Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Third Circuit
Stephanos Bibas is a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. Judge Bibas was previously a professor of law and criminology at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. As director of the Penn Law Supreme Court Clinic, he argued six cases before the Supreme Court of the United States and filed briefs in dozens of others. He graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Columbia University in 1989 with a B.A. in political theory and from Oxford University in 1991 with a B.A. in jurisprudence. He then earned his J.D. from Yale Law School in 1994.
After graduating from Yale Law, Judge Bibas clerked for Judge Patrick Higginbotham of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and Justice Anthony Kennedy on the Supreme Court and was a litigation associate at Covington & Burling LLP in Washington, D.C. Thereafter, Judge Bibas served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York, where he successfully prosecuted the world’s leading expert in Tiffany stained glass for hiring a grave robber to steal priceless Tiffany windows from cemeteries. Before his tenure at Penn Law, Judge Bibas taught at the University of Chicago Law School and the University of Iowa College of Law and was a research fellow at Yale Law School. He has published two books and seventy scholarly articles.
Judge, Iran-United States Claims Tribunal and Arbitrator Member, Twenty Essex Chambers
Charles’s 55-year career in the law has combined extensive practice at the bar with distinguished public service, both national and international. For nearly 40 years he has focused on public international law and international dispute resolution.
As counsel or arbitrator he has handled cases on all six continents, principally under the rules of the ICC, UNCITRAL, LCIA, AAA, United Nations Compensation Commission, ICSID, Stockholm Chamber of Commerce, Insurance and Reinsurance Arbitration Society and LMAA. These cases have involved a wide variety of commercial disputes as well as issues of public international law, particularly involving the oil and gas sector, major infrastructural projects, expropriations, and other investment disputes, including ones arising under both bilateral and multilateral investment treaties.
Charles started his career with White & Case LLP in New York, before serving for four years in the United States Department of State in Washington, DC, concluding as its Acting Legal Adviser. He then rejoined White & Case LLP, co-founding its Washington, DC office, where his practice came to be comprised almost exclusively of substantial international arbitrations.
He has served continuously since 1983 as a judge of the Iran-United States Claims Tribunal in The Hague, The Netherlands. That service was interrupted for some months in 1987 by White House service as Deputy Special Counsellor to President Reagan. Charles resumed partnership in White & Case LLP from 1988 until joining 20 Essex Street in 2001. Since 2014 he has also served as a Judge ad hoc at the International Court of Justice.
In 2015 Charles was only the fourth ever recipient of the Global Arbitration Review Lifetime Achievement Award.
Professor of Law and Global Affairs Faculty Director, LL.M. in International Human Rights Law; Global Director, Notre Dame Law School Global Human Rights Clinic, Notre Dame Law School
Diane A. Desierto joined the Law School in January 2021 as Professor of Law and LL.M. Faculty Director, with a joint appointment at the Keough School of Global Affairs. Desierto teaches, publishes, and practices in the areas of international law and human rights, international economic law and development, international arbitration, maritime security, Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Law, and comparative public law. At Notre Dame, Desierto is a Faculty Fellow at the Klau Institute for Civil Human Rights, Kellogg Institute of International Studies, Liu Institute for Asia and Asian Studies, Pulte Institute for Global Development, and Nanovic Institute of European Studies. She is also Co-Principal Investigator of the Notre Dame Reparations Design and Compliance Lab.
Desierto is a Member and former Chair-Rapporteur of the Expert Group of the United Nations Working Group on the Right to Development, Resource Expert for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), former Director of Studies and Faculty of the Hague Academy of International Law, President of the Friends of the Hague Academy Foundation, and the Philippines Focal Point for the International Criminal Court Bar Association. She is active as international counsel at matters successfully litigated at the Permanent Court of Arbitration, the UN Human Rights Committee, the Philippine Supreme Court and Southeast Asian agencies, and was appointed by the Philippine Supreme Court as Professor of International Law and Human Rights at the Philippines Judicial Academy. Desierto is a Member of the Editorial Boards of the European Journal of International Law (and Editor of its leading international law blog EJIL:Talk!), Journal of World Investment and Trade, and the Global Community Yearbook of International Law and Jurisprudence, and the Kluwer Law monograph series on Human Society and International Law, and also serves on the Scientific Advisory Boards of international journals such as International Law Studies, the Revista Chilena de Derecho, and the Indonesian Journal of International and Comparative Law. Desierto previously taught as tenure-track/tenured law faculty at the University of the Philippines, Peking University School of Transnational Law in China, and the University of Hawaii Richardson School of Law. She is a recipient of faculty fellowships awarded by Stanford University's Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) and the Stanford Center for Human Rights and International Justice, the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law in Heidelberg, the Humboldt-Potsdam-Berlin Senior Fellowship, the East-West Center in Honolulu, the Grotius Fellowship at University of Michigan Law School, and the National University of Singapore's Asian Law Institute Fellowship. Desierto has served Visiting Professor appointments at the University of Paris-Nanterre X Faculty of Law, University of the Philippines College of Law Graduate Program at Bonifacio Global City, the University of Navarre Faculty of Law in Spain, and Universidad Panamericana Faculty of Law in Mexico City.
