Partner, Torridon Law PLLC
Mike Fragoso is a seasoned legal and policy strategist. Most recently he served as chief counsel to Senate Republican Leader, Mitch McConnell. He has negotiated consequential legislation, managed successful congressional oversight, and prepared individuals for the most contentious Senate hearings.
As chief counsel to Leader McConnell Mike was the Leader’s primary legal advisor and managed the “last mile” of any legislation touching on the Senate Judiciary Committee. He ran the 2024 reauthorization of FISA Section 702 and was involved at the highest levels of the appropriations and budget-reconciliation processes. Mike also repeatedly represented Leader McConnell as counsel of record at the Supreme Court. Leader McConnell said of Mike that he’s “equally at home in the high-minded philosophical discourse of the legal community and the urgent pragmatism of Congressional dealmaking,” and that he “maintains a firm grasp on the realm of the possible” but “knows which screws to twist.” He observed that Mike “is so exceptionally competent that he often produces from his desk the work that would normally require, literally, teams of outside counsel.”
Mike previously was chief counsel for nominations and constitutional law for the Senate Judiciary Committee under Ranking Member Chuck Grassley and Chairman Lindsey Graham. During this time he advised the Senators on two presidential impeachments, ran multiple policy hearings, and managed the confirmation process for over 80 federal judges, including Justice Amy Coney Barrett. Chairman Graham described Mike as “a force of nature.”
During the first Trump administration Mike was deputy assistant attorney general in the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Policy where he ran the Department’s efforts in support of judicial nominations and prepared over 100 nominees for Senate hearings.
Earlier in his career Mike was legislative director to former Senator Jeff Flake and chief counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology and the Law. There he led the oversight and repeal of the FCC’s broadband-privacy rule and was Senator Flake’s top advisor on the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017.
He frequently comments on public affairs and his writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, National Review, and the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy.
Mike also served as a law clerk to Judge Diane Sykes of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.
Associate Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University
Robert Luther III was appointed Associate Professor of Law in 2025 after serving as Distinguished Professor of Law from 2024-2025 and Adjunct Professor of Law from 2019-2024. He teaches and writes on the federal courts, legal and judicial ethics, political law, Congress, and professional sports. He has served at high levels in all three branches of the federal government and recently founded Constitutional Solutions PLLC—a law firm that navigates judicial candidates, judges, elected officials, professional athletes, and executives through high-stakes hearings, investigations, and reputational attacks.
Immediately before joining the Scalia Law faculty, Professor Luther spent over five years in the Washington, D.C. office of Jones Day, where his practice focused on strategic counseling, crisis management, and litigation. Prior to joining Jones Day, he served as Associate Counsel to the President of the United States in the White House Counsel’s Office. In the White House, he co-managed the judicial selection process and supervised the preparation of over 150 federal judicial nominees for their successful U.S. Senate confirmation hearings. The New York Times Magazine referred to his work on judicial selection during this period as “unique in White House history.” Before joining the White House, Professor Luther served as Counsel to then–U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) on the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, where he served as a core member of the team that prepared the Senator for confirmation as United States Attorney General. Professor Luther was also a law clerk to Judge Daniel A. Manion of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. Earlier in his career, Professor Luther practiced civil and appellate litigation at a boutique firm in Williamsburg, Va. and taught at William & Mary Law School.
Professor Luther frequently speaks on the legal profession, political law, and federal judicial selection. His public work has been covered by or appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Fox News, The Hill, Politico, the Washington Examiner, National Law Journal, Law360, The Washington Reporter, and elsewhere, while his scholarship is published in the law journals of nearly twenty universities including three journals of Harvard University. He holds active law licenses in Virginia, the District of Columbia, the U.S. Supreme Court, and half of the U.S. Courts of Appeals.
In 2025, Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin appointed Professor Luther to the Board of Visitors to Mount Vernon. He is an elected member of the American Law Institute (ALI) and serves on the Advisory Board of the Wilson Center for Leadership at Hampden-Sydney College. Since 2019, he has helped over 200 of his students secure clerkships with federal judges.
United States District Judge, United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida
In November 2020, the Senate confirmed Kathryn Kimball Mizelle as a United States District Judge for the Middle District of Florida. At age 33, she became the youngest Article III judge in the country. Prior to her confirmation, Judge Mizelle was in private practice at Jones Day, where she focused on complex civil and criminal litigation and appeals. Judge Mizelle previously served at the United States Department of Justice in the Office of the Associate Attorney General, in the Southern Criminal Enforcement Section of the Tax Division, and in the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia. Judge Mizelle has also taught as an adjunct professor of law at the University of Florida Levin College of Law and at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School.
Judge Mizelle earned her B.A., summa cum laude, from Covenant College, and her J.D., summa cum laude, from the University of Florida Levin College of Law. After graduation, Judge Mizelle served as a law clerk at every level of the federal judiciary: at the Supreme Court for Justice Clarence Thomas, at the D.C. Circuit for Judge Gregory G. Katsas, at the Eleventh Circuit for Chief Judge William H. Pryor Jr., and at the Middle District of Florida for Judge James S. Moody Jr.
Partner, Clement & Murphy, PLLC
Paul served as the 43rd Solicitor General of the United States from June 2005 until June 2008. Before his confirmation as Solicitor General, he served as Acting Solicitor General for nearly a year and as Principal Deputy Solicitor General for over three years.
Paul has argued over 100 cases before the United States Supreme Court, including McConnell v. FEC, Tennessee v. Lane, United States v. Booker, MGM v. Grokster, Hobby Lobby v. Burwell, Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis, Rucho v. Common Cause, Facebook v. Duguid, and TransUnion v. Ramirez. Paul has argued more Supreme Court cases since 2000 than any lawyer in or out of government. He has also argued many important cases in the lower courts, including Walker v. Cheney, United States v. Moussaoui and NFL v. Brady.
Paul’s practice focuses on appellate matters, constitutional litigation and strategic counseling. He represents a broad array of clients in the Supreme Court and in federal and state appellate courts. Last year, for example, he successfully argued Supreme Court cases involving significant issues of energy regulation, statutory interpretation, state sovereign immunity and Article III standing, and successfully argued a trademark appeal in the Fourth Circuit, and a constitutional appeal before the en banc Eleventh Circuit.
Paul focuses on high-stakes appeals. In recent years, he successfully defended a $1.2 billion jury verdict for clients in a Tenth Circuit case, while securing the reversal of an over $2 billion jury verdict for another client in the Seventh Circuit and the approval of a nearly $1 billion dollar class action settlement in the Third Circuit. He has initiated major administrative law challenges and constitutional litigation against the federal government, such as the successful challenge to the HHS drug-pricing rule and threatened challenges that led to the withdrawal of the Treasury Department’s proposed cryptocurrency regulations. He also counsels clients on a variety of strategic legal questions, whether arising from pending legislation, government inquiries or ongoing litigation.
