Academic Director, Fashion Law Institute, Fordham University School of Law
Susan Scafidi is the first professor ever to offer a course in Fashion Law, and she is internationally recognized for her leadership in establishing the field. She has testified regarding the proposed extension of legal protection to fashion designs and continues to work actively with members of Congress and the fashion industry on this and other issues. Her additional areas of expertise encompass property, intellectual property, cultural property, international law, trusts &estates, and legal history. Professor Scafidi founded and directs the nonprofit Fashion Law Institute, which was established with the generous support and advice of the Council of Fashion Designers of America and its president, Diane von Furstenberg, and is located at Fordham Law School. Prior to teaching at Fordham, Professor Scafidi was a tenured member of both the law and history faculties at SMU, and she has taught at a number of other schools, including Yale, Georgetown, and Cardozo.
Of Counsel, Olshan Frome Wolosky LLP
Lee is an internationally renowned intellectual property and corporate lawyer and a leader in the fashion and retail law industry. His focus is on clients in the luxury goods, fashion and retail industries. Lee has extensive experience over a broad range of legal matters including intellectual property, licensing, marketing, transactional, securities, commercial and retail real estate, and employment.
Lee has served as General Counsel and in key management positions, most recently as Senior Vice President - Business Affairs, General Counsel & Corporate Secretary at Michael Kors Holdings Limited. He was part of the senior management team that over his thirteen year tenure transformed the company into one of the most successful fashion brands in the world, culminating in the company’s successful initial public offering in 2011.
Prior to Michael Kors, Lee was Senior Vice President, General Counsel & Corporate Secretary at Kasper A.S.L., Ltd., and he spent over eleven years at Polo Ralph Lauren Corporation, including as its Vice President of Intellectual Property and Associate General Counsel. His areas of responsibility included initial public offerings, product and territorial licensing, acquisitions and management of substantial licensees, joint venture agreements, supervision of major litigation, managing and enforcing the global intellectual property portfolio, and a range of compliance and legal issues relating to all production, advertising and public relations matters.
Lee was awarded the Luxury Law Summit's Lifetime Achievement Award. He is at the forefront of academic and industry leadership, including serving as Professor from Practice at Cardozo Law School where he helped create, and is now Co-Director of, its unique Fashion, Arts, Media and Entertainment Law Center (FAME). In addition, he serves as a Lecturer in Law at the University of Pennsylvania School of Law and Adjunct Professor at Villanova Law School. Lee is a contributor to Fashion Law, A Guide for Designers, Fashion Executives & Attorney (Fairchild Books, 2014), and was the project creator and co-editor of the seminal treatise, Trademark Counterfeiting (Aspen Law & Business, 1999). He served as Chairman of the International Anticounterfeiting Coalition and served on its board as a member of its Executive Committee for over a decade, and has been a frequent lecturer to federal, state and local law enforcement personnel, as well as to the trade, on matters relating to intellectual property protection and licensing. Sporn has been featured in publications including Corporate Counsel, Global Legal Post and Women’s Wear Daily.
Sporn received his J.D. Magna Cum Laude from Brooklyn Law School where he was a notes editor on the Brooklyn Law Review and received the Stanley Nathanson Award for outstanding leadership & scholarship. Following Brooklyn Law School, Sporn was an associate at Proskauer Rose. He received his B.A. at Oberlin College of Arts & Sciences and Oberlin Conservatory of Music.
Partner, Barnes & Thornburg LLP
David M. Spooner is a partner in the Corporate Department and Co-Chair of the International Trade Practice Group. Mr. Spooner represents governments, trade associations, and corporate clients on international trade matters, including trade remedies, trade policy and customs issues. He uses his past experience as a high-level political appointee in the Executive Branch and on Capitol Hill to assist clients with their advocacy efforts before both branches of government, as well as before foreign governments.
Prior to entering private practice, Mr. Spooner served as the Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Import Administration. In that capacity, Mr. Spooner led U.S. Government enforcement of trade remedy laws, principally the antidumping and anti-subsidy laws. He administered the Foreign Trade Zone system; oversaw apparel trade policy and the implementation of laws governing trade in apparel; managed trade remedy negotiations at the World Trade Organization (WTO), as well as dispute resolution proceedings at the WTO; chaired U.S.-China talks on macroeconomic reforms and the steel industry; and supervised the US Department of Commerce’s import safety initiatives.
Prior to his Senate confirmation as Assistant Secretary, Mr. Spooner served as the Chief Textile and Apparel Negotiator and Transition Coordinator in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR). While at USTR, he was a principal negotiator for free trade agreements with Central America, the Dominican Republic, Singapore, Australia, Chile, Panama, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Colombia and Peru, principally negotiating customs enforcement, apparel and textile, origin and safeguard provisions. He was heavily involved in building support for congressional passage of the Bush Administration’s trade agenda. Mr. Spooner also negotiated a comprehensive apparel trade agreement with China and concluded bilateral customs and quota arrangements with several nations.
Before his appointment to USTR, Mr. Spooner worked on Capitol Hill, managing the Washington D.C. office and serving as the legislative director and press secretary for a member of Congress, serving as Communications Director for the U.S. House Committee on Agriculture, and working for the U.S. House Committee on Rules, which manages debate and amendments in the House of Representatives.
Mr. Spooner is a noted speaker at industry events with a particular focus on the regulatory issues facing retailers and apparel brands. He is often quoted in news stories on trade remedy disputes and trade agreement negotiations.
Mr. Spooner earned his J.D. from the College of William & Mary School of Law and his B.A. from the University of Virginia.
He is admitted to practice in Washington, D.C., and Virginia and before the U.S. Court of International Trade and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.
President & CEO, The National Council of Textile Organizations
Auggie has worked in government service or government relations in Washington, D.C. since 1981. Most recently he served as Executive Director of the American Manufacturing Trade Action Coalition, a trade association dedicated to furthering the interests of U.S. manufacturing. At earlier points in his career, he was Deputy Assistant Secretary for Textiles & Apparel at the U.S. Department of Commerce under President George H. W. Bush, and Chief of Staff to U. S. Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina. Auggie earned a B.S. in Agricultural Economics from Clemson University.
President, United States Fashion Industry Association
Julia K. Hughes is President of the United States Fashion Industry Association (USFIA), which represents brands, retailers, importers, and wholesalers based in the United States and doing business globally. She represents the industry in front of the U.S. government as well as international governments and stakeholders, explaining how fashion companies create high quality jobs in the United States and economic opportunities around the world.
An expert on textile and apparel trade issues, Julie has testified before Congress and the Executive Branch. She frequently speaks at international conferences including the China & Asia Textile Forum, Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT), Harvard University’s Bangladesh Development Conference, MAGIC, Prime Source Forum, Vietnam Textile Summit, and others.
Julie served as the first President and is one of the founders of the Washington Chapter of Women in International Trade (WIIT) and is one of the founders of the WIIT Charitable Trust. She also was the first President of the Organization of Women in International Trade (OWIT). In 1992, she received the Outstanding Woman in International Trade award and in 2008, the WIIT Lifetime Achievement Award. She also is a member of the International Women’s Forum.
She has an M.A. in International Studies from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and a B.S. in Foreign Service from Georgetown University.
Board Member, Center for Equal Opportunity
Roger Clegg is a Board Member at and former President and General Counsel of the Center for Equal Opportunity. He focuses on legal issues arising from civil rights laws--including the regulatory impact on business and the problems in higher education created by affirmative action. A former Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Reagan and Bush administrations, Clegg held the second highest positions in both the Civil Rights Division (1987-91) and in the Environment and Natural Resources Division (1991-93). He has held several other positions at the U.S. Justice Department, including Assistant to the Solicitor General (1985-87), Associate Deputy Attorney General (1984-85), and Acting Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Policy (1984). Clegg is a graduate of Yale University Law School (1981).
Professor of Law, University of San Diego School of Law (Retired)
Gail Heriot is a recently retired law professor from the University of San Diego. She also served as a member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights from 2007 to 2025. She is also the chairman of the board of the American Civil Rights Project and the chair emerita of the Civil Rights practice group at the Federalist Society for Law & Public Policy.
Professor Heriot is a prolific writer in the area of civil rights. She is the author of many law review articles. She is also the editor (along with Maimon Schwarzschild) of the 2021 anthology, A Dubious Expediency: How Race Preferences Damage Higher Education. Her upcoming book is entitled, Why We Walk on Eggshell: How Our Civil Rights Laws Helped Bring About the Woke Era—And the Trump Era, Too.
