Policy Adviser, American Compass
Mark DiPlacido is a Policy Adviser at American Compass. Before that, he worked on Governor Ron DeSantis's campaign for President. He has also worked as the Deputy Assistant Trade Representative for Public Affairs at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, Heritage Action, and the U.S. Senate. He is a graduate of Yale University.
Peter Wertheim Professor in Urban Policy, Harvard Kennedy School
Gordon Hanson is the Peter Wertheim Professor in Urban Policy at Harvard Kennedy School (Remembrance for Peter Wertheim) and Academic Dean for Strategy and Engagement at Harvard Kennedy School. He is best known for his research on the labor market consequences of globalization, including pioneering work on the China trade shock. Hanson’s current research addresses the causes and consequences of regional job loss, the effectiveness of place-based policies in alleviating regional economic distress, and how the energy transition will affect local labor markets. This work is part of the Reimagining the Economy project at the Kennedy School, which Hanson co-directs with Dani Rodrik. Hanson’s related scholarship touches upon immigration, the globalization of production, and economic geography. He has published extensively in top economics journals, is widely cited for his research by scholars from across the social sciences and is frequently quoted in major media outlets. Hanson is a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and past co-editor of the Journal of Economic Perspectives, the Review of Economics and Statistics, and the Journal of Development Economics. He received his PhD in economics from MIT in 1992 and his BA in economics from Occidental College in 1986. Prior to joining Harvard in 2020, he spent two decades at UC San Diego, where held the Pacific Economic Cooperation Chair in International Economic Relations at UC San Diego and was founding director of the Center on Global Transformation. Hanson previously served on the economics faculties of the University of Michigan and the University of Texas.
Partner, Sullivan & Cromwell LLP
Eric Kadel is engaged in a wide variety of corporate, transactional and regulatory matters. He is a member of the Firm’s Corporate and Finance, Financial Services, Investment Management, Alternative Investment Management, Cybersecurity, and Commodities, Futures and Derivatives Groups. With regard to financings, Mr. Kadel regularly represents participants in capital markets transactions, and dealers and end users in connection with structuring and documenting a wide variety of swaps and other derivatives, including equity, credit default and commodity swaps, options and forwards. Mr. Kadel’s work in the investment management area includes advising public and private investment companies and investment advisers on a wide variety of transactional, regulatory, compliance and other matters, including registration and regulation. Mr. Kadel also advises clients of the Firm regarding developments in the laws regulating the financial services industry and on cybersecurity issues. Mr. Kadel is currently an adjunct professor at George Washington University Law School.
In addition, Mr. Kadel is one of the principal partners in the Firm’s International Trade and Investment practice. He counsels and represents clients on questions about U.S. economic sanctions, including those administered by the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”), United States antiboycott requirements under the Export Administration Regulations administered and enforced by the Commerce Department’s Office of Antiboycott Compliance within the Bureau of Industry and Security, Bank Secrecy Act/anti‐money laundering laws and the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (“FCPA”). Mr. Kadel’s practice includes analysis of proposed transactions and business relationships; due diligence and design and review of compliance procedures and strategies; and internal investigations, voluntary disclosures and government enforcement actions. Mr. Kadel also regularly advises clients regarding questions arising under Exon-Florio and the transaction review process administered by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (“CFIUS”), and has represented clients before CFIUS on many national security reviews.
Policy Adviser, American Compass
Mark DiPlacido is a Policy Adviser at American Compass. Before that, he worked on Governor Ron DeSantis's campaign for President. He has also worked as the Deputy Assistant Trade Representative for Public Affairs at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, Heritage Action, and the U.S. Senate. He is a graduate of Yale University.
Peter Wertheim Professor in Urban Policy, Harvard Kennedy School
Gordon Hanson is the Peter Wertheim Professor in Urban Policy at Harvard Kennedy School (Remembrance for Peter Wertheim) and Academic Dean for Strategy and Engagement at Harvard Kennedy School. He is best known for his research on the labor market consequences of globalization, including pioneering work on the China trade shock. Hanson’s current research addresses the causes and consequences of regional job loss, the effectiveness of place-based policies in alleviating regional economic distress, and how the energy transition will affect local labor markets. This work is part of the Reimagining the Economy project at the Kennedy School, which Hanson co-directs with Dani Rodrik. Hanson’s related scholarship touches upon immigration, the globalization of production, and economic geography. He has published extensively in top economics journals, is widely cited for his research by scholars from across the social sciences and is frequently quoted in major media outlets. Hanson is a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and past co-editor of the Journal of Economic Perspectives, the Review of Economics and Statistics, and the Journal of Development Economics. He received his PhD in economics from MIT in 1992 and his BA in economics from Occidental College in 1986. Prior to joining Harvard in 2020, he spent two decades at UC San Diego, where held the Pacific Economic Cooperation Chair in International Economic Relations at UC San Diego and was founding director of the Center on Global Transformation. Hanson previously served on the economics faculties of the University of Michigan and the University of Texas.
