Solicitor General, State of Florida
Previously, David served as Senior Advisor to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, Chief Deputy Attorney General of Idaho, and Solicitor General of Montana.
As an appointee of President Donald J. Trump, David served as the Principal Deputy General Counsel at the U.S. Department of Commerce, where he advised the Secretary on legal and policy matters implicating every corner of Commerce’s broad mandate. In this role, David worked closely with the White House to advance the President's agenda, and managed the Department’s expansive litigation portfolio. He also defended Department officials in Congressional investigations, and served as Commerce’s Regulatory Reform Officer and Chief Environmental Review Permitting Officer.
David clerked for Judge Lawrence VanDyke on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and helped create and lead the public interest litigation group at the Freedom Foundation, where he litigated constitutional, labor, and campaign finance cases before federal and state courts and administrative agencies.
David received his B.A. from Western Kentucky University. After a year teaching overseas, David earned his J.D. from The George Washington University Law School, where he served as symposium editor for the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy and President of the Federalist Society.
Chief Deputy Attorney General
Ryan Newman is currently Chief Deputy Attorney General for Florida Office of the Attorney General.
During the first Trump Administration, he served as Counselor to the United States Attorney General for national security and international affairs, Deputy General Counsel (Legal Counsel) for the Department of Defense, and Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Policy at the Department of Justice. Prior to serving in the Executive Branch, Ryan was Chief Counsel to United States Senator Ted Cruz during the 114th Congress.
Ryan served as a law clerk to the Honorable Samuel A. Alito, Jr. on the United States Supreme Court, the Honorable Richard J. Leon on the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, and the Honorable J.L. Edmondson on the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.
Prior to law school, Ryan was an armor officer in the United States Army assigned to the 1st Squadron, 10th U.S. Cavalry Regiment (Buffalo Soldiers). He deployed to Iraq in 2003 for Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Ryan graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1998. He earned his law degree with high honors from The University of Texas School of Law in 2007.
Professor of Law and the James Edgar Hervey '50 Chair of Litigation, UC Hastings Law
Professor Dorit Rubinstein Reiss’ received her undergraduate degree in Law and Political Science from the Faculty of Law in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and her Ph.D. from the Jurisprudence and Social Policy program in UC Berkeley, writing her dissertation on accountability in the liberalized telecommunications and electricity sectors in England, France and Sweden.
Professor Reiss’ initial research examined accountability of administrative agencies at the state, national and international level, using as case studies the California Public Utility Commission (CPUC), the FAA, and other agencies in the United States and Europe.
Her current research and activities focus on legal and policy issues related to vaccines. She writes about vaccines mandates, policy responses to non-vaccinating, tort issues and administrative issues related to vaccines, and the anti-vaccine movement.
Professor Reiss teaches torts, administrative law, public health law, and several seminars, and appreciates the opportunity to work with UC Hastings’ talented, hardworking body of students.
Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
ILYA SOMIN is Professor of Law at George Mason University and the B. Kenneth Simon Chair in Constitutional Studies at the Cato Institute. His research focuses on constitutional law, property law, democratic theory, federalism, and migration rights. He is the author of Free to Move: Foot Voting, Migration, and Political Freedom (Oxford University Press, revised and expanded edition, 2022), Democracy and Political Ignorance: Why Smaller Government is Smarter (Stanford University Press, revised and expanded second edition, 2016), and The Grasping Hand: Kelo v. City of New London and the Limits of Eminent Domain (University of Chicago Press, 2015, rev. paperback ed., 2016), coauthor of A Conspiracy Against Obamacare: The Volokh Conspiracy and the Health Care Case (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), and co-editor of Eminent Domain: A Comparative Perspective (Cambridge University Press, 2017). Democracy and Political Ignorance has been translated into Italian and Japanese.
Somin’s work has appeared in numerous scholarly journals, including the Yale Law Journal, Stanford Law Review, Northwestern University Law Review, Georgetown Law Journal, Critical Review, and others. Somin has also published articles in a variety of popular press outlets, including the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, CNN, NBC, The Atlantic, USA Today, Boston Globe, US News and World Report, South China Morning Post, National Law Journal and Reason. He has been quoted or interviewed by the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Time, Newsweek, The Economist, the Christian Science Monitor, the Financial Times, The Guardian, the Associated Press, CBS, MSNBC, NPR, BBC, Reuters, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Al Jazeera, and the Voice of America, among other media.
Somin’s writings have been cited in decisions by the United States Supreme Court, multiple state supreme courts and lower federal courts, and the Supreme Court of Israel. He is co-counsel for the plaintiffs in VOS Selections, Inc. v. Trump, a case challenging the constitutionality of President Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs. Somin has testified on the use of drones for targeted killing in the War on Terror before the US Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Human Rights. In 2009, he testified on property rights issues at the United States Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Somin writes regularly for the popular Volokh Conspiracy law and politics blog, now affiliated with Reason magazine (previously affiliated with the Washington Post from 2014 to 2017). From 2006 to 2013, he served as Co-Editor of the Supreme Court Economic Review, one of the country’s top-rated law and economics journals.
