Executive Director, Consumers’ Research
Will Hild is the Executive Director of Consumers’ Research. Will has a decade of non-profit, legal and public policy experience. Prior to joining CR, Will served as the Deputy Director of the Regulatory Transparency Project. Before that, he worked at the Philanthropy Roundtable as the Director of External Affairs for the Culture of Freedom Initiative, and as the Chief Operating Officer of that Initiative when it grew to become a separate organization. He helped co-found the public interest law firm, Cause of Action, and served as the firm’s acting communications director for nearly a year.
Will received his J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center, and a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Florida. He is licensed to practice law in the Commonwealth of Virginia.
Will resides in Bethesda, MD, with his wife Cheryl, a practicing OB/GYN, and their son Liam.
Partner, Fusion Law, PLLC
Paul is the founding partner of Fusion Law, PLLC. He has extensive experience with state, federal, and global regulators building coalitions and implementing policies to promote innovation in financial services. He is responsible for designing and implementing the first state (Arizona) and federal (CFPB) FinTech sandboxes in the United States. He also designed the CFPB no-action letter and trial disclosure policies. He helped found the first global regulatory innovation coalition (Global Financial Innovation Network) and led the founding of the first U.S. regulatory innovation coalition (American Consumer Financial Innovation Network). He served on the Financial Stability Oversight Council subcommittee on digital assets. He also has drafted state-level laws on blockchain and utility tokens.
Paul also has significant enforcement and litigation experience. He led many multi-state consumer protection enforcement matters as Civil Litigation Division Chief at the Arizona Attorney General’s Office.
Prior to his government service, Paul practiced law in the areas of securities litigation and transactional work for approximately six years at two well-known law firms. He also clerked on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
First Assistant Attorney General, Texas
Brent Webster was appointed by Ken Paxton to be First Assistant Attorney General in 2020. As second in command to Ken Paxton, Brent’s job is to implement Paxton’s policy and litigation initiatives and manage the day-to-day operation of the Office of the Attorney General, which employs approximately 4200 Texans.
Since his appointment in October 2020, Brent has led a multi-pronged initiative at Ken Paxton’s request to (1) serve as the primary check on the federal governments overreach, (2) ensure that Texas is deterring wrongful conduct in the state through civil enforcement mechanisms, and (3) instill a trial-focused, litigation-first mentality across the agency to foster better results for Texas when involved in litigation. Brent has led Ken Paxton’s litigation against the federal government in 106 lawsuits, with a staggering win rate above 75%, he has doubled the average annual recovery through civil enforcement, amounting to over $426 million dollars in his first fiscal year and $548 million in his second fiscal year, and he has led an agency-wide initiative to empower OAG lawyers to aggressively pursue the State’s interests in court, whether against liberal municipalities, rogue school districts, or anyone else who violates the law in Texas. Most recently, Brent was the lead negotiator at mediation for the historic 1.4-billion-dollar settlement against Meta for the State of Texas.
Prior to joining the Attorney General's Office, Webster served in a variety of leadership roles including First Assistant District Attorney in Williamson County, Texas, Chief Operations Officer and General Counsel at an Austin start-up, and Senior Counsel at a litigation law firm. While serving as a Criminal Prosecutor for 10 years in Williamson he was awarded the “Crime Victim Advocate Hall of Fame Award” for outstanding service to crime victims.
Webster received his undergraduate education at Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas graduating in 2003, and received his legal education at University of Houston Law Center in 2005. He is licensed to practice law by the state of Texas and is admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court, and the federal district courts in the Western, Southern, and Northern districts of Texas.
Executive Director, Consumers’ Research
Will Hild is the Executive Director of Consumers’ Research. Will has a decade of non-profit, legal and public policy experience. Prior to joining CR, Will served as the Deputy Director of the Regulatory Transparency Project. Before that, he worked at the Philanthropy Roundtable as the Director of External Affairs for the Culture of Freedom Initiative, and as the Chief Operating Officer of that Initiative when it grew to become a separate organization. He helped co-found the public interest law firm, Cause of Action, and served as the firm’s acting communications director for nearly a year.
Will received his J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center, and a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Florida. He is licensed to practice law in the Commonwealth of Virginia.
