Chair, Global Antitrust Law Practice Group, Morrison Foerster
Alex Okuliar is Co-Chair of Morrison Foerster’s Global Antitrust Law Practice Group. He is the former Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Civil Antitrust Enforcement at the U.S. Department of Justice and a former advisor at the Federal Trade Commission.
Alex’s practice spans merger review, civil litigation, and criminal investigations. Over his twenty-five-year career, Alex has worked on nearly one thousand deals. He has deep experience guiding clients through the complex global merger clearance process and has litigated agency merger challenges through trial. He has also helped clients succeed in a wide range of federal and state cases, including class actions and private party disputes alleging price fixing, monopolization, group boycotts, market allocation, and tying. His understanding of the agency processes from the inside allows him to offer expert, timely, and practical advice to clients navigating merger and conduct investigations by the U.S. Department of Justice, the Federal Trade Commission, state Attorneys General, and foreign agencies. Alex’s work has been recognized by leading industry publications such as Chambers, The Legal 500 U.S., and Global Competition Review.
Outside of client work, Alex is a prolific thought leader and was recognized as a 2024 Top Author for Antitrust & Trade Regulation by JD Supra’s Readers’ Choice Awards. He currently serves as the co-chair of the ABA Antitrust Law Section’s Joint Conduct Committee and is the former chair of the Section’s Intellectual Property Committee and co-chair of the 2023 Antitrust Fall Forum on Artificial Intelligence. He is also a member of the Corporations, Securities & Antitrust Executive Committee of The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies.
Before law school, Alex co-founded and sold an online technology company. Alex received his B.S. in economics and B.A. with distinction in history from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and his J.D. from Vanderbilt University Law School.
Senior Vice President, Strand Consult
Roslyn Layton, PhD is a leading international expert on technology policy. She is Senior Vice President of Strand Consult, an independent consultancy serving the global mobile telecom industry. She is also a Visiting Researcher at Aalborg University Copenhagen where she earned a doctoral thesis on network neutrality by measuring the outcome of the policy across 53 countries over 5 years. She served on the Presidential Transition Team for the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and her work was critical to the FCC’s defense for the Restoring Internet Freedom Order. She has testified to the United States Senate and House on multiple topics including spectrum, broadband, mobile mergers, competition, and privacy. She founded the think tank China Tech Threat to study the problems of technology produced by the People’s Republic of China. She serves as the Program Chair for the Telecom Policy Research Conference, the leading interdisciplinary academic gathering. Her recent paper on rural broadband describes the empirical case for policy reform to recover network infrastructure costs from streaming video entertainment providers. She is a Senior Contributor to Forbes.
Kathleen Q. Abernathy recently returned to Wilkinson Barker Knauer LLP as special counsel. She was previously elected to the Board of Directors of Frontier Communications as an independent director in 2006 following her term as a Commissioner at the Federal Communications Commission from 2001 to 2005. In 2010 she joined the company as Chief Legal Officer and Executive Vice President, Regulatory and Governmental Affairs. Prior to her term as an FCC Commissioner, Ms. Abernathy worked for a number of different telecommunications companies and law firms. She has received numerous awards in recognition of her professional accomplishments and has taught as an adjunct professor at Georgetown University Law Center and Catholic University’s Columbus School of Law. She received her B.S. from Marquette University and her J.D. from Catholic University’s Columbus School of Law.
Senior Vice President, Federal Government Relations, Verizon
Joining Verizon in 2005, Mr. Fisher currently serves as Senior Vice President of Federal Government Relations. He manages Verizon's advocacy and relations in the United States Congress, the Administration and the company's interaction with over two dozen state and local groups such as the National Governors Association, National Conference of Mayors, and the National Council of State Legislators. He is also responsible for overseeing Verizon’s federal, state and local tax policy advocacy. In this position, he coordinates Verizon's overall legislative and Administration strategy, implementation and policy development relating to a wide range of telecommunications and business issues that impact the company. Mr. Fisher is also Vice-Chairman of Verizon’s Political Action Committee.
