Former President & CEO, The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies
Eugene B. Meyer, former President and CEO of the Federalist Society, has served as Executive Director, CEO, and/or President of the organization for more than 40 years. He is responsible for shepherding the organization from a small group of law students to a community of 90,000 lawyers, law students, academics, judges, and others interested in the rule of law. The Society now includes a Student Chapter at nearly every ABA-accredited law school in the country and Lawyers Chapters in 220 major cities across the nation. Gene earned his B.A. in history at Yale in 1975 and his M.A. in political science from the London School of Economics in 1976. Gene currently serves on the boards of the U.S. Chess Center, the Holman Foundation, the Sarah Scaife Foundation, and the advisory board of the Adam Smith Society. He holds the title of International Chess Master.
Distinguished University Chair and Professor of Law, University of St. Thomas School of Law
Michael Stokes Paulsen is Distinguished University Chair & Professor of Law at the University of St. Thomas, where he has taught since 2007. Professor Paulsen was previously the McKnight Presidential Professor of Law & Public Policy and Associate Dean at the University of Minnesota Law School, where he taught from 1991-2007. He is a graduate of Northwestern University, Yale Law School, and Yale Divinity School. He has served as a federal prosecutor, as Attorney-Advisor in the Office of Legal Counsel of the U.S. Department of Justice, and as counsel for the Center for Law & Religious Freedom.
Paulsen has taught as a visiting professor at Princeton University, Pepperdine University, Georgetown University, Bethel University, Uppsala University (Sweden), Daystar University (Kenya), and University of the Andes (Chile). He has been a guest lecturer at universities around the nation, including Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Princeton, Penn, NYU, Georgetown, Virginia, Stanford, Berkeley, Michigan, University of Chicago, and Northwestern.
Professor Paulsen is the author of more than ninety scholarly articles and book chapters on a wide variety of constitutional law topics, published in law journals including the Harvard Law Review, the Yale Law Journal, the Stanford Law Review, the University of Chicago Law Review, the Michigan Law Review, the Georgetown Law Journal, and the Northwestern University Law Review. He is the author or co-author of three books, including The Constitution: An Introduction (Basic Books, 2015) (co-authored with Luke Paulsen) and the casebook The Constitution of the United States, now in its fifth edition with Foundation Press, co-authored with Michael McConnell, Samuel Bray, and Will Baude.
Former President & CEO, The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies
Eugene B. Meyer, former President and CEO of the Federalist Society, has served as Executive Director, CEO, and/or President of the organization for more than 40 years. He is responsible for shepherding the organization from a small group of law students to a community of 90,000 lawyers, law students, academics, judges, and others interested in the rule of law. The Society now includes a Student Chapter at nearly every ABA-accredited law school in the country and Lawyers Chapters in 220 major cities across the nation. Gene earned his B.A. in history at Yale in 1975 and his M.A. in political science from the London School of Economics in 1976. Gene currently serves on the boards of the U.S. Chess Center, the Holman Foundation, the Sarah Scaife Foundation, and the advisory board of the Adam Smith Society. He holds the title of International Chess Master.
Distinguished University Chair and Professor of Law, University of St. Thomas School of Law
Michael Stokes Paulsen is Distinguished University Chair & Professor of Law at the University of St. Thomas, where he has taught since 2007. Professor Paulsen was previously the McKnight Presidential Professor of Law & Public Policy and Associate Dean at the University of Minnesota Law School, where he taught from 1991-2007. He is a graduate of Northwestern University, Yale Law School, and Yale Divinity School. He has served as a federal prosecutor, as Attorney-Advisor in the Office of Legal Counsel of the U.S. Department of Justice, and as counsel for the Center for Law & Religious Freedom.
Paulsen has taught as a visiting professor at Princeton University, Pepperdine University, Georgetown University, Bethel University, Uppsala University (Sweden), Daystar University (Kenya), and University of the Andes (Chile). He has been a guest lecturer at universities around the nation, including Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Princeton, Penn, NYU, Georgetown, Virginia, Stanford, Berkeley, Michigan, University of Chicago, and Northwestern.
Professor Paulsen is the author of more than ninety scholarly articles and book chapters on a wide variety of constitutional law topics, published in law journals including the Harvard Law Review, the Yale Law Journal, the Stanford Law Review, the University of Chicago Law Review, the Michigan Law Review, the Georgetown Law Journal, and the Northwestern University Law Review. He is the author or co-author of three books, including The Constitution: An Introduction (Basic Books, 2015) (co-authored with Luke Paulsen) and the casebook The Constitution of the United States, now in its fifth edition with Foundation Press, co-authored with Michael McConnell, Samuel Bray, and Will Baude.
Former President & CEO, The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies
Eugene B. Meyer, former President and CEO of the Federalist Society, has served as Executive Director, CEO, and/or President of the organization for more than 40 years. He is responsible for shepherding the organization from a small group of law students to a community of 90,000 lawyers, law students, academics, judges, and others interested in the rule of law. The Society now includes a Student Chapter at nearly every ABA-accredited law school in the country and Lawyers Chapters in 220 major cities across the nation. Gene earned his B.A. in history at Yale in 1975 and his M.A. in political science from the London School of Economics in 1976. Gene currently serves on the boards of the U.S. Chess Center, the Holman Foundation, the Sarah Scaife Foundation, and the advisory board of the Adam Smith Society. He holds the title of International Chess Master.
Distinguished University Chair and Professor of Law, University of St. Thomas School of Law
Michael Stokes Paulsen is Distinguished University Chair & Professor of Law at the University of St. Thomas, where he has taught since 2007. Professor Paulsen was previously the McKnight Presidential Professor of Law & Public Policy and Associate Dean at the University of Minnesota Law School, where he taught from 1991-2007. He is a graduate of Northwestern University, Yale Law School, and Yale Divinity School. He has served as a federal prosecutor, as Attorney-Advisor in the Office of Legal Counsel of the U.S. Department of Justice, and as counsel for the Center for Law & Religious Freedom.
Paulsen has taught as a visiting professor at Princeton University, Pepperdine University, Georgetown University, Bethel University, Uppsala University (Sweden), Daystar University (Kenya), and University of the Andes (Chile). He has been a guest lecturer at universities around the nation, including Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Princeton, Penn, NYU, Georgetown, Virginia, Stanford, Berkeley, Michigan, University of Chicago, and Northwestern.
Professor Paulsen is the author of more than ninety scholarly articles and book chapters on a wide variety of constitutional law topics, published in law journals including the Harvard Law Review, the Yale Law Journal, the Stanford Law Review, the University of Chicago Law Review, the Michigan Law Review, the Georgetown Law Journal, and the Northwestern University Law Review. He is the author or co-author of three books, including The Constitution: An Introduction (Basic Books, 2015) (co-authored with Luke Paulsen) and the casebook The Constitution of the United States, now in its fifth edition with Foundation Press, co-authored with Michael McConnell, Samuel Bray, and Will Baude.
Sterling Professor of Law, Yale Law School
Akhil Reed Amar is Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science at Yale University, where he teaches constitutional law in both Yale College and Yale Law School. After graduating from Yale College, summa cum laude, in 1980 and from Yale Law School in 1984, and clerking for Judge (later Justice) Stephen Breyer, Amar joined the Yale faculty in 1985 at the age of 26. He is Yale’s only living professor to have won the University’s unofficial triple crown — the Sterling Chair for scholarship, the DeVane Medal for teaching, and the Lamar Award for alumni service.
