Jackson Eli Reynolds Professor of Law, Stanford Law School
Ralph Richard Banks is the Jackson Eli Reynolds Professor of Law at Stanford Law School and a professor, by courtesy, at the Stanford Graduate School of Education. He is the Founder and Faculty Director of the Stanford Center for Racial Justice, an initiative that aims to confront and counter the polarization that plagues American society through an analysis of contentious racial issues free from the orthodoxies of Left and Right.
Professor Banks is the co-author of two leading law school casebooks, Racial Justice and the Law: Cases and Materials (2016) (with co-editors Kim Forde-Mazrui, Guy Uriel Charles and Cristina Rodriguez) and Family Law in a Changing America (2nd ed. 2024) (with co-editors Douglas NeJaime, Joanna Grossman, and Suzanne Kim). He is also the author of the trade book Is Marriage for White People? How the African American Marriage Decline affects Everyone (2011; paperback 2012), described by the Los Angeles Times as a “must read,” by the New York Times as “important” and by the Wilson Quarterly (the official publication of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars) as one of the Top Ten Books of 2011. The book has been featured by a wide range of media outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, Essence magazine, The Village Voice, Time, Newsweek/The Daily Beast, and also NPR (local and national) CNN, ABC News/Nightline, The View, and Fox News, among many others. His forthcoming book, The Big Sort: How College Can Make or Break the American Dream, will be published in 2025.
At Stanford, Professor Banks teaches Constitutional Law, Family Law and a variety of courses related to race, law and inequality. He joined the Stanford faculty in 1998 after clerking for federal judge Barrington D. Parker, serving as the Reginald F. Lewis Fellow at Harvard Law School and practicing law at the law firm O’Melveny & Myers. He graduated from Harvard Law School with honors and received Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from Stanford University.
Partner, Consovoy McCarthy PLLC
Thomas R. McCarthy is a partner at Consovoy McCarthy Park PLLC. Mr. McCarthy assists clients with a wide array of issues in federal district and appellate courts across the country. He frequently represents clients in complex litigation involving diverse legal issues arising under the First Amendment, the Equal Protection Clause, the Commerce Clause, and other provisions of the U.S. Constitution. Mr. McCarthy also represents clients in litigation matters involving numerous federal statutes such as the Administrative Procedure Act, the Federal Arbitration Act, the Sherman Act, the Communications Act, the Voting Rights Act, and the Patent Act. He also represents clients with regulatory matters before the Federal Communications Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, and various other federal agencies.
Mr. McCarthy is a former law clerk to Judge David B. Sentelle of the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, and Judge Frank W. Bullock, Jr. of the United States District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina. Since 2011, McCarthy has been the co-director of the George Mason University School of Law Supreme Court Clinic. He previously taught an advanced constitutional law seminar at Mason Law.
Mr. McCarthy earned his BS from the University of Notre Dame, where he was a Notre Dame Scholar, and his JD magna cum laude from George Mason University School of Law. Mr. McCarthy is a member of the Virginia and District of Columbia bars.
Aditi Juneja is the Executive Director of Democracy 2076, an organization founded in 2023 working long-term to change our Constitution, political culture, and political parties. She was most recently Chief of Staff at the Movement Voter Project and previously spent 4 years at Protect Democracy where she led the work of the National Task Force on Election Crises. Her writing has been featured in Vox, NPR, and Talking Points Memo. She received her J.D. from NYU Law School and a B.A. from Connecticut College
Managing Partner, AKP Management
Ayana Parsons is an award-winning leadership expert who founded and runs AKP Management LLC, a business and leadership consultancy for purpose-driven changemakers. In 2024, Ayana was named one of the 100 Most Influential African-Americans by The Root and one of 18 experts closing the racial wealth gap in America by Time Magazine.
In addition to AKP Management, Ayana is Co-Founder of the Fearless Fund, the first venture capital fund created for women of color by women of color. The fund was formed in 2019 to eradicate the racial and gender disparities that exist in venture capital.
Prior to AKP Management and Fearless Fund, Ayana co-founded Yardstick Management alongside her husband, Dr. Ebbie Parsons. Yardstick eventually became the best consulting firm in America (Inc. Magazine), providing organizational strategy support to hundreds of notable clients.
