Partner, Barr & Klein PLLC
Steve Klein, a partner at Barr & Klein PLLC, is an experienced free speech attorney who has successfully fought for the First Amendment rights of his clients against local, state and federal regulators. As a lobbyist, Steve’s advocacy has led to the successful amendment of state laws to respect political engagement and prevented the enactment of laws that burden it. Steve has published articles in several legal journals, and his commentary has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Times, The Detroit News, and other outlets. Steve earned a bachelors degree in politics at Hillsdale College and a law degree from Ave Maria School of Law, where he served as Managing Editor of the Ave Maria Law Review. He is licensed to practice law in the District of Columbia, Illinois and Michigan.
Managing Attorney of the Washington Office, Institute for Justice
William R. Maurer is the Managing Attorney of the Washington state office of the Institute for Justice, which engages in litigation in the areas of economic liberty, private property rights, educational choice, & freedom of speech.
Maurer is an advocate against the criminalization of poverty and the governmental use of the criminal and civil enforcement systems to raise revenue. He was lead counsel in a class action challenging the use of tickets to raise revenue in the city of Pagedale, Missouri. The suit resulted in a federal consent decree that reformed the city’s ticketing and municipal court system. He regularly speaks, teaches, and writes about the abuse of fines and fees in the criminal justice system. He was a participant in summits on taxation by citation put on by the White House and Department of Justice during the Obama Administration. His work on the issue includes serving as an advisory board member of the Fines and Fees Justice Center.
In addition to his work on criminal and civil justice reform, Maurer is a First Amendment litigator. In 2011, he successfully argued before the U.S. Supreme Court that Arizona’s punitive campaign financing regime was unconstitutional. Before the Washington Supreme Court, he successfully argued against efforts to classify radio commentary as a contribution under the state’s campaign finance law.
His cases and advocacy have been covered in the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Economist, the Wall Street Journal, and other major media outlets.
Maurer was named a “Washington Superlawyer” by Washington Law & Politics Magazine for several years. He is a chapter author in numerous legal reference works and has written several articles for law reviews and legal publications across the country.
Prior to joining IJ-WA, Maurer clerked for Washington Supreme Court Justice Richard Sanders and then practiced law at Perkins Coie LLP. Maurer received his law degree in 1994 from the University of Wisconsin – Madison, where he was an editor of the Wisconsin Law Review. He received his BA from Bard College in 1989.
Patrick Hotung Professor of Constitutional Law, Georgetown University Law Center
Randy Barnett is the Patrick Hotung Professor of Constitutional Law at Georgetown University Law Center. He has argued before the United States Supreme Court, tried murder cases to juries as a prosecutor in Chicago, and appeared as a prosecutor in the feature film Inalienable. He is the author of numerous books, including Restoring the Lost Constitution, The Structure of Liberty, Our Republican Constitution, and The Original Meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. He has published two memoirs, A Life for Liberty: The Making of an American Originalist, and Felony Review: Tales of True Crime and Corruption in Chicago. He is currently working on a new book, Freedom and Flourishing: Libertarianism for the Real World.
Inez Milholland Professor of Civil Liberties, New York University School of Law
Burt Neuborne is the Inez Milholland Professor of Civil Liberties and founding Legal Director of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law School. For 45 years, he has been one of the nation's foremost civil liberties lawyers, serving as National Legal Director of the ACLU from 1981-86, Special Counsel to the NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund from 1990-1996, and as a member of the New York City Human Rights Commission from 1988-1992. He has argued numerous Supreme Court cases, and has litigated literally hundreds of important constitutional cases in the state and federal courts. He challenged the constitutionality of the Vietnam War, pioneered the flag burning cases, worked on the Pentagon Papers case, worked with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg when she headed the ACLU Women's Rights Project, anchored the ACLU's legal program during the Reagan years, and defended the Legal Services program against unconstitutional attacks. He currently directs the legal program of the Brennan Center, especially its efforts to reinforce American democracy and secure campaign finance reform. The Brennan Center was established in 1994 to honor Justice William Brennan, Jr.’s monumental contribution to American Law.
At the same time, Professor Neuborne has forged a national reputation as a constitutional scholar and teacher. In 1990, he was the recipient of the University-wide Distinguished Teacher Award at New York University for his work in teaching Civil Procedure, Evidence, Federal Courts and Constitutional Law. He is the author of three books and over 20 law review articles on diverse areas of constitutional law and procedure. Among his best known scholarly works is the two-volume Political and Civil Rights in the United States, which he co-authored with NYU colleagues Norman Dorsen and Sylvia Law and the Deputy Solicitor General of the United States, Paul Bender. His 1992 lectures on American law at Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona have been translated and published in Spanish. In 2001, in recognition of his scholarship and his work in the courts, Professor Neuborne was elected to membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
In 1996, Professor Neuborne appeared as Jerry Falwell's lawyer in Milos Forman's The People v. Larry Flynt.
For the past 14 years, Professor Neuborne has served as a principal counsel in a series of lawsuits seeking to recover property unjustly taken from Holocaust victims by Swiss banks and German corporations during the Nazi era. The litigation has succeeded in assembling more than $8.5 billion for distribution to Holocaust victims and their families throughout the world. Professor Neuborne was appointed by the Court to oversee the $1.25 Swiss bank settlement, and was appointed by the United States to serve on the Board of Trustees of the German Foundation “Remembrance, Responsibility and Future,” established to distribute the $5.2 billion settlement in the German slave labor litigation.
Professor Neuborne is married to Helen Redleaf Neuborne.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit
Judge O’Scannlain was appointed United States Circuit Judge for the Ninth Circuit by President Reagan on September 26, 1986. He received a J.D. degree in 1963 from Harvard Law School and a B.A. in 1957 from St. John’s University. He also earned the LL.M. (Judicial Process) degree at University of Virginia Law School in 1992. He was awarded the LL.D. (honoris causa) degree by the University of Notre Dame in 2002, the LL.D. (honoris causa) degree by Lewis & Clark College in 2003 and the LL.D. (honoris causa) degree by the University of Portland in 2011.
As a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, Judge O’Scannlain has participated in over 6,000 federal cases and has written hundreds of published opinions on a broad range of subjects including constitutional law, international law, securities law, administrative law, and criminal law. He hears appeals in San Francisco (court headquarters), as well as in Los Angeles (Pasadena), Portland, Seattle, Anchorage and Honolulu. The late Chief Justice Rehnquist appointed Judge O'Scannlain to the Federal Judicial Center's Advisory Committee on Appellate Judge Education. In 2009, Chief Justice Roberts appointed Judge O’Scannlain to the International Judicial Relations Committee of the U.S. Judicial Conference and subsequently appointed him Chairman in 2010.
President George W. Bush appointed Judge O’Scannlain to the Board of Trustees of the James Madison Memorial Fellowship Foundation in 2004. Pope Benedict XVI conferred the Order of Saint Gregory the Great on Judge and Mrs. O’Scannlain in 2007.
Judge O’Scannlain’s professional interests also include judicial administration and reform, and continuing legal education. Judge O’Scannlain is former Chair of the Judicial Division of the American Bar Association and has previously chaired the ABA’s Appellate Judges Conference, its Committee on Appellate Practice, and its 9th Appellate Practice Institute. He has testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on several occasions, the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts and Intellectual Property, and the Commission on Structural Alternatives for the Federal Courts of Appeals on the subject of court reorganization. In addition to serving as a faculty member at numerous federal appellate practice seminars for judges and attorneys, including New York University Law School’s Institute for Judicial Administration, Judge O’Scannlain is an Adjunct Professor at Lewis & Clark Law School where he teaches a seminar on the Supreme Court. He has served as a Moot Court Judge at distinguished law schools across the United States including Harvard, Yale Stanford, Boalt Hall (Berkeley Law), Virginia, Cornell, Notre Dame, Fordham, Alabama, University of Southern California, King Hall (U.C. Davis) and Loyola Marymount University and in China at Xiamen and Renmin Universities.
