Senior Counsel, Alliance Defending Freedom
Erik Baptist serves as senior counsel at Alliance Defending Freedom, focusing on administrative litigation and regulatory advocacy.
Before joining ADF, Baptist was a partner at Wiley Rein LLP—one of the largest law firms in Washington, D.C.—where he employed his expertise in administrative and environmental law to represent clients on litigation, regulatory, and enforcement matters.
Prior to working at Wiley, Baptist served as a senior executive service appointee at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. As the senior deputy general counsel and deputy assistant administrator, he directed EPA’s litigation, implemented groundbreaking rulemakings and policies, represented EPA and defended witnesses in response to congressional inquiries, and collectively helped oversee the work of more than 1,100 EPA lawyers, scientists, and staff.
Baptist began his career in the Trial Department of the international law firm McDermott, Will & Emery LLP. He earned his B.A. from Vanderbilt University and his J.D. from The George Washington University Law School. During law school, Baptist externed for the Honorable Ricardo M. Urbina of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, interned for the Honorable Eric T. Washington of the D.C. Court of Appeals, and served on The George Washington International Law Review.
Baptist is an active member of the D.C. Bar and is admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court and various federal courts of appeal.
Faculty Fellow, Center for Law, Science & Innovation, Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law, Arizona State University
Dr. Klein is a Faculty Fellow at the Center for Law, Science & Innovation at the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law at Arizona State University. He is also Principal at Roger D. Klein, MD JD Consulting and Klein & Klein Co., L.P.A. He was formerly Chief Medical Officer at OmniSeq, an oncology focused genomic profiling company that was recently acquired by LabCorp. Previously, Roger was the Medical Director at the Molecular Oncology division at the Cleveland Clinic. He was also the Chair of the Professional Relations Committee at the Association for Molecular Pathology. Prior to joining the Cleveland Clinic, he served as Medical Director of Molecular Oncology at the BloodCenter of Wisconsin where he led the center’s Diagnostic Laboratories’ initiative focused on DNA- and RNA-based testing for evaluation of cancer patients.
Dr. Klein has been an advisor to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). He has participated in and assumed leadership roles in many professional society committees and corporate advisory boards and is a policy advisor to the Heartland Institute.
Dr. Klein is licensed to practice medicine in Ohio, Florida, and Wisconsin. Additionally, he is licensed to practice law in the District of Columbia and Ohio. Roger obtained his Molecular Genetic Pathology certification at Mayo Medical School following completion of his M.D. Yale University School of Medicine. He obtained his J.D. from Yale Law School.
Senior Counsel, Alliance Defending Freedom
Erik Baptist serves as senior counsel at Alliance Defending Freedom, focusing on administrative litigation and regulatory advocacy.
Before joining ADF, Baptist was a partner at Wiley Rein LLP—one of the largest law firms in Washington, D.C.—where he employed his expertise in administrative and environmental law to represent clients on litigation, regulatory, and enforcement matters.
Prior to working at Wiley, Baptist served as a senior executive service appointee at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. As the senior deputy general counsel and deputy assistant administrator, he directed EPA’s litigation, implemented groundbreaking rulemakings and policies, represented EPA and defended witnesses in response to congressional inquiries, and collectively helped oversee the work of more than 1,100 EPA lawyers, scientists, and staff.
Baptist began his career in the Trial Department of the international law firm McDermott, Will & Emery LLP. He earned his B.A. from Vanderbilt University and his J.D. from The George Washington University Law School. During law school, Baptist externed for the Honorable Ricardo M. Urbina of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, interned for the Honorable Eric T. Washington of the D.C. Court of Appeals, and served on The George Washington International Law Review.
Baptist is an active member of the D.C. Bar and is admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court and various federal courts of appeal.
