Associate Professor of Law and Director, Program on Economics & Privacy, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
Associate Professor of Law James C. Cooper brings over a decade of public and private sector experience to his research and teaching. He served as Deputy and Acting Director of the Federal Trade Commission’s Office of Policy Planning, Advisor to Federal Trade Commissioner William Kovacic, and an associate in the antitrust group of Crowell and Moring, LLP. His research on vertical restraints, price discrimination, behavioral economics and antitrust, and privacy policy have appeared in top journals and are widely cited.
Professor Cooper has a BA from the University of South Carolina, received his PhD in economics from Emory University, and his law degree (magna cum laude) from Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University, where he was a Levy Fellow and a member of the George Mason Law Review.
He teaches Economics for Lawyers, Advanced Seminar on Law & Economics, and Digital Information Policy Seminar.
Partner, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, LLP
Svetlana S. Gans is a partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, LLP where she helps clients navigate complex consumer protection, privacy, and competition related regulatory proceedings before the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC), , U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division, State Attorneys General and other enforcement bodies. Ms. Gans also assists on litigation matters and provides strategic counseling and advice related to public policy issues.
Before joining Gibson Dunn, she served as the Vice President & Associate General Counsel at NCTA, the Internet & Television Association, where she helped lead the association’s consumer protection and competition policy work. Prior to joining NCTA, Ms. Gans served with distinction as Chief of Staff to Acting Chairman Maureen K. Ohlhausen at the FTC. As the agency chief of staff, Ms. Gans managed and oversaw agency operations, including bureau and office heads reporting to the Chairman, a seven-member office staff, and an agency budget of over $300 million. She also served as the Acting Chairman’s key advisor on consumer protection and competition investigations and litigation, working with a diverse team of attorneys and economists to preserve competition and protect U.S. consumers. She created, executed, and oversaw several strategic initiatives for the agency, including the agency process reform, regulatory reform, and data security transparency initiatives. Previously, Ms. Gans had the unique experience of serving in both litigating bureaus of the FTC: the Bureau of Competition and the Bureau of Consumer Protection.
Prior to her time in government, Ms. Gans worked as an antitrust associate at major law firms. Her practice focused on defending consumer product, financial services, and trade association clients in regulatory and private investigations alleging conspiracy and violations of antitrust and consumer protection laws.
Ms. Gans has been an active leader in the ABA Antitrust Law Section (“Section”) for two decades, and currently serves as the Section’s Marketing Officer. Ms. Gans helped create the Section’s Young Lawyer Representative Program, now in its 10th year, and the Section’s Law Ambassador Program, each aimed at developing and promoting the next generation of consumer protection and competition attorneys. Ms. Gans is also active in the Federal Communications Bar Association, currently serving as Co-Chair of the Diversity Pipeline Initiative and the Women’s Leadership Committee.
Ms. Gans received her law degree with high honors from the University of Denver College of Law. During law school, Ms. Gans served as a Judicial Intern to the Honorable John L. Kane, Jr. and as an Honors Program Paralegal for the United States Department of Justice Antitrust Division, Merger Taskforce. Ms. Gans earned her undergraduate degree cum laude from Boston University.
Partner, Kelly, Drye & Warren LLP
Bill MacLeod chairs the Antitrust and Competition practice group at Kelly, Drye & Warren LLP. The Immediate Past Chair of the Antitrust Section of the American Bar Association, Bill is a former bureau director at the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC). He offers his clients decades of experience in competition law, trade regulation, advertising, privacy and security issues, from both an agency and business perspective. Bill represents some of the most prominent drivers of innovation and industry today, from new ventures to multi-national corporations.
Bill guides companies through investigations, approvals and the sophisticated challenges associated with mergers and acquisitions. He has obtained FTC and United States Department of Justice Antitrust Division clearance of numerous acquisitions and joint ventures in a range of industries, including medical devices, grocery products, defense contracting and steel manufacturing. Bill also has helped clients protect themselves from threat of consolidation.
