Partner and Chair, Appellate & Supreme Court Practice, Jenner & Block LLP
Ian Gershengorn is chair of Jenner & Block’s Appellate and Supreme Court Practice and is one of the nation’s premier Supreme Court and appellate advocates, having argued before the U.S. Supreme Court 16 times. Before rejoining the firm in 2017, he served in the Office of the Solicitor General during the Obama Administration, first as Principal Deputy Solicitor General and then as Acting Solicitor General of the United States. While there, Ian supervised the federal government’s briefing in a range of high-profile cases, including those involving the Affordable Care Act, Dodd-Frank, election law and redistricting, immigration reform, Title VII, and same-sex marriage.
Since leaving the federal government and returning to Jenner & Block, Ian has advised clients on a range of complex litigation and strategy problems, and he has appeared regularly in the state and federal appellate courts, representing arguing on behalf of corporate clients such as the Recording Industry Association of America, FirstTrust Bank, General Dynamics, Tsubaki, and Charter Communications.
Ian currently teaches a seminar on The Roberts Court at Harvard Law School.
Ian graduated Harvard College, magna cum laude, and Harvard Law School, magna cum laude, where he was a member of the Harvard Law Review. He served as a law clerk for Judge Amalya L. Kearse of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and then for Associate Justice John Paul Stevens of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Partner, Wiley Rein LLP
Tom has over 15 years’ experience in private practice and public service at the federal and state levels representing clients in high-stakes appellate and regulatory litigation matters. Tom has argued appeals in the Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, D.C. and Federal Circuits, and the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals.
Prior to joining Wiley, Tom was the General Counsel at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), where he served as the agency’s chief legal officer and briefed dozens of appeals – personally arguing two – in the federal courts of appeals in constitutional and administrative law challenges to the FCC’s orders. Tom managed a team of over 70 attorneys and staff and provided consultation and advice on a wide range of practice areas relating to the FCC’s work, including administrative law, appellate and trial litigation, bankruptcy, ethics, fiscal law, fraud, labor and employment, and public records requests. He has spent his career advising clients on all stages of federal agency rulemaking, adjudication, and litigation, in fields ranging from communications to environmental law to securities to labor and employment. He frequently speaks and writes on legal issues and his articles have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, National Review, Forbes, and Newark Star-Ledger.
Partner, Antitrust and Competition, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati
Maureen Ohlhausen is a partner in the Washington, D.C., office of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, where she advises industry-leading clients on complex antitrust and litigation matters, with a focus on high-profile cases. Sought after for her depth of experience on antitrust and Federal Trade Commission (FTC)-related issues, Maureen is known for her relationships with officials in the U.S. and abroad.
After finishing law school and clerking at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, Maureen joined the FTC in 1997. She held a series of roles at the agency over the next 12 years, rising to the position of Director of the FTC Office of Policy Planning, where she led the agency’s work on e-commerce and headed the FTC’s Internet Access Task Force, which produced an influential report analyzing competition and consumer protection legal issues in the broadband and internet sectors. She then went into private practice at a leading telecommunications law firm, where she headed the FTC practice group.
In 2012, Maureen was confirmed by the Senate as a Commissioner of the FTC and was appointed Acting Chairman in January 2017, a role she held until May 2018. As Acting Chairman, Maureen directed all aspects of the agency’s antitrust work, including merger review, conduct enforcement, and all consumer protection enforcement, with an emphasis on privacy and technology issues. Under her leadership, the FTC won several influential merger challenges in court and reached a number of key digital privacy settlements.
To date, Maureen is the only FTC Commissioner to have received the Robert Pitofsky Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of her contributions to the FTC.
Following the end of her term at the FTC, and immediately prior to joining Wilson Sonsini, Maureen was chair of the global antitrust and competition practice at Baker Botts, based in that firm’s Washington, D.C., office.
A recognized thought leader, Maureen is a frequent author and speaker, and is often quoted by leading print and broadcast media on antitrust, FTC, and privacy and data security matters. She has published dozens of articles on antitrust, privacy, intellectual property, regulation, FTC litigation, telecommunications, and international law issues in prestigious publications. During her tenure at the FTC and in private practice, she testified more than two dozen times before Congress, including before the Senate Commerce Committee and the House Energy and Commerce Antitrust Sub-Committee. She also testified before the Antitrust Modernization Commission.
