Associate Dean for Research and Intellectual Life, McKnight Presidential Professor in Law, Distinguished McKnight University Professor, Harlan Albert Rogers Professor in Law, Associate Director, Corporate Institute, University of Minnesota Law School
Professor Kristin E. Hickman is the McKnight Presidential Professor in Law, a Distinguished McKnight University Professor, and Harlan Albert Rogers Professor in Law at the University of Minnesota Law School. She also has taught at Harvard Law School and Northwestern University School of Law. Professor Hickman teaches and writes primarily in the areas of administrative law, tax administration, and statutory interpretation. Her articles on these topics have appeared in the Columbia Law Review, Cornell Law Review, Virginia Law Review, Duke Law Journal, and other publications. She also co-authors the Administrative Law Treatise with Richard J. Pierce, Jr., and a casebook on federal administrative law with Pierce and Christopher J. Walker. Her scholarly work has been cited several times in opinions of the United States Supreme Court as well as regularly in lower court judicial opinions and court briefs.
In 2018-19, Professor Hickman served as Special Adviser to the Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in Washington, D.C. She presently serves as a Senior Fellow, and previously served as a public member and chair of the judicial review committee, for the Administrative Conference of the United States. She also is a Fellow of the American College of Tax Counsel.
Professor Hickman received her B.S. degree in business administration with a concentration in accounting and a secondary major in history from Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. After practicing for several years as a certified public accountant, Professor Hickman earned her J.D. degree, magna cum laude, from Northwestern University School of Law, where she was awarded the Raoul Berger Prize and the Lowden Wigmore Prize for her scholarly writings. Following law school, Professor Hickman clerked for The Honorable David B. Sentelle of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and practiced law as an associate with the Chicago office of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, concentrating on corporate and international tax transactions and matters.
Senior Counsel, FCC
For the past four years, Mr. Degani has served as Commissioner Pai's Wireline Legal Advisor. He joined the office from a detail to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce, where he served as counsel under Chairman Fred Upton and Communications and Technology Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden. Before his detail, Mr. Degani served as an Attorney Advisor in the Wireline Competition Bureau's Telecommunications Access Policy Division and Competition Policy Division, as well as the Commission's Office of General Counsel. Mr. Degani entered the Commission through the Attorney Honors Program. Earlier in his career, Mr. Degani clerked for Judge Jeffrey Sutton of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. He graduated cum laude from Harvard Law School and magna cum laude from Yale University, where he studied Electrical Engineering/Computer Science and History.
Partner, HWG LLP
Patricia Paoletta is a partner with the law firm of HWG LLP, where she specializes in telecommunications, trade and technology policy. Ms. Paoletta provides advice on regulatory, trade and legislative policy to clients before the FCC, Congress and the Administration. Her clients include providers of content, cloud, mobile broadband, VoIP, international telecommunications, small cells, cognitive radio, public safety and homeland security solutions. She serves on Advisory Boards for several entities engaged in information services, communications and technology.
Ms. Paoletta has accrued considerable experience with telecommunications trade and policy in the public sector. From 1990 to 1995, she was senior advisor to the International Bureau Chief and Office Director at the Federal Communications Commission. In the mid 1990s, Ms. Paoletta served as Director of Telecommunications Trade Policy in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, Executive Office of the President, where she worked on the WTO Information Technology Agreement (ITA) and the Basic Telecommunications Agreement. After USTR, Ms. Paoletta served as Majority Counsel to the House Energy and Commerce Committee. She then moved to Level 3 Communications, as Vice President, Government Relations.
Ms. Paoletta is on the Steering Committee of the Transatlantic Roundtable on Telecommunications and Information Technology of the European Institute. She is a member of the USTR Alumni Association, Washington International Trade Association, the Federal Communications Bar Association (FCBA), and Women in Technology. Ms. Paoletta has served on the Board of Advisors for the Inter-American Dialogue's Latin America Telecom Advisor, Co-Chairman of the American Bar Association International Communications Committee, and as a member of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Technology Policy Committee.
Ms. Paoletta served as a delegate in 2012 to the ITU-R's Study Group 6 Working Party 6A Meeting and in 2009 and 2010 to the ITU-R's Study Group I Working Party IB Meetings; the 2009 meetings of CITEL (the Committee on International Telecommunications at the Organization of American States) PCC-II; the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) World Telecommunications Standards Assembly (2000); the ITU Internet Protocol Telephony Experts Group and the ITU World Telecommunications Policy Forum in 2001; as Chairman of the National Reliability and Interoperability Council (NRIC) Steering Committee (2000-2001); as Board Member for the Voice on the Net Coalition (2001); as Co-Chairman of the FCBA's Annual Seminar Committee (2009-2011); as a member of the FCBA's Ad Hoc Speakers Committee (2006-2007); as Co-Chairman for the FCBA International Practice Committee (2001-2002 and 2005-2006); and as a Co-Chairman of the FCBA Legislative Practice Committee (1999-2000).
