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.
Shareholder, Ogletree Deakins
Brian Hayes is a Shareholder in the Washington, DC office of Ogletree Deakins and serves as Co-Chair of the law firm’s Traditional Labor Practice Group. Immediately prior to his joining the firm he was a Member of the National Labor Relations Board. He was confirmed to that post by the United States Senate in 2010 and his term ended in December of 2012. He is currently a Member of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Litigation Advisory Committee and was recently named Chairman of the U.S. Chamber’s Subcommittee on the National Labor Relations Act. He also serves as editor in chief for The Practical NLRB Advisor.
Prior to his nomination and confirmation to the NLRB, Brian Hayes served as the Republican Labor Policy Director for the United States Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. He came to Capitol Hill in 2005 after nearly thirty years in private legal practice devoted exclusively to representing management clients in labor and employment matters. While in private practice he represented clients in scores of cases before NLRB, state and federal courts, and a host of other federal agencies such as the EEOC, OFCCP, OSHA, the Department of Labor and their state counterparts. He also has had extensive private practice experience representing employers in collective-bargaining negotiations, arbitrations and other forms of dispute resolution. In addition to his private practice, he served as Counsel to the Employers’ Association of the Northeast, editor-in-chief and contributor to The Health Care Labor Manual, and also served on the adjunct faculty of Western New England Law School teaching courses in labor law, and collective-bargaining, arbitration and employment litigation. Before entering private practice he began his legal career at the NLRB working as a law clerk to the Chief Administrative Law Judge while in law school and subsequently as counsel to the then-Board Chairman. He is a graduate of Boston College and of Georgetown University Law School.
Principal, JacksonLewis
Marvin Kaplan is a principal in the New York City, New York, office of Jackson Lewis P.C.
Marvin, a former Chairman of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), advises clients on labor and employment issues, focusing on union organizing and labor-management relations. Over his eight years on the NLRB, Marvin participated in over 900 decisions, including decisions addressing the lawfulness of captive audience speeches and work rules, and the standards for determining the composition of a bargaining unit and whether an individual is an independent contractor, and several rulemakings, defining a joint-employer and laying out procedures governing representation elections.
Prior to his time on the NLRB, he served as Chief Counsel at the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission and a Special Assistant at U.S. Department of Labor. His cross-disciplinary experience makes Marvin particularly well-suited to advise clients on strategic business planning.
His experience at all levels of government in different agencies and branches, including the U.S. House of Representatives, provides a unique perspective on Congressional oversight, legislation, regulations and federal investigations—enabling him to help clients navigate complex compliance challenges and anticipate regulatory developments that could impact their organizations.
He is a graduate of Cornell University and Washington University in St. Louis Law School.
Shareholder & Co-Chair of the Workplace Policy Institute, Littler Mendelson P.C.
Alexander T. MacDonald advises employers on all aspects of the employment and labor landscape, focusing on emerging legislation and regulation. He has extensive experience advising businesses on worker classification, arbitration, the administrative and regulatory process, and the future of work. He frequently writes, publishes, and speaks on these subjects. His work has been cited by scholars and appellate courts. He is a recognized voice for the management perspective.
Alexander is a co-chair of the Workplace Policy Institute (WPI) team. With WPI, he advises employers on legislative, administrative, and regulatory developments at the state and federal level. He advocates for employers in the regulatory and administrative process. He also helps employers protect their businesses by understanding and anticipating cutting-edge legal developments.
Alexander also has extensive experience in traditional labor law. He represents management in all aspects of labor-management relations, including unfair labor practice charges, grievance arbitrations, representation elections, contract negotiations, and related litigation, including litigation in the U.S. courts of appeals.
Before joining Littler, Alexander served as the director, future of work, for a major technology company. He also worked in a national labor and employment law firm and a major public-sector general counsel’s office. He was a law clerk to the senior judges in the District of Columbia Court of Appeals.
He is also a veteran of the U.S. Air Force. He served in Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom. In law school, he graduated first in his class
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.
Shareholder, Ogletree Deakins
Brian Hayes is a Shareholder in the Washington, DC office of Ogletree Deakins and serves as Co-Chair of the law firm’s Traditional Labor Practice Group. Immediately prior to his joining the firm he was a Member of the National Labor Relations Board. He was confirmed to that post by the United States Senate in 2010 and his term ended in December of 2012. He is currently a Member of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Litigation Advisory Committee and was recently named Chairman of the U.S. Chamber’s Subcommittee on the National Labor Relations Act. He also serves as editor in chief for The Practical NLRB Advisor.
Prior to his nomination and confirmation to the NLRB, Brian Hayes served as the Republican Labor Policy Director for the United States Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. He came to Capitol Hill in 2005 after nearly thirty years in private legal practice devoted exclusively to representing management clients in labor and employment matters. While in private practice he represented clients in scores of cases before NLRB, state and federal courts, and a host of other federal agencies such as the EEOC, OFCCP, OSHA, the Department of Labor and their state counterparts. He also has had extensive private practice experience representing employers in collective-bargaining negotiations, arbitrations and other forms of dispute resolution. In addition to his private practice, he served as Counsel to the Employers’ Association of the Northeast, editor-in-chief and contributor to The Health Care Labor Manual, and also served on the adjunct faculty of Western New England Law School teaching courses in labor law, and collective-bargaining, arbitration and employment litigation. Before entering private practice he began his legal career at the NLRB working as a law clerk to the Chief Administrative Law Judge while in law school and subsequently as counsel to the then-Board Chairman. He is a graduate of Boston College and of Georgetown University Law School.
Principal, JacksonLewis
Marvin Kaplan is a principal in the New York City, New York, office of Jackson Lewis P.C.
Marvin, a former Chairman of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), advises clients on labor and employment issues, focusing on union organizing and labor-management relations. Over his eight years on the NLRB, Marvin participated in over 900 decisions, including decisions addressing the lawfulness of captive audience speeches and work rules, and the standards for determining the composition of a bargaining unit and whether an individual is an independent contractor, and several rulemakings, defining a joint-employer and laying out procedures governing representation elections.
Prior to his time on the NLRB, he served as Chief Counsel at the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission and a Special Assistant at U.S. Department of Labor. His cross-disciplinary experience makes Marvin particularly well-suited to advise clients on strategic business planning.
His experience at all levels of government in different agencies and branches, including the U.S. House of Representatives, provides a unique perspective on Congressional oversight, legislation, regulations and federal investigations—enabling him to help clients navigate complex compliance challenges and anticipate regulatory developments that could impact their organizations.