Before joining Verizon, Mr. Fisher was Director of Government Affairs for Clear Channel Communications (now iHeart Media). Joining Clear Channel in 2003, Mr. Fisher assisted with the opening of Clear Channel’s Washington, DC office and helped establish the company’s public policy positions on a number of broadcasting related issues before Congress.
From 1997-2003, Mr. Fisher served on the staff of United States Senator John McCain. He served as a Professional Staff Member on the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee where he worked on the Subcommittee on Communications. In this role, Mr. Fisher advised then Chairman McCain on a wide-range of telecommunications issues that included: wireline, wireless, cable, satellite, broadcasting, and high tech. He also advised the staff of other Members of the Committee and assisted with the drafting of major telecommunications legislation.
Prior to working on the Senate Commerce Committee, Mr. Fisher served on the personal staff of Senator McCain’s office in Phoenix, AZ. As Legislative Liaison, Mr. Fisher worked closely with city, county, and statewide elected officials on federal policy that affected Arizona and its localities. Before working in the Senator’s state office, Mr. Fisher worked on Senator McCain’s 1998 reelection campaign where he helped coordinate grassroots efforts, get out the vote program and fundraising.
Mr. Fisher is also a veteran of political campaigns having served as a campaign manager for a Republican Congressional candidate and as a consultant to various local and statewide campaigns in Arizona. He has also served as an informal policy advisor to three Republican Presidential campaigns.
Mr. Fisher is on the board of the National Association of Manufacturers, a member of the U.S. Chamber Public Affairs Council and an alumni of the American Council on Germany. Outside of the office, Mr. Fisher and his wife are co-founders of a Virginia 501(c)(3) non-profit called Operation Christmas Hope which serves underprivileged families in Alexandria. He also co-founded the Multiple Myeloma Charity Classic, a charity golf event that has raised over $1,000,000 in the last 7 years for Multiple Myeloma cancer research. Robert and his family attend Christ the King Church in Alexandria where he a member of the Finance Committee. Mr. Fisher, his wife Rebecca Fisher, and their two children, Savannah and Cole, reside in Alexandria, VA. Robert graduated from Arizona State University in 1997 with a B.A. in Political Science.
Executive Director, National Consumers League
Sally Greenberg joined the National Consumers League as Executive Director on October 1, 2007. The League’s focus is on five key priority areas: fraud, child labor, LifeSmarts, health care, especially the safe use of medications and medication adherence, and food safety and nutrition. Ms. Greenberg has testified numerous times before Congress on consumer protection issues, including on product safety, fraud, excessive fees on car rentals, consumer rip-offs in calling cards and in support of protections for farmworker children. Ms. Greenberg is our primary spokesperson on a variety of issues.
Ms. Greenberg came to NCL from Consumers Union, where she worked from 1997-2007 on product liability and food safety issues, along with auto and product safety. Previously, Ms. Greenberg worked at the U.S. Department of Justice Foreign Claims Settlement Commission and prior to that, she spent a decade serving as the Eastern States Civil Rights Counsel for the Anti-Defamation League, based in Boston.
Ms. Greenberg was president of the Women’s Bar Association of Massachusetts and the Women’s Bar Foundation, and served on several gubernatorial commissions in Massachusetts. Ms. Greenberg served for many years on the board of directors of the Alliance for Justice, and HALT, an organization whose mission is the protection of the rights of consumers in their interactions with lawyers and the legal system. Ms. Greenberg is a member of the Reagan-Udall Foundation Board, a nonprofit established by Congress to support the mission of the FDA and help equip the agency with the highest caliber regulatory science and technology. She also serves on the board of the Keystone Center, which helps leaders in health, energy, environment and education battle contentious issues with a consensus-based approach. Ms. Greenberg also served for over a decade on the board of directors of Trillium Asset Management, the oldest and largest investment management firm dedicated to socially responsible investing.
