Associate Deputy Attorney General, United States Department of Justice
Steve Cook currently serves as Associate Deputy Attorney General in the United States Department of Justice. In March of 2017, he was appointed to serve as the Deputy Attorney General’s point person on the Task Force for Crime Reduction and Public Safety—a task force created at the direction of the President to develop a nationwide strategy to reduce crime. He now serves as the Director of Law Enforcement Affairs for the U.S. Department of Justice. Prior to his current appointment, he served as the chief of the Criminal Division in the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Tennessee where he had been an Assistant United States Attorney for 30 years. During those 30 years, he worked in the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force; the General Crimes Section handling white-collar crime, fraud, and public corruption; and was the deputy criminal chief in the Narcotics and Violent Crime Section. In those positions, he received dozens of awards and letters of commendation including the Directors Award for Superior Performance in connection with his work prosecuting violent gang members. He is also the immediate past president of the National Association of Assistant U.S. Attorneys.
Prior to coming to the United States Attorney’s Office, Mr. Cook clerked for a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and before that worked as a deputy sheriff and then as a police officer for seven years in Knoxville, Tennessee. Mr. Cook earned his Doctor of Jurisprudence from the University of Tennessee in 1984, with high honors, and was a member of the Tennessee Law Review.
Mr. Cook was chosen as one of The Politico’s 50 in 2017 for his work on national criminal justice issues. He has testified multiple times before Congress in connection with proposed criminal justice legislation including bills involving the Electronic Communications Privacy Act and sentencing reform. He has appeared as a guest on numerous radio and television programs with regional and national audiences (including the O’Reilly Factor and Sean Hannity Show) and has appeared as a frequent panelist on forums and discussion panels (including programs hosted by the Washington Post, Atlantic Magazine, and Hastings Law Journal).
Finally, Mr. Cook has served as a speaker or instructor at hundreds of events across the country ranging from events with international audiences to local police training.
Associate Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law Center
Shon Hopwood’s unusual legal journey began prior to him attending law school and included the U.S. Supreme Court granting two petitions for certiorari he prepared. Shon’s research and teaching interests include criminal law and procedure, civil rights, and the constitutional rights of prisoners. He received a J.D. as a Gates Public Service Law Scholar from the University of Washington School of Law. He served as a law clerk for Judge Janice Rogers Brown of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. And his legal scholarship has been published in the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties, Fordham, and Washington Law Reviews, as well as the American Criminal Law Review and Georgetown Law Journal’s Annual Review of Criminal Procedure.
President, Cass & Associates, PC
Ronald A. Cass is Dean Emeritus of Boston University School of Law (where he was Dean from 1990-2004), President of Cass & Associates, PC, former Vice-Chairman and Commissioner of the U.S. International Trade Commission, former faculty member at Boston University School of Law and the University of Virginia Law School, and Distinguished Senior Fellow at the C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State. Dean Cass also sits as an arbitrator for commercial, international, and intellectual property rights disputes, and is a former United States member of the Panel of Conciliators of the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes. He is a member of the Council of the Administrative Conference of the United States and has received seven presidential appointments, spanning Presidents Ronald Reagan to Donald J. Trump.
As a law professor, lecturer, and scholar, Dean Cass has been teaching and writing about a wide array of legal issues on topics such as administrative law and regulation, antitrust, constitutional law, communications, intellectual property, international trade, separation of powers, and legal process. He has published more than 160 scholarly books, chapters, articles, and papers, including a leading casebook on administrative law. Dean Cass has taught judges as well as students in schools of law, economics, business, and public policy and has held academic appointments in the United States, Europe, and Latin America.
In addition to his academic work, Dean Cass has participated in numerous important legal cases as an amicus, consultant, or expert, and has advised businesses, law firms, investment funds, and government agencies on a range of trade, antitrust, intellectual property, and regulatory issues. He has a broad range of affiliations with professional groups, and has received numerous honors, fellowships and awards.
