General Counsel, xAI and X
Founder & CEO, Edelson PC
Jay Edelson is the founder of Edelson PC. He is considered one of the nation’s leading plaintiff’s lawyers, with his firm having helped secure over $45 billion in settlements and verdicts on behalf of classes, individuals, and governmental entities. Law360 described Jay as a “Titan of the Plaintiff’s Bar.” Jay has been recognized as one of “America’s top trial lawyers” in the mass action arena. LawDragon named him one of the top Plaintiff Financial Lawyers in the country. He has been called “probably the best known, and most innovative, consumer privacy lawyer on the planet,” with he and his firm holding records for the largest trial verdict in a consumer privacy case ($925m), the largest consumer privacy settlement ($650m) and the largest TCPA settlement ($76m).
Jay has been appointed to represent state and local regulators on some of the largest issues of the day, ranging from opioids suits against pharmaceutical companies, to environmental actions against polluters, to breaches of trust against energy companies and for-profit hospitals, to privacy suits against Google, Facebook, and others.
Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Counsel, U.S. Department of Justice
T. Elliot Gaiser is the Office of Legal Counsel’s 27th Assistant Attorney General. He was nominated by President Donald Trump on April 29, 2025, confirmed by the United States Senate on July 30, 2025, and sworn in as AAG by Attorney General Pam Bondi on August 4, 2025.
Prior to joining the Office of Legal Counsel, Mr. Gaiser served as the 11th Solicitor General of Ohio. In that role, he represented his home state and its agencies before the Supreme Court of the United States, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, the Supreme Court of Ohio, and other state and federal courts. He also advised Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost on significant legal and constitutional matters important to the people of Ohio.
Mr. Gaiser clerked for Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. of the Supreme Court of the United States, Judge Neomi Rao of the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, and Judge Edith H. Jones of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. In the private sector, Mr. Gaiser worked at the law firms Jones Day, Boyden Gray, and Gibson Dunn. He graduated from the University of Chicago Law School and Hillsdale College. He is also a husband and father.
John P. Murphy Foundation Professor of Law and Associate Dean for External Engagement, University of Notre Dame Law School
Nicole Stelle Garnett is the John P. Murphy Foundation Professor of Law at Notre Dame Law School, where she also serves as the Associate Dean for External Engagement and directs the Notre Dame Education Law Project. Her teaching and research focus on education law and policy, religious liberty, and topics related to property law (especially land use and urban development policies). In addition to dozens of articles on these subjects, she is the author of Lost Classroom, Lost Community: Catholic Schools' Importance in Urban America (University of Chicago Press, 2014) and Ordering the City: Land Use, Policing and the Restoration of Urban America (Yale University Press, 2009).
Garnett received her B.A. with distinction in Political Science from Stanford University and her J.D. from Yale Law School. After law school, she clerked for the Honorable Morris S. Arnold of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit and for Associate Justice Clarence Thomas of the Supreme Court of the United States. Before joining the law school faculty in 1999, she worked for two years as a staff attorney at the Institute for Justice, a non-profit public-interest law firm in Washington, D.C., where she helped to defend the constitutionality of the nation's first private-school-choice programs.
At Notre Dame, Garnett is a faculty fellow in the Institute for Educational Initiatives, Kellogg Institute for International Studies, Fitzgerald Institute for Real Estate, and deNicola Center for Ethics and Culture. She also is an elected member of the American Law Institute and a Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
Solicitor General, Iowa Office of the Attorney General
Eric Wessan serves as Iowa’s Solicitor General in the Iowa Attorney General’s Office. In that
role, Wessan leads Iowa’s litigation before State and federal appellate courts, including the Iowa
and U.S. Supreme Courts. Before that role, Wessan worked on complex commercial litigation at
two large law firms in Chicago. Wessan also served as a law clerk for the Honorable James C.
Ho on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and for the Honorable John F. Kness on the
U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. Wessan is a graduate of the University of
Chicago Law School, with honors, and of the University of Chicago.
General Counsel, xAI and X
Founder & CEO, Edelson PC
Jay Edelson is the founder of Edelson PC. He is considered one of the nation’s leading plaintiff’s lawyers, with his firm having helped secure over $45 billion in settlements and verdicts on behalf of classes, individuals, and governmental entities. Law360 described Jay as a “Titan of the Plaintiff’s Bar.” Jay has been recognized as one of “America’s top trial lawyers” in the mass action arena. LawDragon named him one of the top Plaintiff Financial Lawyers in the country. He has been called “probably the best known, and most innovative, consumer privacy lawyer on the planet,” with he and his firm holding records for the largest trial verdict in a consumer privacy case ($925m), the largest consumer privacy settlement ($650m) and the largest TCPA settlement ($76m).
Jay has been appointed to represent state and local regulators on some of the largest issues of the day, ranging from opioids suits against pharmaceutical companies, to environmental actions against polluters, to breaches of trust against energy companies and for-profit hospitals, to privacy suits against Google, Facebook, and others.
John P. Murphy Foundation Professor of Law and Associate Dean for External Engagement, University of Notre Dame Law School
Nicole Stelle Garnett is the John P. Murphy Foundation Professor of Law at Notre Dame Law School, where she also serves as the Associate Dean for External Engagement and directs the Notre Dame Education Law Project. Her teaching and research focus on education law and policy, religious liberty, and topics related to property law (especially land use and urban development policies). In addition to dozens of articles on these subjects, she is the author of Lost Classroom, Lost Community: Catholic Schools' Importance in Urban America (University of Chicago Press, 2014) and Ordering the City: Land Use, Policing and the Restoration of Urban America (Yale University Press, 2009).
Garnett received her B.A. with distinction in Political Science from Stanford University and her J.D. from Yale Law School. After law school, she clerked for the Honorable Morris S. Arnold of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit and for Associate Justice Clarence Thomas of the Supreme Court of the United States. Before joining the law school faculty in 1999, she worked for two years as a staff attorney at the Institute for Justice, a non-profit public-interest law firm in Washington, D.C., where she helped to defend the constitutionality of the nation's first private-school-choice programs.
At Notre Dame, Garnett is a faculty fellow in the Institute for Educational Initiatives, Kellogg Institute for International Studies, Fitzgerald Institute for Real Estate, and deNicola Center for Ethics and Culture. She also is an elected member of the American Law Institute and a Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Counsel, U.S. Department of Justice
T. Elliot Gaiser is the Office of Legal Counsel’s 27th Assistant Attorney General. He was nominated by President Donald Trump on April 29, 2025, confirmed by the United States Senate on July 30, 2025, and sworn in as AAG by Attorney General Pam Bondi on August 4, 2025.
Prior to joining the Office of Legal Counsel, Mr. Gaiser served as the 11th Solicitor General of Ohio. In that role, he represented his home state and its agencies before the Supreme Court of the United States, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, the Supreme Court of Ohio, and other state and federal courts. He also advised Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost on significant legal and constitutional matters important to the people of Ohio.
Mr. Gaiser clerked for Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. of the Supreme Court of the United States, Judge Neomi Rao of the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, and Judge Edith H. Jones of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. In the private sector, Mr. Gaiser worked at the law firms Jones Day, Boyden Gray, and Gibson Dunn. He graduated from the University of Chicago Law School and Hillsdale College. He is also a husband and father.
