Vice Dean and Professor of Law, Villanova University School of Law
Professor Michael Risch joined the Villanova faculty in 2010 from the West Virginia University College of Law, where he directed the Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Law Program. Prior to joining the West Virginia faculty, he served as an Olin Fellow in Law at Stanford Law School. Professor Risch’s teaching and scholarship focus on intellectual property and internet law, with an emphasis on patents, trade secrets and information access. His articles have been published in the Stanford Law Review and Duke Law Journal, among others; online in the Yale Law Journal Online and PENNumbra; and less formally at the Madisonian, Prawfsblawg, and Patently-O blogs. Two of his articles have been cited by the United States Supreme Court. Professor Risch received his A.B. with honors and distinction in Public Policy and with distinction in Quantitative Economics from Stanford University, and his J.D. with high honors from the University of Chicago Law School. Prior to entering academia, he was a partner at intellectual property boutique Russo & Hale LLP in Palo Alto, California.
Office of the General Counsel, U.S. Copyright Office
Jordana Rubel works on a wide range of legal matters within the Copyright Office, including advising the Department of Justice on litigation matters and providing guidance to departments within the Copyright Office. Jordana joined the Copyright Office in 2018 after more than ten years as a litigator in private practice, where she represented clients on copyright, trademark, false advertising, and trade secret matters. She clerked for David Hamilton, now on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, when he was a district court judge in the Southern District of Indiana. She earned her JD from Emory University, her MEd from Harvard University, and her BA from Haverford College.
CoFounder, RightsClick
Steven’s extensive background in IP law and policy began as an attorney for the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, after which, he served as senior counsel for Policy and International Affairs at the U.S. Copyright Office and then as Chief Intellectual Property Counsel for the Global Intellectual Property Center of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Before co-founding RightsClick, he started the IP consultancy Sentinel Worldwide, and teaches copyright law at George Washington University Law School.
Senior Counsel, First Liberty Institute
Stephanie N. Taub serves as Senior Counsel with First Liberty Institute, focusing on litigation, appellate advocacy, and legal education.
While at First Liberty, her article on the rights of faith-based organizations under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 has been published in the Texas Review of Law and Politics. She has also authored pieces published in National Review, the Daily Signal, the Washington Times, the Des Moines Register, and the New York Daily News. In 2017, Taub was named one of 15 recipients of the James Wilson Fellowship in natural law.
Before joining First Liberty, Taub worked as a law clerk to the Honorable Reed O’Connor in the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of Texas.
Taub is a Harvard Law School graduate in the class of 2014 and a Blackstone Fellow in the class of 2012. During law school, she served as Co-President of the HLS Christian Fellowship and Managing Technical Editor of the Harvard Human Rights Journal. Taub spent her law school summers defending religious liberty in public interest law firms and clerking in the Texas Office of Solicitor General.
For her undergraduate studies at the University of Southern California, Taub graduated summa cum laude, majoring in Business Administration with a minor in Philosophy.
Partner, Briscoe Prows Kao Ivester & Bazel LLP
Tony Francois is experienced in Water and Real Property Law, Land Use and Zoning, Environmental Regulation, Natural Resources Development, Agricultural Law, and Constitutional Law. He has represented homeowners, builders, farmers and ranchers, trade associations, and water districts in administrative, civil, and criminal proceedings before state and federal administrative agencies and state and federal trial and appellate courts. He is a member of the California State Bar and the Northern, Eastern, and Central Districts of California and the Districts of New Mexico and North Dakota, and has litigated cases in federal courts in California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, North and South Dakota, Minnesota, Massachusetts, Maryland, South Carolina, and the District of Columbia, as well as the Sixth, Eighth, Ninth, and Tenth Circuit Courts of Appeals. He has appeared before the Supreme Courts of California, Idaho, Nevada, and the United States.
Prior to attending law school, he served as an infantry officer in the United States Army, and was stationed in the former West Germany during the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Tony was an Attorney at Pacific Legal Foundation from 2012 to 2021. He was a lobbyist for 10 years, first with California Farm Bureau Federation from 2003 to 2007, and then with KP Public Affairs from 2007 to 2012. He was an attorney at McQuaid, Bedford & Van Zandt in San Francisco from 1999 – 2003.
Executive Director, Committee for Justice
Ashley Baker serves as Executive Director at the Committee for Justice. Her focus areas include the Supreme Court, regulatory policy, antitrust, and judicial nominations. Her writing has appeared in Fox News, USA Today, The Boston Globe, The Hill, RealClearPolitics, The American Spectator, and elsewhere. Ashley is also the founder of the recently-formed Alliance on Antitrust coalition. She has testified before the United States Senate on the topic of antitrust law.
Ashley is an active member of the Federalist Society, where she serves as a member of the Regulatory Transparency Project's Antitrust & Consumer Protection and Cyber & Privacy working groups. As a member of the Republican National Lawyers Association, she has served as a speaker on the Supreme Court and the federal judiciary.
As an expert on the judicial nominations process, Ashley worked closely on the efforts to confirm Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh.
