Deputy Secretary of Transportation, US Department of Transportation
Steven G. Bradbury was sworn in as the Deputy Secretary of Transportation on March 13, 2025, following his confirmation by the U.S. Senate on March 11, 2025. In this role, he oversees the Department’s operating administrations and spearheads initiatives to ensure a safe, efficient, and modern transportation system that strengthens economic productivity and global competitiveness. Deputy Secretary Bradbury also assists Secretary Duffy in managing the Department’s activities, including its workforce of over 58,000 employees and an annual budget exceeding $109 billion.
Bradbury previously served as the 23rd General Counsel of the Department of Transportation from 2017 to 2021, as the Acting Deputy Secretary from 2019, and as Acting Secretary of Transportation in 2021. As General Counsel, he was the chief legal officer, advising on all legal matters and ensuring the integrity and compliance of the Department’s policies and programs.
Before rejoining DOT, Bradbury was a Distinguished Fellow at The Heritage Foundation from December 2022 to March 2025. He has extensive experience in the public and private sector, having served as Principal Deputy and Acting Assistant Attorney General at the U.S. Department of Justice and as a partner at Kirkland & Ellis LLP and Dechert LLP. Earlier in his career, he clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas and Judge James L. Buckley.
Bradbury holds a J.D., magna cum laude, from the University of Michigan Law School and a B.A. in English from Stanford University.
Director, Clean Air, Climate & Clean Energy Program, Natural Resources Defense Council
John Walke has spearheaded the organization’s national clean-air advocacy before Congress, in the courts, at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and before the public since 2000. Before joining NRDC, he spent three years working as an attorney in the EPA’s Office of General Counsel, where he handled cases related to permitting, air toxins, monitoring, and enforcement under the Clean Air Act. Prior to that, he was an associate in a private law firm based in Washington, D.C. Walke is a graduate of Duke University and Harvard Law School. He is based in Washington, D.C.
Laurence H. Silberman Chair in Constitutional Governance and Senior Fellow, American Enterprise Institute; Co-Director, Antonin Scalia Law School’s C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State
Adam J. White is the Laurence H. Silberman Chair in Constitutional Governance and senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he focuses on the Supreme Court and the administrative state. Concurrently, he codirects the Antonin Scalia Law School’s C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State.
Mr. White practiced constitutional and administrative law, particularly in the regulation of energy and financial markets. He started his legal career as a law clerk for Judge David B. Sentelle at the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit.
Mr. White has written for the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Washington Post, National Affairs, Commentary, Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, and Notre Dame Law Review, among other publications. He is a regular contributor to the Yale Journal on Regulation’s Notice and Comment blog, and for many years, he was one of the Weekly Standard’s lead writers on constitutional law and the Supreme Court.
Mr. White has testified often before Congress, including before the Senate’s Committees on the Judiciary; Commerce, Science, and Transportation; and Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs and before the House’s Judiciary and Financial Services Committees. In 2018, the Senate Committee on the Judiciary called him to testify in Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings to advise senators on Kavanaugh’s approach to administrative law.
In 2021, he served on the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States, where he criticized “Court packing” and other efforts to restructure the Supreme Court. In 2017, he was appointed to serve on the Administrative Conference of the United States. He also serves on the leadership council for the American Bar Association’s Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice Section, which he will chair in 2023–24. Before joining AEI, he was a research fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and an adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
Mr. White has a JD from Harvard Law School and a bachelor of business administration from the College of Business at the University of Iowa.
Professor of Law, Georgetown Law
William W. Buzbee is a professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center. In his teaching and scholarship, he specializes in environmental law, legislation and regulation, and administrative law. Recent publications focus on climate regulation, deregulation and law governing agency policy change, and federalism. He also offers seminars on advanced environmental, regulatory, and constitutional law subjects, with his most recent seminar focused on “The Art of Regulatory War.”
Professor Buzbee’s books include the recently published Fighting Westway: Environmental Law, Citizen Activism, and the Regulatory War that Transformed New York City (Cornell University Press 2014) and Preemption Choice: The Theory, Law and Reality of Federalism’s Core Question(Cambridge University Press, hardcover 2009, paperback 2011) (William W. Buzbee editor and contributor). He has been a co-author of the 5th , 6th, 7th and forthcoming 8th editions of Environmental Protection: Law and Policy (Aspen/Wolters Kluwer). Law review scholarship includes publications in New York University Law Review, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, Michigan Law Review, Stanford Law Review (co-authored), Cornell Law Review (co-authored), Duke Law Journal (forthcoming), George Washington Law Review, Iowa Law Review, The Journal of Law and Politics and in an array of other journals, books, news outlets, and blogs. Three of his articles have been named among the 10 best environmental or land use law articles of that year and republished in the Land Use and Environment Law Review. He regularly assists with appellate and Supreme Court environmental, federalism, and regulatory litigation, and also has testified before congressional committees on environmental and regulatory matters. He has published op-eds on regulatory and environmental issues with The New York Times, The Hill, CNN, and been quoted and interviewed by numerous press and media outlets.
