David E. Sanger is national security correspondent for the New York Times and bestselling author of The Inheritance and Confront and Conceal. He has been a member of three teams that won the Pulitzer Prize, including in 2017 for international reporting. A regular contributor to CNN, he also teaches national security policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.
Professor of Law, South Texas College of Law Houston
Josh Blackman is a national thought leader on constitutional law and the United States Supreme Court. Josh’s work was quoted during two presidential impeachment trials. He has testified before Congress and advises federal and state lawmakers. Josh regularly appears on TV, including NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox, and the BBC. Josh is also a frequent guest on NPR and other syndicated radio programs. He has published commentaries in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and leading national publications.
Since 2012, Josh has served as a professor at the South Texas College of Law Houston. He holds the Centennial Chair of Constitutional Law. Josh is an Adjunct Fellow at the Manhattan Institute. Josh has written more than seven dozen law review articles that have been cited more than a thousand times. Josh was selected as the Jurist of the Year by the Texas Journal of Law & Public Policy, received the inaugural Meese III Originalism Award, and was awarded the Inaugural Joseph Story Award. Josh was selected by Forbes Magazine for the “30 Under 30” in Law and Policy. Josh is the President of the Harlan Institute, and founded FantasySCOTUS, the Internet’s Premier Supreme Court Fantasy League. He blogs at the Volokh Conspiracyand posts@JoshMBlackman.
Carroll Professor of Jurisprudence, Georgetown Law
John Mikhail is the Carroll Professor of Jurisprudence at Georgetown University Law Center, where he has taught since 2004. He teaches and writes on a variety of topics, including constitutional law, moral psychology, moral and legal theory, and legal history. His recent scholarship has focused mainly on American constitutional history, including the original understanding of the Preamble, Tenth Amendment, and Emoluments, Ex Post Facto, and Necessary and Proper Clauses. Professor Mikhail received his B.A. from Amherst College, a Ph.D. in Philosophy from Cornell University, and his J.D. from Stanford Law School, where he was Senior Article Editor of the Stanford Law Review and Senior Submissions Editor of the Stanford Journal of International Law. Before coming to Georgetown, he was a Lecturer and Research Affiliate at MIT, an associate at Simpson, Thacher & Bartlett, and a judicial clerk to Judge Rosemary Barkett on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. Professor Mikhail served as the Law Center's Associate Dean for Research and Academic Programs from 2017 to 2020 and its Associate Dean for International and Transnational Programs from 2011 to 2013.
Carmack Waterhouse Professor of Constitutional Law, Georgetown Law
After graduating from Harvard Law School in 1971, Professor Seidman served as a law clerk for J. Skelly Wright of the D.C. Circuit and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. He then was a staff attorney with the D.C. Public Defender Service until joining the Law Center faculty in 1976. He teaches a variety of courses in the fields of constitutional and criminal law. He is co-author of a constitutional law casebook and the author of many articles concerning criminal justice and constitutional law. His most recent books are Silence and Freedom (Stanford 2007), Our Unsettled Constitution: A New Defense of Constitutionalism and Judicial Review (Yale 2001) and Equal Protection of the Laws (Foundation 2002).
Partner, Kirkland & Ellis LLP
Erin Nealy Cox, the former United States Attorney for the Northern District of Texas, is a trial lawyer who represents corporations, boards of directors, and executives involved in complex multi-jurisdictional disputes and high-stakes investigations. As a partner in the Firm’s Dallas and Washington, D.C., offices, she is a member of the Firm’s Government, Regulatory & Internal Investigations Practice Group.
Erin has a broad practice focused on matters arising from alleged violations of state and federal laws, including fraud, cybersecurity, public corruption, national security, workplace compliance, and issues involving board governance. She has successfully tried numerous cases in federal courts throughout her two and a half decades in public service and private practice.
Erin has deep experience in government service having served at the highest levels of the Department of Justice as United States Attorney, and before that as an Assistant United States Attorney. As the United States Attorney for the Northern District of Texas, Erin led an office of 250 employees responsible for prosecuting wide-ranging and complex federal cases, including financial, securities, health care, government contracting and program fraud, as well as Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), money laundering, public corruption, computer crime, and opioid-related matters. She successfully quarterbacked the Northern District of Texas’ most significant investigations, and during her tenure, the office prosecuted more cases and more defendants than any other non-border district in the nation. As U.S. Attorney, she was recognized nationally for her work in developing strategic responses to benefit the eight million residents of the North District of Texas. She was also recognized nationally and locally for her efforts to combat domestic violence through gun control initiatives and her work to eradicate human trafficking through the efforts of the North Texas Trafficking Task Force.
While serving as U.S. Attorney, she also served as Chairperson of the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee (AGAC), a body of 15 U.S. Attorneys selected by the Attorney General to advise on national priorities, including policy and operational issues. Erin also led the AGAC task force on domestic violence and firearms crimes.
