Associate, Jones Day
Katie Roholt Lane represents clients at critical stages of high-stakes regulatory and constitutional litigation. Her practice also consists of developing case strategy at the trial and appellate levels, briefing legal issues, and conducting motions practice. Katie currently represents clients in litigation arising under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), and the Medicare Act.
In addition to her litigation practice, Katie provides strategic planning and regulatory compliance advice to companies seeking to navigate the complex U.S. regulations that impact domestic and international industries. She has represented clients in rulemakings and consultations before regulatory authorities, including the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) often seeking to eliminate the regulatory barriers to industry innovation.
Katie also maintains an active pro bono practice that focuses on briefing constitutional and statutory issues before the U.S. Supreme Court and federal appellate courts. She was part of the team that represented The American Legion in its landmark victory at the U.S. Supreme Court in The American Legion v. American Humanist Association, 139 S. Ct. 2067 (2019).
Katie is president of the Federalist Society's D.C. Young Lawyers Chapter.
United States Senator, Tennessee
U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn was sworn in to the Senate in January 2019. Marsha Blackburn was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2018, and is currently serving her first term representing the state of Tennessee. Before her election to the Senate, Marsha represented Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District.
Marsha’s public service is dedicated to promoting opportunities for women and making America a more prosperous place to live. Marsha’s leadership philosophy is based on her experiences in the private sector as a small business woman and author, as well as being a mother and grandmother.
Marsha went to college on a 4-H scholarship and worked her way through school selling books for the Southwestern Company as one of their first female sales associates, and later as one of their first female sales managers.
She then became Director of Retail Fashion and Special Events for the Castner Knott Company, which was a Nashville-based regional department store. Later, Marsha founded her own business, Marketing Strategies, which focused on the retail marketplace, as well as electronic and print media.
Marsha began her career in public service in 1995 when she was named executive director of the Tennessee Film, Entertainment, and Music Commission. In 1998, she was elected to the Tennessee State Senate. In the state legislature, she earned a reputation for fiscal responsibility and government accountability by identifying waste and offering realistic solutions to Tennessee’s budget challenges.
While serving in the Tennessee Senate, Marsha led a statewide grassroots campaign to defeat a proposed state income tax. The tax was defeated, and Marsha’s leadership earned her a reputation as an anti-tax champion. In 2014, the people of Tennessee passed an amendment to the state constitution to expressly prohibit a state income tax – a fitting cap to a 14-year battle.
In 2002, Marsha was elected to represent the people of Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District based on her record in the state legislature. She brought her Tennessee values to Washington, DC, and became a leader in the fight for small, efficient federal government that is accountable to its citizens. As a Congressman, Marsha was often selected by her colleagues to lead the charge for principled conservativism. Her congressional career was also noted for her Chairmanship of the Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Communications and Technology, as well as bipartisan expertise in defending songwriters’ and performers’ rights.
Marsha is a member of numerous charitable organizations and is an active member of her church, Christ Presbyterian.
Marsha and her husband Chuck live in Williamson County, Tennessee. They have two children, Mary Morgan (Paul) Ketchel and Chad (Hillary) Blackburn, and two grandsons. Originally from Laurel, Mississippi, Marsha is a graduate of Mississippi State University.
Cardinal Francis George Fellow, EPPC, Catholic Women's Forum
EPPC Cardinal Francis George Fellow Mary Hallan FioRito is an attorney, public speaker, and commentator on issues involving women’s leadership in the Catholic Church, work/life balance for mothers, and Catholic Church administration. Her interests also include human life issues, primarily abortion, post-abortion aftermath, and contraception. After she received her Juris Doctor degree from Loyola University School of Law in 1993, the late Joseph Cardinal Bernardin selected her as Director of Pro-life Activities for the Archdiocese of Chicago, the third largest Catholic diocese in the United States, home to more than 2.5 million Catholics. She was responsible for all activities related to abortion, post-abortion counseling, assisted suicide and euthanasia. Ms. FioRito worked in various capacities for the Catholic Church for more than 28 years, including serving as the Archdiocese of Chicago’s first female Vice-Chancellor. In 2003, she was promoted to the position of Executive Assistant to the late Francis Cardinal George, O.M.I., a role she held until the time of the Cardinal’s death in April 2015.