Dean Cass is a graduate of the University of Virginia and the University of Chicago Law School.
Eighth Judicial District Court, Clark County, Nevada
Judge Elissa Cadish graduated magna cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania in 1986, receiving her Bachelor of Arts degree with honors in Political Science. She received her law degree from the University of Virginia School of Law in 1989. After graduation, she moved to Las Vegas and clerked for two years for Honorable Philip M. Pro in the United States District Court for the District of Nevada.
Judge Cadish then entered private practice where she focused on commercial litigation and employment law. She practiced most recently at Hale Lane Peek Dennison and Howard, where she worked from 1995 until August of 2007, becoming a shareholder at Hale Lane in 2000. In July of 2007, she was appointed to fill the District Judge vacancy in Department 6 where she presently serves.
Judge Cadish was President of the Southern Nevada Association of Women Attorneys from 2004 to 2006, and remains an active member in that organization. She is also a Master in the Howard D. McKibben Inn of Court. She was Chair of the Court’s Civil Bench Bar Committee from 2008 until 2011, President of the Howard D. McKibben Chapter of the American Inn of Court from 2010 to 2012, Judicial Representative on the Clark County Bar Association’s Executive Board from January 2010 to December 2011, and is currently Chair of the State Bar’s Law Related Education Committee. She was honored as the Clark County Bar Association’s Ambassador of the Year for 2010, the Trial by Peers Judge of the Year for 2009, and a recipient of the Clark County Law Foundation’s Liberty Bell Award in 2016. She was recently elected to membership in the American Law Institute. Judge Cadish hears civil and criminal cases in District Court.
Lieutenant Governor, State of Nevada
A third generation Nevadan, born and raised in Las Vegas, Lieutenant Governor Mark Hutchison is a husband, father and grandfather, constitutional lawyer, and business owner. He has a strong sense of commitment and dedication to Nevada and is deeply honored to represent the Silver State.
Mark was raised in a modest blue-collar family and is the product of Nevada’s public education system. After he graduated from Bonanza High School Mark earned his business administration degree, Phi Kappa Phi, from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and received his law degree, magna cum laude, from Brigham Young University. Following law school Mark clerked for a judge on the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Indiana. Mark then worked for a national law firm until returning to Nevada and founding his own law firm in 1996 with his good friend, John Steffen. Today, Mark is the senior partner at Hutchison & Steffen, one of the largest law firms in the state, employing nearly one hundred Nevadans. Mark has been widely recognized by his peers and clients as a skilled an effective lawyer. As a result, Mark has been a key figure in some of Nevada’s most significant governmental disputes at the intersection of law and politics.
On November 4, 2014, Mark Hutchison was elected to serve as Nevada’s 34th Lieutenant Governor. Prior to running for lieutenant governor, Mark had a long history of public service. Mark served on the Nevada Commission on Ethics for six years, two of which he chaired the commission. Mark also had the pleasure of serving in the Nevada State Senate (Senate District 6) to which he was elected in 2012. In addition to his service in the public sector Mark served as a member of numerous non-profit and community organizations, some of which he is still active in today.
Mark was sworn in to office on January 5, 2015. As Lieutenant Governor, Mark is a member of Governor Brian Sandoval’s cabinet and serves as President of the State Senate. Mark is the Chairman of the Commission on Tourism, Vice-Chairman of the State Board of Transportation, a member of the Board of the Governor’s Office of Economic Development, and a member of the Executive Budget Audit Committee. On November 17, 2015 Mark was appointed to the Governor’s Commission on Homeland Security and was later appointed to the Commission’s subcommittee on Cyber Security where he serves as Chairman. On February 9, 2017, Mark was appointed as Chairman of the Governor's Committee on Energy Choice. Mark also serves as a member of the Board of Directors for the Public Education Foundation and as Co-Chair of What’s Next Nevada?
