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Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Policy, United States Department of Justice
Aaron Reitz serves as the head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Policy (OLP). OLP plans, develops, and coordinates the implementation of major policy initiatives of high priority to the Department and to the Administration. Additionally, OLP assists the Attorney General and White House Counsel in vetting, recommending, and preparing candidates for judicial judgeships. As Chief Regulatory Officer, Mr. Reitz also reviews and coordinates all regulations promulgated by the Department and all its components.
Prior to serving as Assistant Attorney General, Mr. Reitz was Senator Ted Cruz’s Chief of Staff. In that role, he oversaw domestic policy, legislative, communications, administrative, Senate Commerce Committee, Judiciary Committee, and Foreign Relations Committee teams, as well as a dozen regional offices throughout the State of Texas.
Before that, Mr. Reitz was Texas’s Deputy Attorney General for Legal Strategy under Attorney General Paxton. Mr. Reitz planned, staffed, and executed the Agency’s most consequential affirmative lawsuits and legal initiatives on matters including immigration, federal-state-local relations, election integrity, voting rights, Big Tech, consumer protection, energy, and the U.S. and Texas Constitutions
Mr. Reitz graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Texas A&M University, where he was a Regimental Commander in the Corps of Cadets. After graduating, he commissioned as an officer in the United States Marine Corps and married his high school sweetheart, Meredith. He spent nearly five years on active duty and deployed to the northern Helmand Province of Afghanistan.
After the Marines, Mr. Reitz attended the University of Texas School of Law, where he served as President of the Texas Federalist Society and Editor in Chief of the Texas Review of Law & Politics. He began his career at Bracewell LLP in Houston and then clerked for now-Chief Justice Jimmy Blacklock on the Texas Supreme Court.
Mr. Reitz and his wife Meredith have four children: William, Caroline, Cecilia, and Georgia. He and his family are members of Saint Mary Cathedral in Austin, Texas.
Partner, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP
Russell Balikian is a partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. He practices in the firm’s Appellate & Constitutional Law Group and Administrative Law & Regulatory Practice Group. He represents clients in high-stakes litigation before the Supreme Court of the United States and other federal and state courts across the country, as well as in major proceedings before administrative agencies. Russell was named “One to Watch” in Appellate Practice by Best Lawyers in 2023 and a “Rising Star” in Telecommunications by Law360 in 2024.
Russell has extensive experience in administrative law, especially in the telecom and technology sectors. He regularly represents clients challenging or supporting agency rules and orders, and he defends companies against enforcement actions by federal regulators, such as the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). Russell brings the capabilities of an appellate attorney to all stages of the case, from building the record before the agency to litigating the case in court.
Russell also has nationwide experience litigating appeals and dispositive motions in high-profile matters, including putative class actions, major commercial disputes, and mass-tort cases. He has represented clients at every level of the federal and state judiciary. Russell also advises clients on appellate strategy and critical legal issues.
Russell clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court of the United States, Judge Gregory G. Katsas of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, and Judge Diane S. Sykes of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. He received his law degree from Yale Law School, where he was Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Yale Law & Policy Review. He graduated summa cum laude from Taylor University with a bachelor’s degree in both Political Science and Biblical Literature.
Russell is admitted to practice law in the District of Columbia.
Senior Litigation Counsel, New Civil Liberties Alliance
Peggy Little, Senior Counsel at New Civil Liberties Alliance, a new public interest law firm challenging the administrative state founded in 2017 by Professor Philip Hamburger, has over three decades of experience as a trial and appellate litigator in complex, high-stakes regulatory, mass-tort, class-action, products liability, securities, commercial and civil rights litigation representing individuals and high-profile litigants including Fortune 50 companies, financial institutions, public companies, and universities in state and federal courts, including the United States Supreme Court.
Peggy is a graduate of Yale College and Yale Law School, where she was awarded the Potter Stewart Prize. She was a law clerk to the Hon. Ralph K. Winter on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Prior to starting her own trial and appellate law firm in 1997, where she was appellate consulting counsel to the New Haven firefighters in Ricci v.DeStefano, a landmark 2009 United States Supreme Court decision, Peggy was a partner at Tyler, Cooper & Alcorn in New Haven, Connecticut. From 2004 to early 2018, Peggy directed, part-time, the Federalist Society Pro Bono Center.