Managing Partner, Wilkinson Barker Knauer LLP
Bryan Tramont, the firm’s managing partner, offers strategic counsel to Fortune 100 companies and trade associations, as well as small and mid-sized telecommunications and media companies, on all aspects of communications law and regulation. He is regularly called on to advise companies as they develop and evaluate new business opportunities in the technology, media, and telecommunications sectors. Mr. Tramont also designs and leads the execution of the firm’s strategic plan and directs client management and development. Mr. Tramont has been recognized by leading publications like Legal 500, Chambers USA, and Washingtonian as one of the nation’s top communications lawyers. In 2017, he was named to the inaugural Legal 500 Hall of Fame List, which highlights individuals who have received constant praise by their clients and who have been recognized by the Legal 500 as an elite leading lawyer for six consecutive years. He has been awarded The Best Lawyers in America © 2017 “Lawyer of the Year” for Media Law and “Lawyer of the Year" in Communications Law in 2016. In 2016, he was also named one of the Top 10 Washington, DC Super Lawyers.
Mr. Tramont serves on the Commerce Spectrum Management Advisory Committee (CSMAC), advising the Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information at NTIA. Appointed under the Bush and Obama Administrations, he also served as the committee’s Co-Chairman from 2008-2010. In addition, Mr. Tramont is active in the Federal Communications Bar Association, where he served in a variety of leadership roles, including as President from 2010-11 and has been awarded the organization’s Distinguished Service Award. Mr. Tramont chairs the Federalist Society’s Telecommunications Practice Group Executive Committee, serves on the International Institute of Communications Canada Board of Directors, and previously served on the Governing Committee of the ABA Forum on Communications Law. Mr. Tramont currently is an adjunct law professor at The Catholic University of America as part of the Communications Law Institute, is a senior adjunct fellow at the University of Colorado, Boulder, has served as the Syracuse University Law School’s Practitioner in Residence, and is on the Board of Trustees at William Woods University. Mr. Tramont is the author of numerous articles on communications policy and is a frequent speaker and lecturer at academic and industry events. Prior to joining Wilkinson Barker Knauer, Mr. Tramont served as Chief of Staff of the Federal Communications Commission under Chairman Michael Powell. As Chief of Staff, Mr. Tramont managed all aspects of the agency’s operations and directed FCC staff in implementing all components of the agency’s policy portfolio including media, broadband, mobility, and traditional telephone services. Before being elevated to Chief of Staff, Mr. Tramont was Chairman Powell’s Senior Legal Advisor, advising him on strategic policy matters and on wireless, international, technology, satellite, and consumer issues. Mr. Tramont also served as Senior Legal Advisor to Commissioner Kathleen Abernathy and, before that, to Commissioner Harold Furchtgott-Roth. He also served as a law clerk for the Honorable Duane Benton on the Supreme Court for his home state of Missouri. In addition, Mr. Tramont has served as an expert witness in a number of communications-related litigation matters.
Bryan Tramont graduated summa cum laude from The George Washington University with a degree in political science. He earned his law degree from Yale Law School, where he served as editor of the Yale Law & Policy Review.
Director, Faculty Relations, The Federalist Society
Katie McClendon is the Director of Faculty Relations at the Federalist Society, where she has worked since 2015.
Katie holds a J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania Law School and a B.A. in Political Science from Biola University, where she was a member of the Torrey Honors Institute. She is a fellow of the John Jay Institute and the Blackstone Legal Fellowship. Katie is originally from Los Angeles, and she now lives with her husband and four children in Atlanta.
Dean & Henry R. Luce Professor of Journalism, Columbia Journalis, The New Yorker
Dean Steve Coll is a staff writer at The New Yorker, the author of seven books of nonfiction, and a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize. Between 1985 and 2005, he was a reporter, foreign correspondent and senior editor at the Washington Post. There he covered Wall Street, served as the paper’s South Asia correspondent in New Delhi, and was the Post’s first international investigative correspondent, based in London. He served as managing editor of the Post between 1998 and 2004. The following year, he joined The New Yorker, where he has written on international politics, American politics and national security, intelligence controversies and the media.
Coll is the author of “Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, From the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001(link is external),” published in 2004, for which he received an Overseas Press Club Award and a Pulitzer Prize. His 2008 book, “The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century(link is external),” won the PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction in 2009 and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Biography. His most recent book is “Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power(link is external),” which won the Financial Times/Goldman Sachs Award as the best business book of 2012.
He has four children and is married to Eliza Griswold, the journalist and poet. He has a B.A. in English and history from Occidental College.
Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law and Director, Classical Liberal Institute, New York University School of Law; Director, Classical Liberal Institute, Civitas Institute University of Texas at Austin
Richard A. Epstein is the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law, at New York University, a senior research fellow at the Civitas Institute at the University of Texas Austin, and a senior Lecturer, the University of Chicago. He received an LL.D., h.c . from the University of Ghent, 2003 , and an LLD h.c . from the University of Siegen in 2018 and the Bradley Prize in 2011. He has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 1985. He has edited both the Journal of Legal Studies (1981-1991) and the Journal of Law and Economics (1991-2001). He is also a founder and director of the Classical Liberal Institute at NYU Law School. His most recent book is The Classical Liberal Constitution: The Uncertain Quest for Limited Government (2014). His other books include Takings: Private Property and the Power of Eminent Domain ( 1985); Bargaining with the State (1993); Simple Rules for a Complex World (1995); Principles for a Free Society: Reconciling Individual Liberty and the Common Good (1998); Skepticism and Freedom: A Modern Theory of Classical Liberalism (2003); Design for Liberty: Private Property, Public Administration and the Rule of Law (2011), and most recently, The Myth of Birthright citizenship—and Beyond (2026). He has taught courses in , administrative law, antitrust, constitutional, contracts, environmental law, land use planning; real property, torts and water law. He has written and spoken extensively on a wide range of topics, and is writes a regular column for Defining Ideas.
Founding Director, Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University
Jameel Jaffer is the founding director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, which works to protect and expand the freedoms of speech and the press through strategic litigation, research, and public education. Until recently, Jaffer was deputy legal director at the American Civil Liberties Union and director of the ACLU’s Center for Democracy, in which role he oversaw the ACLU’s work relating to free speech, privacy, technology, national security, and international human rights.
Jaffer has litigated some of the most significant post-9/11 cases relating to national security and civil liberties, including cases concerning detention, interrogation, surveillance, targeted killing, and government secrecy. He co-led the litigation that resulted in the publication of the Bush administration’s “torture memos”—a lawsuit the New York Times described as “among the most successful in the history of public disclosure.” More recently, he led the ACLU’s litigation that resulted in the publication of the Obama administration’s “drone memos.”
Dean and Lucy G. Moses Professor of Law, Columbia Law School
Gillian Lester is Dean and the Lucy G. Moses Professor of Law at Columbia Law School.
She is a nationally recognized authority on employment law and policy whose research has explored workplace intellectual property law, public finance policy, and the design of social insurance laws and regulations. Dean Lester is the author of numerous books and articles and is co-author of one of the leading casebooks on employment law, Employment Law Cases and Materials. She is also a member of the American Law Institute and was an adviser to the ALI Restatement of Employment Law.
Dean Lester began her teaching career in 1994 at UCLA School of Law, becoming a full professor in 1999, and joined the Berkeley Law faculty in 2006. At Berkeley, she was the Alexander F. and May T. Morrison Professor of Law and Mimi Wolfen Research Professor, and also served as co-director of the Berkeley Center for Health, Economic and Family Security; Associate Dean for the J.D. Program and Curricular Planning; and, most recently, Acting Dean (2012-2014).
She has held external appointments as the Sidley Austin Visiting Professor at Harvard Law School and Sloan Fellow and Visiting Professor at Georgetown University Law Center. Dean Lester also held short-term visiting appointments at USC Gould School of Law, University of Chicago Law School, and Radzyner School of Law Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, Israel.
Dean Lester, Columbia Law School’s 15th dean, holds degrees from Stanford Law School and the University of Toronto Faculty of Law, where she served as Editor-in-Chief of the law review. She earned her undergraduate degree from the University of British Columbia.
Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Intellectual Property Law, Maurice A. Deane School of Law at Hofstra University
Professor Manta teaches intellectual property law subjects. Her research examines the intersection between intellectual property law and social science, with a focus on psychology. She has most recently written about the hedonic value of trademarks and its legal implications, the problem of cognitive bias in copyright infringement litigation, price discrimination through software licensing in the age of the Internet of Things, and the role of criminal sanctions in intellectual property. Professor Manta has published or has forthcoming work in the Emory Law Journal, William & Mary Law Review, Iowa Law Review, Alabama Law Review, Boston College Law Review, Ohio State Law Journal, Washington and Lee Law Review, Harvard Journal of Law & Technology, Stanford Technology Law Review, Florida Law Review, Arizona Law Review, and Cornell Law Review Online, among others. She is also a co-author for a forthcoming textbook on criminal law issues in intellectual property. Professor Manta has further been a guest blogger for PrawfsBlawg and for Concurring Opinions. In 2014, she received the Lawrence A. Stessin Prize for Outstanding Scholarly Publications, which is awarded to two junior faculty members across all disciplines at Hofstra University.
