|
Jim Manley
State Legal Policy Deputy Director
Pacific Legal Foundation
Jim Manley is the state legal policy deputy director at Pacific Legal Foundation, where he fights to enact PLF’s innovative legislative solutions in statehouses across the nation. He previously served as an attorney manager and litigator at PLF, suing the government in defense of free speech and economic opportunity. Freedom and happiness are inseparable—Jim has dedicated his career to protecting and expanding both through strategic litigation and policymaking.
In his first case after graduating from law school, he sued his alma mater and won at the Colorado Supreme Court, guaranteeing the right of self-defense on college campuses. Since then, he has successfully challenged many unconstitutional laws—including striking down part of the Kentucky Constitution, saving a man from jail for the “crime” of repairing windshields, preventing a foster child from being ripped away from her pre-adoptive parents because of her race, defending the right of a midwife to use the title she spent a lifetime earning, and helping to enact laws protecting free speech on college campuses. His work defending free speech, the right to keep and bear arms, taxpayer rights, and property rights has set important precedents for liberty in state and federal courts across the country.
Jim joined PLF in 2018 to advance the fight for liberty with the most impactful public interest law firm litigating today. Before joining PLF, he litigated at the Goldwater Institute and Mountain States Legal Foundation.
A native of Michigan, he followed his future wife to Arizona State University, where he graduated with a double major in political science and journalism. He earned his J.D. from the University of Colorado Law School, where he was an associate editor of the law review and president of the Federalist Society. Before attending law school, he was a professional ski instructor in Telluride, Colorado. He is licensed to practice law in Arizona and Colorado.
Jim lives in Phoenix with his wife, Marlene, and their children, Milton and Cora. They have a cat named Martha Washington.
Jim is a member of the bar only in the states of Arizona and Colorado.
|
Brad Westover
Executive Director
National Tax Lien Association
Brad Westover is the leading authority on property taxes in America. Since 2011, he has served as the Executive Director of the National Tax Lien Association. Prior to running the day to day operations of the NTLA he invested over $1.5 billion in tax lien certificates from 23 states. He once raised over $20,000 for the National Coalition for the Homeless by going homeless in Washington DC for 48 hours. Brad founded the NTLA Foundation to save elderly and disabled homeowners facing tax foreclosure. In 2021, he was honored as the Humanitarian of the Year by the Miami Association of Realtors for his efforts in rallying 10,500 volunteers in Hurricane cleanup efforts in South Florida. Brad is an Eagle Scout and fluent in Spanish. He holds a BA in Communications from Brigham Young University and an MBA from Nova Southeastern University. When he is not speaking around the country you can find him playing basketball, golfing or water skiing.
|
Chris Ackerley
Treasurer
Pima County, Arizona
Chris Ackerley serves as the Pima County Treasurer having been appointed to the office by the Pima County Board of Supervisors in April of 2024. Before being named Treasurer, Chris served as the Chief Deputy Treasurer and previously served a term in the Arizona State Legislature representing southern Pima and Santa Cruz Counties. Pima County is the 16th largest in the U.S. by area and the 44th by population. Prior to joining the Treasurer’s Office, Chris had a 22-year career in education as a physics and math teacher.
|
Stephen Morel
Founder & CEO
JurisDeed
Stephen Morel is the Founder and CEO of New Orleans based prop-tech startup, JurisDeed, a B2B research
data service that's digitally transforming the obsolete world of paper and manual-based property ownership information into
an online, nationwide platform that's leveraging automation, dynamic big data and AI to empower investors and professionals to achieve unprecedented efficiency, profit and success in the $50B distressed property industry.
Morel formed JurisDeed in early 2020, but the company’s origins are rooted in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina where Morel was a young real estate title attorney in New Orleans and witnessed first-hand the incredible fragility of current systems that maintain records and enable transactions of real estate.
Prior to JurisDeed, Morel founded and operated a successful real estate title company and law practice from 1996 to 2015, and was thereafter the Chief Legal Officer for New Orleans based govtech company, CivicSource, from 2015 to 2019. Morel serves on the Louisiana State Law Institute’s Tax Sales Committee where he has co-authored a re-draft of the state’s entire delinquent ad valorem tax collection system, slated for legislative review and public referendum in 2024. Morel is a frequent writer and speaker on the return of distressed properties to productive use through the use of technology and scalable, risk mitigation systems.
Morel is a 1999 graduate of Louisiana State University, a 2002 graduate of the LSU Law Center, and in 2001, was honorably discharged from the Louisiana Army National Guard as an intelligence NCO after eight years of service.
|