Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit
John B. Nalbandian serves as a United States Circuit Judge from Kentucky on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. He was nominated and confirmed to that position in 2018. Prior to that, Judge Nalbandian was a partner in the litigation practice group of Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLP in Cincinnati, where he served as the firm’s lead appellate lawyer and also practiced complex litigation in state and federal courts. Judge Nalbandian was board certified by the Ohio State Bar Association as a specialist in appellate law. Prior to joining Taft, Judge Nalbandian practiced for five years in the appellate section of Jones Day in Washington, DC. Upon graduation from law school, Judge Nalbandian clerked for the Honorable Jerry E. Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in Houston. While in private practice, he also served as a board member of the State Justice Institute, a nonprofit organization established by the federal government to improve the administration of justice in state courts. He served as President of the Cincinnati Lawyers Chapter of the Federalist Society. He has also been involved in his community as a board member of the Greater Cincinnati Minority Counsel Program, and as a board member of the Asian Pacific Bar Association of Southwest Ohio. Judge Nalbandian earned his B.S., magna cum laude, from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and his J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law, where he was inducted into the Order of the Coif and served as managing editor of the Virginia Law Review.
Professor Emerita of Law and Bioethics, University of Wisconsin
Alta Charo (BA biology Harvard ’79; JD law Columbia ’82) is professor emerita of law and bioethics at the University of Wisconsin and now works as a consultant to companies, government and NGOs on biotechnology ethics and regulatory policy. In government she worked for the congressional Office of Technology Assessment; USAID; and the FDA. She was a member of President Clinton's National Bioethic Advisory Commission, and has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; the American Association for the Advancement of Science; and the National Academy of Medicine, where she co-chaired its committees on stem cell research and on human genome editing governance.
President and Founding Board Member, Science Alliance for Life and Technology (SALT)
David A. Prentice, Ph.D. is President and Founding Board Member of the Science Alliance for Life and Technology (SALT) with almost 50 years’ experience as a scientific researcher, professor, academic leader and policy advisor. He is the former Advisory Board Chair and Founding Member for the Midwest Stem Cell Therapy Center, a unique comprehensive adult stem cell center in Kansas that he was instrumental in creating. Dr. Prentice established Stem Cell Research Facts, an educational website about adult stem cells. He earned his Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Kansas. His previous service includes at Los Alamos National Laboratory, Professor of Life Sciences as well as Acting Associate Dean of Arts and Sciences at Indiana State University, Adjunct Professor of Medical and Molecular Genetics at Indiana University School of Medicine, Adjunct Professor of Molecular Genetics at the John Paul II Institute at The Catholic University of America, Senior Fellow and Director for Life Sciences at the Family Research Council, and Vice President and Research Director at the Charlotte Lozier Institute. Dr. Prentice has provided scientific lectures, policy briefings, and legislative testimonies in 40 states and 21 countries, including before the U.S. House and Senate and numerous state legislatures, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the U.S. President’s Council on Bioethics, European Parliament, British Parliament, Canadian Parliament, Australian Parliament, German Bundestag, French Senate, Swedish Parliament, the United Nations, and the Vatican. In 2020, he was appointed by the Secretary of HHS to the federal Human Fetal Tissue Ethics Advisory Board. He has published numerous peer-reviewed scientific and bioethics articles, as well as public commentaries and op-eds, and travels nationally and internationally to give invited lectures and to advise professionals, policymakers, and the public regarding stem cell research, fetal tissue research, gene editing, cloning, embryology, cell, molecular and developmental biology, cell culture and vaccines, biochemistry, biotechnology, bioethics, and science policy.
Ethics & Public Policy Center, Robert Novak Journalism Fellow 2025
Katelyn Walls Shelton is a Visiting Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center’s Bioethics, Technology and Human Flourishing Program. She is a women’s health policy expert and, as a 2025-2026 recipient of the Robert Novak Journalism Fellowship, is conducting a year-long research project on reproductive biotechnology and human nature.
