Adjunct Professor of Law, University of Pennsylvania
Makan Delrahim is currently an Adjunct Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania.
Previously he served as Assistant Attorney General for the Antitrust Division, Deputy Assistant to the President, and Deputy White House Counsel. Mr. Delrahim’s rich antitrust background covers the full range of industries, issues, and institutions touched upon by the work of the Antitrust Division. He is a former partner in the Los Angeles office of a national law firm. He served in the Antitrust Division from 2003 to 2005 as a Deputy Assistant Attorney General, overseeing the Appellate, Foreign Commerce, and Legal Policy sections. During that time, he played an integral role in building the Antitrust Division’s engagement with its international counterparts and was involved in civil and criminal matters. He has served on the Attorney General’s Task Force on Intellectual Property and as Chairman of the Merger Working Group of the International Competition Network. Mr. Delrahim was also a Commissioner on the Antitrust Modernization Commission from 2004 to 2007. Earlier in his career, Mr. Delrahim served as antitrust counsel, and later as the Staff Director and Chief Counsel of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee.
Professor of Law, American University
Christine Haight Farley is a Professor of Law at American University Washington College of Law. She specializes in information law and teaches courses on contract law, intellectual property, advertising law, and art law. Her current research focuses on branding in the age of data-driven advertising and the over protection of design. She serves as Co-Faculty Director of the Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property and previously served as Associate Dean for Faculty and Academic Affairs. Farley has received the Excellence in Teaching Award and the Edwin A. Mooers Scholarship Award at American. She has been a visiting professor at Boston University, the University of Paris West, the University of Puerto Rico, the University of Havana, Monash University, and the National Law University in Lucknow, India, and has given lectures on intellectual property in more than twenty-five countries. She serves on the Board of Directors for the Center for Inter-American Legal Education, and has served on the Executive Committees of the Intellectual Property and the Art Law Sections of the American Association of Law Schools and as a member of a presidential task force of the International Trademark Association. She is the recipient of a Fulbright Senior Specialist grant to teach U.S. intellectual property law to foreign law students. Before teaching, she was an associate specialized in trademark and copyright litigation with Rabinowitz, Boudin, Standard, Krinsky & Lieberman in New York. She holds a B.A. (Binghamton), J.D. (Buffalo), LL.M. (Columbia), and a J.S.D. (Columbia).
U.S. Court of Federal Claims and Jurist-In-Residence Professor of Law, The University of Akron School of Law
Judge Ryan T. Holte was sworn in as a judge on the United States Court of Federal Claims in July 2019. Prior to confirmation he served as the David L. Brennan Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Intellectual Property Law and Technology at The University of Akron School of Law (2017-2019) and an assistant professor of law at Southern Illinois University School of Law (2013-2017). Judge Holte has written and presented widely on patent law subjects and empirical legal studies of Federal Circuit and district court patent law cases. His most recent articles were published in the Iowa Law Review (2019), George Mason Law Review (2018), and Washington Law Review (2017).
In practice, Judge Holte served for six years as general counsel and partner of an electrical engineering technology company and is co-inventor of multiple patents related to Systems and Methods for Countering Satellite-Navigated Munitions. Prior to entering academia, Judge Holte practiced as a litigation attorney at the Federal Trade Commission and an associate in the Intellectual Property Practice Group at Jones Day. Prior to practice, he served as a law clerk to Judge Stanley F. Birch, Jr. on the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit and as a law clerk to Judge Loren A. Smith on the United States Court of Federal Claims.
Judge Holte received his JD from the University of California Davis School of Law and his BS, magna cum laude, in engineering from the California Maritime Academy where he was a First Class graduate of the Corps of Cadets Third Engineering Division and sailed as a U.S. Merchant Marine oiler.
Partner, Sullivan & Cromwell LLP
Andrei Iancu is a partner at Sullivan & Cromwell and one of the leading voices in intellectual property law and innovation policy. He is a former Undersecretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), a position to which he was confirmed unanimously by the Senate. Andrei has decades of experience representing plaintiffs and defendants in IP matters across the technical and scientific spectra, including medical devices, genetic testing, therapeutics, the Internet, telephony, TV broadcasting, video game systems and computer peripherals. He represents clients in litigation and trials before the district courts, the U.S. International Trade Commission and the USPTO, the Federal Circuit and U.S. Supreme Court, and also counsels clients on obtaining, licensing, enforcing and defending against IP rights globally.
Stevenson Bernard Professor, George Washington University Law School
The Honorable F. Scott Kieff is the Stevenson Bernard Professor at George Washington University Law School and a Visiting Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution.
He served as Commissioner of the U.S. International Trade Commission from 2013-2017. He also served during the Bush, Obama, and Trump Administrations in the part-time leadership of the national security defense-intelligence community.
He was previously a professor of law and medicine at Washington University in Saint Louis and a Senior Fellow at Hoover. A former law clerk to U.S. Circuit Judge Giles S. Rich, he is a graduate of Penn Law School and MIT, where he studied molecular biology and microeconomics. He was elected to the European Academy of Sciences and Arts in 2012 and the Academia Europaea in 2024.
His private sector work through Kieff Strategies LLC (www.kieffstrategies.com) provides neutral services including mediation and compliance, and expert services including crisis management, advising, and testimony.
Deputy Administrator, United States Environmental Protection Agency
David Fotouhi was sworn in as Deputy Administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency on June 16, 2025.
Fotouhi is an experienced environmental attorney who previously served in senior roles at EPA. During the first term of the Trump Administration, Fotouhi served as EPA’s Acting General Counsel and Principal Deputy General Counsel. Prior to rejoining the agency, Fotouhi was a partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP practicing environmental law.
Fotouhi grew up in Oklahoma and holds a B.A. from Vanderbilt University and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. Before entering private legal practice, Fotouhi served as a law clerk to the Honorable Raymond W. Gruender of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.
Lyle T. Alverson Professor of Law, George Washington University Law School
Professor Pierce is author of over twenty books and 130 articles on administrative law, government regulation, and the effects of various forms of government intervention on the performance of markets. His books and articles have been cited in hundreds of judicial opinions, including over a dozen opinions of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit
On March 20, 2018, Judge Elizabeth L. Branch (Lisa) was sworn in as a United States Circuit Judge for the Eleventh Circuit.
Judge Branch attended and graduated from Davidson College in North Carolina (B.A., cum laude, 1990), and Emory University School of Law (J.D., with distinction, 1994).
After graduating from law school, Judge Branch served as a federal law clerk to The Honorable J. Owen Forrester of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia from 1994 to 1996. Following her clerkship, Judge Branch joined the litigation department of Smith, Gambrell & Russell, LLP in Atlanta as an associate and then a partner.