Before joining the law school faculty in 2012, Professor Manta was an Assistant Professor of Law at the Case Western Reserve University School of Law. She was a Bigelow Teaching Fellow and Lecturer in Law at the University of Chicago Law School from 2007 to 2009. Professor Manta has also served on the faculties of Brooklyn Law School, The George Washington University School of Law, and the University of Arkansas at Little Rock William H. Bowen School of Law. She clerked for Judge Morris S. Arnold on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit for the 2006-2007 term.
While earning her J.D. at Yale Law School, Professor Manta was the grand prize winner of the Foley & Lardner LLP Intellectual Property Writing Competition. She also served as tributes editor of the Yale Law Journal, articles editor of the Yale Law & Policy Review, and editor of the Yale Journal on Regulation. She graduated magna cum laude from Yale University with a B.A. in psychology.
U.S. Court of Appeals, Second Circuit
Reena Raggi is a United States Circuit Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. At the time of her appointment in 2002, she was a United States District Judge for the Eastern District of New York.
Judge Raggi earned her B.A. degree in 1973 from Wellesley College and her J.D. degree cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1976.
She was law clerk to Judge Thomas E. Fairchild of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit from 1976 to 1977. From 1977 to 1979 she was in private law practice as an associate with the New York law firm of Cahill, Gordon & Reindel. She served as an Assistant United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York from 1979 to 1986, including assignments as Chief of the Narcotics Division (1982 to 1984), and Chief of the Special Prosecutions Division (1984 to 1986). Also in 1986, she served as United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York under an interim court appointment. Later that year, she resumed the private practice of law as a partner in the New York firm of Windels, Marx, Davies & Ives. She remained there until her appointment in 1987 as a United States District Judge for the Eastern District of New York.
Dean & Henry R. Luce Professor of Journalism, Columbia Journalis, The New Yorker
Dean Steve Coll is a staff writer at The New Yorker, the author of seven books of nonfiction, and a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize. Between 1985 and 2005, he was a reporter, foreign correspondent and senior editor at the Washington Post. There he covered Wall Street, served as the paper’s South Asia correspondent in New Delhi, and was the Post’s first international investigative correspondent, based in London. He served as managing editor of the Post between 1998 and 2004. The following year, he joined The New Yorker, where he has written on international politics, American politics and national security, intelligence controversies and the media.
Coll is the author of “Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, From the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001(link is external),” published in 2004, for which he received an Overseas Press Club Award and a Pulitzer Prize. His 2008 book, “The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century(link is external),” won the PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction in 2009 and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Biography. His most recent book is “Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power(link is external),” which won the Financial Times/Goldman Sachs Award as the best business book of 2012.
He has four children and is married to Eliza Griswold, the journalist and poet. He has a B.A. in English and history from Occidental College.
Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law and Director, Classical Liberal Institute, New York University School of Law; Director, Classical Liberal Institute, Civitas Institute University of Texas at Austin
Richard A. Epstein is the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law, at New York University, a senior research fellow at the Civitas Institute at the University of Texas Austin, and a senior Lecturer, the University of Chicago. He received an LL.D., h.c . from the University of Ghent, 2003 , and an LLD h.c . from the University of Siegen in 2018 and the Bradley Prize in 2011. He has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 1985. He has edited both the Journal of Legal Studies (1981-1991) and the Journal of Law and Economics (1991-2001). He is also a founder and director of the Classical Liberal Institute at NYU Law School. His most recent book is The Classical Liberal Constitution: The Uncertain Quest for Limited Government (2014). His other books include Takings: Private Property and the Power of Eminent Domain ( 1985); Bargaining with the State (1993); Simple Rules for a Complex World (1995); Principles for a Free Society: Reconciling Individual Liberty and the Common Good (1998); Skepticism and Freedom: A Modern Theory of Classical Liberalism (2003); Design for Liberty: Private Property, Public Administration and the Rule of Law (2011), and most recently, The Myth of Birthright citizenship—and Beyond (2026). He has taught courses in , administrative law, antitrust, constitutional, contracts, environmental law, land use planning; real property, torts and water law. He has written and spoken extensively on a wide range of topics, and is writes a regular column for Defining Ideas.
Founding Director, Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University
Jameel Jaffer is the founding director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, which works to protect and expand the freedoms of speech and the press through strategic litigation, research, and public education. Until recently, Jaffer was deputy legal director at the American Civil Liberties Union and director of the ACLU’s Center for Democracy, in which role he oversaw the ACLU’s work relating to free speech, privacy, technology, national security, and international human rights.
Jaffer has litigated some of the most significant post-9/11 cases relating to national security and civil liberties, including cases concerning detention, interrogation, surveillance, targeted killing, and government secrecy. He co-led the litigation that resulted in the publication of the Bush administration’s “torture memos”—a lawsuit the New York Times described as “among the most successful in the history of public disclosure.” More recently, he led the ACLU’s litigation that resulted in the publication of the Obama administration’s “drone memos.”
