Partner, Cooper & Kirk, PLLC
Pete Patterson is a partner at Cooper & Kirk. His practice includes appellate litigation, constitutional litigation, commercial litigation, and administrative law. In addition, Mr. Patterson for a number of years taught an appellate litigation clinic at the University of Cincinnati College of Law. Mr. Patterson has argued in the U.S. Supreme Court and in nearly every regional federal circuit court of appeals.
Mr. Patterson has extensive experience in complex matters involving important questions of constitutional, statutory, and administrative law. He frequently has represented plaintiffs in cases alleging constitutional or statutory violations by federal, state, and local government officials. He also has represented plaintiffs in class action litigation against corporations and the federal government.
Mr. Patterson joined the firm in 2009. Prior to arriving at Cooper & Kirk, he served as a law clerk to Judge Jeffrey S. Sutton of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Mr. Patterson typically works from Cincinnati, Ohio.
Mr. Patterson received his J.D. from Stanford Law School in 2006, earning Order of the Coif honors for finishing in the top 10% of his class. There, he was a member of the Stanford Law Review, serving as an Articles Editor. He also participated in litigation before the United States Supreme Court through the Stanford Supreme Court Litigation Clinic.
Mr. Patterson graduated with University Honors from Carnegie Mellon University in 2000 with a B.S. in Information and Decision Systems. While at Carnegie Mellon, he wrote a regular column for the student newspaper and was a member of the football team.
Special Counsel, Hunton Andrews Kurth
After serving on the United State Court of Appeals for the D. C. Circuit from 2005, Judge Griffith stepped down from the bench in 2020. Currently he is a Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School, a Fellow at the Wheatley Institute at Brigham Young University, and Special Counsel in the Washington, DC office of the law firm of Hunton Andrews Kurth. Most recently, he was a member of President Biden's Commission on the Supreme Court. He is the author of Civic Charity and the Constitution , and the co-author, along with former judges Michael Luttig and Michael McConnell, of Lost, Not Stolen: The Conservative Case that Trump Lost and Biden Won the 2020 Presidential Election. https://lostnotstolen.org/ . Before being appointed to the D. C. Circuit, Judge Griffith was the General Counsel at BYU; Senate Legal Counsel, the non-partisan chief legal officer of the U. S. Senate; and a partner at Wiley, Rein & Fielding. Long active in rule-of-law programs in former communist nations, Judge Griffith is a member of the international advisory board of the CEELI Institute in Prague. He is a graduate of BYU and the University of Virginia School of Law and is a member of the American Law Institute.
General Counsel, xAI and X
Partner, Hacker Stephens LLP
Heather Gebelin Hacker is a partner at Hacker Stephens LLP. Before her time in the private sector, Heather served as an Assistant Solicitor General in the Texas Attorney General’s office, representing the State in its most critical appellate litigation and advising senior officials and state agencies on important legal issues. She has extensive appellate experience, including before the U.S. Supreme Court, Federal Appeals Courts, and the Texas Supreme Court. Her clients have included the Governor of Texas, the Attorney General of Texas, the University of Texas System, the University of Texas at Austin, and the Texas Legislature, among others.
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.
Senior Fellow, Ave Maria School of Law and Host of the Four Boxes Diner Second Amendment Channel
Mark W. Smith is Visiting Fellow in Pharmaceutical Public Policy and Law in the Department of Pharmacology at the University of Oxford; Presidential Scholar and a Senior Fellow in Law and Public Policy at The King’s College; and Distinguished Scholar and Senior Fellow of Law and Public Policy at the Ave Maria School of Law.
He is a constitutional attorney and Host of the Four Boxes Diner YouTube channel—which provides scholarly and historical analyses of the Second Amendment. Mark is also a New York Times bestselling author.
Partner and Co-Chair, Public Policy Group, Shook Hardy & Bacon LLP
Mark Behrens co-chairs Shook's Washington, DC-based Public Policy Practice Group and is a leading national expert on civil justice issues with over thirty years of experience. A substantial part of his practice is working to improve the civil litigation environment through state and federal legislation; in the courts through amicus curiae briefs; through legal scholarship and judicial education; and in the court of public opinion.
