Partner, Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP
Miguel A. Estrada is a partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher.
Mr. Estrada has represented clients before federal and state courts throughout the country in a broad range of matters. He has argued 24 cases before the United States Supreme Court, and briefed many others. He has also argued dozens of appeals in the lower federal courts.
Best Lawyers® recognized Mr. Estrada as a 2020 Lawyer of the Year in Intellectual Property Litigation and as a Lawyer of the Year in Appellate Practice. He has been recognized by Benchmark Litigation as a 2020 U.S. Appellate Litigation “Star”. In 2014, The American Lawyer named Mr. Estrada a “Litigator of the Year,” praising his “brains and tenacity” and noting he is the lawyer to call for “a tough, potentially unwinnable case.” From 2014-2021, Chambers & Partners has named him as one of a handful of attorneys that it ranked in the top tier among the nation’s leading appellate lawyers. Chambers & Partners noted that “clients are impressed by his intellect and ability, with one saying, ‘His papers are just blindingly clear in what they say and devastating in how they marshal the arguments.’” The Atlantic described his oral argument in a 2014 high-profile separation-of-powers case as “one of the most dazzling arguments the marble chamber has heard in many years.”
Mr. Estrada was selected by his peers for inclusion in the 2020 edition of The Best Lawyers in America® in the area of Appellate Law, in addition to previous recognition by the publication in the specialties of Bet-the-Company Litigation, Commercial Litigation and Criminal Defense: White Collar, Intellectual Property Litigation, and Regulatory Enforcement Litigation in the areas of SEC, Telecom, and Energy. In 2017, he was elected as a member of the American Law Institute. In 2021, Mr. Estrada was named among the Lawdragon 500 Leading Lawyers in America. In 2004, Legal Times named him one of the top 12 appellate litigators in the D.C. area, noting that “people who follow appellate practice in Washington have known for several years that Estrada . . . is one of the best around.” Also in 2004, Washingtonian Magazine named him one of the top constitutional law lawyers “who could become one of the legends of the Supreme Court bar.”
Mr. Estrada joined Gibson Dunn in 1997, after serving for five years as Assistant to the Solicitor General of the United States. He previously served as Assistant U.S. Attorney and Deputy Chief of the Appellate Section, U.S. Attorney’s Office, Southern District of New York. In those capacities, Mr. Estrada represented the government in numerous jury trials and in many appeals before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Before joining the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Mr. Estrada practiced corporate law in New York with Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz.
Mr. Estrada is a Trustee of the Supreme Court Historical Society. He was formerly a member of the Board of Visitors of Harvard Law School.
Mr. Estrada served as a law clerk to the Honorable Anthony M. Kennedy in the U.S. Supreme Court from 1988 to 1989 and to the Honorable Amalya L. Kearse in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit from 1986 to 1987. He received a J.D. degree magna cum laude in 1986 from Harvard Law School, where he was editor of the Harvard Law Review. Mr. Estrada graduated with an A.B. degree magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa in 1983 from Columbia College, New York. He is fluent in Spanish and proficient in French.
Representative Supreme Court matters include:
In 2011, the Supreme Court appointed Mr. Estrada to brief and argue two criminal cases –Dorsey v. United States and Hill v. United States – in which the Solicitor General declined to defend the judgments of the court of appeals. Mr. Estrada was appointed to argue the position that the Solicitor General had declined to defend.
Mr. Estrada was also part of the team that successfully presented then Governor Bush’s position to the Supreme Court in Bush v. Gore (2000). Other cases that Mr. Estrada handled in the Supreme Court include Granholm v. Heald (2005) (dormant Commerce Clause and Twenty-First Amendment), Vermont Agency of Natural Resources v. United States ex rel. Stevens (2000) (False Claims Act, Article III standing and Eleventh Amendment immunity), Old Chief v. United States (1997) (rules of evidence), United States v. Mezzanatto (1995) (evidence and plea bargaining), United States v. Robertson (1995) (constitutional limits on Congress’s Commerce Clause powers), Citizens Bank of Maryland v. Strumpf (1995) (bankruptcy law), and NOW, Inc. v. Scheidler (1994) (RICO).
Recent Court of Appeals matters include:
In addition, Mr. Estrada is lead appellate counsel to Vivendi S.A. in two securities-fraud appeals from jury verdicts that are currently pending in the Second Circuit, and to the National Association of Broadcasters in a challenge to certain procedures promulgated by the FCC in connection with the upcoming Spectrum Auction. Mr. Estrada also recently presented argument before the D.C. Circuit on behalf of the tobacco industry in a first amendment challenge to certain compelled disclosures that were imposed as part of the government’s long-running civil RICO case against the industry.
Other matters:
Partner, Torridon Law, PLLC
Pat Philbin brings to Torridon thirty years’ of experience in Washington, including in senior roles in the federal government. His work has involved a broad range of matters from litigating disputes for Fortune 100 companies, to responding to congressional investigations, to crisis management on legal issues making front page news. In addition to handling critical litigation matters, Pat draws on his extensive experience both in and out of government to counsel clients confronted with complex legal issues presenting multi-dimensional challenges.
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).
Partner, Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP
Miguel A. Estrada is a partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher.
Mr. Estrada has represented clients before federal and state courts throughout the country in a broad range of matters. He has argued 24 cases before the United States Supreme Court, and briefed many others. He has also argued dozens of appeals in the lower federal courts.
