Partner, Oliver Wyman
Douglas Elliott is a Partner at Oliver Wyman in New York, where he focuses on financial regulation and associated public policy issues and their implications for the financial sector.
He analyzes a wide range of issues and has published papers on such diverse topics as “Financial Institutions in an Age of Populism,” “Data Rights in Finance,” and “Tackling Global Market Fragmentation in Banking.” He has also written extensively on the impacts of capital and liquidity requirements, including a 150-page literature review in 2016, which followed on an earlier study for the IMF. Recently he addressed the finance ministers and central bank governors of the 28 EU member states on the topic of “Rebooting Capital Markets Union.”
Prior to joining the firm, he was a Fellow in Economic Studies at The Brookings Institution, generally ranked as the world’s top think tank. He primarily analyzed financial institutions and markets and their regulation, along with extensive analysis of the Euro Crisis. He has twice been a Visiting Scholar at the International Monetary Fund. Mr. Elliott also worked as a consultant for the IMF, the World Bank, and the Asian Development Bank. Prior to Brookings, he was a financial institutions investment banker for two decades, principally at J.P. Morgan.
He has testified multiple times before both houses of Congress and participated in numerous speaking engagements, as well as appearing widely in the major media outlets. The New York Times has described his analyses as “refreshingly understandable” and “without a hint of dogma or advocacy.”
Mr. Elliott graduated from Harvard College magna cum laude with an A.B. in Sociology in 1981. In 1984, he graduated from Duke University with an M.A. in Computer Science.
Executive Director, Milken Institute Center for Financial Markets
Michael S. Piwowar is the executive director of the Milken Institute Center for Financial Markets. Dr. Piwowar served as a Commissioner at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission from August 15, 2013 to July 6, 2018. He was first appointed to the SEC by President Barack Obama and was designated Acting Chairman of the Commission by President Donald Trump from January 23, 2017 to May 4, 2017. He was previously the Republican chief economist for the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs under Senators Mike Crapo (R-ID) and Richard Shelby (R-AL) and served as the lead Republican economist on the four SEC-related titles of the Dodd-Frank Act and the JOBS Act. During the financial crisis and its immediate aftermath, Dr. Piwowar served in a one-year fixed-term position at the White House as a senior economist at the President’s Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) in both the George W. Bush and Barack Obama Administrations. Before joining the White House, Dr. Piwowar worked as a Principal at the Securities Litigation and Consulting Group (SLCG). He received a B.A. in Foreign Service and International Politics from the Pennsylvania State University, an M.B.A. from Georgetown University, and a Ph.D. in Finance from the Pennsylvania State University.
Former Commissioner, The Commodity Futures Trading Commission
Dawn Stump is a senior leader and regulatory expert in domestic and international financial services. Her experience and thought leadership have tactically identified potential risks and initiated regulatory and systemic solutions to protect industries, infrastructures, and economies. Based on her global perspective and industry expertise, Dawn is able to raise critical financial services issues to the board level and/or the global stage as business environments fluctuate. She is widely respected for her leadership, bipartisanism, and consensus building among senior government officials, senior regulatory ministry officials, corporate, and academic leaders worldwide.
Recently, she completed her term as a Commissioner of the CFTC, the independent U.S. agency that regulates the $200+ Trillion derivatives market. As one of five Commissioners, she helped to shape the priorities of the agency while overseeing policy direction and internal planning. Dawn prioritized sector resilience in evolving global markets through robust regulatory strategies necessary during market volatility and changing economic environments. Within the agency, she also championed the importance of enterprise-wide risk management practices. Specifically, Dawn initiated new agency wide data protection procedures for the consistent handling of data intake and strengthening of responses to potential cyber intrusions.
Previously, as Senior Vice President of the Futures Industry Association and concurrently Executive Director of its Americas Advisory Board, Dawn advised its President and global Board of Directors on the impacts of public policy changes on the industry and association members. Earlier, she was Vice President of Government Affairs for NYSE Euronext where she developed regulatory compliance policies alongside her international counterparts to ensure adherence across jurisdictions. Her leadership was critical to the establishment of a new U.S. based derivative exchange/clearing house.
