Partner-in-Charge Washington, Jones Day
Noel Francisco served as the 47th Solicitor General of the United States in the Trump Administration, from 2017 to 2020. He has argued some of the most important cases the Supreme Court has heard in recent years on a wide array of issues.
For example, as Solicitor General, he argued Trump v. Hawaii, where he successfully defended the president's orders restricting travel from countries deemed to present security risks; Janus v. AFSCME, which upheld the First Amendment rights of public employees who decline to join labor unions; Kisor v. Wilkie, which adopted his argument that the "Auer deference doctrine" should be significantly curtailed but retained in its core applications; Apple Inc. v. Pepper, which addressed whether Apple's App Store customers had standing to sue the company for antitrust violations; Knick v. Township of Scott, which held that property owners could sue state and local governments in federal court to vindicate Fifth Amendment takings claims; and Seila Law LLC v. CFPB, which invalidated restrictions on the president's authority to remove the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
He also spearheaded the government's general strategy to seek emergency relief in the appellate courts and the Supreme Court when lower courts issued nationwide injunctions against important government programs.
Noel's service as Solicitor General built on his previous tenure at Jones Day, during which he argued McDonnell v. United States, which reversed the federal bribery conviction of the governor of Virginia; NLRB v. Noel Canning, which limited the president's constitutional recess appointments power; and Zubik v. Burwell, which challenged federal insurance coverage regulations that violated Catholic organizations' religious beliefs.
Hugh and Hazel Darling Foundation Professor of Law; Director, Center for the Study of Constitutional Originalism, University of San Diego School of Law
Associate Dean for Research and Intellectual Life, McKnight Presidential Professor in Law, Distinguished McKnight University Professor, Harlan Albert Rogers Professor in Law, Associate Director, Corporate Institute, University of Minnesota Law School
Professor Kristin E. Hickman is the McKnight Presidential Professor in Law, a Distinguished McKnight University Professor, and Harlan Albert Rogers Professor in Law at the University of Minnesota Law School. She also has taught at Harvard Law School and Northwestern University School of Law. Professor Hickman teaches and writes primarily in the areas of administrative law, tax administration, and statutory interpretation. Her articles on these topics have appeared in the Columbia Law Review, Cornell Law Review, Virginia Law Review, Duke Law Journal, and other publications. She also co-authors the Administrative Law Treatise with Richard J. Pierce, Jr., and a casebook on federal administrative law with Pierce and Christopher J. Walker. Her scholarly work has been cited several times in opinions of the United States Supreme Court as well as regularly in lower court judicial opinions and court briefs.
In 2018-19, Professor Hickman served as Special Adviser to the Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in Washington, D.C. She presently serves as a Senior Fellow, and previously served as a public member and chair of the judicial review committee, for the Administrative Conference of the United States. She also is a Fellow of the American College of Tax Counsel.
Professor Hickman received her B.S. degree in business administration with a concentration in accounting and a secondary major in history from Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. After practicing for several years as a certified public accountant, Professor Hickman earned her J.D. degree, magna cum laude, from Northwestern University School of Law, where she was awarded the Raoul Berger Prize and the Lowden Wigmore Prize for her scholarly writings. Following law school, Professor Hickman clerked for The Honorable David B. Sentelle of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and practiced law as an associate with the Chicago office of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, concentrating on corporate and international tax transactions and matters.
Associate Dean for Research and Intellectual Life, McKnight Presidential Professor in Law, Distinguished McKnight University Professor, Harlan Albert Rogers Professor in Law, Associate Director, Corporate Institute, University of Minnesota Law School
Professor Kristin E. Hickman is the McKnight Presidential Professor in Law, a Distinguished McKnight University Professor, and Harlan Albert Rogers Professor in Law at the University of Minnesota Law School. She also has taught at Harvard Law School and Northwestern University School of Law. Professor Hickman teaches and writes primarily in the areas of administrative law, tax administration, and statutory interpretation. Her articles on these topics have appeared in the Columbia Law Review, Cornell Law Review, Virginia Law Review, Duke Law Journal, and other publications. She also co-authors the Administrative Law Treatise with Richard J. Pierce, Jr., and a casebook on federal administrative law with Pierce and Christopher J. Walker. Her scholarly work has been cited several times in opinions of the United States Supreme Court as well as regularly in lower court judicial opinions and court briefs.
In 2018-19, Professor Hickman served as Special Adviser to the Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in Washington, D.C. She presently serves as a Senior Fellow, and previously served as a public member and chair of the judicial review committee, for the Administrative Conference of the United States. She also is a Fellow of the American College of Tax Counsel.
Professor Hickman received her B.S. degree in business administration with a concentration in accounting and a secondary major in history from Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. After practicing for several years as a certified public accountant, Professor Hickman earned her J.D. degree, magna cum laude, from Northwestern University School of Law, where she was awarded the Raoul Berger Prize and the Lowden Wigmore Prize for her scholarly writings. Following law school, Professor Hickman clerked for The Honorable David B. Sentelle of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and practiced law as an associate with the Chicago office of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, concentrating on corporate and international tax transactions and matters.
S. Walter Richey Professor of Corporate Law, University of Minnesota Law School
Professor Richard W. Painter received his B.A., summa cum laude, in history from Harvard University and his J.D. from Yale University, where he was an editor of the Yale Journal on Regulation. Following law school, he clerked for Judge John T. Noonan Jr., of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and later practiced at Sullivan & Cromwell in New York City and Finn Dixon & Herling in Stamford, Connecticut.
He has served as a tenured member of the law faculty at the University of Oregon School of Law and the University of Illinois College of Law, where he was the Guy Raymond and Mildred Van Voorhis Jones Professor of Law from 2002 to 2005.
From February 2005 to July 2007, he was Associate Counsel to the President in the White House Counsel's office, serving as the chief ethics lawyer for the President, White House employees and senior nominees to Senate-confirmed positions in the Executive Branch. He is a member of the American Law Institute and is an advisor for the new ALI Principles of Government Ethics. He has also been active in the Professional Responsibility Section of the American Bar Association.
