Zhonette brings a quarter-century of litigation experience to NCLA. After a federal clerkship, she spent many years litigating at large law firms in Washington, D.C., and Denver, Colorado, before beginning public interest litigation in 2018. 

Zhonette has litigated in state, federal, and international venues and in matters ranging from pro bono custody issues to multi-district and class action cases for Fortune 100 companies. Zhonette spent the first part of her career focused on high-stakes complex commercial litigation and white-collar defense. Since changing her legal practice to taming the Administrative State, Zhonette has focused on the Administrative Procedure Act, natural resources, takings issues and other constitutional claims. 

Zhonette is a graduate of Georgetown University Law Center and is admitted to practice in the District of Columbia, the State of Colorado, the Commonwealth of Virginia, and various federal courts.

NCLA’s President and Chief Legal Officer, Mark Chenoweth, has observed the administrative state up close and personal from perches in all four branches of the federal government. Mark served as the first chief of staff to Congressman Mike Pompeo, as legal counsel to Commissioner Anne Northup at the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, as an attorney advisor in the Office of Legal Policy at the U.S. Department of Justice, and as a law clerk to the Hon. Danny J. Boggs on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.

Mark has worked in several different roles in the private sector as well. He began his legal career in D.C. as a regulatory associate at Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering. He then returned to his home state of Kansas to serve as in-house counsel for Koch Industries. Most recently he spent over four years as general counsel of the Washington Legal Foundation.

Mark is a graduate of Yale College and the University of Chicago Law School, where he co-founded the Institute for Justice Clinic on Entrepreneurship and became a Tony Patiño Fellow. Mark has been widely quoted and/or published in newspapers and websites including the New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, New Hampshire Union Leader, and Metropolitan Corporate Counsel. He has also had recurring op-eds in the Los Angeles Daily Journal, and at Forbes.com.

Margot joins the NCLA’s mission to safeguard the U.S. Constitution from the Administrative State’s overreach from a diverse professional background. After graduating from the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prize—the law school’s highest honor—Margot practiced law in a large Chicago law firm in the commercial litigation department. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, obtaining a broad expertise in federal constitutional, statutory, and regulatory law.

Margot is also a former full-time faculty member of the University of Notre Dame, where she taught law to undergraduate and graduate students for more than a decade, being honored in 1998 with the University-wide Frank O’Malley Undergraduate Teaching Award for her outstanding impact on undergraduate education and her exceptional service to students.

After retiring from the U.S. Courts, Margot launched a new career as an investigative journalist and legal analyst. She currently serves as the Senior Legal Correspondent to The Federalist. Margot’s work has also been published in The Wall Street Journal, The American Spectator, the New Criterion (forthcoming), National Review Online, Townhall.com, the Daily Signal, USA Today, and the Detroit Free Press. She also appears regularly as a guest on nationally syndicated radio programs and on FoxNews, Fox Business, and Newsmax.

Mary Beth brings over 15 years of event planning experience to NCLA. She has organized and spearheaded events for several Washington, D.C.-based organizations, including AdvaMed and Mercer. Before joining NCLA, she served as an Instructional Assistant for an elementary school in Alexandria, VA.

Mary Beth graduated from American International College in Springfield, MA., with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration. She is very active in her community and volunteers on various Boards. She also enjoys spending time with her husband and four children.

Thomas Curro is a Paralegal at the New Civil Liberties Alliance. Prior to joining NCLA, Thomas interned at the U.S. House of Representatives, the American Legislative Exchange Council, and the American Council of Trustees and Alumni. He graduated from Hillsdale College with a B.A. in Politics. In his free time, Thomas enjoys going to the gym, playing pick-up sports, cheering on the New York Yankees, and traveling.

Greg Dolin is an Associate Professor of Law at the University of Baltimore School of Law, where his scholarship focuses on the intersection of patent, administrative, and constitutional law. In addition to a number of articles, Greg has authored multiple amicus briefs in various courts of appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court. He also routinely represented indigent defendants before the Fourth Circuit.

Greg received his bachelor’s degree with honors from The Johns Hopkins University and his J.D. cum laude from Georgetown University.  He also holds an M.D. with Recognition in Humanities from the State University of New York at Stony Brook, and an M.A. in Philosophy and Social Policy from George Washington University.  Greg previously taught at Northwestern University and George Washington University.

Prior to coming to NCLA, Greg spent two years as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Palau where he authored multiple opinions on property, contract, criminal, and constitutional law.

