State District Judge, Austin, Texas
Cory Liu is a state district judge in Austin, Texas. He previously served as assistant general counsel to Texas Governor Greg Abbott. Mr. Liu clerked for Judge Andrew Oldham on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and Judge Danny Boggs on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. He was Editor-in-Chief of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy and is a graduate of Harvard Law School and the University of Chicago.
Vice President for Legal Affairs, Goldwater Institute
Fred Gray Endowed Chair for Civil Rights and Constitutional Law, Texas Tech University School of Law
Professor Kenneth Williams is a graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law and currently the Fred Gray Endowed Chair for Civil Rights and Constitutional Law at Texas Tech University School of Law where he teaches Race, Racism and the Law, Civil Rights, Constitutional Law and Capital Punishment, Professor Williams is also a national expert on Capital Punishment. He is the author of a book on the death penalty, “Most Deserving of Death?” Professor Williams is also a co-author of a Criminal Law textbook published by the Carolina Academic Press, Criminal Law: Concepts, Crimes and Defenses. He has also authored numerous law review articles on issues related to Criminal Law Constitutional Law and the Death Penalty. Professor Williams was selected as a Fulbright Specialist and during the summer of 2013 where he taught a course on the American Legal System at the Federal University of Bahia in Brazil. Professor Williams has continued his relationship with this institution as a visiting professor. Professor Williams has also taught in summer abroad programs in Argentina, Chile and Canada. In addition to his teaching responsibilities, Professor Williams has represented several death row inmates during their federal habeas corpus proceedings. In 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court granted a writ of certiorari that Professor Williams prepared on behalf of his death sentenced client. He has also been successful before both the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas in obtaining relief for inmates who were sentenced to death in violation of their constitutional rights. Professor Williams has also made numerous media appearances discussing issues related to criminal law and capital punishment. He has been quoted in the New York Times, Washington Post, Houston Chronicle, Charlotte Observer, NBC news, USA Today, Beaumont Enterprise, Daily Beast, Virginia Pilot, Texas Tribune and Associated Press. Professor Williams has also been interviewed on News nation, Al Jazeera, and local ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox affiliates. He has also been interviewed on numerous radio programs including National Public Radio.
State District Judge, Austin, Texas
Cory Liu is a state district judge in Austin, Texas. He previously served as assistant general counsel to Texas Governor Greg Abbott. Mr. Liu clerked for Judge Andrew Oldham on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and Judge Danny Boggs on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. He was Editor-in-Chief of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy and is a graduate of Harvard Law School and the University of Chicago.
Vice President for Legal Affairs, Goldwater Institute
Fred Gray Endowed Chair for Civil Rights and Constitutional Law, Texas Tech University School of Law
Professor Kenneth Williams is a graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law and currently the Fred Gray Endowed Chair for Civil Rights and Constitutional Law at Texas Tech University School of Law where he teaches Race, Racism and the Law, Civil Rights, Constitutional Law and Capital Punishment, Professor Williams is also a national expert on Capital Punishment. He is the author of a book on the death penalty, “Most Deserving of Death?” Professor Williams is also a co-author of a Criminal Law textbook published by the Carolina Academic Press, Criminal Law: Concepts, Crimes and Defenses. He has also authored numerous law review articles on issues related to Criminal Law Constitutional Law and the Death Penalty. Professor Williams was selected as a Fulbright Specialist and during the summer of 2013 where he taught a course on the American Legal System at the Federal University of Bahia in Brazil. Professor Williams has continued his relationship with this institution as a visiting professor. Professor Williams has also taught in summer abroad programs in Argentina, Chile and Canada. In addition to his teaching responsibilities, Professor Williams has represented several death row inmates during their federal habeas corpus proceedings. In 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court granted a writ of certiorari that Professor Williams prepared on behalf of his death sentenced client. He has also been successful before both the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas in obtaining relief for inmates who were sentenced to death in violation of their constitutional rights. Professor Williams has also made numerous media appearances discussing issues related to criminal law and capital punishment. He has been quoted in the New York Times, Washington Post, Houston Chronicle, Charlotte Observer, NBC news, USA Today, Beaumont Enterprise, Daily Beast, Virginia Pilot, Texas Tribune and Associated Press. Professor Williams has also been interviewed on News nation, Al Jazeera, and local ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox affiliates. He has also been interviewed on numerous radio programs including National Public Radio.