As part of her efforts to advance equity and inclusion at the highest levels, Ayana formerly led Board & CEO Inclusion at Korn Ferry. During her time as a Principal at Heidrick & Struggles, she served as a cabinet member for Stanford University’s Clayman Institute for Gender Research where she provided thought leadership on closing the gender gap in corporate boardrooms and in the executive suite. Prior to Korn Ferry and Heidrick & Struggles, Ayana served as the Global Head of Retail, Consumer Goods, and Lifestyle Industries at the World Economic Forum.
A seasoned corporate executive, Ayana’s industry career spans sales, marketing, strategy and general management roles at several of the world’s most admired companies including Philips, Pfizer, Kimberly-Clark and Procter & Gamble.
With 20+ years of experience as a venture capitalist, organizational consultant, corporate executive and entrepreneur, Ayana leverages her deep expertise in consumer markets, business strategy, general management, enterprise leadership, top team effectiveness, board effectiveness and inclusive talent management to help fuel personal and professional growth and transformation.
Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights, U.S. Department of Agriculture
Devon Westhill is the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The U.S. Senate confirmed President Donald Trump’s nomination of Westhill on October 7, 2025.
Westhill returns to the USDA where he previously headed the civil rights office as Deputy Assistant Secretary in President Trump’s first term. His previous government appointments also include service at the U.S. Department of Labor, liaison to the Administrative Conference of the U.S., and liaison to the White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Prior to returning to government service, Westhill was President and General Counsel of a nonprofit civil rights organization.
Westhill has testified on civil rights matters before Congress, federal agencies, and as an expert witness in federal court. He has spoken hundreds of times at college campuses, conferences, and on radio and TV programs, and he is frequently quoted in print publications, and his writing has appeared in numerous national outlets. A U.S. Navy veteran, Westhill earned his BA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and his JD from the University of Florida.
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; Senior Fellow, The Civitas Institute, University of Texas at Austin
Richard A. Epstein is the inaugural Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law at NYU School of Law. Prior to his joining the faculty, he was a visiting law professor at NYU from 2007 through 2009. He served as the Peter and Kirstin Bedford Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution from 2000 to 2024. Since 2024 to the present he is a senior lecturer at the Civitas Institute at the University of Texas—Austin. Epstein is also the James Parker Hall Distinguished Service Professor of Law Emeritus and a senior lecturer at the University of Chicago. His initial law school appointment was at the University of Southern California from 1968 to 1972. Epstein received an LL.D., h.c. from the University of Ghent, 2003. He has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 1985 and was a Senior Fellow of the Center for Clinical Medical Ethics at the University of Chicago Division of Biological Sciences, also from 1983. to 2022 He served as editor of the Journal of Legal Studies from 1981 to 1991, and of the Journal of Law and Economics from 1991-2001. From 2001 to 2010 he was a director of the John M. Olin Program in Law and Economics at the University of Chicago.
His newest book, The Myth of Birthright Citizenship: What the Fourteenth Amendment Really Says was published in 2026 (Encounter Books). Prior to that he has published many books including, The Dubious Morality of the Modern Administrative State (Roman & Littlefield 2020).Earlier he published th Classical Liberal Constitution: The Uncertain Quest for Limited Government (Harvard 2014) iHis previous books include Design for Liberty: Private Property, Public Administration and the Rule of Law (Harvard 2011); The Case Against the Employee Free Choice Act (Hoover 2009); Supreme Neglect: How to Revive the Constitutional Protection of Property Rights (Oxford 2008); Antitrust Decrees in Theory and Practice: Why Less is More (AEI 2007); Overdose: How Excessive Government Regulation Stifles Pharmaceutical Innovation (Yale University Press. 2006); How Progressives Rewrote the Constitution (Cato 2006); Cases and Materials on Torts (Aspen Law & Business; 8th ed. 2004); Skepticism and Freedom: A Modern Case for Classical Liberalism (University of Chicago, 2003); Torts (Aspen Law & Business 1999); Principles for a Free Society: Reconciling Individual Liberty with the Common Good (Perseus Books, 1998): Mortal Peril: Our Inalienable Rights to Health Care (Addison-Wesley, 1997); Simple Rules for a Complex World (Harvard, 1995); Bargaining With the State (Princeton, 1993); Forbidden Grounds: The Case Against Employment Discrimination Laws (Harvard , 1992); Takings: Private Property and the Power of Eminent Domain (Harvard, 1985); and Modern Products Liability Law (Greenwood Press, 1980). He has also edited(with Catherine M. Sharkey) Cases and Materials on the Law of Torts (10th edition 2012).
