President, Center for American Rights
Daniel Suhr serves as president of the Center for American Rights, where he spends every day on the front lines of the fight to preserve our rights and liberties. The Center's mission is to advance free speech, free enterprise, and parental freedom in education through strategic, precedent-setting litigation.
Daniel formerly worked as policy director for Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, as chief of staff for Wisconsin Lieutenant Governor Rebecca Kleefisch, and as a law clerk for Judge Diane Sykes of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. He holds a B.A. and J.D. from Marquette University, and master’s degrees from Georgetown and the University of Missouri.
Thomas M. Siebel Senior Fellow, The Hoover Institution, Stanford University; Gary T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus, UCLA School of Law
Eugene Volokh is the Thomas M. Siebel Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution (Stanford), as well as the Gary T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus and Distinguished Research Professor at UCLA School of Law. He recently retired from teaching at UCLA, after 30 years there, and is now focusing on research.
Volokh is the author of the textbooks The First Amendment and Related Statutes (8th ed. 2023), and Academic Legal Writing (5th ed. 2016), as well as over 100 academic law journal articles, mostly on First Amendment law. He is a member of The American Law Institute; the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Free Speech Law; and the creator and coauthor of The Volokh Conspiracy, a leading legal blog founded in 2002 (hosted at the Washington Post from 2014 to 2017 and now at Reason Magazine).
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.
Partner, Cooper & Kirk PLLC
BRIAN W. BARNES has litigated high-stakes cases at all levels of the federal court system and has also argued numerous cases in state trial and appellate courts. He was the principal author of the briefs for the petitioners in Collins v Mnuchin, a multi-billion-dollar administrative law case challenging the nationalization of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which is currently pending in the United States Supreme Court. In related litigation, Mr. Barnes deposed several of the current and former senior executives for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, including both companies’ former CEOs. Mr. Barnes also played a central role representing shareholders in disputes over the scope of the government’s discovery obligations in the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac litigation, successfully persuading the Court of Federal Claims to order the government to show plaintiffs’ counsel most of the documents the government attempted to withhold under the deliberative process and bank examination privileges.
Mr. Barnes also has extensive experience representing plaintiffs in suits filed under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (“RICO”). He briefed and argued St. Luke’s Health Network v. Lancaster General Hospital, 967 F.3d 295 (3d Cir. 2020), in which the Third Circuit reversed dismissal of RICO claims filed as part of a putative class action against a hospital that allegedly defrauded a Pennsylvania program that subsidizes care for indigent patients. Mr. Barnes also helped pioneer the use of RICO to sue state-legalized marijuana businesses: he filed the first such case, successfully argued the case on appeal after it was dismissed, and later helped try the case to a jury on remand. See Safe Streets Alliance v. Hickenlooper, 859 F.3d 865 (10th Cir. 2017).
Mr. Barnes has also worked on a wide range of other matters. He has briefed and argued cases concerning state preemption of local gun regulations in the trial and intermediate appellate courts of Illinois and Pennsylvania. In litigation over the Department of Education’s Title IX regulations, Mr. Barnes represents intervenors who are defending the regulations. And he has an active practice advising institutional investors on the probable outcomes of market-moving litigation in both state and federal courts.
Mr. Barnes clerked for Justice Samuel Alito during the Supreme Court’s 2012 Term and was previously a law clerk to Judge Thomas Griffith of the D.C. Circuit. He is a graduate of Yale Law School, where he was an Articles Editor for the Yale Law Journal and a member of the Yale Supreme Court Clinic. Mr. Barnes received his B.A. from Yale College and is a member of the Colorado and District of Columbia bars.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit
Adjunct Professor of Law, Scalia Law; Google, Corporate Counsel
Kathryn Ciano Mauler currently serves as a Corporate Counsel at Google. Prior to Google, Kathryn was Senior Regulatory Counsel at Uber Technologies, and also spent three years at i360, LLC as General Counsel. Before this, she also worked at a boutique law firm in Washington, D.C. and at the Institute for Justice.
She received her B.A. from the University of Florida. She also received her business degree from the University of Florida - Warrington College of Business, studying at the Ecole supérieure de Commerce de Toulouse in France. Kathryn's J.D. is from the George Mason University School of Law.
Nonresident Fellow, American Enterprise Institute
Ajit Pai, a former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), is a nonresident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he focuses on issues pertaining to technology and innovation, telecommunications regulatory policy, and market-based incentives for investment in broadband deployment. Concurrently, he is a partner at Searchlight Capital Partners, a global investment firm.
