Founder, Latitude, LLC
Brian Hook is the founder of Latitude, LLC, an international strategic consulting firm based in Washington, DC.
Mr. Hook worked on the Romney campaign as senior advisor on foreign policy. He chaired the foreign policy and national security task forces of the Romney Readiness Project. From 2010-2011, he was the foreign policy director of Governor Tim Pawlenty’s presidential campaign.
Mr. Hook served in a number of positions during the Bush Administration, including Assistant Secretary of State for International Organizations; Senior Advisor to the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations; Special Assistant to the President for Policy, Office of the Chief of Staff; and Counsel, Office of Legal Policy, at the Justice Department.
From 1999-2003, he practiced corporate law at Hogan & Hartson in Washington, D.C.
Before practicing law, he served as a policy advisor to Iowa Governor Terry Branstad and to U.S. Congressman James Leach.
Founder and Executive Director, National Security Institute; Assistant Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
Jamil N. Jaffer is the Founder and Executive Director of the National Security Institute at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University where he also serves as an Assistant Professor of Law, Director of the National Security Law and Policy Program, and Director of the Cyber, Intelligence, and National Security LLM Program. Jamil also teaches classes on counterterrorism, intelligence, surveillance, cybersecurity, and other national security matters, as well as a summer course held abroad with U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil M. Gorsuch. Jamil is also affiliated with Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation and previously served as a Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution from 2016 to 2019.
Jamil is also a Venture Partner with Paladin Capital Group, where he assists the firm with investments across the full range of its themes and theses, including a focus on dual-use national security technologies. Jamil also serves on the board of directors of RangeForce, a cybersecurity training and readiness platform startup and Tozny, a digital identity startup, and on the advisory boards of U.S. Strategic Metals, North America’s largest primary producer of cobalt, a critical mineral used in EV batteries, aerospace, and other national security applications; and Constella Intelligence, a deep and dark web intelligence startup. Jamil also serves as an advisor to Beacon Global Strategies, a strategic advisory firm and Duco, a technology platform startup that connects corporations with geopolitical and international business experts. Jamil is also the managing director of Trigraph Caveat Capital, a private investment vehicle.
Among other things, Jamil currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Greater Washington Board of Trade, the Board of Advisors for the Global Cyber Alliance, and the Advisory Board of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies’ Center on Cyber and Tech Innovation, the Executive Committee of the Reagan Institute Strategy Group. Jamil is also a Fellow at the Academy for Judaic, Christian, and Islamic Studies, an advisor to the Concordia Summit, and is a member of the Board of Directors for the Center for Intelligence Policy, the Board of Directors of Speech First, and the Executive Committee of the International Law and National Security Practice Group of the Federalist Society.
Immediately prior to his current positions, from 2015-2021, Jamil served as a senior business leader at IronNet Cybersecurity, helping take the company from a bootstrapped first-year technology products startup through two rounds of venture capital fundraising, growing from 40 employees to over 300, and through its listing on New York Stock Exchange. In his role as IronNet's Senior Vice President for Strategy, Partnerships & Corporate Development, Jamil worked directly for the co-CEOs of the company, Gen (ret.) Keith B. Alexander, the former Director of the National Security Agency and Founding Commander of U.S. Cyber Command, and Bill Welch, the former COO of Zscaler and Duo; in that role, Jamil led all of the company’s strategic and technology partnership efforts, including developing go-to-market and technology integration plans with some of the largest cloud platforms and cybersecurity companies in the market, evaluating potential acquisition targets, and developing overall corporate strategy and thought leadership around collective security and collaborative defense in the cyber arena.
Prior to his time at IronNet, Jamil served on the leadership team of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee as Chief Counsel and Senior Advisor under Chairman Bob Corker (R-TN), where he worked on key national security and foreign policy issues, including leading the drafting of the proposed Authorization for the Use of Military Force against ISIS in 2014 and 2015, the AUMF against Syria in 2013, and revisions to the 9/11 AUMF against al Qaeda. Jamil was also the lead architect of the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act and two sanctions laws against Russia for its first intervention in Ukraine.
Prior to joining SFRC, Jamil served as Senior Counsel to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence under Chairman Mike Rogers (R-MI) where he led the committee’s oversight of NSA surveillance, NRO intelligence issues, and NGA analytic and collection matters, as well as intelligence community-wide counterterrorism issues. Jamil was also the lead architect of the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, the nation’s first cyber threat intelligence sharing legislation that was signed into law in 2015.
In the Bush Administration, Jamil served in the White House as an Associate Counsel to the President, handling Defense Department, State Department, and intelligence community matters, and serving as one of the White House Counsel’s primary representatives to the National Security Council Deputies Committee.
Prior to the White House, Jamil served on the leadership team of the Justice Department’s National Security Division as Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for National Security, where he focused on counterterrorism and intelligence matters. At NSD, Jamil helped lead the division’s work on In re: Directives, the first ever two-party litigated matter in the FISA Court and the second case before the FISA Court of Review in its 30-year history. Jamil also led NSD’s efforts on the President’s Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative (CNCI), including the drafting of NSPD-54/HSPD-23, and related classified matters, and advised the National Security Agency (NSA) and U.S. Cyber Command’s predecessor organization, the Joint Function Component Command for Network Warfare (JFCC-NW), on matters related to cyber intelligence collection and offensive cyber activities. For his work on these matters, Jamil was awarded the Assistant Attorney General’s Award for Special Initiative and was among the group of lawyers awarded the Director of National Intelligence’s 2008 Legal Award (Team of the Year – Cyber Legal).
Jamil also served in other positions in the Justice Department, including in the Office of Legal Policy, where he worked on the confirmations of Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. and Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. to the United States Supreme Court.
Jamil also served as a lawyer in private practice at Kellogg Huber, a Washington, DC-based litigation boutique, as a policy advisor to Congressman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), and as a staff member or senior advisor on a number of political campaigns, including two presidential campaigns and a presidential transition team. While in law school, Jamil was a member of the University of Chicago Law Review, managing editor of the Chicago Journal of International Law, and National Symposium Editor of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy. Following law school, Jamil served as a law clerk to Judge Edith H. Jones of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and, later in his career, as a law clerk to then-Judge Neil M. Gorsuch when he first joined the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit as well as a law clerk to Justice Neil Gorsuch when he joined the U.S. Supreme Court.
Jamil has published multiple op-eds and academic articles on national security, foreign policy, cybersecurity, counterterrorism, encryption, and intelligence matters, and is the co-author of a book chapter with former NSA Director Gen. (Ret.) Keith B. Alexander on national security and the press in National Security, Leaks, and the Freedom of the Press: The Pentagon Papers Fifty Years On (2021) and a book chapter with former CIA Director Gen. (ret.) Mike Hayden on ISIS, al Qaeda, and other international terrorist groups in Choosing to Lead: American Foreign Policy for a Disordered World (2015). Jamil has also written book chapters on cybersecurity and surveillance, as well as op-eds and policy papers with former Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey, former National Counterterrorism Center Director Matt Olsen, and Congressman Mike Waltz (R-FL), among others.
Jamil has previously taught graduate-level courses in intelligence law and policy at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs and the National Intelligence University, served an outside advisor to the Cyberspace Solarium Commission, and has recently testified before committees of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives on China, cybersecurity, counterterrorism, and other national security matters. Jamil has also recently appeared on a range of national television and radio outlets including CNN, Fox News, Fox Business, MSNBC, Bloomberg, PBS, Voice of America, and National Public Radio, and in various print and online publications, including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and the Washington Post on a range of national security matters including cybersecurity, counterterrorism, surveillance, encryption, privacy, and foreign policy issues.
Jamil holds degrees from UCLA (BA, cum laude), the University of Chicago Law School (JD, with honors), and the United States Naval War College (MA, with distinction).
Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress
Lawrence J. Korb is a Senior Fellow at American Progress. He is also a senior advisor to the Center for Defense Information and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University. Prior to joining American Progress, he was a senior fellow and director of national security studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. From July 1998 to October 2002 he was council vice president, director of studies, and holder of the Maurice Greenberg Chair.
Prior to joining the council, Dr. Korb served as director of the Center for Public Policy Education and senior fellow in the Foreign Policy Studies Program at the Brookings Institution; dean of the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh; vice president of corporate operations at the Raytheon Company; and director of defense studies at the American Enterprise Institute.
Dr. Korb served as assistant secretary of defense (manpower, reserve affairs, installations, and logistics) from 1981 through 1985. In that position, he administered about 70 percent of the defense budget. For his service in that position, he was awarded the Department of Defense’s medal for Distinguished Public Service. Dr. Korb served on active duty for four years as Naval Flight Officer, and retired from the Naval Reserve with the rank of captain. He received his Ph.D. in political science from the State University of New York at Albany and has held full-time teaching positions at the University of Dayton, the Coast Guard Academy, and the Naval War College.
Dr. Korb has authored, co-authored, edited, or contributed to more than 20 books and written more than 100 articles on national security issues. His books include The Joint Chiefs of Staff: The First Twenty-five Years; The Fall and Rise of the Pentagon; American National Security: Policy and Process, Future Visions for U.S. Defense Policy; Reshaping America’s Military; A New National Security Strategy in an Age of Terrorists, Tyrants, and Weapons of Mass Destruction; Serving America’s Veterans; and Military Reform.
