Tazewell Taylor Professor of Law and William H. Cabell Research Professor, William & Mary Law School
Jonathan H. Adler joined the William & Mary law faculty as the Tazwell Taylor Professor of Law and William H. Cabell Research Professor in 2025. Prior to joining the faculty, he was the inaugural Johan Verheij Memorial Professor of Law and the founding Director of the Coleman P. Burke Center for Environmental Law at the Case Western Reserve University School of Law.
Professor Adler is the author or editor of seven books, including Climate Liberalism: Perspectives on Liberty, Property and Pollution (Palgrave, 2023), Marijuana Federalism: Uncle Sam and Mary Jane (Brookings Institution Press, 2020), Business and the Roberts Court (Oxford University Press, 2016) and Rebuilding the Ark: New Perspectives on Endangered Species Act Reform (AEI Press, 2011).
His articles have appeared in publications ranging from the Harvard Environmental Law Review and Yale Journal on Regulation to the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and Washington Post. He has testified before Congress a dozen times, and his work has been cited in the U.S. Supreme Court. A 2024 study identified Professor Adler as the seventh most cited legal academic in administrative and environmental law from 2019 to 2023.
Professor Adler is a contributing editor to Civitas Outlook and a regular contributor to the popular legal blog, The Volokh Conspiracy. A regular commentator on constitutional and regulatory issues, he has appeared on numerous radio and television programs, ranging from the PBS Newshour and National Public Radio to the Fox News Channel and Entertainment Tonight.
Professor Adler is a senior fellow at the Property & Environment Research Center in Bozeman, Montana. In 2018, Professor Adler was elected to membership in the American Law Institute and helped co-found the organization Checks and Balances. In 2024, Professor Adler was appointed a public member of the Administrative Conference of the United States.
Professor Adler clerked for the Honorable David B. Sentelle on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
Associate Professor of Law, St. Thomas University College of Law
Dan Epstein is Vice President at America First Legal and an Associate Professor of Law at St. Thomas University in Miami, Florida. He also advises individuals and small businesses in affirmative and defensive actions against government overreach. Previously, he advised startups on regulatory matters as Director at a venture capital firm. His federal service includes being a Special Assistant to and Senior Associate Counsel to the President and a counsel for the House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Earlier in his career, Mr. Epstein founded and ran Cause of Action, where he represented clients in government investigations and litigated regulatory, constitutional, political, and public law matters.
He holds a Ph.D. from George Washington University in Political Economy, a J.D. from Emory University School of Law, and a B.A. from Kenyon College. He is active in the Palm Beach community as a member of the Fourth Court of Appeals Judicial Nominating Commission in Florida, a transition team member to Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, and the Chairman and Trustee of Palm Beach State College.
Ralph V. Whitworth Professor in Law, Georgetown University Law Center
Professor Nourse is one of the nation’s leading scholars of Congress, the separation of powers, and statutory interpretation. In addition to her scholarship, she has practiced as an attorney in the White House, the Department of Justice, the Senate, and in private practice. The story of her pioneering work on gender equality is told in Equal: Women Reshape American Law.
Her most recent book is “The Impeachments of Donald Trump: An Introduction to Constitutional Argument” (West 2021). In 2016, Harvard Press published her Misreading Law, Misreading Democracy, on the limits of textualism. She is one of the most-cited scholars on interpretation in the country and has recently co-authored Yale’s revised leading casebook, Statutes, Regulation & Interpretation (West 2024).
Professor Nourse has published widely on the power of the President and the separation of powers, Reclaiming the Constitutional Text from Originalism: The Case of Executive Power, 106 Calif. L. Rev. 1 (2018), and constitutional rights, In Reckless Hands (Norton 2008), the story of Skinner v. Oklahoma and American eugenics.
President Biden appointed Professor Nourse to serve as Vice-Chair of the United States Commission on Civil Rights in 2023, with her term expiring in 2029.
Professor Nourse previously served as Chief Counsel to then Vice President Biden under the Obama Administration. Prior to that role, she practiced as an appellate litigator in the Department of Justice and as Special Counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Professor Nourse has held chairs at Emory University and the University of Wisconsin. She has been a visiting professor at Yale, NYU, University of Maryland, and Northwestern.
