Founding Partner, Boyden Gray & Associates
Ambassador C. Boyden Gray is the founding partner of Boyden Gray & Associates, a law and strategy firm in Washington, D.C., focused on constitutional and regulatory issues.
Mr. Gray worked in the White House for twelve years, first as counsel to the Vice President during the Reagan administration and then as White House Counsel to President George H.W. Bush. In the Reagan administration, he was Counsel to the Presidential Task Force on Regulatory Relief, for which he wrote the original Executive Order 12291 requiring cost-benefit analysis and White House review of regulations (later renumbered as current EO 12866). In the George H.W. Bush Administration, Mr. Gray was in charge of judicial selection and was also instrumental in the enactment of the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990, the Energy Policy Act of 1992, and a cap-and-trade system for acid rain emissions. In 1993, he received the Presidential Citizens Medal. Under President George W. Bush, Mr. Gray was U.S. Ambassador to the European Union and U.S. Special Envoy to Europe for Eurasian Energy.
Mr. Gray practiced law for 25 years at the law firm of Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering and was chairman of the Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice Section of the American Bar Association from 2000 to 2002. Early in his career, Mr. Gray helped to develop the Business Roundtable and served as its first counsel. He is an adjunct professor at Antonin Scalia Law School and a former adjunct professor at NYU Law School (teaching energy and environmental law). Mr. Gray is on the Board of Directors of the Atlantic Council, the Federalist Society, Reason Foundation, and the Trust for the National Mall.
Mr. Gray earned his A.B. magna cum laude from Harvard, where he was an editor of the Crimson, and his J.D. with high honors from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was editor-in-chief of the Law Review. Mr. Gray served in the United States Marine Corps, and after law school, he clerked for Earl Warren, Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court.
Partner, Kirkland & Ellis LLP
Mr. Jay Lefkowitz is a leading partner in Kirkland’s litigation practice and a member of the Firm’s Global Executive Management Committee. He is also an adjunct professor at Columbia Law School, where he teaches a seminar on Supreme Court advocacy. Mr. Lefkowitz has served as lead trial and appellate counsel in a wide variety of substantive areas, including shareholder disputes, antitrust, product liability, litigation against the FDA and False Claims Act matters. He has also conducted numerous internal investigations for public companies and audit committees.
In its 2013 release of “The 100 Most Influential Lawyers in America,” The National Law Journal describes Mr. Lefkowitz as “a leading voice on school choice issues” and “a no-nonsense appellate and antitrust lawyer for an array of blue-chip clients.” The Legal 500 U.S. noted that Mr. Lefkowitz “provides a depth of understanding and influence in some of the highest courts of our country,” and in Chambers USA, America’s Leading Lawyers for Business, clients say, “‘Jay is brilliant; there is no other way to put it.’” Mr. Lefkowitzwas also named a Law360 “MVP of the Year” in 2011 for his Appellate practice, and in 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015 for his Life Sciences work. Mr. Lefkowitz is one of only three of the 189 MVPs named to the list five years in a row. The American Lawyer named him its “Lawyer of the Week” in December 2012 for his role in winning an antitrust lawsuit in the pharmaceutical industry.
Mr. Lefkowitz takes on groundbreaking work for high-profile clients, representing more than a dozen major pharmaceutical, medical device and health care companies in important and frequently precedent-setting matters. Mr. Lefkowitz has won two landmark 5-4 decisions at the U.S. Supreme Court in favor of the pharmaceutical industry overturning the decision of three Circuit Courts of Appeal. In Pliva v. Mensing in 2011, on behalf of Teva and Actavis, Mr. Lefkowitz convinced the Court to reject the views of the FDA and the Solicitor General and establish that generic drug companies may no longer be sued for “failure to warn claims,” finding that federal law preempts state law under the Constitution’s supremacy clause. His victory in Mutual v. Bartlett in 2013, overturned a $21 million verdict on behalf of Sun Pharmaceuticals, and extended the Mensing ruling to cover design defect claims.
Founding Partner, Boyden Gray & Associates
Ambassador C. Boyden Gray is the founding partner of Boyden Gray & Associates, a law and strategy firm in Washington, D.C., focused on constitutional and regulatory issues.
Mr. Gray worked in the White House for twelve years, first as counsel to the Vice President during the Reagan administration and then as White House Counsel to President George H.W. Bush. In the Reagan administration, he was Counsel to the Presidential Task Force on Regulatory Relief, for which he wrote the original Executive Order 12291 requiring cost-benefit analysis and White House review of regulations (later renumbered as current EO 12866). In the George H.W. Bush Administration, Mr. Gray was in charge of judicial selection and was also instrumental in the enactment of the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990, the Energy Policy Act of 1992, and a cap-and-trade system for acid rain emissions. In 1993, he received the Presidential Citizens Medal. Under President George W. Bush, Mr. Gray was U.S. Ambassador to the European Union and U.S. Special Envoy to Europe for Eurasian Energy.