Bill has been involved in the resolution of major initiatives with notable and high-profile results. He served as special counsel for a government investigation of one of the world’s largest and most complex manufacturing industry mergers. He obtained one of the largest judgments ever awarded in an advertising and antitrust case, and successfully defended a major marketer in the FTC’s first trial under the modern unfairness doctrine. Bill was involved in settling the FTC’s first preliminary injunction action in an ad-substantiation case. He has also handled large-scale investigations of privacy and data security practices, litigated a multi-district Sherman Act case over online pricing, and resolved a myriad of price discrimination claims.
In addition, Bill counsels and defends companies and trade associations on pricing, advertising, distribution, intellectual property licensing and competitor relations. In his work with trade associations and their members, he has resolutely fought onerous regulations and advocated sensible, viable policies on competition, biotechnology, health and privacy. In his work on privacy and security, Bill defended the practices of major household-name retailers, manufacturers and financial services companies. Bill also represents companies in advertising, antitrust and intellectual property disputes before the state and federal courts, the FTC and the National Advertising Division of the Council of Better Business Bureaus.
Over the last years, Bill was named the Washington, D.C. Advertising “Lawyer of the Year” by Best Lawyers®, and has been included in The Best Lawyers in America© (Woodword/White, Inc.), The Legal 500 U.S., and among Washington, D.C.’s Super Lawyers. Bill’s clients appreciate his demonstrated skill in translating legal esoterica into functional and useful business advice. Bill is highly valued for his perseverance and ability to produce tangible results and first-rate work product. Bill consistently delivers the requisite experience and intellect needed to assist his clients in achieving their goals. Clients and colleagues alike appreciate Bill’s encyclopedic knowledge of antitrust and consumer protection law.
Bill previously served as director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, which is the chief federal bureau prosecuting unfair and deceptive advertising. In this position, he served as the U.S. delegate to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, where agency heads of Europe, Australia and Japan develop policies for financial regulations, product safety and international advertising. Bill also held such positions as advisor to the assistant attorney general of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division; director of the FTC’s Chicago regional office; and attorney advisor to the FTC chairman.
Partner, Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP
Noah Joshua Phillips is Co-Chair of the Antitrust Practice and previously served as a Commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission. He advises clients on a range of antitrust issues, including mergers and acquisitions, business conduct and compliance, litigation and investigations, and data security and privacy.
On the FTC, Mr. Phillips played an integral role in precedent setting enforcement actions and regulatory efforts concerning antitrust, consumer protection and privacy. He decided dozens of merger and other antitrust enforcement matters across the economy, including in the consumer product, defense, energy, entertainment, healthcare, technology, pharmaceutical and retail industries. Mr. Phillips’ written antitrust opinions were consistently upheld by federal appellate courts.
As Commissioner, Mr. Phillips frequently testified before Congress and represented the FTC before international bodies, including the G7, the Competition Committee of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, and the International Conference of Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners. He speaks and writes frequently on a range of antitrust, consumer protection and privacy issues.
Prior to the FTC, Mr. Phillips served as Chief Counsel to U.S. Senator John Cornyn, of Texas, on the Senate Judiciary Committee. He advised Senator Cornyn on a variety of legal and policy issues, as well as judicial nominations.
Mr. Phillips received an A.B. magna cum laude from Dartmouth College in 2000 and a J.D. from Stanford Law School in 2005. He began his career at a New York-based investment bank. After law school, Mr. Phillips clerked for Hon. Edward C. Prado of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and joined Cravath’s Litigation Department in 2006. He left the Firm in 2010, and he rejoined Cravath as a partner in December 2022.
Founding Partner, Lodestar Law and Economics PLLC
Josh is the founder of Lodestar Law and Economics, PLLC. On January 1, 2013, the U.S. Senate unanimously confirmed Wright as a Commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). He is a leading scholar in antitrust law, economics, intellectual property, regulation, and consumer protection, and has published more than 100 articles and book chapters, co-authored a leading antitrust casebook, and edited several book volumes focusing on these issues. Commentators have recognized Wright as “widely considered his generation’s greatest mind on antitrust law,” and his academic work ranks him as one of the most cited antitrust academics in the world. Wright was also awarded the Paul M. Bator Award by the Federalist Society in 2014 to “an academic who demonstrated excellence in legal scholarship, a commitment to teaching, a concern for students, and who has made a significant public impact.” Wright also served as the Executive Director of the Global Antitrust Institute, the world’s premiere academic institute focused upon antitrust education for judges and regulators and has taught hundreds of judges and thousands of regulators from dozens of countries.