Dean and Lucy G. Moses Professor of Law, Columbia Law School
Gillian Lester is Dean and the Lucy G. Moses Professor of Law at Columbia Law School.
She is a nationally recognized authority on employment law and policy whose research has explored workplace intellectual property law, public finance policy, and the design of social insurance laws and regulations. Dean Lester is the author of numerous books and articles and is co-author of one of the leading casebooks on employment law, Employment Law Cases and Materials. She is also a member of the American Law Institute and was an adviser to the ALI Restatement of Employment Law.
Dean Lester began her teaching career in 1994 at UCLA School of Law, becoming a full professor in 1999, and joined the Berkeley Law faculty in 2006. At Berkeley, she was the Alexander F. and May T. Morrison Professor of Law and Mimi Wolfen Research Professor, and also served as co-director of the Berkeley Center for Health, Economic and Family Security; Associate Dean for the J.D. Program and Curricular Planning; and, most recently, Acting Dean (2012-2014).
She has held external appointments as the Sidley Austin Visiting Professor at Harvard Law School and Sloan Fellow and Visiting Professor at Georgetown University Law Center. Dean Lester also held short-term visiting appointments at USC Gould School of Law, University of Chicago Law School, and Radzyner School of Law Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, Israel.
Dean Lester, Columbia Law School’s 15th dean, holds degrees from Stanford Law School and the University of Toronto Faculty of Law, where she served as Editor-in-Chief of the law review. She earned her undergraduate degree from the University of British Columbia.
Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Intellectual Property Law, Maurice A. Deane School of Law at Hofstra University
Professor Manta teaches intellectual property law subjects. Her research examines the intersection between intellectual property law and social science, with a focus on psychology. She has most recently written about the hedonic value of trademarks and its legal implications, the problem of cognitive bias in copyright infringement litigation, price discrimination through software licensing in the age of the Internet of Things, and the role of criminal sanctions in intellectual property. Professor Manta has published or has forthcoming work in the Emory Law Journal, William & Mary Law Review, Iowa Law Review, Alabama Law Review, Boston College Law Review, Ohio State Law Journal, Washington and Lee Law Review, Harvard Journal of Law & Technology, Stanford Technology Law Review, Florida Law Review, Arizona Law Review, and Cornell Law Review Online, among others. She is also a co-author for a forthcoming textbook on criminal law issues in intellectual property. Professor Manta has further been a guest blogger for PrawfsBlawg and for Concurring Opinions. In 2014, she received the Lawrence A. Stessin Prize for Outstanding Scholarly Publications, which is awarded to two junior faculty members across all disciplines at Hofstra University.
Before joining the law school faculty in 2012, Professor Manta was an Assistant Professor of Law at the Case Western Reserve University School of Law. She was a Bigelow Teaching Fellow and Lecturer in Law at the University of Chicago Law School from 2007 to 2009. Professor Manta has also served on the faculties of Brooklyn Law School, The George Washington University School of Law, and the University of Arkansas at Little Rock William H. Bowen School of Law. She clerked for Judge Morris S. Arnold on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit for the 2006-2007 term.
While earning her J.D. at Yale Law School, Professor Manta was the grand prize winner of the Foley & Lardner LLP Intellectual Property Writing Competition. She also served as tributes editor of the Yale Law Journal, articles editor of the Yale Law & Policy Review, and editor of the Yale Journal on Regulation. She graduated magna cum laude from Yale University with a B.A. in psychology.
U.S. Court of Appeals, Second Circuit
Reena Raggi is a United States Circuit Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. At the time of her appointment in 2002, she was a United States District Judge for the Eastern District of New York.
Judge Raggi earned her B.A. degree in 1973 from Wellesley College and her J.D. degree cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1976.
She was law clerk to Judge Thomas E. Fairchild of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit from 1976 to 1977. From 1977 to 1979 she was in private law practice as an associate with the New York law firm of Cahill, Gordon & Reindel. She served as an Assistant United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York from 1979 to 1986, including assignments as Chief of the Narcotics Division (1982 to 1984), and Chief of the Special Prosecutions Division (1984 to 1986). Also in 1986, she served as United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York under an interim court appointment. Later that year, she resumed the private practice of law as a partner in the New York firm of Windels, Marx, Davies & Ives. She remained there until her appointment in 1987 as a United States District Judge for the Eastern District of New York.
Senior Legal Fellow, the Meese Institute for the Rule of Law, Advancing American Freedom
Paul J. Larkin is a Senior Legal Fellow in the Meese Institute for the Rule of Law at Advancing American Freedom. Paul has held various positions in the federal and state governments throughout his career, such as being an attorney in the Organized Crime and Racketeering Section of the Criminal Division at the U.S. Department of Justice, an Assistant to the Solicitor General in the Office of the Solicitor General at the U.S. Department of Justice, Special Agent-in-Charge and Acting Director of the Criminal Investigation Division at the Environmental Protection Agency, and a member of the Parole Abolition and Sentencing Reform Commission and of the Juvenile Justice Reform Commission in the Office of Virginia Governor George Allen.
