I. Herman Stern Professor of Law
David Post is currently the I. Herman Stern Professor of Law at the Beasley School of Law at Temple University, where he teaches intellectual property law and the law of cyberspace. Professor Post is also an Adjunct Scholar at the Cato Institute, a Fellow at the Institute for Information Law and Policy at New York Law School, and a contributor to the influential Volokh Conspiracy blog. [More detail on Professor Post's research and writings can be found here.]
Trained originally as a physical anthropologist, Professor Post spent two years studying the feeding ecology of yellow baboons in Kenya's Amboseli National Park, and he taught at the Columbia University Department of Anthropology from 1976 through 1981. He then attended Georgetown Law Center, from which he graduated summa cum laude in 1986. After clerking with then-Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, he spent 6 years at the Washington D.C. law firm of Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering, practicing in the areas of intellectual property law and high technology commercial transactions. He then clerked again for Justice Ginsburg during her first term on the Supreme Court before joining the faculty of, first, the Georgetown University Law Center (1994-1997) and then the Temple University Law School (1997-present).
Professor Post is the author of Cyberlaw: Problems of Policy and Jurisprudence in the Information Age (3d Edition, West, 2007) (co-authored with Paul Schiff Berman and Patricia Bellia), and In Search of Jefferson's Moose: Notes on the State of Cyberspace (Oxford U. Press, forthcoming 2008), as well as numerous articles on intellectual property, the law of cyberspace, and the application of complexity theory to Internet legal questions that have appeared in the Stanford Law Review, Journal of Legal Studies, Berkeley Technology Law Journal, Esther Dyson's Release 1.0, Journal of Online Law, University of Chicago Legal Forum, Vanderbilt Law Review, Georgetown Law Journal, and numerous other publications. For four years (1994-1998) he wrote a monthly column on law and technology ("Plugging In") for the American Lawyer, and from 1998-2004 he wrote the "On the Horizon" column for InformationWeek (with Bradford Brown). He has appeared as a commentator on the Lehrer News Hour, Court TV's Supreme Court Preview, NPR's All Things Considered, BBC's World, and other television and radio shows, and recently was featured in the PBS documentary The Supreme Court. During 1996-1997 he conducted, along with two colleagues (Professors Larry Lessig and Eugene Volokh) the first Internet-wide e-mail course on "Cyberspace Law for Non-Lawyers" which attracted over 20,000 subscribers. He also sings and plays guitar, piano, banjo, and harmonica in the bands "Bad Dog," "The Dwights," and "The Zen Cohens."
Professor Post's writings can be accessed online via his publications page and personal site (http://www.davidpost.com).
J.D., Georgetown University
Ph.D. (Anthropology), Yale University
B.A., Yale University
Professor of Law, Southern Illinois University School of Law
Professor Mark F. Schultz joined the faculty in 2003. He teaches and writes primarily in the area of intellectual property.
Professor Schultz is a frequent author and speaker known for his work on the law and economics of the global intellectual property system. In one of his most influential projects, he worked with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to construct a groundbreaking global trade secret protection index (the TSPI). The TSPI is influencing policy discussions on this cutting-edge topic in capitals around the world. Other recent projects have included an empirical study that quantified for the first time the backlogs in patent offices worldwide, a report on how patented innovation is meeting global health challenges, and the construction of a new global index of copyright strength.
Professor Schultz is an influential voice in public policy debates regarding intellectual property. He has testified before the U.S. Congress on copyright law at the invitation of the House Judiciary Committee and has briefed the staff of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on trade secret legislation. He speaks frequently around the world about the connection between secure and effective intellectual property rights and flourishing national economies and individual lives, with invitations from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the U.S. Trade Representative, and the U.S. Copyright Office, as well as numerous academic institutions, think tanks, and industry groups. He served as an NGO delegate to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) for several years during the WIPO Development Agenda talks. He is also one of the organizers of an ongoing multilateral diplomatic dialogue on best practices in national trade secret laws, and is co-founder of the Center for Protection of Intellectual Property (CPIP) at George Mason University in Washington, D.C.
Among the awards and recognition he has received for his scholarship was the School of Law's Outstanding Scholar of the Year award in 2008. He has been a distinguished visiting scholar at the University of Botswana and a visiting professor at DePaul University College of Law.
Professor Schultz graduated with honors from the George Washington University School of Law. Following law school, he was a judicial clerk for the Hon. Daniel M. Friedman of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, D.C., and the Hon. Eric G. Bruggink of the United States Court of Federal Claims. Prior to joining academia, he practiced law for a decade, serving as outside general counsel to several tech startups and helping technology companies to expand their businesses and commercialize their intellectual property in dozens of countries. He holds a B.A. in International Economics from George Washington University and has done PhD level coursework in development economics at Southern Illinois University.
He is active in leadership roles in local and national organizations. He has served as chair of the Federalist Society's Intellectual Property Practice Group and the AALS Section on Internet and Computer Law. He is an officer of the American Bar Association's International IP Committee of the International Law Section and the American Intellectual Property Law Association’s Trade Secret Law Committee. He currently is chair of the Academic Advisory Board of the Copyright Alliance.
Professor Schultz teaches Copyright Law, Trade Secret Law, Trademark Law, and a senior seminar on Intellectual Property and Global Development. He established and directs both the Specialization in Intellectual Property Law and the IP Semester in Practice Externship Program. He also co-founded a Legal Globalization Class, offered every other year, that takes students to South Africa and Botswana after spending a semester learning about the legal system, culture, history, and politics of southern Africa. The popular course is a once-in-a-lifetime experience that introduces students to leading lawyers, judges, government officials, and human rights advocates, taking them from Cape Town to Johannesburg to Gaborone as well as many popular destinations including game reserves, national parks, the Cape of Good Hope, and the Cradle of Humankind.
Sterling Professor of Law, Yale Law School
Akhil Reed Amar is Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science at Yale University, where he teaches constitutional law in both Yale College and Yale Law School. After graduating from Yale College, summa cum laude, in 1980 and from Yale Law School in 1984, and clerking for Judge (later Justice) Stephen Breyer, Amar joined the Yale faculty in 1985 at the age of 26. He is Yale’s only living professor to have won the University’s unofficial triple crown — the Sterling Chair for scholarship, the DeVane Medal for teaching, and the Lamar Award for alumni service.
Amar’s work has won awards from both the American Bar Association and the Federalist Society, and he has been cited by Supreme Court justices across the spectrum in more than 50 cases — tops among scholars under age 70. According to both Fred Shapiro’s landmark 2021 study of lifetime scholarly citations and Heinonline’s most recent tabulation of lifetime law-review citations, Amar is America’s second most-cited legal scholar still under age 70. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and has written widely for popular publications, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Time, and The Atlantic. He was an informal consultant to the popular TV show The West Wing and his scholarship has been showcased on many broadcasts, including The Colbert Report, Morning Joe, AC360, Velshi, Fox News @ Night with Shannon Bream, Fareed Zakaria GPS, Erin Burnett Outfront, and Constitution USA with Peter Sagal.
He is the author of more than a hundred law review articles and several books, including The Bill of Rights (1998 — winner of the Yale University Press Governors’ Award), America’s Constitution (2005 — winner of the ABA’s Silver Gavel Award), America’s Unwritten Constitution (2012 — named one of the year’s 100 best nonfiction books by The Washington Post), and The Constitution Today (2016 — named one of the year’s top ten nonfiction books by Time magazine). The first volume of his ambitious trilogy on American constitutional history from the Founding to the present, The Words That Made Us: America’s Constitutional Conversation, 1760-1840, came out in May 2021. The second volume, Born Equal: Remaking America’s Constitution, 1840-1920, will be published in September 2025 and is already available for pre-order. All together, his nonfiction books have won two starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and three starred reviews from Kirkus—tops, it is believed, among legal scholars under age 70. Together with Vikram David Amar (YLS ’88), he has a bi-weekly column on the Supreme Court on the distinguished website SCOTUSblog. Along with Andy Lipka, he co-hosts a popular and free weekly podcast, Amarica’s Constitution, whose listeners are eligible for CLE credit in most American jurisdictions. A wide assortment of his articles and op-eds and video links to many of his public lectures and free online courses may be found at akhilamar.com.
James Madison Distinguished Professor of Law and Class of 1941 Research Professor of Law, University of Virginia School of Law
Professor John C. Harrison is the James Madison Distinguished Professor of Law and Class of 1941 Research Professor of Law at the University of Virginia School of Law. He joined the faculty at University of Virginia in 1993 as an associate professor of law after a distinguished career with the U.S. Department of Justice. His teaching subjects include constitutional history, federal courts, remedies, corporations, civil procedure, legislation and property. In 2008 he was on leave from the Law School to serve as counselor on international law in the Office of the Legal Adviser at the U.S. Department of State.
A 1977 graduate of the University of Virginia, Harrison earned his law degree in 1980 at Yale, where he served as editor of the Yale Law Journal and editor and articles editor of the Yale Studies in World Public Order. He was an associate at Patton Boggs & Blow in Washington, D.C., and clerked for Judge Robert Bork on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He worked with the Department of Justice from 1983-93, serving in numerous capacities, including deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel (1990-93).
Distinguished Professor of Law, Rutgers Law School
Earl Maltz is a Distinguished Professor and the author of two books and more than 50 articles on constitutional law, statutory interpretation, the role of the courts and legal history. He teaches constitutional law, employment discrimination, conflicts of law and a seminar on the Supreme Court.
Professor Maltz is the author of Rethinking Constitutional Law: Originalism, Interventionism, and the Politics of Judicial Review (1994), Civil Rights, The Constitution and Congress, 1863-1865 (1990), and over 50 articles on constitutional law, statutory interpretation, the role of the courts and legal history. He received his B.A. from Northwestern University, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and his J.D. cum laude from Harvard. Professor Maltz teaches Constitutional Law, Employment Discrimination, Conflicts of Law, and a seminar on the Supreme Court.
Richard and Frances Mallery Professor of Law and Faculty Director, Constitutional Law Center, Stanford Law School
Michael W. McConnell is the Richard and Frances Mallery Professor and Faculty Director of the Constitutional Law Center at Stanford Law School, and a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. From 2002 to 2009, he served as a Circuit Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. He was nominated by President George W. Bush, a Republican, and confirmed by a Democratic Senate by unanimous consent. McConnell has previously held chaired professorships at the University of Chicago and the University of Utah, and visiting professorships at Harvard and NYU. He teaches courses on constitutional law, constitutional history, First Amendment, and interpretive theory. He has published widely in the fields of constitutional law and theory, especially church and state, equal protection, and separation of powers. His book, “The President Who Would Not Be King: Executive Power Under the Constitution,” was published by Princeton University Press in 2020, based on the Tanner Lectures in Human Values, which he delivered at Princeton in 2019. His latest book, co-authored with Nathan Chapman, “Agreeing to Disagree: How the Establishment Clause Protects Religious Diversity and Freedom of Conscience,” was published by Oxford University Press in mid-2023. McConnell has argued sixteen cases in the United States Supreme Court, most recently Carney v. Adams (2020). defending a provision of the Delaware Constitution requiring political balance on that state’s courts. More recently, he was co-counsel in Gonzalez v. Google. He earned his B.A. from Michigan State University and his J.D. from the University of Chicago, and has received honorary degrees from Notre Dame University and Michigan State. He served as law clerk to Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. and D.C. Circuit Chief Judge J. Skelly Wright. He has been Assistant General Counsel of the Office of Management & Budget, Assistant to the Solicitor General of the Department of Justice, and a member of the President’s Intelligence Oversight Board. He is Senior of Counsel to the law firm Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich & Rosati, and is co-chair of Meta’s Oversight Review Board.
President & CEO, National Constitution Center
Jeffrey Rosen is the President and Chief Executive Officer of the National Constitution Center, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization whose mission is to educate the public about the U.S. Constitution. Located steps from Independence Hall in Historic Philadelphia, the Center engages millions of citizens as an interactive museum, national town hall, and provider of nonpartisan resources for civic education. Rosen became President and CEO in 2013 and has developed the Center’s acclaimed Interactive Constitution, which brings together the top conservative and liberal legal scholars in America to discuss areas of agreement and disagreement about every clause of the Constitution. The online resource has received more than 15 million hits since launching in 2015.
Rosen is also professor at The George Washington University Law School and a contributing editor of The Atlantic. He is a highly regarded journalist whose essays and commentaries have appeared in the New York Times Magazine, on National Public Radio, in the New Republic, where he was the legal affairs editor, and The New Yorker, where he was a staff writer. The Chicago Tribune named him one of the 10 best magazine journalists in America and a reviewer for the Los Angeles Timescalled him “the nation’s most widely read and influential legal commentator.”