Professor Painter has also been active in law reform efforts aimed at deterring securities fraud and improving ethics of corporate managers and lawyers. A key provision of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 requiring the SEC to issue rules of professional responsibility for securities lawyers was based on earlier proposals Professor Painter made in law review articles and to the ABA and the SEC. He has given dozens of lectures on the Sarbanes-Oxley Act to law schools, bar associations, and learned societies, such as the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Professor Painter has on four separate occasions provided invited testimony before committees of the U.S. House of Representatives or the U.S. Senate on securities litigation and/or the role of attorneys in corporate governance.
His book, Getting the Government America Deserves: How Ethics Reform Can Make a Difference, was published by Oxford University Press in January 2009. He has written op-eds on government ethics for various publications including the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times, and he has been interviewed several times on government ethics and corporate ethics by national news organizations, including appearances on Lawrence O'Donnell (MSNBC), Anderson Cooper 360 (CNN), CNN News, Fox News, National Public Radio All Things Considered, and Minnesota Public Radio News. In 2011, he testified before the U.S. House Government Oversight Committee on partisan political activity by government officials and reform of the Hatch Act. Professor Painter has also given expert testimony in cases involving securities transactions and the professional responsibility of lawyers. He testified as a defense witness in SEC. v. The Reserve Money Market Fund (SDNY, November 2012), a jury trial of an SEC enforcement action against the founders of the world's oldest money market fund that ended with a defense verdict on all of the fraud counts.
Professor Painter is the author of two casebooks: Securities Litigation and Enforcement (with Margaret Sachs and Donna Nagy; West 2003; Second Edition, 2007; Third Edition 2011) and Professional and Personal Responsibilities of the Lawyer (with Judge John T. Noonan Jr.; Foundation 1997; Second Edition, 2001; Third Edition 2011). He has written dozens of articles, book reviews, and essays, including a series of papers and a forthcoming book with Minnesota colleague Claire Hill on the personal responsibility of investment bankers.
Chief Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit
Jennifer Walker Elrod is the Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. She was nominated to the Fifth Circuit in 2007, and she served as a Circuit Judge on the court until assuming the role of Chief Judge in October 2024. Prior to serving as a Circuit Judge, Chief Judge Elrod was appointed and then twice elected Judge of the 190th District Court of Harris County, Texas, where she spent over five years presiding over more than 200 jury and non-jury trials.
Chief Judge Elrod graduated cum laude from Harvard Law School, where she was an active member of the Harvard Federalist Society, an Ames Moot Court finalist, and a Senior Editor of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy. She clerked for the Honorable Sim Lake in the Southern District of Texas. Before serving as a judge, Chief Judge Elrod worked in private practice, focusing on civil litigation, antitrust, and employment matters.
She has been repeatedly recognized for her work as a jurist, as well as for her pro bono work and contributions to the community. She has been named the 2022 Texas Review of Law & Politics’ Jurist of the Year, the 2018 Harvard Federalist Society’s Alumni of the Year, the 2016–17 Texas Association of Civil Trial and Appellate Specialists’ Appellate Judge of the Year, and the 2008 Mexican-American Bar Association of Texas’s Judge of the Year.
Chief Judge Elrod is actively engaged in the academic and legal communities. Chief Judge Elrod currently serves on the Board of Directors and as the Jurist-in-Residence at the South Texas College of Law, where she teaches civil procedure and First Amendment law. She is also a member of the American Law Institute and of the Board of Advisors for the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, and she is a former member of the Board of Regents of her alma mater, Baylor University, and the Board of Visitors at Brigham Young University Law School. She previously served as the Chair of the Codes of Conduct Committee for the Judicial Conference of the United States. She has also served as the M.D. Anderson Visiting Public Service Professor at the Texas Tech University School of Law and as Jurist-in-Residence at Brigham Young University Law School, and she has taught legal writing at the University of Houston Law Center. She presented the Lewis F. Powell, Jr. Distinguished Lecture at the Washington and Lee University School of Law and is a frequent speaker on the topics of trial and appellate procedure, ethics, employment law, and constitutional law. Chief Judge Elrod also serves on the board of the Garland R. Walker Inn of Court, and co-produces an annual musical CLE, for which her pupilage group has won multiple national awards.
Chief Judge Elrod’s publications include: Trial by Siri: AI Comes to the Courtroom; Don’t Mess with Texas Judges: In Praise of the State Judiciary; For Good: Enriching Your Practice and Your Life Through Pro Bono and Community Service; Is the Jury Still Out?: A Case for the Continued Viability of the American Jury; and W(h)ither the Jury? The Diminishing Role of the Jury Trial in our Legal System.
Maurice and Hilda Friedman Professor of Law, Columbia Law School; CEO, New Civil Liberties Alliance
Philip Hamburger is the Maurice and Hilda Friedman Professor of Law at Columbia Law School, and Chief Executive Officer at the New Civil Liberties Alliance. Before coming to Columbia, he was the John P. Wilson Professor at the University of Chicago Law School.
He writes on constitutional law and its history—with particular emphasis on religious liberty, freedom of speech and the press, judicial office, administrative power, and unconstitutional conditions.
His books are Separation of Church and State (Harvard 2002), Law and Judicial Duty (Harvard 2008), Is Administrative Law Unlawful? (Chicago 2014), The Administrative Threat (Encounter 2017), and Liberal Suppression: Section 501(c)(3) and the Taxation of Speech (Chicago 2018). A forthcoming book is Purchasing Submission: Conditions, Power, and Freedom (Harvard 2021).
He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and he has served on the board of directors of the American Society for Legal History. He has twice received the Sutherland Prize for the most significant contribution to English legal history, and has been awarded the Henry Paolucci - Walter Bagehot Book Award, the Hayek Book Prize, and the Bradley Prize.
