Judge, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan
Stephen J. Murphy, III, joined the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan after presidential appointment and confirmation by the United States Senate on June 24, 2008. He assumed the bench on August 18, 2008.
Previously, Judge Murphy served as the presidentially appointed United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan after he was confirmed by unanimous consent of the United States Senate on June 8, 2005. Prior to confirmation, Judge Murphy had taken the oath of office and served continuously as United States Attorney from March 8, 2005 until his appointment as a district judge.
As United States Attorney, Judge Murphy oversaw one of the largest and busiest United States Attorney's offices in America, with operations in Detroit, Flint and Bay City, more than 100 Assistant United States Attorneys and a similar number of support staff.
Prior to his service as United States Attorney, Judge Murphy was an attorney with the General Motors Legal Staff in Detroit, where he specialized in litigation, internal investigations, counseling on various business law issues and other "white collar" matters. He served during that period as a public arbitrator for the National Association of Securities Dealers.
Judge Murphy also served with the United States Department of Justice for more than twelve years: first as a trial attorney with the Civil and Tax Divisions in Washington, D.C. (hired under the prestigious Attorney General's Honors Program), in which positions he defended various federal agencies and prosecuted criminal tax cases in federal district courts throughout the United States. Then, as an Assistant United States Attorney in Detroit from 1992-2000, Judge Murphy prosecuted and tried various violent, narcotics and several high profile white-collar criminal cases in Detroit's Federal Court.
A 1987 graduate of the St. Louis University School of Law (where he edited the law review), Judge Murphy has also been active in legal and community affairs. He has served on the boards of the Hospice of Michigan, Brighton Hospital, and the Historical Society of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. He was also appointed by his Court to serve as a member of the State Bar of Michigan's Standing Committee on United States Courts. He is presently a member of the Advisory Committee on Appellate Rules of Judicial Conference of the United States.
Judge Murphy is also an experienced appellate lawyer who, while in private practice, handled indigent criminal appointments in the United States Court of Appeals. He is a published legal author and he has served as an adjunct professor at the Ave Maria, Thomas M. Cooley, University of Detroit Mercy, and University of Toledo schools of law, where he has taught Business/White Collar Crimes, Evidence, Tax Fraud and Trial Practice.
U.S. Attorney, Eastern District of Michigan, U.S. Department of Justice
Matthew Schneider is the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan.
As the United States Attorney, Mr. Schneider is the chief federal law enforcement official in the Eastern District of Michigan, which contains approximately 6.5 million people in 34 counties. The office is widely recognized for significant prosecutions involving international terrorism, violent crime, public corruption, environmental crime, financial fraud, drug trafficking, civil rights and numerous other criminal and civil matters. As the United States Attorney, Mr. Schneider manages more than 230 employees, including approximately 120 Assistant U.S. Attorneys in Detroit, Flint and Bay City.
Prior to his appointment, Schneider was the Chief Deputy Attorney General for the State of Michigan. In that position, he supervised the office’s 40,000 ongoing cases and managed a budget of over $100 million in taxpayer funds. He had previously served as Chief Legal Counsel for the Michigan Office of Attorney General, where he was the lead counsel representing the Governor and the State of Michigan in the City of Detroit federal bankruptcy case.
Schneider previously served as the Michigan Supreme Court’s Chief of Staff and General Counsel. Schneider provided overall direction for the administration of Michigan’s Judicial Branch of government and served as chief legal counsel to the Chief Justice and the Justices.
Schneider is a former Assistant United States Attorney in Detroit. He focused on prosecuting corrupt public officials and members of organized crime, as well as street gangs and outlaw motorcycle gangs. He also handled an anti-terrorism caseload.
Prior to becoming a federal prosecutor, Schneider served as Senior Advisor and Assistant General Counsel in the White House Budget Office. He previously practiced international law with the Washington, D.C. firm of Wiley Rein LLP, where he represented American companies in suits against foreign governments for unfair business and trade actions.
Schneider has been an adjunct law professor for several years and has spoken and written on numerous aspects of constitutional law and criminal procedure. He is a graduate of the University of Michigan Law School and Michigan State University’s James Madison College. He is originally from Frankenmuth, Michigan.
