OUR TEAM
Chairman of the Board
William D. Johnson, Esq.
William Johnson received his B.A. from Brigham Young University in 1978, where he majored in Japanese (a language he speaks fluently). He began his legal education at Harvard Law School, where he was an editor of the Harvard International Law Journal, and he received his law degree from Columbia University School of Law in 1981. He practices international corporate law, specializing in the representation of Japanese corporations.
Since 2008, William has served as Chairman of the American Freedom Party, a White nationalist political party. In 2017, he was appointed as the United States agent and representative of the Knights Templar of Northern Ireland, as well as the Director of the Council of Conservative Citizens. He is also the author of the Pace Amendment, a proposed amendment to the United States Constitution restricting citizenship and residency to Whites only. He hosts The EthnoState Blog Talk Show (thedailykenn.com), which premiered in 2016. In 1970, he served as the assistant organizer of the first Earth Day in Eugene, Oregon.
William is a member (by right of descent) of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery of Massachusetts (founded 1638). He has been married for 40 years, and has five children and grandchildren.
Director, Treasurer
Kathleen Snyder
Kathleen (or Kat, for short) received her Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics from a small, private Christian college in the South. She has spent more than 15 years working in the information technology industry as a Software Engineer, Systems Integration Manager, and Senior Interface Analyst; she is currently working as a Systems Integration Engineer, providing clinical informatics services.
In her spare time, Kat enjoys hiking, paddleboarding, and practicing Tai Chi.
Director
Chris Johncox
Chris is one of the founding board members of the American Legal Defense Fund. He has many years of activism experience, and has worked as a consultant/contractor in electoral politics. He currently manages a small business in addition to his activism. He has written for several libertarian publications, and has given public talks at a number of large events.
Director
Bethany Sherman
Bethany is a proud stay-at-home mother of two beautiful little girls. She joined the ALDF Board of Directors after being wrongfully targeted and attacked by Antifa and subsequently losing her small business due to boycotts. As an entrepreneur, she was a respected powerhouse who was proactively engaged in her community. She co-founded and served on the boards of multiple non-profits, volunteered time as a technical advisor to the State of Oregon, developed and led popular community education events, and employed 14 people at the pinnacle of her business operations, all while legitimizing and strengthening her industry and bolstering the local economy.
Director
Josh Smith, Esq.
Josh Smith is a litigation attorney from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he represents clients in both civil and criminal law matters.
At age 18, Josh received his Bachelor’s Degree, summa cum laude, from the University of Pittsburgh, where he was a recipient of both the University Scholar Award and the Chancellor’s Undergraduate Teaching Fellowship. At 22, he received his Juris Doctor degree, cum laude, from Cornell Law School, where he was an editor of the Cornell Law Review.
While at Cornell, Josh earned a reputation as an elite Moot Court competitor for his unanimous victory in the 2003 Cornell Winter Cup Moot Court Competition, and for receiving the Kaiser Award for Best Brief in each of the three competitions he entered while at Cornell (2002 Winter Cup, 2003 Cuccia Cup, and 2003 Winter Cup). He was also awarded first prize in the American Bar Association’s 2002 William S. Greenhalgh Fourth Amendment Essay Competition, a national writing contest, for his entry entitled “Toward the Manufacturing of Privacy: Forcing Big Brother to Play the Fool and Other Proposals for Fourth Amendment Change in Cyberspace.” In his final semester of law school, Josh was selected for a highly-coveted constitutional law research internship position with J. Gregory Sidak, a Resident Scholar and economist at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C.
Josh was published in the Cornell Law Review for his scholarly article “The Craziest Reform of Them All: A Critical Analysis of the Constitutional Implications of ‘Abolishing’ the Insanity Defense.” Since its publication, the piece has been referenced in LaFave & Scott’s Criminal Law, the most comprehensive and authoritative multi-volume criminal law treatise in use today, and has received praise from nationally-known organizations and individual members of the legal academy alike.
Josh began practicing law as an Associate at Sullivan & Cromwell LLP, one of the most prestigious law firms in the world (at which he also served as a Summer Associate between his second and third years of law school). In 2009, he opened own private law practice in Pennsylvania, Smith LLC. He is presently admitted to practice in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, as well as in the United States District Courts for the Eastern and Western Districts of Pennsylvania.
In 2012, Josh started a nonprofit organization, Balanced Scales Legal Services (BSLS), where he serves as Director & Chief Counsel. BSLS provides free legal representation to defendants in Protection from Abuse (PFA) cases. (Plaintiffs in such cases receive free legal representation from Neighborhood Legal Services.) BSLS was the first, and remains the only, organization of its kind in the nation. More recently, Josh served as Campaign Spokesman and Legislative Director to Paul Nehlen, a candidate for Congress. He is also the creator of the Social Media Anti-Censorship Act (SMACA) proposal, which would prohibit censorship of lawful speech on major social media platforms.
Josh is a fierce pro-White advocate, devoting a substantial amount of his time to pro bono representation to protect and secure White civil rights.