Between graduation from Harvard and investiture as a federal judge, Judge O’Scannlain was primarily engaged in private law practice. Between 1969 and 1974, he was consecutively the Deputy Attorney General of Oregon, the Public Utility Commissioner of Oregon, and Director of the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality. He retired from the U.S. Army Reserve in 1978 as a Major after 23 years Reserve and National Guard service, including four years as an enlisted man.
A first generation Irish-American son of immigrant parents from Sligo and Derry, Judge O’Scannlain is married to the former Maura Nolan and has eight children: Sean, Jane, Brendan, Kevin, Megan, Christopher, Anne, and Kate, and nineteen grandchildren. His chambers are in the Pioneer Courthouse in Portland, Oregon.
Patrick Hotung Professor of Constitutional Law, Georgetown University Law Center
Randy Barnett is the Patrick Hotung Professor of Constitutional Law at Georgetown University Law Center. He has argued before the United States Supreme Court, tried murder cases to juries as a prosecutor in Chicago, and appeared as a prosecutor in the feature film Inalienable. He is the author of numerous books, including Restoring the Lost Constitution, The Structure of Liberty, Our Republican Constitution, and The Original Meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. He has published two memoirs, A Life for Liberty: The Making of an American Originalist, and Felony Review: Tales of True Crime and Corruption in Chicago. He is currently working on a new book, Freedom and Flourishing: Libertarianism for the Real World.
Inez Milholland Professor of Civil Liberties, New York University School of Law
Burt Neuborne is the Inez Milholland Professor of Civil Liberties and founding Legal Director of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law School. For 45 years, he has been one of the nation's foremost civil liberties lawyers, serving as National Legal Director of the ACLU from 1981-86, Special Counsel to the NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund from 1990-1996, and as a member of the New York City Human Rights Commission from 1988-1992. He has argued numerous Supreme Court cases, and has litigated literally hundreds of important constitutional cases in the state and federal courts. He challenged the constitutionality of the Vietnam War, pioneered the flag burning cases, worked on the Pentagon Papers case, worked with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg when she headed the ACLU Women's Rights Project, anchored the ACLU's legal program during the Reagan years, and defended the Legal Services program against unconstitutional attacks. He currently directs the legal program of the Brennan Center, especially its efforts to reinforce American democracy and secure campaign finance reform. The Brennan Center was established in 1994 to honor Justice William Brennan, Jr.’s monumental contribution to American Law.
At the same time, Professor Neuborne has forged a national reputation as a constitutional scholar and teacher. In 1990, he was the recipient of the University-wide Distinguished Teacher Award at New York University for his work in teaching Civil Procedure, Evidence, Federal Courts and Constitutional Law. He is the author of three books and over 20 law review articles on diverse areas of constitutional law and procedure. Among his best known scholarly works is the two-volume Political and Civil Rights in the United States, which he co-authored with NYU colleagues Norman Dorsen and Sylvia Law and the Deputy Solicitor General of the United States, Paul Bender. His 1992 lectures on American law at Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona have been translated and published in Spanish. In 2001, in recognition of his scholarship and his work in the courts, Professor Neuborne was elected to membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
In 1996, Professor Neuborne appeared as Jerry Falwell's lawyer in Milos Forman's The People v. Larry Flynt.
For the past 14 years, Professor Neuborne has served as a principal counsel in a series of lawsuits seeking to recover property unjustly taken from Holocaust victims by Swiss banks and German corporations during the Nazi era. The litigation has succeeded in assembling more than $8.5 billion for distribution to Holocaust victims and their families throughout the world. Professor Neuborne was appointed by the Court to oversee the $1.25 Swiss bank settlement, and was appointed by the United States to serve on the Board of Trustees of the German Foundation “Remembrance, Responsibility and Future,” established to distribute the $5.2 billion settlement in the German slave labor litigation.
Professor Neuborne is married to Helen Redleaf Neuborne.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit
Judge O’Scannlain was appointed United States Circuit Judge for the Ninth Circuit by President Reagan on September 26, 1986. He received a J.D. degree in 1963 from Harvard Law School and a B.A. in 1957 from St. John’s University. He also earned the LL.M. (Judicial Process) degree at University of Virginia Law School in 1992. He was awarded the LL.D. (honoris causa) degree by the University of Notre Dame in 2002, the LL.D. (honoris causa) degree by Lewis & Clark College in 2003 and the LL.D. (honoris causa) degree by the University of Portland in 2011.
As a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, Judge O’Scannlain has participated in over 6,000 federal cases and has written hundreds of published opinions on a broad range of subjects including constitutional law, international law, securities law, administrative law, and criminal law. He hears appeals in San Francisco (court headquarters), as well as in Los Angeles (Pasadena), Portland, Seattle, Anchorage and Honolulu. The late Chief Justice Rehnquist appointed Judge O'Scannlain to the Federal Judicial Center's Advisory Committee on Appellate Judge Education. In 2009, Chief Justice Roberts appointed Judge O’Scannlain to the International Judicial Relations Committee of the U.S. Judicial Conference and subsequently appointed him Chairman in 2010.
President George W. Bush appointed Judge O’Scannlain to the Board of Trustees of the James Madison Memorial Fellowship Foundation in 2004. Pope Benedict XVI conferred the Order of Saint Gregory the Great on Judge and Mrs. O’Scannlain in 2007.
Judge O’Scannlain’s professional interests also include judicial administration and reform, and continuing legal education. Judge O’Scannlain is former Chair of the Judicial Division of the American Bar Association and has previously chaired the ABA’s Appellate Judges Conference, its Committee on Appellate Practice, and its 9th Appellate Practice Institute. He has testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on several occasions, the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts and Intellectual Property, and the Commission on Structural Alternatives for the Federal Courts of Appeals on the subject of court reorganization. In addition to serving as a faculty member at numerous federal appellate practice seminars for judges and attorneys, including New York University Law School’s Institute for Judicial Administration, Judge O’Scannlain is an Adjunct Professor at Lewis & Clark Law School where he teaches a seminar on the Supreme Court. He has served as a Moot Court Judge at distinguished law schools across the United States including Harvard, Yale Stanford, Boalt Hall (Berkeley Law), Virginia, Cornell, Notre Dame, Fordham, Alabama, University of Southern California, King Hall (U.C. Davis) and Loyola Marymount University and in China at Xiamen and Renmin Universities.
Between graduation from Harvard and investiture as a federal judge, Judge O’Scannlain was primarily engaged in private law practice. Between 1969 and 1974, he was consecutively the Deputy Attorney General of Oregon, the Public Utility Commissioner of Oregon, and Director of the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality. He retired from the U.S. Army Reserve in 1978 as a Major after 23 years Reserve and National Guard service, including four years as an enlisted man.
A first generation Irish-American son of immigrant parents from Sligo and Derry, Judge O’Scannlain is married to the former Maura Nolan and has eight children: Sean, Jane, Brendan, Kevin, Megan, Christopher, Anne, and Kate, and nineteen grandchildren. His chambers are in the Pioneer Courthouse in Portland, Oregon.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit
Judge Carlos Bea serves as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. He received his Bachelor's Degree from Stanford University in 1956 and his J.D. from Stanford Law School in 1958. Judge Bea was born in San Sebastian, Spain, and immigrated with his family to Cuba in 1939. In 1952, he represented Cuba on the Cuban National basketball team in the Helsinki Olympics. Judge Bea became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1958. He engaged in private practice in San Francisco, principally in the area of civil trials (jury and non-jury), from 1959-75 at Dunne, Phelps & Mills and from 1975-90 at Carlos Bea, A Law Corporation. He taught courses in civil litigation advocacy at Hastings College of Law and Stanford Law School. From 1990 to 2003, Judge Bea served as a judge of the San Francisco Superior Court. He was nominated by President George W. Bush to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and was confirmed in 2003.
Judge Bea and his wife Louise reside in San Francisco, where they raised their four sons, Sebastian, Alexander, Nicholas, and Dominic.
Chairman, Center for Equal Opportunity
Linda Chavez is Chairman of the Center for Equal Opportunity. She has published opinions and columns in newspapers across the country and appears regularly on cable news. Chavez is the author of the three books: Out of the Barrio: Toward a New Politics of Hispanic Assimilation, An Unlikely Conservative: The Transformation of an Ex-Liberal, and Betrayal: How Union Bosses Shake Down Their Members and Corrupt American Politics. She has been honored by the Library of Congress as a "Living Legend" and as nominee for Secretary of Labor by President George W. Bush.
