Senior Fellow, Competitive Enterprise Institute
Joel M. Zinberg, M.D., J.D. is a senior fellow with the Competitive Enterprise Institute. He is a native New Yorker who recently completed two years as General Counsel and Senior Economist at the Council of Economic Advisers in the Executive Office of the President. He practiced general and oncologic surgery in New York for nearly 30 years at the Mount Sinai Hospital and Icahn School of Medicine where he is an Associate Clinical Professor of Surgery. He has been involved with health policy issues and the interaction between law and medicine for his entire career. Dr. Zinberg taught for 10 years at the Columbia University Law School as a Lecturer in Law where he created a course on the legal, policy and ethical issues surrounding organ transplantation. He served for many years on the New York State Board of Professional Medical Conduct and on Mount Sinai's Ethics Committee and Institutional Review Board. He is past President and Trustee of the New York County Medical Society. Between 2015 and 2017 he was a Visiting Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.
Dr. Zinberg has written for publications as varied as the Journal of the American Medical Association, the Bulletin of the American College of Surgeons, the Wall Street Journal, City Journal and law reviews. He is the author of book chapters on legal and policy issues in organ transplantation.
He received his J.D. degree from the Yale Law School, his M.D. from the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and his B.A. in economics with High Honors, Phi Beta Kappa, from Swarthmore College.
Partner, Paul, Weiss
Andrew Finch is co-chair of the Antitrust Practice Group and a partner in the Litigation Department. He recently rejoined the firm from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division, where he served as Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General (April 2017-August 2019) and as Acting Assistant Attorney General (April-September 2017), overseeing all aspects of the Antitrust Division’s operations. A seasoned and pragmatic antitrust counselor and litigator, Andrew has extensive experience with civil and criminal antitrust investigations, litigation and appeals.
EXPERIENCE
Andrew’s practice focuses on antitrust investigations and litigation, both criminal and civil, including merger reviews. At the Antitrust Division, Andrew oversaw dozens of major merger reviews; supervised multiple litigations; negotiated civil and criminal settlements, including consent decrees involving divestitures, plea agreements and deferred prosecution agreements; and represented the Antitrust Division in meetings with other federal agencies, members of Congress, state attorneys general and foreign competition authorities. Throughout his tenure, Andrew played a leadership role in developing and implementing Antitrust Division policies and priorities, including the Division’s new policy regarding the consideration of effective antitrust compliance programs in criminal enforcement decisions. Andrew also has spoken extensively in the United States and abroad about antitrust issues relating to “big data” and technology platforms, acquisitions of nascent competitors, and the application of antitrust law to intellectual property disputes and standard-development organizations.
In private practice, Andrew has represented a broad range of clients, including in the financial services industry, payment networks, insurance, manufacturing, steel production, public performing rights, petroleum refining, publishing, retailing, shipping and air transportation industries, among others. Andrew’s notable representations include:
Between 2003 and 2005, Andrew served as Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General in the Antitrust Division. While at the DOJ, he participated in drafting the joint report of the DOJ and FTC, Antitrust Enforcement and Intellectual Property Rights: Promoting Innovation and Competition, and contributed to the Report of the DOJ’s Task Force on Intellectual Property.
Andrew served as a law clerk to the Honorable Dennis G. Jacobs in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. At the University of Chicago Law School, Andrew was a John M. Olin Student Fellow in Law and Economics, the Topics and Comments Editor of The University of Chicago Law Review, and was elected to the Order of the Coif.
Andrew is a member of the American Bar Association’s Section of Antitrust Law, and currently serves on the ABA’s Task Force on the Future of Competition Law Standards. He previously served as vice-chair of the Books and Treatises Committee, as vice-chair of the Civil Practice and Procedure Committee, as a member of the Editorial Board of Antitrust Law Developments (Sixth), and as a principal editor of the Handbook on Interlocking Directorates.
Since 2014, Andrew has been recognized by Chambers USA as a leading lawyer in Antitrust. Clients commented that Andrew “is a very smart lawyer [who] has a very keen understanding of antitrust matters from the government perspective.” Following his tenure as one of the senior leadership of the Antitrust Division at the DOJ, Chambers USA has recognized Andrew as an “Eminent Practitioner” in the Antitrust (New York) category for his wide-ranging knowledge across criminal and civil antitrust issues. He is also highly recommended by The Legal 500 in the Antitrust: Cartel, Antitrust: Civil Litigation/Class Actions: Defense and Antitrust: Merger Control categories.