Professor Buzbee joined Georgetown from Emory Law School, where he was a professor of law and directed its Environmental and Natural Resources Law Program. He also co-directed Emory’s Center on Federalism and Intersystemic Governance. He has been a visiting professor of law at Columbia, Cornell and Illinois law schools. He has also served as a professor for the Leiden-Amsterdam-Columbia Law School Summer Program in American Law. Professor Buzbee is a founding Member Scholar of the Center for Progressive Reform, a Washington D.C.-based regulatory think tank. Professor Buzbee was awarded the 2007-2008 Emory Williams Teaching Award for excellence in teaching. Professor Buzbee clerked for United States Judge Jose A. Cabranes, and before becoming a professor was an attorney-fellow at the Natural Resources Defense Council, and did environmental, land use and litigation work for the New York City law firm, Patterson, Belknap, Webb & Tyler. JD, Columbia Law School, 1986; BA, Amherst College, magna cum laude, 1983.
Partner and Deputy Chair, Securities Department, WilmerHale
Daniel Gallagher advises corporate boards and management on the full range of legal and strategic issues they face, and counsels financial services and accounting firms in investigations, regulatory proceedings and policy matters. Mr. Gallagher brings to his practice an unparalleled breadth of experience from having served not only in senior positions at the Securities and Exchange Commission but also as the chief legal officer of a global, S&P 500 corporation and general counsel of a broker-dealer.
Mr. Gallagher has extensive experience in the public and private sectors, navigating regulatory matters, financial markets, corporate legal affairs and governance, and fintech issues, including the regulatory and policy issues arising from new technology.
Mr. Gallagher previously served as the chief legal officer at Mylan N.V., a leading global pharmaceutical company; as the president of a financial services consulting firm; and as an SEC Commissioner. As an SEC Commissioner, Mr. Gallagher championed corporate governance reform, advocated for a comprehensive holistic review of equity market structural issues, and encouraged greatly improving the commission’s fixed income market expertise.
Mr. Gallagher also served on SEC staff in various senior roles, including as the deputy director and co-acting director of the Division of Trading and Markets, where he was on the front lines of the agency’s response to the financial crisis, including representing the commission in the Lehman Brothers liquidation. He was also a counsel to former SEC Commissioner Paul Atkins and to former Chairman Christopher Cox, working on matters involving the Division of Enforcement and the Division of Trading and Markets.
Earlier in his career, Mr. Gallagher was the senior vice president and general counsel of a global provider of financial services technology, where he managed all legal and regulatory matters. He first joined WilmerHale in 1993 as an associate in the firm’s Securities Department.
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.
A.B. Chettle Chair in Civil Procedure, Georgetown University Law Center
Professor Vladeck teaches civil procedure, federal courts, a practicum on privacy and technology (taught jointly with MIT), and directs the Civil Litigation Clinic, a student clinic that handles trial court litigation focused on public-interest cases. He also serves as Faculty Director of the Law Center’s Center on Privacy and Technology.
From 2002 to 2009, Professor Vladeck served as Director of the Civil Rights section of Georgetown Law’s Institute for Public Representation, a student clinic that handles complex trial court and appellate litigation focused on civil rights and other public-interest litigation, while also teaching civil procedure and federal courts. From 2009 to 2012, Professor Vladeck took leave from Georgetown to serve as the Director of the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Consumer Protection.
At the FTC, he supervised the Bureau’s 450 lawyers, investigators, paralegals and support staff in carrying out the Bureau’s work to protect consumers from unfair, deceptive or fraudulent practices. Before joining the Law Center faculty full-time in 2002, Professor Vladeck spent over 25 years with Public Citizen Litigation Group, a national public interest law firm, serving the last ten years as the Group’s director. He has briefed and argued a number of cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and more than sixty cases before federal courts of appeal and state courts of law resort.
He is a Senior Fellow of the Administrative Conference of the United States, a member of the National Academy of Sciences’ Committee on Law, Science and Technology, and an elected member of the American Law Institute. He also serves as Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Natural Resources Defense Council, and on the boards of the National Consumers Law Center and the Center for Democracy and Technology. Professor Vladeck frequently testifies before Congress and writes on administrative law, First Amendment, consumer protection, privacy, and access to justice issues.
Harry Elwood Warren Scholar and Professor of Law, Boston University Law School
Jack Beermann’s scholarship focuses on two areas: civil rights litigation and administrative law. He is an authority on the circumstances under which state and local officials, and local governments, should be held liable for their constitutional violations. “What particularly fascinates me is studying the values underlying our public law system and how social movements and history have affected those values,” he says.