Faculty Fellow, Center for Law, Science & Innovation, Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law, Arizona State University
Dr. Klein is a Faculty Fellow at the Center for Law, Science & Innovation at the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law at Arizona State University. He is also Principal at Roger D. Klein, MD JD Consulting and Klein & Klein Co., L.P.A. He was formerly Chief Medical Officer at OmniSeq, an oncology focused genomic profiling company that was recently acquired by LabCorp. Previously, Roger was the Medical Director at the Molecular Oncology division at the Cleveland Clinic. He was also the Chair of the Professional Relations Committee at the Association for Molecular Pathology. Prior to joining the Cleveland Clinic, he served as Medical Director of Molecular Oncology at the BloodCenter of Wisconsin where he led the center’s Diagnostic Laboratories’ initiative focused on DNA- and RNA-based testing for evaluation of cancer patients.
Dr. Klein has been an advisor to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). He has participated in and assumed leadership roles in many professional society committees and corporate advisory boards and is a policy advisor to the Heartland Institute.
Dr. Klein is licensed to practice medicine in Ohio, Florida, and Wisconsin. Additionally, he is licensed to practice law in the District of Columbia and Ohio. Roger obtained his Molecular Genetic Pathology certification at Mayo Medical School following completion of his M.D. Yale University School of Medicine. He obtained his J.D. from Yale Law School.
Donald M. Ephraim Professor of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Law School
Tony Casey is an expert on business law, finance, and corporate bankruptcy. His research—which has been published in the Yale Law Journal, the Columbia Law Review, the Supreme Court Review, and the University of Chicago Law Review—examines the intersection of finance and law. He has also written about the role of intellectual property law in the organization and financing of creative projects and about how technological innovation is changing the foundations of our legal system more generally.
Before entering academics, Professor Casey was a partner at Kirkland and Ellis, LLP. Before joining Kirkland & Ellis, he was an associate at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz. His legal practice focused on corporate bankruptcy, merger litigation, white-collar investigations, securities litigation, and complex class actions. Casey also served as a law clerk for Chief Judge Joel M. Flaum of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.
Professor Casey received his JD with High Honors in 2002 from the University of Chicago Law School. He received the John M. Olin Prize for the outstanding student of law and economics.
Professor Casey teaches courses and seminars in corporate governance, business law, bankruptcy and reorganization, finance, litigation strategy, civil procedure, and law and technology.
Associate Professor of Law, Emory University School of Law
Lindsey Simon is an associate professor at the Emory University School of Law.
Her research focuses on the bankruptcy system, drawing concepts from bankruptcy structure and procedure to address broader institutional design challenges. Simon’s articles have been published in the Administrative Law Review, the Cardozo Law Review, the Indiana Law Journal and the North Carolina Law Review. Simon’s most recent scholarship addresses the intersection between mass torts and bankruptcy, including an article on non-debtor relief in Chapter 11 forthcoming in the Yale Law Journal. She has assisted academics, judges, members of Congress and many other stakeholders on the subject of mass tort bankruptcies, and her commentary in connection with the Purdue Pharma, Boy Scouts of America and USA Gymnastics bankruptcies has appeared in various media outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Forbes, The Economist, NPR and Reuters.
Before joining the Emory Law faculty in 2023, Professor Simon served as the Robert Cotten Alston Associate Chair in Corporate Law at the University of Georgia School of Law. Prior to becoming a professor, Simon was an associate at Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton, where her practice involved a mix of commercial litigation and corporate restructuring matters. She represented corporations, committees and individuals in state and federal litigation, both in and out of the bankruptcy context. Simon also practiced at a litigation boutique in Chicago, Illinois, and served as a judicial clerk for Judge Beverly B. Martin on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. Additionally, she taught as an adjunct professor at the Georgia State University College of Law.
Simon earned her law degree magna cum laude from the Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law and obtained her Bachelor of Music magna cum laude and her Master of Education from Vanderbilt University.
She is an active member of the American Bankruptcy Institute, where she serves as a member of the ABI Diversity Working Group. She previously served as vice chair and community service co-chair for the Georgia Network of the International Women's Insolvency & Restructuring Confederation and as vice president of the board of directors of the Georgia Latino Law Foundation.
Donald M. Ephraim Professor of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Law School
Tony Casey is an expert on business law, finance, and corporate bankruptcy. His research—which has been published in the Yale Law Journal, the Columbia Law Review, the Supreme Court Review, and the University of Chicago Law Review—examines the intersection of finance and law. He has also written about the role of intellectual property law in the organization and financing of creative projects and about how technological innovation is changing the foundations of our legal system more generally.
