Senior Fellow, Arthur F. Burns Fellow in Financial Policy Studies, American Enterprise Institute
Biography
Peter J. Wallison holds the Arthur F. Burns Chair in Financial Policy Studies and is co-director of AEI’s program on Financial Policy Studies. Prior to joining AEI, he practiced banking, corporate and financial law at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher in Washington, D.C., and New York. Mr. Wallison has held a number of government positions. From June 1981 to January 1985, he was General Counsel of the United States Treasury Department, where he had a significant role in the development of the Reagan Administration's proposals for deregulation in the financial services industry. During 1986 and 1987, Mr. Wallison was White House counsel to President Ronald Reagan, and between 1972 and 1976, he served first as Special Assistant to New York's Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller and, subsequently, as counsel to Mr. Rockefeller as vice president of the United States.
Mr. Wallison was admitted to practice before the courts of New York and the District of Columbia, and is retired from practice in New York. He continues to be a member of the District of Columbia Bar Association. He received his undergraduate degree from Harvard College in 1963 and law degree from Harvard Law School in 1966.
Mr. Wallison is the author of Ronald Reagan: The Power of Conviction and the Success of His Presidency, published in December 2002 by Westview Press. On campaign finance, he is the author (with Joel Gora) of Better Parties, Better Government, (AEI Press 2009). On financial or regulatory matters, he is the author of Back From the Brink, a proposal for a private deposit insurance system, and co-author of Nationalizing Mortgage Risk: The Growth of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac; The GAAP Gap: Corporate Disclosure in the Internet Age; Competitive Equity: A Better Way to Organize Mutual Funds;Bad History, Worse Policy: How a False Narrative about the Financial Crisis Led to the Dodd-Frank Act (AEI Press 2013); and Hidden In Plain Sight: What Caused the World’s Worst Financial Crisis and Why it Could Happen Again (Encounter Books 2015). His most recent book is Judicial Fortitude: The Last Chance to Rein in the Administrative State, published by Encounter Books in October 2018.
He testifies frequently before committees of Congress, and is a frequent contributor to the op-ed pages of the Wall Street Journal and other print and online journals. He has also been a speaker at many conferences on financial services, housing, the causes of the financial crisis, the Dodd-Frank Act, accounting, and corporate governance, and was a member of the Shadow Financial Regulatory Committee between 1995 and 2015. He was a member of the SEC Advisory Committee on Improvements to Financial Reporting (2008), co-Chair of the Pew Financial Reform Task Force (2009), and a member of the congressionally- appointed Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (2009-2011). In May 2011, for his work in financial policy, Mr. Wallison received an honorary doctorate in Humane Letters from the University of Colorado.
Clint Bolick was appointed by Governor Doug Ducey in January 2016 to serve on the Arizona Supreme Court and was retained by the voters in 2018 and 2024.
Prior to joining the Court, Justice Bolick litigated constitutional cases in state and federal courts from coast to coast, including the U.S. Supreme Court. Among other positions, he served as Vice President for Litigation at the Goldwater Institute and as Co-founder and Vice President for Litigation at the Institute for Justice. He has litigated in support of school choice, freedom of enterprise, private property rights, freedom of speech, and federalism, and against racial classifications and government subsidies.
Justice Bolick received his Juris Doctor degree from the University of California at Davis, where he has been recognized as a distinguished alumnus, and his Bachelor of Arts degree magna cum laude from Drew University. He serves as a research fellow with the Hoover Institution. Among other honors, he was named one of the 90 Greatest DC Lawyers in the Last 30 Years by Legal Times in 2008, received a Bradley Prize in 2006, and was recognized as one of the nation’s three lawyers of the year by American Lawyer in 2002 for his successful defense of school vouchers in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris.
Justice Bolick is a prolific author of a dozen books and hundreds of articles. Among his most recent books are Unshackled: Freeing America’s K-12 Education System: Immigration Wars: Forging an American Solution, co-authored with former Florida Governor Jeb Bush; and David’s Hammer: The Case for an Activist Judiciary. Bolick serves as an adjunct professor of constitutional law at Arizona State University’s Sandra Day O’Connor School of Law and has served as a lecturer at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.
Ajit Pai, a former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), is a nonresident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he focuses on issues pertaining to technology and innovation, telecommunications regulatory policy, and market-based incentives for investment in broadband deployment. Concurrently, he is a partner at Searchlight Capital Partners, a global investment firm.