During her early career in public service, she served as majority and minority senior professional staff for the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition & Forestry, U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Agriculture, and initially on the staff of U.S. Senator Phil Gramm. She was actively involved in negotiating the reform of derivatives regulations contained in the Dodd-Frank Act and efforts to conduct oversight of commodity and financial derivatives, under the jurisdiction of the CFTC.
Dawn shares her professional expertise as a member of the 3-person Advisory Council to the Women In Derivative’s (WIND) Board of Directors and through committee service for the National Charity League. She earned a Bachelor of Science from Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas and is a past President of the Texas Tech Alumni Association’s Washington, DC Chapter. Dawn and her husband have two children and live in the greater Washington, DC area.
Executive Director, The Financial Technology and Cybersecurity Center
Thomas P. Vartanian is the Executive Director of the Financial Technology & Cybersecurity Center, an author, financial services advisor, expert witness, and board mentor. He is the former Executive Director of the Program on Financial Regulation & Technology at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School, where he was also a Professor of Law. Between 1983 and 2018, he chaired the Financial Institution’s practices at two international law firms, Dechert LLP and Fried Frank LLP, through four financial crises. Both as a regulator and private practitioner, he has represented parties in a majority of the 50 largest financial institution failures in American history.
Mr. Vartanian served in the Reagan Administration during the S&L crisis as General Counsel of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board and the FSLIC. Prior to that, he served in the Carter Administration in the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency as Special Assistant to the Chief Counsel. Since departing government service, he has advised many subsequent presidential administrations on financial institution issues.
Mr. Vartanian is a futurist and expert in financial technology who has been described by clients in Chambers as “one of the best financial services lawyers in America.” Mr. Vartanian was Chairman of the American Bar Association’s Cyberspace Law Committee between 1998 and 2002, where he chaired an international task force of lawyers from twenty countries which released a seminal report in London in 2000 on the novel issues created by doing business in Cyberspace. He is currently a member of the American Association of Bank Directors’ Task Force on Bank Director Personal Liability Mitigation.
Mr. Vartanian has authored more than four hundred articles and eight books, including his new book, 200 Years of American Financial Panics: Crashes, Recessions, Depressions, and the Technology That Will Change It All chronicling the country’s tumultuous financial history and the impact that technology will have on its future.
He is a frequent lecturer and media commentator on the financial services industry, having appeared on Bloomberg TV, CNN, Fox News, Newsmax, PBS and various local and national radio shows. He has also taught financial services and digital commerce law at Georgetown Law School, George Washington Law School, and Boston University School of Law, and has been a guest lecturer at Harvard Law School.
In 2008, Mr. Vartanian was named “Washingtonian of the Year” based on his use of music and sports to raise money for charities in the D.C. metropolitan area. As a musician, he appeared in the first production in the United States in 1970 of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. His classic rock band, The Johnny Esquire Band, has helped raise approximately $5,000,000 for charities in the Washington D.C. area over the last twenty-five years. Mr. Vartanian also founded and plays for the Washington All Stars, a senior baseball team that has raised more than $500,000 for Special Olympics.
His next book, The Unhackable Internet, will be published in early 2023.
Partner, Fusion Law, PLLC
Paul is the founding partner of Fusion Law, PLLC. He has extensive experience with state, federal, and global regulators building coalitions and implementing policies to promote innovation in financial services. He is responsible for designing and implementing the first state (Arizona) and federal (CFPB) FinTech sandboxes in the United States. He also designed the CFPB no-action letter and trial disclosure policies. He helped found the first global regulatory innovation coalition (Global Financial Innovation Network) and led the founding of the first U.S. regulatory innovation coalition (American Consumer Financial Innovation Network). He served on the Financial Stability Oversight Council subcommittee on digital assets. He also has drafted state-level laws on blockchain and utility tokens.
Paul also has significant enforcement and litigation experience. He led many multi-state consumer protection enforcement matters as Civil Litigation Division Chief at the Arizona Attorney General’s Office.
Prior to his government service, Paul practiced law in the areas of securities litigation and transactional work for approximately six years at two well-known law firms. He also clerked on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
Director, Faculty Relations, The Federalist Society
Katie McClendon is the Director of Faculty Relations at the Federalist Society, where she has worked since 2015.
