Solicitor, U.S. Department of Labor
Jonathan Berry is Solicitor at the U.S. Department of Labor, in service to President Trump’s agenda to put American workers first. He leads the Department’s lawyers in advising the Secretary and agency leadership on all aspects of law and in representing the Department in court. He was previously managing partner at Boyden Gray PLLC, where he provided strategic counsel and litigated on issues at the intersection of law, politics, and public policy. Earlier, he headed the regulatory office at Labor, and also served at the Department of Justice, in the first Trump Administration. Mr. Berry served as a law clerk to Judge Jerry E. Smith of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, and to Associate Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr., of the Supreme Court of the United States.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Third Circuit
Judge Paul Matey was appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in 2019 by President Trump.
Before his judicial service, Judge Matey was a partner at Lowenstein Sandler in New Jersey where he practiced complex commercial litigation and criminal defense. Earlier, Judge Matey was the Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary for University Hospital Newark, an academic medical center and teaching hospital.
He also served as the Deputy Chief Counsel to Governor Chris Christie, and as an Assistant United States Attorney in the District of New Jersey, where he was awarded the Justice Department’s Director’s Award for Superior Performance. He also practiced at the Washington D.C. firm of Kellogg, Hansen, Todd, Figel & Frederick, and served as a law clerk to judges on the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit and the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey.
He earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Scranton, a Jesuit University, in 1993, and his juris doctorate, summa cum laude, from Seton Hall University School of Law in 2001, where he served as Editor-in-Chief of the Seton Hall Law Review.
In 2019, Judge Matey was elected to membership in the American Law Institute and, since 2020, has lectured on administrative law and the American legal history at Seton Hall.
Julius L. Chambers Distinguished Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Civil Rights, University of North Carolina School of Law
Theodore M. Shaw is the Julius L. Chambers Distinguished Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Civil Rights at the University of North Carolina School of Law at Chapel Hill. Professor Shaw teaches Civil Procedure and Advanced Constitutional Law/Fourteenth Amendment. Before joining the faculty of UNC Law School, from 2008-2014 Professor Shaw taught at Columbia University Law School, where he was Professor of Professional Practice. During that time he was also “Of Counsel” to the law firm of Norton Rose Fulbright (formerly Fulbright & Jaworski, LLP). His practice involved civil litigation and representation of institutional clients on matters concerning diversity and civil rights.
Professor Shaw was the fifth Director-Counsel and President of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., for which he worked in various capacities over the span of twenty-six years. He has litigated education, employment, voting rights, housing, police misconduct, capital punishment and other civil rights cases in trial and appellate courts, and in the United States Supreme Court.From 1982 until 1987, he litigated education, housing, and capital punishment cases and directed LDF's education litigation docket. In 1987, under the direction of LDF's third Director-Counsel, Julius Chambers, Mr. Shaw relocated to Los Angeles to establish LDF's Western Regional Office. In 1990, Mr. Shaw left LDF to join the faculty of the University of Michigan Law School, where he taught Constitutional Law, Civil Procedure and Civil Rights. While at Michigan, he played a key role in initiating a review of the law school's admissions practices and policies, and served on the faculty committee that promulgated the admissions program that was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2003 in Grutter v. Bollinger.
In 1993, Mr. Shaw returned to LDF as Associate Director-Counsel, and in 2004, he became LDF's fifth Director-Counsel. Mr. Shaw's legal career began as a Trial Attorney in the Honors Program of the United States Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division in Washington, D.C., where he worked from 1979 until 1982.
Mr. Shaw has testified on numerous occasions before Congress and before state and local legislatures. His human rights work has taken him to Africa, Asia, Europe, and South America. In addition to teaching at Columbia and at Michigan Law School, Professor Shaw held the 1997-1998 Haywood Burns Chair at CUNY School of Law at Queens College and the 2003 Phyllis Beck Chair at Temple Law School. He was a visiting scholar at the Constitution Center in Philadelphia in 2008-2009. He is a member of the faculty of the Practicing Law Institute (PLI).
Mr. Shaw served on the Obama Transition Team after the 2008 presidential election, as team leader for the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department.
Former Deputy Attorney General for Virginia
Kennerly Davis has over forty years of experience in corporate management, public service, and the private practice of law. He has held senior executive positions in a Fortune 500 electric and gas company. He has served as Deputy Attorney General for the Commonwealth of Virginia, and as a legislative aide to a U.S. Senator and a U.S. Congressman. He practiced law for 25 years with Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP.
Davis is active in the Federalist Society as a member of the Regulatory Process Working Group of the Regulatory Transparency Project, and as a member of the Execuitve Committee of the Administrative Law and Regulation Practice Group. He is active in the national Alumni Free Speech Alliance, and involved in AFSA-chapter initiatives, including litigation, to publicize and correct the serious legal problems created by university Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs and the anonymous bias reporting systems used to enforce those DEI programs.
Davis writes and speaks on a wide variety of topics, including those related to the Founding of America, the natural rights foundation of our Republic, the constitutional rule of law, equal protection and free speech, DEI programs and bias reporting systems, capitalism, regulation and regulatory reform, and economic development. His articles have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, the Washington Examiner, the Richmond Times-Dispatch, The Federalist Society Review, the FedSoc Blog, Real Clear Energy, Townhall, the Daily Caller, reports of the Center for Strategic & International Studies, and other publications. He appears frequently on radio, podcasts, and television.
