Partner, Mayer Brown LLP
Howard Waltzman focuses his practice on communications and Internet law and commercial transactions in the United States and other key international markets. He represents some of the nation's leading communications service providers, manufacturers, and trade associations in commercial transactions, as well as in regulatory and legislative matters, including with respect to Internet services, spectrum policy, privacy, video programming, wireline competition, and communications-related homeland security. He also represents investors on these and other communications-related matters.
Howard's experience includes drafting regulatory pleadings, comments and license applications; legislation, Congressional testimony, and legislative history; and commercial agreements. He appears personally before Members of Congress, Cabinet department officials, FCC Commissioners, and key Congressional and FCC staff. Howard also advises clients and assists them in presenting their positions during major FCC rulemakings, throughout the legislative process, and in the context of commercial transactions. He represents clients on matters involving the International Telecommunication Union's rules and procedures.
Prior to joining Mayer Brown in 2007, Howard served as Chief Counsel, Telecommunications and the Internet, for the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee (2003-2006) and as Telecommunications Counsel (2001-2003). Prior to working for the House Energy and Commerce Committee, he served as General Counsel for Senator Sam Brownback (1996-2001).
Senior Democratic Counsel, Communications and Technology Policy, U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce
Shawn Chang is currently Senior Democratic Counsel on Communications and Technology Policy for the Committee on Energy and Commerce of the U.S. House of Representatives serving Ranking Member Henry Waxman (D-CA).
Prior to joining Ranking Member Waxman’s staff, Shawn served as the deputy policy director of Free Press. He also served as legislative assistant to Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), Rep. Diane E. Watson (D-Calif.) and, Rep Patsy T. Mink (D-Hawaii). He holds his bachelor’s degree from the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service and received his J.D. from George Washington University Law School.
Policy Counsel, Consumers Union
Partner, Cooley
Rob McDowell advises telecommunications, media and technology clients on their most significant regulatory, legal and business matters. As a former commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and a highly regarded industry leader, Rob has been at the forefront of the most complex and groundbreaking issues facing telecommunications.
Mr. McDowell was first appointed to the FCC by President George W. Bush in 2006 and again by President Obama in 2009. He was unanimously confirmed both times by the US Senate. During his tenure, Mr. McDowell led efforts to expand consumer access to spectrum through his work on the two largest wireless auctions in US history at the time, played a key role in the 2009 digital television transition and led efforts to establish the first federal civil rights rule in a generation by creating a ban on racially discriminatory practices in broadcast advertising. He also worked extensively on several large and complex mergers, including Sirius/XM and Comcast/NBC-Universal.
He is an advocate for internet freedom, serving on the US delegation to the 2012 World Conference on International Telecommunications and exposing an international bid to regulate vital aspects of the Internet through multilateral treaty-based organizations. Mr. McDowell authored an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal opposing multilateral internet regulation that led to a resolution passed unanimously in the House and Senate, as well as the ultimate defeat of the international bid at a treaty negation in Dubai later that year.
Prior to the FCC, Mr. McDowell was senior vice president for CompTel, the Competitive Telecommunications Association, where he led advocacy efforts before several government agencies, the White House and Congress.
Mr. McDowell is often called upon for speaking engagements and frequently appears on TV and radio. He has written opinion pieces for many high-profile publications, including the Wall Street Journal and Washington Post.
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.
Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit
Judge Sentelle was appointed United States Circuit Judge in October 1987, served as Chief Judge from February 11, 2008 until February 11, 2013, and took senior status on February 12, 2013. He is a 1968 graduate of the University of North Carolina Law School. Following law school, he practiced with the firm of Uzzell & DuMont until he became an Assistant U.S. Attorney in Charlotte, N.C. in 1970. From 1974 to 1977, he served as a North Carolina State District Judge but left the bench in 1977 to become a partner with the firm of Tucker, Hicks, Sentelle, Moon & Hodge. In 1985, Judge Sentelle joined the U.S. District Court, Western District of North Carolina, in Asheville, where he served until his appointment to the D.C. Circuit. Judge Sentelle was the Presiding Judge of the Special Division for the Purpose of Appointing Independent Counsels (1992-2006). He also served as the Chair of the U.S. Judicial Conference's Executive Committee (2010-2013). Judge Sentelle served for over 20 years as President of the Edward Bennett Williams Inn of the American Inns of Court.
Executive Vice President of Public Affairs, Policy and Communica, Verizon Communications
Thomas J. Tauke is executive vice president - Public Affairs, Policy and Communications, a position he has held since May 2004. In this role, Tauke oversees media relations, employee communications, reputation management, philanthropy, corporate responsibility and external relations for Verizon. As the company's senior policy executive, he is responsible for the development of Verizon's public policy positions and advocacy at the local, state, federal, and international levels. He serves as a member of Verizon's Leadership Council.
Before joining NYNEX (a predecessor company of Verizon) in 1991, Tauke was a member of Congress, representing Iowa's Second Congressional District in the United States House of Representatives. During his congressional service from 1979 to 1991, he was a member of the Telecommunications Subcommittee. He served on the Energy and Commerce, Education and Labor, and Small Business Committees, as well as the Select Committee on Aging. He also was on the Pepper Commission on Comprehensive Health Care, the Infant Mortality Commission and the Biomedical Ethics Board.
Tauke served as a member of the Iowa General Assembly from 1975 to 1979.
Tauke is a past chairman of the U.S. Telecom Association where he is currently on the Board of Directors and is a member of the executive committee. He is chairman of the board of Home Technology Systems, Inc., in Dubuque, Iowa; serves as vice-chair of the Board of the Business Industry Political Action Committee; is member of the Board of Directors of Connected Nation, which partners with public and private entities to encourage broadband connectivity, and serves as chair of the Executive Committee of the Board of Jobs for America's Graduates, an organization that supports mentoring, job-training and education for young people; sits on the board of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce; and is chairman of the Board of Regents of Loras College in Dubuque, Iowa.
Tauke received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Loras College in 1972 and a Juris Doctorate from the University of Iowa College of Law in 1974.
