Partner and Chair, Appellate & Supreme Court Practice, Jenner & Block LLP
Ian Gershengorn is chair of Jenner & Block’s Appellate and Supreme Court Practice and is one of the nation’s premier Supreme Court and appellate advocates, having argued before the U.S. Supreme Court 16 times. Before rejoining the firm in 2017, he served in the Office of the Solicitor General during the Obama Administration, first as Principal Deputy Solicitor General and then as Acting Solicitor General of the United States. While there, Ian supervised the federal government’s briefing in a range of high-profile cases, including those involving the Affordable Care Act, Dodd-Frank, election law and redistricting, immigration reform, Title VII, and same-sex marriage.
Since leaving the federal government and returning to Jenner & Block, Ian has advised clients on a range of complex litigation and strategy problems, and he has appeared regularly in the state and federal appellate courts, representing arguing on behalf of corporate clients such as the Recording Industry Association of America, FirstTrust Bank, General Dynamics, Tsubaki, and Charter Communications.
Ian currently teaches a seminar on The Roberts Court at Harvard Law School.
Ian graduated Harvard College, magna cum laude, and Harvard Law School, magna cum laude, where he was a member of the Harvard Law Review. He served as a law clerk for Judge Amalya L. Kearse of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and then for Associate Justice John Paul Stevens of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Partner, Wiley Rein LLP
Tom has over 15 years’ experience in private practice and public service at the federal and state levels representing clients in high-stakes appellate and regulatory litigation matters. Tom has argued appeals in the Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, D.C. and Federal Circuits, and the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals.
Prior to joining Wiley, Tom was the General Counsel at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), where he served as the agency’s chief legal officer and briefed dozens of appeals – personally arguing two – in the federal courts of appeals in constitutional and administrative law challenges to the FCC’s orders. Tom managed a team of over 70 attorneys and staff and provided consultation and advice on a wide range of practice areas relating to the FCC’s work, including administrative law, appellate and trial litigation, bankruptcy, ethics, fiscal law, fraud, labor and employment, and public records requests. He has spent his career advising clients on all stages of federal agency rulemaking, adjudication, and litigation, in fields ranging from communications to environmental law to securities to labor and employment. He frequently speaks and writes on legal issues and his articles have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, National Review, Forbes, and Newark Star-Ledger.
Partner, Antitrust and Competition, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati
Maureen Ohlhausen is a partner in the Washington, D.C., office of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, where she advises industry-leading clients on complex antitrust and litigation matters, with a focus on high-profile cases. Sought after for her depth of experience on antitrust and Federal Trade Commission (FTC)-related issues, Maureen is known for her relationships with officials in the U.S. and abroad.
After finishing law school and clerking at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, Maureen joined the FTC in 1997. She held a series of roles at the agency over the next 12 years, rising to the position of Director of the FTC Office of Policy Planning, where she led the agency’s work on e-commerce and headed the FTC’s Internet Access Task Force, which produced an influential report analyzing competition and consumer protection legal issues in the broadband and internet sectors. She then went into private practice at a leading telecommunications law firm, where she headed the FTC practice group.
In 2012, Maureen was confirmed by the Senate as a Commissioner of the FTC and was appointed Acting Chairman in January 2017, a role she held until May 2018. As Acting Chairman, Maureen directed all aspects of the agency’s antitrust work, including merger review, conduct enforcement, and all consumer protection enforcement, with an emphasis on privacy and technology issues. Under her leadership, the FTC won several influential merger challenges in court and reached a number of key digital privacy settlements.
To date, Maureen is the only FTC Commissioner to have received the Robert Pitofsky Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of her contributions to the FTC.
Following the end of her term at the FTC, and immediately prior to joining Wilson Sonsini, Maureen was chair of the global antitrust and competition practice at Baker Botts, based in that firm’s Washington, D.C., office.
A recognized thought leader, Maureen is a frequent author and speaker, and is often quoted by leading print and broadcast media on antitrust, FTC, and privacy and data security matters. She has published dozens of articles on antitrust, privacy, intellectual property, regulation, FTC litigation, telecommunications, and international law issues in prestigious publications. During her tenure at the FTC and in private practice, she testified more than two dozen times before Congress, including before the Senate Commerce Committee and the House Energy and Commerce Antitrust Sub-Committee. She also testified before the Antitrust Modernization Commission.
