Former Deputy Attorney General for Virginia
Kennerly Davis has over forty years of experience in corporate management, public service, and the private practice of law. He has held senior executive positions in a Fortune 500 electric and gas company. He has served as Deputy Attorney General for the Commonwealth of Virginia, and as a legislative aide to a U.S. Senator and a U.S. Congressman. He practiced law for 25 years with Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP.
Davis is active in the Federalist Society as a member of the Regulatory Process Working Group of the Regulatory Transparency Project, and as a member of the Execuitve Committee of the Administrative Law and Regulation Practice Group. He is active in the national Alumni Free Speech Alliance, and involved in AFSA-chapter initiatives, including litigation, to publicize and correct the serious legal problems created by university Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs and the anonymous bias reporting systems used to enforce those DEI programs.
Davis writes and speaks on a wide variety of topics, including those related to the Founding of America, the natural rights foundation of our Republic, the constitutional rule of law, equal protection and free speech, DEI programs and bias reporting systems, capitalism, regulation and regulatory reform, and economic development. His articles have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, the Washington Examiner, the Richmond Times-Dispatch, The Federalist Society Review, the FedSoc Blog, Real Clear Energy, Townhall, the Daily Caller, reports of the Center for Strategic & International Studies, and other publications. He appears frequently on radio, podcasts, and television.
Davis graduated with honors from Cornell University with an A.B. degree in Government. He earned an M.A. degree from Pembroke College, Oxford, in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics. He was awarded a J.D. degree from Harvard Law School, and an M.B.A. degree from Virginia Commonwealth University.
Davis lives in Richmond, Virginia. He can be contacted by email: j.kendavis@verizon.net, and by phone: (804) 624-8525.
Senior Vice President, Public Policy and Government Affairs, DISH Network
Jeffrey H. Blum is the Senior Vice President of Public Policy and Government Affairs for DISH, overseeing state and federal government affairs in Washington, DC.
Before coming to DISH 2005, Jeff was a partner at Davis Wright Tremaine, where his practice focused on copyright, First Amendment and anti-piracy litigation. At Davis Wright Tremaine, Jeff co-represented a class of songwriters and music publishers in the Grokster P2P file sharing case, which was decided by the United States Supreme Court in favor of Jeff's clients. The Grokster decision established a new basis for secondary copyright liability, called "inducement liability." Jeff was a part-time lecturer at the University of Southern California, Annenberg School of Journalism from 2003-2005, where he taught "Media Law". He currently serves as Chairman of the Satellite Broadcasting and Communications Association (SBCA), and was Co-Chairman of the Broadband Internet Technical Advisory Group (BITAG) from 2013-2015. Jeff also serves on the boards of the Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA) and BUILD Metro DC.
Jeff graduated summa cum laude and first in his class at Boston University School of Law, where he was a Note Editor of the Boston University Law Review. He received his undergraduate degree from McGill University, with a B.A. in History and Classics. After law school, he clerked for Chief Judge Joseph Tauro of the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts.
General Counsel and Executive Vice President, Legal and Regulato, National Association of Broadcasters
Rick Kaplan is General Counsel and Executive Vice President, Legal and Regulatory Affairs at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB).
Prior to joining NAB, Mr. Kaplan served in a number of leadership capacities at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). During his three-plus years at the FCC, Mr. Kaplan was the Chief of the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau, Chief Counsel to Chairman Julius Genachowski, and Chief of Staff and Media Advisor to Commissioner Mignon Clyburn. As Bureau Chief, Mr. Kaplan helped create and implement policies that maximized the use of underutilized spectrum and promoted meaningful competition in the wireless industry. For example, Mr. Kaplan helped spearhead the agency’s renewed attempt to free up a sizable chunk of spectrum in the 2.3 GHz WCS band, which had laid fallow for well over a decade, and the FCC’s efforts to convert spectrum in the 2 GHz S-Band from mobile satellite to terrestrial broadband use. Mr. Kaplan also played a leading role at the FCC in reviewing nearly every major transaction brought before the agency during Chairman Genachowski’s tenure. These included Comcast/NBCU, AT&T/T-Mobile, AT&T/Qualcomm, DISH/DBSD & TerreStar, and Verizon Wireless/SpectrumCo & Cox.
As Chief Counsel, Mr. Kaplan managed the Commission’s overall policy agenda, and was responsible for policy coordination among each of the Bureaus and Offices. During that time, Mr. Kaplan worked with Congress on the passage of its groundbreaking incentive auction legislation, negotiated a resolution to the nearly decade-old TV white spaces proceeding, brought to decision rules requiring wireless carriers to offer data roaming on commercially reasonable terms, and helped navigate an evolution in the retransmission consent marketplace, ensuring that the government did not unnecessarily interfere with private market negotiations.
Before joining the Commission, Mr. Kaplan practiced appellate litigation and regulatory law at Sidley Austin LLP, and served in the Office of the General Counsel at the U.S. House of Representatives. At the U.S. House, Mr. Kaplan helped orchestrate the Judiciary Committee’s successful and historic litigation in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to obtain documents and testimony from White House officials in the face of claims of executive privilege. Mr. Kaplan began his legal career as a law clerk for Judge Harry T. Edwards of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Prior to his legal career, Mr. Kaplan founded and operated a sports management and public relations agency that represented and served professional athletes and sports-related organizations. Kaplan earned his Juris Doctor from Columbia Law School, where he served as Editor-in-Chief of the Columbia Law Review, and undergraduate degree from Wesleyan University.
Vice President, Regulatory Affairs, Cox Enterprises
Mr. Barry J. Ohlson serves as Vice President of Regulatory Affairs at Cox Enterprises, Inc. Mr. Ohlson serves as a Partner at Wilkinson Barker Knauer & Quinn. Mr. Ohlson served as Vice President of Policy for Cox Enterprises, Inc. since January 1, 2012. Mr. Ohlson served as the Chief Policy Counsel of Cox Enterprises, Inc. since November 15, 2010 to January 1, 2012. Mr. Ohlson's practice focuses on the wireless, telecommunications, and broadband sectors, with an emphasis on assessing the strategic and regulatory implications of advanced technologies and new telecommunications services. He has nearly 20 years of government, corporate, and legal experience to this role, and he has been intimately involved in the complex regulatory and legal issues that impact businesses and stakeholders. For the majority of his six-year tenure at the Federal Communications Commission, he was Senior Legal Advisor to Commissioner Jonathan S. Adelstein, providing counsel on all administrative and policy matters, particularly those involving spectrum, satellite, technology, public safety and international issues. Mr. Ohlson previously served as Chief of the Policy Division of the FCC's Wireless Telecommunications Bureau, as a Legal Advisor to the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau Chief, and as Acting Chief of the Bureau's Public Safety and Private Wireless Division. Before his government service, Mr. Ohlson was the senior director of federal regulatory affairs at Winstar Communications, and he practiced law at McDermott, Will & Emery and Keller and Heckman in Washington, D.C. He is a member of the Federal Communications Bar Association, and currently serves as a co-chair of the Professional Responsibility Committee. Mr. Ohlson earned a J.D. from the George Washington University Law School and an A.B. degree in international economic relations and mathematics from The College of William & Mary.