Mr. Gray practiced law for 25 years at the law firm of Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering and was chairman of the Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice Section of the American Bar Association from 2000 to 2002. Early in his career, Mr. Gray helped to develop the Business Roundtable and served as its first counsel. He is an adjunct professor at Antonin Scalia Law School and a former adjunct professor at NYU Law School (teaching energy and environmental law). Mr. Gray is on the Board of Directors of the Atlantic Council, the Federalist Society, Reason Foundation, and the Trust for the National Mall.
Mr. Gray earned his A.B. magna cum laude from Harvard, where he was an editor of the Crimson, and his J.D. with high honors from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was editor-in-chief of the Law Review. Mr. Gray served in the United States Marine Corps, and after law school, he clerked for Earl Warren, Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court.
Professor, Cumberland School of Law, Samford University
Michael DeBow joined the Cumberland faculty in 1988. He regularly teaches courses in Property, Business Organizations, Administrative Law, Legislation, and Local Government.
Professor DeBow is a native of Tupelo, Mississippi. He received his bachelor's and master's degrees in economics from the University of Alabama (1976, 1978). He graduated from the Yale Law School in 1980, and is a member of the District of Columbia Bar.
DeBow's career included a stint in private practice in Washington, D.C., followed by a judicial clerkship with Judge Kenneth W. Starr of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in 1983-84. DeBow then served as an attorney-advisor to Federal Trade Commission chairman James C. Miller III (1984-85), and a special assistant to Assistant Attorney General Douglas Ginsburg, in the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (1985-86). He began his teaching career at the University of Georgia business school, where he taught for two years prior to coming to Samford.
From 2000 to 2004, DeBow also acted in a part-time capacity as special assistant for legal policy to Alabama attorney general Bill Pryor. He was a visiting professor of law at George Mason University in 1999. He was a (nonresident) Salvatori Fellow of The Heritage Foundation during 1993-95, and a member of the executive committee of the Association of Private Enterprise Education during 1995-99. DeBow attended summer institutes in quantitative methods for law professors (George Mason Law & Economics Center, 1990), Austrian economics (NYU Department of Economics, 1997), and the study of freedom (Templeton Foundation Freedom Project, 2000). In 2008 he was named an Adjunct Fellow of the Alabama Policy Institute.
Professor DeBow has taught several undergraduate courses at Samford, including one which received a supporting grant from the John Templeton Foundation. Most recently, he taught an undergraduate course in law and economics for the Samford's Brock School of Business. He has also taught public health law for the UAB School of Public Health on several occasions.
DeBow's articles have appeared in such journals as the Texas Law Review, Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, Regulation, Policy Review, The Freeman, and the Journal of Law & Politics. He co-edits the Federalist Society's Pre-Law Reading List and its annotated bibliography of conservative and libertarian legal scholarship.
Attorney Specializing in Government Relations
Alec D. Rogers is an attorney specializing in government practice and policy in Washington, DC.
A graduate of James Madison College at Michigan State University and the University of Michigan Law School, he practiced law for several years before spending over a decade on Capitol Hill as a staffer to various Members and Committees.
He has reviewed books for the Washington Times, Hardball Times, The Journal of the American Revolution, and The Weekly Standard, and writes on legal matters in Engage, an online publication of the Federalist Society.
Tazewell Taylor Professor of Law and William H. Cabell Research Professor, William & Mary Law School
Jonathan H. Adler joined the William & Mary law faculty as the Tazwell Taylor Professor of Law and William H. Cabell Research Professor in 2025. Prior to joining the faculty, he was the inaugural Johan Verheij Memorial Professor of Law and the founding Director of the Coleman P. Burke Center for Environmental Law at the Case Western Reserve University School of Law.
Professor Adler is the author or editor of seven books, including Climate Liberalism: Perspectives on Liberty, Property and Pollution (Palgrave, 2023), Marijuana Federalism: Uncle Sam and Mary Jane (Brookings Institution Press, 2020), Business and the Roberts Court (Oxford University Press, 2016) and Rebuilding the Ark: New Perspectives on Endangered Species Act Reform (AEI Press, 2011).
His articles have appeared in publications ranging from the Harvard Environmental Law Review and Yale Journal on Regulation to the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and Washington Post. He has testified before Congress a dozen times, and his work has been cited in the U.S. Supreme Court. A 2024 study identified Professor Adler as the seventh most cited legal academic in administrative and environmental law from 2019 to 2023.