Desierto holds JSD and LLM degrees from Yale Law School, as well as JD cum laude class salutatorian and BSc Economics summa cum laude class valedictorian degrees from the University of the Philippines, and was a former Yale Law clerk at the International Court of Justice for H.E. Judges Bruno Simma and Bernardo Sepulveda-Amor. She authored and/or edited several books, such as Necessity and National Emergency Clauses: Sovereignty in Modern Treaty Interpretation (Martinus Nijhoff, 2012, recipient of the Ambrose Gherini Prize in International Law at Yale Law), Public Policy in International Economic Law: The ICESCR in Trade, Investment and Finance (Oxford University Press, 2015), ASEAN Law and Regional Integration: Governance and the Rule of Law in Southeast Asia's Single Market (with D. Cohen, Routledge, 2020), The International Legal System: Cases and Materials (8th Edition, with M.E. O'Connell, N. Roht-Arriaza, and D. Bradlow, 2022), as well as, to date, around 180 law review articles, book chapters, essays, and book reviews with leading international law journals and publishers in the United States, Europe, and Asia. She is a member of the Institute of Transnational Arbitration Academic Council, the UNCITRAL Academic Forum on Investor-State Dispute Settlement Reform, the 2019 Hague Rules on Business and Human Rights Arbitration Drafting Team, Co-Chair of the Oxford Investment Claims Summer Academy, and has been recognized repeatedly by Who's Who Legal as one of the Future Leaders in Arbitration. The 2020 ND Women Lead featured Desierto here.
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, International Legal Studies Program, Vanderbilt Law School
Michael Newton is an expert on terrorism, accountability, transnational justice, and conduct of hostilities issues. Over the course of his career, he has published more than 90 books, articles, op-eds and book chapters. He has been an expert witness in terrorism related trials and is admitted to the counsel list of the International Criminal Court, where, in 2018, he helped prepare the appeal of Jean-Pierre Bemba and participated in oral arguments in the Appeals Chamber. At Vanderbilt, he developed and teaches the innovative International Law Practice Lab, which provides expert assistance to judges, lawyers, legislatures, governments, and policy makers around the world. Professor Newton is most recently the editor of The United States Department of Defense Law of War Manual: Commentary and Critique, forthcoming from Cambridge University Press.
An authority on the law of armed conflict, Professor Newton served as the senior adviser to the Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues in the U.S. State Department from January 1999 to August 2002, during which he implemented a wide range of policy positions, including U.S. support to accountability mechanisms worldwide. He negotiated the “Elements of Crimes” for the International Criminal Court, and was the senior member of the team teaching international law to the first group of Iraqis who began to think about accountability mechanisms and a constitutional structure in November 2000. He shuttled to Baghdad repeatedly to aid international and Iraqi lawyers and jurists in drafting the Statute of the Iraqi High Tribunal while serving as the International Law Adviser to the Judicial Chambers from 2006 to 2008. He began assisting Iraqi officials, victims and civil society groups on legal issues associated with documentation and investigation of crimes committed by Da’esh on Iraqi soil days after Yazidi victims fled towards Mount Sinjar. He was the U.S. representative on the U.N. Planning Mission for the Sierra Leone Special Court and a founding member of its academic consortium. He is an elected member of the International Institute of Humanitarian Law and on the expert roster of Justice Rapid Response. In addition to teaching the Practice Lab, he develops and coordinates externships and educational opportunities for students interested in international legal issues, having supervised more than 150 such opportunities.
Professor Newton has served on the executive council of the American Society of International Law and as an invited expert for the Genocide Prevention Task Force established by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and the U.S. Institute of Peace. He is currently on the Advisory Board of the ABA International Criminal Court Project.
Professor Newton served in the U.S. Army more than 21 years, beginning with his commission from the U.S. Military Academy in May 1984 as an armor officer in the 4th Battalion, 68th Armor at Fort Carson, Colorado. After his selection for the Funded Legal Education Program, Newton served as chief of operational law with the Army Special Forces Command (Airborne) during Operation Desert Storm, and as the group judge advocate for the 7th Special Forces Group (Airborne). His deployments include Northern Iraq on Operation Provide Comfort to assist Kurdish civilians, and Haiti with 194th Armored Brigade (Separate), where he organized and led human rights and rules of engagement education for multinational forces, including police. He has taught international and operational law at the Judge Advocate General's School and Center in Charlottesville, Virginia, and taught international law at the United States Military Academy at West Point.
Milton R. Underwood Chair in Free Enterprise, Vanderbilt University Law School
Brian Fitzpatrick is the Milton R. Underwood Chair in Free Enterprise and Professor of Law at Vanderbilt Law School, where his research focuses on class action litigation, federal courts, judicial selection, and constitutional law. He is best known for his empirical studies of class action settlements as well as his book The Conservative Case for Class Actions (University of Chicago Press, 2019). Professor Fitzpatrick joined Vanderbilt's law faculty in 2007 after serving as the John M. Olin Fellow at New York University School of Law. He graduated first in his class from Harvard Law School and went on to clerk for Judge Diarmuid O'Scannlain on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and Justice Antonin Scalia on the U.S. Supreme Court. After his clerkships, Professor Fitzpatrick practiced commercial and appellate litigation for several years at Sidley Austin in Washington, D.C., and served as Special Counsel for Supreme Court Nominations to U.S. Senator John Cornyn. Before earning his law degree, Fitzpatrick graduated summa cum laude with a bachelor's of science in chemical engineering from the University of Notre Dame. He has received the Hall-Hartman Outstanding Professor Award, which recognizes excellence in classroom teaching, for his Civil Procedure and Federal Courts courses.
