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.
Martin Luther King Jr. Professor of Law, UC Davis School of Law
Professor Elmendorf works in the areas of property law, election law, statutory interpretation, and administrative law, using both doctrinal and empirical methods. He is an authority on California land-use and housing law, and has also done widely noted work on public understanding of housing markets and opinion about housing policy. His research has been published in numerous top law reviews and political science journals, including the Yale Law Journal, Columbia Law Review, University of Chicago Law Review, New York University Law Review, American Journal of Political Science, Journal of Politics, and Political Analysis. It has also been covered by major media outlets including The Atlantic, The Washington Post, Financial Times, Bloomberg News, and CalMatters.
Elmendorf enjoys translating academic research and legal developments for popular audiences. He’s known for breaking down everything from knotty judicial opinions to pending legislation with long Twitter threads, and he’s written articles and op-eds for The Atlantic, Mother Jones, The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and the San Francisco Chronicle. Sometimes these various forms of public engagement come together, as when a Twitter thread about a housing controversy in San Francisco led to invited blog posts and op-eds, which he expanded into a law-review article, which engendered statutory reforms, which begat another Twitter thread and a webinar for practitioners.
Beyond the law school, Elmendorf serves on the advisory board of the Abundance Academic Network, a new initiative of Arnold Ventures to advance policy-minded research on housing, transportation, and clean-energy development. He has also served on working groups and task forces convened by the California Department of Housing and Community Development, and on the Legal Advisory Committee of the California Housing Defense Fund. He is an elected member of the American Law Institute.
Walter E. Meyer Professor of Property and Urban Law, Yale Law School
David Schleicher is the Walter E. Meyer Professor of Property and Urban Law at Yale Law School and is an expert in local government law, land use, federalism, state and local finance, and urban development. His work has been published widely in academic journals and popular outlets. He recently released a new book, "In a Bad State: Responding to State and Local Fiscal Crises," and has co-authored leading casebooks about local government and property law. Professor Schleicher is also the co-host of the hit podcast, “Digging a Hole: The Legal Theory Podcast.”
Professor Schleicher has been called “the ideal legal scholar of cities” (Edward Glaeser, Harvard University), “the leading lawyer on state and city governments” (Lt. Gov. Richard Ravitch ‘58), and “one of the most brilliant and far-ranging political thinkers of his generation.” (Benjamin Wallace-Wells, The New Yorker). In the press, he has been called “the most important thinker we have on the subject of local government” and “ingenious” by National Review and one of the “most interesting writers on land use” by Washington Monthly. His work has been described as “great but old fashioned” by Vox, “interesting” by The Nation, “clever” by The Economist, “neat” by Slate, “startling” by City Observatory, “excellent” by Forbes, and discussed extensively in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, National Affairs and Reuters, among a number of other places.
Schleicher was previously an Associate Professor of Law at George Mason University School of Law, where he won the university’s Teaching Excellence Award. He has also taught at Georgetown, Harvard, and New York University. He is a 2004 graduate of Harvard Law School. He also holds an MSc in Economics from the London School of Economics and an AB in Economics and Government from Dartmouth College.
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.
Professor of Law, UC Davis School of Law; Senior Fellow, California Environmental Law and Policy Center; and Director, UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences
Professor Börk graduated with Distinction and Pro Bono Distinction from Stanford Law School in 2009, and completed his PhD dissertation in Ecology at UC Davis in September 2011. He received the Shapiro Family Award in 2011 as the Outstanding PhD Graduate in Ecology at UC Davis. He clerked for Tenth Circuit Chief Judge Mary Beck Briscoe, U.S. District Court Judge Julie Robinson, and Judge Janice Karlin on the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Kansas.
Professor Börk graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Kansas in 2002, and was named a Truman Scholar in 2001 and a Switzer Fellow in 2010. Professor Börk's publications run the gamut from the definitive text on the history and application of California Fish and Game Code Section 5937 to a hatchery and genetic management plan for spring-run Chinook salmon. Professor Börk is currently examining legal and ethical issues in ecological restoration. His past work has focused on the management of guest species, those invasive species that managers invite in and make comfortable, and on the evolution of law via administrative actions. He is currently working on local governance issues in ecosystem management.