Partner, Sullivan & Cromwell LLP
Eric Kadel is engaged in a wide variety of corporate, transactional and regulatory matters. He is a member of the Firm’s Corporate and Finance, Financial Services, Investment Management, Alternative Investment Management, Cybersecurity, and Commodities, Futures and Derivatives Groups. With regard to financings, Mr. Kadel regularly represents participants in capital markets transactions, and dealers and end users in connection with structuring and documenting a wide variety of swaps and other derivatives, including equity, credit default and commodity swaps, options and forwards. Mr. Kadel’s work in the investment management area includes advising public and private investment companies and investment advisers on a wide variety of transactional, regulatory, compliance and other matters, including registration and regulation. Mr. Kadel also advises clients of the Firm regarding developments in the laws regulating the financial services industry and on cybersecurity issues. Mr. Kadel is currently an adjunct professor at George Washington University Law School.
In addition, Mr. Kadel is one of the principal partners in the Firm’s International Trade and Investment practice. He counsels and represents clients on questions about U.S. economic sanctions, including those administered by the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”), United States antiboycott requirements under the Export Administration Regulations administered and enforced by the Commerce Department’s Office of Antiboycott Compliance within the Bureau of Industry and Security, Bank Secrecy Act/anti‐money laundering laws and the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (“FCPA”). Mr. Kadel’s practice includes analysis of proposed transactions and business relationships; due diligence and design and review of compliance procedures and strategies; and internal investigations, voluntary disclosures and government enforcement actions. Mr. Kadel also regularly advises clients regarding questions arising under Exon-Florio and the transaction review process administered by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (“CFIUS”), and has represented clients before CFIUS on many national security reviews.
George C. Dix Professor in Constitutional Law, Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law
John O. McGinnis is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review. He also has an MA degree from Balliol College, Oxford, in philosophy and theology. Professor McGinnis clerked on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. From 1987 to 1991, he was deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel at the Department of Justice. He is the author of Accelerating Democracy: Transforming Government Through Technology (Princeton 2013) and Originalism and the Good Constitution (Harvard 2013) (with M. Rappaport). He is a past winner of the Paul Bator award given by the Federalist Society to an outstanding academic under 40. He has been listed by the United States on the roster of panelists who may be called upon to decide World Trade Organization Disputes.
Former General Counsel of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization, Former United States Ambassador to East Timor
Grover Joseph Rees, a native and resident of Louisiana, served as the first United States Ambassador to East Timor from 2002 to 2006.
From October 2006 until January 2009 Ambassador Rees served as Special Representative for Social Issues in the U.S. Department of State. He was responsible for promoting human dignity, including issues affecting vulnerable persons and the family, within the United Nations system. He served as Acting U.S. Representative to the United Nations Economic and Social Counsel during the fall 2007 session of the UN General Assembly and also served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Organizations.
From 1995 until 2002 Rees was a senior staff member on the Foreign Affairs Committee in the United States House of Representatives, where he was responsible for human rights and refugee protection and played a major role in the drafting and enactment of important human rights legislation including the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, the International Religious Freedom Act, and the Torture Victims Relief Act.
Ambassador Rees also formerly served as General Counsel of the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service (1991-93), as Chief Justice of the High Court of American Samoa (1986-1991), and as Special Counsel to the Attorney General of the United States (1985-86).
Prior to his work in Washington, Rees served for seven years as a law professor at the University of Texas. He has written and spoken widely on international law, human rights, refugees, and related issues.
Rees obtained his undergraduate degree from Yale University and his law degree from Louisiana State University Law School, where he served as Editor in Chief of the Louisiana Law Review and was selected for the academic honor society Order of the Coif.
Rees was born in New Orleans, the oldest of 12 children. He is married to Lan Dai Nguyen Rees and has one son. He retired from government service in January 2009 and now lives and works in Lafayette, Louisiana.
In addition to English, Ambassador Rees speaks French, Spanish, Portuguese, Samoan, and Tetum.