Paul has undertaken substantial pro bono engagements in the Supreme Court, such as twice successfully representing the defendant in Bond v. United States and successfully representing the Omaha Tribe in Nebraska v. Parker, the guardian ad litem in Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl, the defendant in Sekhar v. United States, a high school football coach in Kennedy v. Bremerton, and the Little Sisters of the Poor. Paul’s pro bono representation also precipitated the federal government’s confession of error in United States v. Rojas.
Following law school, Paul clerked for Judge Laurence H. Silberman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and for Associate Justice Antonin Scalia of the U.S. Supreme Court. After his clerkships, he went on to serve as Chief Counsel of the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution, Federalism and Property Rights.
Paul is a Distinguished Lecturer in Law at the Georgetown University Law Center, where he has taught in various capacities since 1998. He also serves as a Senior Fellow of the Law Center’s Supreme Court Institute. He is the Justice Joseph Story Distinguished Practitioner in Residence at the Gray Center at Scalia Law School.
United States District Judge, United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida
In November 2020, the Senate confirmed Kathryn Kimball Mizelle as a United States District Judge for the Middle District of Florida. At age 33, she became the youngest Article III judge in the country. Prior to her confirmation, Judge Mizelle was in private practice at Jones Day, where she focused on complex civil and criminal litigation and appeals. Judge Mizelle previously served at the United States Department of Justice in the Office of the Associate Attorney General, in the Southern Criminal Enforcement Section of the Tax Division, and in the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia. Judge Mizelle has also taught as an adjunct professor of law at the University of Florida Levin College of Law and at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School.
Judge Mizelle earned her B.A., summa cum laude, from Covenant College, and her J.D., summa cum laude, from the University of Florida Levin College of Law. After graduation, Judge Mizelle served as a law clerk at every level of the federal judiciary: at the Supreme Court for Justice Clarence Thomas, at the D.C. Circuit for Judge Gregory G. Katsas, at the Eleventh Circuit for Chief Judge William H. Pryor Jr., and at the Middle District of Florida for Judge James S. Moody Jr.
Partner, Consovoy McCarthy PLLC
Mr. Norris helps clients win important questions of federal law in trial and appellate courts across the country. He has represented prominent nonprofits, many States, the Republican Party, and the former President of the United States. He has argued in eight of the twelve federal circuits and twice at the U.S. Supreme Court, including the landmark case Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard.
Mr. Norris is barred in Tennessee and Virginia, and is an elected member of the American Law Institute. Mr. Norris lives with his family in Knoxville, Tennessee.
Solicitor General, Tennessee Attorney General's Office
Matt Rice serves as the Solicitor General of Tennessee. Before joining the State, Matt worked in private practice at Williams & Connolly LLP. He clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas on the United States Supreme Court as well as Judge Sandra Ikuta on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Before his legal career, Matt played professional baseball in the Tampa Bay Rays organization.
Solicitor General, Mississippi Attorney General's Office
Scott G. Stewart is the Solicitor General of Mississippi. He has litigated and presented oral argument in the U.S. Supreme Court, in all regional federal courts of appeals, and in trial-level courts across the country. Stewart previously served as a Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the U.S. Department of Justice and worked in private practice as a litigator. He served as a law clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas of the Supreme Court of the United States and to Judge Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Stewart graduated from Princeton University and Stanford Law School.
United States District Judge, Middle District of Florida
John L. Badalamenti is a United States District Judge for the Middle District of Florida and a former judge on Florida’s Second District Court of Appeal. He earned a Bachelor of Arts in Criminology and Law with Highest Honors and a Master of Arts Degree in Sociology from the University of Florida, and a Juris Doctor with Honors from the University of Florida Levin College of Law, where he served as an editor for the University of Florida Journal of Law and Public Policy.
After law school, he accepted an appointment to the United States Attorney General’s Honors Program, serving as legal counsel to the Federal Bureau of Prisons in Atlanta. Judge Badalamenti served as a law clerk to both the Honorable Frank Mays Hull and the late Honorable Paul H. Roney of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. He served for nearly a decade as an Assistant Federal Public Defender in Tampa. He represented clients in the federal trial and appellate courts and presented oral argument for the prevailing petitioner in Yates v. United States, 574 U.S. 528 (2015).
Judge Badalamenti serves as an Adjunct Professor of Law at the University of Florida Levin College of Law, where he teaches an originalism seminar.
U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida
Prior to joining the federal bench, Judge Barber served as a Circuit Judge in the criminal division of the Thirteenth Judicial Circuit, where he has served since his appointment by the Governor in 2008. As a Circuit Judge he has handled the full range of civil and criminal cases. He previously served for four years as a Hillsborough County Court Judge. Upon graduation from law school, Judge Barber practiced for five years in the trial and business litigation department of Carlton Fields, P.A. He then served as an Assistant Statewide Prosecutor in the Office of Statewide Prosecution and as an Assistant State Attorney for the Thirteenth Judicial Circuit. Upon completion of his service as a prosecutor he returned to Carlton Fields, P.A., where his practice focused on business litigation until his appointment to the bench.
Judge Barber earned his B.A. from the University of Florida, where he was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa, and his J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania Law School.
United States District Judge, United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida
In November 2020, the Senate confirmed Kathryn Kimball Mizelle as a United States District Judge for the Middle District of Florida. At age 33, she became the youngest Article III judge in the country. Prior to her confirmation, Judge Mizelle was in private practice at Jones Day, where she focused on complex civil and criminal litigation and appeals. Judge Mizelle previously served at the United States Department of Justice in the Office of the Associate Attorney General, in the Southern Criminal Enforcement Section of the Tax Division, and in the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia. Judge Mizelle has also taught as an adjunct professor of law at the University of Florida Levin College of Law and at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School.
Judge Mizelle earned her B.A., summa cum laude, from Covenant College, and her J.D., summa cum laude, from the University of Florida Levin College of Law. After graduation, Judge Mizelle served as a law clerk at every level of the federal judiciary: at the Supreme Court for Justice Clarence Thomas, at the D.C. Circuit for Judge Gregory G. Katsas, at the Eleventh Circuit for Chief Judge William H. Pryor Jr., and at the Middle District of Florida for Judge James S. Moody Jr.
Magistrate Judge, U.S. District Court, Middle District of Florida
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit
Judge Katsas was appointed to the D.C. Circuit in December 2017. He graduated from Princeton University and Harvard Law School, where he was an executive editor on the Harvard Law Review. Between 1989 and 1992, he served as a law clerk to Judge Edward Becker on the Third Circuit, to then-Judge Clarence Thomas on the D.C. Circuit, and to Justice Thomas on the Supreme Court. Between 1992 and 2001, he was an associate and then partner in the Washington office of Jones Day, where he specialized in appellate and complex civil litigation. Between 2001 and 2009, he served in many senior positions in the Department of Justice, including as Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division and as Acting Associate Attorney General. In 2009, he returned to Jones Day. From January to December 2017, he served as Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy Counsel to the President.