Chavez has held many appointed positions and has served on numerous corporate and nonprofit boards. Among her appointed positions has been Chairman, National Commission on Migrant Education (1988-1992); White House Director of Public Liaison (1985); Staff Director of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights (1983-1985); and member of the Administrative Conference of the United States (1984-1986). Chavez was also the Republican nominee for U.S. Senator from Maryland in 1986 and was elected by the United Nations' Human Rights Commission to serve a four-year term as U.S. Expert to the U.N. Sub-commission on the Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities.
Chavez earned her BA from the University of Colorado.
Partner, Benesch, Friedlander, Coplan & Aronoff LLP
Peter focuses his legal practice on representing management in employment-related litigation and in contract negotiations, NLRB proceedings, EEO matters and arbitration.
Peter Kirsanow is a partner with Benesch’s Labor & Employment Practice Group. He returned to Benesch in January 2008 after serving as a presidential appointee to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in Washington D.C. for two years. While serving on the NLRB, he was involved with significant decisions including Oakwood Healthcare, Inc., Dana/Metaldyne and Oil Capital Sheet Metal, Inc. In addition, Peter testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on the nominations of John Roberts, Samuel Alito, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. He also continues to testify before and advise members of the U.S. Congress on employment law matters, most recently on November 18 before the House Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight regarding disparate impact theory.
Peter was recently reappointed by the Majority Leader of the House of Representatives to his fourth consecutive six-year term on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. This is a part-time position which will expire in December 2025.
Recently, Peter and a team of Benesch attorneys served as lead counsel to the National Association of Manufacturers in litigation before the U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Columbia against the NLRB, challenging the Board’s Notice of Employer Rights Posting Rule. The court ruled in favor of Benesch’s client, striking down the NLRB’s Rule in its entirety. This ruling impacts over 6,000,000 employers nationwide which would have been subject to the posting requirement.
Additionally, Peter is past chair of the board of directors of the Center for New Black Leadership and is a member of Benesch’s Diversity & Inclusion Committee. This committee helps ensure that the firm promotes an environment in which differences are respected, employees are treated fairly, and individual skills and talents are valued.
Julius L. Chambers Distinguished Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Civil Rights, University of North Carolina School of Law
Theodore M. Shaw is the Julius L. Chambers Distinguished Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Civil Rights at the University of North Carolina School of Law at Chapel Hill. Professor Shaw teaches Civil Procedure and Advanced Constitutional Law/Fourteenth Amendment. Before joining the faculty of UNC Law School, from 2008-2014 Professor Shaw taught at Columbia University Law School, where he was Professor of Professional Practice. During that time he was also “Of Counsel” to the law firm of Norton Rose Fulbright (formerly Fulbright & Jaworski, LLP). His practice involved civil litigation and representation of institutional clients on matters concerning diversity and civil rights.
Professor Shaw was the fifth Director-Counsel and President of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., for which he worked in various capacities over the span of twenty-six years. He has litigated education, employment, voting rights, housing, police misconduct, capital punishment and other civil rights cases in trial and appellate courts, and in the United States Supreme Court.From 1982 until 1987, he litigated education, housing, and capital punishment cases and directed LDF's education litigation docket. In 1987, under the direction of LDF's third Director-Counsel, Julius Chambers, Mr. Shaw relocated to Los Angeles to establish LDF's Western Regional Office. In 1990, Mr. Shaw left LDF to join the faculty of the University of Michigan Law School, where he taught Constitutional Law, Civil Procedure and Civil Rights. While at Michigan, he played a key role in initiating a review of the law school's admissions practices and policies, and served on the faculty committee that promulgated the admissions program that was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2003 in Grutter v. Bollinger.
In 1993, Mr. Shaw returned to LDF as Associate Director-Counsel, and in 2004, he became LDF's fifth Director-Counsel. Mr. Shaw's legal career began as a Trial Attorney in the Honors Program of the United States Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division in Washington, D.C., where he worked from 1979 until 1982.
Mr. Shaw has testified on numerous occasions before Congress and before state and local legislatures. His human rights work has taken him to Africa, Asia, Europe, and South America. In addition to teaching at Columbia and at Michigan Law School, Professor Shaw held the 1997-1998 Haywood Burns Chair at CUNY School of Law at Queens College and the 2003 Phyllis Beck Chair at Temple Law School. He was a visiting scholar at the Constitution Center in Philadelphia in 2008-2009. He is a member of the faculty of the Practicing Law Institute (PLI).
Mr. Shaw served on the Obama Transition Team after the 2008 presidential election, as team leader for the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department.
Executive Director, American Association for Access Equity and Diversity (AAAED)
Shirley J. Wilcher, Mount Holyoke Class of 1973, is a leading authority on equal opportunity and diversity policy. After graduating from Mount Holyoke cum laude with a degree in Philosophy and French, she went on to receive her MA in Urban Affairs and Policy Analysis from the New School for Social Research and her Juris Doctor degree from Harvard Law School. While a student at Mount Holyoke she received a certificat pratique de langue Francaise from the Université de Paris. While a student at Harvard, Wilcher began a career in civil rights as clerk for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc.
After earning her law degree, she became staff attorney for the National Women’s Law Center in Washington, D.C. She later moved to Capitol Hill as Associate Counsel for Civil Rights for the House Committee on Education and Labor. There, she was responsible for legislation and oversight of the federal agencies charged with enforcement of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, Titles VI and VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act and other laws relating to equal employment opportunity and labor standards. She served as principal staff person on major investigations of the civil rights enforcement activities of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, U.S. Department of Labor, and the Office for Civil Rights, U.S. Department of Education. Wilcher left Capitol Hill to serve as the Director for State Relations and General Counsel for the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities.
During the Clinton Administration, Wilcher served a near seven-year term as Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs in the Labor Department. There she directed a federal program that emphasized the elimination of systemic barriers to equal employment opportunity, the glass ceiling, and inequities in corporate compensation systems, testifying before both House and Senate Labor Committees. Following her service in the Clinton Administration, Wilcher established her consulting firm, Wilcher Global LLC, and served as Executive Director of Americans for a Fair Chance, a consortium of six civil rights legal organizations formed to serve as an educational resource on affirmative action. Wilcher also taught as adjunct Associate Professor of Law at Washington College of Law of American University and worked as Attorney Advisor for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
Currently, Wilcher is the Executive Director of the American Association for Access Equity and Diversity (AAAED), formerly the American Association for Affirmative Action (AAAA), founded in 1974. AAAED is an organization of equal opportunity, diversity and affirmative action professionals working for academic institutions, the private sector and government. Wilcher is also President and CEO of the Fund for Leadership, Equity, Access and Diversity (LEAD Fund), the nonprofit affiliate of AAAED.
Shirley is the recipient of the NAACP’s Keeper of the Flame Award, AAAED’s Rosa Parks Award and the special Drum Major for Justice and President’s Awards for AAAA/AAAED. Wilcher also served as the first Recording Secretary of the National Political Congress of Black Women, founded in 1984 by former U.S. Representative Shirley Chisholm, and was on the board of Wider Opportunities for Women. Wilcher is an Advisory Board Member, Oxford Women’s Leadership Program, Oxford, UK. In 2018, Shirley Wilcher received an Honorary Doctor of Laws from her alma mater, Mount Holyoke College.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit
Judge Carlos Bea serves as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. He received his Bachelor's Degree from Stanford University in 1956 and his J.D. from Stanford Law School in 1958. Judge Bea was born in San Sebastian, Spain, and immigrated with his family to Cuba in 1939. In 1952, he represented Cuba on the Cuban National basketball team in the Helsinki Olympics. Judge Bea became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1958. He engaged in private practice in San Francisco, principally in the area of civil trials (jury and non-jury), from 1959-75 at Dunne, Phelps & Mills and from 1975-90 at Carlos Bea, A Law Corporation. He taught courses in civil litigation advocacy at Hastings College of Law and Stanford Law School. From 1990 to 2003, Judge Bea served as a judge of the San Francisco Superior Court. He was nominated by President George W. Bush to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and was confirmed in 2003.