Visiting Fellow, Center for Internet, Communications, and Techno, American Enterprise Institute
Bret Swanson is a visiting fellow at AEI’s Center for Internet, Communications, and Technology Policy and president of Entropy Economics LLC, a strategic research firm specializing in technology, innovation, and the global economy. He advises investors and technology companies, focusing on the Internet ecosystem and the broadband networks and applications that drive it. Mr. Swanson is also a scholar at the US Chamber of Commerce Foundation, where, since 2005, his research has centered on economic growth and policies that encourage it. For eight years Mr. Swanson advised technology investors as executive editor of the Gilder Technology Report and later was a senior fellow at the Progress & Freedom Foundation, where he directed the Center for Global Innovation. Mr. Swanson began his career as an aide to former senator Richard Lugar (R-IN) and was then an economic analyst for former representative Jack Kemp (R-NY) at Empower America.
Laurence H. Silberman Chair in Constitutional Governance, American Enterprise Institute; Executive Director, Antonin Scalia Law School’s C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State
Adam J. White is the Laurence H. Silberman Chair in Constitutional Governance and senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he focuses on the Supreme Court and the administrative state. He also directs the Antonin Scalia Law School’s C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State.
He writes on regulation and constitutional government for a variety of publications. He practiced law in Washington, D.C., after clerking for the D.C. Circuit's Judge David Sentelle. He also has been chairman of the ABA's Administrative Law Section.
In 2021, he served on the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States, where he criticized “Court packing” and other efforts to restructure the Supreme Court.
Founder, VCXC - Voice Communication Exchange Committee
Daniel Berninger is a Washington, DC based independent communication architect. Mr. Berninger's work started with the original assessment of VoIP at Bell Laboratories in 1995, technical contributions to the founding of Free World Dialup in 1996, and continued at VocalTec Communications where he led the first VoIP deployments at Verizon, HP, and NASA. He won a VON Pioneer Award as co-founder of the VON Coalition. Daniel also led the founding teams, created the business model, and recruited the CEO's for ITXC (NASDAQ: ITXC/Tom Evslin) and Vonage (NYSE: VG/Jeffrey Citron).
Assistant Attorney General, Civil Division, United States Department of Justice
Brett A. Shumate was sworn in as the Civil Division’s 36th Assistant Attorney General on June 11, 2025. He previously served in the Civil Division from 2017 to 2019 as the Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Federal Programs Branch. Prior to rejoining the Department, Mr. Shumate was a partner at Jones Day in Washington, D.C.
Mr. Shumate clerked for Judge Edith H. Jones on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. He graduated from Wake Forest University School of Law and Furman University.
Senior Counsel, FCC
For the past four years, Mr. Degani has served as Commissioner Pai's Wireline Legal Advisor. He joined the office from a detail to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce, where he served as counsel under Chairman Fred Upton and Communications and Technology Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden. Before his detail, Mr. Degani served as an Attorney Advisor in the Wireline Competition Bureau's Telecommunications Access Policy Division and Competition Policy Division, as well as the Commission's Office of General Counsel. Mr. Degani entered the Commission through the Attorney Honors Program. Earlier in his career, Mr. Degani clerked for Judge Jeffrey Sutton of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. He graduated cum laude from Harvard Law School and magna cum laude from Yale University, where he studied Electrical Engineering/Computer Science and History.
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).
Managing Partner, Wilkinson Barker Knauer LLP
Bryan Tramont, the firm’s managing partner, offers strategic counsel to Fortune 100 companies and trade associations, as well as small and mid-sized telecommunications and media companies, on all aspects of communications law and regulation. He is regularly called on to advise companies as they develop and evaluate new business opportunities in the technology, media, and telecommunications sectors. Mr. Tramont also designs and leads the execution of the firm’s strategic plan and directs client management and development. Mr. Tramont has been recognized by leading publications like Legal 500, Chambers USA, and Washingtonian as one of the nation’s top communications lawyers. In 2017, he was named to the inaugural Legal 500 Hall of Fame List, which highlights individuals who have received constant praise by their clients and who have been recognized by the Legal 500 as an elite leading lawyer for six consecutive years. He has been awarded The Best Lawyers in America © 2017 “Lawyer of the Year” for Media Law and “Lawyer of the Year" in Communications Law in 2016. In 2016, he was also named one of the Top 10 Washington, DC Super Lawyers.
