Adjunct Fellow, Competitive Enterprise Institute
Gregory Conko is an Adjunct Fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute and Vice President of Programs at DonorsTrust. His research at CEI focuses on health care, food and drug regulation, agriculture and agricultural trade, and nutrition and public health. He also has broad expertise in science and environmental policy and in administrative and regulatory law.
Since 2021, Conko has managed the grants and grantee programs at the donor-advised fund sponsor DonorsTrust, but he continues to research and write on policy matters for the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Before joining DonorsTrust, Conko was Deputy Director of the George Mason University Law & Economics Center, a Senior Fellow and later Executive Director of CEI.
Conko is the author or co-author of numerous books, studies, and articles, and Barron’s called his book, The Frankenfood Myth: How Protest and Politics Threaten the Biotech Revolution, co-authored with Henry I. Miller, one of the 25 best books of 2004. His other writings have appeared in such journals as Nature Biotechnology, Transgenic Research, Health Matrix: Journal of Law & Medicine, and the Cumberland Law Review, and in such newspapers as the Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, and USA Today.
Conko is a member of the Federalist Society’s Regulatory Transparency Project Working Group on FDA & Health, a member of the American Council on Science and Health’s Board of Scientific and Policy Advisors. He received a JD degree magna cum laude from the George Mason University School of Law and a BA in political science and history from American University. He lives in Virginia with his wife and son.
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.
Clinical Professor and Senior Scholar and Senior Fellow for Copyright Research and Policy of C-IP2, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
Sandra Aistars is Senior Fellow for Copyright Research and Policy and a Senior Scholar at the Center for Intellectual Property x Innovation Policy (C-IP2). She also leads the law school’s Arts & Entertainment Advocacy Program. Professor Aistars has over twenty years of advocacy experience on behalf of copyright and other intellectual property owners. She has served on trade missions and been an industry advisor to the Department of Commerce on intellectual property implications for international trade negotiations; worked on legislative and regulatory matters worldwide; frequently testified before Congress and federal agencies regarding intellectual property matters; chaired cross-industry coalitions and technology standards efforts; and is regularly tapped by government agencies to lecture in U.S. government-sponsored study tours for visiting legislators, judges, prosecutors, and regulators.
Immediately prior to joining Scalia Law, Professor Aistars was the Chief Executive Officer of the Copyright Alliance – a nonprofit, public interest organization that represents the interests of artists and creators across the creative spectrum. While at Scalia Law, she continues to collaborate with the Copyright Alliance as a member of its Academic Advisory Board. Professor Aistars currently serves on the boards of the Washington Area Lawyers for the Arts (WALA) and the Howard Intellectual Property Program (HIPP), and she has previously served as trustee of the Copyright Society of the USA (CSUSA). Professor Aistars has also previously served as Vice President and Associate General Counsel at Time Warner Inc. She began her legal career in private practice at Weil, Gotshal and Manges LLP.
Partner, Steptoe & Johnson LLP
Stewart Baker is a partner in the law firm of Steptoe & Johnson in Washington, D.C. From 2005 to 2009, he was the first Assistant Secretary for Policy at the Department of Homeland Security. His law practice covers cybersecurity, data protection, homeland security, and travel and foreign investment regulation; he has been awarded one patent.
Mr. Baker has been General Counsel of the National Security Agency and General Counsel of the commission that investigated WMD intelligence failures prior to the Iraq war. He is the author of Skating on Stilts, a book on terrorism, cybersecurity, and other technology issues; he also hosts the weekly Cyberlaw Podcast.
Senior Counsel, Electronic Privacy Information Center
Alan Butler is Senior Counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) in Washington, DC. In that capacity, Mr. Butler manages EPIC's litigation, including the Amicus Program, and files briefs in emerging privacy and civil liberties cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and other appellate courts. Mr. Butler has argued on behalf of EPIC in privacy and open government cases in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, the Third Circuit, and the Supreme Courts of New Mexico and New Jersey. Mr. Butler has authored briefs on behalf of EPIC in significant privacy cases, including an amicus brief in Riley v. California that was cited in the Supreme Court's unanimous opinion upholding Fourth Amendment protections for cell phones. He has also authored briefs on national security, open government, workplace privacy, and consumer privacy issues. Mr. Butler is also Chair of the Privacy and Information Protection Committee of the ABA Section on Civil Rights and Social Justice. He is co-author of the most recent edition of Communications Law and Policy: Cases and Materials and has also published several articles on emerging privacy issues, including: Products Liability and the Internet of (Insecure) Things: Should Manufacturers Be Liable for Damage Caused by Hacked Devices?, Get a Warrant: The Supreme Court's New Course for Digital Privacy Rights after Riley v. California, Standing Up to Clapper: How to Increase Transparency and Oversight of FISA Surveillance, and When Cyberweapons End Up on Private Networks: Third Amendment Implications for Cybersecurity Policy. Mr. Butler is a graduate of UCLA School of Law and Washington University in St. Louis, where he earned a B.A. in Economics. He is a frequent speaker and commentator on cybersecurity, consumer privacy, and surveillance law issues.