She began her legal career in New York, clerking for legendary trial judge of the Southern District of New York, Edward Weinfeld, and practicing at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind Wharton & Garrison. She left private practice to serve as junior counsel to the Senate-Iran Contra Committee. After serving on the appellate staff of the Civil Division, she was hired as a legal expert for then Senator Joseph Biden.
Professor Nourse is the co-Founder of the Supreme Court Interpretation Lab, which uses big data to analyze trends in Supreme Court analyses. She formerly served as Executive Director of the Georgetown Law Center on Congressional Studies.
Vice President, Practice Groups, The Federalist Society
Deputy Director, Regulatory Studies Center, George Washington University
Will Yeatman is deputy director of the GW Regulatory Studies Center. A lawyer, he has spent almost two decades working on federal regulatory policy, with an emphasis on administrative law.
Yeatman has testified many times before Congress and state legislatures, and his scholarly work has appeared in such academic journals as Georgetown Law Journal, Administrative Law Review, and the (forthcoming) Catholic University Law Review. His popular writing has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Foreign Policy, and Bloomberg.
Yeatman came to the RSC from the Pacific Legal Foundation. Previously, he had been at the Cato Institute’s Center for Constitutional Studies and the Competitive Enterprise Institute. From 2004 to 2006, he served as a Peace Corps volunteer in the Kyrgyz Republic.
Yeatman holds a BA in environmental sciences from the University of Virginia, an MA in international studies from the Denver University Graduate School of International Studies, and a JD from the Georgetown University Law Center. He is a member of the Washington, DC Bar.
Tazewell Taylor Professor of Law and William H. Cabell Research Professor, William & Mary Law School
Jonathan H. Adler joined the William & Mary law faculty as the Tazwell Taylor Professor of Law and William H. Cabell Research Professor in 2025. Prior to joining the faculty, he was the inaugural Johan Verheij Memorial Professor of Law and the founding Director of the Coleman P. Burke Center for Environmental Law at the Case Western Reserve University School of Law.
Professor Adler is the author or editor of seven books, including Climate Liberalism: Perspectives on Liberty, Property and Pollution (Palgrave, 2023), Marijuana Federalism: Uncle Sam and Mary Jane (Brookings Institution Press, 2020), Business and the Roberts Court (Oxford University Press, 2016) and Rebuilding the Ark: New Perspectives on Endangered Species Act Reform (AEI Press, 2011).
His articles have appeared in publications ranging from the Harvard Environmental Law Review and Yale Journal on Regulation to the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and Washington Post. He has testified before Congress a dozen times, and his work has been cited in the U.S. Supreme Court. A 2024 study identified Professor Adler as the seventh most cited legal academic in administrative and environmental law from 2019 to 2023.
Professor Adler is a contributing editor to Civitas Outlook and a regular contributor to the popular legal blog, The Volokh Conspiracy. A regular commentator on constitutional and regulatory issues, he has appeared on numerous radio and television programs, ranging from the PBS Newshour and National Public Radio to the Fox News Channel and Entertainment Tonight.
Professor Adler is a senior fellow at the Property & Environment Research Center in Bozeman, Montana. In 2018, Professor Adler was elected to membership in the American Law Institute and helped co-found the organization Checks and Balances. In 2024, Professor Adler was appointed a public member of the Administrative Conference of the United States.
Professor Adler clerked for the Honorable David B. Sentelle on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
Associate Professor of Law, St. Thomas University College of Law
Dan Epstein is Vice President at America First Legal and an Associate Professor of Law at St. Thomas University in Miami, Florida. He also advises individuals and small businesses in affirmative and defensive actions against government overreach. Previously, he advised startups on regulatory matters as Director at a venture capital firm. His federal service includes being a Special Assistant to and Senior Associate Counsel to the President and a counsel for the House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Earlier in his career, Mr. Epstein founded and ran Cause of Action, where he represented clients in government investigations and litigated regulatory, constitutional, political, and public law matters.
He holds a Ph.D. from George Washington University in Political Economy, a J.D. from Emory University School of Law, and a B.A. from Kenyon College. He is active in the Palm Beach community as a member of the Fourth Court of Appeals Judicial Nominating Commission in Florida, a transition team member to Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, and the Chairman and Trustee of Palm Beach State College.