Amar’s work has won awards from both the American Bar Association and the Federalist Society, and he has been cited by Supreme Court justices across the spectrum in more than 50 cases — tops among scholars under age 70. According to both Fred Shapiro’s landmark 2021 study of lifetime scholarly citations and Heinonline’s most recent tabulation of lifetime law-review citations, Amar is America’s second most-cited legal scholar still under age 70. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and has written widely for popular publications, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Time, and The Atlantic. He was an informal consultant to the popular TV show The West Wing and his scholarship has been showcased on many broadcasts, including The Colbert Report, Morning Joe, AC360, Velshi, Fox News @ Night with Shannon Bream, Fareed Zakaria GPS, Erin Burnett Outfront, and Constitution USA with Peter Sagal.
He is the author of more than a hundred law review articles and several books, including The Bill of Rights (1998 — winner of the Yale University Press Governors’ Award), America’s Constitution (2005 — winner of the ABA’s Silver Gavel Award), America’s Unwritten Constitution (2012 — named one of the year’s 100 best nonfiction books by The Washington Post), and The Constitution Today (2016 — named one of the year’s top ten nonfiction books by Time magazine). The first volume of his ambitious trilogy on American constitutional history from the Founding to the present, The Words That Made Us: America’s Constitutional Conversation, 1760-1840, came out in May 2021. The second volume, Born Equal: Remaking America’s Constitution, 1840-1920, will be published in September 2025 and is already available for pre-order. All together, his nonfiction books have won two starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and three starred reviews from Kirkus—tops, it is believed, among legal scholars under age 70. Together with Vikram David Amar (YLS ’88), he has a bi-weekly column on the Supreme Court on the distinguished website SCOTUSblog. Along with Andy Lipka, he co-hosts a popular and free weekly podcast, Amarica’s Constitution, whose listeners are eligible for CLE credit in most American jurisdictions. A wide assortment of his articles and op-eds and video links to many of his public lectures and free online courses may be found at akhilamar.com.
James Madison Distinguished Professor of Law and Class of 1941 Research Professor of Law, University of Virginia School of Law
Professor John C. Harrison is the James Madison Distinguished Professor of Law and Class of 1941 Research Professor of Law at the University of Virginia School of Law. He joined the faculty at University of Virginia in 1993 as an associate professor of law after a distinguished career with the U.S. Department of Justice. His teaching subjects include constitutional history, federal courts, remedies, corporations, civil procedure, legislation and property. In 2008 he was on leave from the Law School to serve as counselor on international law in the Office of the Legal Adviser at the U.S. Department of State.
A 1977 graduate of the University of Virginia, Harrison earned his law degree in 1980 at Yale, where he served as editor of the Yale Law Journal and editor and articles editor of the Yale Studies in World Public Order. He was an associate at Patton Boggs & Blow in Washington, D.C., and clerked for Judge Robert Bork on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He worked with the Department of Justice from 1983-93, serving in numerous capacities, including deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel (1990-93).
Distinguished Professor of Law, Rutgers Law School
Earl Maltz is a Distinguished Professor and the author of two books and more than 50 articles on constitutional law, statutory interpretation, the role of the courts and legal history. He teaches constitutional law, employment discrimination, conflicts of law and a seminar on the Supreme Court.
Professor Maltz is the author of Rethinking Constitutional Law: Originalism, Interventionism, and the Politics of Judicial Review (1994), Civil Rights, The Constitution and Congress, 1863-1865 (1990), and over 50 articles on constitutional law, statutory interpretation, the role of the courts and legal history. He received his B.A. from Northwestern University, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and his J.D. cum laude from Harvard. Professor Maltz teaches Constitutional Law, Employment Discrimination, Conflicts of Law, and a seminar on the Supreme Court.
Richard and Frances Mallery Professor of Law and Faculty Director, Constitutional Law Center, Stanford Law School
Michael W. McConnell is the Richard and Frances Mallery Professor and Faculty Director of the Constitutional Law Center at Stanford Law School, and a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. From 2002 to 2009, he served as a Circuit Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. He was nominated by President George W. Bush, a Republican, and confirmed by a Democratic Senate by unanimous consent. McConnell has previously held chaired professorships at the University of Chicago and the University of Utah, and visiting professorships at Harvard and NYU. He teaches courses on constitutional law, constitutional history, First Amendment, and interpretive theory. He has published widely in the fields of constitutional law and theory, especially church and state, equal protection, and separation of powers. His book, “The President Who Would Not Be King: Executive Power Under the Constitution,” was published by Princeton University Press in 2020, based on the Tanner Lectures in Human Values, which he delivered at Princeton in 2019. His latest book, co-authored with Nathan Chapman, “Agreeing to Disagree: How the Establishment Clause Protects Religious Diversity and Freedom of Conscience,” was published by Oxford University Press in mid-2023. McConnell has argued sixteen cases in the United States Supreme Court, most recently Carney v. Adams (2020). defending a provision of the Delaware Constitution requiring political balance on that state’s courts. More recently, he was co-counsel in Gonzalez v. Google. He earned his B.A. from Michigan State University and his J.D. from the University of Chicago, and has received honorary degrees from Notre Dame University and Michigan State. He served as law clerk to Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. and D.C. Circuit Chief Judge J. Skelly Wright. He has been Assistant General Counsel of the Office of Management & Budget, Assistant to the Solicitor General of the Department of Justice, and a member of the President’s Intelligence Oversight Board. He is Senior of Counsel to the law firm Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich & Rosati, and is co-chair of Meta’s Oversight Review Board.
President & CEO, National Constitution Center
Jeffrey Rosen is the President and Chief Executive Officer of the National Constitution Center, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization whose mission is to educate the public about the U.S. Constitution. Located steps from Independence Hall in Historic Philadelphia, the Center engages millions of citizens as an interactive museum, national town hall, and provider of nonpartisan resources for civic education. Rosen became President and CEO in 2013 and has developed the Center’s acclaimed Interactive Constitution, which brings together the top conservative and liberal legal scholars in America to discuss areas of agreement and disagreement about every clause of the Constitution. The online resource has received more than 15 million hits since launching in 2015.
Rosen is also professor at The George Washington University Law School and a contributing editor of The Atlantic. He is a highly regarded journalist whose essays and commentaries have appeared in the New York Times Magazine, on National Public Radio, in the New Republic, where he was the legal affairs editor, and The New Yorker, where he was a staff writer. The Chicago Tribune named him one of the 10 best magazine journalists in America and a reviewer for the Los Angeles Timescalled him “the nation’s most widely read and influential legal commentator.”
Rosen is the author of six books including, most recently, a biography of William Howard Taft, published as part of the American Presidents Series. His other books include Louis D. Brandeis: American Prophet; The Supreme Court: The Personalities and Rivalries that Defined America; The Most Democratic Branch: How the Courts Serve America; The Naked Crowd: Reclaiming Security and Freedom in an Anxious Age; and The Unwanted Gaze: The Destruction of Privacy in America. He is co-editor of Constitution 3.0: Freedom and Technological Change.
Rosen is a graduate of Harvard College; Oxford University, where he was a Marshall Scholar; and Yale Law School.
Robert S. Stevens Professor of Law, Cornell Law School
Michael C. Dorf, the Robert S. Stevens Professor of Law at Cornell Law School, has been teaching law since 1992. He has authored or co-authored six books and over one hundred scholarly articles and essays for law journals and peer-reviewed science and social science journals. He also frequently writes for non-lawyers. In addition to occasional contributions to The New York Times, USA Today, CNN.com, The Los Angeles Times, and other wide-circulation publications, Professor Dorf has been writing a bi-weekly column since 2000 and publishes a popular blog, Dorf on Law. He received his undergraduate and law degrees from Harvard. After law school, Dorf served as a law clerk for Judge Stephen Reinhardt of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and then for Justice Anthony M. Kennedy of the U.S. Supreme Court. He has worked with several law firms and maintains an active pro bono practice mostly consisting of writing Supreme Court briefs. Before joining the Cornell faculty, Professor Dorf taught at Rutgers-Camden Law School for three years and at Columbia Law School for thirteen years.
Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law and Director, Classical Liberal Institute, New York University School of Law; Director, Classical Liberal Institute, Civitas Institute University of Texas at Austin
Richard A. Epstein is the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law, at New York University, a senior research fellow at the Civitas Institute at the University of Texas Austin, and a senior Lecturer, the University of Chicago. He received an LL.D., h.c . from the University of Ghent, 2003 , and an LLD h.c . from the University of Siegen in 2018 and the Bradley Prize in 2011. He has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 1985. He has edited both the Journal of Legal Studies (1981-1991) and the Journal of Law and Economics (1991-2001). He is also a founder and director of the Classical Liberal Institute at NYU Law School. His most recent book is The Classical Liberal Constitution: The Uncertain Quest for Limited Government (2014). His other books include Takings: Private Property and the Power of Eminent Domain ( 1985); Bargaining with the State (1993); Simple Rules for a Complex World (1995); Principles for a Free Society: Reconciling Individual Liberty and the Common Good (1998); Skepticism and Freedom: A Modern Theory of Classical Liberalism (2003); Design for Liberty: Private Property, Public Administration and the Rule of Law (2011), and most recently, The Myth of Birthright citizenship—and Beyond (2026). He has taught courses in , administrative law, antitrust, constitutional, contracts, environmental law, land use planning; real property, torts and water law. He has written and spoken extensively on a wide range of topics, and is writes a regular column for Defining Ideas.
Ronald Reagan Distinguished Fellow Emeritus, The Heritage Foundation
Edwin Meese III, the prominent conservative leader, thinker and elder statesman, continues a quarter-century formal association with The Heritage Foundation as the leading think tank’s Ronald Reagan Distinguished Fellow Emeritus.
In that capacity, Meese oversees special projects and acts as an ambassador for Heritage within the conservative movement.
Meese was chairman of Heritage’s Center for Legal and Judicial Studies from its founding in 2001 until what he calls his “semi-retirement” on Feb. 1, 2013.
He joined Heritage in 1988 as the think tank's first Ronald Reagan Distinguished Fellow -- the only policy chair in the country to be officially named for the 40th president. His work focused on keeping President Reagan’s legacy of conservative principles alive in public debate and discourse.
The legal center now bears his name, in recognition of Meese’s contributions to the rule of law and the nation’s understanding of constitutional law. Its mission is to educate government officials, the media and the public about the Constitution and legal principles -- and how they affect public policy.
Perhaps best known as U.S. attorney general during Reagan’s second term, Meese’s service to the conservative icon stretched from the California governor’s mansion in 1966 to the White House in 1981 before he went to the Department of Justice four years later.
His Heritage “hats” kept Meese among the major conservative voices in national policy debates at an age when most men and women enjoyed quiet retirements.
In 2006, for example, Meese was named to the Iraq Study Group, a special presidential commission dedicated to examining the best resolutions for America's involvement in Iraq. In the past few years he wrote and spoke about constitutional topics ranging from religious liberty to the responsibility of Supreme Court justices.
Immediately after Reagan's death in 2004, and in the years since, Meese often agreed to major media appearances to discuss the lasting impact of his old friend, mentor and boss. He has summarized the Reagan legacy in three accomplishments: Reagan cut taxes and kept them low. He worked to defeat and end the Soviet Union and its worldwide push for communism. And he restored America's faith in itself after years of failure and "malaise."
"I admired him as a leader and cherish his friendship," Meese wrote in a 2004 essay for Heritage members and supporters. "Ronald Reagan had strong convictions. He was committed to the principles that had led to the founding of our nation. And he had the courage to follow his convictions against all odds." <[>Edwin Meese III was born Dec. 2, 1931, to Edwin Jr. and Leone Meese in Oakland, Calif. He graduated from Yale University in 1953 and holds a law degree from the University of California-Berkeley.
Meese spent much of his adult life working for Reagan, first after the former actor, sports announcer and athlete was elected as California’s governor in 1966 and then when he sought and won the presidency in 1980.
Reagan never forgot Meese's loyalty and hard work. During a press conference at which reporters questioned Meese's actions at the Justice Department, Reagan replied: "If Ed Meese is not a good man, there are no good men."
During the Reagan governorship, Meese served as executive assistant and chief of staff from 1969 through 1974 and as legal affairs secretary from 1967 through 1968. He previously was deputy district attorney in Alameda County, Calif.
From January 1981 to February 1985, Meese held the position of counsellor to the president -- the senior job on the White House staff -- and functioned as Reagan's chief policy adviser. In 1985, he received Government Executive magazine's annual award for excellence in management.
Meese served as the 75th attorney general of the United States from February 1985 to August 1988. As the nation's chief law enforcement officer, he directed the Justice Department and led international efforts to combat terrorism, drug trafficking and organized crime.
Meese’s relationship with Heritage began when he met with senior management to discuss the think tank's landmark policy guide, Mandate for Leadership, prepared for the incoming administration. Meese later recalled that Reagan personally handed out copies of the 1,093-page book to members of his Cabinet and asked them to read it. Nearly two-thirds of Mandate's 2,000 recommendations would be adopted or attempted by the Reagan administration.
More than a decade after joining Heritage, Meese assumed the chairmanship of its Center for Legal and Judicial Studies. Under his guidance, the center counseled White House staffers, Justice Department officials and Senate Judiciary Committee members on the importance of filling judicial vacancies with qualified men and women who are committed to interpreting the Constitution according to the founding document's original meaning.
The center became known for hosting "moot court" practice sessions to sharpen the arguments of attorneys slated to bring important cases before the Supreme Court. Those cases addressed constitutional issues ranging from property rights to racial preferences in primary and secondary schools to restrictions on free speech in campaign finance law.
Meese headed the legal center's Advisory Board for the writing and editing of the best-selling book, The Heritage Guide to the Constitution (Regnery, 2005). In it, 109 experts walked readers through a clause-by-clause analysis of the Constitution. Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) was among those keeping the reference work handy during Judiciary Committee hearings on Supreme Court nominees.
Meese's other books include “Leadership, Ethics and Policing” (Prentice Hall, 2004); “Making America Safer” (Heritage, 1997); and “With Reagan: The Inside Story” (Regnery Gateway, 1992).He wrote the Introduction to a well-received 2010 book on the “overcriminalization” trend, “One Nation Under Arrest,” by Heritage veterans Paul Rosenzweig and Brian W. Walsh.
He also is a distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University in California and lectures, writes and consults throughout the United States on a variety of subjects.
As both attorney general and counsellor to Reagan, Meese was a member of the Cabinet and the National Security Council. He served as chairman of the Domestic Policy Council and the National Drug Policy Board. After Reagan won the White House in the 1980 election, Meese headed the transition team. During the campaign, he was the Reagan-Bush Committee's senior official.
Meese had a career outside government and politics. From 1977 to 1981, he was a law professor at the University of San Diego, where he also directed the Center for Criminal Justice Policy and Management.
He was an executive in the aerospace and transportation industry as vice president for administration of Rohr Industries Inc. in Chula Vista, Calif. He left Rohr to return to the practice of law, doing corporate and general work in San Diego County.
A retired colonel in the Army Reserve, Meese remains active in numerous civic and educational organizations.
He and his wife, Ursula, have two grown children and reside in McLean, Va.
