Senior & International Fellows
Orrin G. Hatch
The International Center for Law and Religion studies is honored to announce that Sentator Orrin Hatch has joined the Center as a Senior Fellow. Senator Hatch represented the State of Utah in the Senate for 42 years. First elected in 1976, Senator Hatch was at the time of his retirement in 2019 the longest-serving Republican U.S. Senator in history. He served as either the Chair or ranking minority member of the Senate Judiciary Committee from 1993 to 2005. He chaired the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions from 1981 to 1987. Hatch also served as Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. On January 3, 2015, after the 114th United States Congress was sworn in, Hatch became President pro tempore of the Senate. On January 2, 2018, he announced that he would retire from the Senate. Notable among the achievements of his tenure was his commitment to religious freedom. He co-sponsored the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the most important religious freedom legislation in the history of the United States, passed by a nearly unanimous Congress in 1993. More …
Scott E. Isaacson
A shaping force behind the conception and formation of the International Center for Law and Religion Studies, Scott E. Isaacson at present serves the Center as Regional Advisor for Latin America. He is a Member of the Latin American Consortium for Religious Liberty (Consorcio Latinoamericano de Libertad Religiosa) and a shareholder in the Law Firm of Kirton & McConkie, where he is a member of the International Law Section with a practice focusing on international commercial transactions and international law for not-for-profit organizations. From 1998 through 2004 he served as International Legal Counsel, Office of General Counsel, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, supervising all Church legal work in South America, managing international real estate acquisitions and construction, complex litigation and international arbitration, international tax compliance for not-for-profit organizations, More …
David M. Kirkham
David Kirkham is Executive Director of the Geneva Office for Human Rights Education (https://go-hre.org/) and President of The International Society, a global professional association of friends and members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints with international interests and experience. He has served the Brigham Young University Law School International Center for Law and Religion Studies as Senior Fellow for Comparative Law and International Policy since 2007. In January 2023, David and his wife Judy completed service as Special Representatives of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the United Arab Emirates, conducting Church-Emirati governmental, humanitarian, and interfaith relations in Dubai and Abu Dhabi.
David’s professional activities have taken him to over 50 countries on six continents. … More …
Michael L. Jensen
Michael L. Jensen is Regional Legal Counsel, Office of General Counsel, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He previously served as Area Legal Counsel for the Europe Area, headquartered in Frankfurt Germany. He served from 2007-2009 as Area Legal Counsel in Hong Kong, and from 2001-2005 in the same role in Moscow, in which capacities he supervised corporate, tax, employment, real estate and construction, litigation, government relations, religious liberty and related legal issues for the Church in 26 countries in Asia and in 16 countries in Eastern Europe, respectively. Intermittent with these assignments he has been a member Of Counsel of the International Law Section and Employment Law Section of the law firm Kirton & McConkie, with a practice focusing on international law for not-for-profit organizations and on advising employers on all aspects of the employment relationship. More …
Denise Posse-Blanco Lindberg
A native of Havana, Cuba, Denise Posse Lindberg received her primary and secondary education in Cuba, Puerto Rico, and in the United States (New York). She attended Brigham Young University as an undergraduate (B.A., Communications; 1970) and completed graduate studies at the University of Utah (M.S., Ed. Psych.; 1973; M.S.W., Social Work, 1979; Ph.D. Health Science, 1980). Thereafter, she became interested in the analytical approach employed in the law and enrolled in BYU’s J. Reuben Clark Law School. She received her J.D., Magna Cum Laude in 1988, graduating second in her class. She clerked at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit for Judge Monroe G. McKay and at the Supreme Court of the United States for Associate Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. More …
Neil A. Lindberg