Senior Fellow and Academic Director, Penn Carey Law School
Gus Hurwitz is a Senior Fellow and the Academic Director of the Center for Technology, Innovation & Competition and the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School where he is working to develop academic and scholarly programs at the intersecution of law, technology, and policy.
He is also Director of Law & Economics Programs at the International Center for Law & Economics (ICLE), a think tank based in Portland, Oregon, where he directs its law and economics-focused research program and helps to translate academic research into applied policy issues.
Hurwitz's research focuses on the regulation of technology, including administrative and regulatory law, antitrust law, torts and products liability, and media law - alongside cognate fields. Inrecent years he has worked on an AI standardization initiative with Seoul National University, a UNICEF-organized study of broadband deployment to public schools in Rwanda, and a book on conglomerate and ecosystems theories of antitrust.
He has published over 30 articles and book chapters, two books (one on cybersecurity law & policy, one on media regulation in the digital era) and have two more in process, over 100 shorter writings (op-eds, shorter analyses, blog posts, &c), hosted over 100 podcast episodes, and regularly appear or am quoted in popular media (including the NY Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and Associated Press). His work has been cited by legislators, federal courts of appeals, and federal regulatory agencies.
He was previously a full professor and founding director of the Governance & Technology Center at the University of Nebraska, prior to which he was the inaugural research fellow at the Center for Technology, Innovation & Competition (CTIC). From 2007 to 2010, he was a trial attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division in the Telecommunications and Media Enforcement Section.
He also is, or has been, affiliated with the Classical Liberal Institute at New York University School of Law, the National Security Institute at George Mason University, and the American Enterprise Institute (AEI).
Before attending law school, Hurwitz worked at Los Alamos National Lab and interned at the Naval Research Lab. During this time his work was recognized by the Federal Laboratory Consortium, Los Alamos National Lab, IEEE & ACM, Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California, R&D Magazine, and even the Guinness Book of World Records.
A current list of Hurwitz’s publications is available on his website: GusHurwitz.net.
Senior Counsel and Director of Strategy, Future of Privacy Forum
Brenda Leong, CIPP/US, is Senior Counsel and Director of Strategy at the Future of Privacy Forum. She oversees strategic planning of organizational goals, as well as managing the FPF portfolio on biometrics, particularly facial recognition, along with the ethics and privacy issues associated with artificial intelligence. She works on industry standards and collaboration on privacy concerns, by partnering with stakeholders and advocates to reach practical solutions to the privacy challenges for consumer and commercial data uses. Prior to working at FPF, Brenda served in the U.S. Air Force, including policy and legislative affairs work from the Pentagon and the U.S. Department of State. She is a 2014 graduate of George Mason University School of Law.
Founding Partner, Cooper & Kirk PLLC
Charles J. Cooper is a founding member and the chairman of Cooper & Kirk, PLLC, “one of the Nation’s leading litigation boutiques” (Above The Law 2017). The National Law Journal recently wrote that Mr. Cooper’s “brilliant legal career has so far spanned five decades and thrust Cooper into the spotlight in some of the most historic moments of the country’s modern history.” He has argued nine cases before the United States Supreme Court and scores of appeals before each of the 13 federal courts of appeals and several state supreme courts. He has been lead trial counsel in numerous complex, weeks-long trials in federal courts throughout the country. Named by the National Law Journal as one of the 10 best litigators in Washington D.C., Mr. Cooper’s work has been reported in numerous press accounts, and he has been called a “powerhouse attorney” (Fortune 2015), “a hard-nosed litigator” (Washington Post 2017), and “one of the country’s most in-demand civil litigators and a Washington legal institution unto himself” (The American Spectator 2014).
After graduating from the University of Alabama School of Law in 1977, where he ranked first in his class and served as Editor-in-Chief of the Alabama Law Review, Mr. Cooper began his career as a law clerk to Judge Paul Roney on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and to Justice William H. Rehnquist in 1978–79. He then practiced law in Atlanta for two years before joining the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, where he served as the Deputy Assistant Attorney General in charge of, among other things, appellate matters. In 1985 President Reagan appointed him to the position of Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel, which is the office responsible for providing legal opinions and advice to the White House, the Attorney General, and Executive Branch departments and agencies on issues covering the full spectrum of federal constitutional, statutory, and regulatory law.
In 1988 he returned to private practice as a litigation partner in the Washington, D.C. office of McGuireWoods. From 1990 until the founding of Cooper & Kirk in 1996, he was a partner at Shaw Pittman (now Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman), where he headed the firm’s Constitutional and Government Litigation Group.
Mr. Cooper has represented a wide range of public and private clients in highly complex constitutional, civil rights, antitrust, healthcare, banking, intellectual property, elections, campaign finance, administrative, commercial, and government contract cases. He has led trial teams in cases that have won judgments and settlements valued in the billions of dollars and that have established ground-breaking constitutional precedents.