Judge Bea and his wife Louise reside in San Francisco, where they raised their four sons, Sebastian, Alexander, Nicholas, and Dominic.
Chairman, Center for Equal Opportunity
Linda Chavez is Chairman of the Center for Equal Opportunity. She has published opinions and columns in newspapers across the country and appears regularly on cable news. Chavez is the author of the three books: Out of the Barrio: Toward a New Politics of Hispanic Assimilation, An Unlikely Conservative: The Transformation of an Ex-Liberal, and Betrayal: How Union Bosses Shake Down Their Members and Corrupt American Politics. She has been honored by the Library of Congress as a "Living Legend" and as nominee for Secretary of Labor by President George W. Bush.
Chavez has held many appointed positions and has served on numerous corporate and nonprofit boards. Among her appointed positions has been Chairman, National Commission on Migrant Education (1988-1992); White House Director of Public Liaison (1985); Staff Director of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights (1983-1985); and member of the Administrative Conference of the United States (1984-1986). Chavez was also the Republican nominee for U.S. Senator from Maryland in 1986 and was elected by the United Nations' Human Rights Commission to serve a four-year term as U.S. Expert to the U.N. Sub-commission on the Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities.
Chavez earned her BA from the University of Colorado.
Partner, Benesch, Friedlander, Coplan & Aronoff LLP
Peter focuses his legal practice on representing management in employment-related litigation and in contract negotiations, NLRB proceedings, EEO matters and arbitration.
Peter Kirsanow is a partner with Benesch’s Labor & Employment Practice Group. He returned to Benesch in January 2008 after serving as a presidential appointee to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in Washington D.C. for two years. While serving on the NLRB, he was involved with significant decisions including Oakwood Healthcare, Inc., Dana/Metaldyne and Oil Capital Sheet Metal, Inc. In addition, Peter testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on the nominations of John Roberts, Samuel Alito, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. He also continues to testify before and advise members of the U.S. Congress on employment law matters, most recently on November 18 before the House Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight regarding disparate impact theory.
Peter was recently reappointed by the Majority Leader of the House of Representatives to his fourth consecutive six-year term on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. This is a part-time position which will expire in December 2025.
Recently, Peter and a team of Benesch attorneys served as lead counsel to the National Association of Manufacturers in litigation before the U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Columbia against the NLRB, challenging the Board’s Notice of Employer Rights Posting Rule. The court ruled in favor of Benesch’s client, striking down the NLRB’s Rule in its entirety. This ruling impacts over 6,000,000 employers nationwide which would have been subject to the posting requirement.
Additionally, Peter is past chair of the board of directors of the Center for New Black Leadership and is a member of Benesch’s Diversity & Inclusion Committee. This committee helps ensure that the firm promotes an environment in which differences are respected, employees are treated fairly, and individual skills and talents are valued.
Julius L. Chambers Distinguished Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Civil Rights, University of North Carolina School of Law
Theodore M. Shaw is the Julius L. Chambers Distinguished Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Civil Rights at the University of North Carolina School of Law at Chapel Hill. Professor Shaw teaches Civil Procedure and Advanced Constitutional Law/Fourteenth Amendment. Before joining the faculty of UNC Law School, from 2008-2014 Professor Shaw taught at Columbia University Law School, where he was Professor of Professional Practice. During that time he was also “Of Counsel” to the law firm of Norton Rose Fulbright (formerly Fulbright & Jaworski, LLP). His practice involved civil litigation and representation of institutional clients on matters concerning diversity and civil rights.
Professor Shaw was the fifth Director-Counsel and President of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., for which he worked in various capacities over the span of twenty-six years. He has litigated education, employment, voting rights, housing, police misconduct, capital punishment and other civil rights cases in trial and appellate courts, and in the United States Supreme Court.From 1982 until 1987, he litigated education, housing, and capital punishment cases and directed LDF's education litigation docket. In 1987, under the direction of LDF's third Director-Counsel, Julius Chambers, Mr. Shaw relocated to Los Angeles to establish LDF's Western Regional Office. In 1990, Mr. Shaw left LDF to join the faculty of the University of Michigan Law School, where he taught Constitutional Law, Civil Procedure and Civil Rights. While at Michigan, he played a key role in initiating a review of the law school's admissions practices and policies, and served on the faculty committee that promulgated the admissions program that was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2003 in Grutter v. Bollinger.
In 1993, Mr. Shaw returned to LDF as Associate Director-Counsel, and in 2004, he became LDF's fifth Director-Counsel. Mr. Shaw's legal career began as a Trial Attorney in the Honors Program of the United States Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division in Washington, D.C., where he worked from 1979 until 1982.
Mr. Shaw has testified on numerous occasions before Congress and before state and local legislatures. His human rights work has taken him to Africa, Asia, Europe, and South America. In addition to teaching at Columbia and at Michigan Law School, Professor Shaw held the 1997-1998 Haywood Burns Chair at CUNY School of Law at Queens College and the 2003 Phyllis Beck Chair at Temple Law School. He was a visiting scholar at the Constitution Center in Philadelphia in 2008-2009. He is a member of the faculty of the Practicing Law Institute (PLI).
Mr. Shaw served on the Obama Transition Team after the 2008 presidential election, as team leader for the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department.
Executive Director, American Association for Access Equity and Diversity (AAAED)
Shirley J. Wilcher, Mount Holyoke Class of 1973, is a leading authority on equal opportunity and diversity policy. After graduating from Mount Holyoke cum laude with a degree in Philosophy and French, she went on to receive her MA in Urban Affairs and Policy Analysis from the New School for Social Research and her Juris Doctor degree from Harvard Law School. While a student at Mount Holyoke she received a certificat pratique de langue Francaise from the Université de Paris. While a student at Harvard, Wilcher began a career in civil rights as clerk for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc.
After earning her law degree, she became staff attorney for the National Women’s Law Center in Washington, D.C. She later moved to Capitol Hill as Associate Counsel for Civil Rights for the House Committee on Education and Labor. There, she was responsible for legislation and oversight of the federal agencies charged with enforcement of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, Titles VI and VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act and other laws relating to equal employment opportunity and labor standards. She served as principal staff person on major investigations of the civil rights enforcement activities of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, U.S. Department of Labor, and the Office for Civil Rights, U.S. Department of Education. Wilcher left Capitol Hill to serve as the Director for State Relations and General Counsel for the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities.
During the Clinton Administration, Wilcher served a near seven-year term as Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs in the Labor Department. There she directed a federal program that emphasized the elimination of systemic barriers to equal employment opportunity, the glass ceiling, and inequities in corporate compensation systems, testifying before both House and Senate Labor Committees. Following her service in the Clinton Administration, Wilcher established her consulting firm, Wilcher Global LLC, and served as Executive Director of Americans for a Fair Chance, a consortium of six civil rights legal organizations formed to serve as an educational resource on affirmative action. Wilcher also taught as adjunct Associate Professor of Law at Washington College of Law of American University and worked as Attorney Advisor for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
Currently, Wilcher is the Executive Director of the American Association for Access Equity and Diversity (AAAED), formerly the American Association for Affirmative Action (AAAA), founded in 1974. AAAED is an organization of equal opportunity, diversity and affirmative action professionals working for academic institutions, the private sector and government. Wilcher is also President and CEO of the Fund for Leadership, Equity, Access and Diversity (LEAD Fund), the nonprofit affiliate of AAAED.
Shirley is the recipient of the NAACP’s Keeper of the Flame Award, AAAED’s Rosa Parks Award and the special Drum Major for Justice and President’s Awards for AAAA/AAAED. Wilcher also served as the first Recording Secretary of the National Political Congress of Black Women, founded in 1984 by former U.S. Representative Shirley Chisholm, and was on the board of Wider Opportunities for Women. Wilcher is an Advisory Board Member, Oxford Women’s Leadership Program, Oxford, UK. In 2018, Shirley Wilcher received an Honorary Doctor of Laws from her alma mater, Mount Holyoke College.
