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Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit
Lawrence VanDyke serves as a circuit judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Prior to that appointment in January 2020, he served as a Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Environment and Natural Resources Division of the United States Department of Justice. Before that, he served consecutively as the Solicitor General of two western states – Nevada and Montana. At the beginning of his legal career, he worked as an attorney in the Appellate and Constitutional Issues practice group at Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, LLP.
Judge VanDyke received his law degree magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, where he was an editor on the Harvard Law Review. He has engineering and theology undergraduate degrees and a masters degree in engineering management. He served as a law clerk to the Honorable Janice Rogers Brown of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Judge VanDyke and his wife Cheryl live in Reno, Nevada, and they have three children.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit
John K. Bush is a Circuit Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. His chambers are in Louisville, Kentucky. Prior to joining the court, Judge Bush was a partner in the Louisville office of Bingham Greenebaum Doll LLP, where he also was co-chair of the firm’s litigation department. He began his legal practice in the Washington, D.C. office of Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP.
Judge Bush served as a law clerk for Judge J. Smith Henley of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. He was graduated summa cum laude from Vanderbilt University in 1986, and cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1989.
George R. Killam Jr. Chair of Criminal Law; Director, Center for Military Law & Policy, Texas Tech University School of Law
Geoffrey S. Corn is the George R. Killam Jr. Chair of Criminal Law and Director of the Center for Military Law and Policy.
Professor Corn comes to Texas Tech University School of Law from South Texas College of Law Houston where he was the Gary A. Kuiper Distinguished Professor of National Security.
Prior to joining the South Texas College of Law Houston faculty in 2005, Professor Corn served in the U.S. Army for 21 years as an officer, and a final year as a civilian legal advisor, retiring in the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. Professor Corn’s teaching and scholarship focuses on the law of armed conflict, national security law, criminal law and procedure, and prosecutorial ethics. He has appeared an expert witness at the Military Commission in Guantanamo, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, and in federal court.
He is co-author of Criminal Law: Classroom to Courtroom (forthcoming), The Law of Armed Conflict: An Operational Perspective, The Laws of War and the War on Terror, National Security Law and the Constitution, National Security Law and Policy: a Student Treatise, The Law in War: A Concise Overview, and Principles of Counter-Terrorism Law.
His Army career included service as the Army’s senior law of war expert advisor, tactical intelligence officer in Panama; supervisory defense counsel for the Western United States; Chief of International Law for US Army Europe; Professor of International and National Security Law at the US Army Judge Advocate General’s School; and Chief Prosecutor for the 101st Airborne Division. He earned is B.A. from Hartwick College in Oneonta, NY, his J.D. with highest honors from George Washington University, his LLM as the distinguished graduate from the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General’s School. He is also a distinguished military graduate of U.S. Army Officer Candidate School, and a graduate of U.S. Army Command and General Staff Course.
Judge, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas
Hon. Charles Eskridge, Judge, United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas, Houston Division, was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and arrived in Houston, Texas, at the age of 11 with his parents in 1974.
Judge Eskridge received a B.S. from Trinity University and a J.D. from Pepperdine University School of Law. He served as a law clerk to Chief Judge Charles Clark of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, as a law clerk to Justice Byron White of the Supreme Court of the United States, and as a special assistant to the Hon. Howard Holtzmann of the Iran/U.S. Claims Tribunal in The Hague.
From 1994 to 2019, Judge Eskridge was in private practice in Houston, Texas, litigating complex commercial disputes. He teaches Origins of the Federal Constitution at the University of Houston Law Center and has served as the Distinguished Visiting Practitioner of Law at the Pepperdine University School of Law.
President Donald J. Trump nominated him to the federal bench on May 3, 2019. Following confirmation by the Senate, Judge Eskridge took his seat on October 22, 2019.
Partner, Capitol Counsel LLC
Martin B. Gold is a partner with Capitol Counsel LLC. In service to our clients, he brings over 40 years of experience, both on Senate staff and in private practice. He is a recognized authority on matters of congressional rules and parliamentary strategies.
Gold is the author of “Senate Procedure and Practice,” a widely consulted primer on Senate Floor procedure, now in its third edition (2013). He frequently advises in offices of Senators and serves on the adjunct faculty at George Washington University. Before domestic business, professional and academic audiences, he often speaks about Congress as well as political and public policy developments.
