Journalist & Legal Expert
Tim O’Brien is an attorney and an award winning journalist whose achievements include covering the U.S. Supreme Court for ABC News for more than twenty-two years. He is a recognized expert on the Court, its Justices and on the development of a generation of constitutional law.
O’Brien’s reporting has received the highest accolades of both the legal and journalism professions. The National Academy of Arts and Sciences awarded Mr. O’Brien an Emmy for his contributions to CNN’s coverage of the September 11thterrorism attacks. His television documentaries on the criminal justice system received the American Bar Association’s highest award (The Silver Gavel Award) as well as a Columbia-DuPont Award for Excellence in journalism. He also received a Columbia-DuPont Award for Human Rights Reporting for “Escape From Justice—Nazi War Criminals in America,” an ABC News documentary.
O’Brien’s reporting on the death penalty and alternative dispute resolution have also been recognized by the American Bar Association for journalism excellence. He is currently a contributing correspondent to the PBS Broadcast, “Religion and Ethics Newsweekly.” His opinions on issues ranging from the death penalty to broadcast coverage of the U.S. Supreme Court have appeared on the Op Ed pages of The New York Times, The Washington Post and other major newspapers around the U.S.
O’Brien is a member of the District of Columbia Bar and the Bar of the Supreme Court of the U.S. Active in the Washington legal community, he is an elected member of the American Law Institute, a former Director of the American Judicature Society and a current board member of the National Legal Center for the Public Interest.
O’Brien is a Distinguished Visiting Professor of Law at Nova Southeastern University in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida and has held similar positions at Loyola University School of Law in New Orleans (2003, 2005), St. Thomas University School of Law in Miami (2001) and Hofstra University School of Law, Hempstead, NY. (2000)
He is a “Distinguished Alumnus” of Michigan State University and a member of the Board of Visitors of the Loyola University School of Law in New Orleans. A frequent lecturer on the Supreme Court and legal issues generally, he was the keynote speaker at the D.C. Judicial Circuit Conference for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia meeting at Williamsburg, Virginia in 2002. In 2009, he was the keynote speaker for annual meetings of the state bar associations of Michigan and Kentucky.
Justice, Supreme Court of Alabama (Retired); Professor of Law, Belmont University College of Law?
Partner, Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP
Partner, Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP
Stevenson Bernard Professor, George Washington University Law School
The Honorable F. Scott Kieff is the Stevenson Bernard Professor at George Washington University Law School and a Visiting Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution.
He served as Commissioner of the U.S. International Trade Commission from 2013-2017. He also served during the Bush, Obama, and Trump Administrations in the part-time leadership of the national security defense-intelligence community.
He was previously a professor of law and medicine at Washington University in Saint Louis and a Senior Fellow at Hoover. A former law clerk to U.S. Circuit Judge Giles S. Rich, he is a graduate of Penn Law School and MIT, where he studied molecular biology and microeconomics. He was elected to the European Academy of Sciences and Arts in 2012 and the Academia Europaea in 2024.
His private sector work through Kieff Strategies LLC (www.kieffstrategies.com) provides neutral services including mediation and compliance, and expert services including crisis management, advising, and testimony.
Attorney, Klein O'Neill & Singh LLP
Mr. Klein is a registered patent attorney with over thirty years of experience in patent and trademark prosecution, licensing, opinion work, and litigation. Mr. Klein has written and prosecuted hundreds of patents in a wide variety of technologies. He has been engaged extensively in validity and infringement opinions, and he has experience in the litigation of all aspects of IP: Patents, trademarks, copyrights, and trade secrets.
Mr. Klein has served clients throughout the United States, as well as Europe, Taiwan, and Australia. Clients include start-up companies, and corporations of all sizes, including Fortune 500® companies.
Mr. Klein is now also an Adjunct Professor of Law at Chapman University Law School.
Co-Chairman, The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies
Leonard is Co-Chairman and former Executive Vice President of the Federalist Society, joining the organization over 25 years ago. Since that time he has been instrumental in helping the organization top 70,000, focusing on the growth of lawyers membership, operations and activities advancing limited, constitutional government. In addition to his work at the Society, Leonard has advised President Trump on judicial selection, assisted with the Gorsuch and Kavanaugh Supreme Court selection and confirmation process, and served as a member of the transition team. He also organized the outside coalition efforts in support of the Roberts and Alito U.S. Supreme Court confirmations. Leonard was appointed by President George W. Bush to three terms to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom as chairman. He was also a U.S. Delegate to the UN Council and UN Commission on Human Rights during the Bush Administration. Leonard was the recipient of the 2009 Bradley Prize, along with the other founders and directors of the Federalist Society, for his work in advancing freedom and the rule of law. He is the coeditor of Presidential Leadership: Rating the Best and the Worst in the White House, as well as the author of opinion editorials in the New York Times,The Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post. Leonard holds degrees from Cornell University and Cornell Law School. He presently resides in Northern Virginia, where he and his wife Sally have raised their seven children.
Professor of Law, Southern Illinois University School of Law
Professor Mark F. Schultz joined the faculty in 2003. He teaches and writes primarily in the area of intellectual property.