Andrew is a member of the Board of Directors of the School of American Ballet.
Partner, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, LLP
Svetlana S. Gans is a partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, LLP where she helps clients navigate complex consumer protection, privacy, and competition related regulatory proceedings before the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC), , U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division, State Attorneys General and other enforcement bodies. Ms. Gans also assists on litigation matters and provides strategic counseling and advice related to public policy issues.
Before joining Gibson Dunn, she served as the Vice President & Associate General Counsel at NCTA, the Internet & Television Association, where she helped lead the association’s consumer protection and competition policy work. Prior to joining NCTA, Ms. Gans served with distinction as Chief of Staff to Acting Chairman Maureen K. Ohlhausen at the FTC. As the agency chief of staff, Ms. Gans managed and oversaw agency operations, including bureau and office heads reporting to the Chairman, a seven-member office staff, and an agency budget of over $300 million. She also served as the Acting Chairman’s key advisor on consumer protection and competition investigations and litigation, working with a diverse team of attorneys and economists to preserve competition and protect U.S. consumers. She created, executed, and oversaw several strategic initiatives for the agency, including the agency process reform, regulatory reform, and data security transparency initiatives. Previously, Ms. Gans had the unique experience of serving in both litigating bureaus of the FTC: the Bureau of Competition and the Bureau of Consumer Protection.
Prior to her time in government, Ms. Gans worked as an antitrust associate at major law firms. Her practice focused on defending consumer product, financial services, and trade association clients in regulatory and private investigations alleging conspiracy and violations of antitrust and consumer protection laws.
Ms. Gans has been an active leader in the ABA Antitrust Law Section (“Section”) for two decades, and currently serves as the Section’s Marketing Officer. Ms. Gans helped create the Section’s Young Lawyer Representative Program, now in its 10th year, and the Section’s Law Ambassador Program, each aimed at developing and promoting the next generation of consumer protection and competition attorneys. Ms. Gans is also active in the Federal Communications Bar Association, currently serving as Co-Chair of the Diversity Pipeline Initiative and the Women’s Leadership Committee.
Ms. Gans received her law degree with high honors from the University of Denver College of Law. During law school, Ms. Gans served as a Judicial Intern to the Honorable John L. Kane, Jr. and as an Honors Program Paralegal for the United States Department of Justice Antitrust Division, Merger Taskforce. Ms. Gans earned her undergraduate degree cum laude from Boston University.
Senior Scholar, Competition Policy, International Center for Law & Economics
Daniel J. Gilman is a senior scholar of competition policy at ICLE. Before joining ICLE, Dan was an attorney advisor in the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) Office of Policy Planning, where he worked on competition issues in health-care and technology markets and, more broadly, on the competitive impact of regulation, with a focus on privacy regulations, among others.
During the 2014-15 academic year, while on leave from his FTC duties, he visited Harvard Law School as the Victor H. Kramer Foundation Fellow in antitrust law and economics. Prior to the FTC, Dan taught law and economics, as well as health and science law, at the University of Maryland. He has also taught at Penn State University and at Washington University in St. Louis, and has experience in private practice in the District of Columbia.
Dan holds a JD degree from Georgetown University, a PhD from the University of Chicago, and an AB from Dartmouth College.
Partner, Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP
D. Bruce Hoffman’s practice focuses on antitrust enforcement, including merger clearance and conduct investigations, and antitrust and other complex commercial litigation.
Bruce joined the firm as a partner after serving as Director of the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Competition from August 2017 until late December of 2019. As Director, he was the head of the FTC’s antitrust enforcement and was responsible for developing Bureau policy, supervising all of the Bureau’s investigations and litigation, and conducting high-level relations with other leading antitrust enforcers, including the U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division, the Directorate-General for Competition of the European Commission and other international enforcers, and state Attorneys General, as well as communications with Congress. Bruce also spearheaded the creation of the Bureau of Competition’s Technology Task Force (now known as the Technology Enforcement Division) to monitor competition in U.S. technology markets, investigate potential anticompetitive conduct in those markets, and take enforcement actions when warranted.
