Trade and Globalization Policy Specialist, AFL-CIO
Celeste Drake is the Trade & Globalization Policy Specialist at the AFL-CIO, a job she boils down two main goals: 1) try to improve U.S. trade policy so it doesn’t undercut democracy, gut the American manufacturing sector, and send more U.S. jobs overseas; and 2) try to improve labor rights globally so that empowered workers can race to the top instead of allowing global corporations to force a race to the bottom.
Celeste has testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, various House Subcommittees, the International Trade Commission, and the Executive Branch’s Trade Policy Staff Committee.
Prior to joining the AFL-CIO, Celeste served as Legislative Director for Congresswoman Linda T. Sánchez (D-CA), Legislative Counsel for Congressman Lloyd Doggett (D-TX), Clerk for the Honorable David R. Thompson of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, and Economics and World History teacher at Granite Hills High School in El Cajon, CA. She has a J.D., an M.P.P., and a B.A. from the University of California, Los Angeles.
Chief Legal + Administrative Officer, Waystar Health
Matthew R. A. Heiman leads all legal and corporate governance matters for Waystar. Over the last two decades, he has worked in corporate and government sectors, gaining deep experience in the areas of corporate governance, litigation, risk management, security, and compliance.
Most recently, Matthew was Vice President, Corporate Secretary & Associate General Counsel at Johnson Controls where he helped establish a new corporate secretary department and led the integration of legal departments following the company’s merger with Tyco International. Prior to its merger with Johnson Controls, Matthew held a number of positions with Tyco International including Vice President, Chief Compliance & Audit Officer. Before Tyco, Matthew was a lawyer with the National Security Division at the U.S Department of Justice. He was a legal advisor to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad, Iraq and practiced as a trial lawyer with the law firm of McGuireWoods.
Matthew holds a BA and JD from Indiana University and is a member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies. He is a Senior Fellow at George Mason University’s National Security Institute.
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.
Professor of Law, South Texas College of Law Houston
Josh Blackman is a national thought leader on constitutional law and the United States Supreme Court. Josh’s work was quoted during two presidential impeachment trials. He has testified before Congress and advises federal and state lawmakers. Josh regularly appears on TV, including NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox, and the BBC. Josh is also a frequent guest on NPR and other syndicated radio programs. He has published commentaries in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and leading national publications.
Since 2012, Josh has served as a professor at the South Texas College of Law Houston. He holds the Centennial Chair of Constitutional Law. Josh is an Adjunct Fellow at the Manhattan Institute. Josh has written more than seven dozen law review articles that have been cited more than a thousand times. Josh was selected as the Jurist of the Year by the Texas Journal of Law & Public Policy, received the inaugural Meese III Originalism Award, and was awarded the Inaugural Joseph Story Award. Josh was selected by Forbes Magazine for the “30 Under 30” in Law and Policy. Josh is the President of the Harlan Institute, and founded FantasySCOTUS, the Internet’s Premier Supreme Court Fantasy League. He blogs at the Volokh Conspiracyand posts@JoshMBlackman.
Senior Fellow, Cato Institute
Julian Sanchez is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and studies issues at the busy intersection of technology, privacy, and civil liberties, with a particular focus on national security and intelligence surveillance. Before joining Cato, Sanchez served as the Washington editor for the technology news site Ars Technica, where he covered surveillance, intellectual property, and telecom policy. He has also worked as a writer for The Economist’s blog Democracy in America and as an editor for Reason magazine, where he remains a contributing editor.
Sanchez has written on privacy and technology for a wide array of national publications, ranging from the National Review to The Nation, and is a founding editor of the policy blog Just Security. He studied philosophy and political science at New York University.
