Counsel to Commissioner Hester M. Peirce, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
Thaya Brook Knight was associate director of financial regulation studies at the Cato Institute. She is an attorney with extensive experience in securities regulation, small business capital access, and capital markets. Before joining Cato, she co-founded and served as general counsel of CrowdCheck, a company providing due diligence and disclosure services in the online investing market. Following the recent financial crisis, she served as investigative counsel for the congressional oversight panel charged with overseeing the expenditure of Troubled Asset Relief Program funds. She also spent several years with the Washington office of the law firm WilmerHale, where her practice focused on securities litigation, securities enforcement defense, and corporate investigations.
She holds a BA from Middlebury College and a JD from the University of Michigan Law School.
General Counsel and Vice-President of Litigation, Washington Legal Foundation
Cory Andrews is General Counsel and Vice-President of Litigation for the Washington Legal Foundation (WLF). As counsel of record for WLF and other clients, he has authored more than 100 briefs, at petition and merits stages, in the U.S. Supreme Court. He also frequently litigates in state and federal appellate courts. Before joining WLF, Cory practiced trial and appellate law for White & Case LLP, where he litigated in state and federal courts on behalf of clients in the telecommunications, hospitality, and banking industries. He received his J.D. magna cum laude from the University of Florida, where he was Editor-in-Chief of the Florida Law Review and elected to the Order of the Coif. Upon graduation, Cory served as a law clerk to the Honorable Steven D. Merryday of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida.
Partner, Cooper & Kirk, PLLC
Michael W. Kirk has extensive civil litigation experience representing a wide range of clients on a variety of constitutional, statutory, contractual, commercial and tort matters.
Mr. Kirk has appeared regularly in cases brought against the federal government. Most recently, for example, he successfully represented Ford Motor Company in a lawsuit against the Federal government seeking to recover environmental clean-up expenses arising from a World War II contract to build B-24 Bombers. While the Court of Federal Claims dismissed Ford’s suit, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed, and remanded with instructions that judgment be entered in favor of Ford. He is currently representing Shell Oil Company, Union Oil Company of California, Atlantic Richfield Company, and Chevron-Texaco in a similar lawsuit against the Federal Government arising from World War II contracts. And Mr. Kirk recently served as lead trial counsel for American Capital Corporation in a lawsuit against the United States for breach of contract arising from an agreement entered by the Government in an effort to address the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s. Following trial, the Court of Federal Claims awarded plaintiffs $109 million in January 2005.
Mr. Kirk has also represented state and local governments in numerous complex constitutional and statutory cases involving such varied issues as Medicaid, school desegregation, and prison reform. Most recently, he has represented the States of Tennessee and Hawaii in several cases involving their Medicaid programs. He is currently representing the Marion County, Florida School District in its school desegregation case, and he has successfully represented public school districts in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Rockford, Illinois, and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma in their efforts to obtain unitary status and end long-running school desegregation cases. In the civil rights arena, Mr. Kirk served as lead trial counsel on behalf of a plaintiff in securing the largest verdict ever returned against a suburban Maryland police department.
Mr. Kirk has an extensive appellate practice, and he has argued cases before the United States Courts of Appeals for the District of Columbia, Federal, Third, Seventh, and Ninth Circuits.
Mr. Kirk served as law clerk to Judge James L. Ryan of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. He received his J.D. degree, cum laude, in 1988 from Northwestern University. He served as Executive Editor of The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, and is a member of the Order of the Coif. He earned an A.B. degree, cum laude, from Georgetown University in 1985.
Mr. Kirk is a member of the Bars of the State of New York, the District of Columbia, the United States Supreme Court, the United States Courts of Appeals for the Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Ninth, District of Columbia and Federal Circuits, the United States District Courts for the Districts of Arizona, Maryland and the District of Columbia, and the United States Court of Federal Claims.
Professor of Law, University of Michigan Law School
Christopher J. Walker is a Professor of Law at the University of Michigan. Prior to joining Michigan law faculty in 2022, he spent a decade teaching at The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law. He previously clerked for Justice Anthony Kennedy of the U.S. Supreme Court, worked on the Civil Appellate Staff at the U.S. Department of Justice, and served on the Senate Judiciary Committee staff for the Gorsuch Supreme Court confirmation. Professor Walker’s research focuses on administrative law, regulation, and law and policy at the agency level. Outside the law school, he chaired the American Bar Association’s Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice in 2020-21 and served as one of forty Public Members of the Administrative Conference of the United States from 2016-2022, and he continues to serve in both organizations in various capacities. He also works of counsel at the U.S. Chamber Litigation Center. In 2022, he received the Federalist Society’s Joseph Story Award.
Partner, Consovoy McCarthy Park PLLC
Mr. Consovoy assists clients on a broad range of litigation and appellate issues primarily before the Supreme Court of the United States and federal appellate and district courts, as well as before federal agencies. Mr. Consovoy represents clients in cases involving constitutional issues, interpretation and enforcement of federal statutes, administrative law, civil rights disputes, and a variety of other civil litigation issues. Mr. Consovoy recently argued two cases—Spokeo v. Robbins and Evenwel v. Abbott—before the Supreme Court of the United States.
Mr. Consovoy is a former law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, Judge Edith H. Jones of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, and the 17th Judicial Circuit of Virginia. Mr. Consovoy is a member of the Edward Coke Appellate Inn of Court and was named by Law360 as a “rising star” in appellate law for 2013. Since 2011, Mr. Consovoy has been the co-director of the Supreme Court Clinic at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University, where he also is the co-director of the Administrative Law Clinic.
Mr. Consovoy earned his B.A. from Monmouth University, and his J.D. magna cum laude from George Mason University School of Law. Mr. Consovoy is a member of the Virginia and District of Columbia bars.
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Topics
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In Tyler v. Hillsdale County Sheriff’s Department, the full Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals opened...
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