U.S. Court of Appeals, Second Circuit
Judge Calabresi was appointed United States Circuit Judge in July, 1994, and entered into duty on September 16, 1994. Prior to his appointment, he was Dean and Sterling Professor at the Yale Law School where he began teaching in 1959. He continues to serve as a member of that faculty as Sterling Professor Emeritus and Professorial Lecturer.
Judge Calabresi received his B.S. degree, summa cum laude, from Yale College in 1953, a B.A. degree with First Class Honors from Magdalen College, Oxford University, in 1955, an LL.B. degree, magna cum laude, in 1958 from Yale Law School, and an M.A. in Politics, Philosophy and Economics from Oxford University in 1959. A Rhodes Scholar and member of Phi Beta Kappa and Order of the Coif, Judge Calabresi served as the Note Editor of the Yale Law Journal, 1957-58, while graduating first in his law school class.
Following graduation, Judge Calabresi clerked for Justice Hugo Black of the United States Supreme Court. He has been awarded more than thirty honorary degrees from universities in the United States and abroad, and is the author of four books and over eighty articles on law and related subjects.
Judge Calabresi is a member of the Connecticut Bar.
U.S. Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit
Frank H. Easterbrook is a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and a Senior Lecturer at the Law School of the University of Chicago. He was Chief Judge from 2006–2013. Before joining the court in 1985, he was the Lee andBrena Freeman Professor of Law at the University of Chicago, where he taught and wrote in antitrust, securities, corporate law, jurisprudence, and criminal procedure. He has published The Economic Structure of Corporate Law (with Daniel R. Fischel) and about 100 scholarly articles. He served as Co-Editor of the Journal of Law and Economics from 1982 to 1991 and as a member of the Judicial Conference’s Standing Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure from 1991 to 1997. Before joining the faculty of the Law School in 1979, Judge Easterbrook was Deputy Solicitor General of the United States. He holds degrees from Swarthmore College (B.A. with high honors, 1970) and the University of Chicago (J.D. cum laude, 1973), and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Law Institute, the Mont Pelerin Society, Phi Beta Kappa, and the Order of the Coif.
Provost, Harvard Law School
John F. Manning is Harvard University’s Provost and the former Morgan and Helen Chu Dean and Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. Manning joined the HLS faculty in 2004, and was Bruce Bromley Professor of Law from 2007–2017 and Deputy Dean from 2013–2017. Prior to coming to Harvard, Manning was the Michael I. Sovern Professor of Law at Columbia Law School, where he began teaching in 1994. Manning teaches administrative law, federal courts, legislation and regulation, separation of powers, and statutory interpretation. His writing focuses on statutory interpretation and structural constitutional law. Manning is a co-editor of Hart & Wechsler’s Federal Courts and the Federal System (6th ed., 2009) (with Richard Fallon, Daniel Meltzer, and David Shapiro), and Legislation and Regulation (2d ed., 2013) (with Matthew Stephenson). Prior to entering teaching, Manning served as an assistant to the Solicitor General in the U.S. Department of Justice (1991-94), an associate in the D.C. office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher (1989-91), and an attorney-advisor in the Office of Legal Counsel in the U.S. Department of Justice (1986-88). He served as a law clerk to Hon. Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court of the United States (1988-89) and to Hon. Robert H. Bork on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (1985-86). Manning graduated from Harvard Law School in 1985 and Harvard College in 1982. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Former President & CEO, The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies
Eugene B. Meyer, former President and CEO of the Federalist Society, has served as Executive Director, CEO, and/or President of the organization for more than 40 years. He is responsible for shepherding the organization from a small group of law students to a community of 90,000 lawyers, law students, academics, judges, and others interested in the rule of law. The Society now includes a Student Chapter at nearly every ABA-accredited law school in the country and Lawyers Chapters in 220 major cities across the nation. Gene earned his B.A. in history at Yale in 1975 and his M.A. in political science from the London School of Economics in 1976. Gene currently serves on the boards of the U.S. Chess Center, the Holman Foundation, the Sarah Scaife Foundation, and the advisory board of the Adam Smith Society. He holds the title of International Chess Master.
U.S. Court of Appeals, Second Circuit
Judge Calabresi was appointed United States Circuit Judge in July, 1994, and entered into duty on September 16, 1994. Prior to his appointment, he was Dean and Sterling Professor at the Yale Law School where he began teaching in 1959. He continues to serve as a member of that faculty as Sterling Professor Emeritus and Professorial Lecturer.
Judge Calabresi received his B.S. degree, summa cum laude, from Yale College in 1953, a B.A. degree with First Class Honors from Magdalen College, Oxford University, in 1955, an LL.B. degree, magna cum laude, in 1958 from Yale Law School, and an M.A. in Politics, Philosophy and Economics from Oxford University in 1959. A Rhodes Scholar and member of Phi Beta Kappa and Order of the Coif, Judge Calabresi served as the Note Editor of the Yale Law Journal, 1957-58, while graduating first in his law school class.
Following graduation, Judge Calabresi clerked for Justice Hugo Black of the United States Supreme Court. He has been awarded more than thirty honorary degrees from universities in the United States and abroad, and is the author of four books and over eighty articles on law and related subjects.
Judge Calabresi is a member of the Connecticut Bar.
U.S. Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit
Frank H. Easterbrook is a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and a Senior Lecturer at the Law School of the University of Chicago. He was Chief Judge from 2006–2013. Before joining the court in 1985, he was the Lee andBrena Freeman Professor of Law at the University of Chicago, where he taught and wrote in antitrust, securities, corporate law, jurisprudence, and criminal procedure. He has published The Economic Structure of Corporate Law (with Daniel R. Fischel) and about 100 scholarly articles. He served as Co-Editor of the Journal of Law and Economics from 1982 to 1991 and as a member of the Judicial Conference’s Standing Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure from 1991 to 1997. Before joining the faculty of the Law School in 1979, Judge Easterbrook was Deputy Solicitor General of the United States. He holds degrees from Swarthmore College (B.A. with high honors, 1970) and the University of Chicago (J.D. cum laude, 1973), and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Law Institute, the Mont Pelerin Society, Phi Beta Kappa, and the Order of the Coif.