Wright’s practice focuses upon helping clients solve complex competition, consumer protection, and regulatory problems by providing legal and economic analysis, strategic advice and counseling, and economic expert testimony.
Vice President, Networks, The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies
Nathan Kaczmarek is Vice President for Networks at the Federalist Society. He began his legal career in Detroit representing nationwide clients in all phases of healthcare litigation and complex medical malpractice claims. He has since served as a Senior Legal and Policy Advisor in the U.S. House of Representatives and as Counsel for the Subcommittee on Regulatory Affairs and Federal Management in the U.S. Senate. Prior to overseeing the Networks, he was Director of the Practice Groups, the Regulatory Transparency Project, and the Article I Initiative for the Federalist Society.
Nathan holds degrees from Hillsdale College and Thomas M. Cooley Law School. He is a Liaison Representative for The Administrative Conference of the United States. He also serves as Vice President of the Associates of St. John Bosco, a Virginia based non-profit dedicated to Catholic high school and college students.
Attorney, Competitive Enterprise Institute
Devin Watkins is an attorney at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Devin Watkins previously worked at the Cato Institute as a legal associate and interned at the Institute for Justice. At the Cato Institute, Watkins worked on a variety of Supreme Court cases, and one of the briefs he worked on was cited by the Court. His op-eds have appeared in National Review Online, The Hill, Time, and The Federalist among others.
Watkins holds a Juris Doctor cum laude from George Mason University's Antonin Scalia Law School, where he was the development editor on the Mason Law Review. Prior to his legal career Watkins was a senior software developer at Intel and WebMD. He graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey.
Watkins is a member of the Virginia State Bar, the District of Columbia Bar, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Bar, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit Bar.
Attorney, Kniffin Law PLLC, Fellow, Ethics and Public Policy Center
Eric Kniffin is a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, where he works on a range of initiatives to protect and strengthen religious liberty as part of EPPC’s HHS Accountability Project.
Kniffin also practices law at Kniffin Law PLLC, where he helps religious organizations and individuals protect their liberty and advance their mission. Before starting his solo practice, Kniffin worked at the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, at the Becket Fund, and was a partner at Lewis Roca.
Kniffin has protected hundreds of religious employers from the HHS contraception and abortifacient mandate and the HHS gender transition mandate. He has represented the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Knights of Columbus, and the Assemblies of God, among others, in amicus briefs before the Supreme Court. His work helping religious organizations understand, maximize, and defend their religious liberties has made him a nationally recognized expert in the field.
Kniffin is a sought-after commentator on religious liberty issues and has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, National Review, Huffington Post, National Catholic Register, Inside Higher Ed, and Washington Times, and has spoken regularly for The Federalist Society and The Heritage Foundation.