Vice President of Legal Affairs, Beacon Center of Tennessee
Wen Fa is the Vice President of Legal Affairs at the Beacon Center of Tennessee. He also serves on Beacon’s senior leadership team. Wen leads Beacon’s legal department in its efforts to protect the constitutional rights of property owners, entrepreneurs, and other Americans in courts across the United States. Having immigrated to America from Beijing, Wen believes that property rights, economic liberty, and equality under the law are essential to a free society and strives to advance those principles through his work.
Before joining Beacon, Wen was a senior attorney with Pacific Legal Foundation, where he litigated numerous cases involving equality under the law, free speech, economic liberty, and property rights. Wen litigated two Supreme Court cases: Minnesota Voters Alliance v. Mansky, which vindicated the free speech rights of voters, and Cedar Point Nursery v. Hassid, which secured the property rights of agricultural businesses. Wen has also secured important victories for farmers standing up against a racially discriminatory federal farm loan forgiveness program and small business owners who fought back against racial preferences in small business grants.
In addition to litigation, Wen promotes liberty through speeches, debates, and op-eds. Wen testified before Congress in 2021 and has published numerous op-eds in newspapers such as the Wall Street Journal, the Hill, and San Francisco Chronicle. He has spoken about his work in podcasts, on television, and in speeches to students at Georgetown, Duke, and law schools around the country.
Wen graduated with a bachelor’s degree in finance from the University of Texas-Dallas, a master’s degree in political theory from the London School of Economics, where he studied under libertarian scholar Chandran Kukathas, and a law degree from the University of Michigan. Wen is licensed to practice law in California, Texas, and several federal courts, including the Supreme Court of the United States.
Milton R. Underwood Chair in Free Enterprise, Vanderbilt University Law School
Brian Fitzpatrick is the Milton R. Underwood Chair in Free Enterprise and Professor of Law at Vanderbilt Law School, where his research focuses on class action litigation, federal courts, judicial selection, and constitutional law. He is best known for his empirical studies of class action settlements as well as his book The Conservative Case for Class Actions (University of Chicago Press, 2019). Professor Fitzpatrick joined Vanderbilt's law faculty in 2007 after serving as the John M. Olin Fellow at New York University School of Law. He graduated first in his class from Harvard Law School and went on to clerk for Judge Diarmuid O'Scannlain on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and Justice Antonin Scalia on the U.S. Supreme Court. After his clerkships, Professor Fitzpatrick practiced commercial and appellate litigation for several years at Sidley Austin in Washington, D.C., and served as Special Counsel for Supreme Court Nominations to U.S. Senator John Cornyn. Before earning his law degree, Fitzpatrick graduated summa cum laude with a bachelor's of science in chemical engineering from the University of Notre Dame. He has received the Hall-Hartman Outstanding Professor Award, which recognizes excellence in classroom teaching, for his Civil Procedure and Federal Courts courses.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit
The Honorable Whitney Hermandorfer is a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. She was nominated to the court by President Donald Trump (R) on May 12, 2025, and confirmed by the United States Senate on July 14, 2025.
Prior to her appointment, she worked in the Office of the Tennessee Attorney General as Director of the Strategic Litigation Unit. In that role, Whitney focused on leading constitutional, statutory, and administrative-law challenges to federal agency action, as well as on defending the State in complex matters at the trial and appellate level.
Whitney previously worked at Williams & Connolly LLP in Washington, DC, where she focused on appellate and administrative-law litigation. Whitney clerked for Justice Samuel Alito in the OT 2018 Supreme Court term and for Justice Amy Coney Barrett during her inaugural OT 2020 term. Prior to that, Whitney clerked for then-Judge Kavanaugh on the D.C. Circuit, and Judge Richard Leon on the U.S. District Court for D.C. Whitney is a graduate of Princeton University and George Washington University Law School.
Associate, Sims Funk
George Scoville is a commercial litigator in Nashville. A second-career lawyer, George previously worked as a public policy analyst and communications strategist, serving think tanks like the Cato Institute, political candidates and committees, industry groups, and private companies. In addition to his regular law practice, he is a pro bono Adjunct Fellow at the Institute for Free Speech in Washington, which is the nation's largest organization dedicated solely to protecting political speech rights, and the executive director and treasurer of the Tennesseans for Sensible Election Laws political action committee, which promotes common-sense state law reforms designed to reduce unreasonable governmental interference in Tennessee's political process. George also teaches American government and constitutional law at Belmont University in Nashville.
