Senior Attorney, U.S. Commission on Civil Rights
Mr. Byrnes is a senior attorney at the United States Commission on Civil Rights and has served as an attorney to the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights in the Department of Education.
Senior Legal Fellow, Edwin Meese III Institute for the Rule of Law, Advancing American Freedom
Professor of Law and Jamie L. Whitten Chair in Law and Government, University of Mississippi School of Law
Christopher Green (https://law.olemiss.edu/faculty-directory/christopher-green/) is Professor of Law and Jamie L. Whitten Chair in Law and Government at the University of Mississippi, where he has taught since 2006. He is a graduate of Princeton University and Yale Law School, and has a PhD in philosophy from the University of Notre Dame. He clerked for Judge Rhesa H. Barksdale on the Fifth Circuit and is the author of Equal Citizenship, Civil Rights, and the Constitution: The Original Sense of the Privileges or Immunities Clause (2015) and a large number of articles and essays on constitutional theory and the Fourteenth Amendment, including the two-part Original Sense of the (Equal) Protection Clause and Clarity and Reasonable Doubt in Early State-Constitutional Judicial Review. He is an affiliated scholar with the University of San Diego Center for the Study of Constitutional Originalism.
Professor Emeritus of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
In 1994, Professor of Law Michael I. Krauss became the law school's first recipient of the university's "Teacher of the Year" award for his engaging and challenging approach in the classroom. Born in the United States but raised in Canada, Professor Krauss speaks legalese in two languages. He earned his B.A. cum laude from Carleton University, his LL.B. summa cum laude from the Université de Sherbrooke, and his LL.M. from Yale Law School, where he was a Commonwealth Scholar. He was Columbia University's Law and Economics Fellow in 1981. He has been teaching at George Mason since 1987 and also has taught at the law schools of Seattle University, the University of Toronto, and the Université de Sherbrooke.
Hired as a law clerk by Justice Louis-Philippe Pigeon of Canada's Supreme Court, Professor Krauss practiced law for Quebec City's largest law firm before entering academia. He also served for five years on Québec's Human Rights Commission. A Salvatori Fellow of the Heritage Foundation and an academic fellow of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, Professor Krauss sits on the advisory boards of several think tanks. He served as president of the Virginia Association of Scholars and on the Board of Governors of the Education Section of the Virginia State Bar, and is currently a member of the Board of Governors of the National Association of Scholars.
Professor Krauss teaches Torts, Legal Ethics and Jurisprudence, and has a strong interest in national security issues. His research on torts and ethics is nationally known. He co-authored the first edition of Legal Ethics in a Nutshell in May 2003. This book digests the Model Rules in an engaging and often critical fashion. The second edition was published in 2006. Professor Krauss is now under contract with West Publications to produce an innovative textbook on Products Liability in late 2008.
Professor Krauss received his B.A. cum laude from Carleton University, his LL.B. summa cum laude from the Université de Sherbrooke, and his LL.M. from Yale Law School.
Senior Counsel, Vice President of Allied Legal Affairs, Alliance Defending Freedom
Brett Harvey serves as senior counsel and vice president of Allied Legal Affairs with Alliance Defending Freedom.
Since joining ADF in 2000, Harvey has coordinated the efforts of the volunteer network of attorneys who collaborate with ADF. In 2002, his role expanded to direct the grant program. To date, Harvey and his team have awarded approximately $54 million in grant funds to thousands of legal projects and cases, many of which have set national and multinational precedents.
Harvey leads the Allied Legal Affairs team, which is dedicated to creating opportunities for attorneys aligned with the ADF mission to actively engage in the protection and promotion of religious liberty. Harvey and his team focus on recruitment, professional engagement, and integration of allies into ADF’s advocacy efforts, including coordinating amicus efforts at state supreme courts, circuit courts, and the U.S. Supreme Court.
Harvey has also litigated in a variety of state and federal courts, focusing on the protection of life and religious freedom. Most notably, he successfully spearheaded a national litigation strategy culminating in Town of Greece v. Galloway, in which the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the freedom of Americans to pray at public meetings.
Harvey earned his J.D. in 1995 from the Walter F. George School of Law at Mercer University in Georgia. He is admitted to the bar in the states of Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, and Virginia. He has also been admitted to practice before the U.S. District Court in Colorado, the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the 4th, 6th, 9th, 10th, and 11th Circuits, and the U.S. Supreme Court.
Senior Counsel, Alliance Defending Freedom
Joel L. Oster serves as senior legal counsel with Alliance Defending Freedom at its Kansas City Regional Service Center in Kansas, where he plays a significant role in litigation efforts defending church autonomy. Before joining Alliance Defending Freedom in 2004, he earned his J.D. from the University of Kansas School of Law. Oster is admitted to the bar in Kansas, Missouri, Florida, and numerous federal courts, and has practiced law since 1997.