President, Phoenix Center for Advanced Legal and Economic Public Policy Studies
Lawrence J. Spiwak is President of the Phoenix Center for Advanced Legal & Economic Public Policy Studies, a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization that studies broad public-policy issues related to governance, social and economic conditions, with a particular emphasis on the law and economics of the digital age. Mr. Spiwak is a prolific scholar whose work is frequently cited by policymakers, major news media and academic journals around the world, and is in the top 1.3%of authors downloaded on the Social Science Research Network. Mr. Spiwak currently serves as the co-chair of the Federal Communications Bar Association’s (FCBA) committee responsible for overseeing the FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS LAW JOURNAL and is a member of the program committee of the Telecommunications Policy Research Conference (“TPRC”). Mr. Spiwak is also the recipient of the FCBA’s Distinguished Service Award. Prior to joining the Phoenix Center, Mr. Spiwak was a Senior Attorney with the Competition Division in the FCC’s Office of General Counsel from 1994-1998. While in college, Mr. Spiwak was accepted into the Presidential Stay-In School program where he was responsible for delivering classified and confidential material among senior White House and Reagan Administration officials and received a full FBI security clearance. Mr. Spiwak received his B.A. with Special Honors from the George Washington University and his J.D. from the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. Mr. Spiwak is a member in good standing of the bars of New York, Massachusetts, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
Partner, Harris, Wiltshire & Grannis LLP
Christopher Wright has been the head of the appellate group at Harris, Wiltshire & Grannis LLP since 2001. He has represented clients in a wide variety of appellate cases, with an emphasis on cases involving complex technical issues and cutting-edge constitutional law and administrative law issues.
Prior to joining the firm, Mr. Wright served as General Counsel of the Federal Communications Commission, in the Office of the Solicitor General of the United States, and as a law clerk to Chief Justice Warren E. Burger and Ninth Circuit Judge Joseph T. Sneed. Mr. Wright is one of very few lawyers who has argued more than 25 cases in both the Supreme Court and the D.C. Circuit, and he has argued in many of the other federal circuits as well.
Mr. Wright is a former President of the Edward Coke Appellate Inn of Court, the nation’s preeminent association of appellate lawyers, and a former President of the Federal Communications Bar Association, the nation’s preeminent association of communications lawyers. Mr. Wright has taught the D.C. Bar CLE courses on oral advocacy and judicial review of agency decisions on multiple occasions. He is ranked as an outstanding appellate lawyer and/or communications lawyer by numerous publications. Mr. Wright was elected to the Order of the Coif at Stanford Law School and Phi Beta Kappa at Harvard College.
Partner and Chair, Appellate & Supreme Court Practice, Jenner & Block LLP
Ian Gershengorn is chair of Jenner & Block’s Appellate and Supreme Court Practice and is one of the nation’s premier Supreme Court and appellate advocates, having argued before the U.S. Supreme Court 16 times. Before rejoining the firm in 2017, he served in the Office of the Solicitor General during the Obama Administration, first as Principal Deputy Solicitor General and then as Acting Solicitor General of the United States. While there, Ian supervised the federal government’s briefing in a range of high-profile cases, including those involving the Affordable Care Act, Dodd-Frank, election law and redistricting, immigration reform, Title VII, and same-sex marriage.
Since leaving the federal government and returning to Jenner & Block, Ian has advised clients on a range of complex litigation and strategy problems, and he has appeared regularly in the state and federal appellate courts, representing arguing on behalf of corporate clients such as the Recording Industry Association of America, FirstTrust Bank, General Dynamics, Tsubaki, and Charter Communications.
Ian currently teaches a seminar on The Roberts Court at Harvard Law School.
Ian graduated Harvard College, magna cum laude, and Harvard Law School, magna cum laude, where he was a member of the Harvard Law Review. He served as a law clerk for Judge Amalya L. Kearse of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and then for Associate Justice John Paul Stevens of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Partner, Wiley Rein LLP
Tom has over 15 years’ experience in private practice and public service at the federal and state levels representing clients in high-stakes appellate and regulatory litigation matters. Tom has argued appeals in the Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, D.C. and Federal Circuits, and the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals.
Prior to joining Wiley, Tom was the General Counsel at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), where he served as the agency’s chief legal officer and briefed dozens of appeals – personally arguing two – in the federal courts of appeals in constitutional and administrative law challenges to the FCC’s orders. Tom managed a team of over 70 attorneys and staff and provided consultation and advice on a wide range of practice areas relating to the FCC’s work, including administrative law, appellate and trial litigation, bankruptcy, ethics, fiscal law, fraud, labor and employment, and public records requests. He has spent his career advising clients on all stages of federal agency rulemaking, adjudication, and litigation, in fields ranging from communications to environmental law to securities to labor and employment. He frequently speaks and writes on legal issues and his articles have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, National Review, Forbes, and Newark Star-Ledger.
Partner, Antitrust and Competition, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati
Maureen Ohlhausen is a partner in the Washington, D.C., office of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, where she advises industry-leading clients on complex antitrust and litigation matters, with a focus on high-profile cases. Sought after for her depth of experience on antitrust and Federal Trade Commission (FTC)-related issues, Maureen is known for her relationships with officials in the U.S. and abroad.
After finishing law school and clerking at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, Maureen joined the FTC in 1997. She held a series of roles at the agency over the next 12 years, rising to the position of Director of the FTC Office of Policy Planning, where she led the agency’s work on e-commerce and headed the FTC’s Internet Access Task Force, which produced an influential report analyzing competition and consumer protection legal issues in the broadband and internet sectors. She then went into private practice at a leading telecommunications law firm, where she headed the FTC practice group.