He is a graduate of Cornell University and Washington University in St. Louis Law School.
Shareholder & Co-Chair of the Workplace Policy Institute, Littler Mendelson P.C.
Alexander T. MacDonald advises employers on all aspects of the employment and labor landscape, focusing on emerging legislation and regulation. He has extensive experience advising businesses on worker classification, arbitration, the administrative and regulatory process, and the future of work. He frequently writes, publishes, and speaks on these subjects. His work has been cited by scholars and appellate courts. He is a recognized voice for the management perspective.
Alexander is a co-chair of the Workplace Policy Institute (WPI) team. With WPI, he advises employers on legislative, administrative, and regulatory developments at the state and federal level. He advocates for employers in the regulatory and administrative process. He also helps employers protect their businesses by understanding and anticipating cutting-edge legal developments.
Alexander also has extensive experience in traditional labor law. He represents management in all aspects of labor-management relations, including unfair labor practice charges, grievance arbitrations, representation elections, contract negotiations, and related litigation, including litigation in the U.S. courts of appeals.
Before joining Littler, Alexander served as the director, future of work, for a major technology company. He also worked in a national labor and employment law firm and a major public-sector general counsel’s office. He was a law clerk to the senior judges in the District of Columbia Court of Appeals.
He is also a veteran of the U.S. Air Force. He served in Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom. In law school, he graduated first in his class
Chief Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit
Jennifer Walker Elrod is the Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. She was nominated to the Fifth Circuit in 2007, and she served as a Circuit Judge on the court until assuming the role of Chief Judge in October 2024. Prior to serving as a Circuit Judge, Chief Judge Elrod was appointed and then twice elected Judge of the 190th District Court of Harris County, Texas, where she spent over five years presiding over more than 200 jury and non-jury trials.
Chief Judge Elrod graduated cum laude from Harvard Law School, where she was an active member of the Harvard Federalist Society, an Ames Moot Court finalist, and a Senior Editor of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy. She clerked for the Honorable Sim Lake in the Southern District of Texas. Before serving as a judge, Chief Judge Elrod worked in private practice, focusing on civil litigation, antitrust, and employment matters.
She has been repeatedly recognized for her work as a jurist, as well as for her pro bono work and contributions to the community. She has been named the 2022 Texas Review of Law & Politics’ Jurist of the Year, the 2018 Harvard Federalist Society’s Alumni of the Year, the 2016–17 Texas Association of Civil Trial and Appellate Specialists’ Appellate Judge of the Year, and the 2008 Mexican-American Bar Association of Texas’s Judge of the Year.
Chief Judge Elrod is actively engaged in the academic and legal communities. Chief Judge Elrod currently serves on the Board of Directors and as the Jurist-in-Residence at the South Texas College of Law, where she teaches civil procedure and First Amendment law. She is also a member of the American Law Institute and of the Board of Advisors for the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, and she is a former member of the Board of Regents of her alma mater, Baylor University, and the Board of Visitors at Brigham Young University Law School. She previously served as the Chair of the Codes of Conduct Committee for the Judicial Conference of the United States. She has also served as the M.D. Anderson Visiting Public Service Professor at the Texas Tech University School of Law and as Jurist-in-Residence at Brigham Young University Law School, and she has taught legal writing at the University of Houston Law Center. She presented the Lewis F. Powell, Jr. Distinguished Lecture at the Washington and Lee University School of Law and is a frequent speaker on the topics of trial and appellate procedure, ethics, employment law, and constitutional law. Chief Judge Elrod also serves on the board of the Garland R. Walker Inn of Court, and co-produces an annual musical CLE, for which her pupilage group has won multiple national awards.
Chief Judge Elrod’s publications include: Trial by Siri: AI Comes to the Courtroom; Don’t Mess with Texas Judges: In Praise of the State Judiciary; For Good: Enriching Your Practice and Your Life Through Pro Bono and Community Service; Is the Jury Still Out?: A Case for the Continued Viability of the American Jury; and W(h)ither the Jury? The Diminishing Role of the Jury Trial in our Legal System.
Senior Attorney, Institute for Justice
Rob Johnson is a senior attorney at the Institute for Justice, where he litigates to protect private property, free speech, and other individual rights. Rob is a nationally-recognized expert on civil forfeiture. He previously represented a series of small business owners who had their entire bank accounts seized by the IRS, and he launched an initiative that resulted in the IRS reopening hundreds of closed forfeiture cases and returning millions of dollars. He has also litigated cases challenging the constitutionality of civil forfeiture procedures, and he scored a victory striking down a forfeiture program as a violation of due process.
Beyond civil forfeiture, Rob has litigated cases defending a range of constitutional rights. He was part of teams that successfully challenged occupational licensing requirements for tour guides in Savannah and Charleston. He also developed a class action lawsuit fighting the NYPD’s use of a draconian “no-fault eviction” statute to coerce residents to waive their constitutional rights, which led New York City to reform the challenged law.
Rob’s writing has been published in the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Politico, and Reason, among other venues. Rob has testified about occupational licensing before the House and Senate Judiciary Committees and has twice testified about civil forfeiture before the House Ways & Means Oversight Subcommittee. He has also testified before state legislatures across the country.
From 2014-2017, Rob served as IJ’s first Elfie Gallun Fellow for Freedom and the Constitution. In that role, Rob wrote and spoke about the vital role the U.S. Constitution plays in protecting our most precious freedoms. He is currently at work on a book about the Fourteenth Amendment.
Rob studied literature and anthropology at Columbia University, and he studied law at Harvard Law School. Upon graduation, he clerked for Chief Judge Alex Kozinski on the Ninth Circuit and for Justice Anthony Kennedy on the Supreme Court.
Rob lives in Cleveland with his wife and two daughters—all named after characters in Shakespeare plays—and is an amateur large format photographer.
Donald Phillip Rothschild Research Professor, George Washington University Law School
Renée Lettow Lerner is Donald Phillip Rothschild Research Professor of Law at George Washington University Law School.
Professor Lerner works in the fields of U.S. and English legal history, civil and criminal procedure, and comparative law. She advises judges, lawyers, and government officials from the United States and countries in Europe, Latin America, and Asia about the differences between adversarial and nonadversarial legal systems.
She writes extensively about the history of American juries. Her work includes not only scholarly articles, but also online publications intended for a broader audience of legal professionals and the public. In many different settings, she has debated the role of juries with other academics and with lawyers. She has a book forthcoming with Oxford University Press in the Very Short Introduction Series entitled “The Jury.” She is also working on a book about the American civil jury, from the colonial period to the present.