Greg began his legal career by working at Kramer Levin Naftalis and Frankel, LLP, followed by clerkships for the late Hon. H. Emory Widener, Jr., of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and Hon. Pauline Newman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

Greg is admitted to practice in the District of Columbia, New York, and Maryland, as well as to the bars of multiple federal appellate and trial courts, and the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

Philip Hamburger is a scholar of constitutional law and its history at Columbia Law School. He received his bachelor’s degree from Princeton University and his J.D. from Yale Law School. Before coming to Columbia, he was the John P. Wilson Professor at the University of Chicago Law School. He also taught at George Washington University Law School, Northwestern Law School, University of Virginia Law School, and the University of Connecticut Law School. Professor Hamburger’s contributions are unrivaled by any U.S. legal scholar in driving the national conversations on the First Amendment and the separation of church and state and on administrative power. His work on administrative power has been celebrated by organizations like the Manhattan Institute and the Bradley Foundation, among others.

NCLA’s Director of Engagement, Clegg Ivey, began his career as a software developer when he sold his first piece of code at the age of 15. Later, as a tech attorney, he represented clients like Google, Apple, Netscape, and Sun. Clegg then became a Silicon Valley tech entrepreneur, raising millions in venture capital for a series of startups he co-founded that were eventually acquired by firms like Cisco, Actel, and others. Most recently, he spent years building a local retail empire in Savannah that the COVID lockdown forced him to close.

Clegg has been fighting against the encroachment of the administrative state for three decades. As a tech lawyer in the ‘90s, he worked to keep the fledgling Internet free of government regulation. In the ‘00s he defended his own startups – against the FDA when it came after his energy drink company and against the FTC when it threatened his telephony and computer monitoring startups. During the ‘10s Clegg fought the good fight against countless state and local bureaucrats and regulatory agencies that made life difficult for his retail businesses.

Clegg is a graduate of Tulane University and the University of Chicago Law School. He also clerked for the Hon. Alice M. Batchelder on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. He taught classes on technology and public policy as an adjunct at Tulane University and classes on entrepreneurship as a visiting professor at Zhejiang University.

Justice Daniel Kelly was appointed to the Wisconsin Supreme Court in 2016 by Gov. Scott Walker to fill the vacancy created by the retirement of Justice David T. Prosser, Jr.  He served in that capacity until August, 2020.

A native of Santa Barbara, California, Justice Kelly grew up in Arvada, Colorado. He came to Waukesha, Wisconsin to study at Carroll College (now Carroll University), where he earned a bachelor’s degree in Political Science and Spanish in 1986. He earned his law degree from Regent University School of Law in Virginia Beach, Virginia in 1991.

Before joining the Supreme Court, he spent most of his career at one of the largest and oldest law firms in the State of Wisconsin, where he represented clients in courts across the country, including the Wisconsin Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court.

Early in his legal career, Justice Kelly was a law clerk and then staff attorney for the Office of Special Masters of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, from 1992 to 1996. He worked as a law clerk for the late Wisconsin Court of Appeals Judge Ralph Adam Fine from 1991 to 1992.

Justice Kelly has recently served as Senior Fellow in Constitutional Governance at the Institute for Reforming Government, where he authored “The Legislator’s Guide to Legislative Oversight,” a ground-breaking work that introduced a methodology for conducting oversight investigations and hearings that will lead to real-world results.

Justice Kelly is a member of the board of advisors and past president of the Milwaukee Lawyer’s Chapter of the Federalist Society. He is married and has five children. He lives in North Prairie, Wisconsin, where he enjoys intriguing books, the comfortably warm fellowship of good friends and interesting people, all things equestrian, and – above all – his family.

* Not Licensed in D.C./Federal Court Practice Only

Sheng Li is Litigation Counsel for the New Civil Liberties Alliance. Prior to joining NCLA, Sheng served as Counselor to the Administrator of Wage and Hour at the U.S. Department of Labor. In that role, he led numerous efforts to remove or simplify unduly burdensome regulations. He has also worked in the private sector as a litigation associate at Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler and at Kirkland & Ellis.

Sheng is a graduate of Johns Hopkins University and Yale Law School, where he was managing editor of the Yale Journal of International Law. After graduating law school, Sheng served as law clerk to the Hon. Danny J. Boggs on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Sheng enjoys biking, playing ultimate frisbee, and spending time with his wife and two cats.