Her writings for a general audience have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the San Diego Union-Tribune, the National Review and many other newspapers and magazines.
In 1996, she co-chaired the successful “Yes on Proposition 209” campaign, which amended the California Constitution to prohibit state-sponsored discrimination or preferential treatment based on race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin. In 2020, she co-chaired the “No on Proposition 16” campaign, which successfully prevented Proposition 209’s repeal.
Partner, Schaerr Jaffe LLP
Gene Schaerr specializes in handling—and usually winning—civil appeals, writ proceedings and similar matters, both in appellate courts and in the law-focused proceedings at the trial-court or agency level that often determine success or failure on appeal. He has argued and won dozens of cases in a variety of forums—including the U.S. Supreme Court (where he has argued six cases), every federal circuit, and numerous federal district courts and state appellate courts. His win rate in the dozens of federal appeals he has argued in the past six years is over 75 percent.
He was a coordinator of Sidley Austin's appellate practice from 1993 until 2005, and from 2005 until 2014 was the chair of the nationwide appellate practice at Winston & Strawn—a practice he led to numerous recognitions in such publications as the Appellate Hot List. His personal practice successes have won him repeated recognition in such publications as Best Lawyers in Washington, D.C., Legal 500, D.C. Superlawyers, and Best Lawyers in America. In January 2014, Mr. Schaerr formed his own boutique litigation firm so that he could serve his clients without the conflicts and inefficiencies inherent in big-firm law practice.
Substantively, Mr. Schaerr's experience includes not only virtually every area of federal law, defamation, higher education law, immigration, insurance coverage, labor and employment, patent and trademark, privacy, product liability and warranty, statutory interpretation and tax.He has represented clients in virtually every sector, including automotive, communications, energy, financial services, health care, higher education, insurance, maritime, pharmaceuticals, technology and state and local government. He also teaches courses in Supreme Court litigation, religious freedom litigation and advanced litigation skills as an adjunct professor of law at the Brigham Young University law school.
Mr. Schaerr began law practice in 1987 following clerkships on the U.S. Supreme Court (for Chief Justice Warren Burger and Justice Antonin Scalia) and on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (for then- Judge Kenneth Starr). He graduated in 1985 from the Yale Law School, where he was Editor-in-Chief of the Yale Journal on Regulation and Senior Editor of the Yale Law Journal. From 1991 to 1993, he served in the White House as Associate Counsel to the President, where he had responsibility for a wide range of constitutional and administrative-law issues, including those involving economic regulation, higher education, separation of powers, federalism and religious freedom. He serves as Chairman of the Constitutional Sources Project, a digital resource providing free public access to historical materials relevant to the U.S. Constitution.
Julius L. Chambers Distinguished Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Civil Rights, University of North Carolina School of Law
Theodore M. Shaw is the Julius L. Chambers Distinguished Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Civil Rights at the University of North Carolina School of Law at Chapel Hill. Professor Shaw teaches Civil Procedure and Advanced Constitutional Law/Fourteenth Amendment. Before joining the faculty of UNC Law School, from 2008-2014 Professor Shaw taught at Columbia University Law School, where he was Professor of Professional Practice. During that time he was also “Of Counsel” to the law firm of Norton Rose Fulbright (formerly Fulbright & Jaworski, LLP). His practice involved civil litigation and representation of institutional clients on matters concerning diversity and civil rights.
Professor Shaw was the fifth Director-Counsel and President of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., for which he worked in various capacities over the span of twenty-six years. He has litigated education, employment, voting rights, housing, police misconduct, capital punishment and other civil rights cases in trial and appellate courts, and in the United States Supreme Court.From 1982 until 1987, he litigated education, housing, and capital punishment cases and directed LDF's education litigation docket. In 1987, under the direction of LDF's third Director-Counsel, Julius Chambers, Mr. Shaw relocated to Los Angeles to establish LDF's Western Regional Office. In 1990, Mr. Shaw left LDF to join the faculty of the University of Michigan Law School, where he taught Constitutional Law, Civil Procedure and Civil Rights. While at Michigan, he played a key role in initiating a review of the law school's admissions practices and policies, and served on the faculty committee that promulgated the admissions program that was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2003 in Grutter v. Bollinger.
In 1993, Mr. Shaw returned to LDF as Associate Director-Counsel, and in 2004, he became LDF's fifth Director-Counsel. Mr. Shaw's legal career began as a Trial Attorney in the Honors Program of the United States Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division in Washington, D.C., where he worked from 1979 until 1982.
Mr. Shaw has testified on numerous occasions before Congress and before state and local legislatures. His human rights work has taken him to Africa, Asia, Europe, and South America. In addition to teaching at Columbia and at Michigan Law School, Professor Shaw held the 1997-1998 Haywood Burns Chair at CUNY School of Law at Queens College and the 2003 Phyllis Beck Chair at Temple Law School. He was a visiting scholar at the Constitution Center in Philadelphia in 2008-2009. He is a member of the faculty of the Practicing Law Institute (PLI).
Mr. Shaw served on the Obama Transition Team after the 2008 presidential election, as team leader for the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department.
Partner, Consovoy McCarthy Park PLLC
Mr. Consovoy assists clients on a broad range of litigation and appellate issues primarily before the Supreme Court of the United States and federal appellate and district courts, as well as before federal agencies. Mr. Consovoy represents clients in cases involving constitutional issues, interpretation and enforcement of federal statutes, administrative law, civil rights disputes, and a variety of other civil litigation issues. Mr. Consovoy recently argued two cases—Spokeo v. Robbins and Evenwel v. Abbott—before the Supreme Court of the United States.
Mr. Consovoy is a former law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, Judge Edith H. Jones of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, and the 17th Judicial Circuit of Virginia. Mr. Consovoy is a member of the Edward Coke Appellate Inn of Court and was named by Law360 as a “rising star” in appellate law for 2013. Since 2011, Mr. Consovoy has been the co-director of the Supreme Court Clinic at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University, where he also is the co-director of the Administrative Law Clinic.
Mr. Consovoy earned his B.A. from Monmouth University, and his J.D. magna cum laude from George Mason University School of Law. Mr. Consovoy is a member of the Virginia and District of Columbia bars.
Chief Deputy Attorney General, Impact Litigation Section, Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General
Adjunct Professor, George Washington University Law School
Freelance Journalist and Author
Stuart Taylor, Jr. is a Washington writer focusing on legal and policy issues and a National Journal contributing editor. He occasionally practices law.
Taylor has coauthored three books. All have been acclaimed by commentators across the ideological spectrum. In January 2017, KC Johnson and Taylor authored The Campus Rape Frenzy: The Attack on Due Process at America's Universities. In 2012, Richard Sander and Taylor authored Mismatch: How Affirmative Action Hurts Students It's Intended to Help, and Why Universities Won't Admit It. In 2007, Taylor and Johnson authored Until Proven Innocent: Political Correctness and the Shameful Injustices of the Duke Lacrosse Rape Fraud. Sander and Taylor have also filed amicus briefs in Supreme Court cases involving admissions preferences.
Since 1980, Taylor has done reporting and commentary about issues ranging from the biggest Supreme Court cases to race, voting rights, mindlessly excessive criminal penalties, guilt-presuming campus rape processes, journalistic bias, the death penalty, war powers, gerrymandering, guns, polarization, civil liberties, national security, torture, campaign finance, education, impeachment, and other issues. He has often been called one of the nation's best legal journalists and is known for challenging both liberal and conservative conventional wisdom.
Taylor was a reporter for The New York Times from 1980-1988, covering legal affairs and then the Supreme Court. He wrote commentaries and long features for The American Lawyer, Legal Times and their affiliates from 1989-1997, and for National Journal and Newsweek from 1998 through 2010. He has written (less often) on a freelance basis for numerous publications since 2010. He has written op-eds for The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, USA Today, and The New York Daily News and longer commentaries for RealClearPolitics, The Atlantic, The New Republic, the (late) Weekly Standard, National Review, Slate, The Daily Beast, Harper’s, Reader’s Digest, Time and other magazines. He has been interviewed on all major television and radio networks. He taught “Law and the News Media” at Stanford Law School in 2011 and 2012 and practices law on occasion.