Rosen is the author of six books including, most recently, a biography of William Howard Taft, published as part of the American Presidents Series. His other books include Louis D. Brandeis: American Prophet; The Supreme Court: The Personalities and Rivalries that Defined America; The Most Democratic Branch: How the Courts Serve America; The Naked Crowd: Reclaiming Security and Freedom in an Anxious Age; and The Unwanted Gaze: The Destruction of Privacy in America. He is co-editor of Constitution 3.0: Freedom and Technological Change.
Rosen is a graduate of Harvard College; Oxford University, where he was a Marshall Scholar; and Yale Law School.
Sterling Professor of Law, Yale Law School
Akhil Reed Amar is Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science at Yale University, where he teaches constitutional law in both Yale College and Yale Law School. After graduating from Yale College, summa cum laude, in 1980 and from Yale Law School in 1984, and clerking for Judge (later Justice) Stephen Breyer, Amar joined the Yale faculty in 1985 at the age of 26. He is Yale’s only living professor to have won the University’s unofficial triple crown — the Sterling Chair for scholarship, the DeVane Medal for teaching, and the Lamar Award for alumni service.
Amar’s work has won awards from both the American Bar Association and the Federalist Society, and he has been cited by Supreme Court justices across the spectrum in more than 50 cases — tops among scholars under age 70. According to both Fred Shapiro’s landmark 2021 study of lifetime scholarly citations and Heinonline’s most recent tabulation of lifetime law-review citations, Amar is America’s second most-cited legal scholar still under age 70. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and has written widely for popular publications, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Time, and The Atlantic. He was an informal consultant to the popular TV show The West Wing and his scholarship has been showcased on many broadcasts, including The Colbert Report, Morning Joe, AC360, Velshi, Fox News @ Night with Shannon Bream, Fareed Zakaria GPS, Erin Burnett Outfront, and Constitution USA with Peter Sagal.
He is the author of more than a hundred law review articles and several books, including The Bill of Rights (1998 — winner of the Yale University Press Governors’ Award), America’s Constitution (2005 — winner of the ABA’s Silver Gavel Award), America’s Unwritten Constitution (2012 — named one of the year’s 100 best nonfiction books by The Washington Post), and The Constitution Today (2016 — named one of the year’s top ten nonfiction books by Time magazine). The first volume of his ambitious trilogy on American constitutional history from the Founding to the present, The Words That Made Us: America’s Constitutional Conversation, 1760-1840, came out in May 2021. The second volume, Born Equal: Remaking America’s Constitution, 1840-1920, will be published in September 2025 and is already available for pre-order. All together, his nonfiction books have won two starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and three starred reviews from Kirkus—tops, it is believed, among legal scholars under age 70. Together with Vikram David Amar (YLS ’88), he has a bi-weekly column on the Supreme Court on the distinguished website SCOTUSblog. Along with Andy Lipka, he co-hosts a popular and free weekly podcast, Amarica’s Constitution, whose listeners are eligible for CLE credit in most American jurisdictions. A wide assortment of his articles and op-eds and video links to many of his public lectures and free online courses may be found at akhilamar.com.
Founding Partner, Cooper & Kirk PLLC
Charles J. Cooper is a founding member and the chairman of Cooper & Kirk, PLLC, “one of the Nation’s leading litigation boutiques” (Above The Law 2017). The National Law Journal recently wrote that Mr. Cooper’s “brilliant legal career has so far spanned five decades and thrust Cooper into the spotlight in some of the most historic moments of the country’s modern history.” He has argued nine cases before the United States Supreme Court and scores of appeals before each of the 13 federal courts of appeals and several state supreme courts. He has been lead trial counsel in numerous complex, weeks-long trials in federal courts throughout the country. Named by the National Law Journal as one of the 10 best litigators in Washington D.C., Mr. Cooper’s work has been reported in numerous press accounts, and he has been called a “powerhouse attorney” (Fortune 2015), “a hard-nosed litigator” (Washington Post 2017), and “one of the country’s most in-demand civil litigators and a Washington legal institution unto himself” (The American Spectator 2014).
After graduating from the University of Alabama School of Law in 1977, where he ranked first in his class and served as Editor-in-Chief of the Alabama Law Review, Mr. Cooper began his career as a law clerk to Judge Paul Roney on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and to Justice William H. Rehnquist in 1978–79. He then practiced law in Atlanta for two years before joining the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, where he served as the Deputy Assistant Attorney General in charge of, among other things, appellate matters. In 1985 President Reagan appointed him to the position of Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel, which is the office responsible for providing legal opinions and advice to the White House, the Attorney General, and Executive Branch departments and agencies on issues covering the full spectrum of federal constitutional, statutory, and regulatory law.
In 1988 he returned to private practice as a litigation partner in the Washington, D.C. office of McGuireWoods. From 1990 until the founding of Cooper & Kirk in 1996, he was a partner at Shaw Pittman (now Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman), where he headed the firm’s Constitutional and Government Litigation Group.
Mr. Cooper has represented a wide range of public and private clients in highly complex constitutional, civil rights, antitrust, healthcare, banking, intellectual property, elections, campaign finance, administrative, commercial, and government contract cases. He has led trial teams in cases that have won judgments and settlements valued in the billions of dollars and that have established ground-breaking constitutional precedents.
Much of Mr. Cooper’s practice has involved representing high-profile clients in nationally prominent matters, including: the State of Florida in a First Amendment suit brought by the Disney Company concerning its autonomous regulatory authority over its Disney World property; the Commonwealth of Virginia in a suit seeking to enjoin the removal of noncitizens from its voter rolls; 38 members of the Duke Lacrosse team falsely accused of rape by officials of Duke University and the City of Durham; Harper Lee in a copyright dispute with the heirs of Gregory Peck; high-ranking former government officials such as former Attorneys General John Ashcroft, Jeff Sessions, and William Barr, and Ambassador John Bolton; several Governors and United States Senators; over 100 Members of Congress; and many state, territorial, and local government bodies and officials. He has also represented and advised government officials and public figures in connection with sensitive private issues that needed to be, and were, resolved discreetly without becoming matters of public record.
In 1998 Chief Justice Rehnquist appointed Mr. Cooper to the Standing Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure of the Judicial Conference of the United States, where he served for three terms. He also served as a Public Member, appointed by President George H.W. Bush, of the National Commission on Judicial Discipline and Removal. He is a member of numerous professional associations, including the American Law Institute (since 1993) and the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers (since 1996). He is also an active member of the Federalist Society and the Republican National Lawyers Association, which in 2010 named him Republican Lawyer of the Year and in 2016 honored him with its Edwin Meese III Award.
Mr. Cooper has published scores of articles and spoken extensively on constitutional and legal policy topics. He has appeared before congressional committees on 26 occasions, testifying as an expert on a wide variety of legal issues, including the Chevron doctrine of judicial deference to administrative agencies, the diversity of citizenship jurisdiction of federal courts, statehood bills for Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia, and the impeachment of President Clinton.
A. W. Walker Centennial Chair in Law, University of Texas at Austin School of Law
Professor Graglia has written widely in constitutional law--especially on judicial review, constitutional interpretation, race discrimination, and affirmative action--and also teaches and writes in the area of antitrust. He is the author of Disaster by Decree: The Supreme Court Decisions on Race and the Schools (Cornell, 1976) and many articles, including recently "Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye: Of Animal Sacrifice and Religious Persecution" (Georgetown Law Journal, 1996). He has been a Visiting Professor at the University of Virginia School of Law.
Ronald Reagan Distinguished Fellow Emeritus, The Heritage Foundation
Edwin Meese III, the prominent conservative leader, thinker and elder statesman, continues a quarter-century formal association with The Heritage Foundation as the leading think tank’s Ronald Reagan Distinguished Fellow Emeritus.
In that capacity, Meese oversees special projects and acts as an ambassador for Heritage within the conservative movement.
Meese was chairman of Heritage’s Center for Legal and Judicial Studies from its founding in 2001 until what he calls his “semi-retirement” on Feb. 1, 2013.
He joined Heritage in 1988 as the think tank's first Ronald Reagan Distinguished Fellow -- the only policy chair in the country to be officially named for the 40th president. His work focused on keeping President Reagan’s legacy of conservative principles alive in public debate and discourse.
The legal center now bears his name, in recognition of Meese’s contributions to the rule of law and the nation’s understanding of constitutional law. Its mission is to educate government officials, the media and the public about the Constitution and legal principles -- and how they affect public policy.
Perhaps best known as U.S. attorney general during Reagan’s second term, Meese’s service to the conservative icon stretched from the California governor’s mansion in 1966 to the White House in 1981 before he went to the Department of Justice four years later.
His Heritage “hats” kept Meese among the major conservative voices in national policy debates at an age when most men and women enjoyed quiet retirements.
In 2006, for example, Meese was named to the Iraq Study Group, a special presidential commission dedicated to examining the best resolutions for America's involvement in Iraq. In the past few years he wrote and spoke about constitutional topics ranging from religious liberty to the responsibility of Supreme Court justices.
Immediately after Reagan's death in 2004, and in the years since, Meese often agreed to major media appearances to discuss the lasting impact of his old friend, mentor and boss. He has summarized the Reagan legacy in three accomplishments: Reagan cut taxes and kept them low. He worked to defeat and end the Soviet Union and its worldwide push for communism. And he restored America's faith in itself after years of failure and "malaise."
"I admired him as a leader and cherish his friendship," Meese wrote in a 2004 essay for Heritage members and supporters. "Ronald Reagan had strong convictions. He was committed to the principles that had led to the founding of our nation. And he had the courage to follow his convictions against all odds." <[>Edwin Meese III was born Dec. 2, 1931, to Edwin Jr. and Leone Meese in Oakland, Calif. He graduated from Yale University in 1953 and holds a law degree from the University of California-Berkeley.
Meese spent much of his adult life working for Reagan, first after the former actor, sports announcer and athlete was elected as California’s governor in 1966 and then when he sought and won the presidency in 1980.
Reagan never forgot Meese's loyalty and hard work. During a press conference at which reporters questioned Meese's actions at the Justice Department, Reagan replied: "If Ed Meese is not a good man, there are no good men."
During the Reagan governorship, Meese served as executive assistant and chief of staff from 1969 through 1974 and as legal affairs secretary from 1967 through 1968. He previously was deputy district attorney in Alameda County, Calif.
From January 1981 to February 1985, Meese held the position of counsellor to the president -- the senior job on the White House staff -- and functioned as Reagan's chief policy adviser. In 1985, he received Government Executive magazine's annual award for excellence in management.
Meese served as the 75th attorney general of the United States from February 1985 to August 1988. As the nation's chief law enforcement officer, he directed the Justice Department and led international efforts to combat terrorism, drug trafficking and organized crime.
Meese’s relationship with Heritage began when he met with senior management to discuss the think tank's landmark policy guide, Mandate for Leadership, prepared for the incoming administration. Meese later recalled that Reagan personally handed out copies of the 1,093-page book to members of his Cabinet and asked them to read it. Nearly two-thirds of Mandate's 2,000 recommendations would be adopted or attempted by the Reagan administration.
More than a decade after joining Heritage, Meese assumed the chairmanship of its Center for Legal and Judicial Studies. Under his guidance, the center counseled White House staffers, Justice Department officials and Senate Judiciary Committee members on the importance of filling judicial vacancies with qualified men and women who are committed to interpreting the Constitution according to the founding document's original meaning.
The center became known for hosting "moot court" practice sessions to sharpen the arguments of attorneys slated to bring important cases before the Supreme Court. Those cases addressed constitutional issues ranging from property rights to racial preferences in primary and secondary schools to restrictions on free speech in campaign finance law.
Meese headed the legal center's Advisory Board for the writing and editing of the best-selling book, The Heritage Guide to the Constitution (Regnery, 2005). In it, 109 experts walked readers through a clause-by-clause analysis of the Constitution. Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) was among those keeping the reference work handy during Judiciary Committee hearings on Supreme Court nominees.
Meese's other books include “Leadership, Ethics and Policing” (Prentice Hall, 2004); “Making America Safer” (Heritage, 1997); and “With Reagan: The Inside Story” (Regnery Gateway, 1992).He wrote the Introduction to a well-received 2010 book on the “overcriminalization” trend, “One Nation Under Arrest,” by Heritage veterans Paul Rosenzweig and Brian W. Walsh.
He also is a distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University in California and lectures, writes and consults throughout the United States on a variety of subjects.
As both attorney general and counsellor to Reagan, Meese was a member of the Cabinet and the National Security Council. He served as chairman of the Domestic Policy Council and the National Drug Policy Board. After Reagan won the White House in the 1980 election, Meese headed the transition team. During the campaign, he was the Reagan-Bush Committee's senior official.
Meese had a career outside government and politics. From 1977 to 1981, he was a law professor at the University of San Diego, where he also directed the Center for Criminal Justice Policy and Management.