Peggy Little, Senior Counsel, comes to NCLA with over three decades of experience as a trial and appellate litigator in complex, high-stakes regulatory, mass-tort, class-action, products liability, securities, commercial and civil rights litigation representing individuals and high-profile litigants including Fortune 50 companies, financial institutions, public companies, and universities in state and federal courts, including the United States Supreme Court.

Peggy is a graduate of Yale College and Yale Law School, where she was awarded the Potter Stewart Prize. She was a law clerk to the Hon. Ralph K. Winter on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Prior to starting her own trial and appellate law firm in 1997, where she was appellate consulting counsel to the New Haven firefighters in Ricci v.DeStefano, a landmark 2009 United States Supreme Court decision, Peggy was a partner at Tyler, Cooper & Alcorn in New Haven, Connecticut. From 2004 to early 2018, Peggy directed, part-time, the Federalist Society Pro Bono Center.

Peggy has participated in many national conferences and symposia addressing issues of current importance in constitutional law – specifically state and federal constitutional questions regarding the separation of powers and the first amendment – and regularly speaks, blogs and publishes on the topic of the unconstitutional exercise of governmental power. In May of 2017, she presented her paper, Pirates at the Parchment Gates, to a conference of state and federal judges at the Law and Economics Center at the Antonin Scalia Law School. Her work has been published by law reviews, legal publications, the Federalist Society, the Wall Street Journal, Law and Liberty and the Manhattan Institute.

Joseph Martyak is Director of Operations for the New Civil Liberties Alliance. Joe has extensive management experience in several government, private sector, and non-profit positions: vice president of communications for the Hawaii Community Foundation; chief of staff for Acting Chairman Nancy Nord and communications director for both Acting Chairmen Ann Marie Buerkle and Robert Adler at the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission; associate administrator for public affairs for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; deputy undersecretary for the U.S. Department of the Interior; Washington general manager for Golin/Harris International; executive vice president of marketing, communications and public policy for the American Legacy Foundation; and vice president of corporate affairs for Rhône-Poulenc Inc and ICI Americas.

Joe holds a B.A. in English and French from Georgetown College of Arts and Sciences, and a J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center.

Ruslan Moldovanov is Deputy Director of Communications and Marketing for New Civil Liberties Alliance. Prior to joining NCLA, Ruslan worked at the Cato Institute as an intern at the Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity, after which he completed the Koch Internship Program. He is a graduate of the Southern Federal University, where he studied Economics and currently finishing his master’s program in European studies at the Jagiellonian University.

Andrew Morris is a Senior Litigation Counsel. Before he joined NCLA, Andy was a partner at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP. He has decades of experience litigating complex trial and appellate cases, including a wide range of matters involving securities, administrative, and constitutional law. He has defended many businesses and individuals in matters brought by financial regulators. Andy also served as an Associate Independent Counsel, investigating and prosecuting financial crimes. Andy is Chambers-ranked in securities litigation and has received various recognition in appellate litigation. He has written on a wide range of legal topics for law reviews and other publications. 

Andy earned law degrees from University of Virginia Law School (Order of the Coif) and Oxford University (with honors). He clerked for Judge Max Rosenn on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. 

Casey Norman is Litigation Counsel for the New Civil Liberties Alliance. Prior to joining NCLA, Casey worked in the private sector as a financial restructuring and bankruptcy associate at Dechert LLP.

Casey graduated cum laude from the Georgetown University Law Center in 2019, where she was the executive editor of the Georgetown Journal of International Law and the associate director of the ADR negotiation team. Casey graduated with honors from the University of Notre Dame with a B.A. in French and Russian language and literature. Prior to law school, Casey spent one year teaching English in Poitiers, France. Casey also spent six months in Moscow, Russia, where she studied Russian and interned at the PIR Center, an NGO specializing in global security issues, nuclear non-proliferation, and international cybersecurity.

Casey is admitted to practice in New York, the District of Columbia, and Ohio, as well as many federal district courts.

Lia is a Digital Media Strategist for the New Civil Liberties Alliance. Prior to joining NCLA, Lia worked at the U.S. Department of Energy as well as serving on Capitol Hill in both the House and Senate. Lia is a graduate of Texas Christian University and earned her master’s degree in Public Relations and Corporate Communications at Georgetown University. In her spare time, Lia enjoys indoor cycling, reading, and cooking. 