Taylor graduated from Princeton University in 1970 with an A.B. in History. After working as a reporter for the Baltimore Evening Sun and Sun from 1971-1974, he moved to Harvard Law School, was a Harvard Law Review note editor, and graduated in 1977 at the top of his class, with high honors. He also won a Frederick Sheldon Traveling Fellowship and traveled around the world in 1977-1978 while studying freedom of the press in the United Kingdom and Kenya.
Taylor practiced law with Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering, in Washington, D.C., from 1977-1980 before returning to journalism in 1980 by joining the Washington Bureau of The New York Times.
Taylor's journalism honors include the 2009 Northern California Innocence Project Media Award for his work on the Duke lacrosse rape fraud; a 2002 National Headliner Award for best special magazine column on one subject; and a share of The American Lawyer’s National Magazine Award for a March 1990 special issue on the drug war. He was a National Magazine Award finalist in 1993 and 1997 and was nominated by The New York Times for a Pulitzer Prize in 1988.
Alston & Bird Professor of Law, Duke University School of Law
Professor Young teaches constitutional law, federal courts, and foreign relations law. He is one of the nation's leading authorities on the constitutional law of federalism, having written extensively on the Rehnquist Court's "Federalist Revival" and the difficulties confronting courts as they seek to draw lines between national and state authority. He also is an active commentator on foreign relations law, where he focuses on the interaction between domestic and supranational courts and the application of international law by domestic courts. Professor Young also writes on constitutional interpretation and constitutional theory. He has been known to dabble in maritime law and comparative constitutional law.
A native of Abilene, Texas, Professor Young joined the Duke Law faculty in 2008, after serving as the Charles Alan Wright Chair in Federal Courts at the University of Texas at Austin School of Law, where he had taught since 1999. He graduated from Dartmouth College in 1990 and Harvard Law School in 1993. After law school, he served as a law clerk to Judge Michael Boudin of the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals (1993-94) and to Justice David Souter of the U.S. Supreme Court (1995-96). Professor Young practiced law at Cohan, Simpson, Cowlishaw, & Wulff in Dallas, Texas (1994-95) and at Covington & Burling in Washington, D.C. (1996-98), where he specialized in appellate litigation. He has also been a visiting professor at Harvard Law School (2004-05) and Villanova University School of Law (1998-99), as well as an adjunct professor at Georgetown University Law Center (1997).
Elected to the American Law Institute in 2006, Professor Young is an active participant in both public and private litigation in his areas of interest. He has been the principal author of amicus briefs on behalf of leading constitutional scholars in several recent Supreme Court cases, including Medellin v. Texas(concerning presidential power and the authority of the International Court of Justice over domestic courts) and Gonzales v. Raich (concerning federal power to regulate medical marijuana).
Professor of the Practice of Economics, Duke University
Michelle P. Connolly is Professor of the Practice in the Economics Department at Duke University. She was the Economics Director of Duke in New York: Financial Markets and Institutions Program for 2007-2009 and the Director of EcoTeach for several years. She currently serves as the Director of the Honors Program in Economics and a member of the Duke Alumni Association Board.
In 2011, Professor Connolly won the Howard D. Johnson Trinity College Teaching Prize and was named among the top five percent of Duke University Undergraduate Instructors in 2009, 2010 and 2011.
Professor Connolly previously served as Chief Economist of the Federal Communications Commission in 2006-2007 and 2008-2009, and as an Economist for the International Research Function for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York from 1996 to 1997. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa and Summa Cum Laude from Yale University in 1990, and went on to earn her M.A. and M.Phil in economics. Professor Connolly received her Ph.D. in economics from Yale University in 1996.
Professor Connolly’s research and teaching focus specifically on international trade, telecommunications policy, media policy, education, growth, and development. She has received funding for her research from the National Science Foundation, the Duke Arts and Sciences Research Council Grants, the Spencer Grant, and the Teagle Grant.
Professor Connolly has published in numerous journals, including the American Economic Review, the American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, the Journal of Development Economics, the Journal of Economic History, the Journal of Economic Growth, the Review of Industrial Organization, and Current Issues in Economics and Finance.
In 2011, Professor Connolly testified before Congress and participated in a White House panel on Spectrum Issues. She has been presenting her work at university seminars and international conferences since 1996. Some of her appearances were at the ACLP Advanced Communications 2009 Summit, where she was a panelist and moderator, at the conference on “Wireless Technologies: Enabling Innovation and Economic Growth”, where she served as a keynote panelist, and at the Martin H. Crego Lecture in Economics, an all college Lecture at Vassar College. In 2013 Professor Connolly was awarded a National Science Foundation Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace Grant, “Dollars for Hertz: Making Trustworthy Spectrum Sharing Technically and Economically Viable.”
Executive Vice President, CTIA
Brad Gillen joined CTIA in 2014 and is responsible for shaping the association's strategic and policy initiatives, as well as helping manage the association's day-to-day operations.
Most recently, Mr. Gillen was a partner at Wilkinson Barker Knauer, LLP, specializing in telecommunications policy and strategy.
Mr. Gillen was formerly a Legal Advisor to then-FCC Commissioner Baker responsible for broadband, new technologies and media issues. He also served in other senior policy roles at the FCC and with DISH Network.
Mr. Gillen graduated from Hampden-Sydney College, and earned his law degree from the University of Virginia School of Law.
Chip Pickering has been CEO of INCOMPAS since January 2014. During that time, INCOMPAS has achieved significant growth with leading internet, backbone, business broadband, wireless, and international companies. Under his leadership, INCOMPAS has led numerous public policy campaigns promoting competition through an open internet and in the business broadband market.
Pickering was a six-term Congressman representing Mississippi’s Third District. During his time in the House, he served on the Energy & Commerce Committee, where he was vice chairman from 2002 to 2006 and a member of the Telecommunications Subcommittee.
He also was co-chairman and founder of the Congressional Wireless Caucus and an assistant minority whip of the House. Previously, Chip worked for Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and served as a staff member on the Senate Commerce Committee, where he helped shape the Telecommunications Act of 1996.
Because of his role in drafting the 1996 Act, he became well known as a Congressional leader on telecommunications issues. While in Congress, Chip served as chair of the subcommittee overseeing the transition to the commercial internet, the establishment of domain names, registries, and internet governance. He also successfully led a bipartisan legislative effort to codify net neutrality principles through the House in 2006.
Prior to joining INCOMPAS, Chip was a partner with Capitol Resources LLC, a public affairs and government relations firm, where he represented an array of telecom clients, including wireless, cable and competitive broadband providers, as well as non-profits and companies specializing in education, energy, technology and defense.
Founder and President, Salt Point Strategies
David Redl is the Founder and President of Salt Point Strategies, a strategic advising firm focused on the technology and telecom sectors. David is an attorney and former government executive with experience in both the legislative and executive branches of the U.S. government in the telecommunications, media, and technology fields.
David previously served as Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information and the Administrator of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration. During his tenure, he led U.S. efforts to ensure American leadership in 5G, to bring broadband to more rural Americans, and to promote a free, open, and secure Internet around the world.
David also represented the United States in international forums, including leading U.S. efforts before the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, the Inter-American Telecommunication Commission, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, and the International Telecommunication Union.
In the legislative branch, David served as Chief Counsel for Communications and Technology on the majority staff of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce. While at Energy and Commerce, he worked extensively on telecommunications, media, and technology laws, including the successful passage of laws authorizing the first-ever spectrum incentive auction, the creation of the First Responder Network Authority, and reauthorization of the satellite television laws.
Prior to his government service, David started his career as Director of Regulatory Affairs at CTIA, an international trade association of the wireless communications industry.
Mr. Redl received his B.A. in Journalism and his B.A. in Political Science from the Pennsylvania State University and his J.D. from the Catholic University of America with a certificate from the Institute for Communications Law Studies. He is a member of the New York and District of Columbia Bars.