She is the author, with John Langbein and Bruce Smith, of the book History of the Common Law: The Development of Anglo-American Legal Institutions (2009).
Her recent writings include a book review of Amalia D. Kessler’s Inventing American Exceptionalism: The Origins of American Adversarial Legal Culture, 1800-1877, 67 J. Legal Ed. 888 (2018); “How the Creation of Appellate Courts in England and the United States Limited Judicial Comment on Evidence to the Jury,” 40 Journal of the Legal Profession 215 (2016); “The Troublesome Inheritance of Americans in Magna Carta and Trial by Jury,” in Magna Carta and its Modern Legacy 77-98 (Robert Hazell and James Melton eds., Cambridge University Press 2015); and “The Failure of Originalism in Preserving Constitutional Rights to Civil Jury Trial,” 22 William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal 811 (2014).
Professor Lerner received an A.B. summa cum laude in history from Princeton University. She was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, where she studied English legal history. At Yale Law School, she was Articles Editor of the Yale Law Journal. She served as a law clerk to Justice Anthony M. Kennedy of the U.S. Supreme Court and to Judge Stephen F. Williams of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. From 2003 to 2005, she served as Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Counsel at the U.S. Department of Justice.
Professor of Law, University of Michigan Law School
Christopher J. Walker is a Professor of Law at the University of Michigan. Prior to joining Michigan law faculty in 2022, he spent a decade teaching at The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law. He previously clerked for Justice Anthony Kennedy of the U.S. Supreme Court, worked on the Civil Appellate Staff at the U.S. Department of Justice, and served on the Senate Judiciary Committee staff for the Gorsuch Supreme Court confirmation. Professor Walker’s research focuses on administrative law, regulation, and law and policy at the agency level. Outside the law school, he chaired the American Bar Association’s Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice in 2020-21 and served as one of forty Public Members of the Administrative Conference of the United States from 2016-2022, and he continues to serve in both organizations in various capacities. He also works of counsel at the U.S. Chamber Litigation Center. In 2022, he received the Federalist Society’s Joseph Story Award.
Chief Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit
Jennifer Walker Elrod is the Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. She was nominated to the Fifth Circuit in 2007, and she served as a Circuit Judge on the court until assuming the role of Chief Judge in October 2024. Prior to serving as a Circuit Judge, Chief Judge Elrod was appointed and then twice elected Judge of the 190th District Court of Harris County, Texas, where she spent over five years presiding over more than 200 jury and non-jury trials.
Chief Judge Elrod graduated cum laude from Harvard Law School, where she was an active member of the Harvard Federalist Society, an Ames Moot Court finalist, and a Senior Editor of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy. She clerked for the Honorable Sim Lake in the Southern District of Texas. Before serving as a judge, Chief Judge Elrod worked in private practice, focusing on civil litigation, antitrust, and employment matters.
She has been repeatedly recognized for her work as a jurist, as well as for her pro bono work and contributions to the community. She has been named the 2022 Texas Review of Law & Politics’ Jurist of the Year, the 2018 Harvard Federalist Society’s Alumni of the Year, the 2016–17 Texas Association of Civil Trial and Appellate Specialists’ Appellate Judge of the Year, and the 2008 Mexican-American Bar Association of Texas’s Judge of the Year.
Chief Judge Elrod is actively engaged in the academic and legal communities. Chief Judge Elrod currently serves on the Board of Directors and as the Jurist-in-Residence at the South Texas College of Law, where she teaches civil procedure and First Amendment law. She is also a member of the American Law Institute and of the Board of Advisors for the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, and she is a former member of the Board of Regents of her alma mater, Baylor University, and the Board of Visitors at Brigham Young University Law School. She previously served as the Chair of the Codes of Conduct Committee for the Judicial Conference of the United States. She has also served as the M.D. Anderson Visiting Public Service Professor at the Texas Tech University School of Law and as Jurist-in-Residence at Brigham Young University Law School, and she has taught legal writing at the University of Houston Law Center. She presented the Lewis F. Powell, Jr. Distinguished Lecture at the Washington and Lee University School of Law and is a frequent speaker on the topics of trial and appellate procedure, ethics, employment law, and constitutional law. Chief Judge Elrod also serves on the board of the Garland R. Walker Inn of Court, and co-produces an annual musical CLE, for which her pupilage group has won multiple national awards.
Chief Judge Elrod’s publications include: Trial by Siri: AI Comes to the Courtroom; Don’t Mess with Texas Judges: In Praise of the State Judiciary; For Good: Enriching Your Practice and Your Life Through Pro Bono and Community Service; Is the Jury Still Out?: A Case for the Continued Viability of the American Jury; and W(h)ither the Jury? The Diminishing Role of the Jury Trial in our Legal System.
Senior Attorney, Institute for Justice
Rob Johnson is a senior attorney at the Institute for Justice, where he litigates to protect private property, free speech, and other individual rights. Rob is a nationally-recognized expert on civil forfeiture. He previously represented a series of small business owners who had their entire bank accounts seized by the IRS, and he launched an initiative that resulted in the IRS reopening hundreds of closed forfeiture cases and returning millions of dollars. He has also litigated cases challenging the constitutionality of civil forfeiture procedures, and he scored a victory striking down a forfeiture program as a violation of due process.
Beyond civil forfeiture, Rob has litigated cases defending a range of constitutional rights. He was part of teams that successfully challenged occupational licensing requirements for tour guides in Savannah and Charleston. He also developed a class action lawsuit fighting the NYPD’s use of a draconian “no-fault eviction” statute to coerce residents to waive their constitutional rights, which led New York City to reform the challenged law.
Rob’s writing has been published in the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Politico, and Reason, among other venues. Rob has testified about occupational licensing before the House and Senate Judiciary Committees and has twice testified about civil forfeiture before the House Ways & Means Oversight Subcommittee. He has also testified before state legislatures across the country.
From 2014-2017, Rob served as IJ’s first Elfie Gallun Fellow for Freedom and the Constitution. In that role, Rob wrote and spoke about the vital role the U.S. Constitution plays in protecting our most precious freedoms. He is currently at work on a book about the Fourteenth Amendment.
Rob studied literature and anthropology at Columbia University, and he studied law at Harvard Law School. Upon graduation, he clerked for Chief Judge Alex Kozinski on the Ninth Circuit and for Justice Anthony Kennedy on the Supreme Court.
Rob lives in Cleveland with his wife and two daughters—all named after characters in Shakespeare plays—and is an amateur large format photographer.