Professor Emeritus, Paul M. Hebert Law Center, Louisiana State University
In memoriam
Dr. John Baker is Professor Emeritus of Law, and previously the Dale E. Bennett Professor of Law, at Louisiana State University Law School. He is currently Visiting Professor at Peking University School of Transnational Law (via Zoom) and has been Visiting Professor at The Center for the Constitution, Georgetown Law School (2013-2020). He has also been a Visiting Fellow at Oriel College, the University of Oxford (2012-2014) and taught at Blackfriars Hall, Oxford in 2014. Dr. Baker has also been an adjunct Fellow at the Heritage Foundation (Spring, 2008) and a Distinguished Scholar at the Catholic University of America Law School (2011-12). He has taught at Tulane Law School, George Mason Law School, Pepperdine Law School, New York Law School, Hong Kong University, and the University of Dallas, School of Management and also taught and/or lectured in 17 foreign countries. Notable among his foreign visits are the
following: Visiting Professor at the University of Lyon III (France) (1999-2011); Visiting Professor at the Universidad de los Andes, Chile (2012), as a Fulbright Specialist (2006); and a Fulbright Scholar at various universities in the Philippines. Dr. Baker received his J.D., with honors, from the University of Michigan Law School and his B.A., magna cum laude, from the University of Dallas. He also earned a Ph.D. in Political Thought from the University of London. Baker has taught over a dozen different subjects, mostly courses in public law. His main areas of interest are Constitutional Law (particularly federalism and separation of powers), Criminal Law, Anti-Terrorism Law, International Law, Health Care Law, Mediation, and Comparative Law.
In addition to law review articles and book chapters, Dr. Baker’s academic publications include Hall's Criminal Law: Cases and Materials (with Benson, Force and George; 5th ed. Michie, 1993); An Introduction to the Law of the United States (ed. with Levasseur; University Press of America, 1992). He has also published on Forbes.com, FoxNews.com, in The Washington Times, and a number of times in The Wall Street Journal. He argues in federal court, including two oral arguments in the U.S. Supreme Court. For many years, he co-taught courses for the Federalist Society on separation of powers with the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. In September 2016, he co-taught a Supreme Court seminar in China with Justice Samuel Alito. Following law school, he served as a law clerk in federal district court and as an assistant district attorney in New Orleans before joining LSU in 1975. While a professor, he has been as a consultant to USAID, USIA (since rolled into the State Department), the Justice Department, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Separation of Powers, and the Office of Planning in the White House. He served on an ABA Task Force which issued the report, The Federalization of Crime (1998) and later as a consultant to the “Bi-Partisan Task Force on the Over- federalization of Crime” (2012-2014) created by the U.S. House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime. Dr. Baker was a co-founder of the first iteration (1995) of Stratfor Inc., a global intelligence agency. He co-authored its first book: The Intelligence Edge (with Friedman, Friedman and Chapman; Crown Books/Random House 1997). In 2022, he began a short, weekly video podcast available on YouTube and Rumble, The Baker Brief.
Professor of Law, South Texas College of Law Houston
Josh Blackman is a national thought leader on constitutional law and the United States Supreme Court. Josh’s work was quoted during two presidential impeachment trials. He has testified before Congress and advises federal and state lawmakers. Josh regularly appears on TV, including NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox, and the BBC. Josh is also a frequent guest on NPR and other syndicated radio programs. He has published commentaries in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and leading national publications.
Since 2012, Josh has served as a professor at the South Texas College of Law Houston. He holds the Centennial Chair of Constitutional Law. Josh is an Adjunct Fellow at the Manhattan Institute. Josh has written more than seven dozen law review articles that have been cited more than a thousand times. Josh was selected as the Jurist of the Year by the Texas Journal of Law & Public Policy, received the inaugural Meese III Originalism Award, and was awarded the Inaugural Joseph Story Award. Josh was selected by Forbes Magazine for the “30 Under 30” in Law and Policy. Josh is the President of the Harlan Institute, and founded FantasySCOTUS, the Internet’s Premier Supreme Court Fantasy League. He blogs at the Volokh Conspiracyand posts@JoshMBlackman.
