George P. Shultz Senior Fellow in Foreign Policy and National Security Affairs, Emeritus, Hoover Institution
Abraham D. Sofaer was appointed the first George P. Shultz Distinguished Scholar and Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution in 1994. Named in honor of former US secretary of state George P. Shultz, the appointment is awarded to a senior scholar whose broad vision, knowledge, and skill will be brought to bear on the problems presented by a radically transformed global environment.
Sofaer's work focuses on the power over war within the US government and on issues related to international law, terrorism, diplomacy, and national security. His most recent books are Taking on Iran: Strength, Diplomacy, and the Iranian Threat(Hoover Institution Press, 2013) and The Best Defense?: Legitimacy and Preventive Force (Hoover Institution Press, 2010).
From 1985 to 1990, he served as a legal adviser to the US Department of State, where he resolved several interstate matters, including the dispute between Egypt and Israel over Taba, the claim against Iraq for its attack on the USS Stark, and the claims against Chile for the assassination of Orlando Letelier. He received the Distinguished Service Award in 1989, the highest state department award given to a non–civil servant.
From 1979 to 1985, Sofaer served as a US district judge in the Southern District of New York. From 1969 to 1979, he was a professor of law at Columbia University School of Law and wrote War, Foreign Affairs, and Constitutional Power: The Origins.From 1967 to 1969, he was an assistant US attorney in the Southern District of New York, after clerking for Judge J. Skelly Wright on the US Court of Appeals in Washington, DC, and the Honorable William J. Brennan Jr. on the US Supreme Court. He practiced law at Hughes, Hubbard and Reed from 1990 to 1994.
A veteran of the US Air Force, Sofaer received an LLB degree from New York University School of Law in 1965, where he was editor in chief of the law review. He holds a BA in history from Yeshiva College (1962). Sofaer is a founding trustee of the National Museum of Jazz in Harlem and a member of the board of the Koret Foundation.
His research papers are available at the Hoover Institution Archives.
Senior Fellow in Constitutional Jurisprudence, Independence Institute
Professor Robert G. Natelson is a constitutional scholar and author.
Rob’s constitutional scholarship has been cited repeatedly by justices and parties at the U.S. Supreme Court—as well as by federal appeals courts, and at least 18 state supreme courts.
Rob’s research into the Constitution’s original meaning has carried him to libraries throughout the United States and in Britain, including four months at Oxford University. His books and articles span many different parts of the Constitution, including groundbreaking studies of the Necessary and Proper Clause, the Indian Commerce Clause, federalism, Founding-Era interpretation, regulation of elections, and the amendment process of Article V. He created the first-ever online bibliography for 18th century materials used in constitutional research. He is a contributing author to the Encyclopedia of the Supreme Court of the United States (on Magna Carta). He contributed eight essays to the third edition of the Heritage Guide to the Constitution: five on the amendment procedure and one each on the Guarantee Clause, the Postal Clause, and the Recess Appointments Clause.
U.S. Supreme Court justices have relied explicitly on Rob’s research in 41 citations in 13 separate cases.
Senior Litigation Counsel, New Civil Liberties Alliance
Throughout his 40-year career in private law practice in Washington, D.C., Richard Samp has specialized in appellate litigation with a focus on constitutional law. He served as Chief Counsel of the Washington Legal Foundation for more than 30 years. He has participated directly in more than 200 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. Mr. Samp is a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Michigan Law School and clerked for a federal judge in Detroit.
Founder, Edge AI
Adam Jackson joined the Army in 2007. He served as an infantryman in the 82nd Airborne Division. While there, he deployed to Kandahar, Afghanistan from 2009 to 2010. He started the Special Forces Qualification Course (SFQC) in 2011. Upon graduation, he was assigned to 5th Special Forces Group. As a member of 5th SFG he deployed to Jordan, Iraq, and Syria. While in Jordan he spearheaded an effort to equip a Jordanian Intelligence unit with secure internet. Upon returning from Jordan, he attended the Joint Terminal Attack Controller Course where he learned to integrate aircraft into ground operations, assess structures and material for blast and penetration tolerance, and prevent friendly fire incidents and collateral damage. In 2016, Adam deployed to Iraq and eventually moved from Iraq to Syria. His team was one of the first Special Forces Teams in Syria. Upon returning from his last deployment Adam started a computer vision company that specializes in Facial Recognition security systems and prepared to leave the military. He is a self-taught programmer, computer networking technician, system integration specialist, and security consultant.