Professor Beermann has authored or co-authored four books on administrative law, including a widely-used casebook and the Emanuel Law Outline on the subject. He has also written extensively on the degree to which federal courts should defer to the legal determinations of federal agencies, on the problem of midnight rulemaking, in which outgoing administrations promulgate dozens of regulations at the end of their administrations and on the legal aspects of the funding crisis facing public employee pension funds in the United States.
His articles have appeared in prominent American journals such as the Stanford Law Review, UCLA Law Review, Duke Law Journal, and Boston University Law Review, and in foreign law journals including Germany’s Rechtstheorie and China’s Administrative Law Review. Recent articles include “The Public Pension Crisis” in the Washington & Lee Law Review, “Congressional Administration” in the San Diego Law Review and the “Constitutional Law of Presidential Transition” in the North Carolina Law Review. In 1998, he co-authored an article that examined civil rights violations in the popular television drama NYPD Blue and in 1993 he wrote “The Supreme Court’s Narrow View on Civil Rights” for the prestigious Supreme Court Review.
Before joining the Boston University faculty in 1984, Professor Beermann clerked for Judge Richard Cudahy of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. In 2017, he was appointed as a public member of the Administrative Conference of the United States. In 2008, 2011 and 2014 he was visiting professor at Harvard Law School and in 1997, he was distinguished visiting professor at DePaul Law School. In 2004, 2005 and 2007, he taught at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, Israel, and in 2002, he taught at the China University of Political Science and Law in Beijing. He has lectured in Israel, Germany, Australia, Morocco, Portugal and Canada. At BU Law, Professor Beermann teaches administrative law, civil rights litigation, and constitutional law. In recent years, he has also taught introduction to American law (for foreign LLM students) and local government law.
Partner, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP
Thomas G. Hungar is a partner in the Washington, D.C., office of Gibson Dunn. His practice focuses on appellate litigation, and he assists clients with congressional investigations and complex trial court litigation matters as well. He has presented oral argument before the Supreme Court of the United States in 28 cases, including some of the Court’s most important patent, antitrust, securities, and environmental law decisions, and he has also appeared before numerous lower federal and state courts.
Thomas served as General Counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives from July 2016 until January 2019. As General Counsel, he provided legal advice and litigation representation on a non-partisan basis to the House and its leadership, members, officers, and staff, and he worked closely with numerous House committees in connection with their oversight and investigative activities. Previously, he served as a Deputy Solicitor General of the United States. In that position, he supervised business-related appellate litigation for the federal government, with particular emphasis on patent, antitrust, securities, and environmental appellate cases, and he also oversaw appellate litigation in banking, bankruptcy, tax, government contracts, communications, copyright, labor, trademark, and international trade matters. In private practice, Thomas’s appellate experience has encompassed those areas as well as class actions, constitutional law, employment law, product liability, administrative procedure, insurance coverage and bad faith, and general commercial litigation. He has handled scores of business-related appeals in the Supreme Court and lower appellate courts, and has briefed and argued many high-profile matters.
Thomas is a Fellow of the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers and is a frequent lecturer in his areas of expertise. While at the Department of Justice, he served as Appellate Counsel to the Intellectual Property Task Force Executive Staff, and he was awarded the John Marshall Award for Outstanding Legal Achievement, the Department’s highest award presented to attorneys for contributions and excellence in legal performance, in recognition of his handling of patent-law matters before the Supreme Court.
Most recently, Thomas has garnered national recognition for his Appellate Practice in The Legal 500 – United States, Best Lawyers in America, and in Chambers USA, which has repeatedly highlighted Thomas for his “expertise in appellate litigation” and experience with employment and antitrust disputes, as well as Congressional Investigations. Thomas was also recently named a “Litigation Star” by Benchmark Litigation.
Thomas served as an Assistant to the Solicitor General of the United States from 1992-1994. He also served as a law clerk to Justice Anthony M. Kennedy of the Supreme Court and to Circuit Judge Alex Kozinski of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. He received his law degree from Yale Law School in 1987, where he was a Senior Editor of the Yale Law & Policy Review. He received his Bachelor of Science degree magna cum laude in mathematics/computer science and economics from Willamette University in 1984.
Thomas is admitted to practice in the District of Columbia.
Hugh and Hazel Darling Foundation Professor of Law; Director, Center for the Study of Constitutional Originalism, University of San Diego School of Law
Executive Vice President, The Federalist Society
Dean Reuter is Executive Vice President at the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies. He has served in two federal government agency Offices of the Inspector General, as Counsel to the Inspector General and Deputy Inspector General, responsible for policing the use of federal funds granted and contracted through those agencies. As such, he helped conduct and oversee criminal investigations across the country. He is the principal author of the non-fiction book, The Hidden Nazi: The Untold Story of America's Deal with the Devil, and editor of Liberty’s Nemesis: The Unchecked Expansion of the State and Confronting Terror: 9/11 and the Future of American National Security. He was appointed by the President and served as Vice-Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Corporation for National and Community Service, and recently served as an appointee on the U.S. Commission on Presidential Scholars. He is a graduate of Hood College (BA with Honors) and the University of Maryland School of Law.
