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Doug is founder and President of the Constitutional Accountability Center (CAC), a think tank, law firm and action center dedicated to fulfilling the progressive promise of our Constitution’s text and history. He previously founded and directed Community Rights Counsel (CRC), CAC’s predecessor organization. Doug has represented clients in state and federal appellate courts around the country and he has co-authored more than a dozen briefs filed before the U.S. Supreme Court. He is co-author of three books and lead author of numerous reports and studies. He launched and helped direct (with Earthjustice) the Judging the Environment Project, a comprehensive effort to highlight the environmental stakes in the future of the U.S. Supreme Court and appointments to the federal bench.
Doug has appeared on television programs including Nightline, 20/20, Fox News Sunday, and World News Tonight, and radio broadcasts on NPR, CBS News, and Air America. His academic writings have appeared in scholarly journals including the Virginia Law Review. His commentary has run in the New Republic, the American Prospect, Slate, and dozens of major papers including the Washington Post, USA Today, and the Los Angeles Times. Doug is a blogger on Huffington Post. Doug received his undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Virginia.
To view a list of Doug's writings, speeches and publications, click here.
Judith is Vice President of Constitutional Accountability Center. Prior to joining CAC, Judith served as the Legal Director of People For the American Way, where she focused on constitutional and civil rights issues, federal and state legislative activity, and judicial nominations. Judith has a particular expertise in First Amendment issues and has litigated numerous cases involving religious liberty and the separation of church and state. Previously, Judith was a partner at Dickstein, Shapiro & Morin and a law clerk for Chief Judge Joseph S. Lord, III of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. Judith has served as a member of the District of Columbia Bar’s Task Force on Sexual Orientation and the Legal Workplace, and as a mediator in the Alternative Dispute Resolution Program of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. She has also served on the boards of directors of the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund and the Women's Legal Defense Fund (now the National Partnership for Women and Families). Judith is a recipient of the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund Attorney Appreciation Award, the Whitman-Walker Clinic Gene Frey Memorial Award for Community Service, and the Women's Legal Defense Fund Volunteer Attorney Award. Judith has appeared on television and radio programs nationwide and been quoted frequently in the print media. She has blogged for Huffington Post and other sites and her writings have been published in USA Today, Congress Monthly, the National Council of Jewish Women Journal and various other publications. Judith received her J.D. from Yale Law School and her undergraduate degree from Princeton University, and she was a Winston Churchill Scholar at Cambridge University.
Elizabeth is Constitutional Accountability Center’s Chief Counsel. Elizabeth frequently participates in Supreme Court litigation and has argued several important cases in the federal courts of appeals. She joined CAC from private practice at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart Oliver & Hedges in San Francisco, where she was an attorney working with former Stanford Law School Dean Kathleen Sullivan in the firm’s Supreme Court/appellate practice. Previously, Elizabeth was a supervising attorney and teaching fellow at the Georgetown University Law Center appellate litigation clinic, a law clerk for Judge James R. Browning of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit and a lawyer at Shaw Pittman, a law firm in Washington DC. Elizabeth has appeared on television as a legal expert for NBC, ABC, Fox News, and Fox Business Channel, and has appeared on NPR’s “All Things Considered” and nationally-syndicated radio programs. She has been quoted extensively in the print media and is a regular contributor to the American Bar Association’s Preview of United States Supreme Court Cases. Her writings have appeared in Slate and on numerous political and legal blogs, such as Huffington Post, Grist, and ACSblog. She has also published in the Syracuse Law Review and the Yale Journal of International Law. Elizabeth is a graduate of Yale Law School.
David joined CAC after serving as Program Director of Cardozo Law School's Floersheimer Center for Constitutional Democracy, and as an attorney with the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, where he worked with Bert Neuborne on appellate briefs in constitutional cases involving the First Amendment and voting rights. Previously, David was an Acting Assistant Professor at NYU School of Law and practiced law at Emery Cuti Brinckerhoff & Abady, PC, where he litigated a wide range of constitutional and civil rights cases. David has also served as an attorney fellow for the Center for Reproductive Law and Policy and as a law clerk for the Hon. Rosemary Barkett on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit. He is a graduate of Yale Law School, where he served as an editor on the Yale Law Review. His academic writings have appeared in the Yale Law Journal, the Boston University Law Review, the Emory Law Journal, the George Washington Law Review. Before receiving his law degree, David worked as a paralegal for the American Civil Liberties Union, where he helped Kathryn Kolbert prepare the briefs and argument in Planned Parenthood v. Casey. In 1993, David and Ms. Kolbert co-authored an article in the Temple Law Review titled "Responding to Planned Parenthood v. Casey: Establishing Neutrality Principles in State Constitutional Law." David received his undergraduate degree from Columbia University.
Doug is Constitutional Accountability Center’s Press Secretary. Prior to joining CAC, Doug served as Assistant Director of Communications for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, as well as Media Relations Director for American Rights at Work. Doug’s writing has appeared in several outlets including the Cincinnati Enquirer, The New York Times and The Washington Post. Doug’s work includes having helped manage the gun control movement’s response to the Virginia Tech massacre – the worst mass shooting in American history – as well as the media strategy around the landmark Second Amendment cases District of Columbia v. Heller and McDonald v. City of Chicago. Doug is a graduate of the University of Cincinnati with a degree in linguistics (high honors).
