Senior Legal Fellow, The Future of Free Speech, Vanderbilt University
Ashkhen Kazaryan is a renowned expert in First Amendment law and technology policy, specializing in digital free speech, artificial intelligence, and the intersection of constitutional rights with emerging technologies. As a Senior Legal Fellow at the Future of Free Speech at Vanderbilt University, she leads initiatives to protect free expression and shape policies that uphold the First Amendment in the digital age.
Previously, Ashkhen was the lead for North and Latin America on the content regulation team at Meta, where she also served as the company’s policy lead on Section 230. She has also been a Senior Fellow at Stand Together and the Director of Civil Liberties at TechFreedom, where she worked extensively on platform liability, free speech, and internet governance. She is currently Fellow for the First Amendment at the Freedom Forum.
Ashkhen earned her specialist in law degree summa cum laude from Lomonosov Moscow State University in 2012 and later received a master of law degree from Yale Law School in 2016. During her time at Yale, she contributed as an articles editor for the Yale Journal of Law and Feminism, a senior editor for the Yale Law and Policy Review, and an editor for the Yale Journal of Law and Technology, while also serving as co-chair of the Public Interest Fellowship.
Fellow, Ethics and Public Policy Center
Clare Morell is a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, where she directs EPPC’s Technology and Human Flourishing Project. Prior to joining EPPC, Ms. Morell worked in both the White House Counsel’s Office and the Department of Justice, as well as in the private and non-profit sectors. She is also the author of the forthcoming book, The Tech Exit: A Practical Guide to Freeing Kids and Teens from Smartphones, which will be published by Penguin Random House.
At the Department of Justice, Ms. Morell worked as an Advisor to Attorney General Bill Barr. As part of her work for the Attorney General, she helped oversee the President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice and served as Editor of the Commission’s final report. A major focus of the Commission’s report was the challenges that Big Tech’s end-to-end encryption presents to law enforcement for gaining lawful access to crucial intelligence in criminal investigations, like domestic terrorism, as well as human and drug trafficking crimes. Ms. Morell also supported the Attorney General’s work on Section 230 reform as one of his main priorities.
Prior to her role with the Office of the Attorney General, Ms. Morell worked on judicial nominations for the White House Counsel’s office and monitored all nominations data to create high-level presentations for briefing White House leadership. From her experience, Ms. Morell brings an intimate knowledge and understanding of how policy is advanced within the Executive Branch of the federal government, particularly in the Department of Justice and the White House.
Ms. Morell has had opinion pieces published in the Wall Street Journal, Fox News, Newsweek, the Washington Examiner, National Review, American Affairs Journal, Deseret News, The Federalist, Public Discourse, WORLD Magazine, the Washington Times, and the Daily Signal.
Ms. Morell received a B.S.F.S. from Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service, where she majored in Science, Technology, and International Affairs. She graduated summa cum laude and received the Edmund A. Walsh Award for academic achievement in international law. She also is proficient in Spanish.
Ms. Morell lives with her husband and three children in Washington, D.C.
Senior Scholar, Innovation Policy, International Center for Law & Economics
Legislative Director for Senator Marsha Blackburn, U.S. Senate
Jamie Susskind is the Legislative Director for Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN). Prior to becoming Legislative Director, she served for two years as the Senator’s Technology Policy Advisor. In that role, she advised on issues such as data privacy, cybersecurity, broadband, spectrum, content moderation, and antitrust, in addition to staffing the Senator on the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and Data Security. Susskind previously worked on the Hill as Chief Counsel to Senator Deb Fischer (R-NE) and as an FCC Detailee for the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. She also served as Chief of Staff to FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr and as Vice President of Policy and Regulatory Affairs at the Consumer Technology Association. A native Michigander, Susskind earned a Juris Doctor from the Antonin Scalia Law School and a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Michigan (Go Blue!).
Director, Digital Media, Communications and Fellow, R Street Institute
Shoshana Weissmann manages R Street’s social media, email marketing and other digital assets. She also works on occupational licensing reform, social media regulatory policy, Section 230 and other issues, and has written for various publications, including The Wall Street Journal and USA Today.
Shoshana most recently managed digital communications for Opportunity Lives, a group that highlighted positive stories and policy solutions. Before that, she managed social media and wrote for The Weekly Standard. Earlier in her career, she managed digital communications for the America Rising PAC, where her strategy was highlighted in a piece that appeared in The New York Times.
She is on the board of The Conservation Coalition and a member of the Federalist Society’s Regulatory Transparency Project’s state and local and emerging technology working groups.
She lives in Washington, D.C. and has a stuffed sloth named James Madisloth, and she enjoys the Snapchat hot dog.
Senior Legal Fellow, The Future of Free Speech, Vanderbilt University
Ashkhen Kazaryan is a renowned expert in First Amendment law and technology policy, specializing in digital free speech, artificial intelligence, and the intersection of constitutional rights with emerging technologies. As a Senior Legal Fellow at the Future of Free Speech at Vanderbilt University, she leads initiatives to protect free expression and shape policies that uphold the First Amendment in the digital age.
Previously, Ashkhen was the lead for North and Latin America on the content regulation team at Meta, where she also served as the company’s policy lead on Section 230. She has also been a Senior Fellow at Stand Together and the Director of Civil Liberties at TechFreedom, where she worked extensively on platform liability, free speech, and internet governance. She is currently Fellow for the First Amendment at the Freedom Forum.
Ashkhen earned her specialist in law degree summa cum laude from Lomonosov Moscow State University in 2012 and later received a master of law degree from Yale Law School in 2016. During her time at Yale, she contributed as an articles editor for the Yale Journal of Law and Feminism, a senior editor for the Yale Law and Policy Review, and an editor for the Yale Journal of Law and Technology, while also serving as co-chair of the Public Interest Fellowship.
Fellow, Ethics and Public Policy Center
Clare Morell is a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, where she directs EPPC’s Technology and Human Flourishing Project. Prior to joining EPPC, Ms. Morell worked in both the White House Counsel’s Office and the Department of Justice, as well as in the private and non-profit sectors. She is also the author of the forthcoming book, The Tech Exit: A Practical Guide to Freeing Kids and Teens from Smartphones, which will be published by Penguin Random House.
