Event: Administrative Law After Loper Bright with Kasdin Mitchell
Date: Wednesday, December 4, 2024
Time: 12:00 p.m.–1:00 p.m.
Location: Arts District Mansion
CLE Credit: CLE credit is available

Kasdin Mitchell is a litigation partner with a focus on complex litigation at the trial and appellate level.  She has obtained successful outcomes for clients at all stages of litigation.  She has tried several cases to verdict, including serving on the trial team that resulted in a complete defense victory for 3M in one of the bellwether trials in the largest multidistrict litigation in history.  She has argued in the Fourth, Sixth, Ninth and Eleventh Circuits as well as numerous federal district and state courts, and she has filed appellate briefs in every federal court of appeals except one.  Kasdin also has represented numerous clients at the certiorari and merits stage in the U.S. Supreme Court, helping secure a $12 billion victory against the federal government for health insurers, a victory for Facebook in a case limiting liability under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, and a victory for a major pipeline company in a case involving the intersection of the federal eminent domain power and the Natural Gas Act.  Her litigation experience spans a wide range of subject areas, including environmental, energy, securities, contract, tort and constitutional law.  Kasdin has been recognized as a “Rising Star” by Law360, the National Law Journal and SuperLawyers.  She was also selected to serve on the Law360 Appellate Editorial Advisory Board and is a Barrister in the Higginbotham Inn of Court.

Prior to Kirkland, Kasdin served as a law clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas on the U.S. Supreme Court and to Judge William H. Pryor Jr. on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.  She also served as the Assistant Solicitor General for the State of Alabama.  Prior to law school, Kasdin worked as the Assistant Press Secretary to the First Lady at the White House, where she was an on-the-record spokesperson for Mrs. Laura Bush, and in the Office of Fossil Energy at the U.S. Department of Energy, where she worked on issues related to oil, gas and coal.

Event: Federal Election Law Update with the Honorable Trey Trainor
Date: Tuesday, August 1, 2024
Time: 12:00 p.m.–1:00 p.m.
Location: Arts District Mansion
2101 Ross Ave. | Dallas, TX 75201
CLE Credit: CLE credit available

Please join us as we welcome the Honorable Trey Trainor, Commissioner on the Federal Election Commission, for a federal election law update. Commissioner Trainor will discuss how much has been raised and spent in the 2024 election cycle, recent advisory opinions that the FEC has approved that affect state political activity as it relates to federal candidate and organization participation, and legislation pending before Congress.

Trey Trainor, of Driftwood, TX, serves as a Commissioner on the Federal Election Commission (FEC). Nominated by President Donald J. Trump and confirmed by the United States Senate, Trainor has had a distinguished career primarily focused on election law, campaign finance, and ethics.
 
Before his current role, Trainor chaired the FEC in 2020. His legal career spans over two decades, during which he has served in various significant roles, including as Special Assistant to the Secretary of Defense, General Counsel to the Texas Secretary of State, and as legal counsel to the Republican Party of Texas. Prior to joining the FEC, Trainor was a partner at Akerman, LLP, and also operated his own private practice.
 
Commissioner Trainor is known for his extensive expertise in campaign finance issues and has testified before Congress multiple times. He is a frequent commentator on these matters, contributing to outlets such as Fox News, The Washington Examiner, and The Daily Caller. He completed his undergraduate studies at Texas A&M University and earned his law degree from Texas A&M University School of Law.

Event: The SEC’s Regulatory Agenda
Date: Tuesday, June 11, 2024
Time: 12:00 p.m.–1:00 p.m.
Location: Arts District Mansion
2101 Ross Ave. | Dallas, TX 75201
CLE Credit: CLE credit pending

During the tenure of Chair Gary Gensler, the Securities and Exchange Commission has pursued an aggressive rule-making agenda with far-reaching effects on the American financial industry. Please join us for a panel discussion of the SEC’s recent major regulatory actions and their impact on this key sector of our nation’s economy.

David Woodcock is a partner in the Dallas and Washington offices of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. He is a co-chair of the firm’s Securities Enforcement Practice Group. Prior to joining Gibson Dunn, he was Assistant General Counsel – Corporate at ExxonMobil Corporation, where he led all aspects of corporate, securities, ESG/sustainability, and governance. Earlier in his career, he served as Director of the Fort Worth Regional Office of the SEC from 2011 to 2015, where he led over 120 lawyers, accountants, and examiners on all aspects of the SEC’s enforcement and examination activities in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Kansas. He clerked for Judge Howell Cobb of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. He received his Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting from Louisiana State University and his JD with honors from the University of Texas Law School.
 