From 2004 to 2008, Judge Branch was a senior official in the Administration of President George W. Bush in Washington, D.C. She served first as the Associate General Counsel for Rules and Legislation at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and then as the Counselor to the Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs at the U. S. Office of Management and Budget.
She returned to Smith Gambrell in 2008 as a litigation partner. Judge Branch then was appointed to the Court of Appeals of Georgia by Governor Nathan Deal, taking office on September 4, 2012, where she served until March 19, 2018.
Judge Branch is a member of the Board of Advisors of the Atlanta Lawyers Chapter for the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies.
Professor of Law, University of Baltimore School of Law (on leave); Senior Counsel, U.S. Department of Justice
Professor Dolin’s scholarship centers on patent law with a specific focus on how the patent regime affects innovation, especially in bio-pharmaceutical areas. His work in these areas includes a number of scholarly articles, presentations, amicus briefs, and congressional testimony.
Dr. Dolin is currently on leave from his academic duties while he serves as Senior Counsel in the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice.
From January 2020 to January 2022, Professor Dolin served as a resident Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Palau. In this role, he (together with other members of the Court) heard appeals in civil, criminal, administrative, and constitutional law matters.
Prior to joining the University of Baltimore School of Law, Professor Dolin held visiting appointments in other law schools. He also served as a law clerk to the Hon. Pauline Newman, of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and the late Hon. H. Emory Widener Jr., of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
Rumors that he has a real Russian bear in his office are entirely true.
Associate Professor of Law, St. Thomas University College of Law
Dan Epstein is Vice President at America First Legal and an Associate Professor of Law at St. Thomas University in Miami, Florida. He also advises individuals and small businesses in affirmative and defensive actions against government overreach. Previously, he advised startups on regulatory matters as Director at a venture capital firm. His federal service includes being a Special Assistant to and Senior Associate Counsel to the President and a counsel for the House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Earlier in his career, Mr. Epstein founded and ran Cause of Action, where he represented clients in government investigations and litigated regulatory, constitutional, political, and public law matters.
He holds a Ph.D. from George Washington University in Political Economy, a J.D. from Emory University School of Law, and a B.A. from Kenyon College. He is active in the Palm Beach community as a member of the Fourth Court of Appeals Judicial Nominating Commission in Florida, a transition team member to Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, and the Chairman and Trustee of Palm Beach State College.
Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, The George Washington University Law School
Aram A. Gavoor is the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and an internationally recognized scholar in American administrative law, national security, and federal courts. His co-authored work was cited by the U.S. Supreme Court in Department of Commerce v. New York (2019). His scholarship has earned placement in the Florida Law Review, Indiana Law Journal, Ohio State Law Journal, and other law journals. He has briefed and argued over a dozen high-profile public law cases before a majority of the U.S. Courts of Appeals and numerous cases before almost a third of the 94 U.S. District Courts. Associate Dean Gavoor frequently shares his national security, artificial intelligence policy, and federal courts expertise with international news media, including CNN, BBC World News, Wall Street Journal, NBC News, and ABC (Australia) World News. In 2021, the National Law Journal named Associate Dean Gavoor a Rising Star (top 40 under 40) honoree.
Earlier in his career, Associate Dean Gavoor served as Senior Counsel for National Security in the Civil Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, as third-in-rank Counselor to the Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the White House Office of Management and Budget, and in private practice. He received the Attorney General's Award for Distinguished Service in 2019, the Civil Division Special Commendation Award in 2020, 2019, and 2018, and a Commendation from the Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Section of the Criminal Division in 2018.
Associate Dean Gavoor previously served on the law school’s part-time faculty from 2008-2017 before accepting a term-limited position as Visiting Associate Professor from 2017-2019. He received GW Law’s Distinguished Adjunct Faculty Teaching Award from the 2020 and 2017 graduating classes. He currently teaches Constitutional Law II, Administrative Law, National Security Law, and Federal Courts.
Vice President of Domestic and Economic Policy, The Heritage Foundation
Roger Severino is Vice President of Economic and Domestic Policy, and the Joseph C. and Elizabeth A. Anderlik Fellow at The Heritage Foundation.
Severino is a national authority on civil rights, conscience and religious freedom, the administrative state, and information privacy, particularly as applied to health care law and policy. Find his tweets at @RogerSeverino_.
Severino spearheaded the HHS Accountability Project while a Senior Fellow at EPPC from 2021 to 2023. Previously, Severino was Director of HHS’ Office for Civil Rights, where he led a team of over 250 staff enforcing our nation’s civil rights, conscience and religious freedom, and health information privacy laws. He served from 2017 to 2021 and was the longest-serving OCR director of the past three decades.
Prior to joining HHS, Severino served for two years as Director of the DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society at Heritage, advocating for life, family, and religious-freedom policies. Before that, he was a trial attorney for seven years at the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division where he enforced the Fair Housing Act and the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Severino started his legal career at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, where he was Legal Counsel and Chief Operations Officer and defended the rights of people of all faiths under federal and international law.
Severino has been profiled in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, and The Hill and has appeared on Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, NPR, and PBS, among others. In 2020, The New York Times dubbed him and his wife Carrie, “a conservative power couple” to be reckoned with.
Severino holds a JD from Harvard Law School, a master’s degree in public policy, with highest distinction, from Carnegie Mellon University, and a bachelor’s degree in business from the University of Southern California. He was appointed by President Trump to the Administrative Conference of the United States and is a member of the District of Columbia and the Commonwealth of Virginia bars.
As OCR director, Severino founded the federal government’s first division dedicated exclusively to conscience and religious freedom compliance and enforcement. He enforced the Weldon Amendment for the first time against a state (California) after it coerced families and religious organizations into paying for abortion insurance coverage, leading to a $200 million federal funding disallowance. He also enforced laws protecting pro-life pregnancy resource centers from discrimination by states hostile to their message and enforced laws prohibiting forced participation in abortions by medical professionals.
With respect to civil rights, Severino protected older persons and people with disabilities from being denied life-saving care due to discriminatory “quality of life” judgments, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. He also achieved a landmark sexual harassment resolution with Michigan State University in the wake of the Larry Nassar sexual assault scandal and protected the rights of non-English speakers to have equal access to health and human services.
In the area of health privacy, he secured the largest HIPAA monetary settlement in history and achieved the largest number of enforcement resolutions both in a single year and across four years. He also facilitated the transformational use of Skype, Zoom, and Facetime for delivery of telehealth during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.
His regulatory reform activities resulted in a comprehensive conscience protection regulation and proposed a life-affirming disability rights regulation. He achieved regulatory savings of $3.6 billion in health care industry costs over five years and identified and proposed an additional $3.2 billion in cost savings from the repeal of ineffective and unnecessary regulatory burdens.