President, Phoenix Center for Advanced Legal and Economic Public Policy Studies
Lawrence J. Spiwak is President of the Phoenix Center for Advanced Legal & Economic Public Policy Studies, a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization that studies broad public-policy issues related to governance, social and economic conditions, with a particular emphasis on the law and economics of the digital age. Mr. Spiwak is a prolific scholar whose work is frequently cited by policymakers, major news media and academic journals around the world, and is in the top 1.3%of authors downloaded on the Social Science Research Network. Mr. Spiwak currently serves as the co-chair of the Federal Communications Bar Association’s (FCBA) committee responsible for overseeing the FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS LAW JOURNAL and is a member of the program committee of the Telecommunications Policy Research Conference (“TPRC”). Mr. Spiwak is also the recipient of the FCBA’s Distinguished Service Award. Prior to joining the Phoenix Center, Mr. Spiwak was a Senior Attorney with the Competition Division in the FCC’s Office of General Counsel from 1994-1998. While in college, Mr. Spiwak was accepted into the Presidential Stay-In School program where he was responsible for delivering classified and confidential material among senior White House and Reagan Administration officials and received a full FBI security clearance. Mr. Spiwak received his B.A. with Special Honors from the George Washington University and his J.D. from the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. Mr. Spiwak is a member in good standing of the bars of New York, Massachusetts, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
Partner, Harris, Wiltshire & Grannis LLP
Christopher Wright has been the head of the appellate group at Harris, Wiltshire & Grannis LLP since 2001. He has represented clients in a wide variety of appellate cases, with an emphasis on cases involving complex technical issues and cutting-edge constitutional law and administrative law issues.
Prior to joining the firm, Mr. Wright served as General Counsel of the Federal Communications Commission, in the Office of the Solicitor General of the United States, and as a law clerk to Chief Justice Warren E. Burger and Ninth Circuit Judge Joseph T. Sneed. Mr. Wright is one of very few lawyers who has argued more than 25 cases in both the Supreme Court and the D.C. Circuit, and he has argued in many of the other federal circuits as well.
Mr. Wright is a former President of the Edward Coke Appellate Inn of Court, the nation’s preeminent association of appellate lawyers, and a former President of the Federal Communications Bar Association, the nation’s preeminent association of communications lawyers. Mr. Wright has taught the D.C. Bar CLE courses on oral advocacy and judicial review of agency decisions on multiple occasions. He is ranked as an outstanding appellate lawyer and/or communications lawyer by numerous publications. Mr. Wright was elected to the Order of the Coif at Stanford Law School and Phi Beta Kappa at Harvard College.
Former Chairman, Federal Trade Commission; Former Partner, Davis Polk & Wardwell
Mr. Leibowitz is a former partner in Davis Polk’s Washington DC and New York offices. His practice focuses on the complex antitrust aspects of mergers and acquisitions, as well as government and private antitrust investigations and litigation. He also provides counsel in the developing area of privacy law and with respect to advocacy involving Congress.
Mr. Leibowitz was Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission from 2009 through 2013, and was noted for his bipartisanship. He served as a Commissioner from 2004 to 2009. While at the FTC, his priorities included health care and high-tech competition.
Partner, Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP
Noah Joshua Phillips is Co-Chair of the Antitrust Practice and previously served as a Commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission. He advises clients on a range of antitrust issues, including mergers and acquisitions, business conduct and compliance, litigation and investigations, and data security and privacy.
On the FTC, Mr. Phillips played an integral role in precedent setting enforcement actions and regulatory efforts concerning antitrust, consumer protection and privacy. He decided dozens of merger and other antitrust enforcement matters across the economy, including in the consumer product, defense, energy, entertainment, healthcare, technology, pharmaceutical and retail industries. Mr. Phillips’ written antitrust opinions were consistently upheld by federal appellate courts.
As Commissioner, Mr. Phillips frequently testified before Congress and represented the FTC before international bodies, including the G7, the Competition Committee of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, and the International Conference of Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners. He speaks and writes frequently on a range of antitrust, consumer protection and privacy issues.
Prior to the FTC, Mr. Phillips served as Chief Counsel to U.S. Senator John Cornyn, of Texas, on the Senate Judiciary Committee. He advised Senator Cornyn on a variety of legal and policy issues, as well as judicial nominations.