Isaac Haas has been associated with HBK Capital Management since 2015 and serves as HBK’s General Counsel, with primary responsibility for managing the firm’s legal function. Prior to joining HBK, Isaac was an attorney at Haynes and Boone, LLP, where he advised investment funds and operating companies on corporate and securities matters. He began his legal career as an associate at Jones Day. Isaac received a B.B.A. degree in Finance and Risk Management & Insurance in 2004 from Baylor University. He received a J.D. degree magna cum laude in 2011 from Southern Methodist University Dedman School of Law, where he was a Sumners Scholar and served on the editorial board of the SMU Law Review Association.
 
James A. Deeken is a partner at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP specializing in investment fund formation and related securities regulatory matters. He also serves as an adjunct faculty member at SMU’s Dedman School of Law where he teaches investment funds law and regulation. His recent writings on securities regulations and SEC rule making have appeared in Bloomberg Law, Insights: The Corporate and Securities Law Advisor, the Cato Institute’s Regulation magazine and the Securities Regulation Law Journal, where he serves on the Board of Contributing Editors and Advisors. He earned both his BA and JD degrees at Vanderbilt University. Before law school, he worked in the securities industry as a bond trader.
 
Brian Richman is a senior associate in the Dallas office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. He is a member of the firm’s Appellate and Constitutional Law, Litigation, and Administrative and Regulatory Practice groups. Brian represents clients in high-stakes appellate, administrative law, and litigation matters. His practice includes litigating cutting-edge constitutional and administrative law issues, challenging agency rulemakings, and defending against government enforcement actions, along with other complex litigation matters. He has extensive experience in the financial services sector. Before joining the firm, Brian clerked for Judge Stephen F. Williams of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He also served as a securities compliance officer at Goldman Sachs. Brian received his JD from Yale Law School.

Event: A Debate on the Supreme Court Code of Conduct with Professors Michael S. McGinniss and John S. Dzienkowski
Date: Wednesday, May 8, 2024
Time: 12:00 p.m.–1:00 p.m.
Location: Arts District Mansion
2101 Ross Ave. | Dallas, TX 75201
CLE Credit: CLE and ethics credit pending

Event: Views from the Bench with Judges Brown, Hendrix, Kacsmaryk & Starr
Date: Tuesday, March 26, 2024
Time: 12:00 p.m.–1:00 p.m.
Location: Munsch Hardt Kopf & Harr, P.C.
500 N. Akard Street | Suite 4000 | Dallas, TX 75201
CLE Credit: CLE and ethics credit pending

Hon. Ada Brown: Before joining the federal bench, Judge Brown served as a Judge on the Fifth Court of Appeals and on the Dallas County Criminal District Court in Dallas.  Before joining the state bench, Judge Brown also served as an Assistant District Attorney for Dallas County, where she was a felony prosecutor for the Internet Crimes Against Children Unit.  Judge Brown also practiced at McKool Smith in Dallas and was an adjunct professor of trial advocacy at SMU.  She earned her BA, magna cum laude, from Spelman College, and her JD from Emory University School of Law.

Hon. James Wesley Hendrix: Prior to taking the bench, Judge Hendrix served as the Appellate Chief for the Northern District of Texas’s United States Attorney’s Office. Before his work as a prosecutor, Judge Hendrix was an associate in the Dallas office of Baker Botts LLP. Judge Hendrix received his undergraduate degree, with Honors, from the University of Chicago, and earned his law degree, with High Honors and as a Chancellor-at-Large, from the University of Texas School of Law. He began his legal career as a law clerk to Judge Patrick Higginbotham of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
  
Hon. Matthew J. Kacsmaryk: Before becoming a judge, Judge Kacsmaryk was Deputy General Counsel to the First Liberty Institute.  Prior to that, he served as an Assistant United States Attorney for the Northern District of Texas in Dallas.  He also was an associate in the Dallas office of Baker Botts LLP. Judge Kacsmaryk received his BA, summa cum laude, from Abilene Christian University and his JD, with Honors, from the University of Texas School of Law.
 
Hon. Brantley Starr: Prior to joining the bench, Judge Starr served as the Deputy First Assistant Attorney General of Texas, from 2016 to 2019, under Jeff Mateer.  Starr also served as a staff attorney to Justice Eva Guzman of the Supreme Court of Texas, and worked as an Assistant Attorney General, Assistant Solicitor General, and Deputy Attorney General for Legal Counsel, all in the office of the Attorney General of Texas.  Judge Starr also practiced law at King & Spalding in Austin. Judge Starr received his BA, summa cum laude, from Abilene Christian University, and earned his JD from the University of Texas School of Law.  After graduating from law school, he was a law clerk to then-Justice Don Willett of the Supreme Court of Texas.