He has also worked at Verizon Communications and two law firms in Washington, D.C. His current research is principally in the fields of drug policy, criminal justice policy, and administrative law and policy. He has published numerous articles in law and public policy journals, both in print and online.
Senior Counsel, FCC
For the past four years, Mr. Degani has served as Commissioner Pai's Wireline Legal Advisor. He joined the office from a detail to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce, where he served as counsel under Chairman Fred Upton and Communications and Technology Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden. Before his detail, Mr. Degani served as an Attorney Advisor in the Wireline Competition Bureau's Telecommunications Access Policy Division and Competition Policy Division, as well as the Commission's Office of General Counsel. Mr. Degani entered the Commission through the Attorney Honors Program. Earlier in his career, Mr. Degani clerked for Judge Jeffrey Sutton of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. He graduated cum laude from Harvard Law School and magna cum laude from Yale University, where he studied Electrical Engineering/Computer Science and History.
Partner, HWG LLP
Patricia Paoletta is a partner with the law firm of HWG LLP, where she specializes in telecommunications, trade and technology policy. Ms. Paoletta provides advice on regulatory, trade and legislative policy to clients before the FCC, Congress and the Administration. Her clients include providers of content, cloud, mobile broadband, VoIP, international telecommunications, small cells, cognitive radio, public safety and homeland security solutions. She serves on Advisory Boards for several entities engaged in information services, communications and technology.
Ms. Paoletta has accrued considerable experience with telecommunications trade and policy in the public sector. From 1990 to 1995, she was senior advisor to the International Bureau Chief and Office Director at the Federal Communications Commission. In the mid 1990s, Ms. Paoletta served as Director of Telecommunications Trade Policy in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, Executive Office of the President, where she worked on the WTO Information Technology Agreement (ITA) and the Basic Telecommunications Agreement. After USTR, Ms. Paoletta served as Majority Counsel to the House Energy and Commerce Committee. She then moved to Level 3 Communications, as Vice President, Government Relations.
Ms. Paoletta is on the Steering Committee of the Transatlantic Roundtable on Telecommunications and Information Technology of the European Institute. She is a member of the USTR Alumni Association, Washington International Trade Association, the Federal Communications Bar Association (FCBA), and Women in Technology. Ms. Paoletta has served on the Board of Advisors for the Inter-American Dialogue's Latin America Telecom Advisor, Co-Chairman of the American Bar Association International Communications Committee, and as a member of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Technology Policy Committee.
Ms. Paoletta served as a delegate in 2012 to the ITU-R's Study Group 6 Working Party 6A Meeting and in 2009 and 2010 to the ITU-R's Study Group I Working Party IB Meetings; the 2009 meetings of CITEL (the Committee on International Telecommunications at the Organization of American States) PCC-II; the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) World Telecommunications Standards Assembly (2000); the ITU Internet Protocol Telephony Experts Group and the ITU World Telecommunications Policy Forum in 2001; as Chairman of the National Reliability and Interoperability Council (NRIC) Steering Committee (2000-2001); as Board Member for the Voice on the Net Coalition (2001); as Co-Chairman of the FCBA's Annual Seminar Committee (2009-2011); as a member of the FCBA's Ad Hoc Speakers Committee (2006-2007); as Co-Chairman for the FCBA International Practice Committee (2001-2002 and 2005-2006); and as a Co-Chairman of the FCBA Legislative Practice Committee (1999-2000).
Managing Partner, Wilkinson Barker Knauer LLP
Bryan Tramont, the firm’s managing partner, offers strategic counsel to Fortune 100 companies and trade associations, as well as small and mid-sized telecommunications and media companies, on all aspects of communications law and regulation. He is regularly called on to advise companies as they develop and evaluate new business opportunities in the technology, media, and telecommunications sectors. Mr. Tramont also designs and leads the execution of the firm’s strategic plan and directs client management and development. Mr. Tramont has been recognized by leading publications like Legal 500, Chambers USA, and Washingtonian as one of the nation’s top communications lawyers. In 2017, he was named to the inaugural Legal 500 Hall of Fame List, which highlights individuals who have received constant praise by their clients and who have been recognized by the Legal 500 as an elite leading lawyer for six consecutive years. He has been awarded The Best Lawyers in America © 2017 “Lawyer of the Year” for Media Law and “Lawyer of the Year" in Communications Law in 2016. In 2016, he was also named one of the Top 10 Washington, DC Super Lawyers.