At the Department of Justice, Ms. Morell worked as an Advisor to Attorney General Bill Barr. As part of her work for the Attorney General, she helped oversee the President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice and served as Editor of the Commission’s final report. A major focus of the Commission’s report was the challenges that Big Tech’s end-to-end encryption presents to law enforcement for gaining lawful access to crucial intelligence in criminal investigations, like domestic terrorism, as well as human and drug trafficking crimes. Ms. Morell also supported the Attorney General’s work on Section 230 reform as one of his main priorities.
Prior to her role with the Office of the Attorney General, Ms. Morell worked on judicial nominations for the White House Counsel’s office and monitored all nominations data to create high-level presentations for briefing White House leadership. From her experience, Ms. Morell brings an intimate knowledge and understanding of how policy is advanced within the Executive Branch of the federal government, particularly in the Department of Justice and the White House.
Ms. Morell has had opinion pieces published in the Wall Street Journal, Fox News, Newsweek, the Washington Examiner, National Review, American Affairs Journal, Deseret News, The Federalist, Public Discourse, WORLD Magazine, the Washington Times, and the Daily Signal.
Ms. Morell received a B.S.F.S. from Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service, where she majored in Science, Technology, and International Affairs. She graduated summa cum laude and received the Edmund A. Walsh Award for academic achievement in international law. She also is proficient in Spanish.
Ms. Morell lives with her husband and three children in Washington, D.C.
Senior Scholar, Innovation Policy, International Center for Law & Economics
Legislative Director for Senator Marsha Blackburn, U.S. Senate
Jamie Susskind is the Legislative Director for Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN). Prior to becoming Legislative Director, she served for two years as the Senator’s Technology Policy Advisor. In that role, she advised on issues such as data privacy, cybersecurity, broadband, spectrum, content moderation, and antitrust, in addition to staffing the Senator on the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and Data Security. Susskind previously worked on the Hill as Chief Counsel to Senator Deb Fischer (R-NE) and as an FCC Detailee for the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. She also served as Chief of Staff to FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr and as Vice President of Policy and Regulatory Affairs at the Consumer Technology Association. A native Michigander, Susskind earned a Juris Doctor from the Antonin Scalia Law School and a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Michigan (Go Blue!).
Director, Digital Media, Communications and Fellow, R Street Institute
Shoshana Weissmann manages R Street’s social media, email marketing and other digital assets. She also works on occupational licensing reform, social media regulatory policy, Section 230 and other issues, and has written for various publications, including The Wall Street Journal and USA Today.
Shoshana most recently managed digital communications for Opportunity Lives, a group that highlighted positive stories and policy solutions. Before that, she managed social media and wrote for The Weekly Standard. Earlier in her career, she managed digital communications for the America Rising PAC, where her strategy was highlighted in a piece that appeared in The New York Times.
She is on the board of The Conservation Coalition and a member of the Federalist Society’s Regulatory Transparency Project’s state and local and emerging technology working groups.
She lives in Washington, D.C. and has a stuffed sloth named James Madisloth, and she enjoys the Snapchat hot dog.
St. Robert Bellarmine Professor of Law, The Catholic University of America Columbus School of Law; Nonresident Fellow, American Enterprise Institute, The Catholic University of America
José Joel Alicea is the inaugural St. Robert Bellarmine Professor of Law, Associate Dean for Faculty Research, and Director of the Law School’s Center for the Constitution and the Catholic Intellectual Tradition. He has also served as a Visiting Professor at Duke Law School and Notre Dame Law School. Prior to joining the Catholic Law faculty, Professor Alicea practiced law for several years at the law firm of Cooper & Kirk, PLLC, where he specialized in constitutional litigation. He previously served as a law clerk for Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., on the United States Supreme Court and for Judge Diarmuid F. O'Scannlain on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
Professor Alicea’s scholarship has focused on constitutional theory. His scholarship has appeared, or is forthcoming, in the Yale Law Journal, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, the Virginia Law Review, and the Notre Dame Law Review, among other publications. He has also been active in public debates about constitutional law, testifying before Congress and publishing essays in places like The New York Times, City Journal, and National Affairs.
Professor Alicea is a Fellow at the Columbus School of Law's Center for Religious Liberty and a Nonresident Fellow at The American Enterprise Institute. He is the recipient of several research and teaching awards, including the student-selected Professor of the Year teaching award.
Charles Louis Ducommun Professor in the School of Humanities & Sciences, Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute, at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research & Professor, Stanford
Bruce E. Cain is a Professor of Political Science at Stanford University and Director of the Bill Lane Center for the American West. He received a BA from Bowdoin College (1970), a B Phil. from Oxford University (1972) as a Rhodes Scholar, and a Ph D from Harvard University (1976). He taught at Caltech (1976-89) and UC Berkeley (1989-2012) before coming to Stanford. Professor Cain was Director of the Institute of Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley from 1990-2007 and Executive Director of the UC Washington Center from 2005-2012. He was elected the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2000 and has won awards for his research (Richard F. Fenno Prize, 1988), teaching (Caltech 1988 and UC Berkeley 2003) and public service (Zale Award for Outstanding Achievement in Policy Research and Public Service, 2000). His areas of expertise include political regulation, applied democratic theory, representation and state politics. Some of Professor Cain’s most recent publications include “Malleable Constitutions: Reflections on State Constitutional Design,” coauthored with Roger Noll in University of Texas Law Review, volume 2, 2009; “More or Less: Searching for Regulatory Balance,” in Race, Reform and the Political Process, edited by Heather Gerken, Guy Charles and Michael Kang, CUP, 2011; “Redistricting Commissions: A Better Political Buffer?” in The Yale Law Journal, volume 121, 2012; and Democracy More or Less (CUP, 2015). He is currently working on problems of environmental governance.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit
Edith Jones graduated from Alamo Heights High School, where she was a National Merit Scholar. In 1971, she received her B.A. in Economics from Cornell University, graduating with honors. In 1974, she was awarded her J.D. at the University of Texas Law School, where she was a law review editor and received the Order of the Coif.
Judge Jones was the first female partner at Andrews, Kurth, Campbell & Jones (now Hunton Andrews Kurth) where she practiced various types of litigation and bankruptcy cases. Judge Jones went on the federal bench on June 1, 1985.
Judge Jones served as a former member of the National Bankruptcy Review Commission, and as a member of the Judicial Conference Commission on Bankruptcy Rules. Judge Jones served on the White House Fellows Commission. Judge Jones served on the board of the Sam Houston Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America. She has been a member of the Garland Walker Inn of Court in Houston for more than 20 years and its President for at least ten years. Judge Jones is also on the Board of the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Foundation.