Katie holds a J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania Law School and a B.A. in Political Science from Biola University, where she was a member of the Torrey Honors Institute. She is a fellow of the John Jay Institute and the Blackstone Legal Fellowship. Katie is originally from Los Angeles, and she now lives with her husband and four children in Atlanta.
Partner, Latham & Watkins LLP
Gregory Garre is a partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Latham & Watkins and Global Chair of the firm's Supreme Court and Appellate Practice Group. He recently served as the 44th Solicitor General of the United States. As Solicitor General, he was the federal government's top lawyer before the Supreme Court and was responsible for overseeing the government's litigation in the federal appellate courts. Prior to his nomination by the President and unanimous confirmation as Solicitor General by the Senate, he served as Principal Deputy Solicitor General from 2005 to 2008, and then as Acting Solicitor General. In addition, he served as an Assistant to the Solicitor General from 2000 to 2004. He is the only person to have held all of those positions within the Office of the Solicitor General.
Mr. Garre has argued 29 cases before the Supreme Court, including two cases during the current term, and has served as counsel of record in hundreds of cases before the Court. During the past term, he won each of the cases he argued as Solicitor General, including the landmark case of Ashcroft v. Iqbal, which clarified the gateway requirements for civil litigation in the federal courts, as well as FCC v. Fox Television Stations, and Winter v. NRDC. He has also argued and briefed cases involving a wide array of other nationally important matters, including in the areas of administrative law, alien tort statute, antitrust, business and employment law, education, environmental law, First Amendment, intellectual property, international law, media and telecommunications, separation of powers and voting rights.
Mr. Garre has also successfully argued numerous cases before the federal courts of appeals, including some of the most significant cases heard by the appellate courts in recent years. And, as Acting Solicitor General, he successfully argued on behalf of the government in the first adversarial appeal heard by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review in its 30-year history.
Mr. Garre has received numerous awards for his public service, including the Attorney General's Medallion for his service as Solicitor General and the Navy's Distinguished Public Service Award-the Navy's highest civilian honor-for his successful argument in Winter v. NRDC, which secured a path-marking Supreme Court ruling overturning an order that restrained critically important naval exercises. He has also received the Attorney General's Distinguished Service Award, the Attorney General's Award for Excellence in Furthering Interests of US National Security, and additional honors from the Department of Justice for his work on nationally important litigation matters.
In November 2009, Mr. Garre was named to Washingtonian Magazine's list of top Supreme Court lawyers. In 2006, he was named to The American Lawyer's "Fab 50" list of top litigators under the age of 45 expected to be "leading the field for years to come." And in 2005, he was named to Chambers USA's list of leading appellate litigators in Washington, D.C.
Mr. Garre received his JD degree with high honors from the George Washington University Law School, where he served as editor-in-chief of the law review and was selected to Order of the Coif, and his BA degree cum laude from Dartmouth College, where he was a Rufus Choate Scholar. Following his graduation from law school, he served as a law clerk to Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, and to Judge Anthony J. Scirica of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
Mr. Garre is a member of the advisory board of the Georgetown University Law School Supreme Court Institute and of the Edward Coke Appellate Inn of Court. He has taught constitutional law and Supreme Court practice for many years at the George Washington University Law School. He has testified before Congress and speaks frequently on issues related to the Supreme Court and appellate practice.
Senior Litigation Counsel, New Civil Liberties Alliance
Peggy Little, Senior Counsel at New Civil Liberties Alliance, a new public interest law firm challenging the administrative state founded in 2017 by Professor Philip Hamburger, has over three decades of experience as a trial and appellate litigator in complex, high-stakes regulatory, mass-tort, class-action, products liability, securities, commercial and civil rights litigation representing individuals and high-profile litigants including Fortune 50 companies, financial institutions, public companies, and universities in state and federal courts, including the United States Supreme Court.
