Executive in Residence, Wake Forest University School of Business
John Allison is an Executive in Residence at the Wake Forest School of Business. He is a member of the Cato Institute’s Board of Directors and Chairman of the Executive Advisory Council of the Cato Institute’s Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives. Allison was president and CEO of the Cato Institute from October 2012 to April 2015. Prior to joining Cato, Allison was chairman and CEO of BB&T Corporation, the 10th-largest financial services holding company headquartered in the United States. During his tenure as CEO from 1989 to 2008, BB&T grew from $4.5 billion to $152 billion in assets. He was recognized by theHarvard Business Reviewas one of the top 100 most successful CEOs in the world over the last decade.
Allison has received the Corning Award for Distinguished Leadership, been inducted into the North Carolina Business Hall of Fame, and received the Lifetime Achievement Award from theAmerican Banker. He is the author of The Financial Crisis and the Free Market Cure: Why Pure Capitalism Is the World Economy’s Only Hope and The Leadership Crisis and the Free Market Cure: Why the Future of Business Depends on the Return to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. In addition, he is a former Distinguished Professor of Practice at Wake Forest University School of Business, and serves on the Board of Visitors at the business schools at Wake Forest, Duke, and the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill.
Allison is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill. He received his master’s degree in management from Duke University and is also a graduate of the Stonier Graduate School of Banking. Allison is the recipient of six honorary doctorate degrees.
Maurice and Hilda Friedman Professor of Law, Columbia Law School; CEO, New Civil Liberties Alliance
Philip Hamburger is the Maurice and Hilda Friedman Professor of Law at Columbia Law School, and Chief Executive Officer at the New Civil Liberties Alliance. Before coming to Columbia, he was the John P. Wilson Professor at the University of Chicago Law School.
He writes on constitutional law and its history—with particular emphasis on religious liberty, freedom of speech and the press, judicial office, administrative power, and unconstitutional conditions.
His books are Separation of Church and State (Harvard 2002), Law and Judicial Duty (Harvard 2008), Is Administrative Law Unlawful? (Chicago 2014), The Administrative Threat (Encounter 2017), and Liberal Suppression: Section 501(c)(3) and the Taxation of Speech (Chicago 2018). A forthcoming book is Purchasing Submission: Conditions, Power, and Freedom (Harvard 2021).
He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and he has served on the board of directors of the American Society for Legal History. He has twice received the Sutherland Prize for the most significant contribution to English legal history, and has been awarded the Henry Paolucci - Walter Bagehot Book Award, the Hayek Book Prize, and the Bradley Prize.
Senior Research Fellow, Mercatus Center, George Mason University; Former General Counsel at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC)
Alden Abbott is a Senior Research Fellow at the Mercatus Center. Prior to joining Mercatus, he served as the General Counsel of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). As the Commission’s chief legal officer and adviser, he represented the agency in court and provides legal counsel to the Commission and its bureaus and offices.
Prior to rejoining the FTC in April 2018, Mr. Abbott served in executive positions at the Heritage Foundation (2014-2018) and BlackBerry (2012-2014). He also held a variety of senior positions in the U.S. federal government (in the FTC, the Commerce Department, and the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel and the Antitrust Division).
He speaks French, Spanish, and Italian.
President and Founder, Bloom Strategic Counsel PLLC
Seth Bloom is the President and Founder of Bloom Strategic Counsel PLLC. Mr. Bloom, the former long-time General Counsel of the U.S. Senate Antitrust Subcommittee, is an attorney with extensive governmental and private sector experience in antitrust and competition law. He possesses substantial experience with the critical regulatory and competition issues facing key industries including telecommunications, media, Internet, and high tech; transportation and aviation; and health care.