In 2012, Maureen was confirmed by the Senate as a Commissioner of the FTC and was appointed Acting Chairman in January 2017, a role she held until May 2018. As Acting Chairman, Maureen directed all aspects of the agency’s antitrust work, including merger review, conduct enforcement, and all consumer protection enforcement, with an emphasis on privacy and technology issues. Under her leadership, the FTC won several influential merger challenges in court and reached a number of key digital privacy settlements.
To date, Maureen is the only FTC Commissioner to have received the Robert Pitofsky Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of her contributions to the FTC.
Following the end of her term at the FTC, and immediately prior to joining Wilson Sonsini, Maureen was chair of the global antitrust and competition practice at Baker Botts, based in that firm’s Washington, D.C., office.
A recognized thought leader, Maureen is a frequent author and speaker, and is often quoted by leading print and broadcast media on antitrust, FTC, and privacy and data security matters. She has published dozens of articles on antitrust, privacy, intellectual property, regulation, FTC litigation, telecommunications, and international law issues in prestigious publications. During her tenure at the FTC and in private practice, she testified more than two dozen times before Congress, including before the Senate Commerce Committee and the House Energy and Commerce Antitrust Sub-Committee. She also testified before the Antitrust Modernization Commission.
President, Phoenix Center for Advanced Legal and Economic Public Policy Studies
Lawrence J. Spiwak is President of the Phoenix Center for Advanced Legal & Economic Public Policy Studies, a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization that studies broad public-policy issues related to governance, social and economic conditions, with a particular emphasis on the law and economics of the digital age. Mr. Spiwak is a prolific scholar whose work is frequently cited by policymakers, major news media and academic journals around the world, and is in the top 1.3%of authors downloaded on the Social Science Research Network. Mr. Spiwak currently serves as the co-chair of the Federal Communications Bar Association’s (FCBA) committee responsible for overseeing the FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS LAW JOURNAL and is a member of the program committee of the Telecommunications Policy Research Conference (“TPRC”). Mr. Spiwak is also the recipient of the FCBA’s Distinguished Service Award. Prior to joining the Phoenix Center, Mr. Spiwak was a Senior Attorney with the Competition Division in the FCC’s Office of General Counsel from 1994-1998. While in college, Mr. Spiwak was accepted into the Presidential Stay-In School program where he was responsible for delivering classified and confidential material among senior White House and Reagan Administration officials and received a full FBI security clearance. Mr. Spiwak received his B.A. with Special Honors from the George Washington University and his J.D. from the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. Mr. Spiwak is a member in good standing of the bars of New York, Massachusetts, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
Partner, Harris, Wiltshire & Grannis LLP
Christopher Wright has been the head of the appellate group at Harris, Wiltshire & Grannis LLP since 2001. He has represented clients in a wide variety of appellate cases, with an emphasis on cases involving complex technical issues and cutting-edge constitutional law and administrative law issues.
Prior to joining the firm, Mr. Wright served as General Counsel of the Federal Communications Commission, in the Office of the Solicitor General of the United States, and as a law clerk to Chief Justice Warren E. Burger and Ninth Circuit Judge Joseph T. Sneed. Mr. Wright is one of very few lawyers who has argued more than 25 cases in both the Supreme Court and the D.C. Circuit, and he has argued in many of the other federal circuits as well.
Mr. Wright is a former President of the Edward Coke Appellate Inn of Court, the nation’s preeminent association of appellate lawyers, and a former President of the Federal Communications Bar Association, the nation’s preeminent association of communications lawyers. Mr. Wright has taught the D.C. Bar CLE courses on oral advocacy and judicial review of agency decisions on multiple occasions. He is ranked as an outstanding appellate lawyer and/or communications lawyer by numerous publications. Mr. Wright was elected to the Order of the Coif at Stanford Law School and Phi Beta Kappa at Harvard College.
Partner and Chair, Appellate & Supreme Court Practice, Jenner & Block LLP
Ian Gershengorn is chair of Jenner & Block’s Appellate and Supreme Court Practice and is one of the nation’s premier Supreme Court and appellate advocates, having argued before the U.S. Supreme Court 16 times. Before rejoining the firm in 2017, he served in the Office of the Solicitor General during the Obama Administration, first as Principal Deputy Solicitor General and then as Acting Solicitor General of the United States. While there, Ian supervised the federal government’s briefing in a range of high-profile cases, including those involving the Affordable Care Act, Dodd-Frank, election law and redistricting, immigration reform, Title VII, and same-sex marriage.
Since leaving the federal government and returning to Jenner & Block, Ian has advised clients on a range of complex litigation and strategy problems, and he has appeared regularly in the state and federal appellate courts, representing arguing on behalf of corporate clients such as the Recording Industry Association of America, FirstTrust Bank, General Dynamics, Tsubaki, and Charter Communications.
Ian currently teaches a seminar on The Roberts Court at Harvard Law School.
Ian graduated Harvard College, magna cum laude, and Harvard Law School, magna cum laude, where he was a member of the Harvard Law Review. He served as a law clerk for Judge Amalya L. Kearse of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and then for Associate Justice John Paul Stevens of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit
Edith Jones graduated from Alamo Heights High School, where she was a National Merit Scholar. In 1971, she received her B.A. in Economics from Cornell University, graduating with honors. In 1974, she was awarded her J.D. at the University of Texas Law School, where she was a law review editor and received the Order of the Coif.