Peggy has participated in many national conferences and symposia addressing issues of current importance in constitutional law – specifically state and federal constitutional questions regarding the separation of powers and the first amendment – and regularly speaks, blogs and publishes on the topic of the unconstitutional exercise of governmental power. In May of 2017, she presented her paper, Pirates at the Parchment Gates, to a conference of state and federal judges at the Law and Economics Center at the Antonin Scalia Law School. Her work has been published by law reviews, legal publications, the Federalist Society, the Wall Street Journal, Law and Liberty and the Manhattan Institute.
Recent publications include: How the SEC silences its critics, The SEC should listen to Sen. Cotton, Lucia v. SEC, Opening Salvos in the Opioid Litigation Wars, Straight Dope on the Opioid Crisis
Program Director and Faculty, National Institute for Trial Advocacy
Henry Su is a seasoned trial lawyer, teacher, and thought leader whose legal work has focused on what he calls the “three A’s”—Antitrust, Advocacy, and Access to Justice.
Based in Washington, DC, he has spent the bulk of his career practicing in the fields of antitrust, consumer protection, intellectual property, and technology law, which are critical to ensuring that we all continue to enjoy the benefits of competition and innovation. He provides a unique combination of experience and expertise in (1) law enforcement, regulation, legislation, and policymaking—as a former senior official with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for nearly seven years, and (2) technology, innovation, business strategy, and startup activity—as a Silicon Valley-based senior litigator for nearly ten years.
His government service at the FTC included two stints as a senior trial lawyer in the agency’s Bureau of Competition (January 2013 to February 2015, February 2017 to August 2017), litigating merger and conduct cases (e.g., St. Luke’s/Saltzer, 1-800 Contacts) and participating in the investigation of several others. Additionally, he served as an attorney advisor to Commissioner J. Thomas Rosch (January 2011 to January 2013) and Chairwoman Edith Ramirez (February 2015 to February 2017), providing advice and counsel to each Commissioner on a wide range of antitrust and competition matters, topics, and issues.
A veteran member of the American Bar Association (ABA) Antitrust Law Section’s leadership, he currently serves as a member of the governing Council and as co-chair of the Antitrust Fall Forum. He is also a member of the U.S. Advisory Board of the Institute for Consumer Antitrust Studies at the Loyola University Chicago School of Law.
He is a longtime program director and faculty member with the National Institute for Trial Advocacy (NITA), a nonprofit organization that has been dedicated since 1971 to the training and development of effective and ethical courtroom advocates, who are essential to preserving and improving our adversarial system of justice. His teaching runs the gamut of NITA’s programming—from trainings on trial, motion, and deposition practice to webcasts and podcasts on topics like evidentiary foundations and lawyer well-being. In 2021 he was recognized by NITA for his outstanding service as faculty with the 2020 Hon. Robert E. Keeton Award. He is also a Senior Fellow of the Litigation Counsel of America.
When it comes to trial and appellate work, he deeply appreciates the value of “learning by doing.” Some skills cannot be effectively acquired or developed except through practice, as he found out when he cut his teeth handling criminal and civil cases pending in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia—the original “Rocket Docket.” He wishes he had known some of the NITA techniques and drills when he was a junior lawyer. That is a big reason why nowadays he does his part to make NITA training widely available to upcoming generations of lawyers through programs, including public service courses, offered around the country.
Last but not least, he chairs the ABA Standing Committee on Pro Bono and Public Service, whose mission is to ensure access to justice through the expansion and enhancement of the delivery of legal and other law-related services to the underserved through volunteer efforts of legal professionals nationwide. He strives to lead by example, participating for instance as a volunteer attorney with ABA Free Legal Answers. In 2021 he was recognized as an ABA Free Legal Answers 2020 Pro Bono Leader for his pro bono service. He also serves on the Virginia State Bar’s Access to Legal Services Committee, and he is a Patron Fellow of the American Bar Foundation.
He graduated cum laude from Yale University with a B.S. degree in Biology, and then attended the University of Virginia School of Law, where he earned a J.D. degree and received the John M. Olin Prize in Law and Economics. He is a member of the California, District of Columbia, and Virginia bars.