Trustee Professor of Law, New York Law School
From 1972-79, Schoenbrod served as one of the leaders of the Natural Resources Defense Council, where he campaigned to reduce lead in gasoline, resurrect the then-decrepit New York City subway, and protect the environment of Puerto Rico. Previously, he was Director of Program Development at the community development project that Senator Robert Kennedy established in Bedford Stuyvesant. He has also been a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and the American Enterprise Institute.
His books include
D.C. Confidential: Inside the Five Tricks of Washington (Encounter Books, 2017) with forewords by Governor Howard Dean and Senator Mike Lee;
Breaking the Logjam: Environmental Protection That Will Work (Yale University Press, 2010)(with Richard B. Stewart and Katrina M. Wyman);
Saving Our Environment from Washington: How Congress Grabs Power, Shirks Responsibility, and Shortchanges the People (Yale University Press, 2005);
Democracy by Decree: What Happens When Courts Run Government (Yale University Press, 2003) (with Ross Sandler); and
Power Without Responsibility: How Congress Abuses the People Through Delegation (Yale University Press, 1993).
In addition to writing scholarly articles, he has frequently contributed opinion pieces to the Wall Street Journal, The Hill, the New York Times, and other publications.
He has an undergraduate degree from Yale College, a graduate degree in economics from Oxford University, which he attended as a Marshall Scholar, and a law degree from Yale Law School.
Professor of Law, University of Michigan Law School
Christopher J. Walker is a Professor of Law at the University of Michigan. Prior to joining Michigan law faculty in 2022, he spent a decade teaching at The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law. He previously clerked for Justice Anthony Kennedy of the U.S. Supreme Court, worked on the Civil Appellate Staff at the U.S. Department of Justice, and served on the Senate Judiciary Committee staff for the Gorsuch Supreme Court confirmation. Professor Walker’s research focuses on administrative law, regulation, and law and policy at the agency level. Outside the law school, he chaired the American Bar Association’s Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice in 2020-21 and served as one of forty Public Members of the Administrative Conference of the United States from 2016-2022, and he continues to serve in both organizations in various capacities. He also works of counsel at the U.S. Chamber Litigation Center. In 2022, he received the Federalist Society’s Joseph Story Award.
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.
Associate Dean for Research and Intellectual Life, McKnight Presidential Professor in Law, Distinguished McKnight University Professor, Harlan Albert Rogers Professor in Law, Associate Director, Corporate Institute, University of Minnesota Law School
Professor Kristin E. Hickman is the McKnight Presidential Professor in Law, a Distinguished McKnight University Professor, and Harlan Albert Rogers Professor in Law at the University of Minnesota Law School. She also has taught at Harvard Law School and Northwestern University School of Law. Professor Hickman teaches and writes primarily in the areas of administrative law, tax administration, and statutory interpretation. Her articles on these topics have appeared in the Columbia Law Review, Cornell Law Review, Virginia Law Review, Duke Law Journal, and other publications. She also co-authors the Administrative Law Treatise with Richard J. Pierce, Jr., and a casebook on federal administrative law with Pierce and Christopher J. Walker. Her scholarly work has been cited several times in opinions of the United States Supreme Court as well as regularly in lower court judicial opinions and court briefs.
In 2018-19, Professor Hickman served as Special Adviser to the Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in Washington, D.C. She presently serves as a Senior Fellow, and previously served as a public member and chair of the judicial review committee, for the Administrative Conference of the United States. She also is a Fellow of the American College of Tax Counsel.
Professor Hickman received her B.S. degree in business administration with a concentration in accounting and a secondary major in history from Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. After practicing for several years as a certified public accountant, Professor Hickman earned her J.D. degree, magna cum laude, from Northwestern University School of Law, where she was awarded the Raoul Berger Prize and the Lowden Wigmore Prize for her scholarly writings. Following law school, Professor Hickman clerked for The Honorable David B. Sentelle of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and practiced law as an associate with the Chicago office of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, concentrating on corporate and international tax transactions and matters.
