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.
Partner, Gibson Dunn
Lucas C. Townsend is a litigation partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. He is a member of the firm’s Appellate and Constitutional Law and Intellectual Property practice groups.
Mr. Townsend has litigated a wide range of appellate and trial matters in federal and state court. Mr. Townsend’s appellate practice includes representing corporate clients in high-stakes commercial disputes, litigating cutting-edge legal issues before the Supreme Court of the United States, and representing pro bono clients before the courts of appeals. Mr. Townsend’s intellectual property practice includes representing pharmaceutical, internet, and other technology companies in patent and trademark disputes. In addition, Mr. Townsend regularly represents clients in litigation under the Administrative Procedure Act and provides counseling on accounting regulation.
Representative matters include serving as appellate counsel for the world’s largest social networking website and drafting successful briefing in a significant noninfringement appeal; briefing appeals on behalf of pharmaceutical patent holders in Hatch-Waxman Act litigation; drafting successful briefing for a documentary filmmaker’s First Amendment challenge to Colorado’s campaign finance laws; briefing appeals from final judgments in a landmark securities-fraud class action; representing a national hospital network in appellate litigation resulting in a $60 million reduction in a punitive damages award; representing broadcasters in litigation against the Federal Communications Commission under the Administrative Procedure Act; representing a for-profit education company in an enforcement action brought by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau; and briefing numerous matters in the Supreme Court of the United States involving class certification, antitrust, employment, and constitutional issues.
Before joining the firm, Mr. Townsend served as a law clerk to the Honorable Samuel A. Alito, Jr. of the Supreme Court of the United States, the Honorable Maryanne Trump Barry of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, and the Honorable Harold A. Ackerman of the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey. Mr. Townsend also served as an Attorney Adviser in the United States Department of Justice, National Security Division, from 2007 to 2009.
Mr. Townsend graduated magna cum laude from the Seton Hall University School of Law, where he was Executive Editor of the Seton Hall Law Review. He received an undergraduate degree in biochemistry from Cornell University.
Mr. Townsend is admitted to practice in the District of Columbia, New York, and New Jersey.
National Affairs Columnist, National Review
John Fund is National Affairs Columnist for National Review magazine and a on-air analyst on the Fox News Channel. He is considered a notable expert on American politics and the nexus between politics and economics.
He previously served as a columnist and editorial board member for The Wall Street Journal. He is the author of several books, including Who's Counting: Bow Fraudsters and Bureaucrats Put Your Vote At Risk (Encounter Books, 2012); Stealing Elections: How Voter Fraud Threatens Our Democracy (Encounter Books, 2008) and The Dangers of Regulation Through Litigation (ATRA Press, 2008). He worked as a research analyst for the California Legislature in Sacramento before beginning his journalism career as a reporter for the syndicated columnists Rowland Evans and Robert Novak.
Roll Call, the newspaper of Capitol Hill, called him "the Tom Paine of the modern Congressional reform movement." He has won awards from the Institute for Justice, The School Choice Aliance and the Warren Brooks award for journalistic excellence from the American Legislative Exchange Council.
Adjunct Professor of Business, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, V, Dartmouth College
Bernard Avishai is an Adjunct Professor of Business at Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He lives in Jerusalem and the United States. He has taught at Duke University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and Dartmouth College, and was director of the Zell Entrepreneurship Program at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya in Israel. From 1998 to 2001 he was International Director of Intellectual Capital at KPMG LLP. Before this he headed product development at Monitor Group, with which he is still associated. From 1986 to 1991 he was technology editor of Harvard Business Review. A Guggenheim Fellow, Avishai holds a doctorate in political economy from the University of Toronto. Before turning to management, he covered the Middle East as a journalist. He has written many articles and commentaries for The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, Harvard Business Review, Harper's Magazine and other publications. He is the author of three books on Israel, including the widely read The Tragedy of Zionism, and the 2008 The Hebrew Republic.
Senior Fellow, Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Professor, Arizona State University
Orde Kittrie is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and professor of law at the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law at Arizona State University. He is a leading expert on nonproliferation law and policy with a focus on Iran sanctions, and an expert on international law, particularly as it relates to the Middle East. Kittrie is author of Lawfare: Law as a Weapon of War (Oxford University Press, 2016), which describes how and why law is becoming an increasingly powerful and prevalent weapon of war, through examples of lawfare use by the U.S., China, Israel, the Palestinians, as well as non-governmental organizations and individuals.