Severino is a Spanish speaker who teaches salsa and west coast swing in his spare time.
Professor of Law, University of Baltimore Law School
Kimberly Wehle (formerly Kimberly N. Brown) joined the law school after several years of teaching as an Associate Professor at the University of Oklahoma College of Law and a Visiting Professor at the George Washington University Law School. She teaches and writes in the areas of administrative law, federal courts and civil procedure. She is particularly interested in separation of powers questions, as well as in the constitutional implications of structural and technological innovations in modern government.
Wehle is the author of three books that explain complex constitutional concepts for lay audiences. She is a contributor for BBC World News and BBC World News America on PBS, and an opinion contributor to The Atlantic, Politico, The Bulwark and The Hill. She was an on-air legal analyst and commentator for CBS News. In addition, she appears regularly as a guest legal analyst on constitutional topics such as separation of powers and impeachment with outlets including CNN, MSNBC, NPR’s Morning Edition, PBS NewsHour and Fox News. Her articles have also appeared in The Baltimore Sun, The Los Angeles Times, and NBC News Think. She is regularly interviewed and cited by prominent print journalists on a range of newsworthy legal issues.
She hosts a show on Instagram called #SimplePolitics with Kim Wehle at @kimwehle. She also tweets @kimwehle. She is the 2020 recipient of the prestigious University of Maryland System Board of Regents Faculty Award for excellence in scholarship.
Wehle's scholarship addresses the constitutional relationship of independent agencies and private contractors to the enumerated branches of government. Her articles have appeared in the Notre Dame Law Review, the Indiana Law Journal and the North Carolina Law Review, among others, and her work is cited in a leading federal courts casebook.
Wehle was an editor of the Michigan Law Review and clerked for the Hon. Charles R. Richey of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. She went on to practice, first at the Federal Trade Commission and subsequently as an Associate Independent Counsel in the Office of Independent Counsel Kenneth W. Starr, and as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Civil Division of the Office of the United States Attorney in Washington, D.C.
She has practiced before the United States Supreme Court and argued several cases in the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
Wehle is also an advisor to the nonpartisan nonprofit, Protect Democracy.
Professor of Law, University of Baltimore School of Law (on leave); Senior Counsel, U.S. Department of Justice
Professor Dolin’s scholarship centers on patent law with a specific focus on how the patent regime affects innovation, especially in bio-pharmaceutical areas. His work in these areas includes a number of scholarly articles, presentations, amicus briefs, and congressional testimony.
Dr. Dolin is currently on leave from his academic duties while he serves as Senior Counsel in the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice.
From January 2020 to January 2022, Professor Dolin served as a resident Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Palau. In this role, he (together with other members of the Court) heard appeals in civil, criminal, administrative, and constitutional law matters.
Prior to joining the University of Baltimore School of Law, Professor Dolin held visiting appointments in other law schools. He also served as a law clerk to the Hon. Pauline Newman, of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and the late Hon. H. Emory Widener Jr., of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
Rumors that he has a real Russian bear in his office are entirely true.
Associate Professor of Law, St. Thomas University College of Law
Dan Epstein is Vice President at America First Legal and an Associate Professor of Law at St. Thomas University in Miami, Florida. He also advises individuals and small businesses in affirmative and defensive actions against government overreach. Previously, he advised startups on regulatory matters as Director at a venture capital firm. His federal service includes being a Special Assistant to and Senior Associate Counsel to the President and a counsel for the House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Earlier in his career, Mr. Epstein founded and ran Cause of Action, where he represented clients in government investigations and litigated regulatory, constitutional, political, and public law matters.
He holds a Ph.D. from George Washington University in Political Economy, a J.D. from Emory University School of Law, and a B.A. from Kenyon College. He is active in the Palm Beach community as a member of the Fourth Court of Appeals Judicial Nominating Commission in Florida, a transition team member to Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, and the Chairman and Trustee of Palm Beach State College.
Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, The George Washington University Law School
Aram A. Gavoor is the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and an internationally recognized scholar in American administrative law, national security, and federal courts. His co-authored work was cited by the U.S. Supreme Court in Department of Commerce v. New York (2019). His scholarship has earned placement in the Florida Law Review, Indiana Law Journal, Ohio State Law Journal, and other law journals. He has briefed and argued over a dozen high-profile public law cases before a majority of the U.S. Courts of Appeals and numerous cases before almost a third of the 94 U.S. District Courts. Associate Dean Gavoor frequently shares his national security, artificial intelligence policy, and federal courts expertise with international news media, including CNN, BBC World News, Wall Street Journal, NBC News, and ABC (Australia) World News. In 2021, the National Law Journal named Associate Dean Gavoor a Rising Star (top 40 under 40) honoree.
Earlier in his career, Associate Dean Gavoor served as Senior Counsel for National Security in the Civil Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, as third-in-rank Counselor to the Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the White House Office of Management and Budget, and in private practice. He received the Attorney General's Award for Distinguished Service in 2019, the Civil Division Special Commendation Award in 2020, 2019, and 2018, and a Commendation from the Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Section of the Criminal Division in 2018.
Associate Dean Gavoor previously served on the law school’s part-time faculty from 2008-2017 before accepting a term-limited position as Visiting Associate Professor from 2017-2019. He received GW Law’s Distinguished Adjunct Faculty Teaching Award from the 2020 and 2017 graduating classes. He currently teaches Constitutional Law II, Administrative Law, National Security Law, and Federal Courts.
Vice President of Domestic and Economic Policy, The Heritage Foundation
Roger Severino is Vice President of Economic and Domestic Policy, and the Joseph C. and Elizabeth A. Anderlik Fellow at The Heritage Foundation.
Severino is a national authority on civil rights, conscience and religious freedom, the administrative state, and information privacy, particularly as applied to health care law and policy. Find his tweets at @RogerSeverino_.
Severino spearheaded the HHS Accountability Project while a Senior Fellow at EPPC from 2021 to 2023. Previously, Severino was Director of HHS’ Office for Civil Rights, where he led a team of over 250 staff enforcing our nation’s civil rights, conscience and religious freedom, and health information privacy laws. He served from 2017 to 2021 and was the longest-serving OCR director of the past three decades.
Prior to joining HHS, Severino served for two years as Director of the DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society at Heritage, advocating for life, family, and religious-freedom policies. Before that, he was a trial attorney for seven years at the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division where he enforced the Fair Housing Act and the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Severino started his legal career at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, where he was Legal Counsel and Chief Operations Officer and defended the rights of people of all faiths under federal and international law.