Much of Mr. Cooper’s practice has involved representing high-profile clients in nationally prominent matters, including: the State of Florida in a First Amendment suit brought by the Disney Company concerning its autonomous regulatory authority over its Disney World property; the Commonwealth of Virginia in a suit seeking to enjoin the removal of noncitizens from its voter rolls; 38 members of the Duke Lacrosse team falsely accused of rape by officials of Duke University and the City of Durham; Harper Lee in a copyright dispute with the heirs of Gregory Peck; high-ranking former government officials such as former Attorneys General John Ashcroft, Jeff Sessions, and William Barr, and Ambassador John Bolton; several Governors and United States Senators; over 100 Members of Congress; and many state, territorial, and local government bodies and officials. He has also represented and advised government officials and public figures in connection with sensitive private issues that needed to be, and were, resolved discreetly without becoming matters of public record.
In 1998 Chief Justice Rehnquist appointed Mr. Cooper to the Standing Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure of the Judicial Conference of the United States, where he served for three terms. He also served as a Public Member, appointed by President George H.W. Bush, of the National Commission on Judicial Discipline and Removal. He is a member of numerous professional associations, including the American Law Institute (since 1993) and the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers (since 1996). He is also an active member of the Federalist Society and the Republican National Lawyers Association, which in 2010 named him Republican Lawyer of the Year and in 2016 honored him with its Edwin Meese III Award.
Mr. Cooper has published scores of articles and spoken extensively on constitutional and legal policy topics. He has appeared before congressional committees on 26 occasions, testifying as an expert on a wide variety of legal issues, including the Chevron doctrine of judicial deference to administrative agencies, the diversity of citizenship jurisdiction of federal courts, statehood bills for Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia, and the impeachment of President Clinton.
Founding Principal, Gupta Wessler PLLC
Deepak Gupta is the founding principal of Gupta Wessler PLLC. He focuses on Supreme Court, appellate, and complex litigation on a wide range of issues, including constitutional law, class actions, and consumers’ and workers’ rights.
Deepak is “known as a skilled appellate lawyer” (New York Times), “one of the emerging giants of the appellate and the Supreme Court bar,” a “heavy hitter,” and a “principled” and “incredibly talented lawyer” (Law 360). He is described in Chambers and Partners USA as “an excellent lawyer” with a “vibrant appellate practice focused on public interest cases and plaintiff-side representations.” Fastcase recently recognized him as “one of the country’s top litigators,” noting that “what sets him apart” is his legal creativity. The National Law Journal has singled out Deepak’s “calm, comfortable manner that conveys confidence” in oral argument.
Deepak regularly appears in the U.S. Supreme Court and appellate courts nationwide. In the 2016-2017 U.S. Supreme Court term, Deepak’s firm was counsel of record for parties in three merits cases; he was lead counsel in two, prevailing in both. Beyond the Supreme Court, Deepak has handled appeals in every federal circuit and seven state supreme courts. He is frequently sought out by trial lawyers to defend their most consequential victories or resurrect worthy claims on appeal—often after years of hard-fought litigation. He also works with co-counsel to design cases from the ground up—focusing on class actions and administrative and constitutional challenges. In one class action, Deepak represented all of the nation’s federal bankruptcy judges, recovering more than $50 million in back pay for the judges over Congress’s violation of the Constitution’s Judicial Compensation Clause. As the American Lawyer observed, “it’s hard to imagine a higher compliment than being hired to represent federal judges.”
Deepak’s clients have included national nonprofits, state and local governments, members of Congress, retail merchants, tech companies, and classes of consumers and workers harmed by corporate wrongdoing. He currently represents the American Association for Justice (on forced arbitration and civil justice issues), Everytown for Gun Safety (in Second Amendment litigation), and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (in litigation over the Emoluments Clauses).
Before founding the firm in 2012, Deepak served as Senior Counsel for Litigation and Senior Counsel for Enforcement Strategy at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. As the first appellate litigator hired under Elizabeth Warren’s leadership, he launched the Bureau’s amicus program, defended its regulations, and worked with the Solicitor General’s office on Supreme Court matters. For seven years previously, he was an attorney at Public Citizen Litigation Group, where he founded and directed the Consumer Justice Project and was the Alan Morrison Supreme Court Project Fellow. Before that, he worked on voting rights litigation at the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, prisoners’ rights litigation at the ACLU, and religion clause litigation at Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
Deepak frequently engages in public advocacy and speaking, has testified multiple times before the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate, and appears frequently in the national print and broadcast media. He is currently a 2018-2019 Wasserstein Public Interest Fellow at Harvard Law School and has previously taught courses on public interest law and appellate advocacy as an Adjunct Professor of Law at Georgetown and American universities. He served as a law clerk to Judge Lawrence K. Karlton of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California and studied law at Georgetown, Sanskrit at Oxford, and philosophy at Fordham.
Deepak is an elected member of the American Law Institute and sits on the boards of directors of the National Consumer Law Center, The Impact Fund, and the Alliance for Justice, and the advisory boards of the University of California’s Civil Justice Research Initiative, the Biden Institute, and the Institute for Consumer Antitrust Studies.
Editor in Chief, Journal of Law, Economics & Policy
Assistant Professor of Law, George Mason University Antonin Scalia Law School
Paolo Saguato is an Assistant Professor of Law at Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University specializing in financial regulation. His research interests encompass the intersection of banking, securities and derivatives regulation; the international and comparative dynamics and regulations of financial institutions; financial innovation and technology; and corporate law and theory. His recent scholarship has been published in the Yale Journal on Regulation; the Stanford Journal of Law, Business and Finance; the Journal of Corporate Law Studies; and the Oxford Handbook of Financial Regulation.