Solicitor General, Iowa Office of the Attorney General
Eric Wessan serves as Iowa’s Solicitor General in the Iowa Attorney General’s Office. In that
role, Wessan leads Iowa’s litigation before State and federal appellate courts, including the Iowa
and U.S. Supreme Courts. Before that role, Wessan worked on complex commercial litigation at
two large law firms in Chicago. Wessan also served as a law clerk for the Honorable James C.
Ho on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and for the Honorable John F. Kness on the
U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. Wessan is a graduate of the University of
Chicago Law School, with honors, and of the University of Chicago.
Founder & CEO, Edelson PC
Jay Edelson is the founder of Edelson PC. He is considered one of the nation’s leading plaintiff’s lawyers, with his firm having helped secure over $45 billion in settlements and verdicts on behalf of classes, individuals, and governmental entities. Law360 described Jay as a “Titan of the Plaintiff’s Bar.” Jay has been recognized as one of “America’s top trial lawyers” in the mass action arena. LawDragon named him one of the top Plaintiff Financial Lawyers in the country. He has been called “probably the best known, and most innovative, consumer privacy lawyer on the planet,” with he and his firm holding records for the largest trial verdict in a consumer privacy case ($925m), the largest consumer privacy settlement ($650m) and the largest TCPA settlement ($76m).
Jay has been appointed to represent state and local regulators on some of the largest issues of the day, ranging from opioids suits against pharmaceutical companies, to environmental actions against polluters, to breaches of trust against energy companies and for-profit hospitals, to privacy suits against Google, Facebook, and others.
Richard and Frances Mallery Professor of Law and Faculty Director, Constitutional Law Center, Stanford Law School
Michael W. McConnell is the Richard and Frances Mallery Professor and Faculty Director of the Constitutional Law Center at Stanford Law School, and a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. From 2002 to 2009, he served as a Circuit Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. He was nominated by President George W. Bush, a Republican, and confirmed by a Democratic Senate by unanimous consent. McConnell has previously held chaired professorships at the University of Chicago and the University of Utah, and visiting professorships at Harvard and NYU. He teaches courses on constitutional law, constitutional history, First Amendment, and interpretive theory. He has published widely in the fields of constitutional law and theory, especially church and state, equal protection, and separation of powers. His book, “The President Who Would Not Be King: Executive Power Under the Constitution,” was published by Princeton University Press in 2020, based on the Tanner Lectures in Human Values, which he delivered at Princeton in 2019. His latest book, co-authored with Nathan Chapman, “Agreeing to Disagree: How the Establishment Clause Protects Religious Diversity and Freedom of Conscience,” was published by Oxford University Press in mid-2023. McConnell has argued sixteen cases in the United States Supreme Court, most recently Carney v. Adams (2020). defending a provision of the Delaware Constitution requiring political balance on that state’s courts. More recently, he was co-counsel in Gonzalez v. Google. He earned his B.A. from Michigan State University and his J.D. from the University of Chicago, and has received honorary degrees from Notre Dame University and Michigan State. He served as law clerk to Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. and D.C. Circuit Chief Judge J. Skelly Wright. He has been Assistant General Counsel of the Office of Management & Budget, Assistant to the Solicitor General of the Department of Justice, and a member of the President’s Intelligence Oversight Board. He is Senior of Counsel to the law firm Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich & Rosati, and is co-chair of Meta’s Oversight Review Board.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit
Judge Menashi was appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on November 14, 2019. Previously, he served as special assistant and associate counsel to the President in the White House and as acting general counsel at the U.S. Department of Education. He was assistant professor of law at Scalia Law School, George Mason University, where he taught administrative law and civil procedure, and a research fellow at New York University School of Law and Georgetown University Law Center. He was also a partner at Kirkland & Ellis LLP in New York, where he practiced appellate and commercial litigation, and served as a law clerk to Justice Samuel Alito on the Supreme Court of the United States and to Judge Douglas Ginsburg on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He graduated from Stanford Law School, where he was elected to Order of the Coif and served as senior articles editor of the Stanford Law Review, and from Dartmouth College, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.
Dean Emeritus and Harvey R. Miller Professor of Law & Economics, Columbia Law School
David Schizer served as Dean of Columbia Law School from 2004 to 2014, and as CEO of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, a global Jewish humanitarian organization, from 2017 to 2019. A co-chair of Columbia University's new task force on antisemitism, he also is a co-founder and co-chair of the Center for Israeli Legal Studies at Columbia Law School; co-founder and co-chair of the Richman Center for Law, Business, and Public Policy; and a Charter Trustee of Ramaz. He served as a law clerk to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the U.S. Supreme Court.
Director of Research, American Economic Liberties Project
Matt Stoller is a public intellectual who writes about the American anti-monopoly
tradition. He is the author of the Simon and Schuster book Goliath: The Hundred Year
War Between Monopoly Power and Democracy. Stoller is the Director of Research at
the American Economic Liberties Project. He publishes an email newsletter called BIG.
Stoller is a former policy advisor to the Senate Budget Committee, and worked in the House of Representatives on the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform Act.
He has lectured on competition policy and media at Columbia University, Harvard Law, Duke Law, Bertelsmann Foundation, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, West Point and the National Communications Commission of Taiwan. His writing has appeared in the Washington Post, the New York Times, Fast Company, Foreign Policy, the Guardian, Vice, The American Conservative, and the Baffler.
He has also produced for MSNBC and starred in a short-lived television show on FX called Brand X with Russell Brand.
Founder & CEO, Edelson PC
Jay Edelson is the founder of Edelson PC. He is considered one of the nation’s leading plaintiff’s lawyers, with his firm having helped secure over $45 billion in settlements and verdicts on behalf of classes, individuals, and governmental entities. Law360 described Jay as a “Titan of the Plaintiff’s Bar.” Jay has been recognized as one of “America’s top trial lawyers” in the mass action arena. LawDragon named him one of the top Plaintiff Financial Lawyers in the country. He has been called “probably the best known, and most innovative, consumer privacy lawyer on the planet,” with he and his firm holding records for the largest trial verdict in a consumer privacy case ($925m), the largest consumer privacy settlement ($650m) and the largest TCPA settlement ($76m).
Jay has been appointed to represent state and local regulators on some of the largest issues of the day, ranging from opioids suits against pharmaceutical companies, to environmental actions against polluters, to breaches of trust against energy companies and for-profit hospitals, to privacy suits against Google, Facebook, and others.
