John Hampton Baumgartner, Jr. Professor of Real Property Law; Faculty Director, Georgetown Environmental Law and Policy Program; Faculty Director, Georgetown Climate Resource Center, Georgetown Law Center
Professor Byrne joined the Law Center faculty in 1985. After graduation from the University of Virginia law school, he served as a law clerk to Judge Frank Coffin and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell and then worked as an associate with the D.C. firm of Covington & Burling. He teaches and writes in the areas of Property, Land Use, Constitutional Law, and Higher Education Law and Policy. He served as Associate Dean for the JD Program from 1997 to 2000. He was John Carroll Research Professor in 1996-97.
Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
Eric R. Claeys is Professor of Law at the Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University. He has written widely in the fields of property, private law, and constitutional law. Professor Claeys’s current research interests focus on flourishing- and labor-based natural rights justifications for property—in American property theory, in intellectual property, and in contemporary regulation of shale gas exploration and hydraulic fracturing. He is a member of the American Law Institute, he serves on the ALI’s Members’ Consultative Group for the first Restatement of Copyright, and he also serves as an adviser to the Restatement (Fourth) of the Law of Property.
Professor Claeys received his JD from the University of Southern California Gould School of Law. He received his AB from Princeton University, and he is a former visiting fellow and current member of Princeton’s Politics Department’s James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions. After law school, Professor Claeys clerked for the Hon. Melvin Brunetti, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and the Hon. William H. Rehnquist, Chief Justice of the United States.
Professor Claeys’s main teaching interests include Property, Torts, Jurisprudence, and Intellectual Property. In recent years, he has also taught Water Law, Remedies, Estates and Trusts, Trade Secrecy, Constitutional Law, Torts, and Oil and Gas law. Spring 2018, he is teaching Torts and Jurisprudence as a Visiting Professor at Harvard Law School.
Of Counsel, McElroy, Deutsch, Mulvaney & Carpenter, LLP
WESLEY W. HORTON is Of Counsel in the Firm’s Hartford, Connecticut office. Mr. Horton’s appellate practice covers a wide variety of legal issues, from constitutional matters, to domestic relations, insurance, personal injury, and land use. He began his law career as the law clerk to Justice Charles House of the Connecticut Supreme Court (1970 to 1971). Building on that experience, he has participated in some of the most notable cases in Connecticut, representing individuals and corporations. The list of cases on which he appears as counsel, either at argument or on the brief, spans 50 years and numbers in the hundreds. He has argued more than 135 cases to the Connecticut Supreme Court and is well-known for representing the City of New London in Kelo v. New London before the U.S. Supreme Court in 2005.
Mr. Horton consults with counsel at the trial level to assist with complicated legal matters or in preparation for possible appellate issues. Such cases include representation of insurers and plaintiffs, contract questions, coverage issues and divorce litigation involving multi-million dollar estates.
He has been a Fellow of the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers since 1991. Membership in the Academy is by invitation only. Mr. Horton served as President of the American Counsel Association (2008-2009), of which he has been a member since 1991. He has been President of the Connecticut Supreme Court Historical Society since its founding in 2005.
Mr. Horton represents lawyers on ethical matters. He also testifies as an expert witness in Connecticut trial courts on ethical and malpractice matters as well as with regard to attorney’s fees. He served as the Chair of the Connecticut Bar Association’s Professional Ethics Committee (1997 through 2007), and has been a member of the Committee since 1976.
Mr. Horton is a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Connecticut School of Law, and the author or co-author of several scholarly publications and articles on legal topics. He is the recipient of many professional awards, including the University of Connecticut Law School Alumni Association’s Medal of Excellence; and currently serves on the Board of Editors for the Connecticut Law Tribune, and as a Lecturer and Adjunct Professor at the University of Connecticut School of Law . He has been co-author since 1978 of the annually published Connecticut Appellate Rules Annotated and the Connecticut Superior Court Rules Annotated, both published by Thomson/West. He also co-authored the “Connecticut Appellate Review,” an annual review of Connecticut Supreme and appellate Court cases, from1980 to 2022. Mr. Horton authored the History of the Connecticut Supreme Court, published by West Publishing. He also wrote The Connecticut State Constitution, an in-depth study of each provision of the Connecticut Constitution. Mr. Horton taught Appellate advocacy at the University of Connecticut School of Law most years from 1980 to 2023 and frequently lectures on constitutional and appellate issues.
