The Federalist Society’s Lawyers Division was founded in 1986 to bring together attorneys, business and policy leaders, judges and others interested in examining and improving the state of the law. The Lawyers Division reaches the legal community through over 90 Lawyers Chapters located in virtually every major city in the United States. Over 65,000 are involved in the activities of these groups. Every year, the chapters organize over 400 programs and meetings, drawing a combined audience of over 25,000. Each chapter is run by local volunteer leadership. The chapters host speeches, panel discussions and debates on current topics at the local and national level, and help members find opportunities to become actively involved in the policy and public interest worlds. In addition to the city chapters, the Federalist Society’s Capitol Hill Chapter hosts discussions to examine legal and policy issues that are particularly appealing to congressional staffers.
Environmental Law & Property Rights Practice Group
Since the passage of the Clean Water Act in 1972, any entity that disposes pollutants...
Speaker Information
Charbel J. Barakat
Vice President and Counsel for Public Policy, D.R. Horton, Inc.
Biography
Charbel J Barakat is Vice President and Counsel for Public Policy, with D.R. Horton, Inc., the nation's largest homebuilder, where he coordinates the company’s interactions with federal and state governments.
Previously, for over 10 years, he served as Chief Counsel for the company’s Florida, Gulf Coast, and Mid-Atlantic Regions. During that time, he oversaw legal affairs for an area that included 9 states and 2,000+ employees.
He was formerly associated with Akerman LLP in Miami and Milbank LLP in New York City, where he specialized in complex corporate, real estate, and project finance transactions. Charbel currently serves as a member of the University of South Florida Board of Trustees and the Florida Supreme Court Judicial Nominating Commission, positions to which he was appointed by Governor Ron DeSantis in February 2025 and July 2023, respectively.
From July 2023 to February 2025, Charbel served as Vice Chair and acting Chair of the Board of Supervisors for the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District (the special district governing Walt Disney World Resort). As acting board chair, he presided over the successful settlement of litigation challenging the District’s governing structure and the subsequent negotiation of a 15-year, $17 billion theme park master development agreement.
He previously served on the board of directors of the Florida Development Finance Corporation, a state authorized issuer of industrial revenue bonds, and as Chair of the 2nd District Court of Appeal Judicial Nominating Commission.
Since 2022, he has served as an advisor to the Board of Directors of the Tampa Hispanic Bar Association.
In 2023, Florida Trend magazine recognized Charbel as one of 11 inaugural “Notable General Counsel” throughout the state. In 2018 and 2019, Charbel was recognized by the Tampa Bay Business Journal as one of the city’s Top Corporate Counsel.
Active in his church and community, Charbel is a member of the Knights of the Holy Sepulchre, a Catholic order of chivalry dedicated to charitable support of Christians in the Holy Land, and of the Krewe of the Knights of Sant’ Yago, dedicated to the preservation and enhancement of Tampa's rich Latin heritage and culture.
Charbel is a graduate of the New York University School of Law and The Johns Hopkins University. While in law school, he was a founding managing editor of the NYU Journal of Law and Liberty.
In 2018, Charbel became a Jeopardy! champion.
A native Floridian, Charbel lives in Tampa with his wife, Daira, and their three children.
Zack Austin advises Dr. Alex Karp in the Office of the CEO at Palantir. Previously, he contributed to SCOTUS briefs at Jones Day; clerked for Judge Justin Walker on the D.C. Circuit and Judge Britt Grant on the 11th Circuit; co-founded a task force backed by federal legislation to honor WW1 veterans; and supported the 2018 National Defense Strategy Commission and the 2017 National Security Strategy at AEI. He graduated from Yale University and Yale Law School, where he led the Federalist Society when it was recognized as the national Chapter of the Year. His work on federal budgetary reform won FedSoc’s writing contest for authors under 40 when he was 26. Once he sailed as a deckhand on a three-masted ship for fun.
Reginald “Reg” Brown is a partner in the Washington, D.C., office of Kirkland & Ellis LLP. He has a vibrant and diverse crisis and governmental investigations practice, and regularly counsels financial institutions and other industry-leading clients facing complex and significant regulatory, enforcement and reputational matters.