Before joining the bench, Judge Katsas argued more than 75 appeals, including three cases in the Supreme Court, 13 cases in the D.C. Circuit, and cases in every other federal court of appeals. By appointment of the Chief Justice, he served on the Advisory Committee on Appellate Rules from 2013 to 2017. In 2016, he was elected to membership in the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit
Judge Barbara Lagoa was born in Miami, Florida. She received her Bachelor of Arts cum laude in 1989 from Florida International University where she majored in English and was a member of the Phi Kappa Phi honor society. Judge Lagoa received her Juris Doctor from Columbia University School of Law in 1992, where she served as an Associate Editor of the Columbia Law Review. She is fluent in English and Spanish. On December 6, 2019, she received her commission as a judge on the U.S. Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals from President Donald Trump.
On January 9, 2019, she became the first Hispanic woman and the first Cuban American woman appointed to serve on the Florida Supreme Court. Prior to her appointment by Governor Ron DeSantis to the Florida Supreme Court, Governor Jeb Bush appointed her in June of 2006 to serve on the Third District Court of Appeal. At that court, she became the first Hispanic woman and the first Cuban American woman appointed to serve on the Third District Court of Appeal. On January 1, 2019, she became the first Hispanic female Chief Judge of the Third District Court of Appeal.
Prior to joining the bench, Judge Lagoa practiced in both the civil and criminal arenas. Her civil practice at Greenberg Traurig focused on general and complex commercial litigation, particularly the areas of employment discrimination, business torts, securities litigation, construction litigation, and insurance coverage disputes. In 2003, she joined the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida as an Assistant United States Attorney, where she worked in the Civil, Major Crimes and Appellate Sections. As an Assistant United States Attorney, she tried numerous criminal jury trials, including drug conspiracies and Hobbs Act violations. She also handled a significant number of appeals.
While a practicing lawyer, Judge Lagoa was admitted to The Florida Bar, the United States District Courts for the Middle and Southern Districts of Florida, and the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. She was also a member of many local, state, and national professional groups including the Dade County Bar Association, and the Florida Association for Women Lawyers.
Judge Lagoa’s civic and community activities include service on the Board of Directors for the YWCA of Greater Miami and Dade County, the Film Society of Miami, Kristi House, and the FIU Alumni Association. She was also a member of the Federal Judicial Nominating Commission. She is currently a member of the Eugene P. Spellman and William Hoeveler Chapter of the American Inns of Court.
Judge Lagoa is married to Paul C. Huck, Jr., an attorney. They have three daughters.
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.
United States District Judge, United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida
In November 2020, the Senate confirmed Kathryn Kimball Mizelle as a United States District Judge for the Middle District of Florida. At age 33, she became the youngest Article III judge in the country. Prior to her confirmation, Judge Mizelle was in private practice at Jones Day, where she focused on complex civil and criminal litigation and appeals. Judge Mizelle previously served at the United States Department of Justice in the Office of the Associate Attorney General, in the Southern Criminal Enforcement Section of the Tax Division, and in the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia. Judge Mizelle has also taught as an adjunct professor of law at the University of Florida Levin College of Law and at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School.
Judge Mizelle earned her B.A., summa cum laude, from Covenant College, and her J.D., summa cum laude, from the University of Florida Levin College of Law. After graduation, Judge Mizelle served as a law clerk at every level of the federal judiciary: at the Supreme Court for Justice Clarence Thomas, at the D.C. Circuit for Judge Gregory G. Katsas, at the Eleventh Circuit for Chief Judge William H. Pryor Jr., and at the Middle District of Florida for Judge James S. Moody Jr.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit
Amul R. Thapar serves as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. His judicial career began in 2007 when President George W. Bush nominated him to serve on the Eastern District of Kentucky, making him the first South Asian Article III judge in American history. In 2017, he became President Donald J. Trump’s first appellate court nominee.
Before joining the bench, Judge Thapar served as the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Kentucky. While United States Attorney, Judge Thapar worked on the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee (“AGAC”) and chaired the AGAC’s Controlled Substances and Asset Forfeiture subcommittee. He also served on the Terrorism and National Security subcommittee, the Violent Crime subcommittee, and the Child Exploitation working group.
Judge Thapar has worked in private practice, at Williams & Connolly in Washington, D.C., and Squire, Sanders & Dempsey in Cincinnati, Ohio. He also served as an Assistant United States Attorney in both the Southern District of Ohio and the District of Columbia.
Judge Thapar received his undergraduate degree from Boston College and his law degree from the University of California, Berkeley. After graduating, Judge Thapar worked as a law clerk to the Honorable S. Arthur Spiegel of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, and the Honorable Nathaniel R. Jones of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.
Judge Thapar has also published in the Yale Law Journal, Michigan Law Review, and Catholic University Law Review. He teaches courses on originalism, the Federalists and Anti-Federalists, and legal writing at Notre Dame Law School, the University of Virginia School of Law, and Vanderbilt Law School.
U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida
Prior to joining the federal bench, Judge Barber served as a Circuit Judge in the criminal division of the Thirteenth Judicial Circuit, where he has served since his appointment by the Governor in 2008. As a Circuit Judge he has handled the full range of civil and criminal cases. He previously served for four years as a Hillsborough County Court Judge. Upon graduation from law school, Judge Barber practiced for five years in the trial and business litigation department of Carlton Fields, P.A. He then served as an Assistant Statewide Prosecutor in the Office of Statewide Prosecution and as an Assistant State Attorney for the Thirteenth Judicial Circuit. Upon completion of his service as a prosecutor he returned to Carlton Fields, P.A., where his practice focused on business litigation until his appointment to the bench.
Judge Barber earned his B.A. from the University of Florida, where he was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa, and his J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania Law School.
District Judge, United States District Court, Northern District of Texas
Matthew J. Kacsmaryk serves as United States District Judge for the Northern District of Texas.
He previously served in the (1) private, (2) government, and (3) nonprofit sectors:
Judge Kacsmaryk is an Honors graduate of the University of Texas Law School, where he joined the Federalist Society and served as an Executive Editor of the Texas Review of Law & Politics. Judge Kacsmaryk co-founded the Fort Worth Lawyers Chapter in 2012, coordinated the 2018 Texas Chapters Conference hosted by the Fort Worth Lawyers Chapter, and presently serves on its Advisory Board.
Partner, Clement & Murphy, PLLC
Paul served as the 43rd Solicitor General of the United States from June 2005 until June 2008. Before his confirmation as Solicitor General, he served as Acting Solicitor General for nearly a year and as Principal Deputy Solicitor General for over three years.
