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Judge, U.S. District Court, Eastern and Western Districts of Missouri
Josh Divine was most recently the Solicitor General of Missouri, where he oversaw the office's appellate and special litigation divisions. As Solicitor General, Mr. Divine led Missouri's trial and appellate teams to some of its most significant victories. Mr. Divine was lead counsel in blocking $700 billion in student loan bailouts attempted by the federal government. He was lead counsel in obtaining a $25 billion judgment against China for antitrust violations. And he was lead counsel in successfully defending the Missouri law that prohibits gender transition interventions in minors, making Missouri the only state in the nation to prevail at trial against an equal protection challenge to one of these laws. In addition, Mr. Divine's work at the trial court in Missouri v. Biden (restyled Murthy v. Missouri) helped expose systemic violations of the First Amendment by the federal government, which the trial court found was unconstitutionally pressuring social media companies to suppress millions of free speech posts.
Before serving as Solicitor General, Mr. Divine was Chief Counsel to U.S. Senator Josh Hawley, where he oversaw all legal issues, managed matters related to the Judiciary Committee, and developed tech policy. Mr. Divine clerked on the Supreme Court for Justice Thomas and on the Eleventh Circuit for Judge William Pryor. He received a J.D. from Yale Law School and a Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics from the University of Northern Colorado. His recent legal scholarship has appeared in the Virginia Law Review and the Hastings Law Journal.
U.S. Court of Appeals, 10th Circuit
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.
United States Attorney, Southern District of Texas
Director, Senior Mountain Resorts Counsel, Vail Resorts
Of Counsel, Ellis George LLP
Christopher Landau is Of Counsel in the firm’s new Washington, D.C. office. Chris most recently served as United States Ambassador to Mexico from 2019 to 2021. He has a diverse array of experience both inside the courtroom, at every stage of litigation, and outside of the courtroom, in navigating and solving multidimensional challenges. He focuses on complex litigation, developing sophisticated legal strategies and unique solutions.
As Ambassador to Mexico, Chris presided over the United States’ largest diplomatic mission and fostered unprecedented bilateral cooperation that yielded results including the ratification and entry into force of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Free Trade Agreement, protection of border commerce and regional supply chains during the pandemic, and the lowest levels of illegal migration in years.
Prior to his diplomatic service, Chris practiced law for three decades at two renowned national law firms. He has briefed and argued cases involving a wide range of issues at every phase of litigation, as well as in the U.S. Supreme Court and all of the federal courts of appeals.
A graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, Chris clerked twice at the Supreme Court, first for Justice Antonin Scalia and then for Justice Clarence Thomas. He is fluent in Spanish and proficient in French.
Judge, United States District Court, Southern District of Florida
On April 4, 2019, Judge Altman was confirmed to a seat on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida. At 36, he became the youngest federal district court judge in the country—and the youngest federal judge ever appointed in the Southern District of Florida.
Judge Altman received a BA from Columbia University, where he played quarterback on the football team and pitched for the baseball team—earning All-Ivy honors. Judge Altman received his JD from the Yale Law School, where he was projects editor of the Yale Law Journal. After law school, the Judge clerked on the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals for the Honorable Stanley Marcus.
Judge Altman then became a federal prosecutor at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Miami, where he twice received the Director of the Executive Office of U.S. Attorneys’ Award for Superior Performance by a federal prosecutor. In 2013, Judge Altman was named “Federal Prosecutor of the Year” by the Miami-Dade Chiefs of Police and the Law Enforcement Officers’ Charitable Foundation.
In 2014, Judge Altman became a partner at the Miami law firm of Podhurst Orseck, where he represented the victims of airplane crashes and bank fraud conspiracies.
Law Clerk to the Hon. Justin Walker, U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit
Eric Bush is a law clerk for the Honorable Justin R. Walker on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, where he was Deputy Editor-in-Chief of the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy and a member of the winning team in the Ames Moot Court Competition. Eric also served on the Advisory Council for the Harvard Law School Student Chapter of the Federalist Society. He holds a B.A. and B.S. from the University of Louisville.
