James Madison Distinguished Professor of Law and Class of 1941 Research Professor of Law, University of Virginia School of Law
Professor John C. Harrison is the James Madison Distinguished Professor of Law and Class of 1941 Research Professor of Law at the University of Virginia School of Law. He joined the faculty at University of Virginia in 1993 as an associate professor of law after a distinguished career with the U.S. Department of Justice. His teaching subjects include constitutional history, federal courts, remedies, corporations, civil procedure, legislation and property. In 2008 he was on leave from the Law School to serve as counselor on international law in the Office of the Legal Adviser at the U.S. Department of State.
A 1977 graduate of the University of Virginia, Harrison earned his law degree in 1980 at Yale, where he served as editor of the Yale Law Journal and editor and articles editor of the Yale Studies in World Public Order. He was an associate at Patton Boggs & Blow in Washington, D.C., and clerked for Judge Robert Bork on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He worked with the Department of Justice from 1983-93, serving in numerous capacities, including deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel (1990-93).
Professor Emeritus of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
Jeremy A. Rabkin is a Professor Emeritus of Law at the Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University. Before joining the faculty in June 2007, he was for over two decades a professor in the Department of Government at Cornell University. Professor Rabkin serves on the board of directors of the Center for Individual Rights, a public interest law firm based in Washington, D.C. Previously he was a board member of the U.S. Institute of Peace and the board of academic advisors of the American Enterprise Institute.
Professor Rabkin’s books include Law Without Nations? (Princeton University Press, 2005). He authored “If You Need a Friend, Don’t Call a Cosmopolitan,” a chapter in Varieties of Sovereignty and Citizenship (Sigal R. Ben-Porath & Rogers M. Smith eds., University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012). His articles have appeared in major law reviews and political science journals and his journalistic contributions in a range of magazines and newspapers, including the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal.
Emanuel S. Heller Professor of Law, University of California at Berkeley; Thomas Smith Senior Research Fellow, The Civitas Institute, University of Texas at Austin
John Yoo is the Emanuel Heller Professor of Law at the University of California at Berkeley. He is also the Thomas Smith Senior Research Fellow, Civitas Institute, at the University of Texas at Austin. He is also a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
His most recent book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Supreme Court, co-authored with Robert Delahunty, was published in 2023. Professor Yoo’s other books include Defender-in-Chief: Trump’s Fight for Presidential Power; Striking Power: How Cyber, Robots, and Space Weapons Change the Rules for War; Point of Attack: Preventive War, International Law, and Global Welfare; and Crisis and Command: A History of Executive Power from George Washington to George Bush.
He is a co-author of volumes 1 and 2 of R. Rossum, G. Tarr, V. Munoz & J. Yoo American Constitution Law (Routledge, 2026), and a co-editor of the eight-volume series on the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution, We Hold These Truths, with Yuval Levin and Adam White of the American Enterprise Institute.
Professor Yoo has published more than 100 articles in academic journals on subjects including national security, constitutional law, international law, and the Supreme Court. He also regularly contributes to the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and National Review, among others.
Professor Yoo has served in all three branches of government. He was an official in the U.S. Department of Justice, where he worked on national security and terrorism issues after the 9/11 attacks. He served as general counsel of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. He has been a law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and federal appeals Judge Laurence Silberman. He has been a visiting professor at the University of Texas at Austin’s School of Civic Leadership, Seoul National University, the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya, Keio University, Trento University, the University of Chicago, and the Free University of Amsterdam.
Professor Yoo supervises the Public Law and Policy Program and the California Constitution Center. He also serves on the boards of Founding Forward, the Washington Legal Foundation, the Pacific Legal Foundation, the Ulysses Grant Institute, the Federalist Society’s Separation of Powers and Federalism Division, the Universidad Cientifica del Sur Law School, and the Asia-Pacific Law Institute at Seoul National University. He is a winner of the Federalist Society’s Paul Bator award and the Heritage Foundation’s Edwin Meese III Originalism Lectureship.
Professor Yoo graduated from Yale Law School and summa cum laude from Harvard College.
James Madison Distinguished Professor of Law and Class of 1941 Research Professor of Law, University of Virginia School of Law
Professor John C. Harrison is the James Madison Distinguished Professor of Law and Class of 1941 Research Professor of Law at the University of Virginia School of Law. He joined the faculty at University of Virginia in 1993 as an associate professor of law after a distinguished career with the U.S. Department of Justice. His teaching subjects include constitutional history, federal courts, remedies, corporations, civil procedure, legislation and property. In 2008 he was on leave from the Law School to serve as counselor on international law in the Office of the Legal Adviser at the U.S. Department of State.