Bruce’s role as Bureau Director was his second stint at the FTC. He previously served at the agency from 2001-2004, starting as Associate Director for Regional Litigation and then being elevated to Deputy Director of the Bureau of Competition. In these roles, Bruce oversaw the Bureau’s programs, activities, and investigations. He also led numerous high-profile cases involving mergers, price fixing, monopolization, conspiracies, and other issues in a broad range of industries, and he participated in amicus brief efforts before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Prior to joining the FTC in 2001, and then again from 2005 to 2017, Bruce developed and led successful antitrust practices as a partner at leading global law firms. Bruce had an extensive merger review practice, including transactions before the DOJ, FTC, EC, several U.S. states, and other enforcers. He also has wide-ranging experience in high-profile antitrust litigation and investigations, including representing clients in some of the largest antitrust class actions ever filed, as well as competitor lawsuits and conduct investigations. Bruce has handled every aspect of federal and state court litigation, including appellate arguments, jury and bench trials, and numerous court hearings and arguments, as well as arbitration proceedings.
Partner, Antitrust and Competition, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati
Maureen Ohlhausen is a partner in the Washington, D.C., office of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, where she advises industry-leading clients on complex antitrust and litigation matters, with a focus on high-profile cases. Sought after for her depth of experience on antitrust and Federal Trade Commission (FTC)-related issues, Maureen is known for her relationships with officials in the U.S. and abroad.
After finishing law school and clerking at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, Maureen joined the FTC in 1997. She held a series of roles at the agency over the next 12 years, rising to the position of Director of the FTC Office of Policy Planning, where she led the agency’s work on e-commerce and headed the FTC’s Internet Access Task Force, which produced an influential report analyzing competition and consumer protection legal issues in the broadband and internet sectors. She then went into private practice at a leading telecommunications law firm, where she headed the FTC practice group.
In 2012, Maureen was confirmed by the Senate as a Commissioner of the FTC and was appointed Acting Chairman in January 2017, a role she held until May 2018. As Acting Chairman, Maureen directed all aspects of the agency’s antitrust work, including merger review, conduct enforcement, and all consumer protection enforcement, with an emphasis on privacy and technology issues. Under her leadership, the FTC won several influential merger challenges in court and reached a number of key digital privacy settlements.
To date, Maureen is the only FTC Commissioner to have received the Robert Pitofsky Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of her contributions to the FTC.
Following the end of her term at the FTC, and immediately prior to joining Wilson Sonsini, Maureen was chair of the global antitrust and competition practice at Baker Botts, based in that firm’s Washington, D.C., office.
A recognized thought leader, Maureen is a frequent author and speaker, and is often quoted by leading print and broadcast media on antitrust, FTC, and privacy and data security matters. She has published dozens of articles on antitrust, privacy, intellectual property, regulation, FTC litigation, telecommunications, and international law issues in prestigious publications. During her tenure at the FTC and in private practice, she testified more than two dozen times before Congress, including before the Senate Commerce Committee and the House Energy and Commerce Antitrust Sub-Committee. She also testified before the Antitrust Modernization Commission.
Shareholder, Littler Mendelson P.C.
James A. Paretti, Jr. is an experienced management-side employment and labor relations attorney with in-depth political and policy knowledge of labor, pension, healthcare and employment law, regulations and legislation. Jim is well versed in all aspects of legislative and political processes with demonstrated knowledge in the substance of federal labor and employment policy. He has over two decades of experience working with federal legislators and policymakers, including former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Chairmen of the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce, and senior level administration officials.
Prior to joining Littler, Jim was chief of staff and senior counsel to the acting chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. He provided legal and political counsel with respect to all aspects of agency business, administered and managed the Office of the Chair where he was responsible for over 2,200 employees and a 375 million dollar annual budget, and served as primary liaison to regulated stakeholders and Capitol Hill.
His extensive experience includes developing policy and providing legal counsel on the Committee on Education and Labor in the U.S. House of Representatives as well as coordinating external communications and media relations for a senior member of Congress. Jim represented corporate and nonprofit clients in employment litigation in federal and state court, before administrative agencies and in private arbitration while with two Boston firms.
Assistant Professor of Economics, University of Utah, Senior Fellow in Higher Education Finance, Jain Family Institute
Marshall Steinbaum is an Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of Utah and a Senior Fellow in Higher Education Finance at Jain Family Institute. He is an empirical labor economist by training, and his research investigates the existence and implications of employer power in labor markets, with applications to antitrust, higher education, and student debt. In addition to his academic research, he has written for a number of popular outlets relating to his expertise in inequality, antitrust, labor markets, the history of economic ideas and intellectual history more generally, student debt and higher education policy, as well as book reviews related to those subjects.