Prior to her appointment as U.S. Attorney in 2017, she served briefly as a senior advisor at McKinsey & Co., in the consulting firm’s cybersecurity and risk practice. Before that, Erin was executive managing director at Stroz Friedberg, a cybersecurity and investigations consulting firm, ultimately leading the firm’s global incident response business. During her prosecutorial career, Erin served as Chief of Staff and Senior Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General in the DOJ’s Office of Legal Policy in Washington, D.C. She also served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Northern District of Texas, where she prosecuted white collar, cyber, and violent crimes for almost a decade.
Chief, Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Texas
Chief Policy Counsel, Council on Criminal Justice and Senior Advisor, Right on Crime
Marc A. Levin is the Chief Policy Counsel for the Council on Criminal Justice (counciloncj.org) and Senior Advisor for Right on Crime.
An attorney and accomplished author on legal and public policy issues, Marc began the Foundation’s criminal justice program in 2005. This work contributed to nationally praised policy changes that have been followed by dramatic declines in crime and incarceration in Texas. Building on this success, in 2010, Levin developed the concept for the Right on Crime initiative, a TPPF project in partnership with Prison Fellowship and the American Conservative Union Foundation. Right on Crime has become the national clearinghouse for conservative criminal justice reforms and has contributed to the adoption of policies in dozens of states that fight crime, support victims, and protect taxpayers.
In 2014, Levin was named one of the “Politico 50” in the magazine’s annual “list of thinkers, doers, and dreamers who really matter in this age of gridlock and dysfunction.”
Marc has testified on criminal justice policy on four occasions before Congress and has testified before legislatures in states including Texas, Nevada, Kansas, Wisconsin, and California. He also has met personally with leaders such as U.S. Presidents, Speakers of the House, and the Justice Commtitee of the United Kingdom Parliament to share his ideas on criminal justice reform. In 2007, he was honored in a resolution unanimously passed by the Texas House of Representatives that stated, “Mr. Levin’s intellect is unparalleled and his research is impeccable.”
Since 2005, Marc has published dozens of policy papers on topics such as sentencing, probation, parole, reentry, and overcriminalization which are available on the TPPF website. Levin’s articles on law and public policy have been featured in publications such as the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Texas Review of Law & Politics, National Law Journal, New York Daily News, Jerusalem Post, Toronto Star, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Philadelphia Inquirer, San Francisco Chronicle, Washington Times, Los Angeles Daily Journal, Charlotte Observer, Dallas Morning News, Houston Chronicle, Austin American-Statesman, San Antonio Express-News and Reason Magazine.
In 1999, Marc graduated with honors from the University of Texas with a B.A. in Plan II Honors and Government. In 2002, Marc received his J.D. with honors from the University of Texas School of Law. Marc was a Charles G. Koch Summer Fellow in 1996. He served as a law clerk to Judge Will Garwood on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and Staff Attorney at the Texas Supreme Court.
Vice President, Edwin Meese III Institute for the Rule of Law, Advancing American Freedom
John G. Malcolm oversees Advancing American Freedom’s work to increase understanding of the Constitution and the rule of law as Vice President of the organization’s Edwin Meese III Institute for the Rule of Law. Malcolm brings to the challenge a wealth of legal expertise and experience in both the public and private sectors.
Prior to joining Advancing American Freedom in 2025, Malcolm was the Vice President of the Institute for Constitutional Government and the Director of the Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at the Heritage Foundation. Prior to joining Heritage in 2012, Malcolm was general counsel at the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, as well as a distinguished practitioner in residence at Pepperdine Law School. From 2004 to 2009, Malcolm was executive vice president and director of worldwide anti-piracy operations for the Motion Picture Association.
Malcolm served as a deputy assistant attorney general in the Department of Justice’s Criminal Division from 2001 to 2004, where he oversaw sections on computer crime and intellectual property, domestic security, child exploitation and obscenity, and special investigations. Immediately prior to that, he was a founding partner in the Atlanta law firm of Malcolm & Schroeder, LLP.
From 1990 to 1997, Malcolm was an assistant U.S. attorney in Atlanta, assigned to the fraud and public corruption section, and also an associate independent counsel, investigating fraud and abuse in the Department of Housing and Urban Development. He was honored with the Director’s Award for Superior Performance for his work in connection with the successful prosecution of Walter Leroy Moody Jr., who assassinated an 11th Circuit judge and the head of the Savannah chapter of the NAACP.
A graduate of Harvard Law School and Columbia College, Malcolm began his career as a law clerk to a federal district court judge and a federal appellate court judge, and as an associate at the Atlanta-based law firm of Sutherland, Asbill & Brennan (new Eversheds Sutherland).