Managing Partner, Wilkinson Barker Knauer LLP
Bryan Tramont, the firm’s managing partner, offers strategic counsel to Fortune 100 companies and trade associations, as well as small and mid-sized telecommunications and media companies, on all aspects of communications law and regulation. He is regularly called on to advise companies as they develop and evaluate new business opportunities in the technology, media, and telecommunications sectors. Mr. Tramont also designs and leads the execution of the firm’s strategic plan and directs client management and development. Mr. Tramont has been recognized by leading publications like Legal 500, Chambers USA, and Washingtonian as one of the nation’s top communications lawyers. In 2017, he was named to the inaugural Legal 500 Hall of Fame List, which highlights individuals who have received constant praise by their clients and who have been recognized by the Legal 500 as an elite leading lawyer for six consecutive years. He has been awarded The Best Lawyers in America © 2017 “Lawyer of the Year” for Media Law and “Lawyer of the Year" in Communications Law in 2016. In 2016, he was also named one of the Top 10 Washington, DC Super Lawyers.
Mr. Tramont serves on the Commerce Spectrum Management Advisory Committee (CSMAC), advising the Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information at NTIA. Appointed under the Bush and Obama Administrations, he also served as the committee’s Co-Chairman from 2008-2010. In addition, Mr. Tramont is active in the Federal Communications Bar Association, where he served in a variety of leadership roles, including as President from 2010-11 and has been awarded the organization’s Distinguished Service Award. Mr. Tramont chairs the Federalist Society’s Telecommunications Practice Group Executive Committee, serves on the International Institute of Communications Canada Board of Directors, and previously served on the Governing Committee of the ABA Forum on Communications Law. Mr. Tramont currently is an adjunct law professor at The Catholic University of America as part of the Communications Law Institute, is a senior adjunct fellow at the University of Colorado, Boulder, has served as the Syracuse University Law School’s Practitioner in Residence, and is on the Board of Trustees at William Woods University. Mr. Tramont is the author of numerous articles on communications policy and is a frequent speaker and lecturer at academic and industry events. Prior to joining Wilkinson Barker Knauer, Mr. Tramont served as Chief of Staff of the Federal Communications Commission under Chairman Michael Powell. As Chief of Staff, Mr. Tramont managed all aspects of the agency’s operations and directed FCC staff in implementing all components of the agency’s policy portfolio including media, broadband, mobility, and traditional telephone services. Before being elevated to Chief of Staff, Mr. Tramont was Chairman Powell’s Senior Legal Advisor, advising him on strategic policy matters and on wireless, international, technology, satellite, and consumer issues. Mr. Tramont also served as Senior Legal Advisor to Commissioner Kathleen Abernathy and, before that, to Commissioner Harold Furchtgott-Roth. He also served as a law clerk for the Honorable Duane Benton on the Supreme Court for his home state of Missouri. In addition, Mr. Tramont has served as an expert witness in a number of communications-related litigation matters.
Bryan Tramont graduated summa cum laude from The George Washington University with a degree in political science. He earned his law degree from Yale Law School, where he served as editor of the Yale Law & Policy Review.
Chairman, Federal Communications Commission
Brendan Carr is the Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. He previously served as the senior Republican Commissioner and as the FCC’s General Counsel. Nominated by both President Trump and President Biden, Carr has been confirmed unanimously by the Senate three times.
Described by Axios as “the FCC’s 5G crusader,” Carr has led the FCC’s work to modernize its infrastructure rules and accelerate the buildout of high-speed networks. His reforms cut billions of dollars in red tape, enabled the private sector to construct high-speed networks in communities across the country, and extended America’s global leadership in 5G.
Chairman Carr is also focused on expanding America’s skilled workforce—the tower climbers and construction crews needed to build next-gen networks. His jobs initiative promotes community colleges and apprenticeships as a pipeline for good-paying 5G jobs. He is recognizing America’s talented tower crews through a series of “5G Ready” Hard Hat presentations.
Chairman Carr leads a groundbreaking telehealth initiative at the FCC. The Connected Care Pilot Program supports the delivery of high-quality care to low-income Americans and veterans.
Chairman Carr’s time outside of Washington helps inform his approach to the job. He regularly hits the road to hear directly from community members and learn how changes in federal policies could help improve their lives.
Chairman Carr brings nearly 20 years of private and public sector experience in communications and tech policy to his position. Before joining the FCC as a staffer back in 2012, he worked as an attorney at Wiley Rein LLP in the firm’s appellate, litigation, and telecom practices. Previously, Chairman Carr clerked on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit for Judge Dennis Shedd. After attending Georgetown University for his undergrad, Chairman Carr earned his J.D. magna cum laude from the Catholic University of America’s Columbus School of Law where he served as an editor of the Catholic University Law Review.
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.
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.
Partner, Jones Day
Don McGahn represents clients before government agencies, in enforcement matters, and in court disputes arising from government regulation or action. He handles litigation, crisis management, regulatory compliance, and political issues.
Prior to rejoining Jones Day in 2019, Don served as Counsel to the President of the United States, advising Donald J. Trump on all legal issues concerning the President and his administration, including constitutional and statutory authority, executive orders, international agreements, tariffs, trade, administrative law, and national security. Don also managed the judicial selection process for the President. During Don's tenure, a historic number of judges were appointed to the federal bench, including two Supreme Court justices. In addition, he spearheaded President Trump's deregulation efforts, which resulted in deregulation at record rates. Following Don's departure from the White House, the President appointed him to the Council of the Administrative Conference of the United States, a nonpartisan, independent agency dedicated to promoting improvement to administrative agency processes.
Don's accomplishments have been recognized at the highest levels of government. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell stated that Don concluded his tenure "not only as the best White House Counsel I've seen on the job, but more broadly, as one of the most successful and consequential aides to any President in recent memory."
Don was nominated by President George W. Bush in 2008, and confirmed in the Senate by unanimous consent, to serve as a member of the Federal Election Commission. He also served as outside Counsel to the Committee on House Administration during the 113th and 114th Congresses and as general counsel to the National Republican Congressional Committee.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, D.C. Circuit
Judge Randolph was confirmed by the Senate and appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit by President George H. W. Bush in July 1990.
Judge Randolph received his B.S. degree in 1966 from Drexel University, majoring in economics and basic engineering. At Drexel, he was president of the debate society, vice president of the Student Senate, and a member of the varsity wrestling squad. In 1969, he received his J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, summa cum laude. Judge Randolph ranked first in his law school class all three years and was managing editor of the Law Review.
After graduation, Judge Randolph served as a law clerk to Judge Henry J. Friendly of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York.
Admitted to the California Bar in 1970 (and to the District of Columbia bar in 1973), Judge Randolph worked as Assistant to the Solicitor General, U.S. Department of Justice, in Washington, D.C., 1970-1973.
After two years in private practice, Judge Randolph was named Deputy Solicitor General of the United States, a position he held from 1975-1977.
In 1979, Judge Randolph was appointed Special Counsel to the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct (the Ethics Committee) of the United States House of Representatives, remaining in this position until 1980.
In the 1980s, Judge Randolph held a number of positions while in private practice, including Special Assistant Attorney General for the states of New Mexico (1985 90), Utah (1986-1990) and Montana (1983-1990). He also served as a Member of the Advisory Panel of the Federal Courts Study Committee.
From 1971-1990, Judge Randolph argued 23 times in the United States Supreme Court, winning 20 of his cases.
As an Adjunct Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center from 1974-1978 he taught courses in civil procedure and injunctions. In 1992 he taught a course in constitutional law. He is a Distinguished Adjunct Professor of Law at George Mason School of Law and for the past ten years has been teaching First Amendment law. He also serves on the Judicial Advisory Board of the George Mason University Law and Economics Center.
From 1993 through 1995 Judge Randolph was a member of the Committee on Codes of Conduct of the Judicial Conference of the United States, and from 1995 to 1998 served as the Committee's chairman. He also served as the judicial liaison to the American Bar Association’s Administrative Law Section.
Judge Randolph is a member of the Board of Visitors at Drexel University Law School and was named to the “Drexel One Hundred” as a leading alumnus. In 2002 he was presented the James Wilson Award by the University of Pennsylvania Law School. In November 2005 he delivered the Fifth Annual Barbara K. Olson Memorial Lecture at the Annual Lawyers Convention of the Federalist Society. He has published numerous articles, the most recent of which is in the June 2006 issue of the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy.
Judge Randolph is married to the Honorable Eileen J. O’Connor, formerly Assistant Attorney General, Tax Division, U.S. Department of Justice. His son John Trevor Randolph is an investment banker in New York. His daughter Cynthia Lee Randolph is an artist living in San Francisco.
