Acting Assistant Commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, Office of Professional Responsibility, U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Brian M. Fish is currently the Senior Advisor to the General Counsel at the Department of Homeland Security where he works on immigration and law enforcement issues. Previously, he was a trial attorney with the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement, where he represented the Department of Homeland Security in removal hearings before the U.S. Immigration Court. Additionally, he was a Special Assistant United States Attorney and a Baltimore City homicide prosecutor. He is a member of the Federalist Society's Criminal Law & Procedure Practice Group Executive Committee and the President of its Baltimore Lawyers Chapter. He earned his B.A. from LaSalle University in 1992 and his J.D. from Loyola University New Orleans School of Law in 1998.
Member, Miller & Chevalier
Anthony Provenzano's practice focuses on the tax, ERISA, and other laws impacting executive compensation and employee benefits, as well as the employment tax and reporting issues that may arise with respect to such arrangements. He routinely advises clients on the various rules regarding non-qualified, equity, and tax-qualified arrangements, and the surrounding employment tax and deduction issues. In addition, Mr. Provenzano's practice includes controversy matters involving the IRS, DOL and PBGC exams and disputes.
Mr. Provenzano's extensive experience in executive compensation and employee benefit matters allows him to advise clients on the broader legal implications of an arrangement and how various benefit regimes could interact. His experience in handling controversy matters, involving split dollar arrangements, deferred compensation programs, mispriced stock options, and qualified plans, can also help a client understand how plan language may be viewed by a government examiner or a participant asserting a claim. Clients quoted by Chambers have described Mr. Provenzano as "very thorough and very knowledgeable of the tax code."
Mr. Provenzano is frequently asked to speak on matters regarding executive compensation, including deferred compensation and the attendant payroll tax and reporting obligations with respect to such arrangements, the deduction limitations under Internal Revenue Code Section 162(m), defending against IRS executive compensation and employment tax audits, and IRS guidance regarding correction of failures under a Code Section 409A arrangement.
Member, Miller & Chevalier
Anthony Shelley is a Member with Miller & Chevalier Chartered in Washington, DC. His practice focuses on litigation and regulatory issues relating to health and pension benefits. Mr. Shelley's experience includes matters involving the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), other federal employee benefits statutes, such as the Federal Employees Health Benefits Act, and the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
He has defended companies and plans in class actions and individual suits concerning challenges to benefits denials, exclusions from coverage, fiduciary actions, medical provider claims, and subrogation and reimbursement determinations. He has dealt in depth with issues of federal jurisdiction and preemption of state law, as well as governmental regulatory authority and administrative law. He has argued before the U.S. Supreme Court and served as lead counsel in numerous cases before the U.S. Courts of Appeals. Mr. Shelley advises insurers and employers regularly on the ACA's requirements and its implementing regulations. Another aspect of Mr. Shelley’s practice focuses on claims against the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) in connection with the termination of pension plans under distress and the PBGC's subsequent administration of those plans.
Mr. Shelley is frequently quoted on timely issues and speaks regularly at national and industry conferences. Mr. Shelley has been published in a wide variety of business publications. He was Chair of Miller & Chevalier's Executive Committee from 2011 to June 2017.
Mr. Shelley also has a substantial pro bono practice, having been appointed by the DC Circuit more than a dozen times in the past several years to represent prisoners and other indigents on important constitutional, statutory, and procedural issues.
Spears-Gilbert Associate Professor of Law, University of Kentucky J. David Rosenberg College of Law
Brian L. Frye joined the faculty of the College of Law in 2012. He teaches classes in civil procedure, intellectual property, copyright, and nonprofit organizations, as well as a seminar on law and popular culture. Previously, he was a Visiting Assistant Professor of Law at Hofstra University School of Law, and a litigation associate at Sullivan & Cromwell LLP. He clerked for Judge Andrew J. Kleinfeld of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and Justice Richard B. Sanders of the Washington Supreme Court. He received a J.D. from the New York University School of Law in 2005, an M.F.A. from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1997, and a B.A. from the University of California at Berkeley in 1995. His research focuses on intellectual property and charity law, especially in relation to artists and arts organizations.