He was an executive in the aerospace and transportation industry as vice president for administration of Rohr Industries Inc. in Chula Vista, Calif. He left Rohr to return to the practice of law, doing corporate and general work in San Diego County.
A retired colonel in the Army Reserve, Meese remains active in numerous civic and educational organizations.
He and his wife, Ursula, have two grown children and reside in McLean, Va.
Sterling Professor of Law, Yale Law School
Akhil Reed Amar is Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science at Yale University, where he teaches constitutional law in both Yale College and Yale Law School. After graduating from Yale College, summa cum laude, in 1980 and from Yale Law School in 1984, and clerking for Judge (later Justice) Stephen Breyer, Amar joined the Yale faculty in 1985 at the age of 26. He is Yale’s only living professor to have won the University’s unofficial triple crown — the Sterling Chair for scholarship, the DeVane Medal for teaching, and the Lamar Award for alumni service.
Amar’s work has won awards from both the American Bar Association and the Federalist Society, and he has been cited by Supreme Court justices across the spectrum in more than 50 cases — tops among scholars under age 70. According to both Fred Shapiro’s landmark 2021 study of lifetime scholarly citations and Heinonline’s most recent tabulation of lifetime law-review citations, Amar is America’s second most-cited legal scholar still under age 70. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and has written widely for popular publications, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Time, and The Atlantic. He was an informal consultant to the popular TV show The West Wing and his scholarship has been showcased on many broadcasts, including The Colbert Report, Morning Joe, AC360, Velshi, Fox News @ Night with Shannon Bream, Fareed Zakaria GPS, Erin Burnett Outfront, and Constitution USA with Peter Sagal.
He is the author of more than a hundred law review articles and several books, including The Bill of Rights (1998 — winner of the Yale University Press Governors’ Award), America’s Constitution (2005 — winner of the ABA’s Silver Gavel Award), America’s Unwritten Constitution (2012 — named one of the year’s 100 best nonfiction books by The Washington Post), and The Constitution Today (2016 — named one of the year’s top ten nonfiction books by Time magazine). The first volume of his ambitious trilogy on American constitutional history from the Founding to the present, The Words That Made Us: America’s Constitutional Conversation, 1760-1840, came out in May 2021. The second volume, Born Equal: Remaking America’s Constitution, 1840-1920, will be published in September 2025 and is already available for pre-order. All together, his nonfiction books have won two starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and three starred reviews from Kirkus—tops, it is believed, among legal scholars under age 70. Together with Vikram David Amar (YLS ’88), he has a bi-weekly column on the Supreme Court on the distinguished website SCOTUSblog. Along with Andy Lipka, he co-hosts a popular and free weekly podcast, Amarica’s Constitution, whose listeners are eligible for CLE credit in most American jurisdictions. A wide assortment of his articles and op-eds and video links to many of his public lectures and free online courses may be found at akhilamar.com.
John M. Olin University Professor Emeritus, Georgetown University
Walter Berns is the John M. Olin University Professor Emeritus at Georgetown University and a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. He has taught at the University of Toronto, the University of Chicago (where he earned a Ph.D. in political science), and at Cornell and Yale Universities. His government service includes membership on the National Council on the Humanities, the Council of Scholars in the Library of Congress, the Judicial Fellows Commission, and in 1983 he was the alternate United States representative to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. He has been a Guggenheim, Rockefeller, and Fulbright Fellow and a Phi Beta Kappa lecturer. He is the author of numerous articles on American government and politics in both professional and popular journals; his many books include In Defense of Liberal Democracy, The First Amendment and the Future of American Democracy, Taking the Constitution Seriously, and Making Patriots. President George W. Bush awarded him the 2005 National Humanities Medal for his scholarship on the history of the constitution.
Former Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit
Judge Kozinski served as a United States Circuit Judge for the Ninth Circuit from November 1985 until December 2017. He served as Chief Judge from 2007 to 2014. He graduated from UCLA, receiving an A.B. degree in 1972, and from UCLA Law School, receiving a J.D. degree in 1975.
Prior to his appointment to the appellate bench, Judge Kozinski served as Chief Judge of the United States Claims Court, 1982-85; Special Counsel, Merit Systems Protection Board, 1981-82; Assistant Counsel, Office of Counsel to the President, 1981; Deputy Legal Counsel, Office of President-Elect Reagan, 1980-81; Attorney, Covington & Burling, 1979-81; Attorney, Forry Golbert Singer & Gelles, 1977-79; Law Clerk to Chief Justice Warren E. Burger, 1976-77; and Law Clerk to Circuit Judge Anthony M. Kennedy, 1975-76.
Judge Kozinski is married to Marcy Jane Tiffany and has three children: Yale, Wyatt and Clayton, and three grandchildren: Quinn, Owen and Anna.
Sterling Professor Emeritus of Law and Legal History, Yale Law
John H. Langbein is Sterling Professor Emeritus of Law and Legal History and Professorial Lecturer in Law. He is an eminent legal historian and a leading American authority on trust, probate, pension, and investment law. He teaches and writes in the fields of Anglo-American and European legal history, modern comparative law, trust and estate law, and pension and employee benefit law (ERISA). He has long been active in law reform work, serving under gubernatorial appointment as a Uniform Law Commissioner since 1984. He was the reporter and principal drafter for the Uniform Prudent Investor Act (1994), which governs fiduciary investing in most American states, and he was Associate Reporter for the American Law Institute’s Restatement (Third) of Property: Wills and Other Donative Transfers (3 vols. 1999-2011). Professor Langbein has written extensively about the history of civil and criminal procedure, and about the contrasts between modern American and Continental procedure. His book, The Origins of Adversary Criminal Trial (2003), received the Coif Biennial Book Award (2006) as the outstanding American book on law. In 2000 the American Society for Legal History awarded him the Sutherland Prize for his "pioneering work" in legal history. In 2009 he published History of the Common Law: The Development of Anglo-American Legal Institutions (with R. Lerner & B. Smith), a textbook on the history of the legal system. He also coauthors a course book on pension and benefit law--Pension & Employee Benefit Law (with D. Pratt, S. Stabile, & A. Stumpff, 6th ed. 2015). Professor Langbein was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1987. He is an honorary fellow of Trinity Hall, Cambridge, and a corresponding fellow of the British Academy. He is admitted to the bar in Florida and the District of Columbia, and as a barrister of the Inner Temple in England.
Lafayette S. Foster Professor of Law, Yale Law School
Kate Stith, Lafayette S. Foster Professor of Law at Yale Law School, teaches and writes in the areas of criminal law, criminal procedure, and constitutional law. Prior to joining the faculty at Yale, Professor Stith was an Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, where she prosecuted white-collar and organized-crime cases. Professor Stith is serving or has served as an Adviser for the American Law Institute project Model Penal Code Sentencing; on the Committee on Law and Justice of the National Research Council; on the Professional Ethics Committee in the State of Connecticut; as a Commissioner of the Permanent Commission on the Status of Women in Connecticut; as President of the Connecticut Bar Foundation; on the Dartmouth College Board of Trustees; as faculty sponsor and director of the Women's Campaign School at Yale; as Deputy Dean of Yale Law School; and, by appointment of the Chief Justice of the United States, on the Advisory Committee for the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. Her book on the federal sentencing guidelines, Fear of Judging (with J.A. Cabranes), was awarded a Certificate of Merit by the ABA in 1999. A graduate of Dartmouth College, the Kennedy School of Government, and Harvard Law School, she clerked for Judge Carl McGowan of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia and for Supreme Court Justice Byron R.White.
Professor Emeritus, Paul M. Hebert Law Center, Louisiana State University
In memoriam
Dr. John Baker is Professor Emeritus of Law, and previously the Dale E. Bennett Professor of Law, at Louisiana State University Law School. He is currently Visiting Professor at Peking University School of Transnational Law (via Zoom) and has been Visiting Professor at The Center for the Constitution, Georgetown Law School (2013-2020). He has also been a Visiting Fellow at Oriel College, the University of Oxford (2012-2014) and taught at Blackfriars Hall, Oxford in 2014. Dr. Baker has also been an adjunct Fellow at the Heritage Foundation (Spring, 2008) and a Distinguished Scholar at the Catholic University of America Law School (2011-12). He has taught at Tulane Law School, George Mason Law School, Pepperdine Law School, New York Law School, Hong Kong University, and the University of Dallas, School of Management and also taught and/or lectured in 17 foreign countries. Notable among his foreign visits are the
following: Visiting Professor at the University of Lyon III (France) (1999-2011); Visiting Professor at the Universidad de los Andes, Chile (2012), as a Fulbright Specialist (2006); and a Fulbright Scholar at various universities in the Philippines. Dr. Baker received his J.D., with honors, from the University of Michigan Law School and his B.A., magna cum laude, from the University of Dallas. He also earned a Ph.D. in Political Thought from the University of London. Baker has taught over a dozen different subjects, mostly courses in public law. His main areas of interest are Constitutional Law (particularly federalism and separation of powers), Criminal Law, Anti-Terrorism Law, International Law, Health Care Law, Mediation, and Comparative Law.
In addition to law review articles and book chapters, Dr. Baker’s academic publications include Hall's Criminal Law: Cases and Materials (with Benson, Force and George; 5th ed. Michie, 1993); An Introduction to the Law of the United States (ed. with Levasseur; University Press of America, 1992). He has also published on Forbes.com, FoxNews.com, in The Washington Times, and a number of times in The Wall Street Journal. He argues in federal court, including two oral arguments in the U.S. Supreme Court. For many years, he co-taught courses for the Federalist Society on separation of powers with the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. In September 2016, he co-taught a Supreme Court seminar in China with Justice Samuel Alito. Following law school, he served as a law clerk in federal district court and as an assistant district attorney in New Orleans before joining LSU in 1975. While a professor, he has been as a consultant to USAID, USIA (since rolled into the State Department), the Justice Department, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Separation of Powers, and the Office of Planning in the White House. He served on an ABA Task Force which issued the report, The Federalization of Crime (1998) and later as a consultant to the “Bi-Partisan Task Force on the Over- federalization of Crime” (2012-2014) created by the U.S. House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime. Dr. Baker was a co-founder of the first iteration (1995) of Stratfor Inc., a global intelligence agency. He co-authored its first book: The Intelligence Edge (with Friedman, Friedman and Chapman; Crown Books/Random House 1997). In 2022, he began a short, weekly video podcast available on YouTube and Rumble, The Baker Brief.
U.S. Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit
Frank H. Easterbrook is a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and a Senior Lecturer at the Law School of the University of Chicago. He was Chief Judge from 2006–2013. Before joining the court in 1985, he was the Lee andBrena Freeman Professor of Law at the University of Chicago, where he taught and wrote in antitrust, securities, corporate law, jurisprudence, and criminal procedure. He has published The Economic Structure of Corporate Law (with Daniel R. Fischel) and about 100 scholarly articles. He served as Co-Editor of the Journal of Law and Economics from 1982 to 1991 and as a member of the Judicial Conference’s Standing Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure from 1991 to 1997. Before joining the faculty of the Law School in 1979, Judge Easterbrook was Deputy Solicitor General of the United States. He holds degrees from Swarthmore College (B.A. with high honors, 1970) and the University of Chicago (J.D. cum laude, 1973), and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Law Institute, the Mont Pelerin Society, Phi Beta Kappa, and the Order of the Coif.
Charles Evans Hughes Professor of Law, Columbia Law School
THOMAS W. MERRILL is the Charles Evans Hughes Professor of Law at Columbia Law School. He previously taught at Northwestern University School of Law and Yale Law School. He has undergraduate degrees from Grinnell College and Oxford University, where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar, and a law degree from the University of Chicago. He clerked on the D.C. Circuit (for Chief Judge David Bazelon) and the U.S. Supreme Court (for Justice Harry Blackmun). From 1987-1990 he served as Deputy Solicitor General, U.S. Department of Justice. Professor Merrill’s writings related to property include Property: Principles and Policies (Foundation Press Second Edition, 2012) (with Henry E. Smith); Property: The Oxford Introductions to U.S. Law (Oxford U. Press, 2010); Property: Takings (Foundation Press, 2002)(with David Dana); and numerous articles, including “The Economics of Public Use” (Cornell Law Review 1986); “The Landscape of Constitutional Property” (Virginia Law Review 2000); and “The Character of the Governmental Action” (Vermont Law Review 2012). He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Partner, Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP
Theodore B. Olson is a Partner in Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher’s Washington, D.C. office; a founder of the Firm’s Crisis Management, Sports Law, and Appellate and Constitutional Law Practice Groups.
Mr. Olson was Solicitor General of the United States during the period 2001-2004. From 1981-1984, he was Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Office of Legal Counsel in the U.S. Department of Justice. Except for those two intervals, he has been a lawyer with Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. since 1965.