Vice President of Law & Policy, Property and Environment Research Center
Jonathan Wood is vice president of law and policy at the Property and Environment Research Center (PERC). An attorney, Jonathan has litigated environmental and property-rights cases in the Supreme Court of the United States, federal and state appellate courts, and trial courts across the country. His writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, National Review, Reason, and other outlets. And his research has been published in journals such as Environmental Law Reporter, Yale Journal on Regulation Notice & Comment, Pace Environmental Law Review, and California Western Law Review.
Prior to coming to PERC, Jonathan was a senior attorney at Pacific Legal Foundation, where he litigated cases concerning the Endangered Species Act, Clean Water Act, and other federal environmental laws. He was co-counsel for forest landowners in Weyerhaeuser Co. v. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, in which the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that private land could not be arbitrarily regulated as critical habitat under the ESA. He also led a successful effort to reform regulation of threatened species to better align the incentives of private landowners with the interests of rare species.
Jonathan has testified before several congressional committees on wildlife conservation and endangered species topics. He has also appeared on national television and radio, including NPR’s All Things Considered, C-Span’s Washington Journal, Stossel, Fox News, and Hill.TV.
Jonathan has a law degree from the New York University School of Law, a masters degree in economic policy from the London School of Economics, and a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Texas. He is on the executive committee for the Federalist Society’s Environmental Law and Property Rights Practice Group and a steering committee member for the Environmental Law Institute’s Emerging Leaders Initiative.
Deputy Director, Regulatory Studies Center, George Washington University
Will Yeatman is deputy director of the GW Regulatory Studies Center. A lawyer, he has spent almost two decades working on federal regulatory policy, with an emphasis on administrative law.
Yeatman has testified many times before Congress and state legislatures, and his scholarly work has appeared in such academic journals as Georgetown Law Journal, Administrative Law Review, and the (forthcoming) Catholic University Law Review. His popular writing has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Foreign Policy, and Bloomberg.
Yeatman came to the RSC from the Pacific Legal Foundation. Previously, he had been at the Cato Institute’s Center for Constitutional Studies and the Competitive Enterprise Institute. From 2004 to 2006, he served as a Peace Corps volunteer in the Kyrgyz Republic.
Yeatman holds a BA in environmental sciences from the University of Virginia, an MA in international studies from the Denver University Graduate School of International Studies, and a JD from the Georgetown University Law Center. He is a member of the Washington, DC Bar.
Professor of Law, UC Davis School of Law; Senior Fellow, California Environmental Law and Policy Center; and Director, UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences
Professor Börk graduated with Distinction and Pro Bono Distinction from Stanford Law School in 2009, and completed his PhD dissertation in Ecology at UC Davis in September 2011. He received the Shapiro Family Award in 2011 as the Outstanding PhD Graduate in Ecology at UC Davis. He clerked for Tenth Circuit Chief Judge Mary Beck Briscoe, U.S. District Court Judge Julie Robinson, and Judge Janice Karlin on the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Kansas.
Professor Börk graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Kansas in 2002, and was named a Truman Scholar in 2001 and a Switzer Fellow in 2010. Professor Börk's publications run the gamut from the definitive text on the history and application of California Fish and Game Code Section 5937 to a hatchery and genetic management plan for spring-run Chinook salmon. Professor Börk is currently examining legal and ethical issues in ecological restoration. His past work has focused on the management of guest species, those invasive species that managers invite in and make comfortable, and on the evolution of law via administrative actions. He is currently working on local governance issues in ecosystem management.
Vice President of Law & Policy, Property and Environment Research Center
Jonathan Wood is vice president of law and policy at the Property and Environment Research Center (PERC). An attorney, Jonathan has litigated environmental and property-rights cases in the Supreme Court of the United States, federal and state appellate courts, and trial courts across the country. His writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, National Review, Reason, and other outlets. And his research has been published in journals such as Environmental Law Reporter, Yale Journal on Regulation Notice & Comment, Pace Environmental Law Review, and California Western Law Review.