Will resides in Bethesda, MD, with his wife Cheryl, a practicing OB/GYN, and their son Liam.
Partner, Fusion Law, PLLC
Paul is the founding partner of Fusion Law, PLLC. He has extensive experience with state, federal, and global regulators building coalitions and implementing policies to promote innovation in financial services. He is responsible for designing and implementing the first state (Arizona) and federal (CFPB) FinTech sandboxes in the United States. He also designed the CFPB no-action letter and trial disclosure policies. He helped found the first global regulatory innovation coalition (Global Financial Innovation Network) and led the founding of the first U.S. regulatory innovation coalition (American Consumer Financial Innovation Network). He served on the Financial Stability Oversight Council subcommittee on digital assets. He also has drafted state-level laws on blockchain and utility tokens.
Paul also has significant enforcement and litigation experience. He led many multi-state consumer protection enforcement matters as Civil Litigation Division Chief at the Arizona Attorney General’s Office.
Prior to his government service, Paul practiced law in the areas of securities litigation and transactional work for approximately six years at two well-known law firms. He also clerked on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
George Mason University Foundation Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
TODD J. ZYWICKI is George Mason University Foundation Professor of Law at Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University and Research Fellow of the George Mason Law and Economics Center. During the Fall 2023 semester he served as the Visiting Scholar in Conservative Thought and Policy for the Bruce Benson Center for the Study of Western Civilization at the University of Colorado-Boulder. From 2020-2021 he was Chair of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Taskforce on Federal Consumer Financial Law. In 2021 he was inducted to the American College of Consumer Financial Services Lawyers. He is also a Senior Fellow of the F.A. Hayek Program for the Advanced Study of Politics, Philosophy, and Economics at George Mason University and a former Senior Fellow of the Cato Institute. From 2015-2017 he was Executive Director of the George Mason Law and Economics Center. He served as Co-Editor of the Supreme Court Economic Review from 2006-2017. From 2003-2004, Professor Zywicki served as the Director of the Office of Policy Planning at the Federal Trade Commission. He has also taught at Vanderbilt University Law School, Georgetown University Law Center, Boston College Law School, Mississippi College School of Law, and China University of Political Science and Law.
Professor Zywicki clerked for Judge Jerry E. Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and worked as an associate at Alston & Bird in Atlanta, Georgia, where he practiced bankruptcy and commercial law. He received his J.D. from the University of Virginia, where he was executive editor of the Virginia Tax Review and John M. Olin Scholar in Law and Economics. Professor Zywicki also received an M.A. in Economics from Clemson University and an A.B. cum Laude with high honors in his major from Dartmouth College.
Professor Zywicki is also a Lone Mountain Fellow of the Property and Environment Research Center, a Fellow of the International Centre for Economic Research in Turin, Italy, and a former Senior Fellow of the Goldwater Institute. During the Fall 2008 Semester Professor Zywicki was the Searle Fellow of the George Mason University School of Law and was a 2008-09 W. Glenn Campbell and Rita Ricardo-Campbell National Fellow and the Arch W. Shaw National Fellow at the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace. He has lectured and consulted with government officials around the world, including Iceland, Italy, Japan, and Guatemala. In 2006 Professor Zywicki served as a Member of the United States Department of Justice Study Group on “Identifying Fraud, Abuse and Errors in the United States Bankruptcy System.”
Professor Zywicki is the author of more than 130 articles in leading law reviews and peer-reviewed economics journals. He is one of the Top 10 most-cited law professors in the field of Commercial Law and one of the Top 25 law professors on Twitter as measured by engagement levels. He is one of the Top 50 Most Downloaded Law Authors at the Social Science Research Network. He has testified multiple times before Congress on issues of consumer bankruptcy law and consumer credit and is a frequent commentator on legal issues in the print and broadcast media, including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, The Washington Post, The Washington Times, Nightline, The Newshour with Jim Lehrer, Neil Cavuto Show, Fox & Friends, Smerconish, Fox News @ Night with Shannon Bream, Fox Business, CNN, CNBC, Bloomberg News, BBC, The Diane Rehm Show, Lou Dobbs Show, Jerry Doyle Show, and The Laura Ingraham Show.