Somin has served as a visiting professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. He has also been a visiting professor or scholar at the Georgetown University Law Center, the University of Hamburg, Germany, the University of Torcuato Di Tella in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Uriel Reichman University in Israel, and Zhengzhou University in China. He is a University Affiliate of the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University, and an affiliated faculty member of the George Mason University Institute for Immigration Research. Before joining the faculty at George Mason, Somin was the John M. Olin Fellow in Law at Northwestern University Law School in 2002-2003. In 2001-2002, he clerked for the Hon. Judge Jerry E. Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Professor Somin earned his B.A., Summa Cum Laude, at Amherst College, M.A. in Political Science from Harvard University, and J.D. from Yale Law School.
President, Harned Strategies LLC
Karen Harned is President at Harned Strategies LLC. Previously, she served as Executive Director of the National Federation of Independent Business Small Business Legal Center, a post she held from 2002-2022. Prior to joining the Legal Center, Ms. Harned was an attorney at a Washington, D.C. law firm specializing in food and drug law, where she represented several small and large businesses and their respective trade associations before Congress and federal agencies. She also served as Assistant Press Secretary to U.S. Senator Don Nickles of Oklahoma from August of 1989 to March of 1993. Ms. Harned received her B.A. from the University of Oklahoma in 1989 and her J.D. from The George Washington University National Law Center in 1995. She is admitted to practice in the District of Columbia.
As Executive Director of the NFIB Small Business Legal Center, Ms. Harned commented regularly on small business cases before federal and state courts, as well as the U.S. Supreme Court. She has appeared on Fox News, Fox Business, NBC Nightly News, CNN, CNBC and MSNBC, as well as National Public Radio, CBS Radio, and radio outlets across the country. Her opinion editorials and articles regarding healthcare, lawsuit abuse, regulation, and other issues important to small business have been published in newspapers and other publications nationwide.
Ms. Harned has testified before Congress on the small business impact of regulation and the civil justice system. Additionally, she has conducted numerous webinars and legal compliance seminars for small business owners across the country on issues relating to employment law, including unionization and immigration.
Professor, University of Minnesota Law School
Ilan Wurman is the Julius E. Davis Professor of Law at the University of Minnesota, where he teaches administrative law and constitutional law. He previously taught at Arizona State University. He writes primarily on the Fourteenth Amendment, administrative law, separation of powers, and constitutionalism. His academic writing has appeared in the Yale Law Journal, the Stanford Law Review, the University of Chicago Law Review, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, the Virginia Law Review, the Duke Law Journal, the Minnesota Law Review, the Notre Dame Law Review, and the Texas Law Review among other journals.
Professor Wurman is the author of a casebook, Administrative Law Theory and Fundamentals: An Integrated Approach (Foundation Press 2d ed. 2024). He is also the author of A Debt Against the Living: An Introduction to Originalism (Cambridge 2017), and The Second Founding: An Introduction to the Fourteenth Amendment (Cambridge 2020). His next book, The Constitution of 1789: A New Introduction, is also forthcoming with Cambridge University Press.
Professor Wurman practices law with the firm Tully Bailey. He has litigated a variety of administrative law and constitutional law cases, including cases involving COVID-19 restrictions, transmission lines, and Appointments Clause challenges. He also devised winning public nuisance theories to force city governments to address the increasingly challenging public camping crises throughout the country.
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.
Partner, Sullivan & Cromwell LLP
Andrei Iancu is a partner at Sullivan & Cromwell and one of the leading voices in intellectual property law and innovation policy. He is a former Undersecretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), a position to which he was confirmed unanimously by the Senate. Andrei has decades of experience representing plaintiffs and defendants in IP matters across the technical and scientific spectra, including medical devices, genetic testing, therapeutics, the Internet, telephony, TV broadcasting, video game systems and computer peripherals. He represents clients in litigation and trials before the district courts, the U.S. International Trade Commission and the USPTO, the Federal Circuit and U.S. Supreme Court, and also counsels clients on obtaining, licensing, enforcing and defending against IP rights globally.
Partner, Cravath Swaine & Moore LLP
David J. Kappos is a partner at Cravath. He is widely recognized as one of the world’s foremost leaders in the field of intellectual property, including intellectual property management and strategy, the development of global intellectual property norms, laws and practices as well as commercialization and enforcement of innovation-based assets. Mr. Kappos supports the Firm’s clients with a wide range of their most complex intellectual property issues, including those pertaining to blockchain and financial technology (FinTech).
From August 2009 to January 2013, Mr. Kappos served as Under Secretary of Commerce and Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). In that role, he advised the President, the Secretary of Commerce and the Administration on intellectual property policy matters. As Director of the USPTO, he led the Agency in dramatically re-engineering its entire management and operational systems as well as its engagement with the global innovation community. He was instrumental in achieving the greatest legislative reform of the U.S. patent system in generations through passage and implementation of the Leahy‑Smith America Invents Act, signed into law by President Obama in September 2011.