Partner, Arnold & Porter LLP
John Bellinger heads the firm's Global Law and Public Policy practice. He joined the firm in 2009, after holding several senior Presidential appointments in the US government, including as the Senate-confirmed Legal Adviser to the Department of State and Senior Associate Counsel to the President and Legal Adviser to the National Security Council (NSC) at the White House in the George W. Bush Administration.
Mr. Bellinger represents individuals, corporations, and sovereign governments in litigation in US courts and before international institutions. He has extensive experience in US foreign relations litigation involving the Alien Tort Statute, the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, the Anti-Terrorism Act, and the diplomatic and official immunities of foreign governments and government officials. He advises clients on other public international law matters, including treaties and international agreements as well as international humanitarian law and human rights law. He also counsels US and foreign clients on national security legal and policy issues, including US and multilateral financial sanctions and asset controls, the extraterritorial application of US criminal and civil laws, and transactions reviewed by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS).
Chambers Global ranks Mr. Bellinger among the best international lawyers in the world, reporting that he has "second-to-none experience in public international law, international litigation and foreign sovereign immunity" and that his "experience at the highest levels of the Executive branch...gives him a distinct and important vantage point on legal issues." Chambers adds: "For any cross border work he's just extraordinary, he knows the area inside-out."
Mr. Bellinger was the State Department Legal Adviser–the most senior international lawyer in the US Government–from 2005 to 2009, serving under Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. He directed more than 170 lawyers on domestic and international law matters affecting US foreign relations. Before joining the State Department, Mr. Bellinger managed Secretary Rice's Senate confirmation process and co-directed her State Department transition team. In 2009, Mr. Bellinger received the Secretary of State's Distinguished Service Award.
Mr. Bellinger has argued cases before the International Court of Justice (Mexico v. United States–(Medellin)) and the Iran-United States Claims Tribunal in The Hague. He has appeared on numerous briefs in US federal courts, including the Supreme Court, in litigation involving international law issues.
As Legal Adviser to the NSC from 2001 to 2005, Mr. Bellinger advised President Bush, Cabinet officials, National Security Advisor Rice, and NSC staff on a wide range of national security and international law issues, including counterterrorism issues after the 9-11 attacks. He was one of the principal drafters of the legislation that created the Director of National Intelligence.
Prior to his service in the Bush Administration, Mr. Bellinger served as Counsel for National Security Matters in the Criminal Division at the US Department of Justice (1997-2001); Of Counsel to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (1996); General Counsel of the Commission on the Roles and Capabilities of the US Intelligence Community (1995-1996); and Special Assistant to Director of Central Intelligence William Webster (1988-1991). Mr. Bellinger is an Adjunct Senior Fellow in International and National Security Law at the Council on Foreign Relations. He has testified before Congress on numerous occasions, is quoted regularly in the media on international and national security law matters, and has lectured at numerous US and foreign universities and law schools. He is the author of many law review articles and op-eds on international law, including op-eds in The Washington Post, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal. Mr. Bellinger is a senior contributor to the Lawfare blog.
Mr. Bellinger is a member of the Secretary of State's Advisory Committee on International Law. He served from 2005-2019 as one of four US Members of the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague and a member of the US "National Group", which nominates judges to the International Court of Justice. He is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the American Society of International Law. He is a member of the Council of the American Law Institute; the boards of directors of the American Ditchley Foundation, the Salzburg Global Seminar, and the Stimson Center; and the advisory committee of Foreign Affairs magazine.
Mr. Bellinger is a graduate of Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, and he holds an MA in Foreign Affairs from the University of Virginia and a JD from Harvard Law School, where he was an editor of the Harvard International Law Journal.
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.
Executive Vice President of Global Governance, Chief Legal Officer and Corporate Secretary, Walmart Inc.
Rachel Brand is Walmart’s executive vice president of global governance, chief legal officer, and corporate secretary. She oversees the company’s global legal, compliance, ethics, corporate governance, digital citizenship, aviation, investigative, and corporate security functions, including Walmart’s Emergency Operations Center.