Mr. Pai’s distinguished career at the FCC includes two leadership roles following presidential appointments. He was appointed commissioner by President Barack Obama in 2012, designated chairman by President Donald Trump in 2017, and twice confirmed by the US Senate. While at the helm of the FCC, Mr. Pai had a transformative impact on the future of US technology and communications policy, implementing major initiatives to help close the digital divide; advance US leadership in 5G and other wireless technologies; promote innovation; protect consumers, public safety, and national security; and make the agency itself more open, transparent, and data-driven.
Earlier in his career, Mr. Pai served in various public-sector positions in the FCC’s Office of General Counsel, the US Department of Justice, the US Senate Judiciary Committee, and the US District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana. He also worked as a partner at Jenner & Block and associate general counsel at Verizon Communications.
Mr. Pai graduated with honors from Harvard University, where he received a bachelor’s degree, and from the University of Chicago Law School, where he received a law degree and was an editor on the University of Chicago Law Review.
Thomas M. Siebel Senior Fellow, The Hoover Institution, Stanford University; Gary T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus, UCLA School of Law
Eugene Volokh is the Thomas M. Siebel Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution (Stanford), as well as the Gary T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus and Distinguished Research Professor at UCLA School of Law. He recently retired from teaching at UCLA, after 30 years there, and is now focusing on research.
Volokh is the author of the textbooks The First Amendment and Related Statutes (8th ed. 2023), and Academic Legal Writing (5th ed. 2016), as well as over 100 academic law journal articles, mostly on First Amendment law. He is a member of The American Law Institute; the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Free Speech Law; and the creator and coauthor of The Volokh Conspiracy, a leading legal blog founded in 2002 (hosted at the Washington Post from 2014 to 2017 and now at Reason Magazine).
Partner, Baker Botts L.L.P.
Taylor Owings is a partner in the Antitrust and Competition Practice Group of Baker Botts L.L.P. She represents clients in civil merger and non-merger matters both in front of government agencies and in private litigation. She also counsels clients on the application of antitrust law to their business activities, with special experience in issues related to the digital economy.
Prior to joining the firm, Ms. Owings served as Senior Counsel and Chief of Staff in the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice from 2018 to 2021. In that role, Ms. Owings was a key advisor to the Assistant Attorney General on the application of antitrust law to technology industries, including in the Department of Justice’s review of the business practices of market-leading online platforms and in the application of antitrust law to the exercise of intellectual property rights and standard setting organizations. As Chief of Staff of the Antitrust Division, Ms. Owings was responsible for ensuring the high quality of all public advocacy issued by the Division, including court filings, policy statements, and speeches.
Ms. Owings has experience crafting both trial and appellate strategy in headline-making antitrust litigations. She has argued in the First and Fourth Circuits. Earlier in her career, she clerked for the Honorable Douglas H. Ginsburg on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, and for the Honorable Richard J. Leon on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
Ms. Owings handles all aspects of merger review. She draws on her first-hand experience investigating and reviewing mergers at the Antitrust Division to advise clients and to represent them in front of the agencies. She has special experience in merger matters with complex legal questions, for instance vertical mergers, the acquisition of a nascent or potential competitor, and the implications of a merger on innovation and data accumulation.
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.
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.
ISIS, Google, and Section 230: Can Google Be Held Liable for Recommending ISIS Content?
UCLA Student Chapter
Los Angeles, CACourthouse Steps Oral Argument: Gonzalez v. Google
Erik S. Jaffe
On February 21, 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral argument in Gonzalez v....
Courthouse Steps Oral Argument: Gonzalez v. Google
Erik S. Jaffe
On February 21, 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral argument in Gonzalez v....
Courthouse Steps Oral Argument: Gonzalez v. Google
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Gonzalez, Google, and Section 230: All on the same side?
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Panel 1 - Power Struggle: Private Digital Platforms and Speech—Where do we go from Biden v. Knight?:
2022 Annual Western Chapters Conference
Simi Valley, CAThe Government's Antitrust Lawsuits Against Google and Facebook
Nova Southeastern Student Chapter
Davie, FLTopics
Court Rejects Section 230 Immunity from State Intellectual Property Law Claims
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Apple's App Store Injunction is Less Than Epic
If you were to go by the recent coverage of the Epic v. Apple decision, you would...