Mr. Tramont serves on the Commerce Spectrum Management Advisory Committee (CSMAC), advising the Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information at NTIA. Appointed under the Bush and Obama Administrations, he also served as the committee’s Co-Chairman from 2008-2010. In addition, Mr. Tramont is active in the Federal Communications Bar Association, where he served in a variety of leadership roles, including as President from 2010-11 and has been awarded the organization’s Distinguished Service Award. Mr. Tramont chairs the Federalist Society’s Telecommunications Practice Group Executive Committee, serves on the International Institute of Communications Canada Board of Directors, and previously served on the Governing Committee of the ABA Forum on Communications Law. Mr. Tramont currently is an adjunct law professor at The Catholic University of America as part of the Communications Law Institute, is a senior adjunct fellow at the University of Colorado, Boulder, has served as the Syracuse University Law School’s Practitioner in Residence, and is on the Board of Trustees at William Woods University. Mr. Tramont is the author of numerous articles on communications policy and is a frequent speaker and lecturer at academic and industry events. Prior to joining Wilkinson Barker Knauer, Mr. Tramont served as Chief of Staff of the Federal Communications Commission under Chairman Michael Powell. As Chief of Staff, Mr. Tramont managed all aspects of the agency’s operations and directed FCC staff in implementing all components of the agency’s policy portfolio including media, broadband, mobility, and traditional telephone services. Before being elevated to Chief of Staff, Mr. Tramont was Chairman Powell’s Senior Legal Advisor, advising him on strategic policy matters and on wireless, international, technology, satellite, and consumer issues. Mr. Tramont also served as Senior Legal Advisor to Commissioner Kathleen Abernathy and, before that, to Commissioner Harold Furchtgott-Roth. He also served as a law clerk for the Honorable Duane Benton on the Supreme Court for his home state of Missouri. In addition, Mr. Tramont has served as an expert witness in a number of communications-related litigation matters.
Bryan Tramont graduated summa cum laude from The George Washington University with a degree in political science. He earned his law degree from Yale Law School, where he served as editor of the Yale Law & Policy Review.
Dean & Henry R. Luce Professor of Journalism, Columbia Journalis, The New Yorker
Dean Steve Coll is a staff writer at The New Yorker, the author of seven books of nonfiction, and a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize. Between 1985 and 2005, he was a reporter, foreign correspondent and senior editor at the Washington Post. There he covered Wall Street, served as the paper’s South Asia correspondent in New Delhi, and was the Post’s first international investigative correspondent, based in London. He served as managing editor of the Post between 1998 and 2004. The following year, he joined The New Yorker, where he has written on international politics, American politics and national security, intelligence controversies and the media.
Coll is the author of “Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, From the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001(link is external),” published in 2004, for which he received an Overseas Press Club Award and a Pulitzer Prize. His 2008 book, “The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century(link is external),” won the PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction in 2009 and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Biography. His most recent book is “Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power(link is external),” which won the Financial Times/Goldman Sachs Award as the best business book of 2012.
He has four children and is married to Eliza Griswold, the journalist and poet. He has a B.A. in English and history from Occidental College.
Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law and Director, Classical Liberal Institute, New York University School of Law; Director, Classical Liberal Institute, Civitas Institute University of Texas at Austin
Richard A. Epstein is the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law, at New York University, a senior research fellow at the Civitas Institute at the University of Texas Austin, and a senior Lecturer, the University of Chicago. He received an LL.D., h.c . from the University of Ghent, 2003 , and an LLD h.c . from the University of Siegen in 2018 and the Bradley Prize in 2011. He has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 1985. He has edited both the Journal of Legal Studies (1981-1991) and the Journal of Law and Economics (1991-2001). He is also a founder and director of the Classical Liberal Institute at NYU Law School. His most recent book is The Classical Liberal Constitution: The Uncertain Quest for Limited Government (2014). His other books include Takings: Private Property and the Power of Eminent Domain ( 1985); Bargaining with the State (1993); Simple Rules for a Complex World (1995); Principles for a Free Society: Reconciling Individual Liberty and the Common Good (1998); Skepticism and Freedom: A Modern Theory of Classical Liberalism (2003); Design for Liberty: Private Property, Public Administration and the Rule of Law (2011), and most recently, The Myth of Birthright citizenship—and Beyond (2026). He has taught courses in , administrative law, antitrust, constitutional, contracts, environmental law, land use planning; real property, torts and water law. He has written and spoken extensively on a wide range of topics, and is writes a regular column for Defining Ideas.
Founding Director, Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University
Jameel Jaffer is the founding director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, which works to protect and expand the freedoms of speech and the press through strategic litigation, research, and public education. Until recently, Jaffer was deputy legal director at the American Civil Liberties Union and director of the ACLU’s Center for Democracy, in which role he oversaw the ACLU’s work relating to free speech, privacy, technology, national security, and international human rights.