Professor Adler is a contributing editor to Civitas Outlook and a regular contributor to the popular legal blog, The Volokh Conspiracy. A regular commentator on constitutional and regulatory issues, he has appeared on numerous radio and television programs, ranging from the PBS Newshour and National Public Radio to the Fox News Channel and Entertainment Tonight.
Professor Adler is a senior fellow at the Property & Environment Research Center in Bozeman, Montana. In 2018, Professor Adler was elected to membership in the American Law Institute and helped co-found the organization Checks and Balances. In 2024, Professor Adler was appointed a public member of the Administrative Conference of the United States.
Professor Adler clerked for the Honorable David B. Sentelle on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
Ronald Reagan Distinguished Fellow, The Heritage Foundation
Becky Norton Dunlop, a prominent leader, strategist, and counselor in the conservative movement, is The Heritage Foundation’s Ronald Reagan Distinguished Fellow.
Dunlop, who joined the leading think tank in 1998, holds the only policy chair in the country to be officially named for the 40th president. She succeeds Ed Meese, the U.S. attorney general under Reagan, who assumed emeritus status.
Dunlop oversees special projects, travels as an ambassador for Heritage, and works tirelessly to assure that the legacy of principles, policies, and practices represented by the life and service of Ronald Reagan remain in the hearts and minds of Americans.
Previously, Dunlop was Heritage’s vice president for external relations from 1998 until May 2016. She served on the Trump Transition team.
Dunlop was a senior official in the Reagan administration from 1981-1989 inside the White House, at the Justice Department, and at the Interior Department.
She served from 1994-1998 as Secretary of Natural Resources for the Commonwealth of Virginia in the Cabinet of then-Virginia Gov. George Allen.
As political director for the American Conservative Union from 1973- 1977, she was instrumental in organizing grass-roots activists for Reagan’s unsuccessful 1976 race for the Republican nomination and advised his successful 1980 nomination and general election campaigns.
From Reagan’s first inauguration in 1981 to 1985, her White House posts included Deputy Assistant to the President for Presidential Personnel and Special Assistant to the President and Director of his Cabinet office. During Reagan’s second term, Dunlop served as senior special assistant to Meese, then attorney general, in charge of managing Cabinet-level domestic policy issues. She oversaw major policy reports on the environment, the family, federalism, tort reform, privatization, and welfare reform.
She completed her service in the Reagan administration as deputy undersecretary of the Interior Department and as assistant interior secretary for fish, wildlife, and parks.
Dunlop is one of the few of the insiders from the beginnings of the Reagan era who remain active in public policy leadership.
As Virginia’s natural resources chief, Dunlop worked to streamline, decentralize, and down-size agencies while protecting and improving the environment. She is one of the few “free-market environmentalists” to have headed a state agency and put ideas into action. Her book, “Clearing the Air” (Alexis de Tocqueville Institute, 2000), chronicles some of her experiences in advancing those principles.
In 2002, President George W. Bush appointed her to a part-time post as chairwoman of the Federal Service Impasses Panel. The seven-member panel resolves disputes between federal agencies management and labor unions. Under her leadership, it took on several hundred cases and eliminated backlogs.
Other current leadership roles include the boards of the Virginia Institute for Public Policy, the Reagan Ranch Board of Governors, the Reagan Alumni Association, the Association for American Educators and the AAE Foundation, the Council for National Policy and the American Conservative Union.
In addition to topics addressing conservative principles and their roots in the nation’s founding, Dunlop is a sought-after public speaker on the idea that personnel is policy; on energy, natural resources and the environment (including free market environmentalism); on federalism as a former member of a governor’s Cabinet; Capitalism and the Rule of Law, and on the Reagan administration (including the 40th president’s effective leadership style).
A graduate of Miami University in Ohio, she currently resides in Arlington, Virginia, with her husband, George S. Dunlop. The Dunlops are members of Oakland Baptist Church in Alexandria, Virginia.
Founding Partner, Boyden Gray & Associates
Ambassador C. Boyden Gray is the founding partner of Boyden Gray & Associates, a law and strategy firm in Washington, D.C., focused on constitutional and regulatory issues.
Mr. Gray worked in the White House for twelve years, first as counsel to the Vice President during the Reagan administration and then as White House Counsel to President George H.W. Bush. In the Reagan administration, he was Counsel to the Presidential Task Force on Regulatory Relief, for which he wrote the original Executive Order 12291 requiring cost-benefit analysis and White House review of regulations (later renumbered as current EO 12866). In the George H.W. Bush Administration, Mr. Gray was in charge of judicial selection and was also instrumental in the enactment of the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990, the Energy Policy Act of 1992, and a cap-and-trade system for acid rain emissions. In 1993, he received the Presidential Citizens Medal. Under President George W. Bush, Mr. Gray was U.S. Ambassador to the European Union and U.S. Special Envoy to Europe for Eurasian Energy.