General Counsel, U.S. Department of the Air Force
William K. Lane III is the General Counsel of the Department of the Air Force. As the Chief Legal Officer and Ethics Official for the Air Force and Space Force, Mr. Lane provides oversight and guidance to 680,000 active duty, Guard, Reserve and civilian Airmen and Guardians. Mr. Lane additionally serves ex officio as Administrator of Wake Island.
Prior to his current position, Mr. Lane was a Partner with Wiley Rein, LLP, a Washington, D.C. based law firm. In his practice, Mr. Lane advocated on behalf of corporate and individual clients in a broad spectrum of appellate, constitutional, regulatory and complex commercial litigation.
During President Trump’s first administration, Mr. Lane served in the U.S. Department of Justice as Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division, representing agencies in federal court throughout the United States.
Prior to attending law school, Mr. Lane received a U.S. Army commission in 2008 and served on active duty until 2012 as a Cavalry Officer, before transitioning to the Maryland Army National Guard and ultimately the U.S. Army Reserve. During his time on active duty, Mr. Lane completed a combat deployment to Iraq in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Founding Partner, The Sander Group, PLLC; Former General Counsel, U.S. Department of the Navy
Bob is the Founding Partner of The Sander Group, PLLC, which is a National Security and Government Contracts Boutique Law Firm located in Alexandria, VA. Bob previously served as the 23rd General Counsel of the Department of the Navy after his unanimous confirmation by the U.S. Senate on December 19, 2019. As General Counsel, Bob served as the Department of the Navy’s (DON) Chief Legal Officer and head of the Office of the General Counsel (OGC) where he led a team of over 1,100 civilian and uniformed attorneys and professional support staff in 140 offices worldwide. During this time, Bob provided legal advice to the Secretary of the Navy, the Under Secretary of the Navy, the Assistant Secretaries of the Navy and their staffs, and the multiple components of the Department, including the Navy and the Marine Corps.
Previously, in July 2018, Bob became the Principal Deputy General Counsel of the Department of the Army. He then became the Chief Legal Officer for the Army serving as The Senior Official Performing the Duties of the General Counsel of the Army in June 2019. During his time with the Army Office of General Counsel, Bob’s duties included providing legal and policy advice to the Secretary of the Army, the Army Secretariat, and other Senior Army leaders.
Prior to becoming Principal Deputy General Counsel of the Army, Bob performed a detail to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence Office of General Counsel. From 2010 to 2019, Bob worked as a Federal Prosecutor in the U.S. Department of Justice, National Security Division, Counterterrorism Section. Previously, Bob served as the Chief of the Economic Crimes Unit and the Captain of the Narcotics Enforcement Team in the Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, District Attorney’s Office. Bob also served as a Special Assistant United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. As a state and federal prosecutor, Bob has handled thousands of cases, which includes trying dozens of jury trials to verdict.
In his military capacity, Bob is a Colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve Judge Advocate General’s Corps, where he serves as the Senior Legal Advisor/Staff Judge Advocate (IMA) for the Network Enterprise Technology Command and the U.S. Army Intelligence Center of Excellence at Fort Huachuca, AZ. Bob previously served as the Chief of the Procurement Fraud/Business Integrity Section for the Defense Logistics Agency at Fort Belvoir, VA and has performed duties as an Adjunct Professor at the National Intelligence University in Bethesda, Maryland. Bob previously deployed to Djibouti, Africa for 13 months as the Acting/Deputy Staff Judge Advocate for the Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa, and was deployed for six months in support of Operations Enduring and Iraqi Freedom, where he served as Trial Counsel for V Corps in Darmstadt, Germany.
Bob received his Juris Doctor Degree from the Widener University School of Law, where he was a member of Law Review for the Delaware Journal of Corporate Law and a member of the Student Bar Association. Bob also has a Master of Science of Strategic Intelligence Degree from the National Intelligence University and a Bachelor of Business Administration Degree in Finance from Temple University. Bob holds an active Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information (TS-SCI) Security Clearance.