Professor of Practice and Distinguished Scholar in Residence; Co-Director of the Legislative and Regulatory Process Clinic, New York University School of Law
Sally Katzen served in the Clinton administration as administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), as deputy assistant to the president for economic policy and deputy director of the National Economic Council in the White House, and then as the deputy director for management at OMB. She served as the head of the Agency Review Group for the Obama/Biden transition with responsibility for the Executive Office of the President and all government-wide agencies. She has taught both undergraduates and at various law schools. She is a member of the American Law Institute and the National Academy of Public Administration, has served on multiple panels for the National Academy of Sciences, testified frequently before Congress, and is on the board of several non-profit organizations. Before joining the Clinton administration, Katzen was a partner in the Washington, DC, law firm of Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering, specializing in regulatory and legislative matters, while serving in leadership roles in the American Bar Association (including chair of the Section on Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice and as DC delegate to the ABA’s House of Delegates), as president of the Federal Communications Bar Association and as president of the Women’s Legal Defense Fund. She graduated from Smith College and the University of Michigan Law School, where she was the first woman editor-in-chief of the Law Review. She clerked for Judge J. Skelly Wright of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and served in the Carter administration as the general counsel of the Council on Wage and Price Stability in the Executive Office of the President.
Adjunct Professor, George Washington University Law School
Executive Vice President, The Federalist Society
Dean Reuter is Executive Vice President at the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies. He has served in two federal government agency Offices of the Inspector General, as Counsel to the Inspector General and Deputy Inspector General, responsible for policing the use of federal funds granted and contracted through those agencies. As such, he helped conduct and oversee criminal investigations across the country. He is the principal author of the non-fiction book, The Hidden Nazi: The Untold Story of America's Deal with the Devil, and editor of Liberty’s Nemesis: The Unchecked Expansion of the State and Confronting Terror: 9/11 and the Future of American National Security. He was appointed by the President and served as Vice-Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Corporation for National and Community Service, and recently served as an appointee on the U.S. Commission on Presidential Scholars. He is a graduate of Hood College (BA with Honors) and the University of Maryland School of Law.
Board Member, U.S. Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board
Beth A. Williams is a Board Member of the United States Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, an agency whose mission is to ensure that the federal government's efforts to prevent terrorism are balanced with the need to protect privacy and civil liberties.
Prior to her Board service, Ms. Williams was the Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Policy at the United States Department of Justice from August 2017 to December 2020. In that role, she served as the primary policy advisor to the Attorney General and the Deputy Attorney General, and as the Chief Regulatory Officer for the Department. Ms. Williams also led the judicial nomination process for the Department, assisting in the selection and confirmation of more than 230 Article III judges to the bench.
Prior to becoming Assistant Attorney General, Ms. Williams was a litigation and appellate partner at a national law firm, where her practice focused on complex commercial, securities, appellate, and First Amendment litigation. From 2005-2006, Ms. Williams served as Special Counsel to the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary, where she assisted with the confirmation of Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. and Associate Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. to the United States Supreme Court.
Ms. Williams clerked for the Hon. Richard C. Wesley on the United State Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. She graduated from Harvard College magna cum laude, with a degree in History and Literature, and she earned her law degree from Harvard Law School, where she served as Executive Editor of the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy.
Partner, Kirkland & Ellis LLP
Neil Eggleston is a litigation partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Kirkland & Ellis LLP.
Neil has a distinguished record of public service, and has held a number of senior government roles. He was White House Counsel to President Obama from 2014 to 2017, and advised the president on all legal and constitutional issues across a broad spectrum of domestic and foreign policy matters. Neil’s practice focuses on enforcement defense including at the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), U.S. Attorney’s Offices, and other enforcement agencies.
Earlier in his career, Neil served as Associate Counsel to President Clinton from 1993 to 1994. Heals o served as Deputy Chief Counsel, U.S. House of Representatives Select Committee Investigating the Iran/Contra Affair (1987-1988); Assistant U.S. Attorney (1981-1987); and Chief Appellate Attorney for the Southern District of New York (1986-1987).
Neil served as a law clerk for the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit (1978-1979) and for Chief Justice Warren E. Burger on the United States Supreme Court (1979-1980).
Neil teaches a seminar in Presidential Power at Harvard Law School in the spring of 2017, 2019, 2020, and 2021 and at Yale Law School in the spring of 2018. He also frequently lectures at American Bar Association and similar seminars.
Partner, Dechert LLP
In a career spanning both private and public practice, Steven A. Engel is a leading litigator and counselor, acting as an advocate in high-profile trial and appellate matters and advising clients on their most sensitive and complex legal issues. Mr. Engel is the Chair of Dechert’s Appellate and Regulatory Litigation Group and has appeared in courts across the country, handling a wide range of civil litigation matters, including administrative law, commercial litigation, constitutional law and securities cases. He regularly counsels clients on challenges to agency regulations and in connection with government, congressional and internal investigations.
Until January 2021, Mr. Engel served as the Assistant Attorney General for the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel. As the head of the office, Mr. Engel served as the chief counsel to the Attorney General and the principal legal adviser to the Executive Branch, providing legal advice to the President and cabinet secretaries on the most critical constitutional and statutory questions, including matters pertaining to national security, administrative law, criminal law, congressional oversight, and executive orders. In December 2020, Mr. Engel was awarded the Department of Justice’s highest honor, the Edmund J. Randolph Award, for outstanding service to the Department.