Mr. Gray practiced law for 25 years at the law firm of Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering and was chairman of the Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice Section of the American Bar Association from 2000 to 2002. Early in his career, Mr. Gray helped to develop the Business Roundtable and served as its first counsel. He is an adjunct professor at Antonin Scalia Law School and a former adjunct professor at NYU Law School (teaching energy and environmental law). Mr. Gray is on the Board of Directors of the Atlantic Council, the Federalist Society, Reason Foundation, and the Trust for the National Mall.
Mr. Gray earned his A.B. magna cum laude from Harvard, where he was an editor of the Crimson, and his J.D. with high honors from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was editor-in-chief of the Law Review. Mr. Gray served in the United States Marine Corps, and after law school, he clerked for Earl Warren, Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court.
Partner, Sidley Austin LLP
Alan Raul is the founder and leader of Sidley’s highly ranked Privacy, Data Security and Information Law practice. He represents companies on federal, state and international privacy and cybersecurity issues, including global data protection and compliance programs, data breaches, consumer protection issues and Internet law. Mr. Raul advises companies regarding their cybersecurity and information governance and preparedness, and helps them address crisis management for data security incidents. Mr. Raul’s practice involves litigation and counseling regarding consumer class actions and investigations, enforcement actions and policy development by the FTC, State Attorneys General, SEC, Department of Justice and other government agencies.
Mr. Raul provides clients with perspective gained from extensive government service. He previously served as Vice Chairman of the White House Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, General Counsel of the Office of Management and Budget, General Counsel of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and Associate Counsel to the President.
Mr. Raul serves as a member of the Data Security, Privacy, and Intellectual Property Litigation Advisory Committee of the U.S. Chamber Litigation Center (affiliated with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce). He also serves ex officio on the American Bar Association’s Cybersecurity Legal Task Force by past appointment of the ABA President, and as a member of the Practicing Law Institute’s (PLI) Privacy Law Advisors Group.
Mr. Raul has represented a Special Cybersecurity Review Committee of the Board of Directors of a major tech company in connection with its independent investigation of the company’s handling of major data breaches.
In addition to leading a “Privacy and Data Security” practice nationally rated by Chambers Global and Chambers USA, Mr. Raul is ranked by Chambers in its top tier of Privacy and Data Security practitioners. Chambers USA has described Mr. Raul as a “true ‘ambassador’ for the privacy sector” who “attracts praise for his deep knowledge of the field. Interviewees stress that ‘he gives invaluable advice’ and is known to be a strong litigator. He also earns plaudits for his regulatory compliance and data protection policy expertise.” He has been named as a leading international Internet and E-Commerce Lawyer in Who’s Who Legal. Mr. Raul was also named to Ethisphere Institute’s “Attorneys Who Matter” in Data Privacy/Security, which recognizes lawyers with the highest commitment to public service, legal community engagement and academic involvement. In 2016, the Washingtonian named Mr. Raul one of Washington, DC’s Best Lawyers: Cybersecurity.
In 1991, Mr. Raul co-founded the “Lawyers Have Heart” 10K run and walk, to benefit the American Heart Association. He continues his active involvement with the event.
Principal, Sussman & Associates and Adjunct Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law Center
Bob Sussman is the principal in Sussman and Associates, a consulting firm that offers advice and support on energy and environmental policy issues to clients in the non-profit and private sectors.
Professor Sussman recently completed four and a half years of service in the Obama Administration, first as C0-Chair of the Transition Team for EPA and then as Senior Policy Counsel to the EPA Administrator. In this position, Professor Sussman functioned as the Administrator’s principal policy advisor, providing oversight and guidance on the full suite of policy issues across the Agency. He worked closely with all of EPA’s senior officials in Washington and the Regions. He also played a key role in EPA’s interface with OMB, CEQ and other White House offices and worked closely with other agencies, particularly the Department of Energy and Department of Interior.
Professor Sussman served in the Clinton Administration as the EPA Deputy Administrator during 1993-94. He was the Agency’s Chief Operating Officer and Regulatory Policy Officer, testified frequently before Congress and represented EPA at several international meetings.
