Central Bank Digital Currencies: Digital Currency or Digital Control?
Money is changing. Central bankers and other policymakers from around the world are working to...
Financial Services Practice Group
Money is changing. Central bankers and other policymakers from around the world are working to...
The U.S. has imposed emissions and fuel efficiency standards on automakers since 1975. Despite changing...
In a webinar hosted by the Federalist Society’s Financial Services & E-Commerce Practice Group, a...
Alex J. Pollock, Paul H. Kupiec
An expanded version of this article can be found at Law & Liberty. The funding...
As a former staff member for the U.S. House Committee on Financial Services, I spent...
Director, Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies, Cato Institute
Thomas Berry is the director in the Cato Institute’s Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies and editor in chief of the Cato Supreme Court Review. Before joining Cato, he was an attorney at Pacific Legal Foundation and clerked for Judge E. Grady Jolly of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. His academic work has appeared in NYU Journal of Law and Liberty, Washington and Lee Law Review Online, and Federalist Society Review. His popular writing has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, National Law Journal, Investor’s Business Daily, National Review Online, and The Hill Online. He has testified before the U.S. Senate, and his work has been cited by the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
Berry holds a J.D. from Stanford Law School, where he was a senior editor on the Stanford Law and Policy Review and a Bradley Student Fellow in the Stanford Constitutional Law Center. He graduated with a B.A. in Liberal Arts from St. John’s College, Santa Fe.
Partner, Boyden Gray PLLC
Jimmy Conde is partner at Boyden Gray PLLC, specializing in energy, environmental, and administrative law, with particular expertise in the Clean Air Act. He has protected clients against agency overreach in cutting-edge and complex legal proceedings, including challenges to EPA, DOE, DOT, and California rules seeking to compel electrification of motor vehicles, the FCC’s universal service fund, Department of Labor Wage & Hour Division rules, and HHS rules interfering with the practice of medicine and sound insurance practices. His written commentary has been published and referenced in the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Examiner, Concurrences (an antitrust publication), and Newsweek, among others.
Mr. Conde began his legal career as an associate with Boyden Gray PLLC. He clerked for Judge Douglas H. Ginsburg in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and Judge David J. Porter in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
Associate Chief Counsel, U.S. Chamber Litigation Center, U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Maria C. Monaghan is associate chief counsel at the U.S. Chamber Litigation Center, the litigation arm of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. In this capacity, she handles a variety of litigation matters for the Chamber.
Before joining the Litigation Center, Monaghan practiced as an associate in the D.C. office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP. She represented clients in the telecommunications, energy, transportation, and e-commerce sectors, with a focus on appellate litigation and regulatory matters.
Monaghan served as a law clerk to the Honorable Samuel A. Alito of the United States Supreme Court, the Honorable Ed Carnes of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, and the Honorable Amul R. Thapar of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. She graduated Order of the Coif from the University of Virginia School of Law, where she served as Articles Development Editor for the Virginia Law Review and participated in the Supreme Court Litigation Clinic. She received her undergraduate degree in Human Resource Management and Labor Studies from Rutgers University.
Senior Counsel, America First Legal
James Rogers is Senior Counsel at America First Legal Foundation, where he litigates in a number of areas, including border security, election integrity, parental rights, and administrative and constitutional law. Before joining America First Legal, from 2021 to 2022, he was Senior Litigation Counsel at the Solicitor General’s Office of the Arizona Attorney General’s Office. While there, he spearheaded lawsuits against the Biden Administration’s destructive open borders policies and its COVID19 vaccine mandates. From 2015 to 2021, James was a Foreign Service Officer at the U.S. Department of State, where he worked in the Office of the Assistant Legal Advisor for Consular Affairs, at the U.S. Consulate in Porto Alegre, Brazil, and at the U.S. Embassy in Windhoek, Namibia.