Best Lawyers® recognized Mr. Estrada as a 2020 Lawyer of the Year in Intellectual Property Litigation and as a Lawyer of the Year in Appellate Practice. He has been recognized by Benchmark Litigation as a 2020 U.S. Appellate Litigation “Star”. In 2014, The American Lawyer named Mr. Estrada a “Litigator of the Year,” praising his “brains and tenacity” and noting he is the lawyer to call for “a tough, potentially unwinnable case.” From 2014-2021, Chambers & Partners has named him as one of a handful of attorneys that it ranked in the top tier among the nation’s leading appellate lawyers. Chambers & Partners noted that “clients are impressed by his intellect and ability, with one saying, ‘His papers are just blindingly clear in what they say and devastating in how they marshal the arguments.’” The Atlantic described his oral argument in a 2014 high-profile separation-of-powers case as “one of the most dazzling arguments the marble chamber has heard in many years.”
Mr. Estrada was selected by his peers for inclusion in the 2020 edition of The Best Lawyers in America® in the area of Appellate Law, in addition to previous recognition by the publication in the specialties of Bet-the-Company Litigation, Commercial Litigation and Criminal Defense: White Collar, Intellectual Property Litigation, and Regulatory Enforcement Litigation in the areas of SEC, Telecom, and Energy. In 2017, he was elected as a member of the American Law Institute. In 2021, Mr. Estrada was named among the Lawdragon 500 Leading Lawyers in America. In 2004, Legal Times named him one of the top 12 appellate litigators in the D.C. area, noting that “people who follow appellate practice in Washington have known for several years that Estrada . . . is one of the best around.” Also in 2004, Washingtonian Magazine named him one of the top constitutional law lawyers “who could become one of the legends of the Supreme Court bar.”
Mr. Estrada joined Gibson Dunn in 1997, after serving for five years as Assistant to the Solicitor General of the United States. He previously served as Assistant U.S. Attorney and Deputy Chief of the Appellate Section, U.S. Attorney’s Office, Southern District of New York. In those capacities, Mr. Estrada represented the government in numerous jury trials and in many appeals before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Before joining the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Mr. Estrada practiced corporate law in New York with Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz.
Mr. Estrada is a Trustee of the Supreme Court Historical Society. He was formerly a member of the Board of Visitors of Harvard Law School.
Mr. Estrada served as a law clerk to the Honorable Anthony M. Kennedy in the U.S. Supreme Court from 1988 to 1989 and to the Honorable Amalya L. Kearse in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit from 1986 to 1987. He received a J.D. degree magna cum laude in 1986 from Harvard Law School, where he was editor of the Harvard Law Review. Mr. Estrada graduated with an A.B. degree magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa in 1983 from Columbia College, New York. He is fluent in Spanish and proficient in French.
Representative Supreme Court matters include:
In 2011, the Supreme Court appointed Mr. Estrada to brief and argue two criminal cases –Dorsey v. United States and Hill v. United States – in which the Solicitor General declined to defend the judgments of the court of appeals. Mr. Estrada was appointed to argue the position that the Solicitor General had declined to defend.
Mr. Estrada was also part of the team that successfully presented then Governor Bush’s position to the Supreme Court in Bush v. Gore (2000). Other cases that Mr. Estrada handled in the Supreme Court include Granholm v. Heald (2005) (dormant Commerce Clause and Twenty-First Amendment), Vermont Agency of Natural Resources v. United States ex rel. Stevens (2000) (False Claims Act, Article III standing and Eleventh Amendment immunity), Old Chief v. United States (1997) (rules of evidence), United States v. Mezzanatto (1995) (evidence and plea bargaining), United States v. Robertson (1995) (constitutional limits on Congress’s Commerce Clause powers), Citizens Bank of Maryland v. Strumpf (1995) (bankruptcy law), and NOW, Inc. v. Scheidler (1994) (RICO).
Recent Court of Appeals matters include:
In addition, Mr. Estrada is lead appellate counsel to Vivendi S.A. in two securities-fraud appeals from jury verdicts that are currently pending in the Second Circuit, and to the National Association of Broadcasters in a challenge to certain procedures promulgated by the FCC in connection with the upcoming Spectrum Auction. Mr. Estrada also recently presented argument before the D.C. Circuit on behalf of the tobacco industry in a first amendment challenge to certain compelled disclosures that were imposed as part of the government’s long-running civil RICO case against the industry.
Other matters:
Partner, Torridon Law, PLLC
Pat Philbin brings to Torridon thirty years’ of experience in Washington, including in senior roles in the federal government. His work has involved a broad range of matters from litigating disputes for Fortune 100 companies, to responding to congressional investigations, to crisis management on legal issues making front page news. In addition to handling critical litigation matters, Pat draws on his extensive experience both in and out of government to counsel clients confronted with complex legal issues presenting multi-dimensional challenges.
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).
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.