Malcolm, who resides in Washington, D.C., serves on the Board of Trustees of the Washington National Opera and is a Senate-confirmed member of the Board of Directors of the Legal Services Corporation, the largest funder of civil legal aid in the United States.
U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas
Reed Charles O'Connor is a federal judge on the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas. He joined the court in 2007 after being nominated by President George W. Bush.
A native of Houston, Texas, O'Connor graduated from the University of Houston with his bachelor's degree in 1986 and from South Texas College of Law with his J.D. in 1989.
Judge, United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas
Wes Hendrix is a judge on the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas. He was nominated by President Donald Trump in January 2019 and confirmed by the U.S. Senate in July 2019. He presides over federal civil and criminal cases in the Northern District’s Lubbock, Abilene, and San Angelo Divisions. He is a member of the Fifth Circuit’s Criminal Pattern Jury Instructions Committee and the Northern District of Texas’s Local Rules Committee. He is an adjunct professor at Texas Tech University School of Law.
Prior to his confirmation, Judge Hendrix served as the Appellate Chief for the Northern District of Texas’s United States Attorney’s Office. He served as Chair of the Department of Justice’s Appellate Chiefs Working Group and as an ex officio member of the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee. He regularly coordinated with the Department of Justice’s Criminal Division Appellate Section and the Office of the Solicitor General regarding cases appealed to and argued before the U.S. Supreme Court.
As an Assistant U.S. Attorney, he represented the United States at trial and on appeal. He helped prosecute Hosam Smadi, who was convicted of attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction in a downtown Dallas skyscraper. He also argued over 25 appeals at the Fifth and Seventh Circuits—including two en banc arguments—and served as sole counsel in over 350 appeals. He regularly taught courses at the Department of Justice’s National Advocacy Center.
Prior to his work as a prosecutor, Judge Hendrix was an associate at the Dallas office of Baker Botts L.L.P., where he focused on complex commercial, oil-and-gas, and intellectual-property litigation. He began his legal career as a law clerk to Judge Patrick Higginbotham of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
Judge Hendrix received his law degree from the University of Texas, where he served on the Texas Law Review and graduated with high honors and as a Chancellor-at-Large. He received his undergraduate degree with honors from the University of Chicago.
Partner, Kirkland & Ellis LLP
Erin Nealy Cox, the former United States Attorney for the Northern District of Texas, is a trial lawyer who represents corporations, boards of directors, and executives involved in complex multi-jurisdictional disputes and high-stakes investigations. As a partner in the Firm’s Dallas and Washington, D.C., offices, she is a member of the Firm’s Government, Regulatory & Internal Investigations Practice Group.
Erin has a broad practice focused on matters arising from alleged violations of state and federal laws, including fraud, cybersecurity, public corruption, national security, workplace compliance, and issues involving board governance. She has successfully tried numerous cases in federal courts throughout her two and a half decades in public service and private practice.
Erin has deep experience in government service having served at the highest levels of the Department of Justice as United States Attorney, and before that as an Assistant United States Attorney. As the United States Attorney for the Northern District of Texas, Erin led an office of 250 employees responsible for prosecuting wide-ranging and complex federal cases, including financial, securities, health care, government contracting and program fraud, as well as Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), money laundering, public corruption, computer crime, and opioid-related matters. She successfully quarterbacked the Northern District of Texas’ most significant investigations, and during her tenure, the office prosecuted more cases and more defendants than any other non-border district in the nation. As U.S. Attorney, she was recognized nationally for her work in developing strategic responses to benefit the eight million residents of the North District of Texas. She was also recognized nationally and locally for her efforts to combat domestic violence through gun control initiatives and her work to eradicate human trafficking through the efforts of the North Texas Trafficking Task Force.
While serving as U.S. Attorney, she also served as Chairperson of the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee (AGAC), a body of 15 U.S. Attorneys selected by the Attorney General to advise on national priorities, including policy and operational issues. Erin also led the AGAC task force on domestic violence and firearms crimes.
Prior to her appointment as U.S. Attorney in 2017, she served briefly as a senior advisor at McKinsey & Co., in the consulting firm’s cybersecurity and risk practice. Before that, Erin was executive managing director at Stroz Friedberg, a cybersecurity and investigations consulting firm, ultimately leading the firm’s global incident response business. During her prosecutorial career, Erin served as Chief of Staff and Senior Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General in the DOJ’s Office of Legal Policy in Washington, D.C. She also served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Northern District of Texas, where she prosecuted white collar, cyber, and violent crimes for almost a decade.
Chief, Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Texas
Chief Policy Counsel, Council on Criminal Justice and Senior Advisor, Right on Crime
Marc A. Levin is the Chief Policy Counsel for the Council on Criminal Justice (counciloncj.org) and Senior Advisor for Right on Crime.