Richard and Frances Mallery Professor of Law and Faculty Director, Constitutional Law Center, Stanford Law School
Michael W. McConnell is the Richard and Frances Mallery Professor and Faculty Director of the Constitutional Law Center at Stanford Law School, and a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. From 2002 to 2009, he served as a Circuit Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. He was nominated by President George W. Bush, a Republican, and confirmed by a Democratic Senate by unanimous consent. McConnell has previously held chaired professorships at the University of Chicago and the University of Utah, and visiting professorships at Harvard and NYU. He teaches courses on constitutional law, constitutional history, First Amendment, and interpretive theory. He has published widely in the fields of constitutional law and theory, especially church and state, equal protection, and separation of powers. His book, “The President Who Would Not Be King: Executive Power Under the Constitution,” was published by Princeton University Press in 2020, based on the Tanner Lectures in Human Values, which he delivered at Princeton in 2019. His latest book, co-authored with Nathan Chapman, “Agreeing to Disagree: How the Establishment Clause Protects Religious Diversity and Freedom of Conscience,” was published by Oxford University Press in mid-2023. McConnell has argued sixteen cases in the United States Supreme Court, most recently Carney v. Adams (2020). defending a provision of the Delaware Constitution requiring political balance on that state’s courts. More recently, he was co-counsel in Gonzalez v. Google. He earned his B.A. from Michigan State University and his J.D. from the University of Chicago, and has received honorary degrees from Notre Dame University and Michigan State. He served as law clerk to Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. and D.C. Circuit Chief Judge J. Skelly Wright. He has been Assistant General Counsel of the Office of Management & Budget, Assistant to the Solicitor General of the Department of Justice, and a member of the President’s Intelligence Oversight Board. He is Senior of Counsel to the law firm Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich & Rosati, and is co-chair of Meta’s Oversight Review Board.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit
Judge Menashi was appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on November 14, 2019. Previously, he served as special assistant and associate counsel to the President in the White House and as acting general counsel at the U.S. Department of Education. He was assistant professor of law at Scalia Law School, George Mason University, where he taught administrative law and civil procedure, and a research fellow at New York University School of Law and Georgetown University Law Center. He was also a partner at Kirkland & Ellis LLP in New York, where he practiced appellate and commercial litigation, and served as a law clerk to Justice Samuel Alito on the Supreme Court of the United States and to Judge Douglas Ginsburg on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He graduated from Stanford Law School, where he was elected to Order of the Coif and served as senior articles editor of the Stanford Law Review, and from Dartmouth College, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.
Dean Emeritus and Harvey R. Miller Professor of Law & Economics, Columbia Law School
David Schizer served as Dean of Columbia Law School from 2004 to 2014, and as CEO of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, a global Jewish humanitarian organization, from 2017 to 2019. A co-chair of Columbia University's new task force on antisemitism, he also is a co-founder and co-chair of the Center for Israeli Legal Studies at Columbia Law School; co-founder and co-chair of the Richman Center for Law, Business, and Public Policy; and a Charter Trustee of Ramaz. He served as a law clerk to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the U.S. Supreme Court.
Director of Research, American Economic Liberties Project
Matt Stoller is a public intellectual who writes about the American anti-monopoly
tradition. He is the author of the Simon and Schuster book Goliath: The Hundred Year
War Between Monopoly Power and Democracy. Stoller is the Director of Research at
the American Economic Liberties Project. He publishes an email newsletter called BIG.
Stoller is a former policy advisor to the Senate Budget Committee, and worked in the House of Representatives on the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform Act.
He has lectured on competition policy and media at Columbia University, Harvard Law, Duke Law, Bertelsmann Foundation, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, West Point and the National Communications Commission of Taiwan. His writing has appeared in the Washington Post, the New York Times, Fast Company, Foreign Policy, the Guardian, Vice, The American Conservative, and the Baffler.
He has also produced for MSNBC and starred in a short-lived television show on FX called Brand X with Russell Brand.
Solicitor, U.S. Department of Labor
Jonathan Berry is Solicitor at the U.S. Department of Labor, in service to President Trump’s agenda to put American workers first. He leads the Department’s lawyers in advising the Secretary and agency leadership on all aspects of law and in representing the Department in court. He was previously managing partner at Boyden Gray PLLC, where he provided strategic counsel and litigated on issues at the intersection of law, politics, and public policy. Earlier, he headed the regulatory office at Labor, and also served at the Department of Justice, in the first Trump Administration. Mr. Berry served as a law clerk to Judge Jerry E. Smith of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, and to Associate Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr., of the Supreme Court of the United States.
Founder & CEO, Edelson PC
Jay Edelson is the founder of Edelson PC. He is considered one of the nation’s leading plaintiff’s lawyers, with his firm having helped secure over $45 billion in settlements and verdicts on behalf of classes, individuals, and governmental entities. Law360 described Jay as a “Titan of the Plaintiff’s Bar.” Jay has been recognized as one of “America’s top trial lawyers” in the mass action arena. LawDragon named him one of the top Plaintiff Financial Lawyers in the country. He has been called “probably the best known, and most innovative, consumer privacy lawyer on the planet,” with he and his firm holding records for the largest trial verdict in a consumer privacy case ($925m), the largest consumer privacy settlement ($650m) and the largest TCPA settlement ($76m).
Jay has been appointed to represent state and local regulators on some of the largest issues of the day, ranging from opioids suits against pharmaceutical companies, to environmental actions against polluters, to breaches of trust against energy companies and for-profit hospitals, to privacy suits against Google, Facebook, and others.
Professor of Law, Rutgers Law School
Stacy Hawkins is a frequent writer and sought-after speaker on the issue of employment law and diversity. She’s served on the Philadelphia Diversity Law Group and the Pennsylvania Bar Association Commission on Women in the Profession Diversity Task Force. She worked as a senior labor and employment attorney and as the director of diversity for major law firms.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit
Judge Katsas was appointed to the D.C. Circuit in December 2017. He graduated from Princeton University and Harvard Law School, where he was an executive editor on the Harvard Law Review. Between 1989 and 1992, he served as a law clerk to Judge Edward Becker on the Third Circuit, to then-Judge Clarence Thomas on the D.C. Circuit, and to Justice Thomas on the Supreme Court. Between 1992 and 2001, he was an associate and then partner in the Washington office of Jones Day, where he specialized in appellate and complex civil litigation. Between 2001 and 2009, he served in many senior positions in the Department of Justice, including as Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division and as Acting Associate Attorney General. In 2009, he returned to Jones Day. From January to December 2017, he served as Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy Counsel to the President.
Before joining the bench, Judge Katsas argued more than 75 appeals, including three cases in the Supreme Court, 13 cases in the D.C. Circuit, and cases in every other federal court of appeals. By appointment of the Chief Justice, he served on the Advisory Committee on Appellate Rules from 2013 to 2017. In 2016, he was elected to membership in the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers.
Partner, Gibson Dunn & Crutcher
Jason C. Schwartz is a litigation partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Gibson Dunn, co-chair of the Labor & Employment Practice Group, General Counsel of the law firm and a member of the firm’s Executive Committee. Jason was recognized as an MVP in employment law five times, awarded by Law360 to “attorneys whose achievements in major litigation or transactions have set a new standard for accomplishment in corporate law.” Law360 referred to Jason as “an expert dismantler of worker class actions.”
Jason is ranked in Band 1 in Labor & Employment by Chambers USA, which stated, “He is a whip-smart, results-oriented and zealous advocate who is really committed to the client. His judgment is impeccable.” According to Chambers USA, “[c]lients note: He’s an excellent litigator with a good sense of the client’s needs in a business environment. He’s just a pleasure to work with. He’s disciplined, a great writer and gets great results.” Jason has been recognized as a Top 20 Labor & Employment Litigator in the U.S. by Benchmark Litigation; on the Top 100 list of the Nation’s Most Powerful Employment Attorneys by Human Resource Executive magazine; as a Top Lawyer in Employment Defense by Washingtonian Magazine; as a Leading Lawyer in Labor & Employment Disputes by The Legal 500 US; by Lawdragon 500 Leading Corporate Employment Lawyers for Labor & Employment (Litigation); in The Best Lawyers in America in the Employment Law-Management category; as a Super Lawyer by Washington, D.C. Super Lawyers; and as an Am Law Litigation Daily “Litigator of the Week” for his win in an independent contractor misclassification/wage-and-hour class action. He is a Fellow of the College of Labor & Employment Lawyers.