Prior to coming to PERC, Jonathan was a senior attorney at Pacific Legal Foundation, where he litigated cases concerning the Endangered Species Act, Clean Water Act, and other federal environmental laws. He was co-counsel for forest landowners in Weyerhaeuser Co. v. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, in which the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that private land could not be arbitrarily regulated as critical habitat under the ESA. He also led a successful effort to reform regulation of threatened species to better align the incentives of private landowners with the interests of rare species.
Jonathan has testified before several congressional committees on wildlife conservation and endangered species topics. He has also appeared on national television and radio, including NPR’s All Things Considered, C-Span’s Washington Journal, Stossel, Fox News, and Hill.TV.
Jonathan has a law degree from the New York University School of Law, a masters degree in economic policy from the London School of Economics, and a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Texas. He is on the executive committee for the Federalist Society’s Environmental Law and Property Rights Practice Group and a steering committee member for the Environmental Law Institute’s Emerging Leaders Initiative.
Deputy Director, Regulatory Studies Center, George Washington University
Will Yeatman is deputy director of the GW Regulatory Studies Center. A lawyer, he has spent almost two decades working on federal regulatory policy, with an emphasis on administrative law.
Yeatman has testified many times before Congress and state legislatures, and his scholarly work has appeared in such academic journals as Georgetown Law Journal, Administrative Law Review, and the (forthcoming) Catholic University Law Review. His popular writing has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Foreign Policy, and Bloomberg.
Yeatman came to the RSC from the Pacific Legal Foundation. Previously, he had been at the Cato Institute’s Center for Constitutional Studies and the Competitive Enterprise Institute. From 2004 to 2006, he served as a Peace Corps volunteer in the Kyrgyz Republic.
Yeatman holds a BA in environmental sciences from the University of Virginia, an MA in international studies from the Denver University Graduate School of International Studies, and a JD from the Georgetown University Law Center. He is a member of the Washington, DC Bar.
Counsel, Boyden Gray PLLC
Austin Lipari is counsel at Boyden Gray PLLC. Before joining the firm, he served as an adviser to Chairman and Commissioner James P. Danly at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, assisting on critical infrastructure issues under both the Federal Power Act and the Natural Gas Act.
Mr. Lipari also served in the Attorney General’s Office of Legal Policy within the Department of Justice as senior counsel and on policy coordinating committees in the Trump Administration to advance the implementation of regulatory reforms and protections for religious liberty and free speech. He also participated in the vetting and selection of judicial nominees, serving on the team that shepherded Justice Amy Coney Barrett through the confirmation process.
Mr. Lipari also held several roles in the Office of Personnel Management’s Office of General Counsel, including deputy general counsel. He coordinated the review and development of numerous executive orders, regulations, and other significant policy vehicles.
Additionally, he worked on the 2016 transition of President Donald Trump, during which he served on the landing team at the Environmental Protection Agency, gathering information on the state of the agency and developing plans for the new administration.
Before joining the Trump Administration, Mr. Lipari served as deputy director of Federalist Society’s Student Division. In this role, he managed the activities of the Society’s two hundred student chapters, serving as a mentor and adviser for the student chapter leaders.
Mr. Lipari received a J.D. from the Catholic University of America Columbus School of law and a A.B. magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from the Catholic University of America School of Philosophy.
Senior Fellow for Law, Economics, and Technology, The Heritage Foundation; Professor, Florida International University
Mario Loyola is a Senior Fellow for Law, Economics, and Technology at The Heritage Foundation.
Loyola served in the Trump Administration as Associate Director for Regulatory Reform at the White House Council on Environmental Quality. In that role, he was one of the principal drafters of the One Federal Decision policy, which helped to streamline the permitting and environmental review of large infrastructure projects. While at CEQ, he was a member of the U.S. delegation to the USMCA free trade negotiations with Mexico and Canada, as well as the United Nations conference on biodiversity on the high seas. Loyola initially joined the White House in February 2017 as a Presidential Speechwriter, employing his expertise in many areas of foreign and domestic policy.