Davis graduated with honors from Cornell University with an A.B. degree in Government. He earned an M.A. degree from Pembroke College, Oxford, in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics. He was awarded a J.D. degree from Harvard Law School, and an M.B.A. degree from Virginia Commonwealth University.
Davis lives in Richmond, Virginia. He can be contacted by email: j.kendavis@verizon.net, and by phone: (804) 624-8525.
Former Commissioner, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
Bernard L. McNamee is a former FERC commissioner and currently a partner at McGuireWoods LLP and a senior advisor at McGuireWoods Consulting. His practice focuses on providing clients with strategic legal and policy advice on a wide range of energy and environmental issues. During his time on the Commission, he participated in more than 1,700 published orders on a wide range of issues, including numerous important orders relating to wholesale electricity markets and natural gas pipelines.
Before his appointment by the president and confirmation by the Senate as a commissioner on FERC, McNamee served in the U.S. Department of Energy as executive director of the Office of Policy and deputy general counsel for energy policy. His career in public service includes key leadership positions under Attorneys General in Virginia and Texas, and policy advisor roles for a U.S. Senator from Texas and a Governor of Virginia. In private practice, McNamee has a long career representing energy clients before state public utility commissions in rate cases, certificate proceedings, and integrated resource planning.
Founding Partner, Boyden Gray & Associates
Ambassador C. Boyden Gray is the founding partner of Boyden Gray & Associates, a law and strategy firm in Washington, D.C., focused on constitutional and regulatory issues.
Mr. Gray worked in the White House for twelve years, first as counsel to the Vice President during the Reagan administration and then as White House Counsel to President George H.W. Bush. In the Reagan administration, he was Counsel to the Presidential Task Force on Regulatory Relief, for which he wrote the original Executive Order 12291 requiring cost-benefit analysis and White House review of regulations (later renumbered as current EO 12866). In the George H.W. Bush Administration, Mr. Gray was in charge of judicial selection and was also instrumental in the enactment of the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990, the Energy Policy Act of 1992, and a cap-and-trade system for acid rain emissions. In 1993, he received the Presidential Citizens Medal. Under President George W. Bush, Mr. Gray was U.S. Ambassador to the European Union and U.S. Special Envoy to Europe for Eurasian Energy.
Mr. Gray practiced law for 25 years at the law firm of Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering and was chairman of the Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice Section of the American Bar Association from 2000 to 2002. Early in his career, Mr. Gray helped to develop the Business Roundtable and served as its first counsel. He is an adjunct professor at Antonin Scalia Law School and a former adjunct professor at NYU Law School (teaching energy and environmental law). Mr. Gray is on the Board of Directors of the Atlantic Council, the Federalist Society, Reason Foundation, and the Trust for the National Mall.
Mr. Gray earned his A.B. magna cum laude from Harvard, where he was an editor of the Crimson, and his J.D. with high honors from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was editor-in-chief of the Law Review. Mr. Gray served in the United States Marine Corps, and after law school, he clerked for Earl Warren, Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit
Judge Katsas was appointed to the D.C. Circuit in December 2017. He graduated from Princeton University and Harvard Law School, where he was an executive editor on the Harvard Law Review. Between 1989 and 1992, he served as a law clerk to Judge Edward Becker on the Third Circuit, to then-Judge Clarence Thomas on the D.C. Circuit, and to Justice Thomas on the Supreme Court. Between 1992 and 2001, he was an associate and then partner in the Washington office of Jones Day, where he specialized in appellate and complex civil litigation. Between 2001 and 2009, he served in many senior positions in the Department of Justice, including as Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division and as Acting Associate Attorney General. In 2009, he returned to Jones Day. From January to December 2017, he served as Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy Counsel to the President.
Before joining the bench, Judge Katsas argued more than 75 appeals, including three cases in the Supreme Court, 13 cases in the D.C. Circuit, and cases in every other federal court of appeals. By appointment of the Chief Justice, he served on the Advisory Committee on Appellate Rules from 2013 to 2017. In 2016, he was elected to membership in the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers.
John S. Battle Professor of Law, University of Virginia School of Law
Julia D. Mahoney teaches courses in property, government finance, constitutional law and nonprofit organizations. A graduate of Yale Law School, she joined the University of Virginia faculty as an associate professor in 1999 and is now John S. Battle Professor of Law. She has also taught at the University of Southern California Law School and the University of Chicago Law School, and before entering the legal academy, practiced law at the New York firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz. Her scholarly articles include works on land preservation, eminent domain, health care reform and property rights in human biological materials.
Associate Professor of Legal Studies & Business Ethics; Co-Director, Wharton Initiative on Financial Policy and Regulation, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania
Christina Parajon Skinner is an expert on financial regulation. Her research focuses on central banking, the debt markets, separation of powers, corporate governance, and law and macroeconomics. Professor Skinner’s work is international and comparative in scope, drawing on her experience as an academic and central bank lawyer in the United Kingdom. Her research has been published or is forthcoming in the Columbia Law Review, the Duke Law Journal, the Vanderbilt Law Review, and the Georgetown Law Journal, among other leading academic journals. Professor Skinner has also contributed to financial regulatory policy working groups, including those convened by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the Financial Stability Board, and the U.K. Banking Standards Board.