Prior to entering academia, Prof. Kittrie served for eleven years at the Department of State, where he received the Department’s Superior Honor Award and its Meritorious Honor Award. As the Department's lead nuclear affairs attorney, Prof. Kittrie helped negotiate five U.S.-Russia nuclear agreements and a UN treaty to combat nuclear terrorism. Prof. Kittrie also served as director of the department’s Office of International Anti-Crime Programs, as the department’s lead attorney for strategic trade controls, and as a lead attorney for public affairs and public diplomacy. He also served as Special Assistant to the Under Secretary of State for Economic, Business and Agricultural Affairs.
Prof. Kittrie has testified before various Senate and House committees, and served on a special National Academies of Science committee to make recommendations on preventing nuclear, chemical, and biological proliferation. He has also testified before several state legislatures regarding divestment and other legislation related to foreign affairs.
His work has been featured in leading outlets including The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and Foreign Affairs, and he has done on-air commentary for networks and stations including NBC, ABC, Fox, PBS, and Al Jazeera. He is also the author of numerous scholarly articles.
Prof. Kittrie has been a guest speaker of the International Atomic Energy Agency, NATO, various U.S. federal agencies, the British Foreign & Commonwealth Office, the Belgian Royal Military Academy, and the Royal Military College of Canada. He has also lectured at over a dozen universities including Harvard, Yale, Columbia University, Georgetown, Johns Hopkins, King’s College London, and the University of Pennsylvania.
Prof. Kittrie is a graduate of the University of Michigan Law School, and a former Ford Foundation fellow in Egypt, Israel, Jordan, and Syria. Prior to law school, he served as press spokesman and legislative assistant to U.S. Congresswoman Connie Morella. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
- See more at: http://www.defenddemocracy.org/about-fdd/team-overview/orde-kittrie/#sthash.aVtyFegm.dpuf
Professor of Law and Director, Center for the Middle East and International Law, George Mason University Antonin Scalia Law School
Professor of Law Eugene Kontorovich is one of the world’s preeminent experts on universal jurisdiction and maritime piracy, as well as international law and the Israel-Arab conflict. He is also the Director of Scalia Law School's Center for the Middle East and International Law. Professor Kontorovich joined the Scalia Law School from Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law where he was a Professor of Law from 2011 to 2018 and an Associate Professor from 2007 to 2011. Previously, he was a Visiting Professor at the University of Chicago from 2005 to 2007 and an Assistant Professor at George Mason School of Law from 2003 to 2007.
Professor Kontorovich has published over thirty major scholarly articles and book chapters in leading law reviews and peer-reviewed journals in the United States and Europe, including the American Journal of International Law, International Review of Law & Economics, Stanford Law Review, California Law Review, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, and Virginia Law Review. His scholarship has been cited in leading foreign relations and international law
His expertise is often sought out and quoted by major news organizations such the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, NPR News, The New Yorker, Los Angeles Times, and numerous television and radio programs. Prof. Kontorovich’s popular writings have appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, POLITICO, Commentary, Haaretz, and numerous other leading publications. He is also a regular contributor to the Washington Post’s Volokh Conspiracy legal blog.
He attended the University of Chicago for college and law school. After law school, he clerked for Judge Richard Posner on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. He has been honored with a fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, in 2011-12, and with the Federalist Society’s prestigious Bator Award, given annually to a young scholar (under 40), for outstanding scholarship and teaching.
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.
Partner, Gibson Dunn
Lucas C. Townsend is a litigation partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. He is a member of the firm’s Appellate and Constitutional Law and Intellectual Property practice groups.
Mr. Townsend has litigated a wide range of appellate and trial matters in federal and state court. Mr. Townsend’s appellate practice includes representing corporate clients in high-stakes commercial disputes, litigating cutting-edge legal issues before the Supreme Court of the United States, and representing pro bono clients before the courts of appeals. Mr. Townsend’s intellectual property practice includes representing pharmaceutical, internet, and other technology companies in patent and trademark disputes. In addition, Mr. Townsend regularly represents clients in litigation under the Administrative Procedure Act and provides counseling on accounting regulation.
Representative matters include serving as appellate counsel for the world’s largest social networking website and drafting successful briefing in a significant noninfringement appeal; briefing appeals on behalf of pharmaceutical patent holders in Hatch-Waxman Act litigation; drafting successful briefing for a documentary filmmaker’s First Amendment challenge to Colorado’s campaign finance laws; briefing appeals from final judgments in a landmark securities-fraud class action; representing a national hospital network in appellate litigation resulting in a $60 million reduction in a punitive damages award; representing broadcasters in litigation against the Federal Communications Commission under the Administrative Procedure Act; representing a for-profit education company in an enforcement action brought by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau; and briefing numerous matters in the Supreme Court of the United States involving class certification, antitrust, employment, and constitutional issues.