Vice President and Senior Counsel, The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty
Daniel Blomberg is vice president and senior counsel for Becket. Before joining Becket, he clerked for Chief Judge Alice M. Batchelder of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and served as litigation counsel with the Alliance Defending Freedom. Daniel’s clients have included an international order of nuns, the world’s largest religious media organization, synagogues, members of the U.S. military, religious healthcare ministries, peaceful protestors, halfway houses, religious colleges, state legislators, homeless shelters, religious business owners, an art gallery, and churches. Daniel has represented a wide variety of faith groups, including Anglicans, Baptists, Catholics, Hindus, Hutterites, Jews, Lutherans, Mennonites, Muslims, Presbyterians, Russian Orthodox, and Sikhs. Cases on which he has served as counsel to a party include: Our Lady of Guadalupe v. Morrissey-Berru, 140 S. Ct. 2049 (2020); Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn v. Cuomo, 141 S. Ct. 63 (2020); Zubik v. Burwell, 136 S. Ct. 1557 (2016); Little Sisters of the Poor v. Sebelius, 134 S. Ct. 1022 (2014); Wheaton College v. Burwell, 134 S. Ct. 2806 (2014); Fellowship of Christian Athletes v. SJUSD, 82 F.4th 664 (9th Cir. 2023) (en banc); Singh v. Berger, 56 F.4th 88 (D.C. Cir. 2022); Demkovich v. St. Andrew the Apostle Parish, 3 F.4th 968 (7th Cir. 2021) (en banc); Maxon v. Fuller Theological Seminary, 2021 WL 5882035 (9th Cir. 2021); Intervarsity Christian Fellowship/USA v. University of Iowa, 5 F.4th 855, 867 (8th Cir. 2021); Business Leaders in Christ v. University of Iowa, 991 F.3d 969 (8th Cir. 2021); Whole Woman’s Health v. Smith, 896 F.3d 362 (5th Cir. 2018); Lee v. Sixth Mount Zion Baptist Church, 903 F.3d 113 (3d Cir. 2018); Gagliardi v. TJCV, 889 F.3d 728 (11th Cir. 2018); Harvest Family Church v. FEMA, 2018 WL 386192 (5th Cir. 2018); Fratello v. Archdiocese of New York, 863 F.3d 190 (2d Cir. 2017); Eternal Word Television Network v. U.S. Dep’t of HHS, 756 F.3d 1339 (11th Cir. 2014); InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA v. Bd. of Governors of Wayne State Univ., 534 F. Supp. 3d 785 (E.D. Mich. 2021); and Singh v. Carter, 168 F. Supp. 3d 216 (D.D.C. 2016).
Daniel has been featured on CNN, Huffington Post Live, Fox News, EWTN Nightly News, and CBS Evening News.
He earned his J.D. from the University of South Carolina School of Law, graduating magna cum laude. While in law school, Daniel clerked for the South Carolina Attorney General’s Office, served on a South Carolina Supreme Court task force, and interned with Judge J. Michelle Childs of the Circuit Court for the Fifth Judicial Circuit as a part of the Judicial Observation and Education program. He is a Blackstone Fellow. Daniel received his undergraduate degree from Columbia International University. He and his wife have five children and too many animals.
Stuyvesant P. Comfort Professor of Law; Director, Center for Financial Institutions; and Co-Director, Center for Civil Justice, New York University School of Law
Geoffrey Miller is an author or editor of a dozen books and more than 200 articles in the fields of financial institutions, contract law, corporate and securities law, constitutional law, civil procedure, legal history, jurisprudence, and ancient law. He has taught a wide range of subjects including law and economics, corporations, compliance and risk management, property, regulation of financial institutions, land development, securities law, the legal profession, and legal theory. Miller received his BA magna cum laude from Princeton in 1973 and his JD from Columbia in 1978, where he was a Stone Scholar and editor-in-chief of the Columbia Law Review. He clerked for Judge Carl McGowan of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and Justice Byron White of the US Supreme Court. After two years as an attorney adviser at the Office of Legal Counsel of the US Department of Justice and one year with a Washington, DC, law firm, he joined the faculty of the University of Chicago Law School in 1983 and NYU School of Law in 1995.
Miller has been a visiting professor or visiting scholar at Columbia University, Harvard University, University of Minnesota, University of Basel (Switzerland), University of Genoa (Italy), Collegio Carlo Alberto (Italy), Study Center Gerzensee (Switzerland), Vanderbilt University, University of St. Gallen (Switzerland), University of Frankfurt (Germany), University of Sydney (Australia), University of Auckland (New Zealand), and the Bank of Japan. Miller is a founder of the Society for Empirical Legal Studies, a scholarly organization devoted to promoting statistical and other empirical techniques in the study of legal institutions. He is founder and director of NYU School of Law’s Center for Financial Institutions, co-director of the Center for Civil Justice, co-founder of and Senior Academic Fellow at NYU's Program on Corporate Compliance and Enforcement, co-convener of the Global Economic Policy Forum, a member of the board of directors of State Farm Bank, and a fellow in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Former United States Assistant Attorney General, Civil Rights Division, United States Department of Justice
William Bradford served as the United States Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division from 1981 to 1988.