President, Senior Executives Association
Bill Valdez was appointed as the President of the Senior Executives Association (SEA) in September 2016. As President, he sets SEA’s overall strategic direction and is focused on strengthening the Senior Executive Service (SES) through legislative and policy initiatives, building a leadership pipeline for the Executive Branch, and establishing SEA as a thought leader in the Washington, DC policy debates that impact not only the SES, but all civil service employees.
Mr. Valdez retired from Federal service as a career Senior Executive in July 2014. His career with the Department of Energy spanned over 20 years and he has extensive knowledge in the areas of R&D portfolio analysis and evaluation, energy/environmental technologies and policies, small business development, supply chain analysis, science and engineering workforce development, budget planning and execution, diversity and equal opportunity issues, science policy, human capital processes and policies, procurement processes and policies, corporate and strategic planning, and contract management.
Mr. Valdez held the positions of Acting Director, DOE Office of Economic Impact and Diversity; Director of Business Services, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy; and Director of Planning and Analysis, and Director for Workforce Development within DOE’s Office of Science. In addition, he was co-chair of the National Science and Technology Council’s Science of Science Policy Interagency Working Group from 2005-2014, and was a senior advisor at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) in the 1990s.
Mr. Valdez is an Adjunct Faculty at American University’s School of Public Affairs, where he specializes in Federal government evaluation and strategic planning and is a co-editor of “The Handbook of Federal Government Leadership and Administration,” which was published in November 2016.
Mr. Valdez was awarded the Presidential Rank Award (meritorious) in 2007, was elected as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in 2006, and was elected to Senior Executive Association’s Board of Directors in 2005 and served as Chairman from 2011-13.
Prior to working at DOE, Mr. Valdez worked as a Senior Project Manager in private industry where he provided strategic planning services to Asian and European multinational corporations. He also was a reporter in Austin, Texas.
Mr. Valdez received a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Texas and his Master of Arts in International Economics and Energy Policy from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.
Senior Counsel, Covington & Burling LLP and Founder & Chair, Common Good
Philip K. Howard is a well-known leader of government and legal reform in America. He is Chair of Common Good and a bestselling author, and has advised both parties on needed reforms. In his new book, Not Accountable (Rodin Books, 2023), he argues that public employee unions undermine democratic governance and should be unconstitutional.
Philip is the author of the bestseller The Death of Common Sense (Random House, 1995), The Collapse of the Common Good (Ballantine Books, 2002), Life Without Lawyers (W.W. Norton, 2009), The Rule of Nobody (W.W. Norton, 2014), and Try Common Sense (W.W. Norton, 2019). His commentaries are published frequently in major media outlets.
In 2002, Philip formed Common Good, a nonpartisan coalition dedicated to simplifying laws so that Americans can use common sense in daily choices. His 2010 TED Talk has been viewed by more than 750,000 people. His 2015 report, “Two Years, Not Ten Years,” exposed the economic and environmental costs of delayed infrastructure approvals, and its proposals have since been incorporated into federal law. Philip has appeared often on television and radio, including several times on Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show.”
The son of a minister, Philip got his start working summers at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory for Nobel laureate Eugene Wigner. He has been active in public affairs his entire adult life. He is Senior Counsel at the law firm Covington & Burling, LLP. A graduate of Yale College and the University of Virginia Law School, Philip lives in Manhattan with his wife Alexandra. They have four children.
Chief Legal Officer, Aledade
Ilona Cohen is the Chief Legal Officer at Aledade, Inc., a healthcare technology company that partners with primary care physicians to build and lead Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) – networks focused on delivering value-based care. At Aledade, Ms. Cohen oversees all legal operations and advises on deal structures, governance matters, policies, and compliance. She joined Aledade after serving nearly four years in the White House, first as Special Assistant to the President and Associate White House Counsel and then as the General Counsel of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). As General Counsel of OMB, Ms. Cohen provided advice to President Obama and other senior advisors on legal and regulatory matters, policy development, litigation, and compliance. She was also an integral part of designing and implementing the Administration’s technology initiatives, including the establishment of the U.S. Digital Service. Ms. Cohen has a broad range of experience and has served in other senior legal roles in the Executive Branch and in the U.S. Senate. She started her legal career in private practice at the law firm WilmerHale. Ms. Cohen received her B.A. and J.D. from the University of Michigan.
Partner, Latham & Watkins LLP
Steven Croley is a partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Latham & Watkins and a member of the Litigation & Trial Department and the Environment, Land & Resources Department.
Prior to joining Latham, Mr. Croley served as General Counsel for the United States Department of Energy. He oversaw all of the Department’s litigation, rulemaking, licensing, loans, intellectual property, permitting, procurement, ethics, cyber, CFIUS and other sensitive transactions, and energy policy matters. Mr. Croley actively managed the Department’s major litigation strategy and settlement decisions, with special focus on environmental litigation. He also actively managed the Department’s responses to congressional oversight requests, Government Accountability Office investigations, Inspector General investigations, and high-profile whistleblower matters.
Before joining the Energy Department, Mr. Croley served as Deputy White House Counsel for President Obama. He provided legal and strategic counsel to the President, Chief of Staff, and senior White House staff concerning major regulatory and litigation matters, as well as communications, congressional oversight, and crisis response. In this capacity, he oversaw all areas of domestic law – including financial regulation, healthcare, immigration, and criminal justice policy. Mr. Croley worked actively on major energy and environmental issues, including liquefied natural gas exports, federal permitting, petroleum reserves, rules under the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act, water resource issues, and Endangered Species Act issues. He first joined the White House as a Special Assistant to the President for Justice and Regulatory Policy on the Domestic Policy Council where he served as senior White House policy advisor for civil rights, criminal justice policy, firearm regulation, food safety, regulatory reform, and government transparency.
Previously, Mr. Croley served as a Special Assistant US Attorney in the Eastern District of Michigan, Civil Division. There, he litigated on behalf of the United States cases presenting questions of constitutional law, medical malpractice, civil fraud, immigration, employment, and civil procedure and jurisdiction, among others. He handled all civil cases, from initial filings, through discovery and dispositive motion or trial, through appellate argument.
Mr. Croley began his career as a law clerk to Judge Stephen F. Williams of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He then joined the faculty of the University of Michigan Law School, where he taught administrative law, civil procedure, torts, and a variety of specialty courses. He remains on the Michigan Law faculty.
Former Acting Attorney General
Jeffrey A. Rosen is a member of the Investigations and Regulatory Enforcement Practice of Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP. He previously served in the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) as Acting Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General, as well as Deputy Secretary and General Counsel at the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), and General Counsel and Senior Policy Advisor at the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB).
With decades of both public and private sector executive leadership experience, including past service on the global management committee of one of the world’s leading law firms, he has built a career specializing in the management of complex, sensitive, and consequential matters.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit
LAURENCE HIRSCH SILBERMAN, senior circuit judge; recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, June 19, 2008; born in York, PA, October 12, 1935; son of William Silberman and Anna (Hirsch); married to Rosalie G. Gaull on April 28, 1957 (deceased), married Patricia Winn on January 5, 2008; children: Robert Steven Silberman, Katherine DeBoer Fischer, and Anne Gaull Otis; B.A., Dartmouth College, 1957; LL.B., Harvard Law School, 1961; admitted to Hawaii Bar, 1962; District of Columbia Bar, 1973; associate, Moore, Torkildson and Rice, 1961–64; partner (Moore, Silberman and Schulze), Honolulu, 1964–67; attorney, National Labor Relations Board, Office of General Counsel, Appellate Division, 1967–69; Solicitor, Department of Labor, 1969–70; Under Secretary of Labor, 1970–73; partner, Steptoe and Johnson, 1973–74; Deputy Attorney General of the United States, 1974–75; Ambassador to Yugoslavia, 1975–77; President’s Special Envoy on ILO Affairs, 1976; senior fellow, American Enterprise Institute, 1977–78; visiting fellow, 1978–85; managing partner, Morrison and Foerster, 1978–79 and 1983–85; executive vice president, Crocker National Bank, 1979–83; lecturer, University of Hawaii, 1962–63; board of directors, Commission on Present Danger, 1978–85, Institute for Educational Affairs, New York, NY, 1981–85, member: General Advisory Committee on Arms Control and Disarmament, 1981–85; Defense Policy Board, 1981–85; vice chairman, State Department’s Commission on Security and Economic Assistance, 1983–84; American Bar Association (Labor Law Committee, 1965–72, Corporations and Banking Committee, 1973, Law and National Security Advisory Committee, 1981–85); Hawaii Bar Association Ethics Committee, 1965–67; Council on Foreign Relations, 1977–present; Judicial Conference Committee on Court Administration and Case Management, 1994; member, U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Court of Review, 1996–2003; Adjunct Professor of Law (Administrative Law and Labor Law) Georgetown Law Center, 1987–94; 1997; Adjunct Professor of Law, Harvard Law School, 1994-95, Adjunct Professor of Law, New York University Law School, 1995–96; Distinguished Visitor from the Judiciary, Georgetown Law Center, 2003–2019; co-chairman of the President’s Commission on The Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction, 2004–05; appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit by President Reagan on October 28, 1985.