Immediately before joining Walmart, Rachel served as the United States Associate Attorney General and holds the distinction of being the first woman to serve in this role. She had previously served in the U.S. Department of Justice as the Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Policy during President George W. Bush’s administration. Her other government service includes an appointment by President Obama to serve as a Member of the U.S. Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, service as an Associate Counsel to the President at the White House, and judicial clerkships with Justice Charles Fried of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts and Justice Anthony Kennedy at the Supreme Court of the United States. In the private sector, Rachel was a lawyer in private practice at two law firms in Washington, D.C. and served as the Vice President and Chief Counsel for Regulatory Litigation at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Litigation Center.
Rachel serves on the board of directors for the Walmart Foundation and is the executive sponsor for Walmart’s Tribal Voices Associate Resource Group. Outside of Walmart, she serves on the board of directors for the International Justice Mission and is a member of The American Law Institute.
Rachel earned her Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Minnesota-Morris and her J.D. from Harvard Law School.
Presiding Justice, Supreme Court of Georgia
Justice Sarah Hawkins Warren was appointed to the Supreme Court of Georgia by Governor Nathan Deal and was sworn in on September 17, 2018. She previously served as Solicitor General for the State of Georgia under Attorney General Chris Carr.
Justice Warren earned a B.A. in Public Policy and Spanish, magna cum laude, from Duke University. After graduation, Justice Warren served as Deputy Press Secretary for the White House Office of Management and Budget.
Justice Warren received her J.D., magna cum laude, from Duke University School of Law, where she served as Editor in Chief of Law and Contemporary Problems and on the Executive Committee of the Federalist Society.
Following her graduation from law school, Justice Warren served as a law clerk to then-Chief Judge J.L. Edmondson of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit and to the Honorable Richard J. Leon of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. She also practiced as a litigation partner at Kirkland & Ellis LLP in Washington, D.C., where she represented clients before state and federal courts and was outside counsel to Georgia in Florida v. Georgia, No. 142 Original (United States Supreme Court).
In 2015, Justice Warren and her family returned home to Georgia, where she began service in the Office of Attorney General Sam Olens as Deputy Solicitor General and Special Counsel for Water Litigation. In January 2017, she was appointed Solicitor General by Attorney General Chris Carr, and in that role served as the chief appellate lawyer for the State of Georgia and the primary constitutional law advisor to the Attorney General. As Solicitor General, Justice Warren represented Georgia in multi-state litigation and in appeals before state and federal courts, including in an argument before the United States Supreme Court.
Justice Warren currently serves on the Duke Law School Board of Visitors, the Berry College Board of Trustees, and the Advisory Board for the Atlanta Lawyers Chapter of the Federalist Society. She lives in Atlanta with her husband, Blaise, and their three children.
Shareholder, Farney Daniels, PC
Jonathan B. Baker is Professor of Law at American University Washington College of Law, where he teaches courses primarily in the areas of antitrust and economic regulation. He served as the Chief Economist of the Federal Communications Commission from 2009 to 2011, and as the Director of the Bureau of Economics at the Federal Trade Commission from 1995 to 1998. Previously, he worked as a Senior Economist at the President’s Council of Economic Advisers, Special Assistant to the Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Economics in the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice, an Assistant Professor at Dartmouth's Amos Tuck School of Business Administration, an Attorney Advisor to the Acting Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, and an antitrust lawyer in private practice. Professor Baker is the co-author of an antitrust casebook, a past Editorial Chair of Antitrust Law Journal, and a past member of the Council of the American Bar Association’s Section of Antitrust Law. He has published widely in the fields of antitrust law and policy and industrial organization economics. In 2004 he received American University’s Faculty Award for Outstanding Scholarship, Research, and Other Professional Accomplishments, and in 1998 he received the Federal Trade Commission’s Award for Distinguished Service. He has a J.D. from Harvard and a Ph.D. in economics from Stanford University.