Provost, Harvard Law School
John F. Manning is Harvard University’s Provost and the former Morgan and Helen Chu Dean and Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. Manning joined the HLS faculty in 2004, and was Bruce Bromley Professor of Law from 2007–2017 and Deputy Dean from 2013–2017. Prior to coming to Harvard, Manning was the Michael I. Sovern Professor of Law at Columbia Law School, where he began teaching in 1994. Manning teaches administrative law, federal courts, legislation and regulation, separation of powers, and statutory interpretation. His writing focuses on statutory interpretation and structural constitutional law. Manning is a co-editor of Hart & Wechsler’s Federal Courts and the Federal System (6th ed., 2009) (with Richard Fallon, Daniel Meltzer, and David Shapiro), and Legislation and Regulation (2d ed., 2013) (with Matthew Stephenson). Prior to entering teaching, Manning served as an assistant to the Solicitor General in the U.S. Department of Justice (1991-94), an associate in the D.C. office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher (1989-91), and an attorney-advisor in the Office of Legal Counsel in the U.S. Department of Justice (1986-88). He served as a law clerk to Hon. Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court of the United States (1988-89) and to Hon. Robert H. Bork on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (1985-86). Manning graduated from Harvard Law School in 1985 and Harvard College in 1982. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Former President & CEO, The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies
Eugene B. Meyer, former President and CEO of the Federalist Society, has served as Executive Director, CEO, and/or President of the organization for more than 40 years. He is responsible for shepherding the organization from a small group of law students to a community of 90,000 lawyers, law students, academics, judges, and others interested in the rule of law. The Society now includes a Student Chapter at nearly every ABA-accredited law school in the country and Lawyers Chapters in 220 major cities across the nation. Gene earned his B.A. in history at Yale in 1975 and his M.A. in political science from the London School of Economics in 1976. Gene currently serves on the boards of the U.S. Chess Center, the Holman Foundation, the Sarah Scaife Foundation, and the advisory board of the Adam Smith Society. He holds the title of International Chess Master.
Former Managing Director, BlackRock Inc.
Joanne Medero was until July 2020 a Managing Director at BlackRock where she was member of their Global Public Policy Group and a Senior Advisor to the Vice Chairman on the intersection of public policy and corporate governance. In June 2021, Ms. Medero was appointed a director/trustee of the Nuveen Funds.
Ms. Medero's service with BlackRock dates back to 1996, including her years with Barclays Global Investors (BGI), which merged with BlackRock in 2009. She joined BGI as its Global General Counsel in 1996 and after more than ten years in that role, became the global head of Government Relations and Public Policy for Barclays’ investment banking and investment management businesses. Prior to joining BGI, Ms. Medero was a partner with Orrick, Herrington and Sutcliffe specializing in derivatives and market regulation issues. Ms. Medero also served as general counsel of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (1989-1993) and as an associate director for legal and financial affairs at the Office of Presidential Personnel, The White House (1986-1989).
Ms. Medero is a graduate of St. Lawrence University and received her JD from George Washington University.
President and Founder, International Center for Law & Economics
Geoffrey A. Manne is the president and founder of the International Center for Law and Economics (ICLE), a nonprofit, nonpartisan research center based in Portland, Oregon. He is also a distinguished fellow at Northwestern Law School’s Searle Center on Law, Regulation, & Economic Growth. In April 2017 he was appointed by FCC Chairman Ajit Pai to the FCC’s Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee, and he recently served for two years on the FCC’s Consumer Advisory Committee.
Mr. Manne earned his JD and AB degrees from the University of Chicago and is an expert in the economic analysis of law, specializing in competition, telecommunications, consumer protection, intellectual property, and technology policy.
Prior to founding ICLE, Manne was a law professor at Lewis & Clark Law School. From 2006-2009, he took a leave from teaching to develop Microsoft’s law and economics academic outreach program. Manne has also served as a lecturer in law at the University of Chicago Law School and the University of Virginia School of Law. He practiced antitrust law and appellate litigation at Latham & Watkins, clerked for Hon. Morris S. Arnold on the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals, and worked as a research assistant for Judge Richard Posner. He was also once (very briefly) employed by the FTC.
Mr. Manne’s publications have appeared in numerous journals including the Journal of Competition Law and Economics, the Harvard Journal of Law and Technology, the Supreme Court Economic Review, and the Arizona Law Review, among others. With former FTC Commissioner, Joshua Wright, Manne is the editor of a volume from Cambridge University Press entitled, Competition Policy and Intellectual Property Law Under Uncertainty: Regulating Innovation. Manne has also testified on several occasions before Congress and at the FCC and FTC, and he regularly files written comments and amicus briefs on key antitrust, IP, and telecommunications issues. His analysis is frequently published in popular print and broadcasting outlets such as the Wall Street Journal, Wired, Foreign Affairs, NPR, and Bloomberg, among others.
Manne is a member of the American Law and Economics Association, the Canadian Law and Economics Association, and the Society for Institutional & Organizational Economics. He blogs at Truth on the Market (www.truthonthemarket.com) (of which he is also the co-founder), is a contributor at WIRED, and tweets at @geoffmanne. His scholarly publications are available at http://ssrn.com/author=175541.
Founding Partner, Lodestar Law and Economics PLLC
Josh is the founder of Lodestar Law and Economics, PLLC. On January 1, 2013, the U.S. Senate unanimously confirmed Wright as a Commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). He is a leading scholar in antitrust law, economics, intellectual property, regulation, and consumer protection, and has published more than 100 articles and book chapters, co-authored a leading antitrust casebook, and edited several book volumes focusing on these issues. Commentators have recognized Wright as “widely considered his generation’s greatest mind on antitrust law,” and his academic work ranks him as one of the most cited antitrust academics in the world. Wright was also awarded the Paul M. Bator Award by the Federalist Society in 2014 to “an academic who demonstrated excellence in legal scholarship, a commitment to teaching, a concern for students, and who has made a significant public impact.” Wright also served as the Executive Director of the Global Antitrust Institute, the world’s premiere academic institute focused upon antitrust education for judges and regulators and has taught hundreds of judges and thousands of regulators from dozens of countries.
Wright’s practice focuses upon helping clients solve complex competition, consumer protection, and regulatory problems by providing legal and economic analysis, strategic advice and counseling, and economic expert testimony.
U.S. Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit
Frank H. Easterbrook is a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and a Senior Lecturer at the Law School of the University of Chicago. He was Chief Judge from 2006–2013. Before joining the court in 1985, he was the Lee andBrena Freeman Professor of Law at the University of Chicago, where he taught and wrote in antitrust, securities, corporate law, jurisprudence, and criminal procedure. He has published The Economic Structure of Corporate Law (with Daniel R. Fischel) and about 100 scholarly articles. He served as Co-Editor of the Journal of Law and Economics from 1982 to 1991 and as a member of the Judicial Conference’s Standing Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure from 1991 to 1997. Before joining the faculty of the Law School in 1979, Judge Easterbrook was Deputy Solicitor General of the United States. He holds degrees from Swarthmore College (B.A. with high honors, 1970) and the University of Chicago (J.D. cum laude, 1973), and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Law Institute, the Mont Pelerin Society, Phi Beta Kappa, and the Order of the Coif.
Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law and Director, Classical Liberal Institute, New York University School of Law; Director, Classical Liberal Institute, Civitas Institute University of Texas at Austin
Richard A. Epstein is the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law, at New York University, a senior research fellow at the Civitas Institute at the University of Texas Austin, and a senior Lecturer, the University of Chicago. He received an LL.D., h.c . from the University of Ghent, 2003 , and an LLD h.c . from the University of Siegen in 2018 and the Bradley Prize in 2011. He has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 1985. He has edited both the Journal of Legal Studies (1981-1991) and the Journal of Law and Economics (1991-2001). He is also a founder and director of the Classical Liberal Institute at NYU Law School. His most recent book is The Classical Liberal Constitution: The Uncertain Quest for Limited Government (2014). His other books include Takings: Private Property and the Power of Eminent Domain ( 1985); Bargaining with the State (1993); Simple Rules for a Complex World (1995); Principles for a Free Society: Reconciling Individual Liberty and the Common Good (1998); Skepticism and Freedom: A Modern Theory of Classical Liberalism (2003); Design for Liberty: Private Property, Public Administration and the Rule of Law (2011), and most recently, The Myth of Birthright citizenship—and Beyond (2026). He has taught courses in , administrative law, antitrust, constitutional, contracts, environmental law, land use planning; real property, torts and water law. He has written and spoken extensively on a wide range of topics, and is writes a regular column for Defining Ideas.
Partner, Millbank LLP
Mr. Katyal, the former Acting Solicitor General of the United States, focuses on appellate and complex litigation. He has argued 54 cases before the Supreme Court of the United States.
He has extensive experience in matters of antitrust, corporate, constitutional, securities, technology, criminal, patent, copyright, trademark, ERISA, products liability, labor, employment and tribal law. In the 2022-23 Supreme Court term, he argued five separate cases (nearly 10% of the docket), including winning the landmark voting case Moore v. Harper, which Judge Michael Luttig described as “the most important case for American democracy in the almost two and a half centuries since America’s founding.” Judge Luttig also said Mr. Katyal’s argument “was the single best oral argument I have ever heard made in the Supreme Court of the United States.” His cases include successfully striking down the Guantanamo military tribunals, successfully defending the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act and successfully defending the Peace Cross in Maryland. His 2017 win in Bristol Myers Squibb v. Superior Court was a landmark victory for personal jurisdiction law and his 2006 win in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld was described by former Acting Solicitor General Walter Dellinger as “simply the most important decision on presidential power and the rule of law ever. Ever.”
From 2010 to 2011, Mr. Katyal served as Acting Solicitor General of the United States, where he argued several major Supreme Court cases involving a variety of issues, such as his successful defense of the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, his victorious defense of former Attorney General John Ashcroft for alleged abuses in the war on terror, his unanimous victory against eight states who sued the nation's leading power plants for contributing to global warming, and a variety of other matters. As Acting Solicitor General, he was responsible for representing the federal government of the United States in all appellate matters before the US Supreme Court and the Courts of Appeals throughout the nation. He served as Counsel of Record hundreds of times in the US Supreme Court. He was also the only head of the Solicitor General's office to argue a case in the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, on the important question of whether certain aspects of the human genome were patentable.
After graduating from Yale Law School, Mr. Katyal clerked for The Honorable Guido Calabresi of the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit as well as for The Honorable Justice Stephen G. Breyer of the US Supreme Court. He also served in the Deputy Attorney General's Office at the Justice Department as National Security Advisor and as Special Assistant to the Deputy Attorney General during 1998-1999.
Mr. Katyal is a best-selling New York Times author and has published dozens of scholarly articles in law journals (including several in the Harvard Law Review and Yale Law Journal), as well as many op-ed articles in publications such as the New York Times and the Washington Post. He has testified numerous times before various committees of both the US House of Representatives and the US Senate.
John A. Sibley Professor in Corporate and Business Law, The University of Georgia School of Law
Larry D. Thompson has served on the University of Georgia School of Law’s faculty as the holder of the John A. Sibley Chair of Corporate and Business Law since 2011, noting he was on a leave of absence from June 2012 through 2014. He is presently a member of the Faculty Division of the law school's Dean Rusk International Law Center Council.
Thompson first retired from PepsiCo in May 2011. In June 2012, he rejoined the company as executive vice president, government affairs, general counsel and corporate secretary. His responsibilities included leading PepsiCo’s worldwide legal function, as well as its global government affairs and public policy group and its global citizenship and sustainability team. Thompson again retired from PepsiCo in December 2014.
Thompson has extensive leadership experience in both the public and private sectors. In 2001, Thompson was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as deputy attorney general of the United States. As deputy attorney general, Attorney General John Ashcroft named Thompson in 2002 to lead the Department of Justice’s National Security Coordination Council. Also in 2002, President George W. Bush named Thompson to head the government-wide Corporate Fraud Task Force.
From 1982 to 1986, he served as U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Georgia where he led major political corruption and drug trafficking prosecutions brought by the U.S. Attorney’s Office. As U.S. attorney, Thompson also led the Southeastern Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force.
Thompson has held other significant leadership positions in the public sector. In 1995, he was named independent counsel for the Department of Housing and Urban Development Investigation. In 2000, he was selected by the U.S. Congress to chair the bi-partisan Judicial Review Commission on Foreign Asset Control.
In the private sector, in addition to his leadership roles at PepsiCo, Thompson was a partner in the Atlanta law firm of King & Spalding. He was the founding co-chair of the firm’s special matters and government investigations practice.
Thompson has received numerous awards for his professional achievements, including the Edmund Jennings Randolph Award for outstanding contributions to the accomplishment of the Department of Justice’s mission, the Outstanding Litigator Award from the Federal Bar Association and a Honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Pace University in New York. He has also been recognized by Atlanta’s Gate City Bar Association as a member of its hall of fame.
Thompson is an elected Fellow of the American Board of Criminal Lawyers. In 2014, Ethisphere magazine recognized him by noting that as “the outgoing General Counsel of one of the world’s most well-recognized corporations [Thompson] has set the bar high for GC’s everywhere. [His] background in both public and private sectors earned him the trust and respect of his peers worldwide as he demonstrated how ethics and integrity are essential components of business success.”
In 2004, Thompson served as a Senior Fellow with the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C.
Thompson speaks and writes frequently on a number of legal topics. His recent publications include:
● “The Responsible Corporation: Its Historical Roots and Continuing Promise" in 29 Notre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics & Public Policy 199 (2015).
● “In-sourcing Corporate Responsibility for Enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act" in 51 American Criminal Law Review 199 (2014).
● “Keynote Speech: The Reality of Overcriminalization” in 7 George Mason University Journal of Law, Economics and Policy 577 (2011).
Thompson holds a B.A. from Culver-Stockton College in Canton, Missouri, a M.A. from Michigan State University and a law degree from the University of Michigan.