Reg provides investigations-related guidance, strategic counsel and crisis management assistance to a broad range of companies and senior executives confronting challenges and opportunities at the intersection of government, law, media and public policy. He has assisted leading institutions and high-profile individual clients with more than a hundred congressional inquiries, as well as numerous federal, state and global government investigations and crisis avoidance and mitigation matters.
Reg leads teams of lawyers responding to some of the most challenging Department of Justice (DOJ), Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), State Attorneys General and other regulatory or enforcement matters for financial institutions. Many of his clients are among the world's most prominent banks, hedge funds, private equity and venture firms, energy companies, government contractors, healthcare institutions and technology firms, as well as CEOs and high-ranking public officials. Reg has also assisted prospective and incumbent high-level public officials in connection with complex ethics agreements and governmental controversies.
Prior to joining Kirkland, Reg was a partner at WilmerHale, where he served as chairman of the firm's Financial Institutions Group and led the firm's congressional investigations practice as vice chair of the Crisis Management and Strategic Response Group. He previously served in the White House Counsel's office, where he was the White House's principal legal liaison to the Departments of Treasury and Housing and Urban Development, as well as many independent financial services agencies. In this role, he provided counsel on a wide variety of issues. Among other things, Reg served as a counselor for the White House Office of Political Affairs, Presidential Personnel Office and the National Economic Council.
Prior to his government service, Reg served as assistant to the CEO and vice president of corporate strategy at Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company, and as the deputy general counsel to former Florida Governor Jeb Bush. He served as a Peace Corps volunteer in the Federated States of Micronesia early in his professional career.
Shareholder at Kirton McConkie, Former Solicitor General of Idaho
Biography
Alan Hurst is the Solicitor General of Idaho, the state’s chief appellate advocate before the Idaho Supreme Court, the federal courts of appeals, and the United States Supreme Court. He supervises all civil appellate litigation for the state and all trial-court filings raising significant civil appellate issues. He also advises the Attorney General and other state officers on matters of constitutional and legal policy.
Alan is a graduate of Brigham Young University and Yale Law School and clerked for Justice Christine Durham of the Utah Supreme Court and Judge Monroe McKay on the Tenth Circuit. He has been a fellow at the Yale Center for Faith and Culture, the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, and BYU’s J. Reuben Clark Law School, where he taught property law and related subjects before becoming a litigation partner at a national law firm and an occasional legal columnist for the Deseret News.
Partner, Holtzman Vogel Baran Torchinsky & Josefiak PLLC
Biography
Abhishek (Abhi) Kambli is a partner at Holtzman Vogel who represents clients in high-stakes appellate and complex litigation, constitutional challenges, and matters involving state attorneys general and federal agencies. He is one of a handful of lawyers nationally who has both led federal litigation from inside the Department of Justice and multi-state coalition work from a State Attorney General’s office—giving clients a 360-degree perspective on government enforcement, regulatory challenges, and constitutional advocacy.
Prior to joining Holtzman Vogel, Abhi served as Deputy Associate Attorney General at the United States Department of Justice, where he acted as lead counsel in high-priority matters for the Trump Administration, oversaw the Department’s civil components on behalf of the Associate Attorney General, advised the White House Counsel’s Office and federal agencies on litigation risk and strategy, and developed the Department’s national affirmative civil litigation strategy.
Earlier, he served as Deputy Attorney General and Division Chief of the Special Litigation and Constitutional Issues Division at the Kansas Attorney General’s Office, where he launched the division and led multi-state coalitions in trial and appellate courts nationwide, including the United States Supreme Court. He began his career as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Southern District of Indiana, prosecuting more than 100 federal cases from investigation through appeal.
Abhi is also a Lieutenant Colonel in the United States Air Force Judge Advocate General's Corps, having served on active duty and in the reserves since 2013. His military service includes criminal trials as both prosecutor and defense attorney, appellate representation before the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, and representation of a high-profile detainee before the Military Commissions at Guantánamo Bay.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit
Biography
Judge Nelson was confirmed to the Ninth Circuit in October 2018,as the youngest Circuit Judge to serve from Idaho and he has chambers in his hometown of Idaho Falls.Prior to his confirmation, Judge Nelson served for nine years as General Counsel of Idaho Falls-based Melaleuca, Inc., a consumer goods company. He previously worked in Washington, DC, where he served in all three branches of the federal government, including as Special Counsel for Supreme Court nominations to the Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee; Deputy General Counsel to the White House Office of Management and Budget; Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Environment and Natural Resources Division of the United States Department of Justice; and a law clerk to Judge Henderson of the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. He has argued in most of the federal courts of appeals and worked on dozens of Supreme Court briefs. He started in the Washington, DC office of Sidley Austin as an appellate lawyer, after clerking for Judges Mosk and Brower of the Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal at The Hague, and fornow-Judge Tom Griffith, then-Senate Legal Counsel, during the impeachment trial of President Clinton. Judge Nelson earned his B.A. from Brigham Young University and his J.D., with honors, from BYU Law School. Judge Nelson has been a member of the Federalist Society since 1998.