Dean & Clifton R. Musser Professor of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Law School
Thomas J. Miles is the Dean and Clifton R. Musser Professor of Law and Economics at the University of Chicago Law School. As its 14th Dean, Miles has deepened the Law School’s distinctive commitment to path-breaking scholarship and transformative education since 2015. Under his leadership, the Law School recruited more than a dozen academic and clinical faculty members and inaugurated the category of professor from practice. The scholarly ideas of the faculty have been supported and shared more widely through the launch of three new centers: the Center on Law and Finance, the Constitutional Law Institute, and the Malyi Center for the Study of Institutional and Legal Integrity. The clinical program expanded with the addition of three new clinics: the Innovation Clinic, the Jenner & Block Supreme Court and Appellate Clinic, and the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic. During Miles’s deanship, the Law School recruited highly talented and diverse cohorts of students. He steered the Law School through the COVID-19 pandemic. The Law School undertook the first significant revision to the 1L curriculum since 1977 and introduced the accelerated JD/MBA program. The Law School’s vibrant student life was enhanced with new programs in the areas of freedom of expression and diversity and inclusion, including the introduction of a pre-orientation program. The placement of graduates into clerkships nearly doubled. These activities have been supported by generous philanthropy, including a completion of the Inquiry & Impact Campaign with a record amount for the Law School and the highest participation rate within the University. Six new named professorships, including the first named clinical professorship, have been deployed, and financial aid for students reached a new high. As a scholar, Miles makes creative use of the methods of law and economics to investigate legal questions not conventionally thought to fall within that field. For example, he has written on judicial behavior and immigration enforcement. Miles has taught a wide variety of courses at the Law School, including securities regulation, torts, first-year criminal law, economic analysis of law, and federal criminal law. In 2009, he received the Graduating Students Award for Outstanding Teaching. Miles received a PhD in economics from the University of Chicago, a JD from Harvard Law School, and a BA from Tufts University. He clerked for the Hon. Jay S. Bybee of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and from 2005 to 2013, he was a Co-Editor of the Journal of Legal Studies.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit
David Stras became a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit on January 31, 2018. Before serving on the Eighth Circuit, Judge Stras was an Associate Justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court, a position he occupied from July 1, 2010 until his appointment to the Eighth Circuit.
Prior to becoming a judge, Stras was a member of the faculty of the University of Minnesota Law School from 2004 through 2010. He taught and wrote in the areas of federal courts and jurisdiction, constitutional law, criminal law, and law and politics.
Judge Stras received his Bachelor of Arts degree, with highest distinction, in 1995 and his Master of Business Administration in 1999, both from the University of Kansas. He also received his law degree from the University of Kansas School of Law in 1999, where he served as Editor-in-Chief of the Criminal Procedure Edition of the Kansas Law Review.
Following law school, Stras clerked for The Honorable Melvin Brunetti of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and then for The Honorable J. Michael Luttig of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
From 2001 to 2002, he practiced white-collar criminal and appellate litigation with the Washington, D.C., office of Sidley Austin Brown & Wood. Following his year in practice, he clerked for The Honorable Clarence Thomas of the Supreme Court of the United States.
John Marshall Harlan II Professor of Law Emerita, New York Law School; Former President, American Civil Liberties Union
Nadine Strossen, New York Law School Professor Emerita and Senior Fellow at FIRE (the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression), was national President of the American Civil Liberties Union from 1991 to 2008. An internationally acclaimed free speech scholar and advocate, who regularly addresses diverse audiences and provides media commentary around the world, Strossen is also the Host and Project Consultant for Free To Speak, a 3-hour documentary film series distributed on public television in 2023. Her books about free speech include: Free Speech: What Everyone Needs to Know® (Oxford University Press 2023); HATE: Why We Should Resist It with Free Speech, Not Censorship (Oxford University Press 2018); and Defending Pornography: Free Speech, Sex, and the Fight for Women’s Rights (Scribner 1995), which was republished with a new Preface in 2024 as part of the NYU Classics Series. Her many honors and awards include the National Coalition Against Censorship’s Judy Blume Lifetime Achievement Award for Free Speech. She serves on the Advisory Boards of several organizations that do free speech work, including: ACLU, Academic Freedom Alliance, Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism (FAIR), Heterodox Academy, National Coalition Against Censorship, and the University of Austin.
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).
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.
Dean & Clifton R. Musser Professor of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Law School
Thomas J. Miles is the Dean and Clifton R. Musser Professor of Law and Economics at the University of Chicago Law School. As its 14th Dean, Miles has deepened the Law School’s distinctive commitment to path-breaking scholarship and transformative education since 2015. Under his leadership, the Law School recruited more than a dozen academic and clinical faculty members and inaugurated the category of professor from practice. The scholarly ideas of the faculty have been supported and shared more widely through the launch of three new centers: the Center on Law and Finance, the Constitutional Law Institute, and the Malyi Center for the Study of Institutional and Legal Integrity. The clinical program expanded with the addition of three new clinics: the Innovation Clinic, the Jenner & Block Supreme Court and Appellate Clinic, and the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic. During Miles’s deanship, the Law School recruited highly talented and diverse cohorts of students. He steered the Law School through the COVID-19 pandemic. The Law School undertook the first significant revision to the 1L curriculum since 1977 and introduced the accelerated JD/MBA program. The Law School’s vibrant student life was enhanced with new programs in the areas of freedom of expression and diversity and inclusion, including the introduction of a pre-orientation program. The placement of graduates into clerkships nearly doubled. These activities have been supported by generous philanthropy, including a completion of the Inquiry & Impact Campaign with a record amount for the Law School and the highest participation rate within the University. Six new named professorships, including the first named clinical professorship, have been deployed, and financial aid for students reached a new high. As a scholar, Miles makes creative use of the methods of law and economics to investigate legal questions not conventionally thought to fall within that field. For example, he has written on judicial behavior and immigration enforcement. Miles has taught a wide variety of courses at the Law School, including securities regulation, torts, first-year criminal law, economic analysis of law, and federal criminal law. In 2009, he received the Graduating Students Award for Outstanding Teaching. Miles received a PhD in economics from the University of Chicago, a JD from Harvard Law School, and a BA from Tufts University. He clerked for the Hon. Jay S. Bybee of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and from 2005 to 2013, he was a Co-Editor of the Journal of Legal Studies.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit
David Stras became a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit on January 31, 2018. Before serving on the Eighth Circuit, Judge Stras was an Associate Justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court, a position he occupied from July 1, 2010 until his appointment to the Eighth Circuit.