Severino has been profiled in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, and The Hill and has appeared on Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, NPR, and PBS, among others. In 2020, The New York Times dubbed him and his wife Carrie, “a conservative power couple” to be reckoned with.
Severino holds a JD from Harvard Law School, a master’s degree in public policy, with highest distinction, from Carnegie Mellon University, and a bachelor’s degree in business from the University of Southern California. He was appointed by President Trump to the Administrative Conference of the United States and is a member of the District of Columbia and the Commonwealth of Virginia bars.
As OCR director, Severino founded the federal government’s first division dedicated exclusively to conscience and religious freedom compliance and enforcement. He enforced the Weldon Amendment for the first time against a state (California) after it coerced families and religious organizations into paying for abortion insurance coverage, leading to a $200 million federal funding disallowance. He also enforced laws protecting pro-life pregnancy resource centers from discrimination by states hostile to their message and enforced laws prohibiting forced participation in abortions by medical professionals.
With respect to civil rights, Severino protected older persons and people with disabilities from being denied life-saving care due to discriminatory “quality of life” judgments, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. He also achieved a landmark sexual harassment resolution with Michigan State University in the wake of the Larry Nassar sexual assault scandal and protected the rights of non-English speakers to have equal access to health and human services.
In the area of health privacy, he secured the largest HIPAA monetary settlement in history and achieved the largest number of enforcement resolutions both in a single year and across four years. He also facilitated the transformational use of Skype, Zoom, and Facetime for delivery of telehealth during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.
His regulatory reform activities resulted in a comprehensive conscience protection regulation and proposed a life-affirming disability rights regulation. He achieved regulatory savings of $3.6 billion in health care industry costs over five years and identified and proposed an additional $3.2 billion in cost savings from the repeal of ineffective and unnecessary regulatory burdens.
Severino is a Spanish speaker who teaches salsa and west coast swing in his spare time.
Professor of Law, University of Baltimore Law School
Kimberly Wehle (formerly Kimberly N. Brown) joined the law school after several years of teaching as an Associate Professor at the University of Oklahoma College of Law and a Visiting Professor at the George Washington University Law School. She teaches and writes in the areas of administrative law, federal courts and civil procedure. She is particularly interested in separation of powers questions, as well as in the constitutional implications of structural and technological innovations in modern government.
Wehle is the author of three books that explain complex constitutional concepts for lay audiences. She is a contributor for BBC World News and BBC World News America on PBS, and an opinion contributor to The Atlantic, Politico, The Bulwark and The Hill. She was an on-air legal analyst and commentator for CBS News. In addition, she appears regularly as a guest legal analyst on constitutional topics such as separation of powers and impeachment with outlets including CNN, MSNBC, NPR’s Morning Edition, PBS NewsHour and Fox News. Her articles have also appeared in The Baltimore Sun, The Los Angeles Times, and NBC News Think. She is regularly interviewed and cited by prominent print journalists on a range of newsworthy legal issues.
She hosts a show on Instagram called #SimplePolitics with Kim Wehle at @kimwehle. She also tweets @kimwehle. She is the 2020 recipient of the prestigious University of Maryland System Board of Regents Faculty Award for excellence in scholarship.
Wehle's scholarship addresses the constitutional relationship of independent agencies and private contractors to the enumerated branches of government. Her articles have appeared in the Notre Dame Law Review, the Indiana Law Journal and the North Carolina Law Review, among others, and her work is cited in a leading federal courts casebook.
Wehle was an editor of the Michigan Law Review and clerked for the Hon. Charles R. Richey of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. She went on to practice, first at the Federal Trade Commission and subsequently as an Associate Independent Counsel in the Office of Independent Counsel Kenneth W. Starr, and as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Civil Division of the Office of the United States Attorney in Washington, D.C.
She has practiced before the United States Supreme Court and argued several cases in the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
Wehle is also an advisor to the nonpartisan nonprofit, Protect Democracy.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit
On March 20, 2018, Judge Elizabeth L. Branch (Lisa) was sworn in as a United States Circuit Judge for the Eleventh Circuit.
Judge Branch attended and graduated from Davidson College in North Carolina (B.A., cum laude, 1990), and Emory University School of Law (J.D., with distinction, 1994).
After graduating from law school, Judge Branch served as a federal law clerk to The Honorable J. Owen Forrester of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia from 1994 to 1996. Following her clerkship, Judge Branch joined the litigation department of Smith, Gambrell & Russell, LLP in Atlanta as an associate and then a partner.
From 2004 to 2008, Judge Branch was a senior official in the Administration of President George W. Bush in Washington, D.C. She served first as the Associate General Counsel for Rules and Legislation at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and then as the Counselor to the Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs at the U. S. Office of Management and Budget.
She returned to Smith Gambrell in 2008 as a litigation partner. Judge Branch then was appointed to the Court of Appeals of Georgia by Governor Nathan Deal, taking office on September 4, 2012, where she served until March 19, 2018.
Judge Branch is a member of the Board of Advisors of the Atlanta Lawyers Chapter for the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies.
Deputy Administrator, United States Environmental Protection Agency
David Fotouhi was sworn in as Deputy Administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency on June 16, 2025.
Fotouhi is an experienced environmental attorney who previously served in senior roles at EPA. During the first term of the Trump Administration, Fotouhi served as EPA’s Acting General Counsel and Principal Deputy General Counsel. Prior to rejoining the agency, Fotouhi was a partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP practicing environmental law.
Fotouhi grew up in Oklahoma and holds a B.A. from Vanderbilt University and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. Before entering private legal practice, Fotouhi served as a law clerk to the Honorable Raymond W. Gruender of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.
Lyle T. Alverson Professor of Law, George Washington University Law School
Professor Pierce is author of over twenty books and 130 articles on administrative law, government regulation, and the effects of various forms of government intervention on the performance of markets. His books and articles have been cited in hundreds of judicial opinions, including over a dozen opinions of the U.S. Supreme Court.
United States District Judge, Eastern District of Pennsylvania
Paul S. Diamond is a District Judge for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, where he has served since 2004. He was nominated by President Bush to serve on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in 2008, but no hearings were held in that election year. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1977 and served as a state prosecutor in Philadelphia from 1977-1979 and then again from 1981 to 1983. From 1993 until 1995, he worked as treasurer and as counsel for the 1996 presidential campaign of United States Senator Arlen Specter. Paul is the author of Federal Grand Jury Practice and Procedure, Fifth Edition (2012).
Partner, Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP
Theodore B. Olson is a Partner in Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher’s Washington, D.C. office; a founder of the Firm’s Crisis Management, Sports Law, and Appellate and Constitutional Law Practice Groups.
