Fellow, National Security Institute, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
Vince Vitkowsky chaired the Executive Committee of the Federalist Society’s International and National Security Law and Policy Practice Group for over a decade. He is also a Fellow at the National Security Institute of George Mason University Law School. Vince spent 45 years in private practice, primarily in AmLaw 100/200 firms and their spin-offs. His practice included domestic and international commercial arbitration and litigation, as well as cyber risks and liabilities. Vince's current focus is on national security policy, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, and counterterrorism. He has often written and spoken on national security and other public policy issues. Among other affiliations, Vince has been an Adjunct Fellow at the Center for Law and Counterterrorism of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a member of the Executive Committee of the American Branch of the International Law Association, and Co-Chair of the Committee on Interventions and Trial Observations of the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute. He received his B.A. from Northwestern University and his J.D. from Cornell Law School.
Adjunct Professor of Business, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, V, Dartmouth College
Bernard Avishai is an Adjunct Professor of Business at Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He lives in Jerusalem and the United States. He has taught at Duke University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and Dartmouth College, and was director of the Zell Entrepreneurship Program at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya in Israel. From 1998 to 2001 he was International Director of Intellectual Capital at KPMG LLP. Before this he headed product development at Monitor Group, with which he is still associated. From 1986 to 1991 he was technology editor of Harvard Business Review. A Guggenheim Fellow, Avishai holds a doctorate in political economy from the University of Toronto. Before turning to management, he covered the Middle East as a journalist. He has written many articles and commentaries for The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, Harvard Business Review, Harper's Magazine and other publications. He is the author of three books on Israel, including the widely read The Tragedy of Zionism, and the 2008 The Hebrew Republic.
Senior Fellow, Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Professor, Arizona State University
Orde Kittrie is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and professor of law at the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law at Arizona State University. He is a leading expert on nonproliferation law and policy with a focus on Iran sanctions, and an expert on international law, particularly as it relates to the Middle East. Kittrie is author of Lawfare: Law as a Weapon of War (Oxford University Press, 2016), which describes how and why law is becoming an increasingly powerful and prevalent weapon of war, through examples of lawfare use by the U.S., China, Israel, the Palestinians, as well as non-governmental organizations and individuals.
Prior to entering academia, Prof. Kittrie served for eleven years at the Department of State, where he received the Department’s Superior Honor Award and its Meritorious Honor Award. As the Department's lead nuclear affairs attorney, Prof. Kittrie helped negotiate five U.S.-Russia nuclear agreements and a UN treaty to combat nuclear terrorism. Prof. Kittrie also served as director of the department’s Office of International Anti-Crime Programs, as the department’s lead attorney for strategic trade controls, and as a lead attorney for public affairs and public diplomacy. He also served as Special Assistant to the Under Secretary of State for Economic, Business and Agricultural Affairs.
Prof. Kittrie has testified before various Senate and House committees, and served on a special National Academies of Science committee to make recommendations on preventing nuclear, chemical, and biological proliferation. He has also testified before several state legislatures regarding divestment and other legislation related to foreign affairs.
His work has been featured in leading outlets including The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and Foreign Affairs, and he has done on-air commentary for networks and stations including NBC, ABC, Fox, PBS, and Al Jazeera. He is also the author of numerous scholarly articles.
Prof. Kittrie has been a guest speaker of the International Atomic Energy Agency, NATO, various U.S. federal agencies, the British Foreign & Commonwealth Office, the Belgian Royal Military Academy, and the Royal Military College of Canada. He has also lectured at over a dozen universities including Harvard, Yale, Columbia University, Georgetown, Johns Hopkins, King’s College London, and the University of Pennsylvania.
Prof. Kittrie is a graduate of the University of Michigan Law School, and a former Ford Foundation fellow in Egypt, Israel, Jordan, and Syria. Prior to law school, he served as press spokesman and legislative assistant to U.S. Congresswoman Connie Morella. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
- See more at: http://www.defenddemocracy.org/about-fdd/team-overview/orde-kittrie/#sthash.aVtyFegm.dpuf
Professor of Law and Director, Center for the Middle East and International Law, George Mason University Antonin Scalia Law School
Professor of Law Eugene Kontorovich is one of the world’s preeminent experts on universal jurisdiction and maritime piracy, as well as international law and the Israel-Arab conflict. He is also the Director of Scalia Law School's Center for the Middle East and International Law. Professor Kontorovich joined the Scalia Law School from Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law where he was a Professor of Law from 2011 to 2018 and an Associate Professor from 2007 to 2011. Previously, he was a Visiting Professor at the University of Chicago from 2005 to 2007 and an Assistant Professor at George Mason School of Law from 2003 to 2007.
