2025 District Conference

Stephen I. Vladeck is a professor of law at the Georgetown University Law Center, and is a nationally recognized expert on the federal courts; the Supreme Court; national security law; and military justice.

Vladeck is author of the New York Times bestselling book, “The Shadow Docket: How the Supreme Court Uses Stealth Rulings to Amass Power and Undermine the Republic,” which won the 2023 Writers’ League of Texas Book Award for Non-Fiction and was a finalist for the 2024 ABA Silver Gavel Award for Media and the Arts. Vladeck is also a highly regarded appellate advocate, having argued three cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and over a dozen before various lower federal civilian and military courts. He has received numerous awards for his influential and widely cited legal scholarship, his prolific popular writing, his teaching, and his service to the legal profession—including the 2024 University of Texas President’s Research Impact Award and his selection by the Order of the Coif to serve as its Distinguished Visiting Professor for 2025.

Vladeck is CNN’s Supreme Court analyst and editor and author of “One First,” a popular weekly newsletter about the Supreme Court. Together with Bobby Chesney, Vladeck co-hosts the popular and award-winning “National Security Law Podcast.” He is also a co-author of Aspen Publishers’ leading national security law and counterterrorism law casebooks. And he is a member of the Board of Trustees of EarthJustice—the nation’s premier nonprofit public interest environmental law organization.

Vladeck graduated from Yale Law School in 2004—where he was executive editor of the Yale Law Journal and won the Harlan Fiske Stone Prize for outstanding moot court oralist and shared the Potter Stewart Prize for best moot court team performance. After law school, he clerked for the Honorable Marsha S. Berzon on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and the Honorable Rosemary Barkett on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. He earned a B.A. summa cum laude with Highest Distinction in History and Mathematics from Amherst College in 2001—where he wrote his senior thesis on “Leipzig’s Shadow: The War Crimes Trials of the First World War and Their Implications from Nuremberg to the Present.” A native New Yorker and hopeless Mets fan, Vladeck lives in the District with his wife, Karen (Founder and Managing Partner of Risepoint Search Partners); their daughters, Madeleine and Sydney; and their eleven-year-old pug, Roxanna.

As a researcher, author, and top advisor to many global leaders & managers, Dr. Arin N. Reeves offers expertise and insights on a wide range of leadership and workplace culture topics.

Arin is intellectually voracious and committed to exploring diverse, and often contrarian, perspectives in her research and writing. She is the best-selling author of The Next IQ, One Size Never Fits All, and Smarter Than A Lie. Her latest book, In Charge: The Energy Management Guide for Badass Women Who Are Tired of Being Tired, was released in March 2022. For more information, visit arinreeves.com

Arin has designed and led comprehensive research projects on topics including gender equity, LGBTQIA diversity, racial/ethnic diversity, cultural integration, implicit bias, transformational leadership, energy management, and working through generational differences.

She is the founder and managing director of the research and advisory firm Nextions, which specializes in workplace culture change. Additionally, Arin created The JEDI Collective, a public interest initiative dedicated to advancing justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion globally.

Arin began her career as a practicing attorney. She then earned her doctorate in sociology at Northwestern University, where she has served as an Adjunct Professor teaching classes on law and society.

Andrew Mergen is a Visiting Assistant Clinical Professor of Law and Faculty Director of the Emmett Environmental Law & Policy Clinic. Prior to joining the Harvard Law School faculty, Andrew Mergen served in the Appellate Section of the Environment & Natural Resources Division (ENRD) at the United States Department of Justice. Professor Mergen began his career at the Justice Department in the Honors Program and concluded his career as Chief of ENRD’s Appellate Section. He has presented oral arguments in all 13 federal courts of appeals, including two en banc courts, and before several state intermediate and supreme courts. He has also worked on over a dozen merits cases in the Supreme Court of the United States. In addition, in 2009, Professor Mergen assisted the Office of White House Counsel on the confirmation of the Honorable Sonia Sotomayor as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. During his career at the Justice Department, Professor Mergen received the Attorney General’s Award for Distinguished Service three times. He also received ENRD’s Muskee-Chafee Award, honoring his work’s significant contribution to protecting the environment.

Before entering clinical teaching, Professor Mergen taught at several law schools including, Harvard Law School (Advanced Environmental Law), the University of Michigan Law School (Natural Resources Law) and the William S. Richardson School of Law, University of Hawaii-Manoa (Administrative Law). Professor Mergen has written about federal water rights in “A Misplaced Sensitivity: The Draft Opinions in Wyoming v. United States” (68 Colo. L. Rev. 683 (1997), with Sylvia F. Liu); energy development on public lands in “Surface Tension: The Problem of Federal Private Split Estates” (33 Land & Water L. Rev. 419 (1998)); climate change and the Endangered Species Act in “The Role of Climate Change in ESA Listing Decisions” (53 Rocky Mt. Min. L. Fdn. 67 (2016), with Murray Feldman) and the accommodation of Native American sacred sites on federal land in “Finding the Path Forward for Indigenous Sacred and Cultural Spaces on Federal Public Land,” 68 Nat. Resources & Energy L. Inst. 32-1 (2022). Professor Mergen is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin—Madison and the George Washington University Law School.

