Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, U.S. Department of Justice
Harmeet K. Dhillon is the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Justice. She was nominated by President Donald Trump in December 2024. She was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on April 3, 2025, and sworn in as AAG by Attorney General Pam Bondi on April 7, 2025.
Prior to joining the Division, Ms. Dhillon founded both the Dhillon Law Group, Inc., a successful legal practice with offices in California, Florida, Virginia, and New Jersey; and the Center for American Liberty, a nonprofit organization dedicated to pursuing civil liberties legal claims. Her law practice focused on First Amendment / free speech, civil rights, and campaign and election law issues. Among her many notable cases, Ms. Dhillon brought legal challenges against the University of California, Berkeley over its free speech policy, against an Antifa organization for an assault on a conservative journalist, against several states for their restrictive responses to Covid-19, and against various large tech companies for a host of civil rights issues.
Assistant Attorney General Dhillon was born in Chandigarh, India, and lived in London before moving to The Bronx, New York. Her family ultimately settled in rural Smithfield, North Carolina. After graduating high school at age 16, Ms. Dhillon attended Dartmouth College where she became editor-in-chief of The Dartmouth Review. After earning her bachelor’s degree in Classical Studies, she attended the University of Virginia School of Law and served on the editorial board of the Virginia Law Review. She later clerked for the Honorable Paul V. Niemeyer of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in Baltimore, Maryland.
Judge, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas
Hon. Charles Eskridge, Judge, United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas, Houston Division, was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and arrived in Houston, Texas, at the age of 11 with his parents in 1974.
Judge Eskridge received a B.S. from Trinity University and a J.D. from Pepperdine University School of Law. He served as a law clerk to Chief Judge Charles Clark of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, as a law clerk to Justice Byron White of the Supreme Court of the United States, and as a special assistant to the Hon. Howard Holtzmann of the Iran/U.S. Claims Tribunal in The Hague.
From 1994 to 2019, Judge Eskridge was in private practice in Houston, Texas, litigating complex commercial disputes. He teaches Origins of the Federal Constitution at the University of Houston Law Center and has served as the Distinguished Visiting Practitioner of Law at the Pepperdine University School of Law.
President Donald J. Trump nominated him to the federal bench on May 3, 2019. Following confirmation by the Senate, Judge Eskridge took his seat on October 22, 2019.
Chair, United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
Attorney General of Tennessee
Jonathan Skrmetti was sworn in to an eight-year term as Tennessee’s Attorney General and Reporter on September 1, 2022.
Prior to his current role, General Skrmetti served as Chief Counsel to Governor Bill Lee and as Chief Deputy Attorney General to his predecessor, Tennessee Attorney General Herbert Slatery.
Before working for the State of Tennessee, General Skrmetti was a partner at Butler Snow LLP in Memphis. His legal career began with nearly a decade as a federal prosecutor. He worked at the Civil Rights Division at Main Justice and then at the Memphis U.S. Attorney’s Office and prosecuted sex traffickers, corrupt government officials, and violent white supremacists. In addition, General Skrmetti taught cyberlaw as an adjunct professor at the University of Memphis.
General Skrmetti earned honors degrees from George Washington University, the University of Oxford, and Harvard Law School, where he was editor-in-chief of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy. Following law school, Jonathan clerked for Judge Steven Colloton on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. He lives in Franklin, Tennessee, with his wife and four children.
District Judge, United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas
Judge Brantley Starr was appointed to United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas in August 2019. Before his appointment, Judge Starr was the Deputy First Assistant Attorney General of Texas. Prior to that appointment, he served as Deputy Attorney General for Legal Counsel. From 2011 to 2015, Judge Starr served as career staff attorney to Texas Supreme Court Justice Eva Guzman. From 2008 to 2011, he practiced at King & Spalding, LLP. He served in the Office of the Solicitor General from 2006 to 2008. Prior to that, Judge Starr clerked for then-Justice Don Willett on the Texas Supreme Court after serving at the Office of the Attorney General. Judge Starr received his law degree from the University of Texas School of Law and his bachelor of arts degree from Abilene Christian University in 2001. Judge Starr has taught the Origins of the Constitution Class at the University of Texas law, Texas A&M law, and SMU law.