Prior to joining the Department of State, he was a commercial litigation partner at Osborn Maledon, a Phoenix-based firm with a #1 litigation ranking from Chambers and Partners. James earned a J.D. from Harvard Law School in 2009, an L.L.M. in International Law from the University of Cambridge in 2008, and a B.A., with honors, in International Studies from Brigham Young University in 2005. He is a sixth-generation Arizonan and lives in Mesa, Arizona, with his four children.
Partner, Marshall, Gerstein & Borun LLP
Ryan Schermerhorn is a registered patent attorney in the firm's Industrial & Mechanical Technologies Practice Group. His engineering background provides him with an understanding of clients’ technologies and enables him to effectively and efficiently provide a range of patent procurement services. He also leverages his experience to assist on intellectual property litigation as well as develop strategies for acquiring and protecting intellectual property.
Since 2017, Ryan has been listed as an "Emerging Lawyer" by Emerging Lawyers Magazine and has been selected for inclusion in the Illinois Rising Stars® lists. Ryan was recognized in Chicago Daily Law Bulletin's 2023 40 Under Forty list. Since 2024, Ryan has been selected for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America© list in the practice areas of Litigation - Patent and Patent Law. In 2025, Ryan was selected by the Law Bulletin Publishing Company’s Leading Lawyer Network as a “Leading Lawyer.”
Member, Board of Governors , Federal Reserve System
Michael S. Barr took office as a member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System on July 19, 2022, for an unexpired term ending January 31, 2032. Mr. Barr served as the Vice Chair for Supervision of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System from July 19, 2022, to February 28, 2025.
Prior to his appointment to the Board, Mr. Barr was the Joan and Sanford Weill Dean of the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, the Frank Murphy Collegiate Professor of Public Policy, the Roy F. and Jean Humphrey Proffitt Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School, and the founder and faculty director of the University of Michigan's Center on Finance, Law & Policy. At the University of Michigan Law School, Mr. Barr taught financial regulation and international finance and co-founded the International Transactions Clinic and the Detroit Neighborhood Entrepreneurs Project.
Mr. Barr served as the U.S. Department of the Treasury's assistant secretary for financial institutions, 2009-2010. Under President William J. Clinton, he served as the Treasury Secretary's special assistant, as deputy assistant secretary of the Treasury, as special adviser to the President, and as a special adviser and counselor on the policy planning staff at the U.S. Department of State.
Additionally, Mr. Barr served as a law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter during October Term 1993, and previously to the Honorable Pierre N. Leval, then of the Southern District of New York.
Mr. Barr received a BA in history from Yale University, an MPhil in international relations from Oxford University, and a JD from Yale Law School.
Partner, Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP; Special Professor of Law, Maurice A. Dean School of Law, Hofstra University
Gary E. Kalbaugh is a nationally recognized leader in commodities, futures, and derivatives law.
Gary is a partner in the New York office of Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP as well as a Special Professor of Law at the Maurice A. Deane School of Law at Hofstra University, where he teaches derivatives law and banking law.
A preeminent authority in the derivatives field, Gary is the author of the principal treatise Derivatives Law and Regulation (3rd ed. 2021) and serves as Editor-in-Chief of the Futures and Derivatives Law Report, the foremost industry publication. He is a past chair of the New York City Bar Association’s Committee on the Regulation of Futures and Derivatives and has over 15 years of experience as a professor teaching derivatives and banking law.
Gary is the leading derivatives lawyer in the digital assets space, and one of few to truly understand the technical side of emerging financial technology. He serves on the CFTC’s Future of Finance Subcommittee, reflecting his recognized leadership at the intersection of financial regulation and emerging technologies. A frequent speaker, writer, and commentator on derivatives, banking law, artificial intelligence, and digital assets regulation, he has served as conference co-chair for the American Bar Association’s “Artificial Intelligence and Derivatives Market” conference and regularly speaks at major industry conferences on cutting-edge issues in financial regulation and technology. Gary is sought after as a thought leader on the evolving landscape of digital asset regulation and the regulatory implications of AI in financial markets.
