Bruce Robert Jacob is a former Assistant Attorney General for the State of Florida during the early 1960s. He represented Louie L. Wainwright, the Director of the Florida Division of Corrections, in the Supreme Court case of Gideon v. Wainwright, decided in March 1963, regarding the right to counsel of indigent defendants in non-capital felony cases in state courts. The attorney representing the Petitioner, Clarence Gideon, was Abe Fortas, a Washington, D.C. lawyer who later became a Justice of the Supreme Court. The previous 1942 Supreme Court case of Betts v. Brady required the appointment of counsel for an indigent defendant at state expense if there was a “special circumstance” present in the case which made it necessary for counsel to be provided for the defendant to receive a fair trial. For example, if the defendant was indigent and was extremely young, or lacked education or experience, was unfamiliar with court procedures, or if the charges against him were complex, the trial court was required under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to appoint counsel. Jacob argued against any extension of the defendant's right to counsel. The Court in Gideon overruled Betts and required state courts to appoint attorneys for defendants in all felony prosecutions.
James Harvie Wilkinson III is an American jurist who serves as a United States circuit judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. His name has been raised at several junctures in the past as a possible nominee to the United States Supreme Court.
James P. Fleissner (Jim) is an American attorney and a Professor of Law at Mercer University School of Law in Macon, Georgia. While at Mercer, Fleissner has remained Special Assistant United States Attorney and Deputy Special Counsel. As Deputy Special Counsel, Fleissner was lead counsel in litigation regarding motions filed by journalists to quash subpoenas and contempt proceedings in the CIA leak grand jury investigation.
William Michael Treanor is an American attorney and legal scholar. He is the dean of Georgetown University Law Center, the former dean of Fordham University School of Law, and an expert on constitutional law, having twice been cited in Supreme Court opinions. He continues to teach as a professor. Treanor held several high-profile government positions and he is an advocate of civil service. His teaching and work evidence Treanor's commitment to his philosophy of a complete legal education: "Intellectual excellence, the craft of lawyering, and dedication to public service."
David D. Cole is the National Legal Director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Before joining the ACLU in July 2016, Cole was the Hon. George J. Mitchell Professor in Law and Public Policy at the Georgetown University Law Center from March 2014 through December 2016. He has published in various legal fields including constitutional law, national security, criminal justice, civil rights, and law and literature. Cole has litigated several significant First Amendment cases in the Supreme Court of the United States, as well a number of influential cases concerning civil rights and national security. He is also a legal correspondent to several mainstream media outlets and publications.
Pamela Susan Karlan is an American legal scholar who was the principal deputy assistant attorney general in the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice from February 8, 2021, until July 1, 2022. She is a professor at Stanford Law School. A leading legal scholar on voting rights and constitutional law, she previously served as U.S. Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Voting Rights in the DOJ's Civil Rights Division from 2014 to 2015.
John Francis Manning is an American legal scholar who serves as the 13th Dean of Harvard Law School. On March 14, 2024, Manning was appointed as the interim provost of Harvard University, and is on a leave of absence from his deanship. He was previously the Bruce Bromley Professor of Law at Harvard Law School (HLS), where he is a scholar of administrative and constitutional law.
Peter L. Strauss is an American lawyer, author and academic who is the Betts Professor of Law Emeritus at Columbia Law School.
James Joseph "Jim" Tomkovicz is an American educator and legal scholar. He was a professor of law at the University of Iowa College of Law from 1982 until 2021, when he retired from Iowa. While at Iowa he was awarded a chaired professorship, being named the Edward F. Howrey Professor of Law. After his four decades at Iowa, he was appointed Dean’s Professor at the Emory University School of Law for two years, an appointment which ended in 2023. Tomkovicz regularly taught Criminal Procedure, Criminal Law, and Evidence. He authored a number of scholarly works, almost all devoted to constitutional criminal procedure topics. During his career he also authored six amicus curiae briefs in the Supreme Court of the United States in cases raising criminal procedure issues. The cases included Knowles v. Iowa, Florida v. J.L., Maryland v. Blake, Kyllo v. United States, United States v. Patane and Arizona v. Gant. Tomkovicz was on the winning side in 4 of the 5 cases decided by the Justices. One case (Blake) was dismissed by the Court after oral argument.