Milton R. Underwood Chair in Free Enterprise, Vanderbilt University Law School
Brian Fitzpatrick is the Milton R. Underwood Chair in Free Enterprise and Professor of Law at Vanderbilt Law School, where his research focuses on class action litigation, federal courts, judicial selection, and constitutional law. He is best known for his empirical studies of class action settlements as well as his book The Conservative Case for Class Actions (University of Chicago Press, 2019). Professor Fitzpatrick joined Vanderbilt's law faculty in 2007 after serving as the John M. Olin Fellow at New York University School of Law. He graduated first in his class from Harvard Law School and went on to clerk for Judge Diarmuid O'Scannlain on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and Justice Antonin Scalia on the U.S. Supreme Court. After his clerkships, Professor Fitzpatrick practiced commercial and appellate litigation for several years at Sidley Austin in Washington, D.C., and served as Special Counsel for Supreme Court Nominations to U.S. Senator John Cornyn. Before earning his law degree, Fitzpatrick graduated summa cum laude with a bachelor's of science in chemical engineering from the University of Notre Dame. He has received the Hall-Hartman Outstanding Professor Award, which recognizes excellence in classroom teaching, for his Civil Procedure and Federal Courts courses.
Milton R. Underwood Chair in Free Enterprise, Vanderbilt University Law School
Brian Fitzpatrick is the Milton R. Underwood Chair in Free Enterprise and Professor of Law at Vanderbilt Law School, where his research focuses on class action litigation, federal courts, judicial selection, and constitutional law. He is best known for his empirical studies of class action settlements as well as his book The Conservative Case for Class Actions (University of Chicago Press, 2019). Professor Fitzpatrick joined Vanderbilt's law faculty in 2007 after serving as the John M. Olin Fellow at New York University School of Law. He graduated first in his class from Harvard Law School and went on to clerk for Judge Diarmuid O'Scannlain on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and Justice Antonin Scalia on the U.S. Supreme Court. After his clerkships, Professor Fitzpatrick practiced commercial and appellate litigation for several years at Sidley Austin in Washington, D.C., and served as Special Counsel for Supreme Court Nominations to U.S. Senator John Cornyn. Before earning his law degree, Fitzpatrick graduated summa cum laude with a bachelor's of science in chemical engineering from the University of Notre Dame. He has received the Hall-Hartman Outstanding Professor Award, which recognizes excellence in classroom teaching, for his Civil Procedure and Federal Courts courses.
Director of Housing Policy and the American Identity Project, Progressive Policy Institute
Richard D. Kahlenberg is the Director of Housing Policy at the Progressive Policy Institute, and the Director of the American Identity Project, where he is working on to strengthen American identity through public education. The author or editor of seventeen books, he has expertise in education, civil rights, and equal opportunity. Kahlenberg has been called “the intellectual father of the economic integration movement” in K–12 schooling and “arguably the nation’s chief proponent of class-based affirmative action in higher education admissions.” He is also an authority on teachers’ unions, charter schools, community colleges, housing segregation, and labor organizing.
Kahlenberg’s articles have been published in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, The New Republic, and elsewhere. He has appeared on ABC, CBS, CNN, FOX, C-SPAN, MSNBC, and NPR.
Previously, Kahlenberg was a senior fellow at The Century Foundation. a fellow at the Center for National Policy, a visiting associate professor of constitutional law at George Washington University, and a legislative assistant to Senator Charles S. Robb (D-VA). He also serves on the advisory board of the Pell Institute, and the Albert Shanker Institute, and as a professorial lecturer at George Washington University’s Trachtenberg School of Public Policy and Public Administration. In addition, he is the winner of the William A. Kaplin Award for Excellence in Higher Education Law and Policy Scholarship. Reflecting on Kahlenberg’s work on higher education, William G. Bowen and Michael S. McPherson wrote that he “deserves more credit than anyone else for arguing vigorously and relentlessly for stronger efforts to address disparities by socioeconomic status.” He graduated from Harvard College and Harvard Law School and was a rotary scholar at the University of Nairobi School of Journalism.
Executive Director & Secretary, American Civil Rights Project
Dan Morenoff is the executive director at the American Civil Rights Project and an adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
His work focuses on protecting and, where necessary, restoring the primacy of all Americans' shared civil rights against the identitarian alternative.
Before practicing law, Morenoff served on the legislative staff of Sen. Phil Gramm (R-TX). Morenoff holds a B.A. from Columbia College of Columbia University in the City of New York and a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School. He has also served as an officer or director of several community organizations in Dallas, Texas.
Julius Kreeger Professor of Law & Criminology, University of Chicago Law School
Sonja Starr joined the University of Chicago law faculty after eleven years teaching at the University of Michigan, where she was the Henry M. Butzel Professor of Law. She previously taught at the University of Maryland and Harvard Law School after graduating from Yale Law. She also clerked for Judges Merrick Garland of the DC Circuit and Mohamed Shahabuddeen of the International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda and the Former Yugoslavia.
