Partner, Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP
David Cohen, who leads the firm's Financial and Business Integrity Group, provides clients with anti-money laundering, financial and trade sanctions advice; represents US and foreign-based clients in matters implicating national security, including CFIUS and cybersecurity; conducts internal investigations; and defends clients facing government investigations. His practice has a strong emphasis on disputes involving US and foreign regulators and enforcement agencies, often involving cross-border issues, as well as proceedings in US and foreign adjudicative venues.
Before rejoining the firm in 2017, Mr. Cohen served for eight years in senior presidentially appointed positions. From 2015–2017, Mr. Cohen was Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), where he helped manage the Agency's domestic and worldwide operations, oversee its strategic modernization, and lead foreign intelligence collection, all-source analysis, covert action, counter-intelligence and foreign liaison relationships. Mr. Cohen also directed special projects on the impact of new technologies on the Agency and on how best to work with US companies to advance the CIA's mission. At the conclusion of his tenure, Mr. Cohen was awarded the Distinguished Intelligence Medal, the CIA's highest honor.
Previously, Mr. Cohen served for four years in the US Department of the Treasury as Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, where he managed the department's policy, regulatory, enforcement and intelligence functions aimed at combating illicit finance, including money laundering and other financial crime, and disrupting financial support to nations, organizations and individuals posing a threat to national security. He directly supervised the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), which implements financial and economic sanctions, and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), the anti-money laundering regulatory and enforcement agency. Mr. Cohen was instrumental in developing and implementing sanctions against Iran, Russia, North Korea, ISIS, al Qa'ida and other terrorist organizations, for which he was described as “President Obama's favorite combatant commander” and as the administration's “financial Batman.”
Mr. Cohen previously served for two years as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorist Financing, overseeing policy development related to sanctions and money laundering. Earlier in his career, Mr. Cohen served in Treasury's general counsel's office, where he helped craft legislation that formed the basis of Title III of the USA PATRIOT Act, the post-9/11 legislation that provided new tools to prevent money laundering and the financing of terrorism.
Prior to his most recent government service, Mr. Cohen practiced law in Washington DC for nearly 20 years, including as a partner at WilmerHale. His practice at WilmerHale focused on complex civil litigation, white-collar criminal defense, internal investigations, and anti-money laundering and sanctions compliance advice.
Executive Vice President, Chief Legal Officer, Gates Corporation
Matthew R. A. Heiman joined the Company in May 2026 and has served as the Company’s Chief Legal Officer and Corporate Secretary since June 2026. As Chief Legal Officer, Mr. Heiman is responsible for all legal functions for Gates, including securities and corporate governance, M&A, litigation, commercial, regulatory, compliance, patents and trademarks, real estate, employment and labor, sustainability and environmental matters. Prior to joining Gates, Mr. Heiman held senior legal leadership roles at Waystar, where he served as Chief Legal & Administrative Officer from 2023 to 2025 and as General Counsel and Corporate Secretary from 2020 to 2023. Prior to that, he was with Johnson Controls, where he served as Vice President, Corporate Secretary, and Associate General Counsel. Mr. Heiman has been a Senior Fellow for the National Security Institute at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia School of Law since 2018.
Principal in the International, BGR Group
Lester Munson is a Principal in the International at BGR Group, a leading government relations firm in Washington, D.C., where he consults with foreign governments, corporations and advocacy groups. He also serves as adjunct faculty at Johns Hopkins University and speaks regularly on the foreign policy role of Congress and on U.S. foreign assistance issues. He is a member of the Executive Committee of the Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network, a Visiting Fellow at George Mason’s National Security Institute and a commentator on Fox News Channel and the China Global Television Network.
Mr. Munson joined BGR Group in November 2015 after a 26-year career on Capitol Hill and in the Executive Branch. He was most recently Staff Director of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, where he led policy, oversight, legislative and communications efforts for a staff of 25 and negotiated committee priorities with the White House, the State Department and Congressional leadership.
Previously, Mr. Munson was Chief of Staff for Senator Mark Kirk of Illinois. During his tenure, Senator Kirk became the leading Republican voice in the Senate on Iran and other national security issues.
During the Bush Administration, Mr. Munson served as Deputy Assistant Administrator at the U.S. Agency for International Development, where he focused on legislative affairs as well as global health issues. He led legislative efforts to develop and implement the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and won an award for his contribution to the creation of the President’s Malaria Initiative.
Mr. Munson is a 1989 graduate of the University of Chicago and holds a Master’s degree from St. John’s College in Annapolis. He is married with two children.
