Founding and Managing Partner, Kabateck LLP
As a nationally recognized and respected consumer attorney, Brian Kabateck is a preeminent leader in the fight to ensure access to the justice system. He’s a powerful advocate in the courtroom and at the California State Capitol for consumers’ rights and protections. Formerly, Mr. Kabateck was President of the Consumer Attorneys of California and the Los Angeles County Bar Association.
Mr. Kabateck’s vigorous litigation on behalf of his clients has netted more than a billion dollars in recoveries. He has won many multi-million dollar verdicts, judgments and settlements in the areas of personal injury, insurance bad faith, pharmaceutical litigation, wrongful death, class action, mass torts and disaster litigation.
Because of his deep knowledge of the law and dynamic speaking style, Mr. Kabateck is a frequent analyst for national, local and legal media outlets. He makes regular appearances on CNN, MSNBC, CBS, NBC, ABC, FOX and CW stations. In addition to his television exposure, Mr. Kabateck often speaks at seminars, law schools and industry events.
As the former President of the Consumer Attorneys of California, Mr. Kabateck drew on his strong leadership abilities to bring change to some of the state’s most contentious problems. Under his direction, he brokered a consensus on issues including protecting patient safety and court funding. He has worked tirelessly with the California Legislature and California Department of Insurance to draft many laws for some of the state’s largest industries.
Mr. Kabateck’s ability to straddle the legal and political world has made him a strategic and outspoken advocate for consumer and patient rights. In November, voters will decide whether to overturn the decades old MICRA law which caps non-economic damages at $250,000. Mr. Kabateck is a leader in the fight to lift this outdated and misguided law that deprives the state’s most vulnerable victims from getting the compensation they deserve in medical malpractice cases.
Mr. Kabateck has extensive experience in all judicial forums throughout California. He has argued cases before the California State Supreme Court, California Court of Appeal, Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals.
Senior Vice President for Legal Studies, Cato Institute
Clark Neily is senior vice president for legal studies at the Cato Institute. His areas of interest include constitutional law, overcriminalization, civil forfeiture, police accountability, and gun rights. Neily is the author of Terms of Engagement: How Our Courts Should Enforce the Constitution’s Promise of Limited Government. His writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and National Review Online, as well as various law reviews, including the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, George Mason Law Review, Georgetown Journal of Law and Public Policy, NYU Journal of Law and Liberty, and Texas Review of Law and Politics. Neily is a frequent guest speaker and lecturer for the Federalist Society, Institute for Humane Studies, and American Constitution Society.
Before joining Cato in 2017, Neily was a senior attorney and constitutional litigator at the Institute for Justice and director of the Institute’s Center for Judicial Engagement. He is also an adjunct professor at the University of Texas School of Law, where he teaches constitutional litigation and public-interest law.
Neily served as co-counsel in District of Columbia v. Heller, the historic case in which the Supreme Court held for the first time that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to own a gun for self-defense.
Neily began his legal career as a law clerk to Judge Royce Lamberth on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. After that he spent four years in the trial department of the Dallas-based firm Thompson & Knight. Neily received his undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Texas, where he was Chief Articles Editor of the Texas Law Review.
Attorney, Pacific Legal Foundation
Luke A. Wake is an attorney at the Pacific Legal Foundation. Prior to joining PLF, he was a senior staff attorney at the NFIB Small Business Legal Center.
Wake has particular expertise on environmental and land use issues, and has worked on numerous other constitutional issues and matters of importance to small business owners. He is an ardent defender of private property rights, which he believes are essential to the free enterprise system and the foundation of American liberty. As a strong advocate of individual rights and economic liberties, he has built his career defending small business interests.
Wake has focused on a whole host of issues, from employment law matters to regulatory compliance. In addition to serving as a resource for small business owners, Wake is committed to ensuring that the voice of small business is heard in the nation’s courts. As an appellate practitioner, Wake has focused particularly on informing the courts on matters of administrative law and on issues under the Fifth Amendment’s Takings Clause. He is also working to advance small business interests in law review articles, and was recently published in the Berkeley Journal of Law & Ecology. See R.S. Radford & Luke A. Wake, Deciphering and Extrapolating: Searching for Sense in Penn Central, 38 Ecology L.Q. 731, 746-747 (2011).
Before joining the Legal Center’s team, Wake completed a prestigious two-year fellowship as an attorney in the Pacific Legal Foundation’s College of Public Interest Law. Wake is a graduate of Case Western Reserve University School of Law in Cleveland Ohio, and is a member of the California Bar. He completed his undergraduate studies at Elon University in North Carolina in 2006 where he focused on political theory and corporate communications.
Deep Dive Episode 150 – Regulating Business in the Age of COVID-19
Brian Kabateck, Clark Neily, Luke A. Wake
A Regulatory Transparency Project Teleforum
COVID-19 has presented unique challenges for state lawmakers as they attempt to address public health...