James T. Jensen Endowed Professor for Transactional Law & Director of the Program on Intellectual Property and Technology Law, University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law
Jorge L. Contreras is a Distinguished University Professor, the James T. Jensen Endowed Professor for Transactional Law and Director of the Program on Intellectual Property and Technology Law. He teaches and researches in the areas of intellectual property, property law, technical standardization, antitrust and science policy. In 2020 he received the University of Utah's Distinguished Research Award and is an elected member of the American Law Institute. He has testified before the U.S. Senate and House Subcommittees on Intellectual Property, and was awarded the Rossman Memorial Award by the Patent & Trademark Office Society in 2022.
Professor Contreras has written or edited fourteen books and published more than 150 scholarly articles and chapters. His book, The Genome Defense: Inside the Epic Legal Battle to Determine Who Owns Your DNA (NY: Hachette/Algonquin, 2021), has been praised by the NY Times, Wall St. Journal, Nature and numerous other outlets, and was named "Best Patent Law Book of the Year" by the international IPKat blog. His scholarly articles have appeared in leading scientific, legal and policy journals including Science, Nature, NYU Law Review, Georgetown Law Journal, Iowa Law Review and Antitrust Law Journal. He has been quoted by media outlets around the world including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Economist, Bloomberg, Washington Post, Korea Times and has been featured on C-SPAN, NPR, PRI and BBC shows and a range of podcasts and online news programs.
Professor Contreras currently serves Co-Chair of the Interdisciplinary Division of the ABA's Section of Science & Technology Law and a member of the Advisory Board of the American Antitrust Institute. He has previously served as Co-Chair of the National Conference of Lawyers and Scientists, a member of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) Committee on Intellectual Property Management in Standard-Setting Processes, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Council of Councils, the Advisory Council of NIH's National Center for the Advancement of Translational Sciences (NCATS), the National Advisory Council for Human Genome Research, and the Intellectual Property Rights Policy Committee of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). In 2021 he served as Chair of the Art Law Section of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) and currently serves as Chair of the AALS Remedies Section.
Professor Contreras has previously taught at American University Washington College of Law and Washington University in St. Louis. Prior to entering academia he was a partner at the international law firm Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP, where he practiced transactional and intellectual property law in Boston, London and Washington DC. He is a cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School (JD) and Rice University (BA, BSEE) and clerked for Chief Justice Thomas R. Philips of the Texas Supreme Court.
Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
Adam Mossoff is Professor of Law at Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University. He has published extensively on why patents, copyrights, and other intellectual property rights have been—and should be—legally secured to innovators and creators as property rights. His scholarship has been relied on by the United States Supreme Court, by lower federal courts, and by U.S. federal agencies. He has been invited to testify numerous times before the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives on intellectual property legislation. His writings on intellectual property policy have also appeared in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Forbes, Investors Business Daily, and in other media outlets. His journal articles can be downloaded here.
Professor Mossoff is a longstanding member of the Executive Committee of the Intellectual Property Practice Group of the Federalist Society, on which he served as Chairperson from 2016-2018, and he is Chair of the Intellectual Property Working Group of the Regulatory Transparency Project of the Federalist Society. He is a Senior Fellow and Chair of the Forum for Intellectual Property at the Hudson Institute, a Visiting Intellectual Property Fellow at the Heritage Foundation, and a member of the Board of Directors of the Center for Intellectual Property Understanding. He is a member of the Intellectual Property Rights Policy Committee of ANSI and he has served as Chair and Vice-Chair of the Intellectual Property Committee of the IEEE-USA, on which he remains a member in good standing.
Founder and Principal Solicitor, Opie International Technology Lawyers
Elisabeth Opie BA LLB(Hons) LLM GAICD has almost 20 years’ international experience in the global innovation system. Holding senior legal and executive positions, Elisabeth has worked with industry, spin-offs, research organisations and government. She has extensive experience in international business transactions, policy advice, negotiation and alternative dispute resolution. Her legal and executive experience has been developed across sectors such as IT, automotive, aerospace, health and energy. Elisabeth has experience in both non-contentious and contentious matters.
Elisabeth has received a number of awards in the field of international science and technology, including Business and Strategy Excellence Awards, and was the inaugural Global Research Alliance Fellow. She has appeared in the IAM Strategy 300 Global Leaders since 2020 and the IAM Patent 1000 since 2019.
Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute
Urška Petrovčič is a senior fellow at Hudson Institute and director of economic strategy at Qualcomm. Her work focuses on antitrust and intellectual property.