Professor Starr's research focuses on the criminal justice system and on discrimination and disparity (in the criminal process and in other contexts, including employment, education, and health care). Her research blends quantitative empirical work with more traditional legal scholarship. Topics include the use of predictive algorithms in sentencing and bail, legal and empirical analyses of statistical discrimination, racialized medical algorithms, educational diversity and race-conscious policymaking, racial and other disparities in prosecution and sentencing, policies designed to expand employment opportunities for people with criminal records, and how neighborhoods affect employment discrimination patterns. Professor Starr’s work has appeared in, for example, the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the Journal of Political Economy, the Yale Law Journal, and the Stanford and Harvard Law Reviews. She has been the Law and Economics Section Chair of the American Association of Law Schools, a past co-president of the Society for Empirical Legal Studies, and a board member of the American Law and Economics Association. She teaches Criminal Law, the Constitutional Law Workshop, Race and Criminal Justice Policy, and Collateral Consequences of Criminal Convictions.
Attorney, Pacific Legal Foundation
Erin Wilcox joined PLF in 2018 and works primarily from Austin, Texas. She litigates cases around the country to secure the inalienable rights of all Americans to live responsibly and productively in their pursuit of happiness.
After graduating from law school, Erin defended the individual rights of employees as a litigator for the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, was an attorney-advisor for the D.C. Public Employee Relations Board, and most recently fought for liberty in the Lone Star State as an attorney with the Texas Public Policy Foundation. During law school, Erin clerked at the Institute for Justice and was a Charles Koch Summer Fellow.
A native Texan, Erin ventured east after high school to earn a B.A. in history and political science from Wake Forest University and a J.D. from the Wake Forest University School of Law. In addition to liberty, Erin’s loves include college football, Texas barbecue, and a well-made Old Fashioned.
Associate Dean for Research Helen Strong Curry Chair in International Law Director, Cecil D. Branstetter Litigation & Dispute Resolution Program, Vanderbilt Law School
Ingrid Wuerth is a leading scholar of foreign affairs, public international law and transnational litigation. She joined Vanderbilt’s law faculty in 2007, was appointed director of the International Legal Studies Program in 2009, and was appointed director of the Branstetter Litigation & Dispute Resolution Program in 2018. She was named to the newly endowed Helen Strong Curry Chair in International Law in 2015. Professor Wuerth has served on the board of editors of the American Journal of International Law and on the State Department’s Advisory Committee on Public International Law. She is a member of the American Law Institute and was named as a Reporter for the Restatement (Fourth) of the Foreign Relations Law of the United States. She has received numerous honors and fellowships, including the Morehead Scholarship at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a Fulbright Senior Scholar award, the German Chancellor's Fellowship, election to the German Society of International Law, election to the Order of the Coif and many teaching awards. She clerked for Judge Jan E. DuBois in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and for Judge Jane Roth on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. The class of 2018 elected Professor Wuerth to give the commencement address. She is a contributing editor at Lawfare.
Judicial Law Clerk, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida
Nitin is a recent graduate of Cornell Law School. Before his time in Ithaca, he majored in International Studies and Political Science at Johns Hopkins University and focused on power competition in South Asia during his graduate studies at the University of Oxford.
White Burkett Miller Professor of History and J. Wilson Newman Professor of Governance, University of Virginia
Philip Zelikow is the White Burkett Miller Professor of History and J. Wilson Newman Professor of Governance at the University of Virginia, where he has also served as dean of the Graduate School and director of the Miller Center of Public Affairs. His scholarly work has focused on critical episodes in American and world history.
He was a trial and appellate lawyer and then a career diplomat before taking academic positions at Harvard, then Virginia. Before and during his academic career, he has served at all levels of American government. His federal service during five administrations has included positions in the White House, State Department, and the Pentagon. His last full-time government position was as the Counselor of the Department of State, a deputy to Secretary Condoleezza Rice.
He directed a small and short-lived federal agency, the 9/11 Commission. He also directed an earlier bipartisan commission on election reform, chaired by former Presidents Carter and Ford, that led to successful passage of the Help America Vote Act of 2002. More recently he was managing director of “Rework America,” a landmark project on American economic opportunity in the digital age, organized by the Markle Foundation.
He is one of the few individuals ever to serve on the President’s Intelligence Advisory Boards for presidents of both parties, in the administrations of George W. Bush and Barack Obama. He has also been a member of the Defense Policy Board for Defense Secretary Ashton Carter and a member of the board of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Milton R. Underwood Chair in Free Enterprise, Vanderbilt University Law School
Brian Fitzpatrick is the Milton R. Underwood Chair in Free Enterprise and Professor of Law at Vanderbilt Law School, where his research focuses on class action litigation, federal courts, judicial selection, and constitutional law. He is best known for his empirical studies of class action settlements as well as his book The Conservative Case for Class Actions (University of Chicago Press, 2019). Professor Fitzpatrick joined Vanderbilt's law faculty in 2007 after serving as the John M. Olin Fellow at New York University School of Law. He graduated first in his class from Harvard Law School and went on to clerk for Judge Diarmuid O'Scannlain on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and Justice Antonin Scalia on the U.S. Supreme Court. After his clerkships, Professor Fitzpatrick practiced commercial and appellate litigation for several years at Sidley Austin in Washington, D.C., and served as Special Counsel for Supreme Court Nominations to U.S. Senator John Cornyn. Before earning his law degree, Fitzpatrick graduated summa cum laude with a bachelor's of science in chemical engineering from the University of Notre Dame. He has received the Hall-Hartman Outstanding Professor Award, which recognizes excellence in classroom teaching, for his Civil Procedure and Federal Courts courses.