Paul has argued over 100 cases before the United States Supreme Court, including McConnell v. FEC, Tennessee v. Lane, United States v. Booker, MGM v. Grokster, Hobby Lobby v. Burwell, Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis, Rucho v. Common Cause, Facebook v. Duguid, and TransUnion v. Ramirez. Paul has argued more Supreme Court cases since 2000 than any lawyer in or out of government. He has also argued many important cases in the lower courts, including Walker v. Cheney, United States v. Moussaoui and NFL v. Brady.
Paul’s practice focuses on appellate matters, constitutional litigation and strategic counseling. He represents a broad array of clients in the Supreme Court and in federal and state appellate courts. Last year, for example, he successfully argued Supreme Court cases involving significant issues of energy regulation, statutory interpretation, state sovereign immunity and Article III standing, and successfully argued a trademark appeal in the Fourth Circuit, and a constitutional appeal before the en banc Eleventh Circuit.
Paul focuses on high-stakes appeals. In recent years, he successfully defended a $1.2 billion jury verdict for clients in a Tenth Circuit case, while securing the reversal of an over $2 billion jury verdict for another client in the Seventh Circuit and the approval of a nearly $1 billion dollar class action settlement in the Third Circuit. He has initiated major administrative law challenges and constitutional litigation against the federal government, such as the successful challenge to the HHS drug-pricing rule and threatened challenges that led to the withdrawal of the Treasury Department’s proposed cryptocurrency regulations. He also counsels clients on a variety of strategic legal questions, whether arising from pending legislation, government inquiries or ongoing litigation.
Paul has undertaken substantial pro bono engagements in the Supreme Court, such as twice successfully representing the defendant in Bond v. United States and successfully representing the Omaha Tribe in Nebraska v. Parker, the guardian ad litem in Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl, the defendant in Sekhar v. United States, a high school football coach in Kennedy v. Bremerton, and the Little Sisters of the Poor. Paul’s pro bono representation also precipitated the federal government’s confession of error in United States v. Rojas.
Following law school, Paul clerked for Judge Laurence H. Silberman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and for Associate Justice Antonin Scalia of the U.S. Supreme Court. After his clerkships, he went on to serve as Chief Counsel of the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution, Federalism and Property Rights.
Paul is a Distinguished Lecturer in Law at the Georgetown University Law Center, where he has taught in various capacities since 1998. He also serves as a Senior Fellow of the Law Center’s Supreme Court Institute. He is the Justice Joseph Story Distinguished Practitioner in Residence at the Gray Center at Scalia Law School.
Edward B. Shils Professor of Law and Professor of Political Science; Director, Penn Program on Regulation, University of Pennsylvania Law School
Cary Coglianese is the Edward B. Shils Professor of Law and Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania, where he currently serves as the director of the Penn Program on Regulation and has served as the law school’s Deputy Dean for Academic Affairs. He specializes in the study of regulation and regulatory processes, with an emphasis on the empirical evaluation of alternative regulatory strategies and the role of public participation, negotiation, and business-government relations in policy making. His most recent books include: Achieving Regulatory Excellence; Does Regulation Kill Jobs?; Regulatory Breakdown: The Crisis of Confidence in U.S. Regulation; Import Safety: Regulatory Governance in the Global Economy; and Regulation and Regulatory Processes.
Prior to joining Penn Law, Coglianese spent a dozen years on the faculty at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. He also has taught as a visiting law professor at Stanford and Vanderbilt, founded the Law & Society Association’s international collaborative research network on regulatory governance, served as a founding editor of the peer-reviewed journal Regulation & Governance, and created and now advises the daily production of The Regulatory Review. The chair of the Administrative Conference of the United States' committee on rulemaking, he has led a National Science Foundation initiative on e-rulemaking, served on the ABA’s task force on improving Regulations.Gov, and chaired a task force on transparency and public participation in the regulatory process that offered a blueprint to the Obama Administration on open government. He is a co-chair of the American Bar Association’s administrative law section committee on e-government, past co-chair of the section's committee on rulemaking, and a past member of the section's Council. He currently serves as a member of a committee of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine studying performance-based safety regulation and of an Aspen Institute dialogue on energy policy governance. He has served as a consultant to the Administrative Conference of the United States, Environment Canada, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the U.S. Department of Commerce, the U.S. Department of Transportation, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Maurice and Hilda Friedman Professor of Law, Columbia Law School; CEO, New Civil Liberties Alliance
Philip Hamburger is the Maurice and Hilda Friedman Professor of Law at Columbia Law School, and Chief Executive Officer at the New Civil Liberties Alliance. Before coming to Columbia, he was the John P. Wilson Professor at the University of Chicago Law School.
He writes on constitutional law and its history—with particular emphasis on religious liberty, freedom of speech and the press, judicial office, administrative power, and unconstitutional conditions.
His books are Separation of Church and State (Harvard 2002), Law and Judicial Duty (Harvard 2008), Is Administrative Law Unlawful? (Chicago 2014), The Administrative Threat (Encounter 2017), and Liberal Suppression: Section 501(c)(3) and the Taxation of Speech (Chicago 2018). A forthcoming book is Purchasing Submission: Conditions, Power, and Freedom (Harvard 2021).
He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and he has served on the board of directors of the American Society for Legal History. He has twice received the Sutherland Prize for the most significant contribution to English legal history, and has been awarded the Henry Paolucci - Walter Bagehot Book Award, the Hayek Book Prize, and the Bradley Prize.
United States District Judge, United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida
In November 2020, the Senate confirmed Kathryn Kimball Mizelle as a United States District Judge for the Middle District of Florida. At age 33, she became the youngest Article III judge in the country. Prior to her confirmation, Judge Mizelle was in private practice at Jones Day, where she focused on complex civil and criminal litigation and appeals. Judge Mizelle previously served at the United States Department of Justice in the Office of the Associate Attorney General, in the Southern Criminal Enforcement Section of the Tax Division, and in the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia. Judge Mizelle has also taught as an adjunct professor of law at the University of Florida Levin College of Law and at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School.
