Associate Deputy Attorney General, United States Department of Justice
Deputy Secretary of Transportation, US Department of Transportation
Steven G. Bradbury was sworn in as the Deputy Secretary of Transportation on March 13, 2025, following his confirmation by the U.S. Senate on March 11, 2025. In this role, he oversees the Department’s operating administrations and spearheads initiatives to ensure a safe, efficient, and modern transportation system that strengthens economic productivity and global competitiveness. Deputy Secretary Bradbury also assists Secretary Duffy in managing the Department’s activities, including its workforce of over 58,000 employees and an annual budget exceeding $109 billion.
Bradbury previously served as the 23rd General Counsel of the Department of Transportation from 2017 to 2021, as the Acting Deputy Secretary from 2019, and as Acting Secretary of Transportation in 2021. As General Counsel, he was the chief legal officer, advising on all legal matters and ensuring the integrity and compliance of the Department’s policies and programs.
Before rejoining DOT, Bradbury was a Distinguished Fellow at The Heritage Foundation from December 2022 to March 2025. He has extensive experience in the public and private sector, having served as Principal Deputy and Acting Assistant Attorney General at the U.S. Department of Justice and as a partner at Kirkland & Ellis LLP and Dechert LLP. Earlier in his career, he clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas and Judge James L. Buckley.
Bradbury holds a J.D., magna cum laude, from the University of Michigan Law School and a B.A. in English from Stanford University.
Judge, United States District Court, District of Columbia
Judge Trevor N. McFadden was appointed to the United States District Court for the District of Columbia in 2017. He received his B.A. in 2001 from Wheaton College, IL, magna cum laude. In 2006, he received his J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law, where he graduated Order of the Coif and was an editor for the Virginia Law Review.
Following graduation from law school, Judge McFadden clerked for Judge Steven Colloton, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. He then joined the U.S. Department of Justice, where he served as Counsel to the Deputy Attorney General and as Assistant U.S. Attorney in the District of Columbia. Judge McFadden subsequently became a partner at Baker & McKenzie LLP in Washington, DC, where he focused on white collar investigations. He is also co-author of a treatise, Corporate Settlement Tools: DPAs, NPAs, and Cooperation Agreements.
After four years in private practice, Judge McFadden returned to the U.S. Department of Justice, where he was Deputy Assistant Attorney General and acted as the second-in-command of the Department's Criminal Division. As Deputy Assistant Attorney General, he managed the Division's Fraud and Appellate Sections.
Judge McFadden also has extensive experience in law enforcement. He served as an officer with the Fairfax County, VA, Police Department and as a deputy sheriff in Madison County, VA.
Assistant Attorney General, Civil Division, United States Department of Justice
Brett A. Shumate was sworn in as the Civil Division’s 36th Assistant Attorney General on June 11, 2025. He previously served in the Civil Division from 2017 to 2019 as the Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Federal Programs Branch. Prior to rejoining the Department, Mr. Shumate was a partner at Jones Day in Washington, D.C.
Mr. Shumate clerked for Judge Edith H. Jones on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. He graduated from Wake Forest University School of Law and Furman University.
Deputy Secretary of Agriculture, U.S. Department of Agriculture
Judge Stephen Alexander Vaden was appointed as the Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture on July 7, 2025. Alongside Secretary Brooke L. Rollins, Deputy Secretary Vaden leads the Department’s operations and implements policies that support America’s food and farm systems. A native of Union City, Tennessee, Deputy Secretary Vaden brings expertise in agricultural policy, law, and rural development. Previously, he served as a judge on the U.S. Court of International Trade and as General Counsel of USDA. Throughout Deputy Secretary Vaden’s time as General Counsel, he led successful Supreme Court litigation, advanced regulatory reform, and supported the implementation of the 2018 Farm Bill. He is a graduate of Yale Law School and Vanderbilt University. A public servant with strong agricultural roots, Deputy Secretary Vaden is committed to revitalizing rural America and ensuring an abundant, affordable, and safe U.S. food supply.
Deputy Director, Central Intelligence Agency
Michael Ellis was sworn in as Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency on February 10, 2025. Deputy Director Ellis has held a variety of senior national security positions, including General Counsel of the National Security Agency and Senior Director for Intelligence Programs at the National Security Council.
Deputy Director Ellis previously served in the White House Counsel's Office, providing legal advice on national security and foreign relations. Prior to the White House, he was General Counsel of the U.S. House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and served as an intelligence officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve.