U.S. Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit
Frank H. Easterbrook is a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and a Senior Lecturer at the Law School of the University of Chicago. He was Chief Judge from 2006–2013. Before joining the court in 1985, he was the Lee andBrena Freeman Professor of Law at the University of Chicago, where he taught and wrote in antitrust, securities, corporate law, jurisprudence, and criminal procedure. He has published The Economic Structure of Corporate Law (with Daniel R. Fischel) and about 100 scholarly articles. He served as Co-Editor of the Journal of Law and Economics from 1982 to 1991 and as a member of the Judicial Conference’s Standing Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure from 1991 to 1997. Before joining the faculty of the Law School in 1979, Judge Easterbrook was Deputy Solicitor General of the United States. He holds degrees from Swarthmore College (B.A. with high honors, 1970) and the University of Chicago (J.D. cum laude, 1973), and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Law Institute, the Mont Pelerin Society, Phi Beta Kappa, and the Order of the Coif.
Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law and Director, Classical Liberal Institute, New York University School of Law; Director, Classical Liberal Institute, Civitas Institute University of Texas at Austin
Richard A. Epstein is the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law, at New York University, a senior research fellow at the Civitas Institute at the University of Texas Austin, and a senior Lecturer, the University of Chicago. He received an LL.D., h.c . from the University of Ghent, 2003 , and an LLD h.c . from the University of Siegen in 2018 and the Bradley Prize in 2011. He has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 1985. He has edited both the Journal of Legal Studies (1981-1991) and the Journal of Law and Economics (1991-2001). He is also a founder and director of the Classical Liberal Institute at NYU Law School. His most recent book is The Classical Liberal Constitution: The Uncertain Quest for Limited Government (2014). His other books include Takings: Private Property and the Power of Eminent Domain ( 1985); Bargaining with the State (1993); Simple Rules for a Complex World (1995); Principles for a Free Society: Reconciling Individual Liberty and the Common Good (1998); Skepticism and Freedom: A Modern Theory of Classical Liberalism (2003); Design for Liberty: Private Property, Public Administration and the Rule of Law (2011), and most recently, The Myth of Birthright citizenship—and Beyond (2026). He has taught courses in , administrative law, antitrust, constitutional, contracts, environmental law, land use planning; real property, torts and water law. He has written and spoken extensively on a wide range of topics, and is writes a regular column for Defining Ideas.
Partner, Millbank LLP
Mr. Katyal, the former Acting Solicitor General of the United States, focuses on appellate and complex litigation. He has argued 54 cases before the Supreme Court of the United States.
He has extensive experience in matters of antitrust, corporate, constitutional, securities, technology, criminal, patent, copyright, trademark, ERISA, products liability, labor, employment and tribal law. In the 2022-23 Supreme Court term, he argued five separate cases (nearly 10% of the docket), including winning the landmark voting case Moore v. Harper, which Judge Michael Luttig described as “the most important case for American democracy in the almost two and a half centuries since America’s founding.” Judge Luttig also said Mr. Katyal’s argument “was the single best oral argument I have ever heard made in the Supreme Court of the United States.” His cases include successfully striking down the Guantanamo military tribunals, successfully defending the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act and successfully defending the Peace Cross in Maryland. His 2017 win in Bristol Myers Squibb v. Superior Court was a landmark victory for personal jurisdiction law and his 2006 win in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld was described by former Acting Solicitor General Walter Dellinger as “simply the most important decision on presidential power and the rule of law ever. Ever.”
From 2010 to 2011, Mr. Katyal served as Acting Solicitor General of the United States, where he argued several major Supreme Court cases involving a variety of issues, such as his successful defense of the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, his victorious defense of former Attorney General John Ashcroft for alleged abuses in the war on terror, his unanimous victory against eight states who sued the nation's leading power plants for contributing to global warming, and a variety of other matters. As Acting Solicitor General, he was responsible for representing the federal government of the United States in all appellate matters before the US Supreme Court and the Courts of Appeals throughout the nation. He served as Counsel of Record hundreds of times in the US Supreme Court. He was also the only head of the Solicitor General's office to argue a case in the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, on the important question of whether certain aspects of the human genome were patentable.
After graduating from Yale Law School, Mr. Katyal clerked for The Honorable Guido Calabresi of the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit as well as for The Honorable Justice Stephen G. Breyer of the US Supreme Court. He also served in the Deputy Attorney General's Office at the Justice Department as National Security Advisor and as Special Assistant to the Deputy Attorney General during 1998-1999.
Mr. Katyal is a best-selling New York Times author and has published dozens of scholarly articles in law journals (including several in the Harvard Law Review and Yale Law Journal), as well as many op-ed articles in publications such as the New York Times and the Washington Post. He has testified numerous times before various committees of both the US House of Representatives and the US Senate.
John A. Sibley Professor in Corporate and Business Law, The University of Georgia School of Law
Larry D. Thompson has served on the University of Georgia School of Law’s faculty as the holder of the John A. Sibley Chair of Corporate and Business Law since 2011, noting he was on a leave of absence from June 2012 through 2014. He is presently a member of the Faculty Division of the law school's Dean Rusk International Law Center Council.
Thompson first retired from PepsiCo in May 2011. In June 2012, he rejoined the company as executive vice president, government affairs, general counsel and corporate secretary. His responsibilities included leading PepsiCo’s worldwide legal function, as well as its global government affairs and public policy group and its global citizenship and sustainability team. Thompson again retired from PepsiCo in December 2014.
Thompson has extensive leadership experience in both the public and private sectors. In 2001, Thompson was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as deputy attorney general of the United States. As deputy attorney general, Attorney General John Ashcroft named Thompson in 2002 to lead the Department of Justice’s National Security Coordination Council. Also in 2002, President George W. Bush named Thompson to head the government-wide Corporate Fraud Task Force.
From 1982 to 1986, he served as U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Georgia where he led major political corruption and drug trafficking prosecutions brought by the U.S. Attorney’s Office. As U.S. attorney, Thompson also led the Southeastern Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force.
Thompson has held other significant leadership positions in the public sector. In 1995, he was named independent counsel for the Department of Housing and Urban Development Investigation. In 2000, he was selected by the U.S. Congress to chair the bi-partisan Judicial Review Commission on Foreign Asset Control.
In the private sector, in addition to his leadership roles at PepsiCo, Thompson was a partner in the Atlanta law firm of King & Spalding. He was the founding co-chair of the firm’s special matters and government investigations practice.
Thompson has received numerous awards for his professional achievements, including the Edmund Jennings Randolph Award for outstanding contributions to the accomplishment of the Department of Justice’s mission, the Outstanding Litigator Award from the Federal Bar Association and a Honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Pace University in New York. He has also been recognized by Atlanta’s Gate City Bar Association as a member of its hall of fame.
