Constitutional Scholarship Director and Senior Legal Analyst, Pacific Legal Foundation
Anastasia Boden is Director of Constitutional Scholarship at Pacific Legal Foundation, where she leads the organization’s Supreme Court commentary and directs scholarly analysis in support of the firm’s litigation. She has represented entrepreneurs and small businesses nationwide in challenges to onerous licensing regimes, anti-competitive titling restrictions, Certificate of Need (“competitor’s veto”) laws, and other forms of unnecessary red tape that block economic opportunity.
Prior to this role, Anastasia developed nearly a dozen constitutional challenges to Certificate of Need laws across the country, helping spur legislative reform in Montana, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. Her victories include a ruling invalidating Houston’s busking restrictions, multiple appellate decisions expanding access to the courts for civil rights plaintiffs, and the legislative repeal of Virginia’s happy-hour advertising ban.
Her writings on law and liberty have been featured in USA Today, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, Forbes, and more, and she has appeared on Headline News, CBS News, Fox News, ReasonTV, Newsmax, and John Stossel. In 2020, she was featured on Libertarian Party presidential candidate Jo Jorgensen’s Supreme Court shortlist.
Anastasia earned her BA with dean’s honors from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and her JD from Georgetown University Law Center, where she was research assistant to Professor Randy E. Barnett—the “intellectual godfather” of the constitutional challenge to Obamacare. She is the co-creator of the podcast Dissed, about infamous Supreme Court dissents. She authors the biweekly newsletter SCOTUS Scoop and the column, “In Dissent” for SCOTUSblog.
Partner, Wiley Rein, LLP
Megan L. Brown is a partner at Wiley Rein LLP. She has significant litigation, appellate and regulatory experience before state and federal courts and agencies.
Ms. Brown helps businesses respond to federal, state and local regulation and investigations raising administrative law, statutory interpretation, and constitutional issues, including the First Amendment.
Lecturer, Berkeley Law
Ann M. Ravel was nominated to the Federal Election Commission by President Barack Obama on June 21, 2013. After her appointment received the unanimous consent of the United States Senate, Ms. Ravel joined the Commission on October 25, 2013. She served as Chair of the Commission for 2015 and Vice Chair for 2014 before leaving in 2017.
Previously, Ms. Ravel served as Chair of the California Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC), to which Governor Edmund G. Brown, Jr. appointed her. At the FPPC, Ms. Ravel oversaw the regulation of campaign finance, lobbyist registration and reporting, and ethics and conflicts of interest related to officeholders and public employees. During her tenure at the FPPC, Ms. Ravel was instrumental in the creation of the States’ Unified Network (SUN) Center, a web-based center for sharing information on campaign finance.
Before joining the FPPC, Ms. Ravel served as Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Torts and Consumer Litigation in the Civil Division of the United States Department of Justice. Ms. Ravel also worked as an attorney in the Santa Clara County Counsel’s Office, ultimately serving as the appointed County Counsel from 1998 until 2009. Ms. Ravel represented the County and its elected officials, provided advice on the state Political Reform Act, and initiated groundbreaking programs in elder abuse litigation, educational rights, and consumer litigation on behalf of the Santa Clara County government and the community.
Ms. Ravel has served as an elected Governor on the Board of Governors of the State Bar of California, a member of the Judicial Council of the State of California, and Chair of the Commission on Judicial Nominees Evaluation. In 2014, she was named a California Attorney of the Year by California Lawyer magazine for her work in Government law, and in 2007, the State Bar of California named Ms. Ravel Public Attorney of the Year for her contributions to public service.
Ms. Ravel received her B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley and her J.D. from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law. Ms. Ravel is the daughter of a Latin American immigrant mother and an American father. She was raised in Latin America before her family settled in the San Francisco Bay area, which she considers home.