Partner, HWG LLP
Patricia Paoletta is a partner with the law firm of HWG LLP, where she specializes in telecommunications, trade and technology policy. Ms. Paoletta provides advice on regulatory, trade and legislative policy to clients before the FCC, Congress and the Administration. Her clients include providers of content, cloud, mobile broadband, VoIP, international telecommunications, small cells, cognitive radio, public safety and homeland security solutions. She serves on Advisory Boards for several entities engaged in information services, communications and technology.
Ms. Paoletta has accrued considerable experience with telecommunications trade and policy in the public sector. From 1990 to 1995, she was senior advisor to the International Bureau Chief and Office Director at the Federal Communications Commission. In the mid 1990s, Ms. Paoletta served as Director of Telecommunications Trade Policy in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, Executive Office of the President, where she worked on the WTO Information Technology Agreement (ITA) and the Basic Telecommunications Agreement. After USTR, Ms. Paoletta served as Majority Counsel to the House Energy and Commerce Committee. She then moved to Level 3 Communications, as Vice President, Government Relations.
Ms. Paoletta is on the Steering Committee of the Transatlantic Roundtable on Telecommunications and Information Technology of the European Institute. She is a member of the USTR Alumni Association, Washington International Trade Association, the Federal Communications Bar Association (FCBA), and Women in Technology. Ms. Paoletta has served on the Board of Advisors for the Inter-American Dialogue's Latin America Telecom Advisor, Co-Chairman of the American Bar Association International Communications Committee, and as a member of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Technology Policy Committee.
Ms. Paoletta served as a delegate in 2012 to the ITU-R's Study Group 6 Working Party 6A Meeting and in 2009 and 2010 to the ITU-R's Study Group I Working Party IB Meetings; the 2009 meetings of CITEL (the Committee on International Telecommunications at the Organization of American States) PCC-II; the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) World Telecommunications Standards Assembly (2000); the ITU Internet Protocol Telephony Experts Group and the ITU World Telecommunications Policy Forum in 2001; as Chairman of the National Reliability and Interoperability Council (NRIC) Steering Committee (2000-2001); as Board Member for the Voice on the Net Coalition (2001); as Co-Chairman of the FCBA's Annual Seminar Committee (2009-2011); as a member of the FCBA's Ad Hoc Speakers Committee (2006-2007); as Co-Chairman for the FCBA International Practice Committee (2001-2002 and 2005-2006); and as a Co-Chairman of the FCBA Legislative Practice Committee (1999-2000).
Research Fellow and Regulatory Counsel, Competitive Enterprise Institute
As Research Fellow and Regulatory Counsel, Ryan Radia focuses on adapting law and public policy to the unique challenges of the information age. His research areas at the Competitive Enterprise Institute include intellectual property, information privacy, telecommunications, cybersecurity, competition policy, media regulation, and Internet freedom.
Radia has published articles in major news outlets including The Seattle Times, Forbes, San Jose Mercury News, The Star-Ledger, Ad Age, Investor’s Business Daily, and Ars Technica. He has been quoted in publications including the Los Angeles Times, The New Republic, TIME, Fortune, Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle, The Boston Globe, POLITICO, The Baltimore Sun, and Bloomberg. He has appeared on dozens of television and radio programs, including “Marketplace” on National Public Radio, “Cavuto” on Fox Business Network, and the “Laura Ingraham Show” on Talk Radio Network.
Radia also blogs on the Technology Liberation Front, a group technology policy blog dedicated to advancing freedom and liberty in the digital age. His commentary has been referenced by blogs including The Atlantic’s Daily Dish, The Washington Post’s Faster Forward, and Techdirt. His research has been cited scholarly journals such as the Brooklyn Law Review, the University of Pennsylvania Journal of Business Law, and the Iowa Law Review Bulletin.
Radia earned his J.D. from The George Washington University Law School, where he served as Senior Articles Editor of the Federal Communications Law Journal. He also holds a B.A. in economics from Northwestern University. Before joining CEI in 2007, he worked in the alternative risk financing sector.
He is admitted to the District of Columbia Bar.
Senior Vice President, Public Policy and Government Affairs, DISH Network
Jeffrey H. Blum is the Senior Vice President of Public Policy and Government Affairs for DISH, overseeing state and federal government affairs in Washington, DC.
Before coming to DISH 2005, Jeff was a partner at Davis Wright Tremaine, where his practice focused on copyright, First Amendment and anti-piracy litigation. At Davis Wright Tremaine, Jeff co-represented a class of songwriters and music publishers in the Grokster P2P file sharing case, which was decided by the United States Supreme Court in favor of Jeff's clients. The Grokster decision established a new basis for secondary copyright liability, called "inducement liability." Jeff was a part-time lecturer at the University of Southern California, Annenberg School of Journalism from 2003-2005, where he taught "Media Law". He currently serves as Chairman of the Satellite Broadcasting and Communications Association (SBCA), and was Co-Chairman of the Broadband Internet Technical Advisory Group (BITAG) from 2013-2015. Jeff also serves on the boards of the Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA) and BUILD Metro DC.
Jeff graduated summa cum laude and first in his class at Boston University School of Law, where he was a Note Editor of the Boston University Law Review. He received his undergraduate degree from McGill University, with a B.A. in History and Classics. After law school, he clerked for Chief Judge Joseph Tauro of the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts.
General Counsel and Executive Vice President, Legal and Regulato, National Association of Broadcasters
Rick Kaplan is General Counsel and Executive Vice President, Legal and Regulatory Affairs at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB).
Prior to joining NAB, Mr. Kaplan served in a number of leadership capacities at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). During his three-plus years at the FCC, Mr. Kaplan was the Chief of the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau, Chief Counsel to Chairman Julius Genachowski, and Chief of Staff and Media Advisor to Commissioner Mignon Clyburn. As Bureau Chief, Mr. Kaplan helped create and implement policies that maximized the use of underutilized spectrum and promoted meaningful competition in the wireless industry. For example, Mr. Kaplan helped spearhead the agency’s renewed attempt to free up a sizable chunk of spectrum in the 2.3 GHz WCS band, which had laid fallow for well over a decade, and the FCC’s efforts to convert spectrum in the 2 GHz S-Band from mobile satellite to terrestrial broadband use. Mr. Kaplan also played a leading role at the FCC in reviewing nearly every major transaction brought before the agency during Chairman Genachowski’s tenure. These included Comcast/NBCU, AT&T/T-Mobile, AT&T/Qualcomm, DISH/DBSD & TerreStar, and Verizon Wireless/SpectrumCo & Cox.
