President, Harned Strategies LLC
Karen Harned is President at Harned Strategies LLC. Previously, she served as Executive Director of the National Federation of Independent Business Small Business Legal Center, a post she held from 2002-2022. Prior to joining the Legal Center, Ms. Harned was an attorney at a Washington, D.C. law firm specializing in food and drug law, where she represented several small and large businesses and their respective trade associations before Congress and federal agencies. She also served as Assistant Press Secretary to U.S. Senator Don Nickles of Oklahoma from August of 1989 to March of 1993. Ms. Harned received her B.A. from the University of Oklahoma in 1989 and her J.D. from The George Washington University National Law Center in 1995. She is admitted to practice in the District of Columbia.
As Executive Director of the NFIB Small Business Legal Center, Ms. Harned commented regularly on small business cases before federal and state courts, as well as the U.S. Supreme Court. She has appeared on Fox News, Fox Business, NBC Nightly News, CNN, CNBC and MSNBC, as well as National Public Radio, CBS Radio, and radio outlets across the country. Her opinion editorials and articles regarding healthcare, lawsuit abuse, regulation, and other issues important to small business have been published in newspapers and other publications nationwide.
Ms. Harned has testified before Congress on the small business impact of regulation and the civil justice system. Additionally, she has conducted numerous webinars and legal compliance seminars for small business owners across the country on issues relating to employment law, including unionization and immigration.
Aeron Van Scoyk is a Law Clerk with the NFIB Small Business Legal Center and a student at U.C. Davis School of Law.
Partner, Conner & Winters
Donn C. Meindertsma is a partner in the Washington, DC office of Conner & Winters.
Of Counsel, Fisher & Phillips, LLP
Greg Grisham has over 25 years of successful experience counseling and representing employers in all aspects of workplace law in Tennessee and across the United States.
He has helped employers avoid claims, charges and lawsuits with a focus on preventative practices. Preventative practices include counseling in situations involving discipline, termination, demotion, promotion and other workplace changes in the terms and conditions of employment, harassment investigations, wage and hour compliance, FMLA Compliance, Reasonable Accommodation assessment, supervisor training and the review of employment policies and procedures. In addition, Greg's practice includes the representation of business entities subject to Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act in Public Accommodation cases.
Greg has successfully litigated hundreds of administrative charges, employment lawsuits, and arbitration demands on behalf of employers, including federal and state law claims alleging discrimination, harassment, retaliation, wrongful termination, defamation, invasion of privacy, breach of contract, wage and hour violations and ERISA violations, among others. He also represents employers before the National Labor Relations Board in unfair labor practice proceedings. He represents employers in the enforcement of post-employment restrictive covenants such as non-compete, non-solicitation and non-disclosure agreements and related trade secret litigation. Greg's practice also includes the defense of property owners and property management companies in federal and state Housing Discrimination charges and litigation. He also advises Tennessee Public Charter Schools on education law and workplace compliance matters.
Greg has extensive experience working with insurance carriers and their insureds in the defense of EPLI claims. He is a regular speaker at public seminars on workplace law issues and has authored numerous articles on a variety of labor and employment law related topics.
Greg holds an AV Preeminent Peer Review rating from Martindale-Hubbell and has been selected for inclusion in Mid-South Super Lawyers and Best Lawyers in America for Employment Litigation-Management side. Greg was elected as a 2016 Fellow to the College of Labor and Employment Lawyers and has been selected to the “Top 20 Lawyers in Traditional Labor & Employment Law” list in conjunction with Human Resource Executive Magazine and LawDragon’s 2017 and 2018 “Most Powerful Employment Attorneys” lists and specialty guides. Greg was also named a Fellow in the American Bar Foundation in 2017.
Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, Austin E. Owen Research Scholar & Professor of Law, The University of Richmond School of Law
Dean Kristen Jakobsen Osenga teaches and writes in the areas of patent law, antitrust, and legislation and regulation. Some of her recent scholarship focuses on standard development organizations, patent eligible subject matter, patent licensing firms, litigation and remedies for patent infringement, and patent law reform. She has written numerous law review articles on these and other topics, as well as book chapters and op eds on various aspects of patent law. Additionally, she has spoken on these issues at many academic conferences and bar events. Dean Osenga is Chief Policy Counselor for the Inventors Defense Alliance, as well as an active member of the Federal Circuit Bar Association and the American Intellectual Property Law Association.
