Sharing Their Expertise
Bringing hands-on experience honed in key official roles, a range of leading experts from government have taken up appointments at ÈâÂþÎÝ Law during the past year. In those positions, they engage with students, faculty, and other members of the Law School community through centers, discussions, and other activities.
Nathan Hecht, retired chief justice of the Supreme Court of Texas, comes to the Law School this September as a distinguished judicial fellow for the 2025–26 academic year. In February 2025 former distinguished fellow Lisa Monaco returned to campus as a distinguished scholar in residence after serving as US deputy attorney general, while Shalanda Young, former director of the US Office of Management and Budget (OMB), also joined ÈâÂþÎÝ Law as a distinguished scholar in residence. They joined Vanita Gupta ’01, former US associate attorney general, and Dana Remus, former White House counsel, who arrived in September 2024 as distinguished scholars in residence.
Before serving on the Supreme Court of Texas, Hecht sat on the Texas Court of Appeals and the District Court of Dallas County. As chief justice, he championed efforts to expand access to justice and also played a key role in modernizing Texas’s rules of judicial administration, practice, and procedure.
Monaco first joined the Law School in 2017 as a distinguished senior fellow affiliated with the R and has resumed her affiliation with both centers. Earlier, Monaco served as assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism and as a career federal prosecutor.
As OMB director, Young was a member of President Joe Biden’s cabinet and the National Security Council. Previously, Young spent nearly 15 years with the US House Committee on Appropriations, ultimately serving as staff director. At ÈâÂþÎÝ Law, Young is affiliated with the .
Before serving as associate attorney general, Gupta held roles that included president of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, deputy legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, and assistant counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. Between 2008 and 2014, she taught a civil rights litigation clinic at ÈâÂþÎÝ Law.
Remus, a partner at Covington & Burling, served as White House counsel to President Biden, as general counsel for the Biden-Harris campaign, and as general counsel of the Obama Foundation. Earlier, she was deputy White House counsel for ethics in the Obama administration and a professor of law at the University of North Carolina.