Selected by Time magazine in 2010 as one of the 100 most influential people in the world, Mr. Olson is one of the nation’s premier appellate and United States Supreme Court advocates. He has argued 65 cases in the Supreme Court and has prevailed in over 75% of those cases. These include the two Bush v Gore cases arising out of the 2000 presidential election; Citizens United v Federal Election Commission; Hollingsworth v Perry, the case affirming the overturning of California’s Proposition 8, banning same-sex marriages; Murphy v NCAA, overturning a federal law prohibiting states from authorizing sports betting; and U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security v Regents of the Univ. of Calif., challenging the Trump Administration’s rescission of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (“DACA”). Mr. Olson’s practice is concentrated on appellate and constitutional law, federal legislation, media and commercial disputes, and assisting clients with strategies for the containment, management and resolution of major legal crises. He has handled cases at all levels of state and federal court systems throughout the United States. Mr. Olson co-authored “Redeeming the Dream, the Case for Marriage Equality” with David Boies. Both were featured in HBO’s award-winning documentary, “The Case Against 8.”
Mr. Olson's Supreme Court arguments have included cases involving separation of powers; federalism; voting rights; the Tenth Amendment; the First Amendment; the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses; jury trial rights; punitive damages; takings of property; the Commerce Clause; administrative law; taxation; criminal law; sports wagering; copyright, patent and antitrust; securities; campaign finance; foreign sovereign immunities; telecommunications; the environment; the internet; the Supremacy Clause; and other federal constitutional and statutory questions. As Solicitor General, during the presidency of George W. Bush, Mr. Olson was the Government's principal advocate in the United States Supreme Court, responsible for supervising and coordinating all appellate litigation of the United States, and a legal adviser to the President and the Attorney General. As Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel during the Reagan Administration, Mr. Olson was the Executive Branch's principal legal adviser, rendering legal guidance to the President and to the heads of the Executive Branch departments on a wide range of constitutional and federal statutory questions, and assisting in formulating and articulating the Executive Branch's position on constitutional issues.
Mr. Olson has served as private counsel to two Presidents, Ronald W. Reagan and George W. Bush, in addition to serving those two Presidents in high-level positions in the Department of Justice. He has twice been awarded the United States Department of Justice's Edmund J. Randolph Award, its highest award for public service and leadership, and also received the Department of Defense's Distinguished Public Service Award, its highest civilian award, for his advocacy in the courts of the United States, including the Supreme Court. He also received the American Bar Association Medal, its highest award for “exceptionally distinguished service by a lawyer or lawyers to the cause of American jurisprudence.” Mr. Olson is to receive the 2021 Jack Valenti Friend of the White House Fellows Award in the Fall of 2021 to be presented by the White House Fellows Foundation and Association.
Mr. Olson is a member of the Commission on White House Fellowships; a member of the Board of Trustees of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation; a member of the Board of Visitors of the Federalist Society; the Board of Directors of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University; and the 9/11 Pentagon Memorial Foundation. He was a visiting scholar at the National Constitution Center in 2007. He served on the President's Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board from 2006 to 2008; and of the Council of the Administrative Conference of the United States from 2010 to 2020. He was Co-Chair of the Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy from 2008-2009, and served two terms on the Board of Directors of the National Center for State Courts.
Mr. Olson is a Fellow of both the American College of Trial Lawyers and the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers. He has been repeatedly listed in legal publications as one of the nation’s leading appellate lawyers. The late New York Times columnist William Safire described Mr. Olson as his generation's "most persuasive advocate" before the Supreme Court and "the most effective Solicitor General in decades.”
Mr. Olson received his law degree in 1965 from the University of California at Berkeley (Boalt Hall) where he was a member of the California Law Review and Order of the Coif. He received his bachelor's degree from the University of the Pacific, where he was recognized as the outstanding graduating student in both forensics and journalism. He has written and lectured extensively on appellate advocacy, oral communication in the courtroom, civil justice reform, and constitutional and administrative law.
Professor of Law Emeritus, American University Washington College of Law
Herman Schwartz is a Professor of Law Emeritus at American University Washington College of Law. Throughout a long career in academia, publishing and community service, he has focused his attention and the world's on issues of civil rights and civil liberties as they have played out in courts and prisons across the globe. He has worked with the United Nations, the human rights advocacy group Helsinki Watch, the U.S./Israel Civil Liberties Law Program (which he founded), the ACLU Prison Project (which he founded), Washington College of Law's Human Rights Center and other organizations. In May 2006 he was awarded the 2006 Champion of Justice Award by the Alliance for Justice.
Schwartz's special interest in recent years has been the emerging democracies of Eastern Europe. He has served as an adviser to numerous Central and Eastern European nations, as well as former Soviet Union nations, on constitutional and human rights reform; recently he has been called up on to comment and advise on constitutional reform in Afghanistan, Iraq and several African countries. He also co-chaired a project on transitional justice in emerging democracies. He is currently a member of the Executive Committee of the Board of the Open Society Institute Justice Initiative.
Current work includes hunger issues and particularly the expansion of programs for school children during the summer. Schwartz formerly chaired the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, and has developed a course in which students work with national and local public interest organizations that deal with poverty issues. He also is continuing to pursue a lifelong interest in the operations of America's courts, and frequently is called upon to analyze and write about Supreme Court decisions. He has published Right Wing Justice: The Conservative Campaign to Take Over the Courts (May 2004), a study of the judgeship controversies since Ronald Reagan.
From 1963 to 1976, Schwartz was heavily involved in studying and monitoring New York State's criminal justice system. During the tragic inmate uprising at Attica State Prison in 1971, he served as the first intermediary between the prisoners and the prison administration, and represented numerous prisoners thereafter, founded the ACLU Prison Project and argued two cases in the Supreme Court relating to prisoners rights. Throughout the 1960's and 1970's, he was active in civil rights and civil liberties litigation and advocacy, serving as chief counsel in school desegregation cases in the North and the South. He was also the ACLU expert on the law and policy of electronic surveillance and the author of numerous studies of the operation of the wiretap laws.
Schwartz has authored three books: Right-Wing Justice: The Conservative Campaign to Take over the Courts (May 2004), The Struggle for Constitutional Justice in Post-Communist Europe (2000) and Packing the Courts: The Conservative Campaign to Rewrite the Constitution (1988); edited and contributed to The Rehnquist Court: Judicial Activism on the Right (2002), and The Burger Years Rights and Wrongs in the Supreme Court 1969-1986 (1987). He has written numerous reports, articles, chapters and scholarly papers.
His work on the frontiers of civil rights and civil liberties has been recognized with such honors as the 2006 “Champion of Justice” award from the Alliance for Justice, a Citation of Appreciation by the Common Council of the City of Buffalo, an American Jewish Congress - Washington Capital area award, the William Conable Award for Civil Rights, the Citizens Counsel for Human Rights Award and The ACLU-Niagara Frontier Award for Civil Liberties.
His undergraduate degree is from Harvard University, magna cum laude, and his Juris Doctor degree from Harvard Law School, magna cum laude. For most of his professional career he has been a professor of law. He has also served in state and federal government, including service as Chief Counsel of the Senate Antitrust Subcommittee, and Chief Counsel for Revenue Sharing, U.S. Treasury.
Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science, Yale Law School
Bruce Ackerman is Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science at Yale, and the author of nineteen books in political philosophy, constitutional law, and public policy. He is a Commander of the French Order of Merit, a member of the American Law Institute and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. The American Philosophical Society has awarded him the Henry Phillips Prize for lifetime achievement in Jurisprudence, especially noting his exploration of the great turning points in American constitutional history in his three volume series, We the People. His award-winning early work, Social Justice in the Liberal State, continues to provoke contemporary controversy.
His scholarship has had a global impact. He has been named a Leading Global Thinker by Foreign Policy magazine, and has been awarded an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Trieste, Italy, for his contributions to comparative constitutional law. Before the Next Attack (2006) served as a basis for the reform of the French constitution dealing with emergency powers. The Stakeholder Society (with Anne Alstott) has served as the basis for reform initiatives in Brazil, Britain, and elsewhere that guarantee every person a fair share of the nation’s wealth by providing them with a “citizen stake” consisting of a substantial cash grant as they reach maturity.
His most recent book, Revolutionary Constitutions, puts the world-wide constitutional crisis in historical perspective by comparing the post-war experience of countries as different as France, India, Iran, Italy, Israel, Poland, South Africa, and the United States — and demonstrating that these nations have a good deal to learn from one another in confronting the current assault on checks-and-balances.
Former United States Attorney General
William P. Barr was born on May 23, 1950 in New York City. Mr. Barr received his A.B. in government from Columbia University in 1971 and his M.A. in government and Chinese studies in 1973. From 1973 to 1977, he served in the Central Intelligence Agency before receiving his J.D. with highest honors from George Washington University Law School in 1977.
In 1978, Mr. Barr served as a law clerk under Judge Malcolm Wilkey of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Following his clerkship, Mr. Barr joined the Washington, D.C. office of the law firm of Shaw, Pittman, Potts & Trowbridge as an associate. He left the firm to work in the White House under President Ronald Reagan from 1982 to 1983 on the domestic policy staff, then returned to the law firm and became a partner in 1985.
Under President George H.W. Bush, Mr. Barr served as the Deputy Attorney General from 1990 to 1991; the Assistant Attorney General of the Office of Legal Counsel from 1989 to 1990; and the 77th Attorney General of the United States from 1991 to 1993. While serving at the Department, Mr. Barr helped create programs and strategies to reduce violent crime and was responsible for establishing new enforcement policies in a number of areas including financial institutions, civil rights, and antitrust merger guidelines. Mr. Barr also led the Department’s response to the Savings & Loan crisis; oversaw the investigation of the Pan Am 103 bombing; directed the successful response to the Talladega prison uprising and hostage taking; and coordinated counter-terrorism activities during the First Gulf War.
From 1994 to 2000, Mr. Barr served as Executive Vice President and General Counsel for GTE Corporation. Mr. Barr then served as Executive Vice President and General Counsel of Verizon from 2000 to 2008. At both GTE and Verizon, Mr. Barr led the legal, regulatory, and government affairs activities of the companies.
After retiring from Verizon in 2008, Mr. Barr advised major corporations on government enforcement matters, as well as regulatory litigation. Mr. Barr served as Of Counsel at Kirkland & Ellis LLP in 2009 and rejoined the firm in 2017.
President Donald Trump announced his intention to nominate Mr. Barr on December 7, 2018, and he was confirmed as the 85th Attorney General of the United States by the U.S. Senate on February 14, 2019. U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts administered the oath of office. Mr. Barr joins John Crittenden (1841 and 1850-1853) as one of only two people in U.S. history to serve twice as Attorney General.
Walter E. Meyer Professor Emeritus of Property and Urban Law and Professorial Lecturer in Law, Yale Law School
Robert C. Ellickson was appointed Walter E. Meyer Professor of Property and Urban Law at Yale Law School in 1988. He has published numerous articles in legal and public policy journals on topics such as land use and housing policy, land tenure systems, social norms, homelessness, and the organization of households, community associations, and cities. Professor Ellickson’s books include Order Without Law: How Neighbors Settle Disputes (1991) (awarded the Order of the Coif Triennial Book Award in 1996), The Household: Informal Order Around the Hearth (2008), Land Use Controls: Cases and Materials (4th edition 2013, with Vicki Been, Roderick M. Hills, Jr. and Christopher Serkin), and Perspectives on Property Law (4th edition 2014, with Carol M. Rose and Henry E. Smith). He has written about ancient systems of land tenure and also periodically teaches a seminar on the history of development of the City of New Haven. Robert Ellickson was a member of the USC Law Faculty in 1970–1981, and the Stanford Law Faculty in 1981–88. He also has been a visiting professor at the Harvard and University of Chicago Law Schools. He was a founding member and later a director of the American Law and Economics Association, and served as its President in 2000–01. In 2016, the Association awarded him the Ronald H. Coase Medal in recognition of his scholarly contributions. Professor Ellickson served as an adviser during the American Law Institute’s preparation of the Restatement, Third, Property—Servitudes, and currently serves in the same capacity for the Restatement (Fourth) of Property. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and, in 2008, received the William & Mary Law School’s Brigham-Kanner Property Rights Prize for Property Scholarship. At Yale Law School he has served as Deputy Dean (1991–92) and, during the reconstruction of the Sterling Law buildings, as chairman of the Building Committee. Prior to entering teaching in 1970, he worked for a Presidential commission on housing policy and then for Levitt & Sons, the homebuilding firm. Professor Ellickson is married to Lynn Hammer and has two children. For many decades he competed in competitive Scrabble tournaments and, during intervals when fortune smiled, was ranked as one of the top 20 players in the United States.
Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law and Director, Classical Liberal Institute, New York University School of Law; Director, Classical Liberal Institute, Civitas Institute University of Texas at Austin
Richard A. Epstein is the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law, at New York University, a senior research fellow at the Civitas Institute at the University of Texas Austin, and a senior Lecturer, the University of Chicago. He received an LL.D., h.c . from the University of Ghent, 2003 , and an LLD h.c . from the University of Siegen in 2018 and the Bradley Prize in 2011. He has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 1985. He has edited both the Journal of Legal Studies (1981-1991) and the Journal of Law and Economics (1991-2001). He is also a founder and director of the Classical Liberal Institute at NYU Law School. His most recent book is The Classical Liberal Constitution: The Uncertain Quest for Limited Government (2014). His other books include Takings: Private Property and the Power of Eminent Domain ( 1985); Bargaining with the State (1993); Simple Rules for a Complex World (1995); Principles for a Free Society: Reconciling Individual Liberty and the Common Good (1998); Skepticism and Freedom: A Modern Theory of Classical Liberalism (2003); Design for Liberty: Private Property, Public Administration and the Rule of Law (2011), and most recently, The Myth of Birthright citizenship—and Beyond (2026). He has taught courses in , administrative law, antitrust, constitutional, contracts, environmental law, land use planning; real property, torts and water law. He has written and spoken extensively on a wide range of topics, and is writes a regular column for Defining Ideas.
Sterling Professor Emeritus of Law, Yale Law School
Owen Fiss is Sterling Professor Emeritus of Law and Professorial Lecturer in Law of Yale University. He was educated at Dartmouth, Oxford, and Harvard. He clerked for Thurgood Marshall (when Marshall was a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit) and later for Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. He also served in the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice from 1966 to 1968. Before coming to Yale, Professor Fiss taught at the University of Chicago. At Yale he teaches procedure, legal theory, and constitutional law.
Professor Fiss is the author of many articles and books, including The Civil Rights Injunction, Troubled Beginnings of the Modern State, The Structure of Procedure (with Robert Cover), Liberalism Divided, The Irony of Free Speech, A Community of Equals, A Way Out: America’s Ghettos and the Legacy of Racism, Adjudication and its Alternatives (with Judith Resnik), The Law as it Could Be, The Dictates of Justice: Essays on Law and Human Rights, and A War Like No Other: The Constitution in a Time of Terror. In a 2012 study, four of his articles were named as among the top 100 most-cited law review articles of all time. His most recent book is Pillars of Justice: Lawyers and the Liberal Tradition.
Professor Fiss is one of the founders of the Law School programs in Latin America and the Middle East and, along with Anthony Kronman, directs the Abdallah S. Kamel Center for the Study of Islamic Law and Civilization. Professor Fiss is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and has received honorary doctorates from the University of Toronto, Universidad de Chile, Universidad de Buenos Aires, and Universidad de Palermo (Buenos Aires). He was also awarded La distinción Sócrates from Universidad de Los Andes (Bogotá) and was appointed honorary visiting professor at Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México. Most recently, Professor Fiss was awarded the 2020 Henry M. Phillips Prize in Jurisprudence by the American Philosophical Society, becoming only the 26th recipient of the prize since it was established in 1888.
John Marshall Harlan II Professor of Law Emerita, New York Law School; Former President, American Civil Liberties Union
Nadine Strossen, New York Law School Professor Emerita and Senior Fellow at FIRE (the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression), was national President of the American Civil Liberties Union from 1991 to 2008. An internationally acclaimed free speech scholar and advocate, who regularly addresses diverse audiences and provides media commentary around the world, Strossen is also the Host and Project Consultant for Free To Speak, a 3-hour documentary film series distributed on public television in 2023. Her books about free speech include: Free Speech: What Everyone Needs to Know® (Oxford University Press 2023); HATE: Why We Should Resist It with Free Speech, Not Censorship (Oxford University Press 2018); and Defending Pornography: Free Speech, Sex, and the Fight for Women’s Rights (Scribner 1995), which was republished with a new Preface in 2024 as part of the NYU Classics Series. Her many honors and awards include the National Coalition Against Censorship’s Judy Blume Lifetime Achievement Award for Free Speech. She serves on the Advisory Boards of several organizations that do free speech work, including: ACLU, Academic Freedom Alliance, Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism (FAIR), Heterodox Academy, National Coalition Against Censorship, and the University of Austin.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit
Judge Winter was appointed United States Circuit Judge for the Second Circuit on December 10, 1981 and entered on duty January 5, 1982. He received a B.A. degree from Yale College in 1957 and an LL.B. degree from Yale Law School in 1960. He served as a law clerk to Judge Caleb M. Wright, Chief Judge, U.S. District Court, Delaware, 1960-61, and to Judge Thurgood Marshall, U.S. Court of Appeals, Second Circuit, 1961-62.
Judge Winter was a full-time member of the Yale Law School Faculty from 1962 until entering judicial service. At the time of his appointment, he was the William K. Townsend Professor of Law. He was also a Consultant to the Subcommittee of Separation of Powers, Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. Senate from 1968 to 1972, a Senior Fellow, The Brookings Institute, Washington, D.C. from 1968 to 1970, a John Simon Guggenheim Fellow from 1971 to 1972 and an Adjutant Scholar, American Enterprise Institute from 1972 to 1981.
He served from 1987 to 1992 as a member of the Judicial Conference Advisory Committee on Civil Rules. He served as Chair of the Judicial Conference Advisory Committee on the Rules of Evidence from 1992 to 1996. From July 1, 1997 to September 30, 2000, Judge Winter served as Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. In April 1998, he was appointed to the Executive Committee of the U.S. Judicial Conference. From October 1999 to September 2000, he served as Chair of the Executive Committee. On October 1, 2000, he took Senior Judge status.
He served as Chair of the Committee to Review Circuit Council Conduct and Disability Orders from 2005 to 2008. He was a member of the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Court of Review from 2003 to 2010.
Judge Winter has received the Connecticut Law Review Award, Honorary Doctors of Law from Brooklyn Law School and New York Law School, the Federal Bar Council's Learned Hand Award for Excellence in Federal Jurisprudence, and the Yale Law School's Association's Award of Merit. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Sterling Professor Emeritus of Law, Yale Law School
Mirjan Damaška is Sterling Professor Emeritus of Law at Yale Law School. He teaches and writes in the fields of comparative and foreign law, procedural law, evidence, international criminal law, and continental legal history.
He is the author of six books, among which The Faces of Justice and Evidence Law Adrift were translated into several languages. He has published more than 100 articles in professional journals of numerous countries.
He received his basic law degree at the University of Zagreb in his native Croatia. He then studied at the Academy of International Law at The Hague, and the Comparative Law Faculty in Luxembourg. He earned his Ph.D. at the University of Ljubljana (Slovenia). Following time spent practicing in the courts of former Yugoslavia, he began his teaching career at the University of Zagreb Law School, rising quickly to the rank of full professor, and briefly serving as Acting Dean. In 1971, he left his native land, and accepted a tenured position at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. Since 1976, he has been on the faculty of Yale Law School.
Damaška is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a member of the International Academy of Comparative Law, the Croatian Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Society of Comparative Law. In 1978-79, he was fellow of the National Endowment for the Humanities. He is also holder of several honorary degrees.
He was keynote speaker and general reporter at many international congresses. Five symposia were organized about his work: Bielefeld (Germany) in 1987; Siena (Italy) in 1988; San Francisco in 1998; Zagreb (Croatia) in 2006; and New Haven in 2008. From 1990 to 1995, he served on the Advisory Board of the Central and East European Legal Initiative of ABA. Since 1995, he has periodically advised the Croatian government in its relations with the International War Crimes Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, and the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
In 2005, he was appointed Amicus Curiae of the International War Crimes Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in the matter of transferring cases to domestic courts. In 2009, he was presented the lifetime achievement award by the American Society of Comparative Law. In 2014, he was awarded the Life Achievement award by Jadranko Crnic Foundation, Croatia. He does counseling work on foreign law problems for law firms in New York, Los Angeles, and Washington.
In 2010 he was appointed special adviser to the Prime Minister of Croatia, and agent of the Republic of Croatia before the International Court of Justice, heading a team of Croatian and English lawyers in the case of Croatia v. Serbia.
Two books of essays have been published in his honor: Jackson, Langer, & Tillers (eds.), "Crime, Procedure, and Evidence: Essays in honor of Mirjan Damaška (Oxford 2008), and Ackerman, Ambos, Sikiric (eds.), "Visions of Justice, Liber Amicorum Mirjan Damaška" (Berlin 2016).
Professor of Comparative Constitutional Law, European University Institute
Since September 2016 Gábor Halmai, professor of law, is the chair of Comparative Constitutional Law at the European University Institute in Florence. Since January 2018 he is the Director of Graduate Studies at the Law Department. His primary research interests are comparative constitutional law, and international human rights. He has published several books and articles, as well as edited volumes on these topics in English, German and Hungarian. He is joining the EUI after a teaching and research career (at the Eötvös Loránd University in Hungary, the Princeton University in the USA, the the European Masters Program in Human Rights and Democratization in Italy) as well as years of professional career as chief advisor to the President of the Hungarian Constitutional Court, member of the EU Fundamental Rights Agency’s Management Board and numerous other civic activities.
Prior to joining to EUI Professor Halmai has worked on various research projects at the IWM in Vienna and the Woodrow Wilson School of Princeton University: Backsliding of liberal democracies within the European Union, with special focus on the development of constitutionalism and human rights in Hungary since its democratic transition in 1989-1990 till now; Models of state-church relations and religious freedom; Constitutionalism and transitional justice in Central and Eastern Europe. His most recent book, „Perspectives on Global Constitutionalism” deals with the use of foreign and international law by domestic courts (published by Eleven International Publishing in 2014). In addition to research, Professor Halmai has also been teaching and supervising students in Budapest, Princeton and Florence on the subjects of comparative constitutional law and human rights, as well as on rule of law.
Besides his academic work he was member of the EU Fundamental Rights Agency’s Management Board based in Vienna, Austria (2007-2010), the national director of the European Masters Program in Human Rights and Democratization in Venice, Italy (2003-2013), vice-chair of the Hungarian National Election Commission (2006-2010; chief counsellor to the President of the Hungarian Constitutional Court (1990-1996).
Gábor Halmai is founder and editor-in-chief of Fundamentum, the Hungarian human right quarterly, and Member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the European Yearbook on Human Rights, the Review of Constitutionalism and Constitutional Change (RC3), and the This Century’s Review.
Assistant Professor, University of Ústí nad Labem
Daniel Kroupa is a Czech politician and philosopher, dissident, signatory of Charter 77, President of the Civic Democratic Alliance (ODA) from 1998 to 2001, former MP, Euro MP and senator. After the Velvet Revolution, he taught political philosophy at several faculties of Charles University in Prague. From 2005 to 2015, he was the Head of the Department of Political Science and Philosophy of the Faculty of Arts, University of Ústí nad Labem. Since 2015 he has been an assistant professor at this department.
Philosopher, Journalist, Novelist, and Diplomat
Michael John Novak Jr. (1933–2017) was an American Roman Catholic philosopher, journalist, novelist, and diplomat. The author of more than forty books on the philosophy and theology of culture, Novak is most widely known for his book The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism (1982). In 1993 Novak was honored with an honorary doctorate at Universidad Francisco Marroquín due to his commitment to the idea of liberty. In 1994 he was awarded the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion, which included a million-dollar purse awarded at Buckingham Palace. He wrote books and articles focused on capitalism, religion, and the politics of democratization.
Former Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit
Alvin Benjamin Rubin's long and storied tenure as a federal judge began with a nomination by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1966 and ended in 1991 at his death.
Judge Rubin was born in Alexandria, Louisiana, in 1920, and received a B.S. from Louisiana State University in 1941. He started at Louisiana State University Law School in 1940. When World War II broke out, he enlisted in the U.S. Army, was assigned to General Patton's "Big Red 1," and served in the European Theatre of Operations in England, France, Belgium, and Germany, rising to the rank of Captain and serving as an Assistant Judge Advocate. After the war ended, he married Janice Ginsberg, also from Alexandria, and returned to Baton Rouge for law school in an accelerated post-war program for returning war veterans. He graduated first in his law school class in 1942 and was Editor-in-Chief of the Louisiana Law Review.
After his graduation, he began practicing law in Baton Rouge with J.Y. Sanders and Ben Miller, Sr., and after several years the firm of Sanders, Miller, Downing, Rubin and Kean was formed. Judge Rubin specialized in tax law, corporate transactions, and trust and estates law. He also was an arbitrator and mediator.
