Richard J. Sullivan was sworn in as a United States Circuit Court Judge for the Second Circuit in October 2018. Before that, Judge Sullivan served for eleven years as a United States District Judge for the Southern District of New York. Prior to becoming a judge, he served as the General Counsel and Managing Director of Marsh Inc., the world's leading risk management and insurance brokerage firm. From 1994 to 2005, he served as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Southern District of New York, where he was Chief of the International Narcotics Trafficking Unit and Director of the New York/New Jersey Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force. In 2003, he was awarded the Henry L. Stimson Medal from the Association of the Bar of the City of New York. In 1998, he was named the Federal Law Enforcement Association's Prosecutor of the Year. Prior to joining the U.S. Attorney's Office, he was a litigation associate at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz in New York and a law clerk to the Honorable David M. Ebel of the United States Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit. He is a graduate of Yale Law School, the College of William & Mary, and Chaminade High School on Long Island. From 1986 to 1987, he served as a New York City Urban Fellow under New York City Police Commissioner Benjamin Ward. Judge Sullivan is on the executive board of the New York American Inn of Court and the Center for Law and Religion at St. John’s University School of Law. He is an adjunct professor at Columbia Law School, where he teaches courses on sentencing and jurisprudence, and he previously served as an adjunct professor at Fordham Law School, where he taught courses on white collar crime and trial advocacy and was named Adjunct Professor of the Year.
Brian Hagedorn is a judge on the Wisconsin Court of Appeals, District II. He was appointed by Republican Governor Scott Walker on July 31, 2015. Hagedorn won election to a full six-year term in 2017. His current term will expire on July 31, 2023.
Hagedorn earned an undergraduate degree in philosophy from Trinity International University in 2000 and his J.D. from Northwestern University School of Law in 2006. While at Northwestern, Hagedorn was the president of the school's chapter of the Federalist Society.
Frederick M. Baron Chair in Law and Co-Director, Center on Lawyers, Civil Justice and the Media, The University of Texas at Austin School of Law
Biography
Professor Baker's wide-ranging scholarly and teaching interests include Professional Responsibility (especially issues involving "aggregate" litigation and group settlements), attorneys' fees, mass tort litigation, "Mega-settlements," and State and Local Government Law. She is often called upon by lawyers to serve as a consultant and/or expert witness on issues of legal ethics, mass tort settlements, settlement fund allocations, and attorneys' fees. Professor Baker has also been a court-appointed allocation Special Master in mass tort settlements. She is an elected member of the American Law Institute.
Professor Baker is the author or co-author of dozens of articles and book chapters, which have appeared in the Columbia Law Review, Cornell Law Review, Duke Law Journal, Texas Law Review, and the Virginia Law Review, among many others. Her most recent publications include "Mass Torts and the Pursuit of Ethical Finality" (Fordham Law Review, 2017, symposium contribution); "Aggregate Settlements and Attorney Liability" (Hofstra Law Review, 2016, symposium contribution); and "Is the Price Right? An Empirical Study of Fee-Setting in Securities Class Actions" (Columbia Law Review, 2015) (with Michael A. Perino and Charles Silver) (selected by Corporate Practice Commentator as one of the "Top Ten Corporate and Securities Articles of 2016"). Professor Baker is also the co-author of a leading law school text, Local Government Law: Cases and Materials (Foundation Press, 5th ed. 2015) (with Clayton P. Gillette and David Schleicher).
A graduate of Yale Law School, Yale College, and Oxford University (Marshall Scholar), she was a Law Clerk to the Hon. Amalya L. Kearse, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit (1985-86 Term). A two-time world champion in tournament bridge, Professor Baker won gold medals at the 2018 World Bridge Championships (McConnell Cup) in Orlando, Florida and at the 2014 World Championships (McConnell Cup) in Sanya, China. She won a silver medal at the 2009 World Bridge Championships (Venice Cup) in Sao Paulo, Brazil. She is also a sixteen-time North American champion and won a gold medal at the 2015 European Open Championships.
Andrew Brown practices in the areas of civil litigation, corporate law, and appeals. Prior to joining Shanahan McDougal, he served within the North Carolina Judicial Branch, including as Chief of Staff and Counsel to Chief Justice Mark Martin and law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Robert H, Edmunds, Jr. He also founded and directed the North Carolina Judicial Fellowship, an office that provides independent and confidential legal research and writing support to the more than 370 judges who comprise North Carolina’s Superior and District Courts. Before law school, Andrew served as campaign manager and consultant on four successful statewide judicial campaigns.
Prerak Shah is Of Counsel at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP. He was most recently the Acting United States Attorney for the Northern District of Texas, leading a team of approximately 120 Assistant U.S. Attorneys handling a wide range of cases, including securities fraud, health care fraud, the False Claims Act, computer crime, national security, tax fraud, money laundering, public corruption, and terrorism. Mr. Shah previously held several leadership positions at the Department of Justice, including Deputy Associate Attorney General in the office overseeing the work of the Antitrust, Civil, Civil Rights, Environment & Natural Resources, and Tax Divisions. Before joining the Justice Department, Mr. Shah served as Chief of Staff to Senator Ted Cruz and as a Chief Counsel on the Senate Judiciary Committee. He graduated from the University of Chicago Law School and clerked for the Honorable Jerry E. Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
Professor of Law, South Texas College of Law Houston
Biography
Josh Blackman is a national thought leader on constitutional law and the United States Supreme Court. Josh’s work was quoted during two presidential impeachment trials. He has testified before Congress and advises federal and state lawmakers. Josh regularly appears on TV, including NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox, and the BBC. Josh is also a frequent guest on NPR and other syndicated radio programs. He has published commentaries in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and leading national publications.