A 1977 graduate of the University of Virginia, Harrison earned his law degree in 1980 at Yale, where he served as editor of the Yale Law Journal and editor and articles editor of the Yale Studies in World Public Order. He was an associate at Patton Boggs & Blow in Washington, D.C., and clerked for Judge Robert Bork on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He worked with the Department of Justice from 1983-93, serving in numerous capacities, including deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel (1990-93).
Professor Emeritus of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
Jeremy A. Rabkin is a Professor Emeritus of Law at the Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University. Before joining the faculty in June 2007, he was for over two decades a professor in the Department of Government at Cornell University. Professor Rabkin serves on the board of directors of the Center for Individual Rights, a public interest law firm based in Washington, D.C. Previously he was a board member of the U.S. Institute of Peace and the board of academic advisors of the American Enterprise Institute.
Professor Rabkin’s books include Law Without Nations? (Princeton University Press, 2005). He authored “If You Need a Friend, Don’t Call a Cosmopolitan,” a chapter in Varieties of Sovereignty and Citizenship (Sigal R. Ben-Porath & Rogers M. Smith eds., University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012). His articles have appeared in major law reviews and political science journals and his journalistic contributions in a range of magazines and newspapers, including the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal.
Emanuel S. Heller Professor of Law, University of California at Berkeley; Thomas Smith Senior Research Fellow, The Civitas Institute, University of Texas at Austin
John Yoo is the Emanuel Heller Professor of Law at the University of California at Berkeley. He is also the Thomas Smith Senior Research Fellow, Civitas Institute, at the University of Texas at Austin. He is also a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
His most recent book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Supreme Court, co-authored with Robert Delahunty, was published in 2023. Professor Yoo’s other books include Defender-in-Chief: Trump’s Fight for Presidential Power; Striking Power: How Cyber, Robots, and Space Weapons Change the Rules for War; Point of Attack: Preventive War, International Law, and Global Welfare; and Crisis and Command: A History of Executive Power from George Washington to George Bush.
He is a co-author of volumes 1 and 2 of R. Rossum, G. Tarr, V. Munoz & J. Yoo American Constitution Law (Routledge, 2026), and a co-editor of the eight-volume series on the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution, We Hold These Truths, with Yuval Levin and Adam White of the American Enterprise Institute.
Professor Yoo has published more than 100 articles in academic journals on subjects including national security, constitutional law, international law, and the Supreme Court. He also regularly contributes to the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and National Review, among others.
Professor Yoo has served in all three branches of government. He was an official in the U.S. Department of Justice, where he worked on national security and terrorism issues after the 9/11 attacks. He served as general counsel of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. He has been a law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and federal appeals Judge Laurence Silberman. He has been a visiting professor at the University of Texas at Austin’s School of Civic Leadership, Seoul National University, the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya, Keio University, Trento University, the University of Chicago, and the Free University of Amsterdam.
Professor Yoo supervises the Public Law and Policy Program and the California Constitution Center. He also serves on the boards of Founding Forward, the Washington Legal Foundation, the Pacific Legal Foundation, the Ulysses Grant Institute, the Federalist Society’s Separation of Powers and Federalism Division, the Universidad Cientifica del Sur Law School, and the Asia-Pacific Law Institute at Seoul National University. He is a winner of the Federalist Society’s Paul Bator award and the Heritage Foundation’s Edwin Meese III Originalism Lectureship.
Professor Yoo graduated from Yale Law School and summa cum laude from Harvard College.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit
John B. Nalbandian serves as a United States Circuit Judge from Kentucky on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. He was nominated and confirmed to that position in 2018. Prior to that, Judge Nalbandian was a partner in the litigation practice group of Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLP in Cincinnati, where he served as the firm’s lead appellate lawyer and also practiced complex litigation in state and federal courts. Judge Nalbandian was board certified by the Ohio State Bar Association as a specialist in appellate law. Prior to joining Taft, Judge Nalbandian practiced for five years in the appellate section of Jones Day in Washington, DC. Upon graduation from law school, Judge Nalbandian clerked for the Honorable Jerry E. Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in Houston. While in private practice, he also served as a board member of the State Justice Institute, a nonprofit organization established by the federal government to improve the administration of justice in state courts. He served as President of the Cincinnati Lawyers Chapter of the Federalist Society. He has also been involved in his community as a board member of the Greater Cincinnati Minority Counsel Program, and as a board member of the Asian Pacific Bar Association of Southwest Ohio. Judge Nalbandian earned his B.S., magna cum laude, from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and his J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law, where he was inducted into the Order of the Coif and served as managing editor of the Virginia Law Review.