Professor Frye is also a filmmaker. He produced the documentary Our Nixon (2013), which was broadcast by CNN and opened theatrically nationwide. His short films and videos have shown in the 2002 Whitney Biennial, the New York Film Festival, and the San Francisco International Film Festival, among other venues, and are in the permanent collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art. His critical writing on film and art has appeared in October, The New Republic, Film Comment, Cineaste, Senses of Cinema, and Incite! among other journals.
Additionally, Professor Frye also produces a podcast, Ipse Dixit https://shows.pippa.io/ipse-dixit
Senior Fellow, Democracy, Conflict, and Governance Program, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Dr. Rachel Kleinfeld is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where she focuses on issues of rule of law, security, and governance in post-conflict countries, fragile states, and states in transition.
As the founding CEO of the Truman National Security Project, she spent nearly a decade leading a movement of national security, political, and military leaders working to promote people and policies that strengthen security, stability, rights, and human dignity in America and around the world. In 2011, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton appointed Kleinfeld to the Foreign Affairs Policy Board, which advises the secretary of state quarterly, a role she served through 2014.
Kleinfeld has consulted on rule of law reform for the World Bank, the European Union, the OECD, the Open Society Institute, and other institutions, and has briefed multiple government agencies in the United States and abroad. She is the author of Advancing the Rule of Law Abroad: Next Generation Reform (Carnegie, 2012), which was chosen by Foreign Affairs magazine as one of the best foreign policy books of 2012. Her writings have appeared in Relocating the Rule of Law (Hart, 2009), Promoting Democracy and the Rule of Law: American and European Strategies (Palgrave, 2009), The Future of Human Rights (Philadelphia UP, 2008), Promoting the Rule of Law: The Problem of Knowledge (Carnegie Endowment, 2006), With All Our Might (Rowen and Littlefield, 2006) and other publications. She has also co-authored Let There Be Light: Electrifying the Developing World with Markets and Distributed Generation (Truman Institute, 2012).
Named one of the top 40 Under 40 Political Leaders in America by Time magazine in 2010, Kleinfeld has been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Fox News, and other national television, radio, and print media. You can find out more about her work and activities on her website, rachelkleinfeld.com.
Partner, Wyatt Tarrant & Combs LLP
Thomas Travis is a member of Wyatt Tarrant & Combs' Litigation & Dispute Resolution Service Team. He assists with the representation of a broad range of clients in a variety of cases, including appellate practice, constitutional law, commercial litigation and transactional matters.
He was a clerk for Chief Justice John D. Minton, Jr., Supreme Court of Kentucky, and a legal fellow for United States Senator Rand Paul.
Partner, Wyatt Tarrant & Combs LLP
Thomas Travis is a member of Wyatt Tarrant & Combs' Litigation & Dispute Resolution Service Team. He assists with the representation of a broad range of clients in a variety of cases, including appellate practice, constitutional law, commercial litigation and transactional matters.
He was a clerk for Chief Justice John D. Minton, Jr., Supreme Court of Kentucky, and a legal fellow for United States Senator Rand Paul.
National Affairs Columnist, National Review
John Fund is National Affairs Columnist for National Review magazine and a on-air analyst on the Fox News Channel. He is considered a notable expert on American politics and the nexus between politics and economics.
He previously served as a columnist and editorial board member for The Wall Street Journal. He is the author of several books, including Who's Counting: Bow Fraudsters and Bureaucrats Put Your Vote At Risk (Encounter Books, 2012); Stealing Elections: How Voter Fraud Threatens Our Democracy (Encounter Books, 2008) and The Dangers of Regulation Through Litigation (ATRA Press, 2008). He worked as a research analyst for the California Legislature in Sacramento before beginning his journalism career as a reporter for the syndicated columnists Rowland Evans and Robert Novak.
Roll Call, the newspaper of Capitol Hill, called him "the Tom Paine of the modern Congressional reform movement." He has won awards from the Institute for Justice, The School Choice Aliance and the Warren Brooks award for journalistic excellence from the American Legislative Exchange Council.
Managing Director, Chief US Economist and Head of Macro Strategy, BNP Paribas
Dr. Daniel P. Ahn is a Managing Director, the Chief U.S. Economist, and Head of Markets 360 – North America at BNP Paribas in New York. He is also a non-residential Global Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
Until 2018, he was the chief economist at the U.S. Department of State, where he advised the Secretary of State and senior principals on a wide range of international economic and security topics relevant to U.S. foreign policy, including global macroeconomic growth, financial stability, economic sanctions, international trade, and energy and environmental issues.
