Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
Eric R. Claeys is Professor of Law at the Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University. He has written widely in the fields of property, private law, and constitutional law. Professor Claeys’s current research interests focus on flourishing- and labor-based natural rights justifications for property—in American property theory, in intellectual property, and in contemporary regulation of shale gas exploration and hydraulic fracturing. He is a member of the American Law Institute, he serves on the ALI’s Members’ Consultative Group for the first Restatement of Copyright, and he also serves as an adviser to the Restatement (Fourth) of the Law of Property.
Professor Claeys received his JD from the University of Southern California Gould School of Law. He received his AB from Princeton University, and he is a former visiting fellow and current member of Princeton’s Politics Department’s James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions. After law school, Professor Claeys clerked for the Hon. Melvin Brunetti, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and the Hon. William H. Rehnquist, Chief Justice of the United States.
Professor Claeys’s main teaching interests include Property, Torts, Jurisprudence, and Intellectual Property. In recent years, he has also taught Water Law, Remedies, Estates and Trusts, Trade Secrecy, Constitutional Law, Torts, and Oil and Gas law. Spring 2018, he is teaching Torts and Jurisprudence as a Visiting Professor at Harvard Law School.
U.S. Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit
Steven M. Colloton is a federal judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. He joined the court in 2003 after being nominated by President George W. Bush.
Born in Iowa City, Iowa, Colloton received his bachelor's degree from Princeton University in 1985 and a J.D. from Yale Law School in 1988.
Policy Counsel on Energy, Environment, and Agriculture, U.S. Senate Republican Policy Committee
Matt Leggett serves as Policy Counsel for the U.S. Senate Republican Policy Committee. He provides in-depth analysis on energy, environment, and agriculture issues, policy solutions and alternatives, and strategic guidance for all Republican members of the U.S. Senate. He manages the committee's advancement of Republican energy, environment, and agriculture policies by providing positions on legislation, floor debate, and votes. Senator John Barrasso, an orthopedic surgeon from Wyoming, serves as chairman of the committee and is the fourth ranking member of Republican leadership in the U.S. Senate.
Mr. Leggett formerly served as Legislative Counsel in the U.S. House of Representatives where he managed a Republican Congressman's Energy & Commerce Committee assignment, co-chairmanship of the Congressional Natural Gas Caucus, and co-chairmanship of the Congressional Steel Caucus. Previously, he served as a legislative aide for the U.S. House Committee on Agriculture and for a senior U.S. Senator. He also practiced corporate law in Washington, DC for two years.
Mr. Leggett graduated from the University of Virginia and Vanderbilt University Law School. He is a member of the Virginia State Bar and the District of Columbia Bar. He is also a member of the Energy Bar Association.
University Professor on the Environment, and Kerlin Professor Em, Pace University School of Law
Nicholas A. Robinson is University Professor for the Environment at Pace University and the Gilbert & Sarah Kerlin Distinguished Professor of Environmental Law at Pace Law School, and since 2006 also holds an appointment as Professor Adjunct at the Yale University School of Forestry & Environmental Studies. He served from 1996-2004 as the Legal Advisor of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN), and chaired its Commission on Environmental Law. He served on the President’s Council on Environmental Quality’s Legal Advisory Committee from 1970-72, and pioneered the early practice of environmental law in New York with James Marshall and then David Sive. In 2012, IUCN’s World Conservation Congress conferred upon him IUCN’s Honorary Membership for his contributions to IUCN and its environmental law program. In 1978, he inaugurated Pace Law School’s degree programs in environmental legal studies, taking a leave to serve as the General Counsel of the NY State Department of Environmental Conservation (1983-85). He was an environmental law delegate to the bilateral USA-USSR negotiations on cooperation in the field of environmental protection under five presidents (1974-1996). He currently serves on the Environmental & Social Advisory Council to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) in London. He has chaired both the Environmental Law and International Environmental Law Committees of the New York City Bar, and served on the Board of the Environmental Law Institute (2005-11). His publications including editing the annotated 5-volume edition of the traveaux préparatoires for the 1992 Rio Earth Summit’s Agenda 21 and the UNCED Proceedings, and two volumes on Capacity Building for Environmental Law in the Asia and Pacific Region for the Asian Development Bank. He co-edited the UN Environment Programme’s Manual on International Environmental Law (2006). He has been a draftsman for the UN World Charter for Nature (UNGA Res. 37/7) and international agreements, for New York’s wetlands legislation and wild birds law, and for environmental impact assessment rules, and other domestic environmental legislation. He is a graduate of Brown University (Phi Beta Kappa, 1967) and Columbia University School of Law (1970).
Trustee Professor of Law, New York Law School
From 1972-79, Schoenbrod served as one of the leaders of the Natural Resources Defense Council, where he campaigned to reduce lead in gasoline, resurrect the then-decrepit New York City subway, and protect the environment of Puerto Rico. Previously, he was Director of Program Development at the community development project that Senator Robert Kennedy established in Bedford Stuyvesant. He has also been a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and the American Enterprise Institute.
His books include
D.C. Confidential: Inside the Five Tricks of Washington (Encounter Books, 2017) with forewords by Governor Howard Dean and Senator Mike Lee;
Breaking the Logjam: Environmental Protection That Will Work (Yale University Press, 2010)(with Richard B. Stewart and Katrina M. Wyman);
Saving Our Environment from Washington: How Congress Grabs Power, Shirks Responsibility, and Shortchanges the People (Yale University Press, 2005);
Democracy by Decree: What Happens When Courts Run Government (Yale University Press, 2003) (with Ross Sandler); and
Power Without Responsibility: How Congress Abuses the People Through Delegation (Yale University Press, 1993).