Senior Vice President, UN Foundation and President, the Better World Campaign
One of nation’s most esteemed experts on U.S.-UN affairs, Peter Yeo leads the Better World Campaign’s strategic engagement with Congress, the Administration, and organizations supporting stronger American leadership on the world stage. Yeo’s leadership has helped advance critical legislation in the U.S. Congress to ensure the country meets its obligations to the United Nations, UN Peacekeeping Operations, and UN agencies and organizations.
Yeo joined the Better World Campaign in 2009 with over twenty years of legislative, analytical, and management experience, including senior roles on Capitol Hill and in the State Department. Prior to arriving at UN Foundation, Yeo spent a decade as Deputy Staff Director on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. He has worked on a broad range of foreign policy and foreign aid issues, including leading negotiations for the landmark HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria Act of 2003 — PEPFAR — as well as the $50 billion reauthorization of the law in 2008. He also shepherded into law several measures dealing with China, Tibet, Burma, and East Timor.
Prior to his work with the Committee, Yeo served as a Deputy Assistant Secretary at the U.S. State Department, where he successfully advocated for repayment of the U.S. arrears to the UN, and was part of the U.S. delegation to the climate negotiations in Kyoto.
Yeo holds an master’s in East Asian Studies from Harvard University and a bachelor’s in East Asian Studies from Wesleyan University. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a Board Member of the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition.
George C. Dix Professor in Constitutional Law, Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law
John O. McGinnis is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review. He also has an MA degree from Balliol College, Oxford, in philosophy and theology. Professor McGinnis clerked on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. From 1987 to 1991, he was deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel at the Department of Justice. He is the author of Accelerating Democracy: Transforming Government Through Technology (Princeton 2013) and Originalism and the Good Constitution (Harvard 2013) (with M. Rappaport). He is a past winner of the Paul Bator award given by the Federalist Society to an outstanding academic under 40. He has been listed by the United States on the roster of panelists who may be called upon to decide World Trade Organization Disputes.
Former General Counsel of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization, Former United States Ambassador to East Timor
Grover Joseph Rees, a native and resident of Louisiana, served as the first United States Ambassador to East Timor from 2002 to 2006.
From October 2006 until January 2009 Ambassador Rees served as Special Representative for Social Issues in the U.S. Department of State. He was responsible for promoting human dignity, including issues affecting vulnerable persons and the family, within the United Nations system. He served as Acting U.S. Representative to the United Nations Economic and Social Counsel during the fall 2007 session of the UN General Assembly and also served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Organizations.
From 1995 until 2002 Rees was a senior staff member on the Foreign Affairs Committee in the United States House of Representatives, where he was responsible for human rights and refugee protection and played a major role in the drafting and enactment of important human rights legislation including the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, the International Religious Freedom Act, and the Torture Victims Relief Act.
Ambassador Rees also formerly served as General Counsel of the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service (1991-93), as Chief Justice of the High Court of American Samoa (1986-1991), and as Special Counsel to the Attorney General of the United States (1985-86).
Prior to his work in Washington, Rees served for seven years as a law professor at the University of Texas. He has written and spoken widely on international law, human rights, refugees, and related issues.
Rees obtained his undergraduate degree from Yale University and his law degree from Louisiana State University Law School, where he served as Editor in Chief of the Louisiana Law Review and was selected for the academic honor society Order of the Coif.
Rees was born in New Orleans, the oldest of 12 children. He is married to Lan Dai Nguyen Rees and has one son. He retired from government service in January 2009 and now lives and works in Lafayette, Louisiana.
In addition to English, Ambassador Rees speaks French, Spanish, Portuguese, Samoan, and Tetum.
Senior Vice President, UN Foundation and President, the Better World Campaign
One of nation’s most esteemed experts on U.S.-UN affairs, Peter Yeo leads the Better World Campaign’s strategic engagement with Congress, the Administration, and organizations supporting stronger American leadership on the world stage. Yeo’s leadership has helped advance critical legislation in the U.S. Congress to ensure the country meets its obligations to the United Nations, UN Peacekeeping Operations, and UN agencies and organizations.
Yeo joined the Better World Campaign in 2009 with over twenty years of legislative, analytical, and management experience, including senior roles on Capitol Hill and in the State Department. Prior to arriving at UN Foundation, Yeo spent a decade as Deputy Staff Director on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. He has worked on a broad range of foreign policy and foreign aid issues, including leading negotiations for the landmark HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria Act of 2003 — PEPFAR — as well as the $50 billion reauthorization of the law in 2008. He also shepherded into law several measures dealing with China, Tibet, Burma, and East Timor.