At the end of 2007, Professor Sussman retired as a partner at the law firm of Latham & Watkins, where he headed the firm’s environmental practice in DC for ten years. He joined Latham in 1987 to start its environmental practice in DC after being a partner at Covington & Burling since 1974. Professor Sussman worked with a wide range of companies and trade associations on all aspects of energy and environmental policy, functioning as a policy advisor, advocate and litigator.
For several years, Professor Sussman was named one of the leading environmental lawyers in Washington, DC by Chambers USA: America’s Leading Business Lawyers and The International Who’s Who of Environmental Lawyers.
Professor Sussman was a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress in 2008, writing and speaking about climate change and energy.
Professor Sussman is a magna cum laude 1969 graduate of Yale College and a 1973 graduate of Yale Law School, where he was an editor of the Yale Law Journal. Bob clerked for Judge Walter K. Stapleton of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals.
Professor, Cumberland School of Law, Samford University
Michael DeBow joined the Cumberland faculty in 1988. He regularly teaches courses in Property, Business Organizations, Administrative Law, Legislation, and Local Government.
Professor DeBow is a native of Tupelo, Mississippi. He received his bachelor's and master's degrees in economics from the University of Alabama (1976, 1978). He graduated from the Yale Law School in 1980, and is a member of the District of Columbia Bar.
DeBow's career included a stint in private practice in Washington, D.C., followed by a judicial clerkship with Judge Kenneth W. Starr of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in 1983-84. DeBow then served as an attorney-advisor to Federal Trade Commission chairman James C. Miller III (1984-85), and a special assistant to Assistant Attorney General Douglas Ginsburg, in the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (1985-86). He began his teaching career at the University of Georgia business school, where he taught for two years prior to coming to Samford.
From 2000 to 2004, DeBow also acted in a part-time capacity as special assistant for legal policy to Alabama attorney general Bill Pryor. He was a visiting professor of law at George Mason University in 1999. He was a (nonresident) Salvatori Fellow of The Heritage Foundation during 1993-95, and a member of the executive committee of the Association of Private Enterprise Education during 1995-99. DeBow attended summer institutes in quantitative methods for law professors (George Mason Law & Economics Center, 1990), Austrian economics (NYU Department of Economics, 1997), and the study of freedom (Templeton Foundation Freedom Project, 2000). In 2008 he was named an Adjunct Fellow of the Alabama Policy Institute.
Professor DeBow has taught several undergraduate courses at Samford, including one which received a supporting grant from the John Templeton Foundation. Most recently, he taught an undergraduate course in law and economics for the Samford's Brock School of Business. He has also taught public health law for the UAB School of Public Health on several occasions.
DeBow's articles have appeared in such journals as the Texas Law Review, Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, Regulation, Policy Review, The Freeman, and the Journal of Law & Politics. He co-edits the Federalist Society's Pre-Law Reading List and its annotated bibliography of conservative and libertarian legal scholarship.
Founding Partner, Boyden Gray & Associates
Ambassador C. Boyden Gray is the founding partner of Boyden Gray & Associates, a law and strategy firm in Washington, D.C., focused on constitutional and regulatory issues.
Mr. Gray worked in the White House for twelve years, first as counsel to the Vice President during the Reagan administration and then as White House Counsel to President George H.W. Bush. In the Reagan administration, he was Counsel to the Presidential Task Force on Regulatory Relief, for which he wrote the original Executive Order 12291 requiring cost-benefit analysis and White House review of regulations (later renumbered as current EO 12866). In the George H.W. Bush Administration, Mr. Gray was in charge of judicial selection and was also instrumental in the enactment of the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990, the Energy Policy Act of 1992, and a cap-and-trade system for acid rain emissions. In 1993, he received the Presidential Citizens Medal. Under President George W. Bush, Mr. Gray was U.S. Ambassador to the European Union and U.S. Special Envoy to Europe for Eurasian Energy.
Mr. Gray practiced law for 25 years at the law firm of Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering and was chairman of the Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice Section of the American Bar Association from 2000 to 2002. Early in his career, Mr. Gray helped to develop the Business Roundtable and served as its first counsel. He is an adjunct professor at Antonin Scalia Law School and a former adjunct professor at NYU Law School (teaching energy and environmental law). Mr. Gray is on the Board of Directors of the Atlantic Council, the Federalist Society, Reason Foundation, and the Trust for the National Mall.
Mr. Gray earned his A.B. magna cum laude from Harvard, where he was an editor of the Crimson, and his J.D. with high honors from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was editor-in-chief of the Law Review. Mr. Gray served in the United States Marine Corps, and after law school, he clerked for Earl Warren, Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court.