General Counsel, U.S. Department of the Air Force
William K. Lane III is the General Counsel of the Department of the Air Force. As the Chief Legal Officer and Ethics Official for the Air Force and Space Force, Mr. Lane provides oversight and guidance to 680,000 active duty, Guard, Reserve and civilian Airmen and Guardians. Mr. Lane additionally serves ex officio as Administrator of Wake Island.
Prior to his current position, Mr. Lane was a Partner with Wiley Rein, LLP, a Washington, D.C. based law firm. In his practice, Mr. Lane advocated on behalf of corporate and individual clients in a broad spectrum of appellate, constitutional, regulatory and complex commercial litigation.
During President Trump’s first administration, Mr. Lane served in the U.S. Department of Justice as Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division, representing agencies in federal court throughout the United States.
Prior to attending law school, Mr. Lane received a U.S. Army commission in 2008 and served on active duty until 2012 as a Cavalry Officer, before transitioning to the Maryland Army National Guard and ultimately the U.S. Army Reserve. During his time on active duty, Mr. Lane completed a combat deployment to Iraq in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Founding Partner, The Sander Group, PLLC; Former General Counsel, U.S. Department of the Navy
Bob is the Founding Partner of The Sander Group, PLLC, which is a National Security and Government Contracts Boutique Law Firm located in Alexandria, VA. Bob previously served as the 23rd General Counsel of the Department of the Navy after his unanimous confirmation by the U.S. Senate on December 19, 2019. As General Counsel, Bob served as the Department of the Navy’s (DON) Chief Legal Officer and head of the Office of the General Counsel (OGC) where he led a team of over 1,100 civilian and uniformed attorneys and professional support staff in 140 offices worldwide. During this time, Bob provided legal advice to the Secretary of the Navy, the Under Secretary of the Navy, the Assistant Secretaries of the Navy and their staffs, and the multiple components of the Department, including the Navy and the Marine Corps.
Previously, in July 2018, Bob became the Principal Deputy General Counsel of the Department of the Army. He then became the Chief Legal Officer for the Army serving as The Senior Official Performing the Duties of the General Counsel of the Army in June 2019. During his time with the Army Office of General Counsel, Bob’s duties included providing legal and policy advice to the Secretary of the Army, the Army Secretariat, and other Senior Army leaders.
Prior to becoming Principal Deputy General Counsel of the Army, Bob performed a detail to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence Office of General Counsel. From 2010 to 2019, Bob worked as a Federal Prosecutor in the U.S. Department of Justice, National Security Division, Counterterrorism Section. Previously, Bob served as the Chief of the Economic Crimes Unit and the Captain of the Narcotics Enforcement Team in the Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, District Attorney’s Office. Bob also served as a Special Assistant United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. As a state and federal prosecutor, Bob has handled thousands of cases, which includes trying dozens of jury trials to verdict.
In his military capacity, Bob is a Colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve Judge Advocate General’s Corps, where he serves as the Senior Legal Advisor/Staff Judge Advocate (IMA) for the Network Enterprise Technology Command and the U.S. Army Intelligence Center of Excellence at Fort Huachuca, AZ. Bob previously served as the Chief of the Procurement Fraud/Business Integrity Section for the Defense Logistics Agency at Fort Belvoir, VA and has performed duties as an Adjunct Professor at the National Intelligence University in Bethesda, Maryland. Bob previously deployed to Djibouti, Africa for 13 months as the Acting/Deputy Staff Judge Advocate for the Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa, and was deployed for six months in support of Operations Enduring and Iraqi Freedom, where he served as Trial Counsel for V Corps in Darmstadt, Germany.
Bob received his Juris Doctor Degree from the Widener University School of Law, where he was a member of Law Review for the Delaware Journal of Corporate Law and a member of the Student Bar Association. Bob also has a Master of Science of Strategic Intelligence Degree from the National Intelligence University and a Bachelor of Business Administration Degree in Finance from Temple University. Bob holds an active Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information (TS-SCI) Security Clearance.
Senior Counsel, Director of Center for Academic Freedom, Alliance Defending Freedom
Tyson Langhofer serves as senior counsel and director of the Center for Academic Freedom with Alliance Defending Freedom.