Prior to leading the USPTO, Mr. Kappos held several executive posts in the legal department of IBM, the world’s largest patent holder. From 2003 to 2009, he served as the company’s chief intellectual property lawyer. In that capacity, he managed global intellectual property activities for IBM, including all aspects of patent, trademark, copyright and trade secret protection. Mr. Kappos joined IBM as a development engineer. During his more than 25 years at IBM, he served in a variety of roles including litigation counsel and Asia Pacific IP counsel, based in Tokyo, Japan, where he led all aspects of intellectual property protection, including licensing, transactions support and mergers and acquisitions activity for the Asia/Pacific region.
Mr. Kappos has received numerous accolades for his contributions to the field of intellectual property, including, among others, the 2014 Global Agenda Council Vision Award for the Intellectual Property Council’s pro bono initiative from the World Economic Forum, the 2014 Jefferson Medal from the New Jersey Intellectual Property Law Association (NJIPLA), the 2013 Board of Director’s Excellence Award from the American Intellectual Property Law Association (AIPLA), the 2013 Champion of Intellectual Property Award from the District of Columbia Bar Association and the 2013 North America Government Leadership Award from Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International (SEMI). He was named one of the “Top 25 Icons of IP” by Law360, one of the “50 Most Influential People in Intellectual Property” and the “Outstanding Practitioner of the Year in IP Transactions” by Managing IP, one of the “Top 50 Intellectual Property Trailblazers & Pioneers” and one of the “100 Most Influential Lawyers in America” by The National Law Journal, “Intellectual Property Professional of the Year” by the Intellectual Property Owners Association and inducted into the Intellectual Property Hall of Fame by Intellectual Asset Management Magazine in 2012. Mr. Kappos was also recognized as a leading lawyer by IAM Strategy 300, IAM Patent 1000, World IP Review, The Legal 500 US, Who’s Who Legal: Patents, Lawdragon, Super Lawyers and The Best Lawyers in America. He is a frequent speaker and has authored many published articles on various intellectual property, innovation and leadership topics.
Mr. Kappos serves on the Boards of Directors of the Partnership for Public Service, the Center for Global Enterprise and the Intellectual Property Owners Education Foundation. He is the Chair of the Advisory Council of the Naples Roundtable, and the U.S. Chair of the U.S.-China IP Cooperation Dialogue. He is also an Adjunct Professor at Columbia Law School, where he teaches copyright litigation, and Cornell Law School, where he teaches legal advising for the start-up general counsel.
Mr. Kappos was born in Palos Verdes, California. He received a B.S. summa cum laude in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of California, Davis in 1983 and a J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley in 1990.
Elvin R. Latty Professor of Law, Duke University School of Law
Arti Rai, Elvin R. Latty Professor of Law and co-Director, Duke Law Center for Innovation Policy, is an internationally recognized expert in intellectual property (IP) law, administrative law, and health policy. Rai has also taught at Harvard, Yale, and the University of Pennsylvania law schools. Rai's research on IP law and policy in biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, and software has been funded by NIH, the Kauffman Foundation, and the Woodrow Wilson Center. She has published over 50 articles, essays, and book chapters on IP law, administrative law, and health policy. Her publications have appeared in both peer-reviewed journals and law reviews, including Science, the New England Journal of Medicine, the Journal of Legal Studies, Nature Biotechnology, and the Columbia, Georgetown, and Northwestern law reviews. She is the editor of Intellectual Property Law and Biotechnology: Critical Concepts (Edward Elgar, 2011) and the co-author of a 2012 Kauffman Foundation monograph on cost-effective health care innovation.
From 2009-2010, Rai served as the Administrator of the Office of External Affairs at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). As External Affairs Administrator, Rai led policy analysis of the patent reform legislation that ultimately became the America Invents Act and worked to establish the USPTO’s Office of the Chief Economist. Prior to that time, she had served on President-Elect Obama’s transition team reviewing the USPTO. Prior to entering academia, Rai clerked for the Honorable Marilyn Hall Patel of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California; was a litigation associate at Jenner & Block (doing patent litigation as well as other litigation); and was a litigator at the Federal Programs Branch of the U.S. Department of Justice's Civil Division.
Rai regularly testifies before Congress and relevant administrative bodies on IP law and policy issues and regularly advises federal agencies on IP policy issues raised by the research that they fund. She is a member of the National Advisory Council for Human Genome Research and of an Expert Advisory Council to the Defense Advanced Projects Research Agency (DARPA). Rai is a public member of the Administrative Conference of the United States, a member of the American Law Institute, and co-chair of the IP Committee of the Administrative Law Section of the ABA. Rai is currently a member of the Institute of Medicine Committee on Strategies for Responsible Sharing of Clinical Trial Data and has served on, or as a reviewer for, numerous National Academies of Science committees. In 2011, Rai won the World Technology Network Award for Law.
Rai graduated from Harvard College, magna cum laude, with a degree in biochemistry and history (history and science), attended Harvard Medical School for the 1987-1988 academic year, and received her J.D., cum laude, from Harvard Law School in 1991. Rai's moot court team at Harvard Law School won Best Brief and Team honors at the school's prestigious Ames Moot Court Competition.