Dean and Iwan Foundation Professor of Law, University of Illinois College of Law
Dean Amar joined the College of Law as its dean in 2015, after having been a professor of law for many years at law schools in the University of California System, most recently the UC Davis School of Law, where he served as Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs. Amar is one of the most eminent and frequently cited authorities in constitutional law, federal courts, and civil procedure. He has produced several books and over 60 articles in leading law reviews. He is a co-author (along with Akhil Reed Amar and Steven Calabresi) of the upcoming edition of the six-volume Treatise on Constitutional Law (West Publishing Co., 6th ed. 2021) pioneered by Ron Rotunda and John Nowak, as well as the hardbound and soft-cover one-volume hornbooks that derive from it. He is also a co-author (along with Jonathan Varat) of Constitutional Law: Cases and Materials (Foundation Press, 15th ed. 2017), a co-author on multiple volumes of the Wright & Miller Federal Practice and Procedure Treatise (West Publishing Co. 2006), and a co-author (along with John Oakley) of a one-volume treatise on American Civil Procedure (Kluwer, 2008). He writes a biweekly column on constitutional matters for Justia.com and a monthly column on legal education for abovethelaw.com, is a frequent commentator on local and national radio and TV, and has penned dozens of op-ed pieces for major newspapers and magazines.
A strong proponent of public and professional engagement, Amar is an elected member of the American Law Institute and has served as a consultant for, among others, the National Association of Attorneys General, the United States Department of Justice, the California Attorney General’s Office, the ACLU of Southern California, and the Center for Civic Education. For one year he chaired the Civil Procedure Section of the Association of American Law Schools.
Amar earned his bachelor’s degree from UC Berkeley and his juris doctor from Yale Law School, where he was an articles editor for the Yale Law Journal. He then clerked for Judge William A. Norris of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and for Justice Harry A. Blackmun of the United States Supreme Court before joining Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, where he handled a variety of complex civil and white-collar criminal matters. It appears that dean Amar was the first person of South Asian heritage to clerk at the U.S. Supreme Court, and was the first American-born person of Indian descent to serve as a dean of a major American law school. Follow Dean Amar’s bi-weekly column on Justia.com and his monthly column on Above the Law, and read archived posts from his FindLaw.com column.
William D. Warren Professor of Law, UCLA School of Law
Stephen Bainbridge is the William D. Warren Distinguished Professor of Law at UCLA School of Law, where he currently teaches Business Associations, Advanced Corporation Law, and Mergers and Acquisitions. In past years, he has also taught Corporate Finance, Securities Regulation, Unincorporated Business Associations and Catholic Social Thought and the Law. Professor Bainbridge previously taught at the University of Illinois Law School (1988-1996). He has also taught at Harvard Law School as the Joseph Flom Visiting Professor of Law and Business (2000-2001), and as a visiting professor at La Trobe University in Melbourne (2005 and 2007) and at Aoyama Gakuin University in Tokyo (1999).
In 2008, Bainbridge received the UCLA School of Law's Rutter Award for Excellence in Teaching. In 1990, the graduating class of the University of Illinois College of Law voted him "Professor of the Year."
Professor Bainbridge is a prolific scholar, whose work covers a variety of subjects, but with a strong emphasis on the law and economics of public corporations. He has written over 100 law review articles which have appeared in such leading journals as the Harvard Law Review, Virginia Law Review, Northwestern University Law Review, Cornell Law Review, Stanford Law Review, and Vanderbilt Law Review. Bainbridge has also written 19 books, including seven in multiple editions. His most recent books include: Outsourcing the Board: How Board Service Providers Can Improve Corporate Governance (Cambridge University Press, 2018) (with M. Todd Henderson); Business Associations: Cases and Materials on Agency, Partnerships, and Corporations (Foundation Press, 10th ed., 2018) (with Klein and Ramseyer); Mergers and Acquisitions: A Transactional Perspective (Foundation Press, 2017) (with Iman Anabtawi).
According to Gregory Sisk and Brian Leiter’s rankings of law professors by scholarly impact, Professor Bainbridge was the third most-frequently cited scholar in corporate and securities law for the period 2013-2017. According to Hein Online, Bainbridge is the 29th most frequently cited scholar in their database of legal publications over the last 10 years and the 23rd most cited for the period January 2018 through August 2019. In SSRN.com’s ranking of the top 3000 legal authors by all-time downloads, Bainbridge is ranked 10th. By that metric, he is the highest ranked member of the UCLA law school faculty. In SSRN.com’s ranking of the top 3000 legal authors by all-time citations to their work, Bainbridge is ranked 55th. By that metric, he is the second highest ranked member of the UCLA law school faculty.
Professor Bainbridge has been a Salvatori Fellow with the Heritage Foundation, a member of the American Bar Association’s Committee on Corporate Laws, a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of the Journal of Markets and Morality, and Chair of the Executive Committee of the Federalist Society’s Corporations, Securities & Antitrust Practice Group.
In May 2014, Professor Bainbridge was the Cameron Fellow at the University of Auckland Faculty of Law. He was the Francis G. Pileggi Distinguished Lecturer in Law at Widener University School of Law in September 2005, and a Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the University of Maryland School of Law in November 2005.
In 2008, 2011, and 2012, Professor Bainbridge was named by the National Association of Corporate Directors' Directorship magazine to its list of the 100 most influential people in the field of corporate governance.
His blog, ProfessorBainbridge.com, was named by the ABA Journal as one of the Top 100 Law Blogs of 2007, 2008, 2010, 2011, and 2012.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit
Judge Carlos Bea serves as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. He received his Bachelor's Degree from Stanford University in 1956 and his J.D. from Stanford Law School in 1958. Judge Bea was born in San Sebastian, Spain, and immigrated with his family to Cuba in 1939. In 1952, he represented Cuba on the Cuban National basketball team in the Helsinki Olympics. Judge Bea became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1958. He engaged in private practice in San Francisco, principally in the area of civil trials (jury and non-jury), from 1959-75 at Dunne, Phelps & Mills and from 1975-90 at Carlos Bea, A Law Corporation. He taught courses in civil litigation advocacy at Hastings College of Law and Stanford Law School. From 1990 to 2003, Judge Bea served as a judge of the San Francisco Superior Court. He was nominated by President George W. Bush to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and was confirmed in 2003.
Judge Bea and his wife Louise reside in San Francisco, where they raised their four sons, Sebastian, Alexander, Nicholas, and Dominic.
Senior Resident Scholar, Institute of Government Studies, UC Berkeley
Steven Hayward is currently senior resident scholar at the Institute of Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley, and a visiting lecturer at Berkeley Law School. He was previously the Ronald Reagan Distinguished Visiting Professor at Pepperdine University’s Graduate School of Public Policy, and was the inaugural visiting scholar in conservative thought and policy at the University of Colorado at Boulder in 2013-14. From 2002 to 2012 he was the F.K Weyerhaeuser Fellow in Law and Economics at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington DC, and has been senior fellow at the Pacific Research Institute in San Francisco since 1991.
He writes frequently for the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, National Review, the Weekly Standard, the Claremont Review of Books, and other publications. The author of six books including a two-volume chronicle of Reagan and his times entitled The Age of Reagan: The Fall of the Old Liberal Order, 1964-1980, and The Age of Reagan: The Conservative Counter-Revolution, 1980-1989, and the Almanac of Environmental Trends. His most recent book is Patriotism is Not Enough: Harry Jaffa, Walter Berns, and the Arguments That Redefined American Conservatism.
U.S. Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit
Sandra Segal Ikuta was confirmed as a judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on June 19, 2006. She filled a judgeship vacant since September 1, 2000, when Chief Judge Emeritus James R. Browning took senior status.
Before becoming a U.S. Circuit Judge, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger appointed her to be deputy secretary and general counsel of the California Resources Agency in January 2004.
Prior to her political appointment, Judge Ikuta was a partner at the Los Angeles office of O'Melveny & Myers LLP. She joined the law firm in 1990 as an associate and became a partner in 1997. She specialized in environmental and natural resources law and co-chaired the firm's environmental practice group. She previously served as a law clerk for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, 1989-90, and Judge Alex Kozinski of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, 1988-89.
Prior to her legal career, Judge Ikuta took an unorthodox career path, which included serving as the first female editor-in-chief of a national martial arts magazine.
