Partner, Donahue & Goldberg LLP
Megan M. Herzog is a Massachusetts-based attorney whose practice is focused on environmental, natural resources, and energy litigation and administrative advocacy. She is a member of the bar of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and practices in state and federal appellate courts.
Megan is a 2011 graduate of Stanford Law School, where she was Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Law, Science & Policy. She also holds an M.S. in Environment and Resources from Stanford University. Megan began her legal career with fellowships at the Environmental Law Institute in Washington, D.C. and at UCLA Law School's Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, where she advised state and local governments on climate change mitigation and adaptation policy. From 2016 to 2018, she served as staff attorney at Conservation Law Foundation's Boston office, where she worked on clean energy, ocean, and fisheries matters, including litigation in federal courts and before state public utilities commissions. Megan then spent nearly five years in the Massachusetts Office of the Attorney General, Energy and Environment Bureau, advocating before federal agencies and litigating cases concerning state and federal air, climate, energy, and natural resources laws. She led state government coalitions in several actions in the U.S. Supreme Court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, and before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
Megan has published on a variety of environmental law topics, including climate change adaptation and federal regulation of greenhouse gas emissions. She has taught courses in environmental law, climate law, and ocean and coastal law at UCLA Law School and Tufts University. She has testified before legislative committees and given dozens of presentations on critical issues in environmental law, including for the American Law Institute, Energy Bar Association, California State Bar Association Environmental Law Section, and multiple law review symposia.
Solicitor General of Kentucky
Matt Kuhn serves as the Solicitor General of Kentucky. As Solicitor General, he oversees the office's civil and criminal appellate litigation and supervises the office's filing of amicus briefs. Since joining the Attorney General's office, he has argued in the Supreme Court of the United States, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, and the Supreme Court of Kentucky. Before joining the Attorney General's office, he served as Chief Deputy General Counsel to the Governor of Kentucky. He also worked in private practice at Jones Day in Washington, D.C. and Stoll Keenon Ogden in Louisville, and served as a law clerk for Judge Raymond Gruender of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. He is a graduate of Furman University and Columbia Law School.
Partner, Hunton Andrews Kurth
Mr. Leopold is a Partner with the law firm of Hunton Andrews Kurth in Washington, DC. He is the former Senate-confirmed general counsel of the U.S. EPA from 2018-2020, and he previously was a litigator at the U.S. Department of Justice, Environment and Natural Resources Division form 2007-2013. As EPA General Counsel, he counseled on the development and defense of EPA’s most significant rulemakings, including the Affordable Clean Energy Rule, the Navigable Waters Protection Rule, and the Safe Affordable Fuel‐Efficient (SAFE) Vehicles Rule, as well as several pesticide actions. He was personally involved in defending EPA in litigation, including the County of Maui v. Hawaii Wildlife Fund in the U.S. Supreme Court. Mr. Leopold’s prior government service also includes working in Florida as general counsel of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. He now represents clients in regulatory advocacy before federal agencies, litigates federal environmental actions, and defends clients with EPA enforcement issues.
Regulatory Affairs Director, National Rural Electric Cooperative Association
Viktoria Seale is a regulatory affairs director for the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA) which represents nearly 900 not-for-profit electric cooperatives and other rural electric utilities. She advocates before the federal government for NRECA members on environmental, permitting, and other regulatory issues.
Viktoria has extensive federal government experience and has worked on a wide range of complex legal, regulatory, legislative and policy matters. Prior to joining NRECA, she served as general counsel and chief of staff for the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) and helped lead significant initiatives including the comprehensive update and modernization of CEQ’s National Environmental Policy Act regulations in 2020. Viktoria also has worked for two chairmen of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Small Business. In addition, she has served as director of regional affairs and special assistant to the chief counsel for the U.S. Small Business Administration Office of Advocacy.
Viktoria received a B.A. in international studies from Rhodes College and a J.D. from Chicago-Kent College of Law, Illinois Institute of Technology. She is admitted to practice law in Texas. Viktoria resides in Alexandria, Virginia with her husband and daughter.
Partner, Donahue & Goldberg LLP
Megan M. Herzog is a Massachusetts-based attorney whose practice is focused on environmental, natural resources, and energy litigation and administrative advocacy. She is a member of the bar of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and practices in state and federal appellate courts.
Megan is a 2011 graduate of Stanford Law School, where she was Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Law, Science & Policy. She also holds an M.S. in Environment and Resources from Stanford University. Megan began her legal career with fellowships at the Environmental Law Institute in Washington, D.C. and at UCLA Law School's Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, where she advised state and local governments on climate change mitigation and adaptation policy. From 2016 to 2018, she served as staff attorney at Conservation Law Foundation's Boston office, where she worked on clean energy, ocean, and fisheries matters, including litigation in federal courts and before state public utilities commissions. Megan then spent nearly five years in the Massachusetts Office of the Attorney General, Energy and Environment Bureau, advocating before federal agencies and litigating cases concerning state and federal air, climate, energy, and natural resources laws. She led state government coalitions in several actions in the U.S. Supreme Court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, and before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
Megan has published on a variety of environmental law topics, including climate change adaptation and federal regulation of greenhouse gas emissions. She has taught courses in environmental law, climate law, and ocean and coastal law at UCLA Law School and Tufts University. She has testified before legislative committees and given dozens of presentations on critical issues in environmental law, including for the American Law Institute, Energy Bar Association, California State Bar Association Environmental Law Section, and multiple law review symposia.
