Tackling the Bruen Bear: CLE Add-On

Moderator, Hon. Larry Burns (Ret.)

Adam Winkler, UCLA Law Professor

Adam Winkler is the Cornell Professor of Law at UCLA School of Law. He is a specialist in constitutional law, the Supreme Court, and gun policy. His book We the Corporations: How American Businesses Won Their Civil Rights was a finalist for the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the ABA Silver Gavel Award, and received the Scribes Book Award. He is also the author of Gunfight: The Battle over the Right to Bear Arms in America, which did not win any awards but was once the subject of a question in Jeopardy! He is one of the twenty most cited legal scholars in judicial opinions today, and his writing has appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, New York Review of Books, Washington Post, Atlantic, Slate, and the New Republic. Prior to joining the UCLA faculty, he clerked on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit for Judge David Thompson and practiced law in Los Angeles. In 2022, he was a Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar.

Stephen Halbrook, Second Amendment litigator

Georgetown University, J.D. (1978); Florida State University, Ph.D. Philosophy (1972).
Member of Virginia State Bar, D.C. Bar, U.S. Supreme Court, all federal circuits. Testified in
numerous Congressional hearings. Assistant Professor of Philosophy 1972-81, George Mason University, Howard University, Tuskegee University. Senior Fellow, Independent Institute.

Supreme Court practice: amici curiae brief for majority of members of Congress in
Heller v. D.C. (2008) (invalidating D.C. handgun ban). Argued and won: Castillo v. U.S. (2000)
(right to jury trial); Printz v. U.S. (1997), reversing Mack v. United States (9th Cir. 1995) (Brady Act mandates to States); U.S. v. Thompson/Center Arms (National Firearms Act).

Numerous appeals argued, including Fresno Rifle & Pistol Club v. Van de Kamp (9th Cir.
1992) (Roberti-Roos Act). Several amicus curiae briefs filed in Ninth Circuit cases.

Eleven books authored, including America’s Rifle, The Right to Bear Arms, and Securing Civil Rights.

See further www.stephenhalbrook.com.

William Taylor, Deputy Director, Second Amendment Litigation

Bill supports state attorneys general and city attorneys in Second Amendment cases, helps manage Everytown’s amicus practice, represents municipalities defending their gun laws in court, and speaks publicly at law schools and in other settings about the Second Amendment and the future of gun litigation.

Before joining Everytown, Bill served, for more than five years, as an Assistant Attorney General in the Litigation Bureau at the New York Attorney General’s Office, where he represented the state and its agencies and officers in a wide variety of civil actions, with a particular focus on Second Amendment litigation. Bill was lead counsel for the State of New York in numerous Second Amendment and other gun cases, including New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Cuomo, in which the district court upheld New York’s restrictions on assault weapons and large-capacity magazines against a Second Amendment challenge, a decision later affirmed on appeal. In recognition of his work on gun litigation, Bill received the 2016 Louis J. Lefkowitz Memorial Award for outstanding performance as an Assistant Attorney General.

Bill previously worked for over a decade as a litigator at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP in New York City, where he had a broad general litigation practice, across a variety of civil matters, at both trial and appellate levels. He also served as a law clerk to Judge Kim McLane Wardlaw of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. While at Harvard Law School, Bill was the Editor and Book Review Chair of the Harvard Law Review.

Moderator, Becky Harris, and guest editor of Western Legal History vol. 34: Gam(bl)ing

Harris served as the Chair of the Nevada Gaming Control Board from 2018-2019 and was the first woman to hold the position. As Chief Regulator, responsible for comprehensively regulating the multi-billion dollar gambling industry in the State of Nevada, she served as a global ambassador to other gambling regulators and led the world’s most highly regarded gambling regulatory body through several high profile matters including the real of the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA), the emergence of sports betting across the United States, various Wire Act issues, sexual harassment matters and the #MeToo Movement, and gaming implications from the legalization of recreational cannabis.