When not focused on his duties as Lieutenant Governor or at his law firm, Mark is focused on his family. Mark and his wife Cary have been married for thirty years and together they have six children and six grandchildren. Mark enjoys doing just about anything with his family and has spent many enjoyable years coaching the athletic teams of his children and their friends. When he can, Mark continues to help the football team at Palo Verde High School where his youngest son still plays. Mark and his family are also active in their church. During his limited free time, Mark enjoys running, collecting leatherback books, and writing.
Managing Shareholder, Saltzman Mugan Dushoff, PLLC
Over the course of his twenty-plus years as an attorney in Las Vegas, Mr. Saltzman has developed a corporate law practice focused on financial institution and liquor law. He assists businesses in their formation, licensing and governance matters; he also counsels businesses on corporate mergers and acquisition matters. He assists highly regulated financial institutions and captive insurance companies in corporate and regulatory compliance matters and he has testified before the Nevada legislature as an expert on trust company legislation and drafted portions of Nevada law relating to the chartering and operation of Nevada trust companies. He has counseled trust companies and financial service firms on Blockchain and cryptocurrency related legal compliance matters.
Mr. Saltzman has developed and managed the firm’s liquor law practice into Nevada’s largest alcohol beverage specialty law practice group. He and his team of attorneys and paralegals assist a wide range of liquor retailers, wholesalers and suppliers in licensing and compliance matters in all Nevada jurisdictions. More information on Mr. Saltzman’s liquor law practice can be found at his blog: www.nvliquorlaw.com
Matthew Saltzman received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics and Philosophy from University of Wisconsin, Madison in 1987. In 1993, he received his Juris Doctor from University of Pittsburgh School of Law, where he was also Executive Editor of the University of Pittsburgh Law Review and served as teaching assistant for the Legal Research and Writing course.
Nevada Court of Appeals, Department 1
Judge Jerome T. Tao was appointed to the Court of Appeals, Department 1, by Governor Brian Sandoval in December 2014.
Judge Tao was appointed by Governor Sandoval in January 2011 to the Eighth Judicial District Court. As a District Court Judge, he earned a retention rating of 86 percent in the December 2013 Las Vegas Review-Journal “Judging the Judges” survey, which was the fourth-highest score among the 32 judges in the civil-criminal division of the Eighth Judicial District Court. In 2014, Judge Tao was re-elected to the District Court in a landslide, winning more than 67% of the vote, and following his appointment to the Court of Appeals was re-elected in 2016 with 70% of the vote.
Previously he served at various times as a Clark County Deputy District Attorney, Chief Deputy Public Defender, and as a civil attorney in private practice. He has been active in a variety of community organizations including Leadership Las Vegas, Focus Las Vegas, the UNLV Vice-President’s Commission on Diversity, and serves on the adjunct faculty of the UNLV Boyd Law School, teaching classes in trial advocacy.
In 2017, Judge Tao was elected to The American Law Institute, the leading independent organization in the United States producing scholarly work to clarify, modernize, and improve the law. By participating in the Institute’s work, Judge Tao influences the development of the law in both existing and emerging areas.
Judge Tao is a graduate of Cornell University (B.S. 1989) and the George Washington University (J.D. 1992, with honors), where he served on the Law Review and the Moot Court Board.