Before returning to government, Deputy Director Ellis was the General Counsel of Rumble, a publicly traded video sharing platform and cloud services provider.
Deputy Director Ellis is a graduate of Yale Law School and Dartmouth College. Following law school, he served as a clerk to two federal judges. He is a "Jeopardy!" champion.
Professor of Law, Elon University
Enrique Armijo, Professor of Law at Elon University School of Law, Affiliate Fellow of the Yale Law School Information Society Project and the UNC-Chapel Hill Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life, and Fellow at the George Washington University Institute for Data, Democracy, and Politics, teaches and researches in the areas of the First Amendment, constitutional law, torts, administrative law, media and internet law, and international freedom of expression. Professor Armijo’s current scholarship addresses the interaction between new technologies and free speech. His scholarly work has recently appeared in the Cato Supreme Court Review, Boston University Law Review, the William and Mary Bill of Rights Journal, the peer-reviewed Communication Law and Policy and Political Science Quarterly, and several other journals. His work has been cited by the Federal Communications Commission, the Federal Election Commission, and other agencies, and in testimony before the U.S. Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs. He also has provided advice on media and internet law reform to governments, stakeholders and NGOs located around the world, including in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. Most recently, he has worked on media and communications reform projects in Myanmar (Burma) for the U.S. Department of State with Annenberg’s Center for Global Communications Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. His commentaries on these and other topics have appeared on NPR's On the Media, Voice of America , WUNC-FM, and Bloomberg Law, and in print in the Charlotte Observer, the Raleigh News and Observer, and several other outlets nationwide.
President and General Counsel, New Civil Liberties Alliance
NCLA’s President and General Counsel, Mark Chenoweth, has observed the administrative state up close and personal from perches in all four branches of the federal government. Mark served as the first chief of staff to Congressman Mike Pompeo, as legal counsel to Commissioner Anne Northup at the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, as an attorney advisor in the Office of Legal Policy at the U.S. Department of Justice, and as a law clerk to the Hon. Danny J. Boggs on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.
Mark has worked in several different roles in the private sector as well. He began his legal career in D.C. as a regulatory associate at Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering. He then returned to his home state of Kansas to serve as in-house counsel for Koch Industries. Most recently he spent over four years as general counsel of the Washington Legal Foundation.
Mark is a graduate of Yale College and the University of Chicago Law School, where he co-founded the Institute for Justice Clinic on Entrepreneurship and became a Tony Patiño Fellow. Mark has been widely quoted and/or published in newspapers and websites including the New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, New Hampshire Union Leader, and Metropolitan Corporate Counsel. He has also had recurring op-eds in the Los Angeles Daily Journal, and at Forbes.com.
Legislative and Policy Director, FIRE
Joe Cohn serves as director of FIRE’s Legislative and Policy department, overseeing a team of attorneys and staff tasked with monitoring and engaging on legislation and regulatory matters. Under his leadership, FIRE has secured numerous victories for free speech and due process at the state and federal level.
Joe is a 2004 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Law School and the Fels Institute of Government Administration, where he earned his Juris Doctor and master’s degree in Government Administration. In 2000, he graduated with distinction from the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, where he co-founded the student chapter of the ACLU. A former staff attorney for the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit and law clerk in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas, Joe joined FIRE in 2012 with a career-long dedication to advancing the cause of civil liberties, including through his service as a staff attorney at the AIDS Law Project of Pennsylvania where he provided legal services to underserved communities. His awards include accolades from The Legal Intelligencer and Pennsylvania Law Weekly, who named him a 2007 “Lawyer on the Fast Track,” and from Super Lawyers magazine, who named him a “Rising Star” in 2008.
Joe’s career also includes teaching at University of Pennsylvania Law School’s Gittis Civil Practice Clinic in 2010, where he lectured on good trial practices and supervised law students as they represented real clients in both state and federal courts. Just prior to joining FIRE, Joe served as the interim legal director for ACLU affiliates in Nevada and Utah.
As legislative and policy director, Joe spearheads FIRE’s advocacy at all levels of government. He has testified before Congress and in state legislatures across the country and has drafted numerous bills that have been enacted into state law. He regularly comments on FIRE’s issues in the media.