Director, Americas Program, Center for Strategic and International Studies
Ryan C. Berg is director of the Americas Program and head of the Future of Venezuela Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He is also an adjunct professor at the Catholic University of America and a course coordinator at the United States Foreign Service Institute. His research focuses on U.S.-Latin America relations, strategic competition and defense policy, authoritarian regimes, armed conflict and transnational organized crime, and trade and development issues. Previously, Dr. Berg was a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he helped lead its Latin America Studies Program, as well as visiting research fellow at the University of Oxford’s Changing Character of War Programme. Dr. Berg was a Fulbright scholar in Brazil and is a Council on Foreign Relations Term Member. He has been published in a variety of peer-reviewed academic and policy-oriented journals, including The Lancet, Migration and Development, the SAIS Review of International Affairs, and the Georgetown Security Studies Review. His articles have appeared in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, CNN.com, Los Angeles Times, and World Politics Review, among other outlets. He routinely testifies before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Dr. Berg obtained a PhD and an MPhil in political science and an MSc in global governance and diplomacy from the University of Oxford, where he was a Senior Hulme Fellow. Earlier, he obtained a BA in government and theology from Georgetown University. He is fluent in Spanish and Portuguese and is conversational in Slovenian.
Partner, SFS Law
Michael Nadler counsels and defends corporations and individuals on a broad range of regulatory, criminal, and civil matters, including claims involving the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), money laundering, healthcare fraud, securities law violations, and white-collar criminal defense.
Prior to joining Stumphauzer, Foslid, Sloman, Ross & Kolaya, Michael was a federal prosecutor for almost ten years in the Southern District of Florida. Michael has extensive courtroom and trial experience. During his time at the United States Attorney’s Office, he successfully tried over twenty-five federal jury trials and argued before the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.
While at the United States Attorney’s Office, Michael specialized in prosecutions and investigations involving sophisticated international and domestic money laundering and FCPA cases. Michael was selected to be part of a newly-created group targeting money laundering and foreign corruption. His cases covered the world. ranging from cases involving corrupt officials in Venezuela, the Middle East, Africa, and Europe. and extending to large scale financial investigations involving European banks and foreign nationals. He was lead prosecutor in some of the highest profile, largest money laundering and FCPA prosecutions in the history of South Florida. In one case alone, Michael’s prosecution of the former treasurer of Venezuela resulted in a one billion-dollar forfeiture, one of the largest forfeiture amounts ever ordered.
As an Assistant U.S. Attorney, Michael also led hundreds of complex investigations and prosecutions against individuals and corporations for violations of federal health care statutes, large scale narcotics trafficking, firearms offenses, murder for hire, tax fraud, aggravated identity theft, securities fraud and elder fraud.
Throughout his time at the U.S. Attorney’s office Michael travelled extensively throughout South America and Europe. He built partnerships and relationships with numerous law enforcement agencies both domestic and international, officials and foreign lawyers. Michael participated in several summits whose participants included officials from Lichtenstein, Italy, Bulgaria, Spain, Portugal, Argentina, Luxemburg, Switzerland, Colombia, Panama, Mexico, Honduras, Equator and Guatemala on bilateral efforts to combat organized transnational crime involving money laundering, foreign corruption and narco- trafficking. Michael has also lectured federal law enforcement agencies on complex money laundering investigations and weapons of mass destruction.
Prior to his service with the federal government, Michael served as an Assistant Miami-Dade County Attorney at the Miami-Dade County Attorney’s Office. As an Assistant County Attorney, Michael was the trial attorney on a wide variety of civil cases and trials in federal and state court, including tort cases, medical malpractice, section 1983 civil rights cases and employment cases where he represented numerous County departments, including the Miami Dade Fire Department, Building Department, and the Port of Miami. Michael drafted appellate briefs and conducted several successful oral arguments before the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit and the Florida Third District Court of Appeal.
Earlier in his career, Michael worked in the financial and securities litigation group in Sidley Austin LLP’s Chicago office. As an associate there, he built a reputation for successfully representing clients on white collar investigations involving securities violations and accountant liability.