Prior to becoming a judge, Stras was a member of the faculty of the University of Minnesota Law School from 2004 through 2010. He taught and wrote in the areas of federal courts and jurisdiction, constitutional law, criminal law, and law and politics.
Judge Stras received his Bachelor of Arts degree, with highest distinction, in 1995 and his Master of Business Administration in 1999, both from the University of Kansas. He also received his law degree from the University of Kansas School of Law in 1999, where he served as Editor-in-Chief of the Criminal Procedure Edition of the Kansas Law Review.
Following law school, Stras clerked for The Honorable Melvin Brunetti of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and then for The Honorable J. Michael Luttig of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
From 2001 to 2002, he practiced white-collar criminal and appellate litigation with the Washington, D.C., office of Sidley Austin Brown & Wood. Following his year in practice, he clerked for The Honorable Clarence Thomas of the Supreme Court of the United States.
John Marshall Harlan II Professor of Law Emerita, New York Law School; Former President, American Civil Liberties Union
Nadine Strossen, New York Law School Professor Emerita and Senior Fellow at FIRE (the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression), was national President of the American Civil Liberties Union from 1991 to 2008. An internationally acclaimed free speech scholar and advocate, who regularly addresses diverse audiences and provides media commentary around the world, Strossen is also the Host and Project Consultant for Free To Speak, a 3-hour documentary film series distributed on public television in 2023. Her books about free speech include: Free Speech: What Everyone Needs to Know® (Oxford University Press 2023); HATE: Why We Should Resist It with Free Speech, Not Censorship (Oxford University Press 2018); and Defending Pornography: Free Speech, Sex, and the Fight for Women’s Rights (Scribner 1995), which was republished with a new Preface in 2024 as part of the NYU Classics Series. Her many honors and awards include the National Coalition Against Censorship’s Judy Blume Lifetime Achievement Award for Free Speech. She serves on the Advisory Boards of several organizations that do free speech work, including: ACLU, Academic Freedom Alliance, Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism (FAIR), Heterodox Academy, National Coalition Against Censorship, and the University of Austin.
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).
Associate Professor of Law & Dean’s Scholar in Intellectual Property, Texas Tech School of Law
Barbara Lauriat has taught and conducted research in most areas of intellectual property law, including copyright, patents, and trademarks; her work often takes a comparative approach, using examples from different national legal systems and drawing on legal history. Educated in the United States and the United Kingdom, she began her legal academic career in England, teaching intellectual property law to undergraduate, L.L.M., and Ph.D. students at King's College London from 2011-2022, after serving as the Career Development Fellow in Intellectual Property Law and a Fellow of St. Catherine's College at the University of Oxford from 2008-2010. She has previously held visiting positions as the Frank H. Marks Fellow in Intellectual Property Law at George Washington University Law School, a Faculty Fellow at the Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Study, a Faculty Associate at the Berkman Klein Center for the Internet & Society at Harvard University, a Faculty Research Fellow of the Oxford Intellectual Property Research Centre at the University of Oxford, a Scholar-in-Residence in the International Arbitration Department at WilmerHale London, a Visiting Senior Research Fellow at the New Zealand Centre for International Economic Law, a Hauser Global Research Fellow at New York University School of Law, and a Visiting Scholar at the University of British Columbia. She was appointed an Academic Fellow of the Honourable Society of the Inner Temple (2013-2016) and thereafter an Associate Academic Fellow. Lauriat won first prize in the International Association for the Advancement of Teaching and Research in Intellectual Property (ATRIP) Essay Competition in 2013 and was the winner of the Copyright Society of the U.S.A.'s Seton Award in 2015.
Lauriat earned her B.A. from Boston University and her J.D. from Boston's School of Law. She has also recieved her D.Phil at the University of Oxford. As a law student, Lauriat served as an editor on the BU Law Review and was later elected General Editor of the Oxford University Commonwealth Law Journal (2007/2008). She currently serves on the editorial board of Arbitration International.
Lauriat is a member of the Bars of Massachusetts and New Hampshire (inactive) and was Called to the Bar of England and Wales in 2018.