Professor, Dale E. Fowler School of Law, Chapman University
Professor Bell joined the faculty of Fowler School of Law in 1998. Professor Bell specializes in high-tech legal issues and has written a variety of works on intellectual property and Internet law, including the book, Intellectual Privilege: Copyright, Common Law, and the Common Good (2014). He received his Juris Doctor from the University of Chicago Law School in 1993, where he served both as a member of the University of Chicago Law Review and as Articles Editor and cofounder of the University of Chicago Legal Roundtable. After graduating from law school, Professor Bell joined the Silicon Valley law firm of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. He entered teaching in 1995, when he became an Assistant Professor of Law in the Law and Technology Program at the University of Dayton School of Law. During a one year leave of absence from that school, and just prior to joining the Fowler School of Law faculty, he served as Director of Telecommunications and Technology Studies at the Cato Institute in Washington, D.C. Professor Bell joined the faculty of Fowler School of Law in 1998. In addition to writing a steady stream of scholarly works, Professor Bell has appeared on or been quoted in the Wall Street Journal, CNN, Economist, Los Angeles Times, and many other news sources, and starred in several online videos addressing timely legal issues.
Partner, Arnold & Porter LLP
John Bellinger heads the firm's Global Law and Public Policy practice. He joined the firm in 2009, after holding several senior Presidential appointments in the US government, including as the Senate-confirmed Legal Adviser to the Department of State and Senior Associate Counsel to the President and Legal Adviser to the National Security Council (NSC) at the White House in the George W. Bush Administration.
Mr. Bellinger represents individuals, corporations, and sovereign governments in litigation in US courts and before international institutions. He has extensive experience in US foreign relations litigation involving the Alien Tort Statute, the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, the Anti-Terrorism Act, and the diplomatic and official immunities of foreign governments and government officials. He advises clients on other public international law matters, including treaties and international agreements as well as international humanitarian law and human rights law. He also counsels US and foreign clients on national security legal and policy issues, including US and multilateral financial sanctions and asset controls, the extraterritorial application of US criminal and civil laws, and transactions reviewed by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS).
Chambers Global ranks Mr. Bellinger among the best international lawyers in the world, reporting that he has "second-to-none experience in public international law, international litigation and foreign sovereign immunity" and that his "experience at the highest levels of the Executive branch...gives him a distinct and important vantage point on legal issues." Chambers adds: "For any cross border work he's just extraordinary, he knows the area inside-out."
Mr. Bellinger was the State Department Legal Adviser–the most senior international lawyer in the US Government–from 2005 to 2009, serving under Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. He directed more than 170 lawyers on domestic and international law matters affecting US foreign relations. Before joining the State Department, Mr. Bellinger managed Secretary Rice's Senate confirmation process and co-directed her State Department transition team. In 2009, Mr. Bellinger received the Secretary of State's Distinguished Service Award.
Mr. Bellinger has argued cases before the International Court of Justice (Mexico v. United States–(Medellin)) and the Iran-United States Claims Tribunal in The Hague. He has appeared on numerous briefs in US federal courts, including the Supreme Court, in litigation involving international law issues.
As Legal Adviser to the NSC from 2001 to 2005, Mr. Bellinger advised President Bush, Cabinet officials, National Security Advisor Rice, and NSC staff on a wide range of national security and international law issues, including counterterrorism issues after the 9-11 attacks. He was one of the principal drafters of the legislation that created the Director of National Intelligence.
Prior to his service in the Bush Administration, Mr. Bellinger served as Counsel for National Security Matters in the Criminal Division at the US Department of Justice (1997-2001); Of Counsel to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (1996); General Counsel of the Commission on the Roles and Capabilities of the US Intelligence Community (1995-1996); and Special Assistant to Director of Central Intelligence William Webster (1988-1991). Mr. Bellinger is an Adjunct Senior Fellow in International and National Security Law at the Council on Foreign Relations. He has testified before Congress on numerous occasions, is quoted regularly in the media on international and national security law matters, and has lectured at numerous US and foreign universities and law schools. He is the author of many law review articles and op-eds on international law, including op-eds in The Washington Post, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal. Mr. Bellinger is a senior contributor to the Lawfare blog.