Senior Adviser, International Security Program, CSIS
Mark Cancian (Colonel, USMCR, ret.) is a senior adviser with the CSIS International Security Program. He joined CSIS in April 2015 from the Office of Management and Budget, where he spent more than seven years as chief of the Force Structure and Investment Division, working on issues such as Department of Defense budget strategy, war funding, and procurement programs, as well as nuclear weapons development and nonproliferation activities in the Department of Energy. Previously, he worked on force structure and acquisition issues in the Office of the Secretary of Defense and ran research and executive programs at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. In the military, Colonel Cancian spent over three decades in the U.S. Marine Corps, active and reserve, serving as an infantry, artillery, and civil affairs officer and on overseas tours in Vietnam, Desert Storm, and Iraq (twice). Since 2000, he has been an adjunct faculty member at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, where he teaches a course on the connection between policy and analysis. A prolific author, he has published over 40 articles on military operations, acquisition, budgets, and strategy and received numerous writing awards. He graduated with high honors (magna cum laude) from Harvard College and with highest honors (Baker scholar) from Harvard Business School.
Founder and Executive Director, National Security Institute; Assistant Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
Jamil N. Jaffer is the Founder and Executive Director of the National Security Institute at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University where he also serves as an Assistant Professor of Law, Director of the National Security Law and Policy Program, and Director of the Cyber, Intelligence, and National Security LLM Program. Jamil also teaches classes on counterterrorism, intelligence, surveillance, cybersecurity, and other national security matters, as well as a summer course held abroad with U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil M. Gorsuch. Jamil is also affiliated with Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation and previously served as a Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution from 2016 to 2019.
Jamil is also a Venture Partner with Paladin Capital Group, where he assists the firm with investments across the full range of its themes and theses, including a focus on dual-use national security technologies. Jamil also serves on the board of directors of RangeForce, a cybersecurity training and readiness platform startup and Tozny, a digital identity startup, and on the advisory boards of U.S. Strategic Metals, North America’s largest primary producer of cobalt, a critical mineral used in EV batteries, aerospace, and other national security applications; and Constella Intelligence, a deep and dark web intelligence startup. Jamil also serves as an advisor to Beacon Global Strategies, a strategic advisory firm and Duco, a technology platform startup that connects corporations with geopolitical and international business experts. Jamil is also the managing director of Trigraph Caveat Capital, a private investment vehicle.
Among other things, Jamil currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Greater Washington Board of Trade, the Board of Advisors for the Global Cyber Alliance, and the Advisory Board of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies’ Center on Cyber and Tech Innovation, the Executive Committee of the Reagan Institute Strategy Group. Jamil is also a Fellow at the Academy for Judaic, Christian, and Islamic Studies, an advisor to the Concordia Summit, and is a member of the Board of Directors for the Center for Intelligence Policy, the Board of Directors of Speech First, and the Executive Committee of the International Law and National Security Practice Group of the Federalist Society.
Immediately prior to his current positions, from 2015-2021, Jamil served as a senior business leader at IronNet Cybersecurity, helping take the company from a bootstrapped first-year technology products startup through two rounds of venture capital fundraising, growing from 40 employees to over 300, and through its listing on New York Stock Exchange. In his role as IronNet's Senior Vice President for Strategy, Partnerships & Corporate Development, Jamil worked directly for the co-CEOs of the company, Gen (ret.) Keith B. Alexander, the former Director of the National Security Agency and Founding Commander of U.S. Cyber Command, and Bill Welch, the former COO of Zscaler and Duo; in that role, Jamil led all of the company’s strategic and technology partnership efforts, including developing go-to-market and technology integration plans with some of the largest cloud platforms and cybersecurity companies in the market, evaluating potential acquisition targets, and developing overall corporate strategy and thought leadership around collective security and collaborative defense in the cyber arena.
Prior to his time at IronNet, Jamil served on the leadership team of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee as Chief Counsel and Senior Advisor under Chairman Bob Corker (R-TN), where he worked on key national security and foreign policy issues, including leading the drafting of the proposed Authorization for the Use of Military Force against ISIS in 2014 and 2015, the AUMF against Syria in 2013, and revisions to the 9/11 AUMF against al Qaeda. Jamil was also the lead architect of the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act and two sanctions laws against Russia for its first intervention in Ukraine.