At ING, Gary served as Deputy General Counsel and Director, where he chaired swap dealer and security-based swap dealer regulatory committees and provided strategic leadership on U.S., European, and other regulations impacting the organization. He had global responsibility for U.S. derivatives regulatory issues and maintained strong relationships with regulators. Gary also co-developed ING legal’s global artificial intelligence training program and was responsible for U.S. regulatory issues relating to ING’s blockchain-based pilot programs and crypto initiatives.
Previously, Gary served as a lecturer-in-law at Columbia Law School and held senior roles at WestLB, where he was executive director, counsel, and chief U.S. data protection officer and chaired the global Dodd-Frank and underwriting committees. He began his career as an associate at a notable international firm.
Chief Executive Officer, Blockchain Association
Summer Mersinger is CEO of Blockchain Association, where she leads advocacy efforts to advance digital asset innovation and policy in Washington. She previously served as a Commissioner of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, nominated by President Biden and unanimously confirmed by the Senate. With over 20 years of experience in public policy and government affairs, Summer has held senior roles at the CFTC, on Capitol Hill as Chief of Staff to Senator John Thune, and in the private sector.
Senior Fellow, Mises Institute
Alex J. Pollock is a Senior Fellow with the Mises Institute, providing thought and policy leadership on financial issues and the study of financial systems. His work includes cycles of booms and busts, financial crises with their political responses, housing finance, government-sponsored enterprises, risk and uncertainty, central banking, banking and financial regulation, corporate governance, retirement finance, student loans, and the politics of finance.
He previously served as the Principal Deputy Director of the Office of Financial Research in the U.S. Treasury Department 2019-2021. He was a Distinguished Senior Fellow with the R Street Institute 2015-2019 and 2021, and a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, 2004-2015. Among the many aspects of his AEI work, he developed the One Page Mortgage Form to give borrowers in clear form the key information they need in order to know what they are committing themselves to. He was President and CEO of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago from 1991 to 2004. There he invented the Mortgage Partnership Finance program, which successfully created front-end mortgage credit risk sharing beginning in 1997. His decades of banking experience include being a Visiting Scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, 1991.
Pollock was a director of the CME Group 2004-2019 and of Ascendium Education Group 1989-2019. He is a director and past-chairman of the Great Books Foundation and a past president of the International Union for Housing Finance.
He is the co-author of Surprised Again! - The COVID Crisis and the New Market Bubble (2022), and the author of Finance and Philosophy—Why We’re Always Surprised (2018) and Boom and Bust: Financial Cycles and Human Prosperity (2011), as well as numerous articles and Congressional testimony.
Pollock is a graduate of Williams College, the University of Chicago, and Princeton University.
His work is available on alexjpollock.com.
Partner and General Counsel, Multicoin Capital
Greg Xethalis is a Partner and General Counsel of Multicoin Capital. He manages all legal and policy functions for the firm and works with our portfolio companies on legal and policy strategy. Prior to joining Multicoin, Greg was a partner in the Investment Management and FinTech practices at Chapman and Cutler LLP with 12 years of experience counseling clients on digital asset matters. Greg is a Director of the Blockchain Association, the DeFi Education Foundation, KindlyMD and the Fordham Law Alumni Association, and Senior Lecturing Fellow at Duke University School of Law, where he teaches Fintech and Blockchain Law and Policy.
Executive Director, Center for Election Confidence
Lisa L. Dixon serves as the Executive Director of the Center for Election Confidence (formerly known as Lawyers Democracy Fund). Lisa is also a consultant for the Republican National Lawyers Association, serving as their Legal Counsel. Previously, Lisa practiced at Holtzman Vogel, where she specialized in tax-exempt organizations, campaign finance and election law, and lobbying compliance.