Deputy Director, Central Intelligence Agency
Michael Ellis was sworn in as Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency on February 10, 2025. Deputy Director Ellis has held a variety of senior national security positions, including General Counsel of the National Security Agency and Senior Director for Intelligence Programs at the National Security Council.
Deputy Director Ellis previously served in the White House Counsel's Office, providing legal advice on national security and foreign relations. Prior to the White House, he was General Counsel of the U.S. House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and served as an intelligence officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve.
Before returning to government, Deputy Director Ellis was the General Counsel of Rumble, a publicly traded video sharing platform and cloud services provider.
Deputy Director Ellis is a graduate of Yale Law School and Dartmouth College. Following law school, he served as a clerk to two federal judges. He is a "Jeopardy!" champion.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit
Britt C. Grant is a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. Judge Grant was appointed to the federal bench in August 2018 after serving as a Justice on the Supreme Court of Georgia. Prior to her judicial appointment, she served as the Solicitor General of Georgia and practiced in the Washington, D.C. office of Kirkland & Ellis. Upon graduation from law school, Judge Grant served as a law clerk to then-Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. She earned her J.D., with distinction, from Stanford Law School, where she was the Co-Founder of the Stanford National Security and the Law Society, and the President of the Stanford Law chapter of the Federalist Society. Before enrolling in law school, Judge Grant served in The White House in a variety of domestic policy roles as well as on the staff of Congressman Nathan Deal. Judge Grant earned her B.A., summa cum laude, from Wake Forest University, where she was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. She now lives in Atlanta, Georgia with her husband and three children.
Professor of Law, Elon University
Enrique Armijo, Professor of Law at Elon University School of Law, Affiliate Fellow of the Yale Law School Information Society Project and the UNC-Chapel Hill Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life, and Fellow at the George Washington University Institute for Data, Democracy, and Politics, teaches and researches in the areas of the First Amendment, constitutional law, torts, administrative law, media and internet law, and international freedom of expression. Professor Armijo’s current scholarship addresses the interaction between new technologies and free speech. His scholarly work has recently appeared in the Cato Supreme Court Review, Boston University Law Review, the William and Mary Bill of Rights Journal, the peer-reviewed Communication Law and Policy and Political Science Quarterly, and several other journals. His work has been cited by the Federal Communications Commission, the Federal Election Commission, and other agencies, and in testimony before the U.S. Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs. He also has provided advice on media and internet law reform to governments, stakeholders and NGOs located around the world, including in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. Most recently, he has worked on media and communications reform projects in Myanmar (Burma) for the U.S. Department of State with Annenberg’s Center for Global Communications Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. His commentaries on these and other topics have appeared on NPR's On the Media, Voice of America , WUNC-FM, and Bloomberg Law, and in print in the Charlotte Observer, the Raleigh News and Observer, and several other outlets nationwide.
President and General Counsel, New Civil Liberties Alliance
NCLA’s President and General Counsel, Mark Chenoweth, has observed the administrative state up close and personal from perches in all four branches of the federal government. Mark served as the first chief of staff to Congressman Mike Pompeo, as legal counsel to Commissioner Anne Northup at the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, as an attorney advisor in the Office of Legal Policy at the U.S. Department of Justice, and as a law clerk to the Hon. Danny J. Boggs on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.
Mark has worked in several different roles in the private sector as well. He began his legal career in D.C. as a regulatory associate at Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering. He then returned to his home state of Kansas to serve as in-house counsel for Koch Industries. Most recently he spent over four years as general counsel of the Washington Legal Foundation.
Mark is a graduate of Yale College and the University of Chicago Law School, where he co-founded the Institute for Justice Clinic on Entrepreneurship and became a Tony Patiño Fellow. Mark has been widely quoted and/or published in newspapers and websites including the New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, New Hampshire Union Leader, and Metropolitan Corporate Counsel. He has also had recurring op-eds in the Los Angeles Daily Journal, and at Forbes.com.
Legislative and Policy Director, FIRE
Joe Cohn serves as director of FIRE’s Legislative and Policy department, overseeing a team of attorneys and staff tasked with monitoring and engaging on legislation and regulatory matters. Under his leadership, FIRE has secured numerous victories for free speech and due process at the state and federal level.