Professor Zywicki is former Chairman and a current member of the Board of Directors of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and is a member of the Board of Directors of the Institute for Humane Studies, Bill of Rights Institute, the Executive Committee for the Federalist Society's Financial Institutions and E-Commerce Practice Group, the Board of Trustees of the Foundation for Research on Economics and the Environment. He formerly served on the Governing Board and the Advisory Council for the Financial Services Research Program at George Washington University School of Business. He is currently the Chair of the Academic Advisory Council for the following organizations: The Bill of Rights Institute, the film “We the People in IMAX,” and the McCormick-Tribune Foundation “Freedom Museum” in Chicago, Illinois. He is a member of the Board of Visitors of Ralston College and was a member of the Board of Trustees of Yorktown University. From 2005-2009 he served as an elected Alumni Trustee of the Dartmouth College Board of Trustees.
John C. Hutchins Professor of Law; Director, Compliance Risk Management and Financial Integrity Institute; Co-Director, Center for Business Law; Associate Dean of Graduate Studies and Strategic Programs, Case Western Reserve University School of Law
Eric Chaffee is a professor at Case Western Reserve University School of Law, specializing in business law, taxation, and law & technology. He is a recognized educator and prolific writer in his field.
Assistant Professor Law, St. Thomas University College of Law
Itai Fiegenbaum is an Assistant Professor at St. Thomas University College of Law, where he teaches Business Associations and related commercial law courses.
L.L. Stewart Professor of Business Law, University of Oregon School of Law
Professor Manesh's scholarship focuses on the intersections of corporate, contract and LLC law. His work has been cited in leading casebooks and more than 40 court decisions, including opinions of the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Second, Ninth, and Eleventh Circuits, the Delaware Supreme Court, and the Delaware Court of Chancery. At Oregon Law, he teaches a variety of business law courses encapsulating corporations, LLCs, securities, contracts, and mergers and acquisitions. During his time at Oregon, he has received the Orlando J. Hollis Faculty Teaching Award, the law school's highest teaching honor, and the Herman Award for Outstanding Online Education from University of Oregon Office of the Provost. Prior to joining the Oregon law faculty, Professor Manesh was an attorney in the office of Davis Wright Tremaine LLP, focusing on corporate finance and business transactions. He earned his undergraduate degree in industrial engineering summa cum laude from the University of Arkansas and his law degree magna cum laude from Georgetown University, where he was named Order of the Coif.
Professor of Law and Rouse Chairholder, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
Professor Miller holds an Allison and Dorothy Rouse Chair in Law at the Antonin Scalia Law School. An elected member of the American Law Institute and a research member of the European Corporate Governance Institute, Professor Miller is also a Fellow and the Co-Director of the Program on Organizations, Business and Markets at the Classical Liberal Institute at the New York University Law School, an Adjunct Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, and an Affiliated Scholar at the James Wilson Institute on Natural Rights and the American Founding. Prior to joining George Mason University in 2025, Professor Miller was the F. Arnold Daum Chair in Corporate Finance and Law and a Professor of Law at the University of Iowa College of Law, where he had also served as the Associate Dean for Faculty Development.
Professor Miller’s research concerns corporate and securities law, the economic analysis of law, and the philosophy of law. He is particularly interested in applying economic concepts and methods to understand provisions in contracts between sophisticated commercial parties. He has written on material adverse effect clauses under Delaware law, the fiduciary duties of corporate directors, director oversight liability, the history and development of Delaware corporate law, and much more. His articles and working papers are available on his SSRN page.
Professor Miller has been cited by federal and state courts in the United States, including the Delaware Supreme Court and the Delaware Court of Chancery, as well as by the Commercial Court of the United Kingdom and the Ontario Superior Court of Justice (Commercial List) in Canada. Additionally, he is a member of the Committee on Mergers, Acquisitions & Corporate Control Contests and a former chair of the Corporation Law Committee of the New York City Bar Association.
Earlier in his career, Professor Miller was a Professor of Law at the Villanova University School of Law and the Associate Director of the Matthew J. Ryan Center for the Study of Free Institutions and the Public Good at Villanova University. He has been a Visiting Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, a Visiting Assistant Professor of Law at the Cardozo Law School, and an Olin Fellow in Law and Economics at the Columbia Law School.