Resident Fellow, American Enterprise Institute
Jason Delisle is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he works on higher education financing with an emphasis on student loan programs.
Mr. Delisle started his career on Capitol Hill, first in the office of Representative Thomas Petri, then as an analyst for the US Senate Committee on the Budget. His work has led him to study the history and mechanics of federal student loans and other financial aid policies and to recommend budget process reforms for rules covering financial risk in government programs — including working on fair-value accounting for loan programs.
Before joining AEI, Mr. Delisle served as director of the Federal Education Budget Project at New America, where he worked to improve the quality of public information on federal funding for education and the support of well-targeted federal education policies. He was also an informal adviser on higher education reform for Governor Jeb Bush’s 2016 presidential campaign.
Mr. Delisle has written for a variety of publications, including Bloomberg View, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post. He has also appeared on numerous national television and radio programs, including Fox Business, National Public Radio, and the “PBS NewsHour.”
Mr. Delisle has a master’s of public policy in budget and public finance from the George Washington University and a bachelor of arts degree in government from Lawrence University.
Attorney, Law Office of Adam S. Minky
Adam S. Minsky is one of the nation’s leading experts on student debt and is a pioneer in his field. He established the first law firm in Massachusetts devoted entirely to assisting student loan borrowers, and has since expanded his practice to include New York. He remains one of the only attorneys in the country with a practice focused exclusively in this field of law. Attorney Minsky has published numerous books and articles on student debt, and he regularly speaks at colleges, nonprofit organizations, and professional associations about developments in student loan law and higher education financing. Major media outlets frequently seek his expert opinions on national news and policy stories.
Attorney Minsky founded this practice because he took out student loans to help finance his own education, but when he encountered a serious problem with one of his student loan servicers, he couldn’t find anyone to help him. He established this firm shortly thereafter to help other borrowers who feel alone and overwhelmed by a student debt issue, and he has since helped hundreds of clients work through major problems with their student loans.
Do you need help with your student loans? Do you want personalized, individual attention to your student loan issue? Contact Attorney Minsky.
Founder, Edge AI
Adam Jackson joined the Army in 2007. He served as an infantryman in the 82nd Airborne Division. While there, he deployed to Kandahar, Afghanistan from 2009 to 2010. He started the Special Forces Qualification Course (SFQC) in 2011. Upon graduation, he was assigned to 5th Special Forces Group. As a member of 5th SFG he deployed to Jordan, Iraq, and Syria. While in Jordan he spearheaded an effort to equip a Jordanian Intelligence unit with secure internet. Upon returning from Jordan, he attended the Joint Terminal Attack Controller Course where he learned to integrate aircraft into ground operations, assess structures and material for blast and penetration tolerance, and prevent friendly fire incidents and collateral damage. In 2016, Adam deployed to Iraq and eventually moved from Iraq to Syria. His team was one of the first Special Forces Teams in Syria. Upon returning from his last deployment Adam started a computer vision company that specializes in Facial Recognition security systems and prepared to leave the military. He is a self-taught programmer, computer networking technician, system integration specialist, and security consultant.
Paul Whitfield Horn Professor, Texas Tech University School of Law
Professor Casto received his law degree from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville and a Doctor of the Science of Law degree from Columbia University. He joined the Texas Tech faculty in 1983 after practicing law for a number of years. He has written a number of well received books and articles on international tort law and on the federal courts. The United States Supreme Court has frequently cited or relied upon his published scholarship. He is a member of the American Law Institute and holds a Paul Whitfield Horn Professorship, which is the highest honor that Texas Tech may bestow on a faculty member. He is currently writing a book on the process of providing legal advice in government.
He has written three well-received books: The Supreme Court in the Early Republic, Oliver Ellsworth and the Creation of the Federal Republic, and Foreign Affairs and the Constitution in the Age of Fighting Sail. Professor Casto has written articles on judicial review, foreign policy, and the relationship between religion and public life in the Founding Era.