Associate Dean for Research and Intellectual Life, McKnight Presidential Professor in Law, Distinguished McKnight University Professor, Harlan Albert Rogers Professor in Law, Associate Director, Corporate Institute, University of Minnesota Law School
Professor Kristin E. Hickman is the McKnight Presidential Professor in Law, a Distinguished McKnight University Professor, and Harlan Albert Rogers Professor in Law at the University of Minnesota Law School. She also has taught at Harvard Law School and Northwestern University School of Law. Professor Hickman teaches and writes primarily in the areas of administrative law, tax administration, and statutory interpretation. Her articles on these topics have appeared in the Columbia Law Review, Cornell Law Review, Virginia Law Review, Duke Law Journal, and other publications. She also co-authors the Administrative Law Treatise with Richard J. Pierce, Jr., and a casebook on federal administrative law with Pierce and Christopher J. Walker. Her scholarly work has been cited several times in opinions of the United States Supreme Court as well as regularly in lower court judicial opinions and court briefs.
In 2018-19, Professor Hickman served as Special Adviser to the Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in Washington, D.C. She presently serves as a Senior Fellow, and previously served as a public member and chair of the judicial review committee, for the Administrative Conference of the United States. She also is a Fellow of the American College of Tax Counsel.
Professor Hickman received her B.S. degree in business administration with a concentration in accounting and a secondary major in history from Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. After practicing for several years as a certified public accountant, Professor Hickman earned her J.D. degree, magna cum laude, from Northwestern University School of Law, where she was awarded the Raoul Berger Prize and the Lowden Wigmore Prize for her scholarly writings. Following law school, Professor Hickman clerked for The Honorable David B. Sentelle of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and practiced law as an associate with the Chicago office of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, concentrating on corporate and international tax transactions and matters.
Charles Evans Hughes Professor of Law, Columbia Law School
THOMAS W. MERRILL is the Charles Evans Hughes Professor of Law at Columbia Law School. He previously taught at Northwestern University School of Law and Yale Law School. He has undergraduate degrees from Grinnell College and Oxford University, where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar, and a law degree from the University of Chicago. He clerked on the D.C. Circuit (for Chief Judge David Bazelon) and the U.S. Supreme Court (for Justice Harry Blackmun). From 1987-1990 he served as Deputy Solicitor General, U.S. Department of Justice. Professor Merrill’s writings related to property include Property: Principles and Policies (Foundation Press Second Edition, 2012) (with Henry E. Smith); Property: The Oxford Introductions to U.S. Law (Oxford U. Press, 2010); Property: Takings (Foundation Press, 2002)(with David Dana); and numerous articles, including “The Economics of Public Use” (Cornell Law Review 1986); “The Landscape of Constitutional Property” (Virginia Law Review 2000); and “The Character of the Governmental Action” (Vermont Law Review 2012). He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Benjamin Mazur Summer Research Professor of Law Affiliated Faculty, Ford Motor Company Center for Global Citizenship, Northwestern University School of Law
Jide Nzelibe joined Northwestern's faculty as an assistant professor in 2004 became a full Professor in 2008. He served as the Bigelow Teaching Fellow and Lecturer in Law at the University of Chicago before joining Northwestern Law. In addition to his JD from Yale Law School, he also holds an MPA in international relations from Princeton University, where he was awarded a fellowship from the Woodrow Wilson Foundation and a pre-doctoral fellowship from the Ford Foundation. His research and teaching interests include international trade, foreign relations law, public and private international law and contracts.
Executive Vice President, The Federalist Society
Dean Reuter is Executive Vice President at the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies. He has served in two federal government agency Offices of the Inspector General, as Counsel to the Inspector General and Deputy Inspector General, responsible for policing the use of federal funds granted and contracted through those agencies. As such, he helped conduct and oversee criminal investigations across the country. He is the principal author of the non-fiction book, The Hidden Nazi: The Untold Story of America's Deal with the Devil, and editor of Liberty’s Nemesis: The Unchecked Expansion of the State and Confronting Terror: 9/11 and the Future of American National Security. He was appointed by the President and served as Vice-Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Corporation for National and Community Service, and recently served as an appointee on the U.S. Commission on Presidential Scholars. He is a graduate of Hood College (BA with Honors) and the University of Maryland School of Law.
Chief Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit
Jennifer Walker Elrod is the Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. She was nominated to the Fifth Circuit in 2007, and she served as a Circuit Judge on the court until assuming the role of Chief Judge in October 2024. Prior to serving as a Circuit Judge, Chief Judge Elrod was appointed and then twice elected Judge of the 190th District Court of Harris County, Texas, where she spent over five years presiding over more than 200 jury and non-jury trials.
Chief Judge Elrod graduated cum laude from Harvard Law School, where she was an active member of the Harvard Federalist Society, an Ames Moot Court finalist, and a Senior Editor of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy. She clerked for the Honorable Sim Lake in the Southern District of Texas. Before serving as a judge, Chief Judge Elrod worked in private practice, focusing on civil litigation, antitrust, and employment matters.
She has been repeatedly recognized for her work as a jurist, as well as for her pro bono work and contributions to the community. She has been named the 2022 Texas Review of Law & Politics’ Jurist of the Year, the 2018 Harvard Federalist Society’s Alumni of the Year, the 2016–17 Texas Association of Civil Trial and Appellate Specialists’ Appellate Judge of the Year, and the 2008 Mexican-American Bar Association of Texas’s Judge of the Year.