His articles have appeared in such journals as Foreign Affairs, Public Administration Review, The New York Times Sunday Magazine, Naval Institute Proceedings, and International Security. Over the past decade Mr. Korb has made over 2,000 appearances as a commentator on such shows as “The Today Show,” “The Early Show,” “Good Morning America,” “Face the Nation,” “This Week,” “The News Hour,” “Nightline,” “60 Minutes,” “Larry King Live,” “The O’Reilly Factor,” and “Hannity and Colmes.” His more than 100 op-ed pieces have appeared in such major newspapers as The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Times, Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, The Baltimore Sun, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and The Christian Science Monitor.
Executive Vice President, Policy, Business Roundtable
Ambassador Kristen Silverberg is Executive Vice President, Policy at Business Roundtable, where she leads the Policy team. She previously served as a Managing Director at the Institute of International Finance. She served in the George W. Bush Administration as U.S. Ambassador to the European Union from 2008 to 2009 and as Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs from 2005 to 2008. Prior to her time at the State Department, she held a number of senior positions at the White House including Deputy Domestic Policy Advisor.
Ambassador Silverberg served in 2003 in Baghdad, Iraq for which she received the Secretary of Defense Medal for Outstanding Public Service. She formerly practiced law at Williams and Connolly, LLP in Washington, DC and served as a law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and Judge David Sentelle of the U.S. Court of Appeals. She attended Harvard College and the University of Texas School of Law, where she graduated with High Honors.
Ambassador Silverberg serves on the Board of Directors of the CDC Foundation, the Board of Directors of the International Republican Institute, the Board of Directors of Vorbeck Materials, the Advisory Board of the Texas National Security Review, the National Advisory Council of the Aspen Institute Future of Work Initiative, and was recognized by the World Economic Forum as a Young Global Leader.
Founder, Latitude, LLC
Brian Hook is the founder of Latitude, LLC, an international strategic consulting firm based in Washington, DC.
Mr. Hook worked on the Romney campaign as senior advisor on foreign policy. He chaired the foreign policy and national security task forces of the Romney Readiness Project. From 2010-2011, he was the foreign policy director of Governor Tim Pawlenty’s presidential campaign.
Mr. Hook served in a number of positions during the Bush Administration, including Assistant Secretary of State for International Organizations; Senior Advisor to the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations; Special Assistant to the President for Policy, Office of the Chief of Staff; and Counsel, Office of Legal Policy, at the Justice Department.
From 1999-2003, he practiced corporate law at Hogan & Hartson in Washington, D.C.
Before practicing law, he served as a policy advisor to Iowa Governor Terry Branstad and to U.S. Congressman James Leach.
Founder and Executive Director, National Security Institute; Assistant Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
Jamil N. Jaffer is the Founder and Executive Director of the National Security Institute at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University where he also serves as an Assistant Professor of Law, Director of the National Security Law and Policy Program, and Director of the Cyber, Intelligence, and National Security LLM Program. Jamil also teaches classes on counterterrorism, intelligence, surveillance, cybersecurity, and other national security matters, as well as a summer course held abroad with U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil M. Gorsuch. Jamil is also affiliated with Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation and previously served as a Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution from 2016 to 2019.
Jamil is also a Venture Partner with Paladin Capital Group, where he assists the firm with investments across the full range of its themes and theses, including a focus on dual-use national security technologies. Jamil also serves on the board of directors of RangeForce, a cybersecurity training and readiness platform startup and Tozny, a digital identity startup, and on the advisory boards of U.S. Strategic Metals, North America’s largest primary producer of cobalt, a critical mineral used in EV batteries, aerospace, and other national security applications; and Constella Intelligence, a deep and dark web intelligence startup. Jamil also serves as an advisor to Beacon Global Strategies, a strategic advisory firm and Duco, a technology platform startup that connects corporations with geopolitical and international business experts. Jamil is also the managing director of Trigraph Caveat Capital, a private investment vehicle.
Among other things, Jamil currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Greater Washington Board of Trade, the Board of Advisors for the Global Cyber Alliance, and the Advisory Board of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies’ Center on Cyber and Tech Innovation, the Executive Committee of the Reagan Institute Strategy Group. Jamil is also a Fellow at the Academy for Judaic, Christian, and Islamic Studies, an advisor to the Concordia Summit, and is a member of the Board of Directors for the Center for Intelligence Policy, the Board of Directors of Speech First, and the Executive Committee of the International Law and National Security Practice Group of the Federalist Society.
Immediately prior to his current positions, from 2015-2021, Jamil served as a senior business leader at IronNet Cybersecurity, helping take the company from a bootstrapped first-year technology products startup through two rounds of venture capital fundraising, growing from 40 employees to over 300, and through its listing on New York Stock Exchange. In his role as IronNet's Senior Vice President for Strategy, Partnerships & Corporate Development, Jamil worked directly for the co-CEOs of the company, Gen (ret.) Keith B. Alexander, the former Director of the National Security Agency and Founding Commander of U.S. Cyber Command, and Bill Welch, the former COO of Zscaler and Duo; in that role, Jamil led all of the company’s strategic and technology partnership efforts, including developing go-to-market and technology integration plans with some of the largest cloud platforms and cybersecurity companies in the market, evaluating potential acquisition targets, and developing overall corporate strategy and thought leadership around collective security and collaborative defense in the cyber arena.
Prior to his time at IronNet, Jamil served on the leadership team of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee as Chief Counsel and Senior Advisor under Chairman Bob Corker (R-TN), where he worked on key national security and foreign policy issues, including leading the drafting of the proposed Authorization for the Use of Military Force against ISIS in 2014 and 2015, the AUMF against Syria in 2013, and revisions to the 9/11 AUMF against al Qaeda. Jamil was also the lead architect of the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act and two sanctions laws against Russia for its first intervention in Ukraine.
Prior to joining SFRC, Jamil served as Senior Counsel to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence under Chairman Mike Rogers (R-MI) where he led the committee’s oversight of NSA surveillance, NRO intelligence issues, and NGA analytic and collection matters, as well as intelligence community-wide counterterrorism issues. Jamil was also the lead architect of the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, the nation’s first cyber threat intelligence sharing legislation that was signed into law in 2015.
In the Bush Administration, Jamil served in the White House as an Associate Counsel to the President, handling Defense Department, State Department, and intelligence community matters, and serving as one of the White House Counsel’s primary representatives to the National Security Council Deputies Committee.
Prior to the White House, Jamil served on the leadership team of the Justice Department’s National Security Division as Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for National Security, where he focused on counterterrorism and intelligence matters. At NSD, Jamil helped lead the division’s work on In re: Directives, the first ever two-party litigated matter in the FISA Court and the second case before the FISA Court of Review in its 30-year history. Jamil also led NSD’s efforts on the President’s Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative (CNCI), including the drafting of NSPD-54/HSPD-23, and related classified matters, and advised the National Security Agency (NSA) and U.S. Cyber Command’s predecessor organization, the Joint Function Component Command for Network Warfare (JFCC-NW), on matters related to cyber intelligence collection and offensive cyber activities. For his work on these matters, Jamil was awarded the Assistant Attorney General’s Award for Special Initiative and was among the group of lawyers awarded the Director of National Intelligence’s 2008 Legal Award (Team of the Year – Cyber Legal).
Jamil also served in other positions in the Justice Department, including in the Office of Legal Policy, where he worked on the confirmations of Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. and Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. to the United States Supreme Court.
Jamil also served as a lawyer in private practice at Kellogg Huber, a Washington, DC-based litigation boutique, as a policy advisor to Congressman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), and as a staff member or senior advisor on a number of political campaigns, including two presidential campaigns and a presidential transition team. While in law school, Jamil was a member of the University of Chicago Law Review, managing editor of the Chicago Journal of International Law, and National Symposium Editor of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy. Following law school, Jamil served as a law clerk to Judge Edith H. Jones of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and, later in his career, as a law clerk to then-Judge Neil M. Gorsuch when he first joined the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit as well as a law clerk to Justice Neil Gorsuch when he joined the U.S. Supreme Court.
Jamil has published multiple op-eds and academic articles on national security, foreign policy, cybersecurity, counterterrorism, encryption, and intelligence matters, and is the co-author of a book chapter with former NSA Director Gen. (Ret.) Keith B. Alexander on national security and the press in National Security, Leaks, and the Freedom of the Press: The Pentagon Papers Fifty Years On (2021) and a book chapter with former CIA Director Gen. (ret.) Mike Hayden on ISIS, al Qaeda, and other international terrorist groups in Choosing to Lead: American Foreign Policy for a Disordered World (2015). Jamil has also written book chapters on cybersecurity and surveillance, as well as op-eds and policy papers with former Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey, former National Counterterrorism Center Director Matt Olsen, and Congressman Mike Waltz (R-FL), among others.
Jamil has previously taught graduate-level courses in intelligence law and policy at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs and the National Intelligence University, served an outside advisor to the Cyberspace Solarium Commission, and has recently testified before committees of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives on China, cybersecurity, counterterrorism, and other national security matters. Jamil has also recently appeared on a range of national television and radio outlets including CNN, Fox News, Fox Business, MSNBC, Bloomberg, PBS, Voice of America, and National Public Radio, and in various print and online publications, including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and the Washington Post on a range of national security matters including cybersecurity, counterterrorism, surveillance, encryption, privacy, and foreign policy issues.