After beginning his career in M&A and corporate finance law, Loyola served in the Bush 43 Administration as a special assistant to the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy. He left that position to start writing on national defense issues in magazines such as National Review and The Weekly Standard, reporting from the front lines of the war on terrorism in Lebanon, Israel, and Iraq. He finished the Bush Administration as Foreign and Defense Counsel to the U.S. Senate Republican Policy Committee, then under the chairmanship of Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas. He subsequently moved to Texas and joined the Texas Public Policy Foundation, where he specialized in energy, environment, and federalism.
Loyola is a frequent contributor to The Wall Street Journal, National Review, and The Atlantic, among others. He teaches environmental and administrative law at Florida International University, where he is Founding Director of the Environmental Finance and Risk Management program in FIU’s prestigious Institute of Environment. He received a bachelor’s degree in European history from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and a J.D. from Washington University School of Law.
Counsel, Boyden Gray PLLC
Austin Lipari is counsel at Boyden Gray PLLC. Before joining the firm, he served as an adviser to Chairman and Commissioner James P. Danly at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, assisting on critical infrastructure issues under both the Federal Power Act and the Natural Gas Act.
Mr. Lipari also served in the Attorney General’s Office of Legal Policy within the Department of Justice as senior counsel and on policy coordinating committees in the Trump Administration to advance the implementation of regulatory reforms and protections for religious liberty and free speech. He also participated in the vetting and selection of judicial nominees, serving on the team that shepherded Justice Amy Coney Barrett through the confirmation process.
Mr. Lipari also held several roles in the Office of Personnel Management’s Office of General Counsel, including deputy general counsel. He coordinated the review and development of numerous executive orders, regulations, and other significant policy vehicles.
Additionally, he worked on the 2016 transition of President Donald Trump, during which he served on the landing team at the Environmental Protection Agency, gathering information on the state of the agency and developing plans for the new administration.
Before joining the Trump Administration, Mr. Lipari served as deputy director of Federalist Society’s Student Division. In this role, he managed the activities of the Society’s two hundred student chapters, serving as a mentor and adviser for the student chapter leaders.
Mr. Lipari received a J.D. from the Catholic University of America Columbus School of law and a A.B. magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from the Catholic University of America School of Philosophy.
Senior Fellow for Law, Economics, and Technology, The Heritage Foundation; Professor, Florida International University
Mario Loyola is a Senior Fellow for Law, Economics, and Technology at The Heritage Foundation.
Loyola served in the Trump Administration as Associate Director for Regulatory Reform at the White House Council on Environmental Quality. In that role, he was one of the principal drafters of the One Federal Decision policy, which helped to streamline the permitting and environmental review of large infrastructure projects. While at CEQ, he was a member of the U.S. delegation to the USMCA free trade negotiations with Mexico and Canada, as well as the United Nations conference on biodiversity on the high seas. Loyola initially joined the White House in February 2017 as a Presidential Speechwriter, employing his expertise in many areas of foreign and domestic policy.
After beginning his career in M&A and corporate finance law, Loyola served in the Bush 43 Administration as a special assistant to the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy. He left that position to start writing on national defense issues in magazines such as National Review and The Weekly Standard, reporting from the front lines of the war on terrorism in Lebanon, Israel, and Iraq. He finished the Bush Administration as Foreign and Defense Counsel to the U.S. Senate Republican Policy Committee, then under the chairmanship of Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas. He subsequently moved to Texas and joined the Texas Public Policy Foundation, where he specialized in energy, environment, and federalism.
Loyola is a frequent contributor to The Wall Street Journal, National Review, and The Atlantic, among others. He teaches environmental and administrative law at Florida International University, where he is Founding Director of the Environmental Finance and Risk Management program in FIU’s prestigious Institute of Environment. He received a bachelor’s degree in European history from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and a J.D. from Washington University School of Law.
Partner, Clement & Murphy, PLLC
Paul served as the 43rd Solicitor General of the United States from June 2005 until June 2008. Before his confirmation as Solicitor General, he served as Acting Solicitor General for nearly a year and as Principal Deputy Solicitor General for over three years.