General Counsel, House Committee on Homeland Security
Steven Giaier is General Counsel for the Committee on Homeland Security in the U.S. House of Representative. In this role, he serves as the lead staff member on the Committee for all legal issues and legislation action. Over the past several years, he has written several of the most substantial pieces of legislation to move through the Committee and be enacted into law, including the Visa Waiver Program Improvement and Terrorist Travel Prevention Act and the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Authorization Act. Mr. Giaier formerly served as parliamentary advisor to Congressman Peter King during King’s tenure as chairman of the Homeland Security Committee from 2011-2013. He recently coauthored “Turf Wars: How a Jurisdictional Quagmire in Congress Compromises Homeland Security,” published by the New York University Journal of Legislation and Public Policy in the summer of 2015.
Sterling Professor of Law, Yale Law School
Akhil Reed Amar is Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science at Yale University, where he teaches constitutional law in both Yale College and Yale Law School. After graduating from Yale College, summa cum laude, in 1980 and from Yale Law School in 1984, and clerking for Judge (later Justice) Stephen Breyer, Amar joined the Yale faculty in 1985 at the age of 26. He is Yale’s only living professor to have won the University’s unofficial triple crown — the Sterling Chair for scholarship, the DeVane Medal for teaching, and the Lamar Award for alumni service.
Amar’s work has won awards from both the American Bar Association and the Federalist Society, and he has been cited by Supreme Court justices across the spectrum in more than 50 cases — tops among scholars under age 70. According to both Fred Shapiro’s landmark 2021 study of lifetime scholarly citations and Heinonline’s most recent tabulation of lifetime law-review citations, Amar is America’s second most-cited legal scholar still under age 70. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and has written widely for popular publications, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Time, and The Atlantic. He was an informal consultant to the popular TV show The West Wing and his scholarship has been showcased on many broadcasts, including The Colbert Report, Morning Joe, AC360, Velshi, Fox News @ Night with Shannon Bream, Fareed Zakaria GPS, Erin Burnett Outfront, and Constitution USA with Peter Sagal.
He is the author of more than a hundred law review articles and several books, including The Bill of Rights (1998 — winner of the Yale University Press Governors’ Award), America’s Constitution (2005 — winner of the ABA’s Silver Gavel Award), America’s Unwritten Constitution (2012 — named one of the year’s 100 best nonfiction books by The Washington Post), and The Constitution Today (2016 — named one of the year’s top ten nonfiction books by Time magazine). The first volume of his ambitious trilogy on American constitutional history from the Founding to the present, The Words That Made Us: America’s Constitutional Conversation, 1760-1840, came out in May 2021. The second volume, Born Equal: Remaking America’s Constitution, 1840-1920, will be published in September 2025 and is already available for pre-order. All together, his nonfiction books have won two starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and three starred reviews from Kirkus—tops, it is believed, among legal scholars under age 70. Together with Vikram David Amar (YLS ’88), he has a bi-weekly column on the Supreme Court on the distinguished website SCOTUSblog. Along with Andy Lipka, he co-hosts a popular and free weekly podcast, Amarica’s Constitution, whose listeners are eligible for CLE credit in most American jurisdictions. A wide assortment of his articles and op-eds and video links to many of his public lectures and free online courses may be found at akhilamar.com.
Professor of Law, Fordham University School of Law
James Monroe Distinguished Professor of Law and Albert Clark Tate, Jr., Professor of Law, University of Virginia School of Law
Professor Saikrishna Prakash’s scholarship focuses on separation of powers, particularly executive powers. He teaches Constitutional Law, Foreign Relations Law and Presidential Powers at the Law School.
Prakash’s most recent book, “The Living Presidency: An Originalist Argument Against Its Ever-Expanding Powers,” was published by Harvard Belknap Press in 2020. He also authored “Imperial from the Beginning: The Constitution of the Original Executive” (Yale University Press, 2015). The former book focuses on the modern presidency while the latter considers the presidency of the Founders.
Prakash has authored over 75 law review articles. Among them are “Of Synchronicity and Supreme Law” in the Harvard Law Review, “The Indefensible Duty to Defend” in the Columbia Law Review, and “50 States, 50 Attorneys General and 50 Approaches to the Duty to Defend” and “The Executive Power Over Foreign Affairs” in the Yale Law Journal.
Prakash has published op-eds in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times. At the request of Democrats and Republicans, he has testified before Congress on matters of presidential removal, the Mueller Report and how Congress might better check the presidency. He is currently a Miller Center Senior Fellow. In 2015, he received the Roger Traynor award for faculty scholarship. In the same year, he received an honorable mention from the American Society of Legal Writers for his book “Imperial from the Beginning.” He has given named lectures at William & Mary Law School, Princeton University and Toledo Law School, and keynote addresses at several conferences.