Peggy is a graduate of Yale College and Yale Law School, where she was awarded the Potter Stewart Prize. She was a law clerk to the Hon. Ralph K. Winter on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Prior to starting her own trial and appellate law firm in 1997, where she was appellate consulting counsel to the New Haven firefighters in Ricci v.DeStefano, a landmark 2009 United States Supreme Court decision, Peggy was a partner at Tyler, Cooper & Alcorn in New Haven, Connecticut. From 2004 to early 2018, Peggy directed, part-time, the Federalist Society Pro Bono Center.
Peggy has participated in many national conferences and symposia addressing issues of current importance in constitutional law – specifically state and federal constitutional questions regarding the separation of powers and the first amendment – and regularly speaks, blogs and publishes on the topic of the unconstitutional exercise of governmental power. In May of 2017, she presented her paper, Pirates at the Parchment Gates, to a conference of state and federal judges at the Law and Economics Center at the Antonin Scalia Law School. Her work has been published by law reviews, legal publications, the Federalist Society, the Wall Street Journal, Law and Liberty and the Manhattan Institute.
Recent publications include: How the SEC silences its critics, The SEC should listen to Sen. Cotton, Lucia v. SEC, Opening Salvos in the Opioid Litigation Wars, Straight Dope on the Opioid Crisis
Partner, Latham & Watkins LLP
Gregory Garre is a partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Latham & Watkins and Global Chair of the firm's Supreme Court and Appellate Practice Group. He recently served as the 44th Solicitor General of the United States. As Solicitor General, he was the federal government's top lawyer before the Supreme Court and was responsible for overseeing the government's litigation in the federal appellate courts. Prior to his nomination by the President and unanimous confirmation as Solicitor General by the Senate, he served as Principal Deputy Solicitor General from 2005 to 2008, and then as Acting Solicitor General. In addition, he served as an Assistant to the Solicitor General from 2000 to 2004. He is the only person to have held all of those positions within the Office of the Solicitor General.
Mr. Garre has argued 29 cases before the Supreme Court, including two cases during the current term, and has served as counsel of record in hundreds of cases before the Court. During the past term, he won each of the cases he argued as Solicitor General, including the landmark case of Ashcroft v. Iqbal, which clarified the gateway requirements for civil litigation in the federal courts, as well as FCC v. Fox Television Stations, and Winter v. NRDC. He has also argued and briefed cases involving a wide array of other nationally important matters, including in the areas of administrative law, alien tort statute, antitrust, business and employment law, education, environmental law, First Amendment, intellectual property, international law, media and telecommunications, separation of powers and voting rights.
Mr. Garre has also successfully argued numerous cases before the federal courts of appeals, including some of the most significant cases heard by the appellate courts in recent years. And, as Acting Solicitor General, he successfully argued on behalf of the government in the first adversarial appeal heard by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review in its 30-year history.
Mr. Garre has received numerous awards for his public service, including the Attorney General's Medallion for his service as Solicitor General and the Navy's Distinguished Public Service Award-the Navy's highest civilian honor-for his successful argument in Winter v. NRDC, which secured a path-marking Supreme Court ruling overturning an order that restrained critically important naval exercises. He has also received the Attorney General's Distinguished Service Award, the Attorney General's Award for Excellence in Furthering Interests of US National Security, and additional honors from the Department of Justice for his work on nationally important litigation matters.
In November 2009, Mr. Garre was named to Washingtonian Magazine's list of top Supreme Court lawyers. In 2006, he was named to The American Lawyer's "Fab 50" list of top litigators under the age of 45 expected to be "leading the field for years to come." And in 2005, he was named to Chambers USA's list of leading appellate litigators in Washington, D.C.
Mr. Garre received his JD degree with high honors from the George Washington University Law School, where he served as editor-in-chief of the law review and was selected to Order of the Coif, and his BA degree cum laude from Dartmouth College, where he was a Rufus Choate Scholar. Following his graduation from law school, he served as a law clerk to Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, and to Judge Anthony J. Scirica of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
Mr. Garre is a member of the advisory board of the Georgetown University Law School Supreme Court Institute and of the Edward Coke Appellate Inn of Court. He has taught constitutional law and Supreme Court practice for many years at the George Washington University Law School. He has testified before Congress and speaks frequently on issues related to the Supreme Court and appellate practice.