Prior to joining the faculty at Wharton, Professor Skinner served as legal counsel at the Bank of England, in the Financial Stability Division of the Bank’s Legal Directorate. Her work there focused principally on matters of bank resolution, financial market infrastructure, and macroprudential policy. Previously, Professor Skinner was an Academic Visitor at the University of Oxford, Faculty of Law and a Visiting Fellow at the London School of Economics, Law Department. From 2014-2016, she was a post-doctoral fellow and lecturer in Law at Columbia Law School.
Professor Skinner received her J.D. from Yale Law School, and an A.B. from the School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, with a concentration in international economics. She received certificates of proficiency in European Politics and Society, and Spanish Language and Culture.
She is married with five children.
Director of Research, American Economic Liberties Project
Matt Stoller is a public intellectual who writes about the American anti-monopoly
tradition. He is the author of the Simon and Schuster book Goliath: The Hundred Year
War Between Monopoly Power and Democracy. Stoller is the Director of Research at
the American Economic Liberties Project. He publishes an email newsletter called BIG.
Stoller is a former policy advisor to the Senate Budget Committee, and worked in the House of Representatives on the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform Act.
He has lectured on competition policy and media at Columbia University, Harvard Law, Duke Law, Bertelsmann Foundation, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, West Point and the National Communications Commission of Taiwan. His writing has appeared in the Washington Post, the New York Times, Fast Company, Foreign Policy, the Guardian, Vice, The American Conservative, and the Baffler.
He has also produced for MSNBC and starred in a short-lived television show on FX called Brand X with Russell Brand.
Former Deputy Attorney General for Virginia
Kennerly Davis has over forty years of experience in corporate management, public service, and the private practice of law. He has held senior executive positions in a Fortune 500 electric and gas company. He has served as Deputy Attorney General for the Commonwealth of Virginia, and as a legislative aide to a U.S. Senator and a U.S. Congressman. He practiced law for 25 years with Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP.
Davis is active in the Federalist Society as a member of the Regulatory Process Working Group of the Regulatory Transparency Project, and as a member of the Execuitve Committee of the Administrative Law and Regulation Practice Group. He is active in the national Alumni Free Speech Alliance, and involved in AFSA-chapter initiatives, including litigation, to publicize and correct the serious legal problems created by university Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs and the anonymous bias reporting systems used to enforce those DEI programs.
Davis writes and speaks on a wide variety of topics, including those related to the Founding of America, the natural rights foundation of our Republic, the constitutional rule of law, equal protection and free speech, DEI programs and bias reporting systems, capitalism, regulation and regulatory reform, and economic development. His articles have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, the Washington Examiner, the Richmond Times-Dispatch, The Federalist Society Review, the FedSoc Blog, Real Clear Energy, Townhall, the Daily Caller, reports of the Center for Strategic & International Studies, and other publications. He appears frequently on radio, podcasts, and television.
Davis graduated with honors from Cornell University with an A.B. degree in Government. He earned an M.A. degree from Pembroke College, Oxford, in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics. He was awarded a J.D. degree from Harvard Law School, and an M.B.A. degree from Virginia Commonwealth University.
Davis lives in Richmond, Virginia. He can be contacted by email: j.kendavis@verizon.net, and by phone: (804) 624-8525.
Former Commissioner, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
Bernard L. McNamee is a former FERC commissioner and currently a partner at McGuireWoods LLP and a senior advisor at McGuireWoods Consulting. His practice focuses on providing clients with strategic legal and policy advice on a wide range of energy and environmental issues. During his time on the Commission, he participated in more than 1,700 published orders on a wide range of issues, including numerous important orders relating to wholesale electricity markets and natural gas pipelines.
Before his appointment by the president and confirmation by the Senate as a commissioner on FERC, McNamee served in the U.S. Department of Energy as executive director of the Office of Policy and deputy general counsel for energy policy. His career in public service includes key leadership positions under Attorneys General in Virginia and Texas, and policy advisor roles for a U.S. Senator from Texas and a Governor of Virginia. In private practice, McNamee has a long career representing energy clients before state public utility commissions in rate cases, certificate proceedings, and integrated resource planning.
Managing Attorney, Institute for Justice
Arif Panju serves as a managing attorney with the Institute for Justice. He leads IJ’s Texas office and litigates cases involving free speech, property rights, economic liberty, and educational choice.
Arif is co-counsel in the case of Carson v. Makin in the U.S. Supreme Court. Carson is a challenge to Maine’s exclusion of religious educational options from the state’s school choice program.
Arif’s work has resulted in court victories in both federal and state court. He vindicated the free speech rights of tour guides in Billups v. City of Charleston. He secured a victory for economic liberty in Brantley v. Kuntz, freeing hairbraiding schools in Texas from onerous restrictions and paving the way for the abolishment of the state’s braiding license at the Texas Legislature. In Patel v. Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation, Arif helped secure a landmark victory in the Texas Supreme Court, establishing a new test for reviewing the constitutionality of economic regulations.
Arif’s work at IJ has been featured by outlets including The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, The Atlantic, Texas Tribune, and dozens more nationwide. His opinions and views on legal issues have been published in several outlets, including the Dallas Morning News, Austin American-Statesman, and USA Today. Arif sits on the board for the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas.