Milton R. Underwood Chair in Free Enterprise, Vanderbilt University Law School
Brian Fitzpatrick is the Milton R. Underwood Chair in Free Enterprise and Professor of Law at Vanderbilt Law School, where his research focuses on class action litigation, federal courts, judicial selection, and constitutional law. He is best known for his empirical studies of class action settlements as well as his book The Conservative Case for Class Actions (University of Chicago Press, 2019). Professor Fitzpatrick joined Vanderbilt's law faculty in 2007 after serving as the John M. Olin Fellow at New York University School of Law. He graduated first in his class from Harvard Law School and went on to clerk for Judge Diarmuid O'Scannlain on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and Justice Antonin Scalia on the U.S. Supreme Court. After his clerkships, Professor Fitzpatrick practiced commercial and appellate litigation for several years at Sidley Austin in Washington, D.C., and served as Special Counsel for Supreme Court Nominations to U.S. Senator John Cornyn. Before earning his law degree, Fitzpatrick graduated summa cum laude with a bachelor's of science in chemical engineering from the University of Notre Dame. He has received the Hall-Hartman Outstanding Professor Award, which recognizes excellence in classroom teaching, for his Civil Procedure and Federal Courts courses.
Director of Housing Policy and the American Identity Project, Progressive Policy Institute
Richard D. Kahlenberg is the Director of Housing Policy at the Progressive Policy Institute, and the Director of the American Identity Project, where he is working on to strengthen American identity through public education. The author or editor of seventeen books, he has expertise in education, civil rights, and equal opportunity. Kahlenberg has been called “the intellectual father of the economic integration movement” in K–12 schooling and “arguably the nation’s chief proponent of class-based affirmative action in higher education admissions.” He is also an authority on teachers’ unions, charter schools, community colleges, housing segregation, and labor organizing.
Kahlenberg’s articles have been published in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, The New Republic, and elsewhere. He has appeared on ABC, CBS, CNN, FOX, C-SPAN, MSNBC, and NPR.
Previously, Kahlenberg was a senior fellow at The Century Foundation. a fellow at the Center for National Policy, a visiting associate professor of constitutional law at George Washington University, and a legislative assistant to Senator Charles S. Robb (D-VA). He also serves on the advisory board of the Pell Institute, and the Albert Shanker Institute, and as a professorial lecturer at George Washington University’s Trachtenberg School of Public Policy and Public Administration. In addition, he is the winner of the William A. Kaplin Award for Excellence in Higher Education Law and Policy Scholarship. Reflecting on Kahlenberg’s work on higher education, William G. Bowen and Michael S. McPherson wrote that he “deserves more credit than anyone else for arguing vigorously and relentlessly for stronger efforts to address disparities by socioeconomic status.” He graduated from Harvard College and Harvard Law School and was a rotary scholar at the University of Nairobi School of Journalism.
Executive Director & Secretary, American Civil Rights Project
Dan Morenoff is the executive director at the American Civil Rights Project and an adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
His work focuses on protecting and, where necessary, restoring the primacy of all Americans' shared civil rights against the identitarian alternative.
Before practicing law, Morenoff served on the legislative staff of Sen. Phil Gramm (R-TX). Morenoff holds a B.A. from Columbia College of Columbia University in the City of New York and a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School. He has also served as an officer or director of several community organizations in Dallas, Texas.
Julius Kreeger Professor of Law & Criminology, University of Chicago Law School
Sonja Starr joined the University of Chicago law faculty after eleven years teaching at the University of Michigan, where she was the Henry M. Butzel Professor of Law. She previously taught at the University of Maryland and Harvard Law School after graduating from Yale Law. She also clerked for Judges Merrick Garland of the DC Circuit and Mohamed Shahabuddeen of the International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda and the Former Yugoslavia.
Professor Starr's research focuses on the criminal justice system and on discrimination and disparity (in the criminal process and in other contexts, including employment, education, and health care). Her research blends quantitative empirical work with more traditional legal scholarship. Topics include the use of predictive algorithms in sentencing and bail, legal and empirical analyses of statistical discrimination, racialized medical algorithms, educational diversity and race-conscious policymaking, racial and other disparities in prosecution and sentencing, policies designed to expand employment opportunities for people with criminal records, and how neighborhoods affect employment discrimination patterns. Professor Starr’s work has appeared in, for example, the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the Journal of Political Economy, the Yale Law Journal, and the Stanford and Harvard Law Reviews. She has been the Law and Economics Section Chair of the American Association of Law Schools, a past co-president of the Society for Empirical Legal Studies, and a board member of the American Law and Economics Association. She teaches Criminal Law, the Constitutional Law Workshop, Race and Criminal Justice Policy, and Collateral Consequences of Criminal Convictions.
Attorney, Pacific Legal Foundation
Erin Wilcox joined PLF in 2018 and works primarily from Austin, Texas. She litigates cases around the country to secure the inalienable rights of all Americans to live responsibly and productively in their pursuit of happiness.
After graduating from law school, Erin defended the individual rights of employees as a litigator for the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, was an attorney-advisor for the D.C. Public Employee Relations Board, and most recently fought for liberty in the Lone Star State as an attorney with the Texas Public Policy Foundation. During law school, Erin clerked at the Institute for Justice and was a Charles Koch Summer Fellow.