An attorney and accomplished author on legal and public policy issues, Marc began the Foundation’s criminal justice program in 2005. This work contributed to nationally praised policy changes that have been followed by dramatic declines in crime and incarceration in Texas. Building on this success, in 2010, Levin developed the concept for the Right on Crime initiative, a TPPF project in partnership with Prison Fellowship and the American Conservative Union Foundation. Right on Crime has become the national clearinghouse for conservative criminal justice reforms and has contributed to the adoption of policies in dozens of states that fight crime, support victims, and protect taxpayers.
In 2014, Levin was named one of the “Politico 50” in the magazine’s annual “list of thinkers, doers, and dreamers who really matter in this age of gridlock and dysfunction.”
Marc has testified on criminal justice policy on four occasions before Congress and has testified before legislatures in states including Texas, Nevada, Kansas, Wisconsin, and California. He also has met personally with leaders such as U.S. Presidents, Speakers of the House, and the Justice Commtitee of the United Kingdom Parliament to share his ideas on criminal justice reform. In 2007, he was honored in a resolution unanimously passed by the Texas House of Representatives that stated, “Mr. Levin’s intellect is unparalleled and his research is impeccable.”
Since 2005, Marc has published dozens of policy papers on topics such as sentencing, probation, parole, reentry, and overcriminalization which are available on the TPPF website. Levin’s articles on law and public policy have been featured in publications such as the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Texas Review of Law & Politics, National Law Journal, New York Daily News, Jerusalem Post, Toronto Star, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Philadelphia Inquirer, San Francisco Chronicle, Washington Times, Los Angeles Daily Journal, Charlotte Observer, Dallas Morning News, Houston Chronicle, Austin American-Statesman, San Antonio Express-News and Reason Magazine.
In 1999, Marc graduated with honors from the University of Texas with a B.A. in Plan II Honors and Government. In 2002, Marc received his J.D. with honors from the University of Texas School of Law. Marc was a Charles G. Koch Summer Fellow in 1996. He served as a law clerk to Judge Will Garwood on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and Staff Attorney at the Texas Supreme Court.
Vice President, Edwin Meese III Institute for the Rule of Law, Advancing American Freedom
John G. Malcolm oversees Advancing American Freedom’s work to increase understanding of the Constitution and the rule of law as Vice President of the organization’s Edwin Meese III Institute for the Rule of Law. Malcolm brings to the challenge a wealth of legal expertise and experience in both the public and private sectors.
Prior to joining Advancing American Freedom in 2025, Malcolm was the Vice President of the Institute for Constitutional Government and the Director of the Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at the Heritage Foundation. Prior to joining Heritage in 2012, Malcolm was general counsel at the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, as well as a distinguished practitioner in residence at Pepperdine Law School. From 2004 to 2009, Malcolm was executive vice president and director of worldwide anti-piracy operations for the Motion Picture Association.
Malcolm served as a deputy assistant attorney general in the Department of Justice’s Criminal Division from 2001 to 2004, where he oversaw sections on computer crime and intellectual property, domestic security, child exploitation and obscenity, and special investigations. Immediately prior to that, he was a founding partner in the Atlanta law firm of Malcolm & Schroeder, LLP.
From 1990 to 1997, Malcolm was an assistant U.S. attorney in Atlanta, assigned to the fraud and public corruption section, and also an associate independent counsel, investigating fraud and abuse in the Department of Housing and Urban Development. He was honored with the Director’s Award for Superior Performance for his work in connection with the successful prosecution of Walter Leroy Moody Jr., who assassinated an 11th Circuit judge and the head of the Savannah chapter of the NAACP.
A graduate of Harvard Law School and Columbia College, Malcolm began his career as a law clerk to a federal district court judge and a federal appellate court judge, and as an associate at the Atlanta-based law firm of Sutherland, Asbill & Brennan (new Eversheds Sutherland).
Malcolm, who resides in Washington, D.C., serves on the Board of Trustees of the Washington National Opera and is a Senate-confirmed member of the Board of Directors of the Legal Services Corporation, the largest funder of civil legal aid in the United States.
U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas
Reed Charles O'Connor is a federal judge on the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas. He joined the court in 2007 after being nominated by President George W. Bush.
A native of Houston, Texas, O'Connor graduated from the University of Houston with his bachelor's degree in 1986 and from South Texas College of Law with his J.D. in 1989.
Judge, United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas
Wes Hendrix is a judge on the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas. He was nominated by President Donald Trump in January 2019 and confirmed by the U.S. Senate in July 2019. He presides over federal civil and criminal cases in the Northern District’s Lubbock, Abilene, and San Angelo Divisions. He is a member of the Fifth Circuit’s Criminal Pattern Jury Instructions Committee and the Northern District of Texas’s Local Rules Committee. He is an adjunct professor at Texas Tech University School of Law.