Prior to his work with the Committee, Yeo served as a Deputy Assistant Secretary at the U.S. State Department, where he successfully advocated for repayment of the U.S. arrears to the UN, and was part of the U.S. delegation to the climate negotiations in Kyoto.
Yeo holds an master’s in East Asian Studies from Harvard University and a bachelor’s in East Asian Studies from Wesleyan University. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a Board Member of the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition.
George C. Dix Professor in Constitutional Law, Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law
John O. McGinnis is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review. He also has an MA degree from Balliol College, Oxford, in philosophy and theology. Professor McGinnis clerked on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. From 1987 to 1991, he was deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel at the Department of Justice. He is the author of Accelerating Democracy: Transforming Government Through Technology (Princeton 2013) and Originalism and the Good Constitution (Harvard 2013) (with M. Rappaport). He is a past winner of the Paul Bator award given by the Federalist Society to an outstanding academic under 40. He has been listed by the United States on the roster of panelists who may be called upon to decide World Trade Organization Disputes.
Former General Counsel of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization, Former United States Ambassador to East Timor
Grover Joseph Rees, a native and resident of Louisiana, served as the first United States Ambassador to East Timor from 2002 to 2006.
From October 2006 until January 2009 Ambassador Rees served as Special Representative for Social Issues in the U.S. Department of State. He was responsible for promoting human dignity, including issues affecting vulnerable persons and the family, within the United Nations system. He served as Acting U.S. Representative to the United Nations Economic and Social Counsel during the fall 2007 session of the UN General Assembly and also served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Organizations.
From 1995 until 2002 Rees was a senior staff member on the Foreign Affairs Committee in the United States House of Representatives, where he was responsible for human rights and refugee protection and played a major role in the drafting and enactment of important human rights legislation including the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, the International Religious Freedom Act, and the Torture Victims Relief Act.
Ambassador Rees also formerly served as General Counsel of the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service (1991-93), as Chief Justice of the High Court of American Samoa (1986-1991), and as Special Counsel to the Attorney General of the United States (1985-86).
Prior to his work in Washington, Rees served for seven years as a law professor at the University of Texas. He has written and spoken widely on international law, human rights, refugees, and related issues.
Rees obtained his undergraduate degree from Yale University and his law degree from Louisiana State University Law School, where he served as Editor in Chief of the Louisiana Law Review and was selected for the academic honor society Order of the Coif.
Rees was born in New Orleans, the oldest of 12 children. He is married to Lan Dai Nguyen Rees and has one son. He retired from government service in January 2009 and now lives and works in Lafayette, Louisiana.
In addition to English, Ambassador Rees speaks French, Spanish, Portuguese, Samoan, and Tetum.
Senior Vice President, UN Foundation and President, the Better World Campaign
One of nation’s most esteemed experts on U.S.-UN affairs, Peter Yeo leads the Better World Campaign’s strategic engagement with Congress, the Administration, and organizations supporting stronger American leadership on the world stage. Yeo’s leadership has helped advance critical legislation in the U.S. Congress to ensure the country meets its obligations to the United Nations, UN Peacekeeping Operations, and UN agencies and organizations.
Yeo joined the Better World Campaign in 2009 with over twenty years of legislative, analytical, and management experience, including senior roles on Capitol Hill and in the State Department. Prior to arriving at UN Foundation, Yeo spent a decade as Deputy Staff Director on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. He has worked on a broad range of foreign policy and foreign aid issues, including leading negotiations for the landmark HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria Act of 2003 — PEPFAR — as well as the $50 billion reauthorization of the law in 2008. He also shepherded into law several measures dealing with China, Tibet, Burma, and East Timor.
Prior to his work with the Committee, Yeo served as a Deputy Assistant Secretary at the U.S. State Department, where he successfully advocated for repayment of the U.S. arrears to the UN, and was part of the U.S. delegation to the climate negotiations in Kyoto.
Yeo holds an master’s in East Asian Studies from Harvard University and a bachelor’s in East Asian Studies from Wesleyan University. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a Board Member of the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition.
President and CEO, The Federalist Society
Sheldon Gilbert is the President and CEO of The Federalist Society. Gilbert has been involved in the conservative and libertarian legal movement since law school, and has served in prominent roles at both nonprofit organizations as well as corporate America.
A longtime constitutional litigator, Gilbert has represented clients through amicus and party briefs in nearly a hundred cases at the U.S. Supreme Court, at both the certiorari and merits stages. Most recently, Gilbert served as Senior Lead Counsel for Strategic Initiatives at Walmart, the world’s largest company, where he led teams providing legal advice related to government enforcement, internal investigations, government relations, public relations, and special projects at the center of law and policy.