Prior to entering public service in 2014, Dr. Ahn was the chief economist for energy and commodities at Citigroup in New York and also held senior positions at Citadel, Barclays Capital, and Lehman Brothers. He has held research and teaching positions at Harvard University, the National Bureau of Economic Research, Columbia University, the Council on Foreign Relations, the International Monetary Fund, Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, Georgetown University, and the U.S. Federal Reserve Board of Governors.
He is the author of multiple research articles, Congressional testimony, and a textbook, Principles of Commodity Economics and Finance with MIT Press.
Dr. Ahn has extensive experience using state-of-the-art econometrics, data science, geospatial imagery, and machine-learning for economic forecasting, data analysis, financial risk management, project financing, commercial strategy, public policy, and operational solutions.
He was featured in Forbes Magazine as one of 30 under 30 in Finance. He is the recipient of both the Superior Honor Award and the Meritorious Honor Award from the U.S. Department of State.
He completed his A.B. in economics and finance with honors from Princeton University, and his Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University.
Former Managing Director, BlackRock Inc.
Joanne Medero was until July 2020 a Managing Director at BlackRock where she was member of their Global Public Policy Group and a Senior Advisor to the Vice Chairman on the intersection of public policy and corporate governance. In June 2021, Ms. Medero was appointed a director/trustee of the Nuveen Funds.
Ms. Medero's service with BlackRock dates back to 1996, including her years with Barclays Global Investors (BGI), which merged with BlackRock in 2009. She joined BGI as its Global General Counsel in 1996 and after more than ten years in that role, became the global head of Government Relations and Public Policy for Barclays’ investment banking and investment management businesses. Prior to joining BGI, Ms. Medero was a partner with Orrick, Herrington and Sutcliffe specializing in derivatives and market regulation issues. Ms. Medero also served as general counsel of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (1989-1993) and as an associate director for legal and financial affairs at the Office of Presidential Personnel, The White House (1986-1989).
Ms. Medero is a graduate of St. Lawrence University and received her JD from George Washington University.
Senior Fellow, George Mason University National Security Institute
Bryan Smith is a Senior Fellow at the George Mason University National Security Institute.
Senior Counsel, First Liberty Institute
Stephanie N. Taub serves as Senior Counsel with First Liberty Institute, focusing on litigation, appellate advocacy, and legal education.
While at First Liberty, her article on the rights of faith-based organizations under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 has been published in the Texas Review of Law and Politics. She has also authored pieces published in National Review, the Daily Signal, the Washington Times, the Des Moines Register, and the New York Daily News. In 2017, Taub was named one of 15 recipients of the James Wilson Fellowship in natural law.
Before joining First Liberty, Taub worked as a law clerk to the Honorable Reed O’Connor in the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of Texas.
Taub is a Harvard Law School graduate in the class of 2014 and a Blackstone Fellow in the class of 2012. During law school, she served as Co-President of the HLS Christian Fellowship and Managing Technical Editor of the Harvard Human Rights Journal. Taub spent her law school summers defending religious liberty in public interest law firms and clerking in the Texas Office of Solicitor General.
For her undergraduate studies at the University of Southern California, Taub graduated summa cum laude, majoring in Business Administration with a minor in Philosophy.
Partner, Briscoe Prows Kao Ivester & Bazel LLP
Tony Francois is experienced in Water and Real Property Law, Land Use and Zoning, Environmental Regulation, Natural Resources Development, Agricultural Law, and Constitutional Law. He has represented homeowners, builders, farmers and ranchers, trade associations, and water districts in administrative, civil, and criminal proceedings before state and federal administrative agencies and state and federal trial and appellate courts. He is a member of the California State Bar and the Northern, Eastern, and Central Districts of California and the Districts of New Mexico and North Dakota, and has litigated cases in federal courts in California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, North and South Dakota, Minnesota, Massachusetts, Maryland, South Carolina, and the District of Columbia, as well as the Sixth, Eighth, Ninth, and Tenth Circuit Courts of Appeals. He has appeared before the Supreme Courts of California, Idaho, Nevada, and the United States.