As the former Special Assistant for Global Women’s Health at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Ms. Shelton assisted in executing the Protecting Life in Global Health Policy (PLGHP) initiative at the United Nations and World Health Organization. A former Paul Ramsey Bioethics Fellow, she often writes on women’s reproductive health and the beginning of life.
Katelyn received a master’s degree in ethics from Yale Divinity School, where she also completed coursework at Yale Law, and a dual bachelor’s degree from Union University. She’s an inaugural opinion contributor to WORLD Magazine and her work and commentary have appeared in a diverse range of outlets, including Fox News, The Gospel Coalition, Washington Examiner, Slate, and Mother Jones, among others.
She and her husband, John, live with their four young children near Washington, D.C.
Partner, Resolution Economics
Victoria Lipnic is a Partner at Resolution Economics. She leads the Company’s Human Capital Strategy Group. The Human Capital Strategy Group combines the Company’s expertise in data analytics and deep knowledge of regulatory requirements with an interdisciplinary approach to advise organizations on the full range of their human capital needs and reporting requirements including recruitment, selection, promotions, DE&I, pay equity, and overall talent allocation.
Lipnic joined Resolution Economics in 2021. She has broad experience in the full range of human capital, labor and employment issues, especially from the regulatory enforcement perspective. Prior to joining the Company she served as Commissioner from 2010 to 2020 and Acting Chair from 2017 to 2019 of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. She was appointed to the EEOC by President Barack Obama and unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate. At the EEOC she worked on policy, cases, and regulations under all of the statutes enforced by the Commission including Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA), the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the Equal Pay Act (EPA), the Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA) and the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA). While at the EEOC she participated in numerous agency regulatory initiatives including the final GINA regulations, the ADA, as amended, regulations, and the revisions to the EEO-1 form to include pay data reporting. She organized the agency’s first public meeting on Big Data in Employment, created its Chief Data Officer position, oversaw development of the Office of Enterprise Data and Analytics and published a significant report on age discrimination. She co-chaired the EEOC’s Select Task Force on the Study of Harassment in the Workplace, and co-authored its seminal report, issued in 2016, before the #MeToo movement.
Prior to joining the EEOC, she practiced law with Seyfarth Shaw, LLP. She also served as the U.S. Assistant Secretary of Labor for Employment Standards from 2002 to January 2009, a position she was appointed to by President George W. Bush. At the Department of Labor she oversaw regulatory development and enforcement for the Wage and Hour Division, the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP), the Office of Labor Management Standards and four national workers’ compensation programs. This included oversight and enforcement of the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Family and Medical Leave Act, Executive Order 11246 and the Labor Management Reporting Disclosure Act.
Prior to her service as Assistant Secretary, Lipnic served as Workforce Policy Counsel to the Committee on Education and the Workforce in the U.S. House of Representatives. She was also in-house counsel for labor and employment with the U.S. Postal Service.
Tammy McCutchen is a leading authority on federal and state wage-hour laws and prevailing wage laws. She counsels businesses on wage-hour compliance, including conducting internal audits on independent contractor status, overtime exemptions, and other pay practices. She also represents employers during investigations by the U.S. Department of Labor and serves as an expert witness in wage-hour class actions. She was a founding officer of ComplianceHR, a law and technology company, where she created AI-based applications to evaluate independent contractor and overtime exempt status.
Ms. McCutchen served as Administrator of the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division, appointed by President Bush and confirmed by the Senate in 2001. She was the primary architect of the 2004 revisions to the overtime exemption regulations, the first major changes to the regulations in 55 years.
Before joining DOL, she was senior counsel for the Hershey Company in Hershey, Pennsylvania.
