On Monday, June 6, 2022, the Society held its 47th consecutive Annual Meeting and its third consecutive Virtual Annual Meeting. The meeting was preceded by the Society’s Annual Lecture in which an engaging discussion titled: Who Decides? States as Laboratories for Constitutional Experimentation between Chief Judge Jeffrey Sutton, United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and Justice Leondra Kruger of the California Supreme Court took place.
Following a presentation by Society President Chilton D. Varner where she highlighted the many accomplishments of another pandemic challenged year, the Society re-elected 33 Trustees to additional 3-year terms and elected 6 new Trustees to an initial 3-year term.
John Danielson – founder and chairman of Chartwell, having previously served as Chartwell’s President and CEO. Chartwell is a global consultancy headquartered in Washington, DC. Chartwell has successfully won and executed a variety of projects in China, Europe, India, South America and the Middle East. Mr. Danielson also currently serves as a senior advisor to select client companies, private equity funds and philanthropic initiatives including as a Member of the Advisory Board for the USC-Schwarzenegger Institute for State and Global Policy and previously by appointment of HRH Prince Edward to the US Duke of Edinburgh Awards.
Mr. Danielson was appointed Chief of Staff at the United States Department of Education by President George W. Bush from 2001-2003. He also worked in several senior roles for former United States Secretary of Education and current Chairman of the United States Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Lamar Alexander. From 1995 through 2001, he co-founded an education company serving the academic and behavioral needs of at-risk middle and high school students in many of the nation’s largest urban school systems, demonstrating substantial student academic growth, and considerable reductions in district-wide crime rates.
Neil Eggleston – Litigation partner in the Washington, DC office of Kirkland & Ellis LLP. Neil has a distinguished record of public service and has held a number of senior government roles. He was White House Counsel to President Obama from 2014 to 2017 and advised the president on all legal and constitutional issues across a broad spectrum of domestic and foreign policy matters. Earlier in his career, Neil served as Deputy Chief Counsel, U.S. House of Representatives Select Committee Investigating the Iran/Contra Affair (1987-1988); Assistant U.S. Attorney (1981-1987) and Chief Appellate Attorney for the Southern District of New York (1986-1987); and Chief Appellate Attorney for the Southern District of New York (1986-1987).
William J. Murphy – An experienced trial lawyer, and Partner at Zuckerman Spaeder, Bill has tried civil and criminal cases to verdict in state and federal courts, represented clients in commercial arbitration, and argued numerous appeals in courts around the country.
Throughout a long career at the bar, Bill has represented witnesses and targets of grand jury investigations, defended clients investigated by the SEC and other federal enforcement agencies, and represented individuals in congressional investigations. Bill was inducted as a fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers in 2002. He previously served as Chair of that organization’s Maryland State Committee and in 2018 Bill completed a four-year term on the College’s governing Board of Regents, where he represented Maryland and the District of Columbia. He currently serves on the College’s Executive Committee as its Treasurer.
Farah Peterson – Legal historian who focuses on the early American republic. She is a Professor of Law at the University of Chicago School of Law. Her scholarship on statutory interpretation and constitutional law has appeared or is forthcoming in the Yale Law Journal, Columbia Law Review, Virginia Law Review, and elsewhere. Peterson is also an essayist. Her writing on race, art history, memoir, and American life has appeared in Ploughshares and American Scholar.
Peterson holds a PhD in American history from Princeton University. She earned her JD from Yale Law School and received her bachelor’s in history from Yale as well. After law school, Peterson clerked for Associate Justice Stephen Breyer on the US Supreme Court and Judge Guido Calabresi on the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
David Bruce Smith – Author, editor, publisher and business executive based in Washington, DC. He is the founder and president of The Grateful American Foundation, an organization dedicated to restoring enthusiasm in American history for kids and adults. Smith has been a guest blogger for Maryland Humanities, the National Museum of Women in the Arts, and Historic Deerfield. He also co-authors a bi-weekly column, History Matters, with John Grimaldi; and writes newsletters for his Grateful American Foundation, and David Bruce Smith Publications.
Donald B. Verrilli – Partner with Munger, Tolles & Olson, the founder of its Washington, D.C., office, and one of the nation’s premier Supreme Court and appellate advocates. He served as Solicitor General of the United States from June 2011 to June 2016. During his time as Solicitor General, he argued more than 50 cases before the Supreme Court, including landmark decisions upholding the Affordable Care Act (National Federation of Independent Businesses v. Sebelius and King v. Burwell) and recognizing marriage equality (Obergefell v. Hodges).
In addition to handling matters before the U.S. Supreme Court and the courts of appeals, Mr. Verrilli’s practice focuses on representing and counseling clients on multi-dimensional problems, where litigation, regulation and public policy intersect to shape markets and industries in our evolving economy.