Prior to attending law school, he served as an infantry officer in the United States Army, and was stationed in the former West Germany during the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Tony was an Attorney at Pacific Legal Foundation from 2012 to 2021. He was a lobbyist for 10 years, first with California Farm Bureau Federation from 2003 to 2007, and then with KP Public Affairs from 2007 to 2012. He was an attorney at McQuaid, Bedford & Van Zandt in San Francisco from 1999 – 2003.
Executive Director, Committee for Justice
Ashley Baker serves as Executive Director at the Committee for Justice. Her focus areas include the Supreme Court, regulatory policy, antitrust, and judicial nominations. Her writing has appeared in Fox News, USA Today, The Boston Globe, The Hill, RealClearPolitics, The American Spectator, and elsewhere. Ashley is also the founder of the recently-formed Alliance on Antitrust coalition. She has testified before the United States Senate on the topic of antitrust law.
Ashley is an active member of the Federalist Society, where she serves as a member of the Regulatory Transparency Project's Antitrust & Consumer Protection and Cyber & Privacy working groups. As a member of the Republican National Lawyers Association, she has served as a speaker on the Supreme Court and the federal judiciary.
As an expert on the judicial nominations process, Ashley worked closely on the efforts to confirm Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh.
Much of Ashley’s work is at the intersection of the courts, regulation, and technology. Ashley also engages in policy analysis and outreach on legislation and regulations related to these issues by writing op-eds, letters to Congress for committee hearings, and regulatory comments.
James G. Dinan University Professor, Carey Law School, University of Pennsylvania
Herbert Hovenkamp is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and in 2008 won the Justice Department’s John Sherman Award for his lifetime contributions to antitrust law. In 2012 he served on the ABA’s Committee to advise the President-elect on antitrust matters. His principal writing includes The Opening of American Law: Neoclassical Legal Thought, 1870-1970 (Oxford, 2015); Antitrust Law (formerly with Phillip E. Areeda and Donald F. Turner) (22 vols., Aspen 2008-18); Principles of Antitrust (West, 2017); Creation Without Restraint: Promoting Liberty and Rivalry in Innovation (Oxford, 2012, with Bohannan); The Making of Competition Policy (Oxford, 2012, with Crane); The Antitrust Enterprise: Principle and Execution (Harvard, 2006); Federal Antitrust Policy: The Law of Competition and Its Practice (West, 5th ed. 2015); IP and Antitrust (2 vols., Aspen, 2017, with Janis, Lemley, Leslie, and Carrier); and Enterprise and American Law, 1836-1937 (Harvard, 1991). He has also co-authored casebooks in antitrust, property law, and a free open source casebook on innovation and competition policy. He has consulted on numerous antitrust cases for various government entities and private plaintiffs. He has two sons.
Courthouse Steps Oral Argument Teleforum: Pereida v. Barr
TeleforumSupply Chain Security and Global Power Competition: Should the United States Get China Out of its Supply Chain?
Daniel P. Ahn, Joanne Medero, Bryan Smith
Recent events have demonstrated how dependent on China the United States has become for critical...
Courthouse Steps Oral Argument Teleforum: Tanzin v. Tanvir
Stephanie Taub
This teleforum addresses the October 6, 2020, Supreme Court oral argument in FNU Tanzin v. Tanvir, which...
Courthouse Steps Oral Argument Teleforum: Texas v. New Mexico
Tony Francois
As an act of original jusrisdiction, the Supreme Court appointed a river master to resolve...
Courthouse Steps Oral Argument Teleforum: Rutledge v. Pharmaceutical Care Management Association
TeleforumDeep Dive Episode 137 – Antitrust Populism and the Conservative Movement
Ashley Baker, Herbert Hovenkamp
On October 7, 2020, the Federalist Society's Pennsylvania Student Chapter and the Regulatory Transparency Project...
Issues in Election Law & Election Integrity
2020 Kentucky Chapters Conference
2020 Kentucky Chapters Conference
Kentucky Lawyers Chapters
Opening Remarks by Attorney General Daniel Cameron
2020 Kentucky Chapters Conference
A Virtual Conversation with John Fund
Delaware Lawyers Chapter - Online Event