E. Claiborne Robins Distinguished Chair in Law, University of Richmond School of Law
Professor Kurt Lash teaches and writes about constitutional law. Founder and director of the Richmond Program on the American Constitution, Professor Lash has published widely on the subjects of constitutional law and constitutional history, including The Fourteenth Amendment and the Privileges or Immunities of American Citizenship (Cambridge University Press, 2014), The Lost History of the Ninth Amendment (Oxford University Press, 2009), and The American First Amendment in the Twenty-first Century: Cases and Materials(with William W. Van Alstyne) (5th ed., Foundation Press, 2014). An elected member of the American Law Institute, Professor Lash’s work has appeared in numerous legal journals including the Stanford Law Journal, Georgetown Law Journal, Virginia Law Review, andNotre Dame Law Review. He has been a visiting professor at Northwestern University School of Law and is the former director of the University of Illinois College of Law Program in Constitutional Theory, History, and Law.
Professor of Law, Notre Dame Law School
Professor Derek Muller is a nationally-recognized scholar in the field of election law. His research focuses on the role of states in the administration of federal elections, the constitutional contours of voting rights and election administration, the limits of judicial power in the domain of elections, and the Electoral College.
He has published more than two dozen academic works, and his op-eds have appeared in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and the Wall Street Journal. He has testified before Congress, and he is a contributor at the Election Law Blog. He is a co-author on a Federal Courts casebook published by Carolina Academic Press. He is also the co-reporter on a new Restatement of the Law, Election Litigation, an effort led by the American Law Institute.
Professor Muller teaches Election Law, Civil Procedure, and Evidence.
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.
Shareholder & Co-Chair of the Workplace Policy Institute, Littler Mendelson P.C.
Alexander T. MacDonald advises employers on all aspects of the employment and labor landscape, focusing on emerging legislation and regulation. He has extensive experience advising businesses on worker classification, arbitration, the administrative and regulatory process, and the future of work. He frequently writes, publishes, and speaks on these subjects. His work has been cited by scholars and appellate courts. He is a recognized voice for the management perspective.
Alexander is a co-chair of the Workplace Policy Institute (WPI) team. With WPI, he advises employers on legislative, administrative, and regulatory developments at the state and federal level. He advocates for employers in the regulatory and administrative process. He also helps employers protect their businesses by understanding and anticipating cutting-edge legal developments.
Alexander also has extensive experience in traditional labor law. He represents management in all aspects of labor-management relations, including unfair labor practice charges, grievance arbitrations, representation elections, contract negotiations, and related litigation, including litigation in the U.S. courts of appeals.
Before joining Littler, Alexander served as the director, future of work, for a major technology company. He also worked in a national labor and employment law firm and a major public-sector general counsel’s office. He was a law clerk to the senior judges in the District of Columbia Court of Appeals.
He is also a veteran of the U.S. Air Force. He served in Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom. In law school, he graduated first in his class
Tammy McCutchen is a leading authority on federal and state wage-hour laws and prevailing wage laws. She counsels businesses on wage-hour compliance, including conducting internal audits on independent contractor status, overtime exemptions, and other pay practices. She also represents employers during investigations by the U.S. Department of Labor and serves as an expert witness in wage-hour class actions. She was a founding officer of ComplianceHR, a law and technology company, where she created AI-based applications to evaluate independent contractor and overtime exempt status.
Ms. McCutchen served as Administrator of the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division, appointed by President Bush and confirmed by the Senate in 2001. She was the primary architect of the 2004 revisions to the overtime exemption regulations, the first major changes to the regulations in 55 years.
Before joining DOL, she was senior counsel for the Hershey Company in Hershey, Pennsylvania.
Ms. McCutchen has been a volunteer leader of the Federalist Society since 1989. She served in leadership roles for the Northwestern Student Chapter and Chicago Lawyers Chapter. She currently serves in leadership for the Labor & Employment Practice Group, the Regulatory Transparency Project, and the Knoxville, TN Lawyers Chapter. She served on the Editorial Advisory Board of Law360, the Labor Committee of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Small Business Legal Advisory Board of the National Federation of Independent Business, and a Policy Fellow at the ACU Foundation.
Ms. McCutchen is a graduate of Western Illinois University and Northwestern University School of Law. She clerked for the Hon. Daniel Manion on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.
Assistant Professor of Law, The Ohio State University - Moritz College of Law
Bridget Dooling is a nationally recognized expert on administrative law and regulatory policy. Her scholarship on regulatory matters has been or will be published in leading legal journals including the Duke Law Journal, the Administrative Law Review, the Minnesota Law Review Headnotes, the American University Law Review and The Annals of Health Law.