Holly is the Director of Development for the New Civil Liberties Alliance. She brings 20 years of experience creating fundraising and communication programs for over 150 non-profits, corporations, associations, and political campaigns. Holly’s experience ranges from opening a fundraising consulting business in 2010, to serving as Associate Managing Partner for J.C. Watts Companies, to creating fundraising solutions for clients as Senior Vice President at DDC Advocacy.

She moved to Washington, D.C. from North Carolina to begin her career as a Press Secretary on Capitol Hill. She earned her B.A. from Campbell University and attended graduate school at Regent University.

Holly is an experienced fundraiser and has provided interviews and background information for Bloomberg TV, Fox News, National Journal, Bloomberg News, Politico, Washington Post, Washington Times, Roll Call, and The Hill, as well as participated in various radio interviews. She has been a featured speaker for the Public Affairs Council, the National Apartment Association, the National Corn Growers Association, and the American Marketing Association.

She has also appeared in a fishing reality show on Animal Planet and a home show on the DIY Network. In her spare time, Holly is learning how to paint and enjoys spending time with her three children.

Kara Rollins, Litigation Counsel, comes to NCLA with experience in vindicating client’s rights from agency overreach and holding the administrative state accountable through government transparency projects.Before joining NCLA, Kara was Counsel for Cause of Action Institute where she represented clients in various Federal Trade Commission enforcement actions. She also engaged in strategic research and oversight of Executive Branch agencies, focusing on administrative rulemaking and government oversight and compliance.Prior to joining the Cause of Action Institute in 2016, she clerked for the Hon. Karen M. Cassidy, A.J.S.C. in the Superior Court of New Jersey, Union Vicinage.Preceding her legal career, Kara served as the Political Programs Manager for the National Federation of Independent Business, where she worked with small business owners throughout the country and learned firsthand about the adverse impact the regulatory state has on individuals.

Kara graduated with honors from Rutgers College, Rutgers University with a B.A. in Political Science in 2007, and cum laude from Catholic University’s Columbus School of Law in 2014. During law school, she was a member of The Catholic University Law Review and a Moot Court Associate for the Seigenthaler-Sutherland Cup National First Amendment Moot Court Competition.

Kara is admitted to practice in the District of Columbia, New York, and New Jersey, as well as to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, and the U.S. Supreme Court.

Her work has been published on The Hill.com.

Russ Ryan is a nationally recognized attorney and thought leader with particular interest in the regulatory and enforcement apparatus of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and other quasi-governmental regulators overseen by the SEC, including the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB), the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), and the various securities industry self-regulatory organizations (SROs). He has decades of experience defending private citizens and businesses caught in the crosshairs of these and other financial regulators.

Russ joined NCLA from the law firm King & Spalding, where he was a partner for 15 years. He left the firm from 2015 to 2018 to serve as Senior Vice President and Deputy Chief of Enforcement at FINRA. Earlier in his career he served for two years as law clerk to a federal judge in the Eastern District of New York and for 10 years as a staff attorney and Assistant Director in the SEC’s Division of Enforcement. He also taught for several semesters as an adjunct professor at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University.

Russ is a prolific speaker and writer on financial regulation and enforcement. He has spoken at dozens of professional conferences and published scores of commentaries and academic articles, including numerous op-eds in The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Bloomberg, Law360, and elsewhere. His regular column on LinkedIn is called “On SECond Thought: Unconventional Perspectives on Securities Enforcement.”

Russ earned his undergraduate degree from Boston College and his law degree from St. John’s University School of Law, where he was an executive editor of the law review.

Trevor Schakohl is the Communications Specialist for the New Civil Liberties Alliance. Prior to joining NCLA, Trevor worked as a Daily Caller News Foundation reporter covering crime and legal issues and a Daily Caller fact checker. He interned in Congress, at The Laura Ingraham Show and the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation before graduating from The George Washington University with a B.A. in Political Communication. Trevor enjoys reading, biking and watching baseball.

Kaitlyn Schiraldi is Staff Attorney at the New Civil Liberties Alliance. Prior to joining NCLA, Kaitlyn worked at Mountain States Legal Foundation where she litigated to defend citizens from the government’s unwieldy power, filed amicus briefs, drafted comments on agency regulations, and was a frequent webinar panelist.

Kaitlyn graduated magna cum laude from Texas Tech University School of Law and holds an undergraduate degree, with honors, from The University of Texas at Austin.