Before joining the firm, Mr. Townsend served as a law clerk to the Honorable Samuel A. Alito, Jr. of the Supreme Court of the United States, the Honorable Maryanne Trump Barry of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, and the Honorable Harold A. Ackerman of the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey. Mr. Townsend also served as an Attorney Adviser in the United States Department of Justice, National Security Division, from 2007 to 2009.
Mr. Townsend graduated magna cum laude from the Seton Hall University School of Law, where he was Executive Editor of the Seton Hall Law Review. He received an undergraduate degree in biochemistry from Cornell University.
Mr. Townsend is admitted to practice in the District of Columbia, New York, and New Jersey.
Adjunct Professor of Business, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, V, Dartmouth College
Bernard Avishai is an Adjunct Professor of Business at Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He lives in Jerusalem and the United States. He has taught at Duke University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and Dartmouth College, and was director of the Zell Entrepreneurship Program at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya in Israel. From 1998 to 2001 he was International Director of Intellectual Capital at KPMG LLP. Before this he headed product development at Monitor Group, with which he is still associated. From 1986 to 1991 he was technology editor of Harvard Business Review. A Guggenheim Fellow, Avishai holds a doctorate in political economy from the University of Toronto. Before turning to management, he covered the Middle East as a journalist. He has written many articles and commentaries for The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, Harvard Business Review, Harper's Magazine and other publications. He is the author of three books on Israel, including the widely read The Tragedy of Zionism, and the 2008 The Hebrew Republic.
Senior Fellow, Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Professor, Arizona State University
Orde Kittrie is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and professor of law at the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law at Arizona State University. He is a leading expert on nonproliferation law and policy with a focus on Iran sanctions, and an expert on international law, particularly as it relates to the Middle East. Kittrie is author of Lawfare: Law as a Weapon of War (Oxford University Press, 2016), which describes how and why law is becoming an increasingly powerful and prevalent weapon of war, through examples of lawfare use by the U.S., China, Israel, the Palestinians, as well as non-governmental organizations and individuals.
Prior to entering academia, Prof. Kittrie served for eleven years at the Department of State, where he received the Department’s Superior Honor Award and its Meritorious Honor Award. As the Department's lead nuclear affairs attorney, Prof. Kittrie helped negotiate five U.S.-Russia nuclear agreements and a UN treaty to combat nuclear terrorism. Prof. Kittrie also served as director of the department’s Office of International Anti-Crime Programs, as the department’s lead attorney for strategic trade controls, and as a lead attorney for public affairs and public diplomacy. He also served as Special Assistant to the Under Secretary of State for Economic, Business and Agricultural Affairs.
Prof. Kittrie has testified before various Senate and House committees, and served on a special National Academies of Science committee to make recommendations on preventing nuclear, chemical, and biological proliferation. He has also testified before several state legislatures regarding divestment and other legislation related to foreign affairs.
His work has been featured in leading outlets including The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and Foreign Affairs, and he has done on-air commentary for networks and stations including NBC, ABC, Fox, PBS, and Al Jazeera. He is also the author of numerous scholarly articles.
Prof. Kittrie has been a guest speaker of the International Atomic Energy Agency, NATO, various U.S. federal agencies, the British Foreign & Commonwealth Office, the Belgian Royal Military Academy, and the Royal Military College of Canada. He has also lectured at over a dozen universities including Harvard, Yale, Columbia University, Georgetown, Johns Hopkins, King’s College London, and the University of Pennsylvania.
Prof. Kittrie is a graduate of the University of Michigan Law School, and a former Ford Foundation fellow in Egypt, Israel, Jordan, and Syria. Prior to law school, he served as press spokesman and legislative assistant to U.S. Congresswoman Connie Morella. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
- See more at: http://www.defenddemocracy.org/about-fdd/team-overview/orde-kittrie/#sthash.aVtyFegm.dpuf
Professor of Law and Director, Center for the Middle East and International Law, George Mason University Antonin Scalia Law School
Professor of Law Eugene Kontorovich is one of the world’s preeminent experts on universal jurisdiction and maritime piracy, as well as international law and the Israel-Arab conflict. He is also the Director of Scalia Law School's Center for the Middle East and International Law. Professor Kontorovich joined the Scalia Law School from Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law where he was a Professor of Law from 2011 to 2018 and an Associate Professor from 2007 to 2011. Previously, he was a Visiting Professor at the University of Chicago from 2005 to 2007 and an Assistant Professor at George Mason School of Law from 2003 to 2007.