Ralph V. Whitworth Professor in Law, Georgetown University Law Center
Professor Nourse is one of the nation’s leading scholars of Congress, the separation of powers, and statutory interpretation. In addition to her scholarship, she has practiced as an attorney in the White House, the Department of Justice, the Senate, and in private practice. The story of her pioneering work on gender equality is told in Equal: Women Reshape American Law.
Her most recent book is “The Impeachments of Donald Trump: An Introduction to Constitutional Argument” (West 2021). In 2016, Harvard Press published her Misreading Law, Misreading Democracy, on the limits of textualism. She is one of the most-cited scholars on interpretation in the country and has recently co-authored Yale’s revised leading casebook, Statutes, Regulation & Interpretation (West 2024).
Professor Nourse has published widely on the power of the President and the separation of powers, Reclaiming the Constitutional Text from Originalism: The Case of Executive Power, 106 Calif. L. Rev. 1 (2018), and constitutional rights, In Reckless Hands (Norton 2008), the story of Skinner v. Oklahoma and American eugenics.
President Biden appointed Professor Nourse to serve as Vice-Chair of the United States Commission on Civil Rights in 2023, with her term expiring in 2029.
Professor Nourse previously served as Chief Counsel to then Vice President Biden under the Obama Administration. Prior to that role, she practiced as an appellate litigator in the Department of Justice and as Special Counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Professor Nourse has held chairs at Emory University and the University of Wisconsin. She has been a visiting professor at Yale, NYU, University of Maryland, and Northwestern.
She began her legal career in New York, clerking for legendary trial judge of the Southern District of New York, Edward Weinfeld, and practicing at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind Wharton & Garrison. She left private practice to serve as junior counsel to the Senate-Iran Contra Committee. After serving on the appellate staff of the Civil Division, she was hired as a legal expert for then Senator Joseph Biden.
Professor Nourse is the co-Founder of the Supreme Court Interpretation Lab, which uses big data to analyze trends in Supreme Court analyses. She formerly served as Executive Director of the Georgetown Law Center on Congressional Studies.
Vice President, Practice Groups, The Federalist Society
Deputy Director, Regulatory Studies Center, George Washington University
Will Yeatman is deputy director of the GW Regulatory Studies Center. A lawyer, he has spent almost two decades working on federal regulatory policy, with an emphasis on administrative law.
Yeatman has testified many times before Congress and state legislatures, and his scholarly work has appeared in such academic journals as Georgetown Law Journal, Administrative Law Review, and the (forthcoming) Catholic University Law Review. His popular writing has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Foreign Policy, and Bloomberg.
Yeatman came to the RSC from the Pacific Legal Foundation. Previously, he had been at the Cato Institute’s Center for Constitutional Studies and the Competitive Enterprise Institute. From 2004 to 2006, he served as a Peace Corps volunteer in the Kyrgyz Republic.
Yeatman holds a BA in environmental sciences from the University of Virginia, an MA in international studies from the Denver University Graduate School of International Studies, and a JD from the Georgetown University Law Center. He is a member of the Washington, DC Bar.
Partner, King & Spalding
John Richter is a trial and investigations partner in the Special Matters and Investigations Practice Group, and represents and defends companies, Boards of Directors, Board committees, and individuals facing a variety of white-collar criminal and regulatory enforcement matters, parallel civil litigation, and internal corporate investigations. John previously served as the Acting Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Criminal Division at the U.S. Department of Justice and as the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Oklahoma, having been nominated by President George W. Bush and confirmed by unanimous consent of the U.S. Senate.
Partner, Husch Blackwell LLP
With three decades of experience as a prosecutor, Gregg counsels businesses and individuals in connection with a range of criminal, civil and regulatory matters, including government investigations, internal investigations, litigation, export control, sanctions, trade secrets and regulatory compliance.
Gregg’s extensive background in criminal and national security law, combined with his understanding of government practices and operations, allow him to pinpoint the risks and opportunities that arise in investigatory settings, to put together efficient and effective teams of legal professionals, and to mount a vigorous defense when necessary. Gregg has a strong track record as an accomplished trial lawyer, particularly in complex, high-profile jury trials.