Mr. Phillips received an A.B. magna cum laude from Dartmouth College in 2000 and a J.D. from Stanford Law School in 2005. He began his career at a New York-based investment bank. After law school, Mr. Phillips clerked for Hon. Edward C. Prado of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and joined Cravath’s Litigation Department in 2006. He left the Firm in 2010, and he rejoined Cravath as a partner in December 2022.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit
Judge Rao was appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in March 2019. She graduated from Yale College in 1995 and the University of Chicago Law School in 1999. Following graduation, she served as a law clerk to Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and, in the 2001 October Term, as law clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas of the U.S. Supreme Court. Between her clerkships, Judge Rao served as counsel for nominations and constitutional law to the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary. In 2002, she joined the international arbitration group of Clifford Chance LLP in London, England. From 2005-2006, she served as Special Assistant and Associate White House Counsel to President George W. Bush. From 2006 to 2017, Judge Rao was a professor at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University, where she taught constitutional law, legislation and statutory interpretation, and the history and foundations of the administrative state. In 2014, she founded the Center for the Study of the Administrative State, a non-profit Center that promotes academic scholarship and public policy debates about administrative law. In July 2017, she was appointed to serve as the Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Office of Management Budget. She served in this position until her appointment to the D.C. Circuit.
Former Chairman, Federal Trade Commission; Former Partner, Davis Polk & Wardwell
Mr. Leibowitz is a former partner in Davis Polk’s Washington DC and New York offices. His practice focuses on the complex antitrust aspects of mergers and acquisitions, as well as government and private antitrust investigations and litigation. He also provides counsel in the developing area of privacy law and with respect to advocacy involving Congress.
Mr. Leibowitz was Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission from 2009 through 2013, and was noted for his bipartisanship. He served as a Commissioner from 2004 to 2009. While at the FTC, his priorities included health care and high-tech competition.
Partner, Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP
Noah Joshua Phillips is Co-Chair of the Antitrust Practice and previously served as a Commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission. He advises clients on a range of antitrust issues, including mergers and acquisitions, business conduct and compliance, litigation and investigations, and data security and privacy.
On the FTC, Mr. Phillips played an integral role in precedent setting enforcement actions and regulatory efforts concerning antitrust, consumer protection and privacy. He decided dozens of merger and other antitrust enforcement matters across the economy, including in the consumer product, defense, energy, entertainment, healthcare, technology, pharmaceutical and retail industries. Mr. Phillips’ written antitrust opinions were consistently upheld by federal appellate courts.
As Commissioner, Mr. Phillips frequently testified before Congress and represented the FTC before international bodies, including the G7, the Competition Committee of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, and the International Conference of Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners. He speaks and writes frequently on a range of antitrust, consumer protection and privacy issues.
Prior to the FTC, Mr. Phillips served as Chief Counsel to U.S. Senator John Cornyn, of Texas, on the Senate Judiciary Committee. He advised Senator Cornyn on a variety of legal and policy issues, as well as judicial nominations.
Mr. Phillips received an A.B. magna cum laude from Dartmouth College in 2000 and a J.D. from Stanford Law School in 2005. He began his career at a New York-based investment bank. After law school, Mr. Phillips clerked for Hon. Edward C. Prado of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and joined Cravath’s Litigation Department in 2006. He left the Firm in 2010, and he rejoined Cravath as a partner in December 2022.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit
Judge Rao was appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in March 2019. She graduated from Yale College in 1995 and the University of Chicago Law School in 1999. Following graduation, she served as a law clerk to Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and, in the 2001 October Term, as law clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas of the U.S. Supreme Court. Between her clerkships, Judge Rao served as counsel for nominations and constitutional law to the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary. In 2002, she joined the international arbitration group of Clifford Chance LLP in London, England. From 2005-2006, she served as Special Assistant and Associate White House Counsel to President George W. Bush. From 2006 to 2017, Judge Rao was a professor at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University, where she taught constitutional law, legislation and statutory interpretation, and the history and foundations of the administrative state. In 2014, she founded the Center for the Study of the Administrative State, a non-profit Center that promotes academic scholarship and public policy debates about administrative law. In July 2017, she was appointed to serve as the Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Office of Management Budget. She served in this position until her appointment to the D.C. Circuit.
Program Director and Faculty, National Institute for Trial Advocacy
Henry Su is a seasoned trial lawyer, teacher, and thought leader whose legal work has focused on what he calls the “three A’s”—Antitrust, Advocacy, and Access to Justice.