Judge Mizelle earned her B.A., summa cum laude, from Covenant College, and her J.D., summa cum laude, from the University of Florida Levin College of Law. After graduation, Judge Mizelle served as a law clerk at every level of the federal judiciary: at the Supreme Court for Justice Clarence Thomas, at the D.C. Circuit for Judge Gregory G. Katsas, at the Eleventh Circuit for Chief Judge William H. Pryor Jr., and at the Middle District of Florida for Judge James S. Moody Jr.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit
Judge Rao was appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in March 2019. She graduated from Yale College in 1995 and the University of Chicago Law School in 1999. Following graduation, she served as a law clerk to Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and, in the 2001 October Term, as law clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas of the U.S. Supreme Court. Between her clerkships, Judge Rao served as counsel for nominations and constitutional law to the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary. In 2002, she joined the international arbitration group of Clifford Chance LLP in London, England. From 2005-2006, she served as Special Assistant and Associate White House Counsel to President George W. Bush. From 2006 to 2017, Judge Rao was a professor at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University, where she taught constitutional law, legislation and statutory interpretation, and the history and foundations of the administrative state. In 2014, she founded the Center for the Study of the Administrative State, a non-profit Center that promotes academic scholarship and public policy debates about administrative law. In July 2017, she was appointed to serve as the Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Office of Management Budget. She served in this position until her appointment to the D.C. Circuit.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit
Judge Katsas was appointed to the D.C. Circuit in December 2017. He graduated from Princeton University and Harvard Law School, where he was an executive editor on the Harvard Law Review. Between 1989 and 1992, he served as a law clerk to Judge Edward Becker on the Third Circuit, to then-Judge Clarence Thomas on the D.C. Circuit, and to Justice Thomas on the Supreme Court. Between 1992 and 2001, he was an associate and then partner in the Washington office of Jones Day, where he specialized in appellate and complex civil litigation. Between 2001 and 2009, he served in many senior positions in the Department of Justice, including as Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division and as Acting Associate Attorney General. In 2009, he returned to Jones Day. From January to December 2017, he served as Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy Counsel to the President.
Before joining the bench, Judge Katsas argued more than 75 appeals, including three cases in the Supreme Court, 13 cases in the D.C. Circuit, and cases in every other federal court of appeals. By appointment of the Chief Justice, he served on the Advisory Committee on Appellate Rules from 2013 to 2017. In 2016, he was elected to membership in the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit
Judge Barbara Lagoa was born in Miami, Florida. She received her Bachelor of Arts cum laude in 1989 from Florida International University where she majored in English and was a member of the Phi Kappa Phi honor society. Judge Lagoa received her Juris Doctor from Columbia University School of Law in 1992, where she served as an Associate Editor of the Columbia Law Review. She is fluent in English and Spanish. On December 6, 2019, she received her commission as a judge on the U.S. Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals from President Donald Trump.
On January 9, 2019, she became the first Hispanic woman and the first Cuban American woman appointed to serve on the Florida Supreme Court. Prior to her appointment by Governor Ron DeSantis to the Florida Supreme Court, Governor Jeb Bush appointed her in June of 2006 to serve on the Third District Court of Appeal. At that court, she became the first Hispanic woman and the first Cuban American woman appointed to serve on the Third District Court of Appeal. On January 1, 2019, she became the first Hispanic female Chief Judge of the Third District Court of Appeal.
Prior to joining the bench, Judge Lagoa practiced in both the civil and criminal arenas. Her civil practice at Greenberg Traurig focused on general and complex commercial litigation, particularly the areas of employment discrimination, business torts, securities litigation, construction litigation, and insurance coverage disputes. In 2003, she joined the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida as an Assistant United States Attorney, where she worked in the Civil, Major Crimes and Appellate Sections. As an Assistant United States Attorney, she tried numerous criminal jury trials, including drug conspiracies and Hobbs Act violations. She also handled a significant number of appeals.
While a practicing lawyer, Judge Lagoa was admitted to The Florida Bar, the United States District Courts for the Middle and Southern Districts of Florida, and the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. She was also a member of many local, state, and national professional groups including the Dade County Bar Association, and the Florida Association for Women Lawyers.
Judge Lagoa’s civic and community activities include service on the Board of Directors for the YWCA of Greater Miami and Dade County, the Film Society of Miami, Kristi House, and the FIU Alumni Association. She was also a member of the Federal Judicial Nominating Commission. She is currently a member of the Eugene P. Spellman and William Hoeveler Chapter of the American Inns of Court.
Judge Lagoa is married to Paul C. Huck, Jr., an attorney. They have three daughters.
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.
United States District Judge, United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida
In November 2020, the Senate confirmed Kathryn Kimball Mizelle as a United States District Judge for the Middle District of Florida. At age 33, she became the youngest Article III judge in the country. Prior to her confirmation, Judge Mizelle was in private practice at Jones Day, where she focused on complex civil and criminal litigation and appeals. Judge Mizelle previously served at the United States Department of Justice in the Office of the Associate Attorney General, in the Southern Criminal Enforcement Section of the Tax Division, and in the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia. Judge Mizelle has also taught as an adjunct professor of law at the University of Florida Levin College of Law and at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School.
Judge Mizelle earned her B.A., summa cum laude, from Covenant College, and her J.D., summa cum laude, from the University of Florida Levin College of Law. After graduation, Judge Mizelle served as a law clerk at every level of the federal judiciary: at the Supreme Court for Justice Clarence Thomas, at the D.C. Circuit for Judge Gregory G. Katsas, at the Eleventh Circuit for Chief Judge William H. Pryor Jr., and at the Middle District of Florida for Judge James S. Moody Jr.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit
Amul R. Thapar serves as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. His judicial career began in 2007 when President George W. Bush nominated him to serve on the Eastern District of Kentucky, making him the first South Asian Article III judge in American history. In 2017, he became President Donald J. Trump’s first appellate court nominee.
Before joining the bench, Judge Thapar served as the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Kentucky. While United States Attorney, Judge Thapar worked on the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee (“AGAC”) and chaired the AGAC’s Controlled Substances and Asset Forfeiture subcommittee. He also served on the Terrorism and National Security subcommittee, the Violent Crime subcommittee, and the Child Exploitation working group.
Judge Thapar has worked in private practice, at Williams & Connolly in Washington, D.C., and Squire, Sanders & Dempsey in Cincinnati, Ohio. He also served as an Assistant United States Attorney in both the Southern District of Ohio and the District of Columbia.
Judge Thapar received his undergraduate degree from Boston College and his law degree from the University of California, Berkeley. After graduating, Judge Thapar worked as a law clerk to the Honorable S. Arthur Spiegel of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, and the Honorable Nathaniel R. Jones of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.
Judge Thapar has also published in the Yale Law Journal, Michigan Law Review, and Catholic University Law Review. He teaches courses on originalism, the Federalists and Anti-Federalists, and legal writing at Notre Dame Law School, the University of Virginia School of Law, and Vanderbilt Law School.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit
Judge Katsas was appointed to the D.C. Circuit in December 2017. He graduated from Princeton University and Harvard Law School, where he was an executive editor on the Harvard Law Review. Between 1989 and 1992, he served as a law clerk to Judge Edward Becker on the Third Circuit, to then-Judge Clarence Thomas on the D.C. Circuit, and to Justice Thomas on the Supreme Court. Between 1992 and 2001, he was an associate and then partner in the Washington office of Jones Day, where he specialized in appellate and complex civil litigation. Between 2001 and 2009, he served in many senior positions in the Department of Justice, including as Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division and as Acting Associate Attorney General. In 2009, he returned to Jones Day. From January to December 2017, he served as Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy Counsel to the President.
