Keynote Speaker

Justin Pearson is a Senior Attorney at the Institute for Justice, where he directs IJ’s national food truck work and is also the Managing Attorney for IJ’s Florida office in Miami.

Justin has devoted his career to vindicating the constitutional rights of small-business owners. He has argued on their behalf as lead counsel hundreds of times in courts across the nation, and many of Justin’s victories have involved novel constitutional arguments. Additionally, Justin has testified at state legislatures dozens of times, and the successful bills signed into law that Justin actively supported (and often helped to draft) have included occupational licensing reform, food truck reform, cottage food reform, fresh start reform, home-based business reform, repeals of certificate-of-need (CON) requirements, and civil forfeiture reform.

Justin’s work has been covered by almost every major media outlet in the United States, and Justin has given over one hundred talks to attorney organizations and law schools. The law schools that have hosted Justin’s talks include Harvard, Yale, the University of Chicago, UVA, Duke, NYU, the University of Michigan, and Cornell, among many others. Justin received his law degree with honors from the University of Miami and his bachelor’s degree in business management from North Carolina State University.

Master of Ceremonies

Joseph Kelly Levasseur has a long history of fighting for taxpayers and constituent service. Manchester born and raised. Married with two children. He is a former restaurant owner from 1986-2019, self-employed attorney since 2001, alderman of Manchester’s downtown ward 3 from 2000-2002, and alderman-at-large in Manchester since 2012.