Mark is actively involved in civil justice reform efforts at the federal and state levels. He has testified before the U.S. Congress and most state legislatures on behalf of business and civil justice organizations. Mark also has an active amicus brief practice specializing in tort liability and civil justice issues. He has authored or co-authored over 150 amicus briefs in cases before the United States Supreme Court and federal and state appellate courts on behalf of business, civil justice, and defense lawyer organizations. In addition, Mark routinely files comments on behalf of business, civil justice, and defense lawyer organizations regarding potential changes to federal and state court rules. He chairs the International Association of Defense Counsel’s (IADC) Civil Justice Response Committee and serves on the Board of Directors of Lawyers for Civil Justice (LCJ).
Mark is a member of the American Law Institute (ALI). He received his J.D. in 1990 from Vanderbilt University Law School, where he was a member of the Vanderbilt Law Review. He received his B.A. in economics from the University of Wisconsin in 1987.
General Counsel, xAI and X
Commissioner, Federal Trade Commission
Andrew N. Ferguson was sworn in April 2, 2024 as a Commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission. President Joe Biden named Ferguson to a term that expires on September 25, 2030.
Ferguson most recently served as solicitor general of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Prior to that position, he served as chief counsel to U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, and as a Republican counsel on the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. He also practiced law at several Washington, D.C. law firms. He earned his undergraduate degree and law degree from the University of Virginia. After law school, Ferguson clerked for Judge Karen L. Henderson on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
Partner, Keller Postman
Ashley Keller is one of the founding Partners of Keller Postman LLC. An experienced trial and appellate lawyer, Ashley helps set strategic direction across virtually all of the firm’s cases. He represents clients in a wide variety of practice areas and types of claims, including product-liability, antitrust, class action, and arbitration matters.
Ashley is one of the leaders of Keller Postman’s national product-liability practice. He leverages his ability to detangle complex concepts and develop novel legal theories to support individual client matters and as counsel on numerous product-liability multidistrict litigation matters. He chairs the plaintiffs’ Law & Briefing Committee in the Zantac (Ranitidine) Product Liability MDL in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.
Ashley also litigates complex antitrust and class action matters. Among his notable cases, Ashley represents numerous States in antitrust litigation against Google for monopolizing products and services used by advertisers and publishers in online-display advertising.
Ashley also has played a central role in developing the firm’s pioneering arbitration practice, which includes pursuing individual arbitrations for clients whose claims are subject to arbitration clauses with class-action waivers. In part through managing the complexity of pursuing these individual claims simultaneously, the firm has secured millions in settlements for more than 500,000 employees and consumers.
Before launching Keller Postman, Ashley co-founded the litigation finance firm Gerchen Keller Capital, which grew to more than $1.3 billion in assets under management and was the world’s largest private investment manager focused on legal and regulatory risk prior to being acquired by Burford Capital in 2016.
Previously, Ashley was a partner at Bartlit Beck Herman Palenchar & Scott LLP, The American Lawyer’s litigation boutique of the year. While there, he handled various trial and appellate matters involving multi-billion-dollar securities and patent cases, contract disputes, mass torts, and class actions.
Ashley also worked as an analyst at Alyeska Investment Group, a Chicago-based market-neutral hedge fund, where he focused on investments in companies facing litigation and other complicated regulatory matters.
Ashley was named a 2021 Plaintiffs’ Lawyers Trailblazer by the National Law Journal. He is also listed on Lawdragon’s 500 Leading Lawyers in America, Lawdragon’s 500 Leading Plaintiff Consumer Lawyers, Lawdragon’s Leading Plaintiff Financial Lawyers, National Trial Lawyers’ Top 100, and Illinois Super Lawyers.
Ashley was a law clerk for Justice Anthony M. Kennedy at the Supreme Court of the United States and Judge Richard Posner at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College, received his M.B.A. from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and received his J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School, where he graduated first in his class.
Partner, Holtzman Vogel Baran Torchinsky & Josefiak PLLC
Brandon Smith is a partner at Holtzman Vogel, based in Tennessee, where he focuses on government investigations, white collar matters, and specialty litigation. A seasoned government leader and legal strategist, Brandon has played a central role in shaping conservative policy and litigation at the highest levels of state government.
Before joining the firm, Brandon served as Chief of Staff and Assistant Solicitor General in the Tennessee Attorney General’s Office. In that role, he led multi-state litigation, high-profile constitutional challenges, and efforts to counter federal overreach and ESG-related corporate activism. He worked closely with nearly every Republican Attorney General’s Office in the country, coordinating litigation, strategy, and multi-state policy efforts.