Professor Emeritus, Paul M. Hebert Law Center, Louisiana State University
In memoriam
Dr. John Baker is Professor Emeritus of Law, and previously the Dale E. Bennett Professor of Law, at Louisiana State University Law School. He is currently Visiting Professor at Peking University School of Transnational Law (via Zoom) and has been Visiting Professor at The Center for the Constitution, Georgetown Law School (2013-2020). He has also been a Visiting Fellow at Oriel College, the University of Oxford (2012-2014) and taught at Blackfriars Hall, Oxford in 2014. Dr. Baker has also been an adjunct Fellow at the Heritage Foundation (Spring, 2008) and a Distinguished Scholar at the Catholic University of America Law School (2011-12). He has taught at Tulane Law School, George Mason Law School, Pepperdine Law School, New York Law School, Hong Kong University, and the University of Dallas, School of Management and also taught and/or lectured in 17 foreign countries. Notable among his foreign visits are the
following: Visiting Professor at the University of Lyon III (France) (1999-2011); Visiting Professor at the Universidad de los Andes, Chile (2012), as a Fulbright Specialist (2006); and a Fulbright Scholar at various universities in the Philippines. Dr. Baker received his J.D., with honors, from the University of Michigan Law School and his B.A., magna cum laude, from the University of Dallas. He also earned a Ph.D. in Political Thought from the University of London. Baker has taught over a dozen different subjects, mostly courses in public law. His main areas of interest are Constitutional Law (particularly federalism and separation of powers), Criminal Law, Anti-Terrorism Law, International Law, Health Care Law, Mediation, and Comparative Law.
In addition to law review articles and book chapters, Dr. Baker’s academic publications include Hall's Criminal Law: Cases and Materials (with Benson, Force and George; 5th ed. Michie, 1993); An Introduction to the Law of the United States (ed. with Levasseur; University Press of America, 1992). He has also published on Forbes.com, FoxNews.com, in The Washington Times, and a number of times in The Wall Street Journal. He argues in federal court, including two oral arguments in the U.S. Supreme Court. For many years, he co-taught courses for the Federalist Society on separation of powers with the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. In September 2016, he co-taught a Supreme Court seminar in China with Justice Samuel Alito. Following law school, he served as a law clerk in federal district court and as an assistant district attorney in New Orleans before joining LSU in 1975. While a professor, he has been as a consultant to USAID, USIA (since rolled into the State Department), the Justice Department, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Separation of Powers, and the Office of Planning in the White House. He served on an ABA Task Force which issued the report, The Federalization of Crime (1998) and later as a consultant to the “Bi-Partisan Task Force on the Over- federalization of Crime” (2012-2014) created by the U.S. House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime. Dr. Baker was a co-founder of the first iteration (1995) of Stratfor Inc., a global intelligence agency. He co-authored its first book: The Intelligence Edge (with Friedman, Friedman and Chapman; Crown Books/Random House 1997). In 2022, he began a short, weekly video podcast available on YouTube and Rumble, The Baker Brief.
Professor of Law, University of South Carolina School of Law
Thomas Crocker is a Professor of Law at the University of South Carolina School of law where he teaches courses on Constitutional Law, Criminal Procedure, Free Speech and Democracy, National Security and the Constitution, as well as seminars in Jurisprudence and Law & Literature.
Professor Crocker graduated from Yale Law School, where he was Book Reviews Editor of the Yale Law Journal and an editor of the Yale Journal of Law & the Humanities. After graduating from law school, Professor Crocker clerked for Judge Carlos F. Lucero on the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. Prior to attending law school he completed a Ph.D. in philosophy from Vanderbilt University, an M.A. in philosophy from the University of Wales, and a B.A. summa cum laude from Mississippi State University, majoring in Economics and Philosophy. He also taught philosophy at St. Lawrence University in New York as a Visiting Assistant Professor before attending law school.
Professor Crocker has held fellowships as a Visiting Scholar at the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in Cambridge, MA, and as a Senior Fulbright Scholar in Germany at the Johann Goethe Universität, Frankfurt am Main, where he was a resident fellow at the Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften (Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities) and a participant in the Formation of Normative Orders Cluster of Excellence. He was a Visiting Research Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities at the University of Edinburgh in Summer 2013. Most recently, he was the MacCormick Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Edinburgh School of Law from April 2015 through August 2015. In 2013, he was named a USC Breakthrough Star in recognition of the scholarly impact and potential of his work.