Arif graduated law school with honors from Southern Methodist University. During law school he clerked on the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary. Arif lives in Austin, Texas.
U.S. Attorney, Middle District of Tennessee, U.S. Department of Justice
Braden Boucek was sworn in on December 24, 2025, as the United States Attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee. Prior to becoming United States Attorney, Mr. Boucek served as the senior vice president of litigation at the Southeastern Legal Foundation having previously served as the vice president of legal affairs at the Beacon Center. Mr. Boucek has extensive experience as a prosecutor, starting his career at the Tennessee Attorney General’s Office before serving for two years as an Assistant District Attorney General in Williamson County. He was a federal prosecutor for ten years, first serving as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Western District of Tennessee from 2005 to 2011. From 2011 to 2015, Mr. Boucek was an Assistant United States Attorney in the Middle District of Tennessee, the district he now leads as the United States Attorney.
Lecturer in Residence and Executive Director, California Constitution Center, University of California, Berkeley, School of Law
David A. Carrillo received his doctorate from Berkeley Law before joining the faculty as a lecturer in residence and the founding executive director of the California Constitution Center in 2012. The center is devoted to developing scholarship concerning the California constitution and the California Supreme Court. Dr. Carrillo coauthored a casebook on California constitutional law, teaches courses on the California constitution and the California Supreme Court, publishes articles on those subjects, and is editor-in-chief of SCOCAblog.com, a blog about the state high court.
Before starting his academic career Dr. Carrillo was in active practice for 16 years, as a Deputy Attorney General with the California Department of Justice, as a Deputy City Attorney in San Francisco, as a Deputy District Attorney in Contra Costa County, and as a commercial litigation associate in private practice. A member of the California bar since 1995, Dr. Carrillo is admitted to practice before the Supreme Court of the United States, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and the Northern, Southern, Central, and Eastern District Courts of California.
In October 2019, California Governor Gavin Newsom appointed Dr. Carrillo to a four-year term on the California Law Revision Commission, where he is serving as the 2021-22 vice-chair. He also serves on the board of the Constitutional Rights Foundation and chairs the Citrin Center advisory board. His past charitable and professional board service includes: the Bar Association of San Francisco; the California Bar Foundation; the National Advisory Council of the Institute of Governmental Studies; the Foundation for Democracy and Justice; the State Bar Committee on Appellate Courts; the Justice and Diversity Center of the Bar Association of San Francisco; the Volunteer Legal Services Corporation in Alameda County; and the Berkeley Law Alumni Association. Dr. Carrillo chaired the judicial appointments committee of the Alameda County Bar Association, and served on the State Bar Commission on Judicial Nominees Evaluation and the Committee of Bar Examiners, as well as San Francisco and Alameda bar association committees on judicial appointments. He is a life member of the La Raza Lawyers Association (San Francisco and East Bay) and the Hispanic National Bar Association.
Executive Vice President, Goldwater Institute
Christina Sandefur is the Executive Vice President at the Goldwater Institute. She develops policies and litigates cases advancing healthcare freedom, free enterprise, private property rights, free speech, and taxpayer rights.
Christina is a co-drafter of the Right to Try initiative, now federal law, which protects terminally ill patients' right to try safe investigational treatments that have been prescribed by their physician but are not yet FDA-approved. She has won important victories for property rights in Arizona and works nationally to promote the Institute's Private Property Rights Protection Act, a state-level reform that requires government to pay owners when regulations destroy property rights and reduce property values.
Christina is the co-author of the book Cornerstone of Liberty: Private Property Rights in 21st Century America (2016). She is a frequent guest on national television and radio programs, has provided expert legal testimony to various legislative committees, and is a frequent speaker at conferences. She is the recipient of the 2018 Buckley Award in recognition of her leadership in the freedom movement, and she is an Advisory Board Member of the Network of enlightened Women. Christina serves on the board of the Phoenix Lawyers Chapter of the Federalist Society and is a member of the executive committee for the Federalist Society's Regulatory Transparency Project: FDA & Health.
Christina is a graduate of Michigan State University College of Law and Hillsdale College.
Distinguished Professor of Law and Director, Center for State Constitutional Studies, Rutgers University of School of Law
Robert F. Williams is an expert in state constitutional law and is the Director of the Center for State Constitutional Studies at Rutgers. He’s authored numerous articles and books, participated in a wide range of litigation and lectured to state judges and lawyers on subjects involving state constitutional law.