Tauke and his wife, Beverly, have two children, Joseph and Elizabeth.
Partner, Mayer Brown LLP
Howard Waltzman focuses his practice on communications and Internet law and commercial transactions in the United States and other key international markets. He represents some of the nation's leading communications service providers, manufacturers, and trade associations in commercial transactions, as well as in regulatory and legislative matters, including with respect to Internet services, spectrum policy, privacy, video programming, wireline competition, and communications-related homeland security. He also represents investors on these and other communications-related matters.
Howard's experience includes drafting regulatory pleadings, comments and license applications; legislation, Congressional testimony, and legislative history; and commercial agreements. He appears personally before Members of Congress, Cabinet department officials, FCC Commissioners, and key Congressional and FCC staff. Howard also advises clients and assists them in presenting their positions during major FCC rulemakings, throughout the legislative process, and in the context of commercial transactions. He represents clients on matters involving the International Telecommunication Union's rules and procedures.
Prior to joining Mayer Brown in 2007, Howard served as Chief Counsel, Telecommunications and the Internet, for the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee (2003-2006) and as Telecommunications Counsel (2001-2003). Prior to working for the House Energy and Commerce Committee, he served as General Counsel for Senator Sam Brownback (1996-2001).
Senior Democratic Counsel, Communications and Technology Policy, U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce
Shawn Chang is currently Senior Democratic Counsel on Communications and Technology Policy for the Committee on Energy and Commerce of the U.S. House of Representatives serving Ranking Member Henry Waxman (D-CA).
Prior to joining Ranking Member Waxman’s staff, Shawn served as the deputy policy director of Free Press. He also served as legislative assistant to Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), Rep. Diane E. Watson (D-Calif.) and, Rep Patsy T. Mink (D-Hawaii). He holds his bachelor’s degree from the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service and received his J.D. from George Washington University Law School.
Policy Counsel, Consumers Union
Partner, Cooley
Rob McDowell advises telecommunications, media and technology clients on their most significant regulatory, legal and business matters. As a former commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and a highly regarded industry leader, Rob has been at the forefront of the most complex and groundbreaking issues facing telecommunications.
Mr. McDowell was first appointed to the FCC by President George W. Bush in 2006 and again by President Obama in 2009. He was unanimously confirmed both times by the US Senate. During his tenure, Mr. McDowell led efforts to expand consumer access to spectrum through his work on the two largest wireless auctions in US history at the time, played a key role in the 2009 digital television transition and led efforts to establish the first federal civil rights rule in a generation by creating a ban on racially discriminatory practices in broadcast advertising. He also worked extensively on several large and complex mergers, including Sirius/XM and Comcast/NBC-Universal.
He is an advocate for internet freedom, serving on the US delegation to the 2012 World Conference on International Telecommunications and exposing an international bid to regulate vital aspects of the Internet through multilateral treaty-based organizations. Mr. McDowell authored an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal opposing multilateral internet regulation that led to a resolution passed unanimously in the House and Senate, as well as the ultimate defeat of the international bid at a treaty negation in Dubai later that year.
Prior to the FCC, Mr. McDowell was senior vice president for CompTel, the Competitive Telecommunications Association, where he led advocacy efforts before several government agencies, the White House and Congress.
Mr. McDowell is often called upon for speaking engagements and frequently appears on TV and radio. He has written opinion pieces for many high-profile publications, including the Wall Street Journal and Washington Post.
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.
Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit
Judge Sentelle was appointed United States Circuit Judge in October 1987, served as Chief Judge from February 11, 2008 until February 11, 2013, and took senior status on February 12, 2013. He is a 1968 graduate of the University of North Carolina Law School. Following law school, he practiced with the firm of Uzzell & DuMont until he became an Assistant U.S. Attorney in Charlotte, N.C. in 1970. From 1974 to 1977, he served as a North Carolina State District Judge but left the bench in 1977 to become a partner with the firm of Tucker, Hicks, Sentelle, Moon & Hodge. In 1985, Judge Sentelle joined the U.S. District Court, Western District of North Carolina, in Asheville, where he served until his appointment to the D.C. Circuit. Judge Sentelle was the Presiding Judge of the Special Division for the Purpose of Appointing Independent Counsels (1992-2006). He also served as the Chair of the U.S. Judicial Conference's Executive Committee (2010-2013). Judge Sentelle served for over 20 years as President of the Edward Bennett Williams Inn of the American Inns of Court.
Executive Vice President of Public Affairs, Policy and Communica, Verizon Communications
Thomas J. Tauke is executive vice president - Public Affairs, Policy and Communications, a position he has held since May 2004. In this role, Tauke oversees media relations, employee communications, reputation management, philanthropy, corporate responsibility and external relations for Verizon. As the company's senior policy executive, he is responsible for the development of Verizon's public policy positions and advocacy at the local, state, federal, and international levels. He serves as a member of Verizon's Leadership Council.
Before joining NYNEX (a predecessor company of Verizon) in 1991, Tauke was a member of Congress, representing Iowa's Second Congressional District in the United States House of Representatives. During his congressional service from 1979 to 1991, he was a member of the Telecommunications Subcommittee. He served on the Energy and Commerce, Education and Labor, and Small Business Committees, as well as the Select Committee on Aging. He also was on the Pepper Commission on Comprehensive Health Care, the Infant Mortality Commission and the Biomedical Ethics Board.
Tauke served as a member of the Iowa General Assembly from 1975 to 1979.
Tauke is a past chairman of the U.S. Telecom Association where he is currently on the Board of Directors and is a member of the executive committee. He is chairman of the board of Home Technology Systems, Inc., in Dubuque, Iowa; serves as vice-chair of the Board of the Business Industry Political Action Committee; is member of the Board of Directors of Connected Nation, which partners with public and private entities to encourage broadband connectivity, and serves as chair of the Executive Committee of the Board of Jobs for America's Graduates, an organization that supports mentoring, job-training and education for young people; sits on the board of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce; and is chairman of the Board of Regents of Loras College in Dubuque, Iowa.
Tauke received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Loras College in 1972 and a Juris Doctorate from the University of Iowa College of Law in 1974.