Paul J. Schierl Professor of Law, University of Notre Dame Law School
Professor Richard W. Garnett teaches and writes in the areas of constitutional law, criminal law, the First Amendment, and law and religion. He is a leading authority on questions and debates regarding religious freedom and church-state relations, and is the founding director of Notre Dame Law School’s Program on Church, State, and Society.
Garnett clerked for the late Chief Justice of the United States, William H. Rehnquist, and also for the late Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, Richard S. Arnold. He earned his J.D. from Yale Law School in 1995 and his B.A., summa cum laude, from Duke University in 1990. He joined the faculty in 1999 after practicing law in Washington, D.C. with Miller, Cassidy, Larroca & Lewin.
Professor of History, East Stroudsburg University
Dr. Brooks is currently professor of history at East Stroudsburg University, where he teaches several courses, including African Americans and the Courts and US Constitutional History and Law and other courses in legal history. Further to his work at ESU, he is also a founding member and vice president of the Harrisburg lawyers' chapter of the Federalist Society.
Professor Brooks received his BA and MA in US History from East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania. He then received a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholarship to Edinburgh University (Scotland), where he studied British influences on the US judiciary. He completed his doctoral work at Kassel University (Germany). There he worked on the international “Modern Constitutionalism” project, editing and translating constitutions from German to English and English to German. His doctoral work there focused in particular on eleventh amendment sovereignty issues and law during the US founding era.
While in Germany, Prof. Brooks was an active member of the Center for North American Research, where he focused on constitutional and legal history, especially as it pertained to jurisprudential matters. He ran a solo business where he trained attorneys in several mid- to large-sized German and international law firms in legal English and communication. Prof. Brooks also did legal translation for many firms and for Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court, that nation’s highest court. Two books resulting from his work there include German Employment Law: 618 Questions Frequently Asked by Foreigners (2014) and Expats in Germany - Inbound and Outbound: Questions Frequently Asked by Foreigners (2017).
Current areas of research include state appellate judicial selection reform, early black attorneys, and comparative employment law.
Dr. Brooks has also written extensively Real Clear Politics, Real Clear Pennsylvania, and Allentown’s The Morning Call. His work has also appeared in New York Daily News, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, and The Hill.
Magistrate Judge, U.S. District Court, Western District of Texas
Associate, Covington & Burling LLP
Eli Nachmany is an associate at Covington & Burling LLP in the Washington, DC, office. He clerked for Judge Steven J. Menashi of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Eli graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, where he was Editor-in-Chief of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy. Prior to law school, Eli served as the speechwriter to the U.S. Secretary of the Interior and as a domestic policy aide in the White House Office of American Innovation. He graduated summa cum laude from New York University with a B.S. in Sports Management. Eli’s scholarship on administrative law and executive power has appeared in the BYU Law Review, George Mason Law Review, Wake Forest Law Review, and Yale Law Journal Forum.
Former Acting Assistant Attorney General, United States Department of Justice; Partner, Winston & Strawn LLP
Jonathan “Jon” Brightbill is a trial and appellate lawyer in Winston’s Washington, D.C. office, and a partner in the firm’s Litigation and White Collar, Regulatory Defense, and Investigations Practices. He represents public and private companies, corporate officers, and other individuals across white collar, regulatory defense, and government and internal investigation matters and rulemaking challenges, as well as complex commercial disputes, citizen suits, and class actions. His commercial litigation experience encompasses business disputes, false advertising, consumer protection and fraud, FCA, and extensive class action defense work; antitrust and unfair competition matters; and intellectual property litigation, such as trademarks, patents, and trade secrets.
Jon served as the Nation’s lead environmental civil and criminal enforcement official and litigator, as Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Environment & Natural Resources Division (“ENRD”) of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). Jon led ENRD’s 425 lawyers, overseeing 6,500 active matters and managing an annual budget of more than $150 million. Jon brings highly experienced executive leadership from among the most senior level of DOJ on white collar and regulatory enforcement, as well as on federal policymaking and rulemaking development and challenges. He speaks with authority on government decision-making processes, and the arguments and perspectives that move regulators and enforcers, best advising and positioning clients to deal with challenges.