Of Counsel, DLA Piper LLP (US)
Harout J. Samra – a Board Certified Specialist in International Law – focuses his practice on international dispute resolution and arbitration matters, including international civil litigation in US courts.
Harout has represented clients from both the public and private sectors, including foreign governments, public officials and clients from a variety of industries. He has experience in international arbitrations administered under the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), International Centre for Dispute Resolution (ICDR), United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL), China International Economic and Trade Arbitration Commission (CIETAC), Bogota Chamber of Commerce, Madrid Court of Arbitration and International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) arbitration rules.
Harout currently serves as a member of the Florida Supreme Court Judicial Nominating Commission, by appointment of Governor Ron DeSantis. He previously served, by appointment of Governor Rick Scott, as a member of the Florida Third District Court of Appeal Judicial Nominating Commission, and was elected as Chair of the Commission from 2018-2019.
Director, Americas Program, Center for Strategic and International Studies
Ryan C. Berg is director of the Americas Program and head of the Future of Venezuela Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He is also an adjunct professor at the Catholic University of America and a course coordinator at the United States Foreign Service Institute. His research focuses on U.S.-Latin America relations, strategic competition and defense policy, authoritarian regimes, armed conflict and transnational organized crime, and trade and development issues. Previously, Dr. Berg was a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he helped lead its Latin America Studies Program, as well as visiting research fellow at the University of Oxford’s Changing Character of War Programme. Dr. Berg was a Fulbright scholar in Brazil and is a Council on Foreign Relations Term Member. He has been published in a variety of peer-reviewed academic and policy-oriented journals, including The Lancet, Migration and Development, the SAIS Review of International Affairs, and the Georgetown Security Studies Review. His articles have appeared in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, CNN.com, Los Angeles Times, and World Politics Review, among other outlets. He routinely testifies before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Dr. Berg obtained a PhD and an MPhil in political science and an MSc in global governance and diplomacy from the University of Oxford, where he was a Senior Hulme Fellow. Earlier, he obtained a BA in government and theology from Georgetown University. He is fluent in Spanish and Portuguese and is conversational in Slovenian.
Senior Attorney, Sensient Technologies Corporation
Editor-in-Chief, Americas Quarterly
Brian Winter is editor-in-chief of Americas Quarterly and the vice president for policy at Americas Society/Council of the Americas. A best-selling author, analyst and speaker, Brian has been living and breathing Latin American politics for the past 20 years.
Brian spent a decade living in Latin America as a journalist for Reuters, based in São Paulo, Buenos Aires and Mexico City. Since 2015 he has been based in New York City, overseeing Americas Quarterly’s growth into a must-read for Latin America's most influential investors and opinion leaders, while more than tripling its readership online. Brian is also the author or co-author of four books including Why Soccer Matters, a New York Times bestseller he wrote with Brazilian soccer legend Pelé; The Accidental President of Brazil, co-authored with President Fernando Henrique Cardoso; No Lost Causes, with President Álvaro Uribe; and Long After Midnight, a memoir about his time in Argentina.
Brian is a regular presence in TV, radio and print media, from NPR and CNN en Español to Folha de S.Paulo and The Wall Street Journal. Proficient in Spanish and Portuguese, he speaks frequently about Latin America's past, present and future to investors and general-interest audiences.
Partner, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP
Randy M. Mastro, a partner in the New York office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, is Co-Chair of the Firm’s Litigation Practice Group, which The American Lawyer has named “Litigation Department of the Year” three out of its last five competitions and a finalist five times in a row – both unprecedented achievements. He also serves on the Firm’s Management and Executive Committees.
