law clerk to The Honorable J. Owen Forrester of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia from 1994 to 1996. Following her clerkship, Judge Branch joined the litigation department of Smith, Gambrell & Russell, LLP in Atlanta as an associate and then a partner.
From 2004 to 2008, Judge Branch was a senior official in the Administration of President George W. Bush in Washington, D.C. She served first as the Associate General Counsel for Rules and Legislation at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and then as the Counselor to the Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs at the U. S. Office of Management and Budget.
She returned to Smith Gambrell in 2008 as a litigation partner. Judge Branch then was appointed to the Court of Appeals of Georgia by Governor Nathan Deal, taking office on September 4, 2012, where she served until March 19, 2018.
Judge Branch is a member of the Board of Advisors of the Atlanta Lawyers Chapter for the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies.
Assistant Professor of Law, UCLA Law
Beth Colgan is Assistant Professor of Law at UCLA School of Law. Her primary research and teaching interests are in criminal law and procedure and juvenile justice. Prior to joining the Law School, she was a Thomas C. Grey Fellow and Lecturer in Law at Stanford Law School.
Professor Colgan earned her B.A. from Stanford University and her J.D. from Northwestern University School of Law, where she was Note and Comment Editor of the Northwestern Law Review, a member of the National Moot Court Team, and the recipient of the Wigmore Key award. After law school, she worked as an associate for Perkins Coie LLP (2000-05), where she litigated a variety of matters in federal and state court and engaged in extensive pro bono work focusing primarily on access to competent indigent defense counsel in rural Washington and post-conviction representation of juveniles tried in adult criminal courts. From 2006-11, Professor Colgan worked as the Managing Attorney of the Institutions Project at Columbia Legal Services, representing juveniles and adults confined in prisons, jails, mental health facilities, and immigration detention in civil rights litigation, collateral appeals, and legislative advocacy. Professor Colgan has been recognized for her work on criminal and juvenile justice reform, including the Washington State Bar Association Thomas Neville Pro Bono Award, the Northwestern University Children & Family Justice Center Alumni Award, and the Stanford Law School Pro Bono Distinction Award. She continues to serve the criminal justice community as a consultant on issues related to punishment, access to counsel, and juvenile justice.
Professor Colgan’s scholarship centers on the relationship between constitutional interpretation and the practical effects of the law. She is particularly interested in the intersection between criminal law and poverty, the treatment of juveniles in juvenile and adult criminal contexts, and the systemic consequences of constitutional interpretation (e.g., underfunding of indigent defense systems). Her recent scholarship has appeared in the California Law Review, Iowa Law Review, Stanford Journal of Civil Rights & Civil Liberties, UCLA Law Review, and William and Mary Law Review.
Amelia D. Lewis Professor of Constitutional and Criminal Law, Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law at Arizona State University
Erik Luna is the Amelia D. Lewis Professor of Constitutional and Criminal Law in the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law at Arizona State University.
Professor Luna teaches and writes primarily in the areas of criminal law and criminal procedure. Luna has received two Fulbright awards. In 2000, he served as the senior Fulbright Scholar to New Zealand at Victoria University Law School (Wellington, NZ). In 2016-17, he was the Fulbright Distinguished Chair at the University of Birmingham (Birmingham, UK). Luna has also been a visiting scholar with the Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Criminal Law (Freiburg, DE), a visiting professor with the Cuban Society of Penal Sciences (Havana, CU), a visiting professional in the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (The Hague, NL), and a research fellow with the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (Bonn, DE). Prior to coming to ASU, Luna was the Sydney & Frances Lewis Professor of Law at Washington and Lee University, and before that, he was the Hugh B. Brown Chair in Law at the University of Utah. Luna is a member of the American Law Institute and an adjunct scholar with the Cato Institute. He graduated summa cum laude from the University of Southern California and received his J.D. with honors from Stanford Law School. Upon graduation, Luna was a prosecutor in the San Diego District Attorney’s Office and a fellow and lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School.
Executive Vice President, Goldwater Institute
Christina Sandefur is the Executive Vice President at the Goldwater Institute. She develops policies and litigates cases advancing healthcare freedom, free enterprise, private property rights, free speech, and taxpayer rights.