Mr. Pai’s distinguished career at the FCC includes two leadership roles following presidential appointments. He was appointed commissioner by President Barack Obama in 2012, designated chairman by President Donald Trump in 2017, and twice confirmed by the US Senate. While at the helm of the FCC, Mr. Pai had a transformative impact on the future of US technology and communications policy, implementing major initiatives to help close the digital divide; advance US leadership in 5G and other wireless technologies; promote innovation; protect consumers, public safety, and national security; and make the agency itself more open, transparent, and data-driven.
Earlier in his career, Mr. Pai served in various public-sector positions in the FCC’s Office of General Counsel, the US Department of Justice, the US Senate Judiciary Committee, and the US District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana. He also worked as a partner at Jenner & Block and associate general counsel at Verizon Communications.
Mr. Pai graduated with honors from Harvard University, where he received a bachelor’s degree, and from the University of Chicago Law School, where he received a law degree and was an editor on the University of Chicago Law Review.
Randy M. Mastro, a partner in the New York office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, is Co-Chair of the Firm’s Litigation Practice Group, which The American Lawyer has named “Litigation Department of the Year” three out of its last five competitions and a finalist five times in a row – both unprecedented achievements. He also serves on the Firm’s Management and Executive Committees.
Mr. Mastro routinely ranks among the nation’s leading litigators and trial lawyers in surveys of corporate counsel and other practitioners. Last year, Mr. Mastro was named “Trial Lawyer of the Year” by Chambers USA, a “Litigation Trailblazer” by The National Law Journal, and a “Trial Lawyer MVP” by Law360. Indeed, in each of the last four years, he has been nominated “Trial Lawyer of the Year” by Chambers USA or Benchmark or both, receiving top honors twice. The National Law Journal named him among the “100 Most Influential Lawyers in America,” recognizing him as one of the “100 lawyers in the United States who have shaped the legal world through their work,” and noting that “his ease in the courtroom, delivery of arguments and command of the law have made Randy one of the most in-demand attorneys in the country by big-name clients.” The American Lawyer cited him among “the best known, most-respected litigators in the country.” In Chambers USA, he is described as “one of the top litigators” and “trial lawyers” “in the country,” praised for his “exceptional public reputation” as a “tough, smart,” “outstanding” trial lawyer who is “in a class by himself,” “masters the facts of a case quicker than anyone I’ve ever met,” “delivers fantastically well in court,” “can take on anyone,” is “so persuasive,” and “has a great mind.” In The Legal 500—US Edition, he has been featured among the “Leading Trial Lawyers” in the country, with corporate counsel saying he is “immensely impressive,” “simply excellent,” “flawless,” “captivating,” “in a league of his own” in the courtroom, and “deserves an Academy Award” for “bringing a sense of drama and theater to his courtroom appearances.” Benchmark has described him as a “brilliant and effective litigator” who is “perennially revered” and “always brings a fresh perspective and will fight you to the end,” with peers noting, “You do not want to meet Randy down a dark alley, but you REALLY don’t want to meet him in a lighted courtroom,” and “I’ve seen him at work and I can only imagine that going against him must be like wrestling an alligator.” Benchmark also honored his achievements in “National Impact Cases” in 2015, 2017 and 2018. The New York Times has called him “the go-to lawyer for companies” suing the government, a “household name,” and a “fierce and combative litigator;” and The New Yorker has described him as a “merciless litigator,” “even by the pugilistic standards of the New York bar,” who “springs to life” and “is transfixing” in “the courtroom.”
Among many high-profile matters, Mr. Mastro won a two-month RICO trial barring the enforcement of a $9 billion Ecuadorian judgment against Chevron that The American Lawyer called “The Case of the Century.” Moreover, he won a month-long trial against the SEC, obtaining the dismissal of all charges against high-profile entrepreneur, Lynn Tilton, and thereby defeating the largest individual enforcement action the SEC ever brought before its in-house tribunal, where it typically wins 90 percent of the time. Mr. Mastro also led the successful effort to defeat New York City’s controversial West Side Stadium project, and he represented the State of New Jersey in conducting a high-profile investigation into allegations concerning the “Bridgegate” controversy. He has tried dozens of cases in private practice and as a federal prosecutor, and he has also argued more than 100 appeals in federal and state appellate courts throughout the country.