His recent scholarship focuses on issues of privacy, constitutional interpretation, and the nature of constitutional constraints. Recent articles appear in, among others, the UCLA, Texas, Washington University, Boston College, Fordham, and Connecticut Law Reviews as well as the Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology and the University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law. He won the law school’s Outstanding Article Publication award three times. His article, “From Privacy to Liberty,” which appeared in the UCLA Law Review, was selected for presentation at the 2009 Law & Humanities Interdisciplinary Junior Scholars Workshop held at Georgetown Law Center.
His current book project, Overcoming Necessity: Emergency, Constraint, and the Meanings of American Constitutionalism, is under contract with Yale University Press. This project in constitutional theory analyzes how the concept of necessity interacts with constitutional commitments to create dynamic challenges to constitutional governance, especially during times of emergency.
Assistant Professor in the Communication, Culture & Technology Program, Georgetown University
Prof. Meg Leta (previously Ambrose) Jones is an Assistant Professor in the Communication, Culture & Technology program at Georgetown University where she researches rules and technological change with a focus on privacy, data protection, and automation in information and communication technologies. She is also an affiliate faculty member of the Science, Technology, and International Affairs program in Georgetown's School of Foreign Service, the Center for Privacy & Technology at Georgetown Law Center, and the Brussels Privacy Hub at Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Dr. Jones's research interests cover issues including comparative information and communication technology law, engineering and information ethics, critical information and data studies, robotics law and policy, and the legal history of technology. She engages with interdisciplinary fields like cyberlaw, science and technology studies, and communication and information policy using comparative, interpretive, legal, and historical methods. Ctrl+Z: The Right to be Forgotten, her first book, is about the social, legal, and technical issues surrounding digital oblivion. Advised by Paul Ohm, Dr. Jones earned a Ph.D. in Technology, Media & Society from the University of Colorado, Engineering and Applied Science (ATLAS). Prior to pursuing a Ph.D., she earned a J.D. from the University of Illinois College of Law in 2008, where she focused on technology and information issues. She has held fellowships and research positions with the NSF funded eCSite project in the University of Colorado Department of Computer Science, the Silicon Flatirons Center at the University of Colorado School of Law, the Harvard Berkman Center for Internet & Society, and CableLabs. Since 2013, Dr. Jones has been teaching and researching in Washington, DC at Georgetown University.
Professor of Law and Journalism, University of Florida
Professor Jane Bambauer is the Brechner Eminent Scholar at the Levin College of Law and at the College of Journalism and Communications. She teaches Torts, First Amendment, Media Law, Criminal Procedure, and Privacy Law.
Professor Bambauer’s research assesses the social costs and benefits of Big Data, AI, and predictive algorithms. Her work analyzes how the regulation of these new information technologies will affect free speech, privacy, law enforcement, health and safety, competitive markets, and government accountability. Professor Bambauer’s research has been featured in over 20 scholarly publications, including the Stanford Law Review, the Michigan Law Review, the California Law Review, and the Journal of Empirical Legal Studies. Her work has also been featured in media outlets, including the Washington Post, the New York Times, Fox News, and Lawfare, where she is a contributing editor.
Professor Bambauer currently serves as the Chair of the National AI Advisory Committee Subcommittee on Law Enforcement, and she has previously served as the deputy director of the Center for Quantum Networks, a multi-institutional engineering research center funded by the National Science Foundation. She holds a B.S. in Mathematics from Yale College and a J.D. from Yale Law School.