Professor Schultz is a frequent author and speaker known for his work on the law and economics of the global intellectual property system. In one of his most influential projects, he worked with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to construct a groundbreaking global trade secret protection index (the TSPI). The TSPI is influencing policy discussions on this cutting-edge topic in capitals around the world. Other recent projects have included an empirical study that quantified for the first time the backlogs in patent offices worldwide, a report on how patented innovation is meeting global health challenges, and the construction of a new global index of copyright strength.
Professor Schultz is an influential voice in public policy debates regarding intellectual property. He has testified before the U.S. Congress on copyright law at the invitation of the House Judiciary Committee and has briefed the staff of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on trade secret legislation. He speaks frequently around the world about the connection between secure and effective intellectual property rights and flourishing national economies and individual lives, with invitations from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the U.S. Trade Representative, and the U.S. Copyright Office, as well as numerous academic institutions, think tanks, and industry groups. He served as an NGO delegate to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) for several years during the WIPO Development Agenda talks. He is also one of the organizers of an ongoing multilateral diplomatic dialogue on best practices in national trade secret laws, and is co-founder of the Center for Protection of Intellectual Property (CPIP) at George Mason University in Washington, D.C.
Among the awards and recognition he has received for his scholarship was the School of Law's Outstanding Scholar of the Year award in 2008. He has been a distinguished visiting scholar at the University of Botswana and a visiting professor at DePaul University College of Law.
Professor Schultz graduated with honors from the George Washington University School of Law. Following law school, he was a judicial clerk for the Hon. Daniel M. Friedman of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, D.C., and the Hon. Eric G. Bruggink of the United States Court of Federal Claims. Prior to joining academia, he practiced law for a decade, serving as outside general counsel to several tech startups and helping technology companies to expand their businesses and commercialize their intellectual property in dozens of countries. He holds a B.A. in International Economics from George Washington University and has done PhD level coursework in development economics at Southern Illinois University.
He is active in leadership roles in local and national organizations. He has served as chair of the Federalist Society's Intellectual Property Practice Group and the AALS Section on Internet and Computer Law. He is an officer of the American Bar Association's International IP Committee of the International Law Section and the American Intellectual Property Law Association’s Trade Secret Law Committee. He currently is chair of the Academic Advisory Board of the Copyright Alliance.
Professor Schultz teaches Copyright Law, Trade Secret Law, Trademark Law, and a senior seminar on Intellectual Property and Global Development. He established and directs both the Specialization in Intellectual Property Law and the IP Semester in Practice Externship Program. He also co-founded a Legal Globalization Class, offered every other year, that takes students to South Africa and Botswana after spending a semester learning about the legal system, culture, history, and politics of southern Africa. The popular course is a once-in-a-lifetime experience that introduces students to leading lawyers, judges, government officials, and human rights advocates, taking them from Cape Town to Johannesburg to Gaborone as well as many popular destinations including game reserves, national parks, the Cape of Good Hope, and the Cradle of Humankind.
The Florida Supreme Court: Judicial Activism & Judicial Self-Restraint – Some Examples
Thomas C. Marks, Pamela Buha
This paper is about judicial activism and judicial self-restraint. These terms can mean different things...
The Colorado Supreme Court: Independence or Activism?
Shawn Mitchell
Politicians, academics, and even U.S. Supreme Court Justices have joined the debate over the role...
The Colorado Supreme Court: Independence or Activism?
Shawn Mitchell
Politicians, academics, and even U.S. Supreme Court Justices have joined the debate over the role...
Are Judicial Elections a Threat to Judicial Independence? - Event Audio
Randall T. Shepard, Tim O'Brien, Harold F. See
State Courts Project
The Federalist Society's State Courts Project presented this event on October 24, 2006, at the...
The Predictable Unpredictability of the Georgia Supreme Court
Robert S. Barker, Holly A. Pierson, W Teague
National awareness of the debate surrounding the proper role of judges in interpreting and applying...
Staying the Course: An Update on the Alabama Supreme Court
Marc James Ayers
From 1994-2004, the Alabama Supreme Court underwent a significant transformation—a transformation in both legal philosophy...
Staying the Course: An Update on the Alabama Supreme Court
Marc James Ayers
From 1994-2004, the Alabama Supreme Court underwent a significant transformation—a transformation in both legal philosophy...
The Predictable Unpredictability of the Georgia Supreme Court
Robert S. Barker, Holly A. Pierson, W Teague
National awareness of the debate surrounding the proper role of judges in interpreting and applying...
Engage Volume 7, Issue 2, October 2006
Special Feature: The Templeton Debates Make Way for Wal-Mart! Eminent Domain after Kelo Daniel Mendelker...
Intellectual Property as a Tool of Empowerment for the Developing World: An Empowerment Agenda
Bruce A. Lehman, Robert Sherwood, James DeLong, F. Scott Kieff, Howard J. Klein, Leonard A. Leo, Mark F. Schultz
White Paper
The recent controversy regarding a Development Agenda at WIPO is misguided in some respects, as...