Reynolds was Senior Counsel in BakerBotts Antitrust and Competition division. He graduated with a LL.B. from Vanderbilt University Law School in 1967 where he was Order of the Coif and Editor-in-Chief of the Vanderbilt Law Review. In 1964, he received a B.A. from Yale University.
Reynolds passed away on September 14, 2019, in Seabrook Island, South Carolina at age 77.
Professor of Law, Emeritus, Marshall-Wythe Law School at the College of William and Mary
William W. Van Alstyne, one of the nation's foremost constitutional law scholars, and William & Mary’s Lee Professor of Law from 2004 to 2012, died on January 29, 2019, in Southern California.
Professor Van Alstyne was appointed Lee Professor of Law at the Marshall-Wythe Law School at the College of William and Mary in 2004. He is a graduate of the University of Southern California (B.A. in philosophy, magna cum laude) and Stanford University Law School (J.D., Articles and Book Review Editor of The Stanford Law Review). Following his admission to the California Bar and brief service as Deputy Attorney General of California, he joined the Civil Rights Division of the U. S. Department of Justice handling voting rights cases in the South. After active duty with the U. S. Air Force, he was appointed to the law faculty of the Ohio State University, advancing to full professor in three years. Appointed to the Duke law faculty shortly thereafter, he was named to the William R. & Thomas S. Perkins Chair of Law in 1974.
Professor Van Alstyne’s professional writings have appeared during four decades in the principal law journals in the United States, with frequent republication in foreign journals. They address virtually every major subject in the field of constitutional law. His work has been cited in a large number of judicial opinions including those of the Supreme Court. The Journal of Legal Studies for January, 2000, named Professor Van Alstyne in the top forty most frequently cited legal scholars in the United States of the preceding half-century.
Professor Van Alstyne has also taught and given professional papers internationally, in Germany, Austria, and Denmark, in Chile, the former Soviet Union, China, Japan, Canada, and Australia. He has been a visiting faculty member on the law faculties of the University of Chicago, Stanford, California (Berkeley and UCLA), Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Illinois, a Fulbright Lecturer in Chile, a Senior Fellow at the Yale Law School, and a faculty fellow at the Hague International Court of Justice. He has appeared as counsel and as amicus curiae in constitutional litigation in the federal courts, including the Supreme Court. He has also appeared in numerous hearings before Senate and House Committees, on legislation affecting the separation of powers, war powers, constitutional amendments, impeachments, legislation affecting civil rights and civil liberties, and nominations to the Supreme Court.
In 1987, Professor Van Alstyne was selected in a poll of federal judges, lawyers, and academics by the New York Law Journal as one of three academics among "the ten most qualified" persons in the country for appointment to the Supreme Court, a distinction repeated in a similar poll by The American Lawyer, in 1991. Past National President of the American Association of University Professors, and former member of the National Board of Directors of the A.C.L.U., he was elected into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1994.
Former United States Representative, Florida
Charles Edward Bennett was a member of the United States House of Representatives from Jacksonville from 1949 to 1993. He was a Democrat.
He was born December 2, 1910 in Canton, New York and moved to Jacksonville by the end of his childhood. Bennett was an Eagle Scout and recipient of the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award from the Boy Scouts of America. He was a lawyer and a member of the United States Army during World War II before being elected to Congress from what was then the 2nd District. He was reelected 21 more times from this Jacksonville-based district. He rarely faced serious opposition even as Jacksonville fell under increasing Republican influence.
In 1951, he began proposing a code of ethics for government employees, nicknamed The Ten Commandments. After the Sherman-Adams Affair, the code was adopted as the first Code of ethics for Government Service in 1958. In 1954, he sponsored the bill that added the words “In God We Trust” to both the nation’s coins and currency.
Bennett died in Jacksonville on September 6, 2003 and is buried at Arlington National Cemetery. He is still the longest-serving member of either house of Congress in Florida’s history. The Charles E. Bennett Federal Building is named after him.