Earlier in his career, Brandon served as Executive Director of Legislative and Regulatory Affairs for Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin and as Policy Director to Kansas Governor Sam Brownback, where he helped drive key legislative and budget initiatives. He also held roles as Deputy Director of the Federalist Society and as an adjunct professor at American University.
Brandon’s career has been defined by a commitment to defending federalism, advancing conservative governance, and shaping legal and policy fights that matter.
Professor of Law, University of Cincinnati College of Law
Professor Stephanie Hunter McMahon has taught courses in tax law and legal history at the University of Cincinnati College of Law since 2008, and while doing so has won two of the law school’s teaching awards, its faculty excellence award, and its award for scholarship.
To date, much of her scholarship explores the relationship between taxation and the public’s perception of taxation with respect to families and the application of administrative law to tax. Her interest in the development of tax policy led her to write Principles of Tax Policy for West’s Concise Hornbook Series. In the last two years, she has begun scholarship focusing on the tax treatment of disadvantaged groups, both women seeking abortions in states that do not provide access to care and the discriminatory tax treatment of inmate labor.
Her writings have been published in peer-reviewed journals, The Tax Lawyer (ABA journal), Florida Tax Review, and the Virginia Tax Review, as well as student-reviewed journals, such as Northwestern Law Review, Washington Law Review, and Michigan State Law Review. Professor McMahon received her J.D. from Harvard Law School and PhD in American history from the University of Virginia. Following law school, Professor McMahon practiced in the New York offices of Cravath, Swaine & Moore and Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom.
Partner, Jones Day
Ray Wiacek is one of the world’s leading international tax lawyers. He represents multinational corporations on cross-border financings, international acquisitions and reorganizations, and transfer pricing. He is particularly skilled at global planning involving intellectual property. Ray also defends his advice, favorably resolving tax disputes ranging from the proper pricing of foreign autos to the effectiveness of an agreement to share R&D costs worldwide. He is currently challenging the IRS’ anti-inversion regulations in court.
Ray negotiated and closed billions of dollars of cross-border financings for Bank of America against many of the leading banks in Europe. He led the worldwide team integrating Warner-Lambert and Pharmacia with Pfizer after Pfizer’s overhaul of those companies. This included the disposition of nonstrategic assets, such as Schick and Wilkinson Sword to Energizer and Chiclets and Dentyne to Cadbury. Ray also led the team that implemented a worldwide business and tax plan for Halliburton.
In addition to Bank of America, Pfizer, and Halliburton, representative clients have included Bridgestone/Firestone, Celgene, Dow Corning, H.J. Heinz, Isuzu Motors, JP Morgan, Transworld Oil, and United Coal.
Ray has testified many times on international tax matters before Congress and the Internal Revenue Service. He has been listed every year in the Chambers guide to best lawyers, with clients describing him as “pragmatic and deal oriented,” “an excellent negotiator,” with “superb technical skills and analytic ability.”
Of Counsel, Covington & Burling LLP
The Honorable Paul J. Ray is currently Of Counsel at Covington & Burling LLP where he advises clients on regulatory opportunities and challenges and helps them formulate and execute advocacy strategies for their regulatory policy priorities before the executive branch and Congress.
During the first Trump Administration, Paul held various senior positions at the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) within the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, including as acting, and then Senate-confirmed, head of the office. As OIRA Administrator (the "regulations czar"), Paul supervised the review of hundreds of regulations from across the government, drafted numerous executive orders governing the regulatory process, and led the Administration’s regulatory reform effort. As a result of this experience, Paul is well-positioned to help clients understand and achieve regulatory policy priorities in the context of the government’s regulatory agenda and ongoing reform efforts.
Most recently, Paul was also the Director of the Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation. In that role, he supervised the formulation of the Foundation’s economic and regulatory policy recommendations and provided technical assistance to congressional committees and staff regarding legislative changes to the regulatory process. In addition to his role at The Heritage Foundation, Paul also served as a Senior Advisor at a strategic advisory firm. Before his time in government, Paul practiced law at a law firm in Washington, specializing in administrative law matters.
Prior to his role at the White House, Paul was Counselor to the Secretary at the U.S. Department of Labor. There he led departmental efforts in high-profile rulemakings and helped formulate the Department’s legal positions and strategy.
Paul served as a law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito and as a law clerk to the Honorable Debra Livingston of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
Paul is a thought leader in the conservative legal movement and is a frequent commentator and speaker on regulatory policy and reform matters, including at law schools, professional gatherings, and other venues. He is the Chairman of Innovations in Peacebuilding International and the Regulatory Process Working Group of the Federalist Society’s Regulatory Transparency Project and a public member of the Administrative Conference of the United States. Paul is also an adjunct lecturer at the Hillsdale College School of Government.