Mr. Bellinger is a member of the Secretary of State's Advisory Committee on International Law. He served from 2005-2019 as one of four US Members of the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague and a member of the US "National Group", which nominates judges to the International Court of Justice. He is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the American Society of International Law. He is a member of the Council of the American Law Institute; the boards of directors of the American Ditchley Foundation, the Salzburg Global Seminar, and the Stimson Center; and the advisory committee of Foreign Affairs magazine.
Mr. Bellinger is a graduate of Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, and he holds an MA in Foreign Affairs from the University of Virginia and a JD from Harvard Law School, where he was an editor of the Harvard International Law Journal.
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.
Executive Vice President of Global Governance, Chief Legal Officer and Corporate Secretary, Walmart Inc.
Rachel Brand is Walmart’s executive vice president of global governance, chief legal officer, and corporate secretary. She oversees the company’s global legal, compliance, ethics, corporate governance, digital citizenship, aviation, investigative, and corporate security functions, including Walmart’s Emergency Operations Center.
Immediately before joining Walmart, Rachel served as the United States Associate Attorney General and holds the distinction of being the first woman to serve in this role. She had previously served in the U.S. Department of Justice as the Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Policy during President George W. Bush’s administration. Her other government service includes an appointment by President Obama to serve as a Member of the U.S. Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, service as an Associate Counsel to the President at the White House, and judicial clerkships with Justice Charles Fried of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts and Justice Anthony Kennedy at the Supreme Court of the United States. In the private sector, Rachel was a lawyer in private practice at two law firms in Washington, D.C. and served as the Vice President and Chief Counsel for Regulatory Litigation at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Litigation Center.
Rachel serves on the board of directors for the Walmart Foundation and is the executive sponsor for Walmart’s Tribal Voices Associate Resource Group. Outside of Walmart, she serves on the board of directors for the International Justice Mission and is a member of The American Law Institute.
Rachel earned her Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Minnesota-Morris and her J.D. from Harvard Law School.
Presiding Justice, Supreme Court of Georgia
Justice Sarah Hawkins Warren was appointed to the Supreme Court of Georgia by Governor Nathan Deal and was sworn in on September 17, 2018. She previously served as Solicitor General for the State of Georgia under Attorney General Chris Carr.
Justice Warren earned a B.A. in Public Policy and Spanish, magna cum laude, from Duke University. After graduation, Justice Warren served as Deputy Press Secretary for the White House Office of Management and Budget.
Justice Warren received her J.D., magna cum laude, from Duke University School of Law, where she served as Editor in Chief of Law and Contemporary Problems and on the Executive Committee of the Federalist Society.
Following her graduation from law school, Justice Warren served as a law clerk to then-Chief Judge J.L. Edmondson of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit and to the Honorable Richard J. Leon of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. She also practiced as a litigation partner at Kirkland & Ellis LLP in Washington, D.C., where she represented clients before state and federal courts and was outside counsel to Georgia in Florida v. Georgia, No. 142 Original (United States Supreme Court).
In 2015, Justice Warren and her family returned home to Georgia, where she began service in the Office of Attorney General Sam Olens as Deputy Solicitor General and Special Counsel for Water Litigation. In January 2017, she was appointed Solicitor General by Attorney General Chris Carr, and in that role served as the chief appellate lawyer for the State of Georgia and the primary constitutional law advisor to the Attorney General. As Solicitor General, Justice Warren represented Georgia in multi-state litigation and in appeals before state and federal courts, including in an argument before the United States Supreme Court.
Justice Warren currently serves on the Duke Law School Board of Visitors, the Berry College Board of Trustees, and the Advisory Board for the Atlanta Lawyers Chapter of the Federalist Society. She lives in Atlanta with her husband, Blaise, and their three children.