Based in Washington, DC, he has spent the bulk of his career practicing in the fields of antitrust, consumer protection, intellectual property, and technology law, which are critical to ensuring that we all continue to enjoy the benefits of competition and innovation. He provides a unique combination of experience and expertise in (1) law enforcement, regulation, legislation, and policymaking—as a former senior official with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for nearly seven years, and (2) technology, innovation, business strategy, and startup activity—as a Silicon Valley-based senior litigator for nearly ten years.
His government service at the FTC included two stints as a senior trial lawyer in the agency’s Bureau of Competition (January 2013 to February 2015, February 2017 to August 2017), litigating merger and conduct cases (e.g., St. Luke’s/Saltzer, 1-800 Contacts) and participating in the investigation of several others. Additionally, he served as an attorney advisor to Commissioner J. Thomas Rosch (January 2011 to January 2013) and Chairwoman Edith Ramirez (February 2015 to February 2017), providing advice and counsel to each Commissioner on a wide range of antitrust and competition matters, topics, and issues.
A veteran member of the American Bar Association (ABA) Antitrust Law Section’s leadership, he currently serves as a member of the governing Council and as co-chair of the Antitrust Fall Forum. He is also a member of the U.S. Advisory Board of the Institute for Consumer Antitrust Studies at the Loyola University Chicago School of Law.
He is a longtime program director and faculty member with the National Institute for Trial Advocacy (NITA), a nonprofit organization that has been dedicated since 1971 to the training and development of effective and ethical courtroom advocates, who are essential to preserving and improving our adversarial system of justice. His teaching runs the gamut of NITA’s programming—from trainings on trial, motion, and deposition practice to webcasts and podcasts on topics like evidentiary foundations and lawyer well-being. In 2021 he was recognized by NITA for his outstanding service as faculty with the 2020 Hon. Robert E. Keeton Award. He is also a Senior Fellow of the Litigation Counsel of America.
When it comes to trial and appellate work, he deeply appreciates the value of “learning by doing.” Some skills cannot be effectively acquired or developed except through practice, as he found out when he cut his teeth handling criminal and civil cases pending in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia—the original “Rocket Docket.” He wishes he had known some of the NITA techniques and drills when he was a junior lawyer. That is a big reason why nowadays he does his part to make NITA training widely available to upcoming generations of lawyers through programs, including public service courses, offered around the country.
Last but not least, he chairs the ABA Standing Committee on Pro Bono and Public Service, whose mission is to ensure access to justice through the expansion and enhancement of the delivery of legal and other law-related services to the underserved through volunteer efforts of legal professionals nationwide. He strives to lead by example, participating for instance as a volunteer attorney with ABA Free Legal Answers. In 2021 he was recognized as an ABA Free Legal Answers 2020 Pro Bono Leader for his pro bono service. He also serves on the Virginia State Bar’s Access to Legal Services Committee, and he is a Patron Fellow of the American Bar Foundation.
He graduated cum laude from Yale University with a B.S. degree in Biology, and then attended the University of Virginia School of Law, where he earned a J.D. degree and received the John M. Olin Prize in Law and Economics. He is a member of the California, District of Columbia, and Virginia bars.
President, Cass & Associates, PC
Ronald A. Cass is Dean Emeritus of Boston University School of Law (where he was Dean from 1990-2004), President of Cass & Associates, PC, former Vice-Chairman and Commissioner of the U.S. International Trade Commission, former faculty member at Boston University School of Law and the University of Virginia Law School, and Distinguished Senior Fellow at the C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State. Dean Cass also sits as an arbitrator for commercial, international, and intellectual property rights disputes, and is a former United States member of the Panel of Conciliators of the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes. He is a member of the Council of the Administrative Conference of the United States and has received seven presidential appointments, spanning Presidents Ronald Reagan to Donald J. Trump.
As a law professor, lecturer, and scholar, Dean Cass has been teaching and writing about a wide array of legal issues on topics such as administrative law and regulation, antitrust, constitutional law, communications, intellectual property, international trade, separation of powers, and legal process. He has published more than 160 scholarly books, chapters, articles, and papers, including a leading casebook on administrative law. Dean Cass has taught judges as well as students in schools of law, economics, business, and public policy and has held academic appointments in the United States, Europe, and Latin America.
In addition to his academic work, Dean Cass has participated in numerous important legal cases as an amicus, consultant, or expert, and has advised businesses, law firms, investment funds, and government agencies on a range of trade, antitrust, intellectual property, and regulatory issues. He has a broad range of affiliations with professional groups, and has received numerous honors, fellowships and awards.