Thompson is an elected Fellow of the American Board of Criminal Lawyers. In 2014, Ethisphere magazine recognized him by noting that as “the outgoing General Counsel of one of the world’s most well-recognized corporations [Thompson] has set the bar high for GC’s everywhere. [His] background in both public and private sectors earned him the trust and respect of his peers worldwide as he demonstrated how ethics and integrity are essential components of business success.”
In 2004, Thompson served as a Senior Fellow with the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C.
Thompson speaks and writes frequently on a number of legal topics. His recent publications include:
● “The Responsible Corporation: Its Historical Roots and Continuing Promise" in 29 Notre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics & Public Policy 199 (2015).
● “In-sourcing Corporate Responsibility for Enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act" in 51 American Criminal Law Review 199 (2014).
● “Keynote Speech: The Reality of Overcriminalization” in 7 George Mason University Journal of Law, Economics and Policy 577 (2011).
Thompson holds a B.A. from Culver-Stockton College in Canton, Missouri, a M.A. from Michigan State University and a law degree from the University of Michigan.
U.S. Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit
Frank H. Easterbrook is a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and a Senior Lecturer at the Law School of the University of Chicago. He was Chief Judge from 2006–2013. Before joining the court in 1985, he was the Lee andBrena Freeman Professor of Law at the University of Chicago, where he taught and wrote in antitrust, securities, corporate law, jurisprudence, and criminal procedure. He has published The Economic Structure of Corporate Law (with Daniel R. Fischel) and about 100 scholarly articles. He served as Co-Editor of the Journal of Law and Economics from 1982 to 1991 and as a member of the Judicial Conference’s Standing Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure from 1991 to 1997. Before joining the faculty of the Law School in 1979, Judge Easterbrook was Deputy Solicitor General of the United States. He holds degrees from Swarthmore College (B.A. with high honors, 1970) and the University of Chicago (J.D. cum laude, 1973), and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Law Institute, the Mont Pelerin Society, Phi Beta Kappa, and the Order of the Coif.
Partner, Millbank LLP
Mr. Katyal, the former Acting Solicitor General of the United States, focuses on appellate and complex litigation. He has argued 54 cases before the Supreme Court of the United States.
He has extensive experience in matters of antitrust, corporate, constitutional, securities, technology, criminal, patent, copyright, trademark, ERISA, products liability, labor, employment and tribal law. In the 2022-23 Supreme Court term, he argued five separate cases (nearly 10% of the docket), including winning the landmark voting case Moore v. Harper, which Judge Michael Luttig described as “the most important case for American democracy in the almost two and a half centuries since America’s founding.” Judge Luttig also said Mr. Katyal’s argument “was the single best oral argument I have ever heard made in the Supreme Court of the United States.” His cases include successfully striking down the Guantanamo military tribunals, successfully defending the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act and successfully defending the Peace Cross in Maryland. His 2017 win in Bristol Myers Squibb v. Superior Court was a landmark victory for personal jurisdiction law and his 2006 win in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld was described by former Acting Solicitor General Walter Dellinger as “simply the most important decision on presidential power and the rule of law ever. Ever.”
From 2010 to 2011, Mr. Katyal served as Acting Solicitor General of the United States, where he argued several major Supreme Court cases involving a variety of issues, such as his successful defense of the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, his victorious defense of former Attorney General John Ashcroft for alleged abuses in the war on terror, his unanimous victory against eight states who sued the nation's leading power plants for contributing to global warming, and a variety of other matters. As Acting Solicitor General, he was responsible for representing the federal government of the United States in all appellate matters before the US Supreme Court and the Courts of Appeals throughout the nation. He served as Counsel of Record hundreds of times in the US Supreme Court. He was also the only head of the Solicitor General's office to argue a case in the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, on the important question of whether certain aspects of the human genome were patentable.
After graduating from Yale Law School, Mr. Katyal clerked for The Honorable Guido Calabresi of the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit as well as for The Honorable Justice Stephen G. Breyer of the US Supreme Court. He also served in the Deputy Attorney General's Office at the Justice Department as National Security Advisor and as Special Assistant to the Deputy Attorney General during 1998-1999.
Mr. Katyal is a best-selling New York Times author and has published dozens of scholarly articles in law journals (including several in the Harvard Law Review and Yale Law Journal), as well as many op-ed articles in publications such as the New York Times and the Washington Post. He has testified numerous times before various committees of both the US House of Representatives and the US Senate.
Partner, Baker Hostetler LLP
David Rivkin is a member of the firm's litigation, international and environmental teams and is co-leader of the firm's national appellate practice. He has extensive experience in constitutional, administrative and international law litigation and has been involved in numerous high-profile cases. With his prior experience in the government sector, David draws on a wealth of knowledge when providing compliance advice to companies and handling enforcement proceedings before government agencies on issues arising out of multilateral and unilateral sanctions, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), anti-boycott issues, bankruptcy and financial fraud matters, and environmental and energy issues.
David has developed and implemented legislative, regulatory and litigation initiatives for two presidential administrations. Over the years, he has published hundreds of articles, op-eds, book reviews and book chapters on a variety of international, legal, constitutional, defense, arms control, foreign policy, environmental and energy issues for various newspapers and magazines, including The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The New York Times, USA Today and The Los Angeles Times, and has been a frequent commentator and guest on TV and radio shows including ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox News, NPR and PBS.
Provost & Chief Academic Officer, Bryant University
An acclaimed international law and national security expert experienced in academic, law, and government service settings, Provost Glenn M. Sulmasy brings a distinguished record of Higher Education leadership and academic achievement to his position as Bryant’s first university Provost and Chief Academic Officer.
Sulmasy previously served as Deputy University Counsel and later led the Humanities Department at the United States Coast Guard Academy (USCGA), in New London, CT. Additionally, he served as Professor of Law at USCGA and has been involved in higher education since 1997.
In addition to serving on the faculties of the Academy and the U.S. Naval War College, Sulmasy has lectured in the fields of International Law, U.S. Constitutional Law, and National Security at numerous universities and think tanks. He has also served as a National Security and Human Rights Fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School.
A former fellow in Homeland Security and National Security Law for the Center for National Policy in Washington D.C., Sulmasy lectures extensively on the law of armed conflict, international law, and national security matters. He is widely published internationally on national security matters, and as an expert has been featured in the LA Times, on CBS News Radio, National Public Radio, CNN International, US News & World Report, the New York Times and the San Francisco Chronicle, Al-Jazeera America, MSNBC, Fox News and numerous other national media outlets. He is the author of The National Security Court System – A Natural Evolution of Justice in an Age of Terror (Oxford University Press) and Co-Editor of International Law Challenges – Homeland Security and Combating Terrorism (2005).
Sulmasy was educated at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, University of Baltimore School of Law (cum laude), UC Berkeley School of Law (Boalt Hall) and the Harvard Kennedy School.