Prior to his confirmation, Judge Hendrix served as the Appellate Chief for the Northern District of Texas’s United States Attorney’s Office. He served as Chair of the Department of Justice’s Appellate Chiefs Working Group and as an ex officio member of the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee. He regularly coordinated with the Department of Justice’s Criminal Division Appellate Section and the Office of the Solicitor General regarding cases appealed to and argued before the U.S. Supreme Court.
As an Assistant U.S. Attorney, he represented the United States at trial and on appeal. He helped prosecute Hosam Smadi, who was convicted of attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction in a downtown Dallas skyscraper. He also argued over 25 appeals at the Fifth and Seventh Circuits—including two en banc arguments—and served as sole counsel in over 350 appeals. He regularly taught courses at the Department of Justice’s National Advocacy Center.
Prior to his work as a prosecutor, Judge Hendrix was an associate at the Dallas office of Baker Botts L.L.P., where he focused on complex commercial, oil-and-gas, and intellectual-property litigation. He began his legal career as a law clerk to Judge Patrick Higginbotham of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
Judge Hendrix received his law degree from the University of Texas, where he served on the Texas Law Review and graduated with high honors and as a Chancellor-at-Large. He received his undergraduate degree with honors from the University of Chicago.
Partner, Quinn Emanuel
John F. Bash is an American attorney who served as the United States Attorney for the Western District of Texas from 2017 to 2020. After graduating from Harvard Law School, Mr. Bash clerked for Judge Kavanaugh during his first year on the bench and went on to clerk for Justice Antonin Scalia. He then served as an Assistant to the Solicitor General in the U.S. Department of Justice, where he argued ten cases in the United States Supreme Court. He also served briefly as Special Assistant to the President and Associate Counsel to the President before his appointment as United States Attorney.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit
James C. Ho is a Circuit Judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Before taking the bench on January 4, 2018, he was a partner and co-chair of the national Appellate and Constitutional Law practice group of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP.
As an appellate litigator for over a decade, including three years as the Solicitor General of Texas, Judge Ho presented 50 oral arguments in federal and state courts nationwide. He won numerous appeals, including three merits cases at the U.S. Supreme Court. He was routinely ranked among the nation’s leading lawyers by Benchmark, Chambers, Law360, The Legal 500, and The National Law Journal, among other publications. His work has been cited favorably by courts at every level of both the federal and state judiciaries. He won a Best Brief Award from the National Association of Attorneys General for every year that he served as solicitor general, and he is the only state solicitor general in history to be invited by the U.S. Supreme Court to express the views of a state.
Judge Ho has served in all three branches of the federal government. On the Senate Judiciary Committee, he served as chief counsel of the Subcommittees on the Constitution and Immigration under Senator John Cornyn. At the Justice Department, he served as Special Assistant to the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights and an attorney-advisor at the Office of Legal Counsel. He clerked for Judge Jerry E. Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and Justice Clarence Thomas of the U.S. Supreme Court.
His record of public service also includes appointments as vice chair of the Federal Judicial Evaluation Committee in Texas and co-chair of the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association Judiciary Committee, and as a member of the U.S. Magistrate Judge Merit Selection Panel for the Northern District of Texas, the U.S. delegation to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, and the Continuity of Government Commission.
In addition, Judge Ho has served as an Adjunct Professor of Law at the University of Texas School of Law, where he taught seminars on U.S. Supreme Court Litigation and Religious Liberty. He has authored numerous articles in respected law reviews nationwide, including an annual feature on exemplary judicial writing for The Green Bag Almanac & Reader. He previously served as senior editor of The Green Bag and as co-editor of Pub. L. Misc.
Judge Ho graduated from Stanford University with honors and a B.A. in Public Policy in 1995, and the University of Chicago Law School with high honors in 1999. Before law school, he was a legislative aide to California State Senator Quentin Kopp. He and his wife Allyson live in Dallas, Texas, with their twin daughter and son.
Chairman, Supreme Court and Constitutional Law Practice, Baker Botts LLP
Aaron Streett is the Chairman of Baker Botts’ Supreme Court and Constitutional Law Practice. He has presented oral argument in scores of appeals, covering the U.S. Supreme Court and courts around the country—including over 40 arguments between the Fifth and D.C. Circuits alone. Mr. Streett’s practice involves virtually all substantive areas of the law, including commercial litigation, statutory interpretation, constitutional law, administrative law, securities, and jurisdictional issues. Mr. Streett maintains an active practice in the Supreme Court of the United States, having represented parties in merits cases seven times since 2010, as well as filing numerous amicus and certiorari-stage briefs. Mr. Streett was named one of only six “Appellate MVPs” for 2014 by Law360, which had previously recognized him in 2011 as one of the top five appellate “Rising Stars” under age 40. Mr. Streett has been featured on National Law Journal’s Appellate Hot List three times in recent years and in 2021 was named Houston’s “Lawyer of the Year” for Appellate Practice by Best Lawyers magazine. Mr. Streett is an elected member of the American Law Institute and a fellow of the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers. He serves on the Board of Directors for the Fifth Circuit Bar Association and previously served as President of the Houston Lawyers Chapter of the Federalist Society. Mr. Streett speaks regularly on the Supreme Court and constitutional law to attorneys and law students around the country. Following graduation from Hillsdale College and University of Texas School of Law, Mr. Streett served as a law clerk to the Honorable David B. Sentelle of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and to the Honorable William H. Rehnquist, Chief Justice of the United States.