Senior Litigation Counsel, New Civil Liberties Alliance
Peggy Little, Senior Counsel at New Civil Liberties Alliance, a new public interest law firm challenging the administrative state founded in 2017 by Professor Philip Hamburger, has over three decades of experience as a trial and appellate litigator in complex, high-stakes regulatory, mass-tort, class-action, products liability, securities, commercial and civil rights litigation representing individuals and high-profile litigants including Fortune 50 companies, financial institutions, public companies, and universities in state and federal courts, including the United States Supreme Court.
Peggy is a graduate of Yale College and Yale Law School, where she was awarded the Potter Stewart Prize. She was a law clerk to the Hon. Ralph K. Winter on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Prior to starting her own trial and appellate law firm in 1997, where she was appellate consulting counsel to the New Haven firefighters in Ricci v.DeStefano, a landmark 2009 United States Supreme Court decision, Peggy was a partner at Tyler, Cooper & Alcorn in New Haven, Connecticut. From 2004 to early 2018, Peggy directed, part-time, the Federalist Society Pro Bono Center.
Peggy has participated in many national conferences and symposia addressing issues of current importance in constitutional law – specifically state and federal constitutional questions regarding the separation of powers and the first amendment – and regularly speaks, blogs and publishes on the topic of the unconstitutional exercise of governmental power. In May of 2017, she presented her paper, Pirates at the Parchment Gates, to a conference of state and federal judges at the Law and Economics Center at the Antonin Scalia Law School. Her work has been published by law reviews, legal publications, the Federalist Society, the Wall Street Journal, Law and Liberty and the Manhattan Institute.
Recent publications include: How the SEC silences its critics, The SEC should listen to Sen. Cotton, Lucia v. SEC, Opening Salvos in the Opioid Litigation Wars, Straight Dope on the Opioid Crisis
Partner, Oliver Wyman
Douglas Elliott is a Partner at Oliver Wyman in New York, where he focuses on financial regulation and associated public policy issues and their implications for the financial sector.
He analyzes a wide range of issues and has published papers on such diverse topics as “Financial Institutions in an Age of Populism,” “Data Rights in Finance,” and “Tackling Global Market Fragmentation in Banking.” He has also written extensively on the impacts of capital and liquidity requirements, including a 150-page literature review in 2016, which followed on an earlier study for the IMF. Recently he addressed the finance ministers and central bank governors of the 28 EU member states on the topic of “Rebooting Capital Markets Union.”
Prior to joining the firm, he was a Fellow in Economic Studies at The Brookings Institution, generally ranked as the world’s top think tank. He primarily analyzed financial institutions and markets and their regulation, along with extensive analysis of the Euro Crisis. He has twice been a Visiting Scholar at the International Monetary Fund. Mr. Elliott also worked as a consultant for the IMF, the World Bank, and the Asian Development Bank. Prior to Brookings, he was a financial institutions investment banker for two decades, principally at J.P. Morgan.
He has testified multiple times before both houses of Congress and participated in numerous speaking engagements, as well as appearing widely in the major media outlets. The New York Times has described his analyses as “refreshingly understandable” and “without a hint of dogma or advocacy.”
Mr. Elliott graduated from Harvard College magna cum laude with an A.B. in Sociology in 1981. In 1984, he graduated from Duke University with an M.A. in Computer Science.
Executive Director, Milken Institute Center for Financial Markets
Michael S. Piwowar is the executive director of the Milken Institute Center for Financial Markets. Dr. Piwowar served as a Commissioner at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission from August 15, 2013 to July 6, 2018. He was first appointed to the SEC by President Barack Obama and was designated Acting Chairman of the Commission by President Donald Trump from January 23, 2017 to May 4, 2017. He was previously the Republican chief economist for the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs under Senators Mike Crapo (R-ID) and Richard Shelby (R-AL) and served as the lead Republican economist on the four SEC-related titles of the Dodd-Frank Act and the JOBS Act. During the financial crisis and its immediate aftermath, Dr. Piwowar served in a one-year fixed-term position at the White House as a senior economist at the President’s Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) in both the George W. Bush and Barack Obama Administrations. Before joining the White House, Dr. Piwowar worked as a Principal at the Securities Litigation and Consulting Group (SLCG). He received a B.A. in Foreign Service and International Politics from the Pennsylvania State University, an M.B.A. from Georgetown University, and a Ph.D. in Finance from the Pennsylvania State University.