Jamil holds degrees from UCLA (BA, cum laude), the University of Chicago Law School (JD, with honors), and the United States Naval War College (MA, with distinction).
Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress
Lawrence J. Korb is a Senior Fellow at American Progress. He is also a senior advisor to the Center for Defense Information and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University. Prior to joining American Progress, he was a senior fellow and director of national security studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. From July 1998 to October 2002 he was council vice president, director of studies, and holder of the Maurice Greenberg Chair.
Prior to joining the council, Dr. Korb served as director of the Center for Public Policy Education and senior fellow in the Foreign Policy Studies Program at the Brookings Institution; dean of the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh; vice president of corporate operations at the Raytheon Company; and director of defense studies at the American Enterprise Institute.
Dr. Korb served as assistant secretary of defense (manpower, reserve affairs, installations, and logistics) from 1981 through 1985. In that position, he administered about 70 percent of the defense budget. For his service in that position, he was awarded the Department of Defense’s medal for Distinguished Public Service. Dr. Korb served on active duty for four years as Naval Flight Officer, and retired from the Naval Reserve with the rank of captain. He received his Ph.D. in political science from the State University of New York at Albany and has held full-time teaching positions at the University of Dayton, the Coast Guard Academy, and the Naval War College.
Dr. Korb has authored, co-authored, edited, or contributed to more than 20 books and written more than 100 articles on national security issues. His books include The Joint Chiefs of Staff: The First Twenty-five Years; The Fall and Rise of the Pentagon; American National Security: Policy and Process, Future Visions for U.S. Defense Policy; Reshaping America’s Military; A New National Security Strategy in an Age of Terrorists, Tyrants, and Weapons of Mass Destruction; Serving America’s Veterans; and Military Reform.
His articles have appeared in such journals as Foreign Affairs, Public Administration Review, The New York Times Sunday Magazine, Naval Institute Proceedings, and International Security. Over the past decade Mr. Korb has made over 2,000 appearances as a commentator on such shows as “The Today Show,” “The Early Show,” “Good Morning America,” “Face the Nation,” “This Week,” “The News Hour,” “Nightline,” “60 Minutes,” “Larry King Live,” “The O’Reilly Factor,” and “Hannity and Colmes.” His more than 100 op-ed pieces have appeared in such major newspapers as The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Times, Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, The Baltimore Sun, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and The Christian Science Monitor.
Executive Vice President, Policy, Business Roundtable
Ambassador Kristen Silverberg is Executive Vice President, Policy at Business Roundtable, where she leads the Policy team. She previously served as a Managing Director at the Institute of International Finance. She served in the George W. Bush Administration as U.S. Ambassador to the European Union from 2008 to 2009 and as Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs from 2005 to 2008. Prior to her time at the State Department, she held a number of senior positions at the White House including Deputy Domestic Policy Advisor.
Ambassador Silverberg served in 2003 in Baghdad, Iraq for which she received the Secretary of Defense Medal for Outstanding Public Service. She formerly practiced law at Williams and Connolly, LLP in Washington, DC and served as a law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and Judge David Sentelle of the U.S. Court of Appeals. She attended Harvard College and the University of Texas School of Law, where she graduated with High Honors.
Ambassador Silverberg serves on the Board of Directors of the CDC Foundation, the Board of Directors of the International Republican Institute, the Board of Directors of Vorbeck Materials, the Advisory Board of the Texas National Security Review, the National Advisory Council of the Aspen Institute Future of Work Initiative, and was recognized by the World Economic Forum as a Young Global Leader.
Chief Legal + Administrative Officer, Waystar Health
Matthew R. A. Heiman leads all legal and corporate governance matters for Waystar. Over the last two decades, he has worked in corporate and government sectors, gaining deep experience in the areas of corporate governance, litigation, risk management, security, and compliance.
Most recently, Matthew was Vice President, Corporate Secretary & Associate General Counsel at Johnson Controls where he helped establish a new corporate secretary department and led the integration of legal departments following the company’s merger with Tyco International. Prior to its merger with Johnson Controls, Matthew held a number of positions with Tyco International including Vice President, Chief Compliance & Audit Officer. Before Tyco, Matthew was a lawyer with the National Security Division at the U.S Department of Justice. He was a legal advisor to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad, Iraq and practiced as a trial lawyer with the law firm of McGuireWoods.
Matthew holds a BA and JD from Indiana University and is a member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies. He is a Senior Fellow at George Mason University’s National Security Institute.
Partner, Mayer Brown
Prof. Tim Keeler, an attorney in the Government and International Trade Group, joined Mayer Brown in 2009, and brings an in-depth knowledge of international trade law and economic policy matters, and a history of working in the Executive Branch and Congress on major economic, legislative and regulatory issues.
Prior to joining Mayer Brown, Professor Keeler served in a variety of senior positions in the U.S. Government for almost 12 years. Most recently he was the Chief of Staff in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) from 2006 - 2009, where he oversaw implementation of U.S. policy, strategy and negotiations involving all aspects of international trade and investment matters. He worked on a number of key issues including: climate change and trade; US and China relations; WTO negotiations and litigation; free trade agreement negotiations and implementation; and CFIUS decisions.
Before working for USTR, Prof. Keeler spent more than five years at the Treasury Department from 2001 – 2006. He joined the Office of Legislative Affairs in 2001 as a Deputy to the Assistant Secretary for International Issues, where he was responsible for Treasury’s legislative strategy on issues including capital market sanctions, foreign exchange rate policy testimony, appropriations for U.S. agreements to replenish the World Bank and other Multilateral Development Banks, multilateral debt relief, and U.S. participation in the International Monetary Fund. He later managed the Office of Legislative Affairs from 2002 - 2006 and assisted on all policy and personnel issues in the Office. This included leading Treasury nominees through the U.S. Senate confirmation process, legislative strategy on Treasury Intelligence and Terrorist Financing matters, and advising on major economic legislative initiatives such as the 2003 tax cuts and social security reform proposals.
Prof. Keeler also served on the Presidential Transition Team in 2000–2001 as a policy coordinator on export control and trade remedy policy, handling the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Export Administration (now called the Bureau of Industry and Security) and the International Trade Commission (ITC).
Earlier in his career, Prof. Keeler served as a professional staff member for international trade on the US Senate Finance Committee under Chairman William V. Roth (R-DE). There he worked on legislation establishing permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) between the U.S. and China, preferential trade programs for Sub-Saharan Africa (the African Growth and Opportunity Act) and the Caribbean basin, the Generalized System of Preferences, legislation to bring the U.S. into compliance with the WTO decision on the Foreign Sales Corporation provisions of the Internal Revenue Code, and the miscellaneous tariff bill.
In recognition of his government service, Prof. Keeler was awarded the USTR Distinguished Service Award, the Treasury Distinguished Service Award, and the Treasury Secretary’s Honor Award twice.
Prof. Keeler is also an adjunct professor at the Georgetown University School of Law, co-teaching a course on U.S. and WTO law, policy, and politics; is a member of the Board of Directors of the Washington International Trade Foundation; and is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Prof. Keeler has spoken at conferences on international trade and economic issues sponsored by, inter alia, the American Bar Association (Climate Change and Trade, March 2009), the Korea Economic Institute (the U.S. – Korea Free Trade Agreement, October 2010), and the U.S.-China Business Council (Sec. 421 tires safeguard case, July 2009; and the U.S. – China Economic and Political Relationship, January 2010).
George C. Dix Professor in Constitutional Law, Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law
John O. McGinnis is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review. He also has an MA degree from Balliol College, Oxford, in philosophy and theology. Professor McGinnis clerked on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. From 1987 to 1991, he was deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel at the Department of Justice. He is the author of Accelerating Democracy: Transforming Government Through Technology (Princeton 2013) and Originalism and the Good Constitution (Harvard 2013) (with M. Rappaport). He is a past winner of the Paul Bator award given by the Federalist Society to an outstanding academic under 40. He has been listed by the United States on the roster of panelists who may be called upon to decide World Trade Organization Disputes.
Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law Center
Alvaro Santos is Professor of Law and Director of the Center for the Advancement of the Rule of Law in the Americas (CAROLA) at Georgetown University. He teaches and writes in the areas of international trade, economic development, drug policy, transnational labor law and the future of NAFTA.
Professor Santos is co-editor of Law and the New Developmental State: The Brazilian Experience in Latin America (2013) and The New Law and Economic Development: A Critical Appraisal (2006). He is also the author of a number of articles and book chapters, including “Carving Out Policy Autonomy for Developing Countries in the World Trade Organization: The Experience of Brazil and Mexico” in the Virginia Journal of International Law (2012), and "Three Transnational Discourses of Labor Law in Domestic Reforms" in the University of Pennsylvania Journal of International Law (2010). In 2016, he contributed to a research manifesto authored by working group at the Harvard Institute for Global Law and Policy, examining the role of law in global value chains. Professor Santos serves on the editorial boards of the American Journal of Comparative Law, the Journal of International Economic Law, the Law and Development Review, and the Latin American Journal of International Trade Law. He regularly teaches at Georgetown's WTO Academy and Harvard's Institute for Global Law and Policy (IGLP) and has also taught at the University of Texas, Tufts University, Melbourne Law School, and the University of Turin. Santos received a JD with high honors from Universidad Nacional Autonóma de México and an LLM and SJD from Harvard Law School.