Donald Phillip Rothschild Research Professor, George Washington University Law School
Renée Lettow Lerner is Donald Phillip Rothschild Research Professor of Law at George Washington University Law School.
Professor Lerner works in the fields of U.S. and English legal history, civil and criminal procedure, and comparative law. She advises judges, lawyers, and government officials from the United States and countries in Europe, Latin America, and Asia about the differences between adversarial and nonadversarial legal systems.
She writes extensively about the history of American juries. Her work includes not only scholarly articles, but also online publications intended for a broader audience of legal professionals and the public. In many different settings, she has debated the role of juries with other academics and with lawyers. She has a book forthcoming with Oxford University Press in the Very Short Introduction Series entitled “The Jury.” She is also working on a book about the American civil jury, from the colonial period to the present.
She is the author, with John Langbein and Bruce Smith, of the book History of the Common Law: The Development of Anglo-American Legal Institutions (2009).
Her recent writings include a book review of Amalia D. Kessler’s Inventing American Exceptionalism: The Origins of American Adversarial Legal Culture, 1800-1877, 67 J. Legal Ed. 888 (2018); “How the Creation of Appellate Courts in England and the United States Limited Judicial Comment on Evidence to the Jury,” 40 Journal of the Legal Profession 215 (2016); “The Troublesome Inheritance of Americans in Magna Carta and Trial by Jury,” in Magna Carta and its Modern Legacy 77-98 (Robert Hazell and James Melton eds., Cambridge University Press 2015); and “The Failure of Originalism in Preserving Constitutional Rights to Civil Jury Trial,” 22 William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal 811 (2014).
Professor Lerner received an A.B. summa cum laude in history from Princeton University. She was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, where she studied English legal history. At Yale Law School, she was Articles Editor of the Yale Law Journal. She served as a law clerk to Justice Anthony M. Kennedy of the U.S. Supreme Court and to Judge Stephen F. Williams of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. From 2003 to 2005, she served as Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Counsel at the U.S. Department of Justice.
Professor of Law, University of Michigan Law School
Christopher J. Walker is a Professor of Law at the University of Michigan. Prior to joining Michigan law faculty in 2022, he spent a decade teaching at The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law. He previously clerked for Justice Anthony Kennedy of the U.S. Supreme Court, worked on the Civil Appellate Staff at the U.S. Department of Justice, and served on the Senate Judiciary Committee staff for the Gorsuch Supreme Court confirmation. Professor Walker’s research focuses on administrative law, regulation, and law and policy at the agency level. Outside the law school, he chaired the American Bar Association’s Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice in 2020-21 and served as one of forty Public Members of the Administrative Conference of the United States from 2016-2022, and he continues to serve in both organizations in various capacities. He also works of counsel at the U.S. Chamber Litigation Center. In 2022, he received the Federalist Society’s Joseph Story Award.
Pioneers Chair in Telecommunications, Penn State University
Dr. Christopher Ali is the Pioneers Chair in Telecommunications and a full professor of telecommunications in the Bellisario College. He is also an affiliate faculty with the College of Information, Science and Technology (IST) at Penn State. He holds a Ph.D. in communication studies from the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania (2013). His research interests include media and telecommunications policy and regulation, broadband policy, critical political economy, critical geography, comparative media systems, qualitative research methods, media localism, and local news.
Ali uses critical, qualitative methods to research broadband policy, planning, deployment and digital equity in the United States. Presently, he has a series of projects dedicated to “broadband stories,” where he is researching how community-based stories can influence public policy. These projects form the basis of his forthcoming book, Where the wires end: Stories from the Digital Divide to be published in Spring 2027 with the University of Chicago Press. In 2026, Dr. Ali also completed a major grant funded research project for the Center for Rural Pennsylvania analyzing how the digital divide impacts rural first responders in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
Dr. Ali is the author or editor of four books: "Public Service Media’s Contribution to Society"(Nordicom, 2023, with Prof. Dr. Manuel Puppis), "Farm Fresh Broadband: The Politics of Rural Connectivity" (MIT Press, 2021), "Media Localism: The Policies of Place" (University of Illinois Press, 2017), "Echoes of Gabriel Tarde: What we know better or different 100 years later" (USC Annenberg Press, 2014, with Drs. Elihu Katz and Joohan Kim).
Based on his expertise, Ali was called to testify before the Senate Commerce Committee in 2021 on broadband funding and policy programs. He has also briefed members of the House Democrats Task Force on Rural Broadband, the New York State Blue Ribbon Commission on Re-Imagining New York, the Federal Communications Commission, and has presented before numerous state and county governments.
Dr. Ali has published over two dozen peer reviewed articles in high-ranking academic journals including, The Journal of Communication, Communication Theory, Media Culture & Society, and Telecommunications Policy. His writing has also been published in Tech Policy Press, The New York Times, The Hill, Realtor Magazine, Law & Political Economy, Digital Beat, GovTech, Zocalo Public Square, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Washington Monthly, Columbia Journalism Review, and The Conversation. He is a frequent press commentator on the subjects of broadband, media policy, and local news, with interviews in the Associated Press, Hollywood Reporter, Business Insider, Washington Post, Philadelphia Inquirer, Los Angeles Times, NPR, CNET, CBC, Bloomberg, and other major national and international news outlets.
Ali presently serves as the Associate Editor of the journal Communication Law & Policy. He also sits on the advisory board of the Centre County Film Festival.
Previously, he served as the Chair of the Communication Law and Policy Division of the International Communication Association (2021-2023) and was an advisor to the Virginia Joint Committee on Technology & Science. He has also served on the Federal Communication Commission’s Communication Equity and Diversity Council Working Group and was a board member of Charlottesville Tomorrow, a non-profit news organization in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Dr. Ali has held fellowships or grants from the Center for Rural Pennsylvania (2025), the Benton Institute for Broadband and Society (2019-2020), the Global Future Council of the World Economic Forum (2018), the Center for Advanced Research in Global Communications (CARGC) at the University of Pennsylvania (2017 & 2022), the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University (2016-2017 & 2019-2021), the University of Fribourg in Fribourg Switzerland (2015), and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (2011).
Ali is an award-winning scholar, having been honored with the 2024 Bellisario Alumni Association Teaching Excellence Award, the 2025 Dean’s Excellence Award for Research & Creative Accomplishment, and the 2025 Broadband Hero Award.