Prior to joining SFRC, Jamil served as Senior Counsel to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence under Chairman Mike Rogers (R-MI) where he led the committee’s oversight of NSA surveillance, NRO intelligence issues, and NGA analytic and collection matters, as well as intelligence community-wide counterterrorism issues. Jamil was also the lead architect of the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, the nation’s first cyber threat intelligence sharing legislation that was signed into law in 2015.
In the Bush Administration, Jamil served in the White House as an Associate Counsel to the President, handling Defense Department, State Department, and intelligence community matters, and serving as one of the White House Counsel’s primary representatives to the National Security Council Deputies Committee.
Prior to the White House, Jamil served on the leadership team of the Justice Department’s National Security Division as Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for National Security, where he focused on counterterrorism and intelligence matters. At NSD, Jamil helped lead the division’s work on In re: Directives, the first ever two-party litigated matter in the FISA Court and the second case before the FISA Court of Review in its 30-year history. Jamil also led NSD’s efforts on the President’s Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative (CNCI), including the drafting of NSPD-54/HSPD-23, and related classified matters, and advised the National Security Agency (NSA) and U.S. Cyber Command’s predecessor organization, the Joint Function Component Command for Network Warfare (JFCC-NW), on matters related to cyber intelligence collection and offensive cyber activities. For his work on these matters, Jamil was awarded the Assistant Attorney General’s Award for Special Initiative and was among the group of lawyers awarded the Director of National Intelligence’s 2008 Legal Award (Team of the Year – Cyber Legal).
Jamil also served in other positions in the Justice Department, including in the Office of Legal Policy, where he worked on the confirmations of Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. and Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. to the United States Supreme Court.
Jamil also served as a lawyer in private practice at Kellogg Huber, a Washington, DC-based litigation boutique, as a policy advisor to Congressman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), and as a staff member or senior advisor on a number of political campaigns, including two presidential campaigns and a presidential transition team. While in law school, Jamil was a member of the University of Chicago Law Review, managing editor of the Chicago Journal of International Law, and National Symposium Editor of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy. Following law school, Jamil served as a law clerk to Judge Edith H. Jones of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and, later in his career, as a law clerk to then-Judge Neil M. Gorsuch when he first joined the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit as well as a law clerk to Justice Neil Gorsuch when he joined the U.S. Supreme Court.
Jamil has published multiple op-eds and academic articles on national security, foreign policy, cybersecurity, counterterrorism, encryption, and intelligence matters, and is the co-author of a book chapter with former NSA Director Gen. (Ret.) Keith B. Alexander on national security and the press in National Security, Leaks, and the Freedom of the Press: The Pentagon Papers Fifty Years On (2021) and a book chapter with former CIA Director Gen. (ret.) Mike Hayden on ISIS, al Qaeda, and other international terrorist groups in Choosing to Lead: American Foreign Policy for a Disordered World (2015). Jamil has also written book chapters on cybersecurity and surveillance, as well as op-eds and policy papers with former Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey, former National Counterterrorism Center Director Matt Olsen, and Congressman Mike Waltz (R-FL), among others.
Jamil has previously taught graduate-level courses in intelligence law and policy at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs and the National Intelligence University, served an outside advisor to the Cyberspace Solarium Commission, and has recently testified before committees of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives on China, cybersecurity, counterterrorism, and other national security matters. Jamil has also recently appeared on a range of national television and radio outlets including CNN, Fox News, Fox Business, MSNBC, Bloomberg, PBS, Voice of America, and National Public Radio, and in various print and online publications, including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and the Washington Post on a range of national security matters including cybersecurity, counterterrorism, surveillance, encryption, privacy, and foreign policy issues.
Jamil holds degrees from UCLA (BA, cum laude), the University of Chicago Law School (JD, with honors), and the United States Naval War College (MA, with distinction).