Justice, Texas Supreme Court
James P. Sullivan was appointed to the Texas Supreme Court by Governor Greg Abbott on January 7, 2025, after serving as his General Counsel. He is the proud husband of Alithea and father of Conan. Growing up in Austin, Judge Sully was an extra in the movie "Dazed & Confused." He was a highly unrecruited walk-on at Rice University, until an injury turned him into a debater. Once in law school, he met his wife, Alithea, on the Harvard Law Review. After graduating, he clerked on the D.C. Circuit for Judge Thomas B. Griffith. He also worked under then-Attorney General Abbott in the Office of the Solicitor General, in addition to stints as an adjunct professor at George Mason University and an appellate litigator in private practice.
Robert G. Storey Distinguished Faculty Fellow; Associate Professor of Law Co-Director, Tsai Center for Law, Science and Innovation, SMU Dedman School of Law
David O. Taylor is an Associate Professor at the SMU Dedman School of Law in Dallas, Texas. He also founded and currently serves as a Co-Director of the school’s Tsai Center for Law, Science and Innovation.
Professor Taylor earned his bachelor of science, magna cum laude, in mechanical engineering from Texas A&M University and his juris doctor, cum laude, from Harvard Law School. Prior to law school, Professor Taylor worked as an applications engineer at National Instruments Corporation in Austin, Texas. While in law school, he served as an extern for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Boston, as a member of both the Harvard Journal of Law & Technology and the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, and as President of the law school's Texas Club.
After graduating from law school, Professor Taylor clerked for the current Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, the Honorable Sharon Prost. Professor Taylor also worked for seven years at the law firm of Baker Botts LLP in its Dallas office. While at Baker Botts, Professor Taylor engaged in patent litigation in various district courts and at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. His litigation experience includes both bench and jury trials. A registered patent attorney, he also gained significant experience in the fields of intellectual property licensing and patent prosecution. During his time in practice he assisted with several advanced patent law courses at SMU Dedman School of Law, including Patent Litigation, Intellectual Property Licensing, and Patent Prosecution, and successfully represented clients in pro bono matters, including before the U.S. Court of Veterans Appeals.
At SMU, Professor Taylor teaches in the areas of contracts and patent law. His scholarship focuses on patent law, patent policy, patent litigation, and civil procedure. Professor Taylor has published articles in various journals, including the Connecticut Law Review, Georgia Law Review, New York University Law Review, and in an assortment of intellectual property specialty journals. His publications have been cited by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and various district courts.
A frequent speaker, he has made academic presentations at law schools across the United States, including Boston College, California Berkeley, Cardozo, Chicago-Kent, DePaul, Houston, Kansas, San Diego, Stanford, and Texas, and internationally in Chongqing, China; Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam; and Taipei, Taiwan. He also is a regular speaker at various continuing legal education (CLE) events, including events sponsored by the Dallas Bar Association, the Eastern District of Texas Bar Association, the Center for American and International Law, and the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies.
In addition to these activities, Professor Taylor has organized numerous symposia and conferences, helped launch SMU’s Patent and Trademark Clinics, and helped draft the proposal to secure the funding to launch the Tsai Center for Law, Science and Innovation. He serves on several law school committees and is an advisor to both the SMU Science and Technology Law Review and The International Lawyer. Professor Taylor also serves as an advisor to the law school's chapter of the Federalist Society, which regularly hosts speakers addressing hot topics in the field of constitutional law. SMU granted Professor Taylor tenure in 2016.
Professor Taylor serves in various leadership positions. He is a member of the Advisory Council for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. He serves on the Executive Board of the Institute for Law and Technology at the Center for American and International Law. He also is currently the Reporter for the Patentable Subject Matter Task Force of the American Intellectual Property Law Association (AIPLA), and he serves as a member of the AIPLA's Amicus Committee. He is a Director of the Intellectual Property Law Section of the Dallas Bar Association (DBA), and he previously served as the Chair of the Computer Law Section of the DBA. In addition to these leadership activities, Professor Taylor has served as an expert and consultant in various intellectual property disputes.