Professor of Law, UCLA Law School
Daniel Lowenstein was the first American law professor to specialize in Election Law and established a leading reputation in that field. He authored the first twentieth century textbook in the field — Election Law: Cases and Materials (Carolina Academic Press, 1995), now in its sixth edition. As co-editor with Professor Rick Hasen he inaugurated the Election Law Journal, the leading journal in the field. On January 29, 2010, leading scholars in Election Law put on a festschrift celebrating Lowenstein’s work in the field.
On July 1, 2009, Lowenstein became Director of the new UCLA Center for the Liberal Arts and Free Institutions (CLAFI), intended to facilitate and promote study of the great works and achievements of western civilization. He currently teaches undergraduate courses, primarily in literature.
Lowenstein worked as a staff attorney at California Rural Legal Assistance for two and one-half years beginning in 1968. While working for California's Secretary of State, Edmund G. Brown Jr. starting in 1971, he specialized in Election Law and was the main drafter of the Political Reform Act, an initiative statute that California voters approved in 1974, thereby creating a new Fair Political Practices Commission. Governor Brown appointed Lowenstein as first chairman of the Commission in 1975. Lowenstein has served on the national governing board of Common Cause and has been a board member and a vice president of Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights. He has also served as chairman of the Board of Directors of the award-winning theatre troupe Interact and regularly brings the company to the School of Law to perform plays with legal themes, such as Sophocles' Antigone, Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People, and Wouk's The Caine Mutiny Court Martial.
Professor Lowenstein’s published research runs the gamut of Election Law subjects, including campaign finance, redistricting, voting rights, political parties, and initiatives. He has also published literary criticism on works such as The Merchant of Venice and Bleak House.
To obtain news and information about CLAFI or about the Interact play readings at the School of Law, please write to Lowenstein at [email protected].
Agnes Williams Sesquicentennial Professor of Federal Courts, Georgetown Law
Stephen I. Vladeck is a professor of law at the Georgetown University Law Center, and is a nationally recognized expert on the federal courts; the Supreme Court; national security law; and military justice.
Vladeck is author of the New York Times bestselling book, “The Shadow Docket: How the Supreme Court Uses Stealth Rulings to Amass Power and Undermine the Republic,” which won the 2023 Writers’ League of Texas Book Award for Non-Fiction and was a finalist for the 2024 ABA Silver Gavel Award for Media and the Arts. Vladeck is also a highly regarded appellate advocate, having argued three cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and over a dozen before various lower federal civilian and military courts. He has received numerous awards for his influential and widely cited legal scholarship, his prolific popular writing, his teaching, and his service to the legal profession—including the 2024 University of Texas President’s Research Impact Award and his selection by the Order of the Coif to serve as its Distinguished Visiting Professor for 2025.
Vladeck is CNN’s Supreme Court analyst and editor and author of “One First,” a popular weekly newsletter about the Supreme Court. Together with Bobby Chesney, Vladeck co-hosts the popular and award-winning “National Security Law Podcast.” He is also a co-author of Aspen Publishers’ leading national security law and counterterrorism law casebooks. And he is a member of the Board of Trustees of EarthJustice—the nation’s premier nonprofit public interest environmental law organization.
Vladeck graduated from Yale Law School in 2004—where he was executive editor of the Yale Law Journal and won the Harlan Fiske Stone Prize for outstanding moot court oralist and shared the Potter Stewart Prize for best moot court team performance. After law school, he clerked for the Honorable Marsha S. Berzon on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and the Honorable Rosemary Barkett on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. He earned a B.A. summa cum laude with Highest Distinction in History and Mathematics from Amherst College in 2001—where he wrote his senior thesis on “Leipzig’s Shadow: The War Crimes Trials of the First World War and Their Implications from Nuremberg to the Present.” A native New Yorker and hopeless Mets fan, Vladeck lives in the District with his wife, Karen (Founder and Managing Partner of Risepoint Search Partners); their daughters, Madeleine and Sydney; and their eleven-year-old pug, Roxanna.
St. Robert Bellarmine Professor of Law, The Catholic University of America Columbus School of Law; Nonresident Fellow, American Enterprise Institute, The Catholic University of America
José Joel Alicea is the inaugural St. Robert Bellarmine Professor of Law, Associate Dean for Faculty Research, and Director of the Law School’s Center for the Constitution and the Catholic Intellectual Tradition. He has also served as a Visiting Professor at Duke Law School and Notre Dame Law School. Prior to joining the Catholic Law faculty, Professor Alicea practiced law for several years at the law firm of Cooper & Kirk, PLLC, where he specialized in constitutional litigation. He previously served as a law clerk for Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., on the United States Supreme Court and for Judge Diarmuid F. O'Scannlain on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
Professor Alicea’s scholarship has focused on constitutional theory. His scholarship has appeared, or is forthcoming, in the Yale Law Journal, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, the Virginia Law Review, and the Notre Dame Law Review, among other publications. He has also been active in public debates about constitutional law, testifying before Congress and publishing essays in places like The New York Times, City Journal, and National Affairs.
Professor Alicea is a Fellow at the Columbus School of Law's Center for Religious Liberty and a Nonresident Fellow at The American Enterprise Institute. He is the recipient of several research and teaching awards, including the student-selected Professor of the Year teaching award.
Charles Louis Ducommun Professor in the School of Humanities & Sciences, Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute, at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research & Professor, Stanford
Bruce E. Cain is a Professor of Political Science at Stanford University and Director of the Bill Lane Center for the American West. He received a BA from Bowdoin College (1970), a B Phil. from Oxford University (1972) as a Rhodes Scholar, and a Ph D from Harvard University (1976). He taught at Caltech (1976-89) and UC Berkeley (1989-2012) before coming to Stanford. Professor Cain was Director of the Institute of Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley from 1990-2007 and Executive Director of the UC Washington Center from 2005-2012. He was elected the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2000 and has won awards for his research (Richard F. Fenno Prize, 1988), teaching (Caltech 1988 and UC Berkeley 2003) and public service (Zale Award for Outstanding Achievement in Policy Research and Public Service, 2000). His areas of expertise include political regulation, applied democratic theory, representation and state politics. Some of Professor Cain’s most recent publications include “Malleable Constitutions: Reflections on State Constitutional Design,” coauthored with Roger Noll in University of Texas Law Review, volume 2, 2009; “More or Less: Searching for Regulatory Balance,” in Race, Reform and the Political Process, edited by Heather Gerken, Guy Charles and Michael Kang, CUP, 2011; “Redistricting Commissions: A Better Political Buffer?” in The Yale Law Journal, volume 121, 2012; and Democracy More or Less (CUP, 2015). He is currently working on problems of environmental governance.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit
Edith Jones graduated from Alamo Heights High School, where she was a National Merit Scholar. In 1971, she received her B.A. in Economics from Cornell University, graduating with honors. In 1974, she was awarded her J.D. at the University of Texas Law School, where she was a law review editor and received the Order of the Coif.
