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Senior Assistant Attorney General, Office of the Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Virginia
Associate Professor of Law and Director, Program on Economics & Privacy, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
Associate Professor of Law James C. Cooper brings over a decade of public and private sector experience to his research and teaching. He served as Deputy and Acting Director of the Federal Trade Commission’s Office of Policy Planning, Advisor to Federal Trade Commissioner William Kovacic, and an associate in the antitrust group of Crowell and Moring, LLP. His research on vertical restraints, price discrimination, behavioral economics and antitrust, and privacy policy have appeared in top journals and are widely cited.
Professor Cooper has a BA from the University of South Carolina, received his PhD in economics from Emory University, and his law degree (magna cum laude) from Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University, where he was a Levy Fellow and a member of the George Mason Law Review.
He teaches Economics for Lawyers, Advanced Seminar on Law & Economics, and Digital Information Policy Seminar.
Senior Counsel, Crowell & Moring LLP
Lisa Kimmel is a senior counsel in Crowell & Moring's Antitrust Group. She resides in the firm's Washington, D.C. office. Lisa's practice covers merger and civil nonmerger antitrust investigations and antitrust counseling. Lisa also advocates for clients on competition policy matters before federal and state antitrust agencies, focusing in particular on the technology and digital commerce sectors.
Lisa joined Crowell & Moring in 2015 from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), where she worked for nearly five years as an attorney advisor on antitrust and competition policy matters for Commissioner and later, Chairwoman, Edith Ramirez. During her time at the FTC, Lisa advised the chairwoman on antitrust enforcement and policy matters across a broad range of sectors, and was her lead advisor on antitrust enforcement and competition policy matters in the technology sector, including matters related to industry standards and the acquisition or assertion of intellectual property rights. Before joining the FTC, Lisa practiced with the antitrust group at an AmLaw 100 firm, where she worked in the firm's San Francisco and Washington, D.C. offices.
Lisa’s recent private practice experience includes:
Lisa earned her J.D. and a Ph.D. in economics from the University of California, Berkeley. She is an active member of the ABA Antitrust Section, where she is vice-chair of the Media & Technology Committee, past editor of the Unilateral Conduct Committee newsletter, and co-editor of a forthcoming revision to the Handbook on Antitrust Aspects of Standard Setting. Lisa is a member of the MLex Antitrust Advisory Board and speaks and writes regularly on antitrust issues involving the technology sector and intellectual property rights.
Admitted to practice: California, District of Columbia
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.
Partner, Axinn, Veltrop & Harkrider LLP
Koren Wong-Ervin is a recognized thought leader on competition issues who has testified before Congress on domestic and international issues in antitrust policy. She has more than eighteen years of experience in government, private practice, and as in-house counsel, including representing defendants and plaintiffs in high-stakes litigations and representing companies in domestic and foreign investigations. While at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Koren served as an Attorney Advisor to Commissioner Joshua Wright and Counsel for Intellectual Property & International Antitrust.
The combination of Koren's experience representing defendants—along with her experience at the FTC and as a former plaintiffs class action attorney—gives her insights into the thinking on both sides of cases, including complex multi-district litigations, allowing her to develop both effective offensive and defensive strategies. On top of this, her in-house experience as the Director of Antitrust Litigation & Policy at a major technology company gives her a first-hand understanding of how companies work and unique insight into the needs of clients. Koren also has a deep understanding of economics, as evidenced by the fact that she has trained over 500 foreign judges and enforcers on a variety of economic topics.
Koren’s scholarship has been cited by courts and the Department of Justice. She has authored over sixty articles, including on vertical mergers and restraints, acquisitions of potential competitors, consummated mergers, multisided platforms, the intersection of antitrust and intellectual property, incremental innovations or “product hopping,” optimal penalties, extraterritoriality, methodologies for calculating patent infringement damages, and international due process and convergence. She has spoken at over 200 domestic and international events.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit
Eric Murphy has been a Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit since March 2019. He previously served as the ninth State Solicitor of Ohio. In that role, Eric briefed and argued appellate cases on behalf of Ohio and its state agencies and officers in the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, and the Ohio Supreme Court. Before his appointment as State Solicitor, Eric practiced appellate litigation at Jones Day. After graduation from law school, he served as a law clerk for Justice Anthony M. Kennedy of the Supreme Court of the United States, and Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. He received his law degree from the University of Chicago and his undergraduate degree from Miami University.
Partner, Shook, Hardy & Bacon LLP
Victor Schwartz chairs the firm's Public Policy Practice Group, which focuses on integrating litigation, government affairs and public relations. The group seeks to be the vanguard of developing public policy issues that will help improve our civil justice system. Mr. Schwartz also has an active appellate practice and advises product manufacturers on liability prevention, litigation and public relations issues.