Professor Dooling teaches courses on legislation and regulation, administrative law and other regulatory topics. She is a Senior Fellow at the Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS) and recently served on the Council of the American Bar Association’s Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice.
Prior to joining the faculty at Ohio State, Dooling was a research professor with the George Washington University Regulatory Studies Center and a professor of law (by courtesy) at GW Law. Before that, Professor Dooling spent over 10 years in the federal government as a deputy chief, senior policy analyst and attorney for the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs at the U.S. Office of Management and Budget.
Associate, Wiley Rein LLP
Joel S. Nolette is an associate at Wiley Rein LLP, where he advocates on behalf of corporate and individual clients in a broad spectrum of complex litigation matters. In 2017, Joel graduated cum laude from the Georgetown University Law Center, where he served as the Editor in Chief of Volume 15 of the Georgetown Journal of Law and Public Policy. From 2019 to 2021, Joel clerked for the Honorable Raymond W. Gruender of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit; and from 2021 to 2022, he clerked for the Honorable Timothy J. Kelly of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Before attending law school, Joel graduated summa cum laude from Gordon College in Wenham, MA, with his Bachelor of Arts in Biblical Studies and worked as a letter carrier with the U.S. Postal Service.
Professor of Law, University of Michigan Law School
Christopher J. Walker is a Professor of Law at the University of Michigan. Prior to joining Michigan law faculty in 2022, he spent a decade teaching at The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law. He previously clerked for Justice Anthony Kennedy of the U.S. Supreme Court, worked on the Civil Appellate Staff at the U.S. Department of Justice, and served on the Senate Judiciary Committee staff for the Gorsuch Supreme Court confirmation. Professor Walker’s research focuses on administrative law, regulation, and law and policy at the agency level. Outside the law school, he chaired the American Bar Association’s Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice in 2020-21 and served as one of forty Public Members of the Administrative Conference of the United States from 2016-2022, and he continues to serve in both organizations in various capacities. He also works of counsel at the U.S. Chamber Litigation Center. In 2022, he received the Federalist Society’s Joseph Story Award.
Senior Fellow, American Enterprise Institute
Philip Wallach is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he studies America’s separation of powers, with a focus on regulatory policy issues and the relationship between Congress and the administrative state.
In his latest book Why Congress (Oxford University Press, 2023), Dr. Wallach defends the centrality of Congress in America’s constitutional system, traces the roots of current dysfunction, and suggests how the institution might be restored.
Before joining AEI, Dr. Wallach was a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution, where he authored To the Edge: Legality, Legitimacy, and the Responses to the 2008 Financial Crisis (Brookings Institution Press, 2015). He was later affiliated with the R Street Institute and served as a fellow with the House Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress in 2019.
Dr. Wallach’s scholarly and popular work has been published widely, including in the publications of the Brookings Center on Regulation and Markets, Studies in American Political Development, Fortune, National Affairs, National Review, Law & Liberty, Los Angeles Times, RealClearPolicy, the Bulwark, the Hill, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post. A frequent conference participant, he has lectured at William & Mary, the University of Oregon, Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, and the University of Michigan, among others.
Dr. Wallach received a master’s and doctorate in politics from Princeton University and a bachelor’s degree from Wesleyan University’s College of Social Studies.
Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit
Hon. Jennifer Mascott served as Associate Professor of Law and Director of the Separation of Powers Institute at The Catholic University of America’s Columbus School of Law before her appointment to the federal bench. On July 16, 2025, President Donald J. Trump nominated her to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit (Delaware), and she was confirmed on October 9, 2025.
Prior to her confirmation, Judge Mascott wrote extensively in administrative and constitutional law, statutory interpretation, and the separation of powers. Her scholarship—published in leading journals including the Stanford Law Review, Notre Dame Law Review, and Supreme Court Review—was cited by the U.S. Supreme Court and multiple federal courts. She also contributed Supreme Court commentary for NBC Universal.
Before joining Catholic Law, she was an Assistant Professor and Co-Director of The C. Boyden Gray Center at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School. In 2022 she became co-author of Beermann, Cass & Diver’s Administrative Law: Cases and Materials (9th ed.). In 2023 she received the Justice Joseph Story Award for excellence in scholarship, teaching, and advancing the rule of law.