Robert W. Woodruff Professor of Law, Emory Law
Michael John Perry is the author of thirteen books and over eighty-five articles and essays. The titles of Perry’s books reflect his particular interests: The Constitution, the Courts, and Human Rights (Yale, 1982); Morality, Politics, and Law (Oxford, 1988); Love and Power: The Role of Religion and Morality in American Politics (Oxford, 1991); The Constitution in the Courts: Law or Politics? (Oxford, 1994); Religion in Politics: Constitutional and Moral Perspectives (Oxford, 1997); The Idea of Human Rights: Four Inquiries (Oxford, 1998); We the People: The Fourteenth Amendment and the Supreme Court (Oxford, 1999); Under God? Religious Faith and Liberal Democracy (Cambridge, 2003); Toward a Theory of Human Rights: Religion, Law, Courts (Cambridge, 2007); Constitutional Rights, Moral Controversy, and the Supreme Court (Cambridge, 2009); The Political Morality of Liberal Democracy (Cambridge, 2010); Human Rights in the Constitutional Law of the United States (Cambridge, 2013); and A Global Political Morality: Human Rights, Democracy, and Constitutionalism (Cambridge, 2017).
Since 2003, Perry has held a Robert W. Woodruff University Chair at Emory University, where he teaches in the law school. A Woodruff Chair is the highest honor Emory University bestows on a member of its faculty. Perry is also a senior fellow at Emory University’s Center for the Study of Law and Religion and a co-editor of the Journal of Law and Religion (Cambridge University Press).
Before coming to Emory, Perry was the inaugural occupant of the Howard J. Trienens Chair in Law at Northwestern University (1990-1997), where he taught for fifteen years (1982-1997). He then held the University Distinguished Chair in Law at Wake Forest University (1997-2003). Perry began his teaching career at the Ohio State University College of Law (1975-82) and has taught as a visiting professor at several law schools: Yale (1978-79), Tulane (spring semester, 1987), New York Law School (spring semester, 1990), the University of Tokyo (fall semester, 1991), the University of Alabama (fall semester, 2005), the University of Western Ontario, Canada (January term, 2009), and the University of Dayton (intrasession course, March 2011). For three consecutive fall semesters (2009, 2010, 2011), Perry was the University Distinguished Visiting Professor in Law and Peace Studies at the University of San Diego, where he taught an introductory course on international human rights both to law students and to graduate students at the Joan B. Kroc School of Peace Studies.
Perry, who was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky, received his AB from Georgetown University (1968) and his JD from Columbia University (1973). After graduating from law school, Perry served as law clerk both to US District Judge Jack B. Weinstein (1973-74) and, a year later, to US Circuit Judge Shirley M. Hufstedler (1974-75). Perry is married to Sarah Anne O’Leary, a public health specialist at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in Atlanta. They have two sons: Daniel and Gabriel.
Warren Distinguished Professor of Law; Co-Executive Director, Institute for Law & Religion; Co-Executive Director, Institute for Law & Philosophy, University of San Diego School of Law
Steven D. Smith, J.D. Yale 1979, B.A. BYU 1976, is a Warren Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of San Diego, and Co-Director of that university's Institute for Law and Religion. Before moving to San Diego, he was the Robert and Marion Short Professor at Notre Dame Law School and the Byron R. White Professor of Law at the University of Colorado.
Professor Smith's first book, Foreordained Failure: The Quest for a Constitutional Principle of Religious Freedom (Oxford 1995), critically examines both the standard historical and normative accounts of religious freedom. This examination is continued in his most recent book, The Rise and Decline of American Religious Freedom (Harvard 2014), which offers a "revised account" in contrast to the standard story of religious freedom in this country. Recently described as a kind of "conservative Crit," Professor Smith has offered critical analyses of more general philosophical and jurisprudential themes in Law's Quandary (Harvard 2004) and The Disenchantment of Secular Discourse (Harvard 2010).
David and Mary Harrison Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus, University of Virginia School of Law
Lillian BeVier taught constitutional law (with special emphasis on First Amendment issues), intellectual property (trademark, copyright), real property and torts from 1973-2010 at the Law School, and now teaches a January Term course on judicial philosophy.
At Stanford Law School, BeVier was revising editor for the Stanford Law Review and a member of the Order of the Coif. Before coming to Virginia, she was associate professor of law at the University of Santa Clara Law School; practiced law with Spaeth Blase Valentine & Klein in Palo Alto, Calif.; served as research associate to Professor William F. Baxter at Stanford University Law School, working on the FAA-ABA study of the legal aspects of airport noise and the sonic boom; and was assistant to the general secretary and assistant staff legal counsel for Stanford University.
BeVier received the University of Virginia Alumni Association Distinguished Professor Award in 2006. The Raven Society elected her to membership in 1993 and honored her with the faculty award in 2010. She delivered the Henry Miller Memorial Lecture at Georgia State Law School in 2005, the Coen Memorial Lecture at the University of Colorado Law School in 2000, and the David C. Baum Lecture on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties at the University of Illinois Law School in 1996. In 1999, at the invitation of the Supreme Court Historical Society, she spoke to the Society on Free Expression in the Warren and Burger Courts. Suffolk University awarded her an honorary S.J.D. degree in 1998. In the fall of 2003, she was a visiting scholar at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia.
Having been nominated by President Bush and confirmed by the Senate in 2003, she served as vice-chair of the Board of Directors of the Legal Services Corporation until 2009. She serves on the national Board of Visitors of the Federalist Society. Within the Charlottesville community, BeVier has served as chair of the Board of Trustees of St. Anne’s-Belfield School and of the Martha Jefferson Hospital. She is currently chair of the board of the Martha Jefferson Health Services Corporation and of Piedmont CASA (Court-Appointed Special Advocates).
Steve Chapman is a former columnist for the Chicago Tribune. His twice-a-week column on national and international affairs, distributed by Creators Syndicate, appears in dozens of newspapers and websites across the country.
Before joining the Tribune, Chapman was associate editor of The New Republic magazine. He has contributed articles to several national magazines, including Slate, The American Spectator, The Weekly Standard and Reason. He has appeared on numerous TV and radio news programs, including The CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News, The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, and National Public Radio's Fresh Air and Talk of the Nation.
Born in Brady, Texas, in 1954, Chapman grew up in Midland and Austin. He attended Harvard University, where he was on the staff of the Harvard Crimson, and graduated with honors in 1976. He has been a visiting media fellow at the American Academy in Berlin and the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and he has served on the Visiting Committee of the University of Chicago Law School. He has received an honorary doctorate from Lake Forest College.
Chapman has three children and three stepchildren and lives with his wife in suburban Chicago.
A. W. Walker Centennial Chair in Law, University of Texas at Austin School of Law
Professor Graglia has written widely in constitutional law--especially on judicial review, constitutional interpretation, race discrimination, and affirmative action--and also teaches and writes in the area of antitrust. He is the author of Disaster by Decree: The Supreme Court Decisions on Race and the Schools (Cornell, 1976) and many articles, including recently "Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye: Of Animal Sacrifice and Religious Persecution" (Georgetown Law Journal, 1996). He has been a Visiting Professor at the University of Virginia School of Law.
Sam Harris Professor of Corporate Law, Corporate Finance, and Securities Law, Yale Law School
Jonathan R. Macey is Sam Harris Professor of Corporate Law, Corporate Finance, and Securities Law at Yale University, and Professor in the Yale School of Management. From 1991 – 2004, Professor Macey was J. DuPratt White Professor of Law, Director of the John M. Olin Program in Law and Economics at Cornell Law School, and Professor of Law and Business at the Cornell University Johnson Graduate School of Business. Professor Macey earned his B.A. cum laude from Harvard in 1977, and his J.D. from Yale Law School in 1982, where he was Article and Book Review editor of The Yale Law Journal. In 1996, Professor Macey received a Ph.D. honoris causa from the Stockholm School of Economics. Following law school, Professor Macey was law clerk to Judge Henry J. Friendly on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
Professor Macey is the author of several books including the two-volume treatise, Macey on Corporation Laws, published in 1998 (Aspen Law & Business), and co-author of two leading casebooks, Corporations: Including Partnerships and Limited Liability Companies (2003 Thomson West), which is in its eighth edition, and Banking Law and Regulation (2002 Aspen Law & Business), which is now in its third edition. He also is the author of over 100 scholarly articles. His recent articles have appeared in the Banking Law Journal, the University of Chicago Law Review, the Stanford Law Review, The Yale Law Journal, the Cornell Law Review, the Journal of Law and Economics, and the Brookings Wharton Papers on Financial Institutions. He has published numerous editorials in such publications as The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, The Los Angeles Times, and The National Law Journal.