Provost Sulmasy, his wife Marla, and seven children hail from Old Lyme, CT and Smithfield, RI.
U.S. Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit
Frank H. Easterbrook is a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and a Senior Lecturer at the Law School of the University of Chicago. He was Chief Judge from 2006–2013. Before joining the court in 1985, he was the Lee andBrena Freeman Professor of Law at the University of Chicago, where he taught and wrote in antitrust, securities, corporate law, jurisprudence, and criminal procedure. He has published The Economic Structure of Corporate Law (with Daniel R. Fischel) and about 100 scholarly articles. He served as Co-Editor of the Journal of Law and Economics from 1982 to 1991 and as a member of the Judicial Conference’s Standing Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure from 1991 to 1997. Before joining the faculty of the Law School in 1979, Judge Easterbrook was Deputy Solicitor General of the United States. He holds degrees from Swarthmore College (B.A. with high honors, 1970) and the University of Chicago (J.D. cum laude, 1973), and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Law Institute, the Mont Pelerin Society, Phi Beta Kappa, and the Order of the Coif.
Partner, Millbank LLP
Mr. Katyal, the former Acting Solicitor General of the United States, focuses on appellate and complex litigation. He has argued 54 cases before the Supreme Court of the United States.
He has extensive experience in matters of antitrust, corporate, constitutional, securities, technology, criminal, patent, copyright, trademark, ERISA, products liability, labor, employment and tribal law. In the 2022-23 Supreme Court term, he argued five separate cases (nearly 10% of the docket), including winning the landmark voting case Moore v. Harper, which Judge Michael Luttig described as “the most important case for American democracy in the almost two and a half centuries since America’s founding.” Judge Luttig also said Mr. Katyal’s argument “was the single best oral argument I have ever heard made in the Supreme Court of the United States.” His cases include successfully striking down the Guantanamo military tribunals, successfully defending the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act and successfully defending the Peace Cross in Maryland. His 2017 win in Bristol Myers Squibb v. Superior Court was a landmark victory for personal jurisdiction law and his 2006 win in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld was described by former Acting Solicitor General Walter Dellinger as “simply the most important decision on presidential power and the rule of law ever. Ever.”
From 2010 to 2011, Mr. Katyal served as Acting Solicitor General of the United States, where he argued several major Supreme Court cases involving a variety of issues, such as his successful defense of the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, his victorious defense of former Attorney General John Ashcroft for alleged abuses in the war on terror, his unanimous victory against eight states who sued the nation's leading power plants for contributing to global warming, and a variety of other matters. As Acting Solicitor General, he was responsible for representing the federal government of the United States in all appellate matters before the US Supreme Court and the Courts of Appeals throughout the nation. He served as Counsel of Record hundreds of times in the US Supreme Court. He was also the only head of the Solicitor General's office to argue a case in the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, on the important question of whether certain aspects of the human genome were patentable.
After graduating from Yale Law School, Mr. Katyal clerked for The Honorable Guido Calabresi of the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit as well as for The Honorable Justice Stephen G. Breyer of the US Supreme Court. He also served in the Deputy Attorney General's Office at the Justice Department as National Security Advisor and as Special Assistant to the Deputy Attorney General during 1998-1999.
Mr. Katyal is a best-selling New York Times author and has published dozens of scholarly articles in law journals (including several in the Harvard Law Review and Yale Law Journal), as well as many op-ed articles in publications such as the New York Times and the Washington Post. He has testified numerous times before various committees of both the US House of Representatives and the US Senate.
Partner, Baker Hostetler LLP
David Rivkin is a member of the firm's litigation, international and environmental teams and is co-leader of the firm's national appellate practice. He has extensive experience in constitutional, administrative and international law litigation and has been involved in numerous high-profile cases. With his prior experience in the government sector, David draws on a wealth of knowledge when providing compliance advice to companies and handling enforcement proceedings before government agencies on issues arising out of multilateral and unilateral sanctions, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), anti-boycott issues, bankruptcy and financial fraud matters, and environmental and energy issues.
David has developed and implemented legislative, regulatory and litigation initiatives for two presidential administrations. Over the years, he has published hundreds of articles, op-eds, book reviews and book chapters on a variety of international, legal, constitutional, defense, arms control, foreign policy, environmental and energy issues for various newspapers and magazines, including The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The New York Times, USA Today and The Los Angeles Times, and has been a frequent commentator and guest on TV and radio shows including ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox News, NPR and PBS.
Provost & Chief Academic Officer, Bryant University
An acclaimed international law and national security expert experienced in academic, law, and government service settings, Provost Glenn M. Sulmasy brings a distinguished record of Higher Education leadership and academic achievement to his position as Bryant’s first university Provost and Chief Academic Officer.
Sulmasy previously served as Deputy University Counsel and later led the Humanities Department at the United States Coast Guard Academy (USCGA), in New London, CT. Additionally, he served as Professor of Law at USCGA and has been involved in higher education since 1997.
In addition to serving on the faculties of the Academy and the U.S. Naval War College, Sulmasy has lectured in the fields of International Law, U.S. Constitutional Law, and National Security at numerous universities and think tanks. He has also served as a National Security and Human Rights Fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School.
A former fellow in Homeland Security and National Security Law for the Center for National Policy in Washington D.C., Sulmasy lectures extensively on the law of armed conflict, international law, and national security matters. He is widely published internationally on national security matters, and as an expert has been featured in the LA Times, on CBS News Radio, National Public Radio, CNN International, US News & World Report, the New York Times and the San Francisco Chronicle, Al-Jazeera America, MSNBC, Fox News and numerous other national media outlets. He is the author of The National Security Court System – A Natural Evolution of Justice in an Age of Terror (Oxford University Press) and Co-Editor of International Law Challenges – Homeland Security and Combating Terrorism (2005).
Sulmasy was educated at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, University of Baltimore School of Law (cum laude), UC Berkeley School of Law (Boalt Hall) and the Harvard Kennedy School.
Provost Sulmasy, his wife Marla, and seven children hail from Old Lyme, CT and Smithfield, RI.
U.S. Court of Appeals, Second Circuit
Judge Calabresi was appointed United States Circuit Judge in July, 1994, and entered into duty on September 16, 1994. Prior to his appointment, he was Dean and Sterling Professor at the Yale Law School where he began teaching in 1959. He continues to serve as a member of that faculty as Sterling Professor Emeritus and Professorial Lecturer.
Judge Calabresi received his B.S. degree, summa cum laude, from Yale College in 1953, a B.A. degree with First Class Honors from Magdalen College, Oxford University, in 1955, an LL.B. degree, magna cum laude, in 1958 from Yale Law School, and an M.A. in Politics, Philosophy and Economics from Oxford University in 1959. A Rhodes Scholar and member of Phi Beta Kappa and Order of the Coif, Judge Calabresi served as the Note Editor of the Yale Law Journal, 1957-58, while graduating first in his law school class.