Joe is a 2004 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Law School and the Fels Institute of Government Administration, where he earned his Juris Doctor and master’s degree in Government Administration. In 2000, he graduated with distinction from the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, where he co-founded the student chapter of the ACLU. A former staff attorney for the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit and law clerk in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas, Joe joined FIRE in 2012 with a career-long dedication to advancing the cause of civil liberties, including through his service as a staff attorney at the AIDS Law Project of Pennsylvania where he provided legal services to underserved communities. His awards include accolades from The Legal Intelligencer and Pennsylvania Law Weekly, who named him a 2007 “Lawyer on the Fast Track,” and from Super Lawyers magazine, who named him a “Rising Star” in 2008.
Joe’s career also includes teaching at University of Pennsylvania Law School’s Gittis Civil Practice Clinic in 2010, where he lectured on good trial practices and supervised law students as they represented real clients in both state and federal courts. Just prior to joining FIRE, Joe served as the interim legal director for ACLU affiliates in Nevada and Utah.
As legislative and policy director, Joe spearheads FIRE’s advocacy at all levels of government. He has testified before Congress and in state legislatures across the country and has drafted numerous bills that have been enacted into state law. He regularly comments on FIRE’s issues in the media.
Deputy Director, Central Intelligence Agency
Michael Ellis was sworn in as Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency on February 10, 2025. Deputy Director Ellis has held a variety of senior national security positions, including General Counsel of the National Security Agency and Senior Director for Intelligence Programs at the National Security Council.
Deputy Director Ellis previously served in the White House Counsel's Office, providing legal advice on national security and foreign relations. Prior to the White House, he was General Counsel of the U.S. House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and served as an intelligence officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve.
Before returning to government, Deputy Director Ellis was the General Counsel of Rumble, a publicly traded video sharing platform and cloud services provider.
Deputy Director Ellis is a graduate of Yale Law School and Dartmouth College. Following law school, he served as a clerk to two federal judges. He is a "Jeopardy!" champion.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit
Britt C. Grant is a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. Judge Grant was appointed to the federal bench in August 2018 after serving as a Justice on the Supreme Court of Georgia. Prior to her judicial appointment, she served as the Solicitor General of Georgia and practiced in the Washington, D.C. office of Kirkland & Ellis. Upon graduation from law school, Judge Grant served as a law clerk to then-Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. She earned her J.D., with distinction, from Stanford Law School, where she was the Co-Founder of the Stanford National Security and the Law Society, and the President of the Stanford Law chapter of the Federalist Society. Before enrolling in law school, Judge Grant served in The White House in a variety of domestic policy roles as well as on the staff of Congressman Nathan Deal. Judge Grant earned her B.A., summa cum laude, from Wake Forest University, where she was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. She now lives in Atlanta, Georgia with her husband and three children.
Deputy Director, Central Intelligence Agency
Michael Ellis was sworn in as Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency on February 10, 2025. Deputy Director Ellis has held a variety of senior national security positions, including General Counsel of the National Security Agency and Senior Director for Intelligence Programs at the National Security Council.
Deputy Director Ellis previously served in the White House Counsel's Office, providing legal advice on national security and foreign relations. Prior to the White House, he was General Counsel of the U.S. House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and served as an intelligence officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve.
Before returning to government, Deputy Director Ellis was the General Counsel of Rumble, a publicly traded video sharing platform and cloud services provider.
Deputy Director Ellis is a graduate of Yale Law School and Dartmouth College. Following law school, he served as a clerk to two federal judges. He is a "Jeopardy!" champion.
Inside the Administration's Legal Priorities: Business Developments, National Security, and America's Heartland
Ketan Bhirud, Steven Gill Bradbury, Trevor N. McFadden, Brett Shumate, Stephen Alexander Vaden, Michael J. Ellis
In-House Counsel Network
This panel will offer a high-level examination of the legal developments driving the Trump Administration and...
Is Executive Soft Power a Threat to Free Speech?
Enrique Armijo, Mark Chenoweth, Joe Cohn, Michael J. Ellis, Britt C. Grant
2022 National Lawyers Convention
There are no federal speech police, but law enforcement is not the only way that...
Is Executive Soft Power a Threat to Free Speech?
Enrique Armijo, Mark Chenoweth, Joe Cohn, Michael J. Ellis, Britt C. Grant
2022 National Lawyers Convention
There are no federal speech police, but law enforcement is not the only way that...
Maryland Court of Appeals Limits Asbestos Liability
Michael J. Ellis
State Court Docket Watch Article
For decades, asbestos cases have wound their way through state and federal courts. The first...