48th Vice President of the United States
Michael R. Pence was born in Columbus, Indiana, on June 7, 1959, one of six children born to Edward and Nancy Pence. As a young boy he had a front row seat to the American Dream. After his grandfather immigrated to the United States when he was 17, his family settled in the Midwest. The future Vice President watched his Mom and Dad build everything that matters—a family, a business, and a good name. Sitting at the feet of his mother and his father, who started a successful convenience store business in their small Indiana town, he was raised to believe in the importance of hard work, faith, and family.
Vice President Pence set off for Hanover College, earning his bachelor’s degree in history in 1981. While there, he renewed his Christian faith which remains the driving force in his life. He later attended Indiana University School of Law and met the love of his life, Second Lady Karen Pence.
After graduating, Vice President Pence practiced law, led the Indiana Policy Review Foundation, and began hosting The Mike Pence Show, a syndicated talk radio show and a weekly television public affairs program in Indiana. Along the way he became the proud father to three children, Michael, Charlotte, and Audrey.
Growing up in Indiana, surrounded by good, hardworking Hoosiers, Vice President Pence always knew that he needed to give back to the state and the country that had given him so much. In 2000, he launched a successful bid for his local congressional seat, entering the United States House of Representatives at the age of 40.
The people of East-Central Indiana elected Vice President Pence six times to represent them in Congress. On Capitol Hill he established himself as a champion of limited government, fiscal responsibility, economic development, educational opportunity, and the U.S. Constitution. His colleagues quickly recognized his leadership ability and unanimously elected him to serve as Chairman of the House Republican Study Committee and House Republican Conference Chairman. In this role, the Vice President helped make government smaller and more effective, reduce spending, and return power to state and local governments.
In 2013, Vice President Pence left the nation’s capital when Hoosiers elected him the 50th Governor of Indiana. He brought the same limited government and low tax philosophy to the Indiana Statehouse. As Governor, he enacted the largest income tax cut in Indiana history, lowering individual income tax rates, the business personal property tax, and the corporate income tax in order to strengthen the State’s competitive edge and attract new investment and good-paying jobs. Due to his relentless focus on jobs, the state’s unemployment rate fell by half during his four years in office, and at the end of his term, more Hoosiers were working than at any point in the state’s 200-year history.
As Governor of Indiana, Vice President Pence increased school funding, expanded school choice, and created the first state-funded Pre-K plan in Indiana history. He made career and technical education a priority in every high school. Under Vice President Pence’s leadership, Indiana, known as “The Crossroads of America,” invested more than $800 million in new money for roads and bridges across the state. Despite the record tax cuts and new investments in roads and schools, the state remained fiscally responsible, as the Vice President worked with members of the Indiana General Assembly to pass two honestly balanced budgets that left the state with strong reserves and AAA credit ratings that were the envy of the nation.
It was Indiana’s success story, Vice President Pence’s record of legislative and executive experience, and his strong family values that prompted President Donald Trump to select Mike Pence as his running mate in July 2016. The American people elected President Donald Trump and Vice President Pence on November 8, 2016. President Donald Trump and Vice President Pence entered office on January 20, 2017.
In February 2021, Vice President Mike Pence joined the Heritage Foundation as a distinguished visiting fellow. The Heritage Foundation helped shape Vice President Mike Pence’s conservative philosophy for decades and played a pivotal role advancing conservative policies throughout the Trump Administration. Vice President Pence also joined Young America’s Foundation as the Ronald Reagan Presidential Scholar. Long before Mike Pence became Vice President to President Donald Trump, the vision and leadership of Ronald Reagan inspired his youth.
Vice President Mike Pence remains grateful for the grace of God, the love and support of his family, and the blessings of liberty that are every American’s birthright.
Dean, Delaware Law School
Dean Todd Clark is Dean of Delaware Law School. He joins Delaware Law School after serving as Associate Dean of Academic Affairs & Professor of Law at St. Thomas University Benjamin L. Crump College of Law. Before St. Thomas, Dean Clark was Professor of Law at North Carolina Central University School of Law where he taught Business Associations, Contracts, Corporate Justice, Employment Discrimination, and Hip Hop, Law & Justice. At NCCU, he also served on the ABA Compliance team and was the Director of the Justice in the Practice of Law Certificate Program and the Director of New Initiatives. Before that, Dean Clark was a Lecturer in Law at West Virginia University College of Law, where he taught Legal Writing and Appellate Advocacy.