Since 2012, Josh has served as a professor at the South Texas College of Law Houston. He holds the Centennial Chair of Constitutional Law. Josh is an Adjunct Fellow at the Manhattan Institute. Josh has written more than seven dozen law review articles that have been cited more than a thousand times. Josh was selected as the Jurist of the Year by the Texas Journal of Law & Public Policy, received the inaugural Meese III Originalism Award, and was awarded the Inaugural Joseph Story Award. Josh was selected by Forbes Magazine for the “30 Under 30” in Law and Policy. Josh is the President of the Harlan Institute, and founded FantasySCOTUS, the Internet’s Premier Supreme Court Fantasy League. He blogs at the Volokh Conspiracyand posts@JoshMBlackman.
Dean and Jesse H. Choper Distinguished Professor of Law, UC Berkeley School of Law
Biography
Erwin Chemerinsky became the 13th Dean of Berkeley Law on July 1, 2017, when he joined the faculty as the Jesse H. Choper Distinguished Professor of Law.
Prior to assuming this position, from 2008-2017, he was the founding Dean and Distinguished Professor of Law, and Raymond Pryke Professor of First Amendment Law, at University of California, Irvine School of Law, with a joint appointment in Political Science. Before that he was the Alston and Bird Professor of Law and Political Science at Duke University from 2004-2008, and from 1983-2004 was a professor at the University of Southern California Law School, including as the Sydney M. Irmas Professor of Public Interest Law, Legal Ethics, and Political Science. He also has taught at DePaul College of Law and UCLA Law School.
He is the author of eleven books, including leading casebooks and treatises about constitutional law, criminal procedure, and federal jurisdiction. His most recent books are, We the People: A Progressive Reading of the Constitution for the Twenty-First Century (Picador Macmillan) published in November 2018, and two books published by Yale University Press in 2017, Closing the Courthouse Doors: How Your Constitutional Rights Became Unenforceable and Free Speech on Campus (with Howard Gillman).
He also is the author of more than 200 law review articles. He writes a regular column for the Sacramento Bee, monthly columns for the ABA Journal and the Daily Journal, and frequent op-eds in newspapers across the country. He frequently argues appellate cases, including in the United States Supreme Court.
In 2016, he was named a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2017, National Jurist magazine again named Dean Chemerinsky as the most influential person in legal education in the United States.
T.J. Maloney Chair in Business Law, Fordham University School of Law
Biography
Professor Griffith is an expert in corporate and financial regulatory law. He writes and speaks on corporate law, political economy, and the constitutional rights of corporations and other business associations. In addition to his academic writing, he has authored or contributed to many amicus briefs, including: Iowa v SEC, NCPPR v SEC, AFBR v SEC, and In re Tesla.
Speaker Information
Ryan D. Nelson
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit
Biography
Judge Nelson was confirmed to the Ninth Circuit in October 2018,as the youngest Circuit Judge to serve from Idaho and he has chambers in his hometown of Idaho Falls.Prior to his confirmation, Judge Nelson served for nine years as General Counsel of Idaho Falls-based Melaleuca, Inc., a consumer goods company. He previously worked in Washington, DC, where he served in all three branches of the federal government, including as Special Counsel for Supreme Court nominations to the Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee; Deputy General Counsel to the White House Office of Management and Budget; Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Environment and Natural Resources Division of the United States Department of Justice; and a law clerk to Judge Henderson of the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. He has argued in most of the federal courts of appeals and worked on dozens of Supreme Court briefs. He started in the Washington, DC office of Sidley Austin as an appellate lawyer, after clerking for Judges Mosk and Brower of the Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal at The Hague, and fornow-Judge Tom Griffith, then-Senate Legal Counsel, during the impeachment trial of President Clinton. Judge Nelson earned his B.A. from Brigham Young University and his J.D., with honors, from BYU Law School. Judge Nelson has been a member of the Federalist Society since 1998.
Chairman, Department of Economics, George Mason University
Biography
Speaker Information
Prerak Shah
Of Counsel, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP
Biography
Prerak Shah is Of Counsel at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP. He was most recently the Acting United States Attorney for the Northern District of Texas, leading a team of approximately 120 Assistant U.S. Attorneys handling a wide range of cases, including securities fraud, health care fraud, the False Claims Act, computer crime, national security, tax fraud, money laundering, public corruption, and terrorism. Mr. Shah previously held several leadership positions at the Department of Justice, including Deputy Associate Attorney General in the office overseeing the work of the Antitrust, Civil, Civil Rights, Environment & Natural Resources, and Tax Divisions. Before joining the Justice Department, Mr. Shah served as Chief of Staff to Senator Ted Cruz and as a Chief Counsel on the Senate Judiciary Committee. He graduated from the University of Chicago Law School and clerked for the Honorable Jerry E. Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