Chief Legal + Administrative Officer, Waystar Health
Matthew R. A. Heiman leads all legal and corporate governance matters for Waystar. Over the last two decades, he has worked in corporate and government sectors, gaining deep experience in the areas of corporate governance, litigation, risk management, security, and compliance.
Most recently, Matthew was Vice President, Corporate Secretary & Associate General Counsel at Johnson Controls where he helped establish a new corporate secretary department and led the integration of legal departments following the company’s merger with Tyco International. Prior to its merger with Johnson Controls, Matthew held a number of positions with Tyco International including Vice President, Chief Compliance & Audit Officer. Before Tyco, Matthew was a lawyer with the National Security Division at the U.S Department of Justice. He was a legal advisor to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad, Iraq and practiced as a trial lawyer with the law firm of McGuireWoods.
Matthew holds a BA and JD from Indiana University and is a member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies. He is a Senior Fellow at George Mason University’s National Security Institute.
Partner, Mayer Brown
Prof. Tim Keeler, an attorney in the Government and International Trade Group, joined Mayer Brown in 2009, and brings an in-depth knowledge of international trade law and economic policy matters, and a history of working in the Executive Branch and Congress on major economic, legislative and regulatory issues.
Prior to joining Mayer Brown, Professor Keeler served in a variety of senior positions in the U.S. Government for almost 12 years. Most recently he was the Chief of Staff in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) from 2006 - 2009, where he oversaw implementation of U.S. policy, strategy and negotiations involving all aspects of international trade and investment matters. He worked on a number of key issues including: climate change and trade; US and China relations; WTO negotiations and litigation; free trade agreement negotiations and implementation; and CFIUS decisions.
Before working for USTR, Prof. Keeler spent more than five years at the Treasury Department from 2001 – 2006. He joined the Office of Legislative Affairs in 2001 as a Deputy to the Assistant Secretary for International Issues, where he was responsible for Treasury’s legislative strategy on issues including capital market sanctions, foreign exchange rate policy testimony, appropriations for U.S. agreements to replenish the World Bank and other Multilateral Development Banks, multilateral debt relief, and U.S. participation in the International Monetary Fund. He later managed the Office of Legislative Affairs from 2002 - 2006 and assisted on all policy and personnel issues in the Office. This included leading Treasury nominees through the U.S. Senate confirmation process, legislative strategy on Treasury Intelligence and Terrorist Financing matters, and advising on major economic legislative initiatives such as the 2003 tax cuts and social security reform proposals.
Prof. Keeler also served on the Presidential Transition Team in 2000–2001 as a policy coordinator on export control and trade remedy policy, handling the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Export Administration (now called the Bureau of Industry and Security) and the International Trade Commission (ITC).
Earlier in his career, Prof. Keeler served as a professional staff member for international trade on the US Senate Finance Committee under Chairman William V. Roth (R-DE). There he worked on legislation establishing permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) between the U.S. and China, preferential trade programs for Sub-Saharan Africa (the African Growth and Opportunity Act) and the Caribbean basin, the Generalized System of Preferences, legislation to bring the U.S. into compliance with the WTO decision on the Foreign Sales Corporation provisions of the Internal Revenue Code, and the miscellaneous tariff bill.
In recognition of his government service, Prof. Keeler was awarded the USTR Distinguished Service Award, the Treasury Distinguished Service Award, and the Treasury Secretary’s Honor Award twice.
Prof. Keeler is also an adjunct professor at the Georgetown University School of Law, co-teaching a course on U.S. and WTO law, policy, and politics; is a member of the Board of Directors of the Washington International Trade Foundation; and is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Prof. Keeler has spoken at conferences on international trade and economic issues sponsored by, inter alia, the American Bar Association (Climate Change and Trade, March 2009), the Korea Economic Institute (the U.S. – Korea Free Trade Agreement, October 2010), and the U.S.-China Business Council (Sec. 421 tires safeguard case, July 2009; and the U.S. – China Economic and Political Relationship, January 2010).
George C. Dix Professor in Constitutional Law, Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law
John O. McGinnis is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review. He also has an MA degree from Balliol College, Oxford, in philosophy and theology. Professor McGinnis clerked on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. From 1987 to 1991, he was deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel at the Department of Justice. He is the author of Accelerating Democracy: Transforming Government Through Technology (Princeton 2013) and Originalism and the Good Constitution (Harvard 2013) (with M. Rappaport). He is a past winner of the Paul Bator award given by the Federalist Society to an outstanding academic under 40. He has been listed by the United States on the roster of panelists who may be called upon to decide World Trade Organization Disputes.
Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law Center
Alvaro Santos is Professor of Law and Director of the Center for the Advancement of the Rule of Law in the Americas (CAROLA) at Georgetown University. He teaches and writes in the areas of international trade, economic development, drug policy, transnational labor law and the future of NAFTA.
Professor Santos is co-editor of Law and the New Developmental State: The Brazilian Experience in Latin America (2013) and The New Law and Economic Development: A Critical Appraisal (2006). He is also the author of a number of articles and book chapters, including “Carving Out Policy Autonomy for Developing Countries in the World Trade Organization: The Experience of Brazil and Mexico” in the Virginia Journal of International Law (2012), and "Three Transnational Discourses of Labor Law in Domestic Reforms" in the University of Pennsylvania Journal of International Law (2010). In 2016, he contributed to a research manifesto authored by working group at the Harvard Institute for Global Law and Policy, examining the role of law in global value chains. Professor Santos serves on the editorial boards of the American Journal of Comparative Law, the Journal of International Economic Law, the Law and Development Review, and the Latin American Journal of International Trade Law. He regularly teaches at Georgetown's WTO Academy and Harvard's Institute for Global Law and Policy (IGLP) and has also taught at the University of Texas, Tufts University, Melbourne Law School, and the University of Turin. Santos received a JD with high honors from Universidad Nacional Autonóma de México and an LLM and SJD from Harvard Law School.
William Cranch Research Professor of Law, The George Washington University Law School
Bradford R. Clark teaches and writes in the areas of civil procedure, constitutional structure, federal courts, and foreign relations. His scholarship has appeared in leading journals including California Law Review, Columbia Law Review, Harvard Law Review, Texas Law Review, University of Chicago Law Review, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, and Virginia Law Review. His book, The Law of Nations and the United States Constitution (co-authored with Anthony J. Bellia Jr.), was published in 2017 by Oxford University Press. Professor Clark has been a visiting professor at Harvard Law School and the University of Michigan Law School. Professor Clark also served as a special master appointed by the Supreme Court to make recommendations in an original action between states, Alabama, et al. v. North Carolina, Orig. No. 132.
Before joining the law school faculty, Professor Clark spent several years practicing law in the Washington, D.C. office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, where he specialized in trial and appellate litigation. Previously, he served as an attorney adviser in the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel, where he provided legal advice to the president, the attorney general, and the heads of executive departments. Professor Clark also served as a law clerk to The Honorable Robert H. Bork of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and to The Honorable Antonin Scalia of the Supreme Court of the United States.
Senior Director, Liberty & National Security Program, Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School
Elizabeth (Liza) Goitein is senior director of the Brennan Center for Justice’s Liberty & National Security Program.
Goitein is a nationally-recognized expert on presidential emergency powers, government surveillance, and government secrecy. Her writing has been featured in major newspapers and magazines including the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Los Angeles Times, The Atlantic Magazine, and The New Republic, and she has appeared frequently on MSNBC, CNN, and NPR. She has testified on several occasions before the Senate and House Judiciary Committees.
Before coming to the Brennan Center, Goitein served as counsel to Senator Russ Feingold, chairman of the Constitution Subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and as a trial attorney in the Federal Programs Branch of the Civil Division of the Department of Justice. Goitein graduated from Yale Law School and clerked for the Honorable Michael Daly Hawkins on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. In 2021–22, she was a member of the inaugural class of Senior Practitioner Fellows at the University of Chicago’s Center for Effective Government.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit
Judge Smith was appointed U.S. Circuit Judge for the Fifth Circuit by President Reagan and entered on duty in January 1988. He attended public schools in Lubbock, Texas, and graduated from Yale University, receiving a B.A. in 1969 and a J.D. in 1972.
Judge Smith was a Law Clerk to U.S. District Judge Halbert Woodward, Northern District of Texas, 1972-1973; with the Houston law firm of Fulbright & Jaworski as an Associate, 1973-1981, and as Partner, 1981-1984; and as City Attorney, City of Houston, 1984-1988. He was Chairman, Civil Service Commission, City of Houston, 1982-1984; and a Director, Harris County Housing Authority, 1978-1980.
Judge Smith lives in Houston and is married to Mary Jane Smith and has four children: Ruth Ann, Clark, J.J., and Brandon. He formerly was Chair of the Advisory Committee on Federal Rules of Evidence of the Judicial Conference of the United States. He assists LexisNexis/Matthew Bender & Co. in periodic revisions of several chapters of Moore’s Federal Practice.