Mr. Bloom has represented leading companies in these and other vital industries. These clients have included Comcast, Amazon, Aetna, MillerCoors LLC, Microsoft, Sprint, Masimo, Yelp, the American Association of Independent Music (A2IM), and the American Hotel and Lodging Association. Since founding his firm in 2013, Mr. Bloom has quickly become one of the leading Washington attorneys representing companies in large and complex merger transaction, particularly before Congress. He has represented MillerCoors LCC in connection with the AB InBev/SABMiller merger; Aetna in connection with its proposed merger with Humana; Pfizer in connection with its proposed merger with Allergan; and Comcast in connection with its proposed merger with Time Warner Cable. Beyond his work for major companies involved in mergers and acquisitions, Mr. Bloom has represented Yelp on Internet competition issues, the medical device manufacturer Masimo with respect to its efforts to bring greater competition to hospital purchasing of medical devices; Microsoft on competition, and patent reform issues; Sprint on competition and telecom regulatory issues; and A2IM on copyright reform, music licensing and competition issues, among other matters. In July 2013, Mr. Bloom was named to the Advisory Board of the American Antitrust Institute.
Prior to founding Bloom Strategic Counsel in March 2013, Mr. Bloom spent nearly 14 years working in the U.S. Senate on the Judiciary Committee’s Antitrust Subcommittee. He began as a counsel on the Antitrust Subcommittee staff of Sen. Kohl in 1999, who served as Chairman and Ranking Member of the Subcommittee during Mr. Bloom’s tenure. From 2008 to January 2013, Mr. Bloom served as General Counsel of the Senate Antitrust Subcommittee. In August 2012, Mr. Bloom was named to the “Hill Hot List” by National Law Journal/Legal Times as one of the top 15 lawyers working in Congress.
Mr. Bloom was responsible for numerous critical antitrust and competition issues that came before the Antitrust Subcommittee during his tenure, from the AOL/Time Warner merger in 2000 to the Comcast/NBC Universal merger in 2010 and the proposed AT&T/T-Mobile merger in 2011. Antitrust Subcommittee Chairman Kohl’s opposition to the proposed AT&T/T-Mobile merger was a key factor leading to the merger being blocked by the Justice Department and the FCC. Mr. Bloom was also the senior staffer on several landmark Antitrust Subcommittee investigations, including its 2011 investigation of allegations that Google was engaged in antitrust competitive conduct with respect to Internet search and its 2002-2004 of allegations of anticompetitive conduct in hospital purchasing of medical supplies. During his time on the antitrust subcommittee, Mr. Bloom investigated competitive conditions in numerous key industries, including telecom, high tech, media, aviation, health care, energy, and agriculture.
Mr. Bloom also was the staffer responsible for a number of significant legislative efforts sponsored by Senator Kohl, including the Railroad Antitrust Enforcement Act, the Preserve Affordable Access to Generic Drugs Act, the Discount Pricing Consumer Protection Act, and the No Oil Producing and Exporting Cartels Act (NOPEC). Each of these legislative efforts passed the Senate Judiciary Committee in several different Congresses.
Mr. Bloom has also been frequently been called on to serve as an expert speaker on critical issues of antitrust, competition, telecom, high tech, and health care policy to numerous trade, industry and legal groups, including the American Bar Association Antitrust Section, the American Antitrust Institute, the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, the Georgetown University Law Center, and the conference of Western Attorneys General, among other organizations. He has also been quoted frequently in the press regarding critical antitrust and competition policy issues, including in the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, CNBC, Reuters, FTC Watch, and National Public Radio.
Prior to beginning his service at the Senate in 1999, Mr. Bloom spent three years as a trial attorney at the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division. During his time at the Justice Department, he investigated numerous corporate mergers, and participated in litigation directed at the enforcement of the antitrust laws. Prior to that, Mr. Bloom spent eleven years as an attorney with Washington, DC law firms, practicing in the area of complex commercial litigation. He holds a J.D. degree from the University of Pennsylvania Law School and a B.A. magna cum laude from the University of Rochester.
Partner, Antitrust and Competition, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati
Maureen Ohlhausen is a partner in the Washington, D.C., office of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, where she advises industry-leading clients on complex antitrust and litigation matters, with a focus on high-profile cases. Sought after for her depth of experience on antitrust and Federal Trade Commission (FTC)-related issues, Maureen is known for her relationships with officials in the U.S. and abroad.
After finishing law school and clerking at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, Maureen joined the FTC in 1997. She held a series of roles at the agency over the next 12 years, rising to the position of Director of the FTC Office of Policy Planning, where she led the agency’s work on e-commerce and headed the FTC’s Internet Access Task Force, which produced an influential report analyzing competition and consumer protection legal issues in the broadband and internet sectors. She then went into private practice at a leading telecommunications law firm, where she headed the FTC practice group.