Constitutional Scholarship Director and Senior Legal Analyst, Pacific Legal Foundation
Anastasia Boden is Director of Constitutional Scholarship at Pacific Legal Foundation, where she leads the organization’s Supreme Court commentary and directs scholarly analysis in support of the firm’s litigation. She has represented entrepreneurs and small businesses nationwide in challenges to onerous licensing regimes, anti-competitive titling restrictions, Certificate of Need (“competitor’s veto”) laws, and other forms of unnecessary red tape that block economic opportunity.
Prior to this role, Anastasia developed nearly a dozen constitutional challenges to Certificate of Need laws across the country, helping spur legislative reform in Montana, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. Her victories include a ruling invalidating Houston’s busking restrictions, multiple appellate decisions expanding access to the courts for civil rights plaintiffs, and the legislative repeal of Virginia’s happy-hour advertising ban.
Her writings on law and liberty have been featured in USA Today, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, Forbes, and more, and she has appeared on Headline News, CBS News, Fox News, ReasonTV, Newsmax, and John Stossel. In 2020, she was featured on Libertarian Party presidential candidate Jo Jorgensen’s Supreme Court shortlist.
Anastasia earned her BA with dean’s honors from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and her JD from Georgetown University Law Center, where she was research assistant to Professor Randy E. Barnett—the “intellectual godfather” of the constitutional challenge to Obamacare. She is the co-creator of the podcast Dissed, about infamous Supreme Court dissents. She authors the biweekly newsletter SCOTUS Scoop and the column, “In Dissent” for SCOTUSblog.
Partner, Wiley Rein, LLP
Megan L. Brown is a partner at Wiley Rein LLP. She has significant litigation, appellate and regulatory experience before state and federal courts and agencies.
Ms. Brown helps businesses respond to federal, state and local regulation and investigations raising administrative law, statutory interpretation, and constitutional issues, including the First Amendment.
Lecturer, Berkeley Law
Ann M. Ravel was nominated to the Federal Election Commission by President Barack Obama on June 21, 2013. After her appointment received the unanimous consent of the United States Senate, Ms. Ravel joined the Commission on October 25, 2013. She served as Chair of the Commission for 2015 and Vice Chair for 2014 before leaving in 2017.
Previously, Ms. Ravel served as Chair of the California Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC), to which Governor Edmund G. Brown, Jr. appointed her. At the FPPC, Ms. Ravel oversaw the regulation of campaign finance, lobbyist registration and reporting, and ethics and conflicts of interest related to officeholders and public employees. During her tenure at the FPPC, Ms. Ravel was instrumental in the creation of the States’ Unified Network (SUN) Center, a web-based center for sharing information on campaign finance.
Before joining the FPPC, Ms. Ravel served as Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Torts and Consumer Litigation in the Civil Division of the United States Department of Justice. Ms. Ravel also worked as an attorney in the Santa Clara County Counsel’s Office, ultimately serving as the appointed County Counsel from 1998 until 2009. Ms. Ravel represented the County and its elected officials, provided advice on the state Political Reform Act, and initiated groundbreaking programs in elder abuse litigation, educational rights, and consumer litigation on behalf of the Santa Clara County government and the community.
Ms. Ravel has served as an elected Governor on the Board of Governors of the State Bar of California, a member of the Judicial Council of the State of California, and Chair of the Commission on Judicial Nominees Evaluation. In 2014, she was named a California Attorney of the Year by California Lawyer magazine for her work in Government law, and in 2007, the State Bar of California named Ms. Ravel Public Attorney of the Year for her contributions to public service.
Ms. Ravel received her B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley and her J.D. from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law. Ms. Ravel is the daughter of a Latin American immigrant mother and an American father. She was raised in Latin America before her family settled in the San Francisco Bay area, which she considers home.
Professor of Law, University of San Diego School of Law (Retired)
Gail Heriot is a recently retired law professor from the University of San Diego. She also served as a member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights from 2007 to 2025. She is also the chairman of the board of the American Civil Rights Project and the chair emerita of the Civil Rights practice group at the Federalist Society for Law & Public Policy.