Kaitlyn is licensed to practice law in Tennessee. She is one of four young leaders that head the Nashville Federalist Society’s Young Lawyers Committee—helping plan local events where the brightest legal minds come speak. She is also a member of the Steamboat Institute’s Emerging Leaders Council. In her downtime, you can find her spending time in the great outdoors with her husband and two dogs, or immersed in Nashville’s music scene.

Garrett Snedeker graduated as an evening J.D. student from the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University in 2023, where he served on the George Mason Law Review as Articles Editor. He graduated from Amherst College with two bachelor’s degrees in History and English. He continues to work full-time, as he has for the past ten years, as Deputy Director of the James Wilson Institute on Natural Rights & the American Founding. Previously he worked as editor of the congressional research website LegiStorm. His writing has been featured in Newsweek, The Federalist, The American Mind, The American Conservative, Starting Points Journal, and the Online Library of Law & Liberty. Garrett is admitted to practice in the District of Columbia.

Micayla is a Paralegal for the New Civil Liberties Alliance. Prior to joining NCLA, Micayla worked at Agile Legal as a Legal Assistant and Research Analyst. Additionally, she interned at Family, Career and Community Leaders of America. In 2018, she served as assistant to the campaign manager in a grassroots campaign for her local state senate. From 2014-2019, she helped organize multiple humanitarian aid trips to Guatemala to provide education and medical care to an impoverished community. Micayla graduated with a B.S. in Law and Policy and a B.S. in Communication from Liberty University, where she was an active member of its moot court team.

Chris is a Paralegal for the New Civil Liberties Alliance. Prior to joining NCLA, he worked for the Center for Citizenship and Constitutional Government. He also interned with a congressional campaign in California’s 49th District. Chris graduated from the University of Notre Dame with a B.A. in Political Science.

Bart is the Office Manager for the New Civil Liberties Alliance. Prior to joining NCLA, he worked as a database consultant, and practiced law at various law firms in northern Virginia and Washington, D.C. No longer practicing law, Bart enjoys assisting with NCLA’s office operations. Bart holds a B.S. degree in Business Administration from American University, and a J.D. from George Mason University.

Mr. Vecchione is a Senior Litigation Counsel for the non-profit New Civil Liberties Alliance representing clients against the Administrative State. He was previously President and CEO of the non-profit Cause of Action Institute, also advancing the constitutional order. He practiced at a number of D.C. area firms, including the eponymous John J. Vecchione Law, PLLC. Mr. Vecchione focuses his practice on strategic litigation in the federal district and appellate courts, including the Supreme Court of the United States. He is an experienced trial and appellate advocate having tried cases and argued appeals across the country. He is a member of the bars of the State of New York, the District of Columbia, and the Commonwealth of Virginia, as well as the Supreme Court of the United States and many federal courts. His cases are reported in scores of published opinions. He has also published pieces advancing the freedom agenda and constitutional order in the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Times and many other forums. . He lives in Virginia with his wife Rebecca, sons Tommy and Joe.​

Jenin Younes is Litigation Counsel for the New Civil Liberties Alliance. Having always been a passionate advocate for individual liberties, Jenin spent the first part of her career as an appellate public defender, providing representation to indigent clients convicted of criminal offenses in New York City.  In this capacity, she briefed and argued countless appeals in New York’s Appellate Division, Second Department, and several cases in the New York State Court of Appeals.

After witnessing governments throughout the nation violate human rights and civil liberties in an ostensible effort to mitigate the spread of COVID-19, Jenin became active in fighting against lockdowns and related policies. At NCLA, she has litigated against Covid-19 vaccine mandates, and played a significant role in First Amendment challenges to the government’s involvement in censorship on social media, including in Missouri v. Biden, a case initially brought by the Attorneys General of Missouri and Louisiana in which NCLA represents two of the co-signers of the Great Barrington Declaration, Drs. Jay Bhattacharya and Martin Kulldorff.  She led NCLA’s successful effort to preliminary enjoin California’s law punishing doctors for disseminating so-called misinformation about Covid-19 to patients. Jenin also served as senior special counsel on the House Judiciary Committee’s Weaponization of Government Subcommittee’s investigation into the government’s role in censoring speech on social media.

Her writing on these subjects has been published in the Wall Street Journal, Tablet Magazine, and Bloomberg Law, among other outlets.

Jenin holds a B.A. from Cornell University and a J.D. from New York University School of Law.