Vice President and Deputy Chief Counsel, U.S. Chamber Litigation Center, U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Jennifer B. Dickey is vice president and deputy chief counsel at the U.S. Chamber Litigation Center, the litigation arm of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Dickey handles a variety of litigation matters for the Chamber.
Dickey joined the Chamber following her service as Acting Assistant Attorney General and Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Civil Division at the U.S. Department of Justice. She also previously served as Deputy Associate Attorney General, providing strategic oversight of the Civil Division, Civil Rights Division, and Foreign Claims Settlement Commission, as well as Special Assistant to the President and Associate Counsel to the President. In the latter capacity, she provided legal advice on a wide array of executive actions and rulemakings, civil litigation, and judicial nominations.
Dickey also practiced law at Kirkland & Ellis LLP before her government service. She was a commercial and appellate litigator, representing businesses in federal and state courts.
Earlier in her career, Dickey served as a law clerk for the Honorable Clarence Thomas of the Supreme Court of the United States and the Honorable William H. Pryor Jr. of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.
Dickey earned her law degree magna cum laude from Duke University School of Law, where she was an Executive Editor of the Duke Law Journal, and her undergraduate degree magna cum laude from Dartmouth College.
Counsel, U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee
Partner, Wilkinson Barker Knauer, LLP
Dan leverages a deep understanding of telecommunications regulation and the broader legal landscape to help clients achieve their business goals. He provides practical and creative advice, develops persuasive policy advocacy, and represents clients in court appeals of agency matters. In an era in which courts play a larger role than ever in shaping regulation, Dan’s mix of legal depth, regulatory knowledge, and policymaking experience make him stand out.
His practice encompasses federal and state telecommunications regulation, emerging Internet issues, funding programs, online privacy frameworks, and consumer protection laws. He co-teaches a telecommunications law course at Georgetown Law School.
Prior to joining WBK, Dan spent eight years in leadership positions in the Federal Communications Commission’s Wireline Competition Bureau. There, Dan guided net neutrality and broadband infrastructure proceedings, implementation of caller ID authentication and the Robocall Mitigation Database, transaction reviews, and many other agency actions. He is especially proud of his contributions to establishing 988 as the three-digit code for the national suicide prevention hotline.
Today, courts make many of the most important decisions regarding agencies, and Dan regularly represents clients in court appeals concerning agency matters. He and the WBK team prevailed before the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of industry associations in FCC v. Consumers’ Research, which affirmed the constitutionality of the Universal Service Fund.
Dan is a graduate of Yale University and Harvard Law School. Outside of work, Dan enjoys spending time with his kids, baking bread and cooking, playing card and board games, attempting to play sports, and science fiction/fantasy.
Partner, Latham & Watkins LLP
Gregory Garre is a partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Latham & Watkins and Global Chair of the firm's Supreme Court and Appellate Practice Group. He recently served as the 44th Solicitor General of the United States. As Solicitor General, he was the federal government's top lawyer before the Supreme Court and was responsible for overseeing the government's litigation in the federal appellate courts. Prior to his nomination by the President and unanimous confirmation as Solicitor General by the Senate, he served as Principal Deputy Solicitor General from 2005 to 2008, and then as Acting Solicitor General. In addition, he served as an Assistant to the Solicitor General from 2000 to 2004. He is the only person to have held all of those positions within the Office of the Solicitor General.
Mr. Garre has argued 29 cases before the Supreme Court, including two cases during the current term, and has served as counsel of record in hundreds of cases before the Court. During the past term, he won each of the cases he argued as Solicitor General, including the landmark case of Ashcroft v. Iqbal, which clarified the gateway requirements for civil litigation in the federal courts, as well as FCC v. Fox Television Stations, and Winter v. NRDC. He has also argued and briefed cases involving a wide array of other nationally important matters, including in the areas of administrative law, alien tort statute, antitrust, business and employment law, education, environmental law, First Amendment, intellectual property, international law, media and telecommunications, separation of powers and voting rights.
Mr. Garre has also successfully argued numerous cases before the federal courts of appeals, including some of the most significant cases heard by the appellate courts in recent years. And, as Acting Solicitor General, he successfully argued on behalf of the government in the first adversarial appeal heard by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review in its 30-year history.
Mr. Garre has received numerous awards for his public service, including the Attorney General's Medallion for his service as Solicitor General and the Navy's Distinguished Public Service Award-the Navy's highest civilian honor-for his successful argument in Winter v. NRDC, which secured a path-marking Supreme Court ruling overturning an order that restrained critically important naval exercises. He has also received the Attorney General's Distinguished Service Award, the Attorney General's Award for Excellence in Furthering Interests of US National Security, and additional honors from the Department of Justice for his work on nationally important litigation matters.
In November 2009, Mr. Garre was named to Washingtonian Magazine's list of top Supreme Court lawyers. In 2006, he was named to The American Lawyer's "Fab 50" list of top litigators under the age of 45 expected to be "leading the field for years to come." And in 2005, he was named to Chambers USA's list of leading appellate litigators in Washington, D.C.
Mr. Garre received his JD degree with high honors from the George Washington University Law School, where he served as editor-in-chief of the law review and was selected to Order of the Coif, and his BA degree cum laude from Dartmouth College, where he was a Rufus Choate Scholar. Following his graduation from law school, he served as a law clerk to Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, and to Judge Anthony J. Scirica of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
Mr. Garre is a member of the advisory board of the Georgetown University Law School Supreme Court Institute and of the Edward Coke Appellate Inn of Court. He has taught constitutional law and Supreme Court practice for many years at the George Washington University Law School. He has testified before Congress and speaks frequently on issues related to the Supreme Court and appellate practice.
Litigation Associate, Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP
Jill Jacobson is an Appeals and Strategic Counseling and Complex Commercial Litigation associate at Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP. She is a former law clerk to Judge Aileen M. Cannon on the District Court for the Southern District of Florida and a future law clerk to Judge Elizabeth L. Branch on the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.
Jill a fellow emeritus at the Independent Women's Law Center and a Senior Contributor at Young Voices. She has also been a Litigation Contractor at the Institute for Justice. She holds a J.D. from Boston College Law School and a Masters from Northeastern University.
Senior Litigation Counsel, New Civil Liberties Alliance
Peggy Little, Senior Counsel at New Civil Liberties Alliance, a new public interest law firm challenging the administrative state founded in 2017 by Professor Philip Hamburger, has over three decades of experience as a trial and appellate litigator in complex, high-stakes regulatory, mass-tort, class-action, products liability, securities, commercial and civil rights litigation representing individuals and high-profile litigants including Fortune 50 companies, financial institutions, public companies, and universities in state and federal courts, including the United States Supreme Court.