Agnes Williams Sesquicentennial Professor of Federal Courts, Georgetown Law
Stephen I. Vladeck is a professor of law at the Georgetown University Law Center, and is a nationally recognized expert on the federal courts; the Supreme Court; national security law; and military justice.
Vladeck is author of the New York Times bestselling book, “The Shadow Docket: How the Supreme Court Uses Stealth Rulings to Amass Power and Undermine the Republic,” which won the 2023 Writers’ League of Texas Book Award for Non-Fiction and was a finalist for the 2024 ABA Silver Gavel Award for Media and the Arts. Vladeck is also a highly regarded appellate advocate, having argued three cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and over a dozen before various lower federal civilian and military courts. He has received numerous awards for his influential and widely cited legal scholarship, his prolific popular writing, his teaching, and his service to the legal profession—including the 2024 University of Texas President’s Research Impact Award and his selection by the Order of the Coif to serve as its Distinguished Visiting Professor for 2025.
Vladeck is CNN’s Supreme Court analyst and editor and author of “One First,” a popular weekly newsletter about the Supreme Court. Together with Bobby Chesney, Vladeck co-hosts the popular and award-winning “National Security Law Podcast.” He is also a co-author of Aspen Publishers’ leading national security law and counterterrorism law casebooks. And he is a member of the Board of Trustees of EarthJustice—the nation’s premier nonprofit public interest environmental law organization.
Vladeck graduated from Yale Law School in 2004—where he was executive editor of the Yale Law Journal and won the Harlan Fiske Stone Prize for outstanding moot court oralist and shared the Potter Stewart Prize for best moot court team performance. After law school, he clerked for the Honorable Marsha S. Berzon on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and the Honorable Rosemary Barkett on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. He earned a B.A. summa cum laude with Highest Distinction in History and Mathematics from Amherst College in 2001—where he wrote his senior thesis on “Leipzig’s Shadow: The War Crimes Trials of the First World War and Their Implications from Nuremberg to the Present.” A native New Yorker and hopeless Mets fan, Vladeck lives in the District with his wife, Karen (Founder and Managing Partner of Risepoint Search Partners); their daughters, Madeleine and Sydney; and their eleven-year-old pug, Roxanna.
Senior Lecturer; Director, The Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law, The University of Texas at Austin School of Law
Adam Klein is Director of the Strauss Center and Director of Strauss’ Program on Technology, Security, and Global Affairs. Adam also serves as a Senior Lecturer at the School of Law. Before joining the Strauss Center, Adam served as Chairman of the United States Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, the independent, bipartisan federal agency responsible for overseeing counterterrorism programs at the NSA, FBI, CIA, Department of Homeland Security, and other federal agencies. As the Board’s Senate-confirmed Chairman, he oversaw its oversight and advice engagements with other federal agencies, while also serving as the Board’s chief executive officer.
Before entering government, Adam was the Robert M. Gates Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security, a bipartisan national-security research institution in Washington, DC. There, his research focused on government surveillance, intelligence powers, and national security law. Previously, Adam practiced law at Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale & Dorr, LLP and served as a law clerk to Justice Antonin Scalia of the U.S. Supreme Court and Judge Brett Kavanaugh of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. He has also worked on national-security policy at the RAND Corporation, the 9/11 Public Discourse Project (the non-profit successor to the 9/11 Commission), and in the U.S. Congress. He received his BA from Northwestern University and his JD from Columbia Law School.
Adam is a former Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow and Robert Bosch Foundation Fellow in Berlin. He speaks German and French.
William Cranch Research Professor of Law, The George Washington University Law School
Bradford R. Clark teaches and writes in the areas of civil procedure, constitutional structure, federal courts, and foreign relations. His scholarship has appeared in leading journals including California Law Review, Columbia Law Review, Harvard Law Review, Texas Law Review, University of Chicago Law Review, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, and Virginia Law Review. His book, The Law of Nations and the United States Constitution (co-authored with Anthony J. Bellia Jr.), was published in 2017 by Oxford University Press. Professor Clark has been a visiting professor at Harvard Law School and the University of Michigan Law School. Professor Clark also served as a special master appointed by the Supreme Court to make recommendations in an original action between states, Alabama, et al. v. North Carolina, Orig. No. 132.
Before joining the law school faculty, Professor Clark spent several years practicing law in the Washington, D.C. office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, where he specialized in trial and appellate litigation. Previously, he served as an attorney adviser in the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel, where he provided legal advice to the president, the attorney general, and the heads of executive departments. Professor Clark also served as a law clerk to The Honorable Robert H. Bork of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and to The Honorable Antonin Scalia of the Supreme Court of the United States.
Senior Director, Liberty & National Security Program, Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School
Elizabeth (Liza) Goitein is senior director of the Brennan Center for Justice’s Liberty & National Security Program.
Goitein is a nationally-recognized expert on presidential emergency powers, government surveillance, and government secrecy. Her writing has been featured in major newspapers and magazines including the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Los Angeles Times, The Atlantic Magazine, and The New Republic, and she has appeared frequently on MSNBC, CNN, and NPR. She has testified on several occasions before the Senate and House Judiciary Committees.
Before coming to the Brennan Center, Goitein served as counsel to Senator Russ Feingold, chairman of the Constitution Subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and as a trial attorney in the Federal Programs Branch of the Civil Division of the Department of Justice. Goitein graduated from Yale Law School and clerked for the Honorable Michael Daly Hawkins on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. In 2021–22, she was a member of the inaugural class of Senior Practitioner Fellows at the University of Chicago’s Center for Effective Government.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit
Judge Smith was appointed U.S. Circuit Judge for the Fifth Circuit by President Reagan and entered on duty in January 1988. He attended public schools in Lubbock, Texas, and graduated from Yale University, receiving a B.A. in 1969 and a J.D. in 1972.
Judge Smith was a Law Clerk to U.S. District Judge Halbert Woodward, Northern District of Texas, 1972-1973; with the Houston law firm of Fulbright & Jaworski as an Associate, 1973-1981, and as Partner, 1981-1984; and as City Attorney, City of Houston, 1984-1988. He was Chairman, Civil Service Commission, City of Houston, 1982-1984; and a Director, Harris County Housing Authority, 1978-1980.
Judge Smith lives in Houston and is married to Mary Jane Smith and has four children: Ruth Ann, Clark, J.J., and Brandon. He formerly was Chair of the Advisory Committee on Federal Rules of Evidence of the Judicial Conference of the United States. He assists LexisNexis/Matthew Bender & Co. in periodic revisions of several chapters of Moore’s Federal Practice.
Agnes Williams Sesquicentennial Professor of Federal Courts, Georgetown Law
Stephen I. Vladeck is a professor of law at the Georgetown University Law Center, and is a nationally recognized expert on the federal courts; the Supreme Court; national security law; and military justice.
Vladeck is author of the New York Times bestselling book, “The Shadow Docket: How the Supreme Court Uses Stealth Rulings to Amass Power and Undermine the Republic,” which won the 2023 Writers’ League of Texas Book Award for Non-Fiction and was a finalist for the 2024 ABA Silver Gavel Award for Media and the Arts. Vladeck is also a highly regarded appellate advocate, having argued three cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and over a dozen before various lower federal civilian and military courts. He has received numerous awards for his influential and widely cited legal scholarship, his prolific popular writing, his teaching, and his service to the legal profession—including the 2024 University of Texas President’s Research Impact Award and his selection by the Order of the Coif to serve as its Distinguished Visiting Professor for 2025.
Vladeck is CNN’s Supreme Court analyst and editor and author of “One First,” a popular weekly newsletter about the Supreme Court. Together with Bobby Chesney, Vladeck co-hosts the popular and award-winning “National Security Law Podcast.” He is also a co-author of Aspen Publishers’ leading national security law and counterterrorism law casebooks. And he is a member of the Board of Trustees of EarthJustice—the nation’s premier nonprofit public interest environmental law organization.
Vladeck graduated from Yale Law School in 2004—where he was executive editor of the Yale Law Journal and won the Harlan Fiske Stone Prize for outstanding moot court oralist and shared the Potter Stewart Prize for best moot court team performance. After law school, he clerked for the Honorable Marsha S. Berzon on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and the Honorable Rosemary Barkett on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. He earned a B.A. summa cum laude with Highest Distinction in History and Mathematics from Amherst College in 2001—where he wrote his senior thesis on “Leipzig’s Shadow: The War Crimes Trials of the First World War and Their Implications from Nuremberg to the Present.” A native New Yorker and hopeless Mets fan, Vladeck lives in the District with his wife, Karen (Founder and Managing Partner of Risepoint Search Partners); their daughters, Madeleine and Sydney; and their eleven-year-old pug, Roxanna.
Senior Lecturer; Director, The Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law, The University of Texas at Austin School of Law
Adam Klein is Director of the Strauss Center and Director of Strauss’ Program on Technology, Security, and Global Affairs. Adam also serves as a Senior Lecturer at the School of Law. Before joining the Strauss Center, Adam served as Chairman of the United States Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, the independent, bipartisan federal agency responsible for overseeing counterterrorism programs at the NSA, FBI, CIA, Department of Homeland Security, and other federal agencies. As the Board’s Senate-confirmed Chairman, he oversaw its oversight and advice engagements with other federal agencies, while also serving as the Board’s chief executive officer.