As Chief Counsel, Mr. Kaplan managed the Commission’s overall policy agenda, and was responsible for policy coordination among each of the Bureaus and Offices. During that time, Mr. Kaplan worked with Congress on the passage of its groundbreaking incentive auction legislation, negotiated a resolution to the nearly decade-old TV white spaces proceeding, brought to decision rules requiring wireless carriers to offer data roaming on commercially reasonable terms, and helped navigate an evolution in the retransmission consent marketplace, ensuring that the government did not unnecessarily interfere with private market negotiations.
Before joining the Commission, Mr. Kaplan practiced appellate litigation and regulatory law at Sidley Austin LLP, and served in the Office of the General Counsel at the U.S. House of Representatives. At the U.S. House, Mr. Kaplan helped orchestrate the Judiciary Committee’s successful and historic litigation in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to obtain documents and testimony from White House officials in the face of claims of executive privilege. Mr. Kaplan began his legal career as a law clerk for Judge Harry T. Edwards of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Prior to his legal career, Mr. Kaplan founded and operated a sports management and public relations agency that represented and served professional athletes and sports-related organizations. Kaplan earned his Juris Doctor from Columbia Law School, where he served as Editor-in-Chief of the Columbia Law Review, and undergraduate degree from Wesleyan University.
Vice President, Regulatory Affairs, Cox Enterprises
Mr. Barry J. Ohlson serves as Vice President of Regulatory Affairs at Cox Enterprises, Inc. Mr. Ohlson serves as a Partner at Wilkinson Barker Knauer & Quinn. Mr. Ohlson served as Vice President of Policy for Cox Enterprises, Inc. since January 1, 2012. Mr. Ohlson served as the Chief Policy Counsel of Cox Enterprises, Inc. since November 15, 2010 to January 1, 2012. Mr. Ohlson's practice focuses on the wireless, telecommunications, and broadband sectors, with an emphasis on assessing the strategic and regulatory implications of advanced technologies and new telecommunications services. He has nearly 20 years of government, corporate, and legal experience to this role, and he has been intimately involved in the complex regulatory and legal issues that impact businesses and stakeholders. For the majority of his six-year tenure at the Federal Communications Commission, he was Senior Legal Advisor to Commissioner Jonathan S. Adelstein, providing counsel on all administrative and policy matters, particularly those involving spectrum, satellite, technology, public safety and international issues. Mr. Ohlson previously served as Chief of the Policy Division of the FCC's Wireless Telecommunications Bureau, as a Legal Advisor to the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau Chief, and as Acting Chief of the Bureau's Public Safety and Private Wireless Division. Before his government service, Mr. Ohlson was the senior director of federal regulatory affairs at Winstar Communications, and he practiced law at McDermott, Will & Emery and Keller and Heckman in Washington, D.C. He is a member of the Federal Communications Bar Association, and currently serves as a co-chair of the Professional Responsibility Committee. Mr. Ohlson earned a J.D. from the George Washington University Law School and an A.B. degree in international economic relations and mathematics from The College of William & Mary.
Partner, HWG LLP
Patricia Paoletta is a partner with the law firm of HWG LLP, where she specializes in telecommunications, trade and technology policy. Ms. Paoletta provides advice on regulatory, trade and legislative policy to clients before the FCC, Congress and the Administration. Her clients include providers of content, cloud, mobile broadband, VoIP, international telecommunications, small cells, cognitive radio, public safety and homeland security solutions. She serves on Advisory Boards for several entities engaged in information services, communications and technology.
Ms. Paoletta has accrued considerable experience with telecommunications trade and policy in the public sector. From 1990 to 1995, she was senior advisor to the International Bureau Chief and Office Director at the Federal Communications Commission. In the mid 1990s, Ms. Paoletta served as Director of Telecommunications Trade Policy in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, Executive Office of the President, where she worked on the WTO Information Technology Agreement (ITA) and the Basic Telecommunications Agreement. After USTR, Ms. Paoletta served as Majority Counsel to the House Energy and Commerce Committee. She then moved to Level 3 Communications, as Vice President, Government Relations.
Ms. Paoletta is on the Steering Committee of the Transatlantic Roundtable on Telecommunications and Information Technology of the European Institute. She is a member of the USTR Alumni Association, Washington International Trade Association, the Federal Communications Bar Association (FCBA), and Women in Technology. Ms. Paoletta has served on the Board of Advisors for the Inter-American Dialogue's Latin America Telecom Advisor, Co-Chairman of the American Bar Association International Communications Committee, and as a member of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Technology Policy Committee.
Ms. Paoletta served as a delegate in 2012 to the ITU-R's Study Group 6 Working Party 6A Meeting and in 2009 and 2010 to the ITU-R's Study Group I Working Party IB Meetings; the 2009 meetings of CITEL (the Committee on International Telecommunications at the Organization of American States) PCC-II; the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) World Telecommunications Standards Assembly (2000); the ITU Internet Protocol Telephony Experts Group and the ITU World Telecommunications Policy Forum in 2001; as Chairman of the National Reliability and Interoperability Council (NRIC) Steering Committee (2000-2001); as Board Member for the Voice on the Net Coalition (2001); as Co-Chairman of the FCBA's Annual Seminar Committee (2009-2011); as a member of the FCBA's Ad Hoc Speakers Committee (2006-2007); as Co-Chairman for the FCBA International Practice Committee (2001-2002 and 2005-2006); and as a Co-Chairman of the FCBA Legislative Practice Committee (1999-2000).
Research Fellow and Regulatory Counsel, Competitive Enterprise Institute
As Research Fellow and Regulatory Counsel, Ryan Radia focuses on adapting law and public policy to the unique challenges of the information age. His research areas at the Competitive Enterprise Institute include intellectual property, information privacy, telecommunications, cybersecurity, competition policy, media regulation, and Internet freedom.
Radia has published articles in major news outlets including The Seattle Times, Forbes, San Jose Mercury News, The Star-Ledger, Ad Age, Investor’s Business Daily, and Ars Technica. He has been quoted in publications including the Los Angeles Times, The New Republic, TIME, Fortune, Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle, The Boston Globe, POLITICO, The Baltimore Sun, and Bloomberg. He has appeared on dozens of television and radio programs, including “Marketplace” on National Public Radio, “Cavuto” on Fox Business Network, and the “Laura Ingraham Show” on Talk Radio Network.
Radia also blogs on the Technology Liberation Front, a group technology policy blog dedicated to advancing freedom and liberty in the digital age. His commentary has been referenced by blogs including The Atlantic’s Daily Dish, The Washington Post’s Faster Forward, and Techdirt. His research has been cited scholarly journals such as the Brooklyn Law Review, the University of Pennsylvania Journal of Business Law, and the Iowa Law Review Bulletin.
Radia earned his J.D. from The George Washington University Law School, where he served as Senior Articles Editor of the Federal Communications Law Journal. He also holds a B.A. in economics from Northwestern University. Before joining CEI in 2007, he worked in the alternative risk financing sector.
He is admitted to the District of Columbia Bar.