Before entering academia, Professor Miller was an associate with Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz. He earned his J.D. from the Yale Law School where he was a Senior Editor of the Yale Law Journal and an Olin Fellow in Law, Economics and Public Policy. He earned his M.A. and M.Phil. degrees in philosophy from Columbia University, where he held a Mellon Fellowship in the Humanities from the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation and a Western Civilization Fellowship from the Intercollegiate Studies Institute. He earned his B.A. in philosophy and mathematics from Columbia College.
Cornelius Vanderbilt Chair in Law; Co-Director, Law & Business Program, Vanderbilt University Law School
Professor Rose is a Cornelius Vanderbilt Chair in law and the co-director of the Law and Business Program at Vanderbilt University. She is an expert on corporate and securities law and the institutional design of enforcement regimes. Prior to joining Vanderbilt’s law faculty in 2008, Professor Rose was a law clerk for Judge William Fletcher on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. She then served as a litigation associate with Gibson Dunn & Crutcher in San Francisco for five years, where her practice included the defense of state regulatory proceedings, SEC enforcement actions, and state and federal class action and derivative litigation. Her articles have been published in numerous top journals including Columbia Law Review, University of Chicago Law Review, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, and Northwestern University Law Review.
Wayne A. Abernathy, Wild Bells
Wayne A. Abernathy is a former U.S. Treasury Assistant Secretary for Financial Institutions under President George W. Bush, receiving the Alexander Hamilton Award in recognition of his service. In that office he was also a member of the Board of Directors of the Securities Investor Protection Corporation. Prior to his work at the Treasury, Mr. Abernathy served as Staff Director of the Senate Banking Committee, under Chairman Phil Gramm.
Following his service at the Treasury, Mr. Abernathy worked for 15 years on the staff of the American Bankers Association, as Executive Vice President for Financial Institutions Policy and Regulatory Affairs.
Previous experience with the Senate Banking Committee includes serving as Staff Director of the Subcommittee on Securities during 1995-1998. From 1989 until 1994, Mr. Abernathy was a Republican economist for the committee. He previously worked as a senior legislative assistant for Senator Gramm during 1987-1989 and as an economist for the Banking Committee’s Subcommittee on International Finance and Monetary Policy during 1981-1986, under Chairman Jake Garn.
Mr. Abernathy earned his bachelor’s degree in International Studies from The Johns Hopkins University in 1978. In 1980, he received a master’s degree in International Studies from the School of Advanced International Studies of The Johns Hopkins University.
The End of ESG Collusion? A Conversation on the Vanguard Case
Will Hild, Paul N. Watkins, Brent Webster
This week, investment fund manager The Vanguard Group committed to ending its ESG-driven investment initiatives, ceasing...
Your Data, Your Choice? Consumer Rights and Privacy in the Open Banking Debate
Will Hild, Paul N. Watkins, Todd J. Zywicki
Who controls your financial data and who decides how it can be used? As Americans...
Luncheon Panel: Developments in Delaware: DExit, SB21, Musk, and More
Eric C. Chaffee, Itai Fiegenbaum, Mohsen Manesh, Robert T. Miller, Amanda Rose
Prof. Eric Chaffee, John C. Hutchins Professor of Law; Director, Compliance Risk Management and Financial Integrity...
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Will Consumer Protection Without The Consumer Welfare Standard Stand?
Give the Biden Administration credit. In its final months, it has led a blitz of...
The Power and the Money: The Epic Clashes Between Commanders in Chief and Titans of Industry
Portland Lawyers Chapter
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Sectoral Bargaining for Rideshare Drivers in Massachusetts: Legally Dubious, Economically Disastrous
Voter initiatives can be a double-edged sword. While they often allow voters to bypass legislative...
The Resolution of Too Big to Fail
Wayne A. Abernathy
Note from the Editor: The Federalist Society takes no positions on particular legal and public...
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The Flaws in the Latest Proposal to Break Up Big Tech
A lot has been written about Senator Warren’s proposal to break up tech platforms. Two...
The Justice Department's bank settlement slush fund
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Dodd-Frank Appears In Cleveland
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