Judge Jones was the first female partner at Andrews, Kurth, Campbell & Jones (now Hunton Andrews Kurth) where she practiced various types of litigation and bankruptcy cases. Judge Jones went on the federal bench on June 1, 1985.
Judge Jones served as a former member of the National Bankruptcy Review Commission, and as a member of the Judicial Conference Commission on Bankruptcy Rules. Judge Jones served on the White House Fellows Commission. Judge Jones served on the board of the Sam Houston Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America. She has been a member of the Garland Walker Inn of Court in Houston for more than 20 years and its President for at least ten years. Judge Jones is also on the Board of the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Foundation.
Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit
Hon. Jennifer Mascott served as Associate Professor of Law and Director of the Separation of Powers Institute at The Catholic University of America’s Columbus School of Law before her appointment to the federal bench. On July 16, 2025, President Donald J. Trump nominated her to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit (Delaware), and she was confirmed on October 9, 2025.
Prior to her confirmation, Judge Mascott wrote extensively in administrative and constitutional law, statutory interpretation, and the separation of powers. Her scholarship—published in leading journals including the Stanford Law Review, Notre Dame Law Review, and Supreme Court Review—was cited by the U.S. Supreme Court and multiple federal courts. She also contributed Supreme Court commentary for NBC Universal.
Before joining Catholic Law, she was an Assistant Professor and Co-Director of The C. Boyden Gray Center at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School. In 2022 she became co-author of Beermann, Cass & Diver’s Administrative Law: Cases and Materials (9th ed.). In 2023 she received the Justice Joseph Story Award for excellence in scholarship, teaching, and advancing the rule of law.
Judge Mascott also served as a Council Member of the ABA’s Administrative Law Section and as a Public Member of the Administrative Conference of the United States. She frequently testified before Congress on executive power, regulatory reform, and judicial jurisdiction, and participated in multiple Supreme Court confirmation hearings.
From 2019 to 2021, she took leave from academia to serve as Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel and later as Associate Deputy Attorney General, where she argued federal cases and assisted with Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation. Earlier in her career, she clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas and for then-Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh on the D.C. Circuit.
Judge Mascott earned her J.D. summa cum laude from the George Washington University Law School and her B.A. from the same institution.
Charles Evans Hughes Professor of Law, Columbia Law School
THOMAS W. MERRILL is the Charles Evans Hughes Professor of Law at Columbia Law School. He previously taught at Northwestern University School of Law and Yale Law School. He has undergraduate degrees from Grinnell College and Oxford University, where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar, and a law degree from the University of Chicago. He clerked on the D.C. Circuit (for Chief Judge David Bazelon) and the U.S. Supreme Court (for Justice Harry Blackmun). From 1987-1990 he served as Deputy Solicitor General, U.S. Department of Justice. Professor Merrill’s writings related to property include Property: Principles and Policies (Foundation Press Second Edition, 2012) (with Henry E. Smith); Property: The Oxford Introductions to U.S. Law (Oxford U. Press, 2010); Property: Takings (Foundation Press, 2002)(with David Dana); and numerous articles, including “The Economics of Public Use” (Cornell Law Review 1986); “The Landscape of Constitutional Property” (Virginia Law Review 2000); and “The Character of the Governmental Action” (Vermont Law Review 2012). He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Jones Day, Partner
Yaakov Roth's goal is to strategically develop and effectively present the key legal arguments that will secure victory for clients through appellate advocacy and dispositive motions. He has represented clients in high-profile Supreme Court cases, argued appeals in the federal Courts of Appeals, and prepared motions to dismiss and for summary judgment across a range of substantive areas.
Yaakov's most recent Supreme Court experience includes vindicating former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell from political corruption charges, narrowing the geographic scope of private civil RICO lawsuits, and pursuing a major challenge to the Affordable Care Act from inception through high court review. At the appellate level, Yaakov's oral advocacy has included pressing a First Amendment challenge to an Ohio law prohibiting "false" campaign statements, seeking disclosure of a Justice Department policy manual concerning criminal discovery, and protecting the religious freedom rights of Death Row inmates. He has successfully defended his clients against defamation, antitrust, Title VII, and ERISA claims — including nationwide class actions — and pursued a host of challenges to federal, state, and local regulations. His ERISA experience also includes a series of withdrawal liability arbitrations and related litigation.
Yaakov speaks and writes about the Supreme Court and First Amendment issues and maintains an active pro bono practice centered around religious freedom and criminal justice.
Partner and Chair, Appellate & Supreme Court Practice, Jenner & Block LLP
Ian Gershengorn is chair of Jenner & Block’s Appellate and Supreme Court Practice and is one of the nation’s premier Supreme Court and appellate advocates, having argued before the U.S. Supreme Court 16 times. Before rejoining the firm in 2017, he served in the Office of the Solicitor General during the Obama Administration, first as Principal Deputy Solicitor General and then as Acting Solicitor General of the United States. While there, Ian supervised the federal government’s briefing in a range of high-profile cases, including those involving the Affordable Care Act, Dodd-Frank, election law and redistricting, immigration reform, Title VII, and same-sex marriage.