In 2012, Maureen was confirmed by the Senate as a Commissioner of the FTC and was appointed Acting Chairman in January 2017, a role she held until May 2018. As Acting Chairman, Maureen directed all aspects of the agency’s antitrust work, including merger review, conduct enforcement, and all consumer protection enforcement, with an emphasis on privacy and technology issues. Under her leadership, the FTC won several influential merger challenges in court and reached a number of key digital privacy settlements.
To date, Maureen is the only FTC Commissioner to have received the Robert Pitofsky Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of her contributions to the FTC.
Following the end of her term at the FTC, and immediately prior to joining Wilson Sonsini, Maureen was chair of the global antitrust and competition practice at Baker Botts, based in that firm’s Washington, D.C., office.
A recognized thought leader, Maureen is a frequent author and speaker, and is often quoted by leading print and broadcast media on antitrust, FTC, and privacy and data security matters. She has published dozens of articles on antitrust, privacy, intellectual property, regulation, FTC litigation, telecommunications, and international law issues in prestigious publications. During her tenure at the FTC and in private practice, she testified more than two dozen times before Congress, including before the Senate Commerce Committee and the House Energy and Commerce Antitrust Sub-Committee. She also testified before the Antitrust Modernization Commission.
Senior Research Fellow, Mercatus Center, George Mason University; Former General Counsel at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC)
Alden Abbott is a Senior Research Fellow at the Mercatus Center. Prior to joining Mercatus, he served as the General Counsel of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). As the Commission’s chief legal officer and adviser, he represented the agency in court and provides legal counsel to the Commission and its bureaus and offices.
Prior to rejoining the FTC in April 2018, Mr. Abbott served in executive positions at the Heritage Foundation (2014-2018) and BlackBerry (2012-2014). He also held a variety of senior positions in the U.S. federal government (in the FTC, the Commerce Department, and the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel and the Antitrust Division).
He speaks French, Spanish, and Italian.
President and Founder, Bloom Strategic Counsel PLLC
Seth Bloom is the President and Founder of Bloom Strategic Counsel PLLC. Mr. Bloom, the former long-time General Counsel of the U.S. Senate Antitrust Subcommittee, is an attorney with extensive governmental and private sector experience in antitrust and competition law. He possesses substantial experience with the critical regulatory and competition issues facing key industries including telecommunications, media, Internet, and high tech; transportation and aviation; and health care.
Mr. Bloom has represented leading companies in these and other vital industries. These clients have included Comcast, Amazon, Aetna, MillerCoors LLC, Microsoft, Sprint, Masimo, Yelp, the American Association of Independent Music (A2IM), and the American Hotel and Lodging Association. Since founding his firm in 2013, Mr. Bloom has quickly become one of the leading Washington attorneys representing companies in large and complex merger transaction, particularly before Congress. He has represented MillerCoors LCC in connection with the AB InBev/SABMiller merger; Aetna in connection with its proposed merger with Humana; Pfizer in connection with its proposed merger with Allergan; and Comcast in connection with its proposed merger with Time Warner Cable. Beyond his work for major companies involved in mergers and acquisitions, Mr. Bloom has represented Yelp on Internet competition issues, the medical device manufacturer Masimo with respect to its efforts to bring greater competition to hospital purchasing of medical devices; Microsoft on competition, and patent reform issues; Sprint on competition and telecom regulatory issues; and A2IM on copyright reform, music licensing and competition issues, among other matters. In July 2013, Mr. Bloom was named to the Advisory Board of the American Antitrust Institute.
Prior to founding Bloom Strategic Counsel in March 2013, Mr. Bloom spent nearly 14 years working in the U.S. Senate on the Judiciary Committee’s Antitrust Subcommittee. He began as a counsel on the Antitrust Subcommittee staff of Sen. Kohl in 1999, who served as Chairman and Ranking Member of the Subcommittee during Mr. Bloom’s tenure. From 2008 to January 2013, Mr. Bloom served as General Counsel of the Senate Antitrust Subcommittee. In August 2012, Mr. Bloom was named to the “Hill Hot List” by National Law Journal/Legal Times as one of the top 15 lawyers working in Congress.