Former Comptroller of Public Accounts, State of Texas
The Hon. Susan Combs served as the Comptroller of Public Accounts for the State of Texas from 2007 to 2015.
Associate Professor, University of Denver Sturm College of Law
Professor Justin Pidot graduated with high honors from Wesleyan University before attending Stanford Law School, where he graduated with distinction and was editor in chief of the Stanford Environmental Law Journal. Professor Pidot clerked for Judge Judith W. Rogers of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Prior to joining the University of Denver faculty, he was an appellate litigator at the Environment and Natural Resources Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, where he presented argument in more than a dozen federal appellate cases and acted as the staff attorney on two cases before the United States Supreme Court. Professor Pidot also completed a fellowship at the Georgetown Environmental Law & Policy Institute.
Professor Pidot’s scholarship and teaching focus on environmental law, natural resources law, and federal courts.
Senior Fellow, Competitive Enterprise Institute
William Yeatman is CEI's senior fellow specializing in environmental policy and energy markets.
His commentary has been widely featured in newspapers from coast to coast and also on nationwide television and radio.Yeatman has twice testified before congress and numerous times before state legislatures.
Prior to joining CEI, he was a Peace Corps volunteer in the Kyrgyz Republic, where he taught entrepreneurship and small business management to rural women. Before that, he ran a homeless shelter in Denver, Colorado.
He holds a Masters in International Administration from the Denver University Graduate School of International Studies and a Bachelor's in Environmental Sciences from the University of Virginia
Vice President for Legal Affairs, Cato Institute
Roger Pilon is the Cato’s Institute’s vice president for legal affairs, the founding director of Cato’s Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies, the inaugural holder of Cato’s B. Kenneth Simon Chair in Constitutional Studies, and the founding publisher of the Cato Supreme Court Review.
Prior to joining Cato, Pilon held five senior posts in the Reagan administration, including at State and Justice, and was a national fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution. In 1989 the Bicentennial Commission presented him with its Benjamin Franklin Award for excellence in writing on the U.S. Constitution. In 2001 Columbia University’s School of General Studies awarded him its Alumni Medal of Distinction. Pilon lectures and debates at universities and law schools across the country and testifies often before Congress.
His writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Legal Times, National Law Journal, Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, Stanford Law and Policy Review, and elsewhere. He has appeared on ABC’s Nightline, CBS’s 60 Minutes II, Fox News Channel, NPR, CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, C-SPAN, and other media.
Pilon holds a BA from Columbia University, an MA and a PhD from the University of Chicago, and a JD from the George Washington University School of Law.
Carmack Waterhouse Professor of Constitutional Law, Georgetown Law
After graduating from Harvard Law School in 1971, Professor Seidman served as a law clerk for J. Skelly Wright of the D.C. Circuit and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. He then was a staff attorney with the D.C. Public Defender Service until joining the Law Center faculty in 1976. He teaches a variety of courses in the fields of constitutional and criminal law. He is co-author of a constitutional law casebook and the author of many articles concerning criminal justice and constitutional law. His most recent books are Silence and Freedom (Stanford 2007), Our Unsettled Constitution: A New Defense of Constitutionalism and Judicial Review (Yale 2001) and Equal Protection of the Laws (Foundation 2002).
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.
Senior Attorney and Counsel for Special Projects, Competitive Enterprise Institute
CEI’s Counsel for Special Projects is Hans Bader. Coming to CEI in 2003, Hans’s prior casework has included suits involving the First Amendment, federalism, and civil rights issues. He graduated from the University of Virginia with a B.A. in economics and history, and later earned his J.D. from Harvard Law School. Just before joining CEI, Hans was Senior Counsel at the Center for Individual Rights.
Founding Partner, Cooper & Kirk PLLC
Charles J. Cooper is a founding member and the chairman of Cooper & Kirk, PLLC, “one of the Nation’s leading litigation boutiques” (Above The Law 2017). The National Law Journal recently wrote that Mr. Cooper’s “brilliant legal career has so far spanned five decades and thrust Cooper into the spotlight in some of the most historic moments of the country’s modern history.” He has argued nine cases before the United States Supreme Court and scores of appeals before each of the 13 federal courts of appeals and several state supreme courts. He has been lead trial counsel in numerous complex, weeks-long trials in federal courts throughout the country. Named by the National Law Journal as one of the 10 best litigators in Washington D.C., Mr. Cooper’s work has been reported in numerous press accounts, and he has been called a “powerhouse attorney” (Fortune 2015), “a hard-nosed litigator” (Washington Post 2017), and “one of the country’s most in-demand civil litigators and a Washington legal institution unto himself” (The American Spectator 2014).
After graduating from the University of Alabama School of Law in 1977, where he ranked first in his class and served as Editor-in-Chief of the Alabama Law Review, Mr. Cooper began his career as a law clerk to Judge Paul Roney on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and to Justice William H. Rehnquist in 1978–79. He then practiced law in Atlanta for two years before joining the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, where he served as the Deputy Assistant Attorney General in charge of, among other things, appellate matters. In 1985 President Reagan appointed him to the position of Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel, which is the office responsible for providing legal opinions and advice to the White House, the Attorney General, and Executive Branch departments and agencies on issues covering the full spectrum of federal constitutional, statutory, and regulatory law.
In 1988 he returned to private practice as a litigation partner in the Washington, D.C. office of McGuireWoods. From 1990 until the founding of Cooper & Kirk in 1996, he was a partner at Shaw Pittman (now Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman), where he headed the firm’s Constitutional and Government Litigation Group.
Mr. Cooper has represented a wide range of public and private clients in highly complex constitutional, civil rights, antitrust, healthcare, banking, intellectual property, elections, campaign finance, administrative, commercial, and government contract cases. He has led trial teams in cases that have won judgments and settlements valued in the billions of dollars and that have established ground-breaking constitutional precedents.
Much of Mr. Cooper’s practice has involved representing high-profile clients in nationally prominent matters, including: the State of Florida in a First Amendment suit brought by the Disney Company concerning its autonomous regulatory authority over its Disney World property; the Commonwealth of Virginia in a suit seeking to enjoin the removal of noncitizens from its voter rolls; 38 members of the Duke Lacrosse team falsely accused of rape by officials of Duke University and the City of Durham; Harper Lee in a copyright dispute with the heirs of Gregory Peck; high-ranking former government officials such as former Attorneys General John Ashcroft, Jeff Sessions, and William Barr, and Ambassador John Bolton; several Governors and United States Senators; over 100 Members of Congress; and many state, territorial, and local government bodies and officials. He has also represented and advised government officials and public figures in connection with sensitive private issues that needed to be, and were, resolved discreetly without becoming matters of public record.