Jon argued many of the government’s most significant cases during his time with the DOJ. This included the Navigable Waters Protection Rule and Clean Water Rule Repeal (10th Cir., district courts), the Affordable Clean Energy Rule and Clean Power Plan Repeal (D.C. Cir), defense of EPA actions on pesticide tolerances under FIFRA and the FDCA (9th Cir. en banc), among numerous others. Jon represented the United States in trial courts in both enforcement and defensive cases, including federal enforcement action against Jeffrey Lowe and the Tiger King Park, of Netflix fame, securing a first-of-its-kind injunction for violations of the Endangered Species Act and Animal Welfare Act. Jon directed the litigation and briefing of scores of additional federal cases nationwide, covering all of the major environmental and natural resources statutes, such as the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, FIFRA (pesticides), FDCA (food safety), TSCA (toxics), CERCLA (land remediation), RCRA (waste), National Environmental Policy Act, Federal Land Policy and Management Act, and numerous other land- and resource-management statutes.
Jon has unmatched experience litigating legal and technical issues relating to climate change. He argued in the courts of appeals, including the D.C. Circuit, regarding the most significant climate change regulations by EPA, as well as the preemptive scope of the Clean Air Act. Jon also litigated climate change-related credit and trading schemes and international agreements in district court. During Jon’s time in leadership at ENRD, it successfully defeated one of the most wide-ranging lawsuits regarding climate change to date—obtaining a stay pending interlocutory appeal and dismissal just weeks before a scheduled three-month trial on federal government liability for climate change.
An accomplished trial lawyer, prior to working at DOJ, Jon was a partner in the Washington, D.C. office of another global law firm. He not only represents clients in court, but creatively counsels corporations on balancing business needs and realities with a broad range of litigation risks and compliance obligations. Jon is also an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University Law Center. He served on the American Bar Association’s E-Discovery Working Group for Bankruptcy Practice, and was a frequent lecturer for District of Columbia Bar Association Continuing Legal Education Programs.
Jon served as an appellate clerk for the Honorable D. Brooks Smith, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, after graduating magna cum laude from the Georgetown University Law Center. He worked in state government as an Executive Policy Specialist for air, waste, land remediation, and radiation matters at the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.
Associate, Winston & Strawn LLP
Spencer draws on his experience as a former trial and appellate clerk to litigate white collar, commercial, administrative law, and constitutional matters at every stage.
Michael J. Woodrum is an Associate at Winston & Strawn LLP.
Topics
Is the TikTok Bill a Bill of Attainder?
The latest legislative attempt to counter TikTok and the Chinese Communist Party is picking up...
US Attorney Panel
Michigan Student Chapter
Ann Arbor, MIMassachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Sides with Government in Nondelegation Case
Eli Nachmany
In Robinhood Financial LLC v. Secretary of Commonwealth, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court sided...
Topics
Pulsifer v. United States: The Statutory Interpretation Rubber Hits the Criminal Law Road
In Pulsifer v. United States, the Supreme Court examined the criteria for a defendant to...
Religion in America and the Constitutional Experiment
Illinois Student Chapter
Effingham, ILTopics
Franchise With That? McDonald’s No-Poach Agreements Receive Antitrust Scrutiny
A case from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit has brought antitrust...
Critical Race Theory: The Good, the Bad, the Ugly
Maine Lawyers Chapter
Portland, MEPushing Pause on Liquified Natural Gas Exports: Can the Department of Energy Halt LNG Exports to Save the Planet?
Jonathan Brightbill, Spencer Churchill, Michael Woodrum
The Biden-Harris Administration recently interrupted the normal, export-friendly operation of the Natural Gas Act, triggering...
A Conversation with US Magistrate Judge Richard Farrer
San Antonio Lawyers Chapter
San Antonio, TXTopics
Illegal Immigration and Election Law: Downstream Consequences on Display in Pennsylvania Voter Rolls Transparency Case
Welcome to March Madness time, when underdogs seem to come out of nowhere to defeat...