The practice group Jason co-leads was named by The American Lawyer as the Labor & Employment Litigation Department of the Year in its most recent competition. The American Lawyer noted, “with novel labor and employment issues swirling, Gibson Dunn’s litigators set standards and settle the law,” and that a case “typical for Gibson Dunn’s labor and employment team” is “high-profile,” “cutting-edge,” and “a victory.” The group was also recognized ten times as a Law360 Employment Practice Group of the Year and won The National Law Journal’s D.C. Labor & Employment Litigation Department of the Year competition for the last seven years in a row.
Jason’s practice includes sensitive workplace investigations, high-profile trade secret and non-compete matters, wage-hour and discrimination class actions, Sarbanes-Oxley and other whistleblower protection claims, executive and other significant employment disputes, labor union controversies, and workplace safety litigation.
Recent representative matters include:
Jason has also successfully tried several sensitive whistleblower matters for major national employers, and he prevailed in a precedent-setting Labor Department appeal of one of the first Sarbanes-Oxley whistleblower cases to proceed to trial. He prevailed for Enterprise Rent-A-Car in a case of first impression in which the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit created a new joint employer test (the Enterprise test) and affirmed summary judgment for a parent corporation in a series of wage-hour class actions, defeating the plaintiffs’ effort to form a nationwide class (In re Enterprise Rent-A-Car Wage & Hour Employment Practices Litig. (3rd Cir. 2012)). In another case of first impression, he successfully argued in the Utah Supreme Court against the recognition of a tort for spoliation of evidence. In addition, he served as lead trial counsel for a retailer in a highly-publicized OSHA enforcement action relating to crowd control at a day-after-Thanksgiving sale.
Jason also has significant experience in administrative law and rulemakings. He served as counsel to the Fair Labor Standards Reform Coalition, and he played a leading role in preparing comments on behalf of the business community relating to the U.S. Department of Labor’s overtime exemption regulations.
Jason served for many years as the Secretary of the Retail Litigation Center, and he testified before Congress regarding OSHA enforcement programs on behalf of the U.S. Chamber. He frequently speaks and writes on employment law and trade secret related topics. He is the co-author of the treatise Whistleblower Law: A Practitioner’s Guide, published by American Lawyer Media/Law Journal Press, and he previously authored the annual “Trade Secrets Litigation Round-Up” published by Bloomberg BNA.
Jason earned his law degree magna cum laude from Georgetown University Law Center, where he was elected to the Order of the Coif and received the George Brent Mickum III Prize and the Charles A. Keigwin Award for the best academic record in first year courses. From 1995 to 1996, he worked as a Legislative Assistant to Congressman Jon D. Fox. Jason received a B.A. degree in international affairs cum laude in 1994 from The George Washington University.
Jason is admitted to practice in the District of Columbia, Virginia and Maryland, as well as in numerous federal courts. He served for many years as an officer and board member of the Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School, currently serves as a member of the Washington Lawyers Committee of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, and provides pro bono employment counsel to numerous community organizations.
Solicitor, U.S. Department of Labor
Jonathan Berry is Solicitor at the U.S. Department of Labor, in service to President Trump’s agenda to put American workers first. He leads the Department’s lawyers in advising the Secretary and agency leadership on all aspects of law and in representing the Department in court. He was previously managing partner at Boyden Gray PLLC, where he provided strategic counsel and litigated on issues at the intersection of law, politics, and public policy. Earlier, he headed the regulatory office at Labor, and also served at the Department of Justice, in the first Trump Administration. Mr. Berry served as a law clerk to Judge Jerry E. Smith of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, and to Associate Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr., of the Supreme Court of the United States.
Founder & CEO, Edelson PC
Jay Edelson is the founder of Edelson PC. He is considered one of the nation’s leading plaintiff’s lawyers, with his firm having helped secure over $45 billion in settlements and verdicts on behalf of classes, individuals, and governmental entities. Law360 described Jay as a “Titan of the Plaintiff’s Bar.” Jay has been recognized as one of “America’s top trial lawyers” in the mass action arena. LawDragon named him one of the top Plaintiff Financial Lawyers in the country. He has been called “probably the best known, and most innovative, consumer privacy lawyer on the planet,” with he and his firm holding records for the largest trial verdict in a consumer privacy case ($925m), the largest consumer privacy settlement ($650m) and the largest TCPA settlement ($76m).
Jay has been appointed to represent state and local regulators on some of the largest issues of the day, ranging from opioids suits against pharmaceutical companies, to environmental actions against polluters, to breaches of trust against energy companies and for-profit hospitals, to privacy suits against Google, Facebook, and others.
Professor of Law, Rutgers Law School
Stacy Hawkins is a frequent writer and sought-after speaker on the issue of employment law and diversity. She’s served on the Philadelphia Diversity Law Group and the Pennsylvania Bar Association Commission on Women in the Profession Diversity Task Force. She worked as a senior labor and employment attorney and as the director of diversity for major law firms.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit
Judge Katsas was appointed to the D.C. Circuit in December 2017. He graduated from Princeton University and Harvard Law School, where he was an executive editor on the Harvard Law Review. Between 1989 and 1992, he served as a law clerk to Judge Edward Becker on the Third Circuit, to then-Judge Clarence Thomas on the D.C. Circuit, and to Justice Thomas on the Supreme Court. Between 1992 and 2001, he was an associate and then partner in the Washington office of Jones Day, where he specialized in appellate and complex civil litigation. Between 2001 and 2009, he served in many senior positions in the Department of Justice, including as Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division and as Acting Associate Attorney General. In 2009, he returned to Jones Day. From January to December 2017, he served as Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy Counsel to the President.
Before joining the bench, Judge Katsas argued more than 75 appeals, including three cases in the Supreme Court, 13 cases in the D.C. Circuit, and cases in every other federal court of appeals. By appointment of the Chief Justice, he served on the Advisory Committee on Appellate Rules from 2013 to 2017. In 2016, he was elected to membership in the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers.
Partner, Gibson Dunn & Crutcher
Jason C. Schwartz is a litigation partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Gibson Dunn, co-chair of the Labor & Employment Practice Group, General Counsel of the law firm and a member of the firm’s Executive Committee. Jason was recognized as an MVP in employment law five times, awarded by Law360 to “attorneys whose achievements in major litigation or transactions have set a new standard for accomplishment in corporate law.” Law360 referred to Jason as “an expert dismantler of worker class actions.”
