Michael Farris is a founder of the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) and Patrick Henry College. He ran for Lt. Governor of Virginia in the 1990s and was narrowly defeated in a race that received national attention. He has been a key leader in the conservative movement for more than three decades. Earlier this year, the nation's largest conservative legal defense organization, Alliance Defending Freedom, named Farris its CEO and General Counsel, succeeding its longtime president and founder Alan Sears.