Clinical Professor of Law, Dale E. Fowler School of Law, Chapman University
Board Member, Center for Equal Opportunity
Roger Clegg is a Board Member at and former President and General Counsel of the Center for Equal Opportunity. He focuses on legal issues arising from civil rights laws--including the regulatory impact on business and the problems in higher education created by affirmative action. A former Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Reagan and Bush administrations, Clegg held the second highest positions in both the Civil Rights Division (1987-91) and in the Environment and Natural Resources Division (1991-93). He has held several other positions at the U.S. Justice Department, including Assistant to the Solicitor General (1985-87), Associate Deputy Attorney General (1984-85), and Acting Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Policy (1984). Clegg is a graduate of Yale University Law School (1981).
Interim Dean, Florida International University College of Law
Dan Epstein was Vice President at America First Legal and an Associate Professor of Law at St. Thomas University in Miami, Florida. He also advises individuals and small businesses in affirmative and defensive actions against government overreach. Previously, he advised startups on regulatory matters as Director at a venture capital firm. His federal service includes being a Special Assistant to and Senior Associate Counsel to the President and a counsel for the House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Earlier in his career, Mr. Epstein founded and ran Cause of Action, where he represented clients in government investigations and litigated regulatory, constitutional, political, and public law matters.
He holds a Ph.D. from George Washington University in Political Economy, a J.D. from Emory University School of Law, and a B.A. from Kenyon College. He is active in the Palm Beach community as a member of the Fourth Court of Appeals Judicial Nominating Commission in Florida, a transition team member to Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, and the Chairman and Trustee of Palm Beach State College.
Principal, Law Office of Kip Evan Steinberg
Counsel to the Firm, Cascadia Cross-Border Law
Margaret Stock focuses her practice on immigration and citizenship law. She is a nationally known expert on immigration and national security laws, and has testified regularly before Congressional committees on immigration, homeland security, and military matters. As a retired Lieutenant Colonel in the Military Police, U.S. Army Reserve, Margaret has extensive experience with U.S. military issues. She has also worked as a professor at the United States Military Academy at West Point, and she has served as an adjunct instructor at the University of Alaska. Margaret served as a member of the American Bar Association Commission on Immigration from 2008-2012. She regularly authors articles on military-related immigration issues, and is well-versed on “parole in place” for military family members and the Military Accessions Vital to the National Interest (“MAVNI”) Program. Margaret authored the book Immigration Law & the Military, which was published by the American Immigration Lawyers Association in 2012.
Chief Counsel, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington
Anne Weismann serves as CREW’s Chief Counsel. Prior to joining CREW, Ms. Weismann served as Deputy Chief of the Enforcement Bureau at the Federal Communications Commission, where she had responsibility for all of the Bureau's telecommunications matters. Before that, she worked in the Civil Division of the Department of Justice, where she served as an Assistant Branch Director with supervisory responsibility over banking litigation, housing litigation, and from 1995 until 2002, all government information litigation. This included litigation under the Freedom of Information Act, the Privacy Act, the Federal Advisory Committee Act and statutes governing federal and presidential records. Prior to that she worked in the Solicitor's Office of the Department of Labor. Ms. Weismann received her B.A. magna cum laude from Brown University and her J.D. from George Washington University’s National Law Center.
Vice President for Litigation, Institute for Free Speech
Alan joined the Institute for Free Speech as Vice President for Litigation in February 2021. In this role, Alan directs the Institute’s litigation and legal advocacy, leads our in-house legal team, and manages and works to expand our network of volunteer attorneys.
Prior to joining the Institute, Alan litigated complex federal matters for twenty years, in his own practice and as a partner in various Washington-area firms. He argued and won landmark constitutional cases in the United States Supreme Court and has appeared before numerous appellate and district courts throughout the country. Alan often speaks at law schools and continuing legal education seminars. He also teaches strategic/public interest litigation as an adjunct professor at the Georgetown University Law Center.
Alan began his career clerking for the Hon. Terrence W. Boyle, United States District Judge for the Eastern District of North Carolina. He has also served as a Deputy Attorney General for the State of California, a litigation associate at the Washington office of Sidley Austin, and as counsel to the United States Senate Judiciary Committee.
Alan earned his J.D. at Georgetown (1995) and his B.A. at Cornell University (1992). He is an active member in good standing of the Virginia, District of Columbia, and California bars, the Bar of the United States Supreme Court, and various federal appellate and district court bars.
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