Professor Williams earned his B.A. cum laude in 1967 at Florida State University, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and Phi Kappa Phi. He earned his J.D. with honors in 1969 at the University of Florida School of Law, where he was executive editor of the law review and a member of the Order of the Coif. Professor Williams also earned his LL.M. in 1971 at New York University School of Law, where he was a Ford Foundation Urban Law Fellow. In addition, he has been a Chamberlain Fellow at Columbia University Law School, where he earned an LL.M. in 1980. He is admitted to the bars of Florida, New Jersey and the United States Supreme Court. He has been the legislative advocacy director and executive director of Florida Legal Services, Inc.; an International Legal Center Fellow in Kabul, Afghanistan; and a reporter for the Florida Law Revision Council’s Landlord-Tenant Law Project. In addition, he served as a legislative assistant to Florida Senator D. Robert Graham; a staff attorney with Legal Services of Greater Miami, Inc.; and a law clerk to Chief Judge T. Frank Hobson of the Florida Second District Court of Appeals. His books include The Law of American State Constitutions (2009); The New Jersey State Constitution (2d Ed. 2012) and State Constitutional Law, Cases and Materials (Fourth Edition, 2006). He is the coauthor, with Hetzel and Libonati, of Legislative Law and Statutory Interpretation: Cases and Materials(Fourth Ed. 2008). Among his articles are: “Statutes as Sources of Law beyond Their Terms in Common Law Cases” (George Washington Law Review), “State Constitutional Law Processes” (William and Mary Law Review), “In the Supreme Court’s Shadow: Legitimacy of State Rejection of Supreme Court Reasoning and Result” (South Carolina Law Review), “Equality Guarantees in State Constitutional Law” (Texas Law Review), “The State Constitutions of the Founding Decade: Pennsylvania’s Radical 1776 Constitution and its Influence on American Constitutionalism” (Temple Law Review), and “In the Glare of the Supreme Court: Continuing Methodology and Legitimacy Problems in Independent State Constitutional Rights Adjudication” (Notre Dame Law Review).
Deputy Counsel, Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty
Dan Lennington serves as Deputy Counsel at the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL), where he directs the Equality Under the Law Project. Started in early 2021, the EUL Project has represented dozens of individuals and businesses nationwide, successfully advocating for race neutrality in both public and private programs.
Before joining WILL, Dan served as Assistant Deputy Attorney General in Wisconsin and Assistant U.S. Attorney in Oklahoma. He is a graduate of Hillsdale College.
Dan can be reached at dan@will-law.org. More information about the EUL Project can be found at www.defendequality.org.
General Counsel, Mountain States Legal Foundation
William E. Trachman is General Counsel for Mountain States Legal Foundation, where he protects the rights of individuals to live freely and securely under the U.S. Constitution. Previously, he was appointed to serve in the Department of Education as Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Office for Civil Rights. Prior to his appointment, he served as General Counsel to the Douglas County School District, where he helped litigate the fight for school choice in the school district. Presently, Mr. Trachman serves as Chair of the Colorado Federalist Society and the Vice Chair of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights’ Colorado Advisory Board. He previously taught as an Adjunct Professor at the University of Denver, Sturm College of Law. He attended U.C. Berkeley for both undergraduate and law school, and then clerked for the Honorable Harris Hartz on the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals. Mr. Trachman is licensed in Colorado, California, and Washington, D.C.
Professor Emeritus, Paul M. Hebert Law Center, Louisiana State University
In memoriam
Dr. John Baker is Professor Emeritus of Law, and previously the Dale E. Bennett Professor of Law, at Louisiana State University Law School. He is currently Visiting Professor at Peking University School of Transnational Law (via Zoom) and has been Visiting Professor at The Center for the Constitution, Georgetown Law School (2013-2020). He has also been a Visiting Fellow at Oriel College, the University of Oxford (2012-2014) and taught at Blackfriars Hall, Oxford in 2014. Dr. Baker has also been an adjunct Fellow at the Heritage Foundation (Spring, 2008) and a Distinguished Scholar at the Catholic University of America Law School (2011-12). He has taught at Tulane Law School, George Mason Law School, Pepperdine Law School, New York Law School, Hong Kong University, and the University of Dallas, School of Management and also taught and/or lectured in 17 foreign countries. Notable among his foreign visits are the
following: Visiting Professor at the University of Lyon III (France) (1999-2011); Visiting Professor at the Universidad de los Andes, Chile (2012), as a Fulbright Specialist (2006); and a Fulbright Scholar at various universities in the Philippines. Dr. Baker received his J.D., with honors, from the University of Michigan Law School and his B.A., magna cum laude, from the University of Dallas. He also earned a Ph.D. in Political Thought from the University of London. Baker has taught over a dozen different subjects, mostly courses in public law. His main areas of interest are Constitutional Law (particularly federalism and separation of powers), Criminal Law, Anti-Terrorism Law, International Law, Health Care Law, Mediation, and Comparative Law.
In addition to law review articles and book chapters, Dr. Baker’s academic publications include Hall's Criminal Law: Cases and Materials (with Benson, Force and George; 5th ed. Michie, 1993); An Introduction to the Law of the United States (ed. with Levasseur; University Press of America, 1992). He has also published on Forbes.com, FoxNews.com, in The Washington Times, and a number of times in The Wall Street Journal. He argues in federal court, including two oral arguments in the U.S. Supreme Court. For many years, he co-taught courses for the Federalist Society on separation of powers with the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. In September 2016, he co-taught a Supreme Court seminar in China with Justice Samuel Alito. Following law school, he served as a law clerk in federal district court and as an assistant district attorney in New Orleans before joining LSU in 1975. While a professor, he has been as a consultant to USAID, USIA (since rolled into the State Department), the Justice Department, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Separation of Powers, and the Office of Planning in the White House. He served on an ABA Task Force which issued the report, The Federalization of Crime (1998) and later as a consultant to the “Bi-Partisan Task Force on the Over- federalization of Crime” (2012-2014) created by the U.S. House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime. Dr. Baker was a co-founder of the first iteration (1995) of Stratfor Inc., a global intelligence agency. He co-authored its first book: The Intelligence Edge (with Friedman, Friedman and Chapman; Crown Books/Random House 1997). In 2022, he began a short, weekly video podcast available on YouTube and Rumble, The Baker Brief.