Professor Kontorovich has published over thirty major scholarly articles and book chapters in leading law reviews and peer-reviewed journals in the United States and Europe, including the American Journal of International Law, International Review of Law & Economics, Stanford Law Review, California Law Review, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, and Virginia Law Review. His scholarship has been cited in leading foreign relations and international law
His expertise is often sought out and quoted by major news organizations such the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, NPR News, The New Yorker, Los Angeles Times, and numerous television and radio programs. Prof. Kontorovich’s popular writings have appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, POLITICO, Commentary, Haaretz, and numerous other leading publications. He is also a regular contributor to the Washington Post’s Volokh Conspiracy legal blog.
He attended the University of Chicago for college and law school. After law school, he clerked for Judge Richard Posner on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. He has been honored with a fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, in 2011-12, and with the Federalist Society’s prestigious Bator Award, given annually to a young scholar (under 40), for outstanding scholarship and teaching.
Managing Partner, Bigley Ranish, LLP
Sean M. Bigley is a national security attorney and managing partner of Bigley Ranish, LLP. Mr. Bigley’s practice primarily encompasses defending federal employees and contractors in security clearance denial cases. He also provides personnel security consulting to major international defense and aerospace corporations, and prosecutes intelligence community whistle-blower retaliation cases.
Since first opening his firm in 2013, Mr. Bigley has grown it from a solo practice to a five-attorney partnership with employees in three states. Bigley Ranish, LLP attorneys regularly appear before administrative tribunals at agencies ranging from the CIA to the Department of State, representing in excess of 200 American intelligence officers, diplomats, armed forces personnel, and other security clearance holders each year around the world. In 2016 alone, Mr. Bigley and his colleagues represented clients in roughly forty states and a dozen countries.
The idea for this unique practice was borne out of Mr. Bigley’s prior service as a federal background investigator. Prior to and during law school, Mr. Bigley was an investigator for the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, where he conducted some of that agency’s most sensitive security investigations in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. Mr. Bigley has also served on the faculty of Chapman University, teaching national security and criminal justice courses with an emphasis in U.S.-European security cooperation. Earlier in his career, Mr. Bigley worked for several years in the White House and Department of Homeland Security under President George W. Bush.
A recognized expert in national security law, Mr. Bigley’s commentary on the topic is frequently sought by major media outlets such as Fox News, The New York Times, and CNN. He is a contributing writer for Clearancejobs.com and GovExec.com.
Mr. Bigley earned his Juris Doctorate from Chapman University School of Law. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree from Washington D.C.’s American University and a Master’s Degree from Boston University.
Senior Policy Analyst, The George Washington University Regulatory Studies Center
Sofie Miller's regulatory research portfolio includes economic analysis of energy efficiency standards, analysis of regulatory benefits, use of cost benefit analysis by agencies, retrospective review of existing rules, regressive effects of regulations, and the efficacy of public participation within the rulemaking process. Sofie has submitted public comments on regulations establishing energy efficiency standards, airline passenger protections, consumer product safety, and standards to prevent foodborne illnesses. Sofie has published articles in Regulation Magazine and the journal Engage, and is the editor of the GW Regulatory Studies Center's weekly Regulation Digest, which tracks regulatory developments in federal agencies, think tanks, and the media.
Panel 1: Privacy and Freedom of the Press
2017 National Student Symposium
New York, NYProfessionals, Amateurs, and Rape: How Colleges Are Failing Their Students
Paul James Larkin
A Review of: The Campus Rape Frenzy: The Attack on Due Process at America’s Universities,...
Topics
Kennedy, Korematsu, and the Travel Ban
President Trump’s recent travel ban sparked an interesting constitutional discussion regarding the limits of executive...
What Are We Learning About For-Profit Education? - Podcast
Lucas Townsend
During the Obama administration, the Department of Education promulgated a host of rules aimed specifically...
What Are We Learning About For-Profit Education?
TeleforumA New President: Will Lessons About Executive Branch Overreach Be Learned?
Charlotte, North CarolinaThe UNSCR 2334 Against Israel: What Is President Trump To Do? - Podcast
Bernard Avishai, Orde Kittrie, Eugene Kontorovich
Since the Obama administration abstained from the United Nations Security Council vote on Resolution 2334...
The UNSCR 2334 Against Israel: What Is President Trump To Do?
TeleforumPresidential Nominees and Foreign Influence: Mitigating National Security Risks
Sean M. Bigley
Note from the Editor: This article describes the procedures involved in determining whether to grant...
The Risks of Regulating in the Dark
Sofie E. Miller
Note from the Editor: This article argues that regulations passed in the final weeks of...