Professor of Law and Director, Intellectual Property and Information Law Program, Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University
Saurabh Vishnubhakat is a Professor of Law and Director of the Intellectual Property and Information Law Program at Cardozo Law. He is also a Research Fellow at the Duke Law Center for Innovation Policy and a Senior Scholar at the George Mason University Center for IP and Innovation Policy. Previously, he held joint appointments as a Professor of Law and Professor of Engineering at Texas A&M University.
Professor Vishnubhakat’s expertise is in intellectual property, administrative law and federal litigation, especially from an empirical perspective. His legal writings have been cited in federal judicial opinions, agency regulations and over two dozen Supreme Court briefs. His latest work is published or forthcoming in the Indiana Law Journal, the Washington and Lee Law Review and the Iowa Law Review as well as the peer-reviewed Journal of the Copyright Society of the USA and the Journal of Economic Perspectives.
His research explores the interaction of the U.S. intellectual property system with federal courts and agencies, among other topics. With a background in the natural sciences, Professor Vishnubhakat brings a scientific mindset to legal thinking and is dedicated to teaching students how to build arguments with analytical rigor.
Prior to his appointment at Texas A&M, Professor Vishnubhakat served in the United States Patent and Trademark Office as principal legal advisor to that agency’s first two chief economists. He was also a faculty fellow at Duke Law School, where he co-taught patent law and was a postdoctoral associate at the Duke Center for Public Genomics, where he researched law and policy issues surrounding innovation in genetics and biomedicine.
Professor Vishnubhakat holds both a J.D. and LL.M. in intellectual property from the University of New Hampshire Franklin Pierce School of Law, where he was an editor of the Law Review. He also holds a B.S. in chemistry from the Georgia Institute of Technology. He is admitted to the bars of Texas, Illinois, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and the Supreme Court of the United States.
Director, Cleveland Scholarship and Tutoring Program
Professor Emeritus of Public Affairs & Political Science, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Justice, Supreme Court of Arizona
Clint Bolick was appointed by Governor Doug Ducey in January 2016 to serve on the Arizona Supreme Court and was retained by the voters in 2018 and 2024.
Prior to joining the Court, Justice Bolick litigated constitutional cases in state and federal courts from coast to coast, including the U.S. Supreme Court. Among other positions, he served as Vice President for Litigation at the Goldwater Institute and as Co-founder and Vice President for Litigation at the Institute for Justice. He has litigated in support of school choice, freedom of enterprise, private property rights, freedom of speech, and federalism, and against racial classifications and government subsidies.
Justice Bolick received his Juris Doctor degree from the University of California at Davis, where he has been recognized as a distinguished alumnus, and his Bachelor of Arts degree magna cum laude from Drew University. He serves as a research fellow with the Hoover Institution. Among other honors, he was named one of the 90 Greatest DC Lawyers in the Last 30 Years by Legal Times in 2008, received a Bradley Prize in 2006, and was recognized as one of the nation’s three lawyers of the year by American Lawyer in 2002 for his successful defense of school vouchers in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris.
Justice Bolick is a prolific author of a dozen books and hundreds of articles. Among his most recent books are Unshackled: Freeing America’s K-12 Education System: Immigration Wars: Forging an American Solution, co-authored with former Florida Governor Jeb Bush; and David’s Hammer: The Case for an Activist Judiciary. Bolick serves as an adjunct professor of constitutional law at Arizona State University’s Sandra Day O’Connor School of Law and has served as a lecturer at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.
United States Senator, Texas
Ted Cruz represents 28 million Texans in the U.S. Senate as a passionate fighter for limited government and economic growth. He has authored 39 legislative measures signed into law. Recent victories include expanding 529 college savings accounts to allow parents to save for K–12 public, private, and religious education, leading the effort to repeal Obamacare’s individual mandate, imposing sanctions on terrorists who use civilians as human shields, designating North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism, reauthorizing and reforming NASA, ensuring the availability of additional records to help solve civil rights cold cases, supporting thousands of Texas jobs, and leading the fight to confirm principled constitutionalists to our courts.
Senator Cruz is a graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law School, a former law clerk to Chief Justice William Rehnquist, and former solicitor general of Texas. He has argued nine cases before the Supreme Court. In November of 2018, he was re-elected to the Senate by the people of Texas.
Jennifer Anju Grossman -- JAG-- became the CEO of the Atlas Society in March of 2016. She shifted the organization's focus to the engagement of young people with the ideas of Ayn Rand in creative ways, like animated videos, graphic novels, and social media, and through the expansion into international markets.
Prior to joining The Atlas Society, she served as Senior Vice President of Dole Food Company, launching the Dole Nutrition Institute — a research and education organization— at the behest of Dole Chairman David H. Murdock. Previously Grossman served as Director of Education at the Cato Institute, and worked closely with the late philanthropist Theodore J. Forstmann to launch the Children's Scholarship Fund. A speechwriter for President George H. W. Bush, Grossman has written for both national and local publications. She graduated with honors from Harvard College.