In addition to writing scholarly articles, he has frequently contributed opinion pieces to the Wall Street Journal, The Hill, the New York Times, and other publications.
He has an undergraduate degree from Yale College, a graduate degree in economics from Oxford University, which he attended as a Marshall Scholar, and a law degree from Yale Law School.
Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
Eric R. Claeys is Professor of Law at the Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University. He has written widely in the fields of property, private law, and constitutional law. Professor Claeys’s current research interests focus on flourishing- and labor-based natural rights justifications for property—in American property theory, in intellectual property, and in contemporary regulation of shale gas exploration and hydraulic fracturing. He is a member of the American Law Institute, he serves on the ALI’s Members’ Consultative Group for the first Restatement of Copyright, and he also serves as an adviser to the Restatement (Fourth) of the Law of Property.
Professor Claeys received his JD from the University of Southern California Gould School of Law. He received his AB from Princeton University, and he is a former visiting fellow and current member of Princeton’s Politics Department’s James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions. After law school, Professor Claeys clerked for the Hon. Melvin Brunetti, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and the Hon. William H. Rehnquist, Chief Justice of the United States.
Professor Claeys’s main teaching interests include Property, Torts, Jurisprudence, and Intellectual Property. In recent years, he has also taught Water Law, Remedies, Estates and Trusts, Trade Secrecy, Constitutional Law, Torts, and Oil and Gas law. Spring 2018, he is teaching Torts and Jurisprudence as a Visiting Professor at Harvard Law School.
U.S. Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit
Steven M. Colloton is a federal judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. He joined the court in 2003 after being nominated by President George W. Bush.
Born in Iowa City, Iowa, Colloton received his bachelor's degree from Princeton University in 1985 and a J.D. from Yale Law School in 1988.
Policy Counsel on Energy, Environment, and Agriculture, U.S. Senate Republican Policy Committee
Matt Leggett serves as Policy Counsel for the U.S. Senate Republican Policy Committee. He provides in-depth analysis on energy, environment, and agriculture issues, policy solutions and alternatives, and strategic guidance for all Republican members of the U.S. Senate. He manages the committee's advancement of Republican energy, environment, and agriculture policies by providing positions on legislation, floor debate, and votes. Senator John Barrasso, an orthopedic surgeon from Wyoming, serves as chairman of the committee and is the fourth ranking member of Republican leadership in the U.S. Senate.
Mr. Leggett formerly served as Legislative Counsel in the U.S. House of Representatives where he managed a Republican Congressman's Energy & Commerce Committee assignment, co-chairmanship of the Congressional Natural Gas Caucus, and co-chairmanship of the Congressional Steel Caucus. Previously, he served as a legislative aide for the U.S. House Committee on Agriculture and for a senior U.S. Senator. He also practiced corporate law in Washington, DC for two years.
Mr. Leggett graduated from the University of Virginia and Vanderbilt University Law School. He is a member of the Virginia State Bar and the District of Columbia Bar. He is also a member of the Energy Bar Association.
University Professor on the Environment, and Kerlin Professor Em, Pace University School of Law
Nicholas A. Robinson is University Professor for the Environment at Pace University and the Gilbert & Sarah Kerlin Distinguished Professor of Environmental Law at Pace Law School, and since 2006 also holds an appointment as Professor Adjunct at the Yale University School of Forestry & Environmental Studies. He served from 1996-2004 as the Legal Advisor of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN), and chaired its Commission on Environmental Law. He served on the President’s Council on Environmental Quality’s Legal Advisory Committee from 1970-72, and pioneered the early practice of environmental law in New York with James Marshall and then David Sive. In 2012, IUCN’s World Conservation Congress conferred upon him IUCN’s Honorary Membership for his contributions to IUCN and its environmental law program. In 1978, he inaugurated Pace Law School’s degree programs in environmental legal studies, taking a leave to serve as the General Counsel of the NY State Department of Environmental Conservation (1983-85). He was an environmental law delegate to the bilateral USA-USSR negotiations on cooperation in the field of environmental protection under five presidents (1974-1996). He currently serves on the Environmental & Social Advisory Council to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) in London. He has chaired both the Environmental Law and International Environmental Law Committees of the New York City Bar, and served on the Board of the Environmental Law Institute (2005-11). His publications including editing the annotated 5-volume edition of the traveaux préparatoires for the 1992 Rio Earth Summit’s Agenda 21 and the UNCED Proceedings, and two volumes on Capacity Building for Environmental Law in the Asia and Pacific Region for the Asian Development Bank. He co-edited the UN Environment Programme’s Manual on International Environmental Law (2006). He has been a draftsman for the UN World Charter for Nature (UNGA Res. 37/7) and international agreements, for New York’s wetlands legislation and wild birds law, and for environmental impact assessment rules, and other domestic environmental legislation. He is a graduate of Brown University (Phi Beta Kappa, 1967) and Columbia University School of Law (1970).
Trustee Professor of Law, New York Law School
From 1972-79, Schoenbrod served as one of the leaders of the Natural Resources Defense Council, where he campaigned to reduce lead in gasoline, resurrect the then-decrepit New York City subway, and protect the environment of Puerto Rico. Previously, he was Director of Program Development at the community development project that Senator Robert Kennedy established in Bedford Stuyvesant. He has also been a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and the American Enterprise Institute.