Executive Vice President, The Federalist Society
Dean Reuter is Executive Vice President at the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies. He has served in two federal government agency Offices of the Inspector General, as Counsel to the Inspector General and Deputy Inspector General, responsible for policing the use of federal funds granted and contracted through those agencies. As such, he helped conduct and oversee criminal investigations across the country. He is the principal author of the non-fiction book, The Hidden Nazi: The Untold Story of America's Deal with the Devil, and editor of Liberty’s Nemesis: The Unchecked Expansion of the State and Confronting Terror: 9/11 and the Future of American National Security. He was appointed by the President and served as Vice-Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Corporation for National and Community Service, and recently served as an appointee on the U.S. Commission on Presidential Scholars. He is a graduate of Hood College (BA with Honors) and the University of Maryland School of Law.
Partner and Co-Chair, Constitutional and Appellate Law Practice Group, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP
Allyson N. Ho is a partner in the Dallas office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP and co‐chair of the Firm’s nationwide Appellate and Constitutional Law practice group.
Mrs. Ho is “undoubtedly one of the premier appellate lawyers in the United States” (Chambers). She has presented over 100 oral arguments in federal and state courts nationwide, including multiple high‐stakes cases on behalf of business before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Her most significant winning arguments include a U.S. Supreme Court reversal worth billions of dollars for unionized employers in the Sixth Circuit; a U.S. Supreme Court reversal limiting the power of federal regulators; a multi‐billion dollar environmental win in the Fifth Circuit; a multi‐billion dollar commercial victory for the founder of a technology company in the Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court; a billion dollar environmental win in the Houston Court of Appeals; a nine‐figure commercial victory in the Corpus Christi Court of Appeals; and a nine‐figure arbitration win in the Fifth Circuit.
Among her numerous accolades, Mrs. Ho is one of only a small group of appellate lawyers nationwide, and the only one in Texas, to be nationally ranked by Chambers every year for the past ten years (2012‐21). She is also one of the few appellate lawyers nationwide to be named to the BTI Client Service All‐Stars List, an honor bestowed by the corporate counsel community for lawyers “who stand above all the others in delivering the absolute best in client service.” She is also routinely named as a leading appellate lawyer by Benchmark, The Best Lawyers in America®, The Legal 500, Texas Super Lawyers, and D Magazine.
Mrs. Ho has received the Gregory S. Coleman Outstanding Appellate Lawyer Award (Texas Bar Foundation, June 22, 2018), been named a “Distinguished Leader” (Texas Lawyer, Sep. 1, 2017) and “Appellate MVP” (Law360, Nov. 23, 2015), and been recognized on the “Appellate Hot List” (National Law Journal, Nov. 16, 2015). In addition, she has been profiled in “Texas Powerhouse” (Law360, Aug. 2, 2021), “Texas Appellate Power Couple” (Texas Lawbook, January 7, 2021), “Litigators of the Week” (The American Lawyer, May 8, 2020), “Litigation Powerhouse” (Law360, Aug. 10, 2016), “Supreme Court Insider” (National Law Journal, July 21, 2016), “Supreme Court Specialists, Mostly Male, Dominated Arguments This Term” (National Law Journal, May 11, 2016), “Attorney of the Year Finalist” (Texas Lawyer, Nov. 2, 2015), “Litigation Department of the Year” (Texas Lawyer, June 1, 2015), “Employment Group of the Year” (Law360, Jan. 13, 2015), “A Supreme Month: Lawyer Credits Preparedness in Ability to Argue Two U.S. High Court Cases in Three Weeks” (Texas Lawyer, Dec. 8, 2014), “High Court Debuts for Two Lawyers” (National Law Journal, Nov. 3, 2014), “Women in Business Awards” (Dallas Business Journal, Aug 29, 2014), “Litigation Departments of the Year” (Texas Lawyer, June 2, 2014), “Winning Women” (Texas Lawyer, Aug. 22, 2011), and “High court practitioners: increasingly diverse” (National Law Journal, June 6, 2011).
Federal and State Appellate Practice
Mrs. Ho has argued a series of high stakes, landmark cases on behalf of the business community before the U.S. Supreme Court. National Law Journal called her a “Veteran SCOTUS Advocate” in the “upper echelons of Supreme Court practice.” Law360 named her a “Supreme Court Star” and “one of the nation’s preeminent appellate lawyers.” And EmpiricalSCOTUS.com ranked her among “the most successful attorneys that currently practice before the Court.” Mrs. Ho once argued two significant business cases before the Court within the span of 21 days—including a “significant ruling for employers” that “paved a new path for companies paying millions of dollars in retiree health care benefits” (Law360), as well as a landmark administrative law dispute in which “several justices agreed with Ho’s contention that SCOTUS should revisit and overrule its own precedent” (Law360). She also prevailed against the EEOC in a case that the employment defense bar called “good news for employers across the country.” And in “the most important patent case in modern history” according to patent law experts, her argument before the Court was credited for “pick[ing] up two votes that pundits thought unreachable.”