She received her J.D. from the University of California at Los Angeles School of Law and a Master of Science from Columbia University School of Journalism. She earned her undergraduate degree from the University of California at Berkeley in 1976.
In addition to her duties as an active U.S. Circuit Judge, Judge Ikuta was an appointed member of the Judicial Conference of the U.S. Advisory Committee on Bankruptcy Rules.
Superior Court of California for the County of Los Angeles
Carolyn Barbara Kuhl is a judge on the Superior Court of California for the County of Los Angeles and a former nominee to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. After receiving her law degree in 1977 from Duke Law School, she clerked for future Supreme Court Justice, Anthony M. Kennedy, from 1977–78. From 1981–86, she served in the United States Department of Justice. She worked as a partner in the Los Angeles law firm of Munger, Tolles & Olson, focusing on civil business litigation with a specialty in appellate litigation, from 1986–95. She became a judge on the Superior Court of California for the County of Los Angeles in 1995 and was nominated to a seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on June 22, 2001 by President George W. Bush.
University of California, Hastings College of the Law
University of San Diego School of Law
Ronald Reagan Distinguished Fellow Emeritus, The Heritage Foundation
Edwin Meese III, the prominent conservative leader, thinker and elder statesman, continues a quarter-century formal association with The Heritage Foundation as the leading think tank’s Ronald Reagan Distinguished Fellow Emeritus.
In that capacity, Meese oversees special projects and acts as an ambassador for Heritage within the conservative movement.
Meese was chairman of Heritage’s Center for Legal and Judicial Studies from its founding in 2001 until what he calls his “semi-retirement” on Feb. 1, 2013.
He joined Heritage in 1988 as the think tank's first Ronald Reagan Distinguished Fellow -- the only policy chair in the country to be officially named for the 40th president. His work focused on keeping President Reagan’s legacy of conservative principles alive in public debate and discourse.
The legal center now bears his name, in recognition of Meese’s contributions to the rule of law and the nation’s understanding of constitutional law. Its mission is to educate government officials, the media and the public about the Constitution and legal principles -- and how they affect public policy.
Perhaps best known as U.S. attorney general during Reagan’s second term, Meese’s service to the conservative icon stretched from the California governor’s mansion in 1966 to the White House in 1981 before he went to the Department of Justice four years later.
His Heritage “hats” kept Meese among the major conservative voices in national policy debates at an age when most men and women enjoyed quiet retirements.
In 2006, for example, Meese was named to the Iraq Study Group, a special presidential commission dedicated to examining the best resolutions for America's involvement in Iraq. In the past few years he wrote and spoke about constitutional topics ranging from religious liberty to the responsibility of Supreme Court justices.
Immediately after Reagan's death in 2004, and in the years since, Meese often agreed to major media appearances to discuss the lasting impact of his old friend, mentor and boss. He has summarized the Reagan legacy in three accomplishments: Reagan cut taxes and kept them low. He worked to defeat and end the Soviet Union and its worldwide push for communism. And he restored America's faith in itself after years of failure and "malaise."
"I admired him as a leader and cherish his friendship," Meese wrote in a 2004 essay for Heritage members and supporters. "Ronald Reagan had strong convictions. He was committed to the principles that had led to the founding of our nation. And he had the courage to follow his convictions against all odds." <[>Edwin Meese III was born Dec. 2, 1931, to Edwin Jr. and Leone Meese in Oakland, Calif. He graduated from Yale University in 1953 and holds a law degree from the University of California-Berkeley.
Meese spent much of his adult life working for Reagan, first after the former actor, sports announcer and athlete was elected as California’s governor in 1966 and then when he sought and won the presidency in 1980.
Reagan never forgot Meese's loyalty and hard work. During a press conference at which reporters questioned Meese's actions at the Justice Department, Reagan replied: "If Ed Meese is not a good man, there are no good men."
During the Reagan governorship, Meese served as executive assistant and chief of staff from 1969 through 1974 and as legal affairs secretary from 1967 through 1968. He previously was deputy district attorney in Alameda County, Calif.
From January 1981 to February 1985, Meese held the position of counsellor to the president -- the senior job on the White House staff -- and functioned as Reagan's chief policy adviser. In 1985, he received Government Executive magazine's annual award for excellence in management.
Meese served as the 75th attorney general of the United States from February 1985 to August 1988. As the nation's chief law enforcement officer, he directed the Justice Department and led international efforts to combat terrorism, drug trafficking and organized crime.
Meese’s relationship with Heritage began when he met with senior management to discuss the think tank's landmark policy guide, Mandate for Leadership, prepared for the incoming administration. Meese later recalled that Reagan personally handed out copies of the 1,093-page book to members of his Cabinet and asked them to read it. Nearly two-thirds of Mandate's 2,000 recommendations would be adopted or attempted by the Reagan administration.
More than a decade after joining Heritage, Meese assumed the chairmanship of its Center for Legal and Judicial Studies. Under his guidance, the center counseled White House staffers, Justice Department officials and Senate Judiciary Committee members on the importance of filling judicial vacancies with qualified men and women who are committed to interpreting the Constitution according to the founding document's original meaning.
The center became known for hosting "moot court" practice sessions to sharpen the arguments of attorneys slated to bring important cases before the Supreme Court. Those cases addressed constitutional issues ranging from property rights to racial preferences in primary and secondary schools to restrictions on free speech in campaign finance law.
Meese headed the legal center's Advisory Board for the writing and editing of the best-selling book, The Heritage Guide to the Constitution (Regnery, 2005). In it, 109 experts walked readers through a clause-by-clause analysis of the Constitution. Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) was among those keeping the reference work handy during Judiciary Committee hearings on Supreme Court nominees.
Meese's other books include “Leadership, Ethics and Policing” (Prentice Hall, 2004); “Making America Safer” (Heritage, 1997); and “With Reagan: The Inside Story” (Regnery Gateway, 1992).He wrote the Introduction to a well-received 2010 book on the “overcriminalization” trend, “One Nation Under Arrest,” by Heritage veterans Paul Rosenzweig and Brian W. Walsh.
He also is a distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University in California and lectures, writes and consults throughout the United States on a variety of subjects.
As both attorney general and counsellor to Reagan, Meese was a member of the Cabinet and the National Security Council. He served as chairman of the Domestic Policy Council and the National Drug Policy Board. After Reagan won the White House in the 1980 election, Meese headed the transition team. During the campaign, he was the Reagan-Bush Committee's senior official.
Meese had a career outside government and politics. From 1977 to 1981, he was a law professor at the University of San Diego, where he also directed the Center for Criminal Justice Policy and Management.
He was an executive in the aerospace and transportation industry as vice president for administration of Rohr Industries Inc. in Chula Vista, Calif. He left Rohr to return to the practice of law, doing corporate and general work in San Diego County.
A retired colonel in the Army Reserve, Meese remains active in numerous civic and educational organizations.
He and his wife, Ursula, have two grown children and reside in McLean, Va.
Hugh and Hazel Darling Foundation Professor of Law; Director, Center for the Study of Constitutional Originalism, University of San Diego School of Law
U.S. Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit (1983-1989); U.S. Solicitor General (1989-1993)
Kenneth Starr is a former United States Federal Court of Appeals Judge, U.S. Solicitor General, and Independent Counsel. He is the former President and Chancellor of Baylor University where he held the Louise L. Morrison Chair of Constitutional Law at Baylor University Law School.
Professor of Law and Director of Center for Trial and Appellate, Santa Clara Law School
Thomas M. Siebel Senior Fellow, The Hoover Institution, Stanford University; Gary T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus, UCLA School of Law
Eugene Volokh is the Thomas M. Siebel Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution (Stanford), as well as the Gary T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus and Distinguished Research Professor at UCLA School of Law. He recently retired from teaching at UCLA, after 30 years there, and is now focusing on research.
Volokh is the author of the textbooks The First Amendment and Related Statutes (8th ed. 2023), and Academic Legal Writing (5th ed. 2016), as well as over 100 academic law journal articles, mostly on First Amendment law. He is a member of The American Law Institute; the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Free Speech Law; and the creator and coauthor of The Volokh Conspiracy, a leading legal blog founded in 2002 (hosted at the Washington Post from 2014 to 2017 and now at Reason Magazine).
