Managing Partner, Cooper & Kirk PLLC
David Thompson is the Managing Partner of Cooper & Kirk and joined the firm at its founding. Mr. Thompson has extensive trial and appellate experience in a wide range of matters and has secured victories worth billions of dollars. He has successfully challenged numerous laws on Second Amendment grounds. He has also litigated cases in over 30 federal district courts, argued in each of the 13 federal circuit courts of appeal, and argued before the U.S. Supreme Court, as well as many state courts. Mr. Thompson was awarded an A.B. degree, magna cum laude, from Harvard University in 1991, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. In 1994, Mr. Thompson received a J.D. degree, cum laude, from Harvard Law School.
Former Deputy Attorney General for Virginia
Kennerly Davis has over forty years of experience in corporate management, public service, and the private practice of law. He has held senior executive positions in a Fortune 500 electric and gas company. He has served as Deputy Attorney General for the Commonwealth of Virginia, and as a legislative aide to a U.S. Senator and a U.S. Congressman. He practiced law for 25 years with Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP.
Davis is active in the Federalist Society as a member of the Regulatory Process Working Group of the Regulatory Transparency Project, and as a member of the Execuitve Committee of the Administrative Law and Regulation Practice Group. He is active in the national Alumni Free Speech Alliance, and involved in AFSA-chapter initiatives, including litigation, to publicize and correct the serious legal problems created by university Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs and the anonymous bias reporting systems used to enforce those DEI programs.
Davis writes and speaks on a wide variety of topics, including those related to the Founding of America, the natural rights foundation of our Republic, the constitutional rule of law, equal protection and free speech, DEI programs and bias reporting systems, capitalism, regulation and regulatory reform, and economic development. His articles have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, the Washington Examiner, the Richmond Times-Dispatch, The Federalist Society Review, the FedSoc Blog, Real Clear Energy, Townhall, the Daily Caller, reports of the Center for Strategic & International Studies, and other publications. He appears frequently on radio, podcasts, and television.
Davis graduated with honors from Cornell University with an A.B. degree in Government. He earned an M.A. degree from Pembroke College, Oxford, in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics. He was awarded a J.D. degree from Harvard Law School, and an M.B.A. degree from Virginia Commonwealth University.
Davis lives in Richmond, Virginia. He can be contacted by email: j.kendavis@verizon.net, and by phone: (804) 624-8525.
Wall Chair in Corporate Law and Governance and Professor of Law, University of Missouri School of Law
Thom Lambert holds the Wall Family Chair in Corporate Law and Governance at the University of Missouri Law School. He is co-author of a leading antitrust casebook and has published more than two dozen law review articles on antitrust, corporate, and regulatory matters. His most recent book, How to Regulate: A Guide for Policymakers was published by Cambridge University Press in 2017. He is a regular contributor to the law and economics blog, Truth on the Market (www.truthonthemarket.com) and is currently a visiting professor at Washington University Law School.
Carol Matheis practices law business litigation and insurance law in Newport Beach, California. She earned her J.D. at Western University College of Law and is a graduate of George Mason University.
Patrick Hotung Professor of Constitutional Law, Georgetown University Law Center
Randy Barnett is the Patrick Hotung Professor of Constitutional Law at Georgetown University Law Center. He has argued before the United States Supreme Court, tried murder cases to juries as a prosecutor in Chicago, and appeared as a prosecutor in the feature film Inalienable. He is the author of numerous books, including Restoring the Lost Constitution, The Structure of Liberty, Our Republican Constitution, and The Original Meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. He has published two memoirs, A Life for Liberty: The Making of an American Originalist, and Felony Review: Tales of True Crime and Corruption in Chicago. He is currently working on a new book, Freedom and Flourishing: Libertarianism for the Real World.
Executive Director, State and Local Legal Center
Lisa Soronen is the Executive Director of the SLLC. Prior to joining the SLLC, Lisa worked for the National School Boards Association, the Wisconsin Association of School Boards, and clerked for the Wisconsin Court of Appeals. She earned her J.D. at the University of Wisconsin Law School and is a graduate of Central Michigan University.
Senior Fellow and Director of Constitutional Studies, Manhattan Institute
Ilya Shapiro is a senior fellow and director of constitutional studies at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal. Previously he was executive director and senior lecturer at the Georgetown Center for the Constitution, and before that a vice president of the Cato Institute.