Retired Edgar S. Woolard, Jr. Chair in Corporate Governance, University of Delaware
Professor Elson is the Edgar S. Woolard, Jr., Chair in Corporate Governance and the Director of the John L. Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance at the University of Delaware. He is also "Of Counsel" to the law firm of Holland & Knight. He formerly served as a Professor of Law at Stetson University College of Law in St. Petersburg, Florida from 1990 until 2001. His fields of expertise include corporations, securities regulation and corporate governance. He is a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Virginia Law School, and has served as a law clerk to Judges J. Harvie Wilkinson III and Elbert P. Tuttle of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth and Eleventh Circuits. He has been a Visiting Professor at the University of Illinois College of Law, the Cornell Law School, and the University of Maryland School of Law, and is a Salvatori Fellow at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C. and a member of the American Law Institute. Professor Elson has written extensively on the subject of boards of directors. He is a frequent contributor on corporate governance issues to various scholarly and popular publications. He served on the National Association of Corporate Directors' Commissions on Director Compensation, Director Professionalism, CEO Succession, Audit Committees, Strategic Planning and Director Evaluation, was a member of its Best Practices Council on Coping With Fraud and Other Illegal Activity, and presently serves on that organization’s Advisory Council. He is Vice Chairman of the ABA Business Law Section’s Committee on Corporate Governance and a member of its Committee on Corporate Laws. Additionally, Professor Elson served as an adviser and consultant to Towers Perrin, the international human resource management consultants, a director of Circon Corporation, a medical products maker; Sunbeam Corporation, the consumer products manufacturer; Nuevo Energy Company, an independent oil and natural gas producer, the Investor Responsibility Research Center, a non-profit corporate governance research organization, Alderwoods Group, an international death care services provider and is presently, a member of the Board of Directors of AutoZone, Inc., the national automobile parts retailer, HealthSouth Corporation, a healthcare services provider.
Senior Vice President, General Counsel, Envista
Mark Nance is currently the Senior Vice President, General Counsel of Envista.
Mark joined Envista in 2019 prior to its IPO. Previously he served as Chief Legal Officer for INSYS Therapeutics, Inc., where he teamed with management and the board to focus on its restructuring. He has nearly 20 years of experience serving in the role of General Counsel.
Mark has also held roles as General Counsel for Mylan, N.V., a global pharmaceutical company, and led the legal teams at G.E. Healthcare Medical Diagnostics and G.E. Healthcare Life Sciences. His government service includes time at the Office of Policy Planning at the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, as a commissioned officer in the U.S. Marine Corps, and for seven years as an original member of the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity.
Mark holds a BA in Political Science from the University of Missouri and a JD from Cornell Law School.
President, Center for Individual Rights
Todd Gaziano is the President of the Center for Individual Rights. Mr. Gaziano received his J.D. in 1988 from the University of Chicago Law School, where he was a John M. Olin Fellow in Law and Economics. He received his B.A. from West Virginia University, summa cum laude in 1985. He was selected as a Truman Scholar from West Virginia while an undergraduate.
Mr. Gaziano’s previous legal work includes service as a law clerk for U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit Judge Edith Jones, as an attorney in the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel, as a chief subcommittee counsel in the U.S. House of Representatives, as a Houston trial attorney, and as a chief corporate legal officer. He also served a six-year term as commissioner on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights (2008-2013), where he helped conduct oversight and investigations of civil rights agencies.
For most of the last 25 years, Mr. Gaziano was a legal scholar and public interest law leader, promoting individual liberty in the Supreme Court and Congress. From 1997 to 2013, he was the founding director of the Edwin Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation. From 2014 until he joined CIR, he was the Chief of Legal Policy and Strategic Research, and Director of the Center for the Separation of Powers, at Pacific Legal Foundation.
Levin, Mabie & Levin Professor of Law, University of Florida Levin College of Law
Professor Gary Lawson joined the University of Florida Levin College of Law faculty on July 1, 2024, after twenty-four years at Boston University School of Law and eleven years at Northwestern University School of Law. While at Boston University, he was named a William Fairfield Warren Distinguished Professor in 2022 – the highest faculty honor within the university. He has authored or co-authored nine editions of a textbook on administrative law, a textbook on constitutional law, five university press books, one popular press book, and more than one hundred scholarly articles on topics ranging from aspects of constitutional theory and history to the proof of legal propositions. His works have been cited in more than twenty opinions of United States Supreme Court justices. He is a founding member, and serves on the Board of Directors, of the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies and is on the Editorial Advisory Board of the Heritage Guide to the Constitution.