Jason is ranked in Band 1 in Labor & Employment by Chambers USA, which stated, “He is a whip-smart, results-oriented and zealous advocate who is really committed to the client. His judgment is impeccable.” According to Chambers USA, “[c]lients note: He’s an excellent litigator with a good sense of the client’s needs in a business environment. He’s just a pleasure to work with. He’s disciplined, a great writer and gets great results.” Jason has been recognized as a Top 20 Labor & Employment Litigator in the U.S. by Benchmark Litigation; on the Top 100 list of the Nation’s Most Powerful Employment Attorneys by Human Resource Executive magazine; as a Top Lawyer in Employment Defense by Washingtonian Magazine; as a Leading Lawyer in Labor & Employment Disputes by The Legal 500 US; by Lawdragon 500 Leading Corporate Employment Lawyers for Labor & Employment (Litigation); in The Best Lawyers in America in the Employment Law-Management category; as a Super Lawyer by Washington, D.C. Super Lawyers; and as an Am Law Litigation Daily “Litigator of the Week” for his win in an independent contractor misclassification/wage-and-hour class action. He is a Fellow of the College of Labor & Employment Lawyers.
The practice group Jason co-leads was named by The American Lawyer as the Labor & Employment Litigation Department of the Year in its most recent competition. The American Lawyer noted, “with novel labor and employment issues swirling, Gibson Dunn’s litigators set standards and settle the law,” and that a case “typical for Gibson Dunn’s labor and employment team” is “high-profile,” “cutting-edge,” and “a victory.” The group was also recognized ten times as a Law360 Employment Practice Group of the Year and won The National Law Journal’s D.C. Labor & Employment Litigation Department of the Year competition for the last seven years in a row.
Jason’s practice includes sensitive workplace investigations, high-profile trade secret and non-compete matters, wage-hour and discrimination class actions, Sarbanes-Oxley and other whistleblower protection claims, executive and other significant employment disputes, labor union controversies, and workplace safety litigation.
Recent representative matters include:
Jason has also successfully tried several sensitive whistleblower matters for major national employers, and he prevailed in a precedent-setting Labor Department appeal of one of the first Sarbanes-Oxley whistleblower cases to proceed to trial. He prevailed for Enterprise Rent-A-Car in a case of first impression in which the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit created a new joint employer test (the Enterprise test) and affirmed summary judgment for a parent corporation in a series of wage-hour class actions, defeating the plaintiffs’ effort to form a nationwide class (In re Enterprise Rent-A-Car Wage & Hour Employment Practices Litig. (3rd Cir. 2012)). In another case of first impression, he successfully argued in the Utah Supreme Court against the recognition of a tort for spoliation of evidence. In addition, he served as lead trial counsel for a retailer in a highly-publicized OSHA enforcement action relating to crowd control at a day-after-Thanksgiving sale.
Jason also has significant experience in administrative law and rulemakings. He served as counsel to the Fair Labor Standards Reform Coalition, and he played a leading role in preparing comments on behalf of the business community relating to the U.S. Department of Labor’s overtime exemption regulations.
Jason served for many years as the Secretary of the Retail Litigation Center, and he testified before Congress regarding OSHA enforcement programs on behalf of the U.S. Chamber. He frequently speaks and writes on employment law and trade secret related topics. He is the co-author of the treatise Whistleblower Law: A Practitioner’s Guide, published by American Lawyer Media/Law Journal Press, and he previously authored the annual “Trade Secrets Litigation Round-Up” published by Bloomberg BNA.
Jason earned his law degree magna cum laude from Georgetown University Law Center, where he was elected to the Order of the Coif and received the George Brent Mickum III Prize and the Charles A. Keigwin Award for the best academic record in first year courses. From 1995 to 1996, he worked as a Legislative Assistant to Congressman Jon D. Fox. Jason received a B.A. degree in international affairs cum laude in 1994 from The George Washington University.
Jason is admitted to practice in the District of Columbia, Virginia and Maryland, as well as in numerous federal courts. He served for many years as an officer and board member of the Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School, currently serves as a member of the Washington Lawyers Committee of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, and provides pro bono employment counsel to numerous community organizations.
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.
Founder and Managing Partner, Burke Law Group PLLC
Marcella Burke of Houston, Texas is founder and managing partner of Burke Law Group PLLC, an elite, full-service commercial law firm specializing in complex litigation. Burke began her legal career as an energy attorney in AmLaw 20 law firms, where she earned equity partnership. She was appointed in the Trump Administration to serve in the Senior Executive Service at the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Interior, where she managed the litigation docket and regulatory portfolio of chemicals, and all energy and natural resource permitting and project development on federal lands, including the federal oil and gas, renewables, carbon capture, wind, and hydropower. She served as Counsel to the Royalty Policy Committee and received appointments to the DOI’s Regulatory Reform Task Force and as National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) team lead for all energy project approvals.
Burke serves in leadership roles with the State Bar of Texas Environmental Division, the Foundation for Natural Resources and Energy Law, and the Institute for Energy Law. She has published numerous articles and papers on energy and natural resources issues, as well as been quoted on same in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Bloomberg Law, and others.
She participated in judicial clerkships and externships including clerking on the Texas Supreme Court for Hon. Don Willett, and externing on the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, Federal District Court for the Southern District of Texas, and two Texas appellate courts. Burke received a Bachelor of Arts from Texas A&M University and a Juris Doctor from the University of Houston Law Center, as well as fellowships in Constitutional Law with Claremont Institute and James Wilson Institute.
In 2023, Governor Abbott appointed Burke as one of four members of the School Land Board, which manages the sale and leasing of 13 million acres of state lands. Marcella also serves on the Board of Trustees for the University of St. Thomas in Houston, Texas. She was a delegate at the 2023 ARC Forum in London.
Additionally, she is the Founder of the Burke Law Mom Endowment at the University of Houston Law Center, and the Burke Law Chickasaw National Family Flourishing Endowment, both of which support law students with children. She has served as a board member for the Federalist Society Houston Lawyers Chapter for over 10 years.
Founder & CEO, Edelson PC
Jay Edelson is the founder of Edelson PC. He is considered one of the nation’s leading plaintiff’s lawyers, with his firm having helped secure over $45 billion in settlements and verdicts on behalf of classes, individuals, and governmental entities. Law360 described Jay as a “Titan of the Plaintiff’s Bar.” Jay has been recognized as one of “America’s top trial lawyers” in the mass action arena. LawDragon named him one of the top Plaintiff Financial Lawyers in the country. He has been called “probably the best known, and most innovative, consumer privacy lawyer on the planet,” with he and his firm holding records for the largest trial verdict in a consumer privacy case ($925m), the largest consumer privacy settlement ($650m) and the largest TCPA settlement ($76m).
Jay has been appointed to represent state and local regulators on some of the largest issues of the day, ranging from opioids suits against pharmaceutical companies, to environmental actions against polluters, to breaches of trust against energy companies and for-profit hospitals, to privacy suits against Google, Facebook, and others.
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).
George Mason University Foundation Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
TODD J. ZYWICKI is George Mason University Foundation Professor of Law at Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University and Research Fellow of the George Mason Law and Economics Center. During the Fall 2023 semester he served as the Visiting Scholar in Conservative Thought and Policy for the Bruce Benson Center for the Study of Western Civilization at the University of Colorado-Boulder. From 2020-2021 he was Chair of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Taskforce on Federal Consumer Financial Law. In 2021 he was inducted to the American College of Consumer Financial Services Lawyers. He is also a Senior Fellow of the F.A. Hayek Program for the Advanced Study of Politics, Philosophy, and Economics at George Mason University and a former Senior Fellow of the Cato Institute. From 2015-2017 he was Executive Director of the George Mason Law and Economics Center. He served as Co-Editor of the Supreme Court Economic Review from 2006-2017. From 2003-2004, Professor Zywicki served as the Director of the Office of Policy Planning at the Federal Trade Commission. He has also taught at Vanderbilt University Law School, Georgetown University Law Center, Boston College Law School, Mississippi College School of Law, and China University of Political Science and Law.