Solicitor General of Kentucky
Matt Kuhn serves as the Solicitor General of Kentucky. As Solicitor General, he oversees the office's civil and criminal appellate litigation and supervises the office's filing of amicus briefs. Since joining the Attorney General's office, he has argued in the Supreme Court of the United States, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, and the Supreme Court of Kentucky. Before joining the Attorney General's office, he served as Chief Deputy General Counsel to the Governor of Kentucky. He also worked in private practice at Jones Day in Washington, D.C. and Stoll Keenon Ogden in Louisville, and served as a law clerk for Judge Raymond Gruender of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. He is a graduate of Furman University and Columbia Law School.
Partner, Hunton Andrews Kurth
Mr. Leopold is a Partner with the law firm of Hunton Andrews Kurth in Washington, DC. He is the former Senate-confirmed general counsel of the U.S. EPA from 2018-2020, and he previously was a litigator at the U.S. Department of Justice, Environment and Natural Resources Division form 2007-2013. As EPA General Counsel, he counseled on the development and defense of EPA’s most significant rulemakings, including the Affordable Clean Energy Rule, the Navigable Waters Protection Rule, and the Safe Affordable Fuel‐Efficient (SAFE) Vehicles Rule, as well as several pesticide actions. He was personally involved in defending EPA in litigation, including the County of Maui v. Hawaii Wildlife Fund in the U.S. Supreme Court. Mr. Leopold’s prior government service also includes working in Florida as general counsel of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. He now represents clients in regulatory advocacy before federal agencies, litigates federal environmental actions, and defends clients with EPA enforcement issues.
Regulatory Affairs Director, National Rural Electric Cooperative Association
Viktoria Seale is a regulatory affairs director for the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA) which represents nearly 900 not-for-profit electric cooperatives and other rural electric utilities. She advocates before the federal government for NRECA members on environmental, permitting, and other regulatory issues.
Viktoria has extensive federal government experience and has worked on a wide range of complex legal, regulatory, legislative and policy matters. Prior to joining NRECA, she served as general counsel and chief of staff for the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) and helped lead significant initiatives including the comprehensive update and modernization of CEQ’s National Environmental Policy Act regulations in 2020. Viktoria also has worked for two chairmen of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Small Business. In addition, she has served as director of regional affairs and special assistant to the chief counsel for the U.S. Small Business Administration Office of Advocacy.
Viktoria received a B.A. in international studies from Rhodes College and a J.D. from Chicago-Kent College of Law, Illinois Institute of Technology. She is admitted to practice law in Texas. Viktoria resides in Alexandria, Virginia with her husband and daughter.
Legal Fellow and Manager, Supreme Court and Appellate Advocacy Program, The Heritage Foundation
Zack is a Legal Fellow and Manager of the Supreme Court and Appellate Advocacy Program in the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation.
He previously served for several years as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Northern District of Florida. Prior to that, he spent two years as an associate in the Washington, D.C. office of Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton, which he joined after clerking for the Hon. Emmett R. Cox on the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.
Smith received his undergraduate, master’s, and law degrees from the University of Florida. During law school, Smith served as the Editor in Chief of the Florida Law Review and served on the executive boards of several student organizations, including the UF Chapter of the Federalist Society.
Former Chief Judge, U.S. Court of Federal Claims
Judge Braden was appointed to the United States Court of Federal Claims on July 14, 2003, by President George W. Bush, after being confirmed by unanimous consent of the United States Senate. She was sworn into office by Senator Jeff Sessions. Her investiture was conducted on October 24, 2003 by Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
On January 28, 2015, Judge Braden was appointed by the American Law Institute as one of seven Judicial Advisors to the Restatement of the Law on Copyright. In 2013, Judge Braden was appointed to the Judges Special Committee of the American Intellectual Property Law Association and was named as Chair of the Intellectual Property Committee of the Advisory Council of the United States Court of Federal Claims. On March 23, 2012, Judge Braden received the Linn Inn Alliance Distinguished Service Medal at the New York Intellectual Property Lawyers Association Annual Dinner for her work with the American Inns of Court, dedicated to intellectual property law. On February 7, 2012, Judge Braden was appointed as Chair of the American Bar Association’s Section of Intellectual Property Law Task Force to consider how to more efficiently adjudicate "small" patent infringement cases. During 2010-2011, Judge Braden served as President of the Giles S. Rich American Inn of Court, which is affiliated with the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. She was recognized at a ceremony in the United States Supreme Court in November 2011, when she received the American Inns of Court’s Platinum Distinction Award. Judge Braden also served as a Member of the Editorial Board of the American Intellectual Property Law Association.
In July 2009, Judge Braden was appointed as a Member of the Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility-Judges Advisory Committee to the American Bar Association, on which she served until 2012. On February 14, 2007, Judge Braden was elected as a Member of the American Law Institute and was active in drafting Restatement of Law Third, Restitution and Unjust Enrichment. On October 22, 2004, she was inducted as a Senior Fellow of the ABA’s Administrative Law and Regulatory Section by Justice O’Connor at a ceremony held at the United States Supreme Court.