Prakash majored in economics and political science at Stanford University. At Yale Law School, he served as senior editor of the Yale Law Journal and received the John M. Olin Fellowship in Law, Economics and Public Policy. He subsequently clerked for Judge Laurence H. Silberman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and for Justice Clarence Thomas of the U.S. Supreme Court. After practicing in New York for two years, he served as a visiting professor at the University of Illinois College of Law and as an associate professor at Boston University School of Law. He then spent several years at the University of San Diego School of Law as the Herzog Research Professor of Law. Prakash has been a visiting professor at Northwestern University and the University of Chicago. He also has served as a James Madison Fellow at Princeton University and Visiting Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution of War & Peace at Stanford University.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, D.C. Circuit
Judge Randolph was confirmed by the Senate and appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit by President George H. W. Bush in July 1990.
Judge Randolph received his B.S. degree in 1966 from Drexel University, majoring in economics and basic engineering. At Drexel, he was president of the debate society, vice president of the Student Senate, and a member of the varsity wrestling squad. In 1969, he received his J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, summa cum laude. Judge Randolph ranked first in his law school class all three years and was managing editor of the Law Review.
After graduation, Judge Randolph served as a law clerk to Judge Henry J. Friendly of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York.
Admitted to the California Bar in 1970 (and to the District of Columbia bar in 1973), Judge Randolph worked as Assistant to the Solicitor General, U.S. Department of Justice, in Washington, D.C., 1970-1973.
After two years in private practice, Judge Randolph was named Deputy Solicitor General of the United States, a position he held from 1975-1977.
In 1979, Judge Randolph was appointed Special Counsel to the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct (the Ethics Committee) of the United States House of Representatives, remaining in this position until 1980.
In the 1980s, Judge Randolph held a number of positions while in private practice, including Special Assistant Attorney General for the states of New Mexico (1985 90), Utah (1986-1990) and Montana (1983-1990). He also served as a Member of the Advisory Panel of the Federal Courts Study Committee.
From 1971-1990, Judge Randolph argued 23 times in the United States Supreme Court, winning 20 of his cases.
As an Adjunct Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center from 1974-1978 he taught courses in civil procedure and injunctions. In 1992 he taught a course in constitutional law. He is a Distinguished Adjunct Professor of Law at George Mason School of Law and for the past ten years has been teaching First Amendment law. He also serves on the Judicial Advisory Board of the George Mason University Law and Economics Center.
From 1993 through 1995 Judge Randolph was a member of the Committee on Codes of Conduct of the Judicial Conference of the United States, and from 1995 to 1998 served as the Committee's chairman. He also served as the judicial liaison to the American Bar Association’s Administrative Law Section.
Judge Randolph is a member of the Board of Visitors at Drexel University Law School and was named to the “Drexel One Hundred” as a leading alumnus. In 2002 he was presented the James Wilson Award by the University of Pennsylvania Law School. In November 2005 he delivered the Fifth Annual Barbara K. Olson Memorial Lecture at the Annual Lawyers Convention of the Federalist Society. He has published numerous articles, the most recent of which is in the June 2006 issue of the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy.
Judge Randolph is married to the Honorable Eileen J. O’Connor, formerly Assistant Attorney General, Tax Division, U.S. Department of Justice. His son John Trevor Randolph is an investment banker in New York. His daughter Cynthia Lee Randolph is an artist living in San Francisco.
Emanuel S. Heller Professor of Law, University of California at Berkeley; Senior Research Fellow, School of Civic Leadership, Civitas Institute, University of Texas at Austin; Nonresident Senior Fellow, American Enterprise Institute
John Yoo is the Emanuel Heller Professor of Law. He is also Distinguished Visiting Scholar, School of Civic Leadership and Senior Research Fellow, Civitas Institute, at the University of Texas at Austin. He is also a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
His most recent book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Supreme Court, co-authored with Robert Delahunty, was published in 2023. Professor Yoo’s other books include Defender-in-Chief: Trump’s Fight for Presidential Power; Striking Power: How Cyber, Robots, and Space Weapons Change the Rules for War, Point of Attack: Preventive War, International Law, and Global Welfare, and Crisis and Command: A History of Executive Power from George Washington to George Bush.
Professor Yoo has published more than 100 articles in academic journals on subjects including national security, constitutional law, international law, and the Supreme Court. He also regularly contributes to the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and National Review, among others.
Professor Yoo has served in all three branches of government. He was an official in the U.S. Department of Justice, where he worked on national security and terrorism issues after the 9/11 attacks. He served as general counsel of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. He has been a law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and federal appeals Judge Laurence Silberman. He has been a visiting professor at Seoul National University in South Korea, the Interdisciplinary Center in Israel, Keio University in Japan, Trento University in Italy, the University of Chicago, and the Free University of Amsterdam.