Professor Zywicki clerked for Judge Jerry E. Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and worked as an associate at Alston & Bird in Atlanta, Georgia, where he practiced bankruptcy and commercial law. He received his J.D. from the University of Virginia, where he was executive editor of the Virginia Tax Review and John M. Olin Scholar in Law and Economics. Professor Zywicki also received an M.A. in Economics from Clemson University and an A.B. cum Laude with high honors in his major from Dartmouth College.
Professor Zywicki is also a Lone Mountain Fellow of the Property and Environment Research Center, a Fellow of the International Centre for Economic Research in Turin, Italy, and a former Senior Fellow of the Goldwater Institute. During the Fall 2008 Semester Professor Zywicki was the Searle Fellow of the George Mason University School of Law and was a 2008-09 W. Glenn Campbell and Rita Ricardo-Campbell National Fellow and the Arch W. Shaw National Fellow at the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace. He has lectured and consulted with government officials around the world, including Iceland, Italy, Japan, and Guatemala. In 2006 Professor Zywicki served as a Member of the United States Department of Justice Study Group on “Identifying Fraud, Abuse and Errors in the United States Bankruptcy System.”
Professor Zywicki is the author of more than 130 articles in leading law reviews and peer-reviewed economics journals. He is one of the Top 10 most-cited law professors in the field of Commercial Law and one of the Top 25 law professors on Twitter as measured by engagement levels. He is one of the Top 50 Most Downloaded Law Authors at the Social Science Research Network. He has testified multiple times before Congress on issues of consumer bankruptcy law and consumer credit and is a frequent commentator on legal issues in the print and broadcast media, including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, The Washington Post, The Washington Times, Nightline, The Newshour with Jim Lehrer, Neil Cavuto Show, Fox & Friends, Smerconish, Fox News @ Night with Shannon Bream, Fox Business, CNN, CNBC, Bloomberg News, BBC, The Diane Rehm Show, Lou Dobbs Show, Jerry Doyle Show, and The Laura Ingraham Show.
Professor Zywicki is former Chairman and a current member of the Board of Directors of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and is a member of the Board of Directors of the Institute for Humane Studies, Bill of Rights Institute, the Executive Committee for the Federalist Society's Financial Institutions and E-Commerce Practice Group, the Board of Trustees of the Foundation for Research on Economics and the Environment. He formerly served on the Governing Board and the Advisory Council for the Financial Services Research Program at George Washington University School of Business. He is currently the Chair of the Academic Advisory Council for the following organizations: The Bill of Rights Institute, the film “We the People in IMAX,” and the McCormick-Tribune Foundation “Freedom Museum” in Chicago, Illinois. He is a member of the Board of Visitors of Ralston College and was a member of the Board of Trustees of Yorktown University. From 2005-2009 he served as an elected Alumni Trustee of the Dartmouth College Board of Trustees.
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.
Founder and Managing Partner, Burke Law Group PLLC
Marcella Burke of Houston, Texas is founder and managing partner of Burke Law Group PLLC, an elite, full-service commercial law firm specializing in complex litigation. Burke began her legal career as an energy attorney in AmLaw 20 law firms, where she earned equity partnership. She was appointed in the Trump Administration to serve in the Senior Executive Service at the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Interior, where she managed the litigation docket and regulatory portfolio of chemicals, and all energy and natural resource permitting and project development on federal lands, including the federal oil and gas, renewables, carbon capture, wind, and hydropower. She served as Counsel to the Royalty Policy Committee and received appointments to the DOI’s Regulatory Reform Task Force and as National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) team lead for all energy project approvals.
Burke serves in leadership roles with the State Bar of Texas Environmental Division, the Foundation for Natural Resources and Energy Law, and the Institute for Energy Law. She has published numerous articles and papers on energy and natural resources issues, as well as been quoted on same in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Bloomberg Law, and others.
She participated in judicial clerkships and externships including clerking on the Texas Supreme Court for Hon. Don Willett, and externing on the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, Federal District Court for the Southern District of Texas, and two Texas appellate courts. Burke received a Bachelor of Arts from Texas A&M University and a Juris Doctor from the University of Houston Law Center, as well as fellowships in Constitutional Law with Claremont Institute and James Wilson Institute.
In 2023, Governor Abbott appointed Burke as one of four members of the School Land Board, which manages the sale and leasing of 13 million acres of state lands. Marcella also serves on the Board of Trustees for the University of St. Thomas in Houston, Texas. She was a delegate at the 2023 ARC Forum in London.
Additionally, she is the Founder of the Burke Law Mom Endowment at the University of Houston Law Center, and the Burke Law Chickasaw National Family Flourishing Endowment, both of which support law students with children. She has served as a board member for the Federalist Society Houston Lawyers Chapter for over 10 years.
Founder & CEO, Edelson PC
Jay Edelson is the founder of Edelson PC. He is considered one of the nation’s leading plaintiff’s lawyers, with his firm having helped secure over $45 billion in settlements and verdicts on behalf of classes, individuals, and governmental entities. Law360 described Jay as a “Titan of the Plaintiff’s Bar.” Jay has been recognized as one of “America’s top trial lawyers” in the mass action arena. LawDragon named him one of the top Plaintiff Financial Lawyers in the country. He has been called “probably the best known, and most innovative, consumer privacy lawyer on the planet,” with he and his firm holding records for the largest trial verdict in a consumer privacy case ($925m), the largest consumer privacy settlement ($650m) and the largest TCPA settlement ($76m).
Jay has been appointed to represent state and local regulators on some of the largest issues of the day, ranging from opioids suits against pharmaceutical companies, to environmental actions against polluters, to breaches of trust against energy companies and for-profit hospitals, to privacy suits against Google, Facebook, and others.
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).
George Mason University Foundation Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
TODD J. ZYWICKI is George Mason University Foundation Professor of Law at Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University and Research Fellow of the George Mason Law and Economics Center. During the Fall 2023 semester he served as the Visiting Scholar in Conservative Thought and Policy for the Bruce Benson Center for the Study of Western Civilization at the University of Colorado-Boulder. From 2020-2021 he was Chair of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Taskforce on Federal Consumer Financial Law. In 2021 he was inducted to the American College of Consumer Financial Services Lawyers. He is also a Senior Fellow of the F.A. Hayek Program for the Advanced Study of Politics, Philosophy, and Economics at George Mason University and a former Senior Fellow of the Cato Institute. From 2015-2017 he was Executive Director of the George Mason Law and Economics Center. He served as Co-Editor of the Supreme Court Economic Review from 2006-2017. From 2003-2004, Professor Zywicki served as the Director of the Office of Policy Planning at the Federal Trade Commission. He has also taught at Vanderbilt University Law School, Georgetown University Law Center, Boston College Law School, Mississippi College School of Law, and China University of Political Science and Law.