Paul has argued over 100 cases before the United States Supreme Court, including McConnell v. FEC, Tennessee v. Lane, United States v. Booker, MGM v. Grokster, Hobby Lobby v. Burwell, Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis, Rucho v. Common Cause, Facebook v. Duguid, and TransUnion v. Ramirez. Paul has argued more Supreme Court cases since 2000 than any lawyer in or out of government. He has also argued many important cases in the lower courts, including Walker v. Cheney, United States v. Moussaoui and NFL v. Brady.
Paul’s practice focuses on appellate matters, constitutional litigation and strategic counseling. He represents a broad array of clients in the Supreme Court and in federal and state appellate courts. Last year, for example, he successfully argued Supreme Court cases involving significant issues of energy regulation, statutory interpretation, state sovereign immunity and Article III standing, and successfully argued a trademark appeal in the Fourth Circuit, and a constitutional appeal before the en banc Eleventh Circuit.
Paul focuses on high-stakes appeals. In recent years, he successfully defended a $1.2 billion jury verdict for clients in a Tenth Circuit case, while securing the reversal of an over $2 billion jury verdict for another client in the Seventh Circuit and the approval of a nearly $1 billion dollar class action settlement in the Third Circuit. He has initiated major administrative law challenges and constitutional litigation against the federal government, such as the successful challenge to the HHS drug-pricing rule and threatened challenges that led to the withdrawal of the Treasury Department’s proposed cryptocurrency regulations. He also counsels clients on a variety of strategic legal questions, whether arising from pending legislation, government inquiries or ongoing litigation.
Paul has undertaken substantial pro bono engagements in the Supreme Court, such as twice successfully representing the defendant in Bond v. United States and successfully representing the Omaha Tribe in Nebraska v. Parker, the guardian ad litem in Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl, the defendant in Sekhar v. United States, a high school football coach in Kennedy v. Bremerton, and the Little Sisters of the Poor. Paul’s pro bono representation also precipitated the federal government’s confession of error in United States v. Rojas.
Following law school, Paul clerked for Judge Laurence H. Silberman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and for Associate Justice Antonin Scalia of the U.S. Supreme Court. After his clerkships, he went on to serve as Chief Counsel of the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution, Federalism and Property Rights.
Paul is a Distinguished Lecturer in Law at the Georgetown University Law Center, where he has taught in various capacities since 1998. He also serves as a Senior Fellow of the Law Center’s Supreme Court Institute. He is the Justice Joseph Story Distinguished Practitioner in Residence at the Gray Center at Scalia Law School.
Partner, Briscoe Prows Kao Ivester & Bazel LLP
Tony Francois is experienced in Water and Real Property Law, Land Use and Zoning, Environmental Regulation, Natural Resources Development, Agricultural Law, and Constitutional Law. He has represented homeowners, builders, farmers and ranchers, trade associations, and water districts in administrative, civil, and criminal proceedings before state and federal administrative agencies and state and federal trial and appellate courts. He is a member of the California State Bar and the Northern, Eastern, and Central Districts of California and the Districts of New Mexico and North Dakota, and has litigated cases in federal courts in California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, North and South Dakota, Minnesota, Massachusetts, Maryland, South Carolina, and the District of Columbia, as well as the Sixth, Eighth, Ninth, and Tenth Circuit Courts of Appeals. He has appeared before the Supreme Courts of California, Idaho, Nevada, and the United States.
Prior to attending law school, he served as an infantry officer in the United States Army, and was stationed in the former West Germany during the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Tony was an Attorney at Pacific Legal Foundation from 2012 to 2021. He was a lobbyist for 10 years, first with California Farm Bureau Federation from 2003 to 2007, and then with KP Public Affairs from 2007 to 2012. He was an attorney at McQuaid, Bedford & Van Zandt in San Francisco from 1999 – 2003.
Chief Legal Officer, Airbnb
Ron Klain oversees Airbnb’s global legal and ethics functions and community policy team.
Ron served as the 30th White House Chief of Staff, from January 2021 to February 2023 – the longest tenure of any Democratic President’s first chief of staff.
Ron’s career in public service began as a law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Byron White for the Court’s 1987 and 1988 Terms. Following his time clerking at the Supreme Court, Ron was Chief Counsel of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Staff Director of the Senate Democratic Leadership Committees, Associate Counsel for Judicial Selection under President Clinton, Chief of Staff to Vice President Al Gore, Chief of Staff and Counselor to the US Attorney General, and Chief of Staff to Vice President Joe Biden. In the Obama administration, Ron served as White House Ebola Response Coordinator, to tackle the West African Ebola epidemic of 2014-15.