Professor Yoo supervises the Public Law and Policy Program and the California Constitution Center. He also serves on the boards of the Pacific Legal Foundation, the Federalist Society’s Separation of Powers and Federalism Division, the Universidad Cientifica del Sur Law School, and the Asia-Pacific Law Institute at Seoul National University. He is a winner of the Federalist Society’s Paul Bator award and been the Edwin Meese III Originalism Lecturer at the Heritage Foundation.
Professor Yoo graduated from Yale Law School and summa cum laude from Harvard College.
Sterling Professor of Law, Yale Law School
Akhil Reed Amar is Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science at Yale University, where he teaches constitutional law in both Yale College and Yale Law School. After graduating from Yale College, summa cum laude, in 1980 and from Yale Law School in 1984, and clerking for Judge (later Justice) Stephen Breyer, Amar joined the Yale faculty in 1985 at the age of 26. He is Yale’s only living professor to have won the University’s unofficial triple crown — the Sterling Chair for scholarship, the DeVane Medal for teaching, and the Lamar Award for alumni service.
Amar’s work has won awards from both the American Bar Association and the Federalist Society, and he has been cited by Supreme Court justices across the spectrum in more than 50 cases — tops among scholars under age 70. According to both Fred Shapiro’s landmark 2021 study of lifetime scholarly citations and Heinonline’s most recent tabulation of lifetime law-review citations, Amar is America’s second most-cited legal scholar still under age 70. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and has written widely for popular publications, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Time, and The Atlantic. He was an informal consultant to the popular TV show The West Wing and his scholarship has been showcased on many broadcasts, including The Colbert Report, Morning Joe, AC360, Velshi, Fox News @ Night with Shannon Bream, Fareed Zakaria GPS, Erin Burnett Outfront, and Constitution USA with Peter Sagal.
He is the author of more than a hundred law review articles and several books, including The Bill of Rights (1998 — winner of the Yale University Press Governors’ Award), America’s Constitution (2005 — winner of the ABA’s Silver Gavel Award), America’s Unwritten Constitution (2012 — named one of the year’s 100 best nonfiction books by The Washington Post), and The Constitution Today (2016 — named one of the year’s top ten nonfiction books by Time magazine). The first volume of his ambitious trilogy on American constitutional history from the Founding to the present, The Words That Made Us: America’s Constitutional Conversation, 1760-1840, came out in May 2021. The second volume, Born Equal: Remaking America’s Constitution, 1840-1920, will be published in September 2025 and is already available for pre-order. All together, his nonfiction books have won two starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and three starred reviews from Kirkus—tops, it is believed, among legal scholars under age 70. Together with Vikram David Amar (YLS ’88), he has a bi-weekly column on the Supreme Court on the distinguished website SCOTUSblog. Along with Andy Lipka, he co-hosts a popular and free weekly podcast, Amarica’s Constitution, whose listeners are eligible for CLE credit in most American jurisdictions. A wide assortment of his articles and op-eds and video links to many of his public lectures and free online courses may be found at akhilamar.com.
Professor of Law, Fordham University School of Law
James Monroe Distinguished Professor of Law and Albert Clark Tate, Jr., Professor of Law, University of Virginia School of Law
Professor Saikrishna Prakash’s scholarship focuses on separation of powers, particularly executive powers. He teaches Constitutional Law, Foreign Relations Law and Presidential Powers at the Law School.
Prakash’s most recent book, “The Living Presidency: An Originalist Argument Against Its Ever-Expanding Powers,” was published by Harvard Belknap Press in 2020. He also authored “Imperial from the Beginning: The Constitution of the Original Executive” (Yale University Press, 2015). The former book focuses on the modern presidency while the latter considers the presidency of the Founders.
Prakash has authored over 75 law review articles. Among them are “Of Synchronicity and Supreme Law” in the Harvard Law Review, “The Indefensible Duty to Defend” in the Columbia Law Review, and “50 States, 50 Attorneys General and 50 Approaches to the Duty to Defend” and “The Executive Power Over Foreign Affairs” in the Yale Law Journal.
Prakash has published op-eds in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times. At the request of Democrats and Republicans, he has testified before Congress on matters of presidential removal, the Mueller Report and how Congress might better check the presidency. He is currently a Miller Center Senior Fellow. In 2015, he received the Roger Traynor award for faculty scholarship. In the same year, he received an honorable mention from the American Society of Legal Writers for his book “Imperial from the Beginning.” He has given named lectures at William & Mary Law School, Princeton University and Toledo Law School, and keynote addresses at several conferences.