Dean Clark earned his B.A. in Political Science from Wittenberg University, his M.B.A. from West Virginia University College of Business and Economics, and his J.D. from University of Pittsburgh School of Law. Following his graduation from law school, he practiced law at the law firm of Steptoe & Johnson.
His scholarship includes a book, CORPORATE JUSTICE (Carolina Academic Press), as well as numerous law review articles and other scholarship on social justice, corporate discretion, and sexual harassment. He is currently working on a casebook on Sports Law.
Senior Fellow and Director of Constitutional Studies, Manhattan Institute
Ilya Shapiro is a senior fellow and director of constitutional studies at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal. Previously he was executive director and senior lecturer at the Georgetown Center for the Constitution, and before that a vice president of the Cato Institute.
Shapiro is the author of Lawless: The Miseducation of America’s Elites (2025) and Supreme Disorder: Judicial Nominations and the Politics of America’s Highest Court (2020), coauthor of Religious Liberties for Corporations? (2014), and editor of 11 volumes of the Cato Supreme Court Review (2008-18). He has contributed to a variety of academic, popular, and professional publications, including the Wall Street Journal, Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, National Review, and Newsweek. He also regularly provides commentary for various media outlets, writes the Shapiro’s Gavel newsletter on Substack, and once appeared on the Colbert Report.
Shapiro has testified many times before Congress and state legislatures and has filed more than 500 amicus curiae “friend of the court” briefs in the Supreme Court. He lectures regularly on behalf of the Federalist Society, is a member of the board of fellows of the Jewish Policy Center, was an inaugural Washington Fellow at the National Review Institute, and has been an adjunct law professor at the George Washington University and University of Mississippi. He is also the chairman of the board of advisers of the Mississippi Justice Institute, a barrister in the Edward Coke Appellate Inn of Court, and a former member of the Virginia Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.
Earlier in his career, Shapiro was a special assistant/adviser to the Multi-National Force in Iraq on rule-of-law issues and practiced at Patton Boggs and Cleary Gottlieb. Before entering private practice, he clerked for Judge E. Grady Jolly of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. He holds an AB from Princeton University, an MSc from the London School of Economics, and a JD from the University of Chicago Law School.
Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights, U.S. Department of Agriculture
Devon Westhill is the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The U.S. Senate confirmed President Donald Trump’s nomination of Westhill on October 7, 2025.
Westhill returns to the USDA where he previously headed the civil rights office as Deputy Assistant Secretary in President Trump’s first term. His previous government appointments also include service at the U.S. Department of Labor, liaison to the Administrative Conference of the U.S., and liaison to the White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Prior to returning to government service, Westhill was President and General Counsel of a nonprofit civil rights organization.
Westhill has testified on civil rights matters before Congress, federal agencies, and as an expert witness in federal court. He has spoken hundreds of times at college campuses, conferences, and on radio and TV programs, and he is frequently quoted in print publications, and his writing has appeared in numerous national outlets. A U.S. Navy veteran, Westhill earned his BA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and his JD from the University of Florida.
Senior Adviser, International Security Program, CSIS
Mark Cancian (Colonel, USMCR, ret.) is a senior adviser with the CSIS International Security Program. He joined CSIS in April 2015 from the Office of Management and Budget, where he spent more than seven years as chief of the Force Structure and Investment Division, working on issues such as Department of Defense budget strategy, war funding, and procurement programs, as well as nuclear weapons development and nonproliferation activities in the Department of Energy. Previously, he worked on force structure and acquisition issues in the Office of the Secretary of Defense and ran research and executive programs at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. In the military, Colonel Cancian spent over three decades in the U.S. Marine Corps, active and reserve, serving as an infantry, artillery, and civil affairs officer and on overseas tours in Vietnam, Desert Storm, and Iraq (twice). Since 2000, he has been an adjunct faculty member at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, where he teaches a course on the connection between policy and analysis. A prolific author, he has published over 40 articles on military operations, acquisition, budgets, and strategy and received numerous writing awards. He graduated with high honors (magna cum laude) from Harvard College and with highest honors (Baker scholar) from Harvard Business School.