Mr. Mastro routinely ranks among the nation’s leading litigators and trial lawyers in surveys of corporate counsel and other practitioners. Last year, Mr. Mastro was named “Trial Lawyer of the Year” by Chambers USA, a “Litigation Trailblazer” by The National Law Journal, and a “Trial Lawyer MVP” by Law360. Indeed, in each of the last four years, he has been nominated “Trial Lawyer of the Year” by Chambers USA or Benchmark or both, receiving top honors twice. The National Law Journal named him among the “100 Most Influential Lawyers in America,” recognizing him as one of the “100 lawyers in the United States who have shaped the legal world through their work,” and noting that “his ease in the courtroom, delivery of arguments and command of the law have made Randy one of the most in-demand attorneys in the country by big-name clients.” The American Lawyer cited him among “the best known, most-respected litigators in the country.” In Chambers USA, he is described as “one of the top litigators” and “trial lawyers” “in the country,” praised for his “exceptional public reputation” as a “tough, smart,” “outstanding” trial lawyer who is “in a class by himself,” “masters the facts of a case quicker than anyone I’ve ever met,” “delivers fantastically well in court,” “can take on anyone,” is “so persuasive,” and “has a great mind.” In The Legal 500—US Edition, he has been featured among the “Leading Trial Lawyers” in the country, with corporate counsel saying he is “immensely impressive,” “simply excellent,” “flawless,” “captivating,” “in a league of his own” in the courtroom, and “deserves an Academy Award” for “bringing a sense of drama and theater to his courtroom appearances.” Benchmark has described him as a “brilliant and effective litigator” who is “perennially revered” and “always brings a fresh perspective and will fight you to the end,” with peers noting, “You do not want to meet Randy down a dark alley, but you REALLY don’t want to meet him in a lighted courtroom,” and “I’ve seen him at work and I can only imagine that going against him must be like wrestling an alligator.” Benchmark also honored his achievements in “National Impact Cases” in 2015, 2017 and 2018. The New York Times has called him “the go-to lawyer for companies” suing the government, a “household name,” and a “fierce and combative litigator;” and The New Yorker has described him as a “merciless litigator,” “even by the pugilistic standards of the New York bar,” who “springs to life” and “is transfixing” in “the courtroom.”
Among many high-profile matters, Mr. Mastro won a two-month RICO trial barring the enforcement of a $9 billion Ecuadorian judgment against Chevron that The American Lawyer called “The Case of the Century.” Moreover, he won a month-long trial against the SEC, obtaining the dismissal of all charges against high-profile entrepreneur, Lynn Tilton, and thereby defeating the largest individual enforcement action the SEC ever brought before its in-house tribunal, where it typically wins 90 percent of the time. Mr. Mastro also led the successful effort to defeat New York City’s controversial West Side Stadium project, and he represented the State of New Jersey in conducting a high-profile investigation into allegations concerning the “Bridgegate” controversy. He has tried dozens of cases in private practice and as a federal prosecutor, and he has also argued more than 100 appeals in federal and state appellate courts throughout the country.
Mr. Mastro has represented such clients as AIG, Chevron, Amazon, Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield, Estee Lauder, Madison Square Garden, Cablevision, Dow Jones, Verizon, Dart, DraftKings, Home Depot, Daimler, Wynn, JPMorgan, GE Capital, Park Place/Caesar’s, Quest Diagnostics, IAC, Bear Stearns, Bank of New York Mellon, Empire Merchants, Edison Schools, Lynn Tilton, Peter Kalikow, Vornado, LeFrak Organization, Saks, Ziff Davis, UBS Financial Services, Octagon, Martina Hingis, Anna Kournikova, and Steffi Graf.
Before returning to Gibson Dunn in 1998, Mr. Mastro served as Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s Chief of Staff and then as New York City’s Deputy Mayor for Operations. In that capacity, he was responsible for overseeing all of the City’s operating agencies and budget, and served as the Mayor’s chief liaison with elected officials. In the Mayor’s absence, he was authorized to act on the Mayor’s behalf. While in the Giuliani administration from 1994 to 1998, Mr. Mastro spearheaded City initiatives to remove organized crime from the Fulton Fish Market, private carting industry, and San Gennaro Festival. For two consecutive years, NY1-TV named Mr. Mastro one of City government’s “Winners of the Year,” and Manhattan File magazine featured him among the “45 Most Powerful New Yorkers 45 and Under.”
In the early 1990s, Mr. Mastro was a Gibson Dunn litigation partner. In 1990, he served as Associate Counsel on the Independent Counsel investigation of HUD Secretary Samuel Pierce. In 1991, he was appointed Special Master and Monitor of the assets of a Saudi tycoon implicated in the BCCI scandal.
From 1985 to 1989, Mr. Mastro served as Assistant United States Attorney and Deputy Chief of the Civil Division in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, where he specialized in organized crime cases and spearheaded the federal government’s landmark racketeering suit that put the International Brotherhood of Teamsters into court supervision. Seven Days magazine named him one of “the 25 prosecutors and defenders other lawyers most admire, fear and talk about.” From 1982 to 1985, Mr. Mastro was a litigation associate at Cravath, Swaine & Moore, where he was part of the successful libel defense trial team in Westmoreland v. CBS. Before that, upon graduating cum laude from Yale College and the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where he was the school’s moot court champion, Mr. Mastro clerked for Justice Alan B. Handler of the New Jersey Supreme Court.