Managing Partner and Co-Founder, EducationCounsel
With extensive background in providing legal, policy, strategic planning, and advocacy services to educators throughout the country, Mr. Coleman focuses principally on issues of access, diversity, inclusion, and institutional quality in post-secondary education.
Mr. Coleman is a 1984 honors graduate of Duke University School of Law and a 1981 Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Virginia. Mr. Coleman served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights from June 1997 until January 2000, following his tenure as Senior Policy Advisor to the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights. He has testified before the U.S. Senate and the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights; he has served as an adjunct professor at two law schools and at two graduate schools of education. He currently teaches at the USC Rossier School of Education.
He is a current member of GLSEN’s Board of Directors; a Board member of the National Council for State Authorization Reciprocity (NC-SARA); and a Board member of the Lab School of Washington, which serves students with learning differences. He is a past Chairperson of the Board of Directors for the Institute for Higher Education Policy. Mr. Coleman leads the legal and policy work of the College Board's Access and Diversity Collaborative that he helped establish in 2004, and has been a principal author of numerous amicus briefs filed in federal courts on issues associated with the educational benefits of student diversity and the consideration of race in admissions, as well as the rights of transgender students to a non-discriminatory school environments.
District Judge, State of Texas
Cory Liu is a state district judge in Austin, Texas. He previously served as assistant general counsel to Texas Governor Greg Abbott. Mr. Liu clerked for Judge Andrew Oldham on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and Judge Danny Boggs on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. He was Editor-in-Chief of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy and is a graduate of Harvard Law School and the University of Chicago.
Founder, Chairman, and CEO, Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law
Hon. Kenneth L. Marcus is an internationally recognized expert in civil and human rights, as well as a leader in the fight against anti-Semitism on and off university campuses. He is the Founder, Chairman, and CEO of The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, the leading civil rights legal organization fighting against anti-Semitism. The New York Times has called him “The Man Who Helped Redefine Campus Anti-Semitism.” He been described, in that paper, as “the single most effective and respected force” to combat anti-Semitism.
During his public service career, Marcus served as Assistant U.S. Secretary of Education for Civil Rights; Staff Director at the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights; and General Deputy Assistant U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity.
In academia, he serves as Professorial Lecturer in Law at George Washington University. He formerly held the Lillie and Nathan Ackerman Chair in Equality and Justice in America at the City University of New York’s Bernard M. Baruch College, served as Visiting Research Professor of Political Science at Yeshiva University, and was a Board of Visitors member George Mason University and Distinguished Senior Fellow at that university’s law school. He is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Contemporary Antisemitism and previously served as Associate Editor of the Journal for the Study of Anti-Semitism.
Marcus is also author of The Definition of Anti-Semitism (Oxford University Press) and Jewish Identity and Civil Rights in America (Cambridge University Press). He has published widely in academic journals as well as in more popular venues such as The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Newsweek, USA Today, and Politico. He is a graduate of Williams College and the University of California at Berkeley School of Law.
Earlier in his career, he was a litigation partner in two major law firms, where he conducted complex commercial and constitutional litigation. He also serves as Chairman emeritus of the Executive Committee of the Federalist Society for Law & Public Policy Civil Rights Practice Group.
General Counsel, Mountain States Legal Foundation
William E. Trachman is General Counsel for Mountain States Legal Foundation, where he protects the rights of individuals to live freely and securely under the U.S. Constitution. Previously, he was appointed to serve in the Department of Education as Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Office for Civil Rights. Prior to his appointment, he served as General Counsel to the Douglas County School District, where he helped litigate the fight for school choice in the school district. Presently, Mr. Trachman serves as Chair of the Colorado Federalist Society and the Vice Chair of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights’ Colorado Advisory Board. He previously taught as an Adjunct Professor at the University of Denver, Sturm College of Law. He attended U.C. Berkeley for both undergraduate and law school, and then clerked for the Honorable Harris Hartz on the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals. Mr. Trachman is licensed in Colorado, California, and Washington, D.C.