Before joining the bench, Judge Katsas argued more than 75 appeals, including three cases in the Supreme Court, 13 cases in the D.C. Circuit, and cases in every other federal court of appeals. By appointment of the Chief Justice, he served on the Advisory Committee on Appellate Rules from 2013 to 2017. In 2016, he was elected to membership in the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit
Judge Barbara Lagoa was born in Miami, Florida. She received her Bachelor of Arts cum laude in 1989 from Florida International University where she majored in English and was a member of the Phi Kappa Phi honor society. Judge Lagoa received her Juris Doctor from Columbia University School of Law in 1992, where she served as an Associate Editor of the Columbia Law Review. She is fluent in English and Spanish. On December 6, 2019, she received her commission as a judge on the U.S. Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals from President Donald Trump.
On January 9, 2019, she became the first Hispanic woman and the first Cuban American woman appointed to serve on the Florida Supreme Court. Prior to her appointment by Governor Ron DeSantis to the Florida Supreme Court, Governor Jeb Bush appointed her in June of 2006 to serve on the Third District Court of Appeal. At that court, she became the first Hispanic woman and the first Cuban American woman appointed to serve on the Third District Court of Appeal. On January 1, 2019, she became the first Hispanic female Chief Judge of the Third District Court of Appeal.
Prior to joining the bench, Judge Lagoa practiced in both the civil and criminal arenas. Her civil practice at Greenberg Traurig focused on general and complex commercial litigation, particularly the areas of employment discrimination, business torts, securities litigation, construction litigation, and insurance coverage disputes. In 2003, she joined the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida as an Assistant United States Attorney, where she worked in the Civil, Major Crimes and Appellate Sections. As an Assistant United States Attorney, she tried numerous criminal jury trials, including drug conspiracies and Hobbs Act violations. She also handled a significant number of appeals.
While a practicing lawyer, Judge Lagoa was admitted to The Florida Bar, the United States District Courts for the Middle and Southern Districts of Florida, and the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. She was also a member of many local, state, and national professional groups including the Dade County Bar Association, and the Florida Association for Women Lawyers.
Judge Lagoa’s civic and community activities include service on the Board of Directors for the YWCA of Greater Miami and Dade County, the Film Society of Miami, Kristi House, and the FIU Alumni Association. She was also a member of the Federal Judicial Nominating Commission. She is currently a member of the Eugene P. Spellman and William Hoeveler Chapter of the American Inns of Court.
Judge Lagoa is married to Paul C. Huck, Jr., an attorney. They have three daughters.
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.
United States District Judge, United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida
In November 2020, the Senate confirmed Kathryn Kimball Mizelle as a United States District Judge for the Middle District of Florida. At age 33, she became the youngest Article III judge in the country. Prior to her confirmation, Judge Mizelle was in private practice at Jones Day, where she focused on complex civil and criminal litigation and appeals. Judge Mizelle previously served at the United States Department of Justice in the Office of the Associate Attorney General, in the Southern Criminal Enforcement Section of the Tax Division, and in the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia. Judge Mizelle has also taught as an adjunct professor of law at the University of Florida Levin College of Law and at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School.
Judge Mizelle earned her B.A., summa cum laude, from Covenant College, and her J.D., summa cum laude, from the University of Florida Levin College of Law. After graduation, Judge Mizelle served as a law clerk at every level of the federal judiciary: at the Supreme Court for Justice Clarence Thomas, at the D.C. Circuit for Judge Gregory G. Katsas, at the Eleventh Circuit for Chief Judge William H. Pryor Jr., and at the Middle District of Florida for Judge James S. Moody Jr.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit
Amul R. Thapar serves as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. His judicial career began in 2007 when President George W. Bush nominated him to serve on the Eastern District of Kentucky, making him the first South Asian Article III judge in American history. In 2017, he became President Donald J. Trump’s first appellate court nominee.
Before joining the bench, Judge Thapar served as the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Kentucky. While United States Attorney, Judge Thapar worked on the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee (“AGAC”) and chaired the AGAC’s Controlled Substances and Asset Forfeiture subcommittee. He also served on the Terrorism and National Security subcommittee, the Violent Crime subcommittee, and the Child Exploitation working group.
Judge Thapar has worked in private practice, at Williams & Connolly in Washington, D.C., and Squire, Sanders & Dempsey in Cincinnati, Ohio. He also served as an Assistant United States Attorney in both the Southern District of Ohio and the District of Columbia.
Judge Thapar received his undergraduate degree from Boston College and his law degree from the University of California, Berkeley. After graduating, Judge Thapar worked as a law clerk to the Honorable S. Arthur Spiegel of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, and the Honorable Nathaniel R. Jones of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.
Judge Thapar has also published in the Yale Law Journal, Michigan Law Review, and Catholic University Law Review. He teaches courses on originalism, the Federalists and Anti-Federalists, and legal writing at Notre Dame Law School, the University of Virginia School of Law, and Vanderbilt Law School.
Partner, Clement & Murphy, PLLC
Paul served as the 43rd Solicitor General of the United States from June 2005 until June 2008. Before his confirmation as Solicitor General, he served as Acting Solicitor General for nearly a year and as Principal Deputy Solicitor General for over three years.
Paul has argued over 100 cases before the United States Supreme Court, including McConnell v. FEC, Tennessee v. Lane, United States v. Booker, MGM v. Grokster, Hobby Lobby v. Burwell, Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis, Rucho v. Common Cause, Facebook v. Duguid, and TransUnion v. Ramirez. Paul has argued more Supreme Court cases since 2000 than any lawyer in or out of government. He has also argued many important cases in the lower courts, including Walker v. Cheney, United States v. Moussaoui and NFL v. Brady.
Paul’s practice focuses on appellate matters, constitutional litigation and strategic counseling. He represents a broad array of clients in the Supreme Court and in federal and state appellate courts. Last year, for example, he successfully argued Supreme Court cases involving significant issues of energy regulation, statutory interpretation, state sovereign immunity and Article III standing, and successfully argued a trademark appeal in the Fourth Circuit, and a constitutional appeal before the en banc Eleventh Circuit.
Paul focuses on high-stakes appeals. In recent years, he successfully defended a $1.2 billion jury verdict for clients in a Tenth Circuit case, while securing the reversal of an over $2 billion jury verdict for another client in the Seventh Circuit and the approval of a nearly $1 billion dollar class action settlement in the Third Circuit. He has initiated major administrative law challenges and constitutional litigation against the federal government, such as the successful challenge to the HHS drug-pricing rule and threatened challenges that led to the withdrawal of the Treasury Department’s proposed cryptocurrency regulations. He also counsels clients on a variety of strategic legal questions, whether arising from pending legislation, government inquiries or ongoing litigation.
