About Our 2020 Presenters & Panelists

Cynthia Boyer

Cynthia Boyer has taught since 2006 in the American and British studies program, law degree and Master of International Relations programs at Institut National Universitaire Champollion. She also lectures on U.S. constitutional law and British common law in the LL.B. program at Université Toulouse Capitole. Her fields of research include electoral strategies and campaigns, political systems in Britain, France, and the United States, fundamental liberties (UK-USA), and Liberalism.

Louis Cholden-Brown

Louis Cholden-Brown serves as the deputy director of the Office of Strategic Initiatives at the New York City Council. He previously served in senior roles at the Council, the 2019 Charter Revision Commission, and with both local and state advocacy organizations. He is a graduate of Fordham University School of Law, where he served as the editor-in-chief of the Environmental Law Review and was the recipient of both the Donald Magnetti Award and Archibald R. Murray Public Service Award summa cum laude in recognition of his contributions to New York City during his academic tenure. Cholden-Brown’s scholarship, which has appeared in the Chapman Law Review, University of Detroit-Mercy Law Review, and Charleston Law Review, has focused on the Constitution, state and local government, and direct democracy.

Brandon Draper

Brandon Marc Draper is an assistant county attorney for the Harris County Attorney’s Office in Houston, Texas, where he defends civil rights and employment lawsuits, and advises the county regarding the legality of county activities.  Draper is also an adjunct professor for the University of Houston Law Center, where he teaches Advanced Trial Advocacy and is the assistant director of Mock Trial. He also volunteers for the Texas Young Lawyers Association (TYLA), where he is the co-chair of the National Trial Competition and created a voting rights project to increase voter registration and turnout in Texas in advance of the 2020 election.

Joshua Douglas

Professor Joshua A. Douglas teaches and researches election law and voting rights, civil procedure, constitutional law, and judicial decision making at the University of Kentucky College of Law. He is the author of “Vote for US: How to Take Back our Elections and Change the Future of Voting,” a popular press book that provides hope and inspiration for a positive path forward on voting rights. His most recent legal scholarship focuses on the constitutional right to vote, with an emphasis on state constitutions, as well as the various laws, rules, and judicial decisions impacting election administration. He has also written extensively on election law procedure. Douglas has published in top journals, including the Georgetown Law Journal, Penn Law Review Online, Vanderbilt Law Review, Washington University Law Review, George Washington Law Review, William & Mary Law Review, Indiana Law Journal, and the Election Law Journal, among others. His article “Procedural Fairness in Election Contests” was a winner of the 2011-12 SEALS Call for Papers, and he has been cited extensively in major law review articles and case books in the field. He is also a co-author of an Election Law case book (Aspen Publishers 2014) and a co-editor of Election Law Stories (Foundation Press 2016), which tells the behind-the-scenes stories of the major cases in the field. In addition, his media commentaries have appeared in the New York Times, CNN, Washington Post, LA Times, USA Today, Reuters, Politico, The Atlantic, Huffington Post, and Slate, among others, and he has been quoted in major newspapers throughout the country. He appeared live on CNN on Election Day 2016. Further, he was the founder and initial chair of the AALS Section on Election Law.

Dale Ho

Dale Ho is the director of the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project, and supervises the ACLU’s voting rights litigation nationwide. Ho has active cases in over a dozen states throughout the country. His cases have included: Department of Commerce v. New York (successfully challenging the inclusion of a citizenship question on the Census), which he argued in the U.S. Supreme Court, and which is featured in the award-winning documentary film “The Fight”; and Fish v. Kobach (successfully challenging documentation requirements for voter registration in Kansas), which noted election law scholar Richard Hasen has described as “the most significant voting rights case this century”. He has testified on election law issues before Congress, and in various state legislatures around the country. Ho is also an adjunct clinical professor of law at NYU School of Law and a frequent commentator on voting rights issues, appearing on television programs including CNN; The Rachel Maddow Show; and All-In with Chris Hayes. He has written opinion pieces for the New York Times and is widely published on redistricting and voting rights in law reviews including the Yale Law Journal Forum and the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review.

Rick Pildes

Richard H. Pildes is one of the nation’s leading scholars of constitutional law and a specialist in legal issues affecting democracy. He is currently a professor at NYU School of Law. He is a Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Law Institute, and has received recognition as a Guggenheim Fellow and a Carnegie Scholar. His acclaimed casebook, “The Law of Democracy: Legal Structure of the Political Process” (now in its fourth edition), helped create an entirely new field of study in the law schools. “The Law of Democracy” systematically explores legal and policy issues concerning the structure of democratic elections and institutions, such as the role of money in politics, the design of election districts, the regulation of political parties, the design of voting systems, the representation of minority interests in democratic institutions, and similar issues. He has written extensively on the rise of political polarization in the United States, the Voting Rights Act, the dysfunction of America’s political processes, the role of the Supreme Court in overseeing American democracy, the powers of the American President and Congress, and he has criticized excessively “romantic” understandings of democracy. In addition to his scholarship on these issues, he has written on national-security law, the design of the regulatory state, and American constitutional history and theory. Respect for his expertise in these areas is reflected in frequent citations of his work in U.S. Supreme Court opinions, the translation of his work into many languages, and his frequent public lectures and appearances around the world, including his nomination with the NBC News Team for an Emmy Award for coverage of the 2000 presidential election litigation.

Bertrall Ross

Professor Bertrall Ross currently teaches Legislation, Election Law, and Constitutional Law at Berkeley Law. Ross’s research interests are driven by a normative concern about democratic responsiveness and a methodological approach that integrates political theory and empirical social science into discussions of legal doctrine, the institutional role of courts, and democratic design. In the area of legislation, his current research seeks to address how courts should reconcile legislative supremacy with the vexing problem of interpreting statutes in contexts not foreseen by the enacting legislature. In election law, he is examining the constitutional dimensions and the structural sources of the marginalization of the poor in the American political process. Prior to joining the Berkeley Law community, Bertrall was a Kellis Parker Academic Fellow at Columbia Law School. He clerked for the Hon. Dorothy Nelson of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and the Hon. Myron Thompson of the Middle District of Alabama. He received his J.D. from Yale Law School and has an M.Sc in the Politics of the World Economy from the London School of Economics, a Masters in Public Affairs from Princeton University, and a B.A. in International Affairs and History from the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Monika Taliaferro

Monika Taliaferro is a passionate attorney who finds joy in teaching others about legal rights. Taliaferro works as an attorney for the District of Columbia government where she represents the District of Columbia Public Library before the Office of Human Rights, Office of Employee Appeals, Contract Appeals Board and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. She provides advice to the District on all legal matters but finds herself spending most of her time on legal issues related to contracts, civil rights, and labor and employment issues. Taliaferro is a graduate of the University of Georgia School of Law. She is a licensed attorney in the District of Columbia and the State of Georgia.