Neil Lindberg has joined the International Center for Law and Religion Studies (ICLRS) at Brigham Young University as Senior Fellow. He and his wife, Senior District Judge Denise Lindberg, have been named Co-Directors of an ICLRS initiative to the Organization of American States in Washington, DC. After receiving a bachelor’s degree in sociology from Brigham Young University, Mr. Lindberg, a Southern California native, joined the city planning staff of the City of Norwalk, California. He later joined the Community Development Department of Provo City, then the second largest city in Utah. During his 14-year tenure with Provo Mr. Lindberg rose from Senior Planner to Assistant Department Director and earned a Masters in Public Administration (MPA) degree. Looking to expand his horizons, Mr. Lindberg returned to law school, receiving his Juris Doctor degree from the J. Reuben Clark Law School in 1990. More …
Adesina J. Olukanni
Adesina J. Olukanni joined the Center as a Senior Fellow for Africa upon his retirement in late 2016 after nearly a decade of service in Public Affairs for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Africa. He has served in numerous Church positions, including high counsellor, branch president, district president’s counsellor, district president, mission president’s counsellor, stake president, Area Seventy, and counsellor in the Africa West Area Presidency. He was the Country Director in Nigeria for Church Education Systems of the Church between April 2004 and March 2007. He came into Public Affairs in April of 2007 as the Director of Public Affairs for the Church in the Africa West Area and the Africa South East Area. He served as Director in the Afrfica West Area … More …
Erlend “Pete” Peterson
Erlend “Pete” Peterson is currently serving as a Senior Fellow for the Middle East in the BYU International Center for Law and Religious Studies. Prior to accepting this invitation, Pete retired from Brigham Young University having completed fifty years of full-time employment. At the time of Pete’s retirement, he had served as BYU’s Associate International Vice President for fifteen years. Prior to that, he served in several professional positions in Admissions and Records—with twenty-seven years as Assistant Dean, Associate Dean and Dean. Pete became involved in Brigham Young University’s international efforts in 1973 when he was named assistant dean of the Division of Admissions and Records and given responsibility for Brigham Young University’s special international… More …
Ruth Lybbert Renlund
Salt Lake City Attorney Ruth Lybbert Renlund is former president of the law firm Dewsnup, King & Olsen, a firm she helped form and where she practiced plaintiff civil litigation for 20 years. Before this, she was for three years assistant attorney general of the State of Utah and served on the board of directors for the Deseret News, Murdock Travel, and the Workers Compensation Fund of Utah. She was a member of the Utah Supreme Court’s Committee on Professionalism and chair of the Judicial Conduct Commission for the State of Utah. She was the first female president of the Utah Trial Lawyers Association. After receiving a bachelor’s degree in history and a teaching certificate from the University of Utah, Ruth taught high school English and debate in Utah for a time, before earning a juris doctorate from the University of Maryland … More …
Neville Rochow
Neville Rochow SC is a distinguished Australian Barrister and legal educator. At present (2018) he works with Professor Paul Babie on the Law and Religion Project of the Research Unit for the Study of Society, Ethics and Law, The University of Adelaide. He holds adjunct professorships at the law schools of Notre Dame Australia and the University of Adelaide. His research interests include jurisprudence, human rights, and freedom of religion or belief. In his practice as a Silk from Howard Zelling Chambers, he had a national practice in corporate, commercial, competition, and constitutional law. He has appeared in the High Court of Australia, the Federal Court, the Supreme Court of various States and other federal, territorial, and state jurisdictions. From 2015 to 2017, Neville and his wife, Penny, served as Government Relations Representatives at the European Union Office of … More …
Hannah Clayson Smith
J. Reuben Clark Law School alumna Hannah Clayson Smith has joined the International Center for Law and Religion Studies (ICLRS) as a Senior Fellow, following two clerkships at the US Supreme Court, for Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito, Jr., and a distinguished decade of service as Senior Counsel at Becket Law. Hannah brings to ICLRS an unparalleled interest in and record of service to religious liberty in the United States. She was a member of the legal teams that secured victories in key U.S. Supreme Court religious liberty cases, including Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. EEOC, Holt v. Hobbs, Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, and Zubik v. Burwell (the “Little Sisters of the Poor” case). During her time at Becket, she contributed to 25 Supreme Court briefs and represented more than 13 major faith groups including Anglicans, Assemblies of God, Baptists, Catholics… More …
Gene Schaerr