Mr. Tramont serves on the Commerce Spectrum Management Advisory Committee (CSMAC), advising the Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information at NTIA. Appointed under the Bush and Obama Administrations, he also served as the committee’s Co-Chairman from 2008-2010. In addition, Mr. Tramont is active in the Federal Communications Bar Association, where he served in a variety of leadership roles, including as President from 2010-11 and has been awarded the organization’s Distinguished Service Award. Mr. Tramont chairs the Federalist Society’s Telecommunications Practice Group Executive Committee, serves on the International Institute of Communications Canada Board of Directors, and previously served on the Governing Committee of the ABA Forum on Communications Law. Mr. Tramont currently is an adjunct law professor at The Catholic University of America as part of the Communications Law Institute, is a senior adjunct fellow at the University of Colorado, Boulder, has served as the Syracuse University Law School’s Practitioner in Residence, and is on the Board of Trustees at William Woods University. Mr. Tramont is the author of numerous articles on communications policy and is a frequent speaker and lecturer at academic and industry events. Prior to joining Wilkinson Barker Knauer, Mr. Tramont served as Chief of Staff of the Federal Communications Commission under Chairman Michael Powell. As Chief of Staff, Mr. Tramont managed all aspects of the agency’s operations and directed FCC staff in implementing all components of the agency’s policy portfolio including media, broadband, mobility, and traditional telephone services. Before being elevated to Chief of Staff, Mr. Tramont was Chairman Powell’s Senior Legal Advisor, advising him on strategic policy matters and on wireless, international, technology, satellite, and consumer issues. Mr. Tramont also served as Senior Legal Advisor to Commissioner Kathleen Abernathy and, before that, to Commissioner Harold Furchtgott-Roth. He also served as a law clerk for the Honorable Duane Benton on the Supreme Court for his home state of Missouri. In addition, Mr. Tramont has served as an expert witness in a number of communications-related litigation matters.
Bryan Tramont graduated summa cum laude from The George Washington University with a degree in political science. He earned his law degree from Yale Law School, where he served as editor of the Yale Law & Policy Review.
Senior Vice President, Strand Consult
Roslyn Layton, PhD is a leading international expert on technology policy. She is Senior Vice President of Strand Consult, an independent consultancy serving the global mobile telecom industry. She is also a Visiting Researcher at Aalborg University Copenhagen where she earned a doctoral thesis on network neutrality by measuring the outcome of the policy across 53 countries over 5 years. She served on the Presidential Transition Team for the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and her work was critical to the FCC’s defense for the Restoring Internet Freedom Order. She has testified to the United States Senate and House on multiple topics including spectrum, broadband, mobile mergers, competition, and privacy. She founded the think tank China Tech Threat to study the problems of technology produced by the People’s Republic of China. She serves as the Program Chair for the Telecom Policy Research Conference, the leading interdisciplinary academic gathering. Her recent paper on rural broadband describes the empirical case for policy reform to recover network infrastructure costs from streaming video entertainment providers. She is a Senior Contributor to Forbes.
Chair, Global Antitrust Law Practice Group, Morrison Foerster
Alex Okuliar is Co-Chair of Morrison Foerster’s Global Antitrust Law Practice Group. He is the former Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Civil Antitrust Enforcement at the U.S. Department of Justice and a former advisor at the Federal Trade Commission.
Alex’s practice spans merger review, civil litigation, and criminal investigations. Over his twenty-five-year career, Alex has worked on nearly one thousand deals. He has deep experience guiding clients through the complex global merger clearance process and has litigated agency merger challenges through trial. He has also helped clients succeed in a wide range of federal and state cases, including class actions and private party disputes alleging price fixing, monopolization, group boycotts, market allocation, and tying. His understanding of the agency processes from the inside allows him to offer expert, timely, and practical advice to clients navigating merger and conduct investigations by the U.S. Department of Justice, the Federal Trade Commission, state Attorneys General, and foreign agencies. Alex’s work has been recognized by leading industry publications such as Chambers, The Legal 500 U.S., and Global Competition Review.