Patrick Hotung Professor of Constitutional Law, Georgetown University Law Center
Randy Barnett is the Patrick Hotung Professor of Constitutional Law at Georgetown University Law Center. He has argued before the United States Supreme Court, tried murder cases to juries as a prosecutor in Chicago, and appeared as a prosecutor in the feature film Inalienable. He is the author of numerous books, including Restoring the Lost Constitution, The Structure of Liberty, Our Republican Constitution, and The Original Meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. He has published two memoirs, A Life for Liberty: The Making of an American Originalist, and Felony Review: Tales of True Crime and Corruption in Chicago. He is currently working on a new book, Freedom and Flourishing: Libertarianism for the Real World.
Inez Milholland Professor of Civil Liberties, New York University School of Law
Burt Neuborne is the Inez Milholland Professor of Civil Liberties and founding Legal Director of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law School. For 45 years, he has been one of the nation's foremost civil liberties lawyers, serving as National Legal Director of the ACLU from 1981-86, Special Counsel to the NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund from 1990-1996, and as a member of the New York City Human Rights Commission from 1988-1992. He has argued numerous Supreme Court cases, and has litigated literally hundreds of important constitutional cases in the state and federal courts. He challenged the constitutionality of the Vietnam War, pioneered the flag burning cases, worked on the Pentagon Papers case, worked with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg when she headed the ACLU Women's Rights Project, anchored the ACLU's legal program during the Reagan years, and defended the Legal Services program against unconstitutional attacks. He currently directs the legal program of the Brennan Center, especially its efforts to reinforce American democracy and secure campaign finance reform. The Brennan Center was established in 1994 to honor Justice William Brennan, Jr.’s monumental contribution to American Law.
At the same time, Professor Neuborne has forged a national reputation as a constitutional scholar and teacher. In 1990, he was the recipient of the University-wide Distinguished Teacher Award at New York University for his work in teaching Civil Procedure, Evidence, Federal Courts and Constitutional Law. He is the author of three books and over 20 law review articles on diverse areas of constitutional law and procedure. Among his best known scholarly works is the two-volume Political and Civil Rights in the United States, which he co-authored with NYU colleagues Norman Dorsen and Sylvia Law and the Deputy Solicitor General of the United States, Paul Bender. His 1992 lectures on American law at Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona have been translated and published in Spanish. In 2001, in recognition of his scholarship and his work in the courts, Professor Neuborne was elected to membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
In 1996, Professor Neuborne appeared as Jerry Falwell's lawyer in Milos Forman's The People v. Larry Flynt.
For the past 14 years, Professor Neuborne has served as a principal counsel in a series of lawsuits seeking to recover property unjustly taken from Holocaust victims by Swiss banks and German corporations during the Nazi era. The litigation has succeeded in assembling more than $8.5 billion for distribution to Holocaust victims and their families throughout the world. Professor Neuborne was appointed by the Court to oversee the $1.25 Swiss bank settlement, and was appointed by the United States to serve on the Board of Trustees of the German Foundation “Remembrance, Responsibility and Future,” established to distribute the $5.2 billion settlement in the German slave labor litigation.
Professor Neuborne is married to Helen Redleaf Neuborne.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit
Judge O’Scannlain was appointed United States Circuit Judge for the Ninth Circuit by President Reagan on September 26, 1986. He received a J.D. degree in 1963 from Harvard Law School and a B.A. in 1957 from St. John’s University. He also earned the LL.M. (Judicial Process) degree at University of Virginia Law School in 1992. He was awarded the LL.D. (honoris causa) degree by the University of Notre Dame in 2002, the LL.D. (honoris causa) degree by Lewis & Clark College in 2003 and the LL.D. (honoris causa) degree by the University of Portland in 2011.
As a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, Judge O’Scannlain has participated in over 6,000 federal cases and has written hundreds of published opinions on a broad range of subjects including constitutional law, international law, securities law, administrative law, and criminal law. He hears appeals in San Francisco (court headquarters), as well as in Los Angeles (Pasadena), Portland, Seattle, Anchorage and Honolulu. The late Chief Justice Rehnquist appointed Judge O'Scannlain to the Federal Judicial Center's Advisory Committee on Appellate Judge Education. In 2009, Chief Justice Roberts appointed Judge O’Scannlain to the International Judicial Relations Committee of the U.S. Judicial Conference and subsequently appointed him Chairman in 2010.
President George W. Bush appointed Judge O’Scannlain to the Board of Trustees of the James Madison Memorial Fellowship Foundation in 2004. Pope Benedict XVI conferred the Order of Saint Gregory the Great on Judge and Mrs. O’Scannlain in 2007.
Judge O’Scannlain’s professional interests also include judicial administration and reform, and continuing legal education. Judge O’Scannlain is former Chair of the Judicial Division of the American Bar Association and has previously chaired the ABA’s Appellate Judges Conference, its Committee on Appellate Practice, and its 9th Appellate Practice Institute. He has testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on several occasions, the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts and Intellectual Property, and the Commission on Structural Alternatives for the Federal Courts of Appeals on the subject of court reorganization. In addition to serving as a faculty member at numerous federal appellate practice seminars for judges and attorneys, including New York University Law School’s Institute for Judicial Administration, Judge O’Scannlain is an Adjunct Professor at Lewis & Clark Law School where he teaches a seminar on the Supreme Court. He has served as a Moot Court Judge at distinguished law schools across the United States including Harvard, Yale Stanford, Boalt Hall (Berkeley Law), Virginia, Cornell, Notre Dame, Fordham, Alabama, University of Southern California, King Hall (U.C. Davis) and Loyola Marymount University and in China at Xiamen and Renmin Universities.
Between graduation from Harvard and investiture as a federal judge, Judge O’Scannlain was primarily engaged in private law practice. Between 1969 and 1974, he was consecutively the Deputy Attorney General of Oregon, the Public Utility Commissioner of Oregon, and Director of the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality. He retired from the U.S. Army Reserve in 1978 as a Major after 23 years Reserve and National Guard service, including four years as an enlisted man.
A first generation Irish-American son of immigrant parents from Sligo and Derry, Judge O’Scannlain is married to the former Maura Nolan and has eight children: Sean, Jane, Brendan, Kevin, Megan, Christopher, Anne, and Kate, and nineteen grandchildren. His chambers are in the Pioneer Courthouse in Portland, Oregon.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit
Judge Carlos Bea serves as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. He received his Bachelor's Degree from Stanford University in 1956 and his J.D. from Stanford Law School in 1958. Judge Bea was born in San Sebastian, Spain, and immigrated with his family to Cuba in 1939. In 1952, he represented Cuba on the Cuban National basketball team in the Helsinki Olympics. Judge Bea became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1958. He engaged in private practice in San Francisco, principally in the area of civil trials (jury and non-jury), from 1959-75 at Dunne, Phelps & Mills and from 1975-90 at Carlos Bea, A Law Corporation. He taught courses in civil litigation advocacy at Hastings College of Law and Stanford Law School. From 1990 to 2003, Judge Bea served as a judge of the San Francisco Superior Court. He was nominated by President George W. Bush to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and was confirmed in 2003.
Judge Bea and his wife Louise reside in San Francisco, where they raised their four sons, Sebastian, Alexander, Nicholas, and Dominic.
Chairman, Center for Equal Opportunity
Linda Chavez is Chairman of the Center for Equal Opportunity. She has published opinions and columns in newspapers across the country and appears regularly on cable news. Chavez is the author of the three books: Out of the Barrio: Toward a New Politics of Hispanic Assimilation, An Unlikely Conservative: The Transformation of an Ex-Liberal, and Betrayal: How Union Bosses Shake Down Their Members and Corrupt American Politics. She has been honored by the Library of Congress as a "Living Legend" and as nominee for Secretary of Labor by President George W. Bush.