Professor Epstein has written numerous articles on a wide range of legal and interdisciplinary subjects. He has taught courses in administrative law, antitrust law, civil procedure, communications, constitutional law, contracts, corporations, criminal law, employment discrimination law, environmental law, food and drug law health law and policy, legal history, labor law, property, real estate development and finance, jurisprudence, labor law; land use planning, patents, individual, estate and corporate taxation, Roman Law; torts, and workers' compensation.
Professor Epstein also writes a regular column for Civitas Institute, which also sponsors his podcast, The Libertarian with Charles C.W. Cooke, and Law Talk, with Cooke and John Yoo. He also does a podcast with John Batchelor. And appears regularly on the Freedom File with Judge Andrew Napolitano.
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.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit
Patrick J. Bumatay was confirmed as a U.S. Circuit Judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in December 2019. He is based in San Diego, California.
Prior to his appointment, Judge Bumatay served as an Assistant United States Attorney in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of California, where he was a member of the Appellate and Narcotics Sections. He also served as a Counselor to the Attorney General on criminal law issues, including on national opioid strategy and combating transnational organized crime.
Judge Bumatay has also worked in the Office of the Deputy Attorney General, the Office of the Associate Attorney General, and the Office of Legal Policy at the U.S. Department of Justice. Judge Bumatay has twice received the Attorney General’s Distinguished Service Award.
Judge Bumatay previously worked as an associate at Morvillo, Abramowitz, Grand, Iason, and Bohrer in New York, New York. Judge Bumatay clerked for the Honorable Timothy M. Tymkovich of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit and the Honorable Sandra L. Townes of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York. Judge Bumatay earned his B.A., cum laude, from Yale University and his J.D. from Harvard Law School.
Dean, Widener University Commonwealth Law School
André Douglas Pond Cummings is the incoming Dean of Widener University Commonwealth Law School. Dean cummings currently serves as associate dean for faculty development and the Charles C. Baum distinguished professor of law at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock’s William H. Bowen School of Law. During his time at the Bowen School of Law, cummings served for five years on the university Diversity Counsel and three years on the chancellor’s race and ethnicity advisory committee. Prior to joining the Bowen School of Law, cummings taught at the West Virginia University College of Law and clerked for Associate Chief Justice Christine M. Durham of the Utah Supreme Court and Chief Judge Joseph W. Hatchett of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. Dean cummings is a graduate of Brigham Young University and Howard University School of Law.
Vice President of Domestic and Economic Policy, The Heritage Foundation
Roger Severino is Vice President of Economic and Domestic Policy, and the Joseph C. and Elizabeth A. Anderlik Fellow at The Heritage Foundation.
Severino is a national authority on civil rights, conscience and religious freedom, the administrative state, and information privacy, particularly as applied to health care law and policy. Find his tweets at @RogerSeverino_.
Severino spearheaded the HHS Accountability Project while a Senior Fellow at EPPC from 2021 to 2023. Previously, Severino was Director of HHS’ Office for Civil Rights, where he led a team of over 250 staff enforcing our nation’s civil rights, conscience and religious freedom, and health information privacy laws. He served from 2017 to 2021 and was the longest-serving OCR director of the past three decades.
Prior to joining HHS, Severino served for two years as Director of the DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society at Heritage, advocating for life, family, and religious-freedom policies. Before that, he was a trial attorney for seven years at the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division where he enforced the Fair Housing Act and the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Severino started his legal career at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, where he was Legal Counsel and Chief Operations Officer and defended the rights of people of all faiths under federal and international law.
Severino has been profiled in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, and The Hill and has appeared on Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, NPR, and PBS, among others. In 2020, The New York Times dubbed him and his wife Carrie, “a conservative power couple” to be reckoned with.
Severino holds a JD from Harvard Law School, a master’s degree in public policy, with highest distinction, from Carnegie Mellon University, and a bachelor’s degree in business from the University of Southern California. He was appointed by President Trump to the Administrative Conference of the United States and is a member of the District of Columbia and the Commonwealth of Virginia bars.
As OCR director, Severino founded the federal government’s first division dedicated exclusively to conscience and religious freedom compliance and enforcement. He enforced the Weldon Amendment for the first time against a state (California) after it coerced families and religious organizations into paying for abortion insurance coverage, leading to a $200 million federal funding disallowance. He also enforced laws protecting pro-life pregnancy resource centers from discrimination by states hostile to their message and enforced laws prohibiting forced participation in abortions by medical professionals.