Sought by print and broadcast media, Mr. Schwartz is frequently quoted in The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and The New York Times. He has appeared on Oprah, 60 Minutes and leading news programs. The Legal Times of Washington has named Mr. Schwartz one of Washington’s Top 30 “Visionary” lawyers, and The National Law Journal named Mr. Schwartz one of the 100 most influential lawyers in the United States in March 2013.
Mr. Schwartz is on the Board of Directors of the Searle Civil Justice Institute at George Mason University School of Law. He is a frequent participant in judicial education programs. Mr. Schwartz serves as General Counsel to the American Tort Reform Association.
Prior to entering the full time practice of law, Mr. Schwartz was a professor and dean at the University of Cincinnati College of Law. He currently serves on the College’s Board of Visitors. In 2012, the College established the Professor Victor E. Schwartz Chair in Tort Law.
Mr. Schwartz, while at the U.S. Department of Commerce, served as chair of the Federal Inter-Agency Task Force on Product Liability, and the Federal Inter-Agency Council on Insurance. He was the principal author of the Uniform Product Liability Act and the Federal Risk Retention Act. He received the Secretary of Commerce’s Award for Professional Excellence.
Mr. Schwartz is co-author of the most widely used torts casebook in the United States, Prosser, Wade and Schwartz’s Torts (12th ed. 2010). He is author of the leading text Comparative Negligence (5th ed. 2010).
Mr. Schwartz has been an advisor for each of the American Law Institute’s (ALI) Restatement (Third) of Torts projects; Products Liability, Apportionment of Liability, and Liability for Physical Injury and Emotional Harm. He is a life member of the ALI.
Mr. Schwartz’s law review articles have analyzed almost every major subject of modern tort and civil justice public policy issues. His articles are frequently cited by both state and federal courts.
Global Data, Privacy, and Cybersecurity Practice Chair, White & Case LLP
Steven Chabinsky is Chair of the global Data, Privacy, and Cybersecurity practice at White & Case LLP, an international law firm, and the cyber tactics columnist for Security magazine. He previously served as a member of the White House Commission on Enhancing National Cybersecurity, the General Counsel and Chief Risk Officer of CrowdStrike, and Deputy Assistant Director of the FBI Cyber Division. He can be reached atchabinsky@whitecase.com. You can follow him on Twitter @StevenChabinsky.
Adjunct Professor, George Washington University
Howard W. Cox is a former federal prosecutor, criminal investigator and Senior Intelligence Service officer. After almost 40 years of federal service, he retired as the Assistant Inspector General for Investigations of the Central Intelligence Agency. In this capacity, Mr. Cox supervised criminal, civil and administrative investigations conducted by the Office of Inspector General (OIG). Prior to his employment with the CIA, Mr. Cox was the Assistant Deputy Chief of the Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section of the Department of Justice, where he was responsible for supervising criminal prosecutions of federal hacking and identity theft cases. While at the Department of Justice, Mr. Cox received the Attorney General’s Distinguished Service Award.
Prior to his service with the Department of Justice, Mr. Cox served as a manager, attorney and criminal investigator at OIG offices at the US Postal Service, the Department of Defense, and the General Services Administration. He also served as Staff Counsel for the US Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. Prior to his federal civilian service, Mr. Cox was also a Captain and trial attorney in the US Army’s Judge Advocate General’s Corps. Mr. Cox also served as Law Secretary to the Hon. Sherwin D. Lester, NJ Superior Court.
Mr. Cox is an adjunct professor at George Washington University, where he teaches graduate level courses in computer forensics. He is also an instructor with the Graduate School USA, and the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, where he teaches courses related to procurement fraud and electronic search and seizure. Mr. Cox received his AB degree from Seton Hall University, South Orange, NJ. He received his law degree from Georgetown University Law Center, Washington, DC.
Professor of Law and Assistant Director, Criminal Justice Center, University of Florida Levin College of Law
Professor Stinneford teaches and writes about legal ethics, criminal law, criminal procedure, and constitutional law. His work has been cited by the United States Supreme Court, several state supreme courts and federal courts of appeal, and numerous scholars. It has published in numerous scholarly journals including the Georgetown Law Journal, the Northwestern University Law Review, the Virginia Law Review, the Notre Dame Law Review, and the William & Mary Law Review. The Stanford-Yale Junior faculty forum selected one of his articles as the best paper in the category of Constitutional History, and the AALS Criminal Justice Section named another article as the best paper in its Junior Scholars Paper Competition. In the fall of 2015, he was a Visiting Scholar at the Georgetown Law Center, Center for the Constitution.