She has appeared before every federal court of appeals in the country, including en banc arguments before the Fourth and Sixth Circuits. She has successfully represented business clients in every circuit, including the First (Pruco Life Insurance Company), Second (Swiss Federation; Rite Aid), Third (Johnson & Johnson), Fourth (Genex Services), Fifth (United Space Alliance LLC; Elliott Co.; MERSCORP; 24 Hour Fitness USA, Inc.; Stream Energy; Health Management Systems), Sixth (Deutsche Bank; American Airlines; M&G Polymers), Seventh (Expedia), Eighth (Cotter), Ninth (Boeing; JP Morgan Chase Bank), Tenth (Mitchell International), Eleventh (AstraZeneca), D.C. (FedEx), and Federal (Repros Therapeutics) Circuits.
In addition, Mrs. Ho regularly appears in state appellate courts across the country. She has argued numerous cases in the Texas Supreme Court, Texas appellate courts in Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, Corpus Christi, and Eastland, and state appellate courts in Arizona, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, and West Virginia, prevailing on behalf of Ford Motor Company, PepsiCo, International Paper, Tenet, GameStop, Deutsche Bank, and Unit.
Government and Public Service Experience
Mrs. Ho has a distinguished record of experience at the highest levels of the federal government. She served as Special Assistant to President George W. Bush, Counselor to Attorney General John Ashcroft, and law clerk to Justice Sandra Day O’Connor of the U.S. Supreme Court and Judge Jacques L. Wiener Jr. of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
Her record of public service also includes appointments to various boards and commissions. Among the most notable are her election as a member of the Administrative Conference of the United States, a trustee of the United States Supreme Court Historical Society, and a trustee of the Texas Supreme Court Historical Society. She is also vice chair of the Federal Judicial Evaluation Committee, appointed by U.S. Senators John Cornyn and Ted Cruz to evaluate potential appointments of all federal judges and U.S. Attorneys in Texas, and has previously served on the U.S. Magistrate Judge Merit Selection Panel for the Northern District of Texas.
Other Background Information
An active pro bono litigator, Mrs. Ho works most frequently with the First Liberty Institute and as amicus counsel for the State and Local Legal Center, the National Organization for Victim Assistance, and the National Crime Victim Law Institute. She is a frequent public speaker and active member of the Federalist Society, the American Law Institute, and the Washington Legal Foundation’s Legal Policy Advisory Board.
Mrs. Ho graduated from Duke University magna cum laude with a B.A. in English, Rice University with an M.A. and Ph.D. in English Literature, and the University of Chicago Law School with high honors. She was a member of the Law Review and Order of the Coif. She and her husband Jim, a federal judge, have a twin daughter and son.
Executive Vice President, The Federalist Society
Dean Reuter is Executive Vice President at the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies. He has served in two federal government agency Offices of the Inspector General, as Counsel to the Inspector General and Deputy Inspector General, responsible for policing the use of federal funds granted and contracted through those agencies. As such, he helped conduct and oversee criminal investigations across the country. He is the principal author of the non-fiction book, The Hidden Nazi: The Untold Story of America's Deal with the Devil, and editor of Liberty’s Nemesis: The Unchecked Expansion of the State and Confronting Terror: 9/11 and the Future of American National Security. He was appointed by the President and served as Vice-Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Corporation for National and Community Service, and recently served as an appointee on the U.S. Commission on Presidential Scholars. He is a graduate of Hood College (BA with Honors) and the University of Maryland School of Law.
Vice President and Director, Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives, Cato Institute
Norbert Michel is vice president and director of the Cato Institute’s Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives, where he specializes on issues pertaining to financial markets and monetary policy. Michel was most recently the Director for Data Analysis at the Heritage Foundation where he edited, and contributed chapters, to two books: The Case Against Dodd–Frank: How the “Consumer Protection” Law Endangers Americans, and Prosperity Unleashed: Smarter Financial Regulation
Michel was previously a tenured professor at Nicholls State University’s College of Business, teaching finance, economics and statistics. Before that, he worked at Heritage as a tax policy analyst in the think tank’s Center for Data Analysis from 2002 to 2005. He previously was with the global energy company Entergy, where he worked on models to help predict bankruptcies of commercial clients.
Michel holds a doctoral degree in financial economics from the University of New Orleans. He received his bachelor of business administration degree in finance and economics from Loyola University. He currently resides in Virginia.
Co-Chair, Actum LLC; Former Director, Office of Management and Budget
Mick Mulvaney is a co-chair at Actum LLC, a global consultancy designed to solve diverse public and private sector challenges. Mulvaney previously served as Acting White House Chief of Staff from January 2019 until March 2020.
Mulvaney also served as director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). He was nominated to the post by President Donald J. Trump in December 2016 and confirmed by the Senate on February 16, 2017. Prior to his time as the director of OMB, he served the people of the 5th District of South Carolina as their Congressman where he was first elected in 2010, he is the first Republican member to hold the seat in 128 years.
A lifelong Carolinas resident, he attended Georgetown University, graduating with honors in International Economics, Commerce, and Finance and graduated as an Honor Scholar – the highest award given to students of the Georgetown School of Foreign Service.