Christina is a co-drafter of the Right to Try initiative, now federal law, which protects terminally ill patients' right to try safe investigational treatments that have been prescribed by their physician but are not yet FDA-approved. She has won important victories for property rights in Arizona and works nationally to promote the Institute's Private Property Rights Protection Act, a state-level reform that requires government to pay owners when regulations destroy property rights and reduce property values.
Christina is the co-author of the book Cornerstone of Liberty: Private Property Rights in 21st Century America (2016). She is a frequent guest on national television and radio programs, has provided expert legal testimony to various legislative committees, and is a frequent speaker at conferences. She is the recipient of the 2018 Buckley Award in recognition of her leadership in the freedom movement, and she is an Advisory Board Member of the Network of enlightened Women. Christina serves on the board of the Phoenix Lawyers Chapter of the Federalist Society and is a member of the executive committee for the Federalist Society's Regulatory Transparency Project: FDA & Health.
Christina is a graduate of Michigan State University College of Law and Hillsdale College.
Senior Fellow, Arthur F. Burns Fellow in Financial Policy Studies, American Enterprise Institute
Peter J. Wallison holds the Arthur F. Burns Chair in Financial Policy Studies and is co-director of AEI’s program on Financial Policy Studies. Prior to joining AEI, he practiced banking, corporate and financial law at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher in Washington, D.C., and New York. Mr. Wallison has held a number of government positions. From June 1981 to January 1985, he was General Counsel of the United States Treasury Department, where he had a significant role in the development of the Reagan Administration's proposals for deregulation in the financial services industry. During 1986 and 1987, Mr. Wallison was White House counsel to President Ronald Reagan, and between 1972 and 1976, he served first as Special Assistant to New York's Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller and, subsequently, as counsel to Mr. Rockefeller as vice president of the United States.
Mr. Wallison was admitted to practice before the courts of New York and the District of Columbia, and is retired from practice in New York. He continues to be a member of the District of Columbia Bar Association. He received his undergraduate degree from Harvard College in 1963 and law degree from Harvard Law School in 1966.
Mr. Wallison is the author of Ronald Reagan: The Power of Conviction and the Success of His Presidency, published in December 2002 by Westview Press. On campaign finance, he is the author (with Joel Gora) of Better Parties, Better Government, (AEI Press 2009). On financial or regulatory matters, he is the author of Back From the Brink, a proposal for a private deposit insurance system, and co-author of Nationalizing Mortgage Risk: The Growth of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac; The GAAP Gap: Corporate Disclosure in the Internet Age; Competitive Equity: A Better Way to Organize Mutual Funds; Bad History, Worse Policy: How a False Narrative about the Financial Crisis Led to the Dodd-Frank Act (AEI Press 2013); and Hidden In Plain Sight: What Caused the World’s Worst Financial Crisis and Why it Could Happen Again (Encounter Books 2015). His most recent book is Judicial Fortitude: The Last Chance to Rein in the Administrative State, published by Encounter Books in October 2018.
He testifies frequently before committees of Congress, and is a frequent contributor to the op-ed pages of the Wall Street Journal and other print and online journals. He has also been a speaker at many conferences on financial services, housing, the causes of the financial crisis, the Dodd-Frank Act, accounting, and corporate governance, and was a member of the Shadow Financial Regulatory Committee between 1995 and 2015. He was a member of the SEC Advisory Committee on Improvements to Financial Reporting (2008), co-Chair of the Pew Financial Reform Task Force (2009), and a member of the congressionally- appointed Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (2009-2011). In May 2011, for his work in financial policy, Mr. Wallison received an honorary doctorate in Humane Letters from the University of Colorado.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit
On March 20, 2018, Judge Elizabeth L. Branch (Lisa) was sworn in as a United States Circuit Judge for the Eleventh Circuit.
Judge Branch attended and graduated from Davidson College in North Carolina (B.A., cum laude, 1990), and Emory University School of Law (J.D., with distinction, 1994).
After graduating from law school, Judge Branch served as a federal law clerk to The Honorable J. Owen Forrester of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia from 1994 to 1996. Following her clerkship, Judge Branch joined the litigation department of Smith, Gambrell & Russell, LLP in Atlanta as an associate and then a partner.
