Chairman, Council on Environmental Quality
Mary B. Neumayr is the current Chairman of the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ). She was unanimously confirmed by the United States Senate on January 2, 2019, and sworn in as Chairman on January 10, 2019. Prior to her appointment, Ms. Neumayr had been serving as CEQ’s Chief of Staff since March 2017.
Before joining CEQ, Ms. Neumayr served in a variety of positions with the Committee on Energy and Commerce in the United States House of Representatives, including as Deputy Chief Counsel, Energy and Environment (2017); Senior Energy Counsel (2011-2017); and Counsel (2009-2010). Ms. Neumayr also served as Deputy General Counsel for Environment and Nuclear Programs at the Department of Energy (2006-2009) and as Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for the Environment and Natural Resources Division at the Department of Justice (2003-2006).
Prior to her Government service, Ms. Neumayr was in private legal practice from 1989 through 2003 in New York and San Francisco. She received her B.A. from Thomas Aquinas College and J.D. from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law.
Attorney
Mr. McConnell is an Immediate Past Chairman of the Litigation Practice Group Executive Committee at the Federalist Society.
Attorney and Consultant
His extensive expertise includes professional liability, strategic counseling, compliance design and supervision, SEC issues, litigation prevention and management, law department administration, and crisis management and media relations.
Mr. Univer served the previous 16 years as General Counsel at a major national accounting firm. In that role, he was responsible for legal and liability insurance matters for the firm, as well as the retention and supervision of outside counsel. Additionally, he acted in a supervisory capacity in advising both the firm’s management and its Board on firm structure, risk management, and other legal matters. He has held previous positions as Assistant General Counsel for a Big Four firm for which he conducted general litigation and coordinated all government financial institution related litigation, nationally, and Senior Litigation Associate for one of the largest international law firms in New York where he conducted litigation through trial and appeal for a diverse array of corporate and government clients.
Mr. Univer graduated magna cum laude from Kenyon College with an A.B. in Political Science, and received both his J.D. and an LL.M. in Criminal Justice from New York University Law School.
Retired Partner, Sullivan & Cromwell LLP
Upon his resignation as the Legal Adviser of the U.S. Department of State in January 1993, Mr. Williamson rejoined Sullivan & Cromwell's Washington, D.C. office. He originally joined the Firm in 1964 after graduating from New York University School of Law, where he was an editor of the Law Review. He became a partner of the Firm in 1971, moved to its London office in 1976, returned to its New York office in 1979, moved to its Washington, D.C. office in 1988 and became Of Counsel in 2007. In 2018, he retired from the firm.
At Sullivan & Cromwell, Mr. Williamson engaged in a broad and wide-ranging domestic and international financing and transactions practice, as well as advice with respect to corporate governance issues, the United States’ economic sanctions laws, the ethics rules applicable to government officials and the immunities of foreign sovereigns and international organizations.
Mr. Williamson has been an active participant on panels and other forums involving public international law and national security issues, such as the domestic and international bases for the use of force, the role of the United States with respect to the International Criminal Court, the law of the sea and the application of international legal principles in the war against terrorism.
Mr. Williamson is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a former member of the Executive Council of the American Society of International Law, the Executive Committees of the Business and Advisory Committee (BIAC) to the OECD and the U.S. Council for International Business, the United States Advisory Board of NTT DoCoMo, Inc. and the Board of Directors of Triton Oil & Gas Limited.
Mr. Williamson has served on the Boards of Regents and Trustees of the University of the South and as chair of the Board of Regents. He is currently a member of the Board of Directors of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, a higher education watchdog.
Professor of Constitutional Law, Pepperdine University School of Law
One of America's best known scholars and popular commentators on the law, Professor Douglas W. Kmiec holds the endowed chair in constitutional law at Pepperdine Law School. He came to this position after serving several years as dean and St. Thomas More Professor of Law at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., and for nearly two decades, on the law faculty at the University of Notre Dame. As dean at Catholic University, Professor Kmiec did what many said would be impossible; he greatly increased academic quality and student selectivity at the same time he deepened the school's religious commitment. During his tenure, the law school moved into the upper tier of the U.S. News ranking from tier three. At Notre Dame, he was director of Notre Dame's Center on Law & Government, and the founder of its Journal of Law, Ethics & Public Policy. Beyond the university setting, Kmiec served Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush during 1985-89 as constitutional legal counsel (Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Counsel, U.S. Department of Justice).