Judge Jones was the first female partner at Andrews, Kurth, Campbell & Jones (now Hunton Andrews Kurth) where she practiced various types of litigation and bankruptcy cases. Judge Jones went on the federal bench on June 1, 1985.
Judge Jones served as a former member of the National Bankruptcy Review Commission, and as a member of the Judicial Conference Commission on Bankruptcy Rules. Judge Jones served on the White House Fellows Commission. Judge Jones served on the board of the Sam Houston Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America. She has been a member of the Garland Walker Inn of Court in Houston for more than 20 years and its President for at least ten years. Judge Jones is also on the Board of the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Foundation.
Professor of Law, UCLA Law School
Daniel Lowenstein was the first American law professor to specialize in Election Law and established a leading reputation in that field. He authored the first twentieth century textbook in the field — Election Law: Cases and Materials (Carolina Academic Press, 1995), now in its sixth edition. As co-editor with Professor Rick Hasen he inaugurated the Election Law Journal, the leading journal in the field. On January 29, 2010, leading scholars in Election Law put on a festschrift celebrating Lowenstein’s work in the field.
On July 1, 2009, Lowenstein became Director of the new UCLA Center for the Liberal Arts and Free Institutions (CLAFI), intended to facilitate and promote study of the great works and achievements of western civilization. He currently teaches undergraduate courses, primarily in literature.
Lowenstein worked as a staff attorney at California Rural Legal Assistance for two and one-half years beginning in 1968. While working for California's Secretary of State, Edmund G. Brown Jr. starting in 1971, he specialized in Election Law and was the main drafter of the Political Reform Act, an initiative statute that California voters approved in 1974, thereby creating a new Fair Political Practices Commission. Governor Brown appointed Lowenstein as first chairman of the Commission in 1975. Lowenstein has served on the national governing board of Common Cause and has been a board member and a vice president of Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights. He has also served as chairman of the Board of Directors of the award-winning theatre troupe Interact and regularly brings the company to the School of Law to perform plays with legal themes, such as Sophocles' Antigone, Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People, and Wouk's The Caine Mutiny Court Martial.
Professor Lowenstein’s published research runs the gamut of Election Law subjects, including campaign finance, redistricting, voting rights, political parties, and initiatives. He has also published literary criticism on works such as The Merchant of Venice and Bleak House.
To obtain news and information about CLAFI or about the Interact play readings at the School of Law, please write to Lowenstein at [email protected].
Agnes Williams Sesquicentennial Professor of Federal Courts, Georgetown Law
Stephen I. Vladeck is a professor of law at the Georgetown University Law Center, and is a nationally recognized expert on the federal courts; the Supreme Court; national security law; and military justice.
Vladeck is author of the New York Times bestselling book, “The Shadow Docket: How the Supreme Court Uses Stealth Rulings to Amass Power and Undermine the Republic,” which won the 2023 Writers’ League of Texas Book Award for Non-Fiction and was a finalist for the 2024 ABA Silver Gavel Award for Media and the Arts. Vladeck is also a highly regarded appellate advocate, having argued three cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and over a dozen before various lower federal civilian and military courts. He has received numerous awards for his influential and widely cited legal scholarship, his prolific popular writing, his teaching, and his service to the legal profession—including the 2024 University of Texas President’s Research Impact Award and his selection by the Order of the Coif to serve as its Distinguished Visiting Professor for 2025.
Vladeck is CNN’s Supreme Court analyst and editor and author of “One First,” a popular weekly newsletter about the Supreme Court. Together with Bobby Chesney, Vladeck co-hosts the popular and award-winning “National Security Law Podcast.” He is also a co-author of Aspen Publishers’ leading national security law and counterterrorism law casebooks. And he is a member of the Board of Trustees of EarthJustice—the nation’s premier nonprofit public interest environmental law organization.
Vladeck graduated from Yale Law School in 2004—where he was executive editor of the Yale Law Journal and won the Harlan Fiske Stone Prize for outstanding moot court oralist and shared the Potter Stewart Prize for best moot court team performance. After law school, he clerked for the Honorable Marsha S. Berzon on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and the Honorable Rosemary Barkett on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. He earned a B.A. summa cum laude with Highest Distinction in History and Mathematics from Amherst College in 2001—where he wrote his senior thesis on “Leipzig’s Shadow: The War Crimes Trials of the First World War and Their Implications from Nuremberg to the Present.” A native New Yorker and hopeless Mets fan, Vladeck lives in the District with his wife, Karen (Founder and Managing Partner of Risepoint Search Partners); their daughters, Madeleine and Sydney; and their eleven-year-old pug, Roxanna.
Senior Fellow, American Enterprise Institute
Thomas Miller is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he studies health care policy, including regulatory barriers to choice and competition, market-based alternatives to the Affordable Care Act, health care litigation, and the political economy of health care reform.
A former senior health economist for the Joint Economic Committee in Congress, Mr. Miller was previously a trial attorney, journalist, and sports broadcaster.
Mr. Miller is the coauthor of the bestseller “Why Obamacare Is Wrong for America” (HarperCollins, 2011), the first in-depth examination of the impact of the Affordable Care Act. His analyses and commentary have been published and featured widely in peer-reviewed publications and in the popular press, including Cato Journal, Health Affairs, Law and Contemporary Problems, the Journal of Law, Medicine, and Politics, the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post.
Mr. Miller has also testified before Congress on the uninsured, health care costs, Medicare cost sharing, high-risk pools, health care competition, health insurance tax credits, the individual mandate, genetic information, Social Security, and the federal reinsurance of catastrophic events, among others. He also speaks regularly on various college campuses and teaches a seminar on “Shaping Law and Policy” at Duke University School of Law.
Mr. Miller has a JD from the Duke University School of Law and a BA in political science from New York University.