Paul has undertaken substantial pro bono engagements in the Supreme Court, such as twice successfully representing the defendant in Bond v. United States and successfully representing the Omaha Tribe in Nebraska v. Parker, the guardian ad litem in Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl, the defendant in Sekhar v. United States, a high school football coach in Kennedy v. Bremerton, and the Little Sisters of the Poor. Paul’s pro bono representation also precipitated the federal government’s confession of error in United States v. Rojas.
Following law school, Paul clerked for Judge Laurence H. Silberman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and for Associate Justice Antonin Scalia of the U.S. Supreme Court. After his clerkships, he went on to serve as Chief Counsel of the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution, Federalism and Property Rights.
Paul is a Distinguished Lecturer in Law at the Georgetown University Law Center, where he has taught in various capacities since 1998. He also serves as a Senior Fellow of the Law Center’s Supreme Court Institute. He is the Justice Joseph Story Distinguished Practitioner in Residence at the Gray Center at Scalia Law School.
Edward B. Shils Professor of Law and Professor of Political Science; Director, Penn Program on Regulation, University of Pennsylvania Law School
Cary Coglianese is the Edward B. Shils Professor of Law and Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania, where he currently serves as the director of the Penn Program on Regulation and has served as the law school’s Deputy Dean for Academic Affairs. He specializes in the study of regulation and regulatory processes, with an emphasis on the empirical evaluation of alternative regulatory strategies and the role of public participation, negotiation, and business-government relations in policy making. His most recent books include: Achieving Regulatory Excellence; Does Regulation Kill Jobs?; Regulatory Breakdown: The Crisis of Confidence in U.S. Regulation; Import Safety: Regulatory Governance in the Global Economy; and Regulation and Regulatory Processes.
Prior to joining Penn Law, Coglianese spent a dozen years on the faculty at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. He also has taught as a visiting law professor at Stanford and Vanderbilt, founded the Law & Society Association’s international collaborative research network on regulatory governance, served as a founding editor of the peer-reviewed journal Regulation & Governance, and created and now advises the daily production of The Regulatory Review. The chair of the Administrative Conference of the United States' committee on rulemaking, he has led a National Science Foundation initiative on e-rulemaking, served on the ABA’s task force on improving Regulations.Gov, and chaired a task force on transparency and public participation in the regulatory process that offered a blueprint to the Obama Administration on open government. He is a co-chair of the American Bar Association’s administrative law section committee on e-government, past co-chair of the section's committee on rulemaking, and a past member of the section's Council. He currently serves as a member of a committee of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine studying performance-based safety regulation and of an Aspen Institute dialogue on energy policy governance. He has served as a consultant to the Administrative Conference of the United States, Environment Canada, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the U.S. Department of Commerce, the U.S. Department of Transportation, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Maurice and Hilda Friedman Professor of Law, Columbia Law School; CEO, New Civil Liberties Alliance
Philip Hamburger is the Maurice and Hilda Friedman Professor of Law at Columbia Law School, and Chief Executive Officer at the New Civil Liberties Alliance. Before coming to Columbia, he was the John P. Wilson Professor at the University of Chicago Law School.
He writes on constitutional law and its history—with particular emphasis on religious liberty, freedom of speech and the press, judicial office, administrative power, and unconstitutional conditions.
His books are Separation of Church and State (Harvard 2002), Law and Judicial Duty (Harvard 2008), Is Administrative Law Unlawful? (Chicago 2014), The Administrative Threat (Encounter 2017), and Liberal Suppression: Section 501(c)(3) and the Taxation of Speech (Chicago 2018). A forthcoming book is Purchasing Submission: Conditions, Power, and Freedom (Harvard 2021).
He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and he has served on the board of directors of the American Society for Legal History. He has twice received the Sutherland Prize for the most significant contribution to English legal history, and has been awarded the Henry Paolucci - Walter Bagehot Book Award, the Hayek Book Prize, and the Bradley Prize.
United States District Judge, United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida
In November 2020, the Senate confirmed Kathryn Kimball Mizelle as a United States District Judge for the Middle District of Florida. At age 33, she became the youngest Article III judge in the country. Prior to her confirmation, Judge Mizelle was in private practice at Jones Day, where she focused on complex civil and criminal litigation and appeals. Judge Mizelle previously served at the United States Department of Justice in the Office of the Associate Attorney General, in the Southern Criminal Enforcement Section of the Tax Division, and in the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia. Judge Mizelle has also taught as an adjunct professor of law at the University of Florida Levin College of Law and at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School.
Judge Mizelle earned her B.A., summa cum laude, from Covenant College, and her J.D., summa cum laude, from the University of Florida Levin College of Law. After graduation, Judge Mizelle served as a law clerk at every level of the federal judiciary: at the Supreme Court for Justice Clarence Thomas, at the D.C. Circuit for Judge Gregory G. Katsas, at the Eleventh Circuit for Chief Judge William H. Pryor Jr., and at the Middle District of Florida for Judge James S. Moody Jr.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit
Judge Rao was appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in March 2019. She graduated from Yale College in 1995 and the University of Chicago Law School in 1999. Following graduation, she served as a law clerk to Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and, in the 2001 October Term, as law clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas of the U.S. Supreme Court. Between her clerkships, Judge Rao served as counsel for nominations and constitutional law to the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary. In 2002, she joined the international arbitration group of Clifford Chance LLP in London, England. From 2005-2006, she served as Special Assistant and Associate White House Counsel to President George W. Bush. From 2006 to 2017, Judge Rao was a professor at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University, where she taught constitutional law, legislation and statutory interpretation, and the history and foundations of the administrative state. In 2014, she founded the Center for the Study of the Administrative State, a non-profit Center that promotes academic scholarship and public policy debates about administrative law. In July 2017, she was appointed to serve as the Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Office of Management Budget. She served in this position until her appointment to the D.C. Circuit.
Partner, Clement & Murphy, PLLC
Paul served as the 43rd Solicitor General of the United States from June 2005 until June 2008. Before his confirmation as Solicitor General, he served as Acting Solicitor General for nearly a year and as Principal Deputy Solicitor General for over three years.
Paul has argued over 100 cases before the United States Supreme Court, including McConnell v. FEC, Tennessee v. Lane, United States v. Booker, MGM v. Grokster, Hobby Lobby v. Burwell, Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis, Rucho v. Common Cause, Facebook v. Duguid, and TransUnion v. Ramirez. Paul has argued more Supreme Court cases since 2000 than any lawyer in or out of government. He has also argued many important cases in the lower courts, including Walker v. Cheney, United States v. Moussaoui and NFL v. Brady.