Tauke and his wife, Beverly, have two children, Joseph and Elizabeth.
Partner, Mayer Brown LLP
Howard Waltzman focuses his practice on communications and Internet law and commercial transactions in the United States and other key international markets. He represents some of the nation's leading communications service providers, manufacturers, and trade associations in commercial transactions, as well as in regulatory and legislative matters, including with respect to Internet services, spectrum policy, privacy, video programming, wireline competition, and communications-related homeland security. He also represents investors on these and other communications-related matters.
Howard's experience includes drafting regulatory pleadings, comments and license applications; legislation, Congressional testimony, and legislative history; and commercial agreements. He appears personally before Members of Congress, Cabinet department officials, FCC Commissioners, and key Congressional and FCC staff. Howard also advises clients and assists them in presenting their positions during major FCC rulemakings, throughout the legislative process, and in the context of commercial transactions. He represents clients on matters involving the International Telecommunication Union's rules and procedures.
Prior to joining Mayer Brown in 2007, Howard served as Chief Counsel, Telecommunications and the Internet, for the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee (2003-2006) and as Telecommunications Counsel (2001-2003). Prior to working for the House Energy and Commerce Committee, he served as General Counsel for Senator Sam Brownback (1996-2001).
Executive Vice President of Global Governance, Chief Legal Officer and Corporate Secretary, Walmart Inc.
Rachel Brand is Walmart’s executive vice president of global governance, chief legal officer, and corporate secretary. She oversees the company’s global legal, compliance, ethics, corporate governance, digital citizenship, aviation, investigative, and corporate security functions, including Walmart’s Emergency Operations Center.
Immediately before joining Walmart, Rachel served as the United States Associate Attorney General and holds the distinction of being the first woman to serve in this role. She had previously served in the U.S. Department of Justice as the Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Policy during President George W. Bush’s administration. Her other government service includes an appointment by President Obama to serve as a Member of the U.S. Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, service as an Associate Counsel to the President at the White House, and judicial clerkships with Justice Charles Fried of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts and Justice Anthony Kennedy at the Supreme Court of the United States. In the private sector, Rachel was a lawyer in private practice at two law firms in Washington, D.C. and served as the Vice President and Chief Counsel for Regulatory Litigation at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Litigation Center.
Rachel serves on the board of directors for the Walmart Foundation and is the executive sponsor for Walmart’s Tribal Voices Associate Resource Group. Outside of Walmart, she serves on the board of directors for the International Justice Mission and is a member of The American Law Institute.
Rachel earned her Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Minnesota-Morris and her J.D. from Harvard Law School.
Chief Legal Correspondent, CBS News
Jan Crawford is CBS News' chief legal correspondent and contributes regularly to the "CBS Evening News," "CBS This Morning," and "Face the Nation," as well as CBS News Radio and CBSNews.com.
Crawford joined CBS News in October 2009. She had been a regular contributor to CBS News in 2005 to 2006.
Crawford is a recognized authority on the Supreme Court whose 2007 book, "Supreme Conflict: The Inside Story of the Struggle for the Control of the United States Supreme Court" (Penguin Press), gained critical acclaim and became an instant New York Times Bestseller. She began covering the Court in 1994 for the Chicago Tribune and went on to become a law and political correspondent for all ABC News programs, a Supreme Court analyst for The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer on PBS and a legal analyst for CBS News' "CBS Evening News" and "Face the Nation." She has reported on most of the major judicial appointments and confirmation hearings of the past 15 years and amassed crucial sources in the White House, the Justice Department and Congress along the way.
Chief Justice John Roberts granted his first network television interview to Crawford, just one of the rare interviews she was able to obtain with a total of five of the Court's current members, as well as retired Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. Crawford also sat down with then-86-year-old Justice John Paul Stevens in his first television interview, as well as Justices Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia and Stephen Breyer.
Crawford's in-depth reports on the Bush Administration's legal war on terror and her exclusive reports on controversial interrogation techniques used for terror suspects have received wide acclaim and been credited with being a catalyst for congressional hearings. Washingtonian Magazine named her one of Washington's top journalists.
Crawford began her journalistic career at the Tribune in 1987, joining the legal affairs beat in 1993, after her graduation from the University of Chicago Law School. The newspaper awarded Crawford its highest award in 2001, for her role on a team of reporters covering the presidential election of 2000, and the legal battles over the White House. She won the same prize for her 13-part series on the post-civil rights South, a project that brought her back to her native Alabama.
Crawford graduated from the University of Alabama in 1987. She has taught journalism at American University and frequently speaks about the Court to universities, law schools, legal organizations and civic groups across the country. She is a member of the New York Bar. She and her family live in Washington D.C.
United States Senator, Texas
Ted Cruz represents 28 million Texans in the U.S. Senate as a passionate fighter for limited government and economic growth. He has authored 39 legislative measures signed into law. Recent victories include expanding 529 college savings accounts to allow parents to save for K–12 public, private, and religious education, leading the effort to repeal Obamacare’s individual mandate, imposing sanctions on terrorists who use civilians as human shields, designating North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism, reauthorizing and reforming NASA, ensuring the availability of additional records to help solve civil rights cold cases, supporting thousands of Texas jobs, and leading the fight to confirm principled constitutionalists to our courts.
Senator Cruz is a graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law School, a former law clerk to Chief Justice William Rehnquist, and former solicitor general of Texas. He has argued nine cases before the Supreme Court. In November of 2018, he was re-elected to the Senate by the people of Texas.
Partner, Goldstein & Russell PC
Thomas C. Goldstein has argued 28 cases before the Supreme Court, including matters involving federal patent law, class action practice, labor and employment, and disability law. In addition to practicing law, Tom teaches Supreme Court Litigation at Harvard Law School and taught at Stanford Law School as well from 2004-2012.