His books include
D.C. Confidential: Inside the Five Tricks of Washington (Encounter Books, 2017) with forewords by Governor Howard Dean and Senator Mike Lee;
Breaking the Logjam: Environmental Protection That Will Work (Yale University Press, 2010)(with Richard B. Stewart and Katrina M. Wyman);
Saving Our Environment from Washington: How Congress Grabs Power, Shirks Responsibility, and Shortchanges the People (Yale University Press, 2005);
Democracy by Decree: What Happens When Courts Run Government (Yale University Press, 2003) (with Ross Sandler); and
Power Without Responsibility: How Congress Abuses the People Through Delegation (Yale University Press, 1993).
In addition to writing scholarly articles, he has frequently contributed opinion pieces to the Wall Street Journal, The Hill, the New York Times, and other publications.
He has an undergraduate degree from Yale College, a graduate degree in economics from Oxford University, which he attended as a Marshall Scholar, and a law degree from Yale Law School.
Senior Attorney, Pacific Legal Foundation
Brian Hodges is a Senior Attorney at PLF’s Pacific Northwest office in Bellevue, Washington. Brian focuses his practice on defending of the right of individuals to make reasonable use of their property, free of unnecessary and oppressive regulations.
In 2013, Brian second-chaired Koontz v. St. Johns River Water Management District before the U.S. Supreme Court, a case that placed constitutional limits on the government’s common practice of demanding that landowners fund unrelated public projects in exchange for a permit approval. And in the 2008 case, Citizens’ Alliance for Property Rights v. Sims, Brian successfully challenged a Seattle-area ordinance that required all rural property owners to dedicate at least half their land as conservation areas as a mandatory condition of any new development without any showing that rural development would impact the environment.
Brian graduated from Seattle University of Law in 2001 with honors. After which, he served as a judicial clerk at the Washington State Court of Appeals, then entered private practice where he focused on appellate advocacy for several years before joining PLF in 2006.
Brian came to the liberty movement by an uncommon route: the arts. Brian played guitar and keyboards in several Seattle-area bands before eventually studying music composition and literature at the University of Washington—earning two Bachelor’s Degrees and a Master of Arts. Through that experience, he came to firmly believe that the goal of art—indeed, the goal of any creative ambition—is to maximize individual freedom and expression, tempered by personal responsibility and ownership, rather than outside oversight or arbitrary restriction. Carrying that philosophy into law school naturally led him to fight for individual rights.
Senior Attorney, Pacific Legal Foundation
Chris Kieser practices in PLF’s property rights and equality before the law practice groups.
His property rights clients include Cedar Point Nursery, which challenged a California regulation requiring them to allow union organizers to invade their private property, as well as Randall and Kimberley Pavlock, who are fighting back against Indiana’s beachfront land grab along Lake Michigan.
Under equality before the law, Chris represents coalitions of Asian-American parents challenging discriminatory admissions policies for selective K-12 schools in New York City; Montgomery County, Maryland; and Fairfax County, Virginia. He also represents a parent organization in Connecticut challenging a racial quota that prevents many Black and Hispanic students from enrolling at the state’s magnet schools.
Chris has published law review articles in the William & Mary Environmental Law Review and the Federalist Society Review. His op-eds have appeared in the New York Daily News, National Review, The Blaze, the Daily Journal, and SCOTUSblog.
Chris clerked for the Honorable Daniel A. Manion of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and the Honorable Thomas D. Schroeder of the United States District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina. He holds a B.A., cum laude, from the University of Notre Dame, and graduated magna cum laude from Notre Dame Law School in 2013. At Notre Dame, he was an articles editor of the Notre Dame Law Review.
Growing up on Long Island, Chris developed a deep passion for limited government and individual liberty, arguing with his more numerous progressive classmates. This experience made him deeply skeptical that government tinkering at the expense of individual rights ever works, whether it be denying a property owner the use of his land or a student a seat at her desired school because of her race. He chose PLF because it is the national leader in litigation that furthers individual liberty.
When he’s not working, you’re likely to find Chris rooting for the Mets and Fighting Irish or debating some arcane point of law (because apparently that doesn’t happen enough at work).
Chris is currently licensed to practice in California and admitted to practice before the Supreme Court of the United States, the United States Courts of Appeal for the Second, Seventh, and Ninth Circuits, and the U.S. District Courts for the Eastern and Central Districts of California, the Northern District of Indiana, and the Northern District of Illinois.
Partner, Baker & Hostetler LLP
Mark DeLaquil is a first-chair trial and appellate advocate who focuses on complex environmental and regulatory proceedings, First Amendment practice and political law.
Mark has been recognized by Chambers USA for environmental litigation (2015 to 2024) and has been named by Law360 as one of the "Top 5 Environmental Attorneys Under the Age of 40" on two occasions.
Director, Climate & Clean Air Program, Natural Resources Defense Council
David Doniger has been at the forefront of the battle against air pollution and global climate change since he joined NRDC in 1978. He helped formulate the Montreal Protocol, an international agreement designed to stop the depletion of the earth's ozone layer, as well as several essential amendments to the Clean Air Act. In 1993, he left NRDC to serve on the White House Council on Environmental Quality, followed by key posts at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. He rejoined NRDC in 2001 and has since been working to defend the Clean Air Act from assaults in Congress. He is based in Washington, D.C.
Reporter, Politico
Elana Schor is an energy reporter for POLITICO Pro, focusing on oil and gas.
Prior to joining POLITICO, Schor covered politics for Environment & Energy Daily and Greenwire, tracking the Keystone XL pipeline since the earliest weeks of its federal review. She has nearly a decade’s worth of Hill reporting experience, writing on congressional politics for The Guardian, Talking Points Memo, and The Hill, and serving as the first editor of the infrastructure news site Streetsblog Capitol Hill.