Much of Ashley’s work is at the intersection of the courts, regulation, and technology. Ashley also engages in policy analysis and outreach on legislation and regulations related to these issues by writing op-eds, letters to Congress for committee hearings, and regulatory comments.
James G. Dinan University Professor, Carey Law School, University of Pennsylvania
Herbert Hovenkamp is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and in 2008 won the Justice Department’s John Sherman Award for his lifetime contributions to antitrust law. In 2012 he served on the ABA’s Committee to advise the President-elect on antitrust matters. His principal writing includes The Opening of American Law: Neoclassical Legal Thought, 1870-1970 (Oxford, 2015); Antitrust Law (formerly with Phillip E. Areeda and Donald F. Turner) (22 vols., Aspen 2008-18); Principles of Antitrust (West, 2017); Creation Without Restraint: Promoting Liberty and Rivalry in Innovation (Oxford, 2012, with Bohannan); The Making of Competition Policy (Oxford, 2012, with Crane); The Antitrust Enterprise: Principle and Execution (Harvard, 2006); Federal Antitrust Policy: The Law of Competition and Its Practice (West, 5th ed. 2015); IP and Antitrust (2 vols., Aspen, 2017, with Janis, Lemley, Leslie, and Carrier); and Enterprise and American Law, 1836-1937 (Harvard, 1991). He has also co-authored casebooks in antitrust, property law, and a free open source casebook on innovation and competition policy. He has consulted on numerous antitrust cases for various government entities and private plaintiffs. He has two sons.
Head of AI Policy, Abundance Institute
Neil Chilson is the Head of AI Policy at the Abundance Institute. Prior to this position, he served as a Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Growth and Opportunity. Chilson is a lawyer, computer scientist, and author of the book “Getting Out of Control: Emergent Leadership in a Complex World.”
Chilson was previously the senior research fellow for Technology and Innovation at Stand Together, where he guided efforts to understand and promote the legal and cultural paradigms that best enable people to discover, innovate, and improve all our lives.
Before Stand Together, Chilson was the Chief Technologist at the Federal Trade Commission, where he focused on the economics of privacy and blockchain-related issues. Previously, he was an attorney advisor to Acting FTC Chairman Maureen K. Ohlhausen. In both roles he advised Chairman Ohlhausen and worked with staff on nearly every major technology-related case, report, workshop, or other FTC proceeding since January 2014. Neil joined the FTC from telecom firm Wilkinson Barker Knauer. Neil is frequently quoted by the press and his work has appeared in numerous news outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, USAToday, and Newsweek. Neil has a J.D. from The George Washington Law School, a M.S. in computer science from University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and a B.S. in computer science from Harding University.
President, Harned Strategies LLC
Karen Harned is President at Harned Strategies LLC. Previously, she served as Executive Director of the National Federation of Independent Business Small Business Legal Center, a post she held from 2002-2022. Prior to joining the Legal Center, Ms. Harned was an attorney at a Washington, D.C. law firm specializing in food and drug law, where she represented several small and large businesses and their respective trade associations before Congress and federal agencies. She also served as Assistant Press Secretary to U.S. Senator Don Nickles of Oklahoma from August of 1989 to March of 1993. Ms. Harned received her B.A. from the University of Oklahoma in 1989 and her J.D. from The George Washington University National Law Center in 1995. She is admitted to practice in the District of Columbia.
As Executive Director of the NFIB Small Business Legal Center, Ms. Harned commented regularly on small business cases before federal and state courts, as well as the U.S. Supreme Court. She has appeared on Fox News, Fox Business, NBC Nightly News, CNN, CNBC and MSNBC, as well as National Public Radio, CBS Radio, and radio outlets across the country. Her opinion editorials and articles regarding healthcare, lawsuit abuse, regulation, and other issues important to small business have been published in newspapers and other publications nationwide.
Ms. Harned has testified before Congress on the small business impact of regulation and the civil justice system. Additionally, she has conducted numerous webinars and legal compliance seminars for small business owners across the country on issues relating to employment law, including unionization and immigration.
Partner, Goodwin Procter LLP
Jaime A. Santos is a partner in the firm’s Appellate Litigation practice. Her work focuses on appellate matters and complex civil litigation in federal courts, and she has experience in a wide range of areas including ERISA litigation, patent litigation, constitutional law, and product litigation. Ms. Santos has been the primary author of dozens of briefs filed in the Supreme Court, many more briefs filed in federal courts of appeals and federal district courts, and she has presented oral argument in state and federal trial and appellate courts. Ms. Santos also co-hosts the Supreme Court podcast Strict Scrutiny.
Ms. Santos maintains an active pro bono practice. She has been counsel of record in numerous criminal, immigration, and civil rights appeals in the Fourth, Seventh, and Ninth Circuits. She has also advocated on behalf of transgender litigants asserting constitutional claims before the Fourth Circuit and the Supreme Court, and represented a criminal defendant challenging his sentence before the Supreme Court. In 2015, Ms. Santos was honored by the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights for her commitment to pro bono civil rights work.
In addition to her pro bono practice, Ms. Santos has been a thought leader in preventing and addressing bias and harassment in the legal profession. She speaks at conferences across the country and has published several articles on the topic. Since January 2018, she has advised numerous state and federal courts on improving the policies and processes governing inappropriate conduct in the workplace.