He has received several accolades. Professor Taylor is the recipient of a Thomas Edison Innovation Fellowship from the Center for the Protection of Intellectual Property at the George Mason University Antonin Scalia Law School. He has also been named a founding Barrister of the Honorable Barbara M.G. Lynn American Inn of Court, an Honorary Barrister of the SMU Dedman School of Law Board of Advocates, and an Outstanding Graduate of the Irving Independent School District. In addition to these awards, he has received numerous research and course development grants.
Outside of his work at the law school and the field of intellectual property law, Professor Taylor has engaged in public service with diverse groups including Advocates for Community Transformation, Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children, and the Veterans Consortium Pro Bono Program.
Professor Taylor is married. Together with his wife Rachel, he enjoys spending time with his three children: Caroline, Emily, and Joshua.
Partner, Quinn Emanuel
John F. Bash is an American attorney who served as the United States Attorney for the Western District of Texas from 2017 to 2020. After graduating from Harvard Law School, Mr. Bash clerked for Judge Kavanaugh during his first year on the bench and went on to clerk for Justice Antonin Scalia. He then served as an Assistant to the Solicitor General in the U.S. Department of Justice, where he argued ten cases in the United States Supreme Court. He also served briefly as Special Assistant to the President and Associate Counsel to the President before his appointment as United States Attorney.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit
James C. Ho is a Circuit Judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Before taking the bench on January 4, 2018, he was a partner and co-chair of the national Appellate and Constitutional Law practice group of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP.
As an appellate litigator for over a decade, including three years as the Solicitor General of Texas, Judge Ho presented 50 oral arguments in federal and state courts nationwide. He won numerous appeals, including three merits cases at the U.S. Supreme Court. He was routinely ranked among the nation’s leading lawyers by Benchmark, Chambers, Law360, The Legal 500, and The National Law Journal, among other publications. His work has been cited favorably by courts at every level of both the federal and state judiciaries. He won a Best Brief Award from the National Association of Attorneys General for every year that he served as solicitor general, and he is the only state solicitor general in history to be invited by the U.S. Supreme Court to express the views of a state.
Judge Ho has served in all three branches of the federal government. On the Senate Judiciary Committee, he served as chief counsel of the Subcommittees on the Constitution and Immigration under Senator John Cornyn. At the Justice Department, he served as Special Assistant to the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights and an attorney-advisor at the Office of Legal Counsel. He clerked for Judge Jerry E. Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and Justice Clarence Thomas of the U.S. Supreme Court.
His record of public service also includes appointments as vice chair of the Federal Judicial Evaluation Committee in Texas and co-chair of the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association Judiciary Committee, and as a member of the U.S. Magistrate Judge Merit Selection Panel for the Northern District of Texas, the U.S. delegation to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, and the Continuity of Government Commission.
In addition, Judge Ho has served as an Adjunct Professor of Law at the University of Texas School of Law, where he taught seminars on U.S. Supreme Court Litigation and Religious Liberty. He has authored numerous articles in respected law reviews nationwide, including an annual feature on exemplary judicial writing for The Green Bag Almanac & Reader. He previously served as senior editor of The Green Bag and as co-editor of Pub. L. Misc.
Judge Ho graduated from Stanford University with honors and a B.A. in Public Policy in 1995, and the University of Chicago Law School with high honors in 1999. Before law school, he was a legislative aide to California State Senator Quentin Kopp. He and his wife Allyson live in Dallas, Texas, with their twin daughter and son.
Chairman, Supreme Court and Constitutional Law Practice, Baker Botts LLP
Aaron Streett is the Chairman of Baker Botts’ Supreme Court and Constitutional Law Practice. He has presented oral argument in scores of appeals, covering the U.S. Supreme Court and courts around the country—including over 40 arguments between the Fifth and D.C. Circuits alone. Mr. Streett’s practice involves virtually all substantive areas of the law, including commercial litigation, statutory interpretation, constitutional law, administrative law, securities, and jurisdictional issues. Mr. Streett maintains an active practice in the Supreme Court of the United States, having represented parties in merits cases seven times since 2010, as well as filing numerous amicus and certiorari-stage briefs. Mr. Streett was named one of only six “Appellate MVPs” for 2014 by Law360, which had previously recognized him in 2011 as one of the top five appellate “Rising Stars” under age 40. Mr. Streett has been featured on National Law Journal’s Appellate Hot List three times in recent years and in 2021 was named Houston’s “Lawyer of the Year” for Appellate Practice by Best Lawyers magazine. Mr. Streett is an elected member of the American Law Institute and a fellow of the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers. He serves on the Board of Directors for the Fifth Circuit Bar Association and previously served as President of the Houston Lawyers Chapter of the Federalist Society. Mr. Streett speaks regularly on the Supreme Court and constitutional law to attorneys and law students around the country. Following graduation from Hillsdale College and University of Texas School of Law, Mr. Streett served as a law clerk to the Honorable David B. Sentelle of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and to the Honorable William H. Rehnquist, Chief Justice of the United States.