Executive Director, New York Civil Rights Coalition
Professor of Public Policy, Hunter College, CUNY
Joseph P. Viteritti is the Thomas Hunter Professor of Public Policy and Chair of the Urban Policy and Planning Department at Hunter. He was the founding faculty chair of the Public Policy Program at Hunter’s Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute, and is a member of the doctoral faculty in education policy at the CUNY Graduate Center.
He is recently the author of The Pragmatist: Bill de Blasio’s Quest to Save the Soul of New York (Oxford University Press, 2017), which chronicles the political career and tenure of the incumbent mayor. Written from a historical perspective, the book traces mayoral leadership through the rise, fall and regeneration of progressivism in New York City since the time of Fiorello La Guardia.
Partner, Williams & Connolly
Sarah Harris is a partner in Williams & Connolly’s Supreme Court and Appellate practice, where she represents clients in high-stakes appeals in the U.S. Supreme Court and federal and state appellate courts across the country. She has argued five cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, and she has presented many arguments in federal courts of appeals and state appellate courts. Her cases have run the gamut of substantive areas, including constitutional law—especially First Amendment and separation-of-powers issues—as well as administrative law, arbitration, class actions, antitrust, False Claims Act litigation, commercial litigation, and federal civil procedure.
Sarah is widely recognized for her appellate advocacy. Chambers USA has recognized her as “Up and Coming” in Appellate Law. She has been named to Bloomberg Law’s 40 Under 40 list of top lawyers nationwide and to Benchmark Litigation’s “40 & Under Hot List,” as well as a an appellate “Rising Star” by The National Law Journal and Law360, a “Next Generation Lawyer” by The Legal 500, and as one of Bloomberg Law’s “Five Fresh Faces to Know in Appellate.”
Sarah clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court of the United States, Judge Laurence Silberman on the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, and Judge Sandra Lynch on the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. Before joining Williams & Connolly, she served as a Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel.
Sarah received her undergraduate degree summa cum laude from Princeton University, and her J.D. magna cum laude from Harvard Law School. She also holds a Ph.D. and M. Phil. from the University of Cambridge.
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.
Herman O. Loewenstein Professor of Law Emerita, Vanderbilt Law School
Suzanna Sherry's work in the area of constitutional law has earned her national recognition as one of the most well-known scholars in the field. The author of more than 100 books and articles, she also writes extensively on federal courts and federal court procedures. After graduating from law school, Professor Sherry was a clerk for the Honorable John C. Godbold of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in Montgomery, Alabama, and then served as an associate with the law firm of Miller Cassidy Larroca & Lewin in Washington, D.C. She joined the Vanderbilt faculty in 2000 as the inaugural holder of the Cal Turner Chair, having previously served on the faculty of the University of Minnesota Law School since 1982. She was named the Herman O. Loewenstein Professor of Law in 2006.
Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
ILYA SOMIN is Professor of Law at George Mason University and the B. Kenneth Simon Chair in Constitutional Studies at the Cato Institute. His research focuses on constitutional law, property law, democratic theory, federalism, and migration rights. He is the author of Free to Move: Foot Voting, Migration, and Political Freedom (Oxford University Press, revised and expanded edition, 2022), Democracy and Political Ignorance: Why Smaller Government is Smarter (Stanford University Press, revised and expanded second edition, 2016), and The Grasping Hand: Kelo v. City of New London and the Limits of Eminent Domain (University of Chicago Press, 2015, rev. paperback ed., 2016), coauthor of A Conspiracy Against Obamacare: The Volokh Conspiracy and the Health Care Case (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), and co-editor of Eminent Domain: A Comparative Perspective (Cambridge University Press, 2017). Democracy and Political Ignorance has been translated into Italian and Japanese.
Somin’s work has appeared in numerous scholarly journals, including the Yale Law Journal, Stanford Law Review, Northwestern University Law Review, Georgetown Law Journal, Critical Review, and others. Somin has also published articles in a variety of popular press outlets, including the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, CNN, NBC, The Atlantic, USA Today, Boston Globe, US News and World Report, South China Morning Post, National Law Journal and Reason. He has been quoted or interviewed by the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Time, Newsweek, The Economist, the Christian Science Monitor, the Financial Times, The Guardian, the Associated Press, CBS, MSNBC, NPR, BBC, Reuters, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Al Jazeera, and the Voice of America, among other media.
Somin’s writings have been cited in decisions by the United States Supreme Court, multiple state supreme courts and lower federal courts, and the Supreme Court of Israel. He is co-counsel for the plaintiffs in VOS Selections, Inc. v. Trump, a case challenging the constitutionality of President Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs. Somin has testified on the use of drones for targeted killing in the War on Terror before the US Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Human Rights. In 2009, he testified on property rights issues at the United States Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Somin writes regularly for the popular Volokh Conspiracy law and politics blog, now affiliated with Reason magazine (previously affiliated with the Washington Post from 2014 to 2017). From 2006 to 2013, he served as Co-Editor of the Supreme Court Economic Review, one of the country’s top-rated law and economics journals.