Prior to joining the bench, Judge Braden litigated complex federal and administrative law cases in private practice in trial and appellate courts. In particular, her work in the intellectual property area received favorable notice in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, National Law Journal, and the Journal of the American Bar Association, and was featured in Interfaces on Trial: Intellectual Property and Interoperability In The Global Software Industry. In 1996, Judge Braden was honored by the Computer Law Association for winning multiple decisions in the Eastern District of New York, the Eastern District of Texas, the Second Circuit, and a certified question to the Supreme Court of Texas in Computer Assocs. Int’l, Inc. v. Altai Inc., a landmark case that changed the application of copyright law to computer software. In 1998, she also won a companion case brought in France before the Cour de Appel de Paris.
In private practice, Judge Braden represented a wide variety of client interests before almost every major department and federal agency, testified before the United States Congress on a variety of matters, and was a principal lobbyist for the Emergency Oil and Steel Loan Guarantee Act of 1999, that established a $1 billion federal loan guarantee program to assist bankrupt and troubled steel mills and small oil companies.
Judge Braden received a B.A. degree (1970) and J. D. degree (1973) from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. She also attended post graduate courses at the Harvard Law School in the summer of 1978.
James T. Jensen Endowed Professor for Transactional Law & Director of the Program on Intellectual Property and Technology Law, University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law
Jorge L. Contreras is a Distinguished University Professor, the James T. Jensen Endowed Professor for Transactional Law and Director of the Program on Intellectual Property and Technology Law. He teaches and researches in the areas of intellectual property, property law, technical standardization, antitrust and science policy. In 2020 he received the University of Utah's Distinguished Research Award and is an elected member of the American Law Institute. He has testified before the U.S. Senate and House Subcommittees on Intellectual Property, and was awarded the Rossman Memorial Award by the Patent & Trademark Office Society in 2022.
Professor Contreras has written or edited fourteen books and published more than 150 scholarly articles and chapters. His book, The Genome Defense: Inside the Epic Legal Battle to Determine Who Owns Your DNA (NY: Hachette/Algonquin, 2021), has been praised by the NY Times, Wall St. Journal, Nature and numerous other outlets, and was named "Best Patent Law Book of the Year" by the international IPKat blog. His scholarly articles have appeared in leading scientific, legal and policy journals including Science, Nature, NYU Law Review, Georgetown Law Journal, Iowa Law Review and Antitrust Law Journal. He has been quoted by media outlets around the world including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Economist, Bloomberg, Washington Post, Korea Times and has been featured on C-SPAN, NPR, PRI and BBC shows and a range of podcasts and online news programs.
Professor Contreras currently serves Co-Chair of the Interdisciplinary Division of the ABA's Section of Science & Technology Law and a member of the Advisory Board of the American Antitrust Institute. He has previously served as Co-Chair of the National Conference of Lawyers and Scientists, a member of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) Committee on Intellectual Property Management in Standard-Setting Processes, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Council of Councils, the Advisory Council of NIH's National Center for the Advancement of Translational Sciences (NCATS), the National Advisory Council for Human Genome Research, and the Intellectual Property Rights Policy Committee of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). In 2021 he served as Chair of the Art Law Section of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) and currently serves as Chair of the AALS Remedies Section.
Professor Contreras has previously taught at American University Washington College of Law and Washington University in St. Louis. Prior to entering academia he was a partner at the international law firm Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP, where he practiced transactional and intellectual property law in Boston, London and Washington DC. He is a cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School (JD) and Rice University (BA, BSEE) and clerked for Chief Justice Thomas R. Philips of the Texas Supreme Court.
Vice President of Domestic Policy, National Association of Manufacturers
Charles Crain is the Vice President of Domestic Policy at the National Association of Manufacturers. In this role, he leads the association’s policy development and advocacy work on economic policy issues critical to the success of manufacturing in the United States, including tax, corporate governance, technology, health care, regulatory reform, and immigration. Prior to taking on the VP role, Charles led the NAM’s corporate finance policy portfolio, focused primarily on engagement with the Securities and Exchange Commission. He previously worked on Capitol Hill for members of the Senate Finance and House Financial Services Committees and was the Director of Tax and Financial Services Policy at the Biotechnology Innovation Organization.
Senior Counsel for Law and Policy, Committee for Justice
Jeff is a registered patent attorney and an intellectual property and innovation policy professional with a unique combination of training and real-world experience. Jeff is also currently a PhD candidate at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public and International Affairs (GSPIA). His dissertation is entitled “An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of American Innovation: An Austrian Economics Perspective.”
Jeff maintains an active intellectual property law practice in the life sciences space. While counseling clients and working on his dissertation and other scholarship, Jeff remains active in the policy analysis and advocacy space. He currently serves as the President of the Association for American Innovation and a member and former Chair of the Public Policy Legal Task Force (PPLTF) for the Association of University of Technology Managers (AUTM).
Jeff has a bachelor’s degree chemical and biomedical engineering with concentrations in molecular biology and fermentation technology and from Carnegie Mellon. He also has a master’s degree in industrial administration (business) from Carnegie Mellon where he concentrated on international management, marketing and finance. He earned his law degree from the Duquesne University School of Law with a focus on intellectual property law.