Ms. FioRito’s professional experiences give her a wealth of knowledge and insight into issues affecting the Catholic faith and its impact on women and the family. She is the contributor to two books: Breaking Through: Catholic Women Speak for Themselves,edited by Helen M. Alvare, and Promise and Challenge: Catholic Women Reflect on Complementarity, Feminism, and the Church, a selection of essays by Catholic women scholars called together by the Ethics and Public Policy Center. She is a regular contributor to A Closer Look With Sheila Liaugminas, a national Catholic radio program. In 2000, Newsweek magazine selected her as one of the “Women of the New Century,” highlighting her contribution to the nation’s conversation about abortion law and policy.
Ms. FioRito serves on the Board of Directors of numerous pro-life and charitable organizations, including Aid for Women, a pregnancy resource center and maternity home, and the National Office for Post-Abortion Reconciliation and Healing. She and her husband are the parents of three daughters.
Professor of Law and Co-Director, Racial Justice Project, New York Law School
Penelope Andrews joined NYLS in January 2019 and teaches comparative and international law courses. She also serves as Co-Director of NYLS’s Racial Justice Project, focusing on international and South African issues.
Professor Andrews was the 2018–19 Sabbatical Scholar at the Center for the Study of Law and Culture at Columbia Law School. She previously completed two terms as Dean: From 2016 to 2018 as the first Black dean at the University of Cape Town Faculty of Law, and from 2012 to 2015 as the first female dean of Albany Law School in New York. She was previously the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law and Director of International Programs at Valparaiso Law School.
She began her teaching career at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia, where she taught for eight years before moving to CUNY, where she was on the faculty for 15 years, teaching public international law, gender and law, race and law, comparative law, torts, and lawyering. She has also held visiting appointments at several law schools in the U.S. and internationally, including in South Africa, Canada and Australia. Professor Andrews received her B.A. and. LL.B. degrees from the University of KwaZulu-Natal (formerly University of Natal) in South Africa and an LL.M. from Columbia Law School.
Professor Andrews is active in international collaborative research and mentoring networks and is particularly committed to ensuring the relevance of law and society scholarship to academic communities in the global south and global north. She is an editor of the International Journal of Law in Context, the Human Rights and the Global Economy E-Journal, and the African Law E-Journal.
She has also published several books and articles that focus on comparative constitutional law, gender and racial equality, human rights—particularly the tension between respect for indigenous law and implementing broader human rights norms—the judiciary, and legal education. Her book From Cape Town to Kabul: Rethinking Strategies for Pursuing Women’s Human Rights was published in 2012. She publishes regularly in the popular media and on social media, focusing on issues of race, poverty, legal education, public interest litigation, and the ongoing challenges of transforming an economically unequal and racially divided society.
Professor Andrews’s focus on the judiciary in South Africa seeks to bridge the divide between theory and practice. She is a trainer for the Judicial Institute for Africa, focusing on opinion writing and communications skills for new and experienced judges. She also served as an Acting Judge of the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria for the 2018 third term, presiding over criminal appeals, motion court, and civil trials. She has served as an arbitrator in hearings on racial discrimination in South Africa.
She has served on significant law school committees and the boards of public interest and human rights organizations, including the Africa Section of Human Rights Watch, South Africa Partners, the Legal Resources Center, and the National Center for Law and Economic Justice. Professor Andrews has received many awards for her work, including, in 2015, the National Bar Association’s International Award for her global human rights advocacy. In recognition of her human rights work, the University of KwaZulu-Natal provides an annual award in her name.
She will start her two-year term as the President of the Law and Society Association in June 2019.
Former Member of the European Parliament, South East England Constituency
Professor Emeritus of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
Jeremy A. Rabkin is a Professor Emeritus of Law at the Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University. Before joining the faculty in June 2007, he was for over two decades a professor in the Department of Government at Cornell University. Professor Rabkin serves on the board of directors of the Center for Individual Rights, a public interest law firm based in Washington, D.C. Previously he was a board member of the U.S. Institute of Peace and the board of academic advisors of the American Enterprise Institute.