Soon after he started practice in 1942, the illness of a faculty member at the LSU Law School propelled Judge Rubin back into the classroom as a professor. Judge Rubin taught a variety of subjects continuously at the Law School until 1989, including Admiralty, Civil Code, Ethics, Negotiations, Constitutional Law, Federal Procedure, State and Local Tax Law, Federal Tax Law, Law Office Practice, and many others. Judge Rubin's love of teaching and of student interaction was particularly meaningful to him, and throughout his life Judge Rubin was invited to teach and lecture at schools around the world, including Harvard, Yale, Notre Dame, University of Pennsylvania, Cornell, University of Miami, University of Georgia, University of Texas, Tulane, and Duke. He also traveled to give presentations throughout Europe. Because of his expertise in civil law, during the Vietnam War, Judge Rubin was asked by the State Department to travel to South Vietnam and assist in drafting the constitution for South Vietnam. He also served as a moderator for the Aspen Institute and for many programs for the American Bar Association.
In 1963, Judge Rubin and Dean Henry George McMahon co-authored Louisiana Pleadings and Judicial Forms Annotated. For over 20 years, Judge Rubin continued the annual updates for this vital resource used by Louisiana attorneys. Before 1960, Louisiana civil law prohibited the establishment of Trusts. Judge Rubin was instrumental in the creation of a Trust Code for Louisiana, which was adopted by the Louisiana Legislature in 1960. In 1966 he and his wife, Janice, co-authored the Louisiana Trust Handbook, and later, he wrote Louisiana Wills and Trust: A Drafting System (with Professor Gerald LeVan). Judge Rubin's list of law review and journal articles spans many pages. Two of his most prominent works are "A Causerie on Lawyer's Ethics" and "Hazards of a Civilian Venturer in Federal Court: Travel and Travail on the Erie Railroad" (both in the Louisiana Law Review).
He then practiced law until 1966 when President Johnson nominated him to a new seat on the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana created by 80 Stat. 75. Judge Rubin served at an important time in the Court's history, hearing many of the desegregation and civil rights cases in the 1960s. He served as Chief Judge of the District and wrote and implemented the first comprehensive written pre-trial procedure rules for the District. He served on and chaired many committees for the Judicial Conference and co-wrote the first law clerk handbook for the federal system. Judge Rubin kept long hours and was often in his Chambers early. He always took home briefs to read and drafts of opinions to edit, keeping two secretaries busy at all times.
After eleven years as a judge on the federal district court, Judge Rubin was nominated in 1977 by President Jimmy Carter to fill a seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit vacated by John Minor Wisdom. Judge Rubin assumed senior status on July 1, 1989, and served in that capacity until his death in 1991 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. In his memory, the Louisiana Law Review published a special edition (Vol. 52, 1992) dedicated solely to his life and work, including articles and remembrances by his wife, Justice Byron White, Judge John Minor Wisdom, Judge Charles Clark, Judge Fred Cassibry, Judge Henry Politz, and many others.
Judge Rubin wrote more than 700 important (and sometimes humorous) opinions during his time as a federal judge. His rulings included ones that ended Louisiana's exemption of women from juries, applied the Voting Rights Act to local elections, and upheld the rights of government employees to criticize their superiors and to organize unions. Judge Rubin's interests spanned poetry, drama, history, art, the classics, and music of all types. He enjoyed writing Gilbert-and-Sullivan-ish parodies concerning legal matters and performing them for students, clerks, lawyers, at judicial seminars, and even for United States Supreme Court Justices.
The judicial activity that Judge Rubin reportedly most enjoyed was conducting naturalization ceremonies in open court. Judge Rubin spoke not as a jurist but as the son of immigrants from Eastern Europe whose parents had lost many relatives to war and hatred. He spoke movingly of his parents, their courage, and their determination to give their children the education and opportunities they had never had. Judge Rubin always emphasized that those citizens, new though they were, had equal rights. They could vote. They could develop their own talents and those of their children. They were entitled to occupy as well as to stand before the bench of justice.
Judge Rubin also enjoyed the close friendship of his many law clerks (serving as officiant of at least one wedding) and was an avid tennis player and jogger, often enlisting law clerks and young lawyers as his tennis or running partner.
Judge Rubin was the first member of the LSU Law Center Hall of Alumni Distinction, and was the First Alumni Member of the LSU Phi Beta Kappa Chapter. He was awarded the Louisiana ACLU Award for his civil rights work and was active in the National Conference of Christians and Jews and his synagogue in Baton Rouge.
Judge John Minor Wisdom wrote that "Alvin Rubin was born to be a judge, a great judge. His intellect, scholarship, and judicial leadership place him in a select group. In recent years, some of this small group graced the Supreme Court: Holmes, Brandeis, and Cardozo. These judges would have welcomed him on equal intellectual terms and as a kindred spirit."
The New Orleans Chapter of the Federal Bar Association hosts an annual symposium in Judge Rubin's honor. The symposium is an annual discussion on aspects of federal law or practice as a living memorial to Judge Rubin's contribution to federal jurisprudence and legal scholarship. The symposium is well attended by his family, friends, former clerks, and lawyers.
Judge Rubin's wife, Janice, best summed him up. "[His] friends spanned continents and age barriers . . . . [He] was the jurist he was because he was the man the boy became, a man who remembered Biblical injunctions about relationships and courage, about discipline and standards, about justice and mercy and integrity, a man whose goal on the bench was the oath taken by judges on the Isle of Man: 'You shall do justice between cause and cause as equally as the backbone of the herring doth lie midmost of the fish.' "
Former United States Attorney General
William P. Barr was born on May 23, 1950 in New York City. Mr. Barr received his A.B. in government from Columbia University in 1971 and his M.A. in government and Chinese studies in 1973. From 1973 to 1977, he served in the Central Intelligence Agency before receiving his J.D. with highest honors from George Washington University Law School in 1977.
In 1978, Mr. Barr served as a law clerk under Judge Malcolm Wilkey of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Following his clerkship, Mr. Barr joined the Washington, D.C. office of the law firm of Shaw, Pittman, Potts & Trowbridge as an associate. He left the firm to work in the White House under President Ronald Reagan from 1982 to 1983 on the domestic policy staff, then returned to the law firm and became a partner in 1985.
Under President George H.W. Bush, Mr. Barr served as the Deputy Attorney General from 1990 to 1991; the Assistant Attorney General of the Office of Legal Counsel from 1989 to 1990; and the 77th Attorney General of the United States from 1991 to 1993. While serving at the Department, Mr. Barr helped create programs and strategies to reduce violent crime and was responsible for establishing new enforcement policies in a number of areas including financial institutions, civil rights, and antitrust merger guidelines. Mr. Barr also led the Department’s response to the Savings & Loan crisis; oversaw the investigation of the Pan Am 103 bombing; directed the successful response to the Talladega prison uprising and hostage taking; and coordinated counter-terrorism activities during the First Gulf War.
From 1994 to 2000, Mr. Barr served as Executive Vice President and General Counsel for GTE Corporation. Mr. Barr then served as Executive Vice President and General Counsel of Verizon from 2000 to 2008. At both GTE and Verizon, Mr. Barr led the legal, regulatory, and government affairs activities of the companies.
After retiring from Verizon in 2008, Mr. Barr advised major corporations on government enforcement matters, as well as regulatory litigation. Mr. Barr served as Of Counsel at Kirkland & Ellis LLP in 2009 and rejoined the firm in 2017.
President Donald Trump announced his intention to nominate Mr. Barr on December 7, 2018, and he was confirmed as the 85th Attorney General of the United States by the U.S. Senate on February 14, 2019. U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts administered the oath of office. Mr. Barr joins John Crittenden (1841 and 1850-1853) as one of only two people in U.S. history to serve twice as Attorney General.
Scholar in Residence, The Constitution Project
Louis Fisher is Scholar in Residence at the Constitution Project. Previously he worked for four decades at the Library of Congress as Senior Specialist in Separation of Powers (Congressional Research Service, from 1970 to 2006) and Specialist in Constitutional Law (the Law Library, from 2006 to 2010). During his service with CRS he was research director of the House Iran-Contra Committee in 1987, writing major sections of the final report. Fisher's specialties include constitutional law, war powers, budget policy, executive-legislative relations, and judicial-congressional relations.
After completing his doctoral work in political science at the New School for Social Research in 1967, he taught full-time at Queens College for three years. Later he taught part-time at Georgetown University, American University, Catholic University law school, Indiana University, Catholic University, the College of William and Mary law school, and Johns Hopkins University. Currently he is a Visiting Professor at the William and Mary law school.
His books include President and Congress (1972), Presidential Spending Power (1975), The Constitution Between Friends (1978), The Politics of Shared Power (4th ed. 1998), Constitutional Conflicts Between Congress and the President (6th ed. 2014), Constitutional Dialogues (1988),American Constitutional Law (with Katy J. Harriger, 10th ed. 2013), Presidential War Power (3rd ed. 2014), Political Dynamics of Constitutional Law (with Neal Devins, 5th ed. 2011), Congressional Abdication on War and Spending (2000), Religious Liberty in America: Political Safeguards (2002), Nazi Saboteurs on Trial: A Military Tribunal & American Law (2003; 2d ed. 2005), The Politics of Executive Privilege (2004), The Democratic Constitution (with Neal Devins, 2004), Military Tribunals and Presidential Power: American Revolution to the War on Terrorism (2005), In the Name of National Security: Unchecked Presidential Power and the Reynolds Case (2006), The Constitution and 9/11: Recurring Threats to America’s Freedoms (2008), The Supreme Court and Congress: Rival Interpretations (2009), On Appreciating Congress: The People’s Branch (2010), Defending Congress and the Constitution (2011), On the Supreme Court: Without Illusion and Idolatry(2013), and The Law of the Executive Branch: Presidential Power (2014). His textbook in constitutional law is available in two paperbacks:Constitutional Structures: Separation of Powers and Federalism and Constitutional Rights: Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. With Leonard W. Levy he edited the four-volume Encyclopedia of the American Presidency (1994).
He has twice won the Louis Brownlow Book Award (for Presidential Spending Power and Constitutional Dialogues). The encyclopedia he co-edited was awarded the Dartmouth Medal. In 1995 he received the Aaron B. Wildavsky Award “For Lifetime Scholarly Achievement in Public Budgeting” from the Association for Budgeting and Financial Management. In 2006 he received the Neustadt Book Award for Military Tribunals and Presidential Power. In 2011 he received the Walter Beach Pi Sigma Alpha Award from the National Capital Area Political Science Association for strengthening the relationship between political science and public service. In 2012 he received the Hubert H. Humphrey Award from the American Political Science Association in recognition of notable public service by a political scientist. The July 2013 issue of PS: Political Science & Politics includes a symposium on "Law and (Disciplinary) Order: A Dialogue about Louis Fisher, Constitutionalism, and Political Science.
Dr. Fisher has been invited to testify before Congress more than 50 times on such issues as war powers, state secrets privilege, NSA surveillance, executive spending discretion, presidential reorganization authority, Congress and the Constitution, the legislative veto, the item veto, the Gramm-Rudman deficit control act, executive privilege, committee subpoenas, executive lobbying, CIA whistleblowing, covert spending, the pocket veto, recess appointments, the budget process, the balanced budget amendment, biennial budgeting, and presidential impoundment powers.
He has been active with CEELI (Central and East European Law Initiative) of the American Bar Association, traveling to Bulgaria, Albania, and Hungary to assist constitution-writers; participating in CEELI conferences in Washington, D.C. with delegations from Bosnia-Herzegovina, Lithuania, Romania, and Russia; serving on CEELI "working groups" on Armenia and Belarus; and assisted in drafting constitutional amendments for the Kyrgyz Republic. As part of CRS delegations he traveled to Russia and Ukraine to assist on constitutional questions. For the International Bar Association he helped analyze the draft constitutions for Swaziland and Zimbabwe.
He is the author of more than 500 articles in law reviews, political science journals, encyclopedias, books, magazines, and newspapers. He has been invited to speak in Albania, Australia, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, China, the Czech Republic, Denmark, England, France, Germany, Greece, Israel, Japan, Macedonia, Malaysia, Mexico, the Netherlands, Oman, the Philippines, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovenia, South Korea, Sweden, Taiwan, Ukraine, and the United Arab Emirates. The topics include a range of constitutional, political, and institutional issues.
Ronald Reagan Distinguished Fellow Emeritus, The Heritage Foundation
Edwin Meese III, the prominent conservative leader, thinker and elder statesman, continues a quarter-century formal association with The Heritage Foundation as the leading think tank’s Ronald Reagan Distinguished Fellow Emeritus.
In that capacity, Meese oversees special projects and acts as an ambassador for Heritage within the conservative movement.
Meese was chairman of Heritage’s Center for Legal and Judicial Studies from its founding in 2001 until what he calls his “semi-retirement” on Feb. 1, 2013.
He joined Heritage in 1988 as the think tank's first Ronald Reagan Distinguished Fellow -- the only policy chair in the country to be officially named for the 40th president. His work focused on keeping President Reagan’s legacy of conservative principles alive in public debate and discourse.