Chavez has held many appointed positions and has served on numerous corporate and nonprofit boards. Among her appointed positions has been Chairman, National Commission on Migrant Education (1988-1992); White House Director of Public Liaison (1985); Staff Director of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights (1983-1985); and member of the Administrative Conference of the United States (1984-1986). Chavez was also the Republican nominee for U.S. Senator from Maryland in 1986 and was elected by the United Nations' Human Rights Commission to serve a four-year term as U.S. Expert to the U.N. Sub-commission on the Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities.
Chavez earned her BA from the University of Colorado.
Partner, Benesch, Friedlander, Coplan & Aronoff LLP
Peter focuses his legal practice on representing management in employment-related litigation and in contract negotiations, NLRB proceedings, EEO matters and arbitration.
Peter Kirsanow is a partner with Benesch’s Labor & Employment Practice Group. He returned to Benesch in January 2008 after serving as a presidential appointee to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in Washington D.C. for two years. While serving on the NLRB, he was involved with significant decisions including Oakwood Healthcare, Inc., Dana/Metaldyne and Oil Capital Sheet Metal, Inc. In addition, Peter testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on the nominations of John Roberts, Samuel Alito, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. He also continues to testify before and advise members of the U.S. Congress on employment law matters, most recently on November 18 before the House Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight regarding disparate impact theory.
Peter was recently reappointed by the Majority Leader of the House of Representatives to his fourth consecutive six-year term on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. This is a part-time position which will expire in December 2025.
Recently, Peter and a team of Benesch attorneys served as lead counsel to the National Association of Manufacturers in litigation before the U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Columbia against the NLRB, challenging the Board’s Notice of Employer Rights Posting Rule. The court ruled in favor of Benesch’s client, striking down the NLRB’s Rule in its entirety. This ruling impacts over 6,000,000 employers nationwide which would have been subject to the posting requirement.
Additionally, Peter is past chair of the board of directors of the Center for New Black Leadership and is a member of Benesch’s Diversity & Inclusion Committee. This committee helps ensure that the firm promotes an environment in which differences are respected, employees are treated fairly, and individual skills and talents are valued.
Julius L. Chambers Distinguished Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Civil Rights, University of North Carolina School of Law
Theodore M. Shaw is the Julius L. Chambers Distinguished Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Civil Rights at the University of North Carolina School of Law at Chapel Hill. Professor Shaw teaches Civil Procedure and Advanced Constitutional Law/Fourteenth Amendment. Before joining the faculty of UNC Law School, from 2008-2014 Professor Shaw taught at Columbia University Law School, where he was Professor of Professional Practice. During that time he was also “Of Counsel” to the law firm of Norton Rose Fulbright (formerly Fulbright & Jaworski, LLP). His practice involved civil litigation and representation of institutional clients on matters concerning diversity and civil rights.
Professor Shaw was the fifth Director-Counsel and President of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., for which he worked in various capacities over the span of twenty-six years. He has litigated education, employment, voting rights, housing, police misconduct, capital punishment and other civil rights cases in trial and appellate courts, and in the United States Supreme Court.From 1982 until 1987, he litigated education, housing, and capital punishment cases and directed LDF's education litigation docket. In 1987, under the direction of LDF's third Director-Counsel, Julius Chambers, Mr. Shaw relocated to Los Angeles to establish LDF's Western Regional Office. In 1990, Mr. Shaw left LDF to join the faculty of the University of Michigan Law School, where he taught Constitutional Law, Civil Procedure and Civil Rights. While at Michigan, he played a key role in initiating a review of the law school's admissions practices and policies, and served on the faculty committee that promulgated the admissions program that was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2003 in Grutter v. Bollinger.
In 1993, Mr. Shaw returned to LDF as Associate Director-Counsel, and in 2004, he became LDF's fifth Director-Counsel. Mr. Shaw's legal career began as a Trial Attorney in the Honors Program of the United States Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division in Washington, D.C., where he worked from 1979 until 1982.
Mr. Shaw has testified on numerous occasions before Congress and before state and local legislatures. His human rights work has taken him to Africa, Asia, Europe, and South America. In addition to teaching at Columbia and at Michigan Law School, Professor Shaw held the 1997-1998 Haywood Burns Chair at CUNY School of Law at Queens College and the 2003 Phyllis Beck Chair at Temple Law School. He was a visiting scholar at the Constitution Center in Philadelphia in 2008-2009. He is a member of the faculty of the Practicing Law Institute (PLI).
Mr. Shaw served on the Obama Transition Team after the 2008 presidential election, as team leader for the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department.
Executive Director, American Association for Access Equity and Diversity (AAAED)
Shirley J. Wilcher, Mount Holyoke Class of 1973, is a leading authority on equal opportunity and diversity policy. After graduating from Mount Holyoke cum laude with a degree in Philosophy and French, she went on to receive her MA in Urban Affairs and Policy Analysis from the New School for Social Research and her Juris Doctor degree from Harvard Law School. While a student at Mount Holyoke she received a certificat pratique de langue Francaise from the Université de Paris. While a student at Harvard, Wilcher began a career in civil rights as clerk for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc.
After earning her law degree, she became staff attorney for the National Women’s Law Center in Washington, D.C. She later moved to Capitol Hill as Associate Counsel for Civil Rights for the House Committee on Education and Labor. There, she was responsible for legislation and oversight of the federal agencies charged with enforcement of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, Titles VI and VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act and other laws relating to equal employment opportunity and labor standards. She served as principal staff person on major investigations of the civil rights enforcement activities of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, U.S. Department of Labor, and the Office for Civil Rights, U.S. Department of Education. Wilcher left Capitol Hill to serve as the Director for State Relations and General Counsel for the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities.
During the Clinton Administration, Wilcher served a near seven-year term as Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs in the Labor Department. There she directed a federal program that emphasized the elimination of systemic barriers to equal employment opportunity, the glass ceiling, and inequities in corporate compensation systems, testifying before both House and Senate Labor Committees. Following her service in the Clinton Administration, Wilcher established her consulting firm, Wilcher Global LLC, and served as Executive Director of Americans for a Fair Chance, a consortium of six civil rights legal organizations formed to serve as an educational resource on affirmative action. Wilcher also taught as adjunct Associate Professor of Law at Washington College of Law of American University and worked as Attorney Advisor for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
Currently, Wilcher is the Executive Director of the American Association for Access Equity and Diversity (AAAED), formerly the American Association for Affirmative Action (AAAA), founded in 1974. AAAED is an organization of equal opportunity, diversity and affirmative action professionals working for academic institutions, the private sector and government. Wilcher is also President and CEO of the Fund for Leadership, Equity, Access and Diversity (LEAD Fund), the nonprofit affiliate of AAAED.
Shirley is the recipient of the NAACP’s Keeper of the Flame Award, AAAED’s Rosa Parks Award and the special Drum Major for Justice and President’s Awards for AAAA/AAAED. Wilcher also served as the first Recording Secretary of the National Political Congress of Black Women, founded in 1984 by former U.S. Representative Shirley Chisholm, and was on the board of Wider Opportunities for Women. Wilcher is an Advisory Board Member, Oxford Women’s Leadership Program, Oxford, UK. In 2018, Shirley Wilcher received an Honorary Doctor of Laws from her alma mater, Mount Holyoke College.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit
David Stras became a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit on January 31, 2018. Before serving on the Eighth Circuit, Judge Stras was an Associate Justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court, a position he occupied from July 1, 2010 until his appointment to the Eighth Circuit.
Prior to becoming a judge, Stras was a member of the faculty of the University of Minnesota Law School from 2004 through 2010. He taught and wrote in the areas of federal courts and jurisdiction, constitutional law, criminal law, and law and politics.
Judge Stras received his Bachelor of Arts degree, with highest distinction, in 1995 and his Master of Business Administration in 1999, both from the University of Kansas. He also received his law degree from the University of Kansas School of Law in 1999, where he served as Editor-in-Chief of the Criminal Procedure Edition of the Kansas Law Review.
Following law school, Stras clerked for The Honorable Melvin Brunetti of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and then for The Honorable J. Michael Luttig of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
From 2001 to 2002, he practiced white-collar criminal and appellate litigation with the Washington, D.C., office of Sidley Austin Brown & Wood. Following his year in practice, he clerked for The Honorable Clarence Thomas of the Supreme Court of the United States.
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