Ms. McCutchen has been a volunteer leader of the Federalist Society since 1989. She served in leadership roles for the Northwestern Student Chapter and Chicago Lawyers Chapter. She currently serves in leadership for the Labor & Employment Practice Group, the Regulatory Transparency Project, and the Knoxville, TN Lawyers Chapter. She served on the Editorial Advisory Board of Law360, the Labor Committee of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Small Business Legal Advisory Board of the National Federation of Independent Business, and a Policy Fellow at the ACU Foundation.
Ms. McCutchen is a graduate of Western Illinois University and Northwestern University School of Law. She clerked for the Hon. Daniel Manion on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.
Former Solicitor of Labor, 2021-2025
Seema Nanda served as the U.S. Solicitor of Labor, from 2021 to 2025.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit
Judge Readler earned his undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Michigan. After graduating, he served as a law clerk to Judge Alan Norris of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Judge Readler then began practicing law in the Columbus office of the international law firm Jones Day, eventually spending ten years as a partner in the firm’s Issues and Appeals Practice Group. While at Jones Day, Judge Readler appeared in state and federal trial and appellate courts around the country, most frequently the Supreme Court of Ohio and the Sixth Circuit. Judge Readler also successfully argued before the United States Supreme Court in McQuiggin v. Perkins on behalf of an inmate claiming actual innocence. His other pro bono representations include representing capital defendants before the Tenth Circuit and the Supreme Court of Ohio, as well as representing defendants sentenced to life in prison before the Sixth Circuit. While at Jones Day, Judge Readler traveled to Nairobi with Lawyers Without Borders to train Kenyan lawyers in prosecuting domestic violence cases, and he was also a recipient of the American Marshall Memorial Fellowship awarded by the German Marshall Fund of the United States. Following his career in private practice, Judge Readler served as Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division of the United States Department of Justice from 2017 to 2019. In that role, Judge Readler led and supervised over 1,000 lawyers in the Department’s largest litigating division, briefing and arguing several cases on behalf of the United States in federal courts across the country, including high-profile cases significant to the Administration and the Department. In March 2019, Judge Readler was confirmed to serve as a Circuit Judge on the Sixth Circuit. He resides in Columbus.
Counsel, First Liberty Institute
Kayla Toney is Associate Counsel with First Liberty Institute, concentrating on religious liberty matters and First Amendment rights for clients of all faiths.
Prior to joining First Liberty, Kayla litigated religious freedom cases as a Constitutional Law Fellow at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. She clerked for Judge Gregory E. Maggs on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, where she gained valuable experience in the military justice system. Kayla also worked as a litigation associate in the D.C. office of Winston & Strawn LLP, where she enjoyed working on pro bono religious liberty matters.
Kayla earned her law degree from George Washington University, where she served as president of the Federalist Society chapter, a member of the GW International Law Review, and a writing fellow. She graduated summa cum laude from Grove City College with a degree in history and economics.
A native of Michigan, Kayla is based in First Liberty’s Washington, D.C. office and is licensed to practice law in Virginia and D.C.
Associate Counsel, Clement & Murphy, PLLC
Kevin’s practice focuses on briefing complex legal issues at all levels of the federal court system. Before joining Clement & Murphy, Kevin served as a Trial Attorney in the Department of Justice’s Civil Division, where he briefed and argued high-profile cases challenging federal laws as well as Executive Branch policies and decisions. Those cases involved both merits and discovery issues concerning a wide range of constitutional provisions, the Administrative Procedure Act, the Privacy Act, the Freedom of Information Act, Title VII, and various national security issues, including habeas litigation involving Guantanamo Bay detainees.
Kevin earned his J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, where he was an Executive Editor of the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, a member of the Supreme Court Clinic, a Littleton Fellow in legal writing, and a member of the Moot Court Board. After graduating from Penn, Kevin clerked for Judge David Sentelle of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, Judge D. Brooks Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, and Judge Royce Lamberth of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
Counsel, First Liberty Institute
Kayla Toney is Associate Counsel with First Liberty Institute, concentrating on religious liberty matters and First Amendment rights for clients of all faiths.