Former Commissioner, The Commodity Futures Trading Commission
Dawn Stump is a senior leader and regulatory expert in domestic and international financial services. Her experience and thought leadership have tactically identified potential risks and initiated regulatory and systemic solutions to protect industries, infrastructures, and economies. Based on her global perspective and industry expertise, Dawn is able to raise critical financial services issues to the board level and/or the global stage as business environments fluctuate. She is widely respected for her leadership, bipartisanism, and consensus building among senior government officials, senior regulatory ministry officials, corporate, and academic leaders worldwide.
Recently, she completed her term as a Commissioner of the CFTC, the independent U.S. agency that regulates the $200+ Trillion derivatives market. As one of five Commissioners, she helped to shape the priorities of the agency while overseeing policy direction and internal planning. Dawn prioritized sector resilience in evolving global markets through robust regulatory strategies necessary during market volatility and changing economic environments. Within the agency, she also championed the importance of enterprise-wide risk management practices. Specifically, Dawn initiated new agency wide data protection procedures for the consistent handling of data intake and strengthening of responses to potential cyber intrusions.
Previously, as Senior Vice President of the Futures Industry Association and concurrently Executive Director of its Americas Advisory Board, Dawn advised its President and global Board of Directors on the impacts of public policy changes on the industry and association members. Earlier, she was Vice President of Government Affairs for NYSE Euronext where she developed regulatory compliance policies alongside her international counterparts to ensure adherence across jurisdictions. Her leadership was critical to the establishment of a new U.S. based derivative exchange/clearing house.
During her early career in public service, she served as majority and minority senior professional staff for the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition & Forestry, U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Agriculture, and initially on the staff of U.S. Senator Phil Gramm. She was actively involved in negotiating the reform of derivatives regulations contained in the Dodd-Frank Act and efforts to conduct oversight of commodity and financial derivatives, under the jurisdiction of the CFTC.
Dawn shares her professional expertise as a member of the 3-person Advisory Council to the Women In Derivative’s (WIND) Board of Directors and through committee service for the National Charity League. She earned a Bachelor of Science from Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas and is a past President of the Texas Tech Alumni Association’s Washington, DC Chapter. Dawn and her husband have two children and live in the greater Washington, DC area.
Executive Director, The Financial Technology and Cybersecurity Center
Thomas P. Vartanian is the Executive Director of the Financial Technology & Cybersecurity Center, an author, financial services advisor, expert witness, and board mentor. He is the former Executive Director of the Program on Financial Regulation & Technology at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School, where he was also a Professor of Law. Between 1983 and 2018, he chaired the Financial Institution’s practices at two international law firms, Dechert LLP and Fried Frank LLP, through four financial crises. Both as a regulator and private practitioner, he has represented parties in a majority of the 50 largest financial institution failures in American history.
Mr. Vartanian served in the Reagan Administration during the S&L crisis as General Counsel of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board and the FSLIC. Prior to that, he served in the Carter Administration in the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency as Special Assistant to the Chief Counsel. Since departing government service, he has advised many subsequent presidential administrations on financial institution issues.
Mr. Vartanian is a futurist and expert in financial technology who has been described by clients in Chambers as “one of the best financial services lawyers in America.” Mr. Vartanian was Chairman of the American Bar Association’s Cyberspace Law Committee between 1998 and 2002, where he chaired an international task force of lawyers from twenty countries which released a seminal report in London in 2000 on the novel issues created by doing business in Cyberspace. He is currently a member of the American Association of Bank Directors’ Task Force on Bank Director Personal Liability Mitigation.
Mr. Vartanian has authored more than four hundred articles and eight books, including his new book, 200 Years of American Financial Panics: Crashes, Recessions, Depressions, and the Technology That Will Change It All chronicling the country’s tumultuous financial history and the impact that technology will have on its future.