Somin has served as a visiting professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. He has also been a visiting professor or scholar at the Georgetown University Law Center, the University of Hamburg, Germany, the University of Torcuato Di Tella in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Uriel Reichman University in Israel, and Zhengzhou University in China. He is a University Affiliate of the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University, and an affiliated faculty member of the George Mason University Institute for Immigration Research. Before joining the faculty at George Mason, Somin was the John M. Olin Fellow in Law at Northwestern University Law School in 2002-2003. In 2001-2002, he clerked for the Hon. Judge Jerry E. Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Professor Somin earned his B.A., Summa Cum Laude, at Amherst College, M.A. in Political Science from Harvard University, and J.D. from Yale Law School.
Thomas M. Siebel Senior Fellow, The Hoover Institution, Stanford University; Gary T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus, UCLA School of Law
Eugene Volokh is the Thomas M. Siebel Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution (Stanford), as well as the Gary T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus and Distinguished Research Professor at UCLA School of Law. He recently retired from teaching at UCLA, after 30 years there, and is now focusing on research.
Volokh is the author of the textbooks The First Amendment and Related Statutes (8th ed. 2023), and Academic Legal Writing (5th ed. 2016), as well as over 100 academic law journal articles, mostly on First Amendment law. He is a member of The American Law Institute; the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Free Speech Law; and the creator and coauthor of The Volokh Conspiracy, a leading legal blog founded in 2002 (hosted at the Washington Post from 2014 to 2017 and now at Reason Magazine).
Professor of Law, South Texas College of Law Houston
Josh Blackman is a national thought leader on constitutional law and the United States Supreme Court. Josh’s work was quoted during two presidential impeachment trials. He has testified before Congress and advises federal and state lawmakers. Josh regularly appears on TV, including NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox, and the BBC. Josh is also a frequent guest on NPR and other syndicated radio programs. He has published commentaries in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and leading national publications.
Since 2012, Josh has served as a professor at the South Texas College of Law Houston. He holds the Centennial Chair of Constitutional Law. Josh is an Adjunct Fellow at the Manhattan Institute. Josh has written more than seven dozen law review articles that have been cited more than a thousand times. Josh was selected as the Jurist of the Year by the Texas Journal of Law & Public Policy, received the inaugural Meese III Originalism Award, and was awarded the Inaugural Joseph Story Award. Josh was selected by Forbes Magazine for the “30 Under 30” in Law and Policy. Josh is the President of the Harlan Institute, and founded FantasySCOTUS, the Internet’s Premier Supreme Court Fantasy League. He blogs at the Volokh Conspiracyand posts@JoshMBlackman.
Former Acting Assistant Attorney General, United States Department of Justice; Partner, Winston & Strawn LLP
Jonathan “Jon” Brightbill is a trial and appellate lawyer in Winston’s Washington, D.C. office, and a partner in the firm’s Litigation and White Collar, Regulatory Defense, and Investigations Practices. He represents public and private companies, corporate officers, and other individuals across white collar, regulatory defense, and government and internal investigation matters and rulemaking challenges, as well as complex commercial disputes, citizen suits, and class actions. His commercial litigation experience encompasses business disputes, false advertising, consumer protection and fraud, FCA, and extensive class action defense work; antitrust and unfair competition matters; and intellectual property litigation, such as trademarks, patents, and trade secrets.
Jon served as the Nation’s lead environmental civil and criminal enforcement official and litigator, as Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Environment & Natural Resources Division (“ENRD”) of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). Jon led ENRD’s 425 lawyers, overseeing 6,500 active matters and managing an annual budget of more than $150 million. Jon brings highly experienced executive leadership from among the most senior level of DOJ on white collar and regulatory enforcement, as well as on federal policymaking and rulemaking development and challenges. He speaks with authority on government decision-making processes, and the arguments and perspectives that move regulators and enforcers, best advising and positioning clients to deal with challenges.
Jon argued many of the government’s most significant cases during his time with the DOJ. This included the Navigable Waters Protection Rule and Clean Water Rule Repeal (10th Cir., district courts), the Affordable Clean Energy Rule and Clean Power Plan Repeal (D.C. Cir), defense of EPA actions on pesticide tolerances under FIFRA and the FDCA (9th Cir. en banc), among numerous others. Jon represented the United States in trial courts in both enforcement and defensive cases, including federal enforcement action against Jeffrey Lowe and the Tiger King Park, of Netflix fame, securing a first-of-its-kind injunction for violations of the Endangered Species Act and Animal Welfare Act. Jon directed the litigation and briefing of scores of additional federal cases nationwide, covering all of the major environmental and natural resources statutes, such as the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, FIFRA (pesticides), FDCA (food safety), TSCA (toxics), CERCLA (land remediation), RCRA (waste), National Environmental Policy Act, Federal Land Policy and Management Act, and numerous other land- and resource-management statutes.
Jon has unmatched experience litigating legal and technical issues relating to climate change. He argued in the courts of appeals, including the D.C. Circuit, regarding the most significant climate change regulations by EPA, as well as the preemptive scope of the Clean Air Act. Jon also litigated climate change-related credit and trading schemes and international agreements in district court. During Jon’s time in leadership at ENRD, it successfully defeated one of the most wide-ranging lawsuits regarding climate change to date—obtaining a stay pending interlocutory appeal and dismissal just weeks before a scheduled three-month trial on federal government liability for climate change.