Gold has been a guest lecturer at Tsinghua University and the Beijing Foreign Studies University, Moscow State University, the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, the State Parliament of Ukraine, and the Federation Council of the Russian Federal Assembly. He published in China “The Grand Institution: A Profile of the United States Senate.” (2011)
Between 1972 to 1982, Gold worked in senior staff positions at the Senate, culminating as counsel to Senate Majority Leader Howard H. Baker, Jr. (R-TN). Gold began his career as a legal assistant to Senator Mark O. Hatfield (R-OR) and later served as republican staff director and counsel to the Senate Rules Committee and as a professional staff member on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. In 2003, Gold was floor adviser and counsel to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN).
Gold was president of the lobbying firm Gold and Liebengood, which he co-founded in 1984. He joined the government relations firm, Johnson, Smith, Dover, Kitzmiller & Stewart, Inc. in 1995. Later, Gold co-founded The Legislative Strategies Group, a leading government affairs practice.
In 2004, Gold became a partner at Covington & Burling LLC, one of the nation’s most prominent law firms. While co-chair of Covington’s government affairs practice, Gold was instrumental in securing adoption of congressional resolutions expressing regret for the Chinese exclusion laws. For this pro bono project, he was awarded the Champion of Justice Award by the Chinese American Citizens Alliance. In 2012, he authored “Forbidden Citizens: Chinese Exclusion and the U.S. Congress: A Legislative History.” His book was awarded the Benjamin Franklin Gold Medal by the Independent Book Publishers of America and was named an Honor Book by the Asian and Pacific American Librarians Association. At the end of 2016, Gold published “A Legislative History of the Taiwan Relations Act; Bridging the Strait.”
In 2006, President George W. Bush appointed Gold to serve as a member of the United States Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad. On the commission, Gold commemorated the work of D. Ho Feng Shan, a Chinese diplomat who, while serving as a consular officer in Austria, issued visas to Shanghai to save several thousand Jews from Nazi persecution. In 2008, the Senate adopted a resolution honoring Dr. Ho’s selfless heroism.
Gold is a member of the Cosmos Club in Washington, D.C. He was elected in 2000 in recognition for excellence in the field of political science.
Gold is a graduate of the Washington College of Law at The American University and serves on the Board of the Friends of the Law Library of the Library of Congress.
Senior Advisor, Covington & Burling
Senator Jon Kyl advises companies on domestic and international policies that influence U.S. and multi-national businesses and assists corporate clients on tax, health care, national security, and intellectual property matters, among others.
Jon served in the U.S. Senate from 1995 to 2013, retiring as the second-highest ranking Republican senator. He returned to the Senate in September 2018 after being appointed to succeed the late John McCain, and retired again at the end of 2018.
During Jon’s 26 years in Congress, he built a reputation for mastering the complexities of legislative policy and coalition building, first in the House of Representatives and then in the Senate. In 2010, Time magazine called him one of the 100 most influential people in the world, noting his "encyclopedic knowledge of domestic and foreign policy, and his hard work and leadership" and his "power to persuade."
Jon sat on the powerful Senate Finance Committee and was the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism. A member of the Republican Leadership for well over a decade, Jon chaired the Senate Republican Policy Committee and the Senate Republican Conference, before becoming Senate Republican Whip. In filling Senator McCain’s seat, he served on the Armed Services and Homeland Security Committees.
Partner, Sidley Austin
Peter Roskam, a former six-term U.S. Representative from Illinois, provides strategic counsel and guidance to clients whose business needs involve law, government, media and public policy. He also serves on the firm’s COVID-19 Task Force. Peter held some of the most significant positions in the U.S. House of Representatives during his tenure (2007–2019). In addition to serving in the House Leadership as the Chief Deputy Whip, he chaired three major subcommittees of the House Ways and Means Committee. As Chairman of the Subcommittee on Tax Policy, he was a chief architect of the historic 2017 overhaul of the nation’s tax code. As Chairman of Subcommittee on Health, he began the “Medicare Red Tape Relief Project,” led a series of hearings addressing the opioid crisis and authored several bills to make opioid addiction treatment more accessible. In addition, as the Chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight, he spearheaded efforts to increase supervision of the Internal Revenue Service and championed efforts to overhaul the IRS’s civil asset forfeiture program.
Peter also served on the House Financial Services Committee, including the Capital Markets, Insurance and Government Sponsored Enterprises Subcommittee and the Domestic and International Monetary Policy, Trade and Technology Subcommittee. He was a member of the Select Committee on Events surrounding the 2012 Terrorist Attack in Benghazi, Libya.