Professor Zywicki clerked for Judge Jerry E. Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and worked as an associate at Alston & Bird in Atlanta, Georgia, where he practiced bankruptcy and commercial law. He received his J.D. from the University of Virginia, where he was executive editor of the Virginia Tax Review and John M. Olin Scholar in Law and Economics. Professor Zywicki also received an M.A. in Economics from Clemson University and an A.B. cum Laude with high honors in his major from Dartmouth College.
Professor Zywicki is also a Lone Mountain Fellow of the Property and Environment Research Center, a Fellow of the International Centre for Economic Research in Turin, Italy, and a former Senior Fellow of the Goldwater Institute. During the Fall 2008 Semester Professor Zywicki was the Searle Fellow of the George Mason University School of Law and was a 2008-09 W. Glenn Campbell and Rita Ricardo-Campbell National Fellow and the Arch W. Shaw National Fellow at the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace. He has lectured and consulted with government officials around the world, including Iceland, Italy, Japan, and Guatemala. In 2006 Professor Zywicki served as a Member of the United States Department of Justice Study Group on “Identifying Fraud, Abuse and Errors in the United States Bankruptcy System.”
Professor Zywicki is the author of more than 130 articles in leading law reviews and peer-reviewed economics journals. He is one of the Top 10 most-cited law professors in the field of Commercial Law and one of the Top 25 law professors on Twitter as measured by engagement levels. He is one of the Top 50 Most Downloaded Law Authors at the Social Science Research Network. He has testified multiple times before Congress on issues of consumer bankruptcy law and consumer credit and is a frequent commentator on legal issues in the print and broadcast media, including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, The Washington Post, The Washington Times, Nightline, The Newshour with Jim Lehrer, Neil Cavuto Show, Fox & Friends, Smerconish, Fox News @ Night with Shannon Bream, Fox Business, CNN, CNBC, Bloomberg News, BBC, The Diane Rehm Show, Lou Dobbs Show, Jerry Doyle Show, and The Laura Ingraham Show.
Professor Zywicki is former Chairman and a current member of the Board of Directors of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and is a member of the Board of Directors of the Institute for Humane Studies, Bill of Rights Institute, the Executive Committee for the Federalist Society's Financial Institutions and E-Commerce Practice Group, the Board of Trustees of the Foundation for Research on Economics and the Environment. He formerly served on the Governing Board and the Advisory Council for the Financial Services Research Program at George Washington University School of Business. He is currently the Chair of the Academic Advisory Council for the following organizations: The Bill of Rights Institute, the film “We the People in IMAX,” and the McCormick-Tribune Foundation “Freedom Museum” in Chicago, Illinois. He is a member of the Board of Visitors of Ralston College and was a member of the Board of Trustees of Yorktown University. From 2005-2009 he served as an elected Alumni Trustee of the Dartmouth College Board of Trustees.
Partner, Clement & Murphy, PLLC
Paul served as the 43rd Solicitor General of the United States from June 2005 until June 2008. Before his confirmation as Solicitor General, he served as Acting Solicitor General for nearly a year and as Principal Deputy Solicitor General for over three years.
Paul has argued over 100 cases before the United States Supreme Court, including McConnell v. FEC, Tennessee v. Lane, United States v. Booker, MGM v. Grokster, Hobby Lobby v. Burwell, Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis, Rucho v. Common Cause, Facebook v. Duguid, and TransUnion v. Ramirez. Paul has argued more Supreme Court cases since 2000 than any lawyer in or out of government. He has also argued many important cases in the lower courts, including Walker v. Cheney, United States v. Moussaoui and NFL v. Brady.
Paul’s practice focuses on appellate matters, constitutional litigation and strategic counseling. He represents a broad array of clients in the Supreme Court and in federal and state appellate courts. Last year, for example, he successfully argued Supreme Court cases involving significant issues of energy regulation, statutory interpretation, state sovereign immunity and Article III standing, and successfully argued a trademark appeal in the Fourth Circuit, and a constitutional appeal before the en banc Eleventh Circuit.
Paul focuses on high-stakes appeals. In recent years, he successfully defended a $1.2 billion jury verdict for clients in a Tenth Circuit case, while securing the reversal of an over $2 billion jury verdict for another client in the Seventh Circuit and the approval of a nearly $1 billion dollar class action settlement in the Third Circuit. He has initiated major administrative law challenges and constitutional litigation against the federal government, such as the successful challenge to the HHS drug-pricing rule and threatened challenges that led to the withdrawal of the Treasury Department’s proposed cryptocurrency regulations. He also counsels clients on a variety of strategic legal questions, whether arising from pending legislation, government inquiries or ongoing litigation.
Paul has undertaken substantial pro bono engagements in the Supreme Court, such as twice successfully representing the defendant in Bond v. United States and successfully representing the Omaha Tribe in Nebraska v. Parker, the guardian ad litem in Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl, the defendant in Sekhar v. United States, a high school football coach in Kennedy v. Bremerton, and the Little Sisters of the Poor. Paul’s pro bono representation also precipitated the federal government’s confession of error in United States v. Rojas.
Following law school, Paul clerked for Judge Laurence H. Silberman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and for Associate Justice Antonin Scalia of the U.S. Supreme Court. After his clerkships, he went on to serve as Chief Counsel of the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution, Federalism and Property Rights.
Paul is a Distinguished Lecturer in Law at the Georgetown University Law Center, where he has taught in various capacities since 1998. He also serves as a Senior Fellow of the Law Center’s Supreme Court Institute. He is the Justice Joseph Story Distinguished Practitioner in Residence at the Gray Center at Scalia Law School.
Founder & CEO, Edelson PC
Jay Edelson is the founder of Edelson PC. He is considered one of the nation’s leading plaintiff’s lawyers, with his firm having helped secure over $45 billion in settlements and verdicts on behalf of classes, individuals, and governmental entities. Law360 described Jay as a “Titan of the Plaintiff’s Bar.” Jay has been recognized as one of “America’s top trial lawyers” in the mass action arena. LawDragon named him one of the top Plaintiff Financial Lawyers in the country. He has been called “probably the best known, and most innovative, consumer privacy lawyer on the planet,” with he and his firm holding records for the largest trial verdict in a consumer privacy case ($925m), the largest consumer privacy settlement ($650m) and the largest TCPA settlement ($76m).
Jay has been appointed to represent state and local regulators on some of the largest issues of the day, ranging from opioids suits against pharmaceutical companies, to environmental actions against polluters, to breaches of trust against energy companies and for-profit hospitals, to privacy suits against Google, Facebook, and others.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit
James C. Ho is a Circuit Judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Before taking the bench on January 4, 2018, he was a partner and co-chair of the national Appellate and Constitutional Law practice group of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP.
As an appellate litigator for over a decade, including three years as the Solicitor General of Texas, Judge Ho presented 50 oral arguments in federal and state courts nationwide. He won numerous appeals, including three merits cases at the U.S. Supreme Court. He was routinely ranked among the nation’s leading lawyers by Benchmark, Chambers, Law360, The Legal 500, and The National Law Journal, among other publications. His work has been cited favorably by courts at every level of both the federal and state judiciaries. He won a Best Brief Award from the National Association of Attorneys General for every year that he served as solicitor general, and he is the only state solicitor general in history to be invited by the U.S. Supreme Court to express the views of a state.