The legal center now bears his name, in recognition of Meese’s contributions to the rule of law and the nation’s understanding of constitutional law. Its mission is to educate government officials, the media and the public about the Constitution and legal principles -- and how they affect public policy.
Perhaps best known as U.S. attorney general during Reagan’s second term, Meese’s service to the conservative icon stretched from the California governor’s mansion in 1966 to the White House in 1981 before he went to the Department of Justice four years later.
His Heritage “hats” kept Meese among the major conservative voices in national policy debates at an age when most men and women enjoyed quiet retirements.
In 2006, for example, Meese was named to the Iraq Study Group, a special presidential commission dedicated to examining the best resolutions for America's involvement in Iraq. In the past few years he wrote and spoke about constitutional topics ranging from religious liberty to the responsibility of Supreme Court justices.
Immediately after Reagan's death in 2004, and in the years since, Meese often agreed to major media appearances to discuss the lasting impact of his old friend, mentor and boss. He has summarized the Reagan legacy in three accomplishments: Reagan cut taxes and kept them low. He worked to defeat and end the Soviet Union and its worldwide push for communism. And he restored America's faith in itself after years of failure and "malaise."
"I admired him as a leader and cherish his friendship," Meese wrote in a 2004 essay for Heritage members and supporters. "Ronald Reagan had strong convictions. He was committed to the principles that had led to the founding of our nation. And he had the courage to follow his convictions against all odds." <[>Edwin Meese III was born Dec. 2, 1931, to Edwin Jr. and Leone Meese in Oakland, Calif. He graduated from Yale University in 1953 and holds a law degree from the University of California-Berkeley.
Meese spent much of his adult life working for Reagan, first after the former actor, sports announcer and athlete was elected as California’s governor in 1966 and then when he sought and won the presidency in 1980.
Reagan never forgot Meese's loyalty and hard work. During a press conference at which reporters questioned Meese's actions at the Justice Department, Reagan replied: "If Ed Meese is not a good man, there are no good men."
During the Reagan governorship, Meese served as executive assistant and chief of staff from 1969 through 1974 and as legal affairs secretary from 1967 through 1968. He previously was deputy district attorney in Alameda County, Calif.
From January 1981 to February 1985, Meese held the position of counsellor to the president -- the senior job on the White House staff -- and functioned as Reagan's chief policy adviser. In 1985, he received Government Executive magazine's annual award for excellence in management.
Meese served as the 75th attorney general of the United States from February 1985 to August 1988. As the nation's chief law enforcement officer, he directed the Justice Department and led international efforts to combat terrorism, drug trafficking and organized crime.
Meese’s relationship with Heritage began when he met with senior management to discuss the think tank's landmark policy guide, Mandate for Leadership, prepared for the incoming administration. Meese later recalled that Reagan personally handed out copies of the 1,093-page book to members of his Cabinet and asked them to read it. Nearly two-thirds of Mandate's 2,000 recommendations would be adopted or attempted by the Reagan administration.
More than a decade after joining Heritage, Meese assumed the chairmanship of its Center for Legal and Judicial Studies. Under his guidance, the center counseled White House staffers, Justice Department officials and Senate Judiciary Committee members on the importance of filling judicial vacancies with qualified men and women who are committed to interpreting the Constitution according to the founding document's original meaning.
The center became known for hosting "moot court" practice sessions to sharpen the arguments of attorneys slated to bring important cases before the Supreme Court. Those cases addressed constitutional issues ranging from property rights to racial preferences in primary and secondary schools to restrictions on free speech in campaign finance law.
Meese headed the legal center's Advisory Board for the writing and editing of the best-selling book, The Heritage Guide to the Constitution (Regnery, 2005). In it, 109 experts walked readers through a clause-by-clause analysis of the Constitution. Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) was among those keeping the reference work handy during Judiciary Committee hearings on Supreme Court nominees.
Meese's other books include “Leadership, Ethics and Policing” (Prentice Hall, 2004); “Making America Safer” (Heritage, 1997); and “With Reagan: The Inside Story” (Regnery Gateway, 1992).He wrote the Introduction to a well-received 2010 book on the “overcriminalization” trend, “One Nation Under Arrest,” by Heritage veterans Paul Rosenzweig and Brian W. Walsh.
He also is a distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University in California and lectures, writes and consults throughout the United States on a variety of subjects.
As both attorney general and counsellor to Reagan, Meese was a member of the Cabinet and the National Security Council. He served as chairman of the Domestic Policy Council and the National Drug Policy Board. After Reagan won the White House in the 1980 election, Meese headed the transition team. During the campaign, he was the Reagan-Bush Committee's senior official.
Meese had a career outside government and politics. From 1977 to 1981, he was a law professor at the University of San Diego, where he also directed the Center for Criminal Justice Policy and Management.
He was an executive in the aerospace and transportation industry as vice president for administration of Rohr Industries Inc. in Chula Vista, Calif. He left Rohr to return to the practice of law, doing corporate and general work in San Diego County.
A retired colonel in the Army Reserve, Meese remains active in numerous civic and educational organizations.
He and his wife, Ursula, have two grown children and reside in McLean, Va.
Stuyvesant P. Comfort Professor of Law; Director, Center for Financial Institutions; and Co-Director, Center for Civil Justice, New York University School of Law
Geoffrey Miller is an author or editor of a dozen books and more than 200 articles in the fields of financial institutions, contract law, corporate and securities law, constitutional law, civil procedure, legal history, jurisprudence, and ancient law. He has taught a wide range of subjects including law and economics, corporations, compliance and risk management, property, regulation of financial institutions, land development, securities law, the legal profession, and legal theory. Miller received his BA magna cum laude from Princeton in 1973 and his JD from Columbia in 1978, where he was a Stone Scholar and editor-in-chief of the Columbia Law Review. He clerked for Judge Carl McGowan of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and Justice Byron White of the US Supreme Court. After two years as an attorney adviser at the Office of Legal Counsel of the US Department of Justice and one year with a Washington, DC, law firm, he joined the faculty of the University of Chicago Law School in 1983 and NYU School of Law in 1995.
Miller has been a visiting professor or visiting scholar at Columbia University, Harvard University, University of Minnesota, University of Basel (Switzerland), University of Genoa (Italy), Collegio Carlo Alberto (Italy), Study Center Gerzensee (Switzerland), Vanderbilt University, University of St. Gallen (Switzerland), University of Frankfurt (Germany), University of Sydney (Australia), University of Auckland (New Zealand), and the Bank of Japan. Miller is a founder of the Society for Empirical Legal Studies, a scholarly organization devoted to promoting statistical and other empirical techniques in the study of legal institutions. He is founder and director of NYU School of Law’s Center for Financial Institutions, co-director of the Center for Civil Justice, co-founder of and Senior Academic Fellow at NYU's Program on Corporate Compliance and Enforcement, co-convener of the Global Economic Policy Forum, a member of the board of directors of State Farm Bank, and a fellow in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Lafayette S. Foster Professor of Law, Yale Law School
Kate Stith, Lafayette S. Foster Professor of Law at Yale Law School, teaches and writes in the areas of criminal law, criminal procedure, and constitutional law. Prior to joining the faculty at Yale, Professor Stith was an Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, where she prosecuted white-collar and organized-crime cases. Professor Stith is serving or has served as an Adviser for the American Law Institute project Model Penal Code Sentencing; on the Committee on Law and Justice of the National Research Council; on the Professional Ethics Committee in the State of Connecticut; as a Commissioner of the Permanent Commission on the Status of Women in Connecticut; as President of the Connecticut Bar Foundation; on the Dartmouth College Board of Trustees; as faculty sponsor and director of the Women's Campaign School at Yale; as Deputy Dean of Yale Law School; and, by appointment of the Chief Justice of the United States, on the Advisory Committee for the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. Her book on the federal sentencing guidelines, Fear of Judging (with J.A. Cabranes), was awarded a Certificate of Merit by the ABA in 1999. A graduate of Dartmouth College, the Kennedy School of Government, and Harvard Law School, she clerked for Judge Carl McGowan of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia and for Supreme Court Justice Byron R.White.
Former Associate Justice, United States Supreme Court
Stephen G. Breyer was born in San Francisco, California, August 15, 1938. He married Joanna Hare in 1967, and has three children - Chloe, Nell, and Michael. He received an A.B. from Stanford University, a B.A. from Magdalen College, Oxford, and an LL.B. from Harvard Law School. He served as a law clerk to Justice Arthur Goldberg of the Supreme Court of the United States during the 1964 Term, as a Special Assistant to the Assistant U.S. Attorney General for Antitrust, 1965–1967, as an Assistant Special Prosecutor of the Watergate Special Prosecution Force, 1973, as Special Counsel of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, 1974–1975, and as Chief Counsel of the committee, 1979–1980. He was an Assistant Professor, Professor of Law, and Lecturer at Harvard Law School, 1967–1994, a Professor at the Harvard University Kennedy School of Government, 1977–1980, and a Visiting Professor at the College of Law, Sydney, Australia and at the University of Rome. From 1980–1990, he served as a Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, and as its Chief Judge, 1990–1994. He also served as a member of the Judicial Conference of the United States, 1990–1994, and of the United States Sentencing Commission, 1985–1989. President Clinton nominated him as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, and he took his seat August 3, 1994. Justice Breyer retired from the Supreme Court on June 30, 2022.
Senior Fellow, Center for Equal Opportunity
Eastland is an accomplished journalist who was editor of The Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk, Va., before working in the Reagan administration as a speechwriter for Attorney General William French Smith and as director of public affairs for Attorney General Edwin Meese.
Eastland was later a resident scholar at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and the editor of Forbes MediaCritic. In 2001, he became publisher of The Weekly Standard and, in 2013, an executive editor. He is now a contributing editor at the magazine. Eastland has published seven books, including two on race preferences, Counting by Race (1979) and Ending Affirmative Action (1996). "The Center has done exceptional work on matters involving race and ethnicity," said Eastland, "and I look forward to contributing to its efforts in behalf of equal protection under the law."
CEO president and general counsel Roger Clegg recalled his work with Eastland during their days together in the Reagan Justice Department: "Terry is an expert on the media, a skilled editor, and a brilliant writer." CEO chairman and founder Linda Chavez said, "Eastland's writing on affirmative action has been among the most incisive and compelling on the issue over the years and will add depth to CEO's work in this arena."
Partner, Earth and Water Law; retired Yale Law School professor (1981-2025), Yangtze River Distinguished Professor, Guangzhou Law School, ChinaDistinguished Adjunct Professor at Antonin Scalia Law School
E. Donald Elliott is a Florence Rogatz Visiting Professor of Law at Yale Law School and a leading academic scholar, as well as practitioner, in the fields of administrative and environmental law. He is “one of the most well-known, well-regarded environmental law professors in the nation,” according to John Cruden, former President of the Environmental Law Institute and Assistant Attorney General, Environment and Natural Resources Division, U.S. Department of Justice during the Obama administration. Elliott has been on the Yale Law faculty since 1981 and currently teaches courses in environmental law, energy law, administrative law and civil procedure. He is also senior of counsel in the Washington D.C. office of Covington & Burling LLP, and co-chair of the firm's Environmental Practice Group. From 2003 until he joined Covington in 2013, he was a partner in Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP, chairing the firm’s worldwide Environment, Health and Safety Department.
From 1989 to 1991, Elliott served as Assistant Administrator and General Counsel of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In 1993, he was named to the first endowed chair in environmental law and policy at any major American law school, the Julien and Virginia Cornell Chair in Environmental Law and Litigation at Yale Law School. From 2003-2009, he was a member of the National Academy of Sciences Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology, which advises the federal government on environmental issues. Elliott also testifies frequently in Congress on environmental issues.
He has served as a consultant on improving the relationship of law and science to the Federal Courts Study Committee, which was chartered by Congress to make recommendations for improving the federal courts, and to the Carnegie Commission for Law, Science and Government. He co-chaired the National Environmental Policy Institute’s Committee on Improving Science at EPA.
Elliott is a Senior Fellow of the Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS) and an elected member of the American College of Environmental Lawyers and the American Law Institute. He serves on the Board of the Connecticut Fund for the Environment and as chair of its legal committee, as well on the Advisory Board for NYU’s Institute for Policy Integrity. He is a former member of the boards of the Environmental Law Institute, and the Center for Clean Air Policy. He is the author or coauthor of seven books and has published more than 70 articles in professional journals. He was named one of the top 25 environmental attorneys in the United States by the National Law Journal and is highly ranked in Chambers USA: Leading Lawyers for Business; Best Lawyers in America; D.C. Super Lawyers; Who’s Who in American Law; and Who’s Who in the World.