During law school, she interned for the Office of Chief Counsel, Procedure and Administration, at the Internal Revenue Service and at the Center for Law and Religious Freedom. Before law school, she served as the Assistant Student Division Director at The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies and interned at The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Legal and Judicial Studies.
Lisa earned a J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law, an M.A. in History from the University of Virginia, and a B.A. in History from Hillsdale College. After 18 years on the East Coast, mostly in northern Virginia, she recently returned to her native Michigan, where she lives with her husband and three sons.
Senior Attorney, Pacific Legal Foundation
Oliver Dunford joined the Pacific Legal Foundation in March 2017. He litigates across the country to defend and advance individual liberty and the rule of law. Oliver’s cases involve the separation of powers, economic liberty, property rights, and the First Amendment.
Oliver remains inspired by the Classical Liberal ideals upon which our Founders declared independence and secured the blessings of liberty. The Constitution’s promises, however, are not self-executing. As James Madison explained, “In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.” Oliver feels lucky that his work helps oblige the government to control itself—to the end that all individuals may pursue their rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Before joining PLF, Oliver clerked at the Ohio Supreme Court and the Ohio Court of Appeals, and spent more than a decade in private practice working on complex commercial litigation. Originally from Cleveland, Oliver is a graduate of the University of Dayton and Cleveland-Marshall College of Law, where he was a managing editor for the Cleveland State Law Review. Oliver is admitted to the state bars of Florida, California, and Ohio, as well as several federal courts including the United States Supreme Court.
Oliver spends all of his free time following the Cleveland Indians.
Partner, Phelps Dunbar LLP
Mike Hurst is a partner with Phelps Dunbar LLP where he optimizes his in-depth knowledge of the court system, investigative and prosecutorial agencies, the regulatory arena, and the public policy realm to help clients facing government investigations, enforcement actions, regulatory matters, general litigation and policy issues. Mike currently serves as the General Counsel of the Republican National Committee and as Chairman of the Mississippi Republican Party. He previously served as the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Mississippi from 2017-2021, and with over 20 years of experience before judges, juries and policy makers, handling some of the largest and most high-profile cases in Mississippi, he's known for untangling the most complex legal issues.
As U.S. Attorney, Mike was described as a “hard charger,” leading efforts to combat violent crime, human trafficking and public corruption, among many other issues, throughout Mississippi. He almost tripled prosecutions in the U.S. Attorney’s Office over a three-year period, resulting in the most indictments and federal defendants indicted in a one-year period in Mississippi history. He created innovative and national award-winning crime-fighting solutions, like “Project EJECT,” and he established the first statewide, multilevel and multidisciplinary human trafficking body, the Mississippi Human Trafficking Council, to comprehensively and holistically address this criminal scourge.
During his tenure as U.S. Attorney, Mike oversaw some of the biggest cases in Mississippi history: the largest health care fraud scheme (Wade Walters, et. al.), the largest Ponzi scheme (Lamar Adams), the largest False Claims Act health care fraud settlement (Region 8), and the largest nursing home False Claim Act settlement (Hyperion). In addition, as Chief Federal Law Enforcement Officer for the Southern District, Mike coordinated the largest single-state immigration worksite enforcement operation in our nation’s history, involving hundreds of federal law enforcement agents covering seven different locations operated by multiple companies.
Mike’s no show pony – he’s a work horse. Before his tenure as U.S. Attorney, Mike was an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Mississippi for more than eight years. He handled some of the most difficult and complex cases in that office, dealing with white collar crimes, public corruption and financial fraud, including numerous jury trials before almost every federal judge in the Southern District.
He also has experience in the private sector. He has practiced law in Washington, D.C., and has served as a litigator and general counsel for a conservative nonprofit. He also has extensive experience in public policy, having served as the Legislative Director to a U.S. Congressman and as Counsel to the House Judiciary Committee.