Dean Cass is a graduate of the University of Virginia and the University of Chicago Law School.
Partner and Chair, Appellate & Supreme Court Practice, Jenner & Block LLP
Ian Gershengorn is chair of Jenner & Block’s Appellate and Supreme Court Practice and is one of the nation’s premier Supreme Court and appellate advocates, having argued before the U.S. Supreme Court 16 times. Before rejoining the firm in 2017, he served in the Office of the Solicitor General during the Obama Administration, first as Principal Deputy Solicitor General and then as Acting Solicitor General of the United States. While there, Ian supervised the federal government’s briefing in a range of high-profile cases, including those involving the Affordable Care Act, Dodd-Frank, election law and redistricting, immigration reform, Title VII, and same-sex marriage.
Since leaving the federal government and returning to Jenner & Block, Ian has advised clients on a range of complex litigation and strategy problems, and he has appeared regularly in the state and federal appellate courts, representing arguing on behalf of corporate clients such as the Recording Industry Association of America, FirstTrust Bank, General Dynamics, Tsubaki, and Charter Communications.
Ian currently teaches a seminar on The Roberts Court at Harvard Law School.
Ian graduated Harvard College, magna cum laude, and Harvard Law School, magna cum laude, where he was a member of the Harvard Law Review. He served as a law clerk for Judge Amalya L. Kearse of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and then for Associate Justice John Paul Stevens of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Partner, Wiley Rein LLP
Tom has over 15 years’ experience in private practice and public service at the federal and state levels representing clients in high-stakes appellate and regulatory litigation matters. Tom has argued appeals in the Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, D.C. and Federal Circuits, and the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals.
Prior to joining Wiley, Tom was the General Counsel at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), where he served as the agency’s chief legal officer and briefed dozens of appeals – personally arguing two – in the federal courts of appeals in constitutional and administrative law challenges to the FCC’s orders. Tom managed a team of over 70 attorneys and staff and provided consultation and advice on a wide range of practice areas relating to the FCC’s work, including administrative law, appellate and trial litigation, bankruptcy, ethics, fiscal law, fraud, labor and employment, and public records requests. He has spent his career advising clients on all stages of federal agency rulemaking, adjudication, and litigation, in fields ranging from communications to environmental law to securities to labor and employment. He frequently speaks and writes on legal issues and his articles have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, National Review, Forbes, and Newark Star-Ledger.
Partner, Antitrust and Competition, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati
Maureen Ohlhausen is a partner in the Washington, D.C., office of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, where she advises industry-leading clients on complex antitrust and litigation matters, with a focus on high-profile cases. Sought after for her depth of experience on antitrust and Federal Trade Commission (FTC)-related issues, Maureen is known for her relationships with officials in the U.S. and abroad.
After finishing law school and clerking at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, Maureen joined the FTC in 1997. She held a series of roles at the agency over the next 12 years, rising to the position of Director of the FTC Office of Policy Planning, where she led the agency’s work on e-commerce and headed the FTC’s Internet Access Task Force, which produced an influential report analyzing competition and consumer protection legal issues in the broadband and internet sectors. She then went into private practice at a leading telecommunications law firm, where she headed the FTC practice group.
In 2012, Maureen was confirmed by the Senate as a Commissioner of the FTC and was appointed Acting Chairman in January 2017, a role she held until May 2018. As Acting Chairman, Maureen directed all aspects of the agency’s antitrust work, including merger review, conduct enforcement, and all consumer protection enforcement, with an emphasis on privacy and technology issues. Under her leadership, the FTC won several influential merger challenges in court and reached a number of key digital privacy settlements.
To date, Maureen is the only FTC Commissioner to have received the Robert Pitofsky Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of her contributions to the FTC.
Following the end of her term at the FTC, and immediately prior to joining Wilson Sonsini, Maureen was chair of the global antitrust and competition practice at Baker Botts, based in that firm’s Washington, D.C., office.
A recognized thought leader, Maureen is a frequent author and speaker, and is often quoted by leading print and broadcast media on antitrust, FTC, and privacy and data security matters. She has published dozens of articles on antitrust, privacy, intellectual property, regulation, FTC litigation, telecommunications, and international law issues in prestigious publications. During her tenure at the FTC and in private practice, she testified more than two dozen times before Congress, including before the Senate Commerce Committee and the House Energy and Commerce Antitrust Sub-Committee. She also testified before the Antitrust Modernization Commission.