During his tenure as a federal prosecutor, Mr. Mastro received the Attorney General’s Distinguished Service Award, the John Marshall Award for Outstanding Legal Achievement, and the Director’s Award for Superior Performance, among other honors. Since then, he has been honored many times, receiving, for example, the Simon Rifkind Award from the Jewish Theological Seminary, the Civic Leadership Award from the Citizens Union of the City of New York, and the Lumbard Bowl, awarded annually by the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York (in consultation with prior U.S. Attorneys) to distinguished alumni.
Mr. Mastro has taught as an adjunct professor at the University of Pennsylvania and Fordham Law Schools. He authored articles in the Federal Communications Law Journal, Fordham Law Review, University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform, and Seton Hall Law Review. His op-ed pieces have appeared in The New York Times, Daily News, and New York Post, and he also wrote for the Washington Post and Time. He co-authored the chapters, “White Collar Crime,” in Business and Commercial Litigation in Federal Courts, and, “Energy,” in Commercial Litigation in New York State Courts.
Mr. Mastro has been a member of the bars of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and many federal courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court. He chaired two New York City Charter Revision Commissions. In addition, Mr. Mastro serves as Chair of the Citizens Union of the City of New York, Co-Chair of the Hamptons International Film Festival, and Vice Chair of the Legal Aid Society of New York City, as well as on the Board of Overseers of the University of Pennsylvania Law School.
Partner, Steptoe LLP
Shannen W. Coffin is a partner in Steptoe’s Washington office, where co-chairs the firm’s appellate practice and is a member of the regulatory litigation practice group. He frequently represents clients in trial and appellate courts in matters involving constitutional and administrative law challenges to state and federal government regulatory action.
Mr. Coffin previously served as a senior lawyer in the Executive Branch. He was Counsel to Vice President Cheney in the Office of the Vice President of the United States, where, among other things, he served on the White House’s judicial selection committee. Before that, Mr. Coffin served as Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the US Justice Department’s Civil Division, where he was responsible for overseeing and coordinating trial litigation on behalf of the federal government for constitutional challenges to federal statutes, statutory and constitutional challenges to agency programs, and defense of national security and anti-terrorism programs.
CEO, Pebble Partnership
Tom Collier leads the Pebble Partnership as its CEO. Mr. Collier is the former U.S. Department of the Interior chief of staff during the Clinton administration. He holds extensive experience in navigating the federal environmental permitting process. Prior to joining the Partnership in 2014, Mr. Collier spent 40 years serving as a partner for the law firm Steptoe & Johnson in Washington, D.C. As a senior leader in environmental law and permitting, Mr. Collier has worked on Alaska related projects in his career including development of Alpine, CD-5, and the reauthorization of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System.
Director, Center for Energy and Environment, Competitive Enterprise Institute
Myron Ebell is director of the Center for Energy and Environment at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Ebell also chairs the Cooler Heads Coalition, which comprises representatives from more than two dozen non-profit organizations based in the United States and abroad that challenge global warming alarmism and oppose energy rationing policies.
Ebell has worked on energy and environment issues for more than two decades, spending more than 15 years at CEI researching and advocating for sensible energy policies that benefit everyone. Instead of policies that simply reacts to alarmism, Ebell advocates for climate policies that reflect the scientifically-supported view that affordable, plentiful, and reliable energy make the world safer, the environment more livable, and should be should be accessible to those who need it most.
Ebell's writings have appeared in a variety of publications, including the New York Post, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Washington Post, Forbes, London’s Guardian, Standpoint Magazine, Riverside Press Enterprise, Philadelphia Inquirer, and Environmental Law Forum. He has appeared as a guest on numerous television shows, including the ABC Evening News, NBC Nightly News, PBS News Hour, BBC Newsnight, BBC World, CNBC, CNN, C-SPAN’s Washington Journal, MSNBC, ITN, Voice of America, Televisa, Sky TV, Al Jazeera, PBS’s NOW, Fox News's Special Report with Bret Baier, O'Reilly Factor, and Hannity and Colmes. He has spoken frequently on a variety of BBC radio news programs and on hundreds of radio talk shows.
Ebell holds a Bachelor of Arts from Colorado College and an Master of Science from the London School of Economics. He also did graduate work at the University of California at San Diego and at Peterhouse, Cambridge University.
