Chief Justice David E. Nahmias (pronounced “NAH-mee-iss”) has served on the Georgia Supreme Court since his appointment by Governor Sonny Perdue in August 2009, winning election to six-year terms in 2010 and 2016. He became the Court’s Presiding Justice in September 2018 and its Chief Justice in July 2021. As Chief Justice, he leads the State’s judicial branch and chairs the Judicial Council of Georgia, the policy-making body for the judicial branch. Chief Justice Nahmias also chairs the Court’s Justice for Children Committee and the Chief Justice’s Commission on Professionalism. Before taking the bench, he was a federal prosecutor for almost 15 years, including service as a line prosecutor and as the United States Attorney in Atlanta, where he prosecuted and supervised many high-profile cases, and service as a senior Justice Department official in Washington, where he oversaw terrorism cases and other matters for three years after the 9/11 attacks.
Chief Justice Nahmias is a graduate of Briarcliff High School in DeKalb County, where he was the state’s STAR Student in 1982; Duke University, where he finished second in his class; and Harvard Law School, where he served on the Law Review with former President Barack Obama. He was a law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. Chief Justice Nahmias has received numerous local, state, and national awards and honors for his public service, and he has served on several committees and boards that work to improve the legal system and the community. Chief Justice Nahmias has two teenage sons. His wife, Catherine O’Neil, was a partner at King & Spalding before she passed away in 2017.
Robert F. Stanton Professor of Law, University of Maryland Carey School of Law
Biography
Robert V. Percival is the Robert F. Stanton Professor of Law and the Director of the Environmental Law Program at the University of Maryland School of Law. He received a B.A. summa cum laude from Macalester College, a J.D. from Stanford Law School and an M.A. in economics from Stanford University. At Stanford Percival was named the Nathan Abbott Scholar for graduating first in his law school class. Following graduation, he served as a law clerk for Judge Shirley M. Hufstedler of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Byron R. White. He joined the Maryland faculty in 1987 after serving as a senior attorney for the Environmental Defense Fund. Percival has served as a visiting professor of law at Harvard Law School, Georgetown University Law Center, the China University of Political Science and Law (Beijing), and Comenius University (Bratislava). He is the principal author of a leading environmental law casebook, now in its 9th edition, and the author of several articles about the Supreme Court and presidential authority over executive agencies. Percival wrote one of the first articles on the propriety of consent decrees to effectuate and enforce federal law “The Bounds of Consent: Consent Decrees, Settlements and Federal Environmental Policymaking,” 1987 Univ. Chic. Leg. F. 327 (1987). He also is the author of the first comprehensive analyses of what the papers of the late Justices Thurgood Marshall and Harry Blackmun reveal about the Supreme Court’s handling of environmental cases (“Environmental Law in the Supreme Court: Highlights from the Blackmun Papers,” 35 ELR 10637 (2005), and “Environmental Law in the Supreme Court: Highlights from the Marshall Papers,” 13 ELR 10606 (Oct. 1993)).
David Rivkin is a member of the firm's litigation, international and environmental teams and is co-leader of the firm's national appellate practice. He has extensive experience in constitutional, administrative and international law litigation and has been involved in numerous high-profile cases. With his prior experience in the government sector, David draws on a wealth of knowledge when providing compliance advice to companies and handling enforcement proceedings before government agencies on issues arising out of multilateral and unilateral sanctions, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), anti-boycott issues, bankruptcy and financial fraud matters, and environmental and energy issues.
David has developed and implemented legislative, regulatory and litigation initiatives for two presidential administrations. Over the years, he has published hundreds of articles, op-eds, book reviews and book chapters on a variety of international, legal, constitutional, defense, arms control, foreign policy, environmental and energy issues for various newspapers and magazines, including The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The New York Times, USA Today and The Los Angeles Times, and has been a frequent commentator and guest on TV and radio shows including ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox News, NPR and PBS.
Gerald Bard Tjoflat is an American lawyer and federal judge. He is currently the longest serving federal appeals court judge still in active service, having chosen not to assume senior status despite eligibility.