With respect to civil rights, Severino protected older persons and people with disabilities from being denied life-saving care due to discriminatory “quality of life” judgments, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. He also achieved a landmark sexual harassment resolution with Michigan State University in the wake of the Larry Nassar sexual assault scandal and protected the rights of non-English speakers to have equal access to health and human services.
In the area of health privacy, he secured the largest HIPAA monetary settlement in history and achieved the largest number of enforcement resolutions both in a single year and across four years. He also facilitated the transformational use of Skype, Zoom, and Facetime for delivery of telehealth during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.
His regulatory reform activities resulted in a comprehensive conscience protection regulation and proposed a life-affirming disability rights regulation. He achieved regulatory savings of $3.6 billion in health care industry costs over five years and identified and proposed an additional $3.2 billion in cost savings from the repeal of ineffective and unnecessary regulatory burdens.
Severino is a Spanish speaker who teaches salsa and west coast swing in his spare time.
General Counsel, Saronic Technologies
Tobi Young is the General Counsel of Saronic Technologies. Her responsibilities include managing global legal affairs, regulatory compliance, litigation, risk management, and government security, and corporate governance.
Tobi brings over 20 years of experience with sophisticated legal, regulatory, and compliance issues through leadership roles in all three branches of the federal government and in Fortune 500 companies. Among other governmental positions, she has been an attorney in the U.S. Department of Justice and in the Office of the White House Counsel; a law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil M. Gorsuch; and a press secretary for Congressman J.C. Watts. Tobi also currently serves as the Chair of the Nominating and Governance Committee on the Halliburton Board of Directors (NYSE: HAL).
Tobi grew up in Oklahoma and is a proud member of the Chickasaw Nation. She recently became the youngest inductee into the Chickasaw Hall of Fame. Tobi now lives in Austin with her husband Evan, a Justice on the Texas Supreme Court, and their daughter Romilly.
Raymond & Miriam Ehrlich Chair in US Constitutional Law, University of Florida Levin College of Law
Tracey Maclin is Professor of Law and Raymond & Miriam Ehrlich Eminent Scholar Chair. Prior to joining the University of Florida faculty, he was a professor of law and Joseph Lipsitt Faculty Research Scholar at Boston University School of Law. He has also taught at Cornell Law School, Harvard Law School and the University of Kentucky College of Law. Before entering law teaching, Professor Maclin served as a law clerk to Judge Boyce F. Martin, Jr. of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and worked at Cahill, Gordon & Reindel.
Professor Maclin teaches courses in Constitutional Law and Constitutional Criminal Procedure. He also teaches a seminar on the Supreme Court’s cases in criminal procedure, criminal law, habeas corpus and the death penalty. His scholarship focuses on the Fourth Amendment and the Self-Incrimination Clause of the Fifth Amendment. He has published many law review articles and book chapters on constitutional criminal procedure topics. He is the author of The Supreme Court and the Fourth Amendment’s Exclusionary Rule (Oxford University Press 2013). In addition to his legal scholarship, Professor Maclin has authored over a dozen amicus curiae briefs and served as counsel of record for the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and the Cato Institute in Fourth Amendment cases in the United States Supreme Court.
Partner, Consovoy McCarthy PLLC
Mr. Norris helps clients win important questions of federal law in trial and appellate courts across the country. He has represented prominent nonprofits, many States, the Republican Party, and the former President of the United States. He has argued in eight of the twelve federal circuits and twice at the U.S. Supreme Court, including the landmark case Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard.
Mr. Norris is barred in Tennessee and Virginia, and is an elected member of the American Law Institute. Mr. Norris lives with his family in Knoxville, Tennessee.
Justice, Florida Supreme Court
On May 23, 2023, Governor Ron DeSantis appointed Justice Meredith L. Sasso to be the 93rd justice of the Supreme Court of Florida.
Justice Sasso was raised in Tallahassee. She received her undergraduate degree from the University of Florida in 2005 and her law degree from the University of Florida in 2008, where she was a member of the Justice Campbell Thornal Moot Court Board. She began her career in private practice, representing clients in large loss general liability, auto negligence, and complex commercial claims in state and federal courts at trial and on appeal. She also served as guardian ad litem, representing abused or neglected children.