Before joining Antonin Scalia Law School, Professor Saguato was a Research Fellow at the Georgetown Law Center (Institute of International Economic Law) and a Fellow at the London School of Economics and Political Science, where he received the Teaching Excellence Award. Before that he was a Global Hauser Fellow at New York University School of Law where he was affiliated with the Center for Financial Institutions. Professor Saguato earned a BA (Laurea in Scienze Giuridiche) and a JD (Laurea Magistrale in Giurisprudenza) summa cum laude at the University of Genoa (Italy) and a PhD in Private, Business, and International Law at the same university. In addition, he holds a LLM from Yale Law School, which he attended as a Fulbright Scholar, where he focused his studies on financial markets regulation and corporate law and was a senior editor of the Yale Journal on Regulation.
Professor Saguato teaches Business Associations and International Finance and Regulation.
A.B. Chettle Chair in Civil Procedure, Georgetown University Law Center
Professor Vladeck teaches civil procedure, federal courts, a practicum on privacy and technology (taught jointly with MIT), and directs the Civil Litigation Clinic, a student clinic that handles trial court litigation focused on public-interest cases. He also serves as Faculty Director of the Law Center’s Center on Privacy and Technology.
From 2002 to 2009, Professor Vladeck served as Director of the Civil Rights section of Georgetown Law’s Institute for Public Representation, a student clinic that handles complex trial court and appellate litigation focused on civil rights and other public-interest litigation, while also teaching civil procedure and federal courts. From 2009 to 2012, Professor Vladeck took leave from Georgetown to serve as the Director of the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Consumer Protection.
At the FTC, he supervised the Bureau’s 450 lawyers, investigators, paralegals and support staff in carrying out the Bureau’s work to protect consumers from unfair, deceptive or fraudulent practices. Before joining the Law Center faculty full-time in 2002, Professor Vladeck spent over 25 years with Public Citizen Litigation Group, a national public interest law firm, serving the last ten years as the Group’s director. He has briefed and argued a number of cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and more than sixty cases before federal courts of appeal and state courts of law resort.
He is a Senior Fellow of the Administrative Conference of the United States, a member of the National Academy of Sciences’ Committee on Law, Science and Technology, and an elected member of the American Law Institute. He also serves as Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Natural Resources Defense Council, and on the boards of the National Consumers Law Center and the Center for Democracy and Technology. Professor Vladeck frequently testifies before Congress and writes on administrative law, First Amendment, consumer protection, privacy, and access to justice issues.
Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights, U.S. Department of Agriculture
Devon Westhill is the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The U.S. Senate confirmed President Donald Trump’s nomination of Westhill on October 7, 2025.
Westhill returns to the USDA where he previously headed the civil rights office as Deputy Assistant Secretary in President Trump’s first term. His previous government appointments also include service at the U.S. Department of Labor, liaison to the Administrative Conference of the U.S., and liaison to the White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Prior to returning to government service, Westhill was President and General Counsel of a nonprofit civil rights organization.
Westhill has testified on civil rights matters before Congress, federal agencies, and as an expert witness in federal court. He has spoken hundreds of times at college campuses, conferences, and on radio and TV programs, and he is frequently quoted in print publications, and his writing has appeared in numerous national outlets. A U.S. Navy veteran, Westhill earned his BA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and his JD from the University of Florida.
George Mason University Foundation Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
TODD J. ZYWICKI is George Mason University Foundation Professor of Law at Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University and Research Fellow of the George Mason Law and Economics Center. During the Fall 2023 semester he served as the Visiting Scholar in Conservative Thought and Policy for the Bruce Benson Center for the Study of Western Civilization at the University of Colorado-Boulder. From 2020-2021 he was Chair of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Taskforce on Federal Consumer Financial Law. In 2021 he was inducted to the American College of Consumer Financial Services Lawyers. He is also a Senior Fellow of the F.A. Hayek Program for the Advanced Study of Politics, Philosophy, and Economics at George Mason University and a former Senior Fellow of the Cato Institute. From 2015-2017 he was Executive Director of the George Mason Law and Economics Center. He served as Co-Editor of the Supreme Court Economic Review from 2006-2017. From 2003-2004, Professor Zywicki served as the Director of the Office of Policy Planning at the Federal Trade Commission. He has also taught at Vanderbilt University Law School, Georgetown University Law Center, Boston College Law School, Mississippi College School of Law, and China University of Political Science and Law.
Professor Zywicki clerked for Judge Jerry E. Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and worked as an associate at Alston & Bird in Atlanta, Georgia, where he practiced bankruptcy and commercial law. He received his J.D. from the University of Virginia, where he was executive editor of the Virginia Tax Review and John M. Olin Scholar in Law and Economics. Professor Zywicki also received an M.A. in Economics from Clemson University and an A.B. cum Laude with high honors in his major from Dartmouth College.