He chaired the U.S. House Democracy Partnership, a bipartisan commission supporting emerging democracies abroad and co-chaired the Korea Caucus, the India Caucus, the Bipartisan Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism and the Republican Israel Caucus.
Before his work on Capitol Hill in Washington, Peter represented Chicago’s western suburbs for 13 years in the Illinois House of Representatives and the Illinois State Senate where he developed a close working relationship with then-state Sen. Barack Obama. During his tenure in the state legislature he also was in the private practice of law in Illinois.
Managing Partner, Crabbe Brown & James LLP
Larry James has been at the heart of the Columbus business, legal, civic, and political scene for the last thirty years. He is a respected litigator, as well as an advisor to local and national leaders. In recognition of his many achievements, the law firm changed its name from Crabbe, Brown, Jones, Potts & Schmidt to Crabbe, Brown & James in January 2001.
In 2011, The Ohio State University selected Mr. James as lead counsel to represent its student athletes in NCAA investigations. In 2013, Armen Keteyian published his book The System: The Glory and Scandal of Big-Time College Football, a chapter of which is dedicated to Larry’s work in representing the OSU football players.
In 2012, Mr. James and his wife, Donna, were awarded the American Red Cross of Greater Columbus’ Humanitarians of the Year Award. In 2015, noted journalist Wil Haygood published his award-winning book Showdown: Thurgood Marshall and the Supreme Court Nomination That Changed America, which he dedicated to Mr. James.
Mr. James is a life member of the Sixth Circuit Judicial Conference, and he has served as General Counsel of the National Fraternal Order of Police since 2001.
Senior Vice President for Legal Studies, Cato Institute
Clark Neily is senior vice president for legal studies at the Cato Institute. His areas of interest include constitutional law, overcriminalization, civil forfeiture, police accountability, and gun rights. Neily is the author of Terms of Engagement: How Our Courts Should Enforce the Constitution’s Promise of Limited Government. His writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and National Review Online, as well as various law reviews, including the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, George Mason Law Review, Georgetown Journal of Law and Public Policy, NYU Journal of Law and Liberty, and Texas Review of Law and Politics. Neily is a frequent guest speaker and lecturer for the Federalist Society, Institute for Humane Studies, and American Constitution Society.
Before joining Cato in 2017, Neily was a senior attorney and constitutional litigator at the Institute for Justice and director of the Institute’s Center for Judicial Engagement. He is also an adjunct professor at the University of Texas School of Law, where he teaches constitutional litigation and public-interest law.
Neily served as co-counsel in District of Columbia v. Heller, the historic case in which the Supreme Court held for the first time that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to own a gun for self-defense.
Neily began his legal career as a law clerk to Judge Royce Lamberth on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. After that he spent four years in the trial department of the Dallas-based firm Thompson & Knight. Neily received his undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Texas, where he was Chief Articles Editor of the Texas Law Review.
Senior Fellow, Stand Together Trust
Vikrant Reddy is a senior fellow at Stand Together Trust, specializing in the area of criminal justice reform. Reddy previously served as a senior policy analyst at the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF), where he managed the launch of TPPF’s national Right on Crime initiative in 2010. He has worked as a research assistant at the Cato Institute, as a judicial clerk to the Hon. Gina M. Benavides in Texas, and as an attorney in private practice. He is a member of the State Bar of Texas, and he serves on the Executive Committee of the Criminal Law Practice Group of the Federalist Society. He is also an appointee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights Texas State Advisory Committee.
Reddy’s research and scholarly opinions have appeared in a range of national media outlets, including USA Today, National Review, The Federalist, and others.
Reddy earned his law degree from the Southern Methodist University School of Law. He received his undergraduate degree from the University of Texas at Austin.
Professor of Law, Widener University Commonwealth Law School
Shareholder, GreenbergTraurig
Steve Baird works with clients to address their most difficult trademark problems. Steve provides strategic guidance on trademark usage and clearance, branding strategies, domestic and worldwide portfolio management, litigation and enforcement, internet domain name and trademark disputes, licensing, and prosecution. Clients turn to him for his deep experience in trademark and branding matters for startups; design and creative firms; colleges and universities; apparel; jewelry; consumer products; sporting, hunting, and other outdoor goods; food products and ingredients; building materials; medical devices and pharmaceuticals; chemicals, insecticides, and adhesive brands; all kinds of manufacturers; accounting, architecture, engineering, construction, and real estate development firms; restaurants; casinos; software companies; banks; and financial institutions. Steve earned his J.D., with high distinction, from University of Iowa College of Law and a B.S., with distinction, from University of Iowa College of Pharmacy. He clerked for the Hon. Wilson Cowen, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.