Prior to entering private practice, Gregg served as the United States Attorney for the Western District of Texas—one of the largest and busiest United States Attorney’s Offices in the country—where he supervised more than 300 employees handling a diverse caseload, including matters involving complex white-collar crime, contract fraud, national security, cyber crimes, public corruption, money laundering, export violations, trade secrets, tax, large-scale drug and human trafficking, immigration, child exploitation and violent crime. Gregg has also served as Counselor to the Attorney General of the United States, where he handled both criminal and national security matters, as well as crisis response. He was an Assistant United States Attorney in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Texas for 14 years, where he developed a reputation as an aggressive litigator and indefatigable investigator while building an impressive record handling national security, fraud, violent crime and corruption cases. Before that, he served in various roles in both the Criminal and National Security Divisions of the Department of Justice in Washington, DC. Gregg was a state prosecutor as well, handling murder, gang and other complex cases in New York County for nearly 11 years.
Throughout his career, Gregg has worked closely with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Internal Revenue Service, Department of Commerce and other federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies. He led task forces in the Department of Justice and spearheaded the Department’s effort to improve its electronic litigation capabilities, focusing heavily on discovery. Gregg understands criminal law, national security law, the justice system, government investigations and the discovery process inside and out. His extensive and varied background means that he can provide clients with realistic and accurate expectations of how a government investigation or prosecution will proceed and where challenges may arise.
Partner, King & Spalding
John Richter is a trial and investigations partner in the Special Matters and Investigations Practice Group, and represents and defends companies, Boards of Directors, Board committees, and individuals facing a variety of white-collar criminal and regulatory enforcement matters, parallel civil litigation, and internal corporate investigations. John previously served as the Acting Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Criminal Division at the U.S. Department of Justice and as the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Oklahoma, having been nominated by President George W. Bush and confirmed by unanimous consent of the U.S. Senate.
Partner, Husch Blackwell LLP
With three decades of experience as a prosecutor, Gregg counsels businesses and individuals in connection with a range of criminal, civil and regulatory matters, including government investigations, internal investigations, litigation, export control, sanctions, trade secrets and regulatory compliance.
Gregg’s extensive background in criminal and national security law, combined with his understanding of government practices and operations, allow him to pinpoint the risks and opportunities that arise in investigatory settings, to put together efficient and effective teams of legal professionals, and to mount a vigorous defense when necessary. Gregg has a strong track record as an accomplished trial lawyer, particularly in complex, high-profile jury trials.
Prior to entering private practice, Gregg served as the United States Attorney for the Western District of Texas—one of the largest and busiest United States Attorney’s Offices in the country—where he supervised more than 300 employees handling a diverse caseload, including matters involving complex white-collar crime, contract fraud, national security, cyber crimes, public corruption, money laundering, export violations, trade secrets, tax, large-scale drug and human trafficking, immigration, child exploitation and violent crime. Gregg has also served as Counselor to the Attorney General of the United States, where he handled both criminal and national security matters, as well as crisis response. He was an Assistant United States Attorney in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Texas for 14 years, where he developed a reputation as an aggressive litigator and indefatigable investigator while building an impressive record handling national security, fraud, violent crime and corruption cases. Before that, he served in various roles in both the Criminal and National Security Divisions of the Department of Justice in Washington, DC. Gregg was a state prosecutor as well, handling murder, gang and other complex cases in New York County for nearly 11 years.
Throughout his career, Gregg has worked closely with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Internal Revenue Service, Department of Commerce and other federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies. He led task forces in the Department of Justice and spearheaded the Department’s effort to improve its electronic litigation capabilities, focusing heavily on discovery. Gregg understands criminal law, national security law, the justice system, government investigations and the discovery process inside and out. His extensive and varied background means that he can provide clients with realistic and accurate expectations of how a government investigation or prosecution will proceed and where challenges may arise.
Tazewell Taylor Professor of Law and William H. Cabell Research Professor, William & Mary Law School
Jonathan H. Adler joined the William & Mary law faculty as the Tazwell Taylor Professor of Law and William H. Cabell Research Professor in 2025. Prior to joining the faculty, he was the inaugural Johan Verheij Memorial Professor of Law and the founding Director of the Coleman P. Burke Center for Environmental Law at the Case Western Reserve University School of Law.