Director, Supreme Court Litigation Clinic, University of Virginia School of Law
Xiao Wang is director of the Supreme Court Litigation Clinic. He has led appeals and argued cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, the federal courts of appeals, and other federal courts and agencies. In addition, he organizes the En Banc Institute and supervises the National Appellate Clinic Network, which was recognized as a finalist for Bloomberg Law’s Law School Innovation Program. Wang previously worked as a litigator at Williams & Connolly and Wilkinson Stekloff, where he led investigations or litigation on behalf of Mars, Under Armour and the National Football League.
Wang writes about federal courts, constitutional law, and law and religion. His work has appeared in the Michigan Law Review, Vanderbilt Law Review and Columbia Law Review Forum, and his popular writing has appeared in Bloomberg, the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times.
Prior to joining the Law School, Wang taught at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law as a clinical assistant professor and director of the Appellate Advocacy Center, where he supervised the Supreme Court and Federal Appellate clinics. Wang clerked for Judge Karen N. Moore of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and Judge Lucy H. Koh of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. He earned his B.A. in economics and master’s in public policy from the University of Virginia, where he was a Jefferson Scholar. He earned his J.D. from Yale Law School, where he was a Truman Scholar. Before law school, he worked as a consultant at McKinsey & Co.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit
Judge Menashi was appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on November 14, 2019. Previously, he served as special assistant and associate counsel to the President in the White House and as acting general counsel at the U.S. Department of Education. He was assistant professor of law at Scalia Law School, George Mason University, where he taught administrative law and civil procedure, and a research fellow at New York University School of Law and Georgetown University Law Center. He was also a partner at Kirkland & Ellis LLP in New York, where he practiced appellate and commercial litigation, and served as a law clerk to Justice Samuel Alito on the Supreme Court of the United States and to Judge Douglas Ginsburg on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He graduated from Stanford Law School, where he was elected to Order of the Coif and served as senior articles editor of the Stanford Law Review, and from Dartmouth College, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.
Attorney General of Tennessee
Jonathan Skrmetti was sworn in to an eight-year term as Tennessee’s Attorney General and Reporter on September 1, 2022.
Prior to his current role, General Skrmetti served as Chief Counsel to Governor Bill Lee and as Chief Deputy Attorney General to his predecessor, Tennessee Attorney General Herbert Slatery.
Before working for the State of Tennessee, General Skrmetti was a partner at Butler Snow LLP in Memphis. His legal career began with nearly a decade as a federal prosecutor. He worked at the Civil Rights Division at Main Justice and then at the Memphis U.S. Attorney’s Office and prosecuted sex traffickers, corrupt government officials, and violent white supremacists. In addition, General Skrmetti taught cyberlaw as an adjunct professor at the University of Memphis.
General Skrmetti earned honors degrees from George Washington University, the University of Oxford, and Harvard Law School, where he was editor-in-chief of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy. Following law school, Jonathan clerked for Judge Steven Colloton on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. He lives in Franklin, Tennessee, with his wife and four children.
Attorney General, State of Ohio
Dave Yost was re-elected as Ohio’s 51st attorney general on Nov. 8, 2022, receiving more votes than any other attorney general in the state’s history.
During his first term as the state’s chief legal officer, he quickly gained a national reputation as a fearless advocate for the rule of law — or, as he puts it, “the same rules for everybody.”
Yost’s goal is to “do big good” for the people of Ohio by protecting consumers, rooting out corruption, defending the environment, ensuring an open and competitive marketplace, and fulfilling the many other duties of the Ohio Attorney General’s Office.