Associate, Shutts and Bowen LLP
Shiza Francis is a recent graduate of Washington University School of Law where she served as the President of the Federalist Society student chapter and as a research assistant for Prof. Conor Clarke. She will be starting at Shutts and Bowen LLP in their Government and Appellate Litigation practice group and will be clerking on the Southern District of Florida in 2026. During law school, she interned at the U.S. House Committee on Oversight, the Missouri Solicitor General’s Office, and the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Missouri. Prior to law school, Shiza worked at the Federalist Society, the White House Office of Management and Budget, and the Office of General Counsel for the Governor of Florida. She holds a B.A. from Villanova University.
Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, The George Washington University Law School
Aram A. Gavoor is the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and an internationally recognized scholar in American administrative law, national security, and federal courts. His co-authored work was cited by the U.S. Supreme Court in Department of Commerce v. New York (2019). His scholarship has earned placement in the Florida Law Review, Indiana Law Journal, Ohio State Law Journal, and other law journals. He has briefed and argued over a dozen high-profile public law cases before a majority of the U.S. Courts of Appeals and numerous cases before almost a third of the 94 U.S. District Courts. Associate Dean Gavoor frequently shares his national security, artificial intelligence policy, and federal courts expertise with international news media, including CNN, BBC World News, Wall Street Journal, NBC News, and ABC (Australia) World News. In 2021, the National Law Journal named Associate Dean Gavoor a Rising Star (top 40 under 40) honoree.
Earlier in his career, Associate Dean Gavoor served as Senior Counsel for National Security in the Civil Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, as third-in-rank Counselor to the Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the White House Office of Management and Budget, and in private practice. He received the Attorney General's Award for Distinguished Service in 2019, the Civil Division Special Commendation Award in 2020, 2019, and 2018, and a Commendation from the Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Section of the Criminal Division in 2018.
Associate Dean Gavoor previously served on the law school’s part-time faculty from 2008-2017 before accepting a term-limited position as Visiting Associate Professor from 2017-2019. He received GW Law’s Distinguished Adjunct Faculty Teaching Award from the 2020 and 2017 graduating classes. He currently teaches Constitutional Law II, Administrative Law, National Security Law, and Federal Courts.
Law Clerk to the Hon. Emil Bove, United States Court of Appeals
Aaron Watt is a law clerk for the Honorable Emil Bove on the United States Court of Appeals. He graduated from Scalia Law School where he was President of the Federalist Society Student chapter. While in law school, Aaron worked on the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary for Senator Ted Cruz. He also worked as a law clerk for America First Legal. Aaron graduated summa cum laude from the University of Maine where he obtained a B.A. in Philosophy and minors in Political Science and Legal Studies. Before attending law school, Aaron spent 20 years in the private sector owning two businesses.
Chief Deputy Attorney General
Ryan Newman is currently Chief Deputy Attorney General for Florida Office of the Attorney General.
During the first Trump Administration, he served as Counselor to the United States Attorney General for national security and international affairs, Deputy General Counsel (Legal Counsel) for the Department of Defense, and Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Policy at the Department of Justice. Prior to serving in the Executive Branch, Ryan was Chief Counsel to United States Senator Ted Cruz during the 114th Congress.
Ryan served as a law clerk to the Honorable Samuel A. Alito, Jr. on the United States Supreme Court, the Honorable Richard J. Leon on the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, and the Honorable J.L. Edmondson on the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.
Prior to law school, Ryan was an armor officer in the United States Army assigned to the 1st Squadron, 10th U.S. Cavalry Regiment (Buffalo Soldiers). He deployed to Iraq in 2003 for Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Ryan graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1998. He earned his law degree with high honors from The University of Texas School of Law in 2007.
Professor, University of Southern California Gould School of Law
Jonathan Barnett is the Torrey H. Webb Professor of Law at the Gould School of Law, University of Southern California. He founded and currently directs the USC Media, Entertainment and Technology Law Program. Barnett specializes in intellectual property, contracts, antitrust, and corporate law. Barnett has published in the Harvard Law Review, Yale Law Journal, Journal of Legal Studies, Review of Law & Economics, Journal of Corporation Law and other scholarly journals.