A wide-ranging writer and engaging speaker, Professor Kmiec writes a syndicated column for the Catholic News Service, and for several years wrote a regular column in the Chicago Tribune. He is also a frequent contributor to the pages of the Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, and other periodicals. He is the co-author (with legal historian Stephen Presser of Northwestern) of three books on the Constitution -- The American Constitutional Order; Individual Rights and the American Constitution and The History, Structure and Philosophy of the American Constitution. Another recent book, Cease-Fire on the Family (Crisis Books/Notre Dame) attracted scholarly and popular acclaim for proposing realistic ways for families to "end the culture war" by renewing personal virtue and civic responsibility within itself. He has also written The Attorney General's Lawyer (Praeger 1992), and several respected legal treatises.
Professor Kmiec's scholarly research spans legal and non-legal subjects, from the Constitution and the federal system, to land use and the organization of America society. He is a frequent guest on national news programs, such as Nightline, the Newshour, and NPR's Talk of the Nation, analyzing constitutional questions.
A White House Fellow (1982-83), Professor Kmiec is one of a few individuals who has received the Distinguished Service Award from two cabinet departments —the Department of Justice in 1987 and Housing and Urban Development in 1983. In 1988, he was awarded the Edmund J. Randolph Award by the attorney general. He has lectured on the U.S. Constitution in Asia as a Fulbright Distinguished Scholar.
An honors graduate of Northwestern, Professor Kmiec received his law degree from the University of Southern California, where he served on the Law Review and received the Legion Lex Commencement Prize for Legal Writing. He is a member of the bar of the U.S. Supreme Court and the state bars of Illinois and California.
B.A., with honors, Northwestern University, 1973
J.D., University of Southern California, 1976
S. Walter Richey Professor of Corporate Law, University of Minnesota Law School
Professor Richard W. Painter received his B.A., summa cum laude, in history from Harvard University and his J.D. from Yale University, where he was an editor of the Yale Journal on Regulation. Following law school, he clerked for Judge John T. Noonan Jr., of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and later practiced at Sullivan & Cromwell in New York City and Finn Dixon & Herling in Stamford, Connecticut.
He has served as a tenured member of the law faculty at the University of Oregon School of Law and the University of Illinois College of Law, where he was the Guy Raymond and Mildred Van Voorhis Jones Professor of Law from 2002 to 2005.
From February 2005 to July 2007, he was Associate Counsel to the President in the White House Counsel's office, serving as the chief ethics lawyer for the President, White House employees and senior nominees to Senate-confirmed positions in the Executive Branch. He is a member of the American Law Institute and is an advisor for the new ALI Principles of Government Ethics. He has also been active in the Professional Responsibility Section of the American Bar Association.
Professor Painter has also been active in law reform efforts aimed at deterring securities fraud and improving ethics of corporate managers and lawyers. A key provision of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 requiring the SEC to issue rules of professional responsibility for securities lawyers was based on earlier proposals Professor Painter made in law review articles and to the ABA and the SEC. He has given dozens of lectures on the Sarbanes-Oxley Act to law schools, bar associations, and learned societies, such as the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Professor Painter has on four separate occasions provided invited testimony before committees of the U.S. House of Representatives or the U.S. Senate on securities litigation and/or the role of attorneys in corporate governance.
His book, Getting the Government America Deserves: How Ethics Reform Can Make a Difference, was published by Oxford University Press in January 2009. He has written op-eds on government ethics for various publications including the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times, and he has been interviewed several times on government ethics and corporate ethics by national news organizations, including appearances on Lawrence O'Donnell (MSNBC), Anderson Cooper 360 (CNN), CNN News, Fox News, National Public Radio All Things Considered, and Minnesota Public Radio News. In 2011, he testified before the U.S. House Government Oversight Committee on partisan political activity by government officials and reform of the Hatch Act. Professor Painter has also given expert testimony in cases involving securities transactions and the professional responsibility of lawyers. He testified as a defense witness in SEC. v. The Reserve Money Market Fund (SDNY, November 2012), a jury trial of an SEC enforcement action against the founders of the world's oldest money market fund that ended with a defense verdict on all of the fraud counts.
Professor Painter is the author of two casebooks: Securities Litigation and Enforcement (with Margaret Sachs and Donna Nagy; West 2003; Second Edition, 2007; Third Edition 2011) and Professional and Personal Responsibilities of the Lawyer (with Judge John T. Noonan Jr.; Foundation 1997; Second Edition, 2001; Third Edition 2011). He has written dozens of articles, book reviews, and essays, including a series of papers and a forthcoming book with Minnesota colleague Claire Hill on the personal responsibility of investment bankers.