Since 2017, Dr. Petrovčič has acted as the European Commission’s non-governmental adviser for the Unilateral Conduct Working Group of the International Competition Network. She has been a visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Oslo. She was chosen as the inaugural scholar of the American Bar Association’s International Scholar-in-Residence Program, which enabled her to conduct research in cooperation with the Office of Policy Planning of the US Federal Trade Commission on antitrust enforcement concerning SEPs.
Dr. Petrovčič previously worked in the Brussels office of the law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP and was a stagiaire at the Directorate-General for Competition of the European Commission.
Her publications on the enforcement of standard-essential patents (SEPs) include a book, Competition Law and Standard Essential Patents: A Transatlantic Perspective (Wolters Kluwer 2014), and articles in the Common Market Law Review and other journals.
She holds a BA in law from the University of Ljubljana, a master of law and economics from Erasmus University Rotterdam, and an LLM and a PhD in law from the European University Institute.
Before coming to MSU College of Law, Professor Kalt worked at the Washington D.C. office of Sidley and Austin in one of the top appellate law practices in the country. He earned his juris doctor from Yale Law School, where he was an editor on the Yale Law Journal. After law school, he served as a law clerk for the Honorable Danny J. Boggs, U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit. Professor Kalt’s research focuses on structural constitutional law and juries. At MSU Law, Professor Kalt teaches Constitutional Law, Torts, and Administrative Law.
J.D. Yale Law School, 1997; A.B., with Highest Distinction, University of Michigan, 1994
Tamar is an Assistant Professor. She holds a J.D. degree from the University of British Columbia, and a B.A. (Hons), LL.M., and SJD degrees from the University of Toronto.
Tamar practiced international commercial arbitration in a law firm in Vancouver and as Deputy Counsel at the International Court of Arbitration of the International Chamber of Commerce in Paris. She also acted as legal advisor to the Jerusalem Arbitration Center in Israel and Palestine and was a Graduate Fellow with the conflict resolution group of The Carter Center in Atlanta.
Retired
Tom Gede retired in 2023 as a principal in Morgan Lewis Consulting LLC and of counsel to the firm. He currently consults on a variety of legal and policy matters for both public and private clients. Tom has a national reputation and distinguished background in federal Indian law. Prior to retirement, he represented clients in complex governmental matters in litigation, administrative and regulatory proceedings, including high-profile matters involving state governments. A former senior deputy in the California Attorney General’s office, Tom was amicus coordinator and Supreme Court counsel, and argued cases in the US Supreme Court, the California Supreme Court, and numerous state and federal appellate courts.
Tom also served as executive director of the Conference of Western Attorneys General (CWAG), coordinating activities on key legal and policy issues, such as federal Indian law, energy, environmental, public lands, financial services, and telecommunications, for the attorneys general of 18 western states and territories. In 2016, Tom was elected as a Member of the American Law Institute (ALI), and served as an Adviser on the Restatement of the Law Third - The Law of American Indians. Tom also taught federal Indian law as an adjunct law professor at the University of the Pacific - McGeorge School of Law. He served as an assistant editor for and the author of the Indian gaming chapter in CWAG’s American Indian Law Deskbook (2d & 3d eds.). He has been engaged in Indian gaming and Indian law matters for more than three decades, having focused on the gaming compacts with Indian tribes, as well as complex civil and criminal jurisdiction, land, natural resources, water and law enforcement issues in Indian country. He has testified before Congress on American Indian and Native Alaskan issues. In 2012 he was appointed by Speaker John Boehner to serve on the United States Indian Law and Order Commission, where he examined criminal justice issues in Indian country and Alaska, resulting in the issuance of an important report to the President and Congress.
President and General Counsel, New Civil Liberties Alliance
NCLA’s President and General Counsel, Mark Chenoweth, has observed the administrative state up close and personal from perches in all four branches of the federal government. Mark served as the first chief of staff to Congressman Mike Pompeo, as legal counsel to Commissioner Anne Northup at the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, as an attorney advisor in the Office of Legal Policy at the U.S. Department of Justice, and as a law clerk to the Hon. Danny J. Boggs on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.
Mark has worked in several different roles in the private sector as well. He began his legal career in D.C. as a regulatory associate at Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering. He then returned to his home state of Kansas to serve as in-house counsel for Koch Industries. Most recently he spent over four years as general counsel of the Washington Legal Foundation.