He is a frequent lecturer and media commentator on the financial services industry, having appeared on Bloomberg TV, CNN, Fox News, Newsmax, PBS and various local and national radio shows. He has also taught financial services and digital commerce law at Georgetown Law School, George Washington Law School, and Boston University School of Law, and has been a guest lecturer at Harvard Law School.
In 2008, Mr. Vartanian was named “Washingtonian of the Year” based on his use of music and sports to raise money for charities in the D.C. metropolitan area. As a musician, he appeared in the first production in the United States in 1970 of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. His classic rock band, The Johnny Esquire Band, has helped raise approximately $5,000,000 for charities in the Washington D.C. area over the last twenty-five years. Mr. Vartanian also founded and plays for the Washington All Stars, a senior baseball team that has raised more than $500,000 for Special Olympics.
His next book, The Unhackable Internet, will be published in early 2023.
Partner, Fusion Law, PLLC
Paul is the founding partner of Fusion Law, PLLC. He has extensive experience with state, federal, and global regulators building coalitions and implementing policies to promote innovation in financial services. He is responsible for designing and implementing the first state (Arizona) and federal (CFPB) FinTech sandboxes in the United States. He also designed the CFPB no-action letter and trial disclosure policies. He helped found the first global regulatory innovation coalition (Global Financial Innovation Network) and led the founding of the first U.S. regulatory innovation coalition (American Consumer Financial Innovation Network). He served on the Financial Stability Oversight Council subcommittee on digital assets. He also has drafted state-level laws on blockchain and utility tokens.
Paul also has significant enforcement and litigation experience. He led many multi-state consumer protection enforcement matters as Civil Litigation Division Chief at the Arizona Attorney General’s Office.
Prior to his government service, Paul practiced law in the areas of securities litigation and transactional work for approximately six years at two well-known law firms. He also clerked on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
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.
Partner, Latham & Watkins LLP
Gregory Garre is a partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Latham & Watkins and Global Chair of the firm's Supreme Court and Appellate Practice Group. He recently served as the 44th Solicitor General of the United States. As Solicitor General, he was the federal government's top lawyer before the Supreme Court and was responsible for overseeing the government's litigation in the federal appellate courts. Prior to his nomination by the President and unanimous confirmation as Solicitor General by the Senate, he served as Principal Deputy Solicitor General from 2005 to 2008, and then as Acting Solicitor General. In addition, he served as an Assistant to the Solicitor General from 2000 to 2004. He is the only person to have held all of those positions within the Office of the Solicitor General.
Mr. Garre has argued 29 cases before the Supreme Court, including two cases during the current term, and has served as counsel of record in hundreds of cases before the Court. During the past term, he won each of the cases he argued as Solicitor General, including the landmark case of Ashcroft v. Iqbal, which clarified the gateway requirements for civil litigation in the federal courts, as well as FCC v. Fox Television Stations, and Winter v. NRDC. He has also argued and briefed cases involving a wide array of other nationally important matters, including in the areas of administrative law, alien tort statute, antitrust, business and employment law, education, environmental law, First Amendment, intellectual property, international law, media and telecommunications, separation of powers and voting rights.
Mr. Garre has also successfully argued numerous cases before the federal courts of appeals, including some of the most significant cases heard by the appellate courts in recent years. And, as Acting Solicitor General, he successfully argued on behalf of the government in the first adversarial appeal heard by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review in its 30-year history.
Mr. Garre has received numerous awards for his public service, including the Attorney General's Medallion for his service as Solicitor General and the Navy's Distinguished Public Service Award-the Navy's highest civilian honor-for his successful argument in Winter v. NRDC, which secured a path-marking Supreme Court ruling overturning an order that restrained critically important naval exercises. He has also received the Attorney General's Distinguished Service Award, the Attorney General's Award for Excellence in Furthering Interests of US National Security, and additional honors from the Department of Justice for his work on nationally important litigation matters.
In November 2009, Mr. Garre was named to Washingtonian Magazine's list of top Supreme Court lawyers. In 2006, he was named to The American Lawyer's "Fab 50" list of top litigators under the age of 45 expected to be "leading the field for years to come." And in 2005, he was named to Chambers USA's list of leading appellate litigators in Washington, D.C.