Yost began his public-service career as Delaware County auditor, later winning election as that county’s prosecutor. From 2011 through 2018, he served as Ohio’s auditor of state and, in January 2019, began his first term as attorney general.
Yost earned his bachelor’s degree from The Ohio State University and law degree from Capital University. He and his wife, Darlene, live in Franklin County; they have three grown children and five grandchildren.
Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, U.S. Department of Justice
Harmeet K. Dhillon is the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Justice. She was nominated by President Donald Trump in December 2024. She was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on April 3, 2025, and sworn in as AAG by Attorney General Pam Bondi on April 7, 2025.
Prior to joining the Division, Ms. Dhillon founded both the Dhillon Law Group, Inc., a successful legal practice with offices in California, Florida, Virginia, and New Jersey; and the Center for American Liberty, a nonprofit organization dedicated to pursuing civil liberties legal claims. Her law practice focused on First Amendment / free speech, civil rights, and campaign and election law issues. Among her many notable cases, Ms. Dhillon brought legal challenges against the University of California, Berkeley over its free speech policy, against an Antifa organization for an assault on a conservative journalist, against several states for their restrictive responses to Covid-19, and against various large tech companies for a host of civil rights issues.
Assistant Attorney General Dhillon was born in Chandigarh, India, and lived in London before moving to The Bronx, New York. Her family ultimately settled in rural Smithfield, North Carolina. After graduating high school at age 16, Ms. Dhillon attended Dartmouth College where she became editor-in-chief of The Dartmouth Review. After earning her bachelor’s degree in Classical Studies, she attended the University of Virginia School of Law and served on the editorial board of the Virginia Law Review. She later clerked for the Honorable Paul V. Niemeyer of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in Baltimore, Maryland.
Judge, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas
Hon. Charles Eskridge, Judge, United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas, Houston Division, was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and arrived in Houston, Texas, at the age of 11 with his parents in 1974.
Judge Eskridge received a B.S. from Trinity University and a J.D. from Pepperdine University School of Law. He served as a law clerk to Chief Judge Charles Clark of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, as a law clerk to Justice Byron White of the Supreme Court of the United States, and as a special assistant to the Hon. Howard Holtzmann of the Iran/U.S. Claims Tribunal in The Hague.
From 1994 to 2019, Judge Eskridge was in private practice in Houston, Texas, litigating complex commercial disputes. He teaches Origins of the Federal Constitution at the University of Houston Law Center and has served as the Distinguished Visiting Practitioner of Law at the Pepperdine University School of Law.
President Donald J. Trump nominated him to the federal bench on May 3, 2019. Following confirmation by the Senate, Judge Eskridge took his seat on October 22, 2019.
Chair, United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
Attorney General of Tennessee
Jonathan Skrmetti was sworn in to an eight-year term as Tennessee’s Attorney General and Reporter on September 1, 2022.
Prior to his current role, General Skrmetti served as Chief Counsel to Governor Bill Lee and as Chief Deputy Attorney General to his predecessor, Tennessee Attorney General Herbert Slatery.
Before working for the State of Tennessee, General Skrmetti was a partner at Butler Snow LLP in Memphis. His legal career began with nearly a decade as a federal prosecutor. He worked at the Civil Rights Division at Main Justice and then at the Memphis U.S. Attorney’s Office and prosecuted sex traffickers, corrupt government officials, and violent white supremacists. In addition, General Skrmetti taught cyberlaw as an adjunct professor at the University of Memphis.
General Skrmetti earned honors degrees from George Washington University, the University of Oxford, and Harvard Law School, where he was editor-in-chief of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy. Following law school, Jonathan clerked for Judge Steven Colloton on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. He lives in Franklin, Tennessee, with his wife and four children.