Mark is a graduate of Yale College and the University of Chicago Law School, where he co-founded the Institute for Justice Clinic on Entrepreneurship and became a Tony Patiño Fellow. Mark has been widely quoted and/or published in newspapers and websites including the New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, New Hampshire Union Leader, and Metropolitan Corporate Counsel. He has also had recurring op-eds in the Los Angeles Daily Journal, and at Forbes.com.
Mr. Fortney is a co-founder of Fortney & Scott, LLC, a Washington, D.C.-based law firm counseling and advising clients on the full spectrum of work-place related matters, including employment discrimination and labor matters, compliance programs, government contracting, international dispute resolution and counseling matters, and developing strategies for avoiding or responding to workplace-related crises.
Mr. Fortney has a broad-based practice representing and counseling employers and executives in employment and labor matters, including equal employment opportunity requirements, wage and hour matters, federal contractor's affirmative action and non-discrimination obligations, collective bargaining, and workplace health and safety. He brings experience from the public and private sectors in advising clients on these issues, and he frequently represents clients before federal and state agencies, including the U.S. Department of Labor's agencies, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and the National Labor Relations Board.
Mr. Fortney has been widely recognized for his professional accomplishments, including being named one of the leading employment lawyers in Washington, D.C. by the CHAMBERS USAsurvey of America’s Leading Lawyers for Business in all years from 2005 through 2015. He was selected for inclusion in the 2008 through present editions of The Best Lawyers in America, Washington D.C.’s, Washington D.C.’s Best Lawyers, and Super Lawyers. Mr. Fortney was also awarded an AV rating (the highest level) by Martindale-Hubbell.
Before co-founding the firm, Mr. Fortney previously served as the chief legal officer of the U.S. Department of Labor in Washington, D.C. during the term of President George H.W. Bush. As Acting Solicitor of Labor, he was responsible for enforcing over 140 laws regulating the nation's workplaces and managing an agency with 800 attorneys and support staff. He advised Secretaries of Labor Elizabeth Dole and Lynn Martin and the Department of Labor agencies on a broad range of legal, policy, legislative, regulatory and enforcement issues.
Mr. Fortney has testified before the U.S. Congress on several occasions and a state legislative committee on wage and hour matters.
Mr. Fortney is a frequent lecturer and writer on employment-related topics, including appearances on CNN, CBS and Fox News. Mr. Fortney is the co-editor of the Federal Employment Law Insider monthly newsletter, Chapter Editor of The Family and Medical Leave Act (2006) published by BNA Books, co-author of the Military Leave Compliance Kit (2001), published by M. Lee Smith Publishers, and lead author of the Guide to Employee Leave(1997), published by Warren, Gorham & Lamont.
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.
Partner, Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP
Philip A. Miscimarra is the former Chairman of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Phil leads the firm’s NLRB special appeals practice and is co-leader of Morgan Lewis Workforce Change, which manages all employment, labor, benefits, and related issues arising from mergers, acquisitions, startups, workforce reductions, and other types of business restructuring. He represents clients on a wide range of labor and employment issues, with a focus on labor-management relations, business acquisitions and restructuring, and employment litigation. Phil is also a Senior Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School and the Wharton Center for Human Resources. He is admitted in Illinois only, and his practice is supervised by DC Bar members.
Phil was named Chairman of the NLRB by President Donald J. Trump on April 24, 2017, after previously serving as Acting Chairman and a Board Member. He was appointed to the NLRB by President Barack Obama on April 9, 2013, and was approved unanimously by the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions on May 22, 2013. He was confirmed by voice vote in the US Senate on July 30, 2013, and served from August 7, 2013, to December 16, 2017. Upon the completion of his term, Phil served on the NLRB longer than 26 other board members over the past 30 years.
Phil is the author or co-author of several books involving labor law issues, including The NLRB and Managerial Discretion: Subcontracting, Relocations, Closings, Sales, Layoffs, and Technological Change (2d ed. 2010) (by Miscimarra, Turner, Friedman, Callahan, Conrad, Lignowski and Scroggins); The NLRB and Secondary Boycotts (3d ed. 2002) (by Miscimarra, Berkowitz, Wiener and Ditelberg); and Government Protection of Employees Involved in Mergers and Acquisitions (1989 and 1997 supp.) (by Northrup and Miscimarra); and other publications. He has also testified on labor and employment law issues in the United States Congress.
Chambers USA named Phil one of the leading lawyers for employment law in the United States from 2004 to 2012, based on the views of clients, peers, and other industry professionals. He has been described as a "fantastic lawyer" and "prolific writer," with clients admiring his "multilayered abilities and business savvy" and his "high level of integrity."