Mr. Olson was Solicitor General of the United States during the period 2001-2004. From 1981-1984, he was Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Office of Legal Counsel in the U.S. Department of Justice. Except for those two intervals, he has been a lawyer with Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. since 1965.
Selected by Time magazine in 2010 as one of the 100 most influential people in the world, Mr. Olson is one of the nation’s premier appellate and United States Supreme Court advocates. He has argued 65 cases in the Supreme Court and has prevailed in over 75% of those cases. These include the two Bush v Gore cases arising out of the 2000 presidential election; Citizens United v Federal Election Commission; Hollingsworth v Perry, the case affirming the overturning of California’s Proposition 8, banning same-sex marriages; Murphy v NCAA, overturning a federal law prohibiting states from authorizing sports betting; and U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security v Regents of the Univ. of Calif., challenging the Trump Administration’s rescission of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (“DACA”). Mr. Olson’s practice is concentrated on appellate and constitutional law, federal legislation, media and commercial disputes, and assisting clients with strategies for the containment, management and resolution of major legal crises. He has handled cases at all levels of state and federal court systems throughout the United States. Mr. Olson co-authored “Redeeming the Dream, the Case for Marriage Equality” with David Boies. Both were featured in HBO’s award-winning documentary, “The Case Against 8.”
Mr. Olson's Supreme Court arguments have included cases involving separation of powers; federalism; voting rights; the Tenth Amendment; the First Amendment; the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses; jury trial rights; punitive damages; takings of property; the Commerce Clause; administrative law; taxation; criminal law; sports wagering; copyright, patent and antitrust; securities; campaign finance; foreign sovereign immunities; telecommunications; the environment; the internet; the Supremacy Clause; and other federal constitutional and statutory questions. As Solicitor General, during the presidency of George W. Bush, Mr. Olson was the Government's principal advocate in the United States Supreme Court, responsible for supervising and coordinating all appellate litigation of the United States, and a legal adviser to the President and the Attorney General. As Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel during the Reagan Administration, Mr. Olson was the Executive Branch's principal legal adviser, rendering legal guidance to the President and to the heads of the Executive Branch departments on a wide range of constitutional and federal statutory questions, and assisting in formulating and articulating the Executive Branch's position on constitutional issues.
Mr. Olson has served as private counsel to two Presidents, Ronald W. Reagan and George W. Bush, in addition to serving those two Presidents in high-level positions in the Department of Justice. He has twice been awarded the United States Department of Justice's Edmund J. Randolph Award, its highest award for public service and leadership, and also received the Department of Defense's Distinguished Public Service Award, its highest civilian award, for his advocacy in the courts of the United States, including the Supreme Court. He also received the American Bar Association Medal, its highest award for “exceptionally distinguished service by a lawyer or lawyers to the cause of American jurisprudence.” Mr. Olson is to receive the 2021 Jack Valenti Friend of the White House Fellows Award in the Fall of 2021 to be presented by the White House Fellows Foundation and Association.
Mr. Olson is a member of the Commission on White House Fellowships; a member of the Board of Trustees of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation; a member of the Board of Visitors of the Federalist Society; the Board of Directors of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University; and the 9/11 Pentagon Memorial Foundation. He was a visiting scholar at the National Constitution Center in 2007. He served on the President's Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board from 2006 to 2008; and of the Council of the Administrative Conference of the United States from 2010 to 2020. He was Co-Chair of the Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy from 2008-2009, and served two terms on the Board of Directors of the National Center for State Courts.
Mr. Olson is a Fellow of both the American College of Trial Lawyers and the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers. He has been repeatedly listed in legal publications as one of the nation’s leading appellate lawyers. The late New York Times columnist William Safire described Mr. Olson as his generation's "most persuasive advocate" before the Supreme Court and "the most effective Solicitor General in decades.”
Mr. Olson received his law degree in 1965 from the University of California at Berkeley (Boalt Hall) where he was a member of the California Law Review and Order of the Coif. He received his bachelor's degree from the University of the Pacific, where he was recognized as the outstanding graduating student in both forensics and journalism. He has written and lectured extensively on appellate advocacy, oral communication in the courtroom, civil justice reform, and constitutional and administrative law.
Wallace and Beverley Woodbury University Professor of Law; Co-director of the Litigation and Dispute Resolution Program, The George Washington University Law School
Stephen A. Saltzburg joined GW Law in 1990. Before that, he taught at the University of Virginia School of Law, and was named the first incumbent of the Class of 1962 Endowed Chair. In 1996, he founded and directed the master’s program in Litigation and Dispute Resolution at GW. He was named University Professor, the highest title a University can confer upon a faculty member, in 2004. The Chief Justice of the United States appointed him as reporter for, and then as a member of, the Advisory Committee on the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure and as a member of the Advisory Committee on the Federal Rules of Evidence. He was the reporter for the Civil Justice Reform Act Committee for the D.C. District Court before he became chair. He has served as a special master in two class action cases in the D.C. District Court, and continues to serve as a mediator for the U.S. Court of Appeals for D.C. He has mediated a variety of disputes involving public agencies and private litigants; served as a sole arbitrator, panel chair, and panel member in domestic arbitrations; and served as an arbitrator for the International Chamber of Commerce.
Professor Saltzburg held the following governmental positions: associate independent counsel in the Iran-Contra investigation; deputy assistant attorney general in the Criminal Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, the Attorney General’s ex-officio representative on the U.S. Sentencing Commission; and director of the U.S. Treasury Department Tax Refund Fraud Task Force. He was chair of the ABA Criminal Justice Section from 2007 to 2008, and represents the section in the ABA House of Delegates. He was appointed to the ABA Task Force on Terrorism and the Law and to the ABA Task Force on Gatekeeper Regulation and the Profession in 2001, and to the ABA President’s Advisory Group on Citizen Detention and Enemy Combatant Issues in 2002. In 2001 he was appointed by Chief Judge Edward R. Becker of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit as co-chair of the Task Force on the Selection of Lead Counsel in Class Actions, which published its final report in 2002. Professor Saltzburg is the author of numerous books and articles on evidence, procedure, and litigation.