Prakash majored in economics and political science at Stanford University. At Yale Law School, he served as senior editor of the Yale Law Journal and received the John M. Olin Fellowship in Law, Economics and Public Policy. He subsequently clerked for Judge Laurence H. Silberman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and for Justice Clarence Thomas of the U.S. Supreme Court. After practicing in New York for two years, he served as a visiting professor at the University of Illinois College of Law and as an associate professor at Boston University School of Law. He then spent several years at the University of San Diego School of Law as the Herzog Research Professor of Law. Prakash has been a visiting professor at Northwestern University and the University of Chicago. He also has served as a James Madison Fellow at Princeton University and Visiting Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution of War & Peace at Stanford University.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, D.C. Circuit
Judge Randolph was confirmed by the Senate and appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit by President George H. W. Bush in July 1990.
Judge Randolph received his B.S. degree in 1966 from Drexel University, majoring in economics and basic engineering. At Drexel, he was president of the debate society, vice president of the Student Senate, and a member of the varsity wrestling squad. In 1969, he received his J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, summa cum laude. Judge Randolph ranked first in his law school class all three years and was managing editor of the Law Review.
After graduation, Judge Randolph served as a law clerk to Judge Henry J. Friendly of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York.
Admitted to the California Bar in 1970 (and to the District of Columbia bar in 1973), Judge Randolph worked as Assistant to the Solicitor General, U.S. Department of Justice, in Washington, D.C., 1970-1973.
After two years in private practice, Judge Randolph was named Deputy Solicitor General of the United States, a position he held from 1975-1977.
In 1979, Judge Randolph was appointed Special Counsel to the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct (the Ethics Committee) of the United States House of Representatives, remaining in this position until 1980.
In the 1980s, Judge Randolph held a number of positions while in private practice, including Special Assistant Attorney General for the states of New Mexico (1985 90), Utah (1986-1990) and Montana (1983-1990). He also served as a Member of the Advisory Panel of the Federal Courts Study Committee.
From 1971-1990, Judge Randolph argued 23 times in the United States Supreme Court, winning 20 of his cases.
As an Adjunct Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center from 1974-1978 he taught courses in civil procedure and injunctions. In 1992 he taught a course in constitutional law. He is a Distinguished Adjunct Professor of Law at George Mason School of Law and for the past ten years has been teaching First Amendment law. He also serves on the Judicial Advisory Board of the George Mason University Law and Economics Center.
From 1993 through 1995 Judge Randolph was a member of the Committee on Codes of Conduct of the Judicial Conference of the United States, and from 1995 to 1998 served as the Committee's chairman. He also served as the judicial liaison to the American Bar Association’s Administrative Law Section.
Judge Randolph is a member of the Board of Visitors at Drexel University Law School and was named to the “Drexel One Hundred” as a leading alumnus. In 2002 he was presented the James Wilson Award by the University of Pennsylvania Law School. In November 2005 he delivered the Fifth Annual Barbara K. Olson Memorial Lecture at the Annual Lawyers Convention of the Federalist Society. He has published numerous articles, the most recent of which is in the June 2006 issue of the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy.
Judge Randolph is married to the Honorable Eileen J. O’Connor, formerly Assistant Attorney General, Tax Division, U.S. Department of Justice. His son John Trevor Randolph is an investment banker in New York. His daughter Cynthia Lee Randolph is an artist living in San Francisco.
Emanuel S. Heller Professor of Law, University of California at Berkeley; Senior Research Fellow, School of Civic Leadership, Civitas Institute, University of Texas at Austin; Nonresident Senior Fellow, American Enterprise Institute
John Yoo is the Emanuel Heller Professor of Law. He is also Distinguished Visiting Scholar, School of Civic Leadership and Senior Research Fellow, Civitas Institute, at the University of Texas at Austin. He is also a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
His most recent book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Supreme Court, co-authored with Robert Delahunty, was published in 2023. Professor Yoo’s other books include Defender-in-Chief: Trump’s Fight for Presidential Power; Striking Power: How Cyber, Robots, and Space Weapons Change the Rules for War, Point of Attack: Preventive War, International Law, and Global Welfare, and Crisis and Command: A History of Executive Power from George Washington to George Bush.
Professor Yoo has published more than 100 articles in academic journals on subjects including national security, constitutional law, international law, and the Supreme Court. He also regularly contributes to the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and National Review, among others.
Professor Yoo has served in all three branches of government. He was an official in the U.S. Department of Justice, where he worked on national security and terrorism issues after the 9/11 attacks. He served as general counsel of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. He has been a law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and federal appeals Judge Laurence Silberman. He has been a visiting professor at Seoul National University in South Korea, the Interdisciplinary Center in Israel, Keio University in Japan, Trento University in Italy, the University of Chicago, and the Free University of Amsterdam.