Professor Kontorovich has published over thirty major scholarly articles and book chapters in leading law reviews and peer-reviewed journals in the United States and Europe, including the American Journal of International Law, International Review of Law & Economics, Stanford Law Review, California Law Review, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, and Virginia Law Review. His scholarship has been cited in leading foreign relations and international law
His expertise is often sought out and quoted by major news organizations such the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, NPR News, The New Yorker, Los Angeles Times, and numerous television and radio programs. Prof. Kontorovich’s popular writings have appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, POLITICO, Commentary, Haaretz, and numerous other leading publications. He is also a regular contributor to the Washington Post’s Volokh Conspiracy legal blog.
He attended the University of Chicago for college and law school. After law school, he clerked for Judge Richard Posner on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. He has been honored with a fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, in 2011-12, and with the Federalist Society’s prestigious Bator Award, given annually to a young scholar (under 40), for outstanding scholarship and teaching.
Managing Partner, Bigley Ranish, LLP
Sean M. Bigley is a national security attorney and managing partner of Bigley Ranish, LLP. Mr. Bigley’s practice primarily encompasses defending federal employees and contractors in security clearance denial cases. He also provides personnel security consulting to major international defense and aerospace corporations, and prosecutes intelligence community whistle-blower retaliation cases.
Since first opening his firm in 2013, Mr. Bigley has grown it from a solo practice to a five-attorney partnership with employees in three states. Bigley Ranish, LLP attorneys regularly appear before administrative tribunals at agencies ranging from the CIA to the Department of State, representing in excess of 200 American intelligence officers, diplomats, armed forces personnel, and other security clearance holders each year around the world. In 2016 alone, Mr. Bigley and his colleagues represented clients in roughly forty states and a dozen countries.
The idea for this unique practice was borne out of Mr. Bigley’s prior service as a federal background investigator. Prior to and during law school, Mr. Bigley was an investigator for the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, where he conducted some of that agency’s most sensitive security investigations in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. Mr. Bigley has also served on the faculty of Chapman University, teaching national security and criminal justice courses with an emphasis in U.S.-European security cooperation. Earlier in his career, Mr. Bigley worked for several years in the White House and Department of Homeland Security under President George W. Bush.
A recognized expert in national security law, Mr. Bigley’s commentary on the topic is frequently sought by major media outlets such as Fox News, The New York Times, and CNN. He is a contributing writer for Clearancejobs.com and GovExec.com.
Mr. Bigley earned his Juris Doctorate from Chapman University School of Law. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree from Washington D.C.’s American University and a Master’s Degree from Boston University.
Managing Director, Lexpat Global Services
Adam R. Pearlman is the Founder and Managing Director of Lexpat Global Services, an international law and consulting services firm specializing in security, defense, investigations, compliance, and training. A Special Advisor to and member of the Executive Committee of the Federalist Society’s International and National Security Law Practice Group, he is National Security Law expert and a proven senior leader with more than fifteen years of experience across the U.S. Departments of Justice, Defense, and State, in the White House, and with the U.S. Federal Judiciary.
Most recently, he served as the Senior Advisor for Legal Policy in the State Department’s Bureau of Counterterrorism, where he counseled senior officials on matters covering the entire spectrum of programs and operations to counter terrorism and violent extremism. While participating in sensitive diplomatic engagements and helping to coordinate military operations, he also advised in the development of sanctions policy and initiatives to build legal and operational capacity in partner nations. Mr. Pearlman also managed the Bureau’s participation in federal litigation and led U.S. delegations in multilateral forums concerning criminal justice and rule of law.
A former Associate Deputy General Counsel of the Department of Defense, Mr. Pearlman was agency counsel for complex civil and criminal national security matters in federal and military courts, and led the Supreme Court and appellate unit of the team dedicated to litigating classified counterterrorism cases. His earlier service in the Department of Justice spanned four litigating divisions and the Office of the Deputy Attorney General. His diverse experience included reviewing complex international transactions and mergers, and advising on immigration removal proceedings, human rights abuses, and terrorist financing investigations. Mr. Pearlman also served with distinction in Iraq as an early advisor to the Iraqi High Tribunal’s prosecution of Saddam Hussein. He was a law clerk for The Honorable Royce C. Lamberth, and during law school interned in the White House Counsel’s Office.