Schor earned her masters’ from Northwestern University and bachelors’ from Columbia University. A native of New York City, she proudly prefers D.C. for its superior outdoors opportunities.
Principal, Sussman & Associates and Adjunct Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law Center
Bob Sussman is the principal in Sussman and Associates, a consulting firm that offers advice and support on energy and environmental policy issues to clients in the non-profit and private sectors.
Professor Sussman recently completed four and a half years of service in the Obama Administration, first as C0-Chair of the Transition Team for EPA and then as Senior Policy Counsel to the EPA Administrator. In this position, Professor Sussman functioned as the Administrator’s principal policy advisor, providing oversight and guidance on the full suite of policy issues across the Agency. He worked closely with all of EPA’s senior officials in Washington and the Regions. He also played a key role in EPA’s interface with OMB, CEQ and other White House offices and worked closely with other agencies, particularly the Department of Energy and Department of Interior.
Professor Sussman served in the Clinton Administration as the EPA Deputy Administrator during 1993-94. He was the Agency’s Chief Operating Officer and Regulatory Policy Officer, testified frequently before Congress and represented EPA at several international meetings.
At the end of 2007, Professor Sussman retired as a partner at the law firm of Latham & Watkins, where he headed the firm’s environmental practice in DC for ten years. He joined Latham in 1987 to start its environmental practice in DC after being a partner at Covington & Burling since 1974. Professor Sussman worked with a wide range of companies and trade associations on all aspects of energy and environmental policy, functioning as a policy advisor, advocate and litigator.
For several years, Professor Sussman was named one of the leading environmental lawyers in Washington, DC by Chambers USA: America’s Leading Business Lawyers and The International Who’s Who of Environmental Lawyers.
Professor Sussman was a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress in 2008, writing and speaking about climate change and energy.
Professor Sussman is a magna cum laude 1969 graduate of Yale College and a 1973 graduate of Yale Law School, where he was an editor of the Yale Law Journal. Bob clerked for Judge Walter K. Stapleton of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals.
Partner, Troutman Pepper Hamilton Sanders LLP
Misha leads Troutman Peppers' national appellate and Supreme Court practice. Most recently, he successfully obtained orders from the Supreme Court blocking an unconstitutional restriction on places of worship, as well as overturning a lower court order that had blocked several state election laws. He has also argued and prevailed before the Supreme Court in Gill v. Whitford, one of the most significant redistricting cases in decades, as well as Murr v. Wisconsin, a high-stakes regulatory taking case.
Before joining Troutman, Misha served as Solicitor General of the State of Wisconsin. Misha previously served as a law clerk for the Honorable Anthony M. Kennedy of the Supreme Court, Janice Rogers Brown of the D.C. Circuit, and Alex Kozinski of the 9th Circuit. He graduated from Georgetown University Law Center, where he was President of the Federalist Society Chapter.
Partner, Baker & Hostetler LLP
Mark DeLaquil is a first-chair trial and appellate advocate who focuses on complex environmental and regulatory proceedings, First Amendment practice and political law.
Mark has been recognized by Chambers USA for environmental litigation (2015 to 2024) and has been named by Law360 as one of the "Top 5 Environmental Attorneys Under the Age of 40" on two occasions.
Director, Climate & Clean Air Program, Natural Resources Defense Council
David Doniger has been at the forefront of the battle against air pollution and global climate change since he joined NRDC in 1978. He helped formulate the Montreal Protocol, an international agreement designed to stop the depletion of the earth's ozone layer, as well as several essential amendments to the Clean Air Act. In 1993, he left NRDC to serve on the White House Council on Environmental Quality, followed by key posts at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. He rejoined NRDC in 2001 and has since been working to defend the Clean Air Act from assaults in Congress. He is based in Washington, D.C.
Reporter, Politico
Elana Schor is an energy reporter for POLITICO Pro, focusing on oil and gas.
Prior to joining POLITICO, Schor covered politics for Environment & Energy Daily and Greenwire, tracking the Keystone XL pipeline since the earliest weeks of its federal review. She has nearly a decade’s worth of Hill reporting experience, writing on congressional politics for The Guardian, Talking Points Memo, and The Hill, and serving as the first editor of the infrastructure news site Streetsblog Capitol Hill.
Schor earned her masters’ from Northwestern University and bachelors’ from Columbia University. A native of New York City, she proudly prefers D.C. for its superior outdoors opportunities.
Principal, Sussman & Associates and Adjunct Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law Center
Bob Sussman is the principal in Sussman and Associates, a consulting firm that offers advice and support on energy and environmental policy issues to clients in the non-profit and private sectors.
Professor Sussman recently completed four and a half years of service in the Obama Administration, first as C0-Chair of the Transition Team for EPA and then as Senior Policy Counsel to the EPA Administrator. In this position, Professor Sussman functioned as the Administrator’s principal policy advisor, providing oversight and guidance on the full suite of policy issues across the Agency. He worked closely with all of EPA’s senior officials in Washington and the Regions. He also played a key role in EPA’s interface with OMB, CEQ and other White House offices and worked closely with other agencies, particularly the Department of Energy and Department of Interior.
Professor Sussman served in the Clinton Administration as the EPA Deputy Administrator during 1993-94. He was the Agency’s Chief Operating Officer and Regulatory Policy Officer, testified frequently before Congress and represented EPA at several international meetings.