Partner, Consovoy McCarthy Park PLLC
Jeffrey Harris is an experienced litigator who focuses on constitutional, appellate, and regulatory matters. He is currently a partner at Consovoy McCarthy Park PLLC. In 2015, he was named to the Legal Times list of “D.C.’s Rising Stars,” which identified “some of the most accomplished young attorneys in the D.C. area.” Mr. Harris previously served as Associate Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA). In that role, he was second in charge of the 50-person office within the Executive Office of the President that reviews all significant federal regulatory actions and coordinates regulatory policy across the federal government.
Before his government service, Mr. Harris was a partner at Bancroft PLLC and Kirkland & Ellis LLP, where his practice focused on Supreme Court, appellate, and complex litigation. Mr. Harris has extensive experience litigating before the U.S. Supreme Court. He has been the lead drafter of more than 100 merits briefs, amicus briefs, and certiorari-stage briefs, and he has contributed to 10 wins in cases before the Court.
Mr. Harris has also litigated numerous high-profile cases in the federal courts of appeals, federal and state trial courts, administrative agencies, and arbitral tribunals. He has successfully argued before the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Sixth, Ninth, Eleventh, and D.C. Circuits, achieving wins on behalf of airlines, telecommunications providers, and pro bono clients. He has also argued numerous dispositive motions in federal district court and has participated in the trial of a significant voting rights case.
Mr. Harris served as a law clerk to Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., of the U.S. Supreme Court, and Judges David Sentelle and Laurence Silberman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. He earned his J.D. magna cum laude from Harvard Law School and his A.B. magna cum laude from Georgetown University. He is a member of the District of Columbia and Virginia bars.
Appellate Counsel, Theodore Cooperstein PLLC
Theodore Cooperstein currently is an appellate attorney in the boutique law firm of Theodore Cooperstein PLLC, available for criminal and civil appeals in both state and federal courts. A former career prosecutor with twenty five years of service in the US Department of Justice, he was an Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida and the Southern District of Mississippi, and has served as a Military Intelligence Officer in the Army Reserves from 1989 to 2011, retiring with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. During the Trump Administration, he was appointed and served as the General Counsel of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Prior to joining the Southern District of Florida, Mr. Cooperstein served as a Special Assistant U.S. Attorney in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Maryland. He previously had served as Counsel to the Deputy Attorney General at the Department of Justice, and as Assistant General Counsel in the FBI Office of the General Counsel.
A.B., Dartmouth College; J.D., Stanford University; LL.M., Comparative and International Law, Georgetown University Law Center; Masters of Strategic Studies, U.S. Army War College
Stuart F. Delery is a litigation partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. Before joining the firm, he was the Acting Associate Attorney General of the United States, the third-ranking position at the U.S. Department of Justice. Mr. Delery’s practice focuses on representing corporations and individuals in high-stakes litigation and investigations that involve the federal government across the spectrum of regulatory litigation and enforcement.
As the Acting Associate Attorney General from 2014-2016, Mr. Delery oversaw the civil and criminal work of five of DOJ’s litigating divisions — Antitrust, Civil, Civil Rights, Environment and Natural Resources, and Tax — as well as components supporting state and local law enforcement, among others. As a member of DOJ’s senior management team, he assisted the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General in formulating and implementing DOJ policies. He routinely advised on the most significant legal questions facing the United States, including questions concerning the scope of authority of the federal government. Mr. Delery also served as Vice Chair of the Steering Committee of the President’s Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force and oversaw the Residential Mortgage-Backed Securities (RMBS) working group.
Previously, Mr. Delery was the Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division, the Department’s largest litigating component, a position to which he was confirmed by the Senate by unanimous consent. As head of the Civil Division from 2012-2014, he supervised nearly 1,000 lawyers representing the United States, the President and Cabinet officers, and other federal officials. The Civil Division’s docket covers the full range of government activities, including legal challenges to Congressional statutes, Administration policies and federal agency actions. He also supervised the DOJ’s enforcement efforts under the False Claims Act, FIRREA and the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act.
While in the Civil Division, Mr. Delery personally argued some of the government’s most significant cases, including high-profile appeals involving the unconstitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act, interpretation of the Affordable Care Act and the legality of the National Security Agency’s data collection programs. The then-Attorney General called Mr. Delery "a lawyer’s lawyer who, even as he has risen to the leadership of the department, continues to thrive in the court setting and routinely is called on to personally argue the most complex cases."
Earlier in his seven-year tenure at DOJ, Mr. Delery served in a number of senior positions, beginning as Chief of Staff and Counselor to the Deputy Attorney General in January 2009. His positions included Senior Counselor to the Attorney General, in which he advised on national security litigation and policy and matters arising from the Office of the Solicitor General, the Civil Division and the Office of Legal Counsel.
Throughout his DOJ tenure, Mr. Delery’s portfolio included national security policy issues and management of the government’s national security litigation docket. Major issues included detention policy, legal bases for use of force, access to national security information, surveillance programs, sovereign immunity, and foreign affairs. He has experience with transnational litigation under a range of statutes, including the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, the Alien Tort Statute, and the Anti-Terrorism Act, as well as litigation and investigations that turn on classified information or events that occurred in areas of armed conflict.
Mr. Delery led several significant DOJ initiatives. For example, in June 2013, the Attorney General asked Mr. Delery to lead the government-wide implementation of the Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Windsor, which struck down Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act as unconstitutional. That effort, which addressed more than 1,000 federal statutes, regulations and programs that involved marital status, involved a team of lawyers from across the Department and was completed in less than a year. At the time, the Human Rights Campaign called the government’s implementation of Windsor "the single largest conferral of rights to LGBT people in history." In 2015, Mr. Delery led the creation of the Department’s Service members and Veterans Initiative, designed to coordinate and expand DOJ’s work to protect the rights and interests of service members, veterans and their families.
In recognition of his service, Mr. Delery received the Edmund J. Randolph award, considered the Department of Justice’s highest award.
Prior to his government service, Mr. Delery practiced with an international law firm from 1995 to 2009, where he had a diverse litigation and securities practice. Mr. Delery’s clients included large corporations, a national accounting firm, financial institutions, a public university, individuals, non-profit and public-interest organizations, and international organizations. Mr. Delery’s matters while in private practice included constitutional and public policy litigation, including representation of the University of Michigan and its law school in Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger concerning the consideration of race in admissions; high-profile, international internal corporate investigations for boards of directors or board committees, including for the Special Investigative Committees of the Boards of Enron Corp. and WorldCom, Inc.; and cases involving securities and other financial frauds in federal and state courts, and in enforcement proceedings by the SEC and other regulators.
Mr. Delery clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justices Sandra Day O’Connor and Byron White and for Judge Gerald Bard Tjoflat of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. He received his law degree in 1993 from Yale Law School, where he served as an Articles Editor of the Yale Law Journal. Mr. Delery graduated with Highest Distinction from the University of Virginia in 1990.
Senior Labor and Employment Counsel, CHRO Association
Roger King is a highly regarded labor relations attorney, whose career spans more than 40 years. Roger recently retired as a partner with Jones Day law firm. He now serves as Senior Labor and Employment counsel for the Association.
Roger specializes in labor and employment, healthcare, collective bargaining, contract administration and representation campaigns. Roger represented the winning side as co-counsel in the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case known as Noel Canning, which successfully challenged President Obama’s authority to make recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board.
After graduating from Cornell University Law School, he was a Captain and Legal Services Officer in the United States Air Force, on the Staff of United States Senator Robert Taft, Jr. and, subsequently, was appointed as Professional Staff Counsel to the United States Senate Labor Committee.