Before his appointment as Assistant Attorney General in 2017, Mr. Engel had been a partner at Dechert since 2009 and previously served as Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel. Mr. Engel clerked on the U.S. Supreme Court for Associate Justice Anthony M. Kennedy and on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit for Judge Alex Kozinski.
Mr. Engel is a member of the Advisory Committee on Rules for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and the Administrative Conference of the United States. He has been an Adjunct Professor at the Antonin Scalia School of Law at George Mason University and the Columbus School of Law at the Catholic University of America and was formerly the Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist Distinguished Practitioner in Residence at the C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State. He has been nationally ranked as a leading lawyer in The Legal 500 USA and Benchmark Litigation. Mr. Engel has frequently commented on legal subjects in numerous publications, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and USA Today, and has appeared on national news programs as a legal analyst, including on MSNBC, CNN, Fox News Channel and the Fox Business Network. Mr. Engel has testified on several occasions before committees of the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate.
Partner, Boies Schiller Flexner LLP
Jesse, the former third-ranking official at the U.S. Department of Justice, helps clients with their most difficult litigation and regulatory issues─whether that means defending against an enforcement action, pursuing high-stakes litigation and appeals, navigating regulatory thickets at federal and state agencies, or crafting a comprehensive strategy to manage a crisis. He approaches these problems with the knowledge gained both from his broad private-practice experience and from having served at the highest levels of federal and state government.
Jesse has experience across a range of substantive and regulatory areas. He has sued the federal government and has also been one of its top law-enforcement officials; he has represented states and has also navigated their regulatory agencies on behalf of clients; and he has represented companies in business disputes, both as defendants and plaintiffs.
Before joining the firm, Jesse was the Acting Associate Attorney General at the United States Department of Justice. In that role, he oversaw the civil and criminal work of the Antitrust, Civil, Civil Rights, Environment and Natural Resources, and Tax Divisions. During Jesse’s tenure, the Associate’s office closely managed the Department’s most significant litigation, including matters involving large financial institutions, healthcare companies, automakers, energy companies, and state and local governments. In addition, Jesse served as Chair of DOJ’s Regulatory Reform Task Force and Vice Chair of DOJ’s Task Force on Market Integrity and Consumer Fraud. Jesse regularly provided legal and strategic advice to the highest-level decision makers in the federal government, including the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General, general counsels across the spectrum of federal agencies, and White House officials.
Jesse served for three years as the secretary of Florida’s labor, economic-development, and land-use agency, the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity. Before that, he served as Governor (now Senator) Rick Scott’s general counsel.
Jesse maintains offices in both Washington D.C. and Florida. From Washington, he focuses on federal litigation and crisis management. In Florida, in addition to federal litigation, Jesse employs his knowledge of state government and regulation to help clients in courts across the state, from trial through the Florida Supreme Court.
Jesse currently serves on the Florida Supreme Court Judicial Nominating Commission, the body that provides the governor with nominees for appointment to the Florida Supreme Court. Jesse is also a fellow at the Center for the Study of the Administrative State at the Scalia Law School at George Mason University, where he writes and speaks about administrative law.
Executive Vice President, The Federalist Society
Dean Reuter is Executive Vice President at the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies. He has served in two federal government agency Offices of the Inspector General, as Counsel to the Inspector General and Deputy Inspector General, responsible for policing the use of federal funds granted and contracted through those agencies. As such, he helped conduct and oversee criminal investigations across the country. He is the principal author of the non-fiction book, The Hidden Nazi: The Untold Story of America's Deal with the Devil, and editor of Liberty’s Nemesis: The Unchecked Expansion of the State and Confronting Terror: 9/11 and the Future of American National Security. He was appointed by the President and served as Vice-Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Corporation for National and Community Service, and recently served as an appointee on the U.S. Commission on Presidential Scholars. He is a graduate of Hood College (BA with Honors) and the University of Maryland School of Law.
Partner, Lehotsky Keller LLP
The New York Times recognized Scott A. Keller as a “legal heavyweight,” who “is praised by opponents as a formidable advocate.”
Mr. Keller has argued 12 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and 12 cases before the Texas Supreme Court. He is the only practicing lawyer to have argued at least 10 cases in both courts. Mr. Keller frequently represents parties in high stakes appeals, and he has argued many cases in federal courts of appeals throughout the nation. He has earned individual accolades from Lawdragon 500 Leading Litigators in America, Chambers, Legal 500, The American Lawyer, The National Law Journal, Law360, Super Lawyers, The Best Lawyers in America, and other publications.
Before founding Lehotsky Keller Cohn LLP, Mr. Keller headed Baker Botts LLP’s Supreme Court Practice. He also has significant experience at the highest levels in all three branches of government. Mr. Keller served as the Solicitor General of Texas, the State’s chief appellate litigator. He was U.S. Senator Ted Cruz’s chief counsel on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Mr. Keller was a law clerk for Justice Anthony Kennedy of the Supreme Court of the United States and Chief Judge Alex Kozinski of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. He was also a Bristow Fellow in the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of the Solicitor General.