Christopher Henry Schroeder is an American lawyer who served as Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel in the Biden Administration from 2021 to 2023. He served as the Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Policy in the United States Department of Justice during the presidency of Barack Obama, serving from April 2010 until December 2012. Before and after his time as Assistant Attorney General, he was the Charles S. Murphy Professor of Law and Professor of Public Policy Studies at Duke University School of Law. He is now Professor Emeritus of the same institution.
Samuel Robert Bagenstos is an American attorney and academic who is the General Counsel of the United States Department of Health and Human Services. From January 2021 until June 2022, he served as the general counsel for the Office of Management and Budget. He is a former law professor at the University of Michigan, a job he returned to after serving for two years as the principal deputy assistant attorney general in the United States Department of Justice Civil Rights Division under Attorney General Eric Holder and Assistant Attorney General Tom Perez.
Joseph W. Jacquot is the general counsel to the governor of the State of Florida. Previously Jacquot was the chief deputy attorney general of the State of Florida from 2007 to 2011. He successfully argued before the United States Supreme Court in the landmark Miranda warning case Florida v. Powell and initiated the constitutional lawsuit against the Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare").
Steven Paul Croley is an American lawyer, Chief Policy Officer and General Counsel of Ford Motor Company and the Harry Burns Hutchins Collegiate Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School in Ann Arbor. His practice areas include law reform, legal policy, regulation, oversight, and political law, with special emphasis on energy and the environment. His academic research and writing focus on administrative law, civil procedure, good government, and regulatory policy.
Duke University School of Law is the law school of Duke University, a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. One of Duke's 10 schools and colleges, the School of Law is a constituent academic unit that began in 1868 as the Trinity College School of Law. In 1924, following the renaming of Trinity College to Duke University, the school was renamed Duke University School of Law.
Vicki C. Jackson is the Laurence H. Tribe Professor of Constitutional Law at Harvard Law School. The New York Times has described her as "an authority on state-federal questions".
John C. Harrison is an American legal scholar who is the James Madison Distinguished Professor of Law and Joseph C. Carter, Jr. Research Professor of Law at the University of Virginia School of Law.
Cornelia Thayer Livingston Pillard, known professionally as Nina Pillard, is an American lawyer and jurist serving since 2013 as a U.S. circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Before becoming a judge, Pillard was a law professor at Georgetown University.
Michael J. Gerhardt is the Samuel Ashe Distinguished Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of North Carolina School of Law in Chapel Hill. He is also the director of the Center on Law and Government at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and is an expert on constitutional law, separation of powers, and the legislative process. He is a Scholar in Residence at the National Constitution Center and visiting scholar at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. On December 2, 2019, it was announced that Gerhardt would testify before the House Judiciary Committee regarding the constitutional grounds for presidential impeachment in the impeachment inquiry against Donald Trump.
Justin Levitt is an American constitutional law scholar and professor at Loyola Law School. In September 2015, he left Loyola Law School to become the Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the United States Department of Justice Civil Rights Division. He returned to the faculty of Loyola in early 2017. He then returned to government from 2021-2022, serving as the first Senior Policy Advisor for Democracy and Voting Rights under the Biden Administration before returning once again to the Loyola faculty.
Melissa Rutledge Lamb Saunders is an American legal scholar who served as a Professor at University of North Carolina Law School, where she taught civil procedure, civil rights and constitutional law from 1993 to 2012. Her research interests include mental health law and regulation. Since 2015, she has practiced as a clinical social worker at the University of North Carolina psychological counseling service.