President, Phoenix Center for Advanced Legal and Economic Public Policy Studies
Lawrence J. Spiwak is President of the Phoenix Center for Advanced Legal & Economic Public Policy Studies, a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization that studies broad public-policy issues related to governance, social and economic conditions, with a particular emphasis on the law and economics of the digital age. Mr. Spiwak is a prolific scholar whose work is frequently cited by policymakers, major news media and academic journals around the world, and is in the top 1.3%of authors downloaded on the Social Science Research Network. Mr. Spiwak currently serves as the co-chair of the Federal Communications Bar Association’s (FCBA) committee responsible for overseeing the FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS LAW JOURNAL and is a member of the program committee of the Telecommunications Policy Research Conference (“TPRC”). Mr. Spiwak is also the recipient of the FCBA’s Distinguished Service Award. Prior to joining the Phoenix Center, Mr. Spiwak was a Senior Attorney with the Competition Division in the FCC’s Office of General Counsel from 1994-1998. While in college, Mr. Spiwak was accepted into the Presidential Stay-In School program where he was responsible for delivering classified and confidential material among senior White House and Reagan Administration officials and received a full FBI security clearance. Mr. Spiwak received his B.A. with Special Honors from the George Washington University and his J.D. from the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. Mr. Spiwak is a member in good standing of the bars of New York, Massachusetts, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
Partner, Harris, Wiltshire & Grannis LLP
Christopher Wright has been the head of the appellate group at Harris, Wiltshire & Grannis LLP since 2001. He has represented clients in a wide variety of appellate cases, with an emphasis on cases involving complex technical issues and cutting-edge constitutional law and administrative law issues.
Prior to joining the firm, Mr. Wright served as General Counsel of the Federal Communications Commission, in the Office of the Solicitor General of the United States, and as a law clerk to Chief Justice Warren E. Burger and Ninth Circuit Judge Joseph T. Sneed. Mr. Wright is one of very few lawyers who has argued more than 25 cases in both the Supreme Court and the D.C. Circuit, and he has argued in many of the other federal circuits as well.
Mr. Wright is a former President of the Edward Coke Appellate Inn of Court, the nation’s preeminent association of appellate lawyers, and a former President of the Federal Communications Bar Association, the nation’s preeminent association of communications lawyers. Mr. Wright has taught the D.C. Bar CLE courses on oral advocacy and judicial review of agency decisions on multiple occasions. He is ranked as an outstanding appellate lawyer and/or communications lawyer by numerous publications. Mr. Wright was elected to the Order of the Coif at Stanford Law School and Phi Beta Kappa at Harvard College.
Partner, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, LLP
Svetlana S. Gans is a partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, LLP where she helps clients navigate complex consumer protection, privacy, and competition related regulatory proceedings before the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC), , U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division, State Attorneys General and other enforcement bodies. Ms. Gans also assists on litigation matters and provides strategic counseling and advice related to public policy issues.
Before joining Gibson Dunn, she served as the Vice President & Associate General Counsel at NCTA, the Internet & Television Association, where she helped lead the association’s consumer protection and competition policy work. Prior to joining NCTA, Ms. Gans served with distinction as Chief of Staff to Acting Chairman Maureen K. Ohlhausen at the FTC. As the agency chief of staff, Ms. Gans managed and oversaw agency operations, including bureau and office heads reporting to the Chairman, a seven-member office staff, and an agency budget of over $300 million. She also served as the Acting Chairman’s key advisor on consumer protection and competition investigations and litigation, working with a diverse team of attorneys and economists to preserve competition and protect U.S. consumers. She created, executed, and oversaw several strategic initiatives for the agency, including the agency process reform, regulatory reform, and data security transparency initiatives. Previously, Ms. Gans had the unique experience of serving in both litigating bureaus of the FTC: the Bureau of Competition and the Bureau of Consumer Protection.
Prior to her time in government, Ms. Gans worked as an antitrust associate at major law firms. Her practice focused on defending consumer product, financial services, and trade association clients in regulatory and private investigations alleging conspiracy and violations of antitrust and consumer protection laws.
