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President, Harned Strategies LLC
Karen Harned is President at Harned Strategies LLC. Previously, she served as Executive Director of the National Federation of Independent Business Small Business Legal Center, a post she held from 2002-2022. Prior to joining the Legal Center, Ms. Harned was an attorney at a Washington, D.C. law firm specializing in food and drug law, where she represented several small and large businesses and their respective trade associations before Congress and federal agencies. She also served as Assistant Press Secretary to U.S. Senator Don Nickles of Oklahoma from August of 1989 to March of 1993. Ms. Harned received her B.A. from the University of Oklahoma in 1989 and her J.D. from The George Washington University National Law Center in 1995. She is admitted to practice in the District of Columbia.
As Executive Director of the NFIB Small Business Legal Center, Ms. Harned commented regularly on small business cases before federal and state courts, as well as the U.S. Supreme Court. She has appeared on Fox News, Fox Business, NBC Nightly News, CNN, CNBC and MSNBC, as well as National Public Radio, CBS Radio, and radio outlets across the country. Her opinion editorials and articles regarding healthcare, lawsuit abuse, regulation, and other issues important to small business have been published in newspapers and other publications nationwide.
Ms. Harned has testified before Congress on the small business impact of regulation and the civil justice system. Additionally, she has conducted numerous webinars and legal compliance seminars for small business owners across the country on issues relating to employment law, including unionization and immigration.
Managing Partner, West Loop Ventures
Timing is everything, and no one knows this better than a trader. Jeff traded his own money at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, and was on its board. In the mid-nineties, he was part of a group of equity owners that saw a huge opportunity and remade the entire exchange. When he joined the CME Board, it was worth less than $200 million and had less than $20 million in the bank. CME was the first exchange to demutualize, and the first to go public in November of 2002. Today it is a $55B company and the largest exchange in the world. In April of 2007, he used his market intuition and network to help found Hyde Park Angels. HPA is one of the most active angel groups in the United States. Jeff actively recruited like minded investors dedicated to fostering the entrepreneurial ecosystem throughout the Midwest. In 2017, He was an advisor to the G7 on the future of work, artificial intelligence and big data.
MBA Chicago Booth (2006)
BS Gies College of Business University of Illinois
Partner, Foley & Lardner LLP
Patrick Daugherty is a senior corporate and securities law partner of Foley & Lardner LLP, based in Chicago. He also is an adjunct professor of Cornell Law School, where he teaches in residence each Fall Term.
Mr. Daugherty is a member of the Bar in New York, the District of Columbia, North Carolina, Michigan and Illinois. Credentialing organizations have named him “Lawyer of the Year” in both Michigan (2007) and Illinois (2022). A graduate of Northwestern University and of Cornell Law School (Class of 1981), he clerked for SDNY Chief Judge Lloyd F. MacMahon for a year before entering private practice. Mr. Daugherty also served as Counsel to SEC Commissioner Edward H. Fleischman in Washington, D.C., from 1986 to 1989. An Emeritus Member of the American Law Institute, he is the author, co-author or editor of several books and many articles on securities regulation and new financial products.
Mr. Daugherty believes that he was the first lawyer inside the SEC to join the Federalist Society when he became a member in the late 1980s. A mainstay of the Chicago Lawyers Chapter, at the national level of the Society he serves on the Executive Committee for the Financial Services & E-Commerce Practice Group.
Partner, Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP
Clients trust Dan’s experience to help mitigate risks in the face of investigations and enforcement actions and to assess rules issued by financial agencies. From futures commission merchants to swap dealers to derivatives clearing organizations, he is well-positioned to advise on potential enforcement priorities, staff relief and exemptive orders, and submit comments on proposed financial agency rules. Dan has particular experience in handling fraud-related allegations under the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) and can help clients develop compliance practices for meeting regulatory requirements. He also has successfully challenged rulemakings by financial agencies, such as the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) first rulemaking under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act regarding proxy access and the SEC’s attempt to regulate fixed indexed annuities.