In 1998 Chief Justice Rehnquist appointed Mr. Cooper to the Standing Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure of the Judicial Conference of the United States, where he served for three terms. He also served as a Public Member, appointed by President George H.W. Bush, of the National Commission on Judicial Discipline and Removal. He is a member of numerous professional associations, including the American Law Institute (since 1993) and the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers (since 1996). He is also an active member of the Federalist Society and the Republican National Lawyers Association, which in 2010 named him Republican Lawyer of the Year and in 2016 honored him with its Edwin Meese III Award.
Mr. Cooper has published scores of articles and spoken extensively on constitutional and legal policy topics. He has appeared before congressional committees on 26 occasions, testifying as an expert on a wide variety of legal issues, including the Chevron doctrine of judicial deference to administrative agencies, the diversity of citizenship jurisdiction of federal courts, statehood bills for Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia, and the impeachment of President Clinton.
Vice President for Strategy, The Competitive Enterprise Institute
Iain Murray is the Competitive Enterprise Institute's Vice President of Strategy. For the past decade with the Institute, he has concentrated on financial regulation, employment and immigration regulation and free market environmentalism.
Mr. Murray has published several acclaimed books, including Stealing You Blind: How Government Fatcats Are Getting Rich Off of You and The Really Inconvenient Truths: Seven Environmental Catastrophes Liberals Won’t Tell You About – Because They Helped Cause Them. His op-eds have appeared in The National Review, The Providence Journal and Fox News. He has appeared on Fox News, CNN Headline News, the BBC and Al-Jazeera, among other broadcast networks.
In addition to his work at CEI, Murray is the visiting fellow at the Adam Smith Institute and board members of the Cherish Freedom Trust and American Friends of the Taxpayers Alliance and advisory board members of Global Britain and Young Britons Foundation.
Prior to coming to CEI in 2003, Murray was the Director of Research for the Statistical Assessment Service and the Executive Officer of HM Department of Transport. He received his MBA from the University of London and his MA from the University of Oxford.
George Mason University Foundation Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
TODD J. ZYWICKI is George Mason University Foundation Professor of Law at Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University and Research Fellow of the George Mason Law and Economics Center. During the Fall 2023 semester he served as the Visiting Scholar in Conservative Thought and Policy for the Bruce Benson Center for the Study of Western Civilization at the University of Colorado-Boulder. From 2020-2021 he was Chair of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Taskforce on Federal Consumer Financial Law. In 2021 he was inducted to the American College of Consumer Financial Services Lawyers. He is also a Senior Fellow of the F.A. Hayek Program for the Advanced Study of Politics, Philosophy, and Economics at George Mason University and a former Senior Fellow of the Cato Institute. From 2015-2017 he was Executive Director of the George Mason Law and Economics Center. He served as Co-Editor of the Supreme Court Economic Review from 2006-2017. From 2003-2004, Professor Zywicki served as the Director of the Office of Policy Planning at the Federal Trade Commission. He has also taught at Vanderbilt University Law School, Georgetown University Law Center, Boston College Law School, Mississippi College School of Law, and China University of Political Science and Law.
Professor Zywicki clerked for Judge Jerry E. Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and worked as an associate at Alston & Bird in Atlanta, Georgia, where he practiced bankruptcy and commercial law. He received his J.D. from the University of Virginia, where he was executive editor of the Virginia Tax Review and John M. Olin Scholar in Law and Economics. Professor Zywicki also received an M.A. in Economics from Clemson University and an A.B. cum Laude with high honors in his major from Dartmouth College.
Professor Zywicki is also a Lone Mountain Fellow of the Property and Environment Research Center, a Fellow of the International Centre for Economic Research in Turin, Italy, and a former Senior Fellow of the Goldwater Institute. During the Fall 2008 Semester Professor Zywicki was the Searle Fellow of the George Mason University School of Law and was a 2008-09 W. Glenn Campbell and Rita Ricardo-Campbell National Fellow and the Arch W. Shaw National Fellow at the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace. He has lectured and consulted with government officials around the world, including Iceland, Italy, Japan, and Guatemala. In 2006 Professor Zywicki served as a Member of the United States Department of Justice Study Group on “Identifying Fraud, Abuse and Errors in the United States Bankruptcy System.”
Professor Zywicki is the author of more than 130 articles in leading law reviews and peer-reviewed economics journals. He is one of the Top 10 most-cited law professors in the field of Commercial Law and one of the Top 25 law professors on Twitter as measured by engagement levels. He is one of the Top 50 Most Downloaded Law Authors at the Social Science Research Network. He has testified multiple times before Congress on issues of consumer bankruptcy law and consumer credit and is a frequent commentator on legal issues in the print and broadcast media, including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, The Washington Post, The Washington Times, Nightline, The Newshour with Jim Lehrer, Neil Cavuto Show, Fox & Friends, Smerconish, Fox News @ Night with Shannon Bream, Fox Business, CNN, CNBC, Bloomberg News, BBC, The Diane Rehm Show, Lou Dobbs Show, Jerry Doyle Show, and The Laura Ingraham Show.
Professor Zywicki is former Chairman and a current member of the Board of Directors of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and is a member of the Board of Directors of the Institute for Humane Studies, Bill of Rights Institute, the Executive Committee for the Federalist Society's Financial Institutions and E-Commerce Practice Group, the Board of Trustees of the Foundation for Research on Economics and the Environment. He formerly served on the Governing Board and the Advisory Council for the Financial Services Research Program at George Washington University School of Business. He is currently the Chair of the Academic Advisory Council for the following organizations: The Bill of Rights Institute, the film “We the People in IMAX,” and the McCormick-Tribune Foundation “Freedom Museum” in Chicago, Illinois. He is a member of the Board of Visitors of Ralston College and was a member of the Board of Trustees of Yorktown University. From 2005-2009 he served as an elected Alumni Trustee of the Dartmouth College Board of Trustees.
Senior Vice President, Public Policy and Government Affairs, DISH Network
Jeffrey H. Blum is the Senior Vice President of Public Policy and Government Affairs for DISH, overseeing state and federal government affairs in Washington, DC.
Before coming to DISH 2005, Jeff was a partner at Davis Wright Tremaine, where his practice focused on copyright, First Amendment and anti-piracy litigation. At Davis Wright Tremaine, Jeff co-represented a class of songwriters and music publishers in the Grokster P2P file sharing case, which was decided by the United States Supreme Court in favor of Jeff's clients. The Grokster decision established a new basis for secondary copyright liability, called "inducement liability." Jeff was a part-time lecturer at the University of Southern California, Annenberg School of Journalism from 2003-2005, where he taught "Media Law". He currently serves as Chairman of the Satellite Broadcasting and Communications Association (SBCA), and was Co-Chairman of the Broadband Internet Technical Advisory Group (BITAG) from 2013-2015. Jeff also serves on the boards of the Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA) and BUILD Metro DC.
Jeff graduated summa cum laude and first in his class at Boston University School of Law, where he was a Note Editor of the Boston University Law Review. He received his undergraduate degree from McGill University, with a B.A. in History and Classics. After law school, he clerked for Chief Judge Joseph Tauro of the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts.