Partner, Arnold & Porter LLP
John Bellinger heads the firm's Global Law and Public Policy practice. He joined the firm in 2009, after holding several senior Presidential appointments in the US government, including as the Senate-confirmed Legal Adviser to the Department of State and Senior Associate Counsel to the President and Legal Adviser to the National Security Council (NSC) at the White House in the George W. Bush Administration.
Mr. Bellinger represents individuals, corporations, and sovereign governments in litigation in US courts and before international institutions. He has extensive experience in US foreign relations litigation involving the Alien Tort Statute, the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, the Anti-Terrorism Act, and the diplomatic and official immunities of foreign governments and government officials. He advises clients on other public international law matters, including treaties and international agreements as well as international humanitarian law and human rights law. He also counsels US and foreign clients on national security legal and policy issues, including US and multilateral financial sanctions and asset controls, the extraterritorial application of US criminal and civil laws, and transactions reviewed by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS).
Chambers Global ranks Mr. Bellinger among the best international lawyers in the world, reporting that he has "second-to-none experience in public international law, international litigation and foreign sovereign immunity" and that his "experience at the highest levels of the Executive branch...gives him a distinct and important vantage point on legal issues." Chambers adds: "For any cross border work he's just extraordinary, he knows the area inside-out."
Mr. Bellinger was the State Department Legal Adviser–the most senior international lawyer in the US Government–from 2005 to 2009, serving under Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. He directed more than 170 lawyers on domestic and international law matters affecting US foreign relations. Before joining the State Department, Mr. Bellinger managed Secretary Rice's Senate confirmation process and co-directed her State Department transition team. In 2009, Mr. Bellinger received the Secretary of State's Distinguished Service Award.
Mr. Bellinger has argued cases before the International Court of Justice (Mexico v. United States–(Medellin)) and the Iran-United States Claims Tribunal in The Hague. He has appeared on numerous briefs in US federal courts, including the Supreme Court, in litigation involving international law issues.
As Legal Adviser to the NSC from 2001 to 2005, Mr. Bellinger advised President Bush, Cabinet officials, National Security Advisor Rice, and NSC staff on a wide range of national security and international law issues, including counterterrorism issues after the 9-11 attacks. He was one of the principal drafters of the legislation that created the Director of National Intelligence.
Prior to his service in the Bush Administration, Mr. Bellinger served as Counsel for National Security Matters in the Criminal Division at the US Department of Justice (1997-2001); Of Counsel to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (1996); General Counsel of the Commission on the Roles and Capabilities of the US Intelligence Community (1995-1996); and Special Assistant to Director of Central Intelligence William Webster (1988-1991). Mr. Bellinger is an Adjunct Senior Fellow in International and National Security Law at the Council on Foreign Relations. He has testified before Congress on numerous occasions, is quoted regularly in the media on international and national security law matters, and has lectured at numerous US and foreign universities and law schools. He is the author of many law review articles and op-eds on international law, including op-eds in The Washington Post, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal. Mr. Bellinger is a senior contributor to the Lawfare blog.
Mr. Bellinger is a member of the Secretary of State's Advisory Committee on International Law. He served from 2005-2019 as one of four US Members of the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague and a member of the US "National Group", which nominates judges to the International Court of Justice. He is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the American Society of International Law. He is a member of the Council of the American Law Institute; the boards of directors of the American Ditchley Foundation, the Salzburg Global Seminar, and the Stimson Center; and the advisory committee of Foreign Affairs magazine.
Mr. Bellinger is a graduate of Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, and he holds an MA in Foreign Affairs from the University of Virginia and a JD from Harvard Law School, where he was an editor of the Harvard International Law Journal.
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.
Executive Vice President of Global Governance, Chief Legal Officer and Corporate Secretary, Walmart Inc.
Rachel Brand is Walmart’s executive vice president of global governance, chief legal officer, and corporate secretary. She oversees the company’s global legal, compliance, ethics, corporate governance, digital citizenship, aviation, investigative, and corporate security functions, including Walmart’s Emergency Operations Center.
