ABOUT OUR SPEAKERS

The Rev. Canon Phil Ashey

Canon Phil is the President and Chief Executive Officer of the American Anglican Council. He was ordained to the priesthood in 1988, and spent twenty years leading Episcopal and Anglican congregations of all sizes in California, Virginia and Pittsburgh—thirteen as a Rector and Church planter, and seven as a Senior Associate. In 2015 he received his LLM in Canon Law from Cardiff University (Wales UK) and now serves the province through directing the ACNA Governance Taskforce, in addition to his role in the AAC.

The Hon. George Peagler

During his distinguished career of 41 years in Georgia’s legal profession and justice system, Judge Peagler was engaged in the private practice of law for more than two decades prior to joining the Superior Court bench for the Southwestern Circuit, covering Lee, Macon, Schley, Stewart, Sumter, and Webster counties, in 2000. He is also a past president of the Southwestern Circuit Bar Association and the Americus-Sumter County Chamber of Commerce and a recipient of the Chief Justice Robert Benham Award for Community Service. He is also a director of the Anglican Legal Society.

Dr. Samuel Bray

Samuel L. Bray is a professor of law at the Notre Dame and previously served as a professor of law at UCLA. He is a leading scholar in the fields of remedies and equity, and also writes about constitutional law. Among his published articles is Multiple Chancellors: Reforming the National Injunction, 131 Harvard Law Review 417 (2017). He is coauthor of a remedies casebook, a constitutional law casebook, and a translation of Genesis 1-11. Bray is a graduate of the University of Chicago Law School, and he clerked for then-Judge Michael W. McConnell on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. After clerking, he practiced law at Mayer Brown LLP, was an associate-in-law at Columbia Law School, and was executive director of the Constitutional Law Center at Stanford Law School.

The Rev. Andrew Rowell

Fr. Andrew is the second Rector of Christchurch, Montgomery. He serves as the Dean of the Western Deanery of the Gulf Atlantic Diocese and is on the Board of Trustees for the American Anglican Council and the Anglican Relief and Development Fund. Andrew received his undergraduate degree from Duke University (1995), his law degree from the University of Virginia (1999), and his Masters of Divinity from the Duke University Divinity School (2008). In his prior professional life, Andrew served as a homeless shelter manager, a speechwriter for the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, and a tax attorney at Hogan Lovells LLP in Washington, D.C. 

The Rev. William Barto

Deacon Barto is an experienced executive, litigator, and judge with over 30 years of public-sector legal experience. He is a skilled educator with years of teaching experience at an ABA-accredited law school and numerous publications on criminal law and procedure, administrative law, jurisprudence, and the judicial process. His specialties include the judicial process, judicial administration, ethics and standards of conduct, mediation, administrative law, litigation, training, investigations, criminal law and procedure, and military law. He is currently an assistant minister at Holy Trinity Reformed Episcopal Church in Charleston, SC, and serves as Vice President of the Board of Trustees for the Diocese of the Central States. He also assists the Bishop and Chancellor as necessary with various legal matters relating to the Constitution, Canons, and Bylaws that affect the parish.