Shapiro is the author of Lawless: The Miseducation of America’s Elites (2025) and Supreme Disorder: Judicial Nominations and the Politics of America’s Highest Court (2020), coauthor of Religious Liberties for Corporations? (2014), and editor of 11 volumes of the Cato Supreme Court Review (2008-18). He has contributed to a variety of academic, popular, and professional publications, including the Wall Street Journal, Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, National Review, and Newsweek. He also regularly provides commentary for various media outlets, writes the Shapiro’s Gavel newsletter on Substack, and once appeared on the Colbert Report.
Shapiro has testified many times before Congress and state legislatures and has filed more than 500 amicus curiae “friend of the court” briefs in the Supreme Court. He lectures regularly on behalf of the Federalist Society, is a member of the board of fellows of the Jewish Policy Center, was an inaugural Washington Fellow at the National Review Institute, and has been an adjunct law professor at the George Washington University and University of Mississippi. He is also the chairman of the board of advisers of the Mississippi Justice Institute, a barrister in the Edward Coke Appellate Inn of Court, and a former member of the Virginia Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.
Earlier in his career, Shapiro was a special assistant/adviser to the Multi-National Force in Iraq on rule-of-law issues and practiced at Patton Boggs and Cleary Gottlieb. Before entering private practice, he clerked for Judge E. Grady Jolly of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. He holds an AB from Princeton University, an MSc from the London School of Economics, and a JD from the University of Chicago Law School.
Enforcement Attorney, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
David Hirsch joined the SEC's Fort Worth office in 2015 as an enforcement attorney. Prior to his service with the SEC Dave was a litigator with the law firm of McDermott, Will & Emery, and later he co-founded and ran a private investigation firm focused on securities fraud investigations. Mr. Hirsch graduated from UCLA School of Law and clerked for Judge Edward J. Schwartz in the United States District Court for the Southern District of California. He serves as the Cyber Liaison for the SEC Fort Worth Regional Office and is a member of the SEC DLT Working Group and the Dark Web Working Group. Mr. Hirsch received the SEC Staff Excellence Award in 2018.
Partner, Jones Day
Mark Rasmussen is a seasoned litigator and investigator with more than a dozen years of experience representing clients in complex commercial litigation, securities litigation, regulatory and internal investigations, and bankruptcy litigation. He also advises clients on regulatory compliance related to cryptocurrencies, initial coin offerings (ICOs), and blockchain technology and was recently appointed by Chief Judge Barbara Lynn, of the Northern District of Texas, to be the first ever receiver in an SEC enforcement action involving an ICO promoter. In addition, he is co-editor and author of a forthcoming book entitled Blockchain for Business Lawyers and is a frequent speaker on legal issues related to blockchain technology.
Topics
An administrative coup d’etat at the NLRB?
Illegitimate efforts to weaponize ethics pledges and make it impossible for President Trump’s appointees to...
Litigation Update: Collins v. FHFA
David H. Thompson
Administrative Law & Regulation Practice Group Teleforum
On July 16, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Federal Housing Finance...
Topics
ABA Model Rule 8.4(g) Cannot Survive the Supreme Court’s Recent Decisions in NIFLA and Matal
The United States Supreme Court’s decision eight weeks ago in National Institute of Family and...
Do Regulatory Reform Efforts Inevitably Entrench the Administrative State?
John Kennerly Davis, Thom Lambert
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Government regulation is pervasive, complex and expensive to administer. Americans have a vital interest and...
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Randy E. Barnett
Short video featuring Randy Barnett
Where does Congress get the power to regulate activities like a farmer's wheat yield? While...
Pension Benefits and The California Rule: Time for It To Go?
The “California Rule” as it has come to be known, was set forth in the...
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Lisa Soronen
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On June 18, 2018, the Supreme Court decided Lozman v. City of Riviera Beach, FL,...
The People of the State of Illinois v. Walter Relerford
Ilya Shapiro
After interning, Walter Relerford interviewed for a position and continued sending emails and phone calls...
Regulating Cryptocurrency
David Hirsch, Mark W. Rasmussen
Litigation Practice Group Teleforum
Recently there has been much discussion over the proper regulation of cryptocurrencies and initial coin...