Founder and Executive Director, National Security Institute; Assistant Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
Jamil N. Jaffer is the Founder and Executive Director of the National Security Institute at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University where he also serves as an Assistant Professor of Law, Director of the National Security Law and Policy Program, and Director of the Cyber, Intelligence, and National Security LLM Program. Jamil also teaches classes on counterterrorism, intelligence, surveillance, cybersecurity, and other national security matters, as well as a summer course held abroad with U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil M. Gorsuch. Jamil is also affiliated with Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation and previously served as a Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution from 2016 to 2019.
Jamil is also a Venture Partner with Paladin Capital Group, where he assists the firm with investments across the full range of its themes and theses, including a focus on dual-use national security technologies. Jamil also serves on the board of directors of RangeForce, a cybersecurity training and readiness platform startup and Tozny, a digital identity startup, and on the advisory boards of U.S. Strategic Metals, North America’s largest primary producer of cobalt, a critical mineral used in EV batteries, aerospace, and other national security applications; and Constella Intelligence, a deep and dark web intelligence startup. Jamil also serves as an advisor to Beacon Global Strategies, a strategic advisory firm and Duco, a technology platform startup that connects corporations with geopolitical and international business experts. Jamil is also the managing director of Trigraph Caveat Capital, a private investment vehicle.
Among other things, Jamil currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Greater Washington Board of Trade, the Board of Advisors for the Global Cyber Alliance, and the Advisory Board of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies’ Center on Cyber and Tech Innovation, the Executive Committee of the Reagan Institute Strategy Group. Jamil is also a Fellow at the Academy for Judaic, Christian, and Islamic Studies, an advisor to the Concordia Summit, and is a member of the Board of Directors for the Center for Intelligence Policy, the Board of Directors of Speech First, and the Executive Committee of the International Law and National Security Practice Group of the Federalist Society.
Immediately prior to his current positions, from 2015-2021, Jamil served as a senior business leader at IronNet Cybersecurity, helping take the company from a bootstrapped first-year technology products startup through two rounds of venture capital fundraising, growing from 40 employees to over 300, and through its listing on New York Stock Exchange. In his role as IronNet's Senior Vice President for Strategy, Partnerships & Corporate Development, Jamil worked directly for the co-CEOs of the company, Gen (ret.) Keith B. Alexander, the former Director of the National Security Agency and Founding Commander of U.S. Cyber Command, and Bill Welch, the former COO of Zscaler and Duo; in that role, Jamil led all of the company’s strategic and technology partnership efforts, including developing go-to-market and technology integration plans with some of the largest cloud platforms and cybersecurity companies in the market, evaluating potential acquisition targets, and developing overall corporate strategy and thought leadership around collective security and collaborative defense in the cyber arena.
Prior to his time at IronNet, Jamil served on the leadership team of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee as Chief Counsel and Senior Advisor under Chairman Bob Corker (R-TN), where he worked on key national security and foreign policy issues, including leading the drafting of the proposed Authorization for the Use of Military Force against ISIS in 2014 and 2015, the AUMF against Syria in 2013, and revisions to the 9/11 AUMF against al Qaeda. Jamil was also the lead architect of the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act and two sanctions laws against Russia for its first intervention in Ukraine.
Prior to joining SFRC, Jamil served as Senior Counsel to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence under Chairman Mike Rogers (R-MI) where he led the committee’s oversight of NSA surveillance, NRO intelligence issues, and NGA analytic and collection matters, as well as intelligence community-wide counterterrorism issues. Jamil was also the lead architect of the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, the nation’s first cyber threat intelligence sharing legislation that was signed into law in 2015.
In the Bush Administration, Jamil served in the White House as an Associate Counsel to the President, handling Defense Department, State Department, and intelligence community matters, and serving as one of the White House Counsel’s primary representatives to the National Security Council Deputies Committee.
Prior to the White House, Jamil served on the leadership team of the Justice Department’s National Security Division as Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for National Security, where he focused on counterterrorism and intelligence matters. At NSD, Jamil helped lead the division’s work on In re: Directives, the first ever two-party litigated matter in the FISA Court and the second case before the FISA Court of Review in its 30-year history. Jamil also led NSD’s efforts on the President’s Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative (CNCI), including the drafting of NSPD-54/HSPD-23, and related classified matters, and advised the National Security Agency (NSA) and U.S. Cyber Command’s predecessor organization, the Joint Function Component Command for Network Warfare (JFCC-NW), on matters related to cyber intelligence collection and offensive cyber activities. For his work on these matters, Jamil was awarded the Assistant Attorney General’s Award for Special Initiative and was among the group of lawyers awarded the Director of National Intelligence’s 2008 Legal Award (Team of the Year – Cyber Legal).