United States Ambassador to Australia
President Donald J. Trump nominated Ambassador Arthur B. (A.B.) Culvahouse Jr. to be the United States Ambassador to Australia on November 6, 2018. Confirmed by the U.S. Senate on January 2, 2019 by unanimous consent, he was formally sworn in by Vice President Mike Pence on February 19, 2019 and presented his credentials to the Governor-General, Sir Peter Cosgrove, on March 13, 2019.
Ambassador Culvahouse serves as the President’s personal representative to the government and people of Australia. He leads the U.S. Mission to Australia, which is comprised of the embassy in Canberra and three consulates in Melbourne, Sydney, and Perth.
Ambassador Culvahouse has a long and distinguished career. He is the former Chair of O’Melveny & Myers, an international law firm he was associated with for more than four decades. He began his career as Chief Legislative Assistant to United States Senator Howard H. Baker, Jr. and later served as White House Counsel to President Ronald Reagan. In 1989, President Reagan awarded Ambassador Culvahouse the Presidential Citizens’ Medal, an award to “recognize citizens who performed exemplary deeds of service for the country or their fellow citizens.” In December 1992, then-Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney awarded Ambassador Culvahouse the Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service for his work on the Federal Advisory Committee on Nuclear Failsafe and Risk Reduction.
Both President Trump and the late-Senator John McCain tapped Ambassador Culvahouse to head the search to select their running mates.
Ambassador Culvahouse was raised in Ten Mile, Tennessee and attended the University of Tennessee and the New York University School of Law. He is the proud father of three accomplished daughters.
Former United States Representative, Florida
Charles Edward Bennett was a member of the United States House of Representatives from Jacksonville from 1949 to 1993. He was a Democrat.
He was born December 2, 1910 in Canton, New York and moved to Jacksonville by the end of his childhood. Bennett was an Eagle Scout and recipient of the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award from the Boy Scouts of America. He was a lawyer and a member of the United States Army during World War II before being elected to Congress from what was then the 2nd District. He was reelected 21 more times from this Jacksonville-based district. He rarely faced serious opposition even as Jacksonville fell under increasing Republican influence.
In 1951, he began proposing a code of ethics for government employees, nicknamed The Ten Commandments. After the Sherman-Adams Affair, the code was adopted as the first Code of ethics for Government Service in 1958. In 1954, he sponsored the bill that added the words “In God We Trust” to both the nation’s coins and currency.
Bennett died in Jacksonville on September 6, 2003 and is buried at Arlington National Cemetery. He is still the longest-serving member of either house of Congress in Florida’s history. The Charles E. Bennett Federal Building is named after him.
United States Ambassador to Australia
President Donald J. Trump nominated Ambassador Arthur B. (A.B.) Culvahouse Jr. to be the United States Ambassador to Australia on November 6, 2018. Confirmed by the U.S. Senate on January 2, 2019 by unanimous consent, he was formally sworn in by Vice President Mike Pence on February 19, 2019 and presented his credentials to the Governor-General, Sir Peter Cosgrove, on March 13, 2019.
Ambassador Culvahouse serves as the President’s personal representative to the government and people of Australia. He leads the U.S. Mission to Australia, which is comprised of the embassy in Canberra and three consulates in Melbourne, Sydney, and Perth.
Ambassador Culvahouse has a long and distinguished career. He is the former Chair of O’Melveny & Myers, an international law firm he was associated with for more than four decades. He began his career as Chief Legislative Assistant to United States Senator Howard H. Baker, Jr. and later served as White House Counsel to President Ronald Reagan. In 1989, President Reagan awarded Ambassador Culvahouse the Presidential Citizens’ Medal, an award to “recognize citizens who performed exemplary deeds of service for the country or their fellow citizens.” In December 1992, then-Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney awarded Ambassador Culvahouse the Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service for his work on the Federal Advisory Committee on Nuclear Failsafe and Risk Reduction.
Both President Trump and the late-Senator John McCain tapped Ambassador Culvahouse to head the search to select their running mates.
Ambassador Culvahouse was raised in Ten Mile, Tennessee and attended the University of Tennessee and the New York University School of Law. He is the proud father of three accomplished daughters.