He joined USC Law in fall 2006 and was a visiting professor at New York University School of Law in fall 2010. Prior to academia, Barnett practiced corporate law as a senior associate at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton in New York, specializing in private equity and mergers and acquisitions transactions. He was also a visiting assistant professor at Fordham University School of Law in New York. A magna cum laude graduate of University of Pennsylvania, Barnett received a MPhil from Cambridge University and a JD from Yale Law School.
Taft, Stettinius & Hollister Professor of Law, University of Minnesota Law School
Professor Thomas F. Cotter joined the University of Minnesota Law School faculty in 2006. He received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and in 1987 graduated magna cum laude from the University of Wisconsin Law School, where he served as Senior Articles Editor of the Wisconsin Law Review and was elected to the Order of the Coif.
From 1987-89, Professor Cotter clerked for the Honorable Lawrence W. Pierce, United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He practiced law at Cravath, Swaine & Moore in New York City from 1988-90, and at Jenner & Block in Chicago from 1990-94. From 1994-2005, he taught at the University of Florida College of Law, where he held a University of Florida Research Foundation Professorship and directed the school’s Intellectual Property Law Program. From 2005-06, he was a Professor of Law at Washington and Lee University School of Law. In 2007, he was named to a two-year Solly Robins Distinguished Research Fellowship at the University of Minnesota Law School, and in 2008 was named to the Taft, Stettinius & Hollister Chair in Law.
Professor Cotter’s principal research and teaching interests are in the fields of domestic and international intellectual property law, antitrust, and law and economics. He is the author of six books—Patent Wars: How Patents Impact Our Daily Lives (Oxford Univ. Press, 2018); Trademarks, Unfair Competition, and Business Torts (with Barton Beebe, Mark A. Lemley, Peter S. Menell, and Robert P. Merges) (Wolters Kluwer 2d ed., 2016; 1st ed., 2011); Law and Economics: Positive, Normative, and Behavioral Perspectives (with Jeffrey L. Harrison) (3d ed., Thomson West, 2013); Comparative Patent Remedies: A Legal and Economic Analysis (Oxford University Press, 2013); and Intellectual Property: Economic and Legal Dimensions of Rights and Remedies (with Roger D. Blair) (Cambridge University Press 2005).
Altogether he has authored or coauthored over 60 other scholarly works, including articles in the California Law Review, the Georgetown Law Journal, the Iowa Law Review, the Minnesota Law Review, and the University of Illinois Law Review. He also publishes a blog, ComparativePatentRemedies.com, on the law (both foreign and domestic) and economics of patent remedies. Most recently, the Innovators Network Foundation, in partnership with ACT|The App Association, appointed Professor Cotter to a one-year Intellectual Property Fellowship.
Senior Counsel for Law and Policy, Committee for Justice
Jeff is a registered patent attorney and an intellectual property and innovation policy professional with a unique combination of training and real-world experience. Jeff is also currently a PhD candidate at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public and International Affairs (GSPIA). His dissertation is entitled “An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of American Innovation: An Austrian Economics Perspective.”
Jeff maintains an active intellectual property law practice in the life sciences space. While counseling clients and working on his dissertation and other scholarship, Jeff remains active in the policy analysis and advocacy space. He currently serves as the President of the Association for American Innovation and a member and former Chair of the Public Policy Legal Task Force (PPLTF) for the Association of University of Technology Managers (AUTM).
Jeff has a bachelor’s degree chemical and biomedical engineering with concentrations in molecular biology and fermentation technology and from Carnegie Mellon. He also has a master’s degree in industrial administration (business) from Carnegie Mellon where he concentrated on international management, marketing and finance. He earned his law degree from the Duquesne University School of Law with a focus on intellectual property law.
Former Chief Judge, United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
Judge Michel served for more than 22 years on the Federal Circuit, retiring on May 31, 2010. From December 25, 2004 until his retirement, he also discharged the duties of Chief Judge of this national court, serving simultaneously on the U.S. Judicial Conference -- the Judiciary's governing body -- and by appointment of the Chief Justice on its seven-judge Executive Committee.