Managing Principal, Broadmoor Consulting, LLC
Todd H. Baker is a former banking executive and law firm partner whose career trajectory led him from corporate law to C-suite strategic leadership roles at several of the largest domestic and international banks and roles as an academic, consultant, writer, speaker and commentator on banking, financial technology, consumer financial access and regulation issues. His deep knowledge of strategy, corporate governance, regulatory & public policy and competitive dynamics is combined with an extensive network of industry and government contacts built over long and varied career.
Mr. Baker is a Senior Fellow at the Richard Paul Richman Center for Business, Law and Public Policy at Columbia Business School and Columbia Law School, where he works on innovation and the digital transformation of financial services, with a special interest in emerging business models for both traditional banks and non-bank "FinTech" financial services providers. He also teaches an advanced financial technology seminar for law and business students at Columbia and Stanford Law Schools. During 2016-2018, Mr. Baker was a Senior Fellow at the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business & Government at the Harvard Kennedy School. His research interests and published papers at Harvard include work on the role of FinTech and employers in providing alternatives to payday loans and other types of short-term, small-dollar credit for low-income working Americans in the digital age.
Mr. Baker is a member of the board of directors and chair of the board credit committee at Accion Opportunity Fund, the nation's leading nonprofit small business lender, a member of the Academic Research Council at the Urban Institute and a Limited Partner Advisor at Nyca Partners, a leading fintech-focused venture capital firm. Mr. Baker has written for publications including the Harvard Business Review, Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal and the American Banker, speaks frequently at industry conferences and is widely quoted in the financial and technology press as an industry expert.
Mr. Baker is best known in business circles for driving strategic change in large financial services organizations and a long history of leading high-profile M&A and capital markets transactions. He has also built and managed effective and diverse teams in the areas of strategic planning, competitive intelligence, performance management, investor relations and venture capital. Mr. Baker served as the Managing Director and Head of Americas Corporate Development for MUFG Americas Holdings, the Americas banking operations of Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG). In this role, Mr. Baker managed MUFG Americas’ acquisition and divestiture activities in the U.S., Canada and Latin America. Before taking that position, Mr. Baker was Executive Vice President of Corporate Strategy & Development for Union Bank NA, the U.S. commercial and retail banking operation of MUFG, where he led the company’s strategic planning, corporate development and performance management activities. Prior to joining Union Bank, Mr. Baker served as Executive Director of Corporate Development for TD Bank, N.A., where he was a member of the Managing Committee and had responsibility for leading Toronto-based TD Bank Financial Group’s acquisition activities in the U.S. market, and Executive Vice President of Corporate Strategy & Development at Washington Mutual, Inc. where, at various times, he served on the Executive Committee and had responsibility for acquisitions & divestitures, strategic planning, investor relations, venture capital investing and competitive intelligence.
Prior to his executive roles, Baker was a partner with the international law firms Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP and Morrison & Foerster LLP, where he represented financial services, technology, corporate and investment banking clients in corporate and board governance matters, mergers and acquisitions, public and private securities offerings, securitizations and compliance issues and was recognized as the leading financial services M&A and securities attorney on the West Coast. His law clients included, among others, BankAmerica Corp., Transamerica Corp., Intel, Montgomery Securities, Hewlett-Packard, First Nationwide Financial, Washington Mutual Inc., Global Center, Nomura Securities, Lehman Brothers, Visa International, CIBC and Security Pacific Corp.
Partner, King & Spalding
A partner in the firm’s Government Advocacy and Public Policy group, J.C. helps companies and trade associations navigate legal, political and regulatory issues commonly associated with doing business in Europe and the United States. He is recognized by clients for his strong, bipartisan relationships with Members of Congress, State Attorneys General, congressional staff and senior government officials across key regulatory and executive branch agencies. He is trusted for his ability to rapidly synthesize complex information and communicate its strategic implications to policymakers and senior institutional stakeholders as well as his candid evaluation of options and potential for success.
As former counsel to the Senate Banking Committee, J.C has developed a deep expertise in financial services, fintech, and emerging technology policy. He has a proven track record of influencing federal legislation, regulatory frameworks, and agency rulemaking impacting digital assets, banking, payments, and technology platforms. J.C. regularly interfaces with financial regulators on a wide array of policy and institution-specific issues, and as co-chair of the firm’s State Attorneys General practice, delivers results on high-impact legal work at the intersection of law, policy and regulation.
J.C. is skilled in developing and executing comprehensive advocacy strategies, shaping legislative language, and positioning clients to successfully navigate complex and evolving policy environments at the federal, state and international levels. As President of the Parliamentary Intelligence-Security Forum, he has briefed policymakers throughout Europe, Africa, Latin America, and the Indo-Pacific. JC also advises international clients seeking to invest, expand, or operate in the United States.
President George W. Bush appointed J.C. to a six-year term as U.S. representative to the World Bank’s International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID). Mayor Muriel Bowser also appointed J.C. to the District of Columbia; Board of Elections, in which capacity he also served on the U.S. Election Assistance Commission Standards Board. He is currently chairman of the Board of Visitors of The Catholic University Columbus School of Law and President of the Parliamentary Intelligence-Security Forum, where he is a regular speaker on cryptocurrency, artificial intelligence and critical minerals.
Earlier in his career, J.C. established the Boggs Scholarship for Public Service at the University of Delaware in honor of his grandfather and namesake, former U.S. Congressman, Senator and Governor of Delaware, J. Caleb Boggs. He has also served on numerous corporate and non-profit boards, including Jobs for Delaware Graduates (Chairman); The Reserve Trust Company (Vice Chairman), Global Center for Social Entrepreneurship Network (Secretary), Republican National Lawyers Association (President), Kimball Union Academy (Chairman of the Committee on Trustees), and AAA Mid-Atlantic.
J.C. enjoys open-water swimming and is member of U.S. Masters Swimming and the historic Serpentine Swimming Club situated in London's Hyde Park. He has competed in swimming events across all 50 states, ten Canadian provinces and around the world.
Retired, Winston & Strawn LLP
Jerry Loeser is of counsel in the Chicago office of Winston & Strawn, and his practice focuses on banking regulation. He has extensive experience in counseling financial services clients on, among other things, bank acquisitions, privacy, financial modernization, the USA PATRIOT Act, Basel II and III, lending limits, capital, trust, affiliate transactions, and Federal Reserve, OCC, FDIC, and CFPB regulations.