Before entering government, Adam was the Robert M. Gates Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security, a bipartisan national-security research institution in Washington, DC. There, his research focused on government surveillance, intelligence powers, and national security law. Previously, Adam practiced law at Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale & Dorr, LLP and served as a law clerk to Justice Antonin Scalia of the U.S. Supreme Court and Judge Brett Kavanaugh of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. He has also worked on national-security policy at the RAND Corporation, the 9/11 Public Discourse Project (the non-profit successor to the 9/11 Commission), and in the U.S. Congress. He received his BA from Northwestern University and his JD from Columbia Law School.
Adam is a former Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow and Robert Bosch Foundation Fellow in Berlin. He speaks German and French.
Professor of Political Science and International Affairs, Elliot School of International Affairs, The George Washington University
Henry R. Nau is Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at the Elliott School of International Affairs, The George Washington University. From 1989-2016, he directed the US-Japan- South Korea Legislative Exchange Program, semiannual meetings among Members of the US Congress, Japanese Diet, and South Korean National Assembly. During the academic year 2011-12 he was the W. Glenn Campbell and Rita Ricardo-Campbell National Fellow and the Susan Louise Dyer Peace National Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University.
Professor Nau holds a B.S. degree in Economics, Politics and Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from The Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. Previously, he taught at Williams College and as Visiting Professor at Johns Hopkins SAIS, Stanford, and Columbia Universities. He is the recipient of grants from, among others, the Council on Foreign Relations, National Science Foundation, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Smith- Richardson Foundation, Century Foundation, Japan US Friendship Commission, Rumsfeld Foundation, the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, and the Hoover Institution. From August 1975 to January 1977 he served as a special assistant to the Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs and from January 1981 to July 1983 as senior staff member and White House sherpa on President Reagan’s National Security Council responsible for G-7 Summits and international economic affairs.
Among numerous publications, he is the author of five single-authored University press books, including Conservative Internationalism: Armed Diplomacy Under Jefferson, Polk, Truman and Reagan (Princeton University Press, 2013; paperback with new preface 2015); Perspectives on International Relations: Power, Institutions, and Ideas (Sage/CQ Press, 5th Edition, 2016); At Home Abroad: Identity and Power in American Foreign Policy (Cornell University Press, 2002); The Myth of America's Decline: Leading the World Economy into the 1990s (Oxford University Press, 1990) and National Politics and International Technology: Nuclear Reactor Development in Western Europe (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1974). His most recent articles and book chapters include “How Restraint Leads to War,” Commentary Magazine, (September 2015; Lead Article on Front Cover); “The ‘Great Expansion:’ The Economic Legacy of Ronald Reagan,” in Reagan’s Legacy in a World Transformed, edited by Jeffrey L. Chidester and Paul Kengor, (Harvard University Press, 2015); and “Ideas have consequences: The Cold War and today,” International Politics, (July 2011).
He is the recipient of the State Department's Superior Honor Award (1977), the Elliott School Harry Harding Teaching Prize (2007), and the Japanese Government's Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon (2016). From 1963-65 he served as a Lieutenant in the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, N.C.
Chief Legal + Administrative Officer, Waystar Health
Matthew R. A. Heiman leads all legal and corporate governance matters for Waystar. Over the last two decades, he has worked in corporate and government sectors, gaining deep experience in the areas of corporate governance, litigation, risk management, security, and compliance.
Most recently, Matthew was Vice President, Corporate Secretary & Associate General Counsel at Johnson Controls where he helped establish a new corporate secretary department and led the integration of legal departments following the company’s merger with Tyco International. Prior to its merger with Johnson Controls, Matthew held a number of positions with Tyco International including Vice President, Chief Compliance & Audit Officer. Before Tyco, Matthew was a lawyer with the National Security Division at the U.S Department of Justice. He was a legal advisor to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad, Iraq and practiced as a trial lawyer with the law firm of McGuireWoods.
Matthew holds a BA and JD from Indiana University and is a member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies. He is a Senior Fellow at George Mason University’s National Security Institute.
Senior Counsel, Uber Technologies, Inc.
Krishna K. Juvvadi is Senior Counsel at Uber Technologies, Inc., where he manages all regulatory matters in the United States. Prior to joining Uber, Mr. Juvvadi was a Partner at the law firm of Sher Leff LLP. While at Sher Leff, Mr. Juvvadi was as senior member of a trial team that won a unianimous jury verdict for $236,000,000 against ExxonMobil on behalf of the State of New Hampshire for statewide groundwater contamination. For his work on that trial, Mr. Juvvadi was awarded the California Lawyer Attorney of the Year and named a Finalist for Public Justice's Trial Lawyer of the Year. Prior to Sher Leff, Mr. Juvvadi was a Trial Attorney with the United States Department of Justice. Mr. Juvvadi received his J.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law and his B.A. from Northwestern University.
Senior Vice President for Legal Studies, Cato Institute
Clark Neily is senior vice president for legal studies at the Cato Institute. His areas of interest include constitutional law, overcriminalization, civil forfeiture, police accountability, and gun rights. Neily is the author of Terms of Engagement: How Our Courts Should Enforce the Constitution’s Promise of Limited Government. His writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and National Review Online, as well as various law reviews, including the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, George Mason Law Review, Georgetown Journal of Law and Public Policy, NYU Journal of Law and Liberty, and Texas Review of Law and Politics. Neily is a frequent guest speaker and lecturer for the Federalist Society, Institute for Humane Studies, and American Constitution Society.
Before joining Cato in 2017, Neily was a senior attorney and constitutional litigator at the Institute for Justice and director of the Institute’s Center for Judicial Engagement. He is also an adjunct professor at the University of Texas School of Law, where he teaches constitutional litigation and public-interest law.
Neily served as co-counsel in District of Columbia v. Heller, the historic case in which the Supreme Court held for the first time that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to own a gun for self-defense.
Neily began his legal career as a law clerk to Judge Royce Lamberth on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. After that he spent four years in the trial department of the Dallas-based firm Thompson & Knight. Neily received his undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Texas, where he was Chief Articles Editor of the Texas Law Review.
Professor of Hospitality Management and Director, Center for Hos, Pennsylvania State University
A member of the Penn State faculty since 2001, his research focuses on strategic management, lodging management and development, real estate valuation, work-life balance in the lodging industry, and hotel branding.
Prior to working at Penn State, O'Neill was an assistant professor, associate professor, and professor at Johnson & Wales University in Providence, Rhode Island, from 1994 to 2001. He was a visiting faculty member at Novgorod State University in Russia in 2000 and an adjunct faculty member at the University of Rhode Island in 1997. He has also worked in industry, notably as a senior associate for Coopers & Lybrand from 1991 to 1994; director of hotel market planning for Holiday Inn Worldwide from 1990 to 1991; manager and senior manager of hotel development planning for Marriott Corporation from 1988 to 1990; consultant and senior consultant for Laventhol & Horwath from 1985 to 1988; and front office manager and housekeeping manager for the Hyatt Corporation from 1984 to 1985.
In addition to his professional and academic roles, O’Neill has been a consultant for dozens of companies, including the Darien Hospitality Group, Hilton Hotels, Marriott International, American Express, Citizens Bank, GMAC Commercial Mortgage, Kaplan Publishing, Prentice Hall, as well as a number of law firms.
O’Neill is the recipient of several awards, including a favorite professor award from Penn State, the Teacher of the Year Award from Johnson & Wales University, and excellence awards from the Marriott and Hyatt Corporations. He has given invited talks throughout the United States and has been quoted or mentioned in numerous media outlets, including The New York Times, USA Today, and Business Week.
He earned a Ph.D. degree in business administration at the University of Rhode Island in 1999, a master’s degree in real estate at New York University in 1994, and a bachelor’s degree in hotel administration at Cornell University in 1984. A licensed real estate appraiser, he holds the Member of the Appraisal Institute (MAI) designation from the Appraisal Institute and the Certified Hospitality Educator (CHE) designation from the American Hotel & Lodging Association. He lives in State College with his wife Alicia and their three children.
Partner, Antitrust and Competition, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati
Maureen Ohlhausen is a partner in the Washington, D.C., office of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, where she advises industry-leading clients on complex antitrust and litigation matters, with a focus on high-profile cases. Sought after for her depth of experience on antitrust and Federal Trade Commission (FTC)-related issues, Maureen is known for her relationships with officials in the U.S. and abroad.
After finishing law school and clerking at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, Maureen joined the FTC in 1997. She held a series of roles at the agency over the next 12 years, rising to the position of Director of the FTC Office of Policy Planning, where she led the agency’s work on e-commerce and headed the FTC’s Internet Access Task Force, which produced an influential report analyzing competition and consumer protection legal issues in the broadband and internet sectors. She then went into private practice at a leading telecommunications law firm, where she headed the FTC practice group.
In 2012, Maureen was confirmed by the Senate as a Commissioner of the FTC and was appointed Acting Chairman in January 2017, a role she held until May 2018. As Acting Chairman, Maureen directed all aspects of the agency’s antitrust work, including merger review, conduct enforcement, and all consumer protection enforcement, with an emphasis on privacy and technology issues. Under her leadership, the FTC won several influential merger challenges in court and reached a number of key digital privacy settlements.