Following graduation, Judge Calabresi clerked for Justice Hugo Black of the United States Supreme Court. He has been awarded more than thirty honorary degrees from universities in the United States and abroad, and is the author of four books and over eighty articles on law and related subjects.
Judge Calabresi is a member of the Connecticut Bar.
U.S. Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit
Frank H. Easterbrook is a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and a Senior Lecturer at the Law School of the University of Chicago. He was Chief Judge from 2006–2013. Before joining the court in 1985, he was the Lee andBrena Freeman Professor of Law at the University of Chicago, where he taught and wrote in antitrust, securities, corporate law, jurisprudence, and criminal procedure. He has published The Economic Structure of Corporate Law (with Daniel R. Fischel) and about 100 scholarly articles. He served as Co-Editor of the Journal of Law and Economics from 1982 to 1991 and as a member of the Judicial Conference’s Standing Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure from 1991 to 1997. Before joining the faculty of the Law School in 1979, Judge Easterbrook was Deputy Solicitor General of the United States. He holds degrees from Swarthmore College (B.A. with high honors, 1970) and the University of Chicago (J.D. cum laude, 1973), and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Law Institute, the Mont Pelerin Society, Phi Beta Kappa, and the Order of the Coif.
Provost, Harvard Law School
John F. Manning is Harvard University’s Provost and the former Morgan and Helen Chu Dean and Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. Manning joined the HLS faculty in 2004, and was Bruce Bromley Professor of Law from 2007–2017 and Deputy Dean from 2013–2017. Prior to coming to Harvard, Manning was the Michael I. Sovern Professor of Law at Columbia Law School, where he began teaching in 1994. Manning teaches administrative law, federal courts, legislation and regulation, separation of powers, and statutory interpretation. His writing focuses on statutory interpretation and structural constitutional law. Manning is a co-editor of Hart & Wechsler’s Federal Courts and the Federal System (6th ed., 2009) (with Richard Fallon, Daniel Meltzer, and David Shapiro), and Legislation and Regulation (2d ed., 2013) (with Matthew Stephenson). Prior to entering teaching, Manning served as an assistant to the Solicitor General in the U.S. Department of Justice (1991-94), an associate in the D.C. office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher (1989-91), and an attorney-advisor in the Office of Legal Counsel in the U.S. Department of Justice (1986-88). He served as a law clerk to Hon. Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court of the United States (1988-89) and to Hon. Robert H. Bork on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (1985-86). Manning graduated from Harvard Law School in 1985 and Harvard College in 1982. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Former President & CEO, The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies
Eugene B. Meyer, former President and CEO of the Federalist Society, has served as Executive Director, CEO, and/or President of the organization for more than 40 years. He is responsible for shepherding the organization from a small group of law students to a community of 90,000 lawyers, law students, academics, judges, and others interested in the rule of law. The Society now includes a Student Chapter at nearly every ABA-accredited law school in the country and Lawyers Chapters in 220 major cities across the nation. Gene earned his B.A. in history at Yale in 1975 and his M.A. in political science from the London School of Economics in 1976. Gene currently serves on the boards of the U.S. Chess Center, the Holman Foundation, the Sarah Scaife Foundation, and the advisory board of the Adam Smith Society. He holds the title of International Chess Master.
U.S. Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit
Frank H. Easterbrook is a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and a Senior Lecturer at the Law School of the University of Chicago. He was Chief Judge from 2006–2013. Before joining the court in 1985, he was the Lee andBrena Freeman Professor of Law at the University of Chicago, where he taught and wrote in antitrust, securities, corporate law, jurisprudence, and criminal procedure. He has published The Economic Structure of Corporate Law (with Daniel R. Fischel) and about 100 scholarly articles. He served as Co-Editor of the Journal of Law and Economics from 1982 to 1991 and as a member of the Judicial Conference’s Standing Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure from 1991 to 1997. Before joining the faculty of the Law School in 1979, Judge Easterbrook was Deputy Solicitor General of the United States. He holds degrees from Swarthmore College (B.A. with high honors, 1970) and the University of Chicago (J.D. cum laude, 1973), and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Law Institute, the Mont Pelerin Society, Phi Beta Kappa, and the Order of the Coif.
Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law and Director, Classical Liberal Institute, New York University School of Law; Director, Classical Liberal Institute, Civitas Institute University of Texas at Austin
Richard A. Epstein is the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law, at New York University, a senior research fellow at the Civitas Institute at the University of Texas Austin, and a senior Lecturer, the University of Chicago. He received an LL.D., h.c . from the University of Ghent, 2003 , and an LLD h.c . from the University of Siegen in 2018 and the Bradley Prize in 2011. He has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 1985. He has edited both the Journal of Legal Studies (1981-1991) and the Journal of Law and Economics (1991-2001). He is also a founder and director of the Classical Liberal Institute at NYU Law School. His most recent book is The Classical Liberal Constitution: The Uncertain Quest for Limited Government (2014). His other books include Takings: Private Property and the Power of Eminent Domain ( 1985); Bargaining with the State (1993); Simple Rules for a Complex World (1995); Principles for a Free Society: Reconciling Individual Liberty and the Common Good (1998); Skepticism and Freedom: A Modern Theory of Classical Liberalism (2003); Design for Liberty: Private Property, Public Administration and the Rule of Law (2011), and most recently, The Myth of Birthright citizenship—and Beyond (2026). He has taught courses in , administrative law, antitrust, constitutional, contracts, environmental law, land use planning; real property, torts and water law. He has written and spoken extensively on a wide range of topics, and is writes a regular column for Defining Ideas.
Partner, Millbank LLP
Mr. Katyal, the former Acting Solicitor General of the United States, focuses on appellate and complex litigation. He has argued 54 cases before the Supreme Court of the United States.
He has extensive experience in matters of antitrust, corporate, constitutional, securities, technology, criminal, patent, copyright, trademark, ERISA, products liability, labor, employment and tribal law. In the 2022-23 Supreme Court term, he argued five separate cases (nearly 10% of the docket), including winning the landmark voting case Moore v. Harper, which Judge Michael Luttig described as “the most important case for American democracy in the almost two and a half centuries since America’s founding.” Judge Luttig also said Mr. Katyal’s argument “was the single best oral argument I have ever heard made in the Supreme Court of the United States.” His cases include successfully striking down the Guantanamo military tribunals, successfully defending the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act and successfully defending the Peace Cross in Maryland. His 2017 win in Bristol Myers Squibb v. Superior Court was a landmark victory for personal jurisdiction law and his 2006 win in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld was described by former Acting Solicitor General Walter Dellinger as “simply the most important decision on presidential power and the rule of law ever. Ever.”