Maurice A. Deane Distinguished Professor of Constitutional Law and Faculty Director of International Programs, Hofstra University School of Law
Professor Ku’s primary research interest is the relationship of international law to constitutional law. He has also conducted academic research on a wide range of topics including international dispute resolution, international criminal law, and China’s relationship with international law. He teaches courses such as U.S. constitutional law, U.S. foreign affairs law, transnational law, and international trade and business law. Since 2014, he has served as the faculty director of international programs, overseeing Hofstra Law’s study abroad, exchange and LL.M. programs. Professor Ku also teaches Constitutional Law in our online degree programs: Master of Laws in American Law and Master of Arts in American Legal Studies. He has also been selected as the John DeWitt Gregory Research Scholar and as a Hofstra Law Research Fellow. He is a member of the American Law Institute.
He is the co-author, with John Yoo, of Taming Globalization: International Law, the U.S. Constitution, and the New World Order (Oxford University Press 2012). He also has published more than 40 law review articles, book chapters and symposia essays. He has given dozens of academic lectures and workshops at major universities and conferences in the United States, Europe and Asia.
He co-founded the leading international law weblog Opinio Juris, which is read daily by thousands worldwide. His essays and op-eds have been published in major news publications such as the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the NYTimes.com. He has been frequently interviewed for television news programs and quoted in print and electronic media. He has also signed or submitted amicus briefs to national and international courts and served as an expert witness in both domestic and international proceedings.
Before joining the Hofstra Law faculty, Professor Ku served as a law clerk to the Honorable Jerry E. Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and as an Olin Fellow and Lecturer in Law at the University of Virginia Law School. Professor Ku also practiced as an associate at the New York City law firm of Debevoise & Plimpton, specializing in litigation and arbitration arising out of international disputes. He has been a visiting professor at the College of William & Mary Marshall- Wythe School of Law in Williamsburg, Virginia; a Fulbright Distinguished Lecturer in Law at East China University of Political Science and Law in Shanghai, China; and a Taiwan Fellow at National Taiwan University in Taipei, Taiwan. He is a member of the New York Bar and a graduate of Yale College and Yale Law School.
James T. Jensen Endowed Professor for Transactional Law & Director of the Program on Intellectual Property and Technology Law, University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law
Jorge L. Contreras is a Distinguished University Professor, the James T. Jensen Endowed Professor for Transactional Law and Director of the Program on Intellectual Property and Technology Law. He teaches and researches in the areas of intellectual property, property law, technical standardization, antitrust and science policy. In 2020 he received the University of Utah's Distinguished Research Award and is an elected member of the American Law Institute. He has testified before the U.S. Senate and House Subcommittees on Intellectual Property, and was awarded the Rossman Memorial Award by the Patent & Trademark Office Society in 2022.
Professor Contreras has written or edited fourteen books and published more than 150 scholarly articles and chapters. His book, The Genome Defense: Inside the Epic Legal Battle to Determine Who Owns Your DNA (NY: Hachette/Algonquin, 2021), has been praised by the NY Times, Wall St. Journal, Nature and numerous other outlets, and was named "Best Patent Law Book of the Year" by the international IPKat blog. His scholarly articles have appeared in leading scientific, legal and policy journals including Science, Nature, NYU Law Review, Georgetown Law Journal, Iowa Law Review and Antitrust Law Journal. He has been quoted by media outlets around the world including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Economist, Bloomberg, Washington Post, Korea Times and has been featured on C-SPAN, NPR, PRI and BBC shows and a range of podcasts and online news programs.
Professor Contreras currently serves Co-Chair of the Interdisciplinary Division of the ABA's Section of Science & Technology Law and a member of the Advisory Board of the American Antitrust Institute. He has previously served as Co-Chair of the National Conference of Lawyers and Scientists, a member of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) Committee on Intellectual Property Management in Standard-Setting Processes, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Council of Councils, the Advisory Council of NIH's National Center for the Advancement of Translational Sciences (NCATS), the National Advisory Council for Human Genome Research, and the Intellectual Property Rights Policy Committee of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). In 2021 he served as Chair of the Art Law Section of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) and currently serves as Chair of the AALS Remedies Section.
Professor Contreras has previously taught at American University Washington College of Law and Washington University in St. Louis. Prior to entering academia he was a partner at the international law firm Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP, where he practiced transactional and intellectual property law in Boston, London and Washington DC. He is a cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School (JD) and Rice University (BA, BSEE) and clerked for Chief Justice Thomas R. Philips of the Texas Supreme Court.
Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
Adam Mossoff is Professor of Law at Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University. He has published extensively on why patents, copyrights, and other intellectual property rights have been—and should be—legally secured to innovators and creators as property rights. His scholarship has been relied on by the United States Supreme Court, by lower federal courts, and by U.S. federal agencies. He has been invited to testify numerous times before the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives on intellectual property legislation. His writings on intellectual property policy have also appeared in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Forbes, Investors Business Daily, and in other media outlets. His journal articles can be downloaded here.
Professor Mossoff is a longstanding member of the Executive Committee of the Intellectual Property Practice Group of the Federalist Society, on which he served as Chairperson from 2016-2018, and he is Chair of the Intellectual Property Working Group of the Regulatory Transparency Project of the Federalist Society. He is a Senior Fellow and Chair of the Forum for Intellectual Property at the Hudson Institute, a Visiting Intellectual Property Fellow at the Heritage Foundation, and a member of the Board of Directors of the Center for Intellectual Property Understanding. He is a member of the Intellectual Property Rights Policy Committee of ANSI and he has served as Chair and Vice-Chair of the Intellectual Property Committee of the IEEE-USA, on which he remains a member in good standing.
Founder and Principal Solicitor, Opie International Technology Lawyers
Elisabeth Opie BA LLB(Hons) LLM GAICD has almost 20 years’ international experience in the global innovation system. Holding senior legal and executive positions, Elisabeth has worked with industry, spin-offs, research organisations and government. She has extensive experience in international business transactions, policy advice, negotiation and alternative dispute resolution. Her legal and executive experience has been developed across sectors such as IT, automotive, aerospace, health and energy. Elisabeth has experience in both non-contentious and contentious matters.
Elisabeth has received a number of awards in the field of international science and technology, including Business and Strategy Excellence Awards, and was the inaugural Global Research Alliance Fellow. She has appeared in the IAM Strategy 300 Global Leaders since 2020 and the IAM Patent 1000 since 2019.
Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute
Urška Petrovčič is a senior fellow at Hudson Institute and director of economic strategy at Qualcomm. Her work focuses on antitrust and intellectual property.
Since 2017, Dr. Petrovčič has acted as the European Commission’s non-governmental adviser for the Unilateral Conduct Working Group of the International Competition Network. She has been a visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Oslo. She was chosen as the inaugural scholar of the American Bar Association’s International Scholar-in-Residence Program, which enabled her to conduct research in cooperation with the Office of Policy Planning of the US Federal Trade Commission on antitrust enforcement concerning SEPs.
Dr. Petrovčič previously worked in the Brussels office of the law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP and was a stagiaire at the Directorate-General for Competition of the European Commission.
Her publications on the enforcement of standard-essential patents (SEPs) include a book, Competition Law and Standard Essential Patents: A Transatlantic Perspective (Wolters Kluwer 2014), and articles in the Common Market Law Review and other journals.
She holds a BA in law from the University of Ljubljana, a master of law and economics from Erasmus University Rotterdam, and an LLM and a PhD in law from the European University Institute.
Judge, Florida's Third District Court of Appeal
Judge Kansas R. Gooden serves on Florida’s Third District Court of Appeal.
Prior to her appointment by Governor Ron DeSantis in June 2024, Judge Gooden was in private practice for 16 years. She was an equity shareholder in her firm, chaired its appellate department, and served as the firm’s general counsel. She handled all types of civil appellate proceedings, including oral argument, before all of Florida’s district courts of appeal, the Florida Supreme Court, and the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. She was counsel in over 400 civil appeals and extraordinary writ proceedings. She is one of the few attorneys to argue back-to-back cases on the same day before the Florida Supreme Court.
In addition, Judge Gooden provided trial and litigation support to attorneys throughout the state. She assisted in devising litigation strategy, argued evidentiary hearings and dispositive motions, and often attended trials to help preserve errors for appellate review.