Professor Adler is the author or editor of seven books, including Climate Liberalism: Perspectives on Liberty, Property and Pollution (Palgrave, 2023), Marijuana Federalism: Uncle Sam and Mary Jane (Brookings Institution Press, 2020), Business and the Roberts Court (Oxford University Press, 2016) and Rebuilding the Ark: New Perspectives on Endangered Species Act Reform (AEI Press, 2011).
His articles have appeared in publications ranging from the Harvard Environmental Law Review and Yale Journal on Regulation to the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and Washington Post. He has testified before Congress a dozen times, and his work has been cited in the U.S. Supreme Court. A 2024 study identified Professor Adler as the seventh most cited legal academic in administrative and environmental law from 2019 to 2023.
Professor Adler is a contributing editor to Civitas Outlook and a regular contributor to the popular legal blog, The Volokh Conspiracy. A regular commentator on constitutional and regulatory issues, he has appeared on numerous radio and television programs, ranging from the PBS Newshour and National Public Radio to the Fox News Channel and Entertainment Tonight.
Professor Adler is a senior fellow at the Property & Environment Research Center in Bozeman, Montana. In 2018, Professor Adler was elected to membership in the American Law Institute and helped co-found the organization Checks and Balances. In 2024, Professor Adler was appointed a public member of the Administrative Conference of the United States.
Professor Adler clerked for the Honorable David B. Sentelle on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
Associate Professor of Law, St. Thomas University College of Law
Dan Epstein is Vice President at America First Legal and an Associate Professor of Law at St. Thomas University in Miami, Florida. He also advises individuals and small businesses in affirmative and defensive actions against government overreach. Previously, he advised startups on regulatory matters as Director at a venture capital firm. His federal service includes being a Special Assistant to and Senior Associate Counsel to the President and a counsel for the House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Earlier in his career, Mr. Epstein founded and ran Cause of Action, where he represented clients in government investigations and litigated regulatory, constitutional, political, and public law matters.
He holds a Ph.D. from George Washington University in Political Economy, a J.D. from Emory University School of Law, and a B.A. from Kenyon College. He is active in the Palm Beach community as a member of the Fourth Court of Appeals Judicial Nominating Commission in Florida, a transition team member to Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, and the Chairman and Trustee of Palm Beach State College.
Ralph V. Whitworth Professor in Law, Georgetown University Law Center
Professor Nourse is one of the nation’s leading scholars of Congress, the separation of powers, and statutory interpretation. In addition to her scholarship, she has practiced as an attorney in the White House, the Department of Justice, the Senate, and in private practice. The story of her pioneering work on gender equality is told in Equal: Women Reshape American Law.
Her most recent book is “The Impeachments of Donald Trump: An Introduction to Constitutional Argument” (West 2021). In 2016, Harvard Press published her Misreading Law, Misreading Democracy, on the limits of textualism. She is one of the most-cited scholars on interpretation in the country and has recently co-authored Yale’s revised leading casebook, Statutes, Regulation & Interpretation (West 2024).
Professor Nourse has published widely on the power of the President and the separation of powers, Reclaiming the Constitutional Text from Originalism: The Case of Executive Power, 106 Calif. L. Rev. 1 (2018), and constitutional rights, In Reckless Hands (Norton 2008), the story of Skinner v. Oklahoma and American eugenics.
President Biden appointed Professor Nourse to serve as Vice-Chair of the United States Commission on Civil Rights in 2023, with her term expiring in 2029.
Professor Nourse previously served as Chief Counsel to then Vice President Biden under the Obama Administration. Prior to that role, she practiced as an appellate litigator in the Department of Justice and as Special Counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Professor Nourse has held chairs at Emory University and the University of Wisconsin. She has been a visiting professor at Yale, NYU, University of Maryland, and Northwestern.
She began her legal career in New York, clerking for legendary trial judge of the Southern District of New York, Edward Weinfeld, and practicing at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind Wharton & Garrison. She left private practice to serve as junior counsel to the Senate-Iran Contra Committee. After serving on the appellate staff of the Civil Division, she was hired as a legal expert for then Senator Joseph Biden.