Ms. Gans has been an active leader in the ABA Antitrust Law Section (“Section”) for two decades, and currently serves as the Section’s Marketing Officer. Ms. Gans helped create the Section’s Young Lawyer Representative Program, now in its 10th year, and the Section’s Law Ambassador Program, each aimed at developing and promoting the next generation of consumer protection and competition attorneys. Ms. Gans is also active in the Federal Communications Bar Association, currently serving as Co-Chair of the Diversity Pipeline Initiative and the Women’s Leadership Committee.
Ms. Gans received her law degree with high honors from the University of Denver College of Law. During law school, Ms. Gans served as a Judicial Intern to the Honorable John L. Kane, Jr. and as an Honors Program Paralegal for the United States Department of Justice Antitrust Division, Merger Taskforce. Ms. Gans earned her undergraduate degree cum laude from Boston University.
Partner, Akin Gump
Gorav Jindal is a skilled antitrust lawyer with hands-on knowledge of agency practice, procedure and personnel. He combines the quantitative analysis of a background in engineering and economics with the persuasive skills of a litigator and nationally ranked intercollegiate debater. He guides clients past antitrust obstacles, providing creative and innovative antitrust analyses, whether in defense of a potential or consummated transaction or as a counselor on the full range of business practices. His work led to his appointment as co-chair of the firm’s Innovation Committee.
Gorav’s practice combines government and private sector experience on behalf of clients in a variety of industries. He handles all phases of merger investigations conducted by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the FTC. He has navigated clients through the antitrust aspects of transformative transactions and antitrust litigation, and was a vital member of the team that won Global Competition Review’s antitrust “Matter of the Year” award in 2014.
He focuses in particular on the pharmaceutical and energy industries and has represented large and small pharmaceutical companies under investigation by the FTC for price-fixing, improperly listing patents in the Orange Book, and entering into illegal patent settlements, as well as allegations of business practices designed to unfairly lengthen the life-cycle of branded drugs under the Hatch-Waxman Act. In 2017, Legal 500 US noted his “particular expertise in antitrust issues connected with the pharmaceuticals sector.”
Gorav also has experience in handling antitrust litigation matters. He has assisted in the development of litigation strategy for preliminary injunction hearings and complex commercial litigation. He represents clients that have been targeted in criminal antitrust proceedings, focusing on the plausibility of criminal theories and assessing the likelihood of indictments and convictions.
Prior to joining private practice, Gorav served in the FTC’s Bureau of Competition. He investigated a number of highly publicized transactions, including mergers in the publishing, computer hardware and chemical industries.
Partner, Kressin Meador LLC
Mark Meador is a partner at Kressin Meador LLC, a boutique antitrust law firm. He previously served as Deputy Chief Counsel for Antitrust and Competition Policy to Senator Mike Lee, the senior Republican on the Senate Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee. Mark has also worked as an antitrust enforcer at both the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice Antitrust Division, and in private practice at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP. He received his undergraduate degree in philosophy from the University of Chicago, and his law degree from the University of Houston Law Center.
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.
Partner, Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP
Noah Joshua Phillips is Co-Chair of the Antitrust Practice and previously served as a Commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission. He advises clients on a range of antitrust issues, including mergers and acquisitions, business conduct and compliance, litigation and investigations, and data security and privacy.
On the FTC, Mr. Phillips played an integral role in precedent setting enforcement actions and regulatory efforts concerning antitrust, consumer protection and privacy. He decided dozens of merger and other antitrust enforcement matters across the economy, including in the consumer product, defense, energy, entertainment, healthcare, technology, pharmaceutical and retail industries. Mr. Phillips’ written antitrust opinions were consistently upheld by federal appellate courts.
As Commissioner, Mr. Phillips frequently testified before Congress and represented the FTC before international bodies, including the G7, the Competition Committee of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, and the International Conference of Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners. He speaks and writes frequently on a range of antitrust, consumer protection and privacy issues.
Prior to the FTC, Mr. Phillips served as Chief Counsel to U.S. Senator John Cornyn, of Texas, on the Senate Judiciary Committee. He advised Senator Cornyn on a variety of legal and policy issues, as well as judicial nominations.
Mr. Phillips received an A.B. magna cum laude from Dartmouth College in 2000 and a J.D. from Stanford Law School in 2005. He began his career at a New York-based investment bank. After law school, Mr. Phillips clerked for Hon. Edward C. Prado of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and joined Cravath’s Litigation Department in 2006. He left the Firm in 2010, and he rejoined Cravath as a partner in December 2022.
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