He judged several thousand appeals and authored more than 800 opinions, one third concerning intellectual property law. Intellectual Asset Management magazine inducted him into its Hall of Fame and he was designated one of the 50 most influential leaders in intellectual property law in the world. His contributions were also recognized by lifetime achievement and similar awards by the American Intellectual Property Law Association (AIPLA); Intellectual Property Owners Education Foundation (IPO); the American Bar Association's Intellectual Property Section; Managing Intellectual Property magazine; the Sedona Conference; the Patent and Trademark Office Society (PTOS); the New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles Intellectual Property Law Associations; and the William C. Connor, the Giles S. Rich, and the Richard Linn Intellectual Property American Inns of Court. In 2010 the Los Angeles IP Inn was renamed in his honor as the Paul R. Michel IP Inn.
Judge Michel received the Jefferson Medal, the Eli Whitney Award, and the Katz-Kiley Prize as well as Honorary Doctor of Law degrees from the Catholic University of America and the John Marshall Law School. He is a lifetime Member of Honore of FICPI, the international association of private practitioners of intellectual property law. Williams College granted him the Kellogg Award for "outstanding leadership in law and public service."
Judge Michel has written numerous articles on patent law and advocacy, taught related courses and master classes at George Washington University, the University of Akron, and John Marshall law schools, serving as well on their IP advisory boards and on counterpart boards at the universities of California (Berkley), Washington, and Maryland. He co-authored a casebook, Patent Litigation and Strategy (West, 1999) and an August 2010 editorial in the New York Times on strengthening the patent system to promote prosperity and create new jobs.
A frequent speaker at conferences and law schools during his judicial tenure and since, he retired from a lifetime appointment to be free to speak out on the national need for better patent policy and protection of intellectual property and the vital, unmet resource needs of the courts, the PTO, the International Trade Commission, and other IP-related agencies. He was appointed Distinguished Scholar in Residence by IPO, following his retirement. Judge Michel also consults for law firms and their clients in intellectual property litigations, conducting moot courts, mock trials, case evaluations, editing briefs, advising on strategy and providing mediation and arbitration services.
Associate Professor of Law & Dean’s Scholar in Intellectual Property, Texas Tech School of Law
Barbara Lauriat has taught and conducted research in most areas of intellectual property law, including copyright, patents, and trademarks; her work often takes a comparative approach, using examples from different national legal systems and drawing on legal history. Educated in the United States and the United Kingdom, she began her legal academic career in England, teaching intellectual property law to undergraduate, L.L.M., and Ph.D. students at King's College London from 2011-2022, after serving as the Career Development Fellow in Intellectual Property Law and a Fellow of St. Catherine's College at the University of Oxford from 2008-2010. She has previously held visiting positions as the Frank H. Marks Fellow in Intellectual Property Law at George Washington University Law School, a Faculty Fellow at the Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Study, a Faculty Associate at the Berkman Klein Center for the Internet & Society at Harvard University, a Faculty Research Fellow of the Oxford Intellectual Property Research Centre at the University of Oxford, a Scholar-in-Residence in the International Arbitration Department at WilmerHale London, a Visiting Senior Research Fellow at the New Zealand Centre for International Economic Law, a Hauser Global Research Fellow at New York University School of Law, and a Visiting Scholar at the University of British Columbia. She was appointed an Academic Fellow of the Honourable Society of the Inner Temple (2013-2016) and thereafter an Associate Academic Fellow. Lauriat won first prize in the International Association for the Advancement of Teaching and Research in Intellectual Property (ATRIP) Essay Competition in 2013 and was the winner of the Copyright Society of the U.S.A.'s Seton Award in 2015.
Lauriat earned her B.A. from Boston University and her J.D. from Boston's School of Law. She has also recieved her D.Phil at the University of Oxford. As a law student, Lauriat served as an editor on the BU Law Review and was later elected General Editor of the Oxford University Commonwealth Law Journal (2007/2008). She currently serves on the editorial board of Arbitration International.