President, Center for Climate and Energy Solutions
Robert Perciasepe serves as president of the nonprofit Center for Climate and Energy Solutions. He served as the Deputy Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency during the administration of Barack Obama. Prior to joining the Obama administration, Perciasepe was Chief Operating Officer for the environmental conservation non-profit National Audubon Society. Before that, he served in the administration of President Bill Clinton as the EPA's Assistant Administrator for clean water and then later as the Assistant Administrator for clean air.
James Madison Distinguished Professor of Law and Class of 1941 Research Professor of Law, University of Virginia School of Law
Professor John C. Harrison is the James Madison Distinguished Professor of Law and Class of 1941 Research Professor of Law at the University of Virginia School of Law. He joined the faculty at University of Virginia in 1993 as an associate professor of law after a distinguished career with the U.S. Department of Justice. His teaching subjects include constitutional history, federal courts, remedies, corporations, civil procedure, legislation and property. In 2008 he was on leave from the Law School to serve as counselor on international law in the Office of the Legal Adviser at the U.S. Department of State.
A 1977 graduate of the University of Virginia, Harrison earned his law degree in 1980 at Yale, where he served as editor of the Yale Law Journal and editor and articles editor of the Yale Studies in World Public Order. He was an associate at Patton Boggs & Blow in Washington, D.C., and clerked for Judge Robert Bork on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He worked with the Department of Justice from 1983-93, serving in numerous capacities, including deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel (1990-93).
Professor Emeritus of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
Jeremy A. Rabkin is a Professor Emeritus of Law at the Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University. Before joining the faculty in June 2007, he was for over two decades a professor in the Department of Government at Cornell University. Professor Rabkin serves on the board of directors of the Center for Individual Rights, a public interest law firm based in Washington, D.C. Previously he was a board member of the U.S. Institute of Peace and the board of academic advisors of the American Enterprise Institute.
Professor Rabkin’s books include Law Without Nations? (Princeton University Press, 2005). He authored “If You Need a Friend, Don’t Call a Cosmopolitan,” a chapter in Varieties of Sovereignty and Citizenship (Sigal R. Ben-Porath & Rogers M. Smith eds., University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012). His articles have appeared in major law reviews and political science journals and his journalistic contributions in a range of magazines and newspapers, including the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal.
Emanuel S. Heller Professor of Law, University of California at Berkeley; Thomas Smith Senior Research Fellow, The Civitas Institute, University of Texas at Austin
John Yoo is the Emanuel Heller Professor of Law at the University of California at Berkeley. He is also the Thomas Smith Senior Research Fellow, Civitas Institute, at the University of Texas at Austin. He is also a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
His most recent book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Supreme Court, co-authored with Robert Delahunty, was published in 2023. Professor Yoo’s other books include Defender-in-Chief: Trump’s Fight for Presidential Power; Striking Power: How Cyber, Robots, and Space Weapons Change the Rules for War; Point of Attack: Preventive War, International Law, and Global Welfare; and Crisis and Command: A History of Executive Power from George Washington to George Bush.
He is a co-author of volumes 1 and 2 of R. Rossum, G. Tarr, V. Munoz & J. Yoo American Constitution Law (Routledge, 2026), and a co-editor of the eight-volume series on the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution, We Hold These Truths, with Yuval Levin and Adam White of the American Enterprise Institute.
Professor Yoo has published more than 100 articles in academic journals on subjects including national security, constitutional law, international law, and the Supreme Court. He also regularly contributes to the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and National Review, among others.
Professor Yoo has served in all three branches of government. He was an official in the U.S. Department of Justice, where he worked on national security and terrorism issues after the 9/11 attacks. He served as general counsel of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. He has been a law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and federal appeals Judge Laurence Silberman. He has been a visiting professor at the University of Texas at Austin’s School of Civic Leadership, Seoul National University, the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya, Keio University, Trento University, the University of Chicago, and the Free University of Amsterdam.
Professor Yoo supervises the Public Law and Policy Program and the California Constitution Center. He also serves on the boards of Founding Forward, the Washington Legal Foundation, the Pacific Legal Foundation, the Ulysses Grant Institute, the Federalist Society’s Separation of Powers and Federalism Division, the Universidad Cientifica del Sur Law School, and the Asia-Pacific Law Institute at Seoul National University. He is a winner of the Federalist Society’s Paul Bator award and the Heritage Foundation’s Edwin Meese III Originalism Lectureship.
Professor Yoo graduated from Yale Law School and summa cum laude from Harvard College.
