Director, Project on Criminal Justice, Cato Institute
Matthew Cavedon is the Director of the Cato Institute’s Project on Criminal Justice. He focuses on reforming plea-driven mass adjudication, ensuring police accountability, and defending constitutional criminal originalism. Cavedon’s scholarship has been published (or is forthcoming in) publications including the Arizona State Law Journal, Cato Supreme Court Review, Seattle University Law Review, and Georgetown Journal of Law and Public Policy. Formerly a Georgia public defender and fellow at the Institute for Justice, Cavedon has taught law school courses on criminal law and procedure, as well as the First Amendment. Cavedon clerked for a U.S. district court and the Supreme Court of Georgia. He came to Cato following a fellowship at the Emory University Center for the Study of Law and Religion.
Attorney General of Tennessee
Jonathan Skrmetti was sworn in to an eight-year term as Tennessee’s Attorney General and Reporter on September 1, 2022.
Prior to his current role, General Skrmetti served as Chief Counsel to Governor Bill Lee and as Chief Deputy Attorney General to his predecessor, Tennessee Attorney General Herbert Slatery.
Before working for the State of Tennessee, General Skrmetti was a partner at Butler Snow LLP in Memphis. His legal career began with nearly a decade as a federal prosecutor. He worked at the Civil Rights Division at Main Justice and then at the Memphis U.S. Attorney’s Office and prosecuted sex traffickers, corrupt government officials, and violent white supremacists. In addition, General Skrmetti taught cyberlaw as an adjunct professor at the University of Memphis.
General Skrmetti earned honors degrees from George Washington University, the University of Oxford, and Harvard Law School, where he was editor-in-chief of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy. Following law school, Jonathan clerked for Judge Steven Colloton on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. He lives in Franklin, Tennessee, with his wife and four children.
Attorney, Briscoe Ivester & Bazel LLP
Peter Prows counsels public agencies, private clients, and sovereigns on all manner of water, land use, and environmental issues, from neighbor disputes and development-permit issues to national-profile bet-the-company federal litigation. He is experienced in California’s water rights and quality laws, the Clean Water Act and wetlands regulation, the Coastal Act, CEQA and NEPA, the public trust doctrine, real property, and the law of the sea. He litigates in state and federal trial and appellate courts, including the California and U.S. Supreme Courts, while also counseling clients on compliance matters to avoid disputes and help projects proceed. Mr. Prows also defends clients in environmental enforcement matters, whether administrative, civil, or criminal. Representative matters include:
Drakes Bay Oyster Company v. Jewell. Won an injunction from the Ninth Circuit keeping historic family oyster farm, which the federal and state governments wanted shut down, in business for an extra nearly 2 1/2 years. Organized amicus and other material litigation support from a national coalition of sustainable food advocates, environmentalists, scientists, historians, community members, and affected employees.
Duarte Nursery, Inc. v. United States. With some 600 jobs at risk, settled high-profile federal Clean Water Act enforcement action against wheat farmer for tiny fraction of government’s demand. Organized national coalition of farming interests to support defense. Discussed prosecution with federal elected representatives and staffs; opposition to prosecution became a talking point for federal officials interested in regulatory reform.
American Farm Bureau and California Farm Bureau (various matters). Filed U.S. Supreme Court amicus briefs, at both certiorari and merits stages, on Due Process concerns with the Clean Water Act. Those concerns were picked up by Justice Kennedy in his concurrence in one of these cases, Hawkes v. United States.
The Republic of Palau. Represented Palau in United Nations negotiations over destructive fishing practices in the high seas, the security and resource implications of climate change, and the extended continental shelf.
Bay Island Club v. California Coastal Commission. Complete win in Court of Appeal for client challenging a public-access condition in a coastal development permit.
Mark Pasternak d/b/a Devil’s Gulch Ranch (various matters). Successfully tried, through judgment, neighbor dispute over client’s historic farm road. Successfully challenged Marin County decision to restrict client’s use permit for agriculturally related activities on property. Successfully co-defended client in misdemeanor Fish & Game Code charge, resulting in complete dismissal of charge on the day of trial.
Prior to coming to Briscoe Ivester & Bazel in 2008, Mr. Prows clerked for Judge Charles N. Brower of 20 Essex Street Chambers, London, in his private international arbitration practice, and for Judge Abdul G. Koroma of Sierra Leone at the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
Counsel, Venable LLP
Tyler Welti is counsel in Venable's Environmental Practice in the San Francisco office. Drawing on his experience with the U.S. Department of Justice's Environment & Natural Resources Division, he represents clients in a wide range of federal and state environmental, natural resources, land use, and other litigation matters, including government enforcement actions, citizen suits, California Environmental Quality Act petitions, and Administrative Procedure Act challenges and appeals. He has particular expertise in counseling and defending project developments involving a federal or state nexus, including transportation, renewable and conventional energy development, timber, mining, water, and other infrastructure projects.
Mr. Welti's experience includes counseling and litigation involving the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), Endangered Species Act (ESA), Clean Water Act (CWA), Clean Air Act (CAA), Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA), Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA), National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA), Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA), National Forest Management Act (NFMA), Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA), Mining Law, Mineral Leasing Act, Antiquities Act, Migratory Bird Treaty Act, and many other state and federal laws and regulations.