Deputy Secretary of Labor, U.S. Department of Labor
Keith E. Sonderling was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on March 12, 2025 to be the 38th United States Deputy Secretary of Labor.
As the United States Deputy Secretary of Labor, Sonderling is the second-highest-ranking official and serves as the Department's Chief Operating Officer, overseeing the agency’s $14 billion dollar budget and 16,000 employees. The Deputy Secretary oversees key operational functions such as: strategic planning; budget formulation; financial management; information technology; and human resource management. Additionally, the Deputy Secretary provides the leadership and management of DOL’s agencies necessary to support the Secretary and the Department’s mission.
Prior to becoming Deputy Secretary, he was previously confirmed by the United States Senate to serve as the Commissioner of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) from September 2020 until August 2024. He also served as the Commission’s Vice-Chair from 2020-2021.
During his tenure at the EEOC, one of Sonderling’s highest priorities was ensuring that artificial intelligence and workplace technologies are designed and deployed consistent with long-standing laws. He published numerous articles on the benefits and potential harms of using artificial intelligence-based technology in the workplace and spoke globally on artificial intelligence’s impact on the workplace.
Sonderling previously served at the US Department of Labor as the Acting and Deputy Administrator of the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division from 2017-2020. During his tenure, the Division accomplished back-to-back record-breaking enforcement collections and educational outreach events. Sonderling also oversaw the development and publication of large-scale deregulatory rules and authored numerous Opinion Letters, Field Assistance Bulletins, and All Agency Memorandums. Additionally, he was instrumental in developing the Division’s first comprehensive self-audit program, which collected more than $7 million for nearly eleven thousand workers.
Before his government service, Sonderling was a partner at one of Florida’s oldest and largest law firms, Gunster. At Gunster, he counseled employers and litigated labor and employment disputes. In 2012, then-Governor Rick Scott appointed Sonderling to serve as the Chair of the Judicial Nominating Committee for appellate courts in South Florida. Sonderling was also active in the community, serving on the Board of Directors for Morse Life Health System, the Boca Raton Chamber of Commerce, and Leadership Florida.
Sonderling also serves as a Professional Lecturer in the Law (Adjunct Professor) at George Washington University Law School, teaching employment discrimination.
Sonderling received his B.S., magna cum laude, from the University of Florida and his J.D., magna cum laude, from Nova Southeastern University.
Deputy Secretary of Labor, U.S. Department of Labor
Keith E. Sonderling was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on March 12, 2025 to be the 38th United States Deputy Secretary of Labor.
As the United States Deputy Secretary of Labor, Sonderling is the second-highest-ranking official and serves as the Department's Chief Operating Officer, overseeing the agency’s $14 billion dollar budget and 16,000 employees. The Deputy Secretary oversees key operational functions such as: strategic planning; budget formulation; financial management; information technology; and human resource management. Additionally, the Deputy Secretary provides the leadership and management of DOL’s agencies necessary to support the Secretary and the Department’s mission.
Prior to becoming Deputy Secretary, he was previously confirmed by the United States Senate to serve as the Commissioner of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) from September 2020 until August 2024. He also served as the Commission’s Vice-Chair from 2020-2021.
During his tenure at the EEOC, one of Sonderling’s highest priorities was ensuring that artificial intelligence and workplace technologies are designed and deployed consistent with long-standing laws. He published numerous articles on the benefits and potential harms of using artificial intelligence-based technology in the workplace and spoke globally on artificial intelligence’s impact on the workplace.
Sonderling previously served at the US Department of Labor as the Acting and Deputy Administrator of the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division from 2017-2020. During his tenure, the Division accomplished back-to-back record-breaking enforcement collections and educational outreach events. Sonderling also oversaw the development and publication of large-scale deregulatory rules and authored numerous Opinion Letters, Field Assistance Bulletins, and All Agency Memorandums. Additionally, he was instrumental in developing the Division’s first comprehensive self-audit program, which collected more than $7 million for nearly eleven thousand workers.
Before his government service, Sonderling was a partner at one of Florida’s oldest and largest law firms, Gunster. At Gunster, he counseled employers and litigated labor and employment disputes. In 2012, then-Governor Rick Scott appointed Sonderling to serve as the Chair of the Judicial Nominating Committee for appellate courts in South Florida. Sonderling was also active in the community, serving on the Board of Directors for Morse Life Health System, the Boca Raton Chamber of Commerce, and Leadership Florida.