In the private sector, Ron has served as Partner and National Practice Group Chair at the law firm of O’Melveny & Myers, from 1999-2004 and again in 2023. Earlier he was General Counsel for the technology investment firm Revolution LLC from 2005 to 2020.
Professor of Law and Executive Director, Law and Economics Center, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
Donald Kochan is Professor of Law and Executive Director of the Law & Economics Center (LEC). Professor Kochan is an elected member of the American Law Institute (ALI) and serves as an Adviser to ALI's Restatement of the Law Fourth, Property project. Professor Kochan is a Nonresident Scholar at the Center for the Constitution at Georgetown University Law Center, where he was a Visiting Scholar in residence during Fall 2018. Before joining the Antonin Scalia Law School faculty, he was the Parker S. Kennedy Professor in Law at Chapman University’s Dale E. Fowler School of Law from 2004 to 2020. From 2003 to 2004, Professor Kochan was an Olin Fellow at the University of Virginia School of Law. During 2002-2003, he was a Visiting Assistant Professor of Law at George Mason’s Scalia Law School.
Professor Kochan’s scholarship focuses on areas of property law, constitutional law, administrative law, local government law, natural resources and environmental law, and law & economics. He has published several books and more than 50 scholarly articles and essays in well-regarded law journals. His work has been cited in more than a dozen state and federal court opinions, in more than 75 briefs filed in state and federal courts including more than 25 filed in the U.S. Supreme Court, in dozens of books and treatises, and in more than 800 scholarly articles.
Professor Kochan received his JD from Cornell Law School, where he was a John M. Olin Scholar in Law and Economics and managing editor of the Cornell International Law Journal. During law school, he also served as editor and executive editor of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy symposium issues in 1997 and 1998. He received his BA from Western Michigan University, magna cum laude, with majors in both political science and philosophy, where he studied as the John W. Gill Medallion Scholar and was honored as the Presidential Scholar (awarded to the top graduate in the political science department).
After graduating from law school, Professor Kochan was a law clerk to The Honorable Richard F. Suhrheinrich of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Following his clerkship, Professor Kochan was an associate with the firm of Crowell & Moring LLP in Washington, D.C., where he specialized in natural resources & environmental law as well as tort, products, and consumer civil litigation & legislative affairs.
Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
Eric R. Claeys is Professor of Law at the Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University. He has written widely in the fields of property, private law, and constitutional law. Professor Claeys’s current research interests focus on flourishing- and labor-based natural rights justifications for property—in American property theory, in intellectual property, and in contemporary regulation of shale gas exploration and hydraulic fracturing. He is a member of the American Law Institute, he serves on the ALI’s Members’ Consultative Group for the first Restatement of Copyright, and he also serves as an adviser to the Restatement (Fourth) of the Law of Property.
Professor Claeys received his JD from the University of Southern California Gould School of Law. He received his AB from Princeton University, and he is a former visiting fellow and current member of Princeton’s Politics Department’s James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions. After law school, Professor Claeys clerked for the Hon. Melvin Brunetti, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and the Hon. William H. Rehnquist, Chief Justice of the United States.
Professor Claeys’s main teaching interests include Property, Torts, Jurisprudence, and Intellectual Property. In recent years, he has also taught Water Law, Remedies, Estates and Trusts, Trade Secrecy, Constitutional Law, Torts, and Oil and Gas law. Spring 2018, he is teaching Torts and Jurisprudence as a Visiting Professor at Harvard Law School.
Former Deputy Attorney General for Virginia
Kennerly Davis has over forty years of experience in corporate management, public service, and the private practice of law. He has held senior executive positions in a Fortune 500 electric and gas company. He has served as Deputy Attorney General for the Commonwealth of Virginia, and as a legislative aide to a U.S. Senator and a U.S. Congressman. He practiced law for 25 years with Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP.