Professor Macey has taught at major universities throughout the world, including Bocconi University (Milan), the University of Tokyo; the University of Toronto; the University of Turin, the University of Amsterdam Department of Finance, and the Stockholm School of Economics, Department of Law. He also has been Professor of Law at the University of Chicago (1990) and Visiting Professor of Law at Harvard Law School (1999). Professor Macey is a Senior Research Fellow at the International Centre for Economic Research (ICER) in Turin, Italy. Professor Macey also serves on the Academic Advisory Board (Comitato Scientifico) of the Associazione Disiano Preite for the study of corporate law (per lo studio del diritto dell’impresa). In 1995, Professor Macey was awarded the Paul M. Bator prize for excellence in Teaching, Scholarship and Public Service by the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy. In 1996, he received a Ph.D., honoris causa from the Stockholm School of Economics. And in 1998, he received the D.P. Jacobs prize for the most significant paper in volume 6 of the Journal of Financial Intermediation for his paper (co-authored with Maureen O’Hara), “The Law & Economics of Best Execution.”
In 1999 Professor Macey was made an honorary Fellow of the Society For Advanced Legal Studies. In 2000, Professor Macey became a member of the Legal Advisory Committee to the Board of Directors of the New York Stock Exchange. In 2001 Professor Macey was appointed a Bertil Daniellson Distinguished Visiting Professor in Banking and Finance at the Stockholm School of Economics. In 2002 Professor Macey was appointed to the Economic Advisory Board of the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD). In 2004 Professor Macey was awarded a Teaching Award by the Yale Law Women in recognition of his “commitment to excellence in teaching, mentoring and inspiring.” In 2005 Professor Macey became a member of the Board of Editors of Thomson West Publishing Company.
Robert Walmsley University Professor, Harvard Law School
Cass R. Sunstein is currently the Robert Walmsley University Professor at Harvard. He is the founder and director of the Program on Behavioral Economics and Public Policy at Harvard Law School. In 2018, he received the Holberg Prize from the government of Norway, sometimes described as the equivalent of the Nobel Prize for law and the humanities. From 2009 to 2012, he was Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, and after that, he served on the President's Review Board on Intelligence and Communications Technologies and on the Pentagon's Defense Innovation Board. Mr. Sunstein has testified before congressional committees on many subjects, and he has advised officials at the United Nations, the European Commission, the World Bank, and many nations on issues of law and public policy. He serves as an adviser to the Behavioural Insights Team in the United Kingdom.
Mr. Sunstein is author of hundreds of articles and dozens of books, including Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness (with Richard H. Thaler, 2008), Simpler: The Future of Government (2013), The Ethics of Influence (2015), #Republic (2017), Impeachment: A Citizen's Guide (2017), The Cost-Benefit Revolution (2018), On Freedom (2019), Conformity (2019), How Change Happens (2019), and Too Much Information (2020). He is now working on a variety of projects involving the regulatory state, "sludge" (defined to include paperwork and similar burdens), fake news, and freedom of speech.
Professor Emeritus, Paul M. Hebert Law Center, Louisiana State University
In memoriam
Dr. John Baker is Professor Emeritus of Law, and previously the Dale E. Bennett Professor of Law, at Louisiana State University Law School. He is currently Visiting Professor at Peking University School of Transnational Law (via Zoom) and has been Visiting Professor at The Center for the Constitution, Georgetown Law School (2013-2020). He has also been a Visiting Fellow at Oriel College, the University of Oxford (2012-2014) and taught at Blackfriars Hall, Oxford in 2014. Dr. Baker has also been an adjunct Fellow at the Heritage Foundation (Spring, 2008) and a Distinguished Scholar at the Catholic University of America Law School (2011-12). He has taught at Tulane Law School, George Mason Law School, Pepperdine Law School, New York Law School, Hong Kong University, and the University of Dallas, School of Management and also taught and/or lectured in 17 foreign countries. Notable among his foreign visits are the
following: Visiting Professor at the University of Lyon III (France) (1999-2011); Visiting Professor at the Universidad de los Andes, Chile (2012), as a Fulbright Specialist (2006); and a Fulbright Scholar at various universities in the Philippines. Dr. Baker received his J.D., with honors, from the University of Michigan Law School and his B.A., magna cum laude, from the University of Dallas. He also earned a Ph.D. in Political Thought from the University of London. Baker has taught over a dozen different subjects, mostly courses in public law. His main areas of interest are Constitutional Law (particularly federalism and separation of powers), Criminal Law, Anti-Terrorism Law, International Law, Health Care Law, Mediation, and Comparative Law.
In addition to law review articles and book chapters, Dr. Baker’s academic publications include Hall's Criminal Law: Cases and Materials (with Benson, Force and George; 5th ed. Michie, 1993); An Introduction to the Law of the United States (ed. with Levasseur; University Press of America, 1992). He has also published on Forbes.com, FoxNews.com, in The Washington Times, and a number of times in The Wall Street Journal. He argues in federal court, including two oral arguments in the U.S. Supreme Court. For many years, he co-taught courses for the Federalist Society on separation of powers with the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. In September 2016, he co-taught a Supreme Court seminar in China with Justice Samuel Alito. Following law school, he served as a law clerk in federal district court and as an assistant district attorney in New Orleans before joining LSU in 1975. While a professor, he has been as a consultant to USAID, USIA (since rolled into the State Department), the Justice Department, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Separation of Powers, and the Office of Planning in the White House. He served on an ABA Task Force which issued the report, The Federalization of Crime (1998) and later as a consultant to the “Bi-Partisan Task Force on the Over- federalization of Crime” (2012-2014) created by the U.S. House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime. Dr. Baker was a co-founder of the first iteration (1995) of Stratfor Inc., a global intelligence agency. He co-authored its first book: The Intelligence Edge (with Friedman, Friedman and Chapman; Crown Books/Random House 1997). In 2022, he began a short, weekly video podcast available on YouTube and Rumble, The Baker Brief.
U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (ret.) and former U.S. Senator
James L. Buckley was born in New York City in 1923, grew up in rural Connecticut, and received his B.A. degree from Yale. Following service as a naval officer in World War II, he returned to New Haven to secure his law degree. After several years in private practice, he joined a group of small companies engaged in oil exploration abroad. He was elected to the United States Senate in 1970 as the candidate of New York's Conservative Party. He failed of re-election; but he has since served as an under secretary of state in the Reagan administration, as president of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in Munich, Germany, and, most recently, as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He retired in 2000 and now resides in Bethesda, Maryland.
Robert E. Scott Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus, University of Virginia School of Law; Alice McKean Young Regents Chair in Law Emeritus, University of Texas
Douglas Laycock is perhaps the nation’s leading authority on the law of religious liberty and also on the law of remedies. He has taught and written about these topics for more than four decades at the University of Chicago, the University of Texas, the University of Michigan and the University of Virginia. He retired from teaching at UVA Law School in May 2023.
Laycock has testified frequently before Congress and has argued many cases in the courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, where he has served as lead counsel in six cases and has also filed influential amicus briefs. He is the author (co-author in the most recent edition) of the leading casebook Modern American Remedies, the award-winning monograph The Death of the Irreparable Injury Rule and many articles in leading law reviews. He co-edited a collection of essays, Same-Sex Marriage and Religious Liberty.
