Payvand Ahdout’s research centers on modern uses of judicial power through the lens of federal courts. Focusing on the structures that compose and the institutions that are most often before the federal courts, her work incorporates multiple legal disciplines including constitutional law, civil procedure, and criminal law and procedure. Her current projects study the phenomena of litigating federal powers disputes as well as judicial agenda-setting outside of the federal courts.

Ahdout’s 2023 article, Separation-of-Powers Avoidance, received the annual prize from the AALS Federal Courts Section for the best paper on federal courts by an untenured professor. In 2022, the Yale Law Journal honored Ahdout as the journal’s inaugural Emerging Scholar of the Year for her “significant contributions to legal thought and scholarship” and her work’s “potential to drive improvements in the law.” Her work has or will appear in the Harvard Law Review, Yale Law Journal and Columbia Law Review.

Ahdout graduated with highest distinction from the University of Virginia, where she was a Jefferson Scholar, with a B.A. in economics and government. She holds a law degree from Columbia Law School, where she was a James Kent Scholar and a recipient of the Ruth Bader Ginsburg Prize. Before joining the faculty, she served as a law clerk to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the U.S. Supreme Court and to Debra Ann Livingston on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. She has also served as a Bristow Fellow in the Office of the Solicitor General of the United States, held fellowships at Columbia Law School and New York University School of Law, and litigated in private practice.

Professor Henry L. Chambers Jr. teaches and writes in the areas of constitutional law, criminal law, law and religion, and employment discrimination. He is active in the Virginia State Bar, including serving as chair of its Section on the Education of Lawyers from 2007-2009, and has been a member of the American Law Institute since 2002. Professor Chambers served as Special Assistant Attorney General for redistricting matters for the Commonwealth of Virginia from 2011-2013. He also frequently lectures on constitutional law through the We The People program, which provides civic education instruction to school teachers and the public; at James Madison’s Montpelier; and at the Federal Executive Institute in Charlottesville.

Thomas Frampton studies criminal law and constitutional criminal procedure with a focus on how legal actors, institutions and doctrines have responded, or failed to respond, to the dramatic expansion of the carceral state. He is interested in the intersections of criminal law, racial inequality and social hierarchies. His research draws on his background in American studies and his experiences as a public defender in Louisiana to provide a better understanding of contemporary legal practices and policies within the historical context of racial and economic inequality in the United States.

Before coming to UVA Law, Frampton was a Climenko Fellow at Harvard Law School, where he taught Legal Research & Writing. Prior to that, he worked for several years with the Orleans Public Defenders, where he served as a staff attorney in the Trial and Special Litigation divisions. He clerked for Judge Jack B. Weinstein of the Eastern District of New York and Judge Diane P. Wood of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. Frampton is a graduate of Berkeley Law and Yale University.

Mark B. Harkins joined the Government Affairs Institute as a senior fellow in July 2013, having guest lectured numerous times for more than a decade and serving on Capitol Hill for 17 years.  Mark worked for two members of Congress before joining the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology as a professional staff member and later as legislative director for the House Science Committee Democrats. He served as senior legislative assistant to Representative David Price (D-NC), where his portfolio included appropriations, before serving as chief of staff for Representative Brad Miller (D-NC), where he created and ran all aspects of a three office, twenty person Congressional operation.

Following his tenure on the Hill, Harkins was a government relations professional for more than five years where he focused on the representation of corporate, nonprofit, and government clients before Congress and the executive branch.

Harkins has extensive experience with the federal appropriations and budgeting process, as well as issues handled by the Financial Services, Science, Ways and Means, and Homeland Security committees.

Early in his career, Harkins was the sports information director at Swarthmore College and a co-owner of a fantasy sports statistics service.

John C. Harrison joined the faculty in 1993 as an associate professor of law after a distinguished career with the U.S. Department of Justice. His teaching subjects include constitutional history, federal courts, remedies, corporations, civil procedure, legislation and property. In 2008 he was on leave from the Law School to serve as counselor on international law in the Office of the Legal Adviser at the U.S. Department of State.