Professor Yoo supervises the Public Law and Policy Program and the California Constitution Center. He also serves on the boards of the Pacific Legal Foundation, the Federalist Society’s Separation of Powers and Federalism Division, the Universidad Cientifica del Sur Law School, and the Asia-Pacific Law Institute at Seoul National University. He is a winner of the Federalist Society’s Paul Bator award and been the Edwin Meese III Originalism Lecturer at the Heritage Foundation.
Professor Yoo graduated from Yale Law School and summa cum laude from Harvard College.
Paul Whitfield Horn Professor, Texas Tech University School of Law
Professor Casto received his law degree from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville and a Doctor of the Science of Law degree from Columbia University. He joined the Texas Tech faculty in 1983 after practicing law for a number of years. He has written a number of well received books and articles on international tort law and on the federal courts. The United States Supreme Court has frequently cited or relied upon his published scholarship. He is a member of the American Law Institute and holds a Paul Whitfield Horn Professorship, which is the highest honor that Texas Tech may bestow on a faculty member. He is currently writing a book on the process of providing legal advice in government.
He has written three well-received books: The Supreme Court in the Early Republic, Oliver Ellsworth and the Creation of the Federal Republic, and Foreign Affairs and the Constitution in the Age of Fighting Sail. Professor Casto has written articles on judicial review, foreign policy, and the relationship between religion and public life in the Founding Era.
Dwight D. Opperman Professor of Law; Director, Center for Labor, New York University School of Law
Samuel Estreicher is a nationally preeminent scholar in US and international-comparative labor and employment law and arbitration law. He has authored more than a dozen books, including Beyond Elite Law: Access to Civil Justice in America (with Joy Radice, Cambridge Univ. 2016); leading casebooks on legislation and regulatory state, labor law and employment discrimination and employment law; and published more than 200 articles in professional and academic journals. He served as Chief Reporter for the American Law Institute’s Restatement of Employment Law (2015). After clerking for Judge Harold Leventhal of the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, practicing in a labor law firm, and clerking for Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr. of the US Supreme Court, Prof. Estreicher joined the NYU School of Law faculty in 1978. In addition to serving as counsel to major law firms, he is the former secretary of the Labor and Employment Law Section of the American Bar Association, a former chair of the Committee on Labor and Employment Law of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York.15). He maintains an active appellate and ADR practice. The Labor and Employment Research Association awarded him its 2010 Susan C. Eaton Award for Outstanding Scholar-Practitioner. In recent years, Estreicher also has published work in public international law and authored several briefs in the Supreme Court and US courts of appeals on employment and US foreign relations law issues. Prof. Estreicher received his BA from Columbia College, his MS in industrial relations from Cornell University, and his JD from Columbia Law School, where he was editor-in-chief of the Columbia Law Review. He is a member of the College of Labor and Employment Lawyers and was appointed in 2016 by the UN Secretary General as a member of the UN’s Internal Justice Commission.
George P. Shultz Senior Fellow in Foreign Policy and National Security Affairs, Emeritus, Hoover Institution
Abraham D. Sofaer was appointed the first George P. Shultz Distinguished Scholar and Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution in 1994. Named in honor of former US secretary of state George P. Shultz, the appointment is awarded to a senior scholar whose broad vision, knowledge, and skill will be brought to bear on the problems presented by a radically transformed global environment.
Sofaer's work focuses on the power over war within the US government and on issues related to international law, terrorism, diplomacy, and national security. His most recent books are Taking on Iran: Strength, Diplomacy, and the Iranian Threat(Hoover Institution Press, 2013) and The Best Defense?: Legitimacy and Preventive Force (Hoover Institution Press, 2010).
From 1985 to 1990, he served as a legal adviser to the US Department of State, where he resolved several interstate matters, including the dispute between Egypt and Israel over Taba, the claim against Iraq for its attack on the USS Stark, and the claims against Chile for the assassination of Orlando Letelier. He received the Distinguished Service Award in 1989, the highest state department award given to a non–civil servant.
From 1979 to 1985, Sofaer served as a US district judge in the Southern District of New York. From 1969 to 1979, he was a professor of law at Columbia University School of Law and wrote War, Foreign Affairs, and Constitutional Power: The Origins.From 1967 to 1969, he was an assistant US attorney in the Southern District of New York, after clerking for Judge J. Skelly Wright on the US Court of Appeals in Washington, DC, and the Honorable William J. Brennan Jr. on the US Supreme Court. He practiced law at Hughes, Hubbard and Reed from 1990 to 1994.
A veteran of the US Air Force, Sofaer received an LLB degree from New York University School of Law in 1965, where he was editor in chief of the law review. He holds a BA in history from Yeshiva College (1962). Sofaer is a founding trustee of the National Museum of Jazz in Harlem and a member of the board of the Koret Foundation.