Mr. Bloom was responsible for numerous critical antitrust and competition issues that came before the Antitrust Subcommittee during his tenure, from the AOL/Time Warner merger in 2000 to the Comcast/NBC Universal merger in 2010 and the proposed AT&T/T-Mobile merger in 2011. Antitrust Subcommittee Chairman Kohl’s opposition to the proposed AT&T/T-Mobile merger was a key factor leading to the merger being blocked by the Justice Department and the FCC. Mr. Bloom was also the senior staffer on several landmark Antitrust Subcommittee investigations, including its 2011 investigation of allegations that Google was engaged in antitrust competitive conduct with respect to Internet search and its 2002-2004 of allegations of anticompetitive conduct in hospital purchasing of medical supplies. During his time on the antitrust subcommittee, Mr. Bloom investigated competitive conditions in numerous key industries, including telecom, high tech, media, aviation, health care, energy, and agriculture.
Mr. Bloom also was the staffer responsible for a number of significant legislative efforts sponsored by Senator Kohl, including the Railroad Antitrust Enforcement Act, the Preserve Affordable Access to Generic Drugs Act, the Discount Pricing Consumer Protection Act, and the No Oil Producing and Exporting Cartels Act (NOPEC). Each of these legislative efforts passed the Senate Judiciary Committee in several different Congresses.
Mr. Bloom has also been frequently been called on to serve as an expert speaker on critical issues of antitrust, competition, telecom, high tech, and health care policy to numerous trade, industry and legal groups, including the American Bar Association Antitrust Section, the American Antitrust Institute, the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, the Georgetown University Law Center, and the conference of Western Attorneys General, among other organizations. He has also been quoted frequently in the press regarding critical antitrust and competition policy issues, including in the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, CNBC, Reuters, FTC Watch, and National Public Radio.
Prior to beginning his service at the Senate in 1999, Mr. Bloom spent three years as a trial attorney at the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division. During his time at the Justice Department, he investigated numerous corporate mergers, and participated in litigation directed at the enforcement of the antitrust laws. Prior to that, Mr. Bloom spent eleven years as an attorney with Washington, DC law firms, practicing in the area of complex commercial litigation. He holds a J.D. degree from the University of Pennsylvania Law School and a B.A. magna cum laude from the University of Rochester.
Partner, Antitrust and Competition, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati
Maureen Ohlhausen is a partner in the Washington, D.C., office of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, where she advises industry-leading clients on complex antitrust and litigation matters, with a focus on high-profile cases. Sought after for her depth of experience on antitrust and Federal Trade Commission (FTC)-related issues, Maureen is known for her relationships with officials in the U.S. and abroad.
After finishing law school and clerking at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, Maureen joined the FTC in 1997. She held a series of roles at the agency over the next 12 years, rising to the position of Director of the FTC Office of Policy Planning, where she led the agency’s work on e-commerce and headed the FTC’s Internet Access Task Force, which produced an influential report analyzing competition and consumer protection legal issues in the broadband and internet sectors. She then went into private practice at a leading telecommunications law firm, where she headed the FTC practice group.
In 2012, Maureen was confirmed by the Senate as a Commissioner of the FTC and was appointed Acting Chairman in January 2017, a role she held until May 2018. As Acting Chairman, Maureen directed all aspects of the agency’s antitrust work, including merger review, conduct enforcement, and all consumer protection enforcement, with an emphasis on privacy and technology issues. Under her leadership, the FTC won several influential merger challenges in court and reached a number of key digital privacy settlements.
To date, Maureen is the only FTC Commissioner to have received the Robert Pitofsky Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of her contributions to the FTC.
Following the end of her term at the FTC, and immediately prior to joining Wilson Sonsini, Maureen was chair of the global antitrust and competition practice at Baker Botts, based in that firm’s Washington, D.C., office.
A recognized thought leader, Maureen is a frequent author and speaker, and is often quoted by leading print and broadcast media on antitrust, FTC, and privacy and data security matters. She has published dozens of articles on antitrust, privacy, intellectual property, regulation, FTC litigation, telecommunications, and international law issues in prestigious publications. During her tenure at the FTC and in private practice, she testified more than two dozen times before Congress, including before the Senate Commerce Committee and the House Energy and Commerce Antitrust Sub-Committee. She also testified before the Antitrust Modernization Commission.