A 1977 graduate of the University of Virginia, Harrison earned his law degree in 1980 at Yale, where he served as editor of the Yale Law Journal and editor and articles editor of the Yale Studies in World Public Order. He was an associate at Patton Boggs & Blow in Washington, D.C., and clerked for Judge Robert Bork on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He worked with the Department of Justice from 1983-93, serving in numerous capacities, including deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel (1990-93).

Timothy Heaphy is a partner in Willkie’s litigation department, and co-chair of its compliance, investigations and enforcement practice. He is based in Willkie’s Washington, D.C., office.

Heaphy recently led the House investigation into the Jan. 6 attacks on Capitol Hill. Prior to that role, he served as the University counsel for UVA.

He has also served as a partner with Hunton Andrews Kurth. In 2017, he authored a report, commissioned by the city of Charlottesville, on the city's handling of the events surrounding the Unite the Right rally on Aug. 11-12, 2017.

Heaphy served as the U.S. attorney for the Western District of Virginia from 2009-14. His previous experience included clerking for Judge John A. Terry of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals and working for the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia. He was named to the National Law Journal's 40 important lawyers under 40 list in 2003. In 2016, Heaphy founded a nonprofit organization, the Fountain Fund, which provides low-interest loans to formerly incarcerated people.

Ankush Khardori is a lawyer based in Washington, D.C., and a senior writer for Politico Magazine, where he writes a column and features about national legal issues. 

Khardori was previously a contributing writer for the magazine, as well as a columnist and contributing editor for New York magazine, where he wrote a column and features on legal affairs. Khardori’s work has also appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, The New York Review of Books, The New Republic, The Atlantic, TIME, USA Today, WIRED, Slate, The American Prospect, and the Columbia Journalism Review. 

Before entering the media industry in early 2020, Khardori was a federal prosecutor who specialized in financial fraud and white-collar crime. Prior to that, he worked at a New York City law firm in both commercial litigation and white-collar corporate defense. Khardori clerked for a judge in the Southern District of New York and graduated from Columbia University with a law degree and a B.A.

Bertrall Ross joined the law faculty in 2021. He teaches and writes in the areas of constitutional law, constitutional theory, election law, administrative law and statutory interpretation. Ross’ research is driven by a concern about democratic responsiveness and accountability, as well as the inclusion of marginalized communities in administrative and political processes. His past scholarship has been published in several books and journals, including the Columbia Law Review, New York University Law Review and the University of Chicago Law Review.  Two of his articles were selected by the Yale/Harvard/Stanford Junior Faculty Forum.  

Prior to joining the Virginia faculty, Ross taught at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law, where he received the Rutter Award for Teaching Excellence. He has also been awarded the Berlin Prize from the American Academy in Berlin, the Princeton University Law and Public Affairs Fellowship, the Columbia Law School Kellis Parker Academic Fellowship and the Marshall Scholarship. Ross is currently serving on the Administrative Conference of the United States and the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court. 

Ross earned his undergraduate degree in international affairs and history from the University of Colorado, Boulder; his graduate degrees from the London School of Economics and Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs; and his law degree from Yale Law School. After law school, he clerked for Judge Dorothy Nelson of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and Judge Myron Thompson of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama.

Zack Smith is a Senior Legal Fellow and Manager of the Supreme Court and Appellate Advocacy Program in the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation.

He previously served for several years as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Northern District of Florida. Prior to that, he spent two years as an associate in the Washington, D.C. office of Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton, which he joined after clerking for the Hon. Emmett R. Cox on the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. 

Smith received his undergraduate, master’s, and law degrees from the University of Florida. During law school, Smith served as the Editor in Chief of the Florida Law Review and served on the executive boards of several student organizations, including the UF Chapter of the Federalist Society.

Ron Wright is one of the nation's best known criminal justice scholars. He is the co-author of two casebooks in criminal procedure and sentencing; his empirical research concentrates on the work of criminal prosecutors. He is a board member of the Prosecution and Racial Justice Project of the Vera Institute of Justice, and has been an advisor or board member for Families Against Mandatory Minimum Sentences (FAMM), North Carolina Prisoner Legal Services, Inc., and the Winston-Salem Citizens' Police Review Board. Prior to joining the faculty, he was a trial attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice, prosecuting antitrust and other white-collar criminal cases. Ron and his wife, Amy, have two children.