Partner, Baker Hostetler LLP
David Rivkin is a member of the firm's litigation, international and environmental teams and is co-leader of the firm's national appellate practice. He has extensive experience in constitutional, administrative and international law litigation and has been involved in numerous high-profile cases. With his prior experience in the government sector, David draws on a wealth of knowledge when providing compliance advice to companies and handling enforcement proceedings before government agencies on issues arising out of multilateral and unilateral sanctions, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), anti-boycott issues, bankruptcy and financial fraud matters, and environmental and energy issues.
David has developed and implemented legislative, regulatory and litigation initiatives for two presidential administrations. Over the years, he has published hundreds of articles, op-eds, book reviews and book chapters on a variety of international, legal, constitutional, defense, arms control, foreign policy, environmental and energy issues for various newspapers and magazines, including The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The New York Times, USA Today and The Los Angeles Times, and has been a frequent commentator and guest on TV and radio shows including ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox News, NPR and PBS.
Partner, Baker & Hostetler LLP
Lee A. Casey focuses on federal environmental, constitutional and international law and Alien Tort Statute issues. He also advises clients on compliance issues under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), U.S. trade sanctions regimes, and federal ethics requirements. Mr. Casey’s practice includes federal, district and appellate court litigation, as well as matters before federal agencies. Prior to joining BakerHostetler, Mr. Casey was an associate with Hunton & Williams, practicing in international, environmental and constitutional law. From 2004 through 2007 he served as an member of the United Nations Subcommission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights.
From 1986 to 1993, Mr. Casey served in various capacities in the federal government, including the Office of Legal Policy (1986-90) and the Office of Legal Counsel (1992-93) at the U.S. Department of Justice and served as Deputy Associate General Counsel at the U.S. Department of Energy (1990-92). The Office of Legal Counsel is responsible for advising the Attorney General and the White House on issues of constitutional law and statutory interpretation. The Office of Legal Policy served as a strategic “think tank” for the Reagan Justice Department and was responsible for reviewing candidates for appointments to the federal bench.
Before joining the government in 1986, Mr. Casey was an associate in the Los Angeles firm of Mitchell, Silberberg & Knupp, practicing in the litigation section, with an emphasis on copyright, contract and First Amendment issues. From 1984 to 1985, Mr. Casey served as Law Clerk to the Honorable Alex Kozinski, then Chief Judge of the United States Claims Court. From 1982 to 1984, he practiced at the Detroit firm of Dykema Gossett, focusing on corporate, securities, commercial and intellectual property litigation, and from 1990 through 1994, he served as an Adjunct Professor of Law at George Mason University School of Law in Arlington, Virginia.
Among the chapters, articles and papers that Mr. Casey has authored or co-authored are: “International Law and the Nation-State at the U.N.,” Reclaiming the Language of Freedom at the United Nations: A Guide for U.S. Policymakers, The Heritage Foundation (2006) (with David B. Rivkin, Jr.); “The Dangerous Myth of Universal Jurisdiction,” A Country I Do Not Recognize (ed. Robert H. Bork) (2005) (with David B. Rivkin, Jr.); “Leashing the Dogs of War,” The National Interest (Fall 2003) (with David B. Rivkin, Jr.); “The Limits of Legitimacy: The Rome Statute’s Unlawful Application to Non-State Parties,” 44 Va.J.Int’l L. 63 (Fall 2003) (with David B. Rivkin, Jr.); “Devil’s Advocates: The Danger of Judging Lawyers By Their Clients,” Policy Review (Feb. and Mar. 2002) (with David B. Rivkin, Jr.); “The Case Against the International Criminal Court,” 25 Fordham Int’l L.J. 840 (2002); “Europe in the Balance: The Alarmingly Undemocratic Drift of the European Union,” Policy Review (June and July 2001) (with David B. Rivkin Jr.); “Against an International Criminal Court,” Commentary, May 1998 (with David B. Rivkin, Jr.); “Federalism (Cont’d.),” Commentary, December 1996 (with David B. Rivkin, Jr.); “Presidents and War Powers: Another View,” Common Sense, Winter 1996 (with David B. Rivkin, Jr.); “How Binding Are Contracts?” The American Enterprise, Nov./Dec. 1993 (with David B. Rivkin, Jr.); and “Pirate Constitutionalism: An Essay in Self-Government,” 8 J. of L. & Politics 477 (1992).
