Brandon Butler- Editor-at-Large

Brandon Butler is a rising 2L at the University of Virginia School of Law in beautiful Charlottesville, VA. Toward the end of his brief detour into the world of academia (i.e. a master’s degree in philosophy with a focus on ethics), Brandon looked into the void of the academic job market for so long that the void looked back. He decided to go to law school.

A native Southerner, Brandon got his BA from the University of Georgia in Athens, where he split his time between three bands (punk, kraut-rock, and country), a gig writing for the local alt-weekly, and a double-major in English and philosophy. His primary interests in law are free speech and media/entertainment law, the religion clauses of the first amendment, and employment/labor. He is an editor at the Journal of Law and Politics, the Programming Director of the UVA Law Democrats, and incoming President of the UVA chapter of ACS. Brandon lives in a gawdy all-inclusive apartment complex with his wife Holly and their dog Zelda, and he commutes to school on a Vespa ET4.

Mick Collins- Editor-at-Large

Mick Collins is a non traditional 2L attending Concord University Law School. Mick graduated from the University of Colorado in Music composition and has worked as a computer programmer for nearly 30 years. Mick was on the team that developed the first software used to edit digital music for which his boss, the late Tom Stockham, won a Scientific and Engineering Award from the Academy of Motion Arts and Sciences.

Mick authored some of the first software used to access cardiac function employing offline echocardiograph scans. He enjoyed, at the University of Utah, graduate classes in advanced programming languages and digital design. Mick’s latest project was the design of a document/content management system used by the state of Utah in its Unemployment Insurance system.

Law is his preferred career and passion. Mick does research for Utah Attorney Peter Guyon and is currently assisting Professor Sara Berman-Barrett to update a new edition of her book The Criminal Law Handbook: Know Your Rights, Survive the System (nolo.com).

Stefanie Collins- Editor-at-Large

Stefanie Collins is a first year law student at the University of Texas School of Law. She has a BA in ethics from the University of Oklahoma. Her undergraduate career was divided almost equally between academics and campus activism; she served as co-founder and organizer of OU Students Against War and as president of the campus Amnesty International chapter. Before coming to law school, she served as an Americorps*VISTA volunteer at the Martinez Street Women’s Center in San Antonio, Texas. Her summer plans include a law clerkship at the Texas Civil Rights Project.

In addition to her legal studies, Stefanie is an active member of UT Law’s ACS chapter, of which she is on the board, and UT’s National Lawyers Guild chapter. She is also a member of the Texas Journal on Civil Liberties and Civil Rights. She volunteers at the Inside Books Project, Big Brothers Big Sisters, Austin’s GI Rights Hotline, and the Campaign to End the Death Penalty. She has no pets, but she does have a truly righteous organic patio garden.

Justin Cox - Editor-at-Large

A native of rural Missouri, Justin is about to complete his first year at Yale Law School. Justin graduated from Washington University in St. Louis in 2004 with an A.B. in Philosophy and Political Science, and spent the subsequent year in Latin America, where he taught a semester of English in a Chilean middle school and interned in the Political Section of the U.S. Embassy in Caracas, Venezuela.

Justin will be interning this summer at the Center for American Progress, where he will be researching domestic poverty and working on anti-poverty policy proposals. Justin enjoys photography, traveling, and baseball, and wishes he had taken more economics as an undergraduate.

Ashley Hatcher-Peralta- Editor-at-Large

Ashley Hatcher-Peralta is a third-year evening student at Rutgers University School of Law in Newark, New Jersey. She lives in the Bronx and works at a domestic violence agency, advocating for battered women charged with defending themselves against abuse. She is active in the Coalition for Women Prisoners, Rutgers Street Law, Brooklyn Domestic Violence Task Force, and the National Alliance of Sentencing & Mitigation Specialists. She holds a Master of Fine Arts in poetry from the University of Arizona and formerly taught at a jail in Virginia. She was inspired to attend law school by her husband, a community lawyer in the South Bronx who has been known to accept payment in the form of chicken dinners.

Daniel Kotler- Editor-at-Large

Daniel Kotler is a 2L at Tulane Law School. When Hurricane Katrina hit, Dan washed back to the Boston area where he grew up. He is currently visiting at Harvard Law School.