In Dan’s role at the CFTC, he assisted with the creation and development of LabCFTC, the agency’s hub for engagement with the fintech community to promote innovation and fair competition. He is highly experienced with helping crypto exchanges, bank and other fintech entities in working with distributed ledger technologies. He also provides counsel on meeting regulatory requirements when bringing new products to market. Dan had a distinguished career at the CFTC, receiving the Chairman’s Award for Excellence in 2019. This award is the CFTC’s highest honor, given to one employee annually in recognition of extraordinary accomplishments and superior service dedicated to realizing the vision, mission and values of the CFTC.
Dan has the full range of litigation experience, having practiced in federal and state court, defending clients in arbitration and jury trial, and arguing ten cases before the federal courts of appeals. He excels at crisis litigation, having successfully obtained a rarely granted writ of mandamus on behalf of the CFTC. Dan uses his extensive litigation experience to advise clients on both litigation and regulatory matters.
Previously, Dan served as counsel to the Assistant Attorney General, Civil Division for the US Department of Justice. He also clerked for the Honorable Douglas H. Ginsburg, Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. While in law school, Dan served as Executive Editor of The University of Chicago Law Review.
Chief Executive Officer, Typhon Capital Management, LLC
Mr. Koutoulas is the head of Typhon Capital Management, a NFA-registered Commodity Trading Advisor and Commodity Pool Operator. Typhon manages several CTA strategies, each isolated to a single asset class so that investors may select specific niche exposures that best suit their portfolios. Typhon also offers customized multi-strategy programs that are available either via cross-margined managed accounts, or in custom fund structures.
James has a broad background across the hedge fund industry, including alternative investment analysis, risk management, corporate finance, securities law, IT/software development, and marketing honed through his experience managing eight startups. He has supervised the trading of several alternative investment strategies, served as the COO and chief analyst of a boutique fund of funds provider, was the head of operations and software development at a market and operational risk firm, and ran an IT and management consulting company with national operations.
James earned his law degree from Northwestern Law where he specialized in securities law. He also has a degree in Finance from the University of Florida, where he was a National Merit Scholar and AP National Scholar.
George C. Dix Professor in Constitutional Law, Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law
John O. McGinnis is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review. He also has an MA degree from Balliol College, Oxford, in philosophy and theology. Professor McGinnis clerked on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. From 1987 to 1991, he was deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel at the Department of Justice. He is the author of Accelerating Democracy: Transforming Government Through Technology (Princeton 2013) and Originalism and the Good Constitution (Harvard 2013) (with M. Rappaport). He is a past winner of the Paul Bator award given by the Federalist Society to an outstanding academic under 40. He has been listed by the United States on the roster of panelists who may be called upon to decide World Trade Organization Disputes.
Partner, Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP
Kannon is the head of our Supreme Court & Appellate practice. He has argued 39 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and has argued more than 150 appeals in courts across the country, including every federal court of appeals and numerous state courts.
Kannon is ranked as a “Star Individual” in appellate law by Chambers USA, where a client notes, “It’s hard to think of enough superlatives to describe his talent, his judgment, his ability, his experience – he is as good as it gets.” Legal 500 U.S. recognizes Kannon in its Hall of Fame for appellate work. A client shares, “His work is the best in the business, and he is a wonderful human being in addition to being a world-class appellate litigator.”
In 2024 and 2022, Kannon was a finalist for the American Lawyer’s “Litigator of the Year” award. He was named “Appellate Litigator of the Year” by Benchmark Litigation in 2021 and was a 2026 finalist for that recognition.
Before entering private practice, Kannon served as an Assistant to the Solicitor General at the U.S. Department of Justice.