Outside of client work, Alex is a prolific thought leader and was recognized as a 2024 Top Author for Antitrust & Trade Regulation by JD Supra’s Readers’ Choice Awards. He currently serves as the co-chair of the ABA Antitrust Law Section’s Joint Conduct Committee and is the former chair of the Section’s Intellectual Property Committee and co-chair of the 2023 Antitrust Fall Forum on Artificial Intelligence. He is also a member of the Corporations, Securities & Antitrust Executive Committee of The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies.
Before law school, Alex co-founded and sold an online technology company. Alex received his B.S. in economics and B.A. with distinction in history from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and his J.D. from Vanderbilt University Law School.
Founder, VCXC - Voice Communication Exchange Committee
Daniel Berninger is a Washington, DC based independent communication architect. Mr. Berninger's work started with the original assessment of VoIP at Bell Laboratories in 1995, technical contributions to the founding of Free World Dialup in 1996, and continued at VocalTec Communications where he led the first VoIP deployments at Verizon, HP, and NASA. He won a VON Pioneer Award as co-founder of the VON Coalition. Daniel also led the founding teams, created the business model, and recruited the CEO's for ITXC (NASDAQ: ITXC/Tom Evslin) and Vonage (NYSE: VG/Jeffrey Citron).
Assistant Attorney General, Civil Division, United States Department of Justice
Brett A. Shumate was sworn in as the Civil Division’s 36th Assistant Attorney General on June 11, 2025. He previously served in the Civil Division from 2017 to 2019 as the Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Federal Programs Branch. Prior to rejoining the Department, Mr. Shumate was a partner at Jones Day in Washington, D.C.
Mr. Shumate clerked for Judge Edith H. Jones on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. He graduated from Wake Forest University School of Law and Furman University.
Laurence H. Silberman Chair in Constitutional Governance, American Enterprise Institute; Executive Director, Antonin Scalia Law School’s C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State
Adam J. White is the Laurence H. Silberman Chair in Constitutional Governance and senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he focuses on the Supreme Court and the administrative state. He also directs the Antonin Scalia Law School’s C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State.
He writes on regulation and constitutional government for a variety of publications. He practiced law in Washington, D.C., after clerking for the D.C. Circuit's Judge David Sentelle. He also has been chairman of the ABA's Administrative Law Section.
In 2021, he served on the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States, where he criticized “Court packing” and other efforts to restructure the Supreme Court.
Kathleen Q. Abernathy recently returned to Wilkinson Barker Knauer LLP as special counsel. She was previously elected to the Board of Directors of Frontier Communications as an independent director in 2006 following her term as a Commissioner at the Federal Communications Commission from 2001 to 2005. In 2010 she joined the company as Chief Legal Officer and Executive Vice President, Regulatory and Governmental Affairs. Prior to her term as an FCC Commissioner, Ms. Abernathy worked for a number of different telecommunications companies and law firms. She has received numerous awards in recognition of her professional accomplishments and has taught as an adjunct professor at Georgetown University Law Center and Catholic University’s Columbus School of Law. She received her B.S. from Marquette University and her J.D. from Catholic University’s Columbus School of Law.
Senior Vice President, Federal Government Relations, Verizon
Joining Verizon in 2005, Mr. Fisher currently serves as Senior Vice President of Federal Government Relations. He manages Verizon's advocacy and relations in the United States Congress, the Administration and the company's interaction with over two dozen state and local groups such as the National Governors Association, National Conference of Mayors, and the National Council of State Legislators. He is also responsible for overseeing Verizon’s federal, state and local tax policy advocacy. In this position, he coordinates Verizon's overall legislative and Administration strategy, implementation and policy development relating to a wide range of telecommunications and business issues that impact the company. Mr. Fisher is also Vice-Chairman of Verizon’s Political Action Committee.
Before joining Verizon, Mr. Fisher was Director of Government Affairs for Clear Channel Communications (now iHeart Media). Joining Clear Channel in 2003, Mr. Fisher assisted with the opening of Clear Channel’s Washington, DC office and helped establish the company’s public policy positions on a number of broadcasting related issues before Congress.