Author of "The Nixon Conspiracy" (2021) and "The Real Watergate Scandal" (2015)
Geoff Shepard worked on President Nixon’s White House staff for five years, including serving as deputy counsel on his Watergate defense team. He testified as a government chain-of-custody witness in the Plumbers Trial and was subpoenaed for the same purpose in the Cover-up Trial. He possesses a “clearance letter” from the special prosecutor, stating he was never the object of an investigation by that office. Geoff has spent much of the past fifteen year researching and writing about the Watergate scandal. He has published three books, authored dozens of essays and made over fifty presentations challenging Watergate’s conventional narrative. Much of his work is based on recently uncovered internal files of the Watergate Special Prosecution Force, including their infamous “Road Map” that was the basis for the grand jury naming Nixon a cover-up co-conspirator and for the House Judiciary Committee urging his impeachment.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit
LAURENCE HIRSCH SILBERMAN, senior circuit judge; recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, June 19, 2008; born in York, PA, October 12, 1935; son of William Silberman and Anna (Hirsch); married to Rosalie G. Gaull on April 28, 1957 (deceased), married Patricia Winn on January 5, 2008; children: Robert Steven Silberman, Katherine DeBoer Fischer, and Anne Gaull Otis; B.A., Dartmouth College, 1957; LL.B., Harvard Law School, 1961; admitted to Hawaii Bar, 1962; District of Columbia Bar, 1973; associate, Moore, Torkildson and Rice, 1961–64; partner (Moore, Silberman and Schulze), Honolulu, 1964–67; attorney, National Labor Relations Board, Office of General Counsel, Appellate Division, 1967–69; Solicitor, Department of Labor, 1969–70; Under Secretary of Labor, 1970–73; partner, Steptoe and Johnson, 1973–74; Deputy Attorney General of the United States, 1974–75; Ambassador to Yugoslavia, 1975–77; President’s Special Envoy on ILO Affairs, 1976; senior fellow, American Enterprise Institute, 1977–78; visiting fellow, 1978–85; managing partner, Morrison and Foerster, 1978–79 and 1983–85; executive vice president, Crocker National Bank, 1979–83; lecturer, University of Hawaii, 1962–63; board of directors, Commission on Present Danger, 1978–85, Institute for Educational Affairs, New York, NY, 1981–85, member: General Advisory Committee on Arms Control and Disarmament, 1981–85; Defense Policy Board, 1981–85; vice chairman, State Department’s Commission on Security and Economic Assistance, 1983–84; American Bar Association (Labor Law Committee, 1965–72, Corporations and Banking Committee, 1973, Law and National Security Advisory Committee, 1981–85); Hawaii Bar Association Ethics Committee, 1965–67; Council on Foreign Relations, 1977–present; Judicial Conference Committee on Court Administration and Case Management, 1994; member, U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Court of Review, 1996–2003; Adjunct Professor of Law (Administrative Law and Labor Law) Georgetown Law Center, 1987–94; 1997; Adjunct Professor of Law, Harvard Law School, 1994-95, Adjunct Professor of Law, New York University Law School, 1995–96; Distinguished Visitor from the Judiciary, Georgetown Law Center, 2003–2019; co-chairman of the President’s Commission on The Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction, 2004–05; appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit by President Reagan on October 28, 1985.
Professor of Law, University of Baltimore School of Law (on leave); Senior Counsel, U.S. Department of Justice
Professor Dolin’s scholarship centers on patent law with a specific focus on how the patent regime affects innovation, especially in bio-pharmaceutical areas. His work in these areas includes a number of scholarly articles, presentations, amicus briefs, and congressional testimony.
Dr. Dolin is currently on leave from his academic duties while he serves as Senior Counsel in the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice.
From January 2020 to January 2022, Professor Dolin served as a resident Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Palau. In this role, he (together with other members of the Court) heard appeals in civil, criminal, administrative, and constitutional law matters.
Prior to joining the University of Baltimore School of Law, Professor Dolin held visiting appointments in other law schools. He also served as a law clerk to the Hon. Pauline Newman, of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and the late Hon. H. Emory Widener Jr., of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
Rumors that he has a real Russian bear in his office are entirely true.
Associate Professor of Law, St. Thomas University College of Law
Dan Epstein is Vice President at America First Legal and an Associate Professor of Law at St. Thomas University in Miami, Florida. He also advises individuals and small businesses in affirmative and defensive actions against government overreach. Previously, he advised startups on regulatory matters as Director at a venture capital firm. His federal service includes being a Special Assistant to and Senior Associate Counsel to the President and a counsel for the House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Earlier in his career, Mr. Epstein founded and ran Cause of Action, where he represented clients in government investigations and litigated regulatory, constitutional, political, and public law matters.
He holds a Ph.D. from George Washington University in Political Economy, a J.D. from Emory University School of Law, and a B.A. from Kenyon College. He is active in the Palm Beach community as a member of the Fourth Court of Appeals Judicial Nominating Commission in Florida, a transition team member to Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, and the Chairman and Trustee of Palm Beach State College.
Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, The George Washington University Law School
Aram A. Gavoor is the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and an internationally recognized scholar in American administrative law, national security, and federal courts. His co-authored work was cited by the U.S. Supreme Court in Department of Commerce v. New York (2019). His scholarship has earned placement in the Florida Law Review, Indiana Law Journal, Ohio State Law Journal, and other law journals. He has briefed and argued over a dozen high-profile public law cases before a majority of the U.S. Courts of Appeals and numerous cases before almost a third of the 94 U.S. District Courts. Associate Dean Gavoor frequently shares his national security, artificial intelligence policy, and federal courts expertise with international news media, including CNN, BBC World News, Wall Street Journal, NBC News, and ABC (Australia) World News. In 2021, the National Law Journal named Associate Dean Gavoor a Rising Star (top 40 under 40) honoree.
Earlier in his career, Associate Dean Gavoor served as Senior Counsel for National Security in the Civil Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, as third-in-rank Counselor to the Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the White House Office of Management and Budget, and in private practice. He received the Attorney General's Award for Distinguished Service in 2019, the Civil Division Special Commendation Award in 2020, 2019, and 2018, and a Commendation from the Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Section of the Criminal Division in 2018.
Associate Dean Gavoor previously served on the law school’s part-time faculty from 2008-2017 before accepting a term-limited position as Visiting Associate Professor from 2017-2019. He received GW Law’s Distinguished Adjunct Faculty Teaching Award from the 2020 and 2017 graduating classes. He currently teaches Constitutional Law II, Administrative Law, National Security Law, and Federal Courts.
Vice President of Domestic and Economic Policy, The Heritage Foundation
Roger Severino is Vice President of Economic and Domestic Policy, and the Joseph C. and Elizabeth A. Anderlik Fellow at The Heritage Foundation.
Severino is a national authority on civil rights, conscience and religious freedom, the administrative state, and information privacy, particularly as applied to health care law and policy. Find his tweets at @RogerSeverino_.
Severino spearheaded the HHS Accountability Project while a Senior Fellow at EPPC from 2021 to 2023. Previously, Severino was Director of HHS’ Office for Civil Rights, where he led a team of over 250 staff enforcing our nation’s civil rights, conscience and religious freedom, and health information privacy laws. He served from 2017 to 2021 and was the longest-serving OCR director of the past three decades.