Mike has also testified before both the United States Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives on issues ranging from crime to Presidential pardons. He has worked on all sides of the legal, regulatory, investigative, prosecutorial and policy spectrum. The incredible insight gained from this varied experience enables him to find a path forward for clients, no matter how complicated the case.
Senior Litigation Counsel, Washington Legal Foundation
Zac joined WLF in 2025 as Senior Litigation Counsel. In that role, he regularly represents WLF and other clients as counsel of record in cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and the federal appellate courts. Before arriving at WLF, Zac served as counsel to Commissioner Allen Dickerson of the Federal Election Commission. Zac also spent eight years litigating First Amendment cases as a staff attorney for the Institute for Free Speech, where he represented clients in federal and state cases across the country. He received his J.D. from George Mason University’s School of Law, where he participated in GMU’s Wiley Rein Supreme Court clinic.
Solicitor General, Iowa Office of the Attorney General
Eric Wessan serves as Iowa’s Solicitor General in the Iowa Attorney General’s Office. In that
role, Wessan leads Iowa’s litigation before State and federal appellate courts, including the Iowa
and U.S. Supreme Courts. Before that role, Wessan worked on complex commercial litigation at
two large law firms in Chicago. Wessan also served as a law clerk for the Honorable James C.
Ho on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and for the Honorable John F. Kness on the
U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. Wessan is a graduate of the University of
Chicago Law School, with honors, and of the University of Chicago.
Nicholas Anthony is a policy analyst at the Cato Institute’s Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives, a fellow at the Human Rights Foundation (HRF), and a member of the Economic Inclusion Group’s Advisory Board. Anthony’s research covers a wide range of topics within the field of monetary and financial economics, including central bank digital currency (CBDC), financial privacy, cryptocurrency, and the use of money in society. Anthony is the author of Digital Currency or Digital Control? Decoding CBDC and the Future of Money and his work has been published in the Wall Street Journal, MarketWatch, Business Insider, and numerous other outlets. Anthony has testified before Congress and maintains the HRF CBDC Tracker, which documents CBDC development and civil liberties concerns around the world.
Dr. James Herndon is a Model Validation Analyst with a commercial bank. After graduating with a degree in math from Vanderbilt University in 2006, he worked in logistics and operations for eight years. He earned his PhD in economics at the University of Alabama in 2020.
Partner, Foley & Lardner LLP
Patrick Daugherty is a senior corporate and securities law partner of Foley & Lardner LLP, based in Chicago. He also is an adjunct professor of Cornell Law School, where he teaches in residence each Fall Term.
Mr. Daugherty is a member of the Bar in New York, the District of Columbia, North Carolina, Michigan and Illinois. Credentialing organizations have named him “Lawyer of the Year” in both Michigan (2007) and Illinois (2022). A graduate of Northwestern University and of Cornell Law School (Class of 1981), he clerked for SDNY Chief Judge Lloyd F. MacMahon for a year before entering private practice. Mr. Daugherty also served as Counsel to SEC Commissioner Edward H. Fleischman in Washington, D.C., from 1986 to 1989. An Emeritus Member of the American Law Institute, he is the author, co-author or editor of several books and many articles on securities regulation and new financial products.
Mr. Daugherty believes that he was the first lawyer inside the SEC to join the Federalist Society when he became a member in the late 1980s. A mainstay of the Chicago Lawyers Chapter, at the national level of the Society he serves on the Executive Committee for the Financial Services & E-Commerce Practice Group.
Wolf Cho is a student at the University of Illinois School of Law and a summer associate at Foley & Lardner LLP.
Senior Fellow, Mises Institute
Alex J. Pollock is a Senior Fellow with the Mises Institute, providing thought and policy leadership on financial issues and the study of financial systems. His work includes cycles of booms and busts, financial crises with their political responses, housing finance, government-sponsored enterprises, risk and uncertainty, central banking, banking and financial regulation, corporate governance, retirement finance, student loans, and the politics of finance.