Since leaving the federal government and returning to Jenner & Block, Ian has advised clients on a range of complex litigation and strategy problems, and he has appeared regularly in the state and federal appellate courts, representing arguing on behalf of corporate clients such as the Recording Industry Association of America, FirstTrust Bank, General Dynamics, Tsubaki, and Charter Communications.
Ian currently teaches a seminar on The Roberts Court at Harvard Law School.
Ian graduated Harvard College, magna cum laude, and Harvard Law School, magna cum laude, where he was a member of the Harvard Law Review. He served as a law clerk for Judge Amalya L. Kearse of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and then for Associate Justice John Paul Stevens of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit
Edith Jones graduated from Alamo Heights High School, where she was a National Merit Scholar. In 1971, she received her B.A. in Economics from Cornell University, graduating with honors. In 1974, she was awarded her J.D. at the University of Texas Law School, where she was a law review editor and received the Order of the Coif.
Judge Jones was the first female partner at Andrews, Kurth, Campbell & Jones (now Hunton Andrews Kurth) where she practiced various types of litigation and bankruptcy cases. Judge Jones went on the federal bench on June 1, 1985.
Judge Jones served as a former member of the National Bankruptcy Review Commission, and as a member of the Judicial Conference Commission on Bankruptcy Rules. Judge Jones served on the White House Fellows Commission. Judge Jones served on the board of the Sam Houston Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America. She has been a member of the Garland Walker Inn of Court in Houston for more than 20 years and its President for at least ten years. Judge Jones is also on the Board of the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Foundation.
Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit
Hon. Jennifer Mascott served as Associate Professor of Law and Director of the Separation of Powers Institute at The Catholic University of America’s Columbus School of Law before her appointment to the federal bench. On July 16, 2025, President Donald J. Trump nominated her to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit (Delaware), and she was confirmed on October 9, 2025.
Prior to her confirmation, Judge Mascott wrote extensively in administrative and constitutional law, statutory interpretation, and the separation of powers. Her scholarship—published in leading journals including the Stanford Law Review, Notre Dame Law Review, and Supreme Court Review—was cited by the U.S. Supreme Court and multiple federal courts. She also contributed Supreme Court commentary for NBC Universal.
Before joining Catholic Law, she was an Assistant Professor and Co-Director of The C. Boyden Gray Center at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School. In 2022 she became co-author of Beermann, Cass & Diver’s Administrative Law: Cases and Materials (9th ed.). In 2023 she received the Justice Joseph Story Award for excellence in scholarship, teaching, and advancing the rule of law.
Judge Mascott also served as a Council Member of the ABA’s Administrative Law Section and as a Public Member of the Administrative Conference of the United States. She frequently testified before Congress on executive power, regulatory reform, and judicial jurisdiction, and participated in multiple Supreme Court confirmation hearings.
From 2019 to 2021, she took leave from academia to serve as Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel and later as Associate Deputy Attorney General, where she argued federal cases and assisted with Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation. Earlier in her career, she clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas and for then-Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh on the D.C. Circuit.
Judge Mascott earned her J.D. summa cum laude from the George Washington University Law School and her B.A. from the same institution.
Charles Evans Hughes Professor of Law, Columbia Law School
THOMAS W. MERRILL is the Charles Evans Hughes Professor of Law at Columbia Law School. He previously taught at Northwestern University School of Law and Yale Law School. He has undergraduate degrees from Grinnell College and Oxford University, where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar, and a law degree from the University of Chicago. He clerked on the D.C. Circuit (for Chief Judge David Bazelon) and the U.S. Supreme Court (for Justice Harry Blackmun). From 1987-1990 he served as Deputy Solicitor General, U.S. Department of Justice. Professor Merrill’s writings related to property include Property: Principles and Policies (Foundation Press Second Edition, 2012) (with Henry E. Smith); Property: The Oxford Introductions to U.S. Law (Oxford U. Press, 2010); Property: Takings (Foundation Press, 2002)(with David Dana); and numerous articles, including “The Economics of Public Use” (Cornell Law Review 1986); “The Landscape of Constitutional Property” (Virginia Law Review 2000); and “The Character of the Governmental Action” (Vermont Law Review 2012). He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Jones Day, Partner
Yaakov Roth's goal is to strategically develop and effectively present the key legal arguments that will secure victory for clients through appellate advocacy and dispositive motions. He has represented clients in high-profile Supreme Court cases, argued appeals in the federal Courts of Appeals, and prepared motions to dismiss and for summary judgment across a range of substantive areas.
Yaakov's most recent Supreme Court experience includes vindicating former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell from political corruption charges, narrowing the geographic scope of private civil RICO lawsuits, and pursuing a major challenge to the Affordable Care Act from inception through high court review. At the appellate level, Yaakov's oral advocacy has included pressing a First Amendment challenge to an Ohio law prohibiting "false" campaign statements, seeking disclosure of a Justice Department policy manual concerning criminal discovery, and protecting the religious freedom rights of Death Row inmates. He has successfully defended his clients against defamation, antitrust, Title VII, and ERISA claims — including nationwide class actions — and pursued a host of challenges to federal, state, and local regulations. His ERISA experience also includes a series of withdrawal liability arbitrations and related litigation.