Prior to joining First Liberty, Kayla litigated religious freedom cases as a Constitutional Law Fellow at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. She clerked for Judge Gregory E. Maggs on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, where she gained valuable experience in the military justice system. Kayla also worked as a litigation associate in the D.C. office of Winston & Strawn LLP, where she enjoyed working on pro bono religious liberty matters.
Kayla earned her law degree from George Washington University, where she served as president of the Federalist Society chapter, a member of the GW International Law Review, and a writing fellow. She graduated summa cum laude from Grove City College with a degree in history and economics.
A native of Michigan, Kayla is based in First Liberty’s Washington, D.C. office and is licensed to practice law in Virginia and D.C.
Associate Counsel, Clement & Murphy, PLLC
Kevin’s practice focuses on briefing complex legal issues at all levels of the federal court system. Before joining Clement & Murphy, Kevin served as a Trial Attorney in the Department of Justice’s Civil Division, where he briefed and argued high-profile cases challenging federal laws as well as Executive Branch policies and decisions. Those cases involved both merits and discovery issues concerning a wide range of constitutional provisions, the Administrative Procedure Act, the Privacy Act, the Freedom of Information Act, Title VII, and various national security issues, including habeas litigation involving Guantanamo Bay detainees.
Kevin earned his J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, where he was an Executive Editor of the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, a member of the Supreme Court Clinic, a Littleton Fellow in legal writing, and a member of the Moot Court Board. After graduating from Penn, Kevin clerked for Judge David Sentelle of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, Judge D. Brooks Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, and Judge Royce Lamberth of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
Partner, Resolution Economics
Victoria Lipnic is a Partner at Resolution Economics. She leads the Company’s Human Capital Strategy Group. The Human Capital Strategy Group combines the Company’s expertise in data analytics and deep knowledge of regulatory requirements with an interdisciplinary approach to advise organizations on the full range of their human capital needs and reporting requirements including recruitment, selection, promotions, DE&I, pay equity, and overall talent allocation.
Lipnic joined Resolution Economics in 2021. She has broad experience in the full range of human capital, labor and employment issues, especially from the regulatory enforcement perspective. Prior to joining the Company she served as Commissioner from 2010 to 2020 and Acting Chair from 2017 to 2019 of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. She was appointed to the EEOC by President Barack Obama and unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate. At the EEOC she worked on policy, cases, and regulations under all of the statutes enforced by the Commission including Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA), the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the Equal Pay Act (EPA), the Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA) and the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA). While at the EEOC she participated in numerous agency regulatory initiatives including the final GINA regulations, the ADA, as amended, regulations, and the revisions to the EEO-1 form to include pay data reporting. She organized the agency’s first public meeting on Big Data in Employment, created its Chief Data Officer position, oversaw development of the Office of Enterprise Data and Analytics and published a significant report on age discrimination. She co-chaired the EEOC’s Select Task Force on the Study of Harassment in the Workplace, and co-authored its seminal report, issued in 2016, before the #MeToo movement.
Prior to joining the EEOC, she practiced law with Seyfarth Shaw, LLP. She also served as the U.S. Assistant Secretary of Labor for Employment Standards from 2002 to January 2009, a position she was appointed to by President George W. Bush. At the Department of Labor she oversaw regulatory development and enforcement for the Wage and Hour Division, the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP), the Office of Labor Management Standards and four national workers’ compensation programs. This included oversight and enforcement of the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Family and Medical Leave Act, Executive Order 11246 and the Labor Management Reporting Disclosure Act.
Prior to her service as Assistant Secretary, Lipnic served as Workforce Policy Counsel to the Committee on Education and the Workforce in the U.S. House of Representatives. She was also in-house counsel for labor and employment with the U.S. Postal Service.