Senior Legal Fellow, The Future of Free Speech, Vanderbilt University
Ashkhen Kazaryan is a renowned expert in First Amendment law and technology policy, specializing in digital free speech, artificial intelligence, and the intersection of constitutional rights with emerging technologies. As a Senior Legal Fellow at the Future of Free Speech at Vanderbilt University, she leads initiatives to protect free expression and shape policies that uphold the First Amendment in the digital age.
Previously, Ashkhen was the lead for North and Latin America on the content regulation team at Meta, where she also served as the company’s policy lead on Section 230. She has also been a Senior Fellow at Stand Together and the Director of Civil Liberties at TechFreedom, where she worked extensively on platform liability, free speech, and internet governance. She is currently Fellow for the First Amendment at the Freedom Forum.
Ashkhen earned her specialist in law degree summa cum laude from Lomonosov Moscow State University in 2012 and later received a master of law degree from Yale Law School in 2016. During her time at Yale, she contributed as an articles editor for the Yale Journal of Law and Feminism, a senior editor for the Yale Law and Policy Review, and an editor for the Yale Journal of Law and Technology, while also serving as co-chair of the Public Interest Fellowship.
Professor of Law, University of Chicago Law School
Jennifer Nou is Professor of Law at the University of Chicago Law School. Nou’s main research interests are in administrative law, executive branch dynamics, regulatory policy, and constitutional separation-of-powers. Prior to joining the faculty, she was a Public Law Fellow at the Law School and also worked as a policy analyst and special assistant at the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. Nou is a graduate of Yale College and Yale Law School, and received an MPhil in Politics from Oxford University as a Marshall Scholar. After law school, she was a law clerk to Judge Richard Posner of the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and then to Justice Stephen Breyer of the US Supreme Court. She is currently a public member of the Administrative Conference of the United States.
Professor, University of Minnesota Law School
Ilan Wurman is the Julius E. Davis Professor of Law at the University of Minnesota, where he teaches administrative law and constitutional law. He previously taught at Arizona State University. He writes primarily on the Fourteenth Amendment, administrative law, separation of powers, and constitutionalism. His academic writing has appeared in the Yale Law Journal, the Stanford Law Review, the University of Chicago Law Review, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, the Virginia Law Review, the Duke Law Journal, the Minnesota Law Review, the Notre Dame Law Review, and the Texas Law Review among other journals.
Professor Wurman is the author of a casebook, Administrative Law Theory and Fundamentals: An Integrated Approach (Foundation Press 2d ed. 2024). He is also the author of A Debt Against the Living: An Introduction to Originalism (Cambridge 2017), and The Second Founding: An Introduction to the Fourteenth Amendment (Cambridge 2020). His next book, The Constitution of 1789: A New Introduction, is also forthcoming with Cambridge University Press.
Professor Wurman practices law with the firm Tully Bailey. He has litigated a variety of administrative law and constitutional law cases, including cases involving COVID-19 restrictions, transmission lines, and Appointments Clause challenges. He also devised winning public nuisance theories to force city governments to address the increasingly challenging public camping crises throughout the country.
Chairman, Federal Communications Commission
Brendan Carr is the Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. He previously served as the senior Republican Commissioner and as the FCC’s General Counsel. Nominated by both President Trump and President Biden, Carr has been confirmed unanimously by the Senate three times.
Described by Axios as “the FCC’s 5G crusader,” Carr has led the FCC’s work to modernize its infrastructure rules and accelerate the buildout of high-speed networks. His reforms cut billions of dollars in red tape, enabled the private sector to construct high-speed networks in communities across the country, and extended America’s global leadership in 5G.
Chairman Carr is also focused on expanding America’s skilled workforce—the tower climbers and construction crews needed to build next-gen networks. His jobs initiative promotes community colleges and apprenticeships as a pipeline for good-paying 5G jobs. He is recognizing America’s talented tower crews through a series of “5G Ready” Hard Hat presentations.
Chairman Carr leads a groundbreaking telehealth initiative at the FCC. The Connected Care Pilot Program supports the delivery of high-quality care to low-income Americans and veterans.