Yaakov speaks and writes about the Supreme Court and First Amendment issues and maintains an active pro bono practice centered around religious freedom and criminal justice.
Partner and Chair, Appellate & Supreme Court Practice, Jenner & Block LLP
Ian Gershengorn is chair of Jenner & Block’s Appellate and Supreme Court Practice and is one of the nation’s premier Supreme Court and appellate advocates, having argued before the U.S. Supreme Court 16 times. Before rejoining the firm in 2017, he served in the Office of the Solicitor General during the Obama Administration, first as Principal Deputy Solicitor General and then as Acting Solicitor General of the United States. While there, Ian supervised the federal government’s briefing in a range of high-profile cases, including those involving the Affordable Care Act, Dodd-Frank, election law and redistricting, immigration reform, Title VII, and same-sex marriage.
Since leaving the federal government and returning to Jenner & Block, Ian has advised clients on a range of complex litigation and strategy problems, and he has appeared regularly in the state and federal appellate courts, representing arguing on behalf of corporate clients such as the Recording Industry Association of America, FirstTrust Bank, General Dynamics, Tsubaki, and Charter Communications.
Ian currently teaches a seminar on The Roberts Court at Harvard Law School.
Ian graduated Harvard College, magna cum laude, and Harvard Law School, magna cum laude, where he was a member of the Harvard Law Review. He served as a law clerk for Judge Amalya L. Kearse of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and then for Associate Justice John Paul Stevens of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Partner, Wiley Rein LLP
Tom has over 15 years’ experience in private practice and public service at the federal and state levels representing clients in high-stakes appellate and regulatory litigation matters. Tom has argued appeals in the Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, D.C. and Federal Circuits, and the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals.
Prior to joining Wiley, Tom was the General Counsel at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), where he served as the agency’s chief legal officer and briefed dozens of appeals – personally arguing two – in the federal courts of appeals in constitutional and administrative law challenges to the FCC’s orders. Tom managed a team of over 70 attorneys and staff and provided consultation and advice on a wide range of practice areas relating to the FCC’s work, including administrative law, appellate and trial litigation, bankruptcy, ethics, fiscal law, fraud, labor and employment, and public records requests. He has spent his career advising clients on all stages of federal agency rulemaking, adjudication, and litigation, in fields ranging from communications to environmental law to securities to labor and employment. He frequently speaks and writes on legal issues and his articles have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, National Review, Forbes, and Newark Star-Ledger.
Partner, Antitrust and Competition, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati
Maureen Ohlhausen is a partner in the Washington, D.C., office of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, where she advises industry-leading clients on complex antitrust and litigation matters, with a focus on high-profile cases. Sought after for her depth of experience on antitrust and Federal Trade Commission (FTC)-related issues, Maureen is known for her relationships with officials in the U.S. and abroad.
After finishing law school and clerking at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, Maureen joined the FTC in 1997. She held a series of roles at the agency over the next 12 years, rising to the position of Director of the FTC Office of Policy Planning, where she led the agency’s work on e-commerce and headed the FTC’s Internet Access Task Force, which produced an influential report analyzing competition and consumer protection legal issues in the broadband and internet sectors. She then went into private practice at a leading telecommunications law firm, where she headed the FTC practice group.
In 2012, Maureen was confirmed by the Senate as a Commissioner of the FTC and was appointed Acting Chairman in January 2017, a role she held until May 2018. As Acting Chairman, Maureen directed all aspects of the agency’s antitrust work, including merger review, conduct enforcement, and all consumer protection enforcement, with an emphasis on privacy and technology issues. Under her leadership, the FTC won several influential merger challenges in court and reached a number of key digital privacy settlements.
To date, Maureen is the only FTC Commissioner to have received the Robert Pitofsky Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of her contributions to the FTC.
Following the end of her term at the FTC, and immediately prior to joining Wilson Sonsini, Maureen was chair of the global antitrust and competition practice at Baker Botts, based in that firm’s Washington, D.C., office.
A recognized thought leader, Maureen is a frequent author and speaker, and is often quoted by leading print and broadcast media on antitrust, FTC, and privacy and data security matters. She has published dozens of articles on antitrust, privacy, intellectual property, regulation, FTC litigation, telecommunications, and international law issues in prestigious publications. During her tenure at the FTC and in private practice, she testified more than two dozen times before Congress, including before the Senate Commerce Committee and the House Energy and Commerce Antitrust Sub-Committee. She also testified before the Antitrust Modernization Commission.