In the Supreme Court and elsewhere, Mr. Goldstein litigates and advises clients in a broad range of issues. For example, he regularly litigates and lectures on questions of federal patent law. Mr. Goldstein frequently advises clients, litigates, and consults on legislative matters relating to the First Amendment. And he regularly represents parties in questions relating to the game of poker, including its lawfulness as a matter of federal and state law. Tom's clients include plaintiffs, criminal defendants, and major corporations such as BG Group, Home Depot, Humana, IMS Health, Nike, PokerStars, POM Wonderful, and Pemex.
In addition to practicing law, Tom founded, and is the publisher of, SCOTUSblog, which in 2013 became the only weblog ever to receive the Peabody Award for excellence in electronic media. It also won the 2013 Society of Professional Journalists (Sigma Delta Chi) prize for deadline reporting for its coverage of the Supreme Court’s healthcare ruling. In 2010, it became the first blog to receive the American Bar Association’s Silver Gavel Award for fostering the American public’s understanding of law and the legal system.
Tom has been repeatedly recognized as a leading member of the bar. In 2010, The National Law Journal named him one of the 40 most influential lawyers of the decade; Tom notably was ten years younger than any other law firm partner listed. Legal Times named him one of the “90 Greatest Washington Lawyers of the Last 30 Years” and praised him for “transforming the practice” of law before the Supreme Court. He is also included in both of the National Law Journal’s most recent lists of the nation’s 100 most influential lawyers (2006 and 2013). He has been repeatedly recognized as one of the nation’s top appellate advocates. GQ Magazine named him one of the 50 most powerful people in Washington, D.C.
Tom is an elected Fellow of the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers, and a member of the American Law Institute. He is involved with a number of professional organizations. He serves as the vice chair of the Amicus Committee of the ABA’s Intellectual Property Section and previously served for two years on the ABA’s Standing Committee on Amicus Curiae Briefs. In those capacities, he has authored several Supreme Court amicus briefs for the ABA. In addition, Tom serves on the boards of advisors of the Washington Legal Foundation and the Georgetown University Supreme Court Institute.
Before founding Goldstein & Howe in 1999, Tom practiced law at Boies & Schiller, LLP and at Jones Day Reavis & Pogue. Tom left the firm he founded in 2006 to create the Supreme Court Practice at Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, where he also was a partner and principal co-chair of the firmwide litigation practice. He returned to what is now Goldstein & Russell in 2011.
Tom clerked for the Honorable Patricia M. Wald of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
Professor of Law, Stanford Law School
Orin S. Kerr is a Professor of Law at Stanford Law School, where he teaches and writes in the areas of criminal procedure and computer crime law. Kerr earned mechanical engineering degrees from Princeton University and Stanford University before graduating with a J.D. from Harvard Law School. He is a former law clerk to Justice Anthony M. Kennedy at the United States Supreme Court and Judge Leonard I. Garth of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
Distinguished University Professor, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
University Professor Nelson Lund is the author of Rousseau’s Rejuvenation of Political Philosophy: A New Introduction. He has also written widely in the field of constitutional law, including articles on constitutional interpretation, federalism, separation of powers, the Second Amendment, the Commerce Clause, the Speech or Debate Clause, the Equal Protection Clause, and the Uniformity Clause. In addition, he has published articles in the fields of employment discrimination and civil rights, the legal regulation of medical ethics, and the application of economic analysis to legal institutions and legal ethics.
Professor Lund graduated from St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland, after which he received an MA in philosophy from the Catholic University of America and a PhD in political science from Harvard University. He left the faculty of the University of Chicago to attend its law school, where he served as executive editor of the University of Chicago Law Review and chapter chairman of the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies. After law school, he held positions at the United States Department of Justice in the Office of the Solicitor General and the Office of Legal Counsel. He also served as a law clerk to the Honorable Patrick E. Higginbotham of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and to the Honorable Sandra Day O'Connor of the United States Supreme Court. Following his clerkship with Justice O'Connor, Professor Lund served in the White House as associate counsel to the president from 1989 to 1992.
Since joining the faculty at George Mason University's Antonin Scalia Law School, Professor Lund has taught Constitutional Law, Legislation, Federal Election Law, Employment Discrimination, State and Local Government, and seminars on the Second Amendment and on a variety of topics in Jurisprudence.
Patrick Hotung Professor of Constitutional Law, Georgetown University Law Center
Randy Barnett is the Patrick Hotung Professor of Constitutional Law at Georgetown University Law Center. He has argued before the United States Supreme Court, tried murder cases to juries as a prosecutor in Chicago, and appeared as a prosecutor in the feature film Inalienable. He is the author of numerous books, including Restoring the Lost Constitution, The Structure of Liberty, Our Republican Constitution, and The Original Meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. He has published two memoirs, A Life for Liberty: The Making of an American Originalist, and Felony Review: Tales of True Crime and Corruption in Chicago. He is currently working on a new book, Freedom and Flourishing: Libertarianism for the Real World.
Partner, Mayer Brown LLP
Andrew Pincus is a partner in Mayer Brown LLP resident in Washington, D.C. His practice focuses on Supreme Court and appellate litigation.
Andy has argued 29 cases in the Supreme Court of the United States, including Lamps Plus, Inc. v. Varela and Frank v. Gaos in the October 2018 Term; as well as his recent victories in Impression Products, Inc. v. Lexmark International, Inc. (2017); Kindred Nursing Home Centers Limited Partnership v. Clark (2017); and Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins (2016). Law360 ranked Andy’s victory in AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion (2011), as the most important Supreme Court class action decision of the last 15 years.
Andy appears regularly before federal and state appellate courts and federal district courts. His practice also includes written and oral advocacy before Congress, other legislative bodies, and regulatory agencies regarding a variety of policy and legal issues.
A former Assistant to the Solicitor General in the United States Department of Justice (1984-1988), Andy co-founded and serves as co-director of the Yale Law School's Supreme Court Advocacy Clinic (2006-present), which provides pro bono representation in 10-15 Supreme Court cases each year.
While serving as General Counsel of the United States Department of Commerce (1997-2000), Andy had principal responsibility for the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and the Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act. He also participated in formulation of policy concerning privacy, domain name management, taxation of electronic commerce, export controls, international trade, and consumer protection.