Chief Judge Elrod is actively engaged in the academic and legal communities. Chief Judge Elrod currently serves on the Board of Directors and as the Jurist-in-Residence at the South Texas College of Law, where she teaches civil procedure and First Amendment law. She is also a member of the American Law Institute and of the Board of Advisors for the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, and she is a former member of the Board of Regents of her alma mater, Baylor University, and the Board of Visitors at Brigham Young University Law School. She previously served as the Chair of the Codes of Conduct Committee for the Judicial Conference of the United States. She has also served as the M.D. Anderson Visiting Public Service Professor at the Texas Tech University School of Law and as Jurist-in-Residence at Brigham Young University Law School, and she has taught legal writing at the University of Houston Law Center. She presented the Lewis F. Powell, Jr. Distinguished Lecture at the Washington and Lee University School of Law and is a frequent speaker on the topics of trial and appellate procedure, ethics, employment law, and constitutional law. Chief Judge Elrod also serves on the board of the Garland R. Walker Inn of Court, and co-produces an annual musical CLE, for which her pupilage group has won multiple national awards.
Chief Judge Elrod’s publications include: Trial by Siri: AI Comes to the Courtroom; Don’t Mess with Texas Judges: In Praise of the State Judiciary; For Good: Enriching Your Practice and Your Life Through Pro Bono and Community Service; Is the Jury Still Out?: A Case for the Continued Viability of the American Jury; and W(h)ither the Jury? The Diminishing Role of the Jury Trial in our Legal System.
Maurice and Hilda Friedman Professor of Law, Columbia Law School; CEO, New Civil Liberties Alliance
Philip Hamburger is the Maurice and Hilda Friedman Professor of Law at Columbia Law School, and Chief Executive Officer at the New Civil Liberties Alliance. Before coming to Columbia, he was the John P. Wilson Professor at the University of Chicago Law School.
He writes on constitutional law and its history—with particular emphasis on religious liberty, freedom of speech and the press, judicial office, administrative power, and unconstitutional conditions.
His books are Separation of Church and State (Harvard 2002), Law and Judicial Duty (Harvard 2008), Is Administrative Law Unlawful? (Chicago 2014), The Administrative Threat (Encounter 2017), and Liberal Suppression: Section 501(c)(3) and the Taxation of Speech (Chicago 2018). A forthcoming book is Purchasing Submission: Conditions, Power, and Freedom (Harvard 2021).
He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and he has served on the board of directors of the American Society for Legal History. He has twice received the Sutherland Prize for the most significant contribution to English legal history, and has been awarded the Henry Paolucci - Walter Bagehot Book Award, the Hayek Book Prize, and the Bradley Prize.
Associate Dean for Research and Intellectual Life, McKnight Presidential Professor in Law, Distinguished McKnight University Professor, Harlan Albert Rogers Professor in Law, Associate Director, Corporate Institute, University of Minnesota Law School
Professor Kristin E. Hickman is the McKnight Presidential Professor in Law, a Distinguished McKnight University Professor, and Harlan Albert Rogers Professor in Law at the University of Minnesota Law School. She also has taught at Harvard Law School and Northwestern University School of Law. Professor Hickman teaches and writes primarily in the areas of administrative law, tax administration, and statutory interpretation. Her articles on these topics have appeared in the Columbia Law Review, Cornell Law Review, Virginia Law Review, Duke Law Journal, and other publications. She also co-authors the Administrative Law Treatise with Richard J. Pierce, Jr., and a casebook on federal administrative law with Pierce and Christopher J. Walker. Her scholarly work has been cited several times in opinions of the United States Supreme Court as well as regularly in lower court judicial opinions and court briefs.
In 2018-19, Professor Hickman served as Special Adviser to the Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in Washington, D.C. She presently serves as a Senior Fellow, and previously served as a public member and chair of the judicial review committee, for the Administrative Conference of the United States. She also is a Fellow of the American College of Tax Counsel.
Professor Hickman received her B.S. degree in business administration with a concentration in accounting and a secondary major in history from Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. After practicing for several years as a certified public accountant, Professor Hickman earned her J.D. degree, magna cum laude, from Northwestern University School of Law, where she was awarded the Raoul Berger Prize and the Lowden Wigmore Prize for her scholarly writings. Following law school, Professor Hickman clerked for The Honorable David B. Sentelle of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and practiced law as an associate with the Chicago office of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, concentrating on corporate and international tax transactions and matters.
Charles Evans Hughes Professor of Law, Columbia Law School
THOMAS W. MERRILL is the Charles Evans Hughes Professor of Law at Columbia Law School. He previously taught at Northwestern University School of Law and Yale Law School. He has undergraduate degrees from Grinnell College and Oxford University, where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar, and a law degree from the University of Chicago. He clerked on the D.C. Circuit (for Chief Judge David Bazelon) and the U.S. Supreme Court (for Justice Harry Blackmun). From 1987-1990 he served as Deputy Solicitor General, U.S. Department of Justice. Professor Merrill’s writings related to property include Property: Principles and Policies (Foundation Press Second Edition, 2012) (with Henry E. Smith); Property: The Oxford Introductions to U.S. Law (Oxford U. Press, 2010); Property: Takings (Foundation Press, 2002)(with David Dana); and numerous articles, including “The Economics of Public Use” (Cornell Law Review 1986); “The Landscape of Constitutional Property” (Virginia Law Review 2000); and “The Character of the Governmental Action” (Vermont Law Review 2012). He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Benjamin Mazur Summer Research Professor of Law Affiliated Faculty, Ford Motor Company Center for Global Citizenship, Northwestern University School of Law
Jide Nzelibe joined Northwestern's faculty as an assistant professor in 2004 became a full Professor in 2008. He served as the Bigelow Teaching Fellow and Lecturer in Law at the University of Chicago before joining Northwestern Law. In addition to his JD from Yale Law School, he also holds an MPA in international relations from Princeton University, where he was awarded a fellowship from the Woodrow Wilson Foundation and a pre-doctoral fellowship from the Ford Foundation. His research and teaching interests include international trade, foreign relations law, public and private international law and contracts.