Peggy is a graduate of Yale College and Yale Law School, where she was awarded the Potter Stewart Prize. She was a law clerk to the Hon. Ralph K. Winter on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Prior to starting her own trial and appellate law firm in 1997, where she was appellate consulting counsel to the New Haven firefighters in Ricci v.DeStefano, a landmark 2009 United States Supreme Court decision, Peggy was a partner at Tyler, Cooper & Alcorn in New Haven, Connecticut. From 2004 to early 2018, Peggy directed, part-time, the Federalist Society Pro Bono Center.
Peggy has participated in many national conferences and symposia addressing issues of current importance in constitutional law – specifically state and federal constitutional questions regarding the separation of powers and the first amendment – and regularly speaks, blogs and publishes on the topic of the unconstitutional exercise of governmental power. In May of 2017, she presented her paper, Pirates at the Parchment Gates, to a conference of state and federal judges at the Law and Economics Center at the Antonin Scalia Law School. Her work has been published by law reviews, legal publications, the Federalist Society, the Wall Street Journal, Law and Liberty and the Manhattan Institute.
Recent publications include: How the SEC silences its critics, The SEC should listen to Sen. Cotton, Lucia v. SEC, Opening Salvos in the Opioid Litigation Wars, Straight Dope on the Opioid Crisis
Director, Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies, Cato Institute
Thomas Berry is the director in the Cato Institute’s Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies and editor in chief of the Cato Supreme Court Review. Before joining Cato, he was an attorney at Pacific Legal Foundation and clerked for Judge E. Grady Jolly of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. His academic work has appeared in NYU Journal of Law and Liberty, Washington and Lee Law Review Online, and Federalist Society Review. His popular writing has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, National Law Journal, Investor’s Business Daily, National Review Online, and The Hill Online. He has testified before the U.S. Senate, and his work has been cited by the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
Berry holds a J.D. from Stanford Law School, where he was a senior editor on the Stanford Law and Policy Review and a Bradley Student Fellow in the Stanford Constitutional Law Center. He graduated with a B.A. in Liberal Arts from St. John’s College, Santa Fe.
Attorney, Separation of Powers, Pacific Legal Foundation
Josh Robbins is an attorney in Pacific Legal Foundation’s separation of powers group. He litigates cases to defend the structural protections of the U.S. and state constitutions that guarantee liberty for all Americans. He wants to help ensure Americans receive due process from the government when their lives and property are at stake and that the laws are made by our democratically elected representatives and not by unaccountable bureaucrats.
As an attorney in private practice, Josh saw firsthand how the government can embroil people (and even large corporations) in years-long legal battles. At PLF, he works to provide those without great resources an opportunity to vindicate their right to a properly ordered government, which is the right of all Americans.
Prior to joining PLF, Josh was an associate at a large law firm where he litigated cases in federal and state courts. He clerked for the Honorable Jerry E. Smith of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in Houston.
Josh earned a B.A. in economics and international studies from Yale University and a J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law. While at UVA, he served as an articles editor for the Virginia Law Review. He lives in Alexandria, Virginia, and enjoys hiking, swimming, and attending Washington Nationals games.
Josh is a member of the bar only in the states of Virginia and D.C.
Director, Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies, Cato Institute
Thomas Berry is the director in the Cato Institute’s Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies and editor in chief of the Cato Supreme Court Review. Before joining Cato, he was an attorney at Pacific Legal Foundation and clerked for Judge E. Grady Jolly of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. His academic work has appeared in NYU Journal of Law and Liberty, Washington and Lee Law Review Online, and Federalist Society Review. His popular writing has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, National Law Journal, Investor’s Business Daily, National Review Online, and The Hill Online. He has testified before the U.S. Senate, and his work has been cited by the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
Berry holds a J.D. from Stanford Law School, where he was a senior editor on the Stanford Law and Policy Review and a Bradley Student Fellow in the Stanford Constitutional Law Center. He graduated with a B.A. in Liberal Arts from St. John’s College, Santa Fe.
Attorney, Separation of Powers, Pacific Legal Foundation
Josh Robbins is an attorney in Pacific Legal Foundation’s separation of powers group. He litigates cases to defend the structural protections of the U.S. and state constitutions that guarantee liberty for all Americans. He wants to help ensure Americans receive due process from the government when their lives and property are at stake and that the laws are made by our democratically elected representatives and not by unaccountable bureaucrats.
As an attorney in private practice, Josh saw firsthand how the government can embroil people (and even large corporations) in years-long legal battles. At PLF, he works to provide those without great resources an opportunity to vindicate their right to a properly ordered government, which is the right of all Americans.
Prior to joining PLF, Josh was an associate at a large law firm where he litigated cases in federal and state courts. He clerked for the Honorable Jerry E. Smith of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in Houston.
Josh earned a B.A. in economics and international studies from Yale University and a J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law. While at UVA, he served as an articles editor for the Virginia Law Review. He lives in Alexandria, Virginia, and enjoys hiking, swimming, and attending Washington Nationals games.
Josh is a member of the bar only in the states of Virginia and D.C.
Chief Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit
Jennifer Walker Elrod is the Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. She was nominated to the Fifth Circuit in 2007, and she served as a Circuit Judge on the court until assuming the role of Chief Judge in October 2024. Prior to serving as a Circuit Judge, Chief Judge Elrod was appointed and then twice elected Judge of the 190th District Court of Harris County, Texas, where she spent over five years presiding over more than 200 jury and non-jury trials.
Chief Judge Elrod graduated cum laude from Harvard Law School, where she was an active member of the Harvard Federalist Society, an Ames Moot Court finalist, and a Senior Editor of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy. She clerked for the Honorable Sim Lake in the Southern District of Texas. Before serving as a judge, Chief Judge Elrod worked in private practice, focusing on civil litigation, antitrust, and employment matters.
She has been repeatedly recognized for her work as a jurist, as well as for her pro bono work and contributions to the community. She has been named the 2022 Texas Review of Law & Politics’ Jurist of the Year, the 2018 Harvard Federalist Society’s Alumni of the Year, the 2016–17 Texas Association of Civil Trial and Appellate Specialists’ Appellate Judge of the Year, and the 2008 Mexican-American Bar Association of Texas’s Judge of the Year.