U.S. Attorney, Middle District of Tennessee, U.S. Department of Justice
Braden Boucek was sworn in on December 24, 2025, as the United States Attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee. Prior to becoming United States Attorney, Mr. Boucek served as the senior vice president of litigation at the Southeastern Legal Foundation having previously served as the vice president of legal affairs at the Beacon Center. Mr. Boucek has extensive experience as a prosecutor, starting his career at the Tennessee Attorney General’s Office before serving for two years as an Assistant District Attorney General in Williamson County. He was a federal prosecutor for ten years, first serving as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Western District of Tennessee from 2005 to 2011. From 2011 to 2015, Mr. Boucek was an Assistant United States Attorney in the Middle District of Tennessee, the district he now leads as the United States Attorney.
Professor, Cleveland State University College of Law
Professor Christa Laser comes to Cleveland Marshall after nearly a decade of practice experience as an intellectual property litigator at the law firms WilmerHale and Kirkland & Ellis LLP. She has deep expertise in patents, trademarks, copyrights, false advertising, pharmaceutical litigation and regulation, and technology law. She has represented leading life sciences and technology companies in all stages of trial and appellate matters and consulted on legislative changes to intellectual property laws.
Professor Laser's research focuses on intellectual property and innovation. Her patent law scholarship has been cited by numerous scholars, by judges of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, and in briefs to the U.S. Supreme Court. Her research envisions an intellectual property system that supports innovation, investment, and competition across all technology areas.
Professor Laser was the World Champion of the Lachs Space Law Moot Court Competition. Prior to law school, she worked as a scientific researcher, where her work studying protein dynamics of photosynthesis using genetically modified bacteria and laser spectroscopy was published in the prestigious journal Science.
Senior Associate, Intellectual Property Litigation, WilmerHale; Associate, Kirkland & Ellis LLP; judicial intern for Chief Judge Randall R. Rader, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, and Judge Roger W. Titus, U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland; Scientific Researcher, The BioDesign Institute at Arizona State University, Department of BioOptical Nanotechnology.
J.D., The George Washington University Law School (World Champion, International & North American Lachs Space Law Moot Court Competition; Research Assistant, Professor Lawrence Cunningham; Notes Editor, American Intellectual Property Law Association Quarterly Journal); B.S., Arizona State University, Barrett Honors College (Beckman Scholar; Biochemistry Award).
Associate Attorney, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP
Laura Stanley is an associate in the Washington, D.C. office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. She practices in the firm’s Litigation Department and is a member of the Environmental Litigation and Mass Tort Practice Group. Laura previously served as an economist at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency where she developed regulations under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act and the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act.
Laura graduated with high honors from The George Washington University Law School and was awarded Order of the Coif. Laura served as an Articles Editor of the George Washington Law Review, and she was awarded the ABA Gellhorn-Sargentich Award for the best student essay in administrative law. Laura received a Master of Arts degree in Economics from George Mason University and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from James Madison University.
She previously served as a law clerk to the Honorable Ryan D. Nelson of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and the Honorable Stephen S. Schwartz of the United States Court of Federal Claims.
She is admitted to practice law in the District of Columbia and before the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
Senior Legal Fellow, Advancing American Freedom
Amy Swearer is a leading national expert on a wide range of public policy, legal, and constitutional issues, including the Second Amendment, criminal justice, and mental health policy. She has long been a respected conservative voice on gun policy and is routinely asked to testify before state and federal legislative bodies. Her work on birthright citizenship, meanwhile, has been featured extensively in litigation over the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause.
Swearer was formerly a Senior Legal Fellow in the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal & Judicial Studies at the Heritage Foundation. At Heritage, she ran the Defensive Gun Use Database and was the primary author of the e-book “The Essential Second Amendment.” She was also a driving force behind the organization’s School Safety Initiative.
She was the 2022 recipient of the Heritage Foundation’s Joseph Shattan Award for “writing that presents conservative ideas in a powerful and compelling fashion to policymakers and the American people.” She was also named the Second Amendment Institute’s 2022 Gun Rights Champion.
Swearer received her law degree from the University of Nebraska College of Law and was a member of the Nebraska Law Review. She holds a B.S. in Criminology & Criminal Justice from the University of Nebraska, where she was a Chancellor’s Scholar and a goalkeeper on the women’s soccer team
Deputy Counsel, the President
Gary currently is the Deputy Counsel to the President. He was previously a partner at the Dhillon Law Group and worked at the Department of the Interior and Federal Election Commission. He is a native of Virginia, and earned his B.A. and J.D. from the University of Virginia.