From 1997-2003, Mr. Fisher served on the staff of United States Senator John McCain. He served as a Professional Staff Member on the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee where he worked on the Subcommittee on Communications. In this role, Mr. Fisher advised then Chairman McCain on a wide-range of telecommunications issues that included: wireline, wireless, cable, satellite, broadcasting, and high tech. He also advised the staff of other Members of the Committee and assisted with the drafting of major telecommunications legislation.
Prior to working on the Senate Commerce Committee, Mr. Fisher served on the personal staff of Senator McCain’s office in Phoenix, AZ. As Legislative Liaison, Mr. Fisher worked closely with city, county, and statewide elected officials on federal policy that affected Arizona and its localities. Before working in the Senator’s state office, Mr. Fisher worked on Senator McCain’s 1998 reelection campaign where he helped coordinate grassroots efforts, get out the vote program and fundraising.
Mr. Fisher is also a veteran of political campaigns having served as a campaign manager for a Republican Congressional candidate and as a consultant to various local and statewide campaigns in Arizona. He has also served as an informal policy advisor to three Republican Presidential campaigns.
Mr. Fisher is on the board of the National Association of Manufacturers, a member of the U.S. Chamber Public Affairs Council and an alumni of the American Council on Germany. Outside of the office, Mr. Fisher and his wife are co-founders of a Virginia 501(c)(3) non-profit called Operation Christmas Hope which serves underprivileged families in Alexandria. He also co-founded the Multiple Myeloma Charity Classic, a charity golf event that has raised over $1,000,000 in the last 7 years for Multiple Myeloma cancer research. Robert and his family attend Christ the King Church in Alexandria where he a member of the Finance Committee. Mr. Fisher, his wife Rebecca Fisher, and their two children, Savannah and Cole, reside in Alexandria, VA. Robert graduated from Arizona State University in 1997 with a B.A. in Political Science.
Executive Director, National Consumers League
Sally Greenberg joined the National Consumers League as Executive Director on October 1, 2007. The League’s focus is on five key priority areas: fraud, child labor, LifeSmarts, health care, especially the safe use of medications and medication adherence, and food safety and nutrition. Ms. Greenberg has testified numerous times before Congress on consumer protection issues, including on product safety, fraud, excessive fees on car rentals, consumer rip-offs in calling cards and in support of protections for farmworker children. Ms. Greenberg is our primary spokesperson on a variety of issues.
Ms. Greenberg came to NCL from Consumers Union, where she worked from 1997-2007 on product liability and food safety issues, along with auto and product safety. Previously, Ms. Greenberg worked at the U.S. Department of Justice Foreign Claims Settlement Commission and prior to that, she spent a decade serving as the Eastern States Civil Rights Counsel for the Anti-Defamation League, based in Boston.
Ms. Greenberg was president of the Women’s Bar Association of Massachusetts and the Women’s Bar Foundation, and served on several gubernatorial commissions in Massachusetts. Ms. Greenberg served for many years on the board of directors of the Alliance for Justice, and HALT, an organization whose mission is the protection of the rights of consumers in their interactions with lawyers and the legal system. Ms. Greenberg is a member of the Reagan-Udall Foundation Board, a nonprofit established by Congress to support the mission of the FDA and help equip the agency with the highest caliber regulatory science and technology. She also serves on the board of the Keystone Center, which helps leaders in health, energy, environment and education battle contentious issues with a consensus-based approach. Ms. Greenberg also served for over a decade on the board of directors of Trillium Asset Management, the oldest and largest investment management firm dedicated to socially responsible investing.
Visiting Fellow, Center for Internet, Communications, and Techno, American Enterprise Institute
Bret Swanson is a visiting fellow at AEI’s Center for Internet, Communications, and Technology Policy and president of Entropy Economics LLC, a strategic research firm specializing in technology, innovation, and the global economy. He advises investors and technology companies, focusing on the Internet ecosystem and the broadband networks and applications that drive it. Mr. Swanson is also a scholar at the US Chamber of Commerce Foundation, where, since 2005, his research has centered on economic growth and policies that encourage it. For eight years Mr. Swanson advised technology investors as executive editor of the Gilder Technology Report and later was a senior fellow at the Progress & Freedom Foundation, where he directed the Center for Global Innovation. Mr. Swanson began his career as an aide to former senator Richard Lugar (R-IN) and was then an economic analyst for former representative Jack Kemp (R-NY) at Empower America.