Prior to working at large corporate law firms, Jerry was chief regulatory and compliance counsel for Comerica Bank, where he also served as senior vice president and deputy general counsel and as general counsel of its retail bank division. Before that, he served as chief regulatory in-house counsel at Wells Fargo & Co. Jerry began his legal career advising the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System in Washington, D.C.
Partner, Norton Rose Fulbright
Steven Lofchie advises financial institutions on regulatory issues and financial instruments.
In his regulatory practice, Steven counsels clients on securities laws, the CEA, and related bankruptcy issues. His transactional practice focuses on securities credit and derivative transactions.
Steven is the founder and manager of an acclaimed legal website (now renamed Fried Frank Regulatory Intelligence) that has been endorsed by former chairpersons of both the SEC and CFTC. Subscribers to the website include government regulators and major buy- and sell-side firms.
Chambers USA has ranked Steven in Band 1 for eight years running, for both financial services regulation and derivatives. He is the only lawyer in the country to be top-ranked in both of those categories. Steven was also part of the team that was named 2020 Regulatory Team of the Year by IFLR Americas. The Best Lawyers in America recognized Steven as “Lawyer of the Year” for Administrative/Regulatory Law in New York in 2017, and U.S. News and World Report ranked him as the best regulatory lawyer in New York for 2014. In 2012, a derivatives transaction developed by Steven was cited as the best international structured product of the year by International Financial Law Review.
U.S. Senate, Wyoming
Cynthia Lummis was sworn into the United States Senate on January 3, 2021, becoming the first woman to serve as United States Senator from the great State of Wyoming.
Born on a cattle ranch in Laramie County, Senator Lummis has spent her entire career fighting for Wyoming families, communities, businesses and values. From the halls of the Wyoming House to the halls of the U.S. House, her time in public service has always been focused on advocating for Wyoming’s future.
First elected to the U.S. House in 2008, Senator Lummis quickly earned her reputation as a no-nonsense conservative and principled policymaker. She was a founding member of the House Freedom Caucus, a group consisting of the most unflinching conservative Members of the House of Representatives. She fought throughout her tenure in Congress to rein in spending and reduce the federal deficit, working with the bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget and ultimately co-sponsoring several bipartisan budget proposals.
In the House of Representatives, Senator Lummis effectively elevated western issues, pushing through the first Interior and Environment (EPA) Appropriations bill to pass the House in seven years under her chairmanship. This marked a significant milestone for the Western Caucus and the rural communities across the West they represent. She also worked to keep public lands open to the public and available for multiple use. She successfully passed the National Forest System Trails Stewardship Act in 2016, a bipartisan effort led by Cynthia to maintain over 157,000 miles of trails within our national forests.
Senator Lummis is a dedicated champion of Wyoming’s mineral and energy resources. In Washington, she fought off attacks from the environmental left while advocating for market opportunities both at home and abroad. She is the proud godmother of the ANSAC Wyoming, a commercial shipping vessel transporting trona from the U.S. to Southeast Asia and is the recipient of the lifetime achievement award from the Washington Coal Club.
Prior to serving in the House of Representatives, Senator Lummis spent eight years as Wyoming State Treasurer and 14 years as a member of the Wyoming State House and Senate. She also worked as general counsel to Wyoming Governor Jim Geringer and Director of the Office of State Lands and Investments, as well as a law clerk at the Wyoming Supreme Court.
After departing U.S. House of Representatives in 2016, Senator Lummis operated her family’s cattle ranches, and the Sweetgrass development in Laramie County, with her brother and sister. She is a three-time graduate of the University of Wyoming in animal science, biology and law. She and her late-husband, Al Wiederspahn, have one daughter, Annaliese, son-in-law Will Cole and grandsons Gus and Al.
Senior Fellow, Mises Institute
Alex J. Pollock is a Senior Fellow with the Mises Institute, providing thought and policy leadership on financial issues and the study of financial systems. His work includes cycles of booms and busts, financial crises with their political responses, housing finance, government-sponsored enterprises, risk and uncertainty, central banking, banking and financial regulation, corporate governance, retirement finance, student loans, and the politics of finance.
He previously served as the Principal Deputy Director of the Office of Financial Research in the U.S. Treasury Department 2019-2021. He was a Distinguished Senior Fellow with the R Street Institute 2015-2019 and 2021, and a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, 2004-2015. Among the many aspects of his AEI work, he developed the One Page Mortgage Form to give borrowers in clear form the key information they need in order to know what they are committing themselves to. He was President and CEO of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago from 1991 to 2004. There he invented the Mortgage Partnership Finance program, which successfully created front-end mortgage credit risk sharing beginning in 1997. His decades of banking experience include being a Visiting Scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, 1991.
Pollock was a director of the CME Group 2004-2019 and of Ascendium Education Group 1989-2019. He is a director and past-chairman of the Great Books Foundation and a past president of the International Union for Housing Finance.
He is the co-author of Surprised Again! - The COVID Crisis and the New Market Bubble (2022), and the author of Finance and Philosophy—Why We’re Always Surprised (2018) and Boom and Bust: Financial Cycles and Human Prosperity (2011), as well as numerous articles and Congressional testimony.
Pollock is a graduate of Williams College, the University of Chicago, and Princeton University.
His work is available on alexjpollock.com.
Senior Legal Fellow, The Future of Free Speech, Vanderbilt University
Ashkhen Kazaryan is a renowned expert in First Amendment law and technology policy, specializing in digital free speech, artificial intelligence, and the intersection of constitutional rights with emerging technologies. As a Senior Legal Fellow at the Future of Free Speech at Vanderbilt University, she leads initiatives to protect free expression and shape policies that uphold the First Amendment in the digital age.
Previously, Ashkhen was the lead for North and Latin America on the content regulation team at Meta, where she also served as the company’s policy lead on Section 230. She has also been a Senior Fellow at Stand Together and the Director of Civil Liberties at TechFreedom, where she worked extensively on platform liability, free speech, and internet governance. She is currently Fellow for the First Amendment at the Freedom Forum.
Ashkhen earned her specialist in law degree summa cum laude from Lomonosov Moscow State University in 2012 and later received a master of law degree from Yale Law School in 2016. During her time at Yale, she contributed as an articles editor for the Yale Journal of Law and Feminism, a senior editor for the Yale Law and Policy Review, and an editor for the Yale Journal of Law and Technology, while also serving as co-chair of the Public Interest Fellowship.