Vice President for Legal Affairs, Goldwater Institute
Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
ILYA SOMIN is Professor of Law at George Mason University and the B. Kenneth Simon Chair in Constitutional Studies at the Cato Institute. His research focuses on constitutional law, property law, democratic theory, federalism, and migration rights. He is the author of Free to Move: Foot Voting, Migration, and Political Freedom (Oxford University Press, revised and expanded edition, 2022), Democracy and Political Ignorance: Why Smaller Government is Smarter (Stanford University Press, revised and expanded second edition, 2016), and The Grasping Hand: Kelo v. City of New London and the Limits of Eminent Domain (University of Chicago Press, 2015, rev. paperback ed., 2016), coauthor of A Conspiracy Against Obamacare: The Volokh Conspiracy and the Health Care Case (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), and co-editor of Eminent Domain: A Comparative Perspective (Cambridge University Press, 2017). Democracy and Political Ignorance has been translated into Italian and Japanese.
Somin’s work has appeared in numerous scholarly journals, including the Yale Law Journal, Stanford Law Review, Northwestern University Law Review, Georgetown Law Journal, Critical Review, and others. Somin has also published articles in a variety of popular press outlets, including the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, CNN, NBC, The Atlantic, USA Today, Boston Globe, US News and World Report, South China Morning Post, National Law Journal and Reason. He has been quoted or interviewed by the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Time, Newsweek, The Economist, the Christian Science Monitor, the Financial Times, The Guardian, the Associated Press, CBS, MSNBC, NPR, BBC, Reuters, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Al Jazeera, and the Voice of America, among other media.
Somin’s writings have been cited in decisions by the United States Supreme Court, multiple state supreme courts and lower federal courts, and the Supreme Court of Israel. He is co-counsel for the plaintiffs in VOS Selections, Inc. v. Trump, a case challenging the constitutionality of President Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs. Somin has testified on the use of drones for targeted killing in the War on Terror before the US Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Human Rights. In 2009, he testified on property rights issues at the United States Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Somin writes regularly for the popular Volokh Conspiracy law and politics blog, now affiliated with Reason magazine (previously affiliated with the Washington Post from 2014 to 2017). From 2006 to 2013, he served as Co-Editor of the Supreme Court Economic Review, one of the country’s top-rated law and economics journals.
Somin has served as a visiting professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. He has also been a visiting professor or scholar at the Georgetown University Law Center, the University of Hamburg, Germany, the University of Torcuato Di Tella in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Uriel Reichman University in Israel, and Zhengzhou University in China. He is a University Affiliate of the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University, and an affiliated faculty member of the George Mason University Institute for Immigration Research. Before joining the faculty at George Mason, Somin was the John M. Olin Fellow in Law at Northwestern University Law School in 2002-2003. In 2001-2002, he clerked for the Hon. Judge Jerry E. Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Professor Somin earned his B.A., Summa Cum Laude, at Amherst College, M.A. in Political Science from Harvard University, and J.D. from Yale Law School.
Special Assistant/Counsel, United States Commission on Civil Rights
Alexander Heideman is Special Assistant/Counsel at the United States Commission on Civil Rights.
U.S. Attorney, Middle District of Tennessee, U.S. Department of Justice
Braden Boucek was sworn in on December 24, 2025, as the United States Attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee. Prior to becoming United States Attorney, Mr. Boucek served as the senior vice president of litigation at the Southeastern Legal Foundation having previously served as the vice president of legal affairs at the Beacon Center. Mr. Boucek has extensive experience as a prosecutor, starting his career at the Tennessee Attorney General’s Office before serving for two years as an Assistant District Attorney General in Williamson County. He was a federal prosecutor for ten years, first serving as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Western District of Tennessee from 2005 to 2011. From 2011 to 2015, Mr. Boucek was an Assistant United States Attorney in the Middle District of Tennessee, the district he now leads as the United States Attorney.
Founding Partner, Compton Jones Dresher LLP
Paul Compton is a founding partner of Compton Jones Dresher, a law practice based in Birmingham, Alabama that focuses on transactional and regulatory matters for clients in the real estate, financial services and community bank industries. Paul’s practice especially involves affordable housing and tax credit supported community development projects. He is currently a member of the Housing Advisory Council of the Bipartisan Policy Center. He is an adjunct Professor at the University of Alabama School of Law and a member of the Board of Directors of the Alabama Affordable Housing Association.
From 2018 to 2020 Paul served as General Counsel of the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, Washington, D.C. In that capacity he also served on the Federal Housing Administration Mortgagee Review Board and Mortgage Risk Review Council.
Before Paul’s service at HUD he was a partner and member of the managing board of Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP in its Birmingham office.
Paul is a graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law and the University of Alabama. He attended the London School of Economics and Political Science and is a Truman Scholar.