President, Phoenix Center for Advanced Legal and Economic Public Policy Studies
Lawrence J. Spiwak is President of the Phoenix Center for Advanced Legal & Economic Public Policy Studies, a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization that studies broad public-policy issues related to governance, social and economic conditions, with a particular emphasis on the law and economics of the digital age. Mr. Spiwak is a prolific scholar whose work is frequently cited by policymakers, major news media and academic journals around the world, and is in the top 1.3%of authors downloaded on the Social Science Research Network. Mr. Spiwak currently serves as the co-chair of the Federal Communications Bar Association’s (FCBA) committee responsible for overseeing the FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS LAW JOURNAL and is a member of the program committee of the Telecommunications Policy Research Conference (“TPRC”). Mr. Spiwak is also the recipient of the FCBA’s Distinguished Service Award. Prior to joining the Phoenix Center, Mr. Spiwak was a Senior Attorney with the Competition Division in the FCC’s Office of General Counsel from 1994-1998. While in college, Mr. Spiwak was accepted into the Presidential Stay-In School program where he was responsible for delivering classified and confidential material among senior White House and Reagan Administration officials and received a full FBI security clearance. Mr. Spiwak received his B.A. with Special Honors from the George Washington University and his J.D. from the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. Mr. Spiwak is a member in good standing of the bars of New York, Massachusetts, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
Partner, Harris, Wiltshire & Grannis LLP
Christopher Wright has been the head of the appellate group at Harris, Wiltshire & Grannis LLP since 2001. He has represented clients in a wide variety of appellate cases, with an emphasis on cases involving complex technical issues and cutting-edge constitutional law and administrative law issues.
Prior to joining the firm, Mr. Wright served as General Counsel of the Federal Communications Commission, in the Office of the Solicitor General of the United States, and as a law clerk to Chief Justice Warren E. Burger and Ninth Circuit Judge Joseph T. Sneed. Mr. Wright is one of very few lawyers who has argued more than 25 cases in both the Supreme Court and the D.C. Circuit, and he has argued in many of the other federal circuits as well.
Mr. Wright is a former President of the Edward Coke Appellate Inn of Court, the nation’s preeminent association of appellate lawyers, and a former President of the Federal Communications Bar Association, the nation’s preeminent association of communications lawyers. Mr. Wright has taught the D.C. Bar CLE courses on oral advocacy and judicial review of agency decisions on multiple occasions. He is ranked as an outstanding appellate lawyer and/or communications lawyer by numerous publications. Mr. Wright was elected to the Order of the Coif at Stanford Law School and Phi Beta Kappa at Harvard College.
Partner and Chair, Appellate & Supreme Court Practice, Jenner & Block LLP
Ian Gershengorn is chair of Jenner & Block’s Appellate and Supreme Court Practice and is one of the nation’s premier Supreme Court and appellate advocates, having argued before the U.S. Supreme Court 16 times. Before rejoining the firm in 2017, he served in the Office of the Solicitor General during the Obama Administration, first as Principal Deputy Solicitor General and then as Acting Solicitor General of the United States. While there, Ian supervised the federal government’s briefing in a range of high-profile cases, including those involving the Affordable Care Act, Dodd-Frank, election law and redistricting, immigration reform, Title VII, and same-sex marriage.
Since leaving the federal government and returning to Jenner & Block, Ian has advised clients on a range of complex litigation and strategy problems, and he has appeared regularly in the state and federal appellate courts, representing arguing on behalf of corporate clients such as the Recording Industry Association of America, FirstTrust Bank, General Dynamics, Tsubaki, and Charter Communications.
Ian currently teaches a seminar on The Roberts Court at Harvard Law School.
Ian graduated Harvard College, magna cum laude, and Harvard Law School, magna cum laude, where he was a member of the Harvard Law Review. He served as a law clerk for Judge Amalya L. Kearse of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and then for Associate Justice John Paul Stevens of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit
Edith Jones graduated from Alamo Heights High School, where she was a National Merit Scholar. In 1971, she received her B.A. in Economics from Cornell University, graduating with honors. In 1974, she was awarded her J.D. at the University of Texas Law School, where she was a law review editor and received the Order of the Coif.
Judge Jones was the first female partner at Andrews, Kurth, Campbell & Jones (now Hunton Andrews Kurth) where she practiced various types of litigation and bankruptcy cases. Judge Jones went on the federal bench on June 1, 1985.
Judge Jones served as a former member of the National Bankruptcy Review Commission, and as a member of the Judicial Conference Commission on Bankruptcy Rules. Judge Jones served on the White House Fellows Commission. Judge Jones served on the board of the Sam Houston Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America. She has been a member of the Garland Walker Inn of Court in Houston for more than 20 years and its President for at least ten years. Judge Jones is also on the Board of the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Foundation.
Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit
Hon. Jennifer Mascott served as Associate Professor of Law and Director of the Separation of Powers Institute at The Catholic University of America’s Columbus School of Law before her appointment to the federal bench. On July 16, 2025, President Donald J. Trump nominated her to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit (Delaware), and she was confirmed on October 9, 2025.
Prior to her confirmation, Judge Mascott wrote extensively in administrative and constitutional law, statutory interpretation, and the separation of powers. Her scholarship—published in leading journals including the Stanford Law Review, Notre Dame Law Review, and Supreme Court Review—was cited by the U.S. Supreme Court and multiple federal courts. She also contributed Supreme Court commentary for NBC Universal.