Senior Counsel, FCC
For the past four years, Mr. Degani has served as Commissioner Pai's Wireline Legal Advisor. He joined the office from a detail to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce, where he served as counsel under Chairman Fred Upton and Communications and Technology Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden. Before his detail, Mr. Degani served as an Attorney Advisor in the Wireline Competition Bureau's Telecommunications Access Policy Division and Competition Policy Division, as well as the Commission's Office of General Counsel. Mr. Degani entered the Commission through the Attorney Honors Program. Earlier in his career, Mr. Degani clerked for Judge Jeffrey Sutton of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. He graduated cum laude from Harvard Law School and magna cum laude from Yale University, where he studied Electrical Engineering/Computer Science and History.
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).
Managing Partner, Wilkinson Barker Knauer LLP
Bryan Tramont, the firm’s managing partner, offers strategic counsel to Fortune 100 companies and trade associations, as well as small and mid-sized telecommunications and media companies, on all aspects of communications law and regulation. He is regularly called on to advise companies as they develop and evaluate new business opportunities in the technology, media, and telecommunications sectors. Mr. Tramont also designs and leads the execution of the firm’s strategic plan and directs client management and development. Mr. Tramont has been recognized by leading publications like Legal 500, Chambers USA, and Washingtonian as one of the nation’s top communications lawyers. In 2017, he was named to the inaugural Legal 500 Hall of Fame List, which highlights individuals who have received constant praise by their clients and who have been recognized by the Legal 500 as an elite leading lawyer for six consecutive years. He has been awarded The Best Lawyers in America © 2017 “Lawyer of the Year” for Media Law and “Lawyer of the Year" in Communications Law in 2016. In 2016, he was also named one of the Top 10 Washington, DC Super Lawyers.
Mr. Tramont serves on the Commerce Spectrum Management Advisory Committee (CSMAC), advising the Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information at NTIA. Appointed under the Bush and Obama Administrations, he also served as the committee’s Co-Chairman from 2008-2010. In addition, Mr. Tramont is active in the Federal Communications Bar Association, where he served in a variety of leadership roles, including as President from 2010-11 and has been awarded the organization’s Distinguished Service Award. Mr. Tramont chairs the Federalist Society’s Telecommunications Practice Group Executive Committee, serves on the International Institute of Communications Canada Board of Directors, and previously served on the Governing Committee of the ABA Forum on Communications Law. Mr. Tramont currently is an adjunct law professor at The Catholic University of America as part of the Communications Law Institute, is a senior adjunct fellow at the University of Colorado, Boulder, has served as the Syracuse University Law School’s Practitioner in Residence, and is on the Board of Trustees at William Woods University. Mr. Tramont is the author of numerous articles on communications policy and is a frequent speaker and lecturer at academic and industry events. Prior to joining Wilkinson Barker Knauer, Mr. Tramont served as Chief of Staff of the Federal Communications Commission under Chairman Michael Powell. As Chief of Staff, Mr. Tramont managed all aspects of the agency’s operations and directed FCC staff in implementing all components of the agency’s policy portfolio including media, broadband, mobility, and traditional telephone services. Before being elevated to Chief of Staff, Mr. Tramont was Chairman Powell’s Senior Legal Advisor, advising him on strategic policy matters and on wireless, international, technology, satellite, and consumer issues. Mr. Tramont also served as Senior Legal Advisor to Commissioner Kathleen Abernathy and, before that, to Commissioner Harold Furchtgott-Roth. He also served as a law clerk for the Honorable Duane Benton on the Supreme Court for his home state of Missouri. In addition, Mr. Tramont has served as an expert witness in a number of communications-related litigation matters.
Bryan Tramont graduated summa cum laude from The George Washington University with a degree in political science. He earned his law degree from Yale Law School, where he served as editor of the Yale Law & Policy Review.
Topics
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