Mr. Pearlman is a Term Member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a Visiting Fellow at the National Security Institute at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School, a member of the American Bar Association’s Africa Law Initiative Council, and a member of the Center for Strategic & International Studies’ Project on Nuclear Issues. He is a former National Security Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, vice chairman of the ABA Section of International Law’s committees on national security, and aerospace and defense, and also previously served as a liaison to the Board of Directors of the ABA’s Rule of Law Initiative. He has been co-editor of the U.S. Intelligence Community Law Sourcebook since 2011 and has published articles in the Harvard National Security Journal, Stanford Law & Policy Review, and Intelligence & National Security.
Mr. Pearlman earned his B.A., with honors, from UCLA, and his J.D., with honors, from The George Washington University Law School, where he was a member of the International Law Review. He also earned a Master of Science of Strategic Intelligence degree from the National Intelligence University, where he was the inaugural recipient of the Kornblum Award for national security law and ethics. Mr. Pearlman speaks and reads Portuguese at the intermediate level and holds certificates in international human rights law from the University of Oxford and in U.S. and international anti-corruption law from American University’s Washington College of Law. He is admitted to the State Bars of California and Virginia, as well as to the Bar of the United States Supreme Court.
Deputy Secretary of Transportation, US Department of Transportation
Steven G. Bradbury was sworn in as the Deputy Secretary of Transportation on March 13, 2025, following his confirmation by the U.S. Senate on March 11, 2025. In this role, he oversees the Department’s operating administrations and spearheads initiatives to ensure a safe, efficient, and modern transportation system that strengthens economic productivity and global competitiveness. Deputy Secretary Bradbury also assists Secretary Duffy in managing the Department’s activities, including its workforce of over 58,000 employees and an annual budget exceeding $109 billion.
Bradbury previously served as the 23rd General Counsel of the Department of Transportation from 2017 to 2021, as the Acting Deputy Secretary from 2019, and as Acting Secretary of Transportation in 2021. As General Counsel, he was the chief legal officer, advising on all legal matters and ensuring the integrity and compliance of the Department’s policies and programs.
Before rejoining DOT, Bradbury was a Distinguished Fellow at The Heritage Foundation from December 2022 to March 2025. He has extensive experience in the public and private sector, having served as Principal Deputy and Acting Assistant Attorney General at the U.S. Department of Justice and as a partner at Kirkland & Ellis LLP and Dechert LLP. Earlier in his career, he clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas and Judge James L. Buckley.
Bradbury holds a J.D., magna cum laude, from the University of Michigan Law School and a B.A. in English from Stanford University.
Professor of Law and Director, Center for the Middle East and International Law, George Mason University Antonin Scalia Law School
Professor of Law Eugene Kontorovich is one of the world’s preeminent experts on universal jurisdiction and maritime piracy, as well as international law and the Israel-Arab conflict. He is also the Director of Scalia Law School's Center for the Middle East and International Law. Professor Kontorovich joined the Scalia Law School from Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law where he was a Professor of Law from 2011 to 2018 and an Associate Professor from 2007 to 2011. Previously, he was a Visiting Professor at the University of Chicago from 2005 to 2007 and an Assistant Professor at George Mason School of Law from 2003 to 2007.
Professor Kontorovich has published over thirty major scholarly articles and book chapters in leading law reviews and peer-reviewed journals in the United States and Europe, including the American Journal of International Law, International Review of Law & Economics, Stanford Law Review, California Law Review, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, and Virginia Law Review. His scholarship has been cited in leading foreign relations and international law
His expertise is often sought out and quoted by major news organizations such the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, NPR News, The New Yorker, Los Angeles Times, and numerous television and radio programs. Prof. Kontorovich’s popular writings have appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, POLITICO, Commentary, Haaretz, and numerous other leading publications. He is also a regular contributor to the Washington Post’s Volokh Conspiracy legal blog.
He attended the University of Chicago for college and law school. After law school, he clerked for Judge Richard Posner on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. He has been honored with a fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, in 2011-12, and with the Federalist Society’s prestigious Bator Award, given annually to a young scholar (under 40), for outstanding scholarship and teaching.