Judge Norma S. Lindsey was appointed to the Third District Court of Appeal by Governor, now Senator, Rick Scott and took her seat on the Court on June 19, 2017. She was previously appointed to the Circuit Court of the Eleventh Judicial Circuit in 2011 by then Governor Scott, where she served until she joined the appellate bench. Judge Lindsey began her judicial career in January of 2006 when she was appointed to the Miami-Dade County Court by Governor Jeb Bush.
Judge Lindsey is the Chief Judge Elect and currently serves as Chair of the Education Committee for the Florida Conference of District Court of Appeal Judges, as a member of the Florida Court Education Counsel, and as a member of the District Court of Appeal Budget Commission.
She previously served as a member of the District Court of Appeal Performance and Accountability Commission, and as a member of the Florida Supreme Court Committee on Standard Jury Instructions in Civil Cases. She also previously served as the Third DCA Representative to the Appellate Practice Section of the Florida Bar and as a member of the Florida Supreme Court Work Group on Appellate Court Reporting Requirements. And, she is a former member of the Florida Supreme Court Work Group on County Court Jurisdiction, and a former Judicial Liaison to the Real Property and Probate Section of the Florida Bar.
Prior to her appointment to the Third District Court of Appeal, Judge Lindsey served as an Associate Judge on Florida’s Fourth District Court of Appeal in December of 2014 and in July of 2016. She also served on more than two dozen Circuit Appellate Panels in the Appellate Division of the Eleventh Judicial Circuit during her time as a Circuit judge.
Judge Lindsey has been active throughout her career in judicial education having served as a faculty member and co-chair of the Civil Track for the Florida College of Advanced Judicial Studies and as a faculty member of the Florida Judicial College, the Florida Conferences of Circuit Court Judges and the Florida Conference of County Court Judges. In addition, she has lectured and taught numerous CLE courses at events sponsored by national, state and local bar associations, law schools and community groups.
Outside of the courtroom, Judge Lindsey is an active volunteer judge of student competitions. She has served as a volunteer judge for the Orseck Memorial Moot Court Competition at the annual Florida Bar Conference, the University of Miami School of Law Mock Trial and Moot Court Competitions, as well as student competitions at St. Thomas University College of Law and Florida International College of Law, the Legal Services of Greater Miami First Annual Legal Eagle Closing Argument Competition, the ABA Section of Labor and Employment Student Trial Advocacy Program, and the Southeastern United States Regional Black Law Students Association Mock Trial Competition.
Judge Lindsey is the recipient of the University of Miami School of Law Alumni Achievement Award, the Dade County Bar Association Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Boys and Girls Clubs of America National Service to Youth Award. She is a former Big Sister in the Big Brothers Big Sisters School to Work Program and has been recognized for her work on the Women’s Committee of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Greater Miami. Judge Lindsey earned Hon. Mention Recognition as a High School All-American in Track and Field after winning the Virginia State AA High School high jump championship two years in a row.
Prior to taking the bench, Judge Lindsey practiced commercial litigation. She also served as a member and chair of the Judicial Nominating Commission for Florida’s Third District Court of Appeal, the Executive Director of Florida’s Growth Management Study Commission, and as Associate General Counsel for Boys and Girls Clubs of Miami-Dade.
Judge Lindsey earned her law degree at the University of Miami School of Law. She earned her Bachelor of Business Administration in Economics from Marshall University, where she was the Captain of the Women’s Track and Field Team and the recipient of the Arlene Stooke Award for Leadership Excellence.
She is married to attorney H. Eugene Lindsey, III, and they are the proud parents of a beautiful daughter.