Senior Partner, ACG Advocacy
Chris Israel is a Senior Partner at ACG Advocacy and is also the co-lead of the firm’s technology and intellectual property group.
He joined ACG in 2010, after serving in the George W. Bush Administration as Deputy Chief of
Staff to the Secretary of Commerce and later becoming the first U.S. International Intellectual
Property Enforcement Coordinator.
At ACG Advocacy, Chris works with a diverse range of clients including some of the largest and
most innovative companies in the world to support their efforts to build a policy environment in the U.S. that promotes and protects their investments in intellectual property. He has also
developed a unique focus leading a coalition of top venture capitalists and innovative startups to pursue a policy agenda that has led to improvements in tax policy, investments in R&D, and
strengthening patent protection.
Chris maintains a leadership profile working on IP and innovation issues and has been a frequent public speaker and has testified before Congress multiple times both as an Administration official and since he left public service. He was previously named one of the 50 “Most Influential People on IP” by Managing Intellectual Property magazine.
His international experience in government, particularly in working with China, has enabled him to successfully engage clients on global trade and technology matters ranging from the
negotiations of trade agreements, tariff policy, and engaging international organizations. His
client relationships have included automakers, global manufacturing companies, shipping
companies, and Chinese e-commerce and social media platforms seeking to better understand the U.S. market.
Chris’ experience leading coalitions has also included serving as Executive Director of the
musicFIRST Coalition during the lead-up to the passage of the landmark Music Modernization
Act. During this time he was named to Medium’s inaugural “Power 10” list of music policy
leaders.
Within ACG Advocacy, he provides guidance on the firm’s day-to-day interaction with all its
clients and helps lead ACG’s extensive policy research team. He has also launched the firm’s
podcast focused on policy trends and developments in Washington.
Earlier in his career, Chris worked on international policy issues at Time Warner where he was
part of a team that supported then-CEO, Gerald Levin, to develop the Global Business Dialogue on E-Commerce a ground-breaking global organization of CEOs from the U.S., EU, and Asia that developed industry best practices on matters such as online privacy, cross border data flows, and online taxation.
Prior to Time Warner, he served on Capitol Hill as a legislative aide to U.S. Representatives Jan
Meyers (R-KS) and Todd Tiahrt (R-KS).
Chris received his B.A. from the University of Kansas and an M.B.A. from The George
Washington University.
Former Chief Judge, U.S. Court of Federal Claims
Judge Braden was appointed to the United States Court of Federal Claims on July 14, 2003, by President George W. Bush, after being confirmed by unanimous consent of the United States Senate. She was sworn into office by Senator Jeff Sessions. Her investiture was conducted on October 24, 2003 by Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
On January 28, 2015, Judge Braden was appointed by the American Law Institute as one of seven Judicial Advisors to the Restatement of the Law on Copyright. In 2013, Judge Braden was appointed to the Judges Special Committee of the American Intellectual Property Law Association and was named as Chair of the Intellectual Property Committee of the Advisory Council of the United States Court of Federal Claims. On March 23, 2012, Judge Braden received the Linn Inn Alliance Distinguished Service Medal at the New York Intellectual Property Lawyers Association Annual Dinner for her work with the American Inns of Court, dedicated to intellectual property law. On February 7, 2012, Judge Braden was appointed as Chair of the American Bar Association’s Section of Intellectual Property Law Task Force to consider how to more efficiently adjudicate "small" patent infringement cases. During 2010-2011, Judge Braden served as President of the Giles S. Rich American Inn of Court, which is affiliated with the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. She was recognized at a ceremony in the United States Supreme Court in November 2011, when she received the American Inns of Court’s Platinum Distinction Award. Judge Braden also served as a Member of the Editorial Board of the American Intellectual Property Law Association.
In July 2009, Judge Braden was appointed as a Member of the Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility-Judges Advisory Committee to the American Bar Association, on which she served until 2012. On February 14, 2007, Judge Braden was elected as a Member of the American Law Institute and was active in drafting Restatement of Law Third, Restitution and Unjust Enrichment. On October 22, 2004, she was inducted as a Senior Fellow of the ABA’s Administrative Law and Regulatory Section by Justice O’Connor at a ceremony held at the United States Supreme Court.
Prior to joining the bench, Judge Braden litigated complex federal and administrative law cases in private practice in trial and appellate courts. In particular, her work in the intellectual property area received favorable notice in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, National Law Journal, and the Journal of the American Bar Association, and was featured in Interfaces on Trial: Intellectual Property and Interoperability In The Global Software Industry. In 1996, Judge Braden was honored by the Computer Law Association for winning multiple decisions in the Eastern District of New York, the Eastern District of Texas, the Second Circuit, and a certified question to the Supreme Court of Texas in Computer Assocs. Int’l, Inc. v. Altai Inc., a landmark case that changed the application of copyright law to computer software. In 1998, she also won a companion case brought in France before the Cour de Appel de Paris.
In private practice, Judge Braden represented a wide variety of client interests before almost every major department and federal agency, testified before the United States Congress on a variety of matters, and was a principal lobbyist for the Emergency Oil and Steel Loan Guarantee Act of 1999, that established a $1 billion federal loan guarantee program to assist bankrupt and troubled steel mills and small oil companies.