Before entering academics, Professor Casey was a partner at Kirkland and Ellis, LLP. Before joining Kirkland & Ellis, he was an associate at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz. His legal practice focused on corporate bankruptcy, merger litigation, white-collar investigations, securities litigation, and complex class actions. Casey also served as a law clerk for Chief Judge Joel M. Flaum of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.
Professor Casey received his JD with High Honors in 2002 from the University of Chicago Law School. He received the John M. Olin Prize for the outstanding student of law and economics.
Professor Casey teaches courses and seminars in corporate governance, business law, bankruptcy and reorganization, finance, litigation strategy, civil procedure, and law and technology.
Associate Professor of Law, Emory University School of Law
Lindsey Simon is an associate professor at the Emory University School of Law.
Her research focuses on the bankruptcy system, drawing concepts from bankruptcy structure and procedure to address broader institutional design challenges. Simon’s articles have been published in the Administrative Law Review, the Cardozo Law Review, the Indiana Law Journal and the North Carolina Law Review. Simon’s most recent scholarship addresses the intersection between mass torts and bankruptcy, including an article on non-debtor relief in Chapter 11 forthcoming in the Yale Law Journal. She has assisted academics, judges, members of Congress and many other stakeholders on the subject of mass tort bankruptcies, and her commentary in connection with the Purdue Pharma, Boy Scouts of America and USA Gymnastics bankruptcies has appeared in various media outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Forbes, The Economist, NPR and Reuters.
Before joining the Emory Law faculty in 2023, Professor Simon served as the Robert Cotten Alston Associate Chair in Corporate Law at the University of Georgia School of Law. Prior to becoming a professor, Simon was an associate at Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton, where her practice involved a mix of commercial litigation and corporate restructuring matters. She represented corporations, committees and individuals in state and federal litigation, both in and out of the bankruptcy context. Simon also practiced at a litigation boutique in Chicago, Illinois, and served as a judicial clerk for Judge Beverly B. Martin on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. Additionally, she taught as an adjunct professor at the Georgia State University College of Law.
Simon earned her law degree magna cum laude from the Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law and obtained her Bachelor of Music magna cum laude and her Master of Education from Vanderbilt University.
She is an active member of the American Bankruptcy Institute, where she serves as a member of the ABI Diversity Working Group. She previously served as vice chair and community service co-chair for the Georgia Network of the International Women's Insolvency & Restructuring Confederation and as vice president of the board of directors of the Georgia Latino Law Foundation.
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.
Associate, Wiley Rein LLP
Boyd litigates and provides regulatory advice for a wide variety of telecommunications and technology clients.
Senior Legal Fellow, The Future of Free Speech, Vanderbilt University
Ashkhen Kazaryan is a renowned expert in First Amendment law and technology policy, specializing in digital free speech, artificial intelligence, and the intersection of constitutional rights with emerging technologies. As a Senior Legal Fellow at the Future of Free Speech at Vanderbilt University, she leads initiatives to protect free expression and shape policies that uphold the First Amendment in the digital age.
Previously, Ashkhen was the lead for North and Latin America on the content regulation team at Meta, where she also served as the company’s policy lead on Section 230. She has also been a Senior Fellow at Stand Together and the Director of Civil Liberties at TechFreedom, where she worked extensively on platform liability, free speech, and internet governance. She is currently Fellow for the First Amendment at the Freedom Forum.
Ashkhen earned her specialist in law degree summa cum laude from Lomonosov Moscow State University in 2012 and later received a master of law degree from Yale Law School in 2016. During her time at Yale, she contributed as an articles editor for the Yale Journal of Law and Feminism, a senior editor for the Yale Law and Policy Review, and an editor for the Yale Journal of Law and Technology, while also serving as co-chair of the Public Interest Fellowship.
President, The Free State Foundation
Randolph J. May is Founder and President of The Free State Foundation. The Free State Foundation is an independent, non-profit free market-oriented think tank founded in 2006.