Jamil also served in other positions in the Justice Department, including in the Office of Legal Policy, where he worked on the confirmations of Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. and Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. to the United States Supreme Court.
Jamil also served as a lawyer in private practice at Kellogg Huber, a Washington, DC-based litigation boutique, as a policy advisor to Congressman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), and as a staff member or senior advisor on a number of political campaigns, including two presidential campaigns and a presidential transition team. While in law school, Jamil was a member of the University of Chicago Law Review, managing editor of the Chicago Journal of International Law, and National Symposium Editor of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy. Following law school, Jamil served as a law clerk to Judge Edith H. Jones of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and, later in his career, as a law clerk to then-Judge Neil M. Gorsuch when he first joined the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit as well as a law clerk to Justice Neil Gorsuch when he joined the U.S. Supreme Court.
Jamil has published multiple op-eds and academic articles on national security, foreign policy, cybersecurity, counterterrorism, encryption, and intelligence matters, and is the co-author of a book chapter with former NSA Director Gen. (Ret.) Keith B. Alexander on national security and the press in National Security, Leaks, and the Freedom of the Press: The Pentagon Papers Fifty Years On (2021) and a book chapter with former CIA Director Gen. (ret.) Mike Hayden on ISIS, al Qaeda, and other international terrorist groups in Choosing to Lead: American Foreign Policy for a Disordered World (2015). Jamil has also written book chapters on cybersecurity and surveillance, as well as op-eds and policy papers with former Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey, former National Counterterrorism Center Director Matt Olsen, and Congressman Mike Waltz (R-FL), among others.
Jamil has previously taught graduate-level courses in intelligence law and policy at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs and the National Intelligence University, served an outside advisor to the Cyberspace Solarium Commission, and has recently testified before committees of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives on China, cybersecurity, counterterrorism, and other national security matters. Jamil has also recently appeared on a range of national television and radio outlets including CNN, Fox News, Fox Business, MSNBC, Bloomberg, PBS, Voice of America, and National Public Radio, and in various print and online publications, including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and the Washington Post on a range of national security matters including cybersecurity, counterterrorism, surveillance, encryption, privacy, and foreign policy issues.
Jamil holds degrees from UCLA (BA, cum laude), the University of Chicago Law School (JD, with honors), and the United States Naval War College (MA, with distinction).
Maurice A. Deane Distinguished Professor of Constitutional Law and Faculty Director of International Programs, Hofstra University School of Law
Professor Ku’s primary research interest is the relationship of international law to constitutional law. He has also conducted academic research on a wide range of topics including international dispute resolution, international criminal law, and China’s relationship with international law. He teaches courses such as U.S. constitutional law, U.S. foreign affairs law, transnational law, and international trade and business law. Since 2014, he has served as the faculty director of international programs, overseeing Hofstra Law’s study abroad, exchange and LL.M. programs. Professor Ku also teaches Constitutional Law in our online degree programs: Master of Laws in American Law and Master of Arts in American Legal Studies. He has also been selected as the John DeWitt Gregory Research Scholar and as a Hofstra Law Research Fellow. He is a member of the American Law Institute.
He is the co-author, with John Yoo, of Taming Globalization: International Law, the U.S. Constitution, and the New World Order (Oxford University Press 2012). He also has published more than 40 law review articles, book chapters and symposia essays. He has given dozens of academic lectures and workshops at major universities and conferences in the United States, Europe and Asia.
He co-founded the leading international law weblog Opinio Juris, which is read daily by thousands worldwide. His essays and op-eds have been published in major news publications such as the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the NYTimes.com. He has been frequently interviewed for television news programs and quoted in print and electronic media. He has also signed or submitted amicus briefs to national and international courts and served as an expert witness in both domestic and international proceedings.