Associate Director, Fair Housing & Community Development Project, Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law
Thomas Silverstein is the Associate Director of the Fair Housing & Community Development Project at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. He oversees the Project’s impact litigation docket, using the Fair Housing Act to foster the development of inclusive communities, expand access to opportunity, and fight displacement. He also provides technical assistance to states, local governments, and public housing authorities seeking to comply with the duty to affirmatively further fair housing. He is a national leader in the provision of legal and policy support to grassroots housing justice organizers. He has written extensively on the intersection of civil rights law and land use law and frequently participates in conference panels and webinars addressing a range of topics in civil rights and housing law and policy.
Prior to serving as Associate Director, Thomas was Counsel in the Fair Housing & Community Development Project. He began his legal career as the Lawyers’ Committee’s 2013-2014 George N. Lindsay Civil Rights Legal Fellow after earning his juris doctorate from the University of Virginia School of Law in 2013.
U.S. Attorney, Middle District of Tennessee, U.S. Department of Justice
Braden Boucek was sworn in on December 24, 2025, as the United States Attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee. Prior to becoming United States Attorney, Mr. Boucek served as the senior vice president of litigation at the Southeastern Legal Foundation having previously served as the vice president of legal affairs at the Beacon Center. Mr. Boucek has extensive experience as a prosecutor, starting his career at the Tennessee Attorney General’s Office before serving for two years as an Assistant District Attorney General in Williamson County. He was a federal prosecutor for ten years, first serving as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Western District of Tennessee from 2005 to 2011. From 2011 to 2015, Mr. Boucek was an Assistant United States Attorney in the Middle District of Tennessee, the district he now leads as the United States Attorney.
Founding Partner, Compton Jones Dresher LLP
Paul Compton is a founding partner of Compton Jones Dresher, a law practice based in Birmingham, Alabama that focuses on transactional and regulatory matters for clients in the real estate, financial services and community bank industries. Paul’s practice especially involves affordable housing and tax credit supported community development projects. He is currently a member of the Housing Advisory Council of the Bipartisan Policy Center. He is an adjunct Professor at the University of Alabama School of Law and a member of the Board of Directors of the Alabama Affordable Housing Association.
From 2018 to 2020 Paul served as General Counsel of the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, Washington, D.C. In that capacity he also served on the Federal Housing Administration Mortgagee Review Board and Mortgage Risk Review Council.
Before Paul’s service at HUD he was a partner and member of the managing board of Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP in its Birmingham office.
Paul is a graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law and the University of Alabama. He attended the London School of Economics and Political Science and is a Truman Scholar.
Associate Director, Fair Housing & Community Development Project, Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law
Thomas Silverstein is the Associate Director of the Fair Housing & Community Development Project at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. He oversees the Project’s impact litigation docket, using the Fair Housing Act to foster the development of inclusive communities, expand access to opportunity, and fight displacement. He also provides technical assistance to states, local governments, and public housing authorities seeking to comply with the duty to affirmatively further fair housing. He is a national leader in the provision of legal and policy support to grassroots housing justice organizers. He has written extensively on the intersection of civil rights law and land use law and frequently participates in conference panels and webinars addressing a range of topics in civil rights and housing law and policy.
Prior to serving as Associate Director, Thomas was Counsel in the Fair Housing & Community Development Project. He began his legal career as the Lawyers’ Committee’s 2013-2014 George N. Lindsay Civil Rights Legal Fellow after earning his juris doctorate from the University of Virginia School of Law in 2013.
Associate Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
Associate Professor of Law J.W. Verret joined the Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University faculty in 2008. In 2013, he took leave for two years to serve as the Chief Economist and Senior Counsel for the U.S. House Committee on Financial Services. He received his JD and MA in Public Policy from Harvard Law School and the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, respectively, in 2006. While in law school, Professor Verret served an Olin Fellowship in Law and Economics at the Harvard Program on Corporate Governance under the guidance of Prof. Lucian Bebchuk.
Professor Verret then served as a law clerk for Vice-Chancellor John W. Noble of the Delaware Court of Chancery. Prior to joining the faculty at Scalia Law, Professor Verret was an associate in the SEC Enforcement Defense Practice Group at Skadden, Arps in Washington, D.C. He has written extensively on corporate law topics, including Delaware's Guidance, co-written with Chief Justice Myron T. Steele of the Delaware Supreme Court. His academic work has been featured in the Yale Journal on Regulation, The Business Lawyer, the Delaware Journal of Corporate Law, the Stanford Law Review, the University of Pennsylvania Journal of Business Law, and the Virginia Law and Business Review. Professor Verret was selected by the Northwestern Law School Searle Center on Law, Regulation, and Economic Growth for a 2009-2010 Searle-Kaufmann Research Fellowship.
