Pete Patterson is a partner at Cooper & Kirk. His practice includes appellate litigation, constitutional litigation, commercial litigation, and administrative law. In addition, Mr. Patterson for a number of years taught an appellate litigation clinic at the University of Cincinnati College of Law. As part of his work for the clinic, Mr. Patterson represented indigent clients in habeas and criminal matters before the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Mr. Patterson has extensive experience in complex matters involving important questions of constitutional, statutory, and administrative law. He frequently has represented plaintiffs in cases alleging constitutional or statutory violations by federal, state, and local government officials. He also has represented plaintiffs in class action litigation against corporations and the federal government. Mr. Patterson joined the firm in 2009. Prior to arriving at Cooper & Kirk, he served as a law clerk to Judge Jeffrey S. Sutton of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Mr. Patterson typically works from Cincinnati, Ohio. Mr. Patterson received his J.D. from Stanford Law School in 2006, earning Order of the Coif honors for finishing in the top 10% of his class. There, he was a member of the Stanford Law Review, serving as an Articles Editor. He also participated in litigation before the United States Supreme Court through the Stanford Supreme Court Litigation Clinic. Mr. Patterson graduated with University Honors from Carnegie Mellon University in 2000 with a B.S. in Information and Decision Systems. While at Carnegie Mellon, he wrote a regular column for the student newspaper and was a member of the football team. Mr. Patterson is a member of the Bars of the State of Ohio, the District of Columbia, the Supreme Court of the United States, the United States Courts of Appeals for the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, Ninth, Tenth, Eleventh, and Federal Circuits, and the United States District Courts for the Southern District of Ohio and the District of the District of Columbia.

Michael Morse is a Bigelow Teaching Fellow and Lecturer in Law at the University of Chicago Law School. He studies voting rights, election administration, and the criminal justice system. His work combines empirical methods and novel administrative data with traditional legal scholarship. Michael has written extensively about the politics of felony disenfranchisement and the impact of fines and fees, including in the Journal of Legal Studies. His dissertation, recently published in the California Law Review, focused on a Florida ballot initiative, known as Amendment 4, which sought to restore voting rights to people with felony convictions. Michael has also contributed to current debates about voter access and electoral integrity, evaluating the burdens of voter identification laws, errors in voter list maintenance, and the extent of double voting in a series of co-authored articles published in the American Political Science Review, Science Advances, and the Journal of Empirical Legal Studies. He has also co-authored a study about the election of local prosecutors across the country in the Iowa Law Review. Michael has written popular pieces about his research for Vox, Slate, and The Monkey Cage. Michael is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, Yale Law School, and Harvard University, where he earned a PhD in political science. He has served as a law clerk to Judge Myron Thompson of the US District Court for the Middle District of Alabama and Judge Marsha Berzon of the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

This convening is open to all invitees who are compliant with UChicago vaccination requirements, and is a mask-optional. We strongly encourage unvaccinated individuals and those preferring masks to do so. Participants are expected to adopt the risk mitigation measures appropriate to their vaccination status as advised by public health officials or to their individual vulnerabilities as advised by a medical professional. Public convening may not be safe for all and carries a risk for contracting COVID-19, particularly for those unvaccinated. Participants will not know the vaccination status of others and should follow appropriate risk mitigation measures.

This is a mask-optional convening. We strongly encourage unvaccinated individuals and those preferring to wear masks to do so.