Roger has testified before both the U.S. Senate and House Labor Committees, is a fellow of the College of Labor and Employment Lawyers, and serves on the Advocacy Committee of the American Society for Healthcare Human Resources Association (ASHHRA) and on the Executive Committee of the Ohio State Bar Association Labor and Employment Law Section Council.
He is a nationally recognized author/speaker on employment matters and has represented employers regarding labor and employment issues both before administrative agencies and in federal and state courts. He has represented the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), the HR Policy Association (HRPA), the National Manufactures Association (NAM), the American Hospital Association (AHA), and the Coalition for a Democratic Workplace (CDW) in federal courts regarding numerous labor law issues.
Other clients Roger has represented include the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Catholic Health Partners, MedStar Health, HCA, Texas Health Resources, Unity Point Health, UHS, Trinity Health, National Beef, General Cable, Orlando Health, ProMedica, Premier Health, Cedars-Sinai, Yale New Haven Health System, McLaren Health Care Corporation, Ohio, California and American Hospital Associations, Bon Secoure Health System, Kaleida Health, Sisters of Levenworth Health System, Lakeland Regional Medical Center, Clarion Clinic, Fisher-Titus Medical Center, Saint Joseph Health System, Benefis Healthcare, Community Health Systems, American Water Works, Macy’s Inc., Verizon and General Motors.
Partner, Kirkland and Ellis, LLP
John O'Quinn is a Partner in Kirkland's Washington, D.C. office. His practice focuses on litigation, including intellectual property disputes, commercial litigation, regulatory issues arising from or likely to lead to litigation, and other complex litigation matters at both the trial and appellate levels. He has extensive argument experience before both trial and appellate courts, and has argued in most of the U.S. Courts of Appeals, including the D.C. Circuit and the Federal Circuit. Mr. O'Quinn has been to trial multiple times, where he has examined expert and fact witnesses. Representative clients include Apple, Boeing, B. Braun Medical, Charter Communications, C.R. Bard, POET LLC, Siemens, and Teva Pharmaceuticals.
From 2006 to 2009, Mr. O'Quinn served in the United States Department of Justice. As Deputy Associate Attorney General, he was responsible for helping to oversee much of the government's civil litigation and reviewing proposed settlements of multi-million dollar civil cases brought by or against the government. As the Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Federal Programs Branch of the Civil Division, Mr. O'Quinn supervised over 100 attorneys charged with defending the constitutionality of federal statutes and regulations, representing the diplomatic and national security interests of the United States in court, and conducting significant Title VII, personnel, social security, Medicare and Medicaid-related litigation. Mr. O'Quinn worked with counsel from virtually every federal agency on complex civil litigation matters and personally directed significant cases defending the government's interests, arguing more than 20 cases in federal court. In February of 2009, Mr. O'Quinn was awarded the Office of the Secretary of Defense Medal for Exceptional Public Service for his leadership in defending the Department of Defense in lawsuits challenging the detention and trial of enemy combatants captured abroad by United States Armed Forces.
Mr. O'Quinn was previously an associate with Kirkland from 2003 to 2006. While on leave from the Firm, he served as special counsel to the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary for the nomination of Chief Justice Roberts. Prior to joining the Firm, Mr. O'Quinn was a law clerk for Justice Antonin Scalia of the U.S. Supreme Court and Judge David Sentelle of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
While at Kirkland, Mr. O'Quinn has also provided legal counseling and representation for individuals and organizations on a pro bono basis, including arguing a habeas petition on behalf of a defendant convicted of capital murder, and submitting FOIA requests on behalf of a civil rights organization.
Partner, WilmerHale
A nationally recognized litigator and counselor with more than thirty years' experience, David Ogden focuses his practice on complex disputes with serious financial implications. He served as the Deputy Attorney General of the United States from 2009 to 2010 and as Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division, United States Department of Justice, from 1999 to 2001. Mr. Ogden is chair of the firm's Government and Regulatory Litigation Group.
Former Chief Judge, United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
Judge Michel served for more than 22 years on the Federal Circuit, retiring on May 31, 2010. From December 25, 2004 until his retirement, he also discharged the duties of Chief Judge of this national court, serving simultaneously on the U.S. Judicial Conference -- the Judiciary's governing body -- and by appointment of the Chief Justice on its seven-judge Executive Committee.
He judged several thousand appeals and authored more than 800 opinions, one third concerning intellectual property law. Intellectual Asset Management magazine inducted him into its Hall of Fame and he was designated one of the 50 most influential leaders in intellectual property law in the world. His contributions were also recognized by lifetime achievement and similar awards by the American Intellectual Property Law Association (AIPLA); Intellectual Property Owners Education Foundation (IPO); the American Bar Association's Intellectual Property Section; Managing Intellectual Property magazine; the Sedona Conference; the Patent and Trademark Office Society (PTOS); the New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles Intellectual Property Law Associations; and the William C. Connor, the Giles S. Rich, and the Richard Linn Intellectual Property American Inns of Court. In 2010 the Los Angeles IP Inn was renamed in his honor as the Paul R. Michel IP Inn.
Judge Michel received the Jefferson Medal, the Eli Whitney Award, and the Katz-Kiley Prize as well as Honorary Doctor of Law degrees from the Catholic University of America and the John Marshall Law School. He is a lifetime Member of Honore of FICPI, the international association of private practitioners of intellectual property law. Williams College granted him the Kellogg Award for "outstanding leadership in law and public service."
Judge Michel has written numerous articles on patent law and advocacy, taught related courses and master classes at George Washington University, the University of Akron, and John Marshall law schools, serving as well on their IP advisory boards and on counterpart boards at the universities of California (Berkley), Washington, and Maryland. He co-authored a casebook, Patent Litigation and Strategy (West, 1999) and an August 2010 editorial in the New York Times on strengthening the patent system to promote prosperity and create new jobs.
A frequent speaker at conferences and law schools during his judicial tenure and since, he retired from a lifetime appointment to be free to speak out on the national need for better patent policy and protection of intellectual property and the vital, unmet resource needs of the courts, the PTO, the International Trade Commission, and other IP-related agencies. He was appointed Distinguished Scholar in Residence by IPO, following his retirement. Judge Michel also consults for law firms and their clients in intellectual property litigations, conducting moot courts, mock trials, case evaluations, editing briefs, advising on strategy and providing mediation and arbitration services.
Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
Adam Mossoff is Professor of Law at Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University. He has published extensively on why patents, copyrights, and other intellectual property rights have been—and should be—legally secured to innovators and creators as property rights. His scholarship has been relied on by the United States Supreme Court, by lower federal courts, and by U.S. federal agencies. He has been invited to testify numerous times before the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives on intellectual property legislation. His writings on intellectual property policy have also appeared in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Forbes, Investors Business Daily, and in other media outlets. His journal articles can be downloaded here.
Professor Mossoff is a longstanding member of the Executive Committee of the Intellectual Property Practice Group of the Federalist Society, on which he served as Chairperson from 2016-2018, and he is Chair of the Intellectual Property Working Group of the Regulatory Transparency Project of the Federalist Society. He is a Senior Fellow and Chair of the Forum for Intellectual Property at the Hudson Institute, a Visiting Intellectual Property Fellow at the Heritage Foundation, and a member of the Board of Directors of the Center for Intellectual Property Understanding. He is a member of the Intellectual Property Rights Policy Committee of ANSI and he has served as Chair and Vice-Chair of the Intellectual Property Committee of the IEEE-USA, on which he remains a member in good standing.
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.
Charles Tilford McCormick Professor of Law, University of Texas Law
Melissa Wasserman joined the University of Texas law faculty in 2016. Her research focuses on the institutional design of innovation policy, with a particular emphasis on patent law and administrative law. Her articles have been published or are forthcoming in both student edited law reviews and peer review journals including Stanford Law Review, Vanderbilt Law Review, Texas Law Review, Duke Law Journal, Review of Economics and Statistics, and Journal of Empirical Legal Studies. Prior to joining the Texas faculty, she served as Professor at the University of Illinois College of Law. Her work has been selected for presentation in the 2015 Yale/Stanford/Harvard Junior Faculty Forum and in 2012 she was awarded the University of Illinois College of Law’s Carroll P. Hurd Award for Excellence in Faculty Scholarship, which is given to the most outstanding piece of faculty scholarship published in the previous year.