Executive Vice President, The Federalist Society
Dean Reuter is Executive Vice President at the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies. He has served in two federal government agency Offices of the Inspector General, as Counsel to the Inspector General and Deputy Inspector General, responsible for policing the use of federal funds granted and contracted through those agencies. As such, he helped conduct and oversee criminal investigations across the country. He is the principal author of the non-fiction book, The Hidden Nazi: The Untold Story of America's Deal with the Devil, and editor of Liberty’s Nemesis: The Unchecked Expansion of the State and Confronting Terror: 9/11 and the Future of American National Security. He was appointed by the President and served as Vice-Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Corporation for National and Community Service, and recently served as an appointee on the U.S. Commission on Presidential Scholars. He is a graduate of Hood College (BA with Honors) and the University of Maryland School of Law.
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.
Director, Center for Legal Policy, Manhattan Institute for Policy Research
James R. Copland is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and director of Legal Policy. In those roles, he develops and communicates novel, sound ideas on how to improve America’s civil- and criminal-justice systems. His forthcoming book, The Unelected: How an Unaccountable Elite is Governing America (Encounter Books) will be released on September 8, 2020. He has testified before Congress as well as state and municipal legislatures; and has authored many policy briefs, book chapters, articles and opinion pieces in a variety of publications, including the Harvard Business Law Review and Yale Journal on Regulation, the Wall Street Journal, National Law Journal, and USA Today. Copland speaks regularly on civil- and criminal-justice issues; has made hundreds of media appearances in such outlets as PBS, Fox News, MSNBC, CNBC, Fox Business, Bloomberg, C-Span, and NPR; and is frequently cited in news articles in the New York Times, Washington Post, The Economist, and Forbes. In 2011 and 2012, he was named to the National Association of Corporate Directors “Directorship 100” list, which designates the individuals most influential over U.S. corporate governance.
Prior to joining MI, Copland was a management consultant with McKinsey and Company in New York. Earlier, he was a law clerk for Ralph K. Winter on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Copland has been a director of two privately held manufacturing companies since 1997 and has served on many public and nonprofit boards. He holds a J.D. and an M.B.A. from Yale, where he was an Olin Fellow in Law and Economics; an M.Sc. in the politics of the world economy from the London School of Economics; and a B.A. in economics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was a Morehead Scholar.
Taft, Stettinius & Hollister Professor of Law, University of Minnesota Law School
Professor Thomas F. Cotter joined the University of Minnesota Law School faculty in 2006. He received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and in 1987 graduated magna cum laude from the University of Wisconsin Law School, where he served as Senior Articles Editor of the Wisconsin Law Review and was elected to the Order of the Coif.
From 1987-89, Professor Cotter clerked for the Honorable Lawrence W. Pierce, United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He practiced law at Cravath, Swaine & Moore in New York City from 1988-90, and at Jenner & Block in Chicago from 1990-94. From 1994-2005, he taught at the University of Florida College of Law, where he held a University of Florida Research Foundation Professorship and directed the school's Intellectual Property Law Program. From 2005-06, he was a Professor of Law at Washington and Lee University School of Law.
Professor Cotter's principal research and teaching interests are in the fields of domestic and international intellectual property law, antitrust, and law and economics. He is the author of three books—Comparative Patent Remedies: A Legal and Economic Analysis (Oxford University Press); Trademarks, Unfair Competition, and Business Torts (coauthored with Barton Beebe, Mark A. Lemley, Peter S. Menell, and Robert P. Merges) (Aspen Publishers 2011); and Intellectual Property: Economic and Legal Dimensions of Rights and Remedies (coauthored with Roger D. Blair) (Cambridge University Press 2005)—and has recently agreed to coauthor (with Jeffrey L. Harrison) a fourth, Law and Economics: Positive, Normative, and Behavioral Perspectives (3d ed., Thomson West). Altogether he has authored or coauthored over 40 other scholarly works, including articles in the California Law Review, the Georgetown Law Journal, the Iowa Law Review, the Minnesota Law Review, and the University of Illinois Law Review.
Executive Vice President, The Federalist Society
Dean Reuter is Executive Vice President at the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies. He has served in two federal government agency Offices of the Inspector General, as Counsel to the Inspector General and Deputy Inspector General, responsible for policing the use of federal funds granted and contracted through those agencies. As such, he helped conduct and oversee criminal investigations across the country. He is the principal author of the non-fiction book, The Hidden Nazi: The Untold Story of America's Deal with the Devil, and editor of Liberty’s Nemesis: The Unchecked Expansion of the State and Confronting Terror: 9/11 and the Future of American National Security. He was appointed by the President and served as Vice-Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Corporation for National and Community Service, and recently served as an appointee on the U.S. Commission on Presidential Scholars. He is a graduate of Hood College (BA with Honors) and the University of Maryland School of Law.
S. Walter Richey Professor of Corporate Law, University of Minnesota Law School
Professor Richard W. Painter received his B.A., summa cum laude, in history from Harvard University and his J.D. from Yale University, where he was an editor of the Yale Journal on Regulation. Following law school, he clerked for Judge John T. Noonan Jr., of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and later practiced at Sullivan & Cromwell in New York City and Finn Dixon & Herling in Stamford, Connecticut.
He has served as a tenured member of the law faculty at the University of Oregon School of Law and the University of Illinois College of Law, where he was the Guy Raymond and Mildred Van Voorhis Jones Professor of Law from 2002 to 2005.
From February 2005 to July 2007, he was Associate Counsel to the President in the White House Counsel's office, serving as the chief ethics lawyer for the President, White House employees and senior nominees to Senate-confirmed positions in the Executive Branch. He is a member of the American Law Institute and is an advisor for the new ALI Principles of Government Ethics. He has also been active in the Professional Responsibility Section of the American Bar Association.
Professor Painter has also been active in law reform efforts aimed at deterring securities fraud and improving ethics of corporate managers and lawyers. A key provision of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 requiring the SEC to issue rules of professional responsibility for securities lawyers was based on earlier proposals Professor Painter made in law review articles and to the ABA and the SEC. He has given dozens of lectures on the Sarbanes-Oxley Act to law schools, bar associations, and learned societies, such as the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Professor Painter has on four separate occasions provided invited testimony before committees of the U.S. House of Representatives or the U.S. Senate on securities litigation and/or the role of attorneys in corporate governance.