Between graduating from Dartmouth College in 2001 and entering law school, Dan spent his time in New York City editing mystery novels and contributing to local politics. Dan eventually served as Vice-President of his neighborhood Democratic Party club, and was elected in the Democratic Primary as an Alternate Delegate to the 2003 New York Country Democratic Judicial Convention.

Ashley Ludwig - Editor-at-Large

Ashley Ludwig is a 1st year student at South Texas College of Law. She graduated with honors from The University of Texas, with a B.A. in Psychology. While in College, Ashley worked at numerous research labs studying psychology as it pertains to children and adolescents.

Following the completion of her undergraduate degree, Ashley worked at Neighborhood Legal Services as a liaison between lawyer and client. Specifically, Ashley helped immigrants fill out appropriate paperwork to file and/or answer lawsuits. Following that experience she worked at The Children’s Alliance as an Intake Counselor Intake Counselor protecting rights of underrepresented litigants, such as foster children, by helping them obtain legal help. Ashley’s passion for furthering legal rights for the disadvantaged was honed during this work experience.

Currently in law school, Ashley is a member of the ACLU, International Law Society, Democratic Students Association, Alternative Dispute Resolution Advocates, AMICUS and women’s legal forum. Upon completion of her studies, Ashley intends to pursue Public Interest Legal Work and remain active in national and state politics.

Martin Magnusson- Editor-at-Large

Martin Magnusson is a second year student at Northeastern University School of Law, where as a 1L he served as president of its ACS Chapter. Martin received his B.A. in sociology from Binghamton University, where he also studied Hebrew. His academic interests lie in the area of civil litigation; like his heroes, Martin wants to be a trial attorney. In addition to his studies, Martin works with Northeastern's Domestic Violence Institute, a volunteer project in which law students staff the Boston Medical Center Emergency Department on nights and weekends, interviewing women and providing advocacy where domestic violence issues are disclosed.

Martin also works with the New England Innocence Project, a legal clinic which seeks to identify, investigate and exonerate wrongfully convicted individuals who are currently incarcerated in New England. Martin is originally from Connecticut, by way of Sweden. He currently lives in Boston, MA with his wife, Catherine. When he takes the occasional break from his very late-night studying, Martin feeds what some might characterize as an unhealthy addiction to the legal blogosphere.

KJ Meyer- Editor-at-Large

Originally hailing from those "fly-over" states in the middle of the country, KJ, moved to Boston after college and worked as a community service organizer, and has subsequently called San Francisco his home for the last 5 years. Dawning the perpetual student cap, he dove headfirst into law school after finishing his Masters in Science in Environmental Management at the University of San Francisco.

He took time away from school to work in Washington DC and Colorado during the 2004 presidential campaign, and, while in Colorado, he supervised get out the vote efforts for the state's colleges and universities. After the election, he returned to law school and became president of USF's ACS chapter. He is currently interning for the California Public Utilities Commission and longing for the low pay policy wonk position he someday hopes to achieve.

Jonathan Ware- Editor-at-Large

Jonathan is a 2L at the University of Virginia School of Law. Successfully arguing before the Supreme Court of Virginia at 17 confirmed Jonathan’s passion for the law – solidified after a summer as a Certified Professional Mover (work at a desk, or haul desks up stairs).

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John Weaver- Editor-at-Large

John Weaver graduated magna cum laude from Georgetown University in 2002. After working as a columnist for a baseball magazine, a teacher in China, a legal assistant at Arnold & Porter in Washington, DC, and a residential counselor at a home for developmentally disabled adults, he entered Boston College Law School in the fall of 2005. He is currently a columnist for Sports Media Watch, a watch dog organization that monitors and analyzes how media covers sports. His primary legal interests are school funding litigation and education law.

Alexander Wolfe- Editor-at-Large

Alexander is a 2L at the Texas Wesleyan School of Law in Fort Worth, Texas. He graduated from the University of Texas at Arlington with degrees in History and Political Science in 2000, and spent three years in the “real world” before deciding to go to law school. He spent his first three semesters in law school at Catholic University’s Columbus School of Law in D.C., then transferred back home to Texas upon the birth of his first child. Though he intends to go into the field of estate planning, he has involved himself in the cause of social justice through the Wesleyan Innocence Project, law clinic, Amnesty International and the Wesleyan Democrats. In his spare time between classes and changing diapers, he runs a political blog with the help of his two brothers, reads mostly science fiction anthologies, and spends time with friends who help him to feel not quite so grown-up.