Professor Zywicki is also a Lone Mountain Fellow of the Property and Environment Research Center, a Fellow of the International Centre for Economic Research in Turin, Italy, and a former Senior Fellow of the Goldwater Institute. During the Fall 2008 Semester Professor Zywicki was the Searle Fellow of the George Mason University School of Law and was a 2008-09 W. Glenn Campbell and Rita Ricardo-Campbell National Fellow and the Arch W. Shaw National Fellow at the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace. He has lectured and consulted with government officials around the world, including Iceland, Italy, Japan, and Guatemala. In 2006 Professor Zywicki served as a Member of the United States Department of Justice Study Group on “Identifying Fraud, Abuse and Errors in the United States Bankruptcy System.”
Professor Zywicki is the author of more than 130 articles in leading law reviews and peer-reviewed economics journals. He is one of the Top 10 most-cited law professors in the field of Commercial Law and one of the Top 25 law professors on Twitter as measured by engagement levels. He is one of the Top 50 Most Downloaded Law Authors at the Social Science Research Network. He has testified multiple times before Congress on issues of consumer bankruptcy law and consumer credit and is a frequent commentator on legal issues in the print and broadcast media, including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, The Washington Post, The Washington Times, Nightline, The Newshour with Jim Lehrer, Neil Cavuto Show, Fox & Friends, Smerconish, Fox News @ Night with Shannon Bream, Fox Business, CNN, CNBC, Bloomberg News, BBC, The Diane Rehm Show, Lou Dobbs Show, Jerry Doyle Show, and The Laura Ingraham Show.
Professor Zywicki is former Chairman and a current member of the Board of Directors of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and is a member of the Board of Directors of the Institute for Humane Studies, Bill of Rights Institute, the Executive Committee for the Federalist Society's Financial Institutions and E-Commerce Practice Group, the Board of Trustees of the Foundation for Research on Economics and the Environment. He formerly served on the Governing Board and the Advisory Council for the Financial Services Research Program at George Washington University School of Business. He is currently the Chair of the Academic Advisory Council for the following organizations: The Bill of Rights Institute, the film “We the People in IMAX,” and the McCormick-Tribune Foundation “Freedom Museum” in Chicago, Illinois. He is a member of the Board of Visitors of Ralston College and was a member of the Board of Trustees of Yorktown University. From 2005-2009 he served as an elected Alumni Trustee of the Dartmouth College Board of Trustees.
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.
Thomas M. Siebel Senior Fellow, The Hoover Institution, Stanford University; Gary T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus, UCLA School of Law
Eugene Volokh is the Thomas M. Siebel Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution (Stanford), as well as the Gary T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus and Distinguished Research Professor at UCLA School of Law. He recently retired from teaching at UCLA, after 30 years there, and is now focusing on research.
Volokh is the author of the textbooks The First Amendment and Related Statutes (8th ed. 2023), and Academic Legal Writing (5th ed. 2016), as well as over 100 academic law journal articles, mostly on First Amendment law. He is a member of The American Law Institute; the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Free Speech Law; and the creator and coauthor of The Volokh Conspiracy, a leading legal blog founded in 2002 (hosted at the Washington Post from 2014 to 2017 and now at Reason Magazine).
Professor of Law, University of Baltimore School of Law (on leave); Senior Counsel, U.S. Department of Justice
Professor Dolin’s scholarship centers on patent law with a specific focus on how the patent regime affects innovation, especially in bio-pharmaceutical areas. His work in these areas includes a number of scholarly articles, presentations, amicus briefs, and congressional testimony.
Dr. Dolin is currently on leave from his academic duties while he serves as Senior Counsel in the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice.
From January 2020 to January 2022, Professor Dolin served as a resident Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Palau. In this role, he (together with other members of the Court) heard appeals in civil, criminal, administrative, and constitutional law matters.
Prior to joining the University of Baltimore School of Law, Professor Dolin held visiting appointments in other law schools. He also served as a law clerk to the Hon. Pauline Newman, of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and the late Hon. H. Emory Widener Jr., of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
Rumors that he has a real Russian bear in his office are entirely true.
Partner, Shook, Hardy & Bacon LLP
Victor Schwartz chairs the firm's Public Policy Practice Group, which focuses on integrating litigation, government affairs and public relations. The group seeks to be the vanguard of developing public policy issues that will help improve our civil justice system. Mr. Schwartz also has an active appellate practice and advises product manufacturers on liability prevention, litigation and public relations issues.
Sought by print and broadcast media, Mr. Schwartz is frequently quoted in The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and The New York Times. He has appeared on Oprah, 60 Minutes and leading news programs. The Legal Times of Washington has named Mr. Schwartz one of Washington’s Top 30 “Visionary” lawyers, and The National Law Journal named Mr. Schwartz one of the 100 most influential lawyers in the United States in March 2013.
Mr. Schwartz is on the Board of Directors of the Searle Civil Justice Institute at George Mason University School of Law. He is a frequent participant in judicial education programs. Mr. Schwartz serves as General Counsel to the American Tort Reform Association.
Prior to entering the full time practice of law, Mr. Schwartz was a professor and dean at the University of Cincinnati College of Law. He currently serves on the College’s Board of Visitors. In 2012, the College established the Professor Victor E. Schwartz Chair in Tort Law.