Jaffer has litigated some of the most significant post-9/11 cases relating to national security and civil liberties, including cases concerning detention, interrogation, surveillance, targeted killing, and government secrecy. He co-led the litigation that resulted in the publication of the Bush administration’s “torture memos”—a lawsuit the New York Times described as “among the most successful in the history of public disclosure.” More recently, he led the ACLU’s litigation that resulted in the publication of the Obama administration’s “drone memos.”
Dean and Lucy G. Moses Professor of Law, Columbia Law School
Gillian Lester is Dean and the Lucy G. Moses Professor of Law at Columbia Law School.
She is a nationally recognized authority on employment law and policy whose research has explored workplace intellectual property law, public finance policy, and the design of social insurance laws and regulations. Dean Lester is the author of numerous books and articles and is co-author of one of the leading casebooks on employment law, Employment Law Cases and Materials. She is also a member of the American Law Institute and was an adviser to the ALI Restatement of Employment Law.
Dean Lester began her teaching career in 1994 at UCLA School of Law, becoming a full professor in 1999, and joined the Berkeley Law faculty in 2006. At Berkeley, she was the Alexander F. and May T. Morrison Professor of Law and Mimi Wolfen Research Professor, and also served as co-director of the Berkeley Center for Health, Economic and Family Security; Associate Dean for the J.D. Program and Curricular Planning; and, most recently, Acting Dean (2012-2014).
She has held external appointments as the Sidley Austin Visiting Professor at Harvard Law School and Sloan Fellow and Visiting Professor at Georgetown University Law Center. Dean Lester also held short-term visiting appointments at USC Gould School of Law, University of Chicago Law School, and Radzyner School of Law Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, Israel.
Dean Lester, Columbia Law School’s 15th dean, holds degrees from Stanford Law School and the University of Toronto Faculty of Law, where she served as Editor-in-Chief of the law review. She earned her undergraduate degree from the University of British Columbia.
Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Intellectual Property Law, Maurice A. Deane School of Law at Hofstra University
Professor Manta teaches intellectual property law subjects. Her research examines the intersection between intellectual property law and social science, with a focus on psychology. She has most recently written about the hedonic value of trademarks and its legal implications, the problem of cognitive bias in copyright infringement litigation, price discrimination through software licensing in the age of the Internet of Things, and the role of criminal sanctions in intellectual property. Professor Manta has published or has forthcoming work in the Emory Law Journal, William & Mary Law Review, Iowa Law Review, Alabama Law Review, Boston College Law Review, Ohio State Law Journal, Washington and Lee Law Review, Harvard Journal of Law & Technology, Stanford Technology Law Review, Florida Law Review, Arizona Law Review, and Cornell Law Review Online, among others. She is also a co-author for a forthcoming textbook on criminal law issues in intellectual property. Professor Manta has further been a guest blogger for PrawfsBlawg and for Concurring Opinions. In 2014, she received the Lawrence A. Stessin Prize for Outstanding Scholarly Publications, which is awarded to two junior faculty members across all disciplines at Hofstra University.
Before joining the law school faculty in 2012, Professor Manta was an Assistant Professor of Law at the Case Western Reserve University School of Law. She was a Bigelow Teaching Fellow and Lecturer in Law at the University of Chicago Law School from 2007 to 2009. Professor Manta has also served on the faculties of Brooklyn Law School, The George Washington University School of Law, and the University of Arkansas at Little Rock William H. Bowen School of Law. She clerked for Judge Morris S. Arnold on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit for the 2006-2007 term.
While earning her J.D. at Yale Law School, Professor Manta was the grand prize winner of the Foley & Lardner LLP Intellectual Property Writing Competition. She also served as tributes editor of the Yale Law Journal, articles editor of the Yale Law & Policy Review, and editor of the Yale Journal on Regulation. She graduated magna cum laude from Yale University with a B.A. in psychology.
U.S. Court of Appeals, Second Circuit
Reena Raggi is a United States Circuit Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. At the time of her appointment in 2002, she was a United States District Judge for the Eastern District of New York.
Judge Raggi earned her B.A. degree in 1973 from Wellesley College and her J.D. degree cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1976.
She was law clerk to Judge Thomas E. Fairchild of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit from 1976 to 1977. From 1977 to 1979 she was in private law practice as an associate with the New York law firm of Cahill, Gordon & Reindel. She served as an Assistant United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York from 1979 to 1986, including assignments as Chief of the Narcotics Division (1982 to 1984), and Chief of the Special Prosecutions Division (1984 to 1986). Also in 1986, she served as United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York under an interim court appointment. Later that year, she resumed the private practice of law as a partner in the New York firm of Windels, Marx, Davies & Ives. She remained there until her appointment in 1987 as a United States District Judge for the Eastern District of New York.
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