Tammy McCutchen is a leading authority on federal and state wage-hour laws and prevailing wage laws. She counsels businesses on wage-hour compliance, including conducting internal audits on independent contractor status, overtime exemptions, and other pay practices. She also represents employers during investigations by the U.S. Department of Labor and serves as an expert witness in wage-hour class actions. She was a founding officer of ComplianceHR, a law and technology company, where she created AI-based applications to evaluate independent contractor and overtime exempt status.
Ms. McCutchen served as Administrator of the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division, appointed by President Bush and confirmed by the Senate in 2001. She was the primary architect of the 2004 revisions to the overtime exemption regulations, the first major changes to the regulations in 55 years.
Before joining DOL, she was senior counsel for the Hershey Company in Hershey, Pennsylvania.
Ms. McCutchen has been a volunteer leader of the Federalist Society since 1989. She served in leadership roles for the Northwestern Student Chapter and Chicago Lawyers Chapter. She currently serves in leadership for the Labor & Employment Practice Group, the Regulatory Transparency Project, and the Knoxville, TN Lawyers Chapter. She served on the Editorial Advisory Board of Law360, the Labor Committee of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Small Business Legal Advisory Board of the National Federation of Independent Business, and a Policy Fellow at the ACU Foundation.
Ms. McCutchen is a graduate of Western Illinois University and Northwestern University School of Law. She clerked for the Hon. Daniel Manion on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.
Former Solicitor of Labor, 2021-2025
Seema Nanda served as the U.S. Solicitor of Labor, from 2021 to 2025.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit
Judge Readler earned his undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Michigan. After graduating, he served as a law clerk to Judge Alan Norris of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Judge Readler then began practicing law in the Columbus office of the international law firm Jones Day, eventually spending ten years as a partner in the firm’s Issues and Appeals Practice Group. While at Jones Day, Judge Readler appeared in state and federal trial and appellate courts around the country, most frequently the Supreme Court of Ohio and the Sixth Circuit. Judge Readler also successfully argued before the United States Supreme Court in McQuiggin v. Perkins on behalf of an inmate claiming actual innocence. His other pro bono representations include representing capital defendants before the Tenth Circuit and the Supreme Court of Ohio, as well as representing defendants sentenced to life in prison before the Sixth Circuit. While at Jones Day, Judge Readler traveled to Nairobi with Lawyers Without Borders to train Kenyan lawyers in prosecuting domestic violence cases, and he was also a recipient of the American Marshall Memorial Fellowship awarded by the German Marshall Fund of the United States. Following his career in private practice, Judge Readler served as Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division of the United States Department of Justice from 2017 to 2019. In that role, Judge Readler led and supervised over 1,000 lawyers in the Department’s largest litigating division, briefing and arguing several cases on behalf of the United States in federal courts across the country, including high-profile cases significant to the Administration and the Department. In March 2019, Judge Readler was confirmed to serve as a Circuit Judge on the Sixth Circuit. He resides in Columbus.
Professor Emerita of Law and Bioethics, University of Wisconsin
Alta Charo (BA biology Harvard ’79; JD law Columbia ’82) is professor emerita of law and bioethics at the University of Wisconsin and now works as a consultant to companies, government and NGOs on biotechnology ethics and regulatory policy. In government she worked for the congressional Office of Technology Assessment; USAID; and the FDA. She was a member of President Clinton's National Bioethic Advisory Commission, and has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; the American Association for the Advancement of Science; and the National Academy of Medicine, where she co-chaired its committees on stem cell research and on human genome editing governance.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit
John B. Nalbandian serves as a United States Circuit Judge from Kentucky on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. He was nominated and confirmed to that position in 2018. Prior to that, Judge Nalbandian was a partner in the litigation practice group of Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLP in Cincinnati, where he served as the firm’s lead appellate lawyer and also practiced complex litigation in state and federal courts. Judge Nalbandian was board certified by the Ohio State Bar Association as a specialist in appellate law. Prior to joining Taft, Judge Nalbandian practiced for five years in the appellate section of Jones Day in Washington, DC. Upon graduation from law school, Judge Nalbandian clerked for the Honorable Jerry E. Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in Houston. While in private practice, he also served as a board member of the State Justice Institute, a nonprofit organization established by the federal government to improve the administration of justice in state courts. He served as President of the Cincinnati Lawyers Chapter of the Federalist Society. He has also been involved in his community as a board member of the Greater Cincinnati Minority Counsel Program, and as a board member of the Asian Pacific Bar Association of Southwest Ohio. Judge Nalbandian earned his B.S., magna cum laude, from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and his J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law, where he was inducted into the Order of the Coif and served as managing editor of the Virginia Law Review.