Director, Americas Program, Center for Strategic and International Studies
Ryan C. Berg is director of the Americas Program and head of the Future of Venezuela Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He is also an adjunct professor at the Catholic University of America and a course coordinator at the United States Foreign Service Institute. His research focuses on U.S.-Latin America relations, strategic competition and defense policy, authoritarian regimes, armed conflict and transnational organized crime, and trade and development issues. Previously, Dr. Berg was a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he helped lead its Latin America Studies Program, as well as visiting research fellow at the University of Oxford’s Changing Character of War Programme. Dr. Berg was a Fulbright scholar in Brazil and is a Council on Foreign Relations Term Member. He has been published in a variety of peer-reviewed academic and policy-oriented journals, including The Lancet, Migration and Development, the SAIS Review of International Affairs, and the Georgetown Security Studies Review. His articles have appeared in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, CNN.com, Los Angeles Times, and World Politics Review, among other outlets. He routinely testifies before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Dr. Berg obtained a PhD and an MPhil in political science and an MSc in global governance and diplomacy from the University of Oxford, where he was a Senior Hulme Fellow. Earlier, he obtained a BA in government and theology from Georgetown University. He is fluent in Spanish and Portuguese and is conversational in Slovenian.
Senior Attorney, Sensient Technologies Corporation
Editor-in-Chief, Americas Quarterly
Brian Winter is editor-in-chief of Americas Quarterly and the vice president for policy at Americas Society/Council of the Americas. A best-selling author, analyst and speaker, Brian has been living and breathing Latin American politics for the past 20 years.
Brian spent a decade living in Latin America as a journalist for Reuters, based in São Paulo, Buenos Aires and Mexico City. Since 2015 he has been based in New York City, overseeing Americas Quarterly’s growth into a must-read for Latin America's most influential investors and opinion leaders, while more than tripling its readership online. Brian is also the author or co-author of four books including Why Soccer Matters, a New York Times bestseller he wrote with Brazilian soccer legend Pelé; The Accidental President of Brazil, co-authored with President Fernando Henrique Cardoso; No Lost Causes, with President Álvaro Uribe; and Long After Midnight, a memoir about his time in Argentina.
Brian is a regular presence in TV, radio and print media, from NPR and CNN en Español to Folha de S.Paulo and The Wall Street Journal. Proficient in Spanish and Portuguese, he speaks frequently about Latin America's past, present and future to investors and general-interest audiences.
The Return of the Monroe Doctrine? Venezuela, Ecuador, and American Foreign Policy
John C. Harrison, Jeremy A. Rabkin, John C. Yoo
Nearly two centuries after President James Monroe announced a landmark foreign-policy principle in his 1823 address to...
The Return of the Monroe Doctrine? Venezuela, Ecuador, and American Foreign Policy
John C. Harrison, Jeremy A. Rabkin, John C. Yoo
Nearly two centuries after President James Monroe announced a landmark foreign-policy principle in his 1823 address to...
The Return of the Monroe Doctrine? Venezuela, Ecuador, and American Foreign Policy
[Free to Choose Network] We Hold These Truths: The Global Quest for Liberty
In We Hold These Truths, Federal Judge Douglas Ginsburg explores the enduring influence of...
SOC! SIDEBAR: Whiskey & Cigars
John B. Nalbandian
The Federalist Society's Student Division & Rutgers Law School-Newark Chapterpresent SOC! SIDEBAR:Whiskey & Cigars featuring...
International Corruption and the Venezuela Indictments: The Case of Alex Saab
Ryan C. Berg, Michael Nadler, Harout J. Samra
One year ago, the United States Department of Justice announced a series of indictments against...
Latin America: Restive Trends and Great Power Encroachment - Developments that Matter for U.S. Policy
Ryan C. Berg, James C. Dunlop, Brian Winter
Recent elections in Latin America have brought about abrupt shifts in government in Argentina, Brazil,...
Latin America: Restive Trends and Great Power Encroachment - Developments that Matter for U.S. Policy
TeleforumA Texas Trade Secrets Case May Have Broader Implications for U.S. Companies
Randy M. Mastro
Last year, a jury in Texas awarded California-based startup HouseCanary a $706 million verdict, one...
Executive Overreach at the EPA? The Pebble Mine Clean Water Act Dispute
Shannen W. Coffin, Tom Collier, Myron Ebell, Robert Perciasepe
Perhaps in no area was President Obama’s expansive approach to executive authority more apparent than...