Shareholder, Greenberg Traurig
Greenberg Traurig Phoenix Litigation chair Andy Halaby advises clients on professional responsibility and related matters, including discipline defense, disqualification, and lawyer liability matters, as well as issues and opportunities arising from Arizona’s Alternative Business Structure (ABS) law. He has served on the Arizona Supreme Court's Task Forces on Lawyer Ethics, Professionalism, and the Unauthorized Practice of Law, and Judicial Performance Review, and chaired the State Bar of Arizona's Conflict Case Committee. Andy also practices extensively in intellectual property litigation. A former professional engineer registered with the United States Patent and Trademark Office, Andy has served as lead counsel in dozens of patent infringement and other IP matters. His published work has been cited in, among other things, treatises on intellectual property law, remedies, evidence, professional responsibility and the First Amendment, as well as in numerous scholarly articles. He has taught multiple semesters of Professional Responsibility, Patent Litigation, and other courses at the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University.
Founder, Antoinette M. Tease, PLLC
Antoinette (Toni) Tease is a registered patent attorney who practices in the areas of intellectual property and technology law. Before forming her own law firm in 2003, Ms. Tease was General Counsel for Rocky Mountain Technology Group, Inc., a software development company with its worldwide headquarters in Billings, Montana. From 1995 to 2001, Ms. Tease was a member of the law firm of Crowley, Haughey, Hanson, Toole & Deitrich, P.L.L.P., the region's largest law firm, where she represented clients in both high-tech and traditional industries in intellectual property matters. While at Crowley, Ms. Tease was a partner and Chair of the firm's Intellectual Property and Technology Practice Group. Before moving to Montana in 1995, Ms. Tease practiced with the law firms of Wiley, Rein & Fielding in Washington, D.C., and Shearman & Sterling in New York City. After graduation from law school in 1990, Ms. Tease clerked for United States District Judge David A. Ezra in Honolulu, Hawaii. Ms. Tease attended law school at the University of Connecticut School of Law, where she was a Notes and Comments Editor for the Connecticut Law Review, and where she graduated with High Honors in the top 3% of her class. Ms. Tease obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree from Harvard University, where she majored in Economics.
Senior Fellow and Director of Finance Policy, Competitive Enterprise Institute
John Berlau is a senior fellow and Director of Finance Policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. His work focuses on how public policy affects access to capital, entrepreneurship, and investments made by the public and business community alike. In recent years, he has studied the consequences of financial reform efforts passed by Congress like the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the government’s response to the 2008 financial crisis including the Dodd-Frank Act, the placement of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into conservatorship, and the rise of cryptocurrency.
He is also the author of the book George Washington: Entrepreneur: How Our Founding Father’s Private Business Pursuits Changed America and the World. The book received rave reviews in the Wall Street Journal and other forums, and was endorsed by eminent historians and scholars such as Richard Brookhiser, Amity Shlaes, and Craig Shirley.
Berlau is a contributing writer for Forbes. His work has been published and cited in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Financial Times, Bloomberg News, The Atlantic, Politico, Daily Caller, Washington Examiner, Investor’s Business Daily, National Journal, National Review, American Spectator, Reason Magazine, and more. He is a frequent guest on radio and television programs, including CNBC’s “The Call,” “Power Lunch” and “Closing Bell,” Fox News’ “Fox & Friends” and “Your World with Neil Cavuto,” and Fox Business’ “Cavuto.”
He has testified on the impact of financial regulation before the House Committee on Financial Services and the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. A recognized expert on the phenomenon of crowdfunding, Berlau has spoken at prominent conferences such as South by Southwest Interactive in Austin, Money 20/20 in Las Vegas, the FinTech Global Expo in San Diego, the CFGE Crowdfund Banking and Lending Summit in San Francisco and the Crowdfund Intermediary Regulatory Advocates (CFIRA) Summit in Washington, D.C. He is also author of the widely cited paper “Declaration of Crowdfunding Independence: Finance of the People, by the People, and for the People.”