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Nita Farahany
Speaker Information
Patrick Garry
Professor, The University of South Dakota School of Law
Biography
Patrick Garry is a professor of law at The University of South Dakota and the Director of the Hagemann Center for Legal & Public Policy Research.
Professor Garry has published more than forty scholarly articles and authored ten books, many of which have been the subject of numerous conferences and symposia. Professor Garry has been invited on several occasions to testify before Congress on legal and constitutional matters, and he is a frequent speaker at Federalist Society sponsored events. Aside from his public speaking appearances, Professor Garry often writes for popular audience websites, magazines, and newspapers, including the Chicago Tribune and Washington Times. These writings offer commentary and analysis of current political and legal issues.
Professor Garry received his Ph.D. and J.D. from the University of Minnesota. And he has been invited to teach as a visiting professor at the George Washington University Law School, the University of Utah School of Law, the University of Missouri School of Law, and the University of St. Thomas School of Law.
He invests in and advises companies and entrepreneurs in SAAS, Defense, AI, and entertainment. The companies he founded or serves on the corporate board of have raised over $100 million in funding with his direct participation in the process. Those investors include Microsoft, Flexport, Sony, Qualcomm, Rakuten, Baidu, Airbus, and top global financial services and venture capital funds including Greycroft, Social Capital, General Catalyst, Lux Capital, Bullpen Capital, Bay Bridge Ventures, Teamworthy Ventures, Operate Studio, TenOneTen, Temasek, Macquarie Group, Graph Ventures and many others. The companies he advises have raised substantially more funding, in part due to his advice and mentorship.
He is a tenured Professor of Law and Public Policy at Pepperdine University and a faculty member with the Palmer Center for Entrepreneurship and the Law and teaches courses in technology, public policy, internet, and privacy law.
As a public policy and legal expert, Greg has worked with the White House, the Department of Defense, the State Department, and independent regulatory agencies on matters related to technology, law and policy. He has on multiple occasions testified before Congress and state legislatures about entrepreneurship and emerging technology and has aided state legislators, cities, municipalities, and executive branch officials in drafting legislation and ordinances related to technological advances and has been appointed by Cabinet officials to serve on Federal Rulemaking Committees.
He is a frequent keynote speaker at industry events and academic conferences related to technology, law, and public policy. He advises venture capital firms and other investors, start-ups, law enforcement, consulting firms, and Fortune 500 companies about the legal and regulatory issues associated with emerging technologies.
He regularly appears on television and radio to discuss technology and business, wrote a column on business and technology for Forbes and has authored Op-Eds for the New York Times, the Washington Post, and The Washington Times, among others. In his early career he worked on national security, international criminal law and counterterrorism matters and served as an Army officer.
Ronald Reagan Distinguished Fellow, The Heritage Foundation
Biography
Becky Norton Dunlop, a prominent leader, strategist, and counselor in the conservative movement, is The Heritage Foundation’s Ronald Reagan Distinguished Fellow.
Dunlop, who joined the leading think tank in 1998, holds the only policy chair in the country to be officially named for the 40th president. She succeeds Ed Meese, the U.S. attorney general under Reagan, who assumed emeritus status.
Dunlop oversees special projects, travels as an ambassador for Heritage, and works tirelessly to assure that the legacy of principles, policies, and practices represented by the life and service of Ronald Reagan remain in the hearts and minds of Americans.
Previously, Dunlop was Heritage’s vice president for external relations from 1998 until May 2016. She served on the Trump Transition team.
Dunlop was a senior official in the Reagan administration from 1981-1989 inside the White House, at the Justice Department, and at the Interior Department.
She served from 1994-1998 as Secretary of Natural Resources for the Commonwealth of Virginia in the Cabinet of then-Virginia Gov. George Allen.
As political director for the American Conservative Union from 1973- 1977, she was instrumental in organizing grass-roots activists for Reagan’s unsuccessful 1976 race for the Republican nomination and advised his successful 1980 nomination and general election campaigns.