Sudler Family Professor of Constitutional Law, New York University School of Law
Richard H. Pildes is one of the nation’s leading scholars of constitutional law and a specialist in legal issues affecting democracy. He is a Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Law Institute, and has received recognition as a Guggenheim Fellow and a Carnegie Scholar. His acclaimed casebook, The Law of Democracy: Legal Structure of the Political Process (now in its fourth edition), helped create an entirely new field of study in the law schools. The Law of Democracy systematically explores legal and policy issues concerning the structure of democratic elections and institutions, such as the role of money in politics, the design of election districts, the regulation of political parties, the design of voting systems, the representation of minority interests in democratic institutions, and similar issues. He has written extensively on the rise of political polarization in the United States, the Voting Rights Act, the dysfunction of America’s political processes, the role of the Supreme Court in overseeing American democracy, the powers of the American President and Congress, and he has criticized excessively “romantic” understandings of democracy. In addition to his scholarship on these issues, he has written on national-security law, the design of the regulatory state, and American constitutional history and theory.
Respect for his expertise in these areas is reflected in frequent citations of his work in U.S. Supreme Court opinions, the translation of his work into many languages, and his frequent public lectures and appearances around the world, including his nomination with the NBC News Team for an Emmy Award for coverage of the 2000 Presidential election litigation.
His work has been translated and published in Chinese, French, Spanish, and Portuguese. In addition to his scholarship, Professor Pildes plays an active role litigating in these areas. He has won two cases before the United States Supreme Court, including a 2015 victory in Alabama Democratic Conference v. Alabama, a case involving race and redistricting. He served as counsel to a group of former chairmen of the Securities and Exchange Commission in litigation defending the constitutionality of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act; as counsel in election litigation to the Puerto Rico Electoral Commission; as counsel to the government of Puerto Rico; as a federal court-appointed independent expert on voting rights litigation; and as counsel in successful Supreme Court litigation that challenged the way the United States Tax Court operated. He was also a senior legal advisor to the 2008 and 2012 campaigns of President Obama.
Pildes received his A.B. in physical chemistry summa cum laude from Princeton, and his J.D. magna cum laude from Harvard, where he served as Supreme Court Note Editor on the Harvard Law Review. He clerked for Judge Abner J. Mikva of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and for Justice Thurgood Marshall of the U.S. Supreme Court. After practicing law in Boston, he began his academic career at the University of Michigan Law School, before joining the NYU School of Law in 2001.
Partner, Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP
Theodore B. Olson is a Partner in Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher’s Washington, D.C. office; a founder of the Firm’s Crisis Management, Sports Law, and Appellate and Constitutional Law Practice Groups.
Mr. Olson was Solicitor General of the United States during the period 2001-2004. From 1981-1984, he was Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Office of Legal Counsel in the U.S. Department of Justice. Except for those two intervals, he has been a lawyer with Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. since 1965.
Selected by Time magazine in 2010 as one of the 100 most influential people in the world, Mr. Olson is one of the nation’s premier appellate and United States Supreme Court advocates. He has argued 65 cases in the Supreme Court and has prevailed in over 75% of those cases. These include the two Bush v Gore cases arising out of the 2000 presidential election; Citizens United v Federal Election Commission; Hollingsworth v Perry, the case affirming the overturning of California’s Proposition 8, banning same-sex marriages; Murphy v NCAA, overturning a federal law prohibiting states from authorizing sports betting; and U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security v Regents of the Univ. of Calif., challenging the Trump Administration’s rescission of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (“DACA”). Mr. Olson’s practice is concentrated on appellate and constitutional law, federal legislation, media and commercial disputes, and assisting clients with strategies for the containment, management and resolution of major legal crises. He has handled cases at all levels of state and federal court systems throughout the United States. Mr. Olson co-authored “Redeeming the Dream, the Case for Marriage Equality” with David Boies. Both were featured in HBO’s award-winning documentary, “The Case Against 8.”