Stuyvesant P. Comfort Professor of Law; Director, Center for Financial Institutions; and Co-Director, Center for Civil Justice, New York University School of Law
Geoffrey Miller is an author or editor of a dozen books and more than 200 articles in the fields of financial institutions, contract law, corporate and securities law, constitutional law, civil procedure, legal history, jurisprudence, and ancient law. He has taught a wide range of subjects including law and economics, corporations, compliance and risk management, property, regulation of financial institutions, land development, securities law, the legal profession, and legal theory. Miller received his BA magna cum laude from Princeton in 1973 and his JD from Columbia in 1978, where he was a Stone Scholar and editor-in-chief of the Columbia Law Review. He clerked for Judge Carl McGowan of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and Justice Byron White of the US Supreme Court. After two years as an attorney adviser at the Office of Legal Counsel of the US Department of Justice and one year with a Washington, DC, law firm, he joined the faculty of the University of Chicago Law School in 1983 and NYU School of Law in 1995.
Miller has been a visiting professor or visiting scholar at Columbia University, Harvard University, University of Minnesota, University of Basel (Switzerland), University of Genoa (Italy), Collegio Carlo Alberto (Italy), Study Center Gerzensee (Switzerland), Vanderbilt University, University of St. Gallen (Switzerland), University of Frankfurt (Germany), University of Sydney (Australia), University of Auckland (New Zealand), and the Bank of Japan. Miller is a founder of the Society for Empirical Legal Studies, a scholarly organization devoted to promoting statistical and other empirical techniques in the study of legal institutions. He is founder and director of NYU School of Law’s Center for Financial Institutions, co-director of the Center for Civil Justice, co-founder of and Senior Academic Fellow at NYU's Program on Corporate Compliance and Enforcement, co-convener of the Global Economic Policy Forum, a member of the board of directors of State Farm Bank, and a fellow in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Former United States Assistant Attorney General, Civil Rights Division, United States Department of Justice
William Bradford served as the United States Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division from 1981 to 1988.
Reynolds was Senior Counsel in BakerBotts Antitrust and Competition division. He graduated with a LL.B. from Vanderbilt University Law School in 1967 where he was Order of the Coif and Editor-in-Chief of the Vanderbilt Law Review. In 1964, he received a B.A. from Yale University.
Reynolds passed away on September 14, 2019, in Seabrook Island, South Carolina at age 77.
Professor of Law, Emeritus, Marshall-Wythe Law School at the College of William and Mary
William W. Van Alstyne, one of the nation's foremost constitutional law scholars, and William & Mary’s Lee Professor of Law from 2004 to 2012, died on January 29, 2019, in Southern California.
Professor Van Alstyne was appointed Lee Professor of Law at the Marshall-Wythe Law School at the College of William and Mary in 2004. He is a graduate of the University of Southern California (B.A. in philosophy, magna cum laude) and Stanford University Law School (J.D., Articles and Book Review Editor of The Stanford Law Review). Following his admission to the California Bar and brief service as Deputy Attorney General of California, he joined the Civil Rights Division of the U. S. Department of Justice handling voting rights cases in the South. After active duty with the U. S. Air Force, he was appointed to the law faculty of the Ohio State University, advancing to full professor in three years. Appointed to the Duke law faculty shortly thereafter, he was named to the William R. & Thomas S. Perkins Chair of Law in 1974.
Professor Van Alstyne’s professional writings have appeared during four decades in the principal law journals in the United States, with frequent republication in foreign journals. They address virtually every major subject in the field of constitutional law. His work has been cited in a large number of judicial opinions including those of the Supreme Court. The Journal of Legal Studies for January, 2000, named Professor Van Alstyne in the top forty most frequently cited legal scholars in the United States of the preceding half-century.
Professor Van Alstyne has also taught and given professional papers internationally, in Germany, Austria, and Denmark, in Chile, the former Soviet Union, China, Japan, Canada, and Australia. He has been a visiting faculty member on the law faculties of the University of Chicago, Stanford, California (Berkeley and UCLA), Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Illinois, a Fulbright Lecturer in Chile, a Senior Fellow at the Yale Law School, and a faculty fellow at the Hague International Court of Justice. He has appeared as counsel and as amicus curiae in constitutional litigation in the federal courts, including the Supreme Court. He has also appeared in numerous hearings before Senate and House Committees, on legislation affecting the separation of powers, war powers, constitutional amendments, impeachments, legislation affecting civil rights and civil liberties, and nominations to the Supreme Court.