After college, Mick received his law degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on a full academic scholarship. He completed his formal education at Harvard Business School's OPM program in 2006.
In addition to practicing law and opening his own firm, he also ran the family real estate business, started a small homebuilding company, and became a minority shareholder in a local family restaurant franchise.
While in Congress, he served on the Budget Committee, Joint Economic Committee, Small Business Committee, Financial Services Committee, and the Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
He was a founding member of the Indian Land Rotary, a member of St. Philip Neri Catholic Church, and founding member of Our Lady of Grace Catholic Mission.
Mick and Pam were married in 1998, and are the proud parents of triplets: James, Caroline, and Finnegan, and two great danes: Guiness and Harper.
Head of Regulatory, a16z Crypto
Michele Korver is the head of regulatory at a16z crypto, a leading venture capital fund that invests in crypto and web3 companies, where she works with policymakers to shape cryptocurrency regulation and helps web3 startups navigate the landscape.
Prior to joining a16z, Michele spent more than 25 years in government and law enforcement and has been at the forefront of the rapidly-evolving web3 space. Michele started her career in the Secret Service, advancing to become one of the foremost federal prosecutors in crypto, and was the U.S. Department of Justice’s first dedicated subject matter expert in cryptocurrency-related prosecutions and forfeitures, creating and managing the Criminal Division’s Digital Currency Initiative. Most recently she served as Chief Digital Currency Advisor at the Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), advising on digital asset-related matters while advancing FinCEN’s leadership role within the space.
Michele participated in the Treasury-led U.S. delegation to the Financial Action Task Force, consulting on standards involving virtual asset activities and service providers, and was a contributing author to the Department of Justice’s 2020 Cryptocurrency Enforcement Framework. She also co-authored the articles “Attribution in Cryptocurrency Cases” (Feb. 2019) and “Surfing the First Wave of Cryptocurrency Money Laundering” (May 2021) published in the DOJ Journal of Federal Law and Practice.
She received her B.A. from the University of Florida, her J.D. magna cum laude from the University of Miami School of Law, and clerked for the Honorable William P. Dimitrouleas in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.
Vice President of Regulatory Affairs, Solidus Labs; Former Director, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
The Honorable Kathleen L. Kraninger is the Vice President of Regulatory Affairs at Solidus Labs where she leads the firm’s regulatory strategy and works to advance market integrity and responsible innovation in digital asset markets. Solidus Labs is the first automated, comprehensive, and testable market surveillance and risk monitoring hub tailored for digital assets.
Previously, she served as the Senate-confirmed Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau from December 2018 until January 2021, leading the 1,500-person independent, regulatory and law enforcement agency. She made her mark on all aspects of the agency’s mission and operations, particularly in facilitating innovation, promoting financial inclusion and leading through the economic uncertainty of the global pandemic. In addition, Kraninger served on the board of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Financial Stability Oversight Board, and as chair of the Federal Financial Institutions Examinations Council.
Her distinguished public sector career spans senior roles at the Departments of Transportation and Homeland Security, the Office of Management and Budget, and in both the Senate and the House of Representatives. Kraninger graduated magna cum laude from Marquette University and earned a law degree from Georgetown University Law Center. She served as a U.S. Peace Corps Volunteer in Ukraine.
Counsel, Government Affairs and Strategy, Paul Hastings
Dina Ellis Rochkind is Of Counsel in the Paul Hastings Government Affairs practice and is based in the firm’s Washington, D.C. office. Her practice focuses on representing clients before Members of Congress on Capitol Hill and the Executive Branch. Ms. Rochkind represents clients in matters involving regulatory initiatives, policymaking and legislation, and enforcement actions. Ms. Rochkind's legislative experience allows her to advise her clients on the latest client initiatives, from starting a business to crowdsourcing; bitcoin ($bitcoin) and ICOs; and blockchain technologies.
Ms. Rochkind has over 20 years of experience on Capitol Hill, lobbying, and working for the Executive Branch. Prior to joining Paul Hastings, she served as Washington Director in the office of Rep. Mike Coffman (R-CO). Other Capitol Hill experience includes serving as senior staff for various Congressional Committees and for Senator Pat Toomey (R-PA). Ms. Rochkind also served in the George W. Bush Administration as Deputy Assistant Secretary at the Treasury Department. She has been involved in drafting major pieces of legislation over the last two decades, including: the 2005 bankruptcy reform legislation, the FACT Act, E-Sign, Check 21, Federal Deposit Insurance Reform Act, Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, and, most recently, the comprehensive and bipartisan JOBS Act, for which she was the lead staffer in the Senate.
Ms. Rochkind has worked across party lines on both sides of the aisle to achieve key legislative successes and has a reputation for "getting things done" in Washington. She is also experienced in crisis management. During the auto industry crisis, Ms. Rochkind led the lobby to rescue Chrysler and handled the consequences and fallout from its bankruptcy. She has led legislative advocacy on behalf of major corporate entities and advised congressional leaders on issues such as banking, bankruptcy, insurance, other financial services, and economic development.
Prior to leading Rep. Coffman’s office, Ms. Rochkind served as Vice President of Federal Government Affairs for a leading mortgage lending company.
Ms. Rochkind is admitted to practice law in the District of Columbia and Pennsylvania.
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