Judge Ho has served in all three branches of the federal government. On the Senate Judiciary Committee, he served as chief counsel of the Subcommittees on the Constitution and Immigration under Senator John Cornyn. At the Justice Department, he served as Special Assistant to the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights and an attorney-advisor at the Office of Legal Counsel. He clerked for Judge Jerry E. Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and Justice Clarence Thomas of the U.S. Supreme Court.
His record of public service also includes appointments as vice chair of the Federal Judicial Evaluation Committee in Texas and co-chair of the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association Judiciary Committee, and as a member of the U.S. Magistrate Judge Merit Selection Panel for the Northern District of Texas, the U.S. delegation to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, and the Continuity of Government Commission.
In addition, Judge Ho has served as an Adjunct Professor of Law at the University of Texas School of Law, where he taught seminars on U.S. Supreme Court Litigation and Religious Liberty. He has authored numerous articles in respected law reviews nationwide, including an annual feature on exemplary judicial writing for The Green Bag Almanac & Reader. He previously served as senior editor of The Green Bag and as co-editor of Pub. L. Misc.
Judge Ho graduated from Stanford University with honors and a B.A. in Public Policy in 1995, and the University of Chicago Law School with high honors in 1999. Before law school, he was a legislative aide to California State Senator Quentin Kopp. He and his wife Allyson live in Dallas, Texas, with their twin daughter and son.
Founder, Original Jurisdiction
David Lat is a lawyer turned writer. He publishes Original Jurisdiction, a newsletter on Substack about law and legal affairs, and he writes for newspapers and magazines, including the New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal. Prior to launching Original Jurisdiction, David founded Above the Law, one of the nation's most widely read legal news websites, and Underneath Their Robes, a popular blog about federal judges that he wrote under a pseudonym. He is also the author of a novel set in the world of the federal courts, Supreme Ambitions. Before entering the media world, David worked as a federal prosecutor in Newark, New Jersey; a litigation associate at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, in New York; and a law clerk to Judge Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. David graduated from Harvard College and Yale Law School, where he served as an editor of the Yale Law Journal.
Donald Phillip Rothschild Research Professor, George Washington University Law School
Renée Lettow Lerner is Donald Phillip Rothschild Research Professor of Law at George Washington University Law School.
Professor Lerner works in the fields of U.S. and English legal history, civil and criminal procedure, and comparative law. She advises judges, lawyers, and government officials from the United States and countries in Europe, Latin America, and Asia about the differences between adversarial and nonadversarial legal systems.
She writes extensively about the history of American juries. Her work includes not only scholarly articles, but also online publications intended for a broader audience of legal professionals and the public. In many different settings, she has debated the role of juries with other academics and with lawyers. She has a book forthcoming with Oxford University Press in the Very Short Introduction Series entitled “The Jury.” She is also working on a book about the American civil jury, from the colonial period to the present.
She is the author, with John Langbein and Bruce Smith, of the book History of the Common Law: The Development of Anglo-American Legal Institutions (2009).
Her recent writings include a book review of Amalia D. Kessler’s Inventing American Exceptionalism: The Origins of American Adversarial Legal Culture, 1800-1877, 67 J. Legal Ed. 888 (2018); “How the Creation of Appellate Courts in England and the United States Limited Judicial Comment on Evidence to the Jury,” 40 Journal of the Legal Profession 215 (2016); “The Troublesome Inheritance of Americans in Magna Carta and Trial by Jury,” in Magna Carta and its Modern Legacy 77-98 (Robert Hazell and James Melton eds., Cambridge University Press 2015); and “The Failure of Originalism in Preserving Constitutional Rights to Civil Jury Trial,” 22 William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal 811 (2014).
Professor Lerner received an A.B. summa cum laude in history from Princeton University. She was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, where she studied English legal history. At Yale Law School, she was Articles Editor of the Yale Law Journal. She served as a law clerk to Justice Anthony M. Kennedy of the U.S. Supreme Court and to Judge Stephen F. Williams of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. From 2003 to 2005, she served as Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Counsel at the U.S. Department of Justice.
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).
Panel & Fireside Chat with Solicitors General T. Elliot Gaiser and Eric Wessan
James M. Burnham, Jay Edelson, T. Elliot Gaiser, Nicole Stelle Garnett, Eric Wessan
Preserving Judicial Independence in a Time of Political Division
Featuring: James Burnham, President, Vallecito Capital Jay Edelson, Founder & CEO, Edelson PC Prof. Nicole Stelle Garnett, John...
Panel & Fireside Chat with Solicitors General T. Elliot Gaiser and Eric Wessan
James M. Burnham, Jay Edelson, Nicole Stelle Garnett, T. Elliot Gaiser, Eric Wessan
Preserving Judicial Independence in a Time of Political Division
Featuring: James Burnham, President, Vallecito Capital Jay Edelson, Founder & CEO, Edelson PC Prof. Nicole Stelle Garnett, John...
Showcase Panel II: How Should the Law Discourage Tribalism, Polarization, Racism, Religious Enmity, and Antisemitism in the United States?
Jay Edelson, Michael W. McConnell, Steven J. Menashi, David M. Schizer, Matt Stoller
2024 National Lawyers Convention
Most would agree that all of these [tribalism, polarization, racism, religious enmity, and antisemitism] are...
Showcase Panel II: How Should the Law Discourage Tribalism, Polarization, Racism, Religious Enmity, and Antisemitism in the United States?
Jay Edelson, Michael W. McConnell, Steven J. Menashi, David M. Schizer, Matt Stoller
2024 National Lawyers Convention
Most would agree that all of these [tribalism, polarization, racism, religious enmity, and antisemitism] are...
Race at Work: Can Businesses Treat People Differently on the Basis of Race?
Jonathan Berry, Jay Edelson, Stacy Hawkins, Gregory G. Katsas, Jason C. Schwartz
In June of last year, the Supreme Court held that consideration of applicants’ race in...
Race at Work: Can Businesses Treat People Differently on the Basis of Race?
Jonathan Berry, Jay Edelson, Stacy Hawkins, Gregory G. Katsas, Jason C. Schwartz
In June of last year, the Supreme Court held that consideration of applicants’ race in...
Tyranny of an organized minority: Free speech standards in higher education
David Bernstein, Marcella Burke, Jay Edelson, Eugene Volokh, Todd J. Zywicki
This panel will consider the symmetry and consistency of free speech norms in higher education....
Tyranny of an organized minority: Free speech standards in higher education
David Bernstein, Marcella Burke, Jay Edelson, Eugene Volokh, Todd J. Zywicki
This panel will consider the symmetry and consistency of free speech norms in higher education....
The State of Law Schools and Their Influence on the Legal Profession
I’ve been led by a guiding principle, born from my college days studying philosophy, that...
The State of Law Schools Series Part 1: Discussion, Coercion, and The Pursuit of Truth: The Role of Law Schools in Promoting Civility
Paul D. Clement, Jay Edelson, James C. Ho, David Lat, Renée Lettow Lerner, Eugene Volokh
Recent events at a number of law schools have raised concerns about civility and respect...