His many writings on religious liberty have been republished in a five-volume collection:
Laycock resigned from the council and as first vice president of the American Law Institute to become co-reporter for the Restatement (Third) of Torts: Remedies. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He earned his B.A. from Michigan State University and his J.D. from the University of Chicago.
Stuyvesant P. Comfort Professor of Law; Director, Center for Financial Institutions; and Co-Director, Center for Civil Justice, New York University School of Law
Geoffrey Miller is an author or editor of a dozen books and more than 200 articles in the fields of financial institutions, contract law, corporate and securities law, constitutional law, civil procedure, legal history, jurisprudence, and ancient law. He has taught a wide range of subjects including law and economics, corporations, compliance and risk management, property, regulation of financial institutions, land development, securities law, the legal profession, and legal theory. Miller received his BA magna cum laude from Princeton in 1973 and his JD from Columbia in 1978, where he was a Stone Scholar and editor-in-chief of the Columbia Law Review. He clerked for Judge Carl McGowan of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and Justice Byron White of the US Supreme Court. After two years as an attorney adviser at the Office of Legal Counsel of the US Department of Justice and one year with a Washington, DC, law firm, he joined the faculty of the University of Chicago Law School in 1983 and NYU School of Law in 1995.
Miller has been a visiting professor or visiting scholar at Columbia University, Harvard University, University of Minnesota, University of Basel (Switzerland), University of Genoa (Italy), Collegio Carlo Alberto (Italy), Study Center Gerzensee (Switzerland), Vanderbilt University, University of St. Gallen (Switzerland), University of Frankfurt (Germany), University of Sydney (Australia), University of Auckland (New Zealand), and the Bank of Japan. Miller is a founder of the Society for Empirical Legal Studies, a scholarly organization devoted to promoting statistical and other empirical techniques in the study of legal institutions. He is founder and director of NYU School of Law’s Center for Financial Institutions, co-director of the Center for Civil Justice, co-founder of and Senior Academic Fellow at NYU's Program on Corporate Compliance and Enforcement, co-convener of the Global Economic Policy Forum, a member of the board of directors of State Farm Bank, and a fellow in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Nicholas Rosenbaum Professor of Law, University of Colorado Law School
Hal Bruff was Dean of the University of Colorado Law School 1996-2003. Professor Bruff, a native of Colorado, received his B.A. in American history and literature from Williams College, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He received his J.D. magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, and was an editor of the Harvard Law Review. After graduation, he served as a lieutenant in the U.S. Coast Guard Reserve in San Francisco, performing general duties as a legal officer. Hal has served on the law faculties of Arizona State University, the University of Texas (as the John S. Redditt Professor of Law), and the George Washington University Law School (as the Donald Rothschild Research Professor of Law). From 1979 to 1981, he served as senior attorney and advisor for the Office of Legal Counsel in the U.S. Department of Justice. In this position, he advised the DOJ, the White House, and executive agencies on issues of constitutional and administrative law. He also served as consultant to the chairman of the President's Commission on the accident at Three Mile Island. He has testified before Congress on numerous occasions in his areas of expertise. Professor Bruff's research and teaching interests include constitutional and administrative law. He has co-authored a casebook on separation of powers law, and has written two books about separation of powers and numerous law review articles. His recent public service activities include work on the Council of the Administrative Law Section of the American Bar Association and on Colorado's Judicial Advisory Council.
Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law and Director, Classical Liberal Institute, New York University School of Law; Director, Classical Liberal Institute, Civitas Institute University of Texas at Austin
Richard A. Epstein is the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law, at New York University, a senior research fellow at the Civitas Institute at the University of Texas Austin, and a senior Lecturer, the University of Chicago. He received an LL.D., h.c . from the University of Ghent, 2003 , and an LLD h.c . from the University of Siegen in 2018 and the Bradley Prize in 2011. He has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 1985. He has edited both the Journal of Legal Studies (1981-1991) and the Journal of Law and Economics (1991-2001). He is also a founder and director of the Classical Liberal Institute at NYU Law School. His most recent book is The Classical Liberal Constitution: The Uncertain Quest for Limited Government (2014). His other books include Takings: Private Property and the Power of Eminent Domain ( 1985); Bargaining with the State (1993); Simple Rules for a Complex World (1995); Principles for a Free Society: Reconciling Individual Liberty and the Common Good (1998); Skepticism and Freedom: A Modern Theory of Classical Liberalism (2003); Design for Liberty: Private Property, Public Administration and the Rule of Law (2011), and most recently, The Myth of Birthright citizenship—and Beyond (2026). He has taught courses in , administrative law, antitrust, constitutional, contracts, environmental law, land use planning; real property, torts and water law. He has written and spoken extensively on a wide range of topics, and is writes a regular column for Defining Ideas.
Learned Hand Professor of Law, Emeritus, Harvard Law School
Mary Ann Glendon is the Learned Hand Professor of Law, emerita, at Harvard University, and a former U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See. She writes in the fields of human rights, comparative law, and political theory. Glendon chaired the U.S. State Department Commission on Unalienable Rights (2019-2020) and served as a member of the Commission on International Religious Freedom (2012-2016), and the U.S. President's Council on Bioethics (2001-2004). She received the National Humanities Medal in 2006. In 1991 she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She was President of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences from 2003 to 2013, a member of the Board of Supervisors of the Institute of Religious Works (Vatican Bank) from 2013 to 2018, and represented the Holy See at various conferences including the 1995 U.N. Women's conference in Beijing where she headed the Vatican delegation. Glendon has contributed to legal and social thought in several widely translated works, bringing a comparative approach to a variety of subjects. They include The Forum and the Tower (2011), a series of biographical essays exploring the relation between political philosophy and politics-in-action; Traditions in Turmoil (2006), a collection of essays on law, culture and human rights; A World Made New: Eleanor Roosevelt and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (2001), a history of the framing of the UDHR; A Nation Under Lawyers (1996), a portrait of turbulence in the legal profession, analyzing the implications of changes in legal culture for a democratic polity that entrusts crucial roles to legally trained men and women; Rights Talk (1991), a critique of the impoverishment of political discourse; The Transformation of Family Law (1989), winner of the legal academy’s highest honor, the Order of the Coif Triennial Book Award; Abortion and Divorce in Western Law (1987), winner of the Scribes Book Award for best writing on a legal subject; The New Family and the New Property (1981), and textbooks on comparative legal traditions.
Robert E. Scott Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus, University of Virginia School of Law; Alice McKean Young Regents Chair in Law Emeritus, University of Texas
Douglas Laycock is perhaps the nation’s leading authority on the law of religious liberty and also on the law of remedies. He has taught and written about these topics for more than four decades at the University of Chicago, the University of Texas, the University of Michigan and the University of Virginia. He retired from teaching at UVA Law School in May 2023.
Laycock has testified frequently before Congress and has argued many cases in the courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, where he has served as lead counsel in six cases and has also filed influential amicus briefs. He is the author (co-author in the most recent edition) of the leading casebook Modern American Remedies, the award-winning monograph The Death of the Irreparable Injury Rule and many articles in leading law reviews. He co-edited a collection of essays, Same-Sex Marriage and Religious Liberty.
His many writings on religious liberty have been republished in a five-volume collection:
Laycock resigned from the council and as first vice president of the American Law Institute to become co-reporter for the Restatement (Third) of Torts: Remedies. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He earned his B.A. from Michigan State University and his J.D. from the University of Chicago.
Partner, Baker Botts L.L.P.
Thomas R. Phillips, retired Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Texas, joined the Austin office of Baker Botts in September 2005, after nearly a quarter-century of judicial service.
After graduating from law school, Mr. Phillips clerked for Justice Ruel C. Walker of the Supreme Court of Texas and practiced law in the trial department of the Houston office of Baker Botts. From 1981 to 1988, he served as judge of the 280th District Court in Harris County, Texas, and from 1988 to 2004, he was chief justice. Initially appointed to both judicial offices by Governor William P. Clements, he was elected without opposition to the district bench in 1982 and 1986 and elected in contested races to the Supreme Court in 1988, 1990, 1996 and 2002.
