Senior Fellow, Stand Together Trust
Vikrant Reddy is a senior fellow at Stand Together Trust, specializing in the area of criminal justice reform. Reddy previously served as a senior policy analyst at the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF), where he managed the launch of TPPF’s national Right on Crime initiative in 2010. He has worked as a research assistant at the Cato Institute, as a judicial clerk to the Hon. Gina M. Benavides in Texas, and as an attorney in private practice. He is a member of the State Bar of Texas, and he serves on the Executive Committee of the Criminal Law Practice Group of the Federalist Society. He is also an appointee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights Texas State Advisory Committee.
Reddy’s research and scholarly opinions have appeared in a range of national media outlets, including USA Today, National Review, The Federalist, and others.
Reddy earned his law degree from the Southern Methodist University School of Law. He received his undergraduate degree from the University of Texas at Austin.
Senior Fellow, Stand Together Trust
Vikrant Reddy is a senior fellow at Stand Together Trust, specializing in the area of criminal justice reform. Reddy previously served as a senior policy analyst at the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF), where he managed the launch of TPPF’s national Right on Crime initiative in 2010. He has worked as a research assistant at the Cato Institute, as a judicial clerk to the Hon. Gina M. Benavides in Texas, and as an attorney in private practice. He is a member of the State Bar of Texas, and he serves on the Executive Committee of the Criminal Law Practice Group of the Federalist Society. He is also an appointee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights Texas State Advisory Committee.
Reddy’s research and scholarly opinions have appeared in a range of national media outlets, including USA Today, National Review, The Federalist, and others.
Reddy earned his law degree from the Southern Methodist University School of Law. He received his undergraduate degree from the University of Texas at Austin.
Managing Partner, Boyden Gray PLLC
Michael Buschbacher is the managing partner of Boyden Gray PLLC. He represents public and private companies, trade associations, non-profits, and individuals in high-stakes litigation and administrative proceedings, with a particular focus on environmental and energy matters.
In addition to trial-level work, Mr. Buschbacher maintains an active appellate practice, both as merits counsel and as counsel for amici curiae. He has written amicus briefs quoted by the Seventh and Ninth Circuits. And his Supreme Court advocacy has been cited by The New Yorker, The New York Times, and E&E News. Mr. Buschbacher’s commentary on legal issues has been published in The Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, and The American Conservative.
Before joining the firm, Mr. Buschbacher served at the U.S. Department of Justice as counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for the Environment and Natural Resources Division. There, he advised senior Department leadership, served as the lead attorney on several lawsuits, and helped draft policy memoranda for the Department on the proper scope and procedure for environmental enforcement. Prior to serving in the government, Mr. Buschbacher was an associate in the D.C. office of Sidley Austin.
Mr. Buschbacher is a former clerk to Judge Alice M. Batchelder of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and to Magistrate Judge Paul R. Cherry of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Indiana.
Mr. Buschbacher holds a B.A. in Music and Germanic Studies from Indiana University and a J.D., magna cum laude, from Notre Dame Law School.
Associate, Covington
John Kendrick represents clients in antitrust matters before government agencies (both domestic and foreign) and in federal court. His experience includes complex, high-profile antitrust litigation spanning multiple jurisdictions. He also represents clients in antitrust investigations, including merger investigations under the HSR Act.
John has advised clients in the cellular, medical device, retail, semiconductor, and travel industries. He has particular experience handling complex issues for technology companies and intellectual property licensing companies.
Angus G. Wynne, Sr. Professor in Civil Jurisprudence, The University of Texas at Austin School of Law
Susan Morse joined the University of Texas law faculty in 2013. She studies and writes about regulatory design and about international tax policy and tax compliance. She is interested in the interaction between legal systems and private ordering.
Recent writings in tax policy include Do Tax Compliance Robots Follow the Law? (symposium contribution), 16 Ohio State Tech. L. J. 278 (2020); GILTI: The Co-operative Potential of a Unilateral Minimum Tax, 2019 British Tax Rev. 512; Does Parenting Matter? U.S. Firms, Non-U.S. Firms, and Global Tax Accruals (with Eric J. Allen), 4 J. L. Fin. & Acct'g 239 (2019); International Cooperation and the 2017 Tax Act, 128 Yale L. J. Forum 362 (Oct. 25, 2018) and Seeking Comparable Transactions in Patent and Tax, 37 Rev. Litig. Brief (2018).
Recent writings in regulatory design include Government-to-Robot Enforcement, 2019 Ill. L. Rev. 1497; When Robots Make Legal Mistakes, 72 Okla. L. Rev. 213 (2019); Regulating by Example, 35 Yale J. Reg. 127 (2018) (with Leigh Osofsky) (featured in online symposium, How Agencies Communicate, at JREG); Safe Harbors, Sure Shipwrecks, 49 U.C. Davis L. Rev. 1385 (2016) (selected for Yale/Stanford/Harvard Junior Faculty Forum, 2015); and Entrepreneurship Incentives for Resource-Constrained Firms, Handbook of Law and Entrepreneurship (forthcoming).
Morse cowrote a Supreme Court amicus brief in 2020 supporting the government in CIC Services, LLC v. Internal Revenue Service (blog coverage here). Morse submitted cowritten Ninth Circuit amicus briefs in 2016, 2018 and 2019 in Altera Corp. v. Commissioner, supporting the government's position that it had validly issued a Treasury regulation that requires cost-sharing arrangements to include stock-based compensation. The Ninth Circuit held for the government and denied rehearing en banc, and the Supreme Court denied cert in 2020. Blog coverage here, here, here, here, here, and here.