Professor of Law, University of San Diego School of Law
Lisa Ramsey is a Professor of Law at the University of San Diego School of Law, where she is a founding member of the Center for Intellectual Property Law and Markets. She teaches and writes in the intellectual property and international intellectual property law area and is an expert on trademark law. Professor Ramsey is an active member of the American Intellectual Property Law Association and has given presentations on trademark law to attorneys, professors, and students throughout the United States and around the world. Before joining the USD law faculty, she was an intellectual property litigator at Gray Cary Ware & Freidenrich and served as a judicial law clerk for the Honorable Rebecca Beach Smith in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. Professor Ramsey’s scholarship focuses on potential conflicts between trademark laws and free speech rights, and explains how trademark protection of inherently valuable words, symbols, and product features can harm fair competition and freedom of expression.
Examples of Professor Ramsey’s publications include Protectable Trademark Subject Matter in Common Law Countries and the Problem with Flexibility in The Cambridge Handbook of International and Comparative Trademark Law (Irene Calboli & Jane Ginsburg eds., Cambridge University Press 2020); Using Failure to Function Doctrine to Protect Free Speech and Competition in Trademark Law in the Iowa Law Review Online (2020); Non-Traditional Trademarks and Inherently Valuable Expression in The Protection of Non-Traditional Trademarks (Irene Calboli & Martin Senftleben eds., Oxford University Press 2018); Free Speech Challenges to Trademark Law After Matal v. Tam in the Houston Law Review (2018); A Free Speech Right to Trademark Protection? in the Trademark Reporter (2016); and Free Speech and International Obligations to Protect Trademarks in the Yale Journal of International Law (2010). Her article Descriptive Trademarks and the First Amendment in the Tennessee Law Review (2003) was judged by the editor of the Intellectual Property Law Review to be one of the best intellectual property law articles of 2003.
Associate Professor, UNH Franklin Pierce School of Law
Zvi S. Rosen is an Associate Professor at UNH Franklin Pierce School of Law and the Faculty Director of the Franklin Pierce Society for Intellectual Property. He has served as a Assistant Professor at the Southern Illinois University School of Law, as a Visiting Assistant Professor at the Maurice A. Deane School of Law at Hofstra University, and as a Visiting Scholar and Professorial Lecturer in Law at George Washington University School of Law.
In 2015-2016, he was the Abraham L. Kaminstein Scholar in Residence at the U.S. Copyright Office. Mr. Rosen received his J.D. from Northwestern University School of Law in 2005 and LLM in Intellectual Property in 2006 from the George Washington University Law School. He has practiced at Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP as well as smaller firms and his own practice, and clerked for the Hon. Thomas B. Bennett of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Alabama. He has written extensively on the development of modern copyright and trademark law, as well as on bankruptcy law.
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).
Associate Professor of Law & Dean’s Scholar in Intellectual Property, Texas Tech School of Law
Barbara Lauriat has taught and conducted research in most areas of intellectual property law, including copyright, patents, and trademarks; her work often takes a comparative approach, using examples from different national legal systems and drawing on legal history. Educated in the United States and the United Kingdom, she began her legal academic career in England, teaching intellectual property law to undergraduate, L.L.M., and Ph.D. students at King's College London from 2011-2022, after serving as the Career Development Fellow in Intellectual Property Law and a Fellow of St. Catherine's College at the University of Oxford from 2008-2010. She has previously held visiting positions as the Frank H. Marks Fellow in Intellectual Property Law at George Washington University Law School, a Faculty Fellow at the Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Study, a Faculty Associate at the Berkman Klein Center for the Internet & Society at Harvard University, a Faculty Research Fellow of the Oxford Intellectual Property Research Centre at the University of Oxford, a Scholar-in-Residence in the International Arbitration Department at WilmerHale London, a Visiting Senior Research Fellow at the New Zealand Centre for International Economic Law, a Hauser Global Research Fellow at New York University School of Law, and a Visiting Scholar at the University of British Columbia. She was appointed an Academic Fellow of the Honourable Society of the Inner Temple (2013-2016) and thereafter an Associate Academic Fellow. Lauriat won first prize in the International Association for the Advancement of Teaching and Research in Intellectual Property (ATRIP) Essay Competition in 2013 and was the winner of the Copyright Society of the U.S.A.'s Seton Award in 2015.
Lauriat earned her B.A. from Boston University and her J.D. from Boston's School of Law. She has also recieved her D.Phil at the University of Oxford. As a law student, Lauriat served as an editor on the BU Law Review and was later elected General Editor of the Oxford University Commonwealth Law Journal (2007/2008). She currently serves on the editorial board of Arbitration International.
Lauriat is a member of the Bars of Massachusetts and New Hampshire (inactive) and was Called to the Bar of England and Wales in 2018.
Professor of Law, University of San Diego School of Law
Lisa Ramsey is a Professor of Law at the University of San Diego School of Law, where she is a founding member of the Center for Intellectual Property Law and Markets. She teaches and writes in the intellectual property and international intellectual property law area and is an expert on trademark law. Professor Ramsey is an active member of the American Intellectual Property Law Association and has given presentations on trademark law to attorneys, professors, and students throughout the United States and around the world. Before joining the USD law faculty, she was an intellectual property litigator at Gray Cary Ware & Freidenrich and served as a judicial law clerk for the Honorable Rebecca Beach Smith in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. Professor Ramsey’s scholarship focuses on potential conflicts between trademark laws and free speech rights, and explains how trademark protection of inherently valuable words, symbols, and product features can harm fair competition and freedom of expression.