Mr. Keller represents clients in cases where public communications strategy is crucial, and he has made numerous media appearances in major outlets such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, BBC, Fox News, NPR, and Politico. As a sought after speaker and writer, Mr. Keller’s articles have appeared in the Stanford Law Review, Virginia Law Review, and Texas Law Review. He has also served as an adjunct professor of constitutional litigation, Supreme Court practice, and federal courts at the University of Texas School of Law.
State Attorney General, Texas
Board Member, U.S. Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board
Beth A. Williams is a Board Member of the United States Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, an agency whose mission is to ensure that the federal government's efforts to prevent terrorism are balanced with the need to protect privacy and civil liberties.
Prior to her Board service, Ms. Williams was the Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Policy at the United States Department of Justice from August 2017 to December 2020. In that role, she served as the primary policy advisor to the Attorney General and the Deputy Attorney General, and as the Chief Regulatory Officer for the Department. Ms. Williams also led the judicial nomination process for the Department, assisting in the selection and confirmation of more than 230 Article III judges to the bench.
Prior to becoming Assistant Attorney General, Ms. Williams was a litigation and appellate partner at a national law firm, where her practice focused on complex commercial, securities, appellate, and First Amendment litigation. From 2005-2006, Ms. Williams served as Special Counsel to the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary, where she assisted with the confirmation of Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. and Associate Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. to the United States Supreme Court.
Ms. Williams clerked for the Hon. Richard C. Wesley on the United State Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. She graduated from Harvard College magna cum laude, with a degree in History and Literature, and she earned her law degree from Harvard Law School, where she served as Executive Editor of the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy.
President, Harned Strategies LLC
Karen Harned is President at Harned Strategies LLC. Previously, she served as Executive Director of the National Federation of Independent Business Small Business Legal Center, a post she held from 2002-2022. Prior to joining the Legal Center, Ms. Harned was an attorney at a Washington, D.C. law firm specializing in food and drug law, where she represented several small and large businesses and their respective trade associations before Congress and federal agencies. She also served as Assistant Press Secretary to U.S. Senator Don Nickles of Oklahoma from August of 1989 to March of 1993. Ms. Harned received her B.A. from the University of Oklahoma in 1989 and her J.D. from The George Washington University National Law Center in 1995. She is admitted to practice in the District of Columbia.
As Executive Director of the NFIB Small Business Legal Center, Ms. Harned commented regularly on small business cases before federal and state courts, as well as the U.S. Supreme Court. She has appeared on Fox News, Fox Business, NBC Nightly News, CNN, CNBC and MSNBC, as well as National Public Radio, CBS Radio, and radio outlets across the country. Her opinion editorials and articles regarding healthcare, lawsuit abuse, regulation, and other issues important to small business have been published in newspapers and other publications nationwide.
Ms. Harned has testified before Congress on the small business impact of regulation and the civil justice system. Additionally, she has conducted numerous webinars and legal compliance seminars for small business owners across the country on issues relating to employment law, including unionization and immigration.
Professor of Law, Notre Dame University
Roger P. Alford joined the Notre Dame Law faculty in January 2012. Alford teaches and writes in a wide range of subject-matter areas, including international trade, international arbitration, international antitrust, and comparative law.
Alford earned his B.A. with Honors from Baylor in 1985, his J.D. with Honors from New York University, and his LL.M. from Edinburgh University. Before entering the legal academy, he served as a law clerk to Judge James Buckley of the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, and Judge Richard Allison of the Iran-United States Claims Tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands. He practiced law with Hogan & Hartson (now Hogan Lovells) in Washington, D.C., and was also a senior legal advisor to the Claims Resolution Tribunal for Dormant Activities in Zurich, Switzerland.
In addition to publishing widely in leading law reviews and journals, Alford is the general editor of Kluwer Arbitration Blog and on the Executive Committee of the Institute for Transnational Arbitration.
He is Concurrent Professor at the Keough School of Global Affairs, a Faculty Fellow at the Kellogg Institute for International Studies, and a Faculty Fellow at the Nanovic Institute for European Studies. He was the Academic Director of the London Global Gateway from 2016-2017 and Associate Dean for Graduate and International Programs from 2013-2017.
He served as the Deputy Assistant Attorney General for International Affairs with the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice from 2017-2019.
JAMS Mediator and Arbitrator
Gary Birnberg, Esq., FCIArb is a seasoned ADR professional, specializing in the resolution of a diverse array of commercial matters both domestic and international. He has served as mediator, arbitrator, or special master in hundreds of disputes and is known for employing his legal acumen and business skills to quickly grasp the facts in complex cases. He is appreciated by attorneys and clients for his ability to nurture trust and for the determination and creativity that he employs to find common settlement ground among the parties.