Sara Partida

Sara Partida currently serves as the Chief Privacy and Technology Counsel for Wynn Resorts, Limited. Prior to her transition to her current role, she most recently held the position of VP – Legal Operations and Data Privacy for Wynn Las Vegas. She also is honored to serve on the Wynn Resorts Diversity and Inclusion Advisory Council and to be counsel to the Wynn Resorts Foundation. Before going in-house, Ms. Partida served as counsel at the Nevada Legislative Counsel Bureau, advising legislators and committees on health care, commerce, and energy issues; and later admission on government affairs matters for technology, energy, and gaming companies, as well as several prominent health care associations.

Riana Durrett

Riana Durrett earned her B.A. in Political Science from UNLV and attended law school at UNLV’s William S. Boyd School of Law, earning her J.D. in 2008. She recently completed her LL.M. in Gaming Law and Regulation from William S. Boyd School of Law, where she also teaches cannabis law and regulation. Durrett was appointed as director of the UNLV Cannabis Policy Institute in August 2023. In addition, the Governor appointed her to serve as the first vice chair of the Nevada Cannabis Compliance Board. In addition to her work at UNLV, Durrett currently serves on the Boards of the Nevada Taxpayer Association and the Nevada Conservation League.

Jordan Hollander

Jordan Scott Hollander, Esq., currently serves as a Deputy Attorney General and Assistant Section Chief of Casino Licensing for the New Jersey Department of Law and Public Safety, Division of Gaming Enforcement. Mr. Hollander received a LL.M. in Gaming Law and Regulation in 2016 from the William S. Boyd School of Law, University of Nevada, LA Vegas, a JD, summa cum laude, from Rutgers Law School – Camden in 2014, a M.Sc. in Comparative European Politics in 2011 from Trinity College, Dublin, and a B.A., summa cum laude, in Political Science, French, and International Studies from Lycoming College in 2010. Prior to state service, Mr. Hollander was in private practice and clerked for the Honorable Francis J. Veronica, then presiding criminal judge for the New Jersey Superior Court, Monmouth Vicinage. The views expressed are Mr. Hollander’s alone and do not reflect the views of the Office of the Attorney General, the Department, the Division, or any other agency of New Jersey State government.

Panelist, Frank Abe
Graphic Novelist, Author of We Hereby Refuse: Japanese American Resistance to Wartime Incarceration

Frank Abe is co-editor with Floyd Cheung of a new Penguin Classics anthology, The Literature of Japanese American Incarceration. He is lead author of a graphic novel, We Hereby Refuse: Japanese American Resistance to Wartime Incarceration, a Finalist in Creative Nonfiction for the Washington State Book Award. He won an American Book Award as co-editor of John Okado: The Life and Rediscovered Work of the Author of No-No Boy, in which he authored the first-ever biography of Okada and traced the origins of his novel. He wrote and directed the award-winning PBS documentary Conscience and the Constitution and helped organize the first-ever “Day of Remembrance.” He is currently developing a new stage adaptation of No-No Boy.

Panelist, Sharon Yamato
Documentary Filmmaker, One Fighting Irishman

Sharon Yamato is a writer/journalist, TV producer, and independent filmmaker with more than four decades of experience in media and TV/film production. Her films include Out of Infamy: Michi Nishiura Weglyn, A Flicker in Eternity, and Moving Walls, for which she wrote an accompanying book, Moving Walls: The Barracks of America’s Concentration Camps, featuring photos of NY photographer Stan Honda. Her most recent film, One Fighting Irishman, tells the little-known story of attorney Wayne Collins, who spent 23 years working to regain citizenship for more than 5,000 Japanese Americans at the infamous Tule Lake Segregation Center during WWII. Yamato also co-authored Jive Bomber: A Sentimental Journey, a book by the founding president of the Japanese American National Museum. She has written articles for the Los Angeles Times and is currently a columnist for the Los Angeles daily newspaper, The Rafu Shimpo.

Moderator, Judge Kara Ueda
Superior Court of California, County of Sacramento

The Hon. Kara Ueda is a judge for the Sacramento County Superior Court in California.

Judge Ueda earned a bachelor’s degree in environmental policy, analysis, and planning from the University of California, Davis. She completed a J.D. at the University of California, Davis School of Law in 2000. Judge Ueda became a Superior Court judge in 2020.