Examples of Professor Ramsey’s publications include Protectable Trademark Subject Matter in Common Law Countries and the Problem with Flexibility in The Cambridge Handbook of International and Comparative Trademark Law (Irene Calboli & Jane Ginsburg eds., Cambridge University Press 2020); Using Failure to Function Doctrine to Protect Free Speech and Competition in Trademark Law in the Iowa Law Review Online (2020); Non-Traditional Trademarks and Inherently Valuable Expression in The Protection of Non-Traditional Trademarks (Irene Calboli & Martin Senftleben eds., Oxford University Press 2018); Free Speech Challenges to Trademark Law After Matal v. Tam in the Houston Law Review (2018); A Free Speech Right to Trademark Protection? in the Trademark Reporter (2016); and Free Speech and International Obligations to Protect Trademarks in the Yale Journal of International Law (2010). Her article Descriptive Trademarks and the First Amendment in the Tennessee Law Review (2003) was judged by the editor of the Intellectual Property Law Review to be one of the best intellectual property law articles of 2003.
Associate Professor, UNH Franklin Pierce School of Law
Zvi S. Rosen is an Associate Professor at UNH Franklin Pierce School of Law and the Faculty Director of the Franklin Pierce Society for Intellectual Property. He has served as a Assistant Professor at the Southern Illinois University School of Law, as a Visiting Assistant Professor at the Maurice A. Deane School of Law at Hofstra University, and as a Visiting Scholar and Professorial Lecturer in Law at George Washington University School of Law.
In 2015-2016, he was the Abraham L. Kaminstein Scholar in Residence at the U.S. Copyright Office. Mr. Rosen received his J.D. from Northwestern University School of Law in 2005 and LLM in Intellectual Property in 2006 from the George Washington University Law School. He has practiced at Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP as well as smaller firms and his own practice, and clerked for the Hon. Thomas B. Bennett of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Alabama. He has written extensively on the development of modern copyright and trademark law, as well as on bankruptcy law.
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).
University Professor of Law and Executive Director, Liberty & Law Center, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
David Bernstein holds a University Professorship chair at the Antonin Scalia Law School, where he has been teaching since 1995. He has also been a visiting professor at the University of Michigan, Georgetown University, William & Mary, Brooklyn Law School, the University of Turin, and Hebrew University. Professor Bernstein teaches Constitutional Law, Evidence, and Products Liability.
A prolific author, Professor Bernstein often challenges the conventional wisdom with prodigious research and sharp, original analysis. He is the author of five books, and coauthor of two more. Professor Bernstein’s book Rehabilitating Lochner was praised across the political spectrum as “intellectual history in its highest form,” a “fresh perspective and a cogent analysis,” “delightful and informative,” “sharp and iconoclastic,” and “a terrific work of historical revisionism.” Columnist George Will praised Bernstein’s most recent book, Classified, The Untold Story of Racial Classification in America, as “perhaps the most consequential American book of 2022.”
Professor Bernstein has also written dozens of articles and essays published in major law reviews, including the California Law Review, Columbia Law Review, Michigan Law Review, and Yale Law Journal. An article he coauthored, Defending Daubert: It’s Time to Amend Federal Rule of Evidence 702, directly inspired a pending amendment to Rule 702.
Professor Bernstein blogs at the Instapundit.com, the Times of Israel, and the Volokh Conspiracy. He is a graduate of the Yale Law School, where he was senior editor of the Yale Law Journal and a John M. Olin Fellow in Law, Economics, and Public Policy.
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).
Partner, Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough LLP
Miles practices in the areas of appeals, business litigation, and First Amendment law. In addition to representing clients in complex civil and criminal litigation and appeals, Miles advises and represents public and private universities and serves as outside general counsel to several business and educational clients. He also represents and counsels private entities and government agencies and officials, including multiple current and former governors of South Carolina and members of Congress, on issues relating to the constitutional and statutory freedoms of speech, religion, and association. His First Amendment work has been cited by the United States Supreme Court.
Counsel, First Liberty Institute
Kayla Toney is Associate Counsel with First Liberty Institute, concentrating on religious liberty matters and First Amendment rights for clients of all faiths.
Prior to joining First Liberty, Kayla litigated religious freedom cases as a Constitutional Law Fellow at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. She clerked for Judge Gregory E. Maggs on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, where she gained valuable experience in the military justice system. Kayla also worked as a litigation associate in the D.C. office of Winston & Strawn LLP, where she enjoyed working on pro bono religious liberty matters.
Kayla earned her law degree from George Washington University, where she served as president of the Federalist Society chapter, a member of the GW International Law Review, and a writing fellow. She graduated summa cum laude from Grove City College with a degree in history and economics.
A native of Michigan, Kayla is based in First Liberty’s Washington, D.C. office and is licensed to practice law in Virginia and D.C.
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).
Partner, Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough LLP
Miles practices in the areas of appeals, business litigation, and First Amendment law. In addition to representing clients in complex civil and criminal litigation and appeals, Miles advises and represents public and private universities and serves as outside general counsel to several business and educational clients. He also represents and counsels private entities and government agencies and officials, including multiple current and former governors of South Carolina and members of Congress, on issues relating to the constitutional and statutory freedoms of speech, religion, and association. His First Amendment work has been cited by the United States Supreme Court.