Mr. Birnberg is a Florida Supreme Court Certified Circuit and Appellate mediator admitted to the Bar in four U.S. states, including New York and the District of Columbia, and a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators. He has served as an arbitrator or mediator and sits on panel lists maintained by institutions worldwide, including CAM-CCBC, ICC, ICDR, and JAMS. He is a sought-after speaker and trainer in various areas of ADR. Recently, he single-handedly mediated to settlement a US$600 million limit of liability insurance claim in an international, multi-lingual mediation with 56 participants, including insured, insured’s institutional shareholders, numerous insurers and re-insurers, and attorneys for all direct and interested parties.
Mr. Birnberg is a U.S. citizen and permanent resident of Brazil, fluent in English, French, and Portuguese with conversational capacity in Italian and Spanish. He is active within the international legal community, staying current on local and international issues to continue his growth and expertise as a neutral.
Mediation Specialist, Office of the Ombudsman for UN Funds and Programmes, The United Nations
Mushegh Manukyan is a technology enthusiast international lawyer with significant in-house experience who has a passion for solving novel legal problems and navigating through different legal systems with a special focus on EMEA, APAC, and Latin America. He is a true believer in alternative dispute resolution (ADR) and enjoy resolving complex legal disputes through negotiations, mediation, and arbitration. His current efforts focus on developing capacity and encouraging international mediation with the United Nations system.
He is a graduate of Harvard Law School and admitted to practice law in New York, Washington D.C. (Special Legal Consultant), and Armenia.
Of Counsel, DLA Piper LLP (US)
Harout J. Samra – a Board Certified Specialist in International Law – focuses his practice on international dispute resolution and arbitration matters, including international civil litigation in US courts.
Harout has represented clients from both the public and private sectors, including foreign governments, public officials and clients from a variety of industries. He has experience in international arbitrations administered under the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), International Centre for Dispute Resolution (ICDR), United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL), China International Economic and Trade Arbitration Commission (CIETAC), Bogota Chamber of Commerce, Madrid Court of Arbitration and International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) arbitration rules.
Harout currently serves as a member of the Florida Supreme Court Judicial Nominating Commission, by appointment of Governor Ron DeSantis. He previously served, by appointment of Governor Rick Scott, as a member of the Florida Third District Court of Appeal Judicial Nominating Commission, and was elected as Chair of the Commission from 2018-2019.
Partner, King & Spalding
John Richter is a trial and investigations partner in the Special Matters and Investigations Practice Group, and represents and defends companies, Boards of Directors, Board committees, and individuals facing a variety of white-collar criminal and regulatory enforcement matters, parallel civil litigation, and internal corporate investigations. John previously served as the Acting Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Criminal Division at the U.S. Department of Justice and as the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Oklahoma, having been nominated by President George W. Bush and confirmed by unanimous consent of the U.S. Senate.
Professorial Lecturer in Law, George Washington University Law School
Theodore C. (Ted) Hirt was an attorney in the Department of Justice's Civil Division from August 1979 to March 2016. He was in its Federal Programs Branch from 1979 to 2008 (trial attorney, senior trial counsel, assistant director), and then in its Office of Immigration Litigation from 2008 to 2016 (trial attorney and senior litigation counsel). Among his responsibilities (September 2001 to March 2016) was being an advisor to the Assistant Attorneys General for the Civil Division, who serve ex officio on the Civil Rules Advisory Committee. Mr. Hirt’s areas of specialization include First Amendment issues, internet and telecommunications law, and electronic discovery. From 1976 to 1979, he was an associate at Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Kampelman. From 1975 to 1976 he was an attorney in the Prehearing Division of the Michigan Court of Appeals.
Executive Orders on Guidance: Implications and Next Steps
Executive Branch Review Week Teleforum
TeleforumUnitary Executive and Independent Agencies
Executive Branch Review Week Teleforum
TeleforumRestoring the Legislative Power to Congress: The Role of the Nondelegation Doctrine and Legislative Vetoes
Executive Branch Review Week Webinar
Restoring Judicial Power: Righting the Ship of Judicial Review and Deference Doctrines
Executive Branch Review Week Webinar
Restoring the Executive Power: Revisiting Humphrey's Executor, Reviving the Unitary Executive
Executive Branch Review Week Webinar
Nationwide Injunctions
Executive Branch Review Week Teleforum
TeleforumIs Our Modern Administrative State Unmoored from the Morality of Law?
Ted Hirt
A review of The Dubious Morality of Modern Administrative Law, by Richard A. Epstein (Manhattan Institute...
Surviving COVID-19: The Small Business Perspective
TeleforumThe Singapore Convention on Mediation: What it Means for International Litigation and Arbitration
TeleforumCourthouse Steps Decision Teleforum: Ramos v. Louisiana
Teleforum