Adjunct Professor of Business, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, V, Dartmouth College
Bernard Avishai is an Adjunct Professor of Business at Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He lives in Jerusalem and the United States. He has taught at Duke University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and Dartmouth College, and was director of the Zell Entrepreneurship Program at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya in Israel. From 1998 to 2001 he was International Director of Intellectual Capital at KPMG LLP. Before this he headed product development at Monitor Group, with which he is still associated. From 1986 to 1991 he was technology editor of Harvard Business Review. A Guggenheim Fellow, Avishai holds a doctorate in political economy from the University of Toronto. Before turning to management, he covered the Middle East as a journalist. He has written many articles and commentaries for The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, Harvard Business Review, Harper's Magazine and other publications. He is the author of three books on Israel, including the widely read The Tragedy of Zionism, and the 2008 The Hebrew Republic.
Senior Fellow, Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Professor, Arizona State University
Orde Kittrie is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and professor of law at the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law at Arizona State University. He is a leading expert on nonproliferation law and policy with a focus on Iran sanctions, and an expert on international law, particularly as it relates to the Middle East. Kittrie is author of Lawfare: Law as a Weapon of War (Oxford University Press, 2016), which describes how and why law is becoming an increasingly powerful and prevalent weapon of war, through examples of lawfare use by the U.S., China, Israel, the Palestinians, as well as non-governmental organizations and individuals.
Prior to entering academia, Prof. Kittrie served for eleven years at the Department of State, where he received the Department’s Superior Honor Award and its Meritorious Honor Award. As the Department's lead nuclear affairs attorney, Prof. Kittrie helped negotiate five U.S.-Russia nuclear agreements and a UN treaty to combat nuclear terrorism. Prof. Kittrie also served as director of the department’s Office of International Anti-Crime Programs, as the department’s lead attorney for strategic trade controls, and as a lead attorney for public affairs and public diplomacy. He also served as Special Assistant to the Under Secretary of State for Economic, Business and Agricultural Affairs.
Prof. Kittrie has testified before various Senate and House committees, and served on a special National Academies of Science committee to make recommendations on preventing nuclear, chemical, and biological proliferation. He has also testified before several state legislatures regarding divestment and other legislation related to foreign affairs.
His work has been featured in leading outlets including The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and Foreign Affairs, and he has done on-air commentary for networks and stations including NBC, ABC, Fox, PBS, and Al Jazeera. He is also the author of numerous scholarly articles.
Prof. Kittrie has been a guest speaker of the International Atomic Energy Agency, NATO, various U.S. federal agencies, the British Foreign & Commonwealth Office, the Belgian Royal Military Academy, and the Royal Military College of Canada. He has also lectured at over a dozen universities including Harvard, Yale, Columbia University, Georgetown, Johns Hopkins, King’s College London, and the University of Pennsylvania.
Prof. Kittrie is a graduate of the University of Michigan Law School, and a former Ford Foundation fellow in Egypt, Israel, Jordan, and Syria. Prior to law school, he served as press spokesman and legislative assistant to U.S. Congresswoman Connie Morella. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
- See more at: http://www.defenddemocracy.org/about-fdd/team-overview/orde-kittrie/#sthash.aVtyFegm.dpuf
Professor of Law and Director, Center for the Middle East and International Law, George Mason University Antonin Scalia Law School
Professor of Law Eugene Kontorovich is one of the world’s preeminent experts on universal jurisdiction and maritime piracy, as well as international law and the Israel-Arab conflict. He is also the Director of Scalia Law School's Center for the Middle East and International Law. Professor Kontorovich joined the Scalia Law School from Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law where he was a Professor of Law from 2011 to 2018 and an Associate Professor from 2007 to 2011. Previously, he was a Visiting Professor at the University of Chicago from 2005 to 2007 and an Assistant Professor at George Mason School of Law from 2003 to 2007.
Professor Kontorovich has published over thirty major scholarly articles and book chapters in leading law reviews and peer-reviewed journals in the United States and Europe, including the American Journal of International Law, International Review of Law & Economics, Stanford Law Review, California Law Review, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, and Virginia Law Review. His scholarship has been cited in leading foreign relations and international law
His expertise is often sought out and quoted by major news organizations such the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, NPR News, The New Yorker, Los Angeles Times, and numerous television and radio programs. Prof. Kontorovich’s popular writings have appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, POLITICO, Commentary, Haaretz, and numerous other leading publications. He is also a regular contributor to the Washington Post’s Volokh Conspiracy legal blog.
He attended the University of Chicago for college and law school. After law school, he clerked for Judge Richard Posner on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. He has been honored with a fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, in 2011-12, and with the Federalist Society’s prestigious Bator Award, given annually to a young scholar (under 40), for outstanding scholarship and teaching.
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