Berlau is an award-winning financial and political journalist. He served as Washington correspondent for Investor’s Business Daily and as a staff writer for Insight magazine, published by The Washington Times. In 2002, he received the Sandy Hume Memorial Award for Excellence in Political Journalism from Washington’s National Press Club. He was a media fellow at the Hoover Institution in 2003. He graduated from the University of Missouri-Columbia in 1994 with degrees in journalism and economics.
Managing Partner, Deaton Law Firm
John Deaton, Managing Partner of the Deaton Law Firm, founded his law practice in 2006. Prior to establishing DLF, John worked for a national plaintiffs’ firm, specializing in asbestos litigation, products liability, toxic torts, and personal injury. John also served as one of the firm’s principal trial attorneys in New York, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. John tried cases against national defense lawyers, litigation firms, and high profile corporations. He earned a reputation as an aggressive but fair trial advocate.
Prior to his work as a plaintiffs’ attorney, John joined the United States Marine Corp while in law school. In 1994, he was commissioned a Second Lieutenant. John served as a federal prosecutor and a criminal defense attorney for seven years of active duty. He tried dozens of jury trials to verdict throughout his career. As a direct result of his efforts, John was awarded the Meritorious Service Medal and Navy Marine Corps Commendation Medal, and was selected to the rank of Major.
John attended law school at the New England School of Law and graduated Cum Laude in 1995. At New England School of Law, John received the American Jurisprudence Award for Clinical Evidence and was selected for the law school’s National Mock Trial Team, an honor awarded to few. John graduated Magna Cum Laude from Eastern Michigan University in 1989.
University Professor and Clayton N. Little Professor of Law, University of Arkansas School of Law
Professor Goforth specializes in business associations and securities regulation, and she has become a leading expert on the regulation of cryptoassets and transactions. West Academic published her new textbook, Regulation of Cryptotransactions, in March 2020. To the best of her knowledge, this was the first comprehensive textbook on the subject. She writes and comments frequently on crypto, including serving as an expert commentator for CoinTelegraph, with her posts regularly receiving thousands of views. She is also on the board of advisors to Honeycomb Digital Investments.
In 1999, she was elected to the prestigious American Law Institute, which welcomes distinguished federal and state judges, lawyers, and law professors. She has also been an official observer to a Uniform Law Commission drafting committee, and serves as the Arkansas Liaison to the Corporate Laws Committee of the Business Law Section of the American Bar Association. She is also a member of the Academic Faculty Network at the Sam M. Walton College of Business Blockchain Center of Excellence.
Prof. Goforth is a University Professor and the Clayton N. Little Professor of Law at the University of Arkansas School of Law. She is a former Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and a former Arkansas Bar Foundation Professor of Law.
Senior Vice President, Strand Consult
Roslyn Layton, PhD is a leading international expert on technology policy. She is Senior Vice President of Strand Consult, an independent consultancy serving the global mobile telecom industry. She is also a Visiting Researcher at Aalborg University Copenhagen where she earned a doctoral thesis on network neutrality by measuring the outcome of the policy across 53 countries over 5 years. She served on the Presidential Transition Team for the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and her work was critical to the FCC’s defense for the Restoring Internet Freedom Order. She has testified to the United States Senate and House on multiple topics including spectrum, broadband, mobile mergers, competition, and privacy. She founded the think tank China Tech Threat to study the problems of technology produced by the People’s Republic of China. She serves as the Program Chair for the Telecom Policy Research Conference, the leading interdisciplinary academic gathering. Her recent paper on rural broadband describes the empirical case for policy reform to recover network infrastructure costs from streaming video entertainment providers. She is a Senior Contributor to Forbes.
President, Committee for Justice
Curt Levey is President of the Committee For Justice, an organization devoted to advancing constitutionally limited government and individual liberty. He is a veteran of Supreme Court and other judicial confirmation battles and serves on the executive committee of the Federalist Society's Civil Rights Practice Group.
After graduating Harvard Law School with honors and clerking for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, Mr. Levey served as Director of Legal & Public Affairs at the Center for Individual Rights (CIR). There he worked on landmark Supreme Court cases, including the University of Michigan affirmative action cases and the successful constitutional challenge to the Violence Against Women Act. After CIR, Mr. Levey headed the Title IX policy group at the U.S. Department of Education.
Before attending law school, Mr. Levey earned an M.S. and B.A. in computer science from Brown University and worked in the field of artificial intelligence (AI). He invented a new type of AI technology, for which he wrote a successful patent application.