At the end of 2007, Professor Sussman retired as a partner at the law firm of Latham & Watkins, where he headed the firm’s environmental practice in DC for ten years. He joined Latham in 1987 to start its environmental practice in DC after being a partner at Covington & Burling since 1974. Professor Sussman worked with a wide range of companies and trade associations on all aspects of energy and environmental policy, functioning as a policy advisor, advocate and litigator.
For several years, Professor Sussman was named one of the leading environmental lawyers in Washington, DC by Chambers USA: America’s Leading Business Lawyers and The International Who’s Who of Environmental Lawyers.
Professor Sussman was a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress in 2008, writing and speaking about climate change and energy.
Professor Sussman is a magna cum laude 1969 graduate of Yale College and a 1973 graduate of Yale Law School, where he was an editor of the Yale Law Journal. Bob clerked for Judge Walter K. Stapleton of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals.
Partner, Troutman Pepper Hamilton Sanders LLP
Misha leads Troutman Peppers' national appellate and Supreme Court practice. Most recently, he successfully obtained orders from the Supreme Court blocking an unconstitutional restriction on places of worship, as well as overturning a lower court order that had blocked several state election laws. He has also argued and prevailed before the Supreme Court in Gill v. Whitford, one of the most significant redistricting cases in decades, as well as Murr v. Wisconsin, a high-stakes regulatory taking case.
Before joining Troutman, Misha served as Solicitor General of the State of Wisconsin. Misha previously served as a law clerk for the Honorable Anthony M. Kennedy of the Supreme Court, Janice Rogers Brown of the D.C. Circuit, and Alex Kozinski of the 9th Circuit. He graduated from Georgetown University Law Center, where he was President of the Federalist Society Chapter.
Partner, Baker Hostetler LLP
David Rivkin is a member of the firm's litigation, international and environmental teams and is co-leader of the firm's national appellate practice. He has extensive experience in constitutional, administrative and international law litigation and has been involved in numerous high-profile cases. With his prior experience in the government sector, David draws on a wealth of knowledge when providing compliance advice to companies and handling enforcement proceedings before government agencies on issues arising out of multilateral and unilateral sanctions, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), anti-boycott issues, bankruptcy and financial fraud matters, and environmental and energy issues.
David has developed and implemented legislative, regulatory and litigation initiatives for two presidential administrations. Over the years, he has published hundreds of articles, op-eds, book reviews and book chapters on a variety of international, legal, constitutional, defense, arms control, foreign policy, environmental and energy issues for various newspapers and magazines, including The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The New York Times, USA Today and The Los Angeles Times, and has been a frequent commentator and guest on TV and radio shows including ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox News, NPR and PBS.
Partner, Baker & Hostetler LLP
Mark DeLaquil is a first-chair trial and appellate advocate who focuses on complex environmental and regulatory proceedings, First Amendment practice and political law.
Mark has been recognized by Chambers USA for environmental litigation (2015 to 2024) and has been named by Law360 as one of the "Top 5 Environmental Attorneys Under the Age of 40" on two occasions.
Partner, BakerHostetler, Adjunct Fellow, The Manhattan Institute
Andrew Grossman leads BakerHostetler’s Appellate and Major Motion team. He has appeared before the U.S. Supreme Court, nearly all the federal courts of appeals, as well as some state appellate courts, litigating high-profile and complex commercial, administrative and constitutional issues.
Andrew works with practice groups across BakerHostetler to identify and tackle complex issues, advise on administrative law and strategy, tee up issues for appeal and tackle appeals. He has developed and implemented litigation and administrative strategies for clients in several fields and industries.
In addition to his practice, Andrew advises members of Congress on matters of constitutional and administrative law, having testified more than a dozen times before the House and Senate Judiciary Committees. He has been a frequent legal commentator on radio and television, having appeared on Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, NPR and its affiliates, CBN and elsewhere. His legal commentary has also appeared in dozens of magazines and newspapers, including The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The Washington Post, The Washington Times and many others.
Andrew is a Senior Legal Fellow at the Buckeye Institute, an Adjunct Fellow the Manhattan Institute and a member of the leadership of the Federalist Society. He previously served as an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute’s Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies and a legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation’s Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies. He clerked for Judge Edith H. Jones on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
Senior Vice President for Federal Affairs and Policy, American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity
Paul is ACCCE’s senior vice president for federal affairs and policy, overseeing government relations at the federal level as well as policy analysis.
He has many years of experience dealing with energy and environmental issues and is widely recognized as an excellent lobbyist and analyst. In 2007 and 2010, The Hill, a Washington publication that reports on politics and Congress, named him one of the top lobbyists in D.C. Prior to joining ACCCE, Paul’s career included vice president for environmental affairs for the Edison Electric Institute; managing director for Natsource, LLC; director of health and environmental affairs for the American Petroleum Institute; special assistant to the deputy secretary at the U.S. Department of Energy; and director of federal environmental issues for Southern Company. After graduate school, he was an analyst at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
His education includes a B.S. from Birmingham-Southern College and an M.S. in engineering from Vanderbilt University. Paul also attended Stanford University’s executive management program.
U.S. Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit
Frank H. Easterbrook is a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and a Senior Lecturer at the Law School of the University of Chicago. He was Chief Judge from 2006–2013. Before joining the court in 1985, he was the Lee andBrena Freeman Professor of Law at the University of Chicago, where he taught and wrote in antitrust, securities, corporate law, jurisprudence, and criminal procedure. He has published The Economic Structure of Corporate Law (with Daniel R. Fischel) and about 100 scholarly articles. He served as Co-Editor of the Journal of Law and Economics from 1982 to 1991 and as a member of the Judicial Conference’s Standing Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure from 1991 to 1997. Before joining the faculty of the Law School in 1979, Judge Easterbrook was Deputy Solicitor General of the United States. He holds degrees from Swarthmore College (B.A. with high honors, 1970) and the University of Chicago (J.D. cum laude, 1973), and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Law Institute, the Mont Pelerin Society, Phi Beta Kappa, and the Order of the Coif.