An accomplished trial lawyer, prior to working at DOJ, Jon was a partner in the Washington, D.C. office of another global law firm. He not only represents clients in court, but creatively counsels corporations on balancing business needs and realities with a broad range of litigation risks and compliance obligations. Jon is also an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University Law Center. He served on the American Bar Association’s E-Discovery Working Group for Bankruptcy Practice, and was a frequent lecturer for District of Columbia Bar Association Continuing Legal Education Programs.
Jon served as an appellate clerk for the Honorable D. Brooks Smith, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, after graduating magna cum laude from the Georgetown University Law Center. He worked in state government as an Executive Policy Specialist for air, waste, land remediation, and radiation matters at the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.
Partner, Covington & Burling LLP
Kevin Poloncarz co-chairs the Environmental and Energy Practice Group, Energy Industry Group and ESG Practice at Covington & Burling LLP.
Kevin is ranked by Chambers USA among the nation’s leading climate change attorneys and California’s leading environmental lawyers, with sources describing him as “a phenomenal” and “tremendous lawyer.”
He represents electric utilities, financial institutions, investors and companies in policy, litigation and transactional matters concerning power and carbon markets, carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS), sustainable aviation fuel, green and blue hydrogen and carbon offsets projects.
He also helps clients establish and communicate their ESG commitments and decarbonization objectives to investors, customers and other stakeholders.
Professor of Law, University of Minnesota Law School
Professor James W. Coleman is a scholar of energy law. He specializes in North American energy infrastructure, transport, and trade. He is also a nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute focused on energy policy.
Professor Coleman has testified before Congress on steps to speed up energy infrastructure permits. He also worked with a team of experts as part of Alberta's Royalty Review to revise the Canadian province's management of its vast oil and gas resources.
Before joining Minnesota, Professor Coleman taught at Southern Methodist University's Dedman School of Law, the University of Calgary’s law and business schools, and Harvard Law School. Earlier, he practiced environmental and appellate law at Sidley Austin in Washington, D.C., and clerked for the Honorable Steven M. Colloton of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.
Professor Coleman received two degrees from Harvard University—a J.D. (cum laude) and B.A. in biology (magna cum laude with highest honors in the field). As a result of his undergraduate thesis on butterfly genetics, which required fieldwork in Central Asia, a species of lycaenid butterfly was named after him—Agrodiaetus ripartii colemani.
Partner, Briscoe Prows Kao Ivester & Bazel LLP
Tony Francois is experienced in Water and Real Property Law, Land Use and Zoning, Environmental Regulation, Natural Resources Development, Agricultural Law, and Constitutional Law. He has represented homeowners, builders, farmers and ranchers, trade associations, and water districts in administrative, civil, and criminal proceedings before state and federal administrative agencies and state and federal trial and appellate courts. He is a member of the California State Bar and the Northern, Eastern, and Central Districts of California and the Districts of New Mexico and North Dakota, and has litigated cases in federal courts in California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, North and South Dakota, Minnesota, Massachusetts, Maryland, South Carolina, and the District of Columbia, as well as the Sixth, Eighth, Ninth, and Tenth Circuit Courts of Appeals. He has appeared before the Supreme Courts of California, Idaho, Nevada, and the United States.
Prior to attending law school, he served as an infantry officer in the United States Army, and was stationed in the former West Germany during the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Tony was an Attorney at Pacific Legal Foundation from 2012 to 2021. He was a lobbyist for 10 years, first with California Farm Bureau Federation from 2003 to 2007, and then with KP Public Affairs from 2007 to 2012. He was an attorney at McQuaid, Bedford & Van Zandt in San Francisco from 1999 – 2003.
Charles Yates is an attorney in Pacific Legal Foundation’s environmental practice group, where he litigates to defend private property rights and uphold the structural protections guaranteed by the Constitution’s separation of powers.
His inspiration to focus on environmental law comes from the special case of government overreach it presents, where individual rights too often give way to collectivist notions and where misguided government policies create a cure worse than the disease. Charles has a particularly strong belief in the important role that the productive use of natural resources plays for human flourishing. To these ends, his practice at PLF focuses primarily on the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act, and related regulatory issues.
Charles credits his strong belief in the principles of individual liberty and limited, constitutional government to his family. His personal philosophy developed further while studying the works of Adam Smith, John Locke, James Madison, and other classical liberals. Born and raised in Australia, Charles has always admired the U.S. Constitution as the purest and most enduring application of the ideals of individual liberty and limited government. It was these influences that impressed upon him the desire to pursue a career in public interest litigation.
After obtaining a B.A. in political science and international relations from the University of Western Australia, Charles moved to the U.S., where he earned his J.D. magna cum laude from the University of Baltimore School of Law. During law school, he served as president of his school’s chapter of The Federalist Society and was an editor of the University of Baltimore Law Review. Other highlights from his law school days include an internship at the Cato Institute and a clerkship at the Institute for Justice.
Charles lives in Sacramento with his wife Maxine. In his spare time, he enjoys reading and playing the bass guitar.