Before joining the Hofstra Law faculty, Professor Ku served as a law clerk to the Honorable Jerry E. Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and as an Olin Fellow and Lecturer in Law at the University of Virginia Law School. Professor Ku also practiced as an associate at the New York City law firm of Debevoise & Plimpton, specializing in litigation and arbitration arising out of international disputes. He has been a visiting professor at the College of William & Mary Marshall- Wythe School of Law in Williamsburg, Virginia; a Fulbright Distinguished Lecturer in Law at East China University of Political Science and Law in Shanghai, China; and a Taiwan Fellow at National Taiwan University in Taipei, Taiwan. He is a member of the New York Bar and a graduate of Yale College and Yale Law School.
Partner, Taft Stettinius & Hollister
Robert McBride is the partner-in-charge of the Kentucky office of Taft Stettinius & Hollister. As a seasoned trial attorney, he is experienced in investigating and prosecuting a wide variety of criminal matters. As lead attorney, Bob prosecuted cases involving complex financial frauds, money laundering, federal tax violations, healthcare fraud, national security matters, violations of the Export Control Act, immigration, and human trafficking crimes, and public corruption. He also prosecuted narcotics trafficking organizations, firearms violations and crimes against children. As a prosecutor, Bob successfully tried many federal cases to jury verdict. Bob is also experienced in litigating forfeiture claims, habeas actions and appeals before the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Bob has a long record serving the United States as an attorney before entering private practice. He was an Assistant United States Attorney in the Eastern District of Kentucky for over 15 years. As an AUSA, Bob first chaired criminal jury trials in U.S. District Court and handled appeals before the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. Additionally, he was the District’s National Security Prosecutor and the Anti-Terrorism Advisory Council Coordinator. Bob also held several leadership positions. In 2006, he was assigned as the manager of the London Branch Office. Shortly thereafter, he was promoted to Criminal Chief and served in that position until January 2010. As Criminal Chief, Bob supervised the Criminal Division’s personnel and exercised oversight of all prosecutions in the District. More recently, he was the supervisor of the Ft. Mitchell Branch Office, where he handled a number of high profile investigations and prosecutions.
Bob also served in the United States Navy, Judge Advocate General’s Corps, for 10 years. His major assignments included senior prosecutor on the Island of Guam, Officer-in-Charge of a Detachment in New Orleans focusing on criminal defense, and Staff Judge Advocate, Recruit Training Command. Bob attained the rank of Lieutenant Commander. He was also an enlisted Combat Engineer in the Army National Guard.
United States Attorney, Eastern District of California
Mr. Grant was appointed by Attorney General Pam Bondi to serve as the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of California beginning on August 11, 2025. Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 546(d), he was further appointed by the district court effective December 9, 2025.
Mr. Grant is a veteran of the Department of Justice, having served twice in Washington, D.C.: from 1991 to 1993 as an Attorney-Adviser in the Office of Legal Counsel, and from 2017 to 2021 as a Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Environment and Natural Resources Division (ENRD). During his tenure at ENRD, he supervised more than a hundred Department litigators advancing the interests of the United States and its agencies in both enforcement and defensive matters, both civil and criminal.
In addition to his service in the Department, Mr. Grant has decades of experience in private practice in Washington, D.C. and Sacramento. That experience includes arguments in the U.S. Supreme Court, the California Supreme Court, and numerous other federal and state courts.
Mr. Grant served as a law clerk to Chief Justice Warren E. Burger (retired) and Associate Justice Clarence Thomas during the Supreme Court’s October 1994 Term. Earlier he served as a law clerk to Judge Edith H. Jones of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in Houston, Texas.
Mr. Grant grew up in Modesto, California and raised his family in Sacramento County. He attended the University of California, Berkeley, from which he earned a bachelor’s degree in economics (1986) and a law degree (1990).
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit
Judge Nelson was confirmed to the Ninth Circuit in October 2018, as the youngest Circuit Judge to serve from Idaho and he has chambers in his hometown of Idaho Falls. Prior to his confirmation, Judge Nelson served for nine years as General Counsel of Idaho Falls-based Melaleuca, Inc., a consumer goods company. He previously worked in Washington, DC, where he served in all three branches of the federal government, including as Special Counsel for Supreme Court nominations to the Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee; Deputy General Counsel to the White House Office of Management and Budget; Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Environment and Natural Resources Division of the United States Department of Justice; and a law clerk to Judge Henderson of the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. He has argued in most of the federal courts of appeals and worked on dozens of Supreme Court briefs. He started in the Washington, DC office of Sidley Austin as an appellate lawyer, after clerking for Judges Mosk and Brower of the Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal at The Hague, and for now-Judge Tom Griffith, then-Senate Legal Counsel, during the impeachment trial of President Clinton. Judge Nelson earned his B.A. from Brigham Young University and his J.D., with honors, from BYU Law School. Judge Nelson has been a member of the Federalist Society since 1998.