Professor Heriot is a prolific writer in the area of civil rights. She is the author of many law review articles. She is also the editor (along with Maimon Schwarzschild) of the 2021 anthology, A Dubious Expediency: How Race Preferences Damage Higher Education. Her upcoming book is entitled, Why We Walk on Eggshell: How Our Civil Rights Laws Helped Bring About the Woke Era—And the Trump Era, Too.
Her writings for a general audience have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the San Diego Union-Tribune, the National Review and many other newspapers and magazines.
In 1996, she co-chaired the successful “Yes on Proposition 209” campaign, which amended the California Constitution to prohibit state-sponsored discrimination or preferential treatment based on race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin. In 2020, she co-chaired the “No on Proposition 16” campaign, which successfully prevented Proposition 209’s repeal.
Professor of Law, University of San Diego School of Law
Maimon Schwarzschild is Professor of Law at the University of San Diego, where he has taught
since 1982. He has published extensively on constitutional law, jurisprudence, law and religion,
and civil rights. He is an English barrister and an American lawyer: he was an attorney in the
Civil Rights Division of the US Department of Justice from 1976 to 1981 and practised as a
barrister in London in the 1980s. He was a visiting professor at the Sorbonne for several years,
and has been a visiting professor at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He is a Director of the
Institute of Law and Religion at the University of San Diego and a member of the editorial board
of Law and Philosophy. With Gail Heriot he recently co-edited a volume entitled “A Dubious
Expediency: How Race Preferences Damage Higher Education”, published by Encounter Books.
Research Fellow, American Institute for Economic Research
Peter C. Earle is an economist and writer who joined AIER in 2018. Prior to that spent over 20 years as a trader and analyst at a number of securities firms and hedge funds in the New York metropolitan area, as well as running a gaming and cryptocurrency consultancy.
His research focuses on financial markets, cryptocurrencies, monetary policy-related issues, the economics of games, and problems in economic measurement. He has been quoted by the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Reuters, CNBC, Grant’s Interest Rate Observer, NPR, and in numerous other media outlets and publications.
Pete holds an MA in Applied Economics from American University, an MBA (Finance), and a BS in Engineering from the United States Military Academy at West Point. Follow him on Twitter.
Principal, Ely & Company, Inc.
Bert Ely has specialized in deposit insurance and banking structure issues since 1981. In 1986, he became an early predictor of the S&L crisis and a taxpayer bailout of the FSLIC. In 1991, he was the first person to correctly predict the non-crisis in commercial banking; in 1992, he predicted an eventual taxpayer bailout of the Japanese banking system.
Bert continuously monitors conditions in the banking and S&L industries, monetary policy, and the growing federalization of credit risk. He has helped to draft legislation to enact the cross-guarantee concept for privatizing banking regulation and its related deposit insurance and systemic risks. He has testified on numerous occasions before congressional committees on banking issues and he often speaks on these matters to bankers and others.
Bert first established his consulting practice in 1972. Before that, he was the chief financial officer of a public company, a consultant with Touche, Ross & Company, and an auditor with Ernst & Ernst. He received his MBA from the Harvard Business School in 1968 and his Bachelor's degree in economics in 1964 from Case Western Reserve University.
Senior Counsel, Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP
J. Christopher “Chris” Giancarlo is senior counsel at Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP, based in the firm’s New York office. Chris served as the thirteenth Chairman of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), where he oversaw regulation of the futures, options and swaps derivatives markets. Chris was also a successful entrepreneur helping GFI Group Inc. grow into a leading trading platform and technology vendor to global markets for OTC swaps and other derivatives and managing GFI’s successful private equity financing and IPO.
Chris is a renowned blockchain technology advocate and key contributor to the global discourse on cryptocurrencies and digital assets. During his tenure at the CFTC (2014-2019), Chris oversaw the first bitcoin futures products entering the marketplace and applied a “Do No Harm” regulatory approach towards blockchain technology.