Andy is a graduate of Yale College and Columbia Law School, where he was a Notes & Comments Editor of the Columbia Law Review. He served as Law Clerk to the Honorable Harold H. Greene, United States District Court for the District of Columbia (1981-1982).
President, Constitutional Accountability Center
Elizabeth is Constitutional Accountability Center’s President. From 2008-2016, she served as CAC's Chief Counsel, representing the Center as well as clients including preeminent constitutional scholars and historians, state and local government organizations, and groups such as the League of Women Voters and the AARP. She frequently participates in Supreme Court litigation and her legal brief writing has been recognized as “exemplary” by the Green Bag Almanac & Reader. Elizabeth has also argued several important cases in the federal courts of appeals on a range of issues, including immigration law, habeas corpus, and sovereign immunity. She joined CAC from private practice at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan in San Francisco, where she was an attorney working with former Stanford Law School Dean Kathleen Sullivan in the firm’s Supreme Court/appellate practice. Previously, Elizabeth was a supervising attorney and teaching fellow at the Georgetown University Law Center appellate litigation clinic, a law clerk for Judge James R. Browning of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and a lawyer at Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman, a law firm in Washington. She has appeared as a legal expert for NBC, ABC, PBS, CNN, Fox News, the BBC, Current TV, and NPR, among other outlets. Elizabeth has been quoted extensively in the print media and is a regular contributor to the ABA’s Preview of United States Supreme Court Cases. Her writings have appeared in The New York Times, Reuters, USA Today, Politico, CNN.com, Slate, and on numerous political and legal blogs, such as Huffington Post, SCOTUSblog, and ACSblog. She has also published in the UCLA Journal of Environmental Law & Policy, Syracuse Law Review, The Cato Institute’s Supreme Court Review, and the Yale Journal of International Law. Elizabeth is a graduate of Yale Law School.
Kenneth and Harle Montgomery Professor of Public Interest Law and Co-Director, Supreme Court Litigation Clinic, Stanford Law School
A productive scholar and an award-winning teacher, Pamela S. Karlan is co-director of the school’s Supreme Court Litigation Clinic, where students litigate live cases before the Court. One of the nation’s leading experts on voting and the political process, she has served as a commissioner on the California Fair Political Practices Commission, an assistant counsel and cooperating attorney for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, and a Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (where she received the Attorney General’s Award for Exceptional Service – the department’s highest award for employee performance – as part of the team responsible for implementing the Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Windsor). Professor Karlan is the co-author of leading casebooks on constitutional law, constitutional litigation, and the law of democracy, as well as numerous scholarly articles.
Before joining the Stanford Law School faculty in 1998, she was a professor of law at the University of Virginia School of Law and served as a law clerk to Justice Harry A. Blackmun of the U.S. Supreme Court and Judge Abraham D. Sofaer of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Karlan is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers, and the American Law Institute.
Partner, Mayer Brown LLP
Andrew Pincus is a partner in Mayer Brown LLP resident in Washington, D.C. His practice focuses on Supreme Court and appellate litigation.
Andy has argued 29 cases in the Supreme Court of the United States, including Lamps Plus, Inc. v. Varela and Frank v. Gaos in the October 2018 Term; as well as his recent victories in Impression Products, Inc. v. Lexmark International, Inc. (2017); Kindred Nursing Home Centers Limited Partnership v. Clark (2017); and Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins (2016). Law360 ranked Andy’s victory in AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion (2011), as the most important Supreme Court class action decision of the last 15 years.
Andy appears regularly before federal and state appellate courts and federal district courts. His practice also includes written and oral advocacy before Congress, other legislative bodies, and regulatory agencies regarding a variety of policy and legal issues.
A former Assistant to the Solicitor General in the United States Department of Justice (1984-1988), Andy co-founded and serves as co-director of the Yale Law School's Supreme Court Advocacy Clinic (2006-present), which provides pro bono representation in 10-15 Supreme Court cases each year.
While serving as General Counsel of the United States Department of Commerce (1997-2000), Andy had principal responsibility for the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and the Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act. He also participated in formulation of policy concerning privacy, domain name management, taxation of electronic commerce, export controls, international trade, and consumer protection.
Andy is a graduate of Yale College and Columbia Law School, where he was a Notes & Comments Editor of the Columbia Law Review. He served as Law Clerk to the Honorable Harold H. Greene, United States District Court for the District of Columbia (1981-1982).
United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit
James Harvie Wilkinson III is an Article III federal judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. He joined the Court in 1984 after being nominated by President Ronald Reagan.
Born in New York City, New York, Wilkinson graduated from Yale University with his Bachelor's degree in 1967. Wilkinson served in the United States Army from 1968 to 1969 and received his Juris Doctor degree from the University of Virginia School of Law in 1972.
On the recommendation of Virginia U.S. Senator John Warner, Wilkinson was nominated to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit by President Ronald Reagan on January 30, 1984 to a seat vacated by John Butzner, Jr.,. Wilkinson was confirmed by the Senate on August 9, 1984 on a Senate vote and received commission on August 13, 1984. Wilkinson served as the Chief Judge of the Court from 1996 to 2003.
Senior Democratic Counsel, Communications and Technology Policy, U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce
Shawn Chang is currently Senior Democratic Counsel on Communications and Technology Policy for the Committee on Energy and Commerce of the U.S. House of Representatives serving Ranking Member Henry Waxman (D-CA).
Prior to joining Ranking Member Waxman’s staff, Shawn served as the deputy policy director of Free Press. He also served as legislative assistant to Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), Rep. Diane E. Watson (D-Calif.) and, Rep Patsy T. Mink (D-Hawaii). He holds his bachelor’s degree from the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service and received his J.D. from George Washington University Law School.
Policy Counsel, Consumers Union
Partner, Cooley
Rob McDowell advises telecommunications, media and technology clients on their most significant regulatory, legal and business matters. As a former commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and a highly regarded industry leader, Rob has been at the forefront of the most complex and groundbreaking issues facing telecommunications.