Mr. Schwartz, while at the U.S. Department of Commerce, served as chair of the Federal Inter-Agency Task Force on Product Liability, and the Federal Inter-Agency Council on Insurance. He was the principal author of the Uniform Product Liability Act and the Federal Risk Retention Act. He received the Secretary of Commerce’s Award for Professional Excellence.
Mr. Schwartz is co-author of the most widely used torts casebook in the United States, Prosser, Wade and Schwartz’s Torts (12th ed. 2010). He is author of the leading text Comparative Negligence (5th ed. 2010).
Mr. Schwartz has been an advisor for each of the American Law Institute’s (ALI) Restatement (Third) of Torts projects; Products Liability, Apportionment of Liability, and Liability for Physical Injury and Emotional Harm. He is a life member of the ALI.
Mr. Schwartz’s law review articles have analyzed almost every major subject of modern tort and civil justice public policy issues. His articles are frequently cited by both state and federal courts.
Professor of Law, University of Michigan Law School
Christopher J. Walker is a Professor of Law at the University of Michigan. Prior to joining Michigan law faculty in 2022, he spent a decade teaching at The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law. He previously clerked for Justice Anthony Kennedy of the U.S. Supreme Court, worked on the Civil Appellate Staff at the U.S. Department of Justice, and served on the Senate Judiciary Committee staff for the Gorsuch Supreme Court confirmation. Professor Walker’s research focuses on administrative law, regulation, and law and policy at the agency level. Outside the law school, he chaired the American Bar Association’s Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice in 2020-21 and served as one of forty Public Members of the Administrative Conference of the United States from 2016-2022, and he continues to serve in both organizations in various capacities. He also works of counsel at the U.S. Chamber Litigation Center. In 2022, he received the Federalist Society’s Joseph Story Award.
District 15, Florida House of Representatives
Jay Fant's Florida roots are deep. His grandfather's family arrived in Jacksonville almost a century ago, and Jay learned the value of hard work and community service by watching his dad and granddad start and run their family business, First Guaranty Bank. After graduating from law school at the University of Florida, Jay joined the business and was proud to run it alongside his dad until 2012.
Through his business, Jay was honored to serve many homeowners and small businessmen and women by providing the credit they needed to improve their lives and achieve their dreams. Like many of his customers, the Great Recession hit Jay's business hard, and just as they were poised to recover, federal government overreach and incompetence made that impossible.
That experience drove Jay to run for the State Legislature to be part of solving the problem of explosive government growth that chokes free enterprise and makes it harder for families to get ahead. In 2014, he was elected to the District 15 seat in the Florida House of Representatives, and he has been honored to serve his Jacksonville constituents in Tallahassee.
In the House, he serves on the Ways and Means and Government Accountability Committees, where he has worked diligently to make state government leaner and more efficient and ensure it works for the people, not the other way around. On the Judiciary Committee and as Vice Chair of the Civil Justice and Claims Subcommittee his leadership has helped protect the rights of Florida's citizens.
Jay and his wife, Lauren, are the proud parents of two sons and two daughters. They live in Jacksonville, where he invests time in the community and has coached youth sports and served with Big Brothers Big Sisters, Rotary, and the Healthy U Now Foundation. The Fants are members of St. Johns Presbyterian Church.
Attorney General, Florida
Attorney General Ashley Moody, a fifth generation Floridian, was born and raised in Plant City, Florida. She attended the University of Florida where she earned her bachelors and masters degrees in accounting and juris doctorate. She later attended Stetson University College of Law earning a masters of law in international law. In 2018, she was elected the 38th Attorney General of Florida.
General Moody joined the United States Attorney’s Office prosecuting drug, firearm, and fraud offenses. While a federal prosecutor, Ashley was commended by the DEA for prosecutorial excellence and outstanding initiative in drug law enforcement. She was also recognized by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement for her lead of “Operation Round-Up,” a targeted prosecution of violent and repeat offenders.
In 2006, at the age of 31, General Moody became the youngest judge in Florida when she was elected Circuit Court Judge of the 13th Judicial Circuit in Hillsborough County. As a judge, she founded the Attorney Ad Litem program recruiting volunteer attorneys to stand in the place of parents who did not appear in court with their children. She also developed a mentoring program for at-risk children within the juvenile delinquency system.
Ashley is married to Justin, a federal law enforcement agent. They have two sons, Connor and Brandon. Their eldest son Brandon is serving in the United States Army.
District 59, Florida House of Representatives
Ross currently represents District 59 in the Florida House of Representatives and is a managing partner of Spano & Woody, P.A. in Riverview, FL. He is also the Chairman of the Florida Human Trafficking Working Group and serves on the Federal Judicial Nominating Commission.
As a state representative, Ross is a member of the following legislative committees:
Ross and his wife Amie have four children: Kali, Vincent, Caleb and Isaiah. They are active members of the Bell Shoals Baptist Church.
As Florida's Attorney General, Ross will always fight to uphold the rule of law and protect Florida's Constitution. He will prioritize protecting vulnerable populations, including victims of human trafficking. And as a proven conservative leader in the Florida Legislature, Ross will strive to protect the conservative values that are so important to him. He will keep government small and limited, protect family values and uphold the rule of law.