Dwight D. Opperman Professor of Law; Director, Center for Labor, New York University School of Law
Samuel Estreicher is a nationally preeminent scholar in US and international-comparative labor and employment law and arbitration law. He has authored more than a dozen books, including Beyond Elite Law: Access to Civil Justice in America (with Joy Radice, Cambridge Univ. 2016); leading casebooks on legislation and regulatory state, labor law and employment discrimination and employment law; and published more than 200 articles in professional and academic journals. He served as Chief Reporter for the American Law Institute’s Restatement of Employment Law (2015). After clerking for Judge Harold Leventhal of the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, practicing in a labor law firm, and clerking for Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr. of the US Supreme Court, Prof. Estreicher joined the NYU School of Law faculty in 1978. In addition to serving as counsel to major law firms, he is the former secretary of the Labor and Employment Law Section of the American Bar Association, a former chair of the Committee on Labor and Employment Law of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York.15). He maintains an active appellate and ADR practice. The Labor and Employment Research Association awarded him its 2010 Susan C. Eaton Award for Outstanding Scholar-Practitioner. In recent years, Estreicher also has published work in public international law and authored several briefs in the Supreme Court and US courts of appeals on employment and US foreign relations law issues. Prof. Estreicher received his BA from Columbia College, his MS in industrial relations from Cornell University, and his JD from Columbia Law School, where he was editor-in-chief of the Columbia Law Review. He is a member of the College of Labor and Employment Lawyers and was appointed in 2016 by the UN Secretary General as a member of the UN’s Internal Justice Commission.
Patrick Hotung Professor of Constitutional Law, Georgetown University Law Center
Randy Barnett is the Patrick Hotung Professor of Constitutional Law at Georgetown University Law Center. He has argued before the United States Supreme Court, tried murder cases to juries as a prosecutor in Chicago, and appeared as a prosecutor in the feature film Inalienable. He is the author of numerous books, including Restoring the Lost Constitution, The Structure of Liberty, Our Republican Constitution, and The Original Meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. He has published two memoirs, A Life for Liberty: The Making of an American Originalist, and Felony Review: Tales of True Crime and Corruption in Chicago. He is currently working on a new book, Freedom and Flourishing: Libertarianism for the Real World.
Chief Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit
William H. Pryor Jr. serves as Chief Circuit Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.
In 2013–18, he served on the United States Sentencing Commission and, in 2017–18, served as Acting Chair.
He has taught as a visiting professor at the University of Alabama School of Law and previously taught as an adjunct professor at the Cumberland School of Law of Samford University.
He served as the 45th Attorney General of Alabama from 1997 to 2004. When he took office, he was the youngest attorney general in the nation. In his reelection, he received the highest percentage of votes of any statewide candidate.
He graduated magna cum laude from Tulane Law School where he finished first in the common-law curriculum and was editor in chief of the Tulane Law Review. He then served as a law clerk for Judge John Minor Wisdom of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
He is a member of The American Law Institute and an Adviser for the RESTATEMENT OF THE LAW THIRD, CONFLICT OF LAWS. He is a coauthor with Bryan Garner, Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, and several other judges of a treatise, THE LAW OF JUDICIAL PRECEDENT. He has published in the Yale Law Journal, Columbia Law Review, Virginia Law Review, Notre Dame Law Review, Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, Yale Law & Policy Review, George Mason Law Review, Florida Law Review, Alabama Law Review, Case Western Reserve Law Review, and Tulane Law Review. He has published op-eds in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, National Review, and USA Today. He has debated at National Lawyers’ Conventions of the Federalist Society (including on National Public Radio) and at the Oxford Union in the United Kingdom. And he is listed among several “widely admired judicial writers” in Bryan Garner’s The Redbook: A Manual on Legal Style.
He is a member of the Tulane Law School Hall of Fame and has received the Defender of the Constitution Award from the Heritage Foundation, the Jurist of the Year Award from the Texas Review of Law & Politics, and the St. Thomas More Award from the St. Thomas More Society of Atlanta. Judge Pryor is also a proud member of the National Society of the Sons of the American Revolution.
Chief Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit
JEFFREY S. SUTTON is the Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. He has served as Chair of the Federal Judicial Conference Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure, Chair of the Advisory Committee on Appellate Rules, and Chair of the Supreme Court Fellows Commission. He currently serves as Chair of the Executive Committee of the Judicial Conference of the United States. Since 1993, Chief Judge Sutton has been an adjunct professor at The Ohio State University College of Law, where he teaches seminars on State Constitutional Law, the United States Supreme Court, and Appellate Advocacy. He also teaches a class on State Constitutional Law at Harvard Law School. Among other publications, he is the author of Who Decides? States as Laboratories of Constitutional Experimentation and 51 Imperfect Solutions: States and the Making of American Constitutional Law. He is the co-author of a casebook, State Constitutional Law: The Modern Experience, as well as The Law of Judicial Precedent. He is also the co-editor of The Essential Scalia: On the Constitution, the Courts, and the Rule of Law. In 2006, Chief Judge Sutton was elected to the American Law Institute, and in 2017 he was elected to its Council.
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