Chair, Issues & Appeals, Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP
The former Solicitor General of West Virginia, Mr. Lin has been on the front lines of many precedent-setting cases in appellate courts across the country, including in a US Supreme Court victory that George Will called “the court’s most severe rebuke of a president” since the Truman administration. Having argued more than 60 appeals, he brings to clients a well-honed ability to identify the most persuasive issues for appeal and a practiced understanding of how best to frame complex legal questions in appellate courts.
With experience in the private sector and multiple branches of government, Mr. Lin’s practice has spanned a wide range of issues, including major questions of constitutional and administrative law at the federal and state levels. On behalf of more than two dozen states, he won a stay from the US Supreme Court of the EPA’s Clean Power Plan. Described by the New York Times as an “unprecedented” order, the stay was the first time the Supreme Court had ever put a regulation on hold before review by a federal appeals court. In that same case, Elbert argued before the en banc DC Circuit in an historic proceeding that one commenter quoted in E&E News compared to “the NBA All-Star Game.” At the state level, Elbert led the effort that persuaded the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals to overturn an injunction of the state’s right-to-work law.
In 2013, Mr. Lin was appointed the Solicitor General of West Virginia. During his four-and-a-half year tenure, he served as a member of the Attorney General’s senior management team, oversaw all civil and criminal appeals, and argued nearly two dozen cases in federal and state appellate courts. He authored more than twenty-five briefs in the US Supreme Court and more than forty-five formal Opinions of the Attorney General.
Earlier in his career, Mr. Lin served as a trial attorney in the Federal Programs Branch of the US Department of Justice’s Civil Division, where he received a Special Service Award. He has also been a law clerk at all three levels of the federal judiciary: for Justice Clarence Thomas on the US Supreme Court; for Judge William H. Pryor Jr. on the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit; and for Senior Judge Robert E. Keeton on the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts.
Mr. Lin speaks regularly on a wide variety of topics, including constitutional law, administrative law, environmental law, state and federal relations, the US Supreme Court, and appellate practice. He has testified before Congress, and has spoken at the national conventions of the American Bar Association, the Association of Corporate Counsel, the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association, the Federalist Society, Americans for Prosperity, and the American Legislative Exchange Council. He is an elected member of the American Law Institute, a public member of the Administrative Conference of the United States, and a fellow of the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers.
Mr. Lin is admitted to practice in the following federal courts: the Supreme Court of the United States; the First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, Ninth, Eleventh, D.C., and Federal Circuits; the District of Massachusetts; the Northern and Southern Districts of West Virginia; and the Eastern and Western Districts of Virginia.
Robert F. Stanton Professor of Law, University of Maryland Carey School of Law
Robert V. Percival is the Robert F. Stanton Professor of Law and the Director of the Environmental Law Program at the University of Maryland School of Law. He received a B.A. summa cum laude from Macalester College, a J.D. from Stanford Law School and an M.A. in economics from Stanford University. At Stanford Percival was named the Nathan Abbott Scholar for graduating first in his law school class. Following graduation, he served as a law clerk for Judge Shirley M. Hufstedler of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Byron R. White. He joined the Maryland faculty in 1987 after serving as a senior attorney for the Environmental Defense Fund. Percival has served as a visiting professor of law at Harvard Law School, Georgetown University Law Center, the China University of Political Science and Law (Beijing), and Comenius University (Bratislava). He is the principal author of a leading environmental law casebook, now in its 9th edition, and the author of several articles about the Supreme Court and presidential authority over executive agencies. Percival wrote one of the first articles on the propriety of consent decrees to effectuate and enforce federal law “The Bounds of Consent: Consent Decrees, Settlements and Federal Environmental Policymaking,” 1987 Univ. Chic. Leg. F. 327 (1987). He also is the author of the first comprehensive analyses of what the papers of the late Justices Thurgood Marshall and Harry Blackmun reveal about the Supreme Court’s handling of environmental cases (“Environmental Law in the Supreme Court: Highlights from the Blackmun Papers,” 35 ELR 10637 (2005), and “Environmental Law in the Supreme Court: Highlights from the Marshall Papers,” 13 ELR 10606 (Oct. 1993)).
Principal, Sussman & Associates and Adjunct Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law Center
Bob Sussman is the principal in Sussman and Associates, a consulting firm that offers advice and support on energy and environmental policy issues to clients in the non-profit and private sectors.
Professor Sussman recently completed four and a half years of service in the Obama Administration, first as C0-Chair of the Transition Team for EPA and then as Senior Policy Counsel to the EPA Administrator. In this position, Professor Sussman functioned as the Administrator’s principal policy advisor, providing oversight and guidance on the full suite of policy issues across the Agency. He worked closely with all of EPA’s senior officials in Washington and the Regions. He also played a key role in EPA’s interface with OMB, CEQ and other White House offices and worked closely with other agencies, particularly the Department of Energy and Department of Interior.
Professor Sussman served in the Clinton Administration as the EPA Deputy Administrator during 1993-94. He was the Agency’s Chief Operating Officer and Regulatory Policy Officer, testified frequently before Congress and represented EPA at several international meetings.