Owner/Partner, Torrens Law Group, P.A.
Ryan Torrens is running for Florida Attorney General for the right reason – to fight for you. For more than four years, Ryan Torrens has been going to battle in Court against the biggest banks in this country on behalf of Florida’s consumers. When Ryan says he will fight for Florida’s consumers, these aren’t just words, it is what he has already been doing!
A fifth-generation Tampa native, Ryan Torrens owns his own law practice, which focuses on foreclosure defense and consumer protection litigation.
Ryan Torrens defends consumer clients against mortgage foreclosure actions and also represents against creditors and debt collectors for collection violations.
Prior to starting his own law practice in 2012, Ryan Torrens worked as an independent consultant on the federal government-mandated Independent Foreclosure Review Project, where he was charged with reviewing toxic mortgage loans. While working on this project, Ryan gained a serious interest in consumer protection law.
Ryan Torrens earned a Bachelor of Arts in Government and World Affairs from the University of Tampa magna cum laude and graduated from the George Washington University Law School in Washington, D.C. While in law school, Ryan served as an intern for a federal bankruptcy judge and for several members of the U.S. Congress.
In his spare time, Ryan Torrens enjoys running, fishing, reading, and enjoying time with his family, including his partner, Francesca, and their rescued dog named Ziggy.
District 2, Florida House of Representatives
COMMUNITY LEADER AND FAMILY MAN
Frank and his wife Stephanie are proudly raising their three boys with conservative values in the Florida Panhandle. Frank serves as a Deacon in the First Baptist Church and teaches Sunday School with his wife. He is also a board member for Baptist Hospital and Pensacola M.E.S.S. Hall Children's Science Museum. Recognized for his business and community leadership, Governor Rick Scott appointed Frank to the Florida Development Finance Corporation Board of Directors, where he serves as Chair.
A SUCCESSFUL SMALL BUSINESS LEADER AND ATTORNEY
Frank is the Chief Financial Officer and General Counsel for the Sansing Dealer Group, an organization with over 650 employees and stores throughout Florida, Alabama and Mississippi.Frank graduated from Southern Methodist University School Law and was the President of the Federalist Society chapter. Frank has practiced law in Texas and Florida for over 15 years. Prior to entering public service, Frank practiced law as an Attorney at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, a top national law firm.
UNMATCHED EXPERIENCE FIGHTING FOR CONSERVATIVE VALUES
As a Florida legislator, Frank
Solicitor General, State of Florida
Amit Agarwal was appointed as Florida's solicitor general in June 2016. The position, first established in February 1999, is patterned in part after the U.S. Office of the Solicitor General, which conducts litigation on behalf of the United States in the Supreme Court and supervises the handling of litigation in federal appellate courts. The Solicitor General in Florida serves three primary roles: overseeing civil appeals involving the state's interests in all state and federal appellate courts; teaching at the Florida State University College of Law where he holds the Richard W. Ervin Eminent Scholar Chair; and serving as a policy advisor to the Attorney General.
Agarwal served as deputy chief to the Appellate Division of the United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida before being named solicitor general. Previously, he clerked at the U.S. Supreme Court for Justice Samuel Alito and served as an attorney advisor in the Office of Legal Counsel of the United States Department of Justice. Additionally, he served as a law clerk for the Honorable Brett Kavanaugh, of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, and the Honorable Edward Becker, of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Philadelphia, PA.
U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida
Prior to joining the federal bench, Judge Barber served as a Circuit Judge in the criminal division of the Thirteenth Judicial Circuit, where he has served since his appointment by the Governor in 2008. As a Circuit Judge he has handled the full range of civil and criminal cases. He previously served for four years as a Hillsborough County Court Judge. Upon graduation from law school, Judge Barber practiced for five years in the trial and business litigation department of Carlton Fields, P.A. He then served as an Assistant Statewide Prosecutor in the Office of Statewide Prosecution and as an Assistant State Attorney for the Thirteenth Judicial Circuit. Upon completion of his service as a prosecutor he returned to Carlton Fields, P.A., where his practice focused on business litigation until his appointment to the bench.
Judge Barber earned his B.A. from the University of Florida, where he was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa, and his J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania Law School.
Adjunct Professor of Law, Scalia Law; Google, Corporate Counsel
Kathryn Ciano Mauler currently serves as a Corporate Counsel at Google. Prior to Google, Kathryn was Senior Regulatory Counsel at Uber Technologies, and also spent three years at i360, LLC as General Counsel. Before this, she also worked at a boutique law firm in Washington, D.C. and at the Institute for Justice.
She received her B.A. from the University of Florida. She also received her business degree from the University of Florida - Warrington College of Business, studying at the Ecole supérieure de Commerce de Toulouse in France. Kathryn's J.D. is from the George Mason University School of Law.
City Attorney, City of Orlando
Partner, Shutts & Bowen LLP
Daniel Nordby is a partner in the Tallahassee office of Shutts & Bowen LLP, where he is a member of the Appellate Practice Group. His practice focuses on high-profile, high stakes matters of law and public policy, particularly in the areas of constitutional, appellate and administrative law.