Justice, Texas Supreme Court
James P. Sullivan was appointed to the Texas Supreme Court by Governor Greg Abbott on January 7, 2025, after serving as his General Counsel. He is the proud husband of Alithea and father of Conan. Growing up in Austin, Judge Sully was an extra in the movie "Dazed & Confused." He was a highly unrecruited walk-on at Rice University, until an injury turned him into a debater. Once in law school, he met his wife, Alithea, on the Harvard Law Review. After graduating, he clerked on the D.C. Circuit for Judge Thomas B. Griffith. He also worked under then-Attorney General Abbott in the Office of the Solicitor General, in addition to stints as an adjunct professor at George Mason University and an appellate litigator in private practice.
Robert G. Storey Distinguished Faculty Fellow; Associate Professor of Law Co-Director, Tsai Center for Law, Science and Innovation, SMU Dedman School of Law
David O. Taylor is an Associate Professor at the SMU Dedman School of Law in Dallas, Texas. He also founded and currently serves as a Co-Director of the school’s Tsai Center for Law, Science and Innovation.
Professor Taylor earned his bachelor of science, magna cum laude, in mechanical engineering from Texas A&M University and his juris doctor, cum laude, from Harvard Law School. Prior to law school, Professor Taylor worked as an applications engineer at National Instruments Corporation in Austin, Texas. While in law school, he served as an extern for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Boston, as a member of both the Harvard Journal of Law & Technology and the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, and as President of the law school's Texas Club.
After graduating from law school, Professor Taylor clerked for the current Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, the Honorable Sharon Prost. Professor Taylor also worked for seven years at the law firm of Baker Botts LLP in its Dallas office. While at Baker Botts, Professor Taylor engaged in patent litigation in various district courts and at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. His litigation experience includes both bench and jury trials. A registered patent attorney, he also gained significant experience in the fields of intellectual property licensing and patent prosecution. During his time in practice he assisted with several advanced patent law courses at SMU Dedman School of Law, including Patent Litigation, Intellectual Property Licensing, and Patent Prosecution, and successfully represented clients in pro bono matters, including before the U.S. Court of Veterans Appeals.
At SMU, Professor Taylor teaches in the areas of contracts and patent law. His scholarship focuses on patent law, patent policy, patent litigation, and civil procedure. Professor Taylor has published articles in various journals, including the Connecticut Law Review, Georgia Law Review, New York University Law Review, and in an assortment of intellectual property specialty journals. His publications have been cited by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and various district courts.
A frequent speaker, he has made academic presentations at law schools across the United States, including Boston College, California Berkeley, Cardozo, Chicago-Kent, DePaul, Houston, Kansas, San Diego, Stanford, and Texas, and internationally in Chongqing, China; Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam; and Taipei, Taiwan. He also is a regular speaker at various continuing legal education (CLE) events, including events sponsored by the Dallas Bar Association, the Eastern District of Texas Bar Association, the Center for American and International Law, and the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies.
In addition to these activities, Professor Taylor has organized numerous symposia and conferences, helped launch SMU’s Patent and Trademark Clinics, and helped draft the proposal to secure the funding to launch the Tsai Center for Law, Science and Innovation. He serves on several law school committees and is an advisor to both the SMU Science and Technology Law Review and The International Lawyer. Professor Taylor also serves as an advisor to the law school's chapter of the Federalist Society, which regularly hosts speakers addressing hot topics in the field of constitutional law. SMU granted Professor Taylor tenure in 2016.
Professor Taylor serves in various leadership positions. He is a member of the Advisory Council for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. He serves on the Executive Board of the Institute for Law and Technology at the Center for American and International Law. He also is currently the Reporter for the Patentable Subject Matter Task Force of the American Intellectual Property Law Association (AIPLA), and he serves as a member of the AIPLA's Amicus Committee. He is a Director of the Intellectual Property Law Section of the Dallas Bar Association (DBA), and he previously served as the Chair of the Computer Law Section of the DBA. In addition to these leadership activities, Professor Taylor has served as an expert and consultant in various intellectual property disputes.
He has received several accolades. Professor Taylor is the recipient of a Thomas Edison Innovation Fellowship from the Center for the Protection of Intellectual Property at the George Mason University Antonin Scalia Law School. He has also been named a founding Barrister of the Honorable Barbara M.G. Lynn American Inn of Court, an Honorary Barrister of the SMU Dedman School of Law Board of Advocates, and an Outstanding Graduate of the Irving Independent School District. In addition to these awards, he has received numerous research and course development grants.
Outside of his work at the law school and the field of intellectual property law, Professor Taylor has engaged in public service with diverse groups including Advocates for Community Transformation, Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children, and the Veterans Consortium Pro Bono Program.
Professor Taylor is married. Together with his wife Rachel, he enjoys spending time with his three children: Caroline, Emily, and Joshua.
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