Assistant Solicitor General, Texas
Katie serves as an Assistant Solicitor General for the State of Texas. She previously practiced law at a firm in Washington, D.C. where she focused her legal practice on complex trial and appellate litigation, specializing in data privacy and biometric issues. Before that, Katie served as Chief Counsel to Senator Jeff Flake at the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee and clerked for Judge Michael B. Brennan of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. Katie graduated from Liberty University and the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University. She is a member of The Federalist Society’s Litigation Practice Group Executive Committee.
Partner, Evans Fears & Shuttert LLP
Lee Mickus defends manufacturers and other business interests in product liability and tort lawsuits around the country, guiding cases through the discovery, trial, and appeal stages. He has successfully tried cases to juries in Colorado, Texas, California, New York, Puerto Rico, Montana and several other states.
Partner, Wagstaff Law Firm
David Wool represents clients in toxic tort, pharmaceutical and medical device litigation. In his practice at Andrus Wagstaff, David has been intricately involved in the several major litigations. David was appointed to the Plaintiff’s Steering Committee in multi-district litigation (MDL) 2642, In Re Fluoroquinolone Products Liability Litigation, by the Honorable John R. Tunheim to represent thousands of plaintiffs suffering from permanent and debilitating peripheral neuropathy. Additionally, David served a critical role in MDL 2741, In Re Roundup Products Liability Litigation, successfully arguing against the first motion to dismiss filed anywhere in the country setting the stage for continued litigation. David is admitted to practice before the United States District Court for the District of Colorado, and represents clients in nearly every state across the country.
David has extensive knowledge and experience in every step of the litigation process from drafting complaints, to organizing multi-district litigation and arguing dispositive motions in federal court.
As a Trial Attorney in various litigations, David has:
David has litigated in nearly every federal circuit, and has extensive knowledge of complex federal and state specific products liability law including Daubert, Federal preemption law and the Learned Intermediary Doctrine. He has extensive experience briefing these and related issues in the United States District Courts for the Southern District of West Virginia, the Northern District of California, the District of Minnesota and the Judicial Panel for Multi-District Litigation, among others.
David is a native of Montgomery, Alabama and a graduate of Colorado College and Vanderbilt University Law School. Prior to joining Andrus Wagstaff
Vaccine Policy: Who Decides?
David Dewhirst, Ryan Dean Newman, Dorit Reiss, Ilya Somin, Kate Comerford Todd
The Supreme Court recently issued its decisions in two federal vaccine mandate cases. Several states...
Explainer Episode 32 – The Vaccine Mandate Cases and the Future of Administrative Law
Karen Harned, Ilan Wurman, Luke A. Wake
Regulatory Transparency Project's Fourth Branch Podcast
On January 13, the Supreme Court stayed the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's (OSHA) COVID-19 vaccine-or-test...
Deep Dive Episode 206 – Intellectual Property in a Pandemic: The Proposed COVID-19 WTO Waiver
Andrei Iancu, David J. Kappos, Arti K. Rai, Saurabh Vishnubhakat
Regulatory Transparency Project's Fourth Branch Podcast
In October 2020, India and South Africa filed a request at the World Trade Organization...
Panel Four: School Choice in Action [Archive Collection]
Roberta Holt, Myron Lieberman, Ann Payne, Bob Smith, John Witte
1999 Stranahan National Issues Forum
On March 26, 1999, the Federalist Society co-sponsored the Stranahan National Issues Forum with the...
Panel Three: School Choice: The Next Civil Rights Crusade? [Archive Collection]
Clint Bolick, Ted Cruz, Jennifer A. Grossman, Michael Meyers, Joseph Viteritti
1999 Stranahan National Issues Forum
On March 26, 1999, the Federalist Society co-sponsored the Stranahan National Issues Forum with the...
A Seat at the Sitting - January 2022
Sarah M. Harris, Dean Reuter, Suzanna Sherry, Ilya Somin, Eugene Volokh
The January Docket in 90 Minutes or Less
Join us for the fourth episode of the Federalist Society's Supreme Court Show: A Seat at...
Feddie Night Festivus: Blackman vs. Everybody!
Josh Blackman
Columbus School of Law Student Chapter
The Federalist Society's Student Division &Columbus School of Law Student Chapter present Feddie Night Festivus:Blackman vs. Everybody! FeaturingUnprecedented...
Deep Dive Episode 205 – An Update on the Clean Power Plan Litigation
Jonathan Brightbill, Kevin Poloncarz, James W. Coleman
Regulatory Transparency Project's Fourth Branch Podcast
The Supreme Court is now hearing the most closely watched environmental case in decades, which...
Roiling the Waters: Clean Water Act “Navigable Waters” Definition – Litigation and Regulatory Developments
Tony Francois, Charles Yates
The Clean Water Act authorizes the Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Army to regulate discharges...
Admitting Expert Evidence Under Rule 702: By What Standard?
Kateland R. Jackson, Leah Lorber, Lee S. Mickus, David Wool
This webinar will host a debate over the pending amendments to Federal Rule of Evidence...