Immediately before joining Walmart, Rachel served as the United States Associate Attorney General and holds the distinction of being the first woman to serve in this role. She had previously served in the U.S. Department of Justice as the Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Policy during President George W. Bush’s administration. Her other government service includes an appointment by President Obama to serve as a Member of the U.S. Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, service as an Associate Counsel to the President at the White House, and judicial clerkships with Justice Charles Fried of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts and Justice Anthony Kennedy at the Supreme Court of the United States. In the private sector, Rachel was a lawyer in private practice at two law firms in Washington, D.C. and served as the Vice President and Chief Counsel for Regulatory Litigation at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Litigation Center.
Rachel serves on the board of directors for the Walmart Foundation and is the executive sponsor for Walmart’s Tribal Voices Associate Resource Group. Outside of Walmart, she serves on the board of directors for the International Justice Mission and is a member of The American Law Institute.
Rachel earned her Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Minnesota-Morris and her J.D. from Harvard Law School.
Presiding Justice, Supreme Court of Georgia
Justice Sarah Hawkins Warren was appointed to the Supreme Court of Georgia by Governor Nathan Deal and was sworn in on September 17, 2018. She previously served as Solicitor General for the State of Georgia under Attorney General Chris Carr.
Justice Warren earned a B.A. in Public Policy and Spanish, magna cum laude, from Duke University. After graduation, Justice Warren served as Deputy Press Secretary for the White House Office of Management and Budget.
Justice Warren received her J.D., magna cum laude, from Duke University School of Law, where she served as Editor in Chief of Law and Contemporary Problems and on the Executive Committee of the Federalist Society.
Following her graduation from law school, Justice Warren served as a law clerk to then-Chief Judge J.L. Edmondson of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit and to the Honorable Richard J. Leon of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. She also practiced as a litigation partner at Kirkland & Ellis LLP in Washington, D.C., where she represented clients before state and federal courts and was outside counsel to Georgia in Florida v. Georgia, No. 142 Original (United States Supreme Court).
In 2015, Justice Warren and her family returned home to Georgia, where she began service in the Office of Attorney General Sam Olens as Deputy Solicitor General and Special Counsel for Water Litigation. In January 2017, she was appointed Solicitor General by Attorney General Chris Carr, and in that role served as the chief appellate lawyer for the State of Georgia and the primary constitutional law advisor to the Attorney General. As Solicitor General, Justice Warren represented Georgia in multi-state litigation and in appeals before state and federal courts, including in an argument before the United States Supreme Court.
Justice Warren currently serves on the Duke Law School Board of Visitors, the Berry College Board of Trustees, and the Advisory Board for the Atlanta Lawyers Chapter of the Federalist Society. She lives in Atlanta with her husband, Blaise, and their three children.
How Free Should Trade Be?
International Law Weekend 2014
New York, NYIS It Legal? Legal Authority for the Campaign Against the Islamic State
John B. Bellinger, Steven Gill Bradbury, Rachel L. Brand, Sarah Hawkins Warren
The Federalist Society's DC Young Lawyers Chapter and The Alexander Hamilton Society co-hosted this event...
IS It Legal? Legal Authority for the Campaign Against the Islamic State
John B. Bellinger, Steven Gill Bradbury, Rachel L. Brand, Sarah Hawkins Warren
The Federalist Society's DC Young Lawyers Chapter and The Alexander Hamilton Society co-hosted this event...
Gridlock and Executive Power
Sacramento, CaliforniaLuncheon: Unsolved Legal Problems of Future Technologies
Tampa, FloridaSeparation of Powers: Encroachment by the Executive
Charlotte, North CarolinaGridlock and Executive Power: The Constitutionality of the President’s Unilateral Action
Sacramento, CaliforniaIS It Legal? Legal Authority for the Campaign Against the Islamic State
DC Young Lawyers Chapter and The Alexander Hamilton Society
Washington, DCExecutive Authority and the 2014 Senate Election
Raleigh, North CarolinaContemporary Issues in Copyright Law
Irvine, California