Professor Rabkin’s books include Law Without Nations? (Princeton University Press, 2005). He authored “If You Need a Friend, Don’t Call a Cosmopolitan,” a chapter in Varieties of Sovereignty and Citizenship (Sigal R. Ben-Porath & Rogers M. Smith eds., University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012). His articles have appeared in major law reviews and political science journals and his journalistic contributions in a range of magazines and newspapers, including the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal.
Grove Human Rights Scholar, Hunter College
Dr. Teng Biao is an academic lawyer, currently Grove Human Rights Scholar at Hunter College. He co-founded two human rights NGOs in Beijing –the Open Constitution Initiative, and China Against the Death Penalty. He is one of the earliest promoters of the Rights Defense Movement in China, and the manifesto Charter 08, for which Dr. Liu Xiaobo was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. His research includes human rights, criminaljustice, social movement and political transition in China. Teng is working on two books, one is on China’s human rights movement, and another on China’s threat to global human rights and freedom.
Faculty Director Emeritus, New York University School of Law
Jerome A. Cohen, a professor at NYU School of Law since 1990 and U.S.-Asia Law Institute Faculty Director Emeritus, is a leading American expert on Chinese law and government. A pioneer in the field, Prof. Cohen began studying and teaching about China’s legal system in the early 1960s and from 1964 to 1979 introduced the teaching of Asian law into the curriculum of Harvard Law School, where he served as Jeremiah Smith Professor, Associate Dean and Director of East Asian Legal Studies. Prof. Cohen served for several years as C.V. Starr Senior Fellow and Director of Asia Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, where he currently is an Adjunct Senior Fellow. In addition, he has published hundreds of scholarly articles on various topics as well as a book, China Today, co-authored with his wife, Joan Lebold Cohen, and a regular series of journalistic opinion pieces for various newspapers. Today, Prof. Cohen continues his research and writing on Asian law, specifically focusing on legal institutions, criminal justice reform, dispute resolution, human rights and the role of international law relating to China and Taiwan.
Jerry has his and his wife's name in the chair professor of Harvard Law School in 2018 and received a honorary doctor degree from Yale University in 2020.
Professor of Law, Catholic University of America
Robert Destro served as Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (DRL). He has a long history as a human rights advocate and civil rights attorney with expertise in elections, employment, and constitutional law. Destro has served on the faculty at Catholic University’s Columbus School of Law since 1982 and served as its interim dean from 1999 to 2001. He was founding director of the Interdisciplinary Program in Law and Religion and served as the Director of the Institute for Policy Research and Catholic Studies from June 2017 to September 2019. He served as a commissioner on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights from 1983-1989. His legal work includes collaboration with the Peace Research Institute Oslo in a fifteen-year dialogue among Muslim, Christian, and Jewish leaders in the legal, business, and religious fields in the United States and the Middle East as well as efforts promoting the release of political prisoners and prisoners of conscience in the Middle East. He has served as voting rights counsel for the Ohio Secretary of State and has advocated for the first amendment rights of individuals and organizations.
He earned a B.A. from Miami University, Ohio, and a J.D. from the University of California at Berkeley. He is an active member of the Bar in Ohio and California.
The rest of his bio including his publications are available on the Catholic University Faculty page linked here.
Staff Attorney, Eighth Texas Court of Appeals
David Vandenberg is a staff attorney with the Eighth Texas Court of Appeals in El Paso. He is also the President-Elect of the Texas Association of Appellate Court Attorneys. Prior to working at the Texas Court of Appeals, he was Supervising Attorney for the Third Judicial District Court in Las Cruces, New Mexico, the second largest court of general jurisdiction in the state. He served as summer clerk at the Supreme Court of Micronesia, a former American territory, and at the Texas Third Court of Appeals in Austin. In addition to his law degree from John Marshall School of Law in Atlanta, he earned a doctorate in philosophy with a concentration in epistemology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with highest awards of the graduate faculty. He is the author of a highly cited article on royalty determination for horizontal and stacked (fracked) oil and gas wells in cross-boundary contexts with the Journal of World Business and Energy Law at Oxford University Press and is a designated reporter for developments in American law for OUP. He has been invited to speak on legal aspects of fracking technology at international energy conferences in Europe and Asia.
A Conversation with Senator Marsha Blackburn
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