Chief Judge Elrod is actively engaged in the academic and legal communities. Chief Judge Elrod currently serves on the Board of Directors and as the Jurist-in-Residence at the South Texas College of Law, where she teaches civil procedure and First Amendment law. She is also a member of the American Law Institute and of the Board of Advisors for the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, and she is a former member of the Board of Regents of her alma mater, Baylor University, and the Board of Visitors at Brigham Young University Law School. She previously served as the Chair of the Codes of Conduct Committee for the Judicial Conference of the United States. She has also served as the M.D. Anderson Visiting Public Service Professor at the Texas Tech University School of Law and as Jurist-in-Residence at Brigham Young University Law School, and she has taught legal writing at the University of Houston Law Center. She presented the Lewis F. Powell, Jr. Distinguished Lecture at the Washington and Lee University School of Law and is a frequent speaker on the topics of trial and appellate procedure, ethics, employment law, and constitutional law. Chief Judge Elrod also serves on the board of the Garland R. Walker Inn of Court, and co-produces an annual musical CLE, for which her pupilage group has won multiple national awards.
Chief Judge Elrod’s publications include: Trial by Siri: AI Comes to the Courtroom; Don’t Mess with Texas Judges: In Praise of the State Judiciary; For Good: Enriching Your Practice and Your Life Through Pro Bono and Community Service; Is the Jury Still Out?: A Case for the Continued Viability of the American Jury; and W(h)ither the Jury? The Diminishing Role of the Jury Trial in our Legal System.
Senior Attorney, Institute for Justice
Rob Johnson is a senior attorney at the Institute for Justice, where he litigates to protect private property, free speech, and other individual rights. Rob is a nationally-recognized expert on civil forfeiture. He previously represented a series of small business owners who had their entire bank accounts seized by the IRS, and he launched an initiative that resulted in the IRS reopening hundreds of closed forfeiture cases and returning millions of dollars. He has also litigated cases challenging the constitutionality of civil forfeiture procedures, and he scored a victory striking down a forfeiture program as a violation of due process.
Beyond civil forfeiture, Rob has litigated cases defending a range of constitutional rights. He was part of teams that successfully challenged occupational licensing requirements for tour guides in Savannah and Charleston. He also developed a class action lawsuit fighting the NYPD’s use of a draconian “no-fault eviction” statute to coerce residents to waive their constitutional rights, which led New York City to reform the challenged law.
Rob’s writing has been published in the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Politico, and Reason, among other venues. Rob has testified about occupational licensing before the House and Senate Judiciary Committees and has twice testified about civil forfeiture before the House Ways & Means Oversight Subcommittee. He has also testified before state legislatures across the country.
From 2014-2017, Rob served as IJ’s first Elfie Gallun Fellow for Freedom and the Constitution. In that role, Rob wrote and spoke about the vital role the U.S. Constitution plays in protecting our most precious freedoms. He is currently at work on a book about the Fourteenth Amendment.
Rob studied literature and anthropology at Columbia University, and he studied law at Harvard Law School. Upon graduation, he clerked for Chief Judge Alex Kozinski on the Ninth Circuit and for Justice Anthony Kennedy on the Supreme Court.
Rob lives in Cleveland with his wife and two daughters—all named after characters in Shakespeare plays—and is an amateur large format photographer.
Donald Phillip Rothschild Research Professor, George Washington University Law School
Renée Lettow Lerner is Donald Phillip Rothschild Research Professor of Law at George Washington University Law School.
Professor Lerner works in the fields of U.S. and English legal history, civil and criminal procedure, and comparative law. She advises judges, lawyers, and government officials from the United States and countries in Europe, Latin America, and Asia about the differences between adversarial and nonadversarial legal systems.
She writes extensively about the history of American juries. Her work includes not only scholarly articles, but also online publications intended for a broader audience of legal professionals and the public. In many different settings, she has debated the role of juries with other academics and with lawyers. She has a book forthcoming with Oxford University Press in the Very Short Introduction Series entitled “The Jury.” She is also working on a book about the American civil jury, from the colonial period to the present.
She is the author, with John Langbein and Bruce Smith, of the book History of the Common Law: The Development of Anglo-American Legal Institutions (2009).
Her recent writings include a book review of Amalia D. Kessler’s Inventing American Exceptionalism: The Origins of American Adversarial Legal Culture, 1800-1877, 67 J. Legal Ed. 888 (2018); “How the Creation of Appellate Courts in England and the United States Limited Judicial Comment on Evidence to the Jury,” 40 Journal of the Legal Profession 215 (2016); “The Troublesome Inheritance of Americans in Magna Carta and Trial by Jury,” in Magna Carta and its Modern Legacy 77-98 (Robert Hazell and James Melton eds., Cambridge University Press 2015); and “The Failure of Originalism in Preserving Constitutional Rights to Civil Jury Trial,” 22 William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal 811 (2014).
Professor Lerner received an A.B. summa cum laude in history from Princeton University. She was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, where she studied English legal history. At Yale Law School, she was Articles Editor of the Yale Law Journal. She served as a law clerk to Justice Anthony M. Kennedy of the U.S. Supreme Court and to Judge Stephen F. Williams of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. From 2003 to 2005, she served as Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Counsel at the U.S. Department of Justice.
Professor of Law, University of Michigan Law School
Christopher J. Walker is a Professor of Law at the University of Michigan. Prior to joining Michigan law faculty in 2022, he spent a decade teaching at The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law. He previously clerked for Justice Anthony Kennedy of the U.S. Supreme Court, worked on the Civil Appellate Staff at the U.S. Department of Justice, and served on the Senate Judiciary Committee staff for the Gorsuch Supreme Court confirmation. Professor Walker’s research focuses on administrative law, regulation, and law and policy at the agency level. Outside the law school, he chaired the American Bar Association’s Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice in 2020-21 and served as one of forty Public Members of the Administrative Conference of the United States from 2016-2022, and he continues to serve in both organizations in various capacities. He also works of counsel at the U.S. Chamber Litigation Center. In 2022, he received the Federalist Society’s Joseph Story Award.
Partner, Shutts & Bowen
Alyssa L. Cory is a Partner in the Tampa office of Shutts & Bowen LLP, where she is a member of the Appellate Practice Group.
Board certified in Appellate Practice, she regularly briefs and argues high-profile appeals in all six of Florida’s appellate courts, as well as in the Florida Supreme Court and the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. Her practice covers appellate advocacy in the areas of complex commercial and business disputes, constitutional issues, election-related litigation, and administrative law. She also assists clients through civil litigation support in a variety of federal and state cases with trial preservation, and developing and framing key legal arguments.