General Counsel and Executive Vice President, Legal and Regulato, National Association of Broadcasters
Rick Kaplan is General Counsel and Executive Vice President, Legal and Regulatory Affairs at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB).
Prior to joining NAB, Mr. Kaplan served in a number of leadership capacities at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). During his three-plus years at the FCC, Mr. Kaplan was the Chief of the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau, Chief Counsel to Chairman Julius Genachowski, and Chief of Staff and Media Advisor to Commissioner Mignon Clyburn. As Bureau Chief, Mr. Kaplan helped create and implement policies that maximized the use of underutilized spectrum and promoted meaningful competition in the wireless industry. For example, Mr. Kaplan helped spearhead the agency’s renewed attempt to free up a sizable chunk of spectrum in the 2.3 GHz WCS band, which had laid fallow for well over a decade, and the FCC’s efforts to convert spectrum in the 2 GHz S-Band from mobile satellite to terrestrial broadband use. Mr. Kaplan also played a leading role at the FCC in reviewing nearly every major transaction brought before the agency during Chairman Genachowski’s tenure. These included Comcast/NBCU, AT&T/T-Mobile, AT&T/Qualcomm, DISH/DBSD & TerreStar, and Verizon Wireless/SpectrumCo & Cox.
As Chief Counsel, Mr. Kaplan managed the Commission’s overall policy agenda, and was responsible for policy coordination among each of the Bureaus and Offices. During that time, Mr. Kaplan worked with Congress on the passage of its groundbreaking incentive auction legislation, negotiated a resolution to the nearly decade-old TV white spaces proceeding, brought to decision rules requiring wireless carriers to offer data roaming on commercially reasonable terms, and helped navigate an evolution in the retransmission consent marketplace, ensuring that the government did not unnecessarily interfere with private market negotiations.
Before joining the Commission, Mr. Kaplan practiced appellate litigation and regulatory law at Sidley Austin LLP, and served in the Office of the General Counsel at the U.S. House of Representatives. At the U.S. House, Mr. Kaplan helped orchestrate the Judiciary Committee’s successful and historic litigation in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to obtain documents and testimony from White House officials in the face of claims of executive privilege. Mr. Kaplan began his legal career as a law clerk for Judge Harry T. Edwards of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Prior to his legal career, Mr. Kaplan founded and operated a sports management and public relations agency that represented and served professional athletes and sports-related organizations. Kaplan earned his Juris Doctor from Columbia Law School, where he served as Editor-in-Chief of the Columbia Law Review, and undergraduate degree from Wesleyan University.
Vice President, Regulatory Affairs, Cox Enterprises
Mr. Barry J. Ohlson serves as Vice President of Regulatory Affairs at Cox Enterprises, Inc. Mr. Ohlson serves as a Partner at Wilkinson Barker Knauer & Quinn. Mr. Ohlson served as Vice President of Policy for Cox Enterprises, Inc. since January 1, 2012. Mr. Ohlson served as the Chief Policy Counsel of Cox Enterprises, Inc. since November 15, 2010 to January 1, 2012. Mr. Ohlson's practice focuses on the wireless, telecommunications, and broadband sectors, with an emphasis on assessing the strategic and regulatory implications of advanced technologies and new telecommunications services. He has nearly 20 years of government, corporate, and legal experience to this role, and he has been intimately involved in the complex regulatory and legal issues that impact businesses and stakeholders. For the majority of his six-year tenure at the Federal Communications Commission, he was Senior Legal Advisor to Commissioner Jonathan S. Adelstein, providing counsel on all administrative and policy matters, particularly those involving spectrum, satellite, technology, public safety and international issues. Mr. Ohlson previously served as Chief of the Policy Division of the FCC's Wireless Telecommunications Bureau, as a Legal Advisor to the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau Chief, and as Acting Chief of the Bureau's Public Safety and Private Wireless Division. Before his government service, Mr. Ohlson was the senior director of federal regulatory affairs at Winstar Communications, and he practiced law at McDermott, Will & Emery and Keller and Heckman in Washington, D.C. He is a member of the Federal Communications Bar Association, and currently serves as a co-chair of the Professional Responsibility Committee. Mr. Ohlson earned a J.D. from the George Washington University Law School and an A.B. degree in international economic relations and mathematics from The College of William & Mary.
Partner, HWG LLP
Patricia Paoletta is a partner with the law firm of HWG LLP, where she specializes in telecommunications, trade and technology policy. Ms. Paoletta provides advice on regulatory, trade and legislative policy to clients before the FCC, Congress and the Administration. Her clients include providers of content, cloud, mobile broadband, VoIP, international telecommunications, small cells, cognitive radio, public safety and homeland security solutions. She serves on Advisory Boards for several entities engaged in information services, communications and technology.
Ms. Paoletta has accrued considerable experience with telecommunications trade and policy in the public sector. From 1990 to 1995, she was senior advisor to the International Bureau Chief and Office Director at the Federal Communications Commission. In the mid 1990s, Ms. Paoletta served as Director of Telecommunications Trade Policy in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, Executive Office of the President, where she worked on the WTO Information Technology Agreement (ITA) and the Basic Telecommunications Agreement. After USTR, Ms. Paoletta served as Majority Counsel to the House Energy and Commerce Committee. She then moved to Level 3 Communications, as Vice President, Government Relations.
Ms. Paoletta is on the Steering Committee of the Transatlantic Roundtable on Telecommunications and Information Technology of the European Institute. She is a member of the USTR Alumni Association, Washington International Trade Association, the Federal Communications Bar Association (FCBA), and Women in Technology. Ms. Paoletta has served on the Board of Advisors for the Inter-American Dialogue's Latin America Telecom Advisor, Co-Chairman of the American Bar Association International Communications Committee, and as a member of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Technology Policy Committee.
Ms. Paoletta served as a delegate in 2012 to the ITU-R's Study Group 6 Working Party 6A Meeting and in 2009 and 2010 to the ITU-R's Study Group I Working Party IB Meetings; the 2009 meetings of CITEL (the Committee on International Telecommunications at the Organization of American States) PCC-II; the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) World Telecommunications Standards Assembly (2000); the ITU Internet Protocol Telephony Experts Group and the ITU World Telecommunications Policy Forum in 2001; as Chairman of the National Reliability and Interoperability Council (NRIC) Steering Committee (2000-2001); as Board Member for the Voice on the Net Coalition (2001); as Co-Chairman of the FCBA's Annual Seminar Committee (2009-2011); as a member of the FCBA's Ad Hoc Speakers Committee (2006-2007); as Co-Chairman for the FCBA International Practice Committee (2001-2002 and 2005-2006); and as a Co-Chairman of the FCBA Legislative Practice Committee (1999-2000).
Research Fellow and Regulatory Counsel, Competitive Enterprise Institute
As Research Fellow and Regulatory Counsel, Ryan Radia focuses on adapting law and public policy to the unique challenges of the information age. His research areas at the Competitive Enterprise Institute include intellectual property, information privacy, telecommunications, cybersecurity, competition policy, media regulation, and Internet freedom.