Before joining Catholic Law, she was an Assistant Professor and Co-Director of The C. Boyden Gray Center at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School. In 2022 she became co-author of Beermann, Cass & Diver’s Administrative Law: Cases and Materials (9th ed.). In 2023 she received the Justice Joseph Story Award for excellence in scholarship, teaching, and advancing the rule of law.
Judge Mascott also served as a Council Member of the ABA’s Administrative Law Section and as a Public Member of the Administrative Conference of the United States. She frequently testified before Congress on executive power, regulatory reform, and judicial jurisdiction, and participated in multiple Supreme Court confirmation hearings.
From 2019 to 2021, she took leave from academia to serve as Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel and later as Associate Deputy Attorney General, where she argued federal cases and assisted with Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation. Earlier in her career, she clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas and for then-Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh on the D.C. Circuit.
Judge Mascott earned her J.D. summa cum laude from the George Washington University Law School and her B.A. from the same institution.
Charles Evans Hughes Professor of Law, Columbia Law School
THOMAS W. MERRILL is the Charles Evans Hughes Professor of Law at Columbia Law School. He previously taught at Northwestern University School of Law and Yale Law School. He has undergraduate degrees from Grinnell College and Oxford University, where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar, and a law degree from the University of Chicago. He clerked on the D.C. Circuit (for Chief Judge David Bazelon) and the U.S. Supreme Court (for Justice Harry Blackmun). From 1987-1990 he served as Deputy Solicitor General, U.S. Department of Justice. Professor Merrill’s writings related to property include Property: Principles and Policies (Foundation Press Second Edition, 2012) (with Henry E. Smith); Property: The Oxford Introductions to U.S. Law (Oxford U. Press, 2010); Property: Takings (Foundation Press, 2002)(with David Dana); and numerous articles, including “The Economics of Public Use” (Cornell Law Review 1986); “The Landscape of Constitutional Property” (Virginia Law Review 2000); and “The Character of the Governmental Action” (Vermont Law Review 2012). He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Jones Day, Partner
Yaakov Roth's goal is to strategically develop and effectively present the key legal arguments that will secure victory for clients through appellate advocacy and dispositive motions. He has represented clients in high-profile Supreme Court cases, argued appeals in the federal Courts of Appeals, and prepared motions to dismiss and for summary judgment across a range of substantive areas.
Yaakov's most recent Supreme Court experience includes vindicating former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell from political corruption charges, narrowing the geographic scope of private civil RICO lawsuits, and pursuing a major challenge to the Affordable Care Act from inception through high court review. At the appellate level, Yaakov's oral advocacy has included pressing a First Amendment challenge to an Ohio law prohibiting "false" campaign statements, seeking disclosure of a Justice Department policy manual concerning criminal discovery, and protecting the religious freedom rights of Death Row inmates. He has successfully defended his clients against defamation, antitrust, Title VII, and ERISA claims — including nationwide class actions — and pursued a host of challenges to federal, state, and local regulations. His ERISA experience also includes a series of withdrawal liability arbitrations and related litigation.
Yaakov speaks and writes about the Supreme Court and First Amendment issues and maintains an active pro bono practice centered around religious freedom and criminal justice.
Topics
The Major Questions Doctrine and the Tech and Telecom Sectors After West Virginia v. EPA
Last year, the Supreme Court issued its landmark decision in West Virginia v. EPA in...
Major Questions Doctrine and the Tech and Telecom Sectors After West Virginia v. EPA
Ian Heath Gershengorn, Thomas M. Johnson, Maureen K. Ohlhausen, Lawrence J. Spiwak, Christopher J. Wright
Last year, the Supreme Court issued a landmark decision in West Virginia v. EPA, in...
Major Questions Doctrine and the Tech and Telecom Sectors After West Virginia v. EPA
Ian Heath Gershengorn, Thomas M. Johnson, Maureen K. Ohlhausen, Lawrence J. Spiwak, Christopher J. Wright
Last year, the Supreme Court issued a landmark decision in West Virginia v. EPA, in...
Major Questions Doctrine and the Tech and Telecom Sectors After West Virginia v. EPA
TeleforumThe Major Questions Doctrine: West Virginia v. EPA
Ian Heath Gershengorn, Edith H. Jones, Jenn L. Mascott, Thomas W. Merrill, Yaakov M. Roth
Supreme Court actions during the 2021-2022 term - opinions, grants and denials of petitions for...
The Major Questions Doctrine: West Virginia v. EPA
Ian Heath Gershengorn, Edith H. Jones, Jenn L. Mascott, Thomas W. Merrill, Yaakov M. Roth
Supreme Court actions during the 2021-2022 term - opinions, grants and denials of petitions for...
The Major Questions Doctrine: West Virginia v. EPA
National Lawyers Conference 2022
Washington, DC2022 National Lawyers Convention (closed, do not touch)
The Current State of the Legal Profession
Washington, DCTopics
A Strong Showing for Evenwel Plaintiffs in One-Person, One-Vote Argument
Why shouldn’t vote weight matter in drawing district lines, “especially when voter-based apportionment…is being substantially...