General Counsel, Competitive Enterprise Institute
Sam Kazman is general counsel at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
Prior to joining CEI in 1986, he was managing attorney of the Washington DC office of the Pacific Legal Foundation.
His op-eds and comments have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The Washington Post, The New York Times, National Review, and more. Kazman has also appeared on national radio and television programs such as The Today Show, Fox News, Fox Business, and C-SPAN's Washington Journal, and National Public Radio, among others.
Kazman is a graduate of Cornell University and received his Juris Doctor cum laude at the State University of New York at Buffalo Law School.
Senior Legal Counsel, Pacific Legal Foundation
Before becoming an attorney, James had been a productive member of society working as an exploration geologist in the late 1970s throughout the southwestern United States. However, after several years of dealing with irrational government bureaucrats and environmental policies untethered from reality, James decided that what the world needs is more lawyers — if they are willing to fight for rationality in regulatory regimes, property rights, and liberty.
James attended the University of Arizona College of Law in Tucson, where he served as an editor for the Law Review and received a J.D. degree in 1983. He had previously received a Masters degree in geological sciences from Brown University and an undergraduate degree from Hamilton College in New York. James received the Professional Achievement Award from the University of Arizona Alumni Association in 2018.
James has worked with Pacific Legal Foundation since 1983, litigating cases from Alaska to Florida. He is a member of the Federalist Society’s Environmental Law and Property Rights Practice Group’s Executive Committee, a member of the American College of Real Estate Lawyers, and an honorary member of Owners Counsel of America, an organization comprised of eminent domain attorneys who represent property owners. The Owners Counsel awarded James its Crystal Eagle award in 2013. In 2022, James was awarded the Brigham-Kanner Property Rights Prize at the William & Mary College of Law. The prize is awarded annually to an individual whose work has advanced the cause of property rights and has contributed to the overall awareness of the important role property rights occupy in the broader scheme of individual liberty.
In 2001, James successfully argued a major property rights case, Palazzolo v. Rhode Island, before the United States Supreme Court, a case which affirmed that rights in regulated property do not disappear when land is bought and sold. He has written extensively on all aspects of property rights and environmental law and frequently speaks on these subjects throughout the nation.
When James is not suing the government he enjoys skiing faster than he should, bicycling, hiking, swimming, and spending quality time with his wife, family, and grandchild.
Mr. Burling’s book Nowhere to Live: The Hidden Story of America’s Housing Crisis is available now on Amazon.
James is a member of the bar only in the states of Alaska and California.
Chancellor Professor, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth School of Law
Peltz-Steele received his law degree from Duke University and a bachelor’s in journalism and Spanish from Washington & Lee University. Peltz-Steele has won awards in teaching, research, and public service. He practiced commercial law in Baltimore and Washington, D.C., and taught law for more than thirteen years before coming to UMass Law in 2011.
Peltz-Steele is author, co-author, or co-editor of qualitative and quantitative research in law and mass communication in journals and books, of treatises in law and development and access to information, and of textbooks in tort law and freedom of information. He is especially active in international media law and policy, having presented papers on five continents and having published in foreign journals and multinational collaborations. His current research focuses on comparative transparency in the context of development and in the private sector. Peltz-Steele serves in various roles in public service organizations, including the legal education committee of the American Bar Association, International Law Section.
Partner, Kirkland & Ellis LLP
Mr. Doug Smith has litigated cases at both the trial and appellate stage in state and federal courts throughout the country, including commercial, mass tort, product liability, securities, bankruptcy, environmental, and intellectual property cases. He is a member of the American Law Institute and has published on a wide variety of legal topics.
Associate, Wiley Rein LLP
Joel S. Nolette is an associate at Wiley Rein LLP, where he advocates on behalf of corporate and individual clients in a broad spectrum of complex litigation matters. In 2017, Joel graduated cum laude from the Georgetown University Law Center, where he served as the Editor in Chief of Volume 15 of the Georgetown Journal of Law and Public Policy. From 2019 to 2021, Joel clerked for the Honorable Raymond W. Gruender of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit; and from 2021 to 2022, he clerked for the Honorable Timothy J. Kelly of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Before attending law school, Joel graduated summa cum laude from Gordon College in Wenham, MA, with his Bachelor of Arts in Biblical Studies and worked as a letter carrier with the U.S. Postal Service.
Senior Partner, Reed Smith LLP
Hugh has both written and lectured extensively on insurance issues, including as a presenter on scores of occasions for various national and local bar associations, insurance brokers, and educational institutions.
Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, Austin E. Owen Research Scholar & Professor of Law, The University of Richmond School of Law
Dean Kristen Jakobsen Osenga teaches and writes in the areas of patent law, antitrust, and legislation and regulation. Some of her recent scholarship focuses on standard development organizations, patent eligible subject matter, patent licensing firms, litigation and remedies for patent infringement, and patent law reform. She has written numerous law review articles on these and other topics, as well as book chapters and op eds on various aspects of patent law. Additionally, she has spoken on these issues at many academic conferences and bar events. Dean Osenga is Chief Policy Counselor for the Inventors Defense Alliance, as well as an active member of the Federal Circuit Bar Association and the American Intellectual Property Law Association.
Dean Osenga received a B.S. degree in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Iowa, an M.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from Southern Illinois University – Carbondale, and a J.D. from the University of Illinois College of Law, where she graduated magna cum laude. After law school, she practiced at the law firm of Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett, & Dunner LLP, (now Finnegan) where she did patent prosecution and litigation. She then clerked for the Judge Richard Linn of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. After clerking, she entered academia, teaching first at Chicago-Kent College of Law and then at the University of Richmond, where she has been since 2006. She has also been a Visiting Professor at Emory University School of Law and at William & Mary School of Law.
Topics
Net Neutrality Back in Court: Will the Economics Hold Up?
Tomorrow, the sordid tale of net neutrality heads back to court at the D.C. Circuit...
Supreme Court Denies Review of Constitutional Challenge to CFPB
Sam Kazman
On Jan. 14 the Supreme Court denied the cert petition in State National Bank of...
Courthouse Steps Oral Argument: Knick v. Township of Scott, Pennsylvania
James S. Burling
The Supreme Court will hear reargument in Knick v. Township of Scott, Pennsylvania on January...
Topics
Reconsidering the Legal Status of Agency Guidance
Late last year, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) took a quiet but significant step...
Thacker v. Tennessee Valley Authority [SCOTUSbrief]
Richard J. Peltz-Steele
Short video featuring Richard Peltz-Steele
While Gary Thacker is attempting to sue the Tennessee Valley Authority for negligence in a...
Courthouse Steps Oral Argument: Merck Sharp & Dohme Corp. v. Albrecht
Douglas Geoffrey Smith
In Merck Sharp & Dohme Corp. v. Albrecht, the Supreme Court has been asked to...
Lessons in Reading Law: Rimini Street v. Oracle’s Duel Over “Full Costs”
Joel S. Nolette
Federalist Society Review, Volume 20
Note from the Editor: The Federalist Society takes no positions on particular legal and public...
The English Rule & the American Rule [POLICYbrief]
Richard Hugh Lumpkin
Short video featuring R. Hugh Lumpkin
In the United States, a party to a case pays their own attorney fees, but...
What Happened to the Public’s Interest in Patent Law?
Kristen Osenga
Federalist Society Review, Volume 19
Note from the Editor: This article discusses the role of the concept of the public...
Topics
Originally Speaking: Climate Change and Common Law Public Nuisance
Originally Speaking is a written debate series that approaches a contemporary topic from diverse perspectives. The...