Fellow, Ethics and Public Policy Center
Clare Morell is a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, where she directs EPPC’s Technology and Human Flourishing Project. Prior to joining EPPC, Ms. Morell worked in both the White House Counsel’s Office and the Department of Justice, as well as in the private and non-profit sectors. She is also the author of the forthcoming book, The Tech Exit: A Practical Guide to Freeing Kids and Teens from Smartphones, which will be published by Penguin Random House.
At the Department of Justice, Ms. Morell worked as an Advisor to Attorney General Bill Barr. As part of her work for the Attorney General, she helped oversee the President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice and served as Editor of the Commission’s final report. A major focus of the Commission’s report was the challenges that Big Tech’s end-to-end encryption presents to law enforcement for gaining lawful access to crucial intelligence in criminal investigations, like domestic terrorism, as well as human and drug trafficking crimes. Ms. Morell also supported the Attorney General’s work on Section 230 reform as one of his main priorities.
Prior to her role with the Office of the Attorney General, Ms. Morell worked on judicial nominations for the White House Counsel’s office and monitored all nominations data to create high-level presentations for briefing White House leadership. From her experience, Ms. Morell brings an intimate knowledge and understanding of how policy is advanced within the Executive Branch of the federal government, particularly in the Department of Justice and the White House.
Ms. Morell has had opinion pieces published in the Wall Street Journal, Fox News, Newsweek, the Washington Examiner, National Review, American Affairs Journal, Deseret News, The Federalist, Public Discourse, WORLD Magazine, the Washington Times, and the Daily Signal.
Ms. Morell received a B.S.F.S. from Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service, where she majored in Science, Technology, and International Affairs. She graduated summa cum laude and received the Edmund A. Walsh Award for academic achievement in international law. She also is proficient in Spanish.
Ms. Morell lives with her husband and three children in Washington, D.C.
Senior Scholar, Innovation Policy, International Center for Law & Economics
Legislative Director for Senator Marsha Blackburn, U.S. Senate
Jamie Susskind is the Legislative Director for Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN). Prior to becoming Legislative Director, she served for two years as the Senator’s Technology Policy Advisor. In that role, she advised on issues such as data privacy, cybersecurity, broadband, spectrum, content moderation, and antitrust, in addition to staffing the Senator on the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and Data Security. Susskind previously worked on the Hill as Chief Counsel to Senator Deb Fischer (R-NE) and as an FCC Detailee for the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. She also served as Chief of Staff to FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr and as Vice President of Policy and Regulatory Affairs at the Consumer Technology Association. A native Michigander, Susskind earned a Juris Doctor from the Antonin Scalia Law School and a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Michigan (Go Blue!).
Director, Digital Media, Communications and Fellow, R Street Institute
Shoshana Weissmann manages R Street’s social media, email marketing and other digital assets. She also works on occupational licensing reform, social media regulatory policy, Section 230 and other issues, and has written for various publications, including The Wall Street Journal and USA Today.
Shoshana most recently managed digital communications for Opportunity Lives, a group that highlighted positive stories and policy solutions. Before that, she managed social media and wrote for The Weekly Standard. Earlier in her career, she managed digital communications for the America Rising PAC, where her strategy was highlighted in a piece that appeared in The New York Times.
She is on the board of The Conservation Coalition and a member of the Federalist Society’s Regulatory Transparency Project’s state and local and emerging technology working groups.
She lives in Washington, D.C. and has a stuffed sloth named James Madisloth, and she enjoys the Snapchat hot dog.
St. Robert Bellarmine Professor of Law, The Catholic University of America Columbus School of Law; Nonresident Fellow, American Enterprise Institute, The Catholic University of America
José Joel Alicea is the inaugural St. Robert Bellarmine Professor of Law, Associate Dean for Faculty Research, and Director of the Law School’s Center for the Constitution and the Catholic Intellectual Tradition. He has also served as a Visiting Professor at Duke Law School and Notre Dame Law School. Prior to joining the Catholic Law faculty, Professor Alicea practiced law for several years at the law firm of Cooper & Kirk, PLLC, where he specialized in constitutional litigation. He previously served as a law clerk for Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., on the United States Supreme Court and for Judge Diarmuid F. O'Scannlain on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
Professor Alicea’s scholarship has focused on constitutional theory. His scholarship has appeared, or is forthcoming, in the Yale Law Journal, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, the Virginia Law Review, and the Notre Dame Law Review, among other publications. He has also been active in public debates about constitutional law, testifying before Congress and publishing essays in places like The New York Times, City Journal, and National Affairs.
Professor Alicea is a Fellow at the Columbus School of Law's Center for Religious Liberty and a Nonresident Fellow at The American Enterprise Institute. He is the recipient of several research and teaching awards, including the student-selected Professor of the Year teaching award.
Charles Louis Ducommun Professor in the School of Humanities & Sciences, Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute, at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research & Professor, Stanford
Bruce E. Cain is a Professor of Political Science at Stanford University and Director of the Bill Lane Center for the American West. He received a BA from Bowdoin College (1970), a B Phil. from Oxford University (1972) as a Rhodes Scholar, and a Ph D from Harvard University (1976). He taught at Caltech (1976-89) and UC Berkeley (1989-2012) before coming to Stanford. Professor Cain was Director of the Institute of Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley from 1990-2007 and Executive Director of the UC Washington Center from 2005-2012. He was elected the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2000 and has won awards for his research (Richard F. Fenno Prize, 1988), teaching (Caltech 1988 and UC Berkeley 2003) and public service (Zale Award for Outstanding Achievement in Policy Research and Public Service, 2000). His areas of expertise include political regulation, applied democratic theory, representation and state politics. Some of Professor Cain’s most recent publications include “Malleable Constitutions: Reflections on State Constitutional Design,” coauthored with Roger Noll in University of Texas Law Review, volume 2, 2009; “More or Less: Searching for Regulatory Balance,” in Race, Reform and the Political Process, edited by Heather Gerken, Guy Charles and Michael Kang, CUP, 2011; “Redistricting Commissions: A Better Political Buffer?” in The Yale Law Journal, volume 121, 2012; and Democracy More or Less (CUP, 2015). He is currently working on problems of environmental governance.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit
Edith Jones graduated from Alamo Heights High School, where she was a National Merit Scholar. In 1971, she received her B.A. in Economics from Cornell University, graduating with honors. In 1974, she was awarded her J.D. at the University of Texas Law School, where she was a law review editor and received the Order of the Coif.