Chris has testified often about financial and derivatives markets before the U.S. Congress and EU Parliament and is a frequent guest on broadcast radio and television, including BloombergTV, CNBC, Fox Business and the BBC, as well as podcasts such as “Unchained” and “CoinDesk.” Chris has written and spoken extensively on public policy, legal and other matters involving technology and the financial markets and has authored numerous white papers, articles and op-eds that have been published in The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Cato Journal, New York Law Journal, Les Echos and Coinbase.
Chris has over 45,000 followers on Twitter as @giancarloMKTS where he is known as “CryptoDad.”
Senior Fellow, Mises Institute
Alex J. Pollock is a Senior Fellow with the Mises Institute, providing thought and policy leadership on financial issues and the study of financial systems. His work includes cycles of booms and busts, financial crises with their political responses, housing finance, government-sponsored enterprises, risk and uncertainty, central banking, banking and financial regulation, corporate governance, retirement finance, student loans, and the politics of finance.
He previously served as the Principal Deputy Director of the Office of Financial Research in the U.S. Treasury Department 2019-2021. He was a Distinguished Senior Fellow with the R Street Institute 2015-2019 and 2021, and a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, 2004-2015. Among the many aspects of his AEI work, he developed the One Page Mortgage Form to give borrowers in clear form the key information they need in order to know what they are committing themselves to. He was President and CEO of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago from 1991 to 2004. There he invented the Mortgage Partnership Finance program, which successfully created front-end mortgage credit risk sharing beginning in 1997. His decades of banking experience include being a Visiting Scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, 1991.
Pollock was a director of the CME Group 2004-2019 and of Ascendium Education Group 1989-2019. He is a director and past-chairman of the Great Books Foundation and a past president of the International Union for Housing Finance.
He is the co-author of Surprised Again! - The COVID Crisis and the New Market Bubble (2022), and the author of Finance and Philosophy—Why We’re Always Surprised (2018) and Boom and Bust: Financial Cycles and Human Prosperity (2011), as well as numerous articles and Congressional testimony.
Pollock is a graduate of Williams College, the University of Chicago, and Princeton University.
His work is available on alexjpollock.com.
Research Fellow, American Institute for Economic Research
Peter C. Earle is an economist and writer who joined AIER in 2018. Prior to that spent over 20 years as a trader and analyst at a number of securities firms and hedge funds in the New York metropolitan area, as well as running a gaming and cryptocurrency consultancy.
His research focuses on financial markets, cryptocurrencies, monetary policy-related issues, the economics of games, and problems in economic measurement. He has been quoted by the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Reuters, CNBC, Grant’s Interest Rate Observer, NPR, and in numerous other media outlets and publications.
Pete holds an MA in Applied Economics from American University, an MBA (Finance), and a BS in Engineering from the United States Military Academy at West Point. Follow him on Twitter.
Principal, Ely & Company, Inc.
Bert Ely has specialized in deposit insurance and banking structure issues since 1981. In 1986, he became an early predictor of the S&L crisis and a taxpayer bailout of the FSLIC. In 1991, he was the first person to correctly predict the non-crisis in commercial banking; in 1992, he predicted an eventual taxpayer bailout of the Japanese banking system.
Bert continuously monitors conditions in the banking and S&L industries, monetary policy, and the growing federalization of credit risk. He has helped to draft legislation to enact the cross-guarantee concept for privatizing banking regulation and its related deposit insurance and systemic risks. He has testified on numerous occasions before congressional committees on banking issues and he often speaks on these matters to bankers and others.
Bert first established his consulting practice in 1972. Before that, he was the chief financial officer of a public company, a consultant with Touche, Ross & Company, and an auditor with Ernst & Ernst. He received his MBA from the Harvard Business School in 1968 and his Bachelor's degree in economics in 1964 from Case Western Reserve University.