In August 2016, Justice Sasso joined the Office of the General Counsel to Governor Rick Scott, serving as Chief Deputy General Counsel. In this role, she represented the Governor in litigation before the Florida Supreme Court, the First District Court of Appeal, and state and federal trial courts, among other duties. In January 2019, Governor Rick Scott appointed her to the Fifth District Court of Appeal. Governor Ron DeSantis recommissioned her to the newly created Sixth District Court of Appeal on January 1, 2023, where she was elected by her colleagues to serve as its first Chief Judge.
She is an appointed member of the Florida Bar Appellate Court Rules Committee. She is also a member of the American Enterprise Institute Leadership Network and the Federalist Society.
Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights, U.S. Department of Agriculture
Devon Westhill is the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The U.S. Senate confirmed President Donald Trump’s nomination of Westhill on October 7, 2025.
Westhill returns to the USDA where he previously headed the civil rights office as Deputy Assistant Secretary in President Trump’s first term. His previous government appointments also include service at the U.S. Department of Labor, liaison to the Administrative Conference of the U.S., and liaison to the White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Prior to returning to government service, Westhill was President and General Counsel of a nonprofit civil rights organization.
Westhill has testified on civil rights matters before Congress, federal agencies, and as an expert witness in federal court. He has spoken hundreds of times at college campuses, conferences, and on radio and TV programs, and he is frequently quoted in print publications, and his writing has appeared in numerous national outlets. A U.S. Navy veteran, Westhill earned his BA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and his JD from the University of Florida.
Senior Fellow, American Enterprise Institute
Mark J. Perry is concurrently a senior fellow at AEI and a professor emeritus of economics at the University of Michigan. He is best known as the creator and editor of the popular economics blog Carpe Diem. At AEI, Perry writes about economic and financial issues for American.com and the AEIdeas blog.
Professor, University of Miami
June Teufel Dreyer is Professor of Political Science at the University of Miami, Coral Gables, Florida, where she teaches courses on China, U.S. defense policy, and international relations. Professor Dreyer has lectured to, and taught a course for, National Security Agency analysts, consults for organizations including the National Geographic and Centra Technology. She is a senior fellow of the Foreign Policy Research Institute and a member of International Institute for Strategic Studies.
Formerly senior Far East specialist at the Library of Congress, Dr. Dreyer has also served as Asia policy advisor to the Chief of Naval Operations and as commissioner of the United States-China Economic and Security Review Commission established by the U.S. Congress. Dr Dreyer’s most recent book, Middle Kingdom and Empire of the Rising Sun: Sino-Japanese Relations Past and Present, was published by Oxford University Press in 2016. The tenth edition of her China’s Political System: Modernization and Tradition, is scheduled for publication in 2018. Professor Dreyer received her BA from Wellesley College and her MA and PhD from Harvard, and has lived in China and Japan and paid numerous visits to Taiwan. She has served as a United States Information Agency lecturer, speaking in fourteen Asia-Pacific states. Professor Dreyer has published widely on the Chinese military, Asian-Pacific security issues, China-Taiwan relations, Sino-Japanese relations, ethnic minorities in China, and Chinese foreign policy. In 2017, she received the University of Miami’s faculty senate award as Distinguished Research Professor.
Maurice A. Deane Distinguished Professor of Constitutional Law and Faculty Director of International Programs, Hofstra University School of Law
Professor Ku’s primary research interest is the relationship of international law to constitutional law. He has also conducted academic research on a wide range of topics including international dispute resolution, international criminal law, and China’s relationship with international law. He teaches courses such as U.S. constitutional law, U.S. foreign affairs law, transnational law, and international trade and business law. Since 2014, he has served as the faculty director of international programs, overseeing Hofstra Law’s study abroad, exchange and LL.M. programs. Professor Ku also teaches Constitutional Law in our online degree programs: Master of Laws in American Law and Master of Arts in American Legal Studies. He has also been selected as the John DeWitt Gregory Research Scholar and as a Hofstra Law Research Fellow. He is a member of the American Law Institute.
He is the co-author, with John Yoo, of Taming Globalization: International Law, the U.S. Constitution, and the New World Order (Oxford University Press 2012). He also has published more than 40 law review articles, book chapters and symposia essays. He has given dozens of academic lectures and workshops at major universities and conferences in the United States, Europe and Asia.