Mr. Mastro has represented such clients as AIG, Chevron, Amazon, Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield, Estee Lauder, Madison Square Garden, Cablevision, Dow Jones, Verizon, Dart, DraftKings, Home Depot, Daimler, Wynn, JPMorgan, GE Capital, Park Place/Caesar’s, Quest Diagnostics, IAC, Bear Stearns, Bank of New York Mellon, Empire Merchants, Edison Schools, Lynn Tilton, Peter Kalikow, Vornado, LeFrak Organization, Saks, Ziff Davis, UBS Financial Services, Octagon, Martina Hingis, Anna Kournikova, and Steffi Graf.
Before returning to Gibson Dunn in 1998, Mr. Mastro served as Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s Chief of Staff and then as New York City’s Deputy Mayor for Operations. In that capacity, he was responsible for overseeing all of the City’s operating agencies and budget, and served as the Mayor’s chief liaison with elected officials. In the Mayor’s absence, he was authorized to act on the Mayor’s behalf. While in the Giuliani administration from 1994 to 1998, Mr. Mastro spearheaded City initiatives to remove organized crime from the Fulton Fish Market, private carting industry, and San Gennaro Festival. For two consecutive years, NY1-TV named Mr. Mastro one of City government’s “Winners of the Year,” and Manhattan File magazine featured him among the “45 Most Powerful New Yorkers 45 and Under.”
In the early 1990s, Mr. Mastro was a Gibson Dunn litigation partner. In 1990, he served as Associate Counsel on the Independent Counsel investigation of HUD Secretary Samuel Pierce. In 1991, he was appointed Special Master and Monitor of the assets of a Saudi tycoon implicated in the BCCI scandal.
From 1985 to 1989, Mr. Mastro served as Assistant United States Attorney and Deputy Chief of the Civil Division in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, where he specialized in organized crime cases and spearheaded the federal government’s landmark racketeering suit that put the International Brotherhood of Teamsters into court supervision. Seven Days magazine named him one of “the 25 prosecutors and defenders other lawyers most admire, fear and talk about.” From 1982 to 1985, Mr. Mastro was a litigation associate at Cravath, Swaine & Moore, where he was part of the successful libel defense trial team in Westmoreland v. CBS. Before that, upon graduating cum laude from Yale College and the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where he was the school’s moot court champion, Mr. Mastro clerked for Justice Alan B. Handler of the New Jersey Supreme Court.
During his tenure as a federal prosecutor, Mr. Mastro received the Attorney General’s Distinguished Service Award, the John Marshall Award for Outstanding Legal Achievement, and the Director’s Award for Superior Performance, among other honors. Since then, he has been honored many times, receiving, for example, the Simon Rifkind Award from the Jewish Theological Seminary, the Civic Leadership Award from the Citizens Union of the City of New York, and the Lumbard Bowl, awarded annually by the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York (in consultation with prior U.S. Attorneys) to distinguished alumni.
Mr. Mastro has taught as an adjunct professor at the University of Pennsylvania and Fordham Law Schools. He authored articles in the Federal Communications Law Journal, Fordham Law Review, University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform, and Seton Hall Law Review. His op-ed pieces have appeared in The New York Times, Daily News, and New York Post, and he also wrote for the Washington Post and Time. He co-authored the chapters, “White Collar Crime,” in Business and Commercial Litigation in Federal Courts, and, “Energy,” in Commercial Litigation in New York State Courts.
Mr. Mastro has been a member of the bars of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and many federal courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court. He chaired two New York City Charter Revision Commissions. In addition, Mr. Mastro serves as Chair of the Citizens Union of the City of New York, Co-Chair of the Hamptons International Film Festival, and Vice Chair of the Legal Aid Society of New York City, as well as on the Board of Overseers of the University of Pennsylvania Law School.
Allison Hartwell Eid is a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit. She joined the court in 2017 after a nomination from President Donald Trump.
Prior to her service on the Tenth Circuit, Judge Eid was a justice on the Colorado Supreme Court. She was the 95th justice to serve on the court, serving from 2006 to 2017. Before joining the Court, Judge Eid was the Solicitor General of the State of Colorado, serving as the chief legal officer to the Colorado Attorney General and representing Colorado officials and agencies in state and federal court. She was also a tenured Associate Professor of Law at the University of Colorado School of Law, teaching Constitutional Law, Legislation, and Torts, and writing on the topic of constitutional federalism.