From October 1999-May 2006, May was a Senior Fellow and Director of Communications Policy Studies at The Progress & Freedom Foundation, a Washington, DC-based think tank. Prior to joining PFF, he practiced communications, administrative, and regulatory law as a partner at major national law firms. From 1978 to 1981, May served as Assistant General Counsel and Associate General Counsel at the Federal Communication Commission.
May has held numerous leadership positions in bar associations. He is a past Chair of the American Bar Association’s Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice. He is a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration. Mr. May also has served as a Public Member of the Administrative Conference of the United States and currently is a Senior Fellow at ACUS.
Mr. May has published more than two hundred articles and essays on communications, administrative and constitutional law topics. He is author of A Call for a Radical New Communications Policy: Proposals for Free Market Reform, and co-author of #CommActUpdate: A Communications Law Fit for the Digital Age and The Constitutional Foundations of Intellectual Property. Mr. May is editor of two books, Communications Law and Policy in the Digital Age: The Next Five Years and New Directions in Communications Policy. In addition, he is the co-editor of two other books, Net Neutrality or Net Neutering: Should Broadband Internet Services Be Regulated? and Communications Deregulation and FCC Reform. In the past, Mr. May has written regular columns on legal and regulatory affairs for Legal Times and the National Law Journal, leading national legal periodicals.
He received his A.B. from Duke University and his J.D. from Duke Law School, where he serves as a member of the Board of Visitors.
President, Digital Progress Institute
Joel Thayer, President of the Digital Progress Institute, previously was an associate at Phillips Lytle. Before that, he served as Policy Counsel for ACT | The App Association, where he advised on legal and policy issues related to antitrust, telecommunications, privacy, cybersecurity and intellectual property in Washington, DC. His experience also includes working as legal clerk for FCC Chairman Ajit Pai and FTC Commissioner Maureen Ohlhausen. Additionally, Joel served as a congressional staffer for the Hon. Lee Terry and Hon. Mary Bono.
Litigation Update: AHM v. FDA: Challenging the FDA on “Chemical Abortion Drugs"
Erik Baptist, Roger D. Klein
A Regulatory Transparency Project Webinar
In November 2022, the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) filed a federal lawsuit in the U.S....
Litigation Update: AHM v. FDA: Challenging the FDA on “Chemical Abortion Drugs"
Erik Baptist, Roger D. Klein
A Regulatory Transparency Project Webinar
In November 2022, the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) filed a federal lawsuit in the U.S....
Chapter 11 Bankruptcy & Mass Torts: A Review of the Third Circuit’s LTL Opinion
Anthony J. Casey, Lindsey Simon
In 2021, LTL Management LLC (LTL), a newly created and separate subsidiary of Johnson &...
Chapter 11 Bankruptcy & Mass Torts: A Review of the Third Circuit’s LTL Opinion
Anthony J. Casey, Lindsey Simon
In 2021, LTL Management LLC (LTL), a newly created and separate subsidiary of Johnson &...
Topics
Civil Justice Update Highlights Key Changes in 2022, Outlook for 2023
The Federalist Society has released its annual Civil Justice Update. The paper is a must-read...
Topics
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Army Corps of Engineers revise Clean Water Act regulations defining “navigable waters” for the fourth time in seven years
On January 18, 2023, U.S. EPA and the Army Corps published new regulations in the...
Topics
Second Circuit Hears Preemption Challenge to New York’s Broadband Rate Regulation Law
On January 12, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held oral argument...
2022 Civil Justice Update
Mark A. Behrens
White Paper
This paper reviews key civil justice issues and changes in 2022. Part I discusses the...
Topics
Adams v. School Board of St. Johns County, Florida: The Eleventh Circuit Creates a Circuit Split on Transgender Rights Under Title IX
On December 31, 2022, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit issued a...
Section 230 Goes to Court: Gonzalez v. Google and the Future of the Electronic Town Square
Boyd Garriott, Ashkhen Kazaryan, Randolph May, Joel Thayer
Social media platforms have emerged as the new “town square” and a key forum for...