Mr. Casey is a member of the California, Michigan and District of Columbia Bar Associations.
Partner, Baker & Hostetler LLP
Darin Bartram focuses his practice in the areas of constitutional litigation and appellate work, with particular experience in environmental law.
Partner, Shook, Hardy & Bacon LLP
Victor Schwartz chairs the firm's Public Policy Practice Group, which focuses on integrating litigation, government affairs and public relations. The group seeks to be the vanguard of developing public policy issues that will help improve our civil justice system. Mr. Schwartz also has an active appellate practice and advises product manufacturers on liability prevention, litigation and public relations issues.
Sought by print and broadcast media, Mr. Schwartz is frequently quoted in The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and The New York Times. He has appeared on Oprah, 60 Minutes and leading news programs. The Legal Times of Washington has named Mr. Schwartz one of Washington’s Top 30 “Visionary” lawyers, and The National Law Journal named Mr. Schwartz one of the 100 most influential lawyers in the United States in March 2013.
Mr. Schwartz is on the Board of Directors of the Searle Civil Justice Institute at George Mason University School of Law. He is a frequent participant in judicial education programs. Mr. Schwartz serves as General Counsel to the American Tort Reform Association.
Prior to entering the full time practice of law, Mr. Schwartz was a professor and dean at the University of Cincinnati College of Law. He currently serves on the College’s Board of Visitors. In 2012, the College established the Professor Victor E. Schwartz Chair in Tort Law.
Mr. Schwartz, while at the U.S. Department of Commerce, served as chair of the Federal Inter-Agency Task Force on Product Liability, and the Federal Inter-Agency Council on Insurance. He was the principal author of the Uniform Product Liability Act and the Federal Risk Retention Act. He received the Secretary of Commerce’s Award for Professional Excellence.
Mr. Schwartz is co-author of the most widely used torts casebook in the United States, Prosser, Wade and Schwartz’s Torts (12th ed. 2010). He is author of the leading text Comparative Negligence (5th ed. 2010).
Mr. Schwartz has been an advisor for each of the American Law Institute’s (ALI) Restatement (Third) of Torts projects; Products Liability, Apportionment of Liability, and Liability for Physical Injury and Emotional Harm. He is a life member of the ALI.
Mr. Schwartz’s law review articles have analyzed almost every major subject of modern tort and civil justice public policy issues. His articles are frequently cited by both state and federal courts.
An Examination of the Criminalization of Commercial Activity
Mary B. Neumayr
In the days and weeks following the dramatic collapse of energy giant Enron, the calls...
Collateral Damage: An Examination of Tort Liability Post 9/11
David W. Simon, Robert A. McConnell, Alex Ray, Thomas Swett
The actors who are primarily responsible for a terrorist attack are unlikely to be defendants...
Auditing and Accounting in the Wake of Global Crossing and Enron
Andrew Cochran, J.P. Donlon, Scott Univer, Roy Brunt, Edwin D. Williamson, J.P Donlon
Transcript
Transcript from the Auditing and Accounting in the Wake of Global Crossing and Enron panel...
The Role of the Senate in Judicial Confirmations
Elliot Mincberg, Douglas W. Kmiec
Transcript of The Role of the Senate in Judicial Confirmations debate on June 7, 2002,...
Restoring Congress’s Proper Role in Oversight of Covert Intelligence Operations
James E. Gauch
One former director of central intelligence has called the terrorist attacks on the World Trade...
Private Securities Litigation Reform Act: A Post-Enron Analysis
Megan Farrell, Scott Adkins, Richard W. Painter
In the aftermath of the collapse of Enron, Congress is considering various proposals that purportedly...
The Blocking of Terrorist-Related Assets Under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act
Christian G. Vergonis
In the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the United States has...
The First Amendment and Securities Laws
Virtually all forms of government regulation of speech are limited, to one degree or another,...
An Assessment of the Recommendations of the American Bar Association Regarding the Use of Military Commissions in the War on Terror
David B. Rivkin, Lee A. Casey, Darin R. Bartram
At its 2002 annual meeting in Philadelphia, the American Bar Association ("ABA") adopted six specific...
Judicial Nullification of Civil Justice Reform Violates the Fundamental Federal Constitutional Principle of Separation of Powers: How to Restore the Right Balance
Victor E. Schwartz, Leah Lorber
Our founding fathers outlined a system of government that allowed our Republic to gain strength...