Prior to joining the faculty of the University of Colorado School of Law, Judge Eid practiced commercial and appellate litigation with the Denver office of the national law firm of Arnold & Porter. She clerked for the Honorable Clarence Thomas, Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, and for Judge Jerry E. Smith of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in Houston, Texas.
Judge Eid earned her bachelor’s degree in American Studies (With Distinction and Phi Beta Kappa) from Stanford University in 1987. She then served as a Special Assistant and Speechwriter to U.S. Secretary of Education William J. Bennett. In 1991, she graduated with High Honors from The University of Chicago Law School, where she was Articles Editor of The University of Chicago Law Review and was elected to the Order of the Coif. In 2002, President George W. Bush appointed her to serve on the Permanent Committee for the Oliver Wendell Holmes Devise, established by Congress in 1955 to prepare the history of the U.S. Supreme Court. She is a member of the American Law Institute and studied comparative law in London as a Temple Bar Scholar.
Judge Eid grew up in Spokane, Washington. She and her husband Troy, an attorney, have two children.
Florida Office Managing Attorney, Institute for Justice
Biography
Justin Pearson is the Institute’s Florida Office Managing Attorney. He also coordinates aspects of the Institute’s national economic liberty efforts and personally directs IJ’s National Street Vending Initiative. Justin has devoted his career to vindicating the constitutional rights of small-business owners, and he has victoriously litigated on their behalf in trial and appellate courts across the nation.
Justin often wins in novel ways. He was the lead counsel in a federal appellate court victory vindicating the right of a Florida dairy creamery to tell the truth on its labels, which was the first victorious First Amendment challenge to a food standard of identity in U.S. history. His win against Little Rock’s ban on taxi competition was based on a provision in the Arkansas Constitution that had not been successfully relied upon in over half a century. And his victory against Fort Pierce’s food truck ban included the first preliminary injunction ever issued in this type of challenge anywhere in the nation.
In addition to litigation, Justin has testified to Florida Senate and House committees dozens of times, and provisions suggested by Justin have been enacted into law. The successful bills that Justin has actively supported include Florida’s 2021 cottage food, home-based business, and local occupational licensing reforms, Florida’s historic 2020 occupational licensing reform (which repealed the most occupational licensing barriers in U.S. history), Florida’s 2019 repeal of the certificate of need requirement for hospitals, Florida’s 2019 Fresh Start reform making it easier for individuals with criminal records to obtain employment, and Florida’s 2016 overhaul of its civil forfeiture laws.
Justin’s work has appeared in countless media outlets, and Justin has spoken to scores of law schools and attorney organizations across the nation. The law schools that have hosted Justin’s talks include Yale, the University of Chicago, Duke, NYU, Notre Dame, and the University of Michigan, among many others.
Prior to joining IJ, Justin founded and managed his own law practice to advocate for small-business owners, and Justin’s law practice was successful for many years before he made the decision to join IJ in 2012 to better fight against government power gone awry.
Justin received his law degree with honors from the University of Miami in 2002, where he was the Research and Writing Editor for, and was published in, the University of Miami Business Law Review. Justin received his undergraduate degree in business management from North Carolina State University. Justin has been honored by the Daily Business Review and Law.com for being one of South Florida’s “Most Effective Lawyers.”
Judge, United States District Court, District of Columbia
Biography
Judge Trevor N. McFadden was appointed to the United States District Court for the District of Columbia in 2017. He received his B.A. in 2001 from Wheaton College, IL, magna cum laude. In 2006, he received his J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law, where he graduated Order of the Coif and was an editor for the Virginia Law Review.
Following graduation from law school, Judge McFadden clerked for Judge Steven Colloton, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. He then joined the U.S. Department of Justice, where he served as Counsel to the Deputy Attorney General and as Assistant U.S. Attorney in the District of Columbia. Judge McFadden subsequently became a partner at Baker & McKenzie LLP in Washington, DC, where he focused on white collar investigations. He is also co-author of a treatise, Corporate Settlement Tools: DPAs, NPAs, and Cooperation Agreements.