President and Founding Board Member, Science Alliance for Life and Technology (SALT)
David A. Prentice, Ph.D. is President and Founding Board Member of the Science Alliance for Life and Technology (SALT) with almost 50 years’ experience as a scientific researcher, professor, academic leader and policy advisor. He is the former Advisory Board Chair and Founding Member for the Midwest Stem Cell Therapy Center, a unique comprehensive adult stem cell center in Kansas that he was instrumental in creating. Dr. Prentice established Stem Cell Research Facts, an educational website about adult stem cells. He earned his Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Kansas. His previous service includes at Los Alamos National Laboratory, Professor of Life Sciences as well as Acting Associate Dean of Arts and Sciences at Indiana State University, Adjunct Professor of Medical and Molecular Genetics at Indiana University School of Medicine, Adjunct Professor of Molecular Genetics at the John Paul II Institute at The Catholic University of America, Senior Fellow and Director for Life Sciences at the Family Research Council, and Vice President and Research Director at the Charlotte Lozier Institute. Dr. Prentice has provided scientific lectures, policy briefings, and legislative testimonies in 40 states and 21 countries, including before the U.S. House and Senate and numerous state legislatures, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the U.S. President’s Council on Bioethics, European Parliament, British Parliament, Canadian Parliament, Australian Parliament, German Bundestag, French Senate, Swedish Parliament, the United Nations, and the Vatican. In 2020, he was appointed by the Secretary of HHS to the federal Human Fetal Tissue Ethics Advisory Board. He has published numerous peer-reviewed scientific and bioethics articles, as well as public commentaries and op-eds, and travels nationally and internationally to give invited lectures and to advise professionals, policymakers, and the public regarding stem cell research, fetal tissue research, gene editing, cloning, embryology, cell, molecular and developmental biology, cell culture and vaccines, biochemistry, biotechnology, bioethics, and science policy.
Ethics & Public Policy Center, Robert Novak Journalism Fellow 2025
Katelyn Walls Shelton is a Visiting Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center’s Bioethics, Technology and Human Flourishing Program. She is a women’s health policy expert and, as a 2025-2026 recipient of the Robert Novak Journalism Fellowship, is conducting a year-long research project on reproductive biotechnology and human nature.
As the former Special Assistant for Global Women’s Health at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Ms. Shelton assisted in executing the Protecting Life in Global Health Policy (PLGHP) initiative at the United Nations and World Health Organization. A former Paul Ramsey Bioethics Fellow, she often writes on women’s reproductive health and the beginning of life.
Katelyn received a master’s degree in ethics from Yale Divinity School, where she also completed coursework at Yale Law, and a dual bachelor’s degree from Union University. She’s an inaugural opinion contributor to WORLD Magazine and her work and commentary have appeared in a diverse range of outlets, including Fox News, The Gospel Coalition, Washington Examiner, Slate, and Mother Jones, among others.
She and her husband, John, live with their four young children near Washington, D.C.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit
John K. Bush is a Circuit Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.
His chambers are in Louisville, Kentucky. Prior to joining the court, Judge Bush was a partner in the
Louisville office of the firm Bingham Greenebaum Doll (now Dentons Bingham Greenebaum),
where he also was co-chair of the firm’s litigation department. He began his legal practice in the
Washington, D.C. office of Gibson Dunn & Crutcher.