A native Texan, Erin ventured east after high school to earn a B.A. in history and political science from Wake Forest University and a J.D. from the Wake Forest University School of Law. In addition to liberty, Erin’s loves include college football, Texas barbecue, and a well-made Old Fashioned.
Milton R. Underwood Chair in Free Enterprise, Vanderbilt University Law School
Brian Fitzpatrick is the Milton R. Underwood Chair in Free Enterprise and Professor of Law at Vanderbilt Law School, where his research focuses on class action litigation, federal courts, judicial selection, and constitutional law. He is best known for his empirical studies of class action settlements as well as his book The Conservative Case for Class Actions (University of Chicago Press, 2019). Professor Fitzpatrick joined Vanderbilt's law faculty in 2007 after serving as the John M. Olin Fellow at New York University School of Law. He graduated first in his class from Harvard Law School and went on to clerk for Judge Diarmuid O'Scannlain on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and Justice Antonin Scalia on the U.S. Supreme Court. After his clerkships, Professor Fitzpatrick practiced commercial and appellate litigation for several years at Sidley Austin in Washington, D.C., and served as Special Counsel for Supreme Court Nominations to U.S. Senator John Cornyn. Before earning his law degree, Fitzpatrick graduated summa cum laude with a bachelor's of science in chemical engineering from the University of Notre Dame. He has received the Hall-Hartman Outstanding Professor Award, which recognizes excellence in classroom teaching, for his Civil Procedure and Federal Courts courses.
Director of Housing Policy and the American Identity Project, Progressive Policy Institute
Richard D. Kahlenberg is the Director of Housing Policy at the Progressive Policy Institute, and the Director of the American Identity Project, where he is working on to strengthen American identity through public education. The author or editor of seventeen books, he has expertise in education, civil rights, and equal opportunity. Kahlenberg has been called “the intellectual father of the economic integration movement” in K–12 schooling and “arguably the nation’s chief proponent of class-based affirmative action in higher education admissions.” He is also an authority on teachers’ unions, charter schools, community colleges, housing segregation, and labor organizing.
Kahlenberg’s articles have been published in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, The New Republic, and elsewhere. He has appeared on ABC, CBS, CNN, FOX, C-SPAN, MSNBC, and NPR.
Previously, Kahlenberg was a senior fellow at The Century Foundation. a fellow at the Center for National Policy, a visiting associate professor of constitutional law at George Washington University, and a legislative assistant to Senator Charles S. Robb (D-VA). He also serves on the advisory board of the Pell Institute, and the Albert Shanker Institute, and as a professorial lecturer at George Washington University’s Trachtenberg School of Public Policy and Public Administration. In addition, he is the winner of the William A. Kaplin Award for Excellence in Higher Education Law and Policy Scholarship. Reflecting on Kahlenberg’s work on higher education, William G. Bowen and Michael S. McPherson wrote that he “deserves more credit than anyone else for arguing vigorously and relentlessly for stronger efforts to address disparities by socioeconomic status.” He graduated from Harvard College and Harvard Law School and was a rotary scholar at the University of Nairobi School of Journalism.
Executive Director & Secretary, American Civil Rights Project
Dan Morenoff is the executive director at the American Civil Rights Project and an adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
His work focuses on protecting and, where necessary, restoring the primacy of all Americans' shared civil rights against the identitarian alternative.
Before practicing law, Morenoff served on the legislative staff of Sen. Phil Gramm (R-TX). Morenoff holds a B.A. from Columbia College of Columbia University in the City of New York and a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School. He has also served as an officer or director of several community organizations in Dallas, Texas.
Julius Kreeger Professor of Law & Criminology, University of Chicago Law School
Sonja Starr joined the University of Chicago law faculty after eleven years teaching at the University of Michigan, where she was the Henry M. Butzel Professor of Law. She previously taught at the University of Maryland and Harvard Law School after graduating from Yale Law. She also clerked for Judges Merrick Garland of the DC Circuit and Mohamed Shahabuddeen of the International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda and the Former Yugoslavia.
Professor Starr's research focuses on the criminal justice system and on discrimination and disparity (in the criminal process and in other contexts, including employment, education, and health care). Her research blends quantitative empirical work with more traditional legal scholarship. Topics include the use of predictive algorithms in sentencing and bail, legal and empirical analyses of statistical discrimination, racialized medical algorithms, educational diversity and race-conscious policymaking, racial and other disparities in prosecution and sentencing, policies designed to expand employment opportunities for people with criminal records, and how neighborhoods affect employment discrimination patterns. Professor Starr’s work has appeared in, for example, the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the Journal of Political Economy, the Yale Law Journal, and the Stanford and Harvard Law Reviews. She has been the Law and Economics Section Chair of the American Association of Law Schools, a past co-president of the Society for Empirical Legal Studies, and a board member of the American Law and Economics Association. She teaches Criminal Law, the Constitutional Law Workshop, Race and Criminal Justice Policy, and Collateral Consequences of Criminal Convictions.