United States District Court, Southern District of Texas
Prior to joining TXSE, Jeff served as acting general counsel of Charles Schwab and led its Office of Legislative and Regulatory Affairs in Washington, D.C. for the past two decades, managing the company's response to public policy initiatives and advocating for policies that aid individual investors. He has over four decades of securities markets experience, starting his career as an options trader at the Philadelphia Stock Exchange, then founding his own trading firm, and later serving on the exchange's Board of Governors. He also served as senior counsel in the Division of Market Regulation at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Jeff's additional experience in the securities industry includes serving as vice president for regulation and general counsel at the Cincinnati Stock Exchange and as chairman of the Operating Committee of the National Market System Plan governing Nasdaq securities. Jeff holds degrees from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and Ohio Northern School of Law.
Partner, Lehotsky Keller LLP
The New York Times recognized Scott A. Keller as a “legal heavyweight,” who “is praised by opponents as a formidable advocate.”
Mr. Keller has argued 12 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and 12 cases before the Texas Supreme Court. He is the only practicing lawyer to have argued at least 10 cases in both courts. Mr. Keller frequently represents parties in high stakes appeals, and he has argued many cases in federal courts of appeals throughout the nation. He has earned individual accolades from Lawdragon 500 Leading Litigators in America, Chambers, Legal 500, The American Lawyer, The National Law Journal, Law360, Super Lawyers, The Best Lawyers in America, and other publications.
Before founding Lehotsky Keller Cohn LLP, Mr. Keller headed Baker Botts LLP’s Supreme Court Practice. He also has significant experience at the highest levels in all three branches of government. Mr. Keller served as the Solicitor General of Texas, the State’s chief appellate litigator. He was U.S. Senator Ted Cruz’s chief counsel on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Mr. Keller was a law clerk for Justice Anthony Kennedy of the Supreme Court of the United States and Chief Judge Alex Kozinski of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. He was also a Bristow Fellow in the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of the Solicitor General.
Mr. Keller represents clients in cases where public communications strategy is crucial, and he has made numerous media appearances in major outlets such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, BBC, Fox News, NPR, and Politico. As a sought after speaker and writer, Mr. Keller’s articles have appeared in the Stanford Law Review, Virginia Law Review, and Texas Law Review. He has also served as an adjunct professor of constitutional litigation, Supreme Court practice, and federal courts at the University of Texas School of Law.
Alston & Bird Professor of Law, Duke University School of Law
Professor Young teaches constitutional law, federal courts, and foreign relations law. He is one of the nation's leading authorities on the constitutional law of federalism, having written extensively on the Rehnquist Court's "Federalist Revival" and the difficulties confronting courts as they seek to draw lines between national and state authority. He also is an active commentator on foreign relations law, where he focuses on the interaction between domestic and supranational courts and the application of international law by domestic courts. Professor Young also writes on constitutional interpretation and constitutional theory. He has been known to dabble in maritime law and comparative constitutional law.
A native of Abilene, Texas, Professor Young joined the Duke Law faculty in 2008, after serving as the Charles Alan Wright Chair in Federal Courts at the University of Texas at Austin School of Law, where he had taught since 1999. He graduated from Dartmouth College in 1990 and Harvard Law School in 1993. After law school, he served as a law clerk to Judge Michael Boudin of the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals (1993-94) and to Justice David Souter of the U.S. Supreme Court (1995-96). Professor Young practiced law at Cohan, Simpson, Cowlishaw, & Wulff in Dallas, Texas (1994-95) and at Covington & Burling in Washington, D.C. (1996-98), where he specialized in appellate litigation. He has also been a visiting professor at Harvard Law School (2004-05) and Villanova University School of Law (1998-99), as well as an adjunct professor at Georgetown University Law Center (1997).
Elected to the American Law Institute in 2006, Professor Young is an active participant in both public and private litigation in his areas of interest. He has been the principal author of amicus briefs on behalf of leading constitutional scholars in several recent Supreme Court cases, including Medellin v. Texas(concerning presidential power and the authority of the International Court of Justice over domestic courts) and Gonzales v. Raich (concerning federal power to regulate medical marijuana).
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