His book, Getting the Government America Deserves: How Ethics Reform Can Make a Difference, was published by Oxford University Press in January 2009. He has written op-eds on government ethics for various publications including the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times, and he has been interviewed several times on government ethics and corporate ethics by national news organizations, including appearances on Lawrence O'Donnell (MSNBC), Anderson Cooper 360 (CNN), CNN News, Fox News, National Public Radio All Things Considered, and Minnesota Public Radio News. In 2011, he testified before the U.S. House Government Oversight Committee on partisan political activity by government officials and reform of the Hatch Act. Professor Painter has also given expert testimony in cases involving securities transactions and the professional responsibility of lawyers. He testified as a defense witness in SEC. v. The Reserve Money Market Fund (SDNY, November 2012), a jury trial of an SEC enforcement action against the founders of the world's oldest money market fund that ended with a defense verdict on all of the fraud counts.
Professor Painter is the author of two casebooks: Securities Litigation and Enforcement (with Margaret Sachs and Donna Nagy; West 2003; Second Edition, 2007; Third Edition 2011) and Professional and Personal Responsibilities of the Lawyer (with Judge John T. Noonan Jr.; Foundation 1997; Second Edition, 2001; Third Edition 2011). He has written dozens of articles, book reviews, and essays, including a series of papers and a forthcoming book with Minnesota colleague Claire Hill on the personal responsibility of investment bankers.
Partner-in-Charge Washington, Jones Day
Noel Francisco served as the 47th Solicitor General of the United States in the Trump Administration, from 2017 to 2020. He has argued some of the most important cases the Supreme Court has heard in recent years on a wide array of issues.
For example, as Solicitor General, he argued Trump v. Hawaii, where he successfully defended the president's orders restricting travel from countries deemed to present security risks; Janus v. AFSCME, which upheld the First Amendment rights of public employees who decline to join labor unions; Kisor v. Wilkie, which adopted his argument that the "Auer deference doctrine" should be significantly curtailed but retained in its core applications; Apple Inc. v. Pepper, which addressed whether Apple's App Store customers had standing to sue the company for antitrust violations; Knick v. Township of Scott, which held that property owners could sue state and local governments in federal court to vindicate Fifth Amendment takings claims; and Seila Law LLC v. CFPB, which invalidated restrictions on the president's authority to remove the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
He also spearheaded the government's general strategy to seek emergency relief in the appellate courts and the Supreme Court when lower courts issued nationwide injunctions against important government programs.
Noel's service as Solicitor General built on his previous tenure at Jones Day, during which he argued McDonnell v. United States, which reversed the federal bribery conviction of the governor of Virginia; NLRB v. Noel Canning, which limited the president's constitutional recess appointments power; and Zubik v. Burwell, which challenged federal insurance coverage regulations that violated Catholic organizations' religious beliefs.
Associate Dean for Research and Intellectual Life, McKnight Presidential Professor in Law, Distinguished McKnight University Professor, Harlan Albert Rogers Professor in Law, Associate Director, Corporate Institute, University of Minnesota Law School
Professor Kristin E. Hickman is the McKnight Presidential Professor in Law, a Distinguished McKnight University Professor, and Harlan Albert Rogers Professor in Law at the University of Minnesota Law School. She also has taught at Harvard Law School and Northwestern University School of Law. Professor Hickman teaches and writes primarily in the areas of administrative law, tax administration, and statutory interpretation. Her articles on these topics have appeared in the Columbia Law Review, Cornell Law Review, Virginia Law Review, Duke Law Journal, and other publications. She also co-authors the Administrative Law Treatise with Richard J. Pierce, Jr., and a casebook on federal administrative law with Pierce and Christopher J. Walker. Her scholarly work has been cited several times in opinions of the United States Supreme Court as well as regularly in lower court judicial opinions and court briefs.
In 2018-19, Professor Hickman served as Special Adviser to the Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in Washington, D.C. She presently serves as a Senior Fellow, and previously served as a public member and chair of the judicial review committee, for the Administrative Conference of the United States. She also is a Fellow of the American College of Tax Counsel.
Professor Hickman received her B.S. degree in business administration with a concentration in accounting and a secondary major in history from Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. After practicing for several years as a certified public accountant, Professor Hickman earned her J.D. degree, magna cum laude, from Northwestern University School of Law, where she was awarded the Raoul Berger Prize and the Lowden Wigmore Prize for her scholarly writings. Following law school, Professor Hickman clerked for The Honorable David B. Sentelle of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and practiced law as an associate with the Chicago office of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, concentrating on corporate and international tax transactions and matters.
Hugh and Hazel Darling Foundation Professor of Law; Director, Center for the Study of Constitutional Originalism, University of San Diego School of Law
Director, Center for Legal Policy, Manhattan Institute for Policy Research
James R. Copland is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and director of Legal Policy. In those roles, he develops and communicates novel, sound ideas on how to improve America’s civil- and criminal-justice systems. His forthcoming book, The Unelected: How an Unaccountable Elite is Governing America (Encounter Books) will be released on September 8, 2020. He has testified before Congress as well as state and municipal legislatures; and has authored many policy briefs, book chapters, articles and opinion pieces in a variety of publications, including the Harvard Business Law Review and Yale Journal on Regulation, the Wall Street Journal, National Law Journal, and USA Today. Copland speaks regularly on civil- and criminal-justice issues; has made hundreds of media appearances in such outlets as PBS, Fox News, MSNBC, CNBC, Fox Business, Bloomberg, C-Span, and NPR; and is frequently cited in news articles in the New York Times, Washington Post, The Economist, and Forbes. In 2011 and 2012, he was named to the National Association of Corporate Directors “Directorship 100” list, which designates the individuals most influential over U.S. corporate governance.