His research papers are available at the Hoover Institution Archives.
Executive Director, ADF International
Paul Coleman serves as executive director of ADF International from its headquarters in Vienna, overseeing the advocacy and operations of the global, alliance-building human rights organization.
Specializing in international human rights and European law, Mr. Coleman has been involved in more than 20 cases before the European Court of Human Rights and has authored complaints and submissions to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, International Criminal Court, Court of Justice of the European Union, UN Human Rights Committee, and numerous national courts.
Mr. Coleman was part of the legal team in the historic Eweida and others v. United Kingdom case, where the court handed down a landmark ruling on religious freedom. Mr. Coleman has also authored legal submissions in numerous precedent-setting cases before the European Court, including three Grand Chamber victories. In Gross v. Switzerland, he submitted that no right to assisted suicide or euthanasia exists under the European Convention on Human Rights. In F.G. v. Sweden, Mr. Coleman argued that European countries have a duty to protect Christian converts escaping persecution in their native countries. In Nagy v. Hungary, he argued that churches must have the freedom to manage their internal affairs without interference from the government or other state bodies.
Coleman earned his LL.M. and postgraduate diploma in legal practice, with distinction, from the Northumbria Law School. He obtained a Bachelor of Laws, with first-class honours, from Newcastle University. Coleman is a solicitor of the Senior Courts of England and Wales and is the author of two books and numerous articles.
CEO, Vulcan Consulting Ltd
Lucinda Creighton is a former Irish Minister for European Affairs and CEO of Vulcan Consulting Ltd. As a member of the Irish Parliament for nine years, she ran Ireland’s Presidency of the Council of the European Union in 2013, and represented the EU in trade talks with the United States, leading to the formal start of TTIP negotiations in 2013. From 2012 to 2014 she also served as Vice President of the European People’s Party – the largest political party in Europe. Ms. Creighton is an advisory board member of the International Republican Institute and the European Council on Foreign Relations. By training, she is a Barrister and qualified as a New York attorney.
In addition to leading Vulcan Consulting, she is retained as a special advisor on Brexit by Fipra, the international public affairs company. Through this connection, she also collaborates with the London School of Economics providing advisory services on the fallout from Brexit. Vulcan Consulting advises a range of corporate clients on EU policy, regulatory and political issues. They specialise in assisting CEOs and other members of leadership teams in understanding the political and decision making environment in Europe.
Distinguished Senior Fellow, Gatestone Institute
Soeren Kern is a Distinguished Senior Fellow of the Gatestone Institute, and the Senior Analyst for Transatlantic Relations at the Madrid-based Grupo de Estudios Estratégicos / Strategic Studies Group. One of the oldest and most influential foreign policy think tanks in Spain, the Strategic Studies Group is closely tied to Spain's center-right Partido Popular/Popular Party and former Spanish Prime Minister José Maria Aznar.
A political scientist by training, Soeren specializes in European politics as well as US and European defense- and security-related issues. He is also an essayist on European anti-Americanism and the roles of America and Europe in the world.
Mr. Kern is a contributing analyst for Jane's Information Group on Basque and Islamist terrorism in Spain. He writes for Jane's Intelligence Review, Jane's Intelligence Weeklyand Jane's Terrorism and Security Monitor.
Mr. Kern is a regular commentator about European politics and transatlantic relations for newspapers and radio programs in Spain, Europe and the United States. He teaches international relations at the Universidad Antonio de Nebrija, a private university in Madrid.
Previously, Mr. Kern was Senior Analyst for Transatlantic Relations at the Madrid-based Elcano Royal Institute for Strategic and International Affairs. He served in the US Air Force(stationed in Germany) during the last decade of the Cold War, and worked as a defense analyst at Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), one of the leading corporate think tanks advising the Pentagon on nuclear non-proliferation. He was also the Washington-based managing editor of Arms Control Today, the strategic affairs monthly magazine.
Mr. Kern graduated from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University in Washington, DC, and has also studied at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He has visited more than one hundred countries, including most of those in the Middle East.
Mr. Kern is a dual citizen of the United States and Germany, and is fluent in English, German and Spanish. He lives in Spain with his wife Mónica.
Founder, Libertas-West Project
Karen Lugo is a constitutional law consultant and national security analyst. She was Director of the Center for Tenth Amendment at Texas Public Policy Foundation from 2013 to 2015. When living in California, she was Co-Director of the Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence Center. From 2005 – 2012, she was a clinical visiting and adjunct professor at Chapman University School of Law where she co-taught the advanced Constitutional Law Clinic. Karen has co-authored and written circuit-level and Supreme Court amicus briefs on such issues as FISA Surveillance, Healthcare Reform, Arizona’s Border Security, Gay Marriage, The Ten Commandments, Eminent Domain, Christian Clubs on University Campuses, and Material Support for Terrorists.