Judge Jones was the first female partner at Andrews, Kurth, Campbell & Jones (now Hunton Andrews Kurth) where she practiced various types of litigation and bankruptcy cases. Judge Jones went on the federal bench on June 1, 1985.
Judge Jones served as a former member of the National Bankruptcy Review Commission, and as a member of the Judicial Conference Commission on Bankruptcy Rules. Judge Jones served on the White House Fellows Commission. Judge Jones served on the board of the Sam Houston Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America. She has been a member of the Garland Walker Inn of Court in Houston for more than 20 years and its President for at least ten years. Judge Jones is also on the Board of the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Foundation.
Professor of Law, UCLA Law School
Daniel Lowenstein was the first American law professor to specialize in Election Law and established a leading reputation in that field. He authored the first twentieth century textbook in the field — Election Law: Cases and Materials (Carolina Academic Press, 1995), now in its sixth edition. As co-editor with Professor Rick Hasen he inaugurated the Election Law Journal, the leading journal in the field. On January 29, 2010, leading scholars in Election Law put on a festschrift celebrating Lowenstein’s work in the field.
On July 1, 2009, Lowenstein became Director of the new UCLA Center for the Liberal Arts and Free Institutions (CLAFI), intended to facilitate and promote study of the great works and achievements of western civilization. He currently teaches undergraduate courses, primarily in literature.
Lowenstein worked as a staff attorney at California Rural Legal Assistance for two and one-half years beginning in 1968. While working for California's Secretary of State, Edmund G. Brown Jr. starting in 1971, he specialized in Election Law and was the main drafter of the Political Reform Act, an initiative statute that California voters approved in 1974, thereby creating a new Fair Political Practices Commission. Governor Brown appointed Lowenstein as first chairman of the Commission in 1975. Lowenstein has served on the national governing board of Common Cause and has been a board member and a vice president of Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights. He has also served as chairman of the Board of Directors of the award-winning theatre troupe Interact and regularly brings the company to the School of Law to perform plays with legal themes, such as Sophocles' Antigone, Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People, and Wouk's The Caine Mutiny Court Martial.
Professor Lowenstein’s published research runs the gamut of Election Law subjects, including campaign finance, redistricting, voting rights, political parties, and initiatives. He has also published literary criticism on works such as The Merchant of Venice and Bleak House.
To obtain news and information about CLAFI or about the Interact play readings at the School of Law, please write to Lowenstein at [email protected].
Agnes Williams Sesquicentennial Professor of Federal Courts, Georgetown Law
Stephen I. Vladeck is a professor of law at the Georgetown University Law Center, and is a nationally recognized expert on the federal courts; the Supreme Court; national security law; and military justice.
Vladeck is author of the New York Times bestselling book, “The Shadow Docket: How the Supreme Court Uses Stealth Rulings to Amass Power and Undermine the Republic,” which won the 2023 Writers’ League of Texas Book Award for Non-Fiction and was a finalist for the 2024 ABA Silver Gavel Award for Media and the Arts. Vladeck is also a highly regarded appellate advocate, having argued three cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and over a dozen before various lower federal civilian and military courts. He has received numerous awards for his influential and widely cited legal scholarship, his prolific popular writing, his teaching, and his service to the legal profession—including the 2024 University of Texas President’s Research Impact Award and his selection by the Order of the Coif to serve as its Distinguished Visiting Professor for 2025.
Vladeck is CNN’s Supreme Court analyst and editor and author of “One First,” a popular weekly newsletter about the Supreme Court. Together with Bobby Chesney, Vladeck co-hosts the popular and award-winning “National Security Law Podcast.” He is also a co-author of Aspen Publishers’ leading national security law and counterterrorism law casebooks. And he is a member of the Board of Trustees of EarthJustice—the nation’s premier nonprofit public interest environmental law organization.
Vladeck graduated from Yale Law School in 2004—where he was executive editor of the Yale Law Journal and won the Harlan Fiske Stone Prize for outstanding moot court oralist and shared the Potter Stewart Prize for best moot court team performance. After law school, he clerked for the Honorable Marsha S. Berzon on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and the Honorable Rosemary Barkett on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. He earned a B.A. summa cum laude with Highest Distinction in History and Mathematics from Amherst College in 2001—where he wrote his senior thesis on “Leipzig’s Shadow: The War Crimes Trials of the First World War and Their Implications from Nuremberg to the Present.” A native New Yorker and hopeless Mets fan, Vladeck lives in the District with his wife, Karen (Founder and Managing Partner of Risepoint Search Partners); their daughters, Madeleine and Sydney; and their eleven-year-old pug, Roxanna.
2023 Education Law & Policy Conference
Co-Sponsored by the Defense of Freedom Institute for Policy Studies
Washington, DCMinor Matters in Cyberspace: Examining Internet Age-Verification Regulations
Ashkhen Kazaryan, Clare Morell, Ben Sperry, Jamie Susskind, Shoshana Weissmann
As children's lives become increasingly digital, how can we protect their safety online while weighing...
Minor Matters in Cyberspace: Examining Internet Age-Verification Regulations
Ashkhen Kazaryan, Clare Morell, Ben Sperry, Jamie Susskind, Shoshana Weissmann
As children's lives become increasingly digital, how can we protect their safety online while weighing...
Minor Matters in Cyberspace: Examining Internet Age-Verification Regulations
A Regulatory Transparency Project Webinar
TeleforumPanel I: What is Democracy?
J. Joel Alicea, Bruce Cain, Edith H. Jones, Daniel H. Lowenstein, Stephen I. Vladeck
There has been much discussion about threats to democracy over the past year. But conceptions...
Panel I: What is Democracy?
J. Joel Alicea, Bruce Cain, Edith H. Jones, Daniel H. Lowenstein, Stephen I. Vladeck
There has been much discussion about threats to democracy over the past year. But conceptions...
The Triumph of the Conservative Legal Movement?
Indianapolis Lawyers Chapter
Indianapolis, INExplainer Episode 51 - Beyond Medicaid? Potential Paths Forward to Better Healthcare
Thomas P. Miller
Signed into law in 1965, Medicaid has been active for almost 58 years, during which...
Panel I: What is Democracy?
2023 National Student Symposium
Austin, TXCryptocurrency Regulation in the Aftermath of FTX
Todd H. Baker, J.C. Boggs, Julius L. Loeser, Steven Lofchie, Cynthia Lummis, Alex J. Pollock
The collapse of FTX has intensified the debate about how cryptocurrencies should be regulated, including...