Center Fellows

David Berrett

David Berrett worked for more than 13 years for from the Office of General Counsel of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints before retiring effective 31 Aug 2022. Prior to joining the Church’s Office of General Counsel, he was the Director of Legal Services for the Church’s Human Resources Department, having responsibility for global HR legal compliance. During his time with the Office of General Counsel, he served as the Church’s Area Legal Counsel in Hong Kong, where he supervised legal work in more than 40 countries (2009-2013) and as Area Legal Counsel for Southern Africa, residing in Johannesburg, where he was responsible for more than 30 countries (2018-2022) More…

L. Whitney Clayton

Elder L. Whitney Clayton was sustained as a General Authority Seventy of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on March 31, 2001. He served as a member of the Presidency of the Seventy since 2008 and was named Senior President of the Quorums of the Seventy on October 6, 2015. He assisted Elder Quentin L. Cook in supervising the Mexico Area and Elder David A. Bednar in supervising the Middle East/Africa North Area.

Elder Clayton served as a counselor in the South America South Area Presidency in 2002 to 2003 and as president from 2003 to 2006, while living in Buenos Aires, Argentin. Previously he served as an Area Seventy for the North America West Area for six years.  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 …

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 … More …

David M. Kirkham

David Kirkham served as Academic Director and professor at the Brigham Young University London Centre from 2015-2019. He has served ICLRS as Senior Fellow for Comparative Law and International Policy and Advisor for Europe since July 2007 and continues in this role in an advisory and representational capacity. David first came to the Law School from the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, where he served as Associate Dean and Professor of International Politics and Democratic Studies. He has also been an Associate Professor of History, Director of International History, and Director of International Plans and Programs at the United States Air Force Academy and held an associate professorship in the BYU Department of Political Science until his retirement in 2019 …  More …

Cynthia Juárez Lange

Cynthia Juárez Lange is an attorney. In 2021, she and her husband, Dennis Lange, accepted an assignment as Co-Directors of an ICLRS initiative to the Organization of American States in Washington, DC.

Cynthia was a Managing Partner of Worldwide Executive Committee — Fragomen Del Rey, Bernsen & Loewy from 1986 to 2020. She was an adjunct Professor of Law for Southwestern University School of Law and served as a trial attorney for the US Department of Justice – Immigration and Naturalization Service. She is currently on the Board of Directors for the National Immigration Law Center & IJG as well as on the Board of Directors for Days for Girls. From 2010 to 2021, she was the Program Chair for the Practicing Law Institute Immigration Symposium. 

Lange received her JD from Southwestern University School of Law and her BA in Political Science from Brigham Young University.

Dennis Lange

Dr. Dennis Lange is a nephrologist. In 2021, he and his wife, Cynthia Lange, accepted an assignment as Co-Directors of an ICLRS initiative to the Organization of American States in Washington, DC.

Dr. Lange worked with Kidney Specialists Medical Corp from 1997-2016. He also served as Medical Director of Lifeline Dialysis Service during that same time. He was Medical Director for Montebello Dialysis Clinic and DaVita Kenneth Hahn Plaza Dialysis Clinic for many years. Prior to that he was a physician with Kidney Specialists Medical Group. 

Dr. Lange received an MD from the University of California, Los Angeles and a BS in Biology from the University of California, Los Angeles. He is currently pursuing an MPH from the University of California, Berkeley.

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.  More …

Douglas E. McAllister

Douglas E. McAllister retired from the Office of General Counsel, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints after having served as Area Legal Counsel for the Brazil, Philippines and Asia North Areas. In Brazil, he was instrumental in the publication and dissemination in Portuguese of The Punta del Este Declaration on Human Dignity for Everyone Everywhere. He helped create Liberdade Religiosa: Um Guia de Seus Direitos – Brasil, which presently has 51 co-sponsoring organizations, including federal and state government entities, state Bar associations, academic institutions, religious organizations and human rights groups. He currently serves as a member of the Executive Committee, Geneva Office for Human Rights Education. More…

Janet M. Nelson

Janet Matthews Nelson received her bachelor’s degree in Mathematics from the University of Utah and her master’s degree in Mathematics Education from Hunter College (City University of New York). She raised her four children in Brooklyn, New York, and taught mathematics in secondary schools in Orem and New York City. She served on the Young Women’s Board of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 2014-2018 while living in Brooklyn, NY and Frankfurt, Germany. More…

Jeff Nelson

Jeff Nelson received his bachelor’s degree in Communications from the University of Utah, and his J.D. from the J. Reuben Clark Law School at Brigham Young University, and also studied at Universität Konstanz, in Konstanz, Germany.  He practiced law, primarily in banking and finance, in New York City and Germany for 32 years. 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 …

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 in such publications as the Appellate Hot List. His personal practice successes have won him repeated recognition … 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 …

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 Thayer

Donlu DeWitt Thayer, following her retirement from Brigham Young University on December 31, 2019, has 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 the  building and management of the Center’s websites — the ICLRS website and its companion database, Religlaw, and the website and case table of the Strasbourg Consortium, which tracks the freedom-of-religion-or-belief jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights. Most recently she has developed the Center’s blog, Talk About: Law and Religion, which she will continue to manage as a Senior Fellow. She will also contiune to oversee the Strasbourg Consortium case table and Law and Religion Headlines, a project she developed in 2012 and since has sent regularly to subscribers worldwide. Donlu has been an Associate Editor of  the Oxford Journal of Law and Religion since its inception in 2012.  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 …

Mark & Janette Cressler

Mark Cressler entered full-time service with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints after spending his career in real estate development. He is currently assigned to the Special Projects Department where his primary responsibilities are the selection and recommendation of Church temple sites and other strategic assignments. Mark was born in California and was raised in Germany. He is married to Janette Smith Cressler, and they are the parents of five children.

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