Ms. Santos serves on the MacArthur Justice Center Supreme Court & Appellate Advisory Board, and on the National Women’s Law Center’s Leadership Advisory Council.
Before joining Goodwin in 2013, Ms. Santos served as a law clerk to the Honorable George H. King of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, and to the Honorable Raymond C. Fisher of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. In law school, she was a supervising editor for the Harvard Law Review.
Senior Litigation Counsel, New Civil Liberties Alliance
Jacob Huebert is Senior Litigation Counsel at the New Civil Liberties Alliance. He previously served as President and Director of Litigation of the Liberty Justice Center, where he successfully litigated cases to protect constitutional rights, including the landmark Janus v. AFSCME case, in which the U.S. Supreme Court upheld government employees’ First Amendment right to choose for themselves whether to pay money to a union. Jacob was also previously a Senior Attorney at the Goldwater Institute, where he litigated cases on free speech, property rights, and the Second Amendment.
Jacob and his work have appeared in numerous national media outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and Fox News Channel. He is also the author of a book, Libertarianism Today.
Jacob holds a B.A. in economics from Grove City College and a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School. After law school, he served as a clerk to Judge Deborah Cook of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Jacob has served as an adjunct law professor at several law schools, teaching courses in advanced appellate advocacy, the law of payments, legal writing, and jurisprudence. Before working in public interest law, Jacob was a litigator in private practice.
Partner, Horvitz & Levy LLP
Jeremy Rosen is nationally renowned for his proficiency in numerous issues arising under the First Amendment and California’s anti-SLAPP law. Using that knowledge, Jeremy has helped a wide variety of clients – including churches, private businesses, and individuals – defeat lawsuits that seek to impose liability on clients for exercising their rights of petition, free speech, and free exercise of religion. He has also handled hundreds of appeals in numerous appellate courts, including the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the California Supreme Court, and California’s intermediate appellate courts. In addition to First Amendment and anti-SLAPP cases, his cases have involved numerous important issues regarding anti-trust, class actions, wage and hour law, employment law, breach of contract, California’s Unfair Competition Law, CEQA, the enforceability of arbitration clauses, hospital peer review, the scope of public employee whistleblower protection, and the application of the primary assumption of risk doctrine.
Jeremy is a partner at the firm, which he joined in 2001. He is a California State Bar Certified Appellate Specialist and a member of the California Academy of Appellate Lawyers.
Jeremy directed the Pepperdine University School of Law Ninth Circuit Appellate Advocacy Clinic for 6 years. The Clinic represents individuals in the Ninth Circuit who are identified by the court as needing pro bono counsel. Jeremy also previously served a three-year term where he was appointed by the Ninth Circuit to serve as one of 18 appellate lawyer representatives to the court.
Jeremy is a member of the National Chamber Litigation Center’s California Litigation Advisory Committee. Before joining the firm, Jeremy was a Litigation Associate with Munger, Tolles & Olson.
Courthouse Steps Oral Argument Teleforum: Google v. Oracle
Michael Risch, Jordana Rubel, Steven M. Tepp
Google copied over 11,000 lines of computer code, called declaring code, owned by Oracle. Ten...
Courthouse Steps Oral Argument Teleforum: Tanzin v. Tanvir
Stephanie Taub
This teleforum addresses the October 6, 2020, Supreme Court oral argument in FNU Tanzin v. Tanvir, which...
Courthouse Steps Oral Argument Teleforum: Texas v. New Mexico
Tony Francois
As an act of original jusrisdiction, the Supreme Court appointed a river master to resolve...
Deep Dive Episode 137 – Antitrust Populism and the Conservative Movement
Ashley Baker, Herbert Hovenkamp
Regulatory Transparency Project's Fourth Branch Podcast
On October 7, 2020, the Federalist Society's Pennsylvania Student Chapter and the Regulatory Transparency Project...
Explainer Episode 16 – An Update on Antitrust and Big Tech
Neil Chilson
Regulatory Transparency Project's Fourth Branch Podcast
Recent weeks have been chock-full of headlines regarding antitrust and big tech companies, from the House...
Topics
Rights for Thee, But Not for Mai
The Federalist Society is pleased to announce its Student Blog Initiative, a project of the...
Ford Motor Company v. Montana Eight Judicial Circuit Court - Post-Argument SCOTUScast
Karen Harned, Jaime A. Santos
featuring Karen Harned & Jamie A. Santos
On October 7, 2020, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in Ford Motor Company v....
Minnesota’s Confiscation of Medicine is Unconstitutional and Wrong
Minnesota Governor Tim Waltz signed legislation this spring to force drug manufacturers to hand...
State Court Docket Watch: State v. Arevalo
Jacob H. Huebert
State Court Docket Watch: 2020 Edition
People who want to challenge a state or federal law for violating their constitutional rights...
State Court Docket Watch: Frlekin v. Apple Inc.
Jeremy B. Rosen
State Court Docket Watch: 2020 Edition
Shoplifting and theft costs U.S. retailers $48.9 billion each year, and 30 percent of all...