Davis is active in the Federalist Society as a member of the Regulatory Process Working Group of the Regulatory Transparency Project, and as a member of the Execuitve Committee of the Administrative Law and Regulation Practice Group. He is active in the national Alumni Free Speech Alliance, and involved in AFSA-chapter initiatives, including litigation, to publicize and correct the serious legal problems created by university Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs and the anonymous bias reporting systems used to enforce those DEI programs.
Davis writes and speaks on a wide variety of topics, including those related to the Founding of America, the natural rights foundation of our Republic, the constitutional rule of law, equal protection and free speech, DEI programs and bias reporting systems, capitalism, regulation and regulatory reform, and economic development. His articles have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, the Washington Examiner, the Richmond Times-Dispatch, The Federalist Society Review, the FedSoc Blog, Real Clear Energy, Townhall, the Daily Caller, reports of the Center for Strategic & International Studies, and other publications. He appears frequently on radio, podcasts, and television.
Davis graduated with honors from Cornell University with an A.B. degree in Government. He earned an M.A. degree from Pembroke College, Oxford, in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics. He was awarded a J.D. degree from Harvard Law School, and an M.B.A. degree from Virginia Commonwealth University.
Davis lives in Richmond, Virginia. He can be contacted by email: j.kendavis@verizon.net, and by phone: (804) 624-8525.
Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
Eric R. Claeys is Professor of Law at the Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University. He has written widely in the fields of property, private law, and constitutional law. Professor Claeys’s current research interests focus on flourishing- and labor-based natural rights justifications for property—in American property theory, in intellectual property, and in contemporary regulation of shale gas exploration and hydraulic fracturing. He is a member of the American Law Institute, he serves on the ALI’s Members’ Consultative Group for the first Restatement of Copyright, and he also serves as an adviser to the Restatement (Fourth) of the Law of Property.
Professor Claeys received his JD from the University of Southern California Gould School of Law. He received his AB from Princeton University, and he is a former visiting fellow and current member of Princeton’s Politics Department’s James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions. After law school, Professor Claeys clerked for the Hon. Melvin Brunetti, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and the Hon. William H. Rehnquist, Chief Justice of the United States.
Professor Claeys’s main teaching interests include Property, Torts, Jurisprudence, and Intellectual Property. In recent years, he has also taught Water Law, Remedies, Estates and Trusts, Trade Secrecy, Constitutional Law, Torts, and Oil and Gas law. Spring 2018, he is teaching Torts and Jurisprudence as a Visiting Professor at Harvard Law School.
Former Deputy Attorney General for Virginia
Kennerly Davis has over forty years of experience in corporate management, public service, and the private practice of law. He has held senior executive positions in a Fortune 500 electric and gas company. He has served as Deputy Attorney General for the Commonwealth of Virginia, and as a legislative aide to a U.S. Senator and a U.S. Congressman. He practiced law for 25 years with Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP.
Davis is active in the Federalist Society as a member of the Regulatory Process Working Group of the Regulatory Transparency Project, and as a member of the Execuitve Committee of the Administrative Law and Regulation Practice Group. He is active in the national Alumni Free Speech Alliance, and involved in AFSA-chapter initiatives, including litigation, to publicize and correct the serious legal problems created by university Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs and the anonymous bias reporting systems used to enforce those DEI programs.
Davis writes and speaks on a wide variety of topics, including those related to the Founding of America, the natural rights foundation of our Republic, the constitutional rule of law, equal protection and free speech, DEI programs and bias reporting systems, capitalism, regulation and regulatory reform, and economic development. His articles have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, the Washington Examiner, the Richmond Times-Dispatch, The Federalist Society Review, the FedSoc Blog, Real Clear Energy, Townhall, the Daily Caller, reports of the Center for Strategic & International Studies, and other publications. He appears frequently on radio, podcasts, and television.
Davis graduated with honors from Cornell University with an A.B. degree in Government. He earned an M.A. degree from Pembroke College, Oxford, in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics. He was awarded a J.D. degree from Harvard Law School, and an M.B.A. degree from Virginia Commonwealth University.
Davis lives in Richmond, Virginia. He can be contacted by email: j.kendavis@verizon.net, and by phone: (804) 624-8525.
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