Alumni Profile: Kristen Waggoner (Class of 1997)

Kristen Waggoner ’97 is the Senior Vice President of Legal Services and Senior Counsel at the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a legal organization that advocates for people’s right to live out their faith through efforts in strategy, training, funding, and litigation. Kristen has been passionate about defending religious freedom since she first felt God calling her to the practice of law at the age of thirteen, and now she finds herself on the front lines of ADF’s efforts to combat attacks on religious freedom in the U.S. in the past months.

While enrolled in Regent University’s School of Law, Kristen served on law review and moot court, and after graduating Cum Laude in 1997, Kristen clerked for Justice Richard Sanders on the Washington Supreme Court. She then joined Ellis, Li & McKinstry PLLC, a general practice law firm in Seattle. While at ELM, Kristen’s practice focused mainly on representation of religious organizations, and she defended churches, pastors, and Christians in cases involving religious freedom and autonomy and same-sex marriage. After sixteen years at ELM, Kristen left the security of her partnership to devote herself full-time to religious liberty work with the ADF. Though this decision required major changes for Kristen, her husband Benjamin (who is also a Regent Law alum) and her three kids, it has placed her in a position to have more influence in the fight for religious liberty.

As the Senior Vice President of Legal Services for ADF, Kristen supervises its domestic litigation efforts including those of about fifty in-house attorneys and over 2,400 allied attorneys, and their work is having no small impact. The organization has played various roles in 47 Supreme Court victories and has an 80% winning record in all cases it has litigated to conclusion. Also, as a Senior Counsel for the ADF,  Kristen continues to serve as lead counsel in two high profile religious freedom cases. One ongoing case is that of Barronelle Stutzman, a florist who was sued personally by the government for referring her long-time customer to a different floral service for a same-sex wedding. Another recent case involves whether the government can force a fourth generation owned pharmacy to dispense early abortifacients. Kristen won this case after a 12-day federal trial. Both cases are on appeal. Through her work on these cases and others, Kristen has appeared on multiple major news media outlets, giving her the opportunity to be a leading national voice on behalf of Christian religious freedom.

When speaking about how we can approach issues of religious freedom as Christians, Kristen said, “We must articulate the value of religious freedom in a winsome way, explaining the foundational role it plays in protecting freedom in general.” She stated that one of the best ways to accomplish this is to tell the stories of real people who are being affected by these issues. “Instead of focusing only on broad principles, we emphasize the benefits that religious freedom—our first freedom—offers to individuals and society as a whole. We provide tangible examples of how religious freedom motivates others to do good works and how the lack of it hurts real people. The religious and non-religious benefit from robust religious liberty.” Stories like Barronelle’s and the Stormans family illustrate this.

Kristen reflects on her time at Regent’s School of Law as an invaluable time of preparation for her career saying, “Regent gave me many opportunities to develop into an effective advocate. Regent not only challenged me to pursue academic excellence, but it gave me the foundation and encouragement to explore and debate difficult issues that affect the moral fabric of our society.” While Kristen concedes we face substantial threats to religious freedom, she remains convinced that with great adversity comes great opportunity. Kristen is definitely a Regent alumna who is worth watching in the coming years as she continues to defend Christian religious freedom on the front lines.