Partner, Kirkland & Ellis LLP
Mr. Jay Lefkowitz is a leading partner in Kirkland’s litigation practice and a member of the Firm’s Global Executive Management Committee. He is also an adjunct professor at Columbia Law School, where he teaches a seminar on Supreme Court advocacy. Mr. Lefkowitz has served as lead trial and appellate counsel in a wide variety of substantive areas, including shareholder disputes, antitrust, product liability, litigation against the FDA and False Claims Act matters. He has also conducted numerous internal investigations for public companies and audit committees.
In its 2013 release of “The 100 Most Influential Lawyers in America,” The National Law Journal describes Mr. Lefkowitz as “a leading voice on school choice issues” and “a no-nonsense appellate and antitrust lawyer for an array of blue-chip clients.” The Legal 500 U.S. noted that Mr. Lefkowitz “provides a depth of understanding and influence in some of the highest courts of our country,” and in Chambers USA, America’s Leading Lawyers for Business, clients say, “‘Jay is brilliant; there is no other way to put it.’” Mr. Lefkowitzwas also named a Law360 “MVP of the Year” in 2011 for his Appellate practice, and in 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015 for his Life Sciences work. Mr. Lefkowitz is one of only three of the 189 MVPs named to the list five years in a row. The American Lawyer named him its “Lawyer of the Week” in December 2012 for his role in winning an antitrust lawsuit in the pharmaceutical industry.
Mr. Lefkowitz takes on groundbreaking work for high-profile clients, representing more than a dozen major pharmaceutical, medical device and health care companies in important and frequently precedent-setting matters. Mr. Lefkowitz has won two landmark 5-4 decisions at the U.S. Supreme Court in favor of the pharmaceutical industry overturning the decision of three Circuit Courts of Appeal. In Pliva v. Mensing in 2011, on behalf of Teva and Actavis, Mr. Lefkowitz convinced the Court to reject the views of the FDA and the Solicitor General and establish that generic drug companies may no longer be sued for “failure to warn claims,” finding that federal law preempts state law under the Constitution’s supremacy clause. His victory in Mutual v. Bartlett in 2013, overturned a $21 million verdict on behalf of Sun Pharmaceuticals, and extended the Mensing ruling to cover design defect claims.
Founding Partner, Boyden Gray & Associates
Ambassador C. Boyden Gray is the founding partner of Boyden Gray & Associates, a law and strategy firm in Washington, D.C., focused on constitutional and regulatory issues.
Mr. Gray worked in the White House for twelve years, first as counsel to the Vice President during the Reagan administration and then as White House Counsel to President George H.W. Bush. In the Reagan administration, he was Counsel to the Presidential Task Force on Regulatory Relief, for which he wrote the original Executive Order 12291 requiring cost-benefit analysis and White House review of regulations (later renumbered as current EO 12866). In the George H.W. Bush Administration, Mr. Gray was in charge of judicial selection and was also instrumental in the enactment of the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990, the Energy Policy Act of 1992, and a cap-and-trade system for acid rain emissions. In 1993, he received the Presidential Citizens Medal. Under President George W. Bush, Mr. Gray was U.S. Ambassador to the European Union and U.S. Special Envoy to Europe for Eurasian Energy.
Mr. Gray practiced law for 25 years at the law firm of Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering and was chairman of the Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice Section of the American Bar Association from 2000 to 2002. Early in his career, Mr. Gray helped to develop the Business Roundtable and served as its first counsel. He is an adjunct professor at Antonin Scalia Law School and a former adjunct professor at NYU Law School (teaching energy and environmental law). Mr. Gray is on the Board of Directors of the Atlantic Council, the Federalist Society, Reason Foundation, and the Trust for the National Mall.
Mr. Gray earned his A.B. magna cum laude from Harvard, where he was an editor of the Crimson, and his J.D. with high honors from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was editor-in-chief of the Law Review. Mr. Gray served in the United States Marine Corps, and after law school, he clerked for Earl Warren, Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court.
Freelance Journalist and Author
Stuart Taylor, Jr. is a Washington writer focusing on legal and policy issues and a National Journal contributing editor. He occasionally practices law.
Taylor has coauthored three books. All have been acclaimed by commentators across the ideological spectrum. In January 2017, KC Johnson and Taylor authored The Campus Rape Frenzy: The Attack on Due Process at America's Universities. In 2012, Richard Sander and Taylor authored Mismatch: How Affirmative Action Hurts Students It's Intended to Help, and Why Universities Won't Admit It. In 2007, Taylor and Johnson authored Until Proven Innocent: Political Correctness and the Shameful Injustices of the Duke Lacrosse Rape Fraud. Sander and Taylor have also filed amicus briefs in Supreme Court cases involving admissions preferences.