Counsel, First Liberty Institute
Kayla Toney is Associate Counsel with First Liberty Institute, concentrating on religious liberty matters and First Amendment rights for clients of all faiths.
Prior to joining First Liberty, Kayla litigated religious freedom cases as a Constitutional Law Fellow at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. She clerked for Judge Gregory E. Maggs on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, where she gained valuable experience in the military justice system. Kayla also worked as a litigation associate in the D.C. office of Winston & Strawn LLP, where she enjoyed working on pro bono religious liberty matters.
Kayla earned her law degree from George Washington University, where she served as president of the Federalist Society chapter, a member of the GW International Law Review, and a writing fellow. She graduated summa cum laude from Grove City College with a degree in history and economics.
A native of Michigan, Kayla is based in First Liberty’s Washington, D.C. office and is licensed to practice law in Virginia and D.C.
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).
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit
Judge Carlos Bea serves as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. He received his Bachelor's Degree from Stanford University in 1956 and his J.D. from Stanford Law School in 1958. Judge Bea was born in San Sebastian, Spain, and immigrated with his family to Cuba in 1939. In 1952, he represented Cuba on the Cuban National basketball team in the Helsinki Olympics. Judge Bea became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1958. He engaged in private practice in San Francisco, principally in the area of civil trials (jury and non-jury), from 1959-75 at Dunne, Phelps & Mills and from 1975-90 at Carlos Bea, A Law Corporation. He taught courses in civil litigation advocacy at Hastings College of Law and Stanford Law School. From 1990 to 2003, Judge Bea served as a judge of the San Francisco Superior Court. He was nominated by President George W. Bush to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and was confirmed in 2003.
Judge Bea and his wife Louise reside in San Francisco, where they raised their four sons, Sebastian, Alexander, Nicholas, and Dominic.
Partner, Ashbrook Byrne Kresge Flowers LLC
Ben Flowers, a partner at Ashbrook Byrne Kresge Flowers LLC, is an accomplished litigator with experience briefing, arguing, and winning high-stakes cases in courts throughout the country.
Before joining the law firm, Ben served as Ohio's 10th Solicitor General. In that role he regularly represented the State of Ohio before the Supreme Court of the United States, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, and the Supreme Court of Ohio. Most prominently, in National Federation of Independent Business v. Department of Labor, Ben led a multi-state challenge to OSHA's vaccine mandate, ultimately prevailing before the Supreme Court.
Ben is a graduate of The Ohio State University and the University of Chicago Law School. Following law school, Ben clerked for Judge Sandra Ikuta of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and for Justice Antonin Scalia of the Supreme Court of this United States. Ben lives in Upper Arlington, Ohio with his wife Denise and their three very active children.
Warren Distinguished Professor of Law, University of San Diego School of Law
Michael D. Ramsey is Warren Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of San Diego School of Law, where he teaches and writes in the areas of Constitutional Law, Foreign Relations Law and International Law. He is the author of The Constitution’s Text in Foreign Affairs (Harvard University Press), co-editor of International Law in the U.S. Supreme Court: Continuity and Change (Cambridge University Press), and co-author of two casebooks, Transnational Law and Practice (2d ed., Aspen) and International Business Transactions: A Problem-Oriented Coursebook (14th ed., West). His scholarly articles have appeared in publications such as the Yale Law Journal, the University of Chicago Law Review, the Georgetown Law Journal and the American Journal of International Law. He received his B.A. magna cum laude from Dartmouth College and his J.D. summa cum laude from Stanford Law School. Prior to teaching, he served as a judicial clerk for Judge J. Clifford Wallace of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and for Justice Antonin Scalia of the United States Supreme Court, and practiced law with the law firm of Latham & Watkins, where he specialized in international finance and investment. He has taught as a visiting professor at the University of California, San Diego, in the Department of Political Science and at the University of Paris – Sorbonne, in the Department of Comparative Law.
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).
Partner, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher
Debra Wong Yang is a partner in Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher’s Los Angeles office. Reflective of her broad practice and comprehensive abilities, Ms. Yang is Chair of the Crisis Management Practice Group, former Chair of the White Collar Defense and Investigations Practice Group, which includes the FCPA Practice Group, and former Chair of the Information Technology and Data Privacy Practice Group. She is also a member of the firm’s Executive Committee. She previously served as the United States Attorney for the Central District of California, where she was appointed by President George W. Bush, who made her the first Asian-American woman to serve as a United States Attorney. Ms. Yang was also selected to serve on President George W. Bush’s Corporate Fraud Task Force and to chair the Attorney General’s Advisory Committees on Intellectual Property and Civil Rights.