Judge Mascott also served as a Council Member of the ABA’s Administrative Law Section and as a Public Member of the Administrative Conference of the United States. She frequently testified before Congress on executive power, regulatory reform, and judicial jurisdiction, and participated in multiple Supreme Court confirmation hearings.
From 2019 to 2021, she took leave from academia to serve as Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel and later as Associate Deputy Attorney General, where she argued federal cases and assisted with Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation. Earlier in her career, she clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas and for then-Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh on the D.C. Circuit.
Judge Mascott earned her J.D. summa cum laude from the George Washington University Law School and her B.A. from the same institution.
Partner, Consovoy McCarthy PLLC
Thomas R. McCarthy is a partner at Consovoy McCarthy Park PLLC. Mr. McCarthy assists clients with a wide array of issues in federal district and appellate courts across the country. He frequently represents clients in complex litigation involving diverse legal issues arising under the First Amendment, the Equal Protection Clause, the Commerce Clause, and other provisions of the U.S. Constitution. Mr. McCarthy also represents clients in litigation matters involving numerous federal statutes such as the Administrative Procedure Act, the Federal Arbitration Act, the Sherman Act, the Communications Act, the Voting Rights Act, and the Patent Act. He also represents clients with regulatory matters before the Federal Communications Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, and various other federal agencies.
Mr. McCarthy is a former law clerk to Judge David B. Sentelle of the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, and Judge Frank W. Bullock, Jr. of the United States District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina. Since 2011, McCarthy has been the co-director of the George Mason University School of Law Supreme Court Clinic. He previously taught an advanced constitutional law seminar at Mason Law.
Mr. McCarthy earned his BS from the University of Notre Dame, where he was a Notre Dame Scholar, and his JD magna cum laude from George Mason University School of Law. Mr. McCarthy is a member of the Virginia and District of Columbia bars.
George Mason University Foundation Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
TODD J. ZYWICKI is George Mason University Foundation Professor of Law at Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University and Research Fellow of the George Mason Law and Economics Center. During the Fall 2023 semester he served as the Visiting Scholar in Conservative Thought and Policy for the Bruce Benson Center for the Study of Western Civilization at the University of Colorado-Boulder. From 2020-2021 he was Chair of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Taskforce on Federal Consumer Financial Law. In 2021 he was inducted to the American College of Consumer Financial Services Lawyers. He is also a Senior Fellow of the F.A. Hayek Program for the Advanced Study of Politics, Philosophy, and Economics at George Mason University and a former Senior Fellow of the Cato Institute. From 2015-2017 he was Executive Director of the George Mason Law and Economics Center. He served as Co-Editor of the Supreme Court Economic Review from 2006-2017. From 2003-2004, Professor Zywicki served as the Director of the Office of Policy Planning at the Federal Trade Commission. He has also taught at Vanderbilt University Law School, Georgetown University Law Center, Boston College Law School, Mississippi College School of Law, and China University of Political Science and Law.
Professor Zywicki clerked for Judge Jerry E. Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and worked as an associate at Alston & Bird in Atlanta, Georgia, where he practiced bankruptcy and commercial law. He received his J.D. from the University of Virginia, where he was executive editor of the Virginia Tax Review and John M. Olin Scholar in Law and Economics. Professor Zywicki also received an M.A. in Economics from Clemson University and an A.B. cum Laude with high honors in his major from Dartmouth College.
Professor Zywicki is also a Lone Mountain Fellow of the Property and Environment Research Center, a Fellow of the International Centre for Economic Research in Turin, Italy, and a former Senior Fellow of the Goldwater Institute. During the Fall 2008 Semester Professor Zywicki was the Searle Fellow of the George Mason University School of Law and was a 2008-09 W. Glenn Campbell and Rita Ricardo-Campbell National Fellow and the Arch W. Shaw National Fellow at the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace. He has lectured and consulted with government officials around the world, including Iceland, Italy, Japan, and Guatemala. In 2006 Professor Zywicki served as a Member of the United States Department of Justice Study Group on “Identifying Fraud, Abuse and Errors in the United States Bankruptcy System.”