Executive Director & Chief Legal Counsel, Our Children's Trust
Julia Olson graduated from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law, with a J.D. in 1997. For the first part of her 22-year career, Julia represented grassroots conservation groups working to protect the environment, organic agriculture, and human health. After becoming a mother, and realizing the greatest threat to her children and children everywhere was climate change, she focused her work on representing young people and elevating their voices on the issue that will most determine the quality of their lives and the well-being of all future generations. Julia founded Our Children’s Trust in 2010 to lead this strategic legal campaign on behalf of the world’s youth against governments everywhere. Julia leads Juliana v. the United States, the constitutional climate change case brought by 21 youth against the U.S. government for violating their Fifth Amendment rights to life, liberty, property, and public trust resources. Julia and OCT are recipients of the Rose-Walters Prize for Global Environmental Activism. She received the Kerry Rydberg Award for Environmental Activism in 2017 and is a member of Rachel's Network Circle of Advisors. To rejuvenate, Julia loves being high up in the mountains with her family and her dog or playing tunes on her ukulele with friends.
Executive Vice President and Director of Litigation, EdChoice Legal Advocates
Before founding a public interest law firm at EdChoice, Tom Fisher served as Indiana’s first Solicitor General from 2005-2023. Fisher has argued dozens of high-profile cases before both the Indiana Supreme Court and the Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals and five cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. A two-time recipient of the National Association of Attorneys General Best Brief Award, Fisher is a Fellow of the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers and a Sagamore of the Wabash. Fisher is a graduate of Wabash College and Indiana University Maurer School of Law, where he serves as an Adjunct Professor of Law.
President, Harned Strategies LLC
Karen Harned is President at Harned Strategies LLC. Previously, she served as Executive Director of the National Federation of Independent Business Small Business Legal Center, a post she held from 2002-2022. Prior to joining the Legal Center, Ms. Harned was an attorney at a Washington, D.C. law firm specializing in food and drug law, where she represented several small and large businesses and their respective trade associations before Congress and federal agencies. She also served as Assistant Press Secretary to U.S. Senator Don Nickles of Oklahoma from August of 1989 to March of 1993. Ms. Harned received her B.A. from the University of Oklahoma in 1989 and her J.D. from The George Washington University National Law Center in 1995. She is admitted to practice in the District of Columbia.
As Executive Director of the NFIB Small Business Legal Center, Ms. Harned commented regularly on small business cases before federal and state courts, as well as the U.S. Supreme Court. She has appeared on Fox News, Fox Business, NBC Nightly News, CNN, CNBC and MSNBC, as well as National Public Radio, CBS Radio, and radio outlets across the country. Her opinion editorials and articles regarding healthcare, lawsuit abuse, regulation, and other issues important to small business have been published in newspapers and other publications nationwide.
Ms. Harned has testified before Congress on the small business impact of regulation and the civil justice system. Additionally, she has conducted numerous webinars and legal compliance seminars for small business owners across the country on issues relating to employment law, including unionization and immigration.
Executive Vice President, Chief Legal Officer, Gates Corporation
Matthew R. A. Heiman joined the Company in May 2026 and has served as the Company’s Chief Legal Officer and Corporate Secretary since June 2026. As Chief Legal Officer, Mr. Heiman is responsible for all legal functions for Gates, including securities and corporate governance, M&A, litigation, commercial, regulatory, compliance, patents and trademarks, real estate, employment and labor, sustainability and environmental matters. Prior to joining Gates, Mr. Heiman held senior legal leadership roles at Waystar, where he served as Chief Legal & Administrative Officer from 2023 to 2025 and as General Counsel and Corporate Secretary from 2020 to 2023. Prior to that, he was with Johnson Controls, where he served as Vice President, Corporate Secretary, and Associate General Counsel. Mr. Heiman has been a Senior Fellow for the National Security Institute at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia School of Law since 2018.