Langhofer represents students and faculty at public high schools and colleges in defending their First Amendment rights. For example, in Denton v. Hecht, he successfully defended a Florida State University student after he was removed as Student Senate President simply for sharing his Catholic views in a private group chat. In Cross v. Loudoun County Public Schools, he successfully defended an elementary school gym teacher after the school suspended him for peacefully sharing his views on a proposed policy at a public school board meeting.
Langhofer has extensive experience in civil litigation and constitutional law. Before joining ADF, Langhofer was a partner with Stinson LLP, where he worked as a commercial litigation attorney from 2000 until he joined ADF in 2015.
Langhofer is Peer Review Rated AV® Preeminent in Martindale-Hubbell. He is a sought-after speaker on legal and cultural issues. He regularly comments on free speech issues in television, radio, and print media. He has appeared as a guest and written pieces for numerous major media outlets, including The Washington Post, The Washington Times, USA Today, Townhall, The Federalist, and The Daily Wire.
Langhofer earned his Juris Doctor from Regent University School of Law in 1999, graduating cum laude. Langhofer is admitted to practice in multiple states, the Supreme Court, and numerous federal district and appellate courts.
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.
Senior Counsel, Director of Center for Academic Freedom, Alliance Defending Freedom
Tyson Langhofer serves as senior counsel and director of the Center for Academic Freedom with Alliance Defending Freedom.
Langhofer represents students and faculty at public high schools and colleges in defending their First Amendment rights. For example, in Denton v. Hecht, he successfully defended a Florida State University student after he was removed as Student Senate President simply for sharing his Catholic views in a private group chat. In Cross v. Loudoun County Public Schools, he successfully defended an elementary school gym teacher after the school suspended him for peacefully sharing his views on a proposed policy at a public school board meeting.
Langhofer has extensive experience in civil litigation and constitutional law. Before joining ADF, Langhofer was a partner with Stinson LLP, where he worked as a commercial litigation attorney from 2000 until he joined ADF in 2015.
Langhofer is Peer Review Rated AV® Preeminent in Martindale-Hubbell. He is a sought-after speaker on legal and cultural issues. He regularly comments on free speech issues in television, radio, and print media. He has appeared as a guest and written pieces for numerous major media outlets, including The Washington Post, The Washington Times, USA Today, Townhall, The Federalist, and The Daily Wire.
Langhofer earned his Juris Doctor from Regent University School of Law in 1999, graduating cum laude. Langhofer is admitted to practice in multiple states, the Supreme Court, and numerous federal district and appellate courts.
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.
Associate Professor of Law, Notre Dame Law School
Haley Proctor joined Notre Dame Law School in 2024 as an Associate Professor of Law. She teaches and writes on procedure, evidence, constitutional law, and federal courts. Her scholarship explores the connections between judicial and administrative procedures and the powers legislators, administrators, and courts exercise. Before coming to ND Law, she was a faculty fellow at the University of Missouri School of Law and the Kinder Institute for Constitutional Democracy and practiced law at the law firm of Cooper & Kirk PLLC. She also served as a clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas of the U.S. Supreme Court and Judge Thomas Griffith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Proctor earned her B.A., magna cum laude, in political science and international studies from Yale College, and her J.D. from Yale Law School.
Senior Legal Fellow, Advancing American Freedom
Amy Swearer is a leading national expert on a wide range of public policy, legal, and constitutional issues, including the Second Amendment, criminal justice, and mental health policy. She has long been a respected conservative voice on gun policy and is routinely asked to testify before state and federal legislative bodies. Her work on birthright citizenship, meanwhile, has been featured extensively in litigation over the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause.
Swearer was formerly a Senior Legal Fellow in the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal & Judicial Studies at the Heritage Foundation. At Heritage, she ran the Defensive Gun Use Database and was the primary author of the e-book “The Essential Second Amendment.” She was also a driving force behind the organization’s School Safety Initiative.
She was the 2022 recipient of the Heritage Foundation’s Joseph Shattan Award for “writing that presents conservative ideas in a powerful and compelling fashion to policymakers and the American people.” She was also named the Second Amendment Institute’s 2022 Gun Rights Champion.