Mr. Olson's Supreme Court arguments have included cases involving separation of powers; federalism; voting rights; the Tenth Amendment; the First Amendment; the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses; jury trial rights; punitive damages; takings of property; the Commerce Clause; administrative law; taxation; criminal law; sports wagering; copyright, patent and antitrust; securities; campaign finance; foreign sovereign immunities; telecommunications; the environment; the internet; the Supremacy Clause; and other federal constitutional and statutory questions. As Solicitor General, during the presidency of George W. Bush, Mr. Olson was the Government's principal advocate in the United States Supreme Court, responsible for supervising and coordinating all appellate litigation of the United States, and a legal adviser to the President and the Attorney General. As Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel during the Reagan Administration, Mr. Olson was the Executive Branch's principal legal adviser, rendering legal guidance to the President and to the heads of the Executive Branch departments on a wide range of constitutional and federal statutory questions, and assisting in formulating and articulating the Executive Branch's position on constitutional issues.
Mr. Olson has served as private counsel to two Presidents, Ronald W. Reagan and George W. Bush, in addition to serving those two Presidents in high-level positions in the Department of Justice. He has twice been awarded the United States Department of Justice's Edmund J. Randolph Award, its highest award for public service and leadership, and also received the Department of Defense's Distinguished Public Service Award, its highest civilian award, for his advocacy in the courts of the United States, including the Supreme Court. He also received the American Bar Association Medal, its highest award for “exceptionally distinguished service by a lawyer or lawyers to the cause of American jurisprudence.” Mr. Olson is to receive the 2021 Jack Valenti Friend of the White House Fellows Award in the Fall of 2021 to be presented by the White House Fellows Foundation and Association.
Mr. Olson is a member of the Commission on White House Fellowships; a member of the Board of Trustees of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation; a member of the Board of Visitors of the Federalist Society; the Board of Directors of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University; and the 9/11 Pentagon Memorial Foundation. He was a visiting scholar at the National Constitution Center in 2007. He served on the President's Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board from 2006 to 2008; and of the Council of the Administrative Conference of the United States from 2010 to 2020. He was Co-Chair of the Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy from 2008-2009, and served two terms on the Board of Directors of the National Center for State Courts.
Mr. Olson is a Fellow of both the American College of Trial Lawyers and the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers. He has been repeatedly listed in legal publications as one of the nation’s leading appellate lawyers. The late New York Times columnist William Safire described Mr. Olson as his generation's "most persuasive advocate" before the Supreme Court and "the most effective Solicitor General in decades.”
Mr. Olson received his law degree in 1965 from the University of California at Berkeley (Boalt Hall) where he was a member of the California Law Review and Order of the Coif. He received his bachelor's degree from the University of the Pacific, where he was recognized as the outstanding graduating student in both forensics and journalism. He has written and lectured extensively on appellate advocacy, oral communication in the courtroom, civil justice reform, and constitutional and administrative law.
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Todd F. Gaziano
Criminal Law & Procedure, Federal Separation of Powers, Administrative Law, and Regulatory Transparency Project Teleforum
Since 1789, the Supreme Court has struck down only two laws on “nondelegation” grounds, both...
The Great Dissent: Justice Scalia's Opinion in Morrison v. Olson
Gary Lawson, Richard H. Pildes, Theodore B. Olson
Short video featuring Gary Lawson, Richard Pildes, and Theodore Olson
Thirty years after the decision in Morrison v. Olson, questions raised in Justice Antonin Scalia’s...
National Lawyers Convention
Short Video
"The National Lawyers Convention is the Super Bowl for Lawyers." - Prof. Josh Blackman. The...