Professor Verret is also a Senior Scholar at the Mercatus Center Working Group on Financial Markets, where he regularly briefs Congressional staff, members of Congress, SEC Commissioners and other financial regulatory agencies on financial regulation topics. He also directs the Corporate Federalism Initiative, where he obtains research grants for a network of students and faculty scholars who study the division between states and the federal government as sources of corporate law. Professor Verret has been invited to testify before various House and Senate Committees four times during the financial crisis of 2009 regarding all of the central provisions of the Obama Administration's 2009 financial regulatory reform proposals. For a full list of Professor Verret's C-Span appearances, including testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, see http://www.c-spanvideo.org/jwverret.
Professor Verret has been an invited panelist for various television appearances, including an interview on The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. Professor Verret has been quoted in various media on financial regulation and corporate law topics, including the New York Times, CNN Money, the CNN Political Ticker, CNBC, ABC News, Investor's Business Daily, ESPN.com, The American Banker, The American Lawyer, The Huffington Post, CBS.com, and AP News. Professor Verret's op-eds have been featured in Forbes, The Chicago Tribune, The Orange County Register, and The Wall Street Journal. Professor Verret is also a regular guest contributor to three of the most noted corporate law and financial regulation law blogs: the Harvard Law School Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation Forum, Deallawyers.com, and The Conglomerate.
U.S. Attorney, Middle District of Tennessee, U.S. Department of Justice
Braden Boucek was sworn in on December 24, 2025, as the United States Attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee. Prior to becoming United States Attorney, Mr. Boucek served as the senior vice president of litigation at the Southeastern Legal Foundation having previously served as the vice president of legal affairs at the Beacon Center. Mr. Boucek has extensive experience as a prosecutor, starting his career at the Tennessee Attorney General’s Office before serving for two years as an Assistant District Attorney General in Williamson County. He was a federal prosecutor for ten years, first serving as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Western District of Tennessee from 2005 to 2011. From 2011 to 2015, Mr. Boucek was an Assistant United States Attorney in the Middle District of Tennessee, the district he now leads as the United States Attorney.
Founding Partner, Compton Jones Dresher LLP
Paul Compton is a founding partner of Compton Jones Dresher, a law practice based in Birmingham, Alabama that focuses on transactional and regulatory matters for clients in the real estate, financial services and community bank industries. Paul’s practice especially involves affordable housing and tax credit supported community development projects. He is currently a member of the Housing Advisory Council of the Bipartisan Policy Center. He is an adjunct Professor at the University of Alabama School of Law and a member of the Board of Directors of the Alabama Affordable Housing Association.
From 2018 to 2020 Paul served as General Counsel of the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, Washington, D.C. In that capacity he also served on the Federal Housing Administration Mortgagee Review Board and Mortgage Risk Review Council.
Before Paul’s service at HUD he was a partner and member of the managing board of Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP in its Birmingham office.
Paul is a graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law and the University of Alabama. He attended the London School of Economics and Political Science and is a Truman Scholar.
Associate Director, Fair Housing & Community Development Project, Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law
Thomas Silverstein is the Associate Director of the Fair Housing & Community Development Project at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. He oversees the Project’s impact litigation docket, using the Fair Housing Act to foster the development of inclusive communities, expand access to opportunity, and fight displacement. He also provides technical assistance to states, local governments, and public housing authorities seeking to comply with the duty to affirmatively further fair housing. He is a national leader in the provision of legal and policy support to grassroots housing justice organizers. He has written extensively on the intersection of civil rights law and land use law and frequently participates in conference panels and webinars addressing a range of topics in civil rights and housing law and policy.
Prior to serving as Associate Director, Thomas was Counsel in the Fair Housing & Community Development Project. He began his legal career as the Lawyers’ Committee’s 2013-2014 George N. Lindsay Civil Rights Legal Fellow after earning his juris doctorate from the University of Virginia School of Law in 2013.
20 Years Later: Kelo v. City of New London
J. Peter Byrne, Eric R. Claeys, Wesley W. Horton, Timothy Sandefur, Ilya Somin
In June of 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court held in Kelo v. City of New...
Hispanic-Serving Institutions and Emerging Constitutional Issues
Alexander M. Heideman
In 2019, Florida Gulf Coast University’s (FGCU) “Florida Educational Equity Report” noted that FGCU “continues...
The Evolution of HUD’s Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Rules: A Look at the Latest Proposed Regulation
Braden H. Boucek, Paul Compton, Thomas Silverstein
The United States Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rules have...
The Evolution of HUD’s Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Rules: A Look at the Latest Proposed Regulation
Braden H. Boucek, Paul Compton, Thomas Silverstein
The United States Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rules have...
The Evolution of HUD’s Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Rules: A Look at the Latest Proposed Regulation
A Regulatory Transparency Project Webinar
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J.W. Verret
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