Judge Bush served as a law clerk for Judge J. Smith Henley of the United States Court of
Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. He was graduated summa cum laude from Vanderbilt University,
and cum laude from Harvard Law School. He is an adjunct lecturer at The George Washington
University Law School and the Brandeis School of Law at the University of Louisville.
Counsel, First Liberty Institute
Kayla Toney is Associate Counsel with First Liberty Institute, concentrating on religious liberty matters and First Amendment rights for clients of all faiths.
Prior to joining First Liberty, Kayla litigated religious freedom cases as a Constitutional Law Fellow at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. She clerked for Judge Gregory E. Maggs on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, where she gained valuable experience in the military justice system. Kayla also worked as a litigation associate in the D.C. office of Winston & Strawn LLP, where she enjoyed working on pro bono religious liberty matters.
Kayla earned her law degree from George Washington University, where she served as president of the Federalist Society chapter, a member of the GW International Law Review, and a writing fellow. She graduated summa cum laude from Grove City College with a degree in history and economics.
A native of Michigan, Kayla is based in First Liberty’s Washington, D.C. office and is licensed to practice law in Virginia and D.C.
Associate Counsel, Clement & Murphy, PLLC
Kevin’s practice focuses on briefing complex legal issues at all levels of the federal court system. Before joining Clement & Murphy, Kevin served as a Trial Attorney in the Department of Justice’s Civil Division, where he briefed and argued high-profile cases challenging federal laws as well as Executive Branch policies and decisions. Those cases involved both merits and discovery issues concerning a wide range of constitutional provisions, the Administrative Procedure Act, the Privacy Act, the Freedom of Information Act, Title VII, and various national security issues, including habeas litigation involving Guantanamo Bay detainees.
Kevin earned his J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, where he was an Executive Editor of the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, a member of the Supreme Court Clinic, a Littleton Fellow in legal writing, and a member of the Moot Court Board. After graduating from Penn, Kevin clerked for Judge David Sentelle of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, Judge D. Brooks Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, and Judge Royce Lamberth of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
Principal Deputy Solicitor General, Commonwealth of Virginia
Erika Maley was the Solicitor General of the Commonwealth of Virginia, representing the Commonwealth and its agencies in state and federal courts of appeals. Erika was previously a partner in the Supreme Court and Appellate group at Sidley Austin LLP, and a trial attorney in the Federal Programs Branch of the Civil Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. She has handled cases before the United States Supreme Court, Virginia Supreme Court, courts of appeals and district courts, involving a wide range of constitutional, statutory and administrative law issues. Erika also served as a law clerk both for Associate Justice Stephen G. Breyer of the United States Supreme Court and for Chief Judge Alex Kozinski of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. She earned her law degree from Stanford Law School and her B.A. from Duke University.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit
John B. Nalbandian serves as a United States Circuit Judge from Kentucky on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. He was nominated and confirmed to that position in 2018. Prior to that, Judge Nalbandian was a partner in the litigation practice group of Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLP in Cincinnati, where he served as the firm’s lead appellate lawyer and also practiced complex litigation in state and federal courts. Judge Nalbandian was board certified by the Ohio State Bar Association as a specialist in appellate law. Prior to joining Taft, Judge Nalbandian practiced for five years in the appellate section of Jones Day in Washington, DC. Upon graduation from law school, Judge Nalbandian clerked for the Honorable Jerry E. Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in Houston. While in private practice, he also served as a board member of the State Justice Institute, a nonprofit organization established by the federal government to improve the administration of justice in state courts. He served as President of the Cincinnati Lawyers Chapter of the Federalist Society. He has also been involved in his community as a board member of the Greater Cincinnati Minority Counsel Program, and as a board member of the Asian Pacific Bar Association of Southwest Ohio. Judge Nalbandian earned his B.S., magna cum laude, from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and his J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law, where he was inducted into the Order of the Coif and served as managing editor of the Virginia Law Review.