Senior Counselor, The Brunswick Group
Robert B. Zoellick is a Principal of Brunswick Group’s Geopolitical advisory offer and a Senior Fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. In addition, Zoellick serves on the boards of Temasek, Singapore’s Sovereign Wealth Fund, and Twitter, Inc., and is on the Advisory Board of Swiss Re. He is a member of the boards of the Peterson Institute for International Economics and the Carnegie Endowment, chairs the Global Tiger Initiative, and is a member of the Global Leadership Council of Mercy Corps, a global humanitarian agency.
Zoellick was the President of the World Bank Group from 2007-12, U.S. Trade Representative from 2001 to 2005, and Deputy Secretary of State from 2005 to 2006. From 1985 to 1993, Zoellick served as Counselor to the Secretary of the Treasury and Under Secretary of State, as well as White House Deputy Chief of Staff.
Zoellick is a recipient of the Distinguished Service Award, the Department of State’s highest honor, the Alexander Hamilton Award of the Department of the Treasury, and the Medal for Distinguished Public Service of the Department of Defense. The German government awarded him the Knight Commanders Cross for his achievements in the course of German unification. The Mexican and Chilean governments awarded him their highest honors for non-citizens, the Aztec Eagle and the Order of Merit, for recognition of his work on free trade, development, and the environment.
Zoellick holds a J.D. magna cum laude from the Harvard Law School, a master's degree in public policy from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, and a bachelor's degree from Swarthmore College.
Former Member of the European Parliament, South East England Constituency
Professor Emeritus of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
Jeremy A. Rabkin is a Professor Emeritus of Law at the Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University. Before joining the faculty in June 2007, he was for over two decades a professor in the Department of Government at Cornell University. Professor Rabkin serves on the board of directors of the Center for Individual Rights, a public interest law firm based in Washington, D.C. Previously he was a board member of the U.S. Institute of Peace and the board of academic advisors of the American Enterprise Institute.
Professor Rabkin’s books include Law Without Nations? (Princeton University Press, 2005). He authored “If You Need a Friend, Don’t Call a Cosmopolitan,” a chapter in Varieties of Sovereignty and Citizenship (Sigal R. Ben-Porath & Rogers M. Smith eds., University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012). His articles have appeared in major law reviews and political science journals and his journalistic contributions in a range of magazines and newspapers, including the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal.
Harry Reasoner Regents Chair in Law, The University of Texas at Austin School of Law
David Adelman teaches and writes in the areas of environmental law, intellectual property law, and climate change policy. Professor Adelman’s research focuses on the many interfaces between law and science. His articles have addressed such topics as the implications of emerging genomic technologies for toxics regulation, the tensions between legal and scientific evidentiary standards in regulatory decision making, and development of effective policies for promoting innovation relevant to addressing climate change. Professor Adelman clerked for the Honorable Samuel Conti of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. Before entering academia, he was an associate with the law firm Covington & Burling in Washington, D.C., where he litigated patent disputes and provided counsel on environmental regulatory matters, and a Senior Attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council also in Washington, D.C. Professor Adelman was an Associate Professor of Law at the University of Arizona Rogers College of Law from 2001 to 2009.
Professor of Law, University of Minnesota Law School
Professor James W. Coleman is a scholar of energy law. He specializes in North American energy infrastructure, transport, and trade. He is also a nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute focused on energy policy.
Professor Coleman has testified before Congress on steps to speed up energy infrastructure permits. He also worked with a team of experts as part of Alberta's Royalty Review to revise the Canadian province's management of its vast oil and gas resources.
Before joining Minnesota, Professor Coleman taught at Southern Methodist University's Dedman School of Law, the University of Calgary’s law and business schools, and Harvard Law School. Earlier, he practiced environmental and appellate law at Sidley Austin in Washington, D.C., and clerked for the Honorable Steven M. Colloton of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.
Professor Coleman received two degrees from Harvard University—a J.D. (cum laude) and B.A. in biology (magna cum laude with highest honors in the field). As a result of his undergraduate thesis on butterfly genetics, which required fieldwork in Central Asia, a species of lycaenid butterfly was named after him—Agrodiaetus ripartii colemani.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit
Judge William Duane Benton is a federal judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit. He joined the court in 2004 after being nominated by former President George W. Bush. Prior to his appointment, Judge Benton served as the chief justice of the Missouri Supreme Court. During his service on the court he received his masters of laws from the University of Virginia, completed the senior executives program at Harvard University’s John F Kennedy School of Government, and completed a post-graduate appellate judges course at New York University’s Institute of Judicial Administration.