After four years in private practice, Judge McFadden returned to the U.S. Department of Justice, where he was Deputy Assistant Attorney General and acted as the second-in-command of the Department's Criminal Division. As Deputy Assistant Attorney General, he managed the Division's Fraud and Appellate Sections.
Judge McFadden also has extensive experience in law enforcement. He served as an officer with the Fairfax County, VA, Police Department and as a deputy sheriff in Madison County, VA.
Ken Paxton is the 51st Attorney General of Texas. He was elected on November 4, 2014, and sworn into office on January 5, 2015.
As the state's top law enforcement officer, Attorney General Paxton leads more than 4,000 employees in 38 divisions and 117 offices around Texas. That includes nearly 750 attorneys, who handle more than 30,000 cases annually – enforcing child support orders, protecting Texans against consumer fraud, enforcing open government laws, providing legal advice to state officials, and representing the state of Texas in court, among other things.
His first major initiative as attorney general was the formation of a special unit dedicated to combating human trafficking in Texas. During its first year of existence, the Human Trafficking and Transnational Organized Crime (HTTOC) section helped arrest the chief executive officer of Backpage.com, the largest online sex-trafficking marketplace in the United States.
Under Attorney General Paxton's leadership, the agency's Child Support Division is recognized as the most successful and cost-effective program in the nation. In fiscal year 2016, the division collected $4.096 billion for Texas families – an unprecedented amount in one year by any state. This success helped spare the state and Texas taxpayers over $1 billion in public assistance costs.
Attorney General Paxton is focused on protecting Texans and upholding Texas laws and the Constitution. Fighting federal overreach, he filed 22 lawsuits against the Obama administration during a two-year stretch, of which five were heard in the U.S. Supreme Court. During his tenure in office, Attorney General Paxton has won major cases for Texas on immigration, school rights, EPA rules and religious freedom. Stopping the Environmental Protection Agency's “Regional Haze” rule averted higher energy rates for Texans. Businesses were protected and jobs preserved in Texas when Attorney General Paxton prevailed against the Department of Labor's “Overtime Rule.”
In 2016, Attorney General Paxton secured a final settlement of $50 million in the state's lawsuit against VW over its emissions cheating scandal. Texas also stands to benefit from as much as $191 million from VW for projects designed to mitigate environmental harm done by the carmaker. Attorney General Paxton has been aggressive in his approach to protecting the health and safety of Texans from illegal synthetic drugs. His office has filed more than a dozen lawsuits to block the sale of synthetic cannabinoids (known as Kush and Spice) in Texas. A special section on the agency's website provides Texans with the information and resources they need to become fully informed about the dangers of synthetic drugs.
Attorney General Paxton graduated from Baylor University, where he served as student body president, earning a B.A. in psychology and an M.B.A. After receiving a law degree from the University of Virginia School of Law, he worked as an attorney at Strasburger & Price, LLP, in-house counsel for J.C. Penney Company, and headed up his own law firm for 14 years in McKinney.
First elected to the Texas House of Representatives in 2002, Attorney General Paxton represented House District 70 for 10 years, one of the fastest-growing regions in the state. In 2012, he was elected to the Texas state Senate, representing Senate District 8 in Collin and Dallas counties.
He met his wife Angela, a guidance counselor at Legacy Christian Academy in Frisco, while they were students at Baylor. The Paxtons have four children: Tucker, Abby, Mattie, and Katie. They are members of Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano.
Professor of Law Michael S. Greve joined the faculty of the Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University in fall 2012 after having served as John G. Searle Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he specialized in constitutional law, courts, and business regulation and served as chairman of the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Prior to joining AEI, Greve was founder and co-director of the Center for Individual Rights, a public interest law firm specializing in constitutional litigation.
Greve has served previously as an adjunct professor at a number of universities, including Cornell and Johns Hopkins Universities, and has been a visiting professor at Boston College since 2004. He was awarded a PhD and an MA in government by Cornell University. Greve also earned a Diploma from the University of Hamburg in Germany.
A prolific writer, Greve is the author of nine books and a multitude of articles appearing in scholarly publications, as well as numerous editorials, short articles, and book reviews. He is a frequent speaker for professional and scholarly organizations and has made many appearances on radio and television.
In addition Greve has provided congressional and state legislative testimony, has lobbied and consulted in federal agency proceedings, and has provided litigation services and management in over 30 cases, including matters before the U.S. Supreme Court.