From 2004 to 2008, Judge Branch was a senior official in the Administration of President George W. Bush in Washington, D.C. She served first as the Associate General Counsel for Rules and Legislation at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and then as the Counselor to the Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs at the U. S. Office of Management and Budget.
She returned to Smith Gambrell in 2008 as a litigation partner. Judge Branch then was appointed to the Court of Appeals of Georgia by Governor Nathan Deal, taking office on September 4, 2012, where she served until March 19, 2018.
Judge Branch is a member of the Board of Advisors of the Atlanta Lawyers Chapter for the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit
On March 20, 2018, Judge Elizabeth L. Branch (Lisa) was sworn in as a United States Circuit Judge for the Eleventh Circuit.
Judge Branch attended and graduated from Davidson College in North Carolina (B.A., cum laude, 1990), and Emory University School of Law (J.D., with distinction, 1994).
After graduating from law school, Judge Branch served as a federal law clerk to The Honorable J. Owen Forrester of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia from 1994 to 1996. Following her clerkship, Judge Branch joined the litigation department of Smith, Gambrell & Russell, LLP in Atlanta as an associate and then a partner.
From 2004 to 2008, Judge Branch was a senior official in the Administration of President George W. Bush in Washington, D.C. She served first as the Associate General Counsel for Rules and Legislation at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and then as the Counselor to the Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs at the U. S. Office of Management and Budget.
She returned to Smith Gambrell in 2008 as a litigation partner. Judge Branch then was appointed to the Court of Appeals of Georgia by Governor Nathan Deal, taking office on September 4, 2012, where she served until March 19, 2018.
Judge Branch is a member of the Board of Advisors of the Atlanta Lawyers Chapter for the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit
Britt C. Grant is a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. Judge Grant was appointed to the federal bench in August 2018 after serving as a Justice on the Supreme Court of Georgia. Prior to her judicial appointment, she served as the Solicitor General of Georgia and practiced in the Washington, D.C. office of Kirkland & Ellis. Upon graduation from law school, Judge Grant served as a law clerk to then-Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. She earned her J.D., with distinction, from Stanford Law School, where she was the Co-Founder of the Stanford National Security and the Law Society, and the President of the Stanford Law chapter of the Federalist Society. Before enrolling in law school, Judge Grant served in The White House in a variety of domestic policy roles as well as on the staff of Congressman Nathan Deal. Judge Grant earned her B.A., summa cum laude, from Wake Forest University, where she was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. She now lives in Atlanta, Georgia with her husband and three children.
Chief Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit
William H. Pryor Jr. serves as Chief Circuit Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.
In 2013–18, he served on the United States Sentencing Commission and, in 2017–18, served as Acting Chair.
He has taught as a visiting professor at the University of Alabama School of Law and previously taught as an adjunct professor at the Cumberland School of Law of Samford University.
He served as the 45th Attorney General of Alabama from 1997 to 2004. When he took office, he was the youngest attorney general in the nation. In his reelection, he received the highest percentage of votes of any statewide candidate.
He graduated magna cum laude from Tulane Law School where he finished first in the common-law curriculum and was editor in chief of the Tulane Law Review. He then served as a law clerk for Judge John Minor Wisdom of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
He is a member of The American Law Institute and an Adviser for the RESTATEMENT OF THE LAW THIRD, CONFLICT OF LAWS. He is a coauthor with Bryan Garner, Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, and several other judges of a treatise, THE LAW OF JUDICIAL PRECEDENT. He has published in the Yale Law Journal, Columbia Law Review, Virginia Law Review, Notre Dame Law Review, Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, Yale Law & Policy Review, George Mason Law Review, Florida Law Review, Alabama Law Review, Case Western Reserve Law Review, and Tulane Law Review. He has published op-eds in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, National Review, and USA Today. He has debated at National Lawyers’ Conventions of the Federalist Society (including on National Public Radio) and at the Oxford Union in the United Kingdom. And he is listed among several “widely admired judicial writers” in Bryan Garner’s The Redbook: A Manual on Legal Style.
He is a member of the Tulane Law School Hall of Fame and has received the Defender of the Constitution Award from the Heritage Foundation, the Jurist of the Year Award from the Texas Review of Law & Politics, and the St. Thomas More Award from the St. Thomas More Society of Atlanta. Judge Pryor is also a proud member of the National Society of the Sons of the American Revolution.
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