Former United States Senator, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
Ohio Attorney General
As Attorney General, Mike DeWine’s priority is protecting Ohio’s families.
To better protect our kids, Attorney General DeWine created a special Crimes Against Children Unit to help identify, arrest, and convict sexual predators. He has also increased training for law enforcement and educators to help improve school safety, as well as human trafficking, child abuse, missing children, bullying and the needs of foster youth.
Attorney General DeWine is working to rebuild Ohio’s neighborhoods, investing $75 million from the national mortgage settlement to help demolish abandoned and blighted properties. He has also made commitments to support anti-gun violence programs and community groups that are working to repair our hardest-hit communities.
On his first day in office, Attorney General DeWine joined in the federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Obamacare. In addition he is working hard to make sure his office provides cutting-edge criminal investigation and law enforcement training services, is rooting out public corruption, and helping to create a legal climate in Ohio that encourages businesses to invest in the state and create jobs.
DeWine has also devoted resources to fighting Ohio’s prescription drug abuse and heroin problems, increased the number of criminal prosecutions in consumer fraud cases, and dramatically decreased the turn-around time for testing of DNA evidence. He has dedicated resources to testing all of Ohio’s old sexual assault kits, which is leading to the convictions of sexual predators.
Attorney General DeWine has a long and distinguished career in public service focusing on protecting Ohio children and families. DeWine served as Greene County Prosecuting Attorney, in the Ohio State Senate, in the United States House of Representatives, as Ohio Lieutenant Governor and in the United States Senate.
Mike DeWine grew up in Yellow Springs, Ohio and married his high school sweetheart, Frances Streuwing, while both were students at Miami University. The DeWines, who have resided in Cedarville Township since Mike graduated from law school, are the parents of eight children and 22 grandchildren.
President, Society for the Rule of Law
George T. Conway III has been a partner in the Litigation Department of Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz since January 1994. He joined the firm in September 1988. His litigation experience has included a variety of high-profile matters spanning many areas of law in federal and state courts throughout the country. He has extensive experience in securities litigation, mergers and acquisitions litigation, contract litigation, antitrust litigation, and other litigation, both at the trial and appellate levels.
In the area of securities litigation, he recently briefed and argued the case for respondents in Morrison v. National Australia Bank, in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 does not apply extraterritorially to claims of so-called "foreign-cubed" plaintiffs -- foreign investors who purchased securities of foreign issuers on foreign exchanges. He also recently argued and won a precedent-setting motion to dismiss so-called "foreign-squared" claims against European Aeronautic Defence & Space Co. brought by American plaintiffs who purchased that foreign company's shares on foreign exchanges.
Mr. Conway also recently argued and won an important appeal under the Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990 on behalf of the Swiss installation artist Christoph Büchel in the artist’s highly publicized dispute with the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art. He also successfully represented the Chief Judge of the State of New York and the New York Unified Court System in historic constitutional litigation over the State of New York’s extended failure to adjust judicial salaries. Mr. Conway also played a substantial role in the successful defense of Kenneth Langone’s Invemed Associates in a disciplinary proceeding before the NASD (now FINRA) that resulted in what the New York Times called a "withering," "high-profile defeat" for the regulators.
Mr. Conway’s work in mergers and acquisitions litigation includes the representation of Rohm and Haas Co. and ADVO, Inc., in, respectively, Rohm and Haas v. Dow Chemical Co., and Valassis Communications v. ADVO, two Delaware Chancery Court cases involving claims to enforce merger agreements, as well as two historic cases in the development of Delaware corporate law governing mergers and acquisitions, QVC v. Paramount Communications and Paramount Communications v. Time Inc. and Warner Communications, in addition to many other cases involving contests for corporate control in the Delaware courts and elsewhere over the past two decades.
In addition, Mr. Conway played a substantial role in prosecuting one of the most prominent defamation cases in recent memory (Philip Morris v. American Broadcasting Cos.). He has extensive experience in merger-related private antitrust litigation and government antitrust investigations, including the defense of Cardinal Health in the preliminary injunction proceedings before the United States District Court for the District of Columbia in FTC v. Cardinal Health. He also represented the National Football League in trademark and antitrust litigation against the Dallas Cowboys in NFL Properties v. Dallas Cowboys Football Club. His pro bono work includes his successful representation in the Second Circuit of crime victims and public-interest groups as amici curiae in opposing claims that federal law requires the State of New York to allow felons to vote while still incarcerated.
Mr. Conway is a graduate of Harvard College, where in 1984 he received an A.B. magna cum laude in biochemical sciences. He received his J.D. in 1987 from Yale Law School, where he was an editor of the Yale Law Journal. In 1987 and 1988, he served as a law clerk to Circuit Judge Ralph K. Winter, Jr. of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
Staff Attorney, National Right to Work Legal Defense and Educati, Inc.