Swearer received her law degree from the University of Nebraska College of Law and was a member of the Nebraska Law Review. She holds a B.S. in Criminology & Criminal Justice from the University of Nebraska, where she was a Chancellor’s Scholar and a goalkeeper on the women’s soccer team
General Counsel, American Suppressor Association
Michael first joined ASA in 2014, and served as ASA’s General Counsel from 2015 to 2016, before leaving to join the Administration in 2017.
Michael began his federal service at the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), where he served two years as an attorney in the Office of General Counsel and focused on federal budget and regulatory matters. He then transitioned to the West Wing in March of 2019, where he served as Deputy Assistant to the President and Counselor to White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney. During his time in the West Wing, Michael advised the Chief of Staff and the President on numerous matters, and served as the top White House policy advisor on Second Amendment issues. Michael left the West Wing in July of 2020 to serve as Acting General Counsel at the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), where he managed a budget of over $100 million and supervised a staff of nearly 300 attorneys and 250 other professionals.
General Counsel, NRB
Dr. Michael P. Farris is a litigator, educator, public advocate, and communicator, and is widely recognized for his successful work on both the national and international stage.
He is the founding president of both the Home School Legal Defense Association (1983) and Patrick Henry College (2000) and continues to serve as Chairman of the Board of HSLDA and Chancellor Emeritus of PHC. Dr. Farris served as the President and CEO of Alliance Defending Freedom and continues to serve in a part-time capacity as Counselor to the President. He currently serves as General Counsel for National Religious Broadcasters.
Fiorello LaGuardia Professor of Clinical Law Emeritus, New York University School of Law
Prof. Martin Guggenheim ’71 has taught at NYU School of Law, where he now co-directs the Family Defense Clinic, since 1973. From 1998 to 2002, he was director of Clinical and Advocacy Programs. Guggenheim has been an active litigator in the area of children and the law and has argued leading cases on juvenile delinquency and termination of parental rights in the US Supreme Court. He is also a well-known scholar, having published more than 50 articles and book chapters, plus six books, including What’s Wrong with Children’s Rights (2005). His research has focused on adolescent abortion, First Amendment rights in schools, the role of counsel for children in court proceedings, and empirical research on child welfare practice, juvenile justice, and family law.
Professor of the Practice, Philosophy, McGrath Institute for Church Life, University of Notre Dame
Melissa Moschella is Professor of the Practice in Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame’s McGrath Institute for Church Life. Her work spans the fields of ethics, political philosophy, and law, and her areas of special expertise include natural law theory, biomedical ethics, and the family (especially parental rights). She is the author of To Whom Do Children Belong? Parental Rights, Civic Education and Children’s Autonomy (Cambridge University Press, 2016), and Ethics, Politics, and Natural Law: Principles for Human Flourishing (University of Notre Dame Press, forthcoming Spring 2025). Professor Moschella has also published numerous articles in scholarly journals as well as popular media outlets, including Notre Dame Law Review, The American Journal of Jurisprudence, The Journal of Law and Religion, Bioethics, The Journal of Medical Ethics, The New York Times, USA Today, The Washington Post, The Federalist, and First Things. She was recently awarded the Heritage Foundation’s Freedom and Opportunity Prize. She graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College, earned a Licentiate in Philosophy summa cum laude from the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, and received her Ph.D. in Political Philosophy from Princeton University.
Director, Center for Judicial Engagement, Institute for Justice
Anthony Sanders is the Director of the Center for Judicial Engagement (CJE) at the Institute for Justice and a senior attorney. He joined IJ in 2010. As CJE’s director, he educates the public about the proper role of judges in enforcing constitutional limits on the size and scope of government. As a senior attorney he litigates cutting-edge constitutional cases protecting economic liberty, private property, freedom of speech and other individual liberties in both federal and state courts across the country.
One area of Anthony’s expertise is on using state constitutions to protect individual rights. He is the author of the book, published by University of Michigan Press, Baby Ninth Amendments: How Americans Embraced Unenumerated Rights and Why It Matters. He has also written several law review articles on state constitutional law, unenumerated rights, judicial review, economic liberty, property rights, international law, and other subjects. His work has appeared in publications such as the Iowa Law Review, Minnesota Law Review, American University Law Review, and Rutgers Law Review, and he has published opinion pieces in leading media outlets across the country. Further, he frequently speaks to various audiences on these matters and others, including judicial engagement, free speech, civil forfeiture, and the continuing importance of Magna Carta. Additionally, he hosts the weekly Short Circuit podcast, which often records live in front of law student audiences.