United States District Judge, United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida
Biography
On December 20, 2019, Raag Singhal received his judicial commission to serve on the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida. Judge Singhal is the first Asian American in history to serve as an Article III judge in the jurisdiction of the Eleventh Circuit (Alabama, Georgia and Florida).
Immediately prior to becoming a federal judge, Judge Singhal spent eight years as a State Circuit Court Judge in Broward County, Florida, having been appointed by then-Governor Rick Scott in 2011. During that period of time, Singhal served, at times, in the Criminal, Civil and Mental Health divisions and was fortunate enough to sit as an Associate Judge on Florida’s Fourth District Court of Appeal on four occasions.
As a lawyer, Singhal gained experience at a civil litigation firm followed by three years as an Assistant State Attorney. After that, Singhal ran a successful criminal defense practice in Fort Lauderdale for eighteen years. During that time, he handled more than two hundred jury trials including thirty first-degree murder cases.
Judge Singhal has had leadership roles in many law-related groups. He is past-President of the Broward Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and the Stephen H. Booher Chapter of the American Inns of Court. He was on the Board of Directors of the Broward County Bar Association, and is a frequent speaker at events for various local Bar groups such as the Asian Pacific American Bar Association and the Federalist Society. Singhal was also Associate Dean of the Florida College for Advanced Judicial Studies upon his elevation to the federal court system.
Judge Singhal received his law degree from Wake Forest University School of Law in 1989 where he was very active in Moot Court activities, and was on the winning team of the J. Braxton Craven National Moot Court Competition (4th Amendment). He received his undergraduate degree in Political Science from Rice University in 1986.
Ted Cruz represents 28 million Texans in the U.S. Senate as a passionate fighter for limited government and economic growth. He has authored 39 legislative measures signed into law. Recent victories include expanding 529 college savings accounts to allow parents to save for K–12 public, private, and religious education, leading the effort to repeal Obamacare’s individual mandate, imposing sanctions on terrorists who use civilians as human shields, designating North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism, reauthorizing and reforming NASA, ensuring the availability of additional records to help solve civil rights cold cases, supporting thousands of Texas jobs, and leading the fight to confirm principled constitutionalists to our courts.
Senator Cruz is a graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law School, a former law clerk to Chief Justice William Rehnquist, and former solicitor general of Texas. He has argued nine cases before the Supreme Court. In November of 2018, he was re-elected to the Senate by the people of Texas.
Managing Attorney, American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California
Biography
Contributor Information
Susanna Dokupil
Justice, Texas First Court of Appeals
Biography
Susanna Dokupil was elected to the First Court of Appeals in November 2024. With over two decades of experience, Susanna’s career has spanned all three branches of government as well as private practice. She has been a Special Counsel and Assistant Solicitor General in the Office of the Attorney General of Texas as well as a Special Counsel to the United States Senate Judiciary Committee and a law clerk to the Hon. Jerry Smith on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
In her role as Special Counsel at the Texas Attorney General’s office, Susanna led teams of litigators focused on protecting Texas’s interests against agency regulations that exceeded the agency’s statutory and constitutional power. As an Assistant Solicitor General, she drafted briefs before the Fifth Circuit and United States Supreme Court, primarily focused on First Amendment issues. Susanna’s experience in private practice has combined traditional commercial litigation with advising technology companies and founders on strategic communications.
Susanna has been a prolific speaker and writer on law and public policy topics, including articles in The Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, The Texas Review of Law & Politics, American Enterprise, the Washington Times, and the Houston Chronicle, among others.
Susanna is a graduate of Harvard Law School and also holds degrees from The George Washington University and Baylor University. She lives in Houston and has four children.
David (Dave) Breemer developed a passion for liberty while reading classics such as John Locke’s Two Treatises of Government and Thomas Paine’s The Rights of Man, as he pursued a Master’s Degree in American Political Theory at University of California, Davis. During this time, Dave began to believe that individual freedom and choice is a God-given and inviolable gift that cannot be taken away through governmental power.
Dave then traveled throughout North America for several years as an adventure tour guide, discussing American ideas of freedom with groups of young people form Europe, Australia, and Japan while rafting, skydiving, and hiking in places like Monument Valley, Las Vegas, and Alaska.