Adjunct Professor, University of Mary Washington, College of Graduate and Professional Studies, 2008-present; Foundation Law Clerk, 2006; Researcher, Ave Maria School of Law, 2004-06; Legal Intern, Dugan McKissick Wood & Longmore, Lexington Park, Md., 2005; Legal Intern, Federalist Society, Washington, DC, 2004; Senior Associate Lobbyist, High Park Advocacy Group, Toronto, Canada, 2001-03; Teacher, Dulwich College, London, England, 1999-2000. Bar Admissions: Maryland, 2006; Virginia, 2008; District of Columbia, 2011; U.S. Supreme Court. Law School: Ave Maria School of Law, J.D., 2006. College: King's College London, Post Graduate Degree in Education, 1999; Gregorian University, Bachelor of Philosophy, summa cum laude, 1994. Member: Federalist Society.Publications: "Organized Labor’s International Law Project? Transforming Workplace Rights into Human Rights" ENGAGE, Feb. 2008, at 98.
Director, William E. and Carol G. Simon Center on Religion and t, The Witherspoon Institute
Matthew J. Franck is the Director of the William E. and Carol G. Simon Center on Religion and the Constitution at the Witherspoon Institute in Princeton, New Jersey. He is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Radford University, in Virginia, where he taught constitutional law, American politics, and political philosophy from 1989 to 2010, and was Chairman of the Department of Political Science from 1995 to 2010. He is also a Visiting Lecturer in Politics at Princeton University.
Professor Franck earned his B.A. in political science from Virginia Wesleyan College, and his M.A. and Ph.D. in political science from Northern Illinois University. He has taught at Marquette University and Southern Illinois University, and was a Fulbright Professor of American Studies at the Graduate School of International Studies, Yonsei University, Seoul, Korea, in 1998, and a Visiting Fellow in the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University, in 2008-09.
He is the author, editor of, or contributor to several books on religious freedom, constitutional law, the Supreme Court, and American politics, and has published essays and reviews in numerous academic journals, as well as many general-interest articles and commentaries in newspapers, magazines, and online, including the Washington Post, First Things, National Review, and Public Discourse, the daily online essay publication of the Witherspoon Institute.
Professor Franck is a regular blogger on National Review Online’s “Bench Memos” page and the “First Thoughts” page at First Things magazine, and has appeared numerous times on Bill Bennett’s “Morning in America” radio show, as well as on CNN, Fox News Channel, NPR, and Relevant Radio.
Professor, Cumberland School of Law, Samford University
Michael DeBow joined the Cumberland faculty in 1988. He regularly teaches courses in Property, Business Organizations, Administrative Law, Legislation, and Local Government.
Professor DeBow is a native of Tupelo, Mississippi. He received his bachelor's and master's degrees in economics from the University of Alabama (1976, 1978). He graduated from the Yale Law School in 1980, and is a member of the District of Columbia Bar.
DeBow's career included a stint in private practice in Washington, D.C., followed by a judicial clerkship with Judge Kenneth W. Starr of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in 1983-84. DeBow then served as an attorney-advisor to Federal Trade Commission chairman James C. Miller III (1984-85), and a special assistant to Assistant Attorney General Douglas Ginsburg, in the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (1985-86). He began his teaching career at the University of Georgia business school, where he taught for two years prior to coming to Samford.
From 2000 to 2004, DeBow also acted in a part-time capacity as special assistant for legal policy to Alabama attorney general Bill Pryor. He was a visiting professor of law at George Mason University in 1999. He was a (nonresident) Salvatori Fellow of The Heritage Foundation during 1993-95, and a member of the executive committee of the Association of Private Enterprise Education during 1995-99. DeBow attended summer institutes in quantitative methods for law professors (George Mason Law & Economics Center, 1990), Austrian economics (NYU Department of Economics, 1997), and the study of freedom (Templeton Foundation Freedom Project, 2000). In 2008 he was named an Adjunct Fellow of the Alabama Policy Institute.
Professor DeBow has taught several undergraduate courses at Samford, including one which received a supporting grant from the John Templeton Foundation. Most recently, he taught an undergraduate course in law and economics for the Samford's Brock School of Business. He has also taught public health law for the UAB School of Public Health on several occasions.
DeBow's articles have appeared in such journals as the Texas Law Review, Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, Regulation, Policy Review, The Freeman, and the Journal of Law & Politics. He co-edits the Federalist Society's Pre-Law Reading List and its annotated bibliography of conservative and libertarian legal scholarship.
Never Give In: Battling Cancer in the Senate
Mineola, New YorkThe Rise and (Coming) Fall of "F-Cubed" Securities Litigation
George T. Conway, George ConwayI
With increasing frequency, the plaintiffs’ bar has been filing what are being called “f-cubed” securities...
Finding Terrorist Needles: The Automated Targeting System
Seth Stodder
On any given day, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the agency within the Department...
Organized Labor's International Law Project? Transforming Workplace Rights into Human Rights
Matthew C. Muggeridge
For more than half a century, large U.S. labor unions, alone or in concert with...
Point-Counterpoint: House Representation for the District of Columbia
Matthew J. Franck, Richard P. Bress
The U.S. House of Representatives has grown in membership in its more than two centuries...
State Judicial Selection: Once More Unto the Breach
Michael DeBow
Another election season approaches and with it the debate over the proper mechanism to select...
International Law and Jihad Terrorism: Novel Legal Questions Challenge the Status Quo
The Things That Are Not Caesar’s: Religious Organizations as a Check on the Authoritarian Pretensions of the State
Religious Liberties Practice Group
Washington, DCMike DeWine
2008 National Student Symposium
The People and the Courts
Ann Arbor, MI