Professor Morse teaches Property and Federal Income Tax, as well as the Financial Methods for Lawyers course, which she pioneered at Texas Law. She won the Women's Law Caucus Teacher of the Year award in 2016 and 2020. She edits the tax section at JOTWELL.com.
Professor Morse clerked for the Honorable Michael Boudin of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit and spent seven years in business tax practice at Ropes & Gray, Boston and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, Palo Alto. Prior to joining the Texas faculty, she served as Associate Professor at UC Hastings College of the Law and as Research Assistant Professor at Santa Clara University School of Law.
Morse has also written Innovation and Taxation at Start-Up Firms, 69 Tax L. Rev. 357 (2016); Tax Anti-Avoidance Law in Australia and the United States, 49 Int'l Law. 111 (2015); A Simpler Offshore Profits Transition Tax, 76 Tax Notes Int'l 629 (Feb. 17, 2014); Startup Ltd.: Tax Planning and Initial Incorporation, 14 Fla. Tax Rev. 319 (2013); Tax Haven Incorporation for U.S. Firms: No Exodus Yet, 66 Nat’l Tax J. 395 (2013); The Transfer Pricing Regs Need a Good Edit, 40 Pepperdine L. Rev. 1415 (2013); and A Corporate Offshore Profits Transition Tax, 91 N.C. L. Rev. 549 (2013).
Senior Fellow in Executive Power, Cato Institute
Molly Nixon is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, where she focuses on the scope, use, and history of executive power as well as its limits under the Constitution. Molly was previously an attorney with Pacific Legal Foundation’s separation of powers practice, where she litigated cases challenging congressional delegations of legislative power and executive branch overreach. Before that, she served as an Attorney-Advisor at the Department of the Interior and as Legislative Counsel for Congressman Justin Amash.
Molly holds a J.D. from New York University School of Law and a B.A. in History and International Relations from Boston University. She clerked for the U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska and practiced law at a firm in New York City for several years before moving to Washington, D.C.
Samuel H. McCoy II Professor of Law, University of Virginia School of Law
John F. Duffy is the Samuel H. McCoy II Professor of Law and Class of 1966 Research Professor of Law at the University of Virginia School of Law, where he teaches administrative law, torts and intellectual property. Professor Duffy has published articles on a wide range of administrative law and regulatory issues in journals such as University of Chicago Law Review, Yale Law Journal, Stanford Law Review, Virginia Law Review, Columbia Law Review, Texas Law Review, Northwestern University Law Review, NYU Law Review, University of Pennsylvania Law Review and the Supreme Court Review. His 1998 article Administrative Common Law in Judicial Review, 77 Tex. L. Rev. 113 (1998), was one of the first articles to criticize the Chevron doctrine as being irreconcilable with § 706 of the APA; it won the American Bar Association’s Scholarship Award in Administrative Law. His 2008 article “Are Administrative Patent Judges Unconstitutional?” was covered on National Public Radio), in the New York Times (Adam Liptak, In One Flaw, Questions on Validity of 46 Judges, May 6, 2008), and in the Wall Street Journal (Dan Slater, Patently Unconstitutional, May 6, 2008). The NYT and WSJ agreed that he was “a different kind of law professor,” “one of the lucky few” whose “writings actually wind up changing the law.”
As an attorney in the courts, Duffy has twice successfully convinced the Supreme Court to overturn lower court doctrines that had been applied in many cases over decades but that were unanimously held to be irreconcilable with Supreme Court precedents. See TC Heartland v. Kraft Foods Group Brands, 581 U.S. 258 (2017); KSR v. Teleflex, 550 U.S. 398 (2007).
Prior to entering legal academics, Duffy clerked on the D.C. Circuit for Stephen Williams and on the Supreme Court for Antonin Scalia. While clerking, he became known as Justice Scalia’s “hapless law clerk,” who had been tasked with unearthing three-quarters of a century of legislative history that made “no difference” to the outcome in an otherwise forgettable case. See Conroy v. Aniskoff, 507 U.S. 511, 527-28 (1993) (Scalia, J., concurring in the judgment).
In earlier days, Duffy enjoyed being a professional blackjack player unwelcome in all Atlantic City casinos and a semi-professional road runner (best marathon time 2:24:33). He holds an A.B. in physics from Harvard and a J.D. from the University of Chicago.
Partner and Co-Chair, Public Policy Group, Shook Hardy & Bacon LLP
Mark Behrens co-chairs Shook's Washington, DC-based Public Policy Practice Group and is a leading national expert on civil justice issues with over thirty years of experience. A substantial part of his practice is working to improve the civil litigation environment through state and federal legislation; in the courts through amicus curiae briefs; through legal scholarship and judicial education; and in the court of public opinion.
Mark is actively involved in civil justice reform efforts at the federal and state levels. He has testified before the U.S. Congress and most state legislatures on behalf of business and civil justice organizations. Mark also has an active amicus brief practice specializing in tort liability and civil justice issues. He has authored or co-authored over 150 amicus briefs in cases before the United States Supreme Court and federal and state appellate courts on behalf of business, civil justice, and defense lawyer organizations. In addition, Mark routinely files comments on behalf of business, civil justice, and defense lawyer organizations regarding potential changes to federal and state court rules. He chairs the International Association of Defense Counsel’s (IADC) Civil Justice Response Committee and serves on the Board of Directors of Lawyers for Civil Justice (LCJ).
Mark is a member of the American Law Institute (ALI). He received his J.D. in 1990 from Vanderbilt University Law School, where he was a member of the Vanderbilt Law Review. He received his B.A. in economics from the University of Wisconsin in 1987.
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