Senior Counsel, Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP
J. Christopher “Chris” Giancarlo is senior counsel at Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP, based in the firm’s New York office. Chris served as the thirteenth Chairman of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), where he oversaw regulation of the futures, options and swaps derivatives markets. Chris was also a successful entrepreneur helping GFI Group Inc. grow into a leading trading platform and technology vendor to global markets for OTC swaps and other derivatives and managing GFI’s successful private equity financing and IPO.
Chris is a renowned blockchain technology advocate and key contributor to the global discourse on cryptocurrencies and digital assets. During his tenure at the CFTC (2014-2019), Chris oversaw the first bitcoin futures products entering the marketplace and applied a “Do No Harm” regulatory approach towards blockchain technology.
Chris has testified often about financial and derivatives markets before the U.S. Congress and EU Parliament and is a frequent guest on broadcast radio and television, including BloombergTV, CNBC, Fox Business and the BBC, as well as podcasts such as “Unchained” and “CoinDesk.” Chris has written and spoken extensively on public policy, legal and other matters involving technology and the financial markets and has authored numerous white papers, articles and op-eds that have been published in The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Cato Journal, New York Law Journal, Les Echos and Coinbase.
Chris has over 45,000 followers on Twitter as @giancarloMKTS where he is known as “CryptoDad.”
Senior Fellow, Mises Institute
Alex J. Pollock is a Senior Fellow with the Mises Institute, providing thought and policy leadership on financial issues and the study of financial systems. His work includes cycles of booms and busts, financial crises with their political responses, housing finance, government-sponsored enterprises, risk and uncertainty, central banking, banking and financial regulation, corporate governance, retirement finance, student loans, and the politics of finance.
He previously served as the Principal Deputy Director of the Office of Financial Research in the U.S. Treasury Department 2019-2021. He was a Distinguished Senior Fellow with the R Street Institute 2015-2019 and 2021, and a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, 2004-2015. Among the many aspects of his AEI work, he developed the One Page Mortgage Form to give borrowers in clear form the key information they need in order to know what they are committing themselves to. He was President and CEO of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago from 1991 to 2004. There he invented the Mortgage Partnership Finance program, which successfully created front-end mortgage credit risk sharing beginning in 1997. His decades of banking experience include being a Visiting Scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, 1991.
Pollock was a director of the CME Group 2004-2019 and of Ascendium Education Group 1989-2019. He is a director and past-chairman of the Great Books Foundation and a past president of the International Union for Housing Finance.
He is the co-author of Surprised Again! - The COVID Crisis and the New Market Bubble (2022), and the author of Finance and Philosophy—Why We’re Always Surprised (2018) and Boom and Bust: Financial Cycles and Human Prosperity (2011), as well as numerous articles and Congressional testimony.
Pollock is a graduate of Williams College, the University of Chicago, and Princeton University.
His work is available on alexjpollock.com.
Partner, Sullivan & Cromwell LLP
Eric Kadel is engaged in a wide variety of corporate, transactional and regulatory matters. He is a member of the Firm’s Corporate and Finance, Financial Services, Investment Management, Alternative Investment Management, Cybersecurity, and Commodities, Futures and Derivatives Groups. With regard to financings, Mr. Kadel regularly represents participants in capital markets transactions, and dealers and end users in connection with structuring and documenting a wide variety of swaps and other derivatives, including equity, credit default and commodity swaps, options and forwards. Mr. Kadel’s work in the investment management area includes advising public and private investment companies and investment advisers on a wide variety of transactional, regulatory, compliance and other matters, including registration and regulation. Mr. Kadel also advises clients of the Firm regarding developments in the laws regulating the financial services industry and on cybersecurity issues. Mr. Kadel is currently an adjunct professor at George Washington University Law School.