Prior to joining HHS, Severino served for two years as Director of the DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society at Heritage, advocating for life, family, and religious-freedom policies. Before that, he was a trial attorney for seven years at the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division where he enforced the Fair Housing Act and the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Severino started his legal career at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, where he was Legal Counsel and Chief Operations Officer and defended the rights of people of all faiths under federal and international law.
Severino has been profiled in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, and The Hill and has appeared on Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, NPR, and PBS, among others. In 2020, The New York Times dubbed him and his wife Carrie, “a conservative power couple” to be reckoned with.
Severino holds a JD from Harvard Law School, a master’s degree in public policy, with highest distinction, from Carnegie Mellon University, and a bachelor’s degree in business from the University of Southern California. He was appointed by President Trump to the Administrative Conference of the United States and is a member of the District of Columbia and the Commonwealth of Virginia bars.
As OCR director, Severino founded the federal government’s first division dedicated exclusively to conscience and religious freedom compliance and enforcement. He enforced the Weldon Amendment for the first time against a state (California) after it coerced families and religious organizations into paying for abortion insurance coverage, leading to a $200 million federal funding disallowance. He also enforced laws protecting pro-life pregnancy resource centers from discrimination by states hostile to their message and enforced laws prohibiting forced participation in abortions by medical professionals.
With respect to civil rights, Severino protected older persons and people with disabilities from being denied life-saving care due to discriminatory “quality of life” judgments, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. He also achieved a landmark sexual harassment resolution with Michigan State University in the wake of the Larry Nassar sexual assault scandal and protected the rights of non-English speakers to have equal access to health and human services.
In the area of health privacy, he secured the largest HIPAA monetary settlement in history and achieved the largest number of enforcement resolutions both in a single year and across four years. He also facilitated the transformational use of Skype, Zoom, and Facetime for delivery of telehealth during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.
His regulatory reform activities resulted in a comprehensive conscience protection regulation and proposed a life-affirming disability rights regulation. He achieved regulatory savings of $3.6 billion in health care industry costs over five years and identified and proposed an additional $3.2 billion in cost savings from the repeal of ineffective and unnecessary regulatory burdens.
Severino is a Spanish speaker who teaches salsa and west coast swing in his spare time.
Professor of Law, University of Baltimore Law School
Kimberly Wehle (formerly Kimberly N. Brown) joined the law school after several years of teaching as an Associate Professor at the University of Oklahoma College of Law and a Visiting Professor at the George Washington University Law School. She teaches and writes in the areas of administrative law, federal courts and civil procedure. She is particularly interested in separation of powers questions, as well as in the constitutional implications of structural and technological innovations in modern government.
Wehle is the author of three books that explain complex constitutional concepts for lay audiences. She is a contributor for BBC World News and BBC World News America on PBS, and an opinion contributor to The Atlantic, Politico, The Bulwark and The Hill. She was an on-air legal analyst and commentator for CBS News. In addition, she appears regularly as a guest legal analyst on constitutional topics such as separation of powers and impeachment with outlets including CNN, MSNBC, NPR’s Morning Edition, PBS NewsHour and Fox News. Her articles have also appeared in The Baltimore Sun, The Los Angeles Times, and NBC News Think. She is regularly interviewed and cited by prominent print journalists on a range of newsworthy legal issues.
She hosts a show on Instagram called #SimplePolitics with Kim Wehle at @kimwehle. She also tweets @kimwehle. She is the 2020 recipient of the prestigious University of Maryland System Board of Regents Faculty Award for excellence in scholarship.
Wehle's scholarship addresses the constitutional relationship of independent agencies and private contractors to the enumerated branches of government. Her articles have appeared in the Notre Dame Law Review, the Indiana Law Journal and the North Carolina Law Review, among others, and her work is cited in a leading federal courts casebook.
Wehle was an editor of the Michigan Law Review and clerked for the Hon. Charles R. Richey of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. She went on to practice, first at the Federal Trade Commission and subsequently as an Associate Independent Counsel in the Office of Independent Counsel Kenneth W. Starr, and as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Civil Division of the Office of the United States Attorney in Washington, D.C.
She has practiced before the United States Supreme Court and argued several cases in the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
Wehle is also an advisor to the nonpartisan nonprofit, Protect Democracy.
Adjunct Professor of Law, University of Pennsylvania
Makan Delrahim is currently an Adjunct Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania.
Previously he served as Assistant Attorney General for the Antitrust Division, Deputy Assistant to the President, and Deputy White House Counsel. Mr. Delrahim’s rich antitrust background covers the full range of industries, issues, and institutions touched upon by the work of the Antitrust Division. He is a former partner in the Los Angeles office of a national law firm. He served in the Antitrust Division from 2003 to 2005 as a Deputy Assistant Attorney General, overseeing the Appellate, Foreign Commerce, and Legal Policy sections. During that time, he played an integral role in building the Antitrust Division’s engagement with its international counterparts and was involved in civil and criminal matters. He has served on the Attorney General’s Task Force on Intellectual Property and as Chairman of the Merger Working Group of the International Competition Network. Mr. Delrahim was also a Commissioner on the Antitrust Modernization Commission from 2004 to 2007. Earlier in his career, Mr. Delrahim served as antitrust counsel, and later as the Staff Director and Chief Counsel of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee.
Professor of Law, American University
Christine Haight Farley is a Professor of Law at American University Washington College of Law. She specializes in information law and teaches courses on contract law, intellectual property, advertising law, and art law. Her current research focuses on branding in the age of data-driven advertising and the over protection of design. She serves as Co-Faculty Director of the Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property and previously served as Associate Dean for Faculty and Academic Affairs. Farley has received the Excellence in Teaching Award and the Edwin A. Mooers Scholarship Award at American. She has been a visiting professor at Boston University, the University of Paris West, the University of Puerto Rico, the University of Havana, Monash University, and the National Law University in Lucknow, India, and has given lectures on intellectual property in more than twenty-five countries. She serves on the Board of Directors for the Center for Inter-American Legal Education, and has served on the Executive Committees of the Intellectual Property and the Art Law Sections of the American Association of Law Schools and as a member of a presidential task force of the International Trademark Association. She is the recipient of a Fulbright Senior Specialist grant to teach U.S. intellectual property law to foreign law students. Before teaching, she was an associate specialized in trademark and copyright litigation with Rabinowitz, Boudin, Standard, Krinsky & Lieberman in New York. She holds a B.A. (Binghamton), J.D. (Buffalo), LL.M. (Columbia), and a J.S.D. (Columbia).