Mr. McDowell was first appointed to the FCC by President George W. Bush in 2006 and again by President Obama in 2009. He was unanimously confirmed both times by the US Senate. During his tenure, Mr. McDowell led efforts to expand consumer access to spectrum through his work on the two largest wireless auctions in US history at the time, played a key role in the 2009 digital television transition and led efforts to establish the first federal civil rights rule in a generation by creating a ban on racially discriminatory practices in broadcast advertising. He also worked extensively on several large and complex mergers, including Sirius/XM and Comcast/NBC-Universal.
He is an advocate for internet freedom, serving on the US delegation to the 2012 World Conference on International Telecommunications and exposing an international bid to regulate vital aspects of the Internet through multilateral treaty-based organizations. Mr. McDowell authored an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal opposing multilateral internet regulation that led to a resolution passed unanimously in the House and Senate, as well as the ultimate defeat of the international bid at a treaty negation in Dubai later that year.
Prior to the FCC, Mr. McDowell was senior vice president for CompTel, the Competitive Telecommunications Association, where he led advocacy efforts before several government agencies, the White House and Congress.
Mr. McDowell is often called upon for speaking engagements and frequently appears on TV and radio. He has written opinion pieces for many high-profile publications, including the Wall Street Journal and Washington Post.
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.
Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit
Judge Sentelle was appointed United States Circuit Judge in October 1987, served as Chief Judge from February 11, 2008 until February 11, 2013, and took senior status on February 12, 2013. He is a 1968 graduate of the University of North Carolina Law School. Following law school, he practiced with the firm of Uzzell & DuMont until he became an Assistant U.S. Attorney in Charlotte, N.C. in 1970. From 1974 to 1977, he served as a North Carolina State District Judge but left the bench in 1977 to become a partner with the firm of Tucker, Hicks, Sentelle, Moon & Hodge. In 1985, Judge Sentelle joined the U.S. District Court, Western District of North Carolina, in Asheville, where he served until his appointment to the D.C. Circuit. Judge Sentelle was the Presiding Judge of the Special Division for the Purpose of Appointing Independent Counsels (1992-2006). He also served as the Chair of the U.S. Judicial Conference's Executive Committee (2010-2013). Judge Sentelle served for over 20 years as President of the Edward Bennett Williams Inn of the American Inns of Court.
Executive Vice President of Public Affairs, Policy and Communica, Verizon Communications
Thomas J. Tauke is executive vice president - Public Affairs, Policy and Communications, a position he has held since May 2004. In this role, Tauke oversees media relations, employee communications, reputation management, philanthropy, corporate responsibility and external relations for Verizon. As the company's senior policy executive, he is responsible for the development of Verizon's public policy positions and advocacy at the local, state, federal, and international levels. He serves as a member of Verizon's Leadership Council.
Before joining NYNEX (a predecessor company of Verizon) in 1991, Tauke was a member of Congress, representing Iowa's Second Congressional District in the United States House of Representatives. During his congressional service from 1979 to 1991, he was a member of the Telecommunications Subcommittee. He served on the Energy and Commerce, Education and Labor, and Small Business Committees, as well as the Select Committee on Aging. He also was on the Pepper Commission on Comprehensive Health Care, the Infant Mortality Commission and the Biomedical Ethics Board.
Tauke served as a member of the Iowa General Assembly from 1975 to 1979.
Tauke is a past chairman of the U.S. Telecom Association where he is currently on the Board of Directors and is a member of the executive committee. He is chairman of the board of Home Technology Systems, Inc., in Dubuque, Iowa; serves as vice-chair of the Board of the Business Industry Political Action Committee; is member of the Board of Directors of Connected Nation, which partners with public and private entities to encourage broadband connectivity, and serves as chair of the Executive Committee of the Board of Jobs for America's Graduates, an organization that supports mentoring, job-training and education for young people; sits on the board of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce; and is chairman of the Board of Regents of Loras College in Dubuque, Iowa.
Tauke received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Loras College in 1972 and a Juris Doctorate from the University of Iowa College of Law in 1974.
Tauke and his wife, Beverly, have two children, Joseph and Elizabeth.
Partner, Mayer Brown LLP
Howard Waltzman focuses his practice on communications and Internet law and commercial transactions in the United States and other key international markets. He represents some of the nation's leading communications service providers, manufacturers, and trade associations in commercial transactions, as well as in regulatory and legislative matters, including with respect to Internet services, spectrum policy, privacy, video programming, wireline competition, and communications-related homeland security. He also represents investors on these and other communications-related matters.
Howard's experience includes drafting regulatory pleadings, comments and license applications; legislation, Congressional testimony, and legislative history; and commercial agreements. He appears personally before Members of Congress, Cabinet department officials, FCC Commissioners, and key Congressional and FCC staff. Howard also advises clients and assists them in presenting their positions during major FCC rulemakings, throughout the legislative process, and in the context of commercial transactions. He represents clients on matters involving the International Telecommunication Union's rules and procedures.
Prior to joining Mayer Brown in 2007, Howard served as Chief Counsel, Telecommunications and the Internet, for the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee (2003-2006) and as Telecommunications Counsel (2001-2003). Prior to working for the House Energy and Commerce Committee, he served as General Counsel for Senator Sam Brownback (1996-2001).
Senior Vice President for Legal Studies, Cato Institute
Clark Neily is senior vice president for legal studies at the Cato Institute. His areas of interest include constitutional law, overcriminalization, civil forfeiture, police accountability, and gun rights. Neily is the author of Terms of Engagement: How Our Courts Should Enforce the Constitution’s Promise of Limited Government. His writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and National Review Online, as well as various law reviews, including the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, George Mason Law Review, Georgetown Journal of Law and Public Policy, NYU Journal of Law and Liberty, and Texas Review of Law and Politics. Neily is a frequent guest speaker and lecturer for the Federalist Society, Institute for Humane Studies, and American Constitution Society.
Before joining Cato in 2017, Neily was a senior attorney and constitutional litigator at the Institute for Justice and director of the Institute’s Center for Judicial Engagement. He is also an adjunct professor at the University of Texas School of Law, where he teaches constitutional litigation and public-interest law.
Neily served as co-counsel in District of Columbia v. Heller, the historic case in which the Supreme Court held for the first time that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to own a gun for self-defense.