Mr. Garre received his JD degree with high honors from the George Washington University Law School, where he served as editor-in-chief of the law review and was selected to Order of the Coif, and his BA degree cum laude from Dartmouth College, where he was a Rufus Choate Scholar. Following his graduation from law school, he served as a law clerk to Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, and to Judge Anthony J. Scirica of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
Mr. Garre is a member of the advisory board of the Georgetown University Law School Supreme Court Institute and of the Edward Coke Appellate Inn of Court. He has taught constitutional law and Supreme Court practice for many years at the George Washington University Law School. He has testified before Congress and speaks frequently on issues related to the Supreme Court and appellate practice.
Senior Litigation Counsel, New Civil Liberties Alliance
Peggy Little, Senior Counsel at New Civil Liberties Alliance, a new public interest law firm challenging the administrative state founded in 2017 by Professor Philip Hamburger, has over three decades of experience as a trial and appellate litigator in complex, high-stakes regulatory, mass-tort, class-action, products liability, securities, commercial and civil rights litigation representing individuals and high-profile litigants including Fortune 50 companies, financial institutions, public companies, and universities in state and federal courts, including the United States Supreme Court.
Peggy is a graduate of Yale College and Yale Law School, where she was awarded the Potter Stewart Prize. She was a law clerk to the Hon. Ralph K. Winter on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Prior to starting her own trial and appellate law firm in 1997, where she was appellate consulting counsel to the New Haven firefighters in Ricci v.DeStefano, a landmark 2009 United States Supreme Court decision, Peggy was a partner at Tyler, Cooper & Alcorn in New Haven, Connecticut. From 2004 to early 2018, Peggy directed, part-time, the Federalist Society Pro Bono Center.
Peggy has participated in many national conferences and symposia addressing issues of current importance in constitutional law – specifically state and federal constitutional questions regarding the separation of powers and the first amendment – and regularly speaks, blogs and publishes on the topic of the unconstitutional exercise of governmental power. In May of 2017, she presented her paper, Pirates at the Parchment Gates, to a conference of state and federal judges at the Law and Economics Center at the Antonin Scalia Law School. Her work has been published by law reviews, legal publications, the Federalist Society, the Wall Street Journal, Law and Liberty and the Manhattan Institute.
Recent publications include: How the SEC silences its critics, The SEC should listen to Sen. Cotton, Lucia v. SEC, Opening Salvos in the Opioid Litigation Wars, Straight Dope on the Opioid Crisis
The Government’s Arms Around Cryptocurrency: Hug or Stranglehold?
Douglas Elliott, Michael Piwowar, Dawn Stump, Thomas P. Vartanian, Paul N. Watkins
As the cryptocurrency industry grows, state and federal governments are considering how that industry should...
The Government’s Arms Around Cryptocurrency: Hug or Stranglehold?
TeleforumTopics
Elon Musk and Twitter: Acquisition Basics
The headlines read, “Musk Buys Twitter,” and the chatter is about free speech. But it’s...
Topics
The Free State Foundation's Fourteenth Annual Policy Conference on May 6
The Free State Foundation's Fourteenth Annual Policy Conference will be held on May 6 at...
Topics
The Incoherence of the Biden Administration’s Labor-Market Policies
The Biden administration is pushing two irreconcilable theories about labor markets. One theory argues that...
Federalist Society Review, Volume 22
Katie McClendon
The Federalist Society Review is the legal journal produced by the Federalist Society for Law & Public...
A Fireside chat with Commissioner Noah Phillips
Harvard Student Chapter
Cambridge, MACochran v. SEC: Vindicating Article III Jurisdiction over the Structural Constitution and ALJs
Gregory G. Garre, Margaret A. Little
In Cochran v. SEC the Fifth Circuit court of appeals sitting en banc opened the doors...
Cochran v. SEC: Vindicating Article III Jurisdiction over the Structural Constitution and ALJs
Gregory G. Garre, Margaret A. Little
In Cochran v. SEC the Fifth Circuit court of appeals sitting en banc opened the doors...
Cochran v. SEC: Vindicating Article III Jurisdiction over the Structural Constitution and ALJs