He co-founded the leading international law weblog Opinio Juris, which is read daily by thousands worldwide. His essays and op-eds have been published in major news publications such as the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the NYTimes.com. He has been frequently interviewed for television news programs and quoted in print and electronic media. He has also signed or submitted amicus briefs to national and international courts and served as an expert witness in both domestic and international proceedings.
Before joining the Hofstra Law faculty, Professor Ku served as a law clerk to the Honorable Jerry E. Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and as an Olin Fellow and Lecturer in Law at the University of Virginia Law School. Professor Ku also practiced as an associate at the New York City law firm of Debevoise & Plimpton, specializing in litigation and arbitration arising out of international disputes. He has been a visiting professor at the College of William & Mary Marshall- Wythe School of Law in Williamsburg, Virginia; a Fulbright Distinguished Lecturer in Law at East China University of Political Science and Law in Shanghai, China; and a Taiwan Fellow at National Taiwan University in Taipei, Taiwan. He is a member of the New York Bar and a graduate of Yale College and Yale Law School.
Attorney, Newsome International Law, LLC
Saul is passionate about international law. Since his creation of the international law practice group at Breazeale, Sachse, and Wilson, LLP, one of Louisiana’s oldest law firms, Saul has advised businesses on trade and investment incentives both locally and abroad. Saul has advised clients on importing, exporting, sanction regimes, and assisted clients in pursuing offshore manufacturing, license agreements, sales agreements and other business ventures. Saul has advised on foreign investment and trade regulations in the United States, including applications to the Committee on Foreign Investments to the United States (CFIUS), export and anti-boycott regulations (EAR), international traffic in arms regulations (ITAR), anti-bribery (FCPA), asset control regulations (OFAC) and customs regulations. Saul has also successfully released assets and transactions that were incorrectly frozen under foreign assets control regulation, and participated in official bilateral meetings with foreign governments.
Saul takes his profession seriously. He is the Secretary of International Law Section of the Louisiana Bar Association and participates in the Export Control and Sanctions Committee of the American Bar Association. Saul was also appointed by the Department of Commerce to serve as a member of the Louisiana District Export Council and sits on its outreach committee. He has achieved a Martindale-Hubbell AV Preeminent peer review rating. In 2016, Saul was named one of Baton Rouge’s Top Forty under 40.
Saul earned his Juris Doctor of Civil Law from the Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, LA and his Bachelor of Arts in both International Studies and Modern Languages and Cultures (Spanish) from the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, Virginia. Saul is a heritage Spanish speaker. To further immerse himself in the language, Saul spent a semester of college studying at the University of Havana in Cuba and a semester of law school studying international business law in Bogotá, Colombia. He also worked at the law firm Francisco Reyes & Asociados, where he focused on foreign direct investment transactions and international comparative corporate law.
After graduating college, Saul commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the United States Marine Corps and worked as a Human Intelligence Officer. Saul deployed twice to Iraq where the teams he led supported infantry battalions and simultaneously trained the Iraqi Army and Iraqi Police in intelligence operations. While attending law school, Saul transitioned to the Marine Corps Reserve and continued to lead and prepare Marines for intelligence and combat operations. During that time, Saul also continued foreign military training by deploying to Latin America and Africa.
Founder and CEO, Lexpat Global Services
Adam Pearlman is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Lexpat Global Services. He is a National Security Law expert and a proven senior leader with experience across the U.S. Departments of Justice, Defense, and State, in the White House, and with the U.S. Federal Judiciary.
Before founding Lexpat, Mr. Pearlman served as the Senior Advisor for Legal Policy in the State Department’s Bureau of Counterterrorism. There, he counseled senior officials on matters covering the entire spectrum of programs and operations to counter terrorism and violent extremism. While participating in sensitive diplomatic engagements and helping to coordinate military operations, he also advised in the development of sanctions policy and initiatives to build legal and operational capacity in partner nations. Mr. Pearlman also managed the Bureau’s participation in federal litigation and led U.S. delegations in multilateral forums concerning criminal justice and rule of law. Separately, Mr. Pearlman supported the State Department’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) as the contracted Senior Justice and Rule of Law Advisor in Cabo Verde, Africa. There he was the chief implementer of a Foreign Assistance program that grew eight-fold during his tenure, building host nation capacity across the law enforcement, justice sector, rule of law, anti-money laundering, and corrections disciplines.