Wes Williams Jr. was born and raised in northern Nevada in the small town of Schurz. He graduated from Yerington High School. He then earned a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering with emphases in construction management and structural design from Stanford University in 1988 and his Juris Doctorate from the University of California, Davis School of Law in 1994. He is admitted to the State Bars of Nevada (1998), Colorado (1994 – currently inactive status) and Arizona (1996 – currently inactive status). He has represented clients in the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, state and federal district courts of Nevada, Arizona and Colorado; in addition to numerous tribal courts and intertribal courts of appeals.

Wes began practicing law in Northern Nevada in 1998 with the firm Williams & Emm, LLC. and established the Law Offices of Wes Williams Jr., P.C. in 2002.

Mr. Williams has served as a Tribal Court judge and/or Tribal Appellate Court judge for numerous tribes throughout the Western United States. He has also helped establish tribal court systems for tribes in California and New York. Mr. Williams’ engineering background has allowed him to serve as an arbitrator for a large design/construction case.

Bret Birdsong is a Professor of Law at the Boyd School of Law at the University of Nevada Las Vegas, where he joined the faculty in 2000. His academic work focuses on conservation, public lands, natural resources, and water law. He is a co-author of a leading casebook on natural resources law, widely adopted in law schools across the country. In addition to his work in academia, Professor Birdsong has extensive experience in government. He served as Deputy Solicitor for Land Resources at the Department of the Interior during the Obama administration, where he worked extensively on sage grouse conservation, the creation and expansion of numerous national monuments, and the design of plans to provide for both renewable energy and habitat conservation on public lands.

Professor Birdsong graduated from Princeton University and University of California, Hastings College of the Law. Before joining the U.S. Department of Justice through the Attorney General’s Honors Program, he clerked for Judge Robert P. Patterson, Jr., on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Jason Frierson has practiced in civil litigation and family law, but a majority of his career has been in public service. For 15 years, Jason worked on both sides of the criminal justice system, as a public defender and also as a prosecutor. In 2010, Jason was elected to serve in the Nevada State Assembly during the 2011 and 2013 Nevada legislative sessions. In 2017 - 2021, Jason also served as the Speaker of the Nevada State Assembly. In 2021, Jason was nominated by President Biden in 2021 to serve as US Attorney for the District of Nevada and was confirmed by the US Senate the following year. Jason resigned in January of this year and currently works as Principal and Counsel at Cornerstone Government Affairs.

Frank Z. LaForge joined the University of Nevada, Reno as Assistant General Counsel in 2022. He previously practiced law at Holland & Hart in Reno and Howard Rice (now Arnold & Porter) in San Francisco. In addition to litigation, Frank oversees many of the legal issues facing the University’s international programs, Athletics, and the University of Nevada Press. Frank holds a B.A. with honors from the University of California, Los Angeles and a J.D. from the University of Texas School of Law, where he served on the Texas Law Review and graduated Order of the Coif. Frank previously served as a judicial clerk for Chief Judge Erik Møse at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and Justice Warren Matthews at the Alaska Supreme Court.

Since November 2019, Sarah A. Bradley has been the Deputy Executive Director at the Nevada State Board of Medical Examiners. Prior to that, she spent twelve and a half years in the Boards and Open Government Division at the Office of the Attorney General where she represented multiple state agencies, primarily in administrative law matters. Sarah grew up in the Seattle area and graduated from the University of Idaho, College of Law in 2006. After completing law school, she clerked for the Honorable Dan L. Papez and the Honorable Steve L. Dobrescu in the State of Nevada’s Seventh Judicial District Court. Sarah has been the Public Lawyers’ Section Chair since 2018. She lives in Reno with her dogs Atticus and Manuca. In her free time, Sarah enjoys volunteering with Big Brothers Big Sisters of Northern Nevada, mentoring undergraduate students interested in attending law school through La Voz at the Boyd School of Law, and volunteering with Res-Que to help dogs find forever homes.

Kate Berry is an Assistant Federal Public Defender and Assistant Chief of the Trial Unit with the Federal Public Defender’s Office for the District of Nevada. She has tried a number of complex criminal cases on behalf of clients facing charges including murder, kidnapping resulting in death, child sexual assault, threats, assault on an officer, tax fraud, and firearms offenses.

Prior to joining the Federal Public Defender’s Office, Kate served as counsel for the Brennan Center for Justice in New York and taught the Public Policy Advocacy Clinic at NYU School of Law. Kate served as a judicial law clerk to the Honorable Miranda M. Du of the District of Nevada following her graduation from law school. Kate received her law degree from NYU Law as a Root-Tilden-Kern Scholar, and her undergraduate degree with high honors from Oberlin College.

Joanne is originally from San Martin, California where she graduated from Live Oak High School and attended Hartnell College, Salinas, California while studying Animal Health and Business. Joanne was a mortgage loan officer for many years before moving to Yerington, Nevada in 2005.

Joanne became employed by Walker River Irrigation District in July of 2013 and developed an interest in water rights management and irrigation. In October 2014 she went to work for the U.S. Board of Water Commissioners in the capacity of Secretary / Treasurer where for the next 15 months she set her sights on learning about the C-125 Federal Decree and its enforcement. During that time she was mentored by the then current Water Master and upon his retirement moved into the position of Chief Deputy Water Commissioner / Water Master.

Joanne enjoys spending time with her daughters and grandchildren. When she’s not doing that, she enjoys raising cattle, lambs, goats and playing with her dogs.