Judge Braden received a B.A. degree (1970) and J. D. degree (1973) from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. She also attended post graduate courses at the Harvard Law School in the summer of 1978.
James T. Jensen Endowed Professor for Transactional Law & Director of the Program on Intellectual Property and Technology Law, University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law
Jorge L. Contreras is a Distinguished University Professor, the James T. Jensen Endowed Professor for Transactional Law and Director of the Program on Intellectual Property and Technology Law. He teaches and researches in the areas of intellectual property, property law, technical standardization, antitrust and science policy. In 2020 he received the University of Utah's Distinguished Research Award and is an elected member of the American Law Institute. He has testified before the U.S. Senate and House Subcommittees on Intellectual Property, and was awarded the Rossman Memorial Award by the Patent & Trademark Office Society in 2022.
Professor Contreras has written or edited fourteen books and published more than 150 scholarly articles and chapters. His book, The Genome Defense: Inside the Epic Legal Battle to Determine Who Owns Your DNA (NY: Hachette/Algonquin, 2021), has been praised by the NY Times, Wall St. Journal, Nature and numerous other outlets, and was named "Best Patent Law Book of the Year" by the international IPKat blog. His scholarly articles have appeared in leading scientific, legal and policy journals including Science, Nature, NYU Law Review, Georgetown Law Journal, Iowa Law Review and Antitrust Law Journal. He has been quoted by media outlets around the world including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Economist, Bloomberg, Washington Post, Korea Times and has been featured on C-SPAN, NPR, PRI and BBC shows and a range of podcasts and online news programs.
Professor Contreras currently serves Co-Chair of the Interdisciplinary Division of the ABA's Section of Science & Technology Law and a member of the Advisory Board of the American Antitrust Institute. He has previously served as Co-Chair of the National Conference of Lawyers and Scientists, a member of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) Committee on Intellectual Property Management in Standard-Setting Processes, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Council of Councils, the Advisory Council of NIH's National Center for the Advancement of Translational Sciences (NCATS), the National Advisory Council for Human Genome Research, and the Intellectual Property Rights Policy Committee of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). In 2021 he served as Chair of the Art Law Section of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) and currently serves as Chair of the AALS Remedies Section.
Professor Contreras has previously taught at American University Washington College of Law and Washington University in St. Louis. Prior to entering academia he was a partner at the international law firm Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP, where he practiced transactional and intellectual property law in Boston, London and Washington DC. He is a cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School (JD) and Rice University (BA, BSEE) and clerked for Chief Justice Thomas R. Philips of the Texas Supreme Court.
Vice President of Domestic Policy, National Association of Manufacturers
Charles Crain is the Vice President of Domestic Policy at the National Association of Manufacturers. In this role, he leads the association’s policy development and advocacy work on economic policy issues critical to the success of manufacturing in the United States, including tax, corporate governance, technology, health care, regulatory reform, and immigration. Prior to taking on the VP role, Charles led the NAM’s corporate finance policy portfolio, focused primarily on engagement with the Securities and Exchange Commission. He previously worked on Capitol Hill for members of the Senate Finance and House Financial Services Committees and was the Director of Tax and Financial Services Policy at the Biotechnology Innovation Organization.
Senior Counsel for Law and Policy, Committee for Justice
Jeff is a registered patent attorney and an intellectual property and innovation policy professional with a unique combination of training and real-world experience. Jeff is also currently a PhD candidate at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public and International Affairs (GSPIA). His dissertation is entitled “An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of American Innovation: An Austrian Economics Perspective.”
Jeff maintains an active intellectual property law practice in the life sciences space. While counseling clients and working on his dissertation and other scholarship, Jeff remains active in the policy analysis and advocacy space. He currently serves as the President of the Association for American Innovation and a member and former Chair of the Public Policy Legal Task Force (PPLTF) for the Association of University of Technology Managers (AUTM).
Jeff has a bachelor’s degree chemical and biomedical engineering with concentrations in molecular biology and fermentation technology and from Carnegie Mellon. He also has a master’s degree in industrial administration (business) from Carnegie Mellon where he concentrated on international management, marketing and finance. He earned his law degree from the Duquesne University School of Law with a focus on intellectual property law.
Senior Partner, ACG Advocacy
Chris Israel is a Senior Partner at ACG Advocacy and is also the co-lead of the firm’s technology and intellectual property group.
He joined ACG in 2010, after serving in the George W. Bush Administration as Deputy Chief of
Staff to the Secretary of Commerce and later becoming the first U.S. International Intellectual
Property Enforcement Coordinator.
At ACG Advocacy, Chris works with a diverse range of clients including some of the largest and
most innovative companies in the world to support their efforts to build a policy environment in the U.S. that promotes and protects their investments in intellectual property. He has also
developed a unique focus leading a coalition of top venture capitalists and innovative startups to pursue a policy agenda that has led to improvements in tax policy, investments in R&D, and
strengthening patent protection.
Chris maintains a leadership profile working on IP and innovation issues and has been a frequent public speaker and has testified before Congress multiple times both as an Administration official and since he left public service. He was previously named one of the 50 “Most Influential People on IP” by Managing Intellectual Property magazine.