Neily began his legal career as a law clerk to Judge Royce Lamberth on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. After that he spent four years in the trial department of the Dallas-based firm Thompson & Knight. Neily received his undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Texas, where he was Chief Articles Editor of the Texas Law Review.
David McIntosh is a leader for the principles of limited constitutional government and individual freedom. He is president of the Club for Growth, the leading advocate for economic liberty.
Former Congressman David McIntosh represented Indiana's 2nd Congressional District in the United States Congress from 1995-2001. As a Freshman, David chaired the Subcommittee on Regulatory Relief. He passed the Congressional Review Act and held extensive oversight and field hearings to build a record of public support for regulatory relief initiatives in energy, biotechnology, pharmaceutical, healthcare, transportation and technology sectors. Another issue that he championed was the elimination of the marriage penalty in the Federal Tax Code.
David served during the Reagan administration as special assistant to Attorney General Edwin Meese III, and as special assistant to President Reagan for Domestic Affairs. During the first Bush administration, he served as executive director of the President's Council on Competitiveness and assistant to the Vice President. The Competitiveness Council coordinated the cost/benefit review of major regulations and promoted legal reform measures.
David is a co-founder of the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy and serves on the Board of Directors. He remains active with several free market and conservative think tanks and grassroots organizations. David has also had stints at the Hudson Institute and as a Professor of Economics at Ball State School of Business.
Prior to the Club for Growth, David was a partner at Mayer Brown, LLP in Washington, DC.
David graduated from the University of Chicago Law School in 1983, and Yale University, BA, cum laude, in 1980. He and his wife, Ruthie, are the proud parents of Ellie age 17 and Davey age 13.
Executive Vice President of Global Governance, Chief Legal Officer and Corporate Secretary, Walmart Inc.
Rachel Brand is Walmart’s executive vice president of global governance, chief legal officer, and corporate secretary. She oversees the company’s global legal, compliance, ethics, corporate governance, digital citizenship, aviation, investigative, and corporate security functions, including Walmart’s Emergency Operations Center.
Immediately before joining Walmart, Rachel served as the United States Associate Attorney General and holds the distinction of being the first woman to serve in this role. She had previously served in the U.S. Department of Justice as the Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Policy during President George W. Bush’s administration. Her other government service includes an appointment by President Obama to serve as a Member of the U.S. Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, service as an Associate Counsel to the President at the White House, and judicial clerkships with Justice Charles Fried of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts and Justice Anthony Kennedy at the Supreme Court of the United States. In the private sector, Rachel was a lawyer in private practice at two law firms in Washington, D.C. and served as the Vice President and Chief Counsel for Regulatory Litigation at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Litigation Center.
Rachel serves on the board of directors for the Walmart Foundation and is the executive sponsor for Walmart’s Tribal Voices Associate Resource Group. Outside of Walmart, she serves on the board of directors for the International Justice Mission and is a member of The American Law Institute.
Rachel earned her Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Minnesota-Morris and her J.D. from Harvard Law School.
Chief Legal Correspondent, CBS News
Jan Crawford is CBS News' chief legal correspondent and contributes regularly to the "CBS Evening News," "CBS This Morning," and "Face the Nation," as well as CBS News Radio and CBSNews.com.
Crawford joined CBS News in October 2009. She had been a regular contributor to CBS News in 2005 to 2006.
Crawford is a recognized authority on the Supreme Court whose 2007 book, "Supreme Conflict: The Inside Story of the Struggle for the Control of the United States Supreme Court" (Penguin Press), gained critical acclaim and became an instant New York Times Bestseller. She began covering the Court in 1994 for the Chicago Tribune and went on to become a law and political correspondent for all ABC News programs, a Supreme Court analyst for The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer on PBS and a legal analyst for CBS News' "CBS Evening News" and "Face the Nation." She has reported on most of the major judicial appointments and confirmation hearings of the past 15 years and amassed crucial sources in the White House, the Justice Department and Congress along the way.
Chief Justice John Roberts granted his first network television interview to Crawford, just one of the rare interviews she was able to obtain with a total of five of the Court's current members, as well as retired Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. Crawford also sat down with then-86-year-old Justice John Paul Stevens in his first television interview, as well as Justices Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia and Stephen Breyer.
Crawford's in-depth reports on the Bush Administration's legal war on terror and her exclusive reports on controversial interrogation techniques used for terror suspects have received wide acclaim and been credited with being a catalyst for congressional hearings. Washingtonian Magazine named her one of Washington's top journalists.
Crawford began her journalistic career at the Tribune in 1987, joining the legal affairs beat in 1993, after her graduation from the University of Chicago Law School. The newspaper awarded Crawford its highest award in 2001, for her role on a team of reporters covering the presidential election of 2000, and the legal battles over the White House. She won the same prize for her 13-part series on the post-civil rights South, a project that brought her back to her native Alabama.
Crawford graduated from the University of Alabama in 1987. She has taught journalism at American University and frequently speaks about the Court to universities, law schools, legal organizations and civic groups across the country. She is a member of the New York Bar. She and her family live in Washington D.C.
United States Senator, Texas
Ted Cruz represents 28 million Texans in the U.S. Senate as a passionate fighter for limited government and economic growth. He has authored 39 legislative measures signed into law. Recent victories include expanding 529 college savings accounts to allow parents to save for K–12 public, private, and religious education, leading the effort to repeal Obamacare’s individual mandate, imposing sanctions on terrorists who use civilians as human shields, designating North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism, reauthorizing and reforming NASA, ensuring the availability of additional records to help solve civil rights cold cases, supporting thousands of Texas jobs, and leading the fight to confirm principled constitutionalists to our courts.
Senator Cruz is a graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law School, a former law clerk to Chief Justice William Rehnquist, and former solicitor general of Texas. He has argued nine cases before the Supreme Court. In November of 2018, he was re-elected to the Senate by the people of Texas.