He earned both his B.A., summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, and his J.D. from Yale. Following graduation, he was a law clerk for Gerhard Gesell in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, and for Chief Judge David Bazelon of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit
LAURENCE HIRSCH SILBERMAN, senior circuit judge; recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, June 19, 2008; born in York, PA, October 12, 1935; son of William Silberman and Anna (Hirsch); married to Rosalie G. Gaull on April 28, 1957 (deceased), married Patricia Winn on January 5, 2008; children: Robert Steven Silberman, Katherine DeBoer Fischer, and Anne Gaull Otis; B.A., Dartmouth College, 1957; LL.B., Harvard Law School, 1961; admitted to Hawaii Bar, 1962; District of Columbia Bar, 1973; associate, Moore, Torkildson and Rice, 1961–64; partner (Moore, Silberman and Schulze), Honolulu, 1964–67; attorney, National Labor Relations Board, Office of General Counsel, Appellate Division, 1967–69; Solicitor, Department of Labor, 1969–70; Under Secretary of Labor, 1970–73; partner, Steptoe and Johnson, 1973–74; Deputy Attorney General of the United States, 1974–75; Ambassador to Yugoslavia, 1975–77; President’s Special Envoy on ILO Affairs, 1976; senior fellow, American Enterprise Institute, 1977–78; visiting fellow, 1978–85; managing partner, Morrison and Foerster, 1978–79 and 1983–85; executive vice president, Crocker National Bank, 1979–83; lecturer, University of Hawaii, 1962–63; board of directors, Commission on Present Danger, 1978–85, Institute for Educational Affairs, New York, NY, 1981–85, member: General Advisory Committee on Arms Control and Disarmament, 1981–85; Defense Policy Board, 1981–85; vice chairman, State Department’s Commission on Security and Economic Assistance, 1983–84; American Bar Association (Labor Law Committee, 1965–72, Corporations and Banking Committee, 1973, Law and National Security Advisory Committee, 1981–85); Hawaii Bar Association Ethics Committee, 1965–67; Council on Foreign Relations, 1977–present; Judicial Conference Committee on Court Administration and Case Management, 1994; member, U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Court of Review, 1996–2003; Adjunct Professor of Law (Administrative Law and Labor Law) Georgetown Law Center, 1987–94; 1997; Adjunct Professor of Law, Harvard Law School, 1994-95, Adjunct Professor of Law, New York University Law School, 1995–96; Distinguished Visitor from the Judiciary, Georgetown Law Center, 2003–2019; co-chairman of the President’s Commission on The Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction, 2004–05; appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit by President Reagan on October 28, 1985.
Henry R. Silverman Professor of Law and Professor of Philosophy, University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School
Anita L. Allen is the Henry R. Silverman Professor of Law and Professor of Philosophy. A graduate of Harvard Law School with a PhD from the University of Michigan in Philosophy, Allen is internationally renown as an expert on philosophical dimensions of privacy and data protection law, ethics, bioethics, legal philosophy, women’s rights, and diversity in higher education. She was Penn’s Vice Provost for Faculty from 2013-2020, and chaired the Provost's Arts Advisory Council. Allen is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine, the American Law Institute and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2018-19 she served as President of the Eastern Division of the American Philosiphical Association.
From 2010 to 2017, Allen served on President Obama’s Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues. She was presented the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in 2015, and chaired its Board, 2019-2022. Allen has served on the faculty of the School of Criticism and Theory at Cornell, for which she is an advisor. A two-year term as an Associate of the Johns Hopkins Humanities Center concluded in 2018. She has been a visiting Professor at Tel Aviv University, Waseda University, Villanova, the University of Arizona, Harvard and Yale, and a Law and Public Affairs Fellow at Princeton. She was awarded an honorary Doctorate from Tilburg University (Netherlands) in 2019. She has written over a hundred articles and chapters, and her books include Unpopular Privacy: What Must We Hide (Oxford, 2011); Privacy Law and Society (Thomson/West, 2017); The New Ethics: A Guided Tour of the 21st Century Moral Landscape (Miramax/Hyperion, 2004); Why Privacy Isn’t Everything: Feminist Reflections on Personal Accountability (Rowman and Littlefield, 2003), and Uneasy Access: Privacy of Women in a Free Society (1988). Allen has given hundreds of talks all over the world and appeared on television, radio and written for major media. She currently serves on the Board of the National Constitution Center, and has served on numerous other boards and professional advisory boards, including the Pennsylvania Board of Continuing Judicial Education, the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics, the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, the AALS Executive Committee, the Maternity Care Coalition and the West Philadelphia Alliance for Children. She is a member of the Pennsylvania and New York bars, and formerly taught at Georgetown University Law Center for ten years and the University of Pittsburgh, after practicing briefly at Carvath, Swaine & Moore.
Chauncey Stillman Professor of Law, University of Michigan Law School
Carl E. Schneider, '79, the Chauncey Stillman Professor of Law and Professor of Internal Medicine, teaches courses on law and medicine, regulating research, property, law and morals, the sociology and ethics of the legal profession, and writing briefs. He holds a joint appointment in U-M’s Medical School.
A central theme in his scholarship criticizes some dominant regulatory ideas, particularly those in the law of medicine. For example, his book The Censor's Hand: The Misregulation of Human Subject Research (MIT Press, 2015), examines a regulatory system whose usefulness is widely assumed but quite unproved and argues that that system is so perversely constructed that it cannot help doing more harm than good. Another example is More Than You Wanted to Know: The Failure of Mandated Disclosure (Princeton University Press, 2014), coauthored with Omri Ben-Shahar. It explains why government-mandated disclosure may be the most adored, most used, and least successful regulatory method in our time. His The Practice of Autonomy: Patients, Doctors, and Medical Decisions (Oxford University Press, 1998), which analyzes the malign effects of making patient autonomy the regulatory summum bonum, is another example of the project.
Professor Schneider is also the coauthor of two innovative casebooks: With Marsha Garrison, he wrote The Law of Bioethics: Individual Autonomy and Social Regulation (West, 2015, 3rd edition), a pioneering casebook in what was then a new field. With Margaret F. Brinig, he wrote An Invitation to Family Law (West, 2007, 3rd edition). This casebook approaches family law conceptually: Each chapter discusses an area of family law, and each chapter introduces students to a systematic discussion of a recurring jurisprudential issue (like the problem of rules and discretion, or the legal principle of autonomy).
Professor Schneider served two terms on the President's Bioethics Council. He has been a visiting professor at Cambridge University, the University of Tokyo, Kyoto University, and the United States Air Force Academy (twice).
Simeon E. Baldwin Professor Emeritus of Law, Yale Law School
Peter H. Schuck is the Simeon E. Baldwin Professor Emeritus of Law and Professor (Adjunct) of Law at Yale Law School where he has held the chair since 1984. He has also served as Deputy Dean. His major fields of teaching and research are tort law; immigration, citizenship, and refugee law; groups, diversity, and law; and administrative law. His most recent books include Targeting in Social Programs: Avoiding Bad Bets, Removing Bad Apples; Meditations of a Militant Moderate: Cool Views on Hot Topics; Immigration Stories; Foundations of Administrative Law; Diversity in America: Keeping Government at a Safe Distance; and The Limits of Law: Essays on Democratic Governance. He is also co-editor, with James Q. Wilson, of Understanding America. He is a member of the American Law Institute's advisory committee for the Restatement of Torts (Third), Basic Principles, and a contributing editor to The American Lawyer. Prior to joining Yale, he was Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation in the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. Professor Schuck holds a B.A. from Cornell, a J.D. from Harvard Law School, an LL.M. in International Law from N.Y.U., and an M.A. in Government from Harvard.
Senior Litigation Counsel, American Center for Law and Justice
Walter M. Weber is Senior Counsel for the ACLJ in the Washington, D.C. office. A highly regarded legal writer, Weber received his bachelor’s degree from Princeton University and his law degree from Yale Law School.
Weber emphasizes First Amendment law and has written briefs in many landmark cases at the Supreme Court including NOW v. Scheidler, Lamb’s Chapel v. Center Moriches School District and Bray v. Alexandria Women’s Health Clinic.
Weber has argued more than a dozen times in appeals before federal and state courts. Prior to joining the ACLJ, Weber served as a staff attorney with the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights.
Professor of Law, Dean Emerita, and Co-Director, Sports Law Track - Graduate Program in Entertainment, Arts and Sports Law LL.M., University of Miami School of Law
Patricia D. White is a Professor of Law and was the University of Miami School of Law's eleventh dean from 2009-2019. Her legal career spans over four decades as an attorney and educator. She was the first woman law school dean in Arizona and the longest serving one in the history of Arizona State University’s Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law. Her prominence in the field of legal education has led to her being recognized as one of the most influential and innovative people in legal education by National Jurist magazine in 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013 and in the 2012 ranking she was named the top woman on the list.
White chairs the ABA's Commission on the Future of Legal Education, which aims to influence dramatic changes in the legal profession over the next decade. Under White’s leadership, Miami Law has also been recognized by Pre-Law Magazine as one the “20 Most Innovative Law Schools” in 2017. Similarly, Innovation 800, published in 2017 by Cambridge University, included Miami Law as a "Leader in Learning" and one of the most innovative law schools. The London-based Financial Times, considered one of the premiere international daily newspapers with a special emphasis on business and economic news, has also tipped its hat to Miami Law’s innovation. In its “FT Special Report on Innovative Law Schools”, it ranked Miami Law as one of the most innovative law schools in the world in 2015 and 2016. Innovation accolades also came for Miami Law's specialty areas, such as the Billboard Magazine 2017 ranking of Miami Law as a top school for music law in the U.S. The Legal Services Innovation Index ranked the University of Miami Law in the top four for law schools delivering innovation and technology programs in 2017.
After becoming the dean of Miami Law in 2009, White continued her longstanding commitment to students, the transformation of legal education and public service. She transformed Miami Law’s student services program, including adding the unique Student Development Program, the AskUs Fellows initiative, Academic Achievement Program and the Office of Professionalism to name a few. She established the LawWithoutWalls program, linking students and faculty from over 30 academic institutions around the world to examine issues and develop new solutions in legal education and practice; and Legal Corps a novel fellowship program that placed new law school graduates in not for profit and public sector organizations across the nations and the globe.
Under White's leadership, the number of clinics at Miami Law more than doubled, bringing the total to 10. In 2011 Miami Law was honored by the American Bar Association Law Student Division with the Judy M. Weightman Memorial Public Interest Award, in recognition of the law school's strong commitment to public interest through the HOPE Public Interest Resource Center. She has won many awards, including the 2012 Equal Justice Leadership Award, given by Legal Services of Greater Miami for her commitment to public service, and the Judge Learned Hand Award for distinguished public service, from the Arizona chapter of the American Jewish Committee.
White received degrees in philosophy and law (B.A. 1971, J.D. 1974, M.A. 1974) from the University of Michigan. While attending law school, she was also a graduate student in philosophy and an associate editor of the law review. She began her legal practice in Washington, D.C., at Steptoe & Johnson and then moved to Caplin & Drysdale. Georgetown University Law hired White onto the faculty in 1979, and in 1988 she joined her alma mater, the University of Michigan. While at Michigan, she was of counsel to the Detroit firm Bodman, Longley & Dahling, and served for a year as tax advisor to the Economic Study Committee of Major League Baseball. In 1994, she joined the law faculty at the University of Utah, and was of counsel to Parsons, Behle & Latimer. She is a member of the bars of the District of Columbia, Michigan, and Utah, and is an elected Fellow of the American College of Tax Counsel.
During her career, White has worked in the areas of tax law, torts, bioethics, philosophy of law, and trusts and estates, and has published in prominent law and bioethics journals.
Bringing Law to New Frontiers: Cyberspace
David G. Post, Andrew Shapiro, Mark F. Schultz
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 1998 PROCEEDINGS Following are excerpts from one of the Intellectual Property Practice...
Panel VI: 1995 National Student Symposium, The Original Meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment [Archive Collection]
1995 National Student Symposium
Chicago, ILPanel IV: The Anti-Federalists after 200 Years: Pundits or Prophets?
1992 National Student Symposium
Austin, TXPanel III: The Bill of Rights and Governmental Structure: Republicanism and Mediating Institutions [Archive Collection]
1991 National Student Symposium
New Haven, CTPanel II: How Effective Are Bills of Rights in Protecting Freedom and Civil Liberties? [Archive Collection]
1991 National Student Symposium
New Haven, CTPanel I: Should the Bill of Rights Fully Protect Fundamental Freedoms? [Archive Collection]
1991 National Student Symposium
New Haven, CTThe Judiciary and the Role of the Rule of Law [Archive Collection]
1990 National Lawyers Convention
New Orleans, LAPanel IV: The Appropriation Power and the Necessary and Proper Clause [Archive Collection]
The Presidency and Congress
Washington, DCPanel I: Agency Autonomy and the Unitary Executive [Archive Collection]
The Presidency and Congress
Washington, DCPanel V: Ownership of Life
1989 National Student Symposium
Ann Arbor, MI