Professor Wasserman received her B.S. in chemical engineering with high honors from Pennsylvania State University. She received her Ph.D. in chemical engineering from Princeton for her work on the thermodynamics of network-forming liquids at low temperatures. As a graduate student, Professor Wasserman was both a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow and American Association of University Women Selected Professions Fellow. She received her J.D. magna cum laude from New York University School of Law, where she served as an articles editor of New York University Law Review. Following law school, Professor Wasserman clerked for Judge Kimberly A. Moore of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and then was an academic fellow and lecturer at the Petrie Flom Center for Health Law, Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics.
U.S. Court of Appeals, D.C. Circuit
Judge Williams practiced law in New York City (at the firm of Debevoise Plimpton and as an Assistant U.S. Attorney) and then taught law at the University of Colorado Law School from 1969 to 1986, with visiting years at UCLA, SMU, and the University of Chicago (where he was also a fellow in law and economics). He was appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in 1986. His most recent book is a biography of Vasily Maklakov, The Reformer: How One Liberal Fought to Preempt the Russian Revolution (Encounter Books, 2017).
Partner, Kirkland & Ellis LLP
Neil Eggleston is a litigation partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Kirkland & Ellis LLP.
Neil has a distinguished record of public service, and has held a number of senior government roles. He was White House Counsel to President Obama from 2014 to 2017, and advised the president on all legal and constitutional issues across a broad spectrum of domestic and foreign policy matters. Neil’s practice focuses on enforcement defense including at the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), U.S. Attorney’s Offices, and other enforcement agencies.
Earlier in his career, Neil served as Associate Counsel to President Clinton from 1993 to 1994. Heals o served as Deputy Chief Counsel, U.S. House of Representatives Select Committee Investigating the Iran/Contra Affair (1987-1988); Assistant U.S. Attorney (1981-1987); and Chief Appellate Attorney for the Southern District of New York (1986-1987).
Neil served as a law clerk for the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit (1978-1979) and for Chief Justice Warren E. Burger on the United States Supreme Court (1979-1980).
Neil teaches a seminar in Presidential Power at Harvard Law School in the spring of 2017, 2019, 2020, and 2021 and at Yale Law School in the spring of 2018. He also frequently lectures at American Bar Association and similar seminars.
President, Center for Individual Rights
Todd Gaziano is the President of the Center for Individual Rights. Mr. Gaziano received his J.D. in 1988 from the University of Chicago Law School, where he was a John M. Olin Fellow in Law and Economics. He received his B.A. from West Virginia University, summa cum laude in 1985. He was selected as a Truman Scholar from West Virginia while an undergraduate.
Mr. Gaziano’s previous legal work includes service as a law clerk for U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit Judge Edith Jones, as an attorney in the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel, as a chief subcommittee counsel in the U.S. House of Representatives, as a Houston trial attorney, and as a chief corporate legal officer. He also served a six-year term as commissioner on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights (2008-2013), where he helped conduct oversight and investigations of civil rights agencies.
For most of the last 25 years, Mr. Gaziano was a legal scholar and public interest law leader, promoting individual liberty in the Supreme Court and Congress. From 1997 to 2013, he was the founding director of the Edwin Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation. From 2014 until he joined CIR, he was the Chief of Legal Policy and Strategic Research, and Director of the Center for the Separation of Powers, at Pacific Legal Foundation.
Maurice and Hilda Friedman Professor of Law, Columbia Law School; CEO, New Civil Liberties Alliance
Philip Hamburger is the Maurice and Hilda Friedman Professor of Law at Columbia Law School, and Chief Executive Officer at the New Civil Liberties Alliance. Before coming to Columbia, he was the John P. Wilson Professor at the University of Chicago Law School.
He writes on constitutional law and its history—with particular emphasis on religious liberty, freedom of speech and the press, judicial office, administrative power, and unconstitutional conditions.
His books are Separation of Church and State (Harvard 2002), Law and Judicial Duty (Harvard 2008), Is Administrative Law Unlawful? (Chicago 2014), The Administrative Threat (Encounter 2017), and Liberal Suppression: Section 501(c)(3) and the Taxation of Speech (Chicago 2018). A forthcoming book is Purchasing Submission: Conditions, Power, and Freedom (Harvard 2021).
He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and he has served on the board of directors of the American Society for Legal History. He has twice received the Sutherland Prize for the most significant contribution to English legal history, and has been awarded the Henry Paolucci - Walter Bagehot Book Award, the Hayek Book Prize, and the Bradley Prize.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit
Judge Katsas was appointed to the D.C. Circuit in December 2017. He graduated from Princeton University and Harvard Law School, where he was an executive editor on the Harvard Law Review. Between 1989 and 1992, he served as a law clerk to Judge Edward Becker on the Third Circuit, to then-Judge Clarence Thomas on the D.C. Circuit, and to Justice Thomas on the Supreme Court. Between 1992 and 2001, he was an associate and then partner in the Washington office of Jones Day, where he specialized in appellate and complex civil litigation. Between 2001 and 2009, he served in many senior positions in the Department of Justice, including as Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division and as Acting Associate Attorney General. In 2009, he returned to Jones Day. From January to December 2017, he served as Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy Counsel to the President.
Before joining the bench, Judge Katsas argued more than 75 appeals, including three cases in the Supreme Court, 13 cases in the D.C. Circuit, and cases in every other federal court of appeals. By appointment of the Chief Justice, he served on the Advisory Committee on Appellate Rules from 2013 to 2017. In 2016, he was elected to membership in the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers.
J.B. and Maurice C. Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law; Director of the Environmental Law Advocacy Center; Executive Director, Project for Older Prisoners, The George Washington University Law School
Jonathan Turley is a nationally recognized legal scholar who has written extensively in areas ranging from constitutional law to legal theory to tort law. After a stint at Tulane Law School, Professor Turley joined the GW Law faculty in 1990, and in 1998, became the youngest chaired professor in the school’s history.
He is the founder and executive director of the Project for Older Prisoners (POPS). He has written more than three dozen academic articles that have appeared in a variety of leading law journals including those of Cornell, Duke, Georgetown, Harvard, and Northwestern Universities, among others. He most recently completed a three-part study of the historical and constitutional evolution of the military system.
Professor Turley has served as counsel in some of the most notable cases in the last two decades, including his representation of the Area 51 workers at a secret air base in Nevada; the nuclear couriers at Oak Ridge, Tennessee; the Rocky Flats grand jury in Colorado; Dr. Eric Foretich, the husband in the Elizabeth Morgan custody controversy; and four former U.S. Attorney Generals during the Clinton impeachment litigation. Professor Turley also has served as counsel in a variety of national security and terrorism cases, and has been ranked as one of the top 10 lawyers handling military cases.
He has served as a consultant on homeland security and constitutional issues, and is a frequent witness before the House and Senate on constitutional and statutory issues as well as tort reform legislation. He also is a nationally recognized legal commentator; he ranked 38th in the top 100 most cited ‘public intellectuals’ in a recent study by Judge Richard Posner and was found to be the second most cited law professor in the country.
He is a member of the USA Today board of contributors and the recipient of the “2005 Single Issue Advocate of the Year” – the annual opinion award for the Aspen Institute and The Week magazine. More than 400 of his articles on legal and policy issues regularly appear in national newspapers. He also has worked as the CBS and NBC legal analyst, respectively, during national controversies.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit
Judge Rao was appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in March 2019. She graduated from Yale College in 1995 and the University of Chicago Law School in 1999. Following graduation, she served as a law clerk to Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and, in the 2001 October Term, as law clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas of the U.S. Supreme Court. Between her clerkships, Judge Rao served as counsel for nominations and constitutional law to the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary. In 2002, she joined the international arbitration group of Clifford Chance LLP in London, England. From 2005-2006, she served as Special Assistant and Associate White House Counsel to President George W. Bush. From 2006 to 2017, Judge Rao was a professor at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University, where she taught constitutional law, legislation and statutory interpretation, and the history and foundations of the administrative state. In 2014, she founded the Center for the Study of the Administrative State, a non-profit Center that promotes academic scholarship and public policy debates about administrative law. In July 2017, she was appointed to serve as the Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Office of Management Budget. She served in this position until her appointment to the D.C. Circuit.
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.
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