U.S. Court of Federal Claims and Jurist-In-Residence Professor of Law, The University of Akron School of Law
Judge Ryan T. Holte was sworn in as a judge on the United States Court of Federal Claims in July 2019. Prior to confirmation he served as the David L. Brennan Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Intellectual Property Law and Technology at The University of Akron School of Law (2017-2019) and an assistant professor of law at Southern Illinois University School of Law (2013-2017). Judge Holte has written and presented widely on patent law subjects and empirical legal studies of Federal Circuit and district court patent law cases. His most recent articles were published in the Iowa Law Review (2019), George Mason Law Review (2018), and Washington Law Review (2017).
In practice, Judge Holte served for six years as general counsel and partner of an electrical engineering technology company and is co-inventor of multiple patents related to Systems and Methods for Countering Satellite-Navigated Munitions. Prior to entering academia, Judge Holte practiced as a litigation attorney at the Federal Trade Commission and an associate in the Intellectual Property Practice Group at Jones Day. Prior to practice, he served as a law clerk to Judge Stanley F. Birch, Jr. on the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit and as a law clerk to Judge Loren A. Smith on the United States Court of Federal Claims.
Judge Holte received his JD from the University of California Davis School of Law and his BS, magna cum laude, in engineering from the California Maritime Academy where he was a First Class graduate of the Corps of Cadets Third Engineering Division and sailed as a U.S. Merchant Marine oiler.
Partner, Sullivan & Cromwell LLP
Andrei Iancu is a partner at Sullivan & Cromwell and one of the leading voices in intellectual property law and innovation policy. He is a former Undersecretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), a position to which he was confirmed unanimously by the Senate. Andrei has decades of experience representing plaintiffs and defendants in IP matters across the technical and scientific spectra, including medical devices, genetic testing, therapeutics, the Internet, telephony, TV broadcasting, video game systems and computer peripherals. He represents clients in litigation and trials before the district courts, the U.S. International Trade Commission and the USPTO, the Federal Circuit and U.S. Supreme Court, and also counsels clients on obtaining, licensing, enforcing and defending against IP rights globally.
Stevenson Bernard Professor, George Washington University Law School
The Honorable F. Scott Kieff is the Stevenson Bernard Professor at George Washington University Law School and a Visiting Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution.
He served as Commissioner of the U.S. International Trade Commission from 2013-2017. He also served during the Bush, Obama, and Trump Administrations in the part-time leadership of the national security defense-intelligence community.
He was previously a professor of law and medicine at Washington University in Saint Louis and a Senior Fellow at Hoover. A former law clerk to U.S. Circuit Judge Giles S. Rich, he is a graduate of Penn Law School and MIT, where he studied molecular biology and microeconomics. He was elected to the European Academy of Sciences and Arts in 2012 and the Academia Europaea in 2024.
His private sector work through Kieff Strategies LLC (www.kieffstrategies.com) provides neutral services including mediation and compliance, and expert services including crisis management, advising, and testimony.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit
On March 20, 2018, Judge Elizabeth L. Branch (Lisa) was sworn in as a United States Circuit Judge for the Eleventh Circuit.
Judge Branch attended and graduated from Davidson College in North Carolina (B.A., cum laude, 1990), and Emory University School of Law (J.D., with distinction, 1994).
After graduating from law school, Judge Branch served as a federal law clerk to The Honorable J. Owen Forrester of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia from 1994 to 1996. Following her clerkship, Judge Branch joined the litigation department of Smith, Gambrell & Russell, LLP in Atlanta as an associate and then a partner.
From 2004 to 2008, Judge Branch was a senior official in the Administration of President George W. Bush in Washington, D.C. She served first as the Associate General Counsel for Rules and Legislation at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and then as the Counselor to the Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs at the U. S. Office of Management and Budget.
She returned to Smith Gambrell in 2008 as a litigation partner. Judge Branch then was appointed to the Court of Appeals of Georgia by Governor Nathan Deal, taking office on September 4, 2012, where she served until March 19, 2018.
Judge Branch is a member of the Board of Advisors of the Atlanta Lawyers Chapter for the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies.
Deputy Administrator, United States Environmental Protection Agency
David Fotouhi was sworn in as Deputy Administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency on June 16, 2025.
Fotouhi is an experienced environmental attorney who previously served in senior roles at EPA. During the first term of the Trump Administration, Fotouhi served as EPA’s Acting General Counsel and Principal Deputy General Counsel. Prior to rejoining the agency, Fotouhi was a partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP practicing environmental law.
Fotouhi grew up in Oklahoma and holds a B.A. from Vanderbilt University and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. Before entering private legal practice, Fotouhi served as a law clerk to the Honorable Raymond W. Gruender of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.
Lyle T. Alverson Professor of Law, George Washington University Law School
Professor Pierce is author of over twenty books and 130 articles on administrative law, government regulation, and the effects of various forms of government intervention on the performance of markets. His books and articles have been cited in hundreds of judicial opinions, including over a dozen opinions of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Competition and Innovation Policy for Tomorrow
Makan Delrahim, Christine Haight Farley, Ryan T. Holte, Andrei Iancu, F. Scott Kieff
As global crises abound, from pandemics to war, society cries out for myriad new technologies,...
Necessary & Proper Episode 80: Creatures of Statute II: Administrative Agencies and Policymaking
David Fotouhi, Richard J. Pierce, Lisa Branch
This second event of a co-sponsored series on the Administrative State focused on the role...
Humphrey’s Executor and Presidential Removal Power
Gregory Dolin, Daniel Z. Epstein, Aram A. Gavoor, Roger Severino, Kimberly Wehle
In one of its most significant separation of powers opinions, the U.S. Supreme Court decided...
Humphrey’s Executor and Presidential Removal Power
Gregory Dolin, Daniel Z. Epstein, Aram A. Gavoor, Roger Severino, Kimberly Wehle
In one of its most significant separation of powers opinions, the U.S. Supreme Court decided...
Humphrey’s Executor and Presidential Removal Power
TeleforumCompetition and Innovation Policy for Tomorrow
2022 National Lawyer's Convention
Washington, DC2022 National Lawyers Convention (closed, do not touch)
The Current State of the Legal Profession
Washington, DCCreatures of Statute II: Administrative Agencies and Policymaking
Lisa Branch, David Fotouhi, Richard J. Pierce
Join the Federalist Society’s Regulatory Transparency Project and Capitol Hill Chapter for the second in...
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Washington, DCRevealing Documents from the Watergate Prosecutions
Paul S. Diamond, Theodore B. Olson, Stephen A. Saltzburg, Geoff Shepard, Laurence H. Silberman
The Watergate scandal culminated in the resignation of President Richard Nixon and the conviction of...