He previously served as the Principal Deputy Director of the Office of Financial Research in the U.S. Treasury Department 2019-2021. He was a Distinguished Senior Fellow with the R Street Institute 2015-2019 and 2021, and a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, 2004-2015. Among the many aspects of his AEI work, he developed the One Page Mortgage Form to give borrowers in clear form the key information they need in order to know what they are committing themselves to. He was President and CEO of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago from 1991 to 2004. There he invented the Mortgage Partnership Finance program, which successfully created front-end mortgage credit risk sharing beginning in 1997. His decades of banking experience include being a Visiting Scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, 1991.
Pollock was a director of the CME Group 2004-2019 and of Ascendium Education Group 1989-2019. He is a director and past-chairman of the Great Books Foundation and a past president of the International Union for Housing Finance.
He is the co-author of Surprised Again! - The COVID Crisis and the New Market Bubble (2022), and the author of Finance and Philosophy—Why We’re Always Surprised (2018) and Boom and Bust: Financial Cycles and Human Prosperity (2011), as well as numerous articles and Congressional testimony.
Pollock is a graduate of Williams College, the University of Chicago, and Princeton University.
His work is available on alexjpollock.com.
Resident Scholar, American Enterprise Institute
Paul H. Kupiec is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he studies systemic risk and the management and regulations of banks and financial markets. He also follows the work of financial regulators such as the Federal Reserve and examines the impact of financial regulations on the US economy.
Before joining AEI, Kupiec was an associate director of the Division of Insurance and Research within the Center for Financial Research at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), where he oversaw research on bank risk measurement and the development of regulatory policies such as Basel III. Kupiec was also director of the Center for Financial Research at the FDIC and chairman of the Research Task Force of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision. He has previously worked at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Freddie Mac, J.P. Morgan, and for the Division of Research and Statistics at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.
Kupiec has edited many professional journals, including the Journal of Financial Services Research, Journal of Risk, and Journal of Investment Management.
He has a bachelor of science degree in economics from George Washington University and a doctorate in economics — with a specialization in finance, theory, and econometrics — from the University of Pennsylvania.
Managing Director, Banking Supervision and Regulation Group, Patomak Global Partners
Brian Johnson is Managing Director in the Banking Supervision and Regulation Group at Patomak Global Partners.
In this role, Mr. Johnson spearheads projects related to the regulation of consumer financial products under Keith Noreika, Executive Vice President and Chairman of the Banking Supervision and Regulation Group and former acting Comptroller of the Currency.
Prior to joining Patomak, Mr. Johnson was a partner in Alston & Bird LLP’s financial services and products group. There, he advised financial institutions on consumer finance regulatory issues relating to product compliance, examination, enforcement investigations, and compliance management systems, and on strategic engagement with independent federal regulatory agencies and with Congress.
Mr. Johnson previously served as Deputy Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), where he oversaw the agency’s rulemaking, supervision, and enforcement activities. He conceived and led the creation of high-profile agency initiatives, including the Office of Innovation, Taskforce on Federal Consumer Financial Law, policy symposia series, and Start Small, Save Up emergency savings program. He also served as the CFPB representative to the Financial Stability Oversight Council Deputies’ Committee and advised on interagency matters involving the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council.
Mr. Johnson held various positions on Capitol Hill, including policy director and chief financial institutions counsel on the House Committee on Financial Services, where his portfolio covered consumer protection and credit, mortgage origination, credit reporting, banking, and data security. His efforts on the committee involved drafting legislation to provide regulatory relief to bank, credit union, and nondepository financial institutions, as well as conducting oversight of the activities of the CFPB, Financial Stability Oversight Council, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Office of Financial Research, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Federal Reserve System, and National Credit Union Administration.
Mr. Johnson received his juris doctorate from the University of Virginia School of Law and his bachelor’s in economics from the University of Virginia.