Radia has published articles in major news outlets including The Seattle Times, Forbes, San Jose Mercury News, The Star-Ledger, Ad Age, Investor’s Business Daily, and Ars Technica. He has been quoted in publications including the Los Angeles Times, The New Republic, TIME, Fortune, Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle, The Boston Globe, POLITICO, The Baltimore Sun, and Bloomberg. He has appeared on dozens of television and radio programs, including “Marketplace” on National Public Radio, “Cavuto” on Fox Business Network, and the “Laura Ingraham Show” on Talk Radio Network.
Radia also blogs on the Technology Liberation Front, a group technology policy blog dedicated to advancing freedom and liberty in the digital age. His commentary has been referenced by blogs including The Atlantic’s Daily Dish, The Washington Post’s Faster Forward, and Techdirt. His research has been cited scholarly journals such as the Brooklyn Law Review, the University of Pennsylvania Journal of Business Law, and the Iowa Law Review Bulletin.
Radia earned his J.D. from The George Washington University Law School, where he served as Senior Articles Editor of the Federal Communications Law Journal. He also holds a B.A. in economics from Northwestern University. Before joining CEI in 2007, he worked in the alternative risk financing sector.
He is admitted to the District of Columbia Bar.
Former Comptroller of Public Accounts, State of Texas
The Hon. Susan Combs served as the Comptroller of Public Accounts for the State of Texas from 2007 to 2015.
Associate Professor, University of Denver Sturm College of Law
Professor Justin Pidot graduated with high honors from Wesleyan University before attending Stanford Law School, where he graduated with distinction and was editor in chief of the Stanford Environmental Law Journal. Professor Pidot clerked for Judge Judith W. Rogers of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Prior to joining the University of Denver faculty, he was an appellate litigator at the Environment and Natural Resources Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, where he presented argument in more than a dozen federal appellate cases and acted as the staff attorney on two cases before the United States Supreme Court. Professor Pidot also completed a fellowship at the Georgetown Environmental Law & Policy Institute.
Professor Pidot’s scholarship and teaching focus on environmental law, natural resources law, and federal courts.
Senior Fellow, Competitive Enterprise Institute
William Yeatman is CEI's senior fellow specializing in environmental policy and energy markets.
His commentary has been widely featured in newspapers from coast to coast and also on nationwide television and radio.Yeatman has twice testified before congress and numerous times before state legislatures.
Prior to joining CEI, he was a Peace Corps volunteer in the Kyrgyz Republic, where he taught entrepreneurship and small business management to rural women. Before that, he ran a homeless shelter in Denver, Colorado.
He holds a Masters in International Administration from the Denver University Graduate School of International Studies and a Bachelor's in Environmental Sciences from the University of Virginia
Senior Attorney and Counsel for Special Projects, Competitive Enterprise Institute
CEI’s Counsel for Special Projects is Hans Bader. Coming to CEI in 2003, Hans’s prior casework has included suits involving the First Amendment, federalism, and civil rights issues. He graduated from the University of Virginia with a B.A. in economics and history, and later earned his J.D. from Harvard Law School. Just before joining CEI, Hans was Senior Counsel at the Center for Individual Rights.
Vice President for Legal Affairs, Cato Institute
Roger Pilon is the Cato’s Institute’s vice president for legal affairs, the founding director of Cato’s Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies, the inaugural holder of Cato’s B. Kenneth Simon Chair in Constitutional Studies, and the founding publisher of the Cato Supreme Court Review.
Prior to joining Cato, Pilon held five senior posts in the Reagan administration, including at State and Justice, and was a national fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution. In 1989 the Bicentennial Commission presented him with its Benjamin Franklin Award for excellence in writing on the U.S. Constitution. In 2001 Columbia University’s School of General Studies awarded him its Alumni Medal of Distinction. Pilon lectures and debates at universities and law schools across the country and testifies often before Congress.
His writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Legal Times, National Law Journal, Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, Stanford Law and Policy Review, and elsewhere. He has appeared on ABC’s Nightline, CBS’s 60 Minutes II, Fox News Channel, NPR, CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, C-SPAN, and other media.
Pilon holds a BA from Columbia University, an MA and a PhD from the University of Chicago, and a JD from the George Washington University School of Law.
Carmack Waterhouse Professor of Constitutional Law, Georgetown Law
After graduating from Harvard Law School in 1971, Professor Seidman served as a law clerk for J. Skelly Wright of the D.C. Circuit and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. He then was a staff attorney with the D.C. Public Defender Service until joining the Law Center faculty in 1976. He teaches a variety of courses in the fields of constitutional and criminal law. He is co-author of a constitutional law casebook and the author of many articles concerning criminal justice and constitutional law. His most recent books are Silence and Freedom (Stanford 2007), Our Unsettled Constitution: A New Defense of Constitutionalism and Judicial Review (Yale 2001) and Equal Protection of the Laws (Foundation 2002).
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.
Founding Partner, Cooper & Kirk PLLC
Charles J. Cooper is a founding member and the chairman of Cooper & Kirk, PLLC, “one of the Nation’s leading litigation boutiques” (Above The Law 2017). The National Law Journal recently wrote that Mr. Cooper’s “brilliant legal career has so far spanned five decades and thrust Cooper into the spotlight in some of the most historic moments of the country’s modern history.” He has argued nine cases before the United States Supreme Court and scores of appeals before each of the 13 federal courts of appeals and several state supreme courts. He has been lead trial counsel in numerous complex, weeks-long trials in federal courts throughout the country. Named by the National Law Journal as one of the 10 best litigators in Washington D.C., Mr. Cooper’s work has been reported in numerous press accounts, and he has been called a “powerhouse attorney” (Fortune 2015), “a hard-nosed litigator” (Washington Post 2017), and “one of the country’s most in-demand civil litigators and a Washington legal institution unto himself” (The American Spectator 2014).
After graduating from the University of Alabama School of Law in 1977, where he ranked first in his class and served as Editor-in-Chief of the Alabama Law Review, Mr. Cooper began his career as a law clerk to Judge Paul Roney on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and to Justice William H. Rehnquist in 1978–79. He then practiced law in Atlanta for two years before joining the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, where he served as the Deputy Assistant Attorney General in charge of, among other things, appellate matters. In 1985 President Reagan appointed him to the position of Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel, which is the office responsible for providing legal opinions and advice to the White House, the Attorney General, and Executive Branch departments and agencies on issues covering the full spectrum of federal constitutional, statutory, and regulatory law.
In 1988 he returned to private practice as a litigation partner in the Washington, D.C. office of McGuireWoods. From 1990 until the founding of Cooper & Kirk in 1996, he was a partner at Shaw Pittman (now Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman), where he headed the firm’s Constitutional and Government Litigation Group.
