Attorney Gene Schaerr helped draft RLUIPA, testified on its behalf before Congress and has been heavily involved in defending it.

Patricia Salkin is an expert on land use law and is dean of Touro College Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center in Central Islip, N.Y.

Eric Rassbach is deputy general counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty.

Thomas E. Perez is assistant attorney general for the civil rights division of the Justice Department.

The National League of Cities is a national advocacy group representing some 19,000 cities, villages and towns across the country. Contact Gregory Minchak or Amanda Straub.

Elizabeth Merritt is deputy general counsel at the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

Marci A. Hamilton is the Robert A. Fox Leadership Program Professor of Practice at the University of Pennsylvania. She is also the founder, CEO and academic director for Child USA, a nonprofit think tank aimed at ending child abuse. Hamilton, who began her career as a lawyer, is an expert on child sex abuse statutes, […]

Dan Dalton is chair of the American Bar Association’s Religious Land Use committee. Corporations, religious entities and individuals around the nation call on him to assist with complex zoning matters, banking issues, business transactions and commercial litigation. He is a frequent author, lecturer and litigator on behalf of religious entities concerned with religious land use matters […]

Ross Baker is a political science professor at Rutgers University and the author of Strangers on a Hill: Congress and the Court, which examines RLUIPA’s evolution.