Professor Nourse is the co-Founder of the Supreme Court Interpretation Lab, which uses big data to analyze trends in Supreme Court analyses. She formerly served as Executive Director of the Georgetown Law Center on Congressional Studies.
Vice President, Practice Groups, The Federalist Society
Deputy Director, Regulatory Studies Center, George Washington University
Will Yeatman is deputy director of the GW Regulatory Studies Center. A lawyer, he has spent almost two decades working on federal regulatory policy, with an emphasis on administrative law.
Yeatman has testified many times before Congress and state legislatures, and his scholarly work has appeared in such academic journals as Georgetown Law Journal, Administrative Law Review, and the (forthcoming) Catholic University Law Review. His popular writing has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Foreign Policy, and Bloomberg.
Yeatman came to the RSC from the Pacific Legal Foundation. Previously, he had been at the Cato Institute’s Center for Constitutional Studies and the Competitive Enterprise Institute. From 2004 to 2006, he served as a Peace Corps volunteer in the Kyrgyz Republic.
Yeatman holds a BA in environmental sciences from the University of Virginia, an MA in international studies from the Denver University Graduate School of International Studies, and a JD from the Georgetown University Law Center. He is a member of the Washington, DC Bar.
Professor of Law, South Texas College of Law Houston
Josh Blackman is a national thought leader on constitutional law and the United States Supreme Court. Josh’s work was quoted during two presidential impeachment trials. He has testified before Congress and advises federal and state lawmakers. Josh regularly appears on TV, including NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox, and the BBC. Josh is also a frequent guest on NPR and other syndicated radio programs. He has published commentaries in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and leading national publications.
Since 2012, Josh has served as a professor at the South Texas College of Law Houston. He holds the Centennial Chair of Constitutional Law. Josh is an Adjunct Fellow at the Manhattan Institute. Josh has written more than seven dozen law review articles that have been cited more than a thousand times. Josh was selected as the Jurist of the Year by the Texas Journal of Law & Public Policy, received the inaugural Meese III Originalism Award, and was awarded the Inaugural Joseph Story Award. Josh was selected by Forbes Magazine for the “30 Under 30” in Law and Policy. Josh is the President of the Harlan Institute, and founded FantasySCOTUS, the Internet’s Premier Supreme Court Fantasy League. He blogs at the Volokh Conspiracyand posts@JoshMBlackman.
Partner, Holtzman Vogel
Andrew Gould is a partner at Holtzman Vogel and focuses his practice on Appellate, Commercial Litigation and Constitutional Law.
Prior to joining the firm, Andrew was a Justice to the Arizona Supreme Court from 2016 to 2021. After retiring from the bench in 2021, he worked as a Senior Counsel for First Liberty Institute litigating religious liberty cases throughout the United States. He also served as a Judge on Division One of the Arizona Court of Appeals from 2011 to 2016 where he authored over 400 opinions, and served as a Judge of the Superior Court in Yuma County for 11 years.
Immigration Policy Analyst, Cato Institute
David J. Bier is an immigration policy analyst at the Cato Institute’s Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity. He is an expert on visa reform, border security, and interior enforcement, and his work has been cited in the Washington Post, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Politico, and many other print and online publications.
From 2013 to 2015, Mr. Bier drafted immigration legislation as senior policy advisor for Congressman Raúl Labrador, a member of the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security. Previously, he worked as the immigration policy analyst at the Competitive Enterprise Institute and most recently as the director of immigration policy at the Niskanen Center.
Mr. Bier has a B.A. in political science from Grove City College in Pennsylvania.
First Assistant Attorney General, Texas
Brent Webster was appointed by Ken Paxton to be First Assistant Attorney General in 2020. As second in command to Ken Paxton, Brent’s job is to implement Paxton’s policy and litigation initiatives and manage the day-to-day operation of the Office of the Attorney General, which employs approximately 4200 Texans.