Prior to joining MI, Copland was a management consultant with McKinsey and Company in New York. Earlier, he was a law clerk for Ralph K. Winter on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Copland has been a director of two privately held manufacturing companies since 1997 and has served on many public and nonprofit boards. He holds a J.D. and an M.B.A. from Yale, where he was an Olin Fellow in Law and Economics; an M.Sc. in the politics of the world economy from the London School of Economics; and a B.A. in economics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was a Morehead Scholar.
Taft, Stettinius & Hollister Professor of Law, University of Minnesota Law School
Professor Thomas F. Cotter joined the University of Minnesota Law School faculty in 2006. He received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and in 1987 graduated magna cum laude from the University of Wisconsin Law School, where he served as Senior Articles Editor of the Wisconsin Law Review and was elected to the Order of the Coif.
From 1987-89, Professor Cotter clerked for the Honorable Lawrence W. Pierce, United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He practiced law at Cravath, Swaine & Moore in New York City from 1988-90, and at Jenner & Block in Chicago from 1990-94. From 1994-2005, he taught at the University of Florida College of Law, where he held a University of Florida Research Foundation Professorship and directed the school's Intellectual Property Law Program. From 2005-06, he was a Professor of Law at Washington and Lee University School of Law.
Professor Cotter's principal research and teaching interests are in the fields of domestic and international intellectual property law, antitrust, and law and economics. He is the author of three books—Comparative Patent Remedies: A Legal and Economic Analysis (Oxford University Press); Trademarks, Unfair Competition, and Business Torts (coauthored with Barton Beebe, Mark A. Lemley, Peter S. Menell, and Robert P. Merges) (Aspen Publishers 2011); and Intellectual Property: Economic and Legal Dimensions of Rights and Remedies (coauthored with Roger D. Blair) (Cambridge University Press 2005)—and has recently agreed to coauthor (with Jeffrey L. Harrison) a fourth, Law and Economics: Positive, Normative, and Behavioral Perspectives (3d ed., Thomson West). Altogether he has authored or coauthored over 40 other scholarly works, including articles in the California Law Review, the Georgetown Law Journal, the Iowa Law Review, the Minnesota Law Review, and the University of Illinois Law Review.
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.
Chief Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit
Jennifer Walker Elrod is the Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. She was nominated to the Fifth Circuit in 2007, and she served as a Circuit Judge on the court until assuming the role of Chief Judge in October 2024. Prior to serving as a Circuit Judge, Chief Judge Elrod was appointed and then twice elected Judge of the 190th District Court of Harris County, Texas, where she spent over five years presiding over more than 200 jury and non-jury trials.
Chief Judge Elrod graduated cum laude from Harvard Law School, where she was an active member of the Harvard Federalist Society, an Ames Moot Court finalist, and a Senior Editor of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy. She clerked for the Honorable Sim Lake in the Southern District of Texas. Before serving as a judge, Chief Judge Elrod worked in private practice, focusing on civil litigation, antitrust, and employment matters.
She has been repeatedly recognized for her work as a jurist, as well as for her pro bono work and contributions to the community. She has been named the 2022 Texas Review of Law & Politics’ Jurist of the Year, the 2018 Harvard Federalist Society’s Alumni of the Year, the 2016–17 Texas Association of Civil Trial and Appellate Specialists’ Appellate Judge of the Year, and the 2008 Mexican-American Bar Association of Texas’s Judge of the Year.
Chief Judge Elrod is actively engaged in the academic and legal communities. Chief Judge Elrod currently serves on the Board of Directors and as the Jurist-in-Residence at the South Texas College of Law, where she teaches civil procedure and First Amendment law. She is also a member of the American Law Institute and of the Board of Advisors for the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, and she is a former member of the Board of Regents of her alma mater, Baylor University, and the Board of Visitors at Brigham Young University Law School. She previously served as the Chair of the Codes of Conduct Committee for the Judicial Conference of the United States. She has also served as the M.D. Anderson Visiting Public Service Professor at the Texas Tech University School of Law and as Jurist-in-Residence at Brigham Young University Law School, and she has taught legal writing at the University of Houston Law Center. She presented the Lewis F. Powell, Jr. Distinguished Lecture at the Washington and Lee University School of Law and is a frequent speaker on the topics of trial and appellate procedure, ethics, employment law, and constitutional law. Chief Judge Elrod also serves on the board of the Garland R. Walker Inn of Court, and co-produces an annual musical CLE, for which her pupilage group has won multiple national awards.
Chief Judge Elrod’s publications include: Trial by Siri: AI Comes to the Courtroom; Don’t Mess with Texas Judges: In Praise of the State Judiciary; For Good: Enriching Your Practice and Your Life Through Pro Bono and Community Service; Is the Jury Still Out?: A Case for the Continued Viability of the American Jury; and W(h)ither the Jury? The Diminishing Role of the Jury Trial in our Legal System.
Maurice and Hilda Friedman Professor of Law, Columbia Law School; CEO, New Civil Liberties Alliance
Philip Hamburger is the Maurice and Hilda Friedman Professor of Law at Columbia Law School, and Chief Executive Officer at the New Civil Liberties Alliance. Before coming to Columbia, he was the John P. Wilson Professor at the University of Chicago Law School.
He writes on constitutional law and its history—with particular emphasis on religious liberty, freedom of speech and the press, judicial office, administrative power, and unconstitutional conditions.
His books are Separation of Church and State (Harvard 2002), Law and Judicial Duty (Harvard 2008), Is Administrative Law Unlawful? (Chicago 2014), The Administrative Threat (Encounter 2017), and Liberal Suppression: Section 501(c)(3) and the Taxation of Speech (Chicago 2018). A forthcoming book is Purchasing Submission: Conditions, Power, and Freedom (Harvard 2021).
He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and he has served on the board of directors of the American Society for Legal History. He has twice received the Sutherland Prize for the most significant contribution to English legal history, and has been awarded the Henry Paolucci - Walter Bagehot Book Award, the Hayek Book Prize, and the Bradley Prize.