Partner, Goldstein & Russell PC
Thomas C. Goldstein has argued 28 cases before the Supreme Court, including matters involving federal patent law, class action practice, labor and employment, and disability law. In addition to practicing law, Tom teaches Supreme Court Litigation at Harvard Law School and taught at Stanford Law School as well from 2004-2012.
In the Supreme Court and elsewhere, Mr. Goldstein litigates and advises clients in a broad range of issues. For example, he regularly litigates and lectures on questions of federal patent law. Mr. Goldstein frequently advises clients, litigates, and consults on legislative matters relating to the First Amendment. And he regularly represents parties in questions relating to the game of poker, including its lawfulness as a matter of federal and state law. Tom's clients include plaintiffs, criminal defendants, and major corporations such as BG Group, Home Depot, Humana, IMS Health, Nike, PokerStars, POM Wonderful, and Pemex.
In addition to practicing law, Tom founded, and is the publisher of, SCOTUSblog, which in 2013 became the only weblog ever to receive the Peabody Award for excellence in electronic media. It also won the 2013 Society of Professional Journalists (Sigma Delta Chi) prize for deadline reporting for its coverage of the Supreme Court’s healthcare ruling. In 2010, it became the first blog to receive the American Bar Association’s Silver Gavel Award for fostering the American public’s understanding of law and the legal system.
Tom has been repeatedly recognized as a leading member of the bar. In 2010, The National Law Journal named him one of the 40 most influential lawyers of the decade; Tom notably was ten years younger than any other law firm partner listed. Legal Times named him one of the “90 Greatest Washington Lawyers of the Last 30 Years” and praised him for “transforming the practice” of law before the Supreme Court. He is also included in both of the National Law Journal’s most recent lists of the nation’s 100 most influential lawyers (2006 and 2013). He has been repeatedly recognized as one of the nation’s top appellate advocates. GQ Magazine named him one of the 50 most powerful people in Washington, D.C.
Tom is an elected Fellow of the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers, and a member of the American Law Institute. He is involved with a number of professional organizations. He serves as the vice chair of the Amicus Committee of the ABA’s Intellectual Property Section and previously served for two years on the ABA’s Standing Committee on Amicus Curiae Briefs. In those capacities, he has authored several Supreme Court amicus briefs for the ABA. In addition, Tom serves on the boards of advisors of the Washington Legal Foundation and the Georgetown University Supreme Court Institute.
Before founding Goldstein & Howe in 1999, Tom practiced law at Boies & Schiller, LLP and at Jones Day Reavis & Pogue. Tom left the firm he founded in 2006 to create the Supreme Court Practice at Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, where he also was a partner and principal co-chair of the firmwide litigation practice. He returned to what is now Goldstein & Russell in 2011.
Tom clerked for the Honorable Patricia M. Wald of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
Professor of Law, Stanford Law School
Orin S. Kerr is a Professor of Law at Stanford Law School, where he teaches and writes in the areas of criminal procedure and computer crime law. Kerr earned mechanical engineering degrees from Princeton University and Stanford University before graduating with a J.D. from Harvard Law School. He is a former law clerk to Justice Anthony M. Kennedy at the United States Supreme Court and Judge Leonard I. Garth of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
Distinguished University Professor, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
University Professor Nelson Lund is the author of Rousseau’s Rejuvenation of Political Philosophy: A New Introduction. He has also written widely in the field of constitutional law, including articles on constitutional interpretation, federalism, separation of powers, the Second Amendment, the Commerce Clause, the Speech or Debate Clause, the Equal Protection Clause, and the Uniformity Clause. In addition, he has published articles in the fields of employment discrimination and civil rights, the legal regulation of medical ethics, and the application of economic analysis to legal institutions and legal ethics.
Professor Lund graduated from St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland, after which he received an MA in philosophy from the Catholic University of America and a PhD in political science from Harvard University. He left the faculty of the University of Chicago to attend its law school, where he served as executive editor of the University of Chicago Law Review and chapter chairman of the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies. After law school, he held positions at the United States Department of Justice in the Office of the Solicitor General and the Office of Legal Counsel. He also served as a law clerk to the Honorable Patrick E. Higginbotham of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and to the Honorable Sandra Day O'Connor of the United States Supreme Court. Following his clerkship with Justice O'Connor, Professor Lund served in the White House as associate counsel to the president from 1989 to 1992.
Since joining the faculty at George Mason University's Antonin Scalia Law School, Professor Lund has taught Constitutional Law, Legislation, Federal Election Law, Employment Discrimination, State and Local Government, and seminars on the Second Amendment and on a variety of topics in Jurisprudence.
The Telecommunications Act of 1996 in the Twenty-first Century
Howard Waltzman
I. Introduction Prior to 1996, local telephony was perceived to be a natural monopoly, subjecting...
A Post Argument Panel Discussion of the ACA Cases
Georgetown Student Chapter
Supreme Court Preview
Telecommunications: Rewriting the Telecomm Act: Has the Time Come?
Shawn H. Chang, Parul P. Desai, Robert M. McDowell, Maureen K. Ohlhausen, David B. Sentelle, Thomas J. Tauke, Howard Waltzman
Address Hon. Thomas J. Tauke, Executive Vice President of Public Affairs, Policy and Communications, Verizon...
Telecommunications: Rewriting the Telecomm Act: Has the Time Come?
Shawn H. Chang, Parul P. Desai, Robert M. McDowell, Maureen K. Ohlhausen, David B. Sentelle, Thomas J. Tauke, Howard Waltzman
Address Hon. Thomas J. Tauke, Executive Vice President of Public Affairs, Policy and Communications, Verizon...
Telecommunications: Rewriting the Telecomm Act: Has the Time Come?
2010 National Lawyers Convention
Washington, DCGun Policy and Litigation: The Aftermath of DC v. Heller
The Future of the Supreme Court
A Look Back at the October Supreme Court 2007 Term
Rachel L. Brand, Jan Crawford, Ted Cruz, Thomas C. Goldstein, Orin S. Kerr, Nelson Lund, Charles Rothfeld
Is the DC gun ban constitutional? Do Guantanamo Bay prisoners have a constitutional right to...
A Look Back at the October Supreme Court 2007 Term
Washington, DC