At the end of 2007, Professor Sussman retired as a partner at the law firm of Latham & Watkins, where he headed the firm’s environmental practice in DC for ten years. He joined Latham in 1987 to start its environmental practice in DC after being a partner at Covington & Burling since 1974. Professor Sussman worked with a wide range of companies and trade associations on all aspects of energy and environmental policy, functioning as a policy advisor, advocate and litigator.
For several years, Professor Sussman was named one of the leading environmental lawyers in Washington, DC by Chambers USA: America’s Leading Business Lawyers and The International Who’s Who of Environmental Lawyers.
Professor Sussman was a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress in 2008, writing and speaking about climate change and energy.
Professor Sussman is a magna cum laude 1969 graduate of Yale College and a 1973 graduate of Yale Law School, where he was an editor of the Yale Law Journal. Bob clerked for Judge Walter K. Stapleton of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals.
Senior Vice President for Federal Affairs and Policy, American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity
Paul is ACCCE’s senior vice president for federal affairs and policy, overseeing government relations at the federal level as well as policy analysis.
He has many years of experience dealing with energy and environmental issues and is widely recognized as an excellent lobbyist and analyst. In 2007 and 2010, The Hill, a Washington publication that reports on politics and Congress, named him one of the top lobbyists in D.C. Prior to joining ACCCE, Paul’s career included vice president for environmental affairs for the Edison Electric Institute; managing director for Natsource, LLC; director of health and environmental affairs for the American Petroleum Institute; special assistant to the deputy secretary at the U.S. Department of Energy; and director of federal environmental issues for Southern Company. After graduate school, he was an analyst at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
His education includes a B.S. from Birmingham-Southern College and an M.S. in engineering from Vanderbilt University. Paul also attended Stanford University’s executive management program.
U.S. Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit
Frank H. Easterbrook is a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and a Senior Lecturer at the Law School of the University of Chicago. He was Chief Judge from 2006–2013. Before joining the court in 1985, he was the Lee andBrena Freeman Professor of Law at the University of Chicago, where he taught and wrote in antitrust, securities, corporate law, jurisprudence, and criminal procedure. He has published The Economic Structure of Corporate Law (with Daniel R. Fischel) and about 100 scholarly articles. He served as Co-Editor of the Journal of Law and Economics from 1982 to 1991 and as a member of the Judicial Conference’s Standing Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure from 1991 to 1997. Before joining the faculty of the Law School in 1979, Judge Easterbrook was Deputy Solicitor General of the United States. He holds degrees from Swarthmore College (B.A. with high honors, 1970) and the University of Chicago (J.D. cum laude, 1973), and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Law Institute, the Mont Pelerin Society, Phi Beta Kappa, and the Order of the Coif.
Chair, Issues & Appeals, Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP
The former Solicitor General of West Virginia, Mr. Lin has been on the front lines of many precedent-setting cases in appellate courts across the country, including in a US Supreme Court victory that George Will called “the court’s most severe rebuke of a president” since the Truman administration. Having argued more than 60 appeals, he brings to clients a well-honed ability to identify the most persuasive issues for appeal and a practiced understanding of how best to frame complex legal questions in appellate courts.
With experience in the private sector and multiple branches of government, Mr. Lin’s practice has spanned a wide range of issues, including major questions of constitutional and administrative law at the federal and state levels. On behalf of more than two dozen states, he won a stay from the US Supreme Court of the EPA’s Clean Power Plan. Described by the New York Times as an “unprecedented” order, the stay was the first time the Supreme Court had ever put a regulation on hold before review by a federal appeals court. In that same case, Elbert argued before the en banc DC Circuit in an historic proceeding that one commenter quoted in E&E News compared to “the NBA All-Star Game.” At the state level, Elbert led the effort that persuaded the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals to overturn an injunction of the state’s right-to-work law.
In 2013, Mr. Lin was appointed the Solicitor General of West Virginia. During his four-and-a-half year tenure, he served as a member of the Attorney General’s senior management team, oversaw all civil and criminal appeals, and argued nearly two dozen cases in federal and state appellate courts. He authored more than twenty-five briefs in the US Supreme Court and more than forty-five formal Opinions of the Attorney General.
Earlier in his career, Mr. Lin served as a trial attorney in the Federal Programs Branch of the US Department of Justice’s Civil Division, where he received a Special Service Award. He has also been a law clerk at all three levels of the federal judiciary: for Justice Clarence Thomas on the US Supreme Court; for Judge William H. Pryor Jr. on the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit; and for Senior Judge Robert E. Keeton on the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts.
Mr. Lin speaks regularly on a wide variety of topics, including constitutional law, administrative law, environmental law, state and federal relations, the US Supreme Court, and appellate practice. He has testified before Congress, and has spoken at the national conventions of the American Bar Association, the Association of Corporate Counsel, the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association, the Federalist Society, Americans for Prosperity, and the American Legislative Exchange Council. He is an elected member of the American Law Institute, a public member of the Administrative Conference of the United States, and a fellow of the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers.
Mr. Lin is admitted to practice in the following federal courts: the Supreme Court of the United States; the First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, Ninth, Eleventh, D.C., and Federal Circuits; the District of Massachusetts; the Northern and Southern Districts of West Virginia; and the Eastern and Western Districts of Virginia.