Sonderling also serves as a Professional Lecturer in the Law (Adjunct Professor) at George Washington University Law School, teaching employment discrimination.
Sonderling received his B.S., magna cum laude, from the University of Florida and his J.D., magna cum laude, from Nova Southeastern University.
Partner, Schaerr | Jaffe LLP
Erik Jaffe has been involved in appeals on a broad range of legal issues, including First Amendment challenges to campaign finance reform, Commerce Clause challenges to Health Care Reform and other federal legislation, Equal Protection Clause challenges to affirmative action in education, First Amendment challenges to school vouchers, Fifth Amendment challenges to takings of property, Second Amendment challenges to restrictions on gun ownership, and a wide variety of cases involving patents, copyrights, ERISA, securities fraud, federal preemption, environmental regulation, and other state and federal constitutional and statutory matters. He has represented businesses and non-profit groups, Judges, Senators, former government officials, Nobel Prize winners, and a broad cross-section of private individuals. Mr. Jaffe has been involved in over 120 Supreme Court matters, including filing over 30 cert. petitions, representing half-a-dozen parties on the merits, and filing over 70 amicus briefs at both the cert. and merits stages.
A 1990 graduate of the Columbia University School of Law, Mr. Jaffe was a law clerk to Judge Douglas H. Ginsburg of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit from 1990 to 1991. Following that clerkship he spent five years in litigation practice with the Washington, D.C. law firm of Williams & Connolly. In the summer of 1996 he left Williams & Connolly to clerk for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. At the end of that clerkship he started his own practice, and he was a sole practitioner from 1997 to 2018. He joined the firm of Schaerr | Jaffe LLP in 2018.
Professor of Law, University of Michigan Law School
Christopher J. Walker is a Professor of Law at the University of Michigan. Prior to joining Michigan law faculty in 2022, he spent a decade teaching at The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law. He previously clerked for Justice Anthony Kennedy of the U.S. Supreme Court, worked on the Civil Appellate Staff at the U.S. Department of Justice, and served on the Senate Judiciary Committee staff for the Gorsuch Supreme Court confirmation. Professor Walker’s research focuses on administrative law, regulation, and law and policy at the agency level. Outside the law school, he chaired the American Bar Association’s Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice in 2020-21 and served as one of forty Public Members of the Administrative Conference of the United States from 2016-2022, and he continues to serve in both organizations in various capacities. He also works of counsel at the U.S. Chamber Litigation Center. In 2022, he received the Federalist Society’s Joseph Story Award.
Chief Legal Officer and Policy Director, Cicero Institute
Jonathan Wolfson is the Chief Legal Officer and Policy Director at the Cicero Institute. Before joining Cicero, he led the Policy Office at the U.S. Department of Labor where he managed DOL's deregulatory efforts and oversaw DOL's internal policy development think tank. He previously was a litigator and regulatory attorney at an international law firm representing clients before state and federal courts across the country. Following law school he served as a law clerk to The Honorable Edith Brown Clement of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Before law school, Jonathan was a policy analyst at the White House Council of Economic Advisers.
Jonathan received an A.B. in Economics from Washington University in St. Louis and a J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law, where he was an Olin Law and Economic Fellow and won the John M. Olin Prize for best original law and economics research.
Senior Counsel for Environmental and Regulatory Affairs, Boeing
Adam Gustafson is a Senior Counsel for Environmental and Regulatory Affairs at Boeing.
Prior to joining Boeing, he served as Deputy General Counsel at the Environmental Protection Agency. Prior to that, he was a partner at Boyden Gray & Associates, where he represented States, federal judges, environmental groups, biofuel producers, agricultural interests, and public policy organizations, on such issues as the constitutional separation of powers, the First Amendment, automotive regulations, environmental computer models, healthcare regulation, and judicial deference to federal agencies.
Mr. Gustafson received his J.D. in 2009 from Yale Law School, where he was an editor of the Yale Law Journal, a managing editor of the Yale Journal of Law & the Humanities, and an executive editor of the symposium issue of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy.
Mr. Gustafson served as a Vice President of the Yale Law School Federalist Society. He was a Coker Fellow, and his legal writing won the Joseph A. Chubb Competition Prize and the Edward D. Robbins Memorial Prize.
Mr. Gustafson graduated with high distinction in 2005 from the University of Virginia, where he was an Echols Scholar, a member of the Raven Society, a member of the rowing team, and a Lawn resident.