A former Associate Deputy General Counsel of the Department of Defense, Mr. Pearlman was agency counsel for complex civil and criminal national security matters in federal and military courts. He also led the Supreme Court and appellate unit of the team dedicated to litigating classified counterterrorism cases. His earlier service in the Department of Justice spanned four litigating divisions and the Office of the Deputy Attorney General. His diverse experience included reviewing complex international transactions and mergers, and advising on immigration removal proceedings, human rights abuses, and terrorist financing investigations. Mr. Pearlman also served with distinction in Iraq as an early advisor to the Iraqi High Tribunal’s prosecution of Saddam Hussein. He was a law clerk for The Honorable Royce C. Lamberth of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, and during law school interned in the White House Counsel’s Office.
Mr. Pearlman is a Senior Fellow at the National Security Institute at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School, a member of the American Bar Association’s Advisory Committee on Law and National Security, and the Editor-in-Chief of the U.S. Intelligence Community Law Sourcebook. Previously, he has been a Term Member of the Council on Foreign Relations, National Security Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, member of the ABA’s Africa Law Initiative Council and of the Center for Strategic & International Studies’ (CSIS) Project on Nuclear Issues, vice chairman of the ABA Section of International Law’s committees on national security, and aerospace and defense, and a liaison to the Board of Directors of the ABA’s Rule of Law Initiative. He has published articles in the Harvard National Security Journal, Stanford Law & Policy Review, Intelligence & National Security, The Foreign Service Journal, Lawfare, and many other outlets.
Mr. Pearlman earned his B.A., with honors, from UCLA, and his J.D., with honors, from The George Washington University Law School, where he was a member of the International Law Review. He also earned a Master of Science of Strategic Intelligence degree from the National Intelligence University, where he was the inaugural recipient of the Kornblum Award for national security law and ethics. Mr. Pearlman is a Certified Financial Crime Specialist and holds certificates in international human rights law from the University of Oxford and in anti-corruption law from American University’s Washington College of Law. He is admitted to the State Bars of California and Virginia, as well as to the Bar of the United States Supreme Court. He speaks and reads Portuguese at the intermediate level.
Dean and Jesse H. Choper Distinguished Professor of Law, UC Berkeley School of Law
Erwin Chemerinsky became the 13th Dean of Berkeley Law on July 1, 2017, when he joined the faculty as the Jesse H. Choper Distinguished Professor of Law.
Prior to assuming this position, from 2008-2017, he was the founding Dean and Distinguished Professor of Law, and Raymond Pryke Professor of First Amendment Law, at University of California, Irvine School of Law, with a joint appointment in Political Science. Before that he was the Alston and Bird Professor of Law and Political Science at Duke University from 2004-2008, and from 1983-2004 was a professor at the University of Southern California Law School, including as the Sydney M. Irmas Professor of Public Interest Law, Legal Ethics, and Political Science. He also has taught at DePaul College of Law and UCLA Law School.
He is the author of eleven books, including leading casebooks and treatises about constitutional law, criminal procedure, and federal jurisdiction. His most recent books are, We the People: A Progressive Reading of the Constitution for the Twenty-First Century (Picador Macmillan) published in November 2018, and two books published by Yale University Press in 2017, Closing the Courthouse Doors: How Your Constitutional Rights Became Unenforceable and Free Speech on Campus (with Howard Gillman).
He also is the author of more than 200 law review articles. He writes a regular column for the Sacramento Bee, monthly columns for the ABA Journal and the Daily Journal, and frequent op-eds in newspapers across the country. He frequently argues appellate cases, including in the United States Supreme Court.
In 2016, he was named a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2017, National Jurist magazine again named Dean Chemerinsky as the most influential person in legal education in the United States.
Senior Fellow, National Security Institute, Antonin Scalia School of Law, George Mason University; Retired Professor, Distinguished Fellow and Co-Founder, Center for National Security Law, University of Virginia School of Law (1987-2020)
Robert F. Turner holds both professional and academic doctorates from the University of Virginia School of Law. He co-founded the Center for National Security Law with Professor John Norton Moore in April 1981 and served as its associate director for 39 years, except for two periods of government service in the 1980s and during 1994-95, when he occupied the Charles H. Stockton Chair of International Law at the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. He retired from UVA in January 2020 and currently serves as a non-resident senior fellow at the GMU National Security Institute. He also served briefly in 2020 as President of the Crime Prevention Research Center—one of the most respected pro-Second Amendment groups in the country—while its founder, Dr. John Lott, was on leave of absence.