Judge Gooden is a Board Certified Specialist in Appellate Practice and was rated AV Preeminent by Martindale-Hubbell. She was consistently recognized for appellate practice by Florida Super Lawyers, Florida Trend, and U.S. News’ Best Lawyers in America. She received awards from the Florida Defense Lawyers Association, such as the Amicus Award, James A. Dixon Young Lawyer Award, Joseph P. Metzger Outstanding Achievement Award, and President’s Award. Florida’s Guardian ad Litem Program awarded her the Children’s Champion Award in 2019 for her appellate pro bono work.
Throughout her career, Judge Gooden has been active in the legal community. She chaired the Florida Bar’s Appellate Practice Section, its Appellate Board Certification Committee, and its Board of Legal Specialization and Education. She was the president of the Florida Defense Lawyers Association, served on the board of directors of the Third District Court of Appeal Historical Society, and was elected to the Federation of Defense and Corporate Counsel. She is a member of The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies, and she has spoken at several of its events.
Judge Gooden was a commissioner and vice chair on Florida’s Eleventh Circuit Judicial Nominating Commission and a commissioner on U.S. Senator Marco Rubio’s Judicial Advisory Commission for the Southern District of Florida.
Judge Gooden frequently presents and speaks at legal and judicial conferences. She has spoken on a wide range of topics, including appellate practice, civil trial practice, and insurance law.
Judge Gooden received her J.D. magna cum laude from St. Thomas University School of Law. She was an Articles Editor on the St. Thomas Law Review, a member of the mock trial team, a research assistant, and a teaching assistant for Civil Procedure. She interned at the Third District Court of Appeal with Judge David Gersten. She received her B.B.A. in Finance from James Madison University. She was a member of the National Society of Collegiate Scholars.
Judge Gooden played nationally competitive junior, amateur, and collegiate golf. While in undergraduate school, Judge Gooden was a member of the two-time CAA Conference Champion women’s golf team and was named to the All-Conference Team. She is the 1997 and 1999 Virginia State Girls Golf Champion and was awarded the Marion Miley Bracelet by the Western Women’s Golf Association in 1997.
General Counsel & Wealth Advisor, Ullmann Wealth Partners
Patrick Kilbane is the General Counsel and a Wealth Advisor for Ullmann Wealth Partners headquartered in Jacksonville Beach, FL. Ullmann Wealth Partners is an independent wealth management firm that manages half a billion dollars of client assets in custody at Fidelity. Before joining Ullmann Wealth Partners, Pat was a Shareholder at Gray Robinson, P.A. where he had a thriving specialty litigation practice. Pat was recognized multiple times by Florida Trend and Super Lawyers Magazine for his skills and professionalism.
Pat serves the Northeast Florida Region in several roles. He’s received five gubernatorial appointments to the Judicial Nominating Commission for Florida’s Fourth Judicial Circuit and the Jacksonville Aviation Authority Board of Directors. His fellow board members elected him Chairman of both boards. Further, Pat is the President of the Jacksonville Lawyers Chapter of the Federalist Society. In 2014-2015, Pat was elected President of the Young Lawyers Section of the Jacksonville Bar Association.
In 2005, Pat received his Juris Doctor degree from the University of Notre Dame. He received his Bachelor of Business Administration degree, summa cum laude, from Adrian College, where he earned the full-ride, merit-based Dawson Scholarship and was named the Outstanding Graduate by faculty vote for the Class of 2002.
President, Florida Justice Reform Institute
William W. Large is the president of the Florida Justice Reform Institute (FJRI), an organization dedicated to restoring fairness and personal responsibility to Florida's civil justice system.
Under his leadership, FJRI has delivered notable successes on numerous and complex legislative, regulatory, and judicial issues. These have included repealing Florida’s one-way attorney fee statute and reforming the contingency risk fee multiplier, strengthening the rules of evidence for medical damages, providing COVID liability protections for health care workers, and adopting the Federal summary judgment standard, among many others.
Prior to serving as president, Mr. Large served as Governor Bush's deputy chief of staff responsible for a portfolio of health and human service agencies.
Before that, Mr. Large served as general counsel for the Florida Department of Health, and during that time served as director of the Governor's Task Force on Professional Liability Insurance. Prior to working for the state, Mr. Large was a partner practicing in professional malpractice litigation defense.