Professor Zywicki is the author of more than 130 articles in leading law reviews and peer-reviewed economics journals. He is one of the Top 10 most-cited law professors in the field of Commercial Law and one of the Top 25 law professors on Twitter as measured by engagement levels. He is one of the Top 50 Most Downloaded Law Authors at the Social Science Research Network. He has testified multiple times before Congress on issues of consumer bankruptcy law and consumer credit and is a frequent commentator on legal issues in the print and broadcast media, including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, The Washington Post, The Washington Times, Nightline, The Newshour with Jim Lehrer, Neil Cavuto Show, Fox & Friends, Smerconish, Fox News @ Night with Shannon Bream, Fox Business, CNN, CNBC, Bloomberg News, BBC, The Diane Rehm Show, Lou Dobbs Show, Jerry Doyle Show, and The Laura Ingraham Show.
Professor Zywicki is former Chairman and a current member of the Board of Directors of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and is a member of the Board of Directors of the Institute for Humane Studies, Bill of Rights Institute, the Executive Committee for the Federalist Society's Financial Institutions and E-Commerce Practice Group, the Board of Trustees of the Foundation for Research on Economics and the Environment. He formerly served on the Governing Board and the Advisory Council for the Financial Services Research Program at George Washington University School of Business. He is currently the Chair of the Academic Advisory Council for the following organizations: The Bill of Rights Institute, the film “We the People in IMAX,” and the McCormick-Tribune Foundation “Freedom Museum” in Chicago, Illinois. He is a member of the Board of Visitors of Ralston College and was a member of the Board of Trustees of Yorktown University. From 2005-2009 he served as an elected Alumni Trustee of the Dartmouth College Board of Trustees.
Partner, Rutan & Tucker LLP
Dave Lanferman is a land use lawyer, whose practice emphasizes real estate development, land use approvals, regulatory and development mitigation fees and a wide range of litigation involving regulatory requirements. His land use expertise includes the California Mitigation Fee Act, California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), and regulatory compliance, environmental mitigation, planning, zoning and subdivision approvals and litigation, development impact fees, and appropriate conditions of approval.
He is an editorial advisor and update author for CEB’s authoritative treatise on California Land Use Practice, and has served as Vice Chair of the State Bar’s Real Property Law Section. Dave’s clients include developers, property owners, home builders, public agencies, public interest groups, and industry associations.
Partner, Marzulla Law
Ms. Marzulla served as an Attorney-Advisor and as a trial lawyer prosecuting employment violations in the Civil Rights Division at the U.S. Department of Justice. Later, Nancie joined the law firm of Verner, Liipfert (now DLA Piper), where she litigated complex airline and other civil matters. In 1991, She founded Defenders of Property Rights, where she was involved in high profile takings cases in the Supreme Court, federal courts of appeal, and trial courts. Ms. Marzulla also worked at the International Labor Organization in Geneva, Switzerland doing comparative legal research.
Nancie G. Marzulla is a founding partner of Marzulla Law, ranked as one of the nation’s “Best Law Firms,” and a “Tier One” environmental litigation firm by the U.S. News and World Report. Nancie’s litigation practice concentrates on water rights, takings, and contract claims in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims. She also has extensive experience in handling matters involving property, water, environmental law, Indian tribal claims, development, and natural resources in trial courts, courts of appeal, the Supreme Court, and in international tribunals. Nancie also represents corporate clients in enforcement or permitting disputes with federal regulatory agencies.
Vice President and Executive Director, Napa Legal Institute
Mary Margaret serves as Napa Legal Institute's Vice President & Executive Director. She joined Napa Legal in 2019, serving most recently as the organization’s Senior Counsel. Before working at Napa Legal, Mary Margaret was an associate attorney with a Chicago-based law firm which specialized in nonprofits and tax-exempt organizations. While there, Mary Margaret helped clients with legal guidance on matters including corporate formation, governance, and tax and regulatory compliance. Prior to serving the nonprofit sector, Mary Margaret focused her career in finance. While in law school, she worked at the CME Group and Dimensional Fund Advisors on financial compliance matters, implementation of U.S. sanctions programs, and cyber-security risk management. She is particularly interested in the intersection of business and law and helping nonprofit organizations navigate the complexities involved in that area. Mary Margaret attended Texas A&M University on a National Merit Scholarship and received an undergraduate degree with honors in Finance and Business. Mary Margaret earned CALI awards for her work in Constitutional Lawand Administrative Law while studying at Chicago Kent Law School. Mary Margaret also studied Spanish law during a semester at the University of Navarra in Pamplona, and she received a certificate in Legal Spanish from American University Washington College of Law. She is an ADF Blackstone Fellow.