In 1998, Dave went to law school at the University of Hawaii where he studied and co-authored several property rights-oriented law reviews with Professor David L. Callies, a noted land use authority. In 2001, Dave graduated summa cum laude from law school, second in his class, and returned to California to work as an attorney for PLF.
Since joining PLF, Dave has worked as an attorney in PLF’s property rights group. In that capacity, he has litigated numerous federal and state court cases vindicating constitutional rights, particularly those related to the ability to use and enjoy private property. Examples include: Knick v. Township of Scott, U.S. Supreme Court No. 17-647; MVA v. Minnesota, U.S. Supreme Court, No. 16-1435; Levin v. City and County of San Francisco, 71 F. Supp. 3d 1072 (N.D. Cal., 2014); Sansotta v. Town of Nags Head, 724 F.3d 533 (4th Cir. 2013); Severance v. Patterson, 390 S.W.3d 705 (Tex. 2012); Severance v. Patterson, 566 F.3d 490 (5th Cir. 2009); Crown Point Dev., Inc. v. City of Sun Valley, 506 F.3d 851 (9th Cir. 2007).
In his time at PLF, Dave has also written many law review articles about the Supreme Court’s property rights jurisprudence. He continues to believe that property rights are vital to securing other rights—such as privacy, self-expression, and financial freedom—and as a result, he continues to be passionate about securing the right to use and enjoy property for all Americans in the courts of this nation.
Professor of Law and Executive Director, Law and Economics Center, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
Biography
Donald Kochan is Professor of Law and Executive Director of the Law & Economics Center (LEC). Professor Kochan is an elected member of the American Law Institute (ALI) and serves as an Adviser to ALI's Restatement of the Law Fourth, Property project. Professor Kochan is a Nonresident Scholar at the Center for the Constitution at Georgetown University Law Center, where he was a Visiting Scholar in residence during Fall 2018. Before joining the Antonin Scalia Law School faculty, he was the Parker S. Kennedy Professor in Law at Chapman University’s Dale E. Fowler School of Law from 2004 to 2020. From 2003 to 2004, Professor Kochan was an Olin Fellow at the University of Virginia School of Law. During 2002-2003, he was a Visiting Assistant Professor of Law at George Mason’s Scalia Law School.
Professor Kochan’s scholarship focuses on areas of property law, constitutional law, administrative law, local government law, natural resources and environmental law, and law & economics. He has published several books and more than 50 scholarly articles and essays in well-regarded law journals. His work has been cited in more than a dozen state and federal court opinions, in more than 75 briefs filed in state and federal courts including more than 25 filed in the U.S. Supreme Court, in dozens of books and treatises, and in more than 800 scholarly articles.
Professor Kochan received his JD from Cornell Law School, where he was a John M. Olin Scholar in Law and Economics and managing editor of the Cornell International Law Journal. During law school, he also served as editor and executive editor of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy symposium issues in 1997 and 1998. He received his BA from Western Michigan University, magna cum laude, with majors in both political science and philosophy, where he studied as the John W. Gill Medallion Scholar and was honored as the Presidential Scholar (awarded to the top graduate in the political science department).
After graduating from law school, Professor Kochan was a law clerk to The Honorable Richard F. Suhrheinrich of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Following his clerkship, Professor Kochan was an associate with the firm of Crowell & Moring LLP in Washington, D.C., where he specialized in natural resources & environmental law as well as tort, products, and consumer civil litigation & legislative affairs.
Roger Clegg is a Board Member at and former President and General Counsel of the Center for Equal Opportunity. He focuses on legal issues arising from civil rights laws--including the regulatory impact on business and the problems in higher education created by affirmative action. A former Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Reagan and Bush administrations, Clegg held the second highest positions in both the Civil Rights Division (1987-91) and in the Environment and Natural Resources Division (1991-93). He has held several other positions at the U.S. Justice Department, including Assistant to the Solicitor General (1985-87), Associate Deputy Attorney General (1984-85), and Acting Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Policy (1984). Clegg is a graduate of Yale University Law School (1981).
Gregory Scott Coleman was an American lawyer and the first Solicitor General of Texas, serving in that capacity from 1999 to 2001.