In 1987, Professor Van Alstyne was selected in a poll of federal judges, lawyers, and academics by the New York Law Journal as one of three academics among "the ten most qualified" persons in the country for appointment to the Supreme Court, a distinction repeated in a similar poll by The American Lawyer, in 1991. Past National President of the American Association of University Professors, and former member of the National Board of Directors of the A.C.L.U., he was elected into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1994.
Wayne A. Abernathy, Wild Bells
Wayne A. Abernathy is a former U.S. Treasury Assistant Secretary for Financial Institutions under President George W. Bush, receiving the Alexander Hamilton Award in recognition of his service. In that office he was also a member of the Board of Directors of the Securities Investor Protection Corporation. Prior to his work at the Treasury, Mr. Abernathy served as Staff Director of the Senate Banking Committee, under Chairman Phil Gramm.
Following his service at the Treasury, Mr. Abernathy worked for 15 years on the staff of the American Bankers Association, as Executive Vice President for Financial Institutions Policy and Regulatory Affairs.
Previous experience with the Senate Banking Committee includes serving as Staff Director of the Subcommittee on Securities during 1995-1998. From 1989 until 1994, Mr. Abernathy was a Republican economist for the committee. He previously worked as a senior legislative assistant for Senator Gramm during 1987-1989 and as an economist for the Banking Committee’s Subcommittee on International Finance and Monetary Policy during 1981-1986, under Chairman Jake Garn.
Mr. Abernathy earned his bachelor’s degree in International Studies from The Johns Hopkins University in 1978. In 1980, he received a master’s degree in International Studies from the School of Advanced International Studies of The Johns Hopkins University.
Deep Dive Episode 120 – FTC Rulemaking: Underutilized Tool or National Nanny Renewed?
James C. Cooper, Svetlana Gans, William C. MacLeod, Noah Joshua Phillips, Joshua D. Wright, Nathan Kaczmarek
A Regulatory Transparency Project Webinar
This expert panel examined recent calls for the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to engage in...
Where Congress Needs More Centralization, Not Less
Among the critiques often levied against the current House of Representatives is that too much...
Courthouse Steps Decision: Trump v. Mazars USA and Trump v. Vance
Devin Watkins
May grand juries or congressional oversight committees obtain the personal tax records and other financial...
Topics
A Legacy Communications Act Requirement Hamstrings Rural Broadband Deployment
The Federal Communications Commission relies, in part, upon what's called the Universal Service Fund (USF)...
Fellowship of Possible Interest
The Fund for American Studies (TFAS) Summer Law Fellowship is a highly sought after program for those...
Courthouse Steps Decision: Little Sisters of the Poor v. Pennsylvania
Eric N. Kniffin
In Little Sisters of the Poor v. Pennsylvania, the justices upheld in a 7-2 ruling...
Courthouse Steps Decision: Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey-Berru
Daniel Blomberg
In today's decision in Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey-Berru (together with St. James...
Panel I: The President's Powers as Commander-in-Chief vs. Congress's War Power and Appropriations Power [Archive Collection]
Geoffrey P. Miller, Wm. Bradford Reynolds, William Van Alstyne, Charles E. Bennett, A.B. Culvahouse
Foreign Affairs and the Constitution
On November 6-7, 1987, The Federalist Society held a symposium at the Grand Hyatt Hotel...
Panel I: The President's Powers as Commander-in-Chief vs. Congress's War Power and Appropriations Power [Archive Collection]
Charles E. Bennett, A.B. Culvahouse, Geoffrey P. Miller, Wm. Bradford Reynolds, William Van Alstyne
Foreign Affairs and the Constitution
On November 6-7, 1987, The Federalist Society held a symposium at the Grand Hyatt Hotel...
The Resolution of Too Big to Fail
Wayne A. Abernathy
Federalist Society Review, Volume 21
Note from the Editor: The Federalist Society takes no positions on particular legal and public...