Before joining the Florida faculty in 2009, Stinneford clerked for the Hon. James Moran of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, served as an Assistant United States Attorney, and practiced law with Winston & Strawn in Chicago. Stinneford teaches first-year courses in Criminal Law and Constitutional Law, and upper-level courses in Professional Responsibility, Criminal Procedure, Federal Criminal Law, Law & Literature, and White Collar Crime.
President, Students for Fair Admissions
Edward Blum is the president of Students for Fair Admissions, a membership organization whose mission is to eliminate racial and ethnic classifications and preferences in school admissions. Shortly after SFFA’s inception in 2014, the group challenged in federal court the racial admissions policies at Harvard and the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. In 2023, the United States Supreme Court struck down the use of race as an admissions factor at all colleges and universities.
He is the president of the newly formed American Alliance for Equal Rights which has filed over a dozen lawsuits challenging the use of race by corporations, law firms, venture capital firms and cultural institutions. Mr. Blum also serves as the President of the Project on Fair Representation, a nonprofit legal foundation formed in 2005 that has provided counsel in a number of race-related U.S. Supreme Court cases including, Shelby Co. Alabama v. Holder, Fisher v. University of Texas (I and II) and Evenwel v. Abbott.
Since 2005, Blum has been a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute where he studies legal and policy issues relating to race and ethnicity. He is the author of a book on the Voting Rights Act, numerous essays and law review articles, and is a frequent contributor to the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, and National Review, among others.
Wayne A. Abernathy, Wild Bells
Wayne A. Abernathy is a former U.S. Treasury Assistant Secretary for Financial Institutions under President George W. Bush, receiving the Alexander Hamilton Award in recognition of his service. In that office he was also a member of the Board of Directors of the Securities Investor Protection Corporation. Prior to his work at the Treasury, Mr. Abernathy served as Staff Director of the Senate Banking Committee, under Chairman Phil Gramm.
Following his service at the Treasury, Mr. Abernathy worked for 15 years on the staff of the American Bankers Association, as Executive Vice President for Financial Institutions Policy and Regulatory Affairs.
Previous experience with the Senate Banking Committee includes serving as Staff Director of the Subcommittee on Securities during 1995-1998. From 1989 until 1994, Mr. Abernathy was a Republican economist for the committee. He previously worked as a senior legislative assistant for Senator Gramm during 1987-1989 and as an economist for the Banking Committee’s Subcommittee on International Finance and Monetary Policy during 1981-1986, under Chairman Jake Garn.
Mr. Abernathy earned his bachelor’s degree in International Studies from The Johns Hopkins University in 1978. In 1980, he received a master’s degree in International Studies from the School of Advanced International Studies of The Johns Hopkins University.
Senior Counsel, Corporate Engagement Team, Alliance Defending Freedom
Brian Knight serves as senior counsel on the Corporate Engagement Team. His work focuses on issues of financial access, debanking, and preventing the power of the private sector from being weaponized against people of faith by both public and private actors.
Prior to joining ADF, Knight spent almost nine years at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, as both a senior research fellow and as a program director. In addition to managing a team of scholars, Knight’s research focused on financial regulation and the politicization of financial services. His research helped inform legislation and regulation at the federal and state level. He was also the lead author for two amicus briefs submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of National Rifle Association v. Vullo.
Before joining Mercatus, Knight worked at the Milken Institute, where he focused on financial technology. He was also an entrepreneur, co-founding a firm focused on compliance for crowdfunding.
Knight earned a Juris Doctor from the University of Virginia School of Law and a Bachelor of Arts from the College of William and Mary.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Conference of State Bank Supervisors
John Ryan is the president and chief executive officer of the Conference of State Bank Supervisors, the national organization of financial regulators from all 50 states and U.S. territories. Since becoming president and CEO in 2011, Mr. Ryan has provided strategic leadership in advancing the system of state financial supervision.
Mr. Ryan previously served as CSBS’s Executive Vice President, and Assistant Vice President of Legislative Affairs. Mr. Ryan also led the financial services consulting practice at a public affairs firm, and worked on the U.S. House Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs committee. He has a B.A. in political science and economics from the University of California at Berkeley.
Partner, Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP
Miguel A. Estrada is a partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher.
Mr. Estrada has represented clients before federal and state courts throughout the country in a broad range of matters. He has argued 24 cases before the United States Supreme Court, and briefed many others. He has also argued dozens of appeals in the lower federal courts.
Best Lawyers® recognized Mr. Estrada as a 2020 Lawyer of the Year in Intellectual Property Litigation and as a Lawyer of the Year in Appellate Practice. He has been recognized by Benchmark Litigation as a 2020 U.S. Appellate Litigation “Star”. In 2014, The American Lawyer named Mr. Estrada a “Litigator of the Year,” praising his “brains and tenacity” and noting he is the lawyer to call for “a tough, potentially unwinnable case.” From 2014-2021, Chambers & Partners has named him as one of a handful of attorneys that it ranked in the top tier among the nation’s leading appellate lawyers. Chambers & Partners noted that “clients are impressed by his intellect and ability, with one saying, ‘His papers are just blindingly clear in what they say and devastating in how they marshal the arguments.’” The Atlantic described his oral argument in a 2014 high-profile separation-of-powers case as “one of the most dazzling arguments the marble chamber has heard in many years.”