Mr. Cooper has represented a wide range of public and private clients in highly complex constitutional, civil rights, antitrust, healthcare, banking, intellectual property, elections, campaign finance, administrative, commercial, and government contract cases. He has led trial teams in cases that have won judgments and settlements valued in the billions of dollars and that have established ground-breaking constitutional precedents.
Much of Mr. Cooper’s practice has involved representing high-profile clients in nationally prominent matters, including: the State of Florida in a First Amendment suit brought by the Disney Company concerning its autonomous regulatory authority over its Disney World property; the Commonwealth of Virginia in a suit seeking to enjoin the removal of noncitizens from its voter rolls; 38 members of the Duke Lacrosse team falsely accused of rape by officials of Duke University and the City of Durham; Harper Lee in a copyright dispute with the heirs of Gregory Peck; high-ranking former government officials such as former Attorneys General John Ashcroft, Jeff Sessions, and William Barr, and Ambassador John Bolton; several Governors and United States Senators; over 100 Members of Congress; and many state, territorial, and local government bodies and officials. He has also represented and advised government officials and public figures in connection with sensitive private issues that needed to be, and were, resolved discreetly without becoming matters of public record.
In 1998 Chief Justice Rehnquist appointed Mr. Cooper to the Standing Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure of the Judicial Conference of the United States, where he served for three terms. He also served as a Public Member, appointed by President George H.W. Bush, of the National Commission on Judicial Discipline and Removal. He is a member of numerous professional associations, including the American Law Institute (since 1993) and the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers (since 1996). He is also an active member of the Federalist Society and the Republican National Lawyers Association, which in 2010 named him Republican Lawyer of the Year and in 2016 honored him with its Edwin Meese III Award.
Mr. Cooper has published scores of articles and spoken extensively on constitutional and legal policy topics. He has appeared before congressional committees on 26 occasions, testifying as an expert on a wide variety of legal issues, including the Chevron doctrine of judicial deference to administrative agencies, the diversity of citizenship jurisdiction of federal courts, statehood bills for Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia, and the impeachment of President Clinton.
Vice President for Strategy, The Competitive Enterprise Institute
Iain Murray is the Competitive Enterprise Institute's Vice President of Strategy. For the past decade with the Institute, he has concentrated on financial regulation, employment and immigration regulation and free market environmentalism.
Mr. Murray has published several acclaimed books, including Stealing You Blind: How Government Fatcats Are Getting Rich Off of You and The Really Inconvenient Truths: Seven Environmental Catastrophes Liberals Won’t Tell You About – Because They Helped Cause Them. His op-eds have appeared in The National Review, The Providence Journal and Fox News. He has appeared on Fox News, CNN Headline News, the BBC and Al-Jazeera, among other broadcast networks.
In addition to his work at CEI, Murray is the visiting fellow at the Adam Smith Institute and board members of the Cherish Freedom Trust and American Friends of the Taxpayers Alliance and advisory board members of Global Britain and Young Britons Foundation.
Prior to coming to CEI in 2003, Murray was the Director of Research for the Statistical Assessment Service and the Executive Officer of HM Department of Transport. He received his MBA from the University of London and his MA from the University of Oxford.
George Mason University Foundation Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
TODD J. ZYWICKI is George Mason University Foundation Professor of Law at Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University and Research Fellow of the George Mason Law and Economics Center. During the Fall 2023 semester he served as the Visiting Scholar in Conservative Thought and Policy for the Bruce Benson Center for the Study of Western Civilization at the University of Colorado-Boulder. From 2020-2021 he was Chair of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Taskforce on Federal Consumer Financial Law. In 2021 he was inducted to the American College of Consumer Financial Services Lawyers. He is also a Senior Fellow of the F.A. Hayek Program for the Advanced Study of Politics, Philosophy, and Economics at George Mason University and a former Senior Fellow of the Cato Institute. From 2015-2017 he was Executive Director of the George Mason Law and Economics Center. He served as Co-Editor of the Supreme Court Economic Review from 2006-2017. From 2003-2004, Professor Zywicki served as the Director of the Office of Policy Planning at the Federal Trade Commission. He has also taught at Vanderbilt University Law School, Georgetown University Law Center, Boston College Law School, Mississippi College School of Law, and China University of Political Science and Law.
Professor Zywicki clerked for Judge Jerry E. Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and worked as an associate at Alston & Bird in Atlanta, Georgia, where he practiced bankruptcy and commercial law. He received his J.D. from the University of Virginia, where he was executive editor of the Virginia Tax Review and John M. Olin Scholar in Law and Economics. Professor Zywicki also received an M.A. in Economics from Clemson University and an A.B. cum Laude with high honors in his major from Dartmouth College.
Professor Zywicki is also a Lone Mountain Fellow of the Property and Environment Research Center, a Fellow of the International Centre for Economic Research in Turin, Italy, and a former Senior Fellow of the Goldwater Institute. During the Fall 2008 Semester Professor Zywicki was the Searle Fellow of the George Mason University School of Law and was a 2008-09 W. Glenn Campbell and Rita Ricardo-Campbell National Fellow and the Arch W. Shaw National Fellow at the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace. He has lectured and consulted with government officials around the world, including Iceland, Italy, Japan, and Guatemala. In 2006 Professor Zywicki served as a Member of the United States Department of Justice Study Group on “Identifying Fraud, Abuse and Errors in the United States Bankruptcy System.”
Professor Zywicki is the author of more than 130 articles in leading law reviews and peer-reviewed economics journals. He is one of the Top 10 most-cited law professors in the field of Commercial Law and one of the Top 25 law professors on Twitter as measured by engagement levels. He is one of the Top 50 Most Downloaded Law Authors at the Social Science Research Network. He has testified multiple times before Congress on issues of consumer bankruptcy law and consumer credit and is a frequent commentator on legal issues in the print and broadcast media, including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, The Washington Post, The Washington Times, Nightline, The Newshour with Jim Lehrer, Neil Cavuto Show, Fox & Friends, Smerconish, Fox News @ Night with Shannon Bream, Fox Business, CNN, CNBC, Bloomberg News, BBC, The Diane Rehm Show, Lou Dobbs Show, Jerry Doyle Show, and The Laura Ingraham Show.
Professor Zywicki is former Chairman and a current member of the Board of Directors of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and is a member of the Board of Directors of the Institute for Humane Studies, Bill of Rights Institute, the Executive Committee for the Federalist Society's Financial Institutions and E-Commerce Practice Group, the Board of Trustees of the Foundation for Research on Economics and the Environment. He formerly served on the Governing Board and the Advisory Council for the Financial Services Research Program at George Washington University School of Business. He is currently the Chair of the Academic Advisory Council for the following organizations: The Bill of Rights Institute, the film “We the People in IMAX,” and the McCormick-Tribune Foundation “Freedom Museum” in Chicago, Illinois. He is a member of the Board of Visitors of Ralston College and was a member of the Board of Trustees of Yorktown University. From 2005-2009 he served as an elected Alumni Trustee of the Dartmouth College Board of Trustees.
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