Contributor Information
Jon M. Van Dyke
Professor of Law, William S. Richardson School of Law, University of Hawai`i
Biography
Jon M. Van Dyke has been Professor of Law at the William S. Richardson School of Law, University of Hawai`i, since 1976, where he teaches Constitutional Law, International Law, International Ocean Law, and International Human Rights. Previously he taught at the Hastings College of the Law (University of California) in San Francisco (1971-76) and Catholic University Law School (1967-69) in Washington, D.C. He has served as a Associate Dean at the University of Hawai`i's Law School (1980-82) and as Director of the University's Spark M. Matsunaga Institute of Peace (1988-90). He earned his J.D. degree at Harvard (1967) and his B.A. degree at Yale (1964), both cum laude. He was a law clerk for Roger L. Traynor, Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court, in 1969-70. Professor Van Dyke has written or edited eight books and has authored many articles on constitutional law and international law topics. His recent co-authored books include International Law and Litigation in the U.S. (West, 2nd ed. 2005), Sharing the Resources of the South China Sea (Martinus Nijhoff/Kluwer International 1997; paperback edition, University of Hawai`i 1999), and Freedom for the Seas in the 21st Century: Ocean Governance and Environmental Harmony (Island Press 1993) (which received the Harold and Margaret Sprout Award from the International Studies Association for excellence in the field of international environmental policy). He has written other books and articles about searches and seizures, the jury system, international human rights, native rights, fisheries issues, ocean boundaries, and protection of the marine environment. Now in the process of being prepared for publication by the University of Hawaii Press is his latest book, entitled Who Owns the Crown Lands of Hawai`i?
He has engaged in important litigation on constitutional rights in the state and federal courts of Hawai`i as well as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, the Supreme Courts of the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and Palau, and the Administrative Tribunal of the Asian Development Bank. He has served as a consultant for the South Pacific Regional Environmental Programme, the Permanent South Pacific Commission, the Association of Pacific Island Legislatures, the governments of Turkey, Vanuatu, and Nauru, the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, the State Council of Hawaiian Homestead Associations, the City and County of Honolulu, the County Council and Charter Commission of Maui, and the Planning Departments or Commissions of the Counties of Kaua`i, Maui, and Hawai`i. He is a member of the editorial boards of Marine Policy and The International Journal of Marine and Coastal Law, and is on the advisory board of the Center for International Environmental Law and the Law of the Sea Institute. In 1987, he received the University of Hawai`i Presidential Citation for Excellence in Teaching; and in 1984, 1993, 1996, and 2002 he was selected as the Outstanding Professor at the Law School.
Counsel to Senator Jeff Sessions, Senate Judiciary Committee
Biography
Joseph Matal is currently a Republican General Counsel on the Senate Judiciary Committee for ranking member Senator Jeff Sessions. He was a law clerk to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, an associate attorney at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher and a counsel to U.S. Senator Jon Kyl. He is a graduate of Stanford University and Boalt Hall Law School.
Contributor Information
John Shu
Attorney and Legal Commentator
Biography
John Shu is an attorney and legal commentator. His focus areas include constitutional law, securities & corporate law, antitrust law, administrative law, politics, and international affairs. Mr. Shu has lectured and published on a wide variety of issues.
Mr. Shu served President George H.W. Bush and President George W. Bush. He also served Judge Stanley Sporkin, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, who was Director of Enforcement at the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission and General Counsel at the Central Intelligence Agency, and Judge Paul Roney, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, who was Presiding Judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review.
Mr. Shu is a member of the National Committee on U.S. - China Relations, the Pacific Council on International Policy, and the Foreign Policy Association.
Charlie Tebbutt (Attorney; Eugene, Oregon) has been working with the Western Environmental Law Center since 1994. Charlie has been among the most active citizen enforcement attorneys in the United States, having been involved in scores of enforcement actions against major polluters in some twenty states using primarily the Clean Water Act (CWA), the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA), the Clean Air Act (CAA) and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). He has worked with grassroots citizen enforcers to leverage innovative pollution prevention settlements in dozens of cases. Most recently, Charlie has been working to protect waters of the West, bring accountability to concentrated animal feeding operations (some of his work will be featured in an upcoming book entitled “Animal Factory”), and was lead counsel for the Environmental Plaintiffs in National Cotton Council v. EPA (the Sixth Circuit decision that vacated the Bush-era EPA pesticide rule at issue in today’s debate).