The International Center for Law and Religion Studies is honored to add Gene Schaerr to its distinguished group of Senior Fellows. Mr. Schaerr specializes in handling—and usually winning—civil appeals, writ proceedings and similar matters, both in appellate courts and in the law-focused proceedings at the trial-court or agency level that often determine success or failure on appeal. He has argued and won dozens of cases in a variety of forums—including the U.S. Supreme Court (where he has argued six cases), every federal circuit, and numerous federal district courts and state appellate courts. His win rate in the dozens of federal appeals he has argued in the past six years is over 75 percent. He was a coordinator of Sidley Austin’s appellate practice from 1993 until 2005, and from 2005 until 2014 was the chair of the nationwide appellate practice at Winston & Strawn—a practice he led to numerous recognitions … More …
Gordon H. Smith
The International Center for Law and Religion Studies is honored announce that former United States Senator Gordon H. Smith has agreed to join the work of the Center as a Senior Fellow. Before his election to the U.S. Senate in 1996, Senator Smith was elected to the Oregon State Senate, rising to the position of president of that body after only three years. Senator Smith served the State of Oregon in the US Senate from January 3, 1997, to January 3, 2009. He was the first individual to run for a state’s two United States Senate seats in one calendar year. He served on the Special Committee on Aging in the One Hundred Ninth Congress. During his Senate tenure Senator Smith’s committee assignments included the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, the panel that oversees all broadcast-related legislation. He also served on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, the Senate Finance … More …
Donlu D. Thayer
Following her retirement from Brigham Young University at the end of 2019, Donlu DeWitt Thayer assumed a role as Senior Fellow for the International Center for Law and Religion Studies, where she was most recently Publications Director. During her more than ten years with the Center, Donlu oversaw print and electronic publications, including building and managing the Center’s websites — the ICLRS website and its companion database, Religlaw. She also managed the website and case table of the Strasbourg Consortium, which tracked the freedom-of-religion-or-belief jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights. She developed the Center projects Law and Religion Headlines and the blog, Talk About: Law and Religion. She was instrumental in the development of the Oxford Journal of Law and Religion in 2012, serving first as Case Note Editor and then until 2021 as an Associate Editor. More …
Patrick J. Thurston
A longtime associate and supporter of the International Center for Law and Religion Studies, Patrick Thurston is an attorney with the law firm Kirton & McConkie, where his practice covers a broad range of international matters, including corporate legal structure issues, not-for-profit matters, real estate sales and acquisitions, and other international transactions. He also assists clients with a variety of domestic business and corporate matters. Since July 2008, Patrick has worked in the Dominican Republic, supervising a client’s legal matters in the Caribbean area, including corporate work, legal compliance, employment, immigration, real estate acquisition, construction, and legal compliance issues. Before joining Kirton & McConkie in 2006, Mr. Thurston practiced law in the… More …
Diane W. Wilkins
Diane W. Wilkins is a graduate of the University of Utah in political science (B.S. ’75, cum laude) and Law (JD ’78). She has been a Deputy County Attorney, an Assistant Attorney General, Deputy Chief of Staff to the Governor, and a state level trial judge, all in Utah. Judge Wilkins has served as Associate Area Legal Counsel in the Pacific Area (2014-2016), assisting in managing the legal work of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the 19 countries of the Pacific Area, and most recently completed service as an International Fellow of the ICLRS in Europe (2017-2019), living in both Brussels, Belgium and later in Strasbourg, France. That assignment took her to a number of European countries meeting with government officials, judges, scholars, and others interested in the cause of religious liberty and the rule of law. During her professional career she has served in a variety of leadership roles in governmental, judicial, civic, and religious organizations. … More
Michael J. Wilkins
Michael J. Wilkins is a graduate of the University of Utah (B.S. ’75) (JD ’77) and the University of Virginia Law School (LL.M. ’00). After time in private law practice in Salt Lake City, he was appointed a judge of the Utah Court of Appeals (1994-2000), and later as a Justice of the Utah Supreme Court (2000-2010). Justice Wilkins has enjoyed serving as an Associate Area Legal Counsel (2014-2016) in the Pacific area of the Church, and an International Fellow of the ICLRS (2017-2019) in Europe. He presently serves as Chair of the Utah Commission on Uniform State Laws (2007-present), and a member of the European Law Institute (2018-present). He has been an adjunct lecturer in law at the J. Reuben Clark Law School, Chair of the Utah Legislative Ethics Commission, a Utah Bar Examiner, and served in other governmental, judicial, civic, and religious positions. . . . More