To date, Maureen is the only FTC Commissioner to have received the Robert Pitofsky Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of her contributions to the FTC.
Following the end of her term at the FTC, and immediately prior to joining Wilson Sonsini, Maureen was chair of the global antitrust and competition practice at Baker Botts, based in that firm’s Washington, D.C., office.
A recognized thought leader, Maureen is a frequent author and speaker, and is often quoted by leading print and broadcast media on antitrust, FTC, and privacy and data security matters. She has published dozens of articles on antitrust, privacy, intellectual property, regulation, FTC litigation, telecommunications, and international law issues in prestigious publications. During her tenure at the FTC and in private practice, she testified more than two dozen times before Congress, including before the Senate Commerce Committee and the House Energy and Commerce Antitrust Sub-Committee. She also testified before the Antitrust Modernization Commission.
Associate General Counsel and Executive Director of Communicatio, Intel Corporation
Peter Pitsch is Associate General Counsel and Executive Director of Communications Policy for Intel Corporation. He manages Intel’s global spectrum and telecom policy team.
Prior to joining Intel, Pitsch was the president of Pitsch Communications from 1989 to 1998 which represented telecommunication’s clients before the FCC and Congress, provided business and regulatory planning, and published and lectured on U.S. regulatory policy.
Pitsch was the Chief of Staff to the Chairman of the FCC from 1987 to 1989 where he advised the Chairman on all issues before the FCC including access reforms, price caps, major tariffs, and broadcasting. Before his move to Chief of Staff. Pitsch was Chief of Office of Plans and Policy. His responsibilities included managing the FCC policy office that provided recommendations on major issues such as access reforms, major tariffs, broadcast regulation, auction and spectrum allocations.
From 1980 to 1981, Pitsch was a staff member of the Reagan Administration Transition Team which developed recommendations for reforming the Federal Trade Comnission with special focus on antitrust issues. He was a senior attorney at Montgomery Ward, Inc. from 1979 to 1981. He provided legal counsel and legislative lobbying of FTC, consumer protection, energy and international trade matters. Prior to that, he worked for three year as an attorney-advisor to Commissioner Calvin Collier at the Federal Trade Commission.
Mr. Pitsch received a B.A. in Economics from the University of Chicago in 1973 and his J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center in 1976. He is a member of the District of Columbia Bar, the Virginia State Bar, and the Federal Communications Bar Association.
Senior Counsel, Uber Technologies, Inc.
Krishna K. Juvvadi is Senior Counsel at Uber Technologies, Inc., where he manages all regulatory matters in the United States. Prior to joining Uber, Mr. Juvvadi was a Partner at the law firm of Sher Leff LLP. While at Sher Leff, Mr. Juvvadi was as senior member of a trial team that won a unianimous jury verdict for $236,000,000 against ExxonMobil on behalf of the State of New Hampshire for statewide groundwater contamination. For his work on that trial, Mr. Juvvadi was awarded the California Lawyer Attorney of the Year and named a Finalist for Public Justice's Trial Lawyer of the Year. Prior to Sher Leff, Mr. Juvvadi was a Trial Attorney with the United States Department of Justice. Mr. Juvvadi received his J.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law and his B.A. from Northwestern University.
Senior Vice President for Legal Studies, Cato Institute
Clark Neily is senior vice president for legal studies at the Cato Institute. His areas of interest include constitutional law, overcriminalization, civil forfeiture, police accountability, and gun rights. Neily is the author of Terms of Engagement: How Our Courts Should Enforce the Constitution’s Promise of Limited Government. His writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and National Review Online, as well as various law reviews, including the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, George Mason Law Review, Georgetown Journal of Law and Public Policy, NYU Journal of Law and Liberty, and Texas Review of Law and Politics. Neily is a frequent guest speaker and lecturer for the Federalist Society, Institute for Humane Studies, and American Constitution Society.
Before joining Cato in 2017, Neily was a senior attorney and constitutional litigator at the Institute for Justice and director of the Institute’s Center for Judicial Engagement. He is also an adjunct professor at the University of Texas School of Law, where he teaches constitutional litigation and public-interest law.
Neily served as co-counsel in District of Columbia v. Heller, the historic case in which the Supreme Court held for the first time that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to own a gun for self-defense.
Neily began his legal career as a law clerk to Judge Royce Lamberth on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. After that he spent four years in the trial department of the Dallas-based firm Thompson & Knight. Neily received his undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Texas, where he was Chief Articles Editor of the Texas Law Review.
Professor of Hospitality Management and Director, Center for Hos, Pennsylvania State University
A member of the Penn State faculty since 2001, his research focuses on strategic management, lodging management and development, real estate valuation, work-life balance in the lodging industry, and hotel branding.
Prior to working at Penn State, O'Neill was an assistant professor, associate professor, and professor at Johnson & Wales University in Providence, Rhode Island, from 1994 to 2001. He was a visiting faculty member at Novgorod State University in Russia in 2000 and an adjunct faculty member at the University of Rhode Island in 1997. He has also worked in industry, notably as a senior associate for Coopers & Lybrand from 1991 to 1994; director of hotel market planning for Holiday Inn Worldwide from 1990 to 1991; manager and senior manager of hotel development planning for Marriott Corporation from 1988 to 1990; consultant and senior consultant for Laventhol & Horwath from 1985 to 1988; and front office manager and housekeeping manager for the Hyatt Corporation from 1984 to 1985.
In addition to his professional and academic roles, O’Neill has been a consultant for dozens of companies, including the Darien Hospitality Group, Hilton Hotels, Marriott International, American Express, Citizens Bank, GMAC Commercial Mortgage, Kaplan Publishing, Prentice Hall, as well as a number of law firms.
O’Neill is the recipient of several awards, including a favorite professor award from Penn State, the Teacher of the Year Award from Johnson & Wales University, and excellence awards from the Marriott and Hyatt Corporations. He has given invited talks throughout the United States and has been quoted or mentioned in numerous media outlets, including The New York Times, USA Today, and Business Week.
He earned a Ph.D. degree in business administration at the University of Rhode Island in 1999, a master’s degree in real estate at New York University in 1994, and a bachelor’s degree in hotel administration at Cornell University in 1984. A licensed real estate appraiser, he holds the Member of the Appraisal Institute (MAI) designation from the Appraisal Institute and the Certified Hospitality Educator (CHE) designation from the American Hotel & Lodging Association. He lives in State College with his wife Alicia and their three children.
Partner, Antitrust and Competition, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati
Maureen Ohlhausen is a partner in the Washington, D.C., office of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, where she advises industry-leading clients on complex antitrust and litigation matters, with a focus on high-profile cases. Sought after for her depth of experience on antitrust and Federal Trade Commission (FTC)-related issues, Maureen is known for her relationships with officials in the U.S. and abroad.
After finishing law school and clerking at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, Maureen joined the FTC in 1997. She held a series of roles at the agency over the next 12 years, rising to the position of Director of the FTC Office of Policy Planning, where she led the agency’s work on e-commerce and headed the FTC’s Internet Access Task Force, which produced an influential report analyzing competition and consumer protection legal issues in the broadband and internet sectors. She then went into private practice at a leading telecommunications law firm, where she headed the FTC practice group.
In 2012, Maureen was confirmed by the Senate as a Commissioner of the FTC and was appointed Acting Chairman in January 2017, a role she held until May 2018. As Acting Chairman, Maureen directed all aspects of the agency’s antitrust work, including merger review, conduct enforcement, and all consumer protection enforcement, with an emphasis on privacy and technology issues. Under her leadership, the FTC won several influential merger challenges in court and reached a number of key digital privacy settlements.
To date, Maureen is the only FTC Commissioner to have received the Robert Pitofsky Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of her contributions to the FTC.
Following the end of her term at the FTC, and immediately prior to joining Wilson Sonsini, Maureen was chair of the global antitrust and competition practice at Baker Botts, based in that firm’s Washington, D.C., office.
A recognized thought leader, Maureen is a frequent author and speaker, and is often quoted by leading print and broadcast media on antitrust, FTC, and privacy and data security matters. She has published dozens of articles on antitrust, privacy, intellectual property, regulation, FTC litigation, telecommunications, and international law issues in prestigious publications. During her tenure at the FTC and in private practice, she testified more than two dozen times before Congress, including before the Senate Commerce Committee and the House Energy and Commerce Antitrust Sub-Committee. She also testified before the Antitrust Modernization Commission.
Associate General Counsel and Executive Director of Communicatio, Intel Corporation
Peter Pitsch is Associate General Counsel and Executive Director of Communications Policy for Intel Corporation. He manages Intel’s global spectrum and telecom policy team.
Prior to joining Intel, Pitsch was the president of Pitsch Communications from 1989 to 1998 which represented telecommunication’s clients before the FCC and Congress, provided business and regulatory planning, and published and lectured on U.S. regulatory policy.
Pitsch was the Chief of Staff to the Chairman of the FCC from 1987 to 1989 where he advised the Chairman on all issues before the FCC including access reforms, price caps, major tariffs, and broadcasting. Before his move to Chief of Staff. Pitsch was Chief of Office of Plans and Policy. His responsibilities included managing the FCC policy office that provided recommendations on major issues such as access reforms, major tariffs, broadcast regulation, auction and spectrum allocations.