His international experience in government, particularly in working with China, has enabled him to successfully engage clients on global trade and technology matters ranging from the
negotiations of trade agreements, tariff policy, and engaging international organizations. His
client relationships have included automakers, global manufacturing companies, shipping
companies, and Chinese e-commerce and social media platforms seeking to better understand the U.S. market.
Chris’ experience leading coalitions has also included serving as Executive Director of the
musicFIRST Coalition during the lead-up to the passage of the landmark Music Modernization
Act. During this time he was named to Medium’s inaugural “Power 10” list of music policy
leaders.
Within ACG Advocacy, he provides guidance on the firm’s day-to-day interaction with all its
clients and helps lead ACG’s extensive policy research team. He has also launched the firm’s
podcast focused on policy trends and developments in Washington.
Earlier in his career, Chris worked on international policy issues at Time Warner where he was
part of a team that supported then-CEO, Gerald Levin, to develop the Global Business Dialogue on E-Commerce a ground-breaking global organization of CEOs from the U.S., EU, and Asia that developed industry best practices on matters such as online privacy, cross border data flows, and online taxation.
Prior to Time Warner, he served on Capitol Hill as a legislative aide to U.S. Representatives Jan
Meyers (R-KS) and Todd Tiahrt (R-KS).
Chris received his B.A. from the University of Kansas and an M.B.A. from The George
Washington University.
Litigation Fellow, Institute for Justice
General Counsel, U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commissioin
Tyler Badgley is the General Counsel at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. In that role, Mr. Badgley leads the agency’s Legal Division and serves as the Commission’s chief legal advisor. He was appointed General Counsel in January 2026.
Prior to joining the CFTC, Mr. Badgley served as the Deputy General Counsel at the U.S. Department of the Treasury and was the first Executive Secretary under Secretary Scott K.H. Bessent. Mr. Badgley was previously a Senior Counsel at the U.S. Chamber Litigation Center, the litigation arm of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. There, he focused on complex litigation and regulatory issues, particularly in connection with capital markets.
Mr. Badgley also practiced law at Sullivan & Cromwell LLP, served as a Special Counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary, and began his legal career as a law clerk for the Honorable Edith H. Jones of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Mr. Badgley graduated Order of the Coif from the University of Virginia School of Law, where he served as Articles Editor for the Virginia Law Review. He also received his undergraduate degree in Economics and Government from the University of Virginia.
Shareholder, Reinhart Boerner Van Deuren s.c.
Robert Driscoll is a shareholder in Reinhart's Labor and Employment Practice. He is an experienced, accomplished attorney who works to understand his clients' goals and provide them with effective legal and business solutions.
Rob counsels employers to help them avoid disputes with an emphasis on discrimination (including disability discrimination), wage and hour issues and employment contracts of all kinds. Rob's practice also includes all areas of traditional labor law, such as collective bargaining, labor arbitrations, proceedings before the National Labor Relations Board, and advising employers of their rights under the National Labor Relations Act.
He understands that trials can be costly and time-consuming, and clients appreciate that he offers creative options to resolve disputes without litigation. However, when litigation is unavoidable, he's a confident and diligent legal partner, devising effective strategies for prevailing. Rob's litigation experience includes wage and hour claims (both individual and class actions), employment and fair housing discrimination and noncompetition agreements. He also represents clients in appeals.
Prior to joining the firm, Rob was a law clerk for the Hon. Diane S. Sykes, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Milwaukee.
Rob proudly serves on the Board of Directors for GPS Education Partners, an organization that works to validate technical career paths and provide students and their communities pathways to prosperity.
Associate General Counsel, Fannie Mae
Mark Schuman is an in-house corporate governance attorney with Fannie Mae based out of its Washington, DC office. His nearly thirty- year in-house experience includes leadership in employment, public company corporate governance, executive compensation, securities, and capital markets. Mark earned his JD at Yale University in 1991 before clerking for then-Third Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Samuel Alito, Jr. He has been a Federalist Society member since 1988, has served as Secretary of the Society’s New York Lawyers Chapter, and is current on the steering committee for the Society’s In-House Counsel Network.
Associate Professor, Robert H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland
Evan Starr is an Assistant Professor of Management & Organization at the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland. He received a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Michigan and a bachelor's degree from Denison University. He originally hails from Claremont, California. Starr's current research examines issues at the intersection of human capital accumulation, employee mobility, entrepreneurship, and innovation. In a recent set of projects utilizing employee-employer matched data and survey data that he and coauthors developed, Starr examined the use and impacts of noncompete agreements and their enforceability on the provision of firm-sponsored training, employee mobility and earnings, and on the creation, growth, and survival of new ventures.
United States Senator, Florida
Rick Scott was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2018 and is currently serving his first term representing the state of Florida. Prior to his election to the U.S. Senate, Rick Scott served two terms as the 45th Governor of Florida, working every day to turn around Florida’s economy and secure the state’s future as the best place for families and businesses to succeed. Rick Scott grew up in public housing in the Midwest as his adoptive father, a World War II veteran and truck driver, and his mother, a store clerk, struggled to financially support their family. After marrying his high school sweetheart, Ann, Rick Scott joined the Navy, where he served active duty as a radar man aboard the USS Glover. He used the G.I. Bill to attend the University of Missouri, Kansas City, and eventually opened his first business – a donut shop. Rick Scott went on to run the world’s largest healthcare company and continues to fight every day so families across the state can have the same opportunities he had to live the American dream.