Before joining Walmart, Gilbert served as Vice President for Content and Development and Senior Fellow for Constitutional Studies at the National Constitution Center, a congressionally chartered non-partisan center for constitutional education and debate, where he led both fundraising and programming efforts. While at the NCC, Gilbert helped ensure that the Center’s programming and exhibits incorporated constitutional perspectives from experts on both the right and the left, including the launch of the Center’s landmark permanent exhibit on the Civil War and the Reconstruction Amendments.
Prior to the National Constitution Center, Gilbert served as the director of the Institute for Justice’s Center for Judicial Engagement (CJE), where he educated the public about the role of the courts and the Constitution, where he frequently hosted discussions and debates on constitutional issues, and often spoke at Federalist Society lawyer and student chapters across the country.
He was also a litigator with the U.S. Chamber Litigation Center, the litigation arm of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, where he represented the U.S. Chamber in over 400 cases in federal and state courts addressing a wide range of legal issues, from free speech to property rights.
Gilbert is a graduate of the George Washington University Law School where he helped found a first-of-its-kind National Religious Freedom Moot Court, which hosted law students from across the country to debate important, emerging religious liberty issues. After graduating from GWU, he also taught as a professorial lecturer at the school.
A graduate of the University of Utah, Gilbert is a child of the Mountain West, where he was born in a coal mining town in Utah and raised in Idaho near the Grand Tetons. Before going to law school, Gilbert’s diverse interests led him to work in a wide range of roles, from software development project management for a nonprofit, to working in his University’s radiobiology research lab, to volunteer service in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil for his church.
Gilbert is married with four children.
Director of Litigation and Senior Attorney, Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute
Theodore H. Frank is director at the Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute and the Center for Class Action Fairness. Frank founded and ran CCAF as a non-profit, public interest law firm in 2009.
Frank has won several landmark appeals and tens of millions of dollars for consumers and other plaintiffs through his class action work. Adam Liptak of The New York Times calls Frank “the leading critic of abusive class action settlements” and the American Lawyer Litigation Daily referred to him as “the indefatigable scourge of underwhelming class action settlements.”
Previously, Frank clerked for the Honorable Frank H. Easterbrook on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, and was a litigator at firms in Washington and Los Angeles and a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Frank is a frequent public speaker and has testified before Congress multiple times on legal issues. He has been profiled by The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, GQ, and the ABA Journal, among other publications.
In 2008, Frank was elected to membership in the American Law Institute. He also serves on the Executive Committee of the Federalist Society Litigation Practice Group. Frank graduated from The University of Chicago Law School in 1994 with high honors and as a member of the Order of the Coif and the Law Review. He is a member of the District of Columbia Bar and the state bars of California and Illinois.
The Art of the Tariff: The Trump Administration and Trade
Mark DiPlacido, Gordon Hanson, Eric J. Kadel
Join the Federalist Society for a debate on the role of tariffs during the Trump...
The Art of the Tariff: The Trump Administration and Trade
Mark DiPlacido, Gordon Hanson, Eric J. Kadel
Join the Federalist Society for a debate on the role of tariffs during the Trump...
Daniel Webster Debate Series: Does the First Amendment Permit (or Require?) Public Funding of Religious Charter Schools?
The Federalist Society's Georgetown Law Chapter'sDaniel Webster Debate Series presents Daniel Webster Debate Series: Does...
Daniel Webster Debate Series: Does the First Amendment Permit (or Require?) Public Funding of Religious Charter Schools?
Reform or Withdraw? The United States and the Future of the United Nations
John O. McGinnis, Grover Joseph Rees, Peter Yeo
The United Nations was founded to promote peace, security, and international cooperation, but critics argue...
Reform or Withdraw? The United States and the Future of the United Nations
John O. McGinnis, Grover Joseph Rees, Peter Yeo
The United Nations was founded to promote peace, security, and international cooperation, but critics argue...
Reform or Withdraw? The United States and the Future of the United Nations
Fireside Chat with the new Federalist Society President and CEO, Sheldon Gilbert
NoVA Lawyers Chapter
McLean, VAThe Right to Parody: Ted Frank on Free Speech and the Fight Against Election Speech Restrictions
Orange County Lawyers Chapter
Irvine, CADaniel Webster Debate Series: Should Judges Employ Natural Law Principles?
The Federalist Society's Georgetown Law Chapter'sDaniel Webster Debate Series presents Daniel Webster Debate Series:Should...