Mr. Large is admitted to practice before all Florida courts and U.S. District Courts in Florida, and the U.S. Supreme Court. Mr. Large is "AV" rated by Martindale-Hubbell and a member of the Federalist Society, the Florida Defense Lawyers Association and the Defense Research Institute.
Mr. Large holds B.S. and J.D. degrees from the University of Florida, and an M.B.A, an M.S in Political Science, and an M.S. in Risk Management and Insurance from The Florida State University.
Beauchamp Brogan Distinguished Professor of Law, University of Tennessee College of Law
Professor Reynolds is one of the most prolific scholars on the UT faculty. His special interests are law and technology and constitutional law issues and his work has appeared in a wide variety of publications, including the Columbia Law Review, the Virginia Law Review, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, the Wisconsin Law Review, the William and Mary Law Review, the Southern California Law Review, the Harvard Journal of Law and Technology, The Columbia Human Rights Law Review, Law and Policy in International Business, Jurimetrics, the Journal of Space Law, and the High Technology Law Journal. Professor Reynolds has also written in the New York Times, the Washington Post, The Atlantic, the Washington Times, the Los Angeles Times, Road & Track, Urb, and the Wall Street Journal, as well as other popular publications. He was for many years a contributing editor at Popular Mechanics magazine, and today writes a regular column for USA Today. He is the co-author of Outer Space: Problems of Law and Policy, and The Appearance of Impropriety: How the Ethics Wars Have Undermined American Government, Business, and Society. His most recent books are The Social Media Upheaval, The Judiciary’s Class War, and The New School: How the Information Age Will Save American Education from Itself.
Professor Reynolds has testified before Congressional committees on space law, international trade, and domestic terrorism. He has been executive chairman of the National Space Society and a member of the White House Advisory Panel on Space Policy. A member of the UT faculty since 1989, Professor Reynolds has received the Harold C. Warner Outstanding Faculty Scholarship Award in W. Allen Separk Outstanding Faculty Scholarship Award, and the Carden Award for Outstanding Scholarship.
A songwriter and producer for such bands as Mobius Dick, The Nebraska Guitar Militia, and The Defenders Of The Faith, Professor Reynolds is a member of the American Society of Composers and Performers and a former member of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences.
Professor Reynolds blogs at InstaPundit.com.
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.
Senior Attorney, Goldwater Institute
Scott Day Freeman is a senior attorney at the Goldwater Institute in Phoenix, Arizona. He is currently heading that group’s litigation challenging the constitutionality of several mandatory state bar associations. He received his law degree from the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University and his undergraduate degree at the University of Arizona.
Partner, Kellogg Hansen Todd Figel & Frederick, PLLC
Derek T. Ho is a partner with the Washington, DC, law firm of Kellogg Hansen Todd Figel & Frederick, PLLC. In 2019, he filed an amicus brief on behalf of the Missouri Bar in the Eighth Circuit case of Fleck v. Wetch, 937 F.3d 1112 (8th Cir. 2019), involving a challenge to North Dakota’s mandatory bar association, arguing such bar associations do not violate the First Amendment.. Following his graduation from Yale Law School, Mr. Ho clerked for Judge Michael Boudin on the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit and Justice David Souter on the Supreme Court of the United States. Mr. Ho obtained a master’s degree from Yale University and his undergraduate degree from Harvard College.
Director of Government Accountability, Show-Me Institute
Patrick Ishmael is the Director of Government Accountability at the Show-Me Institute. His work focuses on constitutional matters, including whether mandatory bars are constitutional under the First Amendment. He obtained both his law and undergraduate degrees from St. Louis University.
Senior Judge, United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri
Stephen N. Limbaugh, Jr., is a Senior U. S. District Judge for the Eastern District of Missouri. He formerly served as prosecuting attorney of Cape Girardeau County, as Circuit Judge for the 32nd Judicial Circuit, and as a judge and chief justice on the Supreme Court of Missouri. He was appointed to the federal bench in 2008 by President George W. Bush, and has since served as the resident district judge in the Rush Hudson Limbaugh, Sr. United States Courthouse in Cape Girardeau, named after his grandfather. Judge Limbaugh's father, Stephen N. Limbaugh, Sr., is a retired U. S. District Judge, and his son, Christopher K. Limbaugh, is a judge on the Circuit Court of Cole County.
