Becket (law firm)
nonprofit organization in Washington D.C., United States
Becket, also known as the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, is a non-profit public interest law firm based in Washington, D.C., with a mission to "protect the free expression of all faiths." Becket promotes accommodationism and is active in the judicial system, the media, and in education. Becket has an undefeated record at the Supreme Court of the United States, having won 13 consecutive cases since 2012.
History and leadership
The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty was founded in 1994 by Kevin Hasson, a lawyer who previously worked in the Reagan Administration Justice Department under Samuel Alito, then-Assistant Attorney General and current U.S. Supreme Court Justice. Subsequently, Hasson worked at the Washington law firm Williams & Connolly, where he became well-known and controversial for defending Catholic University's decision to fire Charles Curran for his opposition to Church doctrine despite his being a respected moral theologian.
Hasson, who is Catholic, named The Becket Fund after Saint Thomas Becket, who was the Archbishop of Canterbury from 1162 to 1170 during the reign of Henry II of England. A long series of quarrels with King Henry ended with Becket's murder and martyrdom at Canterbury Cathedral in 1170. His last words were an acceptance of death in defense of the church of Christ.
In 2011, Hasson stepped down as president of Becket, making way for William P. Mumma, who has since served as the president and chairman of the board. Kristina Arriaga, who was the executive director of Becket starting in 2010 and a member of the firm since 1995, is now a senior advisor to the board. Montse Alvarado, who started with Becket in 2009, replaced Arriaga as executive director in 2017.
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Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 29, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7716225. Authority coordinates are 38.902, -77.060. 5 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2012, 1994, 1162 and 1170.
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This entry incorporates text from “Becket (law firm)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.