In addition, Mr. Kadel is one of the principal partners in the Firm’s International Trade and Investment practice. He counsels and represents clients on questions about U.S. economic sanctions, including those administered by the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”), United States antiboycott requirements under the Export Administration Regulations administered and enforced by the Commerce Department’s Office of Antiboycott Compliance within the Bureau of Industry and Security, Bank Secrecy Act/anti‐money laundering laws and the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (“FCPA”). Mr. Kadel’s practice includes analysis of proposed transactions and business relationships; due diligence and design and review of compliance procedures and strategies; and internal investigations, voluntary disclosures and government enforcement actions. Mr. Kadel also regularly advises clients regarding questions arising under Exon-Florio and the transaction review process administered by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (“CFIUS”), and has represented clients before CFIUS on many national security reviews.
Partner & Chair, National Security Practice, Wiley Rein LLP
Of Counsel, Sullivan & Cromwell LLP
A member of the Firm’s Financial Services Group, Adam Szubin focuses his practice on financial services and national security, with particular emphasis on economic sanctions, export controls, money laundering and counter terrorism.
Prior to joining Sullivan & Cromwell, Mr. Szubin served for two years as Acting Treasury Department Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence. During his nearly 13 year tenure at the Treasury, Mr. Szubin served as the Director of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) for nine years and Senior Advisor to the Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence.
As the Acting Under Secretary, he led the policy, enforcement, regulatory, and intelligence functions of the Treasury Department aimed at combating threatening states, international terrorist organizations, proliferators of weapons of mass destruction, narcotics traffickers, and others posing a threat to U.S. national security or foreign policy. As the lead national security official at the Treasury Department, Mr. Szubin also advised the Treasury Secretary and National Security Council on a wide range of economic and security issues, including select matters before the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS).
Earlier in his career, Mr. Szubin served as Counsel to the Deputy Attorney General at the Department of Justice where he also worked as a trial attorney in the Civil Division and was a member of the Terrorism Litigation Task Force.
Gender Based Board Quotas, the Fourteenth Amendment, and Meland v. Weber
Anastasia P. Boden, Megan L. Brown, Ann Ravel
In-House Counsel Working Group, Civil Rights Practice Group, and Regulatory Transparency Project Teleforum
On June 21, 2021, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled a shareholder-plaintiff...
Gender Based Board Quotas, the Fourteenth Amendment, and Meland v. Weber
Anastasia P. Boden, Megan L. Brown, Ann Ravel
In-House Counsel Working Group, Civil Rights Practice Group, and Regulatory Transparency Project Teleforum
On June 21, 2021, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled a shareholder-plaintiff...
Topics
Credibility Problems with the Restatement of Copyright Project
Some of the first things we all learned about in law school were the “Restatements”...
Deep Dive Episode 191 – Talks with Authors: A Dubious Expediency
Gail L. Heriot, Maimon Schwarzschild
Regulatory Transparency Project's Fourth Branch Podcast
“A Dubious Expediency: How Race Preferences Damage Higher Education” is a collection of eight essays...
Topics
Two Useful Pieces of Commentary on Net Neutrality
Net Neutrality has been a cyber holy grail pursued by those that believe it is...
Topics
Peaceable Assembly: Accept No Substitute
Aristotle told us that humans are social animals—interaction with each other is essential to our...
A Webinar on Central Bank Digital Currencies
Peter C. Earle, Bert Ely, J. Christopher Giancarlo, Alex J. Pollock
Financial Services & E-Commerce Practice Group Teleforum
With expressions ranging from enthusiasm to serious interest, central banks from China to Europe have...
A Webinar on Central Bank Digital Currencies
Peter C. Earle, Bert Ely, J. Christopher Giancarlo, Alex J. Pollock
Financial Services & E-Commerce Practice Group Teleforum
With expressions ranging from enthusiasm to serious interest, central banks from China to Europe have...
Topics
The Paid Sick Leave Act: Dead and Loving It
The Paid Sick Leave Act, embedded in the Families First Coronavirus Response Act, temporarily compelled...
Foreign Policy in the Biden Administration
Eric J. Kadel, Nazak Nikakhtar, Adam J. Szubin
International & National Security Law Practice Group Teleforum
This virtual event examined current national security issues, including relations with China, as well as...