From Reagan’s first inauguration in 1981 to 1985, her White House posts included Deputy Assistant to the President for Presidential Personnel and Special Assistant to the President and Director of his Cabinet office. During Reagan’s second term, Dunlop served as senior special assistant to Meese, then attorney general, in charge of managing Cabinet-level domestic policy issues. She oversaw major policy reports on the environment, the family, federalism, tort reform, privatization, and welfare reform.
She completed her service in the Reagan administration as deputy undersecretary of the Interior Department and as assistant interior secretary for fish, wildlife, and parks.
Dunlop is one of the few of the insiders from the beginnings of the Reagan era who remain active in public policy leadership.
As Virginia’s natural resources chief, Dunlop worked to streamline, decentralize, and down-size agencies while protecting and improving the environment. She is one of the few “free-market environmentalists” to have headed a state agency and put ideas into action. Her book, “Clearing the Air” (Alexis de Tocqueville Institute, 2000), chronicles some of her experiences in advancing those principles.
In 2002, President George W. Bush appointed her to a part-time post as chairwoman of the Federal Service Impasses Panel. The seven-member panel resolves disputes between federal agencies management and labor unions. Under her leadership, it took on several hundred cases and eliminated backlogs.
Other current leadership roles include the boards of the Virginia Institute for Public Policy, the Reagan Ranch Board of Governors, the Reagan Alumni Association, the Association for American Educators and the AAE Foundation, the Council for National Policy and the American Conservative Union.
In addition to topics addressing conservative principles and their roots in the nation’s founding, Dunlop is a sought-after public speaker on the idea that personnel is policy; on energy, natural resources and the environment (including free market environmentalism); on federalism as a former member of a governor’s Cabinet; Capitalism and the Rule of Law, and on the Reagan administration (including the 40th president’s effective leadership style).
A graduate of Miami University in Ohio, she currently resides in Arlington, Virginia, with her husband, George S. Dunlop. The Dunlops are members of Oakland Baptist Church in Alexandria, Virginia.
Distinguished Professor of Law, Rutgers Law School
Biography
Earl Maltz is a Distinguished Professor and the author of two books and more than 50 articles on constitutional law, statutory interpretation, the role of the courts and legal history. He teaches constitutional law, employment discrimination, conflicts of law and a seminar on the Supreme Court.
Professor Maltz is the author of Rethinking Constitutional Law: Originalism, Interventionism, and the Politics of Judicial Review (1994), Civil Rights, The Constitution and Congress, 1863-1865 (1990), and over 50 articles on constitutional law, statutory interpretation, the role of the courts and legal history. He received his B.A. from Northwestern University, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and his J.D. cum laude from Harvard. Professor Maltz teaches Constitutional Law, Employment Discrimination, Conflicts of Law, and a seminar on the Supreme Court.
Troy A. Paredes is the founder of Paredes Strategies LLC. From 2008-2013, Mr. Paredes was a Commissioner of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, having been appointed by President George W. Bush. At the SEC, Mr. Paredes was a strong advocate for small business and the JOBS Act, for solving the information overload problem of securities law disclosure, and for rigorous cost-benefit analysis. He also consistently expressed concerns about the overregulation and overreach of the Dodd-Frank Act. Since leaving government, Mr. Paredes has had an active consulting practice. Mr. Paredes advises on financial regulation, corporate governance, compliance, and governmental and regulatory affairs. He also serves as an expert and adviser in regulatory enforcement investigations and actions and in private litigation involving securities law and corporate law, and he has been an independent compliance consultant/monitor. Before becoming an SEC Commissioner, Mr. Paredes was a professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis and a professor of business (by courtesy) at Washington University’s Olin Business School. Currently, he is the Distinguished Policy Fellow and Lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania Law School and a Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School. Next year he will be a Distinguished Scholar in Residence at NYU School of Law. Mr. Paredes is the author of numerous academic articles on financial regulation, corporate governance, innovation, and behavioral economics. He also is a co-author (beginning with the 4th edition) of a multi-volume securities regulation treatise with Louis Loss and Joel Seligman entitled Securities Regulation. Mr. Paredes serves on the board of directors of Electronifie Inc. and is a member of the board of advisors of StreetShares, Inc. Mr. Paredes holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from UC Berkeley and earned his J.D. from Yale Law School.