She currently serves as the Chair of the General Practice Subcommittee of The Florida Bar Appellate Court Rules Committee, and as Chair of the Programs Committee of the Appellate Practice Section of The Florida Bar.
Alyssa brings a wealth of knowledge to her appellate practice from her previous experience as a staff attorney for the Honorable Ricky Polston of the Florida Supreme Court, and the Honorable Thomas D. Winokur of Florida’s First District Court of Appeal.
Alyssa is also a leader in her local community, serving as President of the Tampa Bay Attorney Chapter of the Christian Legal Society, and as a Vice President of the Tampa Bay Lawyers Chapter of the Federalist Society.
Deputy Attorney General for Civil Enforcement, Florida Office of the Attorney General
Jason Hilborn is the Deputy Attorney General for the Civil Division of the Florida Office of the Attorney General, overseeing civil investigations, enforcement, and litigation for the State. Before his current role, Jason was a partner in the Fort Lauderdale office of Boies Schiller Flexner LLP, focusing on complex civil litigation. Earlier in his career, he practiced at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP in Washington, D.C., before serving as a Deputy Solicitor General in the Florida Solicitor General’s Office, where he handled civil and criminal appeals and challenges to federal agency action. Jason clerked for Judge John K. Bush of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and for Vice Chancellor Sam Glasscock III of the Delaware Court of Chancery. Before earning his J.D., Jason served as a missionary across Europe, Africa, and Asia. He received his B.S. and B.A. from the University of Florida and his J.D. from Harvard Law School.
Associate, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP
Elizabeth A. Kiernan is a senior associate in the Appellate and Constitutional Law Practice Group at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, representing clients in their most consequential, high-stakes, and time-sensitive matters. Elizabeth specializes in appellate advocacy and sophisticated briefing. She has successfully argued before the Fifth Circuit and Texas Supreme Court and has supported arguments in various courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court and courts across the country.
Elizabeth’s most significant victories include obtaining and preserving at the Texas Supreme Court writs of mandamus directing dismissal of billions of dollars in personal injury and property damage claims across a 200-case, 20,000-plaintiff MDL; securing a landmark U.S. Supreme Court victory allowing an insurer responsible for millions of dollars in bankruptcy claims to be heard on objections to its insureds’ plan of reorganization; and persuading a unanimous Fifth Circuit panel to uphold dismissal of over $12 million in contractual and tort claims.
Chambers and Partners recently named Elizabeth an “Associate to Watch” for Litigation: Appellate (Texas), and she has been recognized as an Appellate “Rising Star” by Thomson Reuters’s Texas Super Lawyers magazine.
Prior to joining Gibson Dunn, Elizabeth earned her B.A. summa cum laude from the University of Alabama and her J.D. with Honors from the University of Chicago Law School. She served as a law clerk to the Honorable Jerry E. Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and the Honorable William H. Pryor Jr. of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. She also served as Special Counsel to U.S. Senator Josh Hawley for the confirmation of Justice Amy Coney Barrett.
Judge, United States District Court, Southern District of Florida
Rodolfo “Rudy” Armando Ruiz II is a District Judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida. Prior to his judicial commission on May 3, 2019, Ruiz was a Circuit Court Judge for the Eleventh Judicial Circuit of Florida from 2014 through 2019, and a Miami-Dade County Court Judge from 2012 through 2014. Ruiz also served as an Assistant County Attorney with the Miami-Dade County Attorney’s Office and an associate with White & Case LLP.
Ruiz received a Bachelor of Science in Economics from Duke University and earned his Juris Doctor from Georgetown University. After graduating from law school, he was a law clerk to the Honorable Federico A. Moreno of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida.
Of Counsel, DLA Piper LLP (US)
Harout J. Samra – a Board Certified Specialist in International Law – focuses his practice on international dispute resolution and arbitration matters, including international civil litigation in US courts.
Harout has represented clients from both the public and private sectors, including foreign governments, public officials and clients from a variety of industries. He has experience in international arbitrations administered under the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), International Centre for Dispute Resolution (ICDR), United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL), China International Economic and Trade Arbitration Commission (CIETAC), Bogota Chamber of Commerce, Madrid Court of Arbitration and International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) arbitration rules.
Harout currently serves as a member of the Florida Supreme Court Judicial Nominating Commission, by appointment of Governor Ron DeSantis. He previously served, by appointment of Governor Rick Scott, as a member of the Florida Third District Court of Appeal Judicial Nominating Commission, and was elected as Chair of the Commission from 2018-2019.
Adjudication versus Rulemaking: A Look at How NLRB Sets Labor Policy
Samuel Estreicher, Brian E. Hayes, Marvin Kaplan, Alexander T. MacDonald
The National Labor Relations Board is responsible for developing national labor policy, but it has...
Adjudication versus Rulemaking: A Look at How NLRB Sets Labor Policy
Samuel Estreicher, Brian E. Hayes, Marvin Kaplan, Alexander T. MacDonald
The National Labor Relations Board is responsible for developing national labor policy, but it has...
Trial by Jury or Administrative Adjudication: What Would the Founders Say?
Jennifer Walker Elrod, Robert E. Johnson, Renée Lettow Lerner, Christopher J. Walker
In this Federalist Society America 250 series, experts analyze modern legal and policy debates through...
Trial by Jury or Administrative Adjudication: What Would the Founders Say?
Jennifer Walker Elrod, Robert E. Johnson, Renée Lettow Lerner, Christopher J. Walker
In this Federalist Society America 250 series, experts analyze modern legal and policy debates through...
Litigation Update: Minnesota Telecom Alliance v. FCC
Christopher Ali, Jennifer B. Dickey, Matthew Furlow, Daniel H. Kahn
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit recently vacated the Federal Communications Commission’s...
Trial by Jury or Administrative Adjudication: What Would the Founders Say?
The Founders Gave Us the Tools Series
Panel 2: Strategic Litigation for the Modern Practitioner
2026 Florida Young Lawyers Summit
Coral Gables, FLLitigation Update: Powell v. SEC
Gregory G. Garre, Jill Jacobson, Margaret A. Little
The SEC’s “Gag Rule” long conditioned settlement of enforcement actions on the defendant's agreeing never...
From the Courthouse Steps: FCC v. AT&T
Thomas Berry, Josh Robbins
In FCC v. AT&T, the Supreme Court was asked to decide whether a jury trial is...
From the Courthouse Steps: FCC v. AT&T
Thomas Berry, Josh Robbins
In FCC v. AT&T, the Supreme Court was asked to decide whether a jury trial is...