Rick Scott knows firsthand that a good paying job is one of the most important things for a family, and following Florida’s economic collapse ten years ago, he made the decision to run for governor as a businessman with no political experience. During his term as Governor, he successfully championed more than $10 billion in tax cuts and cut thousands of burdensome regulations that led Florida businesses to create nearly 1.7 million new jobs. Under his leadership, the unemployment rate dropped from 11 percent to 3.3 percent, Florida paid down $10 billion in state debt, and record investments were made in what matters most to Floridians – education, the environment, and public safety.
Rick Scott and his wife, Ann, have been married for 49 years and have two daughters, Allison and Jordan, six grandsons, Auguste, Quinton, Sebastian, Eli, Louie and Jude, and one granddaughter, Zelda Ann.
Former Chief Judge, U.S. Court of Federal Claims
Judge Braden was appointed to the United States Court of Federal Claims on July 14, 2003, by President George W. Bush, after being confirmed by unanimous consent of the United States Senate. She was sworn into office by Senator Jeff Sessions. Her investiture was conducted on October 24, 2003 by Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
On January 28, 2015, Judge Braden was appointed by the American Law Institute as one of seven Judicial Advisors to the Restatement of the Law on Copyright. In 2013, Judge Braden was appointed to the Judges Special Committee of the American Intellectual Property Law Association and was named as Chair of the Intellectual Property Committee of the Advisory Council of the United States Court of Federal Claims. On March 23, 2012, Judge Braden received the Linn Inn Alliance Distinguished Service Medal at the New York Intellectual Property Lawyers Association Annual Dinner for her work with the American Inns of Court, dedicated to intellectual property law. On February 7, 2012, Judge Braden was appointed as Chair of the American Bar Association’s Section of Intellectual Property Law Task Force to consider how to more efficiently adjudicate "small" patent infringement cases. During 2010-2011, Judge Braden served as President of the Giles S. Rich American Inn of Court, which is affiliated with the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. She was recognized at a ceremony in the United States Supreme Court in November 2011, when she received the American Inns of Court’s Platinum Distinction Award. Judge Braden also served as a Member of the Editorial Board of the American Intellectual Property Law Association.
In July 2009, Judge Braden was appointed as a Member of the Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility-Judges Advisory Committee to the American Bar Association, on which she served until 2012. On February 14, 2007, Judge Braden was elected as a Member of the American Law Institute and was active in drafting Restatement of Law Third, Restitution and Unjust Enrichment. On October 22, 2004, she was inducted as a Senior Fellow of the ABA’s Administrative Law and Regulatory Section by Justice O’Connor at a ceremony held at the United States Supreme Court.
Prior to joining the bench, Judge Braden litigated complex federal and administrative law cases in private practice in trial and appellate courts. In particular, her work in the intellectual property area received favorable notice in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, National Law Journal, and the Journal of the American Bar Association, and was featured in Interfaces on Trial: Intellectual Property and Interoperability In The Global Software Industry. In 1996, Judge Braden was honored by the Computer Law Association for winning multiple decisions in the Eastern District of New York, the Eastern District of Texas, the Second Circuit, and a certified question to the Supreme Court of Texas in Computer Assocs. Int’l, Inc. v. Altai Inc., a landmark case that changed the application of copyright law to computer software. In 1998, she also won a companion case brought in France before the Cour de Appel de Paris.
In private practice, Judge Braden represented a wide variety of client interests before almost every major department and federal agency, testified before the United States Congress on a variety of matters, and was a principal lobbyist for the Emergency Oil and Steel Loan Guarantee Act of 1999, that established a $1 billion federal loan guarantee program to assist bankrupt and troubled steel mills and small oil companies.
Judge Braden received a B.A. degree (1970) and J. D. degree (1973) from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. She also attended post graduate courses at the Harvard Law School in the summer of 1978.
James T. Jensen Endowed Professor for Transactional Law & Director of the Program on Intellectual Property and Technology Law, University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law
Jorge L. Contreras is a Distinguished University Professor, the James T. Jensen Endowed Professor for Transactional Law and Director of the Program on Intellectual Property and Technology Law. He teaches and researches in the areas of intellectual property, property law, technical standardization, antitrust and science policy. In 2020 he received the University of Utah's Distinguished Research Award and is an elected member of the American Law Institute. He has testified before the U.S. Senate and House Subcommittees on Intellectual Property, and was awarded the Rossman Memorial Award by the Patent & Trademark Office Society in 2022.
Professor Contreras has written or edited fourteen books and published more than 150 scholarly articles and chapters. His book, The Genome Defense: Inside the Epic Legal Battle to Determine Who Owns Your DNA (NY: Hachette/Algonquin, 2021), has been praised by the NY Times, Wall St. Journal, Nature and numerous other outlets, and was named "Best Patent Law Book of the Year" by the international IPKat blog. His scholarly articles have appeared in leading scientific, legal and policy journals including Science, Nature, NYU Law Review, Georgetown Law Journal, Iowa Law Review and Antitrust Law Journal. He has been quoted by media outlets around the world including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Economist, Bloomberg, Washington Post, Korea Times and has been featured on C-SPAN, NPR, PRI and BBC shows and a range of podcasts and online news programs.
