General Counsel, Office of Sen. Marsha Blackburn
Jon Adame serves as General Counsel to Senator Marsha Blackburn, where he advises her on all tech-related issues across her committee assignments (Commerce, Judiciary, Armed Services). He previously worked for her on the House Energy & Commerce Committee. Jon graduated from the University of Colorado School of Law, and received his B.A. from the University of New Mexico.
Senior Vice President, Government Affairs, CTIA
Kelly Cole is responsible for overseeing the CTIA Hill team and advancing the wireless industry’s priorities before Congress.
Most recently, Ms. Cole ran her own consulting firm, Kelly Cole Strategies, and was a consulting counsel for Wiley Rein. She has had a highly successful career in the private sector as well as public service. She served as the Executive Vice President of Government Relations for the National Association of Broadcasters where she led the association’s lobbying efforts. Ms. Cole has also served as Majority Counsel for the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee managing communications and Internet issues.
She has a Juris Doctor from Willamette University College of Law, a bachelor of arts in Political, Legal and Economic Analysis from Mills College and spent a year studying law at the London School of Economics. Ms. Cole is a member of the bar in the District of Columbia, Washington state and Oregon.
Chief Economist, The Phoenix Center for Advanced Legal & Economic Public Policy Studies
George S. Ford is the chief economist for the Phoenix Center for Advanced Legal and Economic Public Policy Studies, a nonprofit 501(c)(3) research organization that studies broad public-policy issues related to governance, social and economic conditions, with a particular emphasis on the law and economics of the digital age.
President, Phoenix Center for Advanced Legal and Economic Public Policy Studies
Lawrence J. Spiwak is President of the Phoenix Center for Advanced Legal & Economic Public Policy Studies, a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization that studies broad public-policy issues related to governance, social and economic conditions, with a particular emphasis on the law and economics of the digital age. Mr. Spiwak is a prolific scholar whose work is frequently cited by policymakers, major news media and academic journals around the world, and is in the top 1.3%of authors downloaded on the Social Science Research Network. Mr. Spiwak currently serves as the co-chair of the Federal Communications Bar Association’s (FCBA) committee responsible for overseeing the FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS LAW JOURNAL and is a member of the program committee of the Telecommunications Policy Research Conference (“TPRC”). Mr. Spiwak is also the recipient of the FCBA’s Distinguished Service Award. Prior to joining the Phoenix Center, Mr. Spiwak was a Senior Attorney with the Competition Division in the FCC’s Office of General Counsel from 1994-1998. While in college, Mr. Spiwak was accepted into the Presidential Stay-In School program where he was responsible for delivering classified and confidential material among senior White House and Reagan Administration officials and received a full FBI security clearance. Mr. Spiwak received his B.A. with Special Honors from the George Washington University and his J.D. from the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. Mr. Spiwak is a member in good standing of the bars of New York, Massachusetts, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
Head of AI Policy, Abundance Institute
Neil Chilson is the Head of AI Policy at the Abundance Institute. Prior to this position, he served as a Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Growth and Opportunity. Chilson is a lawyer, computer scientist, and author of the book “Getting Out of Control: Emergent Leadership in a Complex World.”
Chilson was previously the senior research fellow for Technology and Innovation at Stand Together, where he guided efforts to understand and promote the legal and cultural paradigms that best enable people to discover, innovate, and improve all our lives.
Before Stand Together, Chilson was the Chief Technologist at the Federal Trade Commission, where he focused on the economics of privacy and blockchain-related issues. Previously, he was an attorney advisor to Acting FTC Chairman Maureen K. Ohlhausen. In both roles he advised Chairman Ohlhausen and worked with staff on nearly every major technology-related case, report, workshop, or other FTC proceeding since January 2014. Neil joined the FTC from telecom firm Wilkinson Barker Knauer. Neil is frequently quoted by the press and his work has appeared in numerous news outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, USAToday, and Newsweek. Neil has a J.D. from The George Washington Law School, a M.S. in computer science from University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and a B.S. in computer science from Harding University.
Policy Counsel for Competition, Public Knowledge
Charlotte is Policy Counsel for competition policy at Public Knowledge. Prior to joining Public Knowledge, Charlotte worked in the Anticompetitive Practices Division of the Federal Trade Commission, investigating and litigating antitrust conduct violations, including the 2017 case against 1-800 Contacts for manipulating Google search ad auctions. She previously worked as a Legislative Aide to Senator Al Franken, focusing on Judiciary Committee issues including competition, media, and consumer privacy.
Charlotte received her J.D. from New York University School of Law and B.A. in Government from the University of Virginia.
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.
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The Future of Antitrust
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