Research Fellow, CATO Institute
Sahar Khan is a defense and foreign policy research fellow at the Cato Institute. Her research interests include state‐sponsored militancy/terrorism, counterterrorism policies, anti‐terrorism legal regimes, and private military and security contractors. Khan focuses on U.S. foreign policy in South Asia and Africa. She is also the editor at Inkstick Media.
Khan holds a PhD in political science from the University of California, Irvine; an MPP from the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago; and a BA in economics, international studies, and politics and government from Ohio Wesleyan University.
Director, South Asia Institute, Wilson Center
Michael Kugelman is the South Asia Institute Director at the Woodrow Wilson Center, where he is responsible for research, programming, and publications on the region. His main specialty is Pakistan, India, and Afghanistan and U.S. relations with each of them. Mr. Kugelman writes monthly columns for Foreign Policy’s South Asia Channel and monthly commentaries for War on the Rocks. He also contributes regular pieces to the Wall Street Journal’s Think Tank blog. He has published op-eds and commentaries in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Politico, CNN.com, Bloomberg View, The Diplomat, Al Jazeera, and The National Interest, among others. He has been interviewed by numerous major media outlets including the New York Times, Washington Post, Financial Times, Guardian, Christian Science Monitor, National Geographic, BBC, CNN, NPR, and Voice of America. He has also produced a number of longer publications on South Asia, including the edited volumes Pakistan’s Interminable Energy Crisis: Is There Any Way Out? (Wilson Center, 2015), Pakistan’s Runaway Urbanization: What Can Be Done? (Wilson Center, 2014), and India’s Contemporary Security Challenges (Wilson Center, 2013). He has published policy briefs, journal articles, and book chapters on issues ranging from Pakistani youth and social media to India’s energy security strategy and transboundary water management in South Asia.
Mr. Kugelman received his M.A. in law and diplomacy from the Fletcher School at Tufts University. He received his B.A. from American University’s School of International Service. Follow him on Twitter @michaelkugelman.
Judicial Law Clerk, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida
Nitin is a recent graduate of Cornell Law School. Before his time in Ithaca, he majored in International Studies and Political Science at Johns Hopkins University and focused on power competition in South Asia during his graduate studies at the University of Oxford.
Litigation Update: Koons v. Platkin
Peter A. Patterson
Koons v. Platkin is a challenge to certain provisions of New Jersey Bill A4769/S3214 –...
Annual Hon. Robert H. Bork Memorial Lecture
Thomas B. Griffith
2023 National Lawyers Convention
The 2023 National Lawyers Convention will take place November 9-11, 2022 at the Mayflower Hotel...
Work Different: The Path to Impact Litigation
James M. Burnham, Heather Gebelin Hacker, Kate Comerford Todd
2023 National Lawyers Convention
For the past several years, the Freedom of Thought Project has been showcasing those who’ve...
Welcome
Dean Reuter
2023 National Lawyers Convention
Featuring: Hon. Dean A. Reuter, Senior Vice President & General Counsel, The Federalist Society
Courthouse Steps Oral Argument: United States v. Rahimi
Mark W. Smith
United States v. Rahimi, set to be argued before the Supreme Court this fall, raises...
A discussion within the right: Why is there not a larger conservative plaintiffs' bar?
Mark A. Behrens, James M. Burnham, Andrew N. Ferguson, Ashley Keller, Brandon J. Smith
For decades, the plaintiffs' bar has been populated by liberal lawyers who support left-wing elected...
Regulation and Red Tape: Tax Inversions: Unpacking the Pfizer Case
Stephanie McMahon, Raymond Wiacek, Paul J. Ray
A Regulatory Transparency Project Fourth Branch Video
In 2014, the pharmaceutical company Pfizer initiated a restructuring, only to encounter impediments from the...
College Admissions After SFFA
Art Coleman, Cory R. Liu, Kenneth L. Marcus, William E. Trachman
On Thursday, June 29, 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision in Students for...
A Seat at the Sitting - November 2023
Braden H. Boucek, Christa Laser, Laura Stanley, Amy E. Swearer, Gary Lawkowski
The November Docket in 90 Minutes or Less
Each month, a panel of constitutional experts convenes to discuss the Court’s upcoming docket sitting...
Pakistan at a Crossroads: Ports, Courts, and Power Games
Sahar Khan, Michael Kugelman, Nitin R. Nainani
Pakistan finds itself in yet another multi-faceted crisis. In response to numerous economic challenges, including...