Attorney, Pacific Legal Foundation
Erin Wilcox joined PLF in 2018 and works primarily from Austin, Texas. She litigates cases around the country to secure the inalienable rights of all Americans to live responsibly and productively in their pursuit of happiness.
After graduating from law school, Erin defended the individual rights of employees as a litigator for the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, was an attorney-advisor for the D.C. Public Employee Relations Board, and most recently fought for liberty in the Lone Star State as an attorney with the Texas Public Policy Foundation. During law school, Erin clerked at the Institute for Justice and was a Charles Koch Summer Fellow.
A native Texan, Erin ventured east after high school to earn a B.A. in history and political science from Wake Forest University and a J.D. from the Wake Forest University School of Law. In addition to liberty, Erin’s loves include college football, Texas barbecue, and a well-made Old Fashioned.
Judicial Law Clerk, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida
Nitin is a recent graduate of Cornell Law School. Before his time in Ithaca, he majored in International Studies and Political Science at Johns Hopkins University and focused on power competition in South Asia during his graduate studies at the University of Oxford.
Associate Dean for Research Helen Strong Curry Chair in International Law Director, Cecil D. Branstetter Litigation & Dispute Resolution Program, Vanderbilt Law School
Ingrid Wuerth is a leading scholar of foreign affairs, public international law and transnational litigation. She joined Vanderbilt’s law faculty in 2007, was appointed director of the International Legal Studies Program in 2009, and was appointed director of the Branstetter Litigation & Dispute Resolution Program in 2018. She was named to the newly endowed Helen Strong Curry Chair in International Law in 2015. Professor Wuerth has served on the board of editors of the American Journal of International Law and on the State Department’s Advisory Committee on Public International Law. She is a member of the American Law Institute and was named as a Reporter for the Restatement (Fourth) of the Foreign Relations Law of the United States. She has received numerous honors and fellowships, including the Morehead Scholarship at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a Fulbright Senior Scholar award, the German Chancellor's Fellowship, election to the German Society of International Law, election to the Order of the Coif and many teaching awards. She clerked for Judge Jan E. DuBois in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and for Judge Jane Roth on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. The class of 2018 elected Professor Wuerth to give the commencement address. She is a contributing editor at Lawfare.
White Burkett Miller Professor of History and J. Wilson Newman Professor of Governance, University of Virginia
Philip Zelikow is the White Burkett Miller Professor of History and J. Wilson Newman Professor of Governance at the University of Virginia, where he has also served as dean of the Graduate School and director of the Miller Center of Public Affairs. His scholarly work has focused on critical episodes in American and world history.
He was a trial and appellate lawyer and then a career diplomat before taking academic positions at Harvard, then Virginia. Before and during his academic career, he has served at all levels of American government. His federal service during five administrations has included positions in the White House, State Department, and the Pentagon. His last full-time government position was as the Counselor of the Department of State, a deputy to Secretary Condoleezza Rice.
He directed a small and short-lived federal agency, the 9/11 Commission. He also directed an earlier bipartisan commission on election reform, chaired by former Presidents Carter and Ford, that led to successful passage of the Help America Vote Act of 2002. More recently he was managing director of “Rework America,” a landmark project on American economic opportunity in the digital age, organized by the Markle Foundation.
He is one of the few individuals ever to serve on the President’s Intelligence Advisory Boards for presidents of both parties, in the administrations of George W. Bush and Barack Obama. He has also been a member of the Defense Policy Board for Defense Secretary Ashton Carter and a member of the board of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
International and National Security Law: Engage or Disengage: How Should the Next United States Administration Interact with the International Criminal Court and International Court of Justice?
2024 National Lawyers Convention
Washington, DCWhy Conservatives Should Stop Worrying and Start Loving Class Actions
Triangle Lawyers Chapter
Raleigh, NCPanel II: Strategic Litigation for Liberty
2024 Tennessee Chapters Conference
Nashville, TNWhy Conservatives Should Stop Worrying and Start Loving Class Actions
Columbia Lawyers Chapter
Columbia, SCDiscrimination By Proxy?: Arlington Heights Cases in the Post Students for Fair Admissions Era
Brian T. Fitzpatrick, Richard D. Kahlenberg, Dan Morenoff, Sonja B. Starr, Erin Wilcox
In the consolidated Students for Fair Admissions cases, the Supreme Court held unlawful the use of race...
Discrimination By Proxy?: Arlington Heights Cases in the Post Students for Fair Admissions Era
Brian T. Fitzpatrick, Richard D. Kahlenberg, Dan Morenoff, Sonja B. Starr, Erin Wilcox
In the consolidated Students for Fair Admissions cases, the Supreme Court held unlawful the use of race...
Discrimination By Proxy?: Arlington Heights Cases in the Post Students for Fair Admissions Era
Frozen Funds: Assessing Claims on Russian Central Bank Assets
Nitin R. Nainani, Ingrid (Wuerth) Brunk, Phillip D. Zelikow
The ongoing war in Ukraine has sparked discussions within the Group of Seven (G-7) about...
Frozen Funds: Assessing Claims on Russian Central Bank Assets
Why Conservatives Should Stop Worrying and Start Loving Class Actions
Colorado Lawyers Chapter
Denver, CO