From 1980 to 1981, Pitsch was a staff member of the Reagan Administration Transition Team which developed recommendations for reforming the Federal Trade Comnission with special focus on antitrust issues. He was a senior attorney at Montgomery Ward, Inc. from 1979 to 1981. He provided legal counsel and legislative lobbying of FTC, consumer protection, energy and international trade matters. Prior to that, he worked for three year as an attorney-advisor to Commissioner Calvin Collier at the Federal Trade Commission.
Mr. Pitsch received a B.A. in Economics from the University of Chicago in 1973 and his J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center in 1976. He is a member of the District of Columbia Bar, the Virginia State Bar, and the Federal Communications Bar Association.
Dr. John Eastman is the former Henry Salvatori Professor of Law & Community Service and former Dean at Chapman University's Dale E. Fowler School of Law, where he had been a member of the faculty since 1999, specializing in Constitutional Law, Legal History, and Property. He is a founding director of the Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence, a public interest law firm affiliated with the Claremont Institute that he founded in 1999. He has a Ph.D. in Government from the Claremont Graduate School and a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School, and a B.A. in Politics and Economics from the University of Dallas. He serves as the Chairman of the Board of the National Organization for Marriage.
Prior to joining the Chapman law faculty, Dr. Eastman served as a law clerk to the Honorable Clarence Thomas, Associate Justice, Supreme Court of the United States, and to the Honorable J. Michael Luttig, Judge, United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and practiced law with the national law firm of Kirkland & Ellis. Dr. Eastman has also represented numerous clients in important constitutional law matters and has argued before the Supreme Court. On behalf of the Claremont Institute Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence, he has participated as amicus curiae before the Supreme Court of the United States, U.S. Courts of Appeals, and State Supreme Courts in more than one hundred cases of constitutional significance, including Boy Scouts of America v. Dale, Zelman v. Simmons-Harris (the school vouchers case), Kelo v. New London, Ct. (eminent domain), and Van Orden v. Perry (the 10 Commandments case). He has also appeared as an expert legal commentator on numerous television and radio programs, including C-SPAN, Fox News, PBS, NewsHour, and The O'Reilly Factor.
University of Virginia School of Law Student Chapter
Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
ILYA SOMIN is Professor of Law at George Mason University and the B. Kenneth Simon Chair in Constitutional Studies at the Cato Institute. His research focuses on constitutional law, property law, democratic theory, federalism, and migration rights. He is the author of Free to Move: Foot Voting, Migration, and Political Freedom (Oxford University Press, revised and expanded edition, 2022), Democracy and Political Ignorance: Why Smaller Government is Smarter (Stanford University Press, revised and expanded second edition, 2016), and The Grasping Hand: Kelo v. City of New London and the Limits of Eminent Domain (University of Chicago Press, 2015, rev. paperback ed., 2016), coauthor of A Conspiracy Against Obamacare: The Volokh Conspiracy and the Health Care Case (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), and co-editor of Eminent Domain: A Comparative Perspective (Cambridge University Press, 2017). Democracy and Political Ignorance has been translated into Italian and Japanese.
Somin’s work has appeared in numerous scholarly journals, including the Yale Law Journal, Stanford Law Review, Northwestern University Law Review, Georgetown Law Journal, Critical Review, and others. Somin has also published articles in a variety of popular press outlets, including the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, CNN, NBC, The Atlantic, USA Today, Boston Globe, US News and World Report, South China Morning Post, National Law Journal and Reason. He has been quoted or interviewed by the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Time, Newsweek, The Economist, the Christian Science Monitor, the Financial Times, The Guardian, the Associated Press, CBS, MSNBC, NPR, BBC, Reuters, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Al Jazeera, and the Voice of America, among other media.
Somin’s writings have been cited in decisions by the United States Supreme Court, multiple state supreme courts and lower federal courts, and the Supreme Court of Israel. He is co-counsel for the plaintiffs in VOS Selections, Inc. v. Trump, a case challenging the constitutionality of President Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs. Somin has testified on the use of drones for targeted killing in the War on Terror before the US Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Human Rights. In 2009, he testified on property rights issues at the United States Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Somin writes regularly for the popular Volokh Conspiracy law and politics blog, now affiliated with Reason magazine (previously affiliated with the Washington Post from 2014 to 2017). From 2006 to 2013, he served as Co-Editor of the Supreme Court Economic Review, one of the country’s top-rated law and economics journals.
Somin has served as a visiting professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. He has also been a visiting professor or scholar at the Georgetown University Law Center, the University of Hamburg, Germany, the University of Torcuato Di Tella in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Uriel Reichman University in Israel, and Zhengzhou University in China. He is a University Affiliate of the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University, and an affiliated faculty member of the George Mason University Institute for Immigration Research. Before joining the faculty at George Mason, Somin was the John M. Olin Fellow in Law at Northwestern University Law School in 2002-2003. In 2001-2002, he clerked for the Hon. Judge Jerry E. Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Professor Somin earned his B.A., Summa Cum Laude, at Amherst College, M.A. in Political Science from Harvard University, and J.D. from Yale Law School.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit
Amul R. Thapar serves as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. His judicial career began in 2007 when President George W. Bush nominated him to serve on the Eastern District of Kentucky, making him the first South Asian Article III judge in American history. In 2017, he became President Donald J. Trump’s first appellate court nominee.
Before joining the bench, Judge Thapar served as the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Kentucky. While United States Attorney, Judge Thapar worked on the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee (“AGAC”) and chaired the AGAC’s Controlled Substances and Asset Forfeiture subcommittee. He also served on the Terrorism and National Security subcommittee, the Violent Crime subcommittee, and the Child Exploitation working group.
Judge Thapar has worked in private practice, at Williams & Connolly in Washington, D.C., and Squire, Sanders & Dempsey in Cincinnati, Ohio. He also served as an Assistant United States Attorney in both the Southern District of Ohio and the District of Columbia.
Judge Thapar received his undergraduate degree from Boston College and his law degree from the University of California, Berkeley. After graduating, Judge Thapar worked as a law clerk to the Honorable S. Arthur Spiegel of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, and the Honorable Nathaniel R. Jones of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.
Judge Thapar has also published in the Yale Law Journal, Michigan Law Review, and Catholic University Law Review. He teaches courses on originalism, the Federalists and Anti-Federalists, and legal writing at Notre Dame Law School, the University of Virginia School of Law, and Vanderbilt Law School.
Alliances and Interventions
Brian H. Hook, Jamil N. Jaffer, Lawrence Korb, Kristen Silverberg
International Law in the Trump Era: Expectations, Hopes, and Fears
The Federalist Society's Practice Group and Student Divisions and the American Branch of the International Law...
Alliances and Interventions
Brian H. Hook, Jamil N. Jaffer, Lawrence Korb, Kristen Silverberg
International Law in the Trump Era: Expectations, Hopes, and Fears
The Federalist Society's Practice Group and Student Divisions and the American Branch of the International Law...
What is the Future of Trade Law?
Matthew R. A. Heiman, Timothy J. Keeler, John O. McGinnis, Alvaro Santos
International Law in the Trump Era: Expectations, Hopes, and Fears
The Federalist Society's Practice Group and Student Divisions and the American Branch of the International Law...
What is the Future of Trade Law?
Matthew R. A. Heiman, Timothy J. Keeler, John O. McGinnis, Alvaro Santos
International Law in the Trump Era: Expectations, Hopes, and Fears
The Federalist Society's Practice Group and Student Divisions and the American Branch of the International Law...
International & National Security Law: Justice Scalia’s Jurisprudence and National Security
Bradford R. Clark, Elizabeth Goitein, Jerry E. Smith, Stephen I. Vladeck, Adam I. Klein
2016 National Lawyers Convention
This panel will consider Justice Scalia's legacy in national security law, revisiting his opinions in...
International & National Security Law: Justice Scalia’s Jurisprudence and National Security
Bradford R. Clark, Elizabeth Goitein, Jerry E. Smith, Stephen I. Vladeck, Adam I. Klein
2016 National Lawyers Convention
This panel will consider Justice Scalia's legacy in national security law, revisiting his opinions in...
Conservative Internationalism: A Look at American Foreign Policy - Podcast
Henry Nau, Matthew R. A. Heiman
International & National Security Law Practice Group Podcast
United States foreign policy regarding terrorism, China, Iran, North Korea, Russia, and international trade are at...
Regulatory Barriers to Innovation
Krishna Juvvadi, Clark Neily, John O'Neill, Maureen K. Ohlhausen, Peter Pitsch
Fourth Annual Executive Branch Review Conference
American technological innovation has given birth to entire new segments of economic activity. The sharing...
Regulatory Barriers to Innovation
Krishna Juvvadi, Clark Neily, John O'Neill, Maureen K. Ohlhausen, Peter Pitsch
Fourth Annual Executive Branch Review Conference
American technological innovation has given birth to entire new segments of economic activity. The sharing...
Debate: Immigration Restrictions and the Constitution
John C. Eastman, Nicholas William Rotz, Ilya Somin, Amul R. Thapar
2016 National Student Symposium
Immigration restrictions keep millions of people stuck in impoverished countries – preventing them from improving...