From 2010 to 2011, Mr. Katyal served as Acting Solicitor General of the United States, where he argued several major Supreme Court cases involving a variety of issues, such as his successful defense of the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, his victorious defense of former Attorney General John Ashcroft for alleged abuses in the war on terror, his unanimous victory against eight states who sued the nation's leading power plants for contributing to global warming, and a variety of other matters. As Acting Solicitor General, he was responsible for representing the federal government of the United States in all appellate matters before the US Supreme Court and the Courts of Appeals throughout the nation. He served as Counsel of Record hundreds of times in the US Supreme Court. He was also the only head of the Solicitor General's office to argue a case in the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, on the important question of whether certain aspects of the human genome were patentable.
After graduating from Yale Law School, Mr. Katyal clerked for The Honorable Guido Calabresi of the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit as well as for The Honorable Justice Stephen G. Breyer of the US Supreme Court. He also served in the Deputy Attorney General's Office at the Justice Department as National Security Advisor and as Special Assistant to the Deputy Attorney General during 1998-1999.
Mr. Katyal is a best-selling New York Times author and has published dozens of scholarly articles in law journals (including several in the Harvard Law Review and Yale Law Journal), as well as many op-ed articles in publications such as the New York Times and the Washington Post. He has testified numerous times before various committees of both the US House of Representatives and the US Senate.
John A. Sibley Professor in Corporate and Business Law, The University of Georgia School of Law
Larry D. Thompson has served on the University of Georgia School of Law’s faculty as the holder of the John A. Sibley Chair of Corporate and Business Law since 2011, noting he was on a leave of absence from June 2012 through 2014. He is presently a member of the Faculty Division of the law school's Dean Rusk International Law Center Council.
Thompson first retired from PepsiCo in May 2011. In June 2012, he rejoined the company as executive vice president, government affairs, general counsel and corporate secretary. His responsibilities included leading PepsiCo’s worldwide legal function, as well as its global government affairs and public policy group and its global citizenship and sustainability team. Thompson again retired from PepsiCo in December 2014.
Thompson has extensive leadership experience in both the public and private sectors. In 2001, Thompson was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as deputy attorney general of the United States. As deputy attorney general, Attorney General John Ashcroft named Thompson in 2002 to lead the Department of Justice’s National Security Coordination Council. Also in 2002, President George W. Bush named Thompson to head the government-wide Corporate Fraud Task Force.
From 1982 to 1986, he served as U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Georgia where he led major political corruption and drug trafficking prosecutions brought by the U.S. Attorney’s Office. As U.S. attorney, Thompson also led the Southeastern Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force.
Thompson has held other significant leadership positions in the public sector. In 1995, he was named independent counsel for the Department of Housing and Urban Development Investigation. In 2000, he was selected by the U.S. Congress to chair the bi-partisan Judicial Review Commission on Foreign Asset Control.
In the private sector, in addition to his leadership roles at PepsiCo, Thompson was a partner in the Atlanta law firm of King & Spalding. He was the founding co-chair of the firm’s special matters and government investigations practice.
Thompson has received numerous awards for his professional achievements, including the Edmund Jennings Randolph Award for outstanding contributions to the accomplishment of the Department of Justice’s mission, the Outstanding Litigator Award from the Federal Bar Association and a Honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Pace University in New York. He has also been recognized by Atlanta’s Gate City Bar Association as a member of its hall of fame.
Thompson is an elected Fellow of the American Board of Criminal Lawyers. In 2014, Ethisphere magazine recognized him by noting that as “the outgoing General Counsel of one of the world’s most well-recognized corporations [Thompson] has set the bar high for GC’s everywhere. [His] background in both public and private sectors earned him the trust and respect of his peers worldwide as he demonstrated how ethics and integrity are essential components of business success.”
In 2004, Thompson served as a Senior Fellow with the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C.
Thompson speaks and writes frequently on a number of legal topics. His recent publications include:
● “The Responsible Corporation: Its Historical Roots and Continuing Promise" in 29 Notre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics & Public Policy 199 (2015).
● “In-sourcing Corporate Responsibility for Enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act" in 51 American Criminal Law Review 199 (2014).
● “Keynote Speech: The Reality of Overcriminalization” in 7 George Mason University Journal of Law, Economics and Policy 577 (2011).
Thompson holds a B.A. from Culver-Stockton College in Canton, Missouri, a M.A. from Michigan State University and a law degree from the University of Michigan.
Second Annual Rosenkranz Debate and Luncheon
Guido Calabresi, Frank H. Easterbrook, John F. Manning, Eugene B. Meyer
RESOLVED: The United States Constitution Requires Federal Courts to Interpret Statutes as Honest Agents of...
Second Annual Rosenkranz Debate and Luncheon
Guido Calabresi, Frank H. Easterbrook, John F. Manning, Eugene B. Meyer
RESOLVED: The United States Constitution Requires Federal Courts to Interpret Statutes as Honest Agents of...
Judicial Review of Mutual Fund Advisory Fees: Reliance on Markets or Statutory Language?
Joanne Medero
Do you own mutual fund shares either directly or through your 401(k) plan? If so,...
Second Annual Rosenkranz Debate and Luncheon
2009 National Lawyers Convention
Washington, DCAntitrust Pricing War: Congress v. the Court
Geoffrey A. Manne, Joshua D. Wright
Brought to you by the Corporations, Securities & Antitrust Practice GroupIn Leegin Creative Leather Products, Inc....
Showcase Panel III: Second Look Doctrines: Should Congress be Empowered to Override the Court? Should Voters in State Initiatives and Referenda be Able to Override State Supreme Courts?
Frank H. Easterbrook, Richard A. Epstein, Neal K. Katyal, Larry D. Thompson
Some scholars have praised Canada, Britain, and Israel for having a form of judicial review...
Showcase Panel III: Second Look Doctrines: Should Congress be Empowered to Override the Court? Should Voters in State Initiatives and Referenda be Able to Override State Supreme Courts?
Frank H. Easterbrook, Richard A. Epstein, Neal K. Katyal, Larry D. Thompson
Some scholars have praised Canada, Britain, and Israel for having a form of judicial review...
Showcase Panel III: Second Look Doctrines: Should Congress be Empowered to Override the Court? Should Voters in State Initiatives and Referenda be Able to Override State Supreme Courts?
2008 National Lawyers Convention
Washington, DCThe War on Terrorism and Specialized Courts
Frank H. Easterbrook, Neal K. Katyal, Joseph Margulies, David B. Rivkin, Glenn M. Sulmasy
The legal framework for our counterterrorism efforts has consisted of a mix of the law...
The War on Terrorism and Specialized Courts
Frank H. Easterbrook, Neal K. Katyal, Joseph Margulies, David B. Rivkin, Glenn M. Sulmasy
The legal framework for our counterterrorism efforts has consisted of a mix of the law...