Charlie graduated with a B.A. in Sociology from SUNY Albany in 1979 after also attending Simon’s Rock Early College. He received a J.D. from Syracuse University College of Law in 1987.
Ellen Steen is a partner specializing in environmental and natural resources law. She has represented a broad range of industrial, mining, timber, and agricultural clients in matters involving the Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, Endangered Species Act, Superfund, Resource Conservation and Recovery Act ("RCRA"), Emergency Protection and Community Right-to-Know Act ("EPCRA"), Toxic Substances Control Act ("TSCA"), Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act ("FIFRA"), and the National Environmental Policy Act ("NEPA").
Ellen's litigation practice has included a wide range of cases concerning the scope of EPA's regulatory authority (both challenging and defending EPA regulations), as well as enforcement actions by EPA and citizens groups. She has litigated Clean Water Act cases involving National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System ("NPDES") permitting, including storm water permitting, as well as section 404 wetlands ("dredge and fill") permitting, antidegradation policies, the total maximum daily load ("TMDL") program, state water quality certification requirements, and Endangered Species Act consultation in connection with EPA action under the Clean Water Act. Some of the more significant policy-related Clean Water Act cases include the successful challenge to aspects of EPA's NPDES regulations for concentrated animal feeding operations ("CAFOs"), Waterkeeper Alliance, Inc. v. EPA, 399 F.3d 486 (2nd Cir. 2005), the successful defense of EPA's current general permit for construction-related storm water discharges, Texas Independent Royalty Producers and Owners Ass'n v. EPA, 410 F.3d 964 (7th Cir. 2005), and on-going litigation concerning EPA's 2008 revised CAFO rules, National Pork Producers Council, et al. v. EPA, No. 08-61093 (5th Cir.), and administrative reporting exemption from EPCRA release reporting requirements, Waterkeeper Alliance, et al. v. EPA, No. 09-1017 (D.C. Cir.). Ellen has defended against numerous administrative and judicial enforcement actions under the Clean Water Act and other environmental laws, including citizens' suits alleging violations of hazardous substance release reporting requirements, as well as citizen claims for RCRA "imminent and substantial endangerment" and open dumping. She has litigated NEPA cases, defending federal projects from challenges to the adequacy of environmental impact analyses, and has extensive experience in Superfund contribution and cost recovery litigation.
Ellen's regulatory counseling and permitting expertise includes Clean Water Act permitting and compliance (related to both NPDES and section 404 dredge and fill regulation), as well as counseling on a variety of issues concerning the regulation of chemical substances, site remediation under the Superfund National Contingency Plan, hazardous substance release reporting, hazardous waste management, and pesticide regulation. She regularly prepares formal comments and engages in administrative advocacy related to EPA initiatives concerning NPDES permitting rules and permit issuance, water quality standards, effluent limitations guidelines, and TMDLs.
She serves as a vice-chair of the Agricultural Management Committee within the ABA's Section of Environment, Energy, and Resources. She is a member of the bars of the Supreme Court of the United States, various federal appellate courts, the District of Columbia, and North Carolina.
Tulane University, B.A., 1988 University of North Carolina Law School, J.D., 1991
Senior Advisor, Trade, Intellectual Property and Strategic Issue, CropLife America
Biography
Douglas T. Nelson is senior advisor, for trade, intellectual property and strategic issues for CropLife America, the largest national trade organization representing developers, manufacturers, formulators and distributors of agricultural pesticides across the United States.
Prior to CropLife America, Nelson served as assistant general counsel and assistant secretary of Unilever United States, Inc. in New York, N.Y.
Other previous positions included acquisitions and divestitures counsel at Union Carbide Corporation in Danbury, Conn., and associate positions at the New York law firms of Paul, Weiss Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, and Coudert Brothers.
Nelson is an appointed member of the United States Industry Trade Advisory Committee on Intellectual Property Rights, which advises the U.S. trade representative and the Secretary of Commerce on intellectual property rights aspects of U.S. trade policy.
Nelson holds a bachelor’s degree in history from Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J., a master’s degree and Ph.D. in European history from Columbia University and a J.D. from the Columbia University School of Law, in New York, N.Y.
Nelson holds a bachelor’s degree in history from Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J., a master’s degree and Ph.D. in European history from Columbia University and a J.D. from the Columbia University School of Law, in New York, N.Y.