Distinguished Professor of Law, Wayne State University Law School
Professor Grano received his A.B. and J.D. degrees from Temple University in 1965 and 1968. He received an LL.M. from the University of Illinois in 1970. He was an Assistant District Attorney in Philadelphia in 1970-1971. In 1971 he joined the University of Detroit School of Law faculty, where he remained until 1975, serving as Interim Dean during the 1974-5 school year. He joined the Wayne State University Law School as a Professor of Law in 1975 and was named Distinguished Professor of Law in 1984. Professor Grano has also visited at the University of California Berkeley Law School, Cornell Law School, University of Illinois College of Law, and Temple University School of Law.
Judge, Contra Costa County Superior Court in California
Judge Haight was appointed to Contra Costa County Superior Court by Governor Pete Wilson in 1993.
Julius Kreeger Professor of Law and Criminology Emeritus, University of Chicago Law School
Norval Morris was the Julius Kreeger Professor of Law and Criminology Emeritus, former Dean of the University of Chicago Law School (1975-78), and founding director of the Law School’s Center for Studies in Criminal Justice.
President, Center for Research on Institutions & Social Policy, Inc. (CRISP)
Adam Walinsky was born on January 10, 1937 in New York City. He received his Bachelor of Arts from Cornell University in 1957 and his Bachelor of Laws from Yale University in 1961.
Career
Bar: New York 1962, United States District Court (southern district) New York 1971, United States Court 2nd District Court of Appea circuit) 1971, Supreme Court of the United States Court 1982. Law clerk United States Court Appeals for 2d Circuit, New York City, 1961-1962. Associate Winthrop, Stimson, Putnam & Roberts, New York City, 1962-1963.
Attorney Department Justice, Washington, 1963-1964.
Legislation assistant to Senator Robert F. Kennedy, Washington, 1964-1968. Partner Kronish, Lieb, Weiner & Hellman, New York City, 1971-1994.
President Center for Research on Institutions and Social Policy, 1994. Chairman New York State communications of Investigation, 1978-1981.
Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science, Yale Law School
Bruce Ackerman is Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science at Yale, and the author of nineteen books in political philosophy, constitutional law, and public policy. He is a Commander of the French Order of Merit, a member of the American Law Institute and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. The American Philosophical Society has awarded him the Henry Phillips Prize for lifetime achievement in Jurisprudence, especially noting his exploration of the great turning points in American constitutional history in his three volume series, We the People. His award-winning early work, Social Justice in the Liberal State, continues to provoke contemporary controversy.
His scholarship has had a global impact. He has been named a Leading Global Thinker by Foreign Policy magazine, and has been awarded an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Trieste, Italy, for his contributions to comparative constitutional law. Before the Next Attack (2006) served as a basis for the reform of the French constitution dealing with emergency powers. The Stakeholder Society (with Anne Alstott) has served as the basis for reform initiatives in Brazil, Britain, and elsewhere that guarantee every person a fair share of the nation’s wealth by providing them with a “citizen stake” consisting of a substantial cash grant as they reach maturity.
His most recent book, Revolutionary Constitutions, puts the world-wide constitutional crisis in historical perspective by comparing the post-war experience of countries as different as France, India, Iran, Italy, Israel, Poland, South Africa, and the United States — and demonstrating that these nations have a good deal to learn from one another in confronting the current assault on checks-and-balances.
Former United States Attorney General
William P. Barr was born on May 23, 1950 in New York City. Mr. Barr received his A.B. in government from Columbia University in 1971 and his M.A. in government and Chinese studies in 1973. From 1973 to 1977, he served in the Central Intelligence Agency before receiving his J.D. with highest honors from George Washington University Law School in 1977.
In 1978, Mr. Barr served as a law clerk under Judge Malcolm Wilkey of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Following his clerkship, Mr. Barr joined the Washington, D.C. office of the law firm of Shaw, Pittman, Potts & Trowbridge as an associate. He left the firm to work in the White House under President Ronald Reagan from 1982 to 1983 on the domestic policy staff, then returned to the law firm and became a partner in 1985.
Under President George H.W. Bush, Mr. Barr served as the Deputy Attorney General from 1990 to 1991; the Assistant Attorney General of the Office of Legal Counsel from 1989 to 1990; and the 77th Attorney General of the United States from 1991 to 1993. While serving at the Department, Mr. Barr helped create programs and strategies to reduce violent crime and was responsible for establishing new enforcement policies in a number of areas including financial institutions, civil rights, and antitrust merger guidelines. Mr. Barr also led the Department’s response to the Savings & Loan crisis; oversaw the investigation of the Pan Am 103 bombing; directed the successful response to the Talladega prison uprising and hostage taking; and coordinated counter-terrorism activities during the First Gulf War.
From 1994 to 2000, Mr. Barr served as Executive Vice President and General Counsel for GTE Corporation. Mr. Barr then served as Executive Vice President and General Counsel of Verizon from 2000 to 2008. At both GTE and Verizon, Mr. Barr led the legal, regulatory, and government affairs activities of the companies.
After retiring from Verizon in 2008, Mr. Barr advised major corporations on government enforcement matters, as well as regulatory litigation. Mr. Barr served as Of Counsel at Kirkland & Ellis LLP in 2009 and rejoined the firm in 2017.
President Donald Trump announced his intention to nominate Mr. Barr on December 7, 2018, and he was confirmed as the 85th Attorney General of the United States by the U.S. Senate on February 14, 2019. U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts administered the oath of office. Mr. Barr joins John Crittenden (1841 and 1850-1853) as one of only two people in U.S. history to serve twice as Attorney General.
Walter E. Meyer Professor Emeritus of Property and Urban Law and Professorial Lecturer in Law, Yale Law School
Robert C. Ellickson was appointed Walter E. Meyer Professor of Property and Urban Law at Yale Law School in 1988. He has published numerous articles in legal and public policy journals on topics such as land use and housing policy, land tenure systems, social norms, homelessness, and the organization of households, community associations, and cities. Professor Ellickson’s books include Order Without Law: How Neighbors Settle Disputes (1991) (awarded the Order of the Coif Triennial Book Award in 1996), The Household: Informal Order Around the Hearth (2008), Land Use Controls: Cases and Materials (4th edition 2013, with Vicki Been, Roderick M. Hills, Jr. and Christopher Serkin), and Perspectives on Property Law (4th edition 2014, with Carol M. Rose and Henry E. Smith). He has written about ancient systems of land tenure and also periodically teaches a seminar on the history of development of the City of New Haven. Robert Ellickson was a member of the USC Law Faculty in 1970–1981, and the Stanford Law Faculty in 1981–88. He also has been a visiting professor at the Harvard and University of Chicago Law Schools. He was a founding member and later a director of the American Law and Economics Association, and served as its President in 2000–01. In 2016, the Association awarded him the Ronald H. Coase Medal in recognition of his scholarly contributions. Professor Ellickson served as an adviser during the American Law Institute’s preparation of the Restatement, Third, Property—Servitudes, and currently serves in the same capacity for the Restatement (Fourth) of Property. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and, in 2008, received the William & Mary Law School’s Brigham-Kanner Property Rights Prize for Property Scholarship. At Yale Law School he has served as Deputy Dean (1991–92) and, during the reconstruction of the Sterling Law buildings, as chairman of the Building Committee. Prior to entering teaching in 1970, he worked for a Presidential commission on housing policy and then for Levitt & Sons, the homebuilding firm. Professor Ellickson is married to Lynn Hammer and has two children. For many decades he competed in competitive Scrabble tournaments and, during intervals when fortune smiled, was ranked as one of the top 20 players in the United States.
Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law and Director, Classical Liberal Institute, New York University School of Law; Director, Classical Liberal Institute, Civitas Institute University of Texas at Austin
Richard A. Epstein is the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law, at New York University, a senior research fellow at the Civitas Institute at the University of Texas Austin, and a senior Lecturer, the University of Chicago. He received an LL.D., h.c . from the University of Ghent, 2003 , and an LLD h.c . from the University of Siegen in 2018 and the Bradley Prize in 2011. He has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 1985. He has edited both the Journal of Legal Studies (1981-1991) and the Journal of Law and Economics (1991-2001). He is also a founder and director of the Classical Liberal Institute at NYU Law School. His most recent book is The Classical Liberal Constitution: The Uncertain Quest for Limited Government (2014). His other books include Takings: Private Property and the Power of Eminent Domain ( 1985); Bargaining with the State (1993); Simple Rules for a Complex World (1995); Principles for a Free Society: Reconciling Individual Liberty and the Common Good (1998); Skepticism and Freedom: A Modern Theory of Classical Liberalism (2003); Design for Liberty: Private Property, Public Administration and the Rule of Law (2011), and most recently, The Myth of Birthright citizenship—and Beyond (2026). He has taught courses in , administrative law, antitrust, constitutional, contracts, environmental law, land use planning; real property, torts and water law. He has written and spoken extensively on a wide range of topics, and is writes a regular column for Defining Ideas.
Sterling Professor Emeritus of Law, Yale Law School
Owen Fiss is Sterling Professor Emeritus of Law and Professorial Lecturer in Law of Yale University. He was educated at Dartmouth, Oxford, and Harvard. He clerked for Thurgood Marshall (when Marshall was a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit) and later for Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. He also served in the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice from 1966 to 1968. Before coming to Yale, Professor Fiss taught at the University of Chicago. At Yale he teaches procedure, legal theory, and constitutional law.
Professor Fiss is the author of many articles and books, including The Civil Rights Injunction, Troubled Beginnings of the Modern State, The Structure of Procedure (with Robert Cover), Liberalism Divided, The Irony of Free Speech, A Community of Equals, A Way Out: America’s Ghettos and the Legacy of Racism, Adjudication and its Alternatives (with Judith Resnik), The Law as it Could Be, The Dictates of Justice: Essays on Law and Human Rights, and A War Like No Other: The Constitution in a Time of Terror. In a 2012 study, four of his articles were named as among the top 100 most-cited law review articles of all time. His most recent book is Pillars of Justice: Lawyers and the Liberal Tradition.
Professor Fiss is one of the founders of the Law School programs in Latin America and the Middle East and, along with Anthony Kronman, directs the Abdallah S. Kamel Center for the Study of Islamic Law and Civilization. Professor Fiss is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and has received honorary doctorates from the University of Toronto, Universidad de Chile, Universidad de Buenos Aires, and Universidad de Palermo (Buenos Aires). He was also awarded La distinción Sócrates from Universidad de Los Andes (Bogotá) and was appointed honorary visiting professor at Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México. Most recently, Professor Fiss was awarded the 2020 Henry M. Phillips Prize in Jurisprudence by the American Philosophical Society, becoming only the 26th recipient of the prize since it was established in 1888.
John Marshall Harlan II Professor of Law Emerita, New York Law School; Former President, American Civil Liberties Union
Nadine Strossen, New York Law School Professor Emerita and Senior Fellow at FIRE (the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression), was national President of the American Civil Liberties Union from 1991 to 2008. An internationally acclaimed free speech scholar and advocate, who regularly addresses diverse audiences and provides media commentary around the world, Strossen is also the Host and Project Consultant for Free To Speak, a 3-hour documentary film series distributed on public television in 2023. Her books about free speech include: Free Speech: What Everyone Needs to Know® (Oxford University Press 2023); HATE: Why We Should Resist It with Free Speech, Not Censorship (Oxford University Press 2018); and Defending Pornography: Free Speech, Sex, and the Fight for Women’s Rights (Scribner 1995), which was republished with a new Preface in 2024 as part of the NYU Classics Series. Her many honors and awards include the National Coalition Against Censorship’s Judy Blume Lifetime Achievement Award for Free Speech. She serves on the Advisory Boards of several organizations that do free speech work, including: ACLU, Academic Freedom Alliance, Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism (FAIR), Heterodox Academy, National Coalition Against Censorship, and the University of Austin.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit
Judge Winter was appointed United States Circuit Judge for the Second Circuit on December 10, 1981 and entered on duty January 5, 1982. He received a B.A. degree from Yale College in 1957 and an LL.B. degree from Yale Law School in 1960. He served as a law clerk to Judge Caleb M. Wright, Chief Judge, U.S. District Court, Delaware, 1960-61, and to Judge Thurgood Marshall, U.S. Court of Appeals, Second Circuit, 1961-62.
Judge Winter was a full-time member of the Yale Law School Faculty from 1962 until entering judicial service. At the time of his appointment, he was the William K. Townsend Professor of Law. He was also a Consultant to the Subcommittee of Separation of Powers, Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. Senate from 1968 to 1972, a Senior Fellow, The Brookings Institute, Washington, D.C. from 1968 to 1970, a John Simon Guggenheim Fellow from 1971 to 1972 and an Adjutant Scholar, American Enterprise Institute from 1972 to 1981.
He served from 1987 to 1992 as a member of the Judicial Conference Advisory Committee on Civil Rules. He served as Chair of the Judicial Conference Advisory Committee on the Rules of Evidence from 1992 to 1996. From July 1, 1997 to September 30, 2000, Judge Winter served as Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. In April 1998, he was appointed to the Executive Committee of the U.S. Judicial Conference. From October 1999 to September 2000, he served as Chair of the Executive Committee. On October 1, 2000, he took Senior Judge status.
He served as Chair of the Committee to Review Circuit Council Conduct and Disability Orders from 2005 to 2008. He was a member of the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Court of Review from 2003 to 2010.
Judge Winter has received the Connecticut Law Review Award, Honorary Doctors of Law from Brooklyn Law School and New York Law School, the Federal Bar Council's Learned Hand Award for Excellence in Federal Jurisprudence, and the Yale Law School's Association's Award of Merit. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Banquet, Presentation of the Paul M. Bator Award [Archive Collection]
Miranda Perry Fleischer, Eugene B. Meyer, Michael Stokes Paulsen
On February 23-24, 1996, the Federalist Society held its fifteenth annual National Student Symposium at...
Banquet, Presentation of the Paul M. Bator Award [Archive Collection]
Miranda Perry Fleischer, Eugene B. Meyer, Michael Stokes Paulsen
On February 23-24, 1996, the Federalist Society held its fifteenth annual National Student Symposium at...
Banquet, Presentation of the Paul M. Bator Award [Archive Collection]
1996 National Student Symposium
Stanford, CAPanel VI: 1995 National Student Symposium, The Original Meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment [Archive Collection]
1995 National Student Symposium
Chicago, ILPanel IV: Is Originalism Possible? Normative Indeterminacy and the Judicial Role [Archive Collection]
1995 National Student Symposium
Chicago, ILPanel II: Constitutionalism and Originalism [Archive Collection]
1995 National Student Symposium
Chicago, ILPanel III: Liberty and Constitutional Architecture [Archive Collection]
1992 National Student Symposium
Austin, TXPanel I: Philosophical Foundations of The Federalist: The Nature of Law and the Nature of Man [Archive Collection]
1992 National Student Symposium
Austin, TXPersonal Responsibility in Criminal Law [Archive Collection]
1991 Annual Lawyers Convention
Washington, DCPanel I: Should the Bill of Rights Fully Protect Fundamental Freedoms? [Archive Collection]
1991 National Student Symposium
New Haven, CT