Event: Binding Dicta in the Ninth Circuit with Judge Lawrence VanDyke
Date: Tuesday, February 6, 2024
Time: 12:00 p.m.–1:00 p.m.
Location: Munsch Hardt Kopf & Harr, P.C.
500 N. Akard Street | Suite 4000 | Dallas, TX 75201
CLE Credit: CLE credit available

Judge Lawrence VanDyke serves as a circuit judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.  Prior to that appointment in January 2020, he served as a Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Environment and Natural Resources Division of the United States Department of Justice.  Before that, he served consecutively as the Solicitor General of two western states—Nevada and Montana.  At the beginning of his legal career, he worked as an attorney in the Appellate and Constitutional Issues practice group at Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, LLP.

Judge VanDyke received his law degree magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, where he was an editor on the Harvard Law Review.  He has engineering and theology undergraduate degrees and a masters degree in engineering management.  He served as a law clerk to the Honorable Janice Rogers Brown of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.  Judge VanDyke and his wife Cheryl live in Reno, Nevada, and they have three children.

Event: The People’s Justice: Clarence Thomas and the Constitutional Stories that Define Him with Judge Amul R. Thapar
Date: Thursday, September 28, 2023
Time: 12:00 p.m.–1:00 p.m.
Location: Arts District Mansion
CLE Credit: Ethics CLE credit available

The Honorable Amul R. Thapar serves as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. His judicial career began in 2007 when President George W. Bush nominated him to serve on the Eastern District of Kentucky, making him the first South Asian Article III judge in American history. In 2017, he became President Donald J. Trump’s first appellate court nominee.

Before joining the bench, Judge Thapar served as the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Kentucky. While United States Attorney, Judge Thapar worked on the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee (“AGAC”) and chaired the AGAC’s Controlled Substances and Asset Forfeiture subcommittee. He also served on the Terrorism and National Security subcommittee, the Violent Crime subcommittee, and the Child Exploitation working group.

Judge Thapar has worked in private practice, at Williams & Connolly in Washington, D.C., and Squire, Sanders & Dempsey in Cincinnati, Ohio. He also served as an Assistant United States Attorney in both the Southern District of Ohio and the District of Columbia.  

Judge Thapar received his undergraduate degree from Boston College and his law degree from the University of California, Berkeley. After graduating, Judge Thapar worked as a law clerk to the Honorable S. Arthur Spiegel of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, and the Honorable Nathaniel R. Jones of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.  

Judge Thapar has also published in the Yale Law Journal, Michigan Law Review, and Catholic University Law Review. He teaches courses on originalism, the Federalists and Anti-Federalists, and legal writing at Notre Dame Law School, the University of Virginia School of Law, and Vanderbilt Law School.

Event: Supreme Court Roundup with Stephen J. Hammer
Date: Tuesday, September 5, 2023
Time: 12:00 p.m.–1:00 p.m.
Location: Arts District Mansion
CLE Credit: CLE credit is pending

Stephen Hammer is a associate in the Dallas office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, where he is a member of the firm’s Appellate and Constitutional Law and Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice groups. He served as a law clerk to Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. of the Supreme Court of the United States during October Term 2020. He also served as a law clerk to Judge Jeffrey S. Sutton of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and Judge Gregory G. Katsas of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

Mr. Hammer attended Harvard Law School, where he served as a managing editor of the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy and received his J.D. magna cum laude. Before law school, he served as an infantry officer in the 82nd Airborne Division and deployed twice to southern Afghanistan. Mr. Hammer received an M.Phil. in theology from Oxford, where he studied on a Rhodes scholarship. He received his A.B. summa cum laude in classics from Princeton and graduated as Latin salutatorian. Mr. Hammer resides in his hometown of Dallas with his wife and their six children.

Event: Our Colorblind Constitution: Ending Racial Discrimination in College Admissions with Adam K. Mortara
Date: Thursday, August 24, 2023
Time: 12:00 p.m.–1:00 p.m.
Location: Arts District Mansion
CLE Credit: CLE credit is pending

Adam Mortara graduated from the University of Chicago in 1996 with a B.Sc. in chemistry.  He then attended Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he received a masters degree in astrophysics on a British Marshall Scholarship.

Mr. Mortara graduated from the University of Chicago Law School with highest honors in 2001.  Following graduation, he clerked for Judge Patrick Higginbotham of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and then for Justice Clarence Thomas of the Supreme Court of the United States.  After his clerkships, he was a Temple Bar Scholar of the American Inns of Court.

From 2003 to 2020, Mr. Mortara was with Bartlit Beck LLP where he tried high stakes intellectual property cases and, more notably, Students For Fair Admissions v. Harvard.  He retired from Bartlit Beck and founded Lawfair LLC, a civil and voting rights firm.  He has been a Lecturer in Law at the University of Chicago Law School since 2007, where he teaches Federal Habeas Corpus, Federal Jurisdiction, Criminal Procedure, and Writing for the Judiciary.