Director, Supreme Court Litigation Clinic, University of Virginia School of Law
Xiao Wang is director of the Supreme Court Litigation Clinic. He has led appeals and argued cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, the federal courts of appeals, and other federal courts and agencies. In addition, he organizes the En Banc Institute and supervises the National Appellate Clinic Network, which was recognized as a finalist for Bloomberg Law’s Law School Innovation Program. Wang previously worked as a litigator at Williams & Connolly and Wilkinson Stekloff, where he led investigations or litigation on behalf of Mars, Under Armour and the National Football League.
Wang writes about federal courts, constitutional law, and law and religion. His work has appeared in the Michigan Law Review, Vanderbilt Law Review and Columbia Law Review Forum, and his popular writing has appeared in Bloomberg, the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times.
Prior to joining the Law School, Wang taught at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law as a clinical assistant professor and director of the Appellate Advocacy Center, where he supervised the Supreme Court and Federal Appellate clinics. Wang clerked for Judge Karen N. Moore of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and Judge Lucy H. Koh of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. He earned his B.A. in economics and master’s in public policy from the University of Virginia, where he was a Jefferson Scholar. He earned his J.D. from Yale Law School, where he was a Truman Scholar. Before law school, he worked as a consultant at McKinsey & Co.
District Judge, United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas
Judge Brantley Starr was appointed to United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas in August 2019. Before his appointment, Judge Starr was the Deputy First Assistant Attorney General of Texas. Prior to that appointment, he served as Deputy Attorney General for Legal Counsel. From 2011 to 2015, Judge Starr served as career staff attorney to Texas Supreme Court Justice Eva Guzman. From 2008 to 2011, he practiced at King & Spalding, LLP. He served in the Office of the Solicitor General from 2006 to 2008. Prior to that, Judge Starr clerked for then-Justice Don Willett on the Texas Supreme Court after serving at the Office of the Attorney General. Judge Starr received his law degree from the University of Texas School of Law and his bachelor of arts degree from Abilene Christian University in 2001. Judge Starr has taught the Origins of the Constitution Class at the University of Texas law, Texas A&M law, and SMU law.
Deputy Attorney General, Department of Justice
The Honorable Todd Blanche is the 40th Deputy Attorney General of the United States, overseeing the work of the 115,000 dedicated employees who fulfill the Department of Justice’s mission at Main Justice, the FBI, DEA, U.S. Marshals, ATF, and 93 U.S. Attorney’s Offices.
Todd began his career at the Department where he served for over fifteen years in a variety of capacities, including as a contractor, a paralegal in the Criminal Division, and at the United States Attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York where he eventually became an AUSA and later a supervisor.
After leaving the Department, Todd worked as a criminal defense attorney that included representing President Donald Trump in three of the criminal cases brought against him in 2023 and 2024.
Following President Trump’s historic return to the White House, the President appointed Todd to work alongside Attorney General Pam Bondi to make America safe again. At the DOJ, Todd is working tirelessly to implement President Trump’s priorities that include confronting illegal protecting American businesses from fraud.
Todd has been married to his wonderful wife Kristine for nearly thirty years, is the father of two, and the grandfather of one.
President and Co-Founder, America First Legal Foundation
Gene Hamilton is the President of America First Legal, which he co-founded, and where he was previously the Executive Director, Executive Vice President, and General Counsel. He most recently served as Deputy White House Counsel to President Donald Trump. Earlier in his career, Gene served as Counselor to Attorney General at the U.S. Department of Justice and as Senior Counselor to the Secretary of Homeland Security. He also served as General Counsel on the Senate Judiciary Committee and held several roles at the Department of Homeland Security, including with U.S. Immigration Enforcement, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the Office of the General Counsel. He holds a B.A. from the University of Georgia and a J.D. from Washington and Lee University School of Law.