In 2023, Ms. Yang was recognized by Chambers USA with an Outstanding Contribution Award where she was described by Chambers and Partners as “the epitome of an elite white-collar practitioner and go-to thought leader.” Lawdragon has recognized Ms. Yang as a “Lawdragon Legend,” one of the Top 500 lawyers in the United States, and a member of its inaugural 500 Leading Litigators in America for 2023. The Los Angeles Business Journal named Ms. Yang to its annual list of the Top 100 Lawyers in Los Angeles (May 2023), and has named her as one of the Top 500 most influential people in Los Angeles every year since 2016. In 2015, Ms. Yang was recognized by the Los Angeles Business Journal as one of the 27 “stellar attorneys” on the Most Influential Lawyers: White Collar and Cyber Crime list. From 2017 – 2019 and 2021 – 2022, she was also named to its list of Most Influential Women Lawyers in Los Angeles, featuring 50 of the most accomplished female attorneys working in the region, and in 2018, 2020 and 2022 they named her among the Most Influential Minority Lawyers in Los Angeles. Who’s Who Legal included her in the 2023 Who’s Who Legal Investigations guide as a top practitioner, and from 2019 – 2023, Who’s Who Legal also recognized Ms. Yang in the field of Business Crime Defense. She was recognized in 2023 as a leading lawyer by Chambers USA in California for Litigation: White-Collar Crime & Government Investigations, an award she has received since 2009. The Daily Journal has named her to its list of California’s Top 100 lawyers over the past several years, including most recently in 2023, highlighting her role in defending companies in investigations and crises that make headlines and are highly confidential in nature. The Daily Journal has also repeatedly named Ms. Yang to its annual list of 100 Leading Women Lawyers in California. In 2019, Benchmark Litigation named her a California “Litigation Star.”
In 2022, the American Jewish Committee bestowed Ms. Yang with their prestigious Learned Hand Award. The Anti-Defamation League presented Ms. Yang with its prestigious Deborah Award, which honors “extraordinary women of achievement.” The award was given in recognition for her “professional and philanthropic dedication to the Los Angeles community.” She was also named by the Los Angeles Chapter of the Federalist Society as Lawyer of the Year. She previously served as a founding member and officer of many Asian American bar organizations in Chicago and Los Angeles. Ms. Yang was recognized by The National Law Journal as one of the Top 50 Most Influential Minority Lawyers in America. She has been recognized as a champion of civil rights by both the Los Angeles City Council and the Inglewood Superior Court. The Asian Pacific Bar Association selected her as the 2002 recipient of its Public Service Award and the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association selected her as the 2003 recipient of the Trailblazers Award. Previously, she was appointed to the President’s Council for Pitzer College of the Claremont Colleges and was given the inaugural Distinguished Alumni Award.
Ms. Yang has remained active in the local and legal communities, roles for which she has been frequently honored. In 2009, she was selected by Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to serve as a Los Angeles Police Commissioner, part of the civilian oversight committee of the LA Police Department. Ms. Yang has
been an adjunct professor at the USC School of Law and has instructed at the National Institute of Trial Advocacy and at California’s Judicial College. She is a former president and board member of The Chinese American Museum in Los Angeles, the secretary and board member of River LA, a board member of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, a board member of the LA Philharmonic and a past board member of colleges and other educational institutions.
Ms. Yang received her Juris Doctor from Boston College Law School and was a law clerk to the Honorable Ronald S.W. Lew in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.
16th Annual Rosenkranz Debate & Luncheon
Miguel A. Estrada, Patrick F. Philbin, Eugene Volokh
2024 National Lawyers Convention
RESOLVED: That Congress Can Ban TikTok Featuring: Mr. Miguel Estrada, Partner, Gibson Dunn & Crutcher...
16th Annual Rosenkranz Debate & Luncheon
Miguel A. Estrada, Patrick F. Philbin, Eugene Volokh
2024 National Lawyers Convention
RESOLVED: That Congress Can Ban TikTok Featuring: Mr. Miguel Estrada, Partner, Gibson Dunn & Crutcher...
Campus Chaos: Protected Speech or Unprotected Conduct?
Kenneth L. Marcus, Thomas J. Miles, David R. Stras, Nadine Strossen, Eugene Volokh
2024 National Lawyers Convention
Over the past year, college campuses have been filled with student protests and demonstrations. A...
Campus Chaos: Protected Speech or Unprotected Conduct?
Kenneth L. Marcus, Thomas J. Miles, David R. Stras, Nadine Strossen, Eugene Volokh
2024 National Lawyers Convention
Over the past year, college campuses have been filled with student protests and demonstrations. A...
The First Amendment in Trademark Law after Vidal v. Elster
Barbara Lauriat, Lisa P. Ramsey, Zvi Rosen, Eugene Volokh
In Vidal v. Elster (the “Trump Too Small” case), the Supreme Court unanimously upheld a...
The First Amendment in Trademark Law after Vidal v. Elster
Barbara Lauriat, Lisa P. Ramsey, Zvi Rosen, Eugene Volokh
In Vidal v. Elster (the “Trump Too Small” case), the Supreme Court unanimously upheld a...
Explainer 69 - Discussing the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act
David Bernstein, Eugene Volokh
In this episode of the Fourth Branch Explainer podcast, Prof. Eugene Volokh, from UCLA Law School,...
Litigation Update: First Amendment Matters in the Classroom
Miles Coleman, Kayla Ann Toney, Eugene Volokh
The intersection of the First Amendment, parental rights, and educational texts has become a topic...
Litigation Update: First Amendment Matters in the Classroom
Miles Coleman, Kayla Ann Toney, Eugene Volokh
The intersection of the First Amendment, parental rights, and educational texts has become a topic...
Panel One: Judicial Independence and Trust: Has Article III Become Too Political?
Carlos T. Bea, Benjamin M. Flowers, Michael D. Ramsey, Eugene Volokh, Debra Wong Yang
2024 Western Chapters Conference
All levels of the judiciary have faced increased attacks on their independence in recent years....