Over the course of his career, Daniel has developed extensive experience in the area of government and administrative law. He is a Past Chair of the Florida Bar’s Administrative Law Section and has served on the Section’s Executive Council for more than a decade. Daniel has represented clients in some of Florida’s largest competitive procurements and has served as counsel of record in a variety of administrative and judicial proceedings involving the application of constitutional and administrative law principles. He has personally presented oral argument on multiple occasions before the Florida Supreme Court, Florida’s First District Court of Appeal, and the Federal Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit on high-profile matters of constitutional law. A representative list of Daniel’s reported opinions in the state and federal courts is available here.
Daniel draws on his prior service in the public sector when representing businesses, individuals and governmental clients on their most challenging legal issues. As General Counsel to then-Governor Rick Scott from 2017-2019, Daniel provided oversight and strategic direction for all major litigation involving Florida’s executive branch agencies and advised Governor Scott on the appointment of more than 100 judges to Florida’s trial and appellate courts. Daniel’s career also includes service as General Counsel to the Florida House of Representatives, General Counsel to Florida’s Secretary of State, Assistant General Counsel to the Florida Department of Education, and Staff Attorney to the Florida Legislature’s Joint Administrative Procedures Committee.
Daniel continues his public service as a gubernatorial appointee to the Florida Supreme Court Judicial Nominating Commission. After serving on the Commission from 2012-2018 as a direct appointee of Governor Scott, Daniel was appointed by Governor DeSantis in July 2019 to a third term. He currently serves as Chair of the Florida Supreme Court Judicial Nominating Commission.
Daniel is also involved with several non-profit and community groups. He is a graduate of Leadership Florida (Connect VI), a member of Florida Blue Key, a member of the American Enterprise Institute’s Leaders Network, and a member of the James Madison Institute’s Inaugural Class of Leaders Fellows. Daniel is on the Steering Committee of the Tallahassee Lawyers Chapter of the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies and is a Past President of both its Tallahassee Lawyers Chapter and University of Florida Student Chapter. Daniel is an Eagle Scout and attends St. Peter’s Anglican Cathedral in Tallahassee.
Daniel is a “triple-Gator” with three degrees from the University of Florida: a J.D. (with high honors), a B.S. in Microbiology and Cell Science, and a B.A. in Classical Studies. He has been recognized as a Florida Super Lawyers “Rising Star” and has been named to the roster of Florida Legal Elite by Florida Trend magazine in the categories of “Government & Administrative Law,” “Best Government & Non-Profit Attorneys,” and ”Best Up & Coming Attorneys.”
Luncheon Keynote Address by Philip K. Howard
Gregory Conko, Philip K. Howard
14th Annual Symposium of the Journal of Law, Economics & Policy
This symposium was co-sponsored by the Regulatory Transparency Project and took place at the Antonin...
21st Century Business Models Meet 20th Century Regulation
Sandra Aistars, Stewart A. Baker, Alan Butler, Justin (Gus) Hurwitz, Brenda Leong
14th Annual Symposium of the Journal of Law, Economics & Policy
This symposium was co-sponsored by the Regulatory Transparency Project and took place at the Antonin...
Financial Innovation and Innovative Financial Regulators
Charles J. Cooper, Deepak Gupta, Bonnie Kelly, Paolo Saguato, David C. Vladeck, Devon Westhill, Todd J. Zywicki
14th Annual Symposium of the Journal of Law, Economics & Policy
This symposium was co-sponsored by the Regulatory Transparency Project and took place at the Antonin...
Introduction to the Intellectual Property Working Group
Adam Mossoff
Regulatory Transparency Project's Fourth Branch Video
Adam Mossoff is the Chairman of RTP's Intellectual Property working group and Professor of Law,...
The Future of Libel Law
Eugene Volokh
Short video featuring Eugene Volokh
Since 1990, the Supreme Court has not dealt with any libel cases. Has anything happened...
The Patent Trial and Appeal Board & Innovation
Gregory Dolin
Short video featuring Greg Dolin
Does the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) have the constitutional authority to revoke patents?...
Driverless Cars: A New Challenge to Cybersecurity [POLICYbrief]
Victor E. Schwartz
Short video featuring Victor Schwartz
Can a driverless car be hacked? Who will have access to data from these vehicles?...
Congress and the Administrative State
Christopher J. Walker
Short video featuring Chris Walker
Does the administrative state make more laws than Congress? Chris Walker, associate professor at Ohio...
Perspectives on the Florida Office of Attorney General
Jay Fant, Ashley Moody, Ross Spano, Ryan Torrens, Frank White
2018 Annual Florida Chapters Conference
2018 Annual Florida Chapters Conference The panelists discussed the roles and responsibilities of Attorney Generals...
Florida Separation of Powers
Amit Agarwal, Thomas P. Barber, Kathryn Ciano Mauler, Mayanne Downs, Daniel E. Nordby
2018 Annual Florida Chapters Conference
2018 Annual Florida Chapters Conference Session III: Florida Separation of Powers Panelists: Amit Agarwal –...