Dean Osenga received a B.S. degree in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Iowa, an M.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from Southern Illinois University – Carbondale, and a J.D. from the University of Illinois College of Law, where she graduated magna cum laude. After law school, she practiced at the law firm of Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett, & Dunner LLP, (now Finnegan) where she did patent prosecution and litigation. She then clerked for the Judge Richard Linn of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. After clerking, she entered academia, teaching first at Chicago-Kent College of Law and then at the University of Richmond, where she has been since 2006. She has also been a Visiting Professor at Emory University School of Law and at William & Mary School of Law.
Partner, Briscoe Prows Kao Ivester & Bazel LLP
Tony Francois is experienced in Water and Real Property Law, Land Use and Zoning, Environmental Regulation, Natural Resources Development, Agricultural Law, and Constitutional Law. He has represented homeowners, builders, farmers and ranchers, trade associations, and water districts in administrative, civil, and criminal proceedings before state and federal administrative agencies and state and federal trial and appellate courts. He is a member of the California State Bar and the Northern, Eastern, and Central Districts of California and the Districts of New Mexico and North Dakota, and has litigated cases in federal courts in California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, North and South Dakota, Minnesota, Massachusetts, Maryland, South Carolina, and the District of Columbia, as well as the Sixth, Eighth, Ninth, and Tenth Circuit Courts of Appeals. He has appeared before the Supreme Courts of California, Idaho, Nevada, and the United States.
Prior to attending law school, he served as an infantry officer in the United States Army, and was stationed in the former West Germany during the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Tony was an Attorney at Pacific Legal Foundation from 2012 to 2021. He was a lobbyist for 10 years, first with California Farm Bureau Federation from 2003 to 2007, and then with KP Public Affairs from 2007 to 2012. He was an attorney at McQuaid, Bedford & Van Zandt in San Francisco from 1999 – 2003.
President, Cass & Associates, PC
Ronald A. Cass is Dean Emeritus of Boston University School of Law (where he was Dean from 1990-2004), President of Cass & Associates, PC, former Vice-Chairman and Commissioner of the U.S. International Trade Commission, former faculty member at Boston University School of Law and the University of Virginia Law School, and Distinguished Senior Fellow at the C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State. Dean Cass also sits as an arbitrator for commercial, international, and intellectual property rights disputes, and is a former United States member of the Panel of Conciliators of the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes. He is a member of the Council of the Administrative Conference of the United States and has received seven presidential appointments, spanning Presidents Ronald Reagan to Donald J. Trump.
As a law professor, lecturer, and scholar, Dean Cass has been teaching and writing about a wide array of legal issues on topics such as administrative law and regulation, antitrust, constitutional law, communications, intellectual property, international trade, separation of powers, and legal process. He has published more than 160 scholarly books, chapters, articles, and papers, including a leading casebook on administrative law. Dean Cass has taught judges as well as students in schools of law, economics, business, and public policy and has held academic appointments in the United States, Europe, and Latin America.
In addition to his academic work, Dean Cass has participated in numerous important legal cases as an amicus, consultant, or expert, and has advised businesses, law firms, investment funds, and government agencies on a range of trade, antitrust, intellectual property, and regulatory issues. He has a broad range of affiliations with professional groups, and has received numerous honors, fellowships and awards.
Dean Cass is a graduate of the University of Virginia and the University of Chicago Law School.
Director, ENRD, Pacific Legal Foundation
Mark Miller is the Director of the Environment and Natural Resources practice group at Pacific Legal Foundation, where he leads the firm’s efforts to protect individuals and small businesses from government overreach in matters involving land and water, and its efforts to encourage America to better harness its abundant natural resources, including energy resources, minerals, timber, and grazing lands. Mark first joined PLF in 2014.
A seasoned appellate specialist, Mark has litigated several high-profile cases for PLF, including Weyerhaeuser v. United States Fish & Wildlife Service, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers v. Hawkes Co., and United States v. Robertson, all of them unanimous Supreme Court of the United States wins for property owners fighting federal overreach via the Clean Water Act and Endangered Species Act.
In 2020, Mark left PLF to serve as General Counsel and later Chief of Staff for then-South-Dakota Governor Kristi Noem. As Noem’s longest-serving chief of staff, he worked behind the scenes to advance limited government, cut red tape, defend individual rights, and promote free-market principles. In 2023, he returned home to PLF.