A former Army captain and veteran of two tours in Vietnam, Turner served as a research associate and public affairs fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace before spending five years in the mid-1970s as national security adviser to U.S. Senator Robert P. Griffin, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (where Turner anticipated by seven years the Supreme Court’s landmark INS v. Chadha decision, striking down legislative vetoes). He also served in the executive branch during the Reagan administration as a member of the Senior Executive Service, first in the Pentagon as special assistant to the undersecretary of defense for policy, then in the White House as counsel to the President's Intelligence Oversight Board, and at the State Department as principal deputy and then acting assistant secretary for legislative affairs. In 1986, he became the first president of the congressionally established United States Institute of Peace.
A former three-term chairman of the ABA Standing Committee on Law and National Security (and for many years editor of the ABA National Security Law Report), Turner also chaired the Executive-Congressional Relations Subcommittee of the ABA Section on International Law and Practice and chaired or co-chaired the National Security Law Subcommittee of the Federalist Society’s International and National Security Law Practice Group for several years.
Turner taught undergraduate courses at Virginia on international law, U.S. foreign policy, the Vietnam War and foreign policy and the law in what is now the Woodrow Wilson Department of Politics. In addition, he co-taught National Security Law and advanced national security law seminars on the Indochina War and on war and peace with Moore at the Law School.
The author or editor of 18 books and monographs (including co-editor of the Center's 1,600-page National Security Law & Policy casebook, National Security Law Documents, and Legal Issues in the Struggle Against Terror) and numerous articles in law reviews and other professional journals, Turner has also contributed articles to most of the major U.S. newspapers, including The New York Times and USA Today. In an op-ed published in The International Herald Tribune in September 1990, he and Moore were the first to call for a war-crimes trial for Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and for international controls over Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, and the following month he wrote the lead story in The Washington Post Sunday Outlook Section, “Killing Saddam: Would It Be a Crime?,” arguing that Hussein would be a lawful target during Operation Desert Storm. (His reasoning contributed to the modern legal justification for drone strikes targeting specific terrorist leaders.) Three years before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Turner published an op-ed in USA Today entitled: “In Self-defense, U.S. Has Right to Kill bin Laden.”
In July 2007, he co-authored an article in The Washington Post with former U.S. Marine Corps Commandant General P.X. Kelley, “War Crimes and the White House,” criticizing the use of unlawful “enhanced interrogation techniques” by the Central Intelligence Agency. On the 40th anniversary of the fall of Saigon he authored an article in The Wall Street Journal, “Saigon’s Fall Still Echoes Today,” noting that after the war ended, Hanoi admitted it had made a decision in 1959 to open the Ho Chi Minh Trail and start sending troops, weapons and supplies into South Vietnam to overthrow its government — just as the United States had charged. In 2010 Turner received the first “person of the year” award from SACEI, a major Vietnamese-American human rights organization.
A frequent lecturer and debater, Turner has spoken at more than 100 law schools around the nation and in other fora — taking on as many as four opponents at a time. His debate opponents have included former or future deans of Yale, Stanford, the University of Chicago and Berkeley law schools. Following a 1987 debate against Dean Harlan Cleveland (Rhodes Scholar, U.S. Ambassador to NATO, and Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient) in which Turner defended the legality of U.S. support for the Nicaraguan contras during the Reagan Administration, the host student debating societies awarded Turner the victory by an 85-to-15 percent margin.
Turner has also written and lectured widely on University of Virginia founder and America’s third president Thomas Jefferson. In 2000-2001 he chaired the Jefferson-Hemings Scholars Commission. In his 2012 book Master of the Mountain, Jefferson critic Henry Wiencek described Turner as “Jefferson’s chief scholarly defender."
A former distinguished lecturer at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, Turner is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Academy of Political Science, the Committee on the Present Danger, The Heterodox Academy, and other professional organizations. He maintained a 4.0 gpa as a graduate student at Stanford in History and Political Science and in the UVA Department of Government and Foreign Affairs and was the first person admitted directly to the UVA academic law doctorate (SJD) program without first being required to earn an LL.M. master’s degree. He was selected for inclusion in Who’s Who in American Law less than two years after graduating from law school and Who’s Who in the World before he reached the age of 40. Turner has testified before more than a dozen different congressional committees on issues of international or constitutional law and other topics.
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