Neil, a 2008 graduate of Yale Law School, is already an accomplished advocate, having successfully argued CCJEF v. Rell, a landmark education adequacy case, before the Connecticut Supreme Court while still a law student. Prior to joining CAC, Neil served as a law clerk to Justice Morgan Christen on the Alaska Supreme Court. After graduating from Yale, Neil worked as a Thomas Emerson Fellow at David Rosen & Associates, a small community based law practice in New Haven, Connecticut, where he participated in two jury trials and drafted a merits brief to the Connecticut Supreme Court in a case involving loss of consortium rights for same-sex spouses. Neil grew up in the U.S. territory of Guam, and after college served as the Press Secretary for Congresswoman Madeleine Bordallo (GU) following work for the Majority Leader of the Guam Legislature. Neil received his undergraduate degree from Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon, and competed in the 2004 Athens Olympics.
Brooke is Constitutional Accountability Center’s Online Communications Director. Most recently, she served as a member of the U.S. Supreme Court research team for the progressive media watchdog organization Media Matters for America, where she wrote blog posts and research documents debunking legal and political misinformation in the media. Brooke is an award-winning blogger and a graduate of Hampton University, summa cum laude, and Mercer University School of Law. At Mercer, Brooke served as the Eleventh Circuit Survey Editor of the Mercer Law Review and earned a Certificate in Advanced Legal Writing, Research, and Drafting.
Ryan is Constitutional Accountability Center’s Research and Administrative Associate. Ryan graduated summa cum laude from Cornell University in 2011. Prior to joining CAC, he worked as a research assistant for the Cornell University Department of Government and as an intern for the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Legislative Affairs.
Directors
Doug is the Constitutional Accountability Center’s founder and President.
Eldie is the Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary of Amtrak. Previously, Eldie was a partner of the Boston-based law firm Ropes & Gray, where her practice included federal and state employment and environmental litigation, patent and antitrust cases and tax, business and civil rights litigation. From 1993 to 2001, Eldie served as Assistant Attorney General, U.S. Department of Justice, where her primary responsibilities included managing the Department's role in President Clinton’s judicial nominations process and managing the Department’s policy office.
Akhil is the Southmayd Professor of Law and Political Science at Yale University, where he teaches constitutional law at both Yale College and Yale Law School. He received his B.A, summa cum laude, in 1980 from Yale College, and his J.D. in 1984 from Yale Law School, where he served as an editor of The Yale Law Journal. After clerking for Judge Stephen Breyer, U.S. Court of Appeals, 1st Circuit, Professor Amar joined the Yale faculty in 1985.
After a long and successful career as the owner and CEO of a 200-employee design and manufacturing company in St. Louis, Fred founded Sage Consultants, LLC in 2003 to advise non-profit organizations on management, development and governance issues. He spent the first five years of his retirement career working for the Open Society Institute and has advised the Constitutional Accountability Center and its predecessor organization, Community Rights Counsel, since 2006, first as a management consultant and, since January 2011, as a member of CAC’s Board.
Sean is a partner in the law firm of Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP, resident in the firm’s New York office, where his work focuses on global finance. Previously, Sean was a partner at Kirkland & Ellis LLP, and, from 2007-09, he served as First Deputy Secretary to the Governor of New York, with responsibility for the Governor's strategic and policy priorities. Sean oversaw 13 state agencies and departments, including those responsible for all homeland security, state police and emergency management operations. From 1997-2000, Sean served as a senior West Wing advisor to President Clinton.
Judge Wald has focused her career on public interest law, working as an attorney with the Mental Health Law Project and the Center for Law and Social Policy, the Neighborhood Legal Services Program, and the Office of Criminal Justice at the Department of Justice. Judge Wald also served as co-director of the Ford Foundation Drug Abuse Research Project. In 1977, she was appointed Assistant Attorney General for Legislative Affairs for the U.S. Department of Justice, and in 1979, she was nominated by President Jimmy Carter, and confirmed by the Senate, to a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The first woman ever appointed to the D.C. Circuit, Judge Wald served for 20 years, five of which she spent as Chief Judge.
Advisors
Walter is currently the Douglas B. Maggs Professor of Law at Duke University and head of the appellate practice at O’Melveny & Myers in Washington, D.C. He also leads Harvard Law School's Supreme Court and Appellate Litigation Clinic. He served as the acting United States Solicitor General for the 1996-1997 Term of the Supreme Court. Prior to his appointment as acting Solicitor General, Walter was an Assistant Attorney General and head of the Office of Legal Counsel under President Bill Clinton.
Jack is Knight Professor of Constitutional Law and the First Amendment at Yale Law School. Jack received his Ph.D. in philosophy from Cambridge University, and his A.B. and J.D. degrees from Harvard University. He served as a clerk for Judge Carolyn Dineen King of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Jack writes political and legal commentary at the weblog Balkinization.
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Staff
Directors
Doug is the Constitutional Accountability Center’s founder and President.