Robert F. Stanton Professor of Law, University of Maryland Carey School of Law
Robert V. Percival is the Robert F. Stanton Professor of Law and the Director of the Environmental Law Program at the University of Maryland School of Law. He received a B.A. summa cum laude from Macalester College, a J.D. from Stanford Law School and an M.A. in economics from Stanford University. At Stanford Percival was named the Nathan Abbott Scholar for graduating first in his law school class. Following graduation, he served as a law clerk for Judge Shirley M. Hufstedler of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Byron R. White. He joined the Maryland faculty in 1987 after serving as a senior attorney for the Environmental Defense Fund. Percival has served as a visiting professor of law at Harvard Law School, Georgetown University Law Center, the China University of Political Science and Law (Beijing), and Comenius University (Bratislava). He is the principal author of a leading environmental law casebook, now in its 9th edition, and the author of several articles about the Supreme Court and presidential authority over executive agencies. Percival wrote one of the first articles on the propriety of consent decrees to effectuate and enforce federal law “The Bounds of Consent: Consent Decrees, Settlements and Federal Environmental Policymaking,” 1987 Univ. Chic. Leg. F. 327 (1987). He also is the author of the first comprehensive analyses of what the papers of the late Justices Thurgood Marshall and Harry Blackmun reveal about the Supreme Court’s handling of environmental cases (“Environmental Law in the Supreme Court: Highlights from the Blackmun Papers,” 35 ELR 10637 (2005), and “Environmental Law in the Supreme Court: Highlights from the Marshall Papers,” 13 ELR 10606 (Oct. 1993)).
Principal, Sussman & Associates and Adjunct Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law Center
Bob Sussman is the principal in Sussman and Associates, a consulting firm that offers advice and support on energy and environmental policy issues to clients in the non-profit and private sectors.
Professor Sussman recently completed four and a half years of service in the Obama Administration, first as C0-Chair of the Transition Team for EPA and then as Senior Policy Counsel to the EPA Administrator. In this position, Professor Sussman functioned as the Administrator’s principal policy advisor, providing oversight and guidance on the full suite of policy issues across the Agency. He worked closely with all of EPA’s senior officials in Washington and the Regions. He also played a key role in EPA’s interface with OMB, CEQ and other White House offices and worked closely with other agencies, particularly the Department of Energy and Department of Interior.
Professor Sussman served in the Clinton Administration as the EPA Deputy Administrator during 1993-94. He was the Agency’s Chief Operating Officer and Regulatory Policy Officer, testified frequently before Congress and represented EPA at several international meetings.
At the end of 2007, Professor Sussman retired as a partner at the law firm of Latham & Watkins, where he headed the firm’s environmental practice in DC for ten years. He joined Latham in 1987 to start its environmental practice in DC after being a partner at Covington & Burling since 1974. Professor Sussman worked with a wide range of companies and trade associations on all aspects of energy and environmental policy, functioning as a policy advisor, advocate and litigator.
For several years, Professor Sussman was named one of the leading environmental lawyers in Washington, DC by Chambers USA: America’s Leading Business Lawyers and The International Who’s Who of Environmental Lawyers.
Professor Sussman was a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress in 2008, writing and speaking about climate change and energy.
Professor Sussman is a magna cum laude 1969 graduate of Yale College and a 1973 graduate of Yale Law School, where he was an editor of the Yale Law Journal. Bob clerked for Judge Walter K. Stapleton of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals.
Environmental Law: The Role of Congress in Environmental Law
Eric R. Claeys, Steven Colloton, Matt Leggett, Nicholas A. Robinson, David S. Schoenbrod
2015 National Lawyers Convention
Environmental law and policy raise profound questions about Congress's role and responsibilities. Many environmental regulatory...
Environmental Law: The Role of Congress in Environmental Law
Eric R. Claeys, Steven Colloton, Matt Leggett, Nicholas A. Robinson, David S. Schoenbrod
2015 National Lawyers Convention
Environmental law and policy raise profound questions about Congress's role and responsibilities. Many environmental regulatory...
Topics
Eminent Domain and Race
Eminent domain is in the news again because of ever-controversial presidential candidate Donald Trump's remarks that the condemnation...
Horne v. United States Department of Agriculture: The Takings Clause and the Administrative State
Brian T. Hodges, Christopher M. Kieser
Engage Volume 16, Issue 3
Note from the Editor: This article discusses and praises Horne v. United States Department of...
Topics
The Circuit Splits Are Out There—and the Court Should Decide Them
The Supreme Court just isn’t as busy as it used to be. In the early...
The Clean Power Plan: A Bridge too Far?
Mark DeLaquil, David D. Doniger, Elana Schor, Robert Sussman, Misha Tseytlin
Third Annual Executive Branch Review Conference
The Environmental Protection Agency has proposed new regulations for CO2 emission reductions from existing power...
The Clean Power Plan: A Bridge too Far?
Mark DeLaquil, David D. Doniger, Elana Schor, Robert Sussman, Misha Tseytlin
Third Annual Executive Branch Review Conference
The Environmental Protection Agency has proposed new regulations for CO2 emission reductions from existing power...
Does EPA’s Clean Power Plan Proposal Violate the States’ Sovereign Rights?
David B. Rivkin, Mark DeLaquil, Andrew Grossman
Engage Volume 16, Issue 1
Note from the Editor: This article discusses the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan under...
Do the EPA’s CO2 Rules Go Too Far?
Paul Bailey, Frank H. Easterbrook, Elbert Lin, Robert V. Percival, Robert Sussman
2014 National Lawyers Convention
On June 2, 2014, the Obama Administration took action that would require a 30 percent...
Do the EPA’s CO2 Rules Go Too Far?
Paul Bailey, Frank H. Easterbrook, Elbert Lin, Robert V. Percival, Robert Sussman
2014 National Lawyers Convention
On June 2, 2014, the Obama Administration took action that would require a 30 percent...