Karen is the founder of the Libertas-West Project, a center for study Islamic integration and radicalization issues. In this capacity, she consulted with the Center for Security Policy to write a book on local over-watch of mosque construction and community engagement called: Mosques in America: A Guide to Accountable Permit Hearings and Continuing Citizen Oversight.
Karen writes and speaks for European and American groups on the importance of basing assimilation efforts on principles of Western exceptionalism. She presented a policy brief to the French Conseil d’Etat analyzing the legal implications of banning the burqa. Ms. Lugo has written one of the most comprehensive overviews of sharia law in American courts, American Family Law and Sharia-Compliant Marriages, for the Federalist Society law journal, Engage. She has written several white papers on the American Law for American Courts legislation and sharia tribunals in America.
Ms. Lugo was an appointee to the California Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. She also taught a Human Rights law course on the contrast between French and English Enlightenment theories in Strasbourg, France.
Until moving from California, Ms. Lugo was a member of the David Horowitz Freedom Center Board of Directors. She was also a regular guest on the Orange County PBS local issues debate program, Inside OC, and she is a contributor to Pajamas Media, National Review Online, City Journal, American Spectator, American Greatness, Townhall.com, American Thinker, Daily Caller, and Family Security Matters. She has been interviewed by dozens of radio hosts and has spoken for civic groups on constitutional and cultural concerns.
General Counsel, House Committee on Homeland Security
Steven Giaier is General Counsel for the Committee on Homeland Security in the U.S. House of Representative. In this role, he serves as the lead staff member on the Committee for all legal issues and legislation action. Over the past several years, he has written several of the most substantial pieces of legislation to move through the Committee and be enacted into law, including the Visa Waiver Program Improvement and Terrorist Travel Prevention Act and the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Authorization Act. Mr. Giaier formerly served as parliamentary advisor to Congressman Peter King during King’s tenure as chairman of the Homeland Security Committee from 2011-2013. He recently coauthored “Turf Wars: How a Jurisdictional Quagmire in Congress Compromises Homeland Security,” published by the New York University Journal of Legislation and Public Policy in the summer of 2015.
The JCPOA Withdrawal
David S. Cohen, Matthew R. A. Heiman, Lester Munson
International & National Security Law Practice Group Teleforum
In 2015, the United States, along with China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom, and...
Courthouse Steps: Trump v. Hawaii Decided
Steven S. Giaier
International & National Security Law and Religious Liberties Practice Group Teleforum
Trump v. Hawaii is the latest iteration of Hawaii’s challenge to President Trump’s Executive Order suspending...
Topics
The President's Immigration Travel Ban: What Trump v. Hawaii Has to Say About Stating a Claim Under the Establishment Clause
It is little appreciated that the United States Supreme Court’s decision today in Trump v. Hawaii,...
Panel II: How Does International Law Limit the War on Terror? [Archive Collection]
Akhil Reed Amar, Catherine Powell, Saikrishna Prakash, A. Raymond Randolph, John C. Yoo
2006 National Student Symposium
On February 25, 2006, the Federalist Society student chapter at Columbia Law School hosted the...
Panel II: How Does International Law Limit the War on Terror? [Archive Collection]
Akhil Reed Amar, Catherine Powell, Saikrishna Prakash, A. Raymond Randolph, John C. Yoo
2006 National Student Symposium
On February 25, 2006, the Federalist Society student chapter at Columbia Law School hosted the...
Topics
Modern Privacy Advocacy
There are many aphorisms to describe the dangers of maximalist demands: a bird in the...
Courthouse Steps: Jesner v. Arab Bank Decided
William R. Casto, Samuel Estreicher
Litigation Practice Group Teleforum
On April 24, Jesner v. Arab Bank was decided 5-4 in favor of the respondent. ...
Constitutional War Powers: Thomas Jefferson and the Barbary Pirates
Abraham D. Sofaer
Short video featuring Abraham Sofaer
When President Thomas Jefferson took office in 1801, he inherited a problem in the Mediterranean--pirates...
EU ‘Incitement to Hate’ Policies: Targets, Cases, and Consequences
Paul Coleman, Lucinda Creighton, Soeren Kern, Karen J. Lugo
International & National Security Law Practice Group Teleforum
As member states of the European Union have adopted laws and programs to curtail inflammatory...
Courthouse Steps: Trump v. Hawaii
Steven S. Giaier
International & National Security Law Practice Group Teleforum
On April 25, the Supreme Court will hear oral argument in Trump v. Hawaii, the...