Anthony has litigated several cases in various state courts on state constitutional protections, as well as in federal courts on matters such as economic liberty, free speech, administrative law, and fines and fees abuse. Prior to joining IJ, Anthony served as a law clerk to Justice W. William Leaphart on the Montana Supreme Court. Anthony also worked for several years in private practice in Chicago where he was an active member of the Chicago Bar Association and chaired its Civil Rights Committee.
Anthony received his law degree cum laude from the University of Minnesota Law School in 2004, where he served as an articles submission editor for the Minnesota Law Review. He received his undergraduate degree from Hamline University in St. Paul, Minnesota, and his master’s degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. A dual U.S. and U.K. citizen, Anthony grew up on the islands of Vashon in Washington State, and Alderney in the British Channel Islands.
Partner, Schaerr Jaffe LLP
Gene Schaerr specializes in handling—and usually winning—civil appeals, writ proceedings and similar matters, both in appellate courts and in the law-focused proceedings at the trial-court or agency level that often determine success or failure on appeal. He has argued and won dozens of cases in a variety of forums—including the U.S. Supreme Court (where he has argued six cases), every federal circuit, and numerous federal district courts and state appellate courts. His win rate in the dozens of federal appeals he has argued in the past six years is over 75 percent.
He was a coordinator of Sidley Austin's appellate practice from 1993 until 2005, and from 2005 until 2014 was the chair of the nationwide appellate practice at Winston & Strawn—a practice he led to numerous recognitions in such publications as the Appellate Hot List. His personal practice successes have won him repeated recognition in such publications as Best Lawyers in Washington, D.C., Legal 500, D.C. Superlawyers, and Best Lawyers in America. In January 2014, Mr. Schaerr formed his own boutique litigation firm so that he could serve his clients without the conflicts and inefficiencies inherent in big-firm law practice.
Substantively, Mr. Schaerr's experience includes not only virtually every area of federal law, defamation, higher education law, immigration, insurance coverage, labor and employment, patent and trademark, privacy, product liability and warranty, statutory interpretation and tax.He has represented clients in virtually every sector, including automotive, communications, energy, financial services, health care, higher education, insurance, maritime, pharmaceuticals, technology and state and local government. He also teaches courses in Supreme Court litigation, religious freedom litigation and advanced litigation skills as an adjunct professor of law at the Brigham Young University law school.
Mr. Schaerr began law practice in 1987 following clerkships on the U.S. Supreme Court (for Chief Justice Warren Burger and Justice Antonin Scalia) and on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (for then- Judge Kenneth Starr). He graduated in 1985 from the Yale Law School, where he was Editor-in-Chief of the Yale Journal on Regulation and Senior Editor of the Yale Law Journal. From 1991 to 1993, he served in the White House as Associate Counsel to the President, where he had responsibility for a wide range of constitutional and administrative-law issues, including those involving economic regulation, higher education, separation of powers, federalism and religious freedom. He serves as Chairman of the Constitutional Sources Project, a digital resource providing free public access to historical materials relevant to the U.S. Constitution.
Senior Appellate Counsel, U.S. Navy
Stephanie Fisher recently completed six years as an active-duty Navy Judge Advocate and now serves in the Reserves. She will begin as a Trial Attorney in the Department of Justice’s National Security Division, Counterintelligence and Export Control Section, this summer (2026).
As a Judge Advocate, Stephanie served in numerous roles, including Senior Appellate Government Counsel, Legal Advisor to the Convening Authority for Military Commissions, Adjunct Professor of Law at the United States Naval Academy, and Trial Defense Counsel. She also completed temporary duty assignments with Naval Special Warfare Group 4, Submarine Squadron 6, and Commander, Navy Region Mid-Atlantic.
In her most recent role as Senior Appellate Government Counsel, she briefed and argued cases before the Navy-Marine Corps Court of Criminal Appeals and the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, where the courts affirmed more than 95% of the convictions she defended.