A frequent commentator and public speaker, Mark regularly appears in print, on radio and TV, and before legislative committees across the country. His commentary and work has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, CBS News, The View, CBN, and Fox News. He is a regular guest each Thursday morning on SiriusXM’s POTUS channel, offering insight on Supreme Court cases and trends.
Mark earned both his undergraduate and law degrees with honors from the University of Florida. He clerked for U.S. District Judge Henry Lee Adams, Jr., and Florida state appellate Judge Emerson R. Thompson, Jr.—two mentors who deepened his commitment to the Bill of Rights, especially the Fourth, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments.
Mark serves on the Board of Trustees for the University of Florida College of Law, and he is a member of the boards of directors for both Americans United for Life, the nation’s oldest pro-life non-profit law firm, and Farm of the Child USA, a nonprofit that supports an orphanage and school for children in need in Honduras called La Finca del Niño.
Professor, University of North Carolina at Wilmington
Mike Adams is a professor at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington (UNCW). He writes a weekly column for The Daily Wire and speaks frequently on First Amendment and pro-life issues. After graduating from Mississippi State University in 1993 with a PhD in Criminology, his research emphasized social psychological causes of crime and delinquency. He won the Faculty Member of the Year Award from the Office of the Dean of Students in 1998 and again in 2000. Later, after his involvement in a free speech controversy in the wake of the 9/11 attack his research emphasis shifted to threats to free speech, due process, and academic integrity in higher education. In 2006, he was denied a promotion full professor and filed suit in federal court alleging that UNCW retaliated against him for his criticism the diversity movement in general as well as his criticism of specific policies within his own university. The retaliation lawsuit set up a legal challenge concerning whether Garcetti v. Ceballos (2006), which denied First Amendment protection to public employees who were commenting about their “official duties,” applied to college professors. In Adams v. UNCW (2011), the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously ruled in his favor. The ruling set up a federal trial on the issue of retaliation, which he also won before a jury in federal district court in Greenville, North Carolina.
Professor of History, Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center
KC Johnson is professor of history at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center, where he has taught since 1999. He has written 13 books on topics in U.S. political history, U.S. foreign policy, and legal and policy debates surrounding campus due process and civil liberties. His Duke lacrosse case blog, Durham-in-Wonderland, was named ABA Journal’s Best Ethics Blog in 2007; and he continues to blog on higher-ed matters at the blog Minding the Campus.
FIRE
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.
Kisor v. Wilkie Makes Auer a Paper Tiger
Karen Harned, Aeron Van Scoyk
Note from the Editor: The Federalist Society takes no positions on particular legal and public...
Whistling in Chevronland: Why Department of Labor Interpretations of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act Whistleblower Provisions Do Not Deserve Judicial Deference
Donn C. Meindertsma
Note from the Editor: The Federalist Society takes no positions on particular legal and public...
Website Inaccessibility: The New Wave of ADA Title III Litigation
J. Gregory Grisham
Note from the Editor: The Federalist Society takes no positions on particular legal and public...
What Happened to the Public’s Interest in Patent Law?
Kristen Osenga
Note from the Editor: This article discusses the role of the concept of the public...
Will We Soon Have Clarity on Navigable Waters?: How the Supreme Court’s October 2017 Term Set the Stage
Tony Francois
Note from the Editor: This article discusses the longstanding legal battle over the meaning of...
Deference to Agency Rule Interpretations: Problems of Expanding Constitutionally Questionable Authority in the Administrative State
Ronald A. Cass
Note from the Editor: This article argues that, while judicial deference to agency decisions is...
A Shy Frog, the Administrative State, and Judicial Review of Agency Decision-Making: A Preview of Weyerhaeuser v. United States Fish & Wildlife Service
Mark Miller
Note from the Editor: This article previews one of the first cases of the Supreme...
The Student Right to Counsel
Mike S. Adams, KC Johnson, Adam Kissell
Note from the Editor: This article argues that a student right to counsel in quasi-criminal...
The Supreme Court Tackles Patent Reform: Inter Partes Review Under the AIA Undermines the Structural Protections Offered by Article III Courts
Richard A. Epstein
Note from the Editor: This article criticizes Justice Clarence Thomas’ opinion in Oil States. It...
Topics
Article I: Interview with Prof. Schoenbrod on Congressional Degradation
As Professor Schoenbrod explains in this interview, Congress has an unhealthy fixation with three little words--"the Administrator...