Chairman Carr’s time outside of Washington helps inform his approach to the job. He regularly hits the road to hear directly from community members and learn how changes in federal policies could help improve their lives.
Chairman Carr brings nearly 20 years of private and public sector experience in communications and tech policy to his position. Before joining the FCC as a staffer back in 2012, he worked as an attorney at Wiley Rein LLP in the firm’s appellate, litigation, and telecom practices. Previously, Chairman Carr clerked on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit for Judge Dennis Shedd. After attending Georgetown University for his undergrad, Chairman Carr earned his J.D. magna cum laude from the Catholic University of America’s Columbus School of Law where he served as an editor of the Catholic University Law Review.
President, Harned Strategies LLC
Karen Harned is President at Harned Strategies LLC. Previously, she served as Executive Director of the National Federation of Independent Business Small Business Legal Center, a post she held from 2002-2022. Prior to joining the Legal Center, Ms. Harned was an attorney at a Washington, D.C. law firm specializing in food and drug law, where she represented several small and large businesses and their respective trade associations before Congress and federal agencies. She also served as Assistant Press Secretary to U.S. Senator Don Nickles of Oklahoma from August of 1989 to March of 1993. Ms. Harned received her B.A. from the University of Oklahoma in 1989 and her J.D. from The George Washington University National Law Center in 1995. She is admitted to practice in the District of Columbia.
As Executive Director of the NFIB Small Business Legal Center, Ms. Harned commented regularly on small business cases before federal and state courts, as well as the U.S. Supreme Court. She has appeared on Fox News, Fox Business, NBC Nightly News, CNN, CNBC and MSNBC, as well as National Public Radio, CBS Radio, and radio outlets across the country. Her opinion editorials and articles regarding healthcare, lawsuit abuse, regulation, and other issues important to small business have been published in newspapers and other publications nationwide.
Ms. Harned has testified before Congress on the small business impact of regulation and the civil justice system. Additionally, she has conducted numerous webinars and legal compliance seminars for small business owners across the country on issues relating to employment law, including unionization and immigration.
Florida Office Managing Attorney, Institute for Justice
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.”
R. Bruce Townsend Professor of Law and Adjunct Professor of Philosophy, Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law
Professor Hill joined the IU Robert H. McKinney School of Law in 2003. He holds a J.D. and Ph.D. in philosophy, both from Georgetown University. He has taught most of the courses in the first-year curriculum including Constitutional Law, Civil Procedure, Torts and Criminal Law. He also teaches several courses in the upper division including First Amendment, Jurisprudence and Bioethics.
Professor Hill has published five books, the most recent of which After the Natural Law: How the Classical Worldview Supports Our Modern Moral and Political Values was published by Ignatius Press in 2016 and translated into German in 2018. The book traces the development of western philosophy from classical to modern times and argues that our most important moral and political principles -- freedom, responsibility, equality and human dignity – are incoherent without a foundation in natural law. His book, The Political Centrist (Vanderbilt, 2009), argues that liberalism and conservatism are meaningless labels and defends a centrist approach to such issues as the scope of government power, affirmative action, the death penalty and the debate over illegal immigration. He is also currently completing another book, The Father of Modern Constitutional Liberalism: John Stuart Mill and the Supreme Court.
Professor Hill has also published several articles which have appeared in such venues as the New York University Law Review, the Cornell Law Review, the Iowa Law Review and the Georgetown Law Journal. His "intentional" theory of parenting in surrogate mother contracts, defended in the New York University Law Review article, was cited and adopted by the Supreme Court of California in Johnson v Calvert. He is a member of the Bars of Illinois and California.
Professor Hill has also taught classes in the Philosophy Department, including "Philosophical Issues in Criminal Law" and "The Philosophical Foundations of Modern Liberalism and Conservatism."
In his spare time, he enjoys music and plays blues and jazz piano.
Florida Office Managing Attorney, Institute for Justice
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.”