Since 1980, Taylor has done reporting and commentary about issues ranging from the biggest Supreme Court cases to race, voting rights, mindlessly excessive criminal penalties, guilt-presuming campus rape processes, journalistic bias, the death penalty, war powers, gerrymandering, guns, polarization, civil liberties, national security, torture, campaign finance, education, impeachment, and other issues. He has often been called one of the nation's best legal journalists and is known for challenging both liberal and conservative conventional wisdom.
Taylor was a reporter for The New York Times from 1980-1988, covering legal affairs and then the Supreme Court. He wrote commentaries and long features for The American Lawyer, Legal Times and their affiliates from 1989-1997, and for National Journal and Newsweek from 1998 through 2010. He has written (less often) on a freelance basis for numerous publications since 2010. He has written op-eds for The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, USA Today, and The New York Daily News and longer commentaries for RealClearPolitics, The Atlantic, The New Republic, the (late) Weekly Standard, National Review, Slate, The Daily Beast, Harper’s, Reader’s Digest, Time and other magazines. He has been interviewed on all major television and radio networks. He taught “Law and the News Media” at Stanford Law School in 2011 and 2012 and practices law on occasion.
Taylor graduated from Princeton University in 1970 with an A.B. in History. After working as a reporter for the Baltimore Evening Sun and Sun from 1971-1974, he moved to Harvard Law School, was a Harvard Law Review note editor, and graduated in 1977 at the top of his class, with high honors. He also won a Frederick Sheldon Traveling Fellowship and traveled around the world in 1977-1978 while studying freedom of the press in the United Kingdom and Kenya.
Taylor practiced law with Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering, in Washington, D.C., from 1977-1980 before returning to journalism in 1980 by joining the Washington Bureau of The New York Times.
Taylor's journalism honors include the 2009 Northern California Innocence Project Media Award for his work on the Duke lacrosse rape fraud; a 2002 National Headliner Award for best special magazine column on one subject; and a share of The American Lawyer’s National Magazine Award for a March 1990 special issue on the drug war. He was a National Magazine Award finalist in 1993 and 1997 and was nominated by The New York Times for a Pulitzer Prize in 1988.
U.S. Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit
Frank H. Easterbrook is a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and a Senior Lecturer at the Law School of the University of Chicago. He was Chief Judge from 2006–2013. Before joining the court in 1985, he was the Lee andBrena Freeman Professor of Law at the University of Chicago, where he taught and wrote in antitrust, securities, corporate law, jurisprudence, and criminal procedure. He has published The Economic Structure of Corporate Law (with Daniel R. Fischel) and about 100 scholarly articles. He served as Co-Editor of the Journal of Law and Economics from 1982 to 1991 and as a member of the Judicial Conference’s Standing Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure from 1991 to 1997. Before joining the faculty of the Law School in 1979, Judge Easterbrook was Deputy Solicitor General of the United States. He holds degrees from Swarthmore College (B.A. with high honors, 1970) and the University of Chicago (J.D. cum laude, 1973), and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Law Institute, the Mont Pelerin Society, Phi Beta Kappa, and the Order of the Coif.
Founding Partner, Boyden Gray & Associates
Ambassador C. Boyden Gray is the founding partner of Boyden Gray & Associates, a law and strategy firm in Washington, D.C., focused on constitutional and regulatory issues.
Mr. Gray worked in the White House for twelve years, first as counsel to the Vice President during the Reagan administration and then as White House Counsel to President George H.W. Bush. In the Reagan administration, he was Counsel to the Presidential Task Force on Regulatory Relief, for which he wrote the original Executive Order 12291 requiring cost-benefit analysis and White House review of regulations (later renumbered as current EO 12866). In the George H.W. Bush Administration, Mr. Gray was in charge of judicial selection and was also instrumental in the enactment of the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990, the Energy Policy Act of 1992, and a cap-and-trade system for acid rain emissions. In 1993, he received the Presidential Citizens Medal. Under President George W. Bush, Mr. Gray was U.S. Ambassador to the European Union and U.S. Special Envoy to Europe for Eurasian Energy.
Mr. Gray practiced law for 25 years at the law firm of Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering and was chairman of the Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice Section of the American Bar Association from 2000 to 2002. Early in his career, Mr. Gray helped to develop the Business Roundtable and served as its first counsel. He is an adjunct professor at Antonin Scalia Law School and a former adjunct professor at NYU Law School (teaching energy and environmental law). Mr. Gray is on the Board of Directors of the Atlantic Council, the Federalist Society, Reason Foundation, and the Trust for the National Mall.