President, Harvard Student Chapter
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit
Judge Menashi was appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on November 14, 2019. Previously, he served as special assistant and associate counsel to the President in the White House and as acting general counsel at the U.S. Department of Education. He was assistant professor of law at Scalia Law School, George Mason University, where he taught administrative law and civil procedure, and a research fellow at New York University School of Law and Georgetown University Law Center. He was also a partner at Kirkland & Ellis LLP in New York, where he practiced appellate and commercial litigation, and served as a law clerk to Justice Samuel Alito on the Supreme Court of the United States and to Judge Douglas Ginsburg on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He graduated from Stanford Law School, where he was elected to Order of the Coif and served as senior articles editor of the Stanford Law Review, and from Dartmouth College, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.
Attorney General of Tennessee
Jonathan Skrmetti was sworn in to an eight-year term as Tennessee’s Attorney General and Reporter on September 1, 2022.
Prior to his current role, General Skrmetti served as Chief Counsel to Governor Bill Lee and as Chief Deputy Attorney General to his predecessor, Tennessee Attorney General Herbert Slatery.
Before working for the State of Tennessee, General Skrmetti was a partner at Butler Snow LLP in Memphis. His legal career began with nearly a decade as a federal prosecutor. He worked at the Civil Rights Division at Main Justice and then at the Memphis U.S. Attorney’s Office and prosecuted sex traffickers, corrupt government officials, and violent white supremacists. In addition, General Skrmetti taught cyberlaw as an adjunct professor at the University of Memphis.
General Skrmetti earned honors degrees from George Washington University, the University of Oxford, and Harvard Law School, where he was editor-in-chief of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy. Following law school, Jonathan clerked for Judge Steven Colloton on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. He lives in Franklin, Tennessee, with his wife and four children.
Attorney General, State of Ohio
Dave Yost was re-elected as Ohio’s 51st attorney general on Nov. 8, 2022, receiving more votes than any other attorney general in the state’s history.
During his first term as the state’s chief legal officer, he quickly gained a national reputation as a fearless advocate for the rule of law — or, as he puts it, “the same rules for everybody.”
Yost’s goal is to “do big good” for the people of Ohio by protecting consumers, rooting out corruption, defending the environment, ensuring an open and competitive marketplace, and fulfilling the many other duties of the Ohio Attorney General’s Office.
Yost began his public-service career as Delaware County auditor, later winning election as that county’s prosecutor. From 2011 through 2018, he served as Ohio’s auditor of state and, in January 2019, began his first term as attorney general.
Yost earned his bachelor’s degree from The Ohio State University and law degree from Capital University. He and his wife, Darlene, live in Franklin County; they have three grown children and five grandchildren.
CANCELED: Is There (or Will There Be) a Constitutional Crisis?
Dayton Lawyer Chapter
Dayton, OHAn Inside Look at the Department of Justice and White House Counsel's Office
Pennsylvania Student Chapter
Philadelphia, PACivil Rights, Equally Applied
The second Trump administration is aggressively prosecuting civil rights violations, with new priorities scrutinizing universities...
Civil Rights, Equally Applied
Harmeet K. Dhillon, Charles R. Eskridge, Andrea R. Lucas, Jonathan Skrmetti, Xiao Wang, Brantley Starr
CLE credit for this event is available at On-Demand CLE. The second Trump administration is aggressively...
Civil Rights, Equally Applied
Civil Rights Practice Group
Washington, DCFireside Chat with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche
Todd W. Blanche, Gene P. Hamilton, Benjamin Rioja Paris
Featuring: Hon. Todd Blanche, Deputy Attorney General, United States Department of Justice Moderator: Mr. Gene P....
The States and the Future of Fair Competition
The next chapter in U.S. antitrust and consumer protection enforcement is already being written. Regulated...
The States and the Future of Fair Competition
Steven J. Menashi, Jonathan Skrmetti, Dave Yost
CLE credit for this event is available at On-Demand CLE. The next chapter in U.S. antitrust...
The States and the Future of Fair Competition
Antitrust & Consumer Protection Practice Group
Washington, DCRace and Redistricting: How Are We to Understand the VRA?
The Voting Rights Act (VRA) is at a crossroads. Section Two of the VRA forbids...