Paul’s practice focuses on appellate matters, constitutional litigation and strategic counseling. He represents a broad array of clients in the Supreme Court and in federal and state appellate courts. Last year, for example, he successfully argued Supreme Court cases involving significant issues of energy regulation, statutory interpretation, state sovereign immunity and Article III standing, and successfully argued a trademark appeal in the Fourth Circuit, and a constitutional appeal before the en banc Eleventh Circuit.
Paul focuses on high-stakes appeals. In recent years, he successfully defended a $1.2 billion jury verdict for clients in a Tenth Circuit case, while securing the reversal of an over $2 billion jury verdict for another client in the Seventh Circuit and the approval of a nearly $1 billion dollar class action settlement in the Third Circuit. He has initiated major administrative law challenges and constitutional litigation against the federal government, such as the successful challenge to the HHS drug-pricing rule and threatened challenges that led to the withdrawal of the Treasury Department’s proposed cryptocurrency regulations. He also counsels clients on a variety of strategic legal questions, whether arising from pending legislation, government inquiries or ongoing litigation.
Paul has undertaken substantial pro bono engagements in the Supreme Court, such as twice successfully representing the defendant in Bond v. United States and successfully representing the Omaha Tribe in Nebraska v. Parker, the guardian ad litem in Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl, the defendant in Sekhar v. United States, a high school football coach in Kennedy v. Bremerton, and the Little Sisters of the Poor. Paul’s pro bono representation also precipitated the federal government’s confession of error in United States v. Rojas.
Following law school, Paul clerked for Judge Laurence H. Silberman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and for Associate Justice Antonin Scalia of the U.S. Supreme Court. After his clerkships, he went on to serve as Chief Counsel of the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution, Federalism and Property Rights.
Paul is a Distinguished Lecturer in Law at the Georgetown University Law Center, where he has taught in various capacities since 1998. He also serves as a Senior Fellow of the Law Center’s Supreme Court Institute. He is the Justice Joseph Story Distinguished Practitioner in Residence at the Gray Center at Scalia Law School.
Edward B. Shils Professor of Law and Professor of Political Science; Director, Penn Program on Regulation, University of Pennsylvania Law School
Cary Coglianese is the Edward B. Shils Professor of Law and Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania, where he currently serves as the director of the Penn Program on Regulation and has served as the law school’s Deputy Dean for Academic Affairs. He specializes in the study of regulation and regulatory processes, with an emphasis on the empirical evaluation of alternative regulatory strategies and the role of public participation, negotiation, and business-government relations in policy making. His most recent books include: Achieving Regulatory Excellence; Does Regulation Kill Jobs?; Regulatory Breakdown: The Crisis of Confidence in U.S. Regulation; Import Safety: Regulatory Governance in the Global Economy; and Regulation and Regulatory Processes.
Prior to joining Penn Law, Coglianese spent a dozen years on the faculty at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. He also has taught as a visiting law professor at Stanford and Vanderbilt, founded the Law & Society Association’s international collaborative research network on regulatory governance, served as a founding editor of the peer-reviewed journal Regulation & Governance, and created and now advises the daily production of The Regulatory Review. The chair of the Administrative Conference of the United States' committee on rulemaking, he has led a National Science Foundation initiative on e-rulemaking, served on the ABA’s task force on improving Regulations.Gov, and chaired a task force on transparency and public participation in the regulatory process that offered a blueprint to the Obama Administration on open government. He is a co-chair of the American Bar Association’s administrative law section committee on e-government, past co-chair of the section's committee on rulemaking, and a past member of the section's Council. He currently serves as a member of a committee of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine studying performance-based safety regulation and of an Aspen Institute dialogue on energy policy governance. He has served as a consultant to the Administrative Conference of the United States, Environment Canada, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the U.S. Department of Commerce, the U.S. Department of Transportation, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Maurice and Hilda Friedman Professor of Law, Columbia Law School; CEO, New Civil Liberties Alliance
Philip Hamburger is the Maurice and Hilda Friedman Professor of Law at Columbia Law School, and Chief Executive Officer at the New Civil Liberties Alliance. Before coming to Columbia, he was the John P. Wilson Professor at the University of Chicago Law School.
He writes on constitutional law and its history—with particular emphasis on religious liberty, freedom of speech and the press, judicial office, administrative power, and unconstitutional conditions.
His books are Separation of Church and State (Harvard 2002), Law and Judicial Duty (Harvard 2008), Is Administrative Law Unlawful? (Chicago 2014), The Administrative Threat (Encounter 2017), and Liberal Suppression: Section 501(c)(3) and the Taxation of Speech (Chicago 2018). A forthcoming book is Purchasing Submission: Conditions, Power, and Freedom (Harvard 2021).
He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and he has served on the board of directors of the American Society for Legal History. He has twice received the Sutherland Prize for the most significant contribution to English legal history, and has been awarded the Henry Paolucci - Walter Bagehot Book Award, the Hayek Book Prize, and the Bradley Prize.
United States District Judge, United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida
In November 2020, the Senate confirmed Kathryn Kimball Mizelle as a United States District Judge for the Middle District of Florida. At age 33, she became the youngest Article III judge in the country. Prior to her confirmation, Judge Mizelle was in private practice at Jones Day, where she focused on complex civil and criminal litigation and appeals. Judge Mizelle previously served at the United States Department of Justice in the Office of the Associate Attorney General, in the Southern Criminal Enforcement Section of the Tax Division, and in the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia. Judge Mizelle has also taught as an adjunct professor of law at the University of Florida Levin College of Law and at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School.
Judge Mizelle earned her B.A., summa cum laude, from Covenant College, and her J.D., summa cum laude, from the University of Florida Levin College of Law. After graduation, Judge Mizelle served as a law clerk at every level of the federal judiciary: at the Supreme Court for Justice Clarence Thomas, at the D.C. Circuit for Judge Gregory G. Katsas, at the Eleventh Circuit for Chief Judge William H. Pryor Jr., and at the Middle District of Florida for Judge James S. Moody Jr.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit
Judge Rao was appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in March 2019. She graduated from Yale College in 1995 and the University of Chicago Law School in 1999. Following graduation, she served as a law clerk to Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and, in the 2001 October Term, as law clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas of the U.S. Supreme Court. Between her clerkships, Judge Rao served as counsel for nominations and constitutional law to the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary. In 2002, she joined the international arbitration group of Clifford Chance LLP in London, England. From 2005-2006, she served as Special Assistant and Associate White House Counsel to President George W. Bush. From 2006 to 2017, Judge Rao was a professor at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University, where she taught constitutional law, legislation and statutory interpretation, and the history and foundations of the administrative state. In 2014, she founded the Center for the Study of the Administrative State, a non-profit Center that promotes academic scholarship and public policy debates about administrative law. In July 2017, she was appointed to serve as the Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Office of Management Budget. She served in this position until her appointment to the D.C. Circuit.
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