Professor Contreras currently serves Co-Chair of the Interdisciplinary Division of the ABA's Section of Science & Technology Law and a member of the Advisory Board of the American Antitrust Institute. He has previously served as Co-Chair of the National Conference of Lawyers and Scientists, a member of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) Committee on Intellectual Property Management in Standard-Setting Processes, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Council of Councils, the Advisory Council of NIH's National Center for the Advancement of Translational Sciences (NCATS), the National Advisory Council for Human Genome Research, and the Intellectual Property Rights Policy Committee of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). In 2021 he served as Chair of the Art Law Section of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) and currently serves as Chair of the AALS Remedies Section.
Professor Contreras has previously taught at American University Washington College of Law and Washington University in St. Louis. Prior to entering academia he was a partner at the international law firm Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP, where he practiced transactional and intellectual property law in Boston, London and Washington DC. He is a cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School (JD) and Rice University (BA, BSEE) and clerked for Chief Justice Thomas R. Philips of the Texas Supreme Court.
Vice President of Domestic Policy, National Association of Manufacturers
Charles Crain is the Vice President of Domestic Policy at the National Association of Manufacturers. In this role, he leads the association’s policy development and advocacy work on economic policy issues critical to the success of manufacturing in the United States, including tax, corporate governance, technology, health care, regulatory reform, and immigration. Prior to taking on the VP role, Charles led the NAM’s corporate finance policy portfolio, focused primarily on engagement with the Securities and Exchange Commission. He previously worked on Capitol Hill for members of the Senate Finance and House Financial Services Committees and was the Director of Tax and Financial Services Policy at the Biotechnology Innovation Organization.
Senior Counsel for Law and Policy, Committee for Justice
Jeff is a registered patent attorney and an intellectual property and innovation policy professional with a unique combination of training and real-world experience. Jeff is also currently a PhD candidate at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public and International Affairs (GSPIA). His dissertation is entitled “An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of American Innovation: An Austrian Economics Perspective.”
Jeff maintains an active intellectual property law practice in the life sciences space. While counseling clients and working on his dissertation and other scholarship, Jeff remains active in the policy analysis and advocacy space. He currently serves as the President of the Association for American Innovation and a member and former Chair of the Public Policy Legal Task Force (PPLTF) for the Association of University of Technology Managers (AUTM).
Jeff has a bachelor’s degree chemical and biomedical engineering with concentrations in molecular biology and fermentation technology and from Carnegie Mellon. He also has a master’s degree in industrial administration (business) from Carnegie Mellon where he concentrated on international management, marketing and finance. He earned his law degree from the Duquesne University School of Law with a focus on intellectual property law.
Senior Partner, ACG Advocacy
Chris Israel is a Senior Partner at ACG Advocacy and is also the co-lead of the firm’s technology and intellectual property group.
He joined ACG in 2010, after serving in the George W. Bush Administration as Deputy Chief of
Staff to the Secretary of Commerce and later becoming the first U.S. International Intellectual
Property Enforcement Coordinator.
At ACG Advocacy, Chris works with a diverse range of clients including some of the largest and
most innovative companies in the world to support their efforts to build a policy environment in the U.S. that promotes and protects their investments in intellectual property. He has also
developed a unique focus leading a coalition of top venture capitalists and innovative startups to pursue a policy agenda that has led to improvements in tax policy, investments in R&D, and
strengthening patent protection.
Chris maintains a leadership profile working on IP and innovation issues and has been a frequent public speaker and has testified before Congress multiple times both as an Administration official and since he left public service. He was previously named one of the 50 “Most Influential People on IP” by Managing Intellectual Property magazine.
His international experience in government, particularly in working with China, has enabled him to successfully engage clients on global trade and technology matters ranging from the
negotiations of trade agreements, tariff policy, and engaging international organizations. His
client relationships have included automakers, global manufacturing companies, shipping
companies, and Chinese e-commerce and social media platforms seeking to better understand the U.S. market.
Chris’ experience leading coalitions has also included serving as Executive Director of the
musicFIRST Coalition during the lead-up to the passage of the landmark Music Modernization
Act. During this time he was named to Medium’s inaugural “Power 10” list of music policy
leaders.
Within ACG Advocacy, he provides guidance on the firm’s day-to-day interaction with all its
clients and helps lead ACG’s extensive policy research team. He has also launched the firm’s
podcast focused on policy trends and developments in Washington.
Earlier in his career, Chris worked on international policy issues at Time Warner where he was
part of a team that supported then-CEO, Gerald Levin, to develop the Global Business Dialogue on E-Commerce a ground-breaking global organization of CEOs from the U.S., EU, and Asia that developed industry best practices on matters such as online privacy, cross border data flows, and online taxation.
Prior to Time Warner, he served on Capitol Hill as a legislative aide to U.S. Representatives Jan
Meyers (R-KS) and Todd Tiahrt (R-KS).
Chris received his B.A. from the University of Kansas and an M.B.A. from The George
Washington University.
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