Counsel, Becket Fund for Religious Liberty
Amanda Salz is counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, where her practice focuses on First Amendment litigation at both the trial and appellate levels. She is also a member of the Federalist Society’s Religious Liberties Executive Committee.
Before joining Becket, Amanda worked as an associate at Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP. As a member of the firm’s appellate group, Amanda litigated many cases involving constitutional and administrative issues. In addition to her experience in private practice, Amanda clerked for the Honorable Andrew S. Oldham of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and the Honorable Reed C. O’Connor of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas.
Senior Litigation Counsel, New Civil Liberties Alliance
Mr. Vecchione is a Senior Litigation Counsel for the non-profit New Civil Liberties Alliance representing clients against the Administrative State. He was previously President and CEO of the non-profit Cause of Action Institute, also advancing the constitutional order. He practiced at a number of D.C. area firms, including the eponymous John J. Vecchione Law, PLLC. Mr. Vecchione focuses his practice on strategic litigation in the federal district and appellate courts, including the Supreme Court of the United States. He is an experienced trial and appellate advocate having tried cases and argued appeals across the country. He is a member of the bars of the State of New York, the District of Columbia, and the Commonwealth of Virginia, as well as the Supreme Court of the United States and many federal courts. His cases are reported in scores of published opinions. He has also published pieces advancing the freedom agenda and constitutional order in the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Times and many other forums. He lives in Virginia with his wife Rebecca, sons Tommy and Joe.
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.
Editor, Chalkbeat
Cara Fitzpatrick is an editor at Chalkbeat. She won the Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting in 2016 for a series about school segregation. She was a New Arizona fellow in 2019 at New America and a Spencer fellow at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism in 2018. Fitzpatrick lives in New York with her husband and children.
Legal Director, The Center for the Rights of Abused Children
Tim Keller is a lawyer who works to ensure all abused and abandoned children are safe and have access to their constitutionally guaranteed rights.
As senior vice president and legal director at the Center for the Rights of Abused Children, Tim’s public interest legal work seeks to defend the constitutional rights of children to be safe from abuse, to prompt timely placement with permanent parents, and to assure a child’s representation by legal counsel. In addition to constitutional litigation, Tim oversees the lawyers in the Center for the Rights of Abused Children’s one-of-a-kind pro bono Children’s Law Clinic and guides its policy initiatives.
When he and his wife, Lisa, hosted a teenage exchange student from Brazil several years ago, they realized how much they enjoyed helping a child thrive. The two felt called to help more kids. Over the following years, Tim and Lisa would become foster parents. Today, they enjoy offering respite care for children in foster care.
Intensely motivated by his time fostering children who’d been abused and neglected, Tim sees his work to ensure children have a constitutional right to counsel as a matter of life and death. As such, he’s particularly proud that in 2021 the Center for the Rights of Abused Children secured the rights of all children in Arizona’s foster system to be represented by legal counsel.
Before joining the Center for the Rights of Abused Children, Tim worked for nearly 20 years at the Institute for Justice. He served as lead counsel in Arizona Christian School Tuition Organization v. Winn, a U.S. Supreme Court victory that protected Arizona’s pioneering school scholarship program. Tim also led the team that secured a U.S. Supreme Court victory in Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, which prevents states from discriminating against religious families and schools in educational choice programs. He has also litigated economic liberty and property rights cases in state and federal courts.
Tim earned his bachelor’s and law degrees from Arizona State University. He clerked for Robert D. Myers, at the time the presiding judge of the Maricopa County Superior Court, and for Ann A. Scott Timmer on the Arizona Court of Appeals.
Tim and Lisa live in Chandler, Ariz., with their four sons, Daniel, Benjamin, Ethan and Noah, and a miniature schnauzer named Gus who has more than 12,000 Instagram followers. The Kellers have traveled to 49 of the 50 United States, and are always looking for recommendations for new card or board games for family game nights.
Policy Director, Next Generation Texas
Erin Davis Valdez is Policy Director for Next Generation Texas, an initiative of the Texas Public Policy Foundation. She has been passionate about the transformational power of education all her life, having been given the gift of being homeschooled. She taught for over a decade in Austin-area schools and served as an assistant principal at a charter school. These experiences have given her the opportunity to see first-hand how students can thrive when they have excellent options.
Valdez earned an M.A. in classics from the University of California, Santa Barbara and a B.A. in classical studies from Hillsdale College. She has been married to Jeremy Valdez since 2005.
Valdez enjoys reading, podcasts, and spending time with her family and friends (and her dog, Scoops).
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