Dan Schweitzer is the Director and Chief Counsel of the National Association of Attorneys General’s Center for Supreme Court Advocacy. Since joining NAAG in February 1996, his principal responsibility has been to assist state appellate litigators who appear before the United States Supreme Court. Toward this end, Mr. Schweitzer organizes and participates in moot courts, edits about 20 state briefs filed each year in the Court, edits the biweekly Supreme Court Report, and provides strategic and technical assistance to state Attorney General offices. Prior to joining NAAG, Mr. Schweitzer was a litigator at a private law firm. He is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania (B.A. 1986) and Harvard Law School (J.D. 1989).
Among Mr. Schweitzer’s publications are How to Write a Successful Brief in Opposition: A Guide for State Lawyers (NAGTRI 2019); How to Write a Successful Cert Petition: A Guide for State Lawyers (NAGTRI 2019); U.S. Supreme Court Brief Writing Style Guide, 19 J. of App. Practice & Process 129 (2018); The Law of Preemption (NAGTRI 2011); Frustrated with Preemption: Why Courts Should Rarely Displace State Law Under the Doctrine of Frustration Preemption, 65 N.Y.U. Annual Survey of American Law 585 (2010) (with Kevin O. Leske); and Fundamentals of Preparing a United States Supreme Court Amicus Brief, 5 J. of App. Practice & Process 523 (2003).
Mr. Schweitzer is a Master in the Edward Coke Appellate Inn of Court and on the Advisory Board of the Georgetown University Law Center’s Supreme Court Institute.
General Counsel, University of Kentucky & Former Solicitor General of Virginia, University of Kentucky
William E. Thro, the General Counsel of the University of Kentucky, is an accomplished university attorney, appellate advocate, and legal scholar.
As the Chief Legal Officer for the University of Kentucky, he provides proactive strategic advice on critical legal and policy issues confronting a public flagship land grant research university with an integrated academic medical center and a high profile athletics program. Before assuming his present position in 2012, he spent more than twenty years representing public universities including eight years as the first in-house counsel at Christopher Newport University.
As Solicitor General of Virginia for four years, he was responsible for the Virginia State Government’s U.S. Supreme Court litigation (except capital cases) as well as lower court appeals involving the constitutionality of statutes or politically sensitive issues. He argued two cases in the U.S. Supreme Court and numerous cases in the lower appellate courts. He co-authored seven U.S. Court merits briefs, eleven U.S. Supreme Court amicus briefs, and more than fifty briefs at the petition stage. He received two Best Brief Awards from the National Association of Attorneys General.
As a legal scholar, he focuses on constitutional law in educational contexts. He has more than sixty publications in law reviews or peer reviewed journals as well as numerous monographs, book chapters, and encyclopedia entries. In recognition of his scholarly work, he received Stetson University’s Kaplin Award for Excellence in Higher Education Law & Policy Scholarship (2014) and became a Fellow of both the National Education Finance Conference (2012) and the National Association of College and University Attorneys (2007).
He has served as President of the Education Law Association, Chair of the Virginia Bar Association’s Appellate Practice Section, Board Chair for a local Red Cross Chapter, on the Boards of both the National Association of College & University Attorneys and the National Education Finance Academy, and an Elder in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
A native of Kentucky, he received his undergraduate degree summa cum laude from Hanover College. In addition to receiving the Crowe Citation as the outstanding male in his class, he was the first Hanover student to become a Harry S. Truman Scholar. He earned a graduate degree with honours from the University of Melbourne while attending as a Rotary Foundation International Ambassadorial Scholar. His law degree is from the University of Virginia where he was a published member of the VIRGINIA LAW REVIEW and research assistant to constitutional law professor A.E. Dick Howard. He began his legal career as a judicial clerk to the late Judge Ronald E. Meredith of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Kentucky in Louisville.
He is married to the Rev. Dr. Julie Urback Thro and has two children in college (Sandra, Will) and one in high school (Noah).
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