Event: Views from the Bench with Judges Barker, Jordan, Kernodle, and Starr
Date: Wednesday, May 11, 2022
Time: 12:00 p.m.–1:00 p.m.
Location: Belo Mansion, 2101 Ross Ave., Dallas, Texas 75201
CLE Credit: CLE credit is pending

Hon. J. Campbell Barker:  Prior to taking the bench, Judge Barker served as Deputy Solicitor General of Texas, arguing appeals and public-law cases for the State.  Before his state-government service, Judge Barker was an appellate and IP partner at Yetter Coleman in Houston.  Before that, he spent four years in the Appellate Section of the DOJ’s Criminal Division.  While there, he taught appellate advocacy at the National Advocacy Center, completed a Pegasus Scholarship with the English Inns of Court, and served on detail as a Special Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia.  Judge Barker served as a law clerk to Judge William Bryson on the Federal Circuit and Chief Judge John Walker on the Second Circuit.  He earned his BS in computer engineering summa cum laude from Texas A&M and his JD from the University of Texas, where he graduated first in his class. 
  
Hon. Sean J. Jordan:  Prior to becoming a judge, Mr. Jordan was a partner in the Austin, Texas, office of Jackson Walker, where he served as the Co-Chair of the firm’s Appellate Practice Group.  Prior to entering private practice, Judge Jordan served as Principal Deputy Solicitor General for the State of Texas, representing the State in appeals in both federal and state courts.  He also served in the United States Army as an infantryman and paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne Division.  Judge Jordan received his BA, summa cum laude, from the University of Texas at Austin and his JD, with Honors, from the University of Texas School of Law.
 
Hon. Jeremy D. Kernodle:  Before joining the bench, Judge Kernodle was a partner at Haynes and Boone, where he founded and chaired the firm’s False Claims Act practice group and focused on representing healthcare providers and government contractors in federal courts throughout the country.  He also served on the firm’s executive committee.  Judge Kernodle is a past president of the Dallas Chapter of the Federalist Society and the Dallas Chapter of the Federal Bar Association, and a former secretary of the Dallas Bar Association’s Appellate Section.  Before joining Haynes and Boone, Judge Kernodle was an attorney-advisor in the Office of Legal Counsel at the U.S. Department of Justice.  After earning his law degree at Vanderbilt in 2001, Judge Kernodle clerked for Judge Gerald Bard Tjoflat of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.  He earned his BA and BBA, both summa cum laude, from Harding University.
 
Hon. Brantley Starr:  Prior to taking 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 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: In the Eye of the Storm with Ilya Shapiro
Date: Wednesday, April 13, 2022
Time: Noon–1:00 p.m.
Location: Belo Mansion, 2101 Ross Ave., Dallas, Texas 75201
CLE Credit: One hour of CLE credit available

Ilya Shapiro is the author of Supreme Disorder: Judicial Nominations and the Politics of America’s Highest Court (2020). He has contributed to a variety of academic, popular, and professional publications, including the Wall Street Journal, the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, National Review, and Newsweek. He also regularly provides commentary for various media outlets, is a legal consultant to CBS News, and once appeared on the Colbert Report.

He was a vice president of the Cato Institute, director of the Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies, and publisher of the Cato Supreme Court Review. Before joining Cato, he was a special assistant/adviser to the Multi-National Force in Iraq on rule-of-law issues and practiced at Patton Boggs and Cleary Gottlieb. Before entering private practice, Shapiro clerked for Judge E. Grady Jolly of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. He holds an AB from Princeton University, an MSc from the London School of Economics, and a JD from the University of Chicago Law School (where he became a Tony Patino Fellow).

CLE credit will be available.