Lauriat is a member of the Bars of Massachusetts and New Hampshire (inactive) and was Called to the Bar of England and Wales in 2018.
Professor of Law, University of San Diego School of Law
Lisa Ramsey is a Professor of Law at the University of San Diego School of Law, where she is a founding member of the Center for Intellectual Property Law and Markets. She teaches and writes in the intellectual property and international intellectual property law area and is an expert on trademark law. Professor Ramsey is an active member of the American Intellectual Property Law Association and has given presentations on trademark law to attorneys, professors, and students throughout the United States and around the world. Before joining the USD law faculty, she was an intellectual property litigator at Gray Cary Ware & Freidenrich and served as a judicial law clerk for the Honorable Rebecca Beach Smith in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. Professor Ramsey’s scholarship focuses on potential conflicts between trademark laws and free speech rights, and explains how trademark protection of inherently valuable words, symbols, and product features can harm fair competition and freedom of expression.
Examples of Professor Ramsey’s publications include Protectable Trademark Subject Matter in Common Law Countries and the Problem with Flexibility in The Cambridge Handbook of International and Comparative Trademark Law (Irene Calboli & Jane Ginsburg eds., Cambridge University Press 2020); Using Failure to Function Doctrine to Protect Free Speech and Competition in Trademark Law in the Iowa Law Review Online (2020); Non-Traditional Trademarks and Inherently Valuable Expression in The Protection of Non-Traditional Trademarks (Irene Calboli & Martin Senftleben eds., Oxford University Press 2018); Free Speech Challenges to Trademark Law After Matal v. Tam in the Houston Law Review (2018); A Free Speech Right to Trademark Protection? in the Trademark Reporter (2016); and Free Speech and International Obligations to Protect Trademarks in the Yale Journal of International Law (2010). Her article Descriptive Trademarks and the First Amendment in the Tennessee Law Review (2003) was judged by the editor of the Intellectual Property Law Review to be one of the best intellectual property law articles of 2003.
Associate Professor, UNH Franklin Pierce School of Law
Zvi S. Rosen is an Associate Professor at UNH Franklin Pierce School of Law and the Faculty Director of the Franklin Pierce Society for Intellectual Property. He has served as a Assistant Professor at the Southern Illinois University School of Law, as a Visiting Assistant Professor at the Maurice A. Deane School of Law at Hofstra University, and as a Visiting Scholar and Professorial Lecturer in Law at George Washington University School of Law.
In 2015-2016, he was the Abraham L. Kaminstein Scholar in Residence at the U.S. Copyright Office. Mr. Rosen received his J.D. from Northwestern University School of Law in 2005 and LLM in Intellectual Property in 2006 from the George Washington University Law School. He has practiced at Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP as well as smaller firms and his own practice, and clerked for the Hon. Thomas B. Bennett of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Alabama. He has written extensively on the development of modern copyright and trademark law, as well as on bankruptcy law.
Thomas M. Siebel Senior Fellow, The Hoover Institution, Stanford University; Gary T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus, UCLA School of Law
Eugene Volokh is the Thomas M. Siebel Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution (Stanford), as well as the Gary T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus and Distinguished Research Professor at UCLA School of Law. He recently retired from teaching at UCLA, after 30 years there, and is now focusing on research.
Volokh is the author of the textbooks The First Amendment and Related Statutes (8th ed. 2023), and Academic Legal Writing (5th ed. 2016), as well as over 100 academic law journal articles, mostly on First Amendment law. He is a member of The American Law Institute; the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Free Speech Law; and the creator and coauthor of The Volokh Conspiracy, a leading legal blog founded in 2002 (hosted at the Washington Post from 2014 to 2017 and now at Reason Magazine).
Associate, MoloLamken LLP
James Barta’s practice focuses on complex civil litigation, white-collar matters, and appellate litigation.
Before joining MoloLamken, Mr. Barta clerked for the Honorable Raymond M. Kethledge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. He also clerked for the Honorable Stephen J. Murphy, III, of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. During law school, Mr. Barta interned at the Indiana Solicitor General’s Office and the U.S. Department of Justice.