Associate Dean for Research and Intellectual Life, McKnight Presidential Professor in Law, Distinguished McKnight University Professor, Harlan Albert Rogers Professor in Law, Associate Director, Corporate Institute, University of Minnesota Law School
Professor Kristin E. Hickman is the McKnight Presidential Professor in Law, a Distinguished McKnight University Professor, and Harlan Albert Rogers Professor in Law at the University of Minnesota Law School. She also has taught at Harvard Law School and Northwestern University School of Law. Professor Hickman teaches and writes primarily in the areas of administrative law, tax administration, and statutory interpretation. Her articles on these topics have appeared in the Columbia Law Review, Cornell Law Review, Virginia Law Review, Duke Law Journal, and other publications. She also co-authors the Administrative Law Treatise with Richard J. Pierce, Jr., and a casebook on federal administrative law with Pierce and Christopher J. Walker. Her scholarly work has been cited several times in opinions of the United States Supreme Court as well as regularly in lower court judicial opinions and court briefs.
In 2018-19, Professor Hickman served as Special Adviser to the Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in Washington, D.C. She presently serves as a Senior Fellow, and previously served as a public member and chair of the judicial review committee, for the Administrative Conference of the United States. She also is a Fellow of the American College of Tax Counsel.
Professor Hickman received her B.S. degree in business administration with a concentration in accounting and a secondary major in history from Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. After practicing for several years as a certified public accountant, Professor Hickman earned her J.D. degree, magna cum laude, from Northwestern University School of Law, where she was awarded the Raoul Berger Prize and the Lowden Wigmore Prize for her scholarly writings. Following law school, Professor Hickman clerked for The Honorable David B. Sentelle of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and practiced law as an associate with the Chicago office of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, concentrating on corporate and international tax transactions and matters.
Charles Evans Hughes Professor of Law, Columbia Law School
THOMAS W. MERRILL is the Charles Evans Hughes Professor of Law at Columbia Law School. He previously taught at Northwestern University School of Law and Yale Law School. He has undergraduate degrees from Grinnell College and Oxford University, where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar, and a law degree from the University of Chicago. He clerked on the D.C. Circuit (for Chief Judge David Bazelon) and the U.S. Supreme Court (for Justice Harry Blackmun). From 1987-1990 he served as Deputy Solicitor General, U.S. Department of Justice. Professor Merrill’s writings related to property include Property: Principles and Policies (Foundation Press Second Edition, 2012) (with Henry E. Smith); Property: The Oxford Introductions to U.S. Law (Oxford U. Press, 2010); Property: Takings (Foundation Press, 2002)(with David Dana); and numerous articles, including “The Economics of Public Use” (Cornell Law Review 1986); “The Landscape of Constitutional Property” (Virginia Law Review 2000); and “The Character of the Governmental Action” (Vermont Law Review 2012). He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Benjamin Mazur Summer Research Professor of Law Affiliated Faculty, Ford Motor Company Center for Global Citizenship, Northwestern University School of Law
Jide Nzelibe joined Northwestern's faculty as an assistant professor in 2004 became a full Professor in 2008. He served as the Bigelow Teaching Fellow and Lecturer in Law at the University of Chicago before joining Northwestern Law. In addition to his JD from Yale Law School, he also holds an MPA in international relations from Princeton University, where he was awarded a fellowship from the Woodrow Wilson Foundation and a pre-doctoral fellowship from the Ford Foundation. His research and teaching interests include international trade, foreign relations law, public and private international law and contracts.
Executive Vice President, The Federalist Society
Dean Reuter is Executive Vice President at the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies. He has served in two federal government agency Offices of the Inspector General, as Counsel to the Inspector General and Deputy Inspector General, responsible for policing the use of federal funds granted and contracted through those agencies. As such, he helped conduct and oversee criminal investigations across the country. He is the principal author of the non-fiction book, The Hidden Nazi: The Untold Story of America's Deal with the Devil, and editor of Liberty’s Nemesis: The Unchecked Expansion of the State and Confronting Terror: 9/11 and the Future of American National Security. He was appointed by the President and served as Vice-Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Corporation for National and Community Service, and recently served as an appointee on the U.S. Commission on Presidential Scholars. He is a graduate of Hood College (BA with Honors) and the University of Maryland School of Law.
Recess Appointments Case Decided: NLRB v. Noel Canning - Podcast
Noel J. Francisco, Michael B. Rappaport, Kristin E. Hickman
On June 26, 2014 the U.S. Supreme Court issued its opinion in NLRB v. Noel...
Recess Appointments Case Decided: NLRB v. Noel Canning
TeleforumUnited States v. Quality Stores - Post-Decision SCOTUScast
Kristin E. Hickman
On March 25, 2014, the Supreme Court issued its decision in United States v. Quality...
Chadbourne & Parke LLP v. Troice - Post-Decision SCOTUScast
Richard W. Painter
On February 26, 2014, the Supreme Court issued its decision in three cases that question...
Showcase Panel III: Formalism and Deference in Administrative Law
Jennifer Walker Elrod, Philip A. Hamburger, Kristin E. Hickman, Thomas W. Merrill, Jide Okechuku Nzelibe, Dean Reuter
Chevron U.S.A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U.S. 837 (1984) is a...
Showcase Panel III: Formalism and Deference in Administrative Law
Jennifer Walker Elrod, Philip A. Hamburger, Kristin E. Hickman, Thomas W. Merrill, Jide Okechuku Nzelibe, Dean Reuter
Chevron U.S.A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U.S. 837 (1984) is a...
Patent Re-Reform in Congress
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Richard A. Epstein, James R. Copland, Thomas F. Cotter, Dean Reuter
With Congress re-visiting patent reform, the Federalist Society welcomed a panel of experts to discuss...
Showcase Panel III: Formalism and Deference in Administrative Law
2013 National Lawyers Convention
Washington, DCChadbourne & Parke LLP v. Troice - Post-Argument SCOTUScast
Richard W. Painter
On October 7, 2013, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in three cases that question...