Before joining the JAG Corps, Stephanie clerked on the Arizona Supreme Court for the Honorable Justice William Montgomery. She earned her J.D. from Arizona State University’s Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law, where she served as a two-time Vice President of the Federalist Society student chapter. She earned her dual bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan, where she was a four-year member of the varsity cheerleading team.
Stephanie currently serves on the DC Young Lawyer Chapter Board and the Armed Services Legal Network Executive Committee. In her free time, she enjoys skydiving, weightlifting, hiking, and traveling.
Deputy General Counsel, Office of the General Counsel, National Guard Bureau
Colonel Michael Mark Majors serves as Deputy General Counsel for the Office of the General Counsel, National Guard Bureau, with more than 27 years of military legal experience advising senior military leaders and government officials on military justice, administrative law, operational law, national security, and strategic policy. Throughout his career, he has served as a trusted legal advisor on complex issues spanning governance, risk management, compliance, homeland defense, and military operations.
As Deputy General Counsel, Colonel Majors advises senior National Guard leadership on legal and policy matters affecting more than 430,000 Soldiers and Airmen serving across the 54 states, territories, and the District of Columbia. In his primary role as Chief of the Strategic Engagement Division, he directs nationwide military legal professional development, accessions, and strategic engagement for more than 1,100 National Guard Judge Advocates and Legal Advisors. He develops and teaches National Guard legal education programs, authoring policy and regulatory guidance, and works closely with the Judge Advocate General's Corps, State Judge Advocates, and military legal organizations to strengthen legal readiness throughout the National Guard.
Colonel Majors has deployed in support of multinational operations in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Iraq, Bahrain, and Kosovo. His operational assignments include serving as Chief Deputy Legal Advisor for the NATO-led Kosovo Force (KFOR), advising senior commanders on the law of armed conflict, rules of engagement, international agreements, fiscal law, claims, and operational legal issues during a period of heightened regional instability following Russia's expanded invasion of Ukraine.
Colonel Majors is currently pursuing a Master of Laws (LL.M.) in Air and Space Law at the University of Mississippi School of Law, with a concentration in national security, space operations, commercial remote sensing, and international space law. He holds Master of Arts degrees in Defense and Strategic Studies from both the U.S. Army War College and the U.S. Naval War College, a Juris Doctor from Mississippi College School of Law, and a Bachelor of Science in Public Administration from Samford University.
He is admitted to practice law in the District of Columbia, Mississippi, and Alabama, as well as before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces and multiple federal courts. Colonel Majors serves on the Board of Directors of the Judge Advocate Association, is a Fellow of the Mississippi Bar, and is a frequent lecturer on military law, national security law, operational law, leadership, and emerging issues in air and space law. His military decorations include the Legion of Merit, the Defense Meritorious Service Medal (two awards), the Meritorious Service Medal (four awards), and the Combat Action Badge.
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.
Senior Counsel, Director of Center for Academic Freedom, Alliance Defending Freedom
Tyson Langhofer serves as senior counsel and director of the Center for Academic Freedom with Alliance Defending Freedom.
Langhofer represents students and faculty at public high schools and colleges in defending their First Amendment rights. For example, in Denton v. Hecht, he successfully defended a Florida State University student after he was removed as Student Senate President simply for sharing his Catholic views in a private group chat. In Cross v. Loudoun County Public Schools, he successfully defended an elementary school gym teacher after the school suspended him for peacefully sharing his views on a proposed policy at a public school board meeting.
Langhofer has extensive experience in civil litigation and constitutional law. Before joining ADF, Langhofer was a partner with Stinson LLP, where he worked as a commercial litigation attorney from 2000 until he joined ADF in 2015.
Langhofer is Peer Review Rated AV® Preeminent in Martindale-Hubbell. He is a sought-after speaker on legal and cultural issues. He regularly comments on free speech issues in television, radio, and print media. He has appeared as a guest and written pieces for numerous major media outlets, including The Washington Post, The Washington Times, USA Today, Townhall, The Federalist, and The Daily Wire.
Langhofer earned his Juris Doctor from Regent University School of Law in 1999, graduating cum laude. Langhofer is admitted to practice in multiple states, the Supreme Court, and numerous federal district and appellate courts.
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.
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