Mr. Gray earned his A.B. magna cum laude from Harvard, where he was an editor of the Crimson, and his J.D. with high honors from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was editor-in-chief of the Law Review. Mr. Gray served in the United States Marine Corps, and after law school, he clerked for Earl Warren, Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit
Edith Jones graduated from Alamo Heights High School, where she was a National Merit Scholar. In 1971, she received her B.A. in Economics from Cornell University, graduating with honors. In 1974, she was awarded her J.D. at the University of Texas Law School, where she was a law review editor and received the Order of the Coif.
Judge Jones was the first female partner at Andrews, Kurth, Campbell & Jones (now Hunton Andrews Kurth) where she practiced various types of litigation and bankruptcy cases. Judge Jones went on the federal bench on June 1, 1985.
Judge Jones served as a former member of the National Bankruptcy Review Commission, and as a member of the Judicial Conference Commission on Bankruptcy Rules. Judge Jones served on the White House Fellows Commission. Judge Jones served on the board of the Sam Houston Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America. She has been a member of the Garland Walker Inn of Court in Houston for more than 20 years and its President for at least ten years. Judge Jones is also on the Board of the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Foundation.
Retired Partner, Covington & Burling LLP
With the exception of two periods of United States Government service, Harris Weinstein practiced law with Covington's Washington office as an associate, partner, and senior counsel between 1962 and his retirement from practice in 2009. He was with the Department of Justice during the period 1967-1969 as an Assistant to the Solicitor General of the United States and with the Department of the Treasury during 1990-1992 as Chief Counsel of the then Office of Thrift Supervision. Before joining Covington, Mr. Weinstein was law clerk to Judge William H. Hastie of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
His private practice focused on civil litigation, including disputes under antitrust, securities, tax and banking laws, and patent and related trade issues. He has appeared in federal trial and appellate courts throughout the United States and, as a government attorney, argued nine cases in the United States Supreme Court.
From January 2007 through December 2016, Mr. Weinstein served as a Distinguished Lecturer on the faculty of the Columbus School of Law of The Catholic University of America, teaching International Commercial Arbitration as well as other subjects. He also coached the law school’s team in the Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot. He has taught the arbitration course at the University of California, Davis and lectured on the subject at Penn State Law School and the University of Lisbon, Portugal.
Mr. Weinstein’s teaching activity has included lectures on banking law or corporate fiduciary issues at American University, George Washington University, and the Universities of Illinois, Michigan and Virginia. He has also taught one-week courses on Banking and International Arbitration under United States Law as part of Catholic University’s American Law program at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland.
In his pro bono work, Mr. Weinstein was a member of the Administrative Conference of the United States and chaired the Conference’s Committee on Government Processes. He also has been a member of the Corporation of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, President of its alumni/ae association, and Chair of its Alumni/ae Fund; Counsel to the Contests and Credentials Committees of the Republican National Conventions of 1984 and 1988; and a member of the initial advisory committee of the Commonwealth Institute (Richmond, VA).
His law degree is from Columbia University, where he was editor-in-chief of the Columbia Law Review. He received S.B. and S.M. degrees in mathematics from M.I.T. and was elected an associate member of the Sigma Xi science honorary society.
C. Boyden Gray Reviews "Judge Dave and the Rainbow People" - by Judge David Sentelle
C. Boyden Gray
In writing a review of Judge David Sentelle’s book, Judge Dave and the Rainbow People,...
Engage Volume 4, Issue 1, May 2003
ADMINISTRATIVE LAW & REGULATION The Presidential Appointment Process at the Beginning of the 21st Century...
2002 National Lawyers Convention
The Constitution, National Security, and Foreign Affairs
Washington, DCAdministrative Law & Regulation: What Next for Negotiated Rulemaking?
2001 National Lawyers Convention
Washington, DCWhat Next for Negotiated Rulemaking? - Transcript
Philip Harter, Jay Lefkowitz, C. Boyden Gray, Michael DeBow
The Administrative Law & Regulation Practice Group sponsored this panel during the 2001 National Lawyers...
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2000 National Lawyers Convention
Washington, DCABA Launches Major Project on the APA
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Society Debates Resurrecting the Non-Delegation Doctrine
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Colloquium: The Future of Environmental Reform
Don Clay, Larry Hart, Dana Joel, Dorothy Ann Kellogg, Debra Knopman, Michael McCloskey, Lynn Scarlett, Jonathan H. Adler, Jay Benforado, F Bush, Henry Diamond, Becky Norton Dunlop, C. Boyden Gray, Andrew Otis, Alan C. Raul, Robert Sussman
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Socialization of Risk: Bankruptcy Law & Financial Institutions [Archive Collection]
1991 Annual Lawyers Convention
Washington, DC