Mr. Estrada was selected by his peers for inclusion in the 2020 edition of The Best Lawyers in America® in the area of Appellate Law, in addition to previous recognition by the publication in the specialties of Bet-the-Company Litigation, Commercial Litigation and Criminal Defense: White Collar, Intellectual Property Litigation, and Regulatory Enforcement Litigation in the areas of SEC, Telecom, and Energy. In 2017, he was elected as a member of the American Law Institute. In 2021, Mr. Estrada was named among the Lawdragon 500 Leading Lawyers in America. In 2004, Legal Times named him one of the top 12 appellate litigators in the D.C. area, noting that “people who follow appellate practice in Washington have known for several years that Estrada . . . is one of the best around.” Also in 2004, Washingtonian Magazine named him one of the top constitutional law lawyers “who could become one of the legends of the Supreme Court bar.”
Mr. Estrada joined Gibson Dunn in 1997, after serving for five years as Assistant to the Solicitor General of the United States. He previously served as Assistant U.S. Attorney and Deputy Chief of the Appellate Section, U.S. Attorney’s Office, Southern District of New York. In those capacities, Mr. Estrada represented the government in numerous jury trials and in many appeals before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Before joining the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Mr. Estrada practiced corporate law in New York with Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz.
Mr. Estrada is a Trustee of the Supreme Court Historical Society. He was formerly a member of the Board of Visitors of Harvard Law School.
Mr. Estrada served as a law clerk to the Honorable Anthony M. Kennedy in the U.S. Supreme Court from 1988 to 1989 and to the Honorable Amalya L. Kearse in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit from 1986 to 1987. He received a J.D. degree magna cum laude in 1986 from Harvard Law School, where he was editor of the Harvard Law Review. Mr. Estrada graduated with an A.B. degree magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa in 1983 from Columbia College, New York. He is fluent in Spanish and proficient in French.
Representative Supreme Court matters include:
In 2011, the Supreme Court appointed Mr. Estrada to brief and argue two criminal cases –Dorsey v. United States and Hill v. United States – in which the Solicitor General declined to defend the judgments of the court of appeals. Mr. Estrada was appointed to argue the position that the Solicitor General had declined to defend.
Mr. Estrada was also part of the team that successfully presented then Governor Bush’s position to the Supreme Court in Bush v. Gore (2000). Other cases that Mr. Estrada handled in the Supreme Court include Granholm v. Heald (2005) (dormant Commerce Clause and Twenty-First Amendment), Vermont Agency of Natural Resources v. United States ex rel. Stevens (2000) (False Claims Act, Article III standing and Eleventh Amendment immunity), Old Chief v. United States (1997) (rules of evidence), United States v. Mezzanatto (1995) (evidence and plea bargaining), United States v. Robertson (1995) (constitutional limits on Congress’s Commerce Clause powers), Citizens Bank of Maryland v. Strumpf (1995) (bankruptcy law), and NOW, Inc. v. Scheidler (1994) (RICO).
Recent Court of Appeals matters include:
In addition, Mr. Estrada is lead appellate counsel to Vivendi S.A. in two securities-fraud appeals from jury verdicts that are currently pending in the Second Circuit, and to the National Association of Broadcasters in a challenge to certain procedures promulgated by the FCC in connection with the upcoming Spectrum Auction. Mr. Estrada also recently presented argument before the D.C. Circuit on behalf of the tobacco industry in a first amendment challenge to certain compelled disclosures that were imposed as part of the government’s long-running civil RICO case against the industry.
Other matters:
Former CEO, Vascular Solutions
Howard Root is the recently-retired Chief Executive Officer of Vascular Solutions, Inc., a company he founded in 1997, took public in 2000, and grew into a worldwide medical device company that he sold to Teleflex for $1 billion in February 2017. Over the company’s 20 years, Howard led Vascular Solutions in inventing, developing and launching over 100 new medical devices that are used daily to improve the lives of patients suffering from cardiovascular disease. In 2014, Vascular Solutions and Howard were indicted on felony charges alleging the company’s salespeople had promoted off-label an FDA-cleared medical device that made up only 0.1% of the company’s sales and never harmed a single patient. After surviving an arduous legal process, with 121 attorneys charging $25 million in legal fees, in February 2016 the jury returned a verdict of not guilty on all charges, even though the defense didn’t call a single witness to testify in the four-week trial.