Before joining Boyden Gray & Associates, Mr. Gustafson was an associate at Cooper & Kirk, where he specialized in appellate litigation. Mr. Gustafson served as a law clerk to Judge Richard R. Clifton of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and to Judge Janice Rogers Brown of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
Ceres, Accelerator for Sustainable Capital Markets
John Kostyack is Founder and Principal at Kostyack Strategies, a consultancy helping NGOs and foundations achieve their climate change and clean energy policy goals. His experience includes over three decades in nonprofit management and leadership of policy advocacy campaigns as well as representation of NGO and private sector clients in federal and state courts. He now leverages that experience and relationships with leaders in NGOs, government, the clean technology sector and philanthropy to help clients design and execute advocacy campaign strategies. His current work focuses on helping clients persuade regulators to promote sustainable investing and procurement, address climate-related risks to financial stability and establish oversight of carbon offsets markets.
Associate, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher
Brian A. Richman is an associate in the Washington, D.C. office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. He practices in the firm’s Litigation Department, and is a member of the Appellate and Constitutional Law and Administrative Law and Regulatory practice groups.
Mr. Richman represents clients in high-stakes appellate, administrative law, and litigation matters. His practice includes litigating cutting-edge constitutional and administrative law issues, challenging agency rulemakings, and defending against government enforcement actions, along with other complex litigation matters. He has extensive experience in the financial services sector.
Before joining the firm, Mr. Richman clerked for Judge Stephen F. Williams of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He also practiced at a New York law firm, where he focused on commercial litigation and white collar defense and investigations. Mr. Richman is a former securities compliance officer at Goldman Sachs, and has handled numerous regulatory matters involving the SEC, CFTC, FERC, FINRA, and the Federal Reserve.
Mr. Richman received his JD from Yale Law School, where he was a lead editor on the Yale Journal on Regulation, and a semi-finalist in both the Morris Tyler Moot Court of Appeals and Thomas Swan Barristers’ Union Mock Trial Competition. In 2011, Mr. Richman graduated from Cornell University with a B.S., with honors, in Policy Analysis and Management.
Mr. Richman is admitted to practice in New York and the District of Columbia. He is also admitted to the United States Courts of Appeals for the Second and D.C. Circuits, and the U.S. District Courts for the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York.
The George Washington University, GW Procurement Law Alumnus
The EU’s Proposed Regulations of SEP Licensing and Litigation: A Solution or Setback for the Global Innovation Economy?
Jorge L. Contreras, Adam Mossoff, Elisabeth Opie, Ur?ka Petrov?i?
The European Union is considering adopting a wide-ranging regulatory regime for the licensing and litigation...
Smith v. United States - Post-Argument SCOTUScast
Brian C. Kalt
On March 28, 2023, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in Smith v. United States. At...
Coinbase, Inc. v. Bielski - Post-Argument SCOTUScast
Tamar Meshel
On March 21, 2023, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in Coinbase, Inc. v. Bielski. At...
Arizona v. Navajo Nation, Dep. of Interior v. Navajo Nation - Post-Argument SCOTUScast
Thomas F. Gede
On March 20, 2023, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in the consolodated cases of Arizona...
Dept. of Ed. v. Brown & Biden v. Nebraska - Post-Argument SCOTUScast
Mark Chenoweth
On February 28, 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral argument in two cases challenging the...
Deep Dive Episode 259 - AI & Antidiscrimination: AI Entering the Arena of Labor & Employment Law [Panel Discussion]
David Fortney, Aram A. Gavoor, Philip A. Miscimarra, Keith E. Sonderling
Artificial Intelligence (AI), once the stuff of science fiction, is now more than ever a...
Deep Dive Episode 258 - AI & Antidiscrimination: AI Entering the Arena of Labor & Employment Law [Keynote Address]
Keith E. Sonderling
Artificial Intelligence (AI), once the stuff of science fiction, is now more than ever a...
Gonzalez v. Google LLC - Post-Argument SCOTUScast
Erik S. Jaffe
On February 21, 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral argument in Gonzalez v. Google LLC. After U.S....
The Major Questions Doctrine, Chevron Deference & the Future of the Regulatory State
Christopher J. Walker, Jonathan Wolfson
The University of Richmond chapter of the Federalist Society hosted this panel discussion on "The...
A Discussion on the FAR Council's Federal Supplier Climate Risks and Resilience Proposed Rule
Adam Gustafson, John Kostyack, Brian Richman, Markus Speidel
What happens when the Administration’s “whole-of-government approach” to climate change meets federal contracting? The Department...