Since his appointment in October 2020, Brent has led a multi-pronged initiative at Ken Paxton’s request to (1) serve as the primary check on the federal governments overreach, (2) ensure that Texas is deterring wrongful conduct in the state through civil enforcement mechanisms, and (3) instill a trial-focused, litigation-first mentality across the agency to foster better results for Texas when involved in litigation. Brent has led Ken Paxton’s litigation against the federal government in 106 lawsuits, with a staggering win rate above 75%, he has doubled the average annual recovery through civil enforcement, amounting to over $426 million dollars in his first fiscal year and $548 million in his second fiscal year, and he has led an agency-wide initiative to empower OAG lawyers to aggressively pursue the State’s interests in court, whether against liberal municipalities, rogue school districts, or anyone else who violates the law in Texas. Most recently, Brent was the lead negotiator at mediation for the historic 1.4-billion-dollar settlement against Meta for the State of Texas.
Prior to joining the Attorney General's Office, Webster served in a variety of leadership roles including First Assistant District Attorney in Williamson County, Texas, Chief Operations Officer and General Counsel at an Austin start-up, and Senior Counsel at a litigation law firm. While serving as a Criminal Prosecutor for 10 years in Williamson he was awarded the “Crime Victim Advocate Hall of Fame Award” for outstanding service to crime victims.
Webster received his undergraduate education at Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas graduating in 2003, and received his legal education at University of Houston Law Center in 2005. He is licensed to practice law by the state of Texas and is admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court, and the federal district courts in the Western, Southern, and Northern districts of Texas.
Partner, King & Spalding
John Richter is a trial and investigations partner in the Special Matters and Investigations Practice Group, and represents and defends companies, Boards of Directors, Board committees, and individuals facing a variety of white-collar criminal and regulatory enforcement matters, parallel civil litigation, and internal corporate investigations. John previously served as the Acting Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Criminal Division at the U.S. Department of Justice and as the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Oklahoma, having been nominated by President George W. Bush and confirmed by unanimous consent of the U.S. Senate.
Partner, Husch Blackwell LLP
With three decades of experience as a prosecutor, Gregg counsels businesses and individuals in connection with a range of criminal, civil and regulatory matters, including government investigations, internal investigations, litigation, export control, sanctions, trade secrets and regulatory compliance.
Gregg’s extensive background in criminal and national security law, combined with his understanding of government practices and operations, allow him to pinpoint the risks and opportunities that arise in investigatory settings, to put together efficient and effective teams of legal professionals, and to mount a vigorous defense when necessary. Gregg has a strong track record as an accomplished trial lawyer, particularly in complex, high-profile jury trials.
Prior to entering private practice, Gregg served as the United States Attorney for the Western District of Texas—one of the largest and busiest United States Attorney’s Offices in the country—where he supervised more than 300 employees handling a diverse caseload, including matters involving complex white-collar crime, contract fraud, national security, cyber crimes, public corruption, money laundering, export violations, trade secrets, tax, large-scale drug and human trafficking, immigration, child exploitation and violent crime. Gregg has also served as Counselor to the Attorney General of the United States, where he handled both criminal and national security matters, as well as crisis response. He was an Assistant United States Attorney in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Texas for 14 years, where he developed a reputation as an aggressive litigator and indefatigable investigator while building an impressive record handling national security, fraud, violent crime and corruption cases. Before that, he served in various roles in both the Criminal and National Security Divisions of the Department of Justice in Washington, DC. Gregg was a state prosecutor as well, handling murder, gang and other complex cases in New York County for nearly 11 years.
Throughout his career, Gregg has worked closely with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Internal Revenue Service, Department of Commerce and other federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies. He led task forces in the Department of Justice and spearheaded the Department’s effort to improve its electronic litigation capabilities, focusing heavily on discovery. Gregg understands criminal law, national security law, the justice system, government investigations and the discovery process inside and out. His extensive and varied background means that he can provide clients with realistic and accurate expectations of how a government investigation or prosecution will proceed and where challenges may arise.
You’re Fired! Trump, Tenure Protection, and the Future of Humphrey’s Executor
Jonathan H. Adler, Daniel Z. Epstein, Victoria Nourse, Elizabeth Slattery, Will Yeatman
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Jonathan H. Adler, Daniel Z. Epstein, Victoria Nourse, Elizabeth Slattery, Will Yeatman
The recent flurry of firings in the federal government has sparked new questions surrounding the...
You’re Fired! Trump, Tenure Protection, and the Future of Humphrey’s Executor
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