Prior to serving on the Supreme Court of Missouri, Judge Benton was appointed by then-Governor John Ashcroft as director of the state’s department of revenue. Judge Benton also worked as a judge advocate general for the United States Navy, during which time he received his master’s degree in business administration and accountancy from the University of Memphis.
Judge Benton earned his law degree from Yale Law School and was the managing editor of the Yale Law Journal.
Partner, Shands, Elbert, Gianoulakis & Giljum, LLP
Mark Bremer has more than forty years civil litigation experience in federal and state trial and appellate courts, with an emphasis on business litigation, involving general commercial, antitrust, securities, bankruptcy, employment, education, civil rights and class action law and procedure. By way of illustration, Mr. Bremer served in a lead counsel capacity on behalf of two dozen suburban school districts in trying and ultimately settling the St. Louis School Desegregation Case, the longest-standing and most complex case in the St. Louis federal court. Mr. Bremer provides litigation representation and consultation to Fortune 500 businesses, educational institutions, employers of all types and other entities in a variety of specialized areas of law and practice.
Partner, Graves Garrett Greim LLC
Edward “Eddie” Greim focuses his practice on complex commercial litigation, free speech and election law, and internal investigations and whistleblower claims. He has been recognized for his successful representation of businesses and individuals in commercial litigation while also being named a “go-to” lawyer on policy and constitutional issues.
Eddie was named a Constitutional and Election Law Trailblazer by the National Law Journal in 2020. His free speech and election law practice has included numerous constitutional challenges to election and campaign finance laws; representation of clients in state and federal ethics and campaign finance enforcement actions and investigations; initiative petition drafting and litigation; litigation and advice regarding First Amendment protections for petition circulation; representation of not-for-profit clients before state regulators; litigation of state and federal redistricting issues; and advice on campaign and election law compliance.
Eddie complements his trial work in complex, high-profile commercial and constitutional cases with oral advocacy and briefing in important appeals. Recognized as a Missouri Lawyers Media POWER 30 Appellate Attorney in 2021, he has argued before the Missouri and Kansas supreme courts multiple times, other state appellate courts across the country, and before the Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, and Tenth U.S. Courts of Appeals.
Eddie’s notable work for clients includes:
Recovering substantial compensation and injunctive relief for plaintiffs, in complex multiyear litigation, as lead counsel in the first and only nationwide class action certified against the Internal Revenue Service for violating taxpayer protection statutes when it targeted hundreds of groups based on their political viewpoints.
Successful First Amendment challenge to Missouri’s 2016 campaign finance restrictions.
Successful challenge to a vast, multiyear, secret criminal investigation into Wisconsin political groups and nonprofits, and follow-up challenge to expose role of state ethics board which secretly aided the investigation and was later dissolved by the legislature.
U.S. Supreme Court amicus brief for the National Republican Redistricting Trust in the 2019 Rucho litigation, and federal and state redistricting litigation and advice since 2011.
Challenges under the First Amendment in federal court, and in briefing to the Michigan Supreme Court on state constitutional grounds, to unprecedented emergency powers claimed by Michigan Governor in 2020.
Representation of numerous public officials and private citizens who are subject to “lawfare” attacks based on their political viewpoints or policy objectives.
Oversight of multiple internal investigations.
Eddie received his law degree from Harvard Law School in 2002, where he taught on the Board of Student Advisers, received the Dean’s Award for Leadership, and served as President of the Harvard Catholic Law Students Association. He received two bachelor’s degrees, summa cum laude, in economics and political science from the University of Missouri.
A native of Excelsior Springs, Missouri, Eddie lives in Kansas City with his family. He enjoys Missouri and military history. On many weekends, he can be found with his wife and daughters exploring sites of local interest. He enjoys reading and debating and has given presentations or organized discussions at numerous gatherings, formal and informal, of professional and personal interest.
Fireside Chat with Vice President Mike Pence
Mike Pence
PRESS: Please email Michael Mead (mmead@crcadvisors.com) to register.
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