He began his career as a trial attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice's Environment & Natural Resources Division, where he served as lead counsel on a number of major environmental cases. He received a special distinction award for tireless efforts on behalf of the American public for his work on the Deepwater Horizon litigation. He also served as a judicial law clerk to the Honorable Consuelo M. Callahan for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
Vice President of Law & Policy, Property and Environment Research Center
Jonathan Wood is vice president of law and policy at the Property and Environment Research Center (PERC). An attorney, Jonathan has litigated environmental and property-rights cases in the Supreme Court of the United States, federal and state appellate courts, and trial courts across the country. His writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, National Review, Reason, and other outlets. And his research has been published in journals such as Environmental Law Reporter, Yale Journal on Regulation Notice & Comment, Pace Environmental Law Review, and California Western Law Review.
Prior to coming to PERC, Jonathan was a senior attorney at Pacific Legal Foundation, where he litigated cases concerning the Endangered Species Act, Clean Water Act, and other federal environmental laws. He was co-counsel for forest landowners in Weyerhaeuser Co. v. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, in which the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that private land could not be arbitrarily regulated as critical habitat under the ESA. He also led a successful effort to reform regulation of threatened species to better align the incentives of private landowners with the interests of rare species.
Jonathan has testified before several congressional committees on wildlife conservation and endangered species topics. He has also appeared on national television and radio, including NPR’s All Things Considered, C-Span’s Washington Journal, Stossel, Fox News, and Hill.TV.
Jonathan has a law degree from the New York University School of Law, a masters degree in economic policy from the London School of Economics, and a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Texas. He is on the executive committee for the Federalist Society’s Environmental Law and Property Rights Practice Group and a steering committee member for the Environmental Law Institute’s Emerging Leaders Initiative.
Partner, Briscoe Prows Kao Ivester & Bazel LLP
Tony Francois is experienced in Water and Real Property Law, Land Use and Zoning, Environmental Regulation, Natural Resources Development, Agricultural Law, and Constitutional Law. He has represented homeowners, builders, farmers and ranchers, trade associations, and water districts in administrative, civil, and criminal proceedings before state and federal administrative agencies and state and federal trial and appellate courts. He is a member of the California State Bar and the Northern, Eastern, and Central Districts of California and the Districts of New Mexico and North Dakota, and has litigated cases in federal courts in California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, North and South Dakota, Minnesota, Massachusetts, Maryland, South Carolina, and the District of Columbia, as well as the Sixth, Eighth, Ninth, and Tenth Circuit Courts of Appeals. He has appeared before the Supreme Courts of California, Idaho, Nevada, and the United States.
Prior to attending law school, he served as an infantry officer in the United States Army, and was stationed in the former West Germany during the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Tony was an Attorney at Pacific Legal Foundation from 2012 to 2021. He was a lobbyist for 10 years, first with California Farm Bureau Federation from 2003 to 2007, and then with KP Public Affairs from 2007 to 2012. He was an attorney at McQuaid, Bedford & Van Zandt in San Francisco from 1999 – 2003.
Partner, Kirkland & Ellis LLP
Neil Eggleston is a litigation partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Kirkland & Ellis LLP.
Neil has a distinguished record of public service, and has held a number of senior government roles. He was White House Counsel to President Obama from 2014 to 2017, and advised the president on all legal and constitutional issues across a broad spectrum of domestic and foreign policy matters. Neil’s practice focuses on enforcement defense including at the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), U.S. Attorney’s Offices, and other enforcement agencies.
Earlier in his career, Neil served as Associate Counsel to President Clinton from 1993 to 1994. Heals o served as Deputy Chief Counsel, U.S. House of Representatives Select Committee Investigating the Iran/Contra Affair (1987-1988); Assistant U.S. Attorney (1981-1987); and Chief Appellate Attorney for the Southern District of New York (1986-1987).
Neil served as a law clerk for the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit (1978-1979) and for Chief Justice Warren E. Burger on the United States Supreme Court (1979-1980).
Neil teaches a seminar in Presidential Power at Harvard Law School in the spring of 2017, 2019, 2020, and 2021 and at Yale Law School in the spring of 2018. He also frequently lectures at American Bar Association and similar seminars.
President, Center for Individual Rights
Todd Gaziano is the President of the Center for Individual Rights. Mr. Gaziano received his J.D. in 1988 from the University of Chicago Law School, where he was a John M. Olin Fellow in Law and Economics. He received his B.A. from West Virginia University, summa cum laude in 1985. He was selected as a Truman Scholar from West Virginia while an undergraduate.
Mr. Gaziano’s previous legal work includes service as a law clerk for U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit Judge Edith Jones, as an attorney in the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel, as a chief subcommittee counsel in the U.S. House of Representatives, as a Houston trial attorney, and as a chief corporate legal officer. He also served a six-year term as commissioner on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights (2008-2013), where he helped conduct oversight and investigations of civil rights agencies.
For most of the last 25 years, Mr. Gaziano was a legal scholar and public interest law leader, promoting individual liberty in the Supreme Court and Congress. From 1997 to 2013, he was the founding director of the Edwin Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation. From 2014 until he joined CIR, he was the Chief of Legal Policy and Strategic Research, and Director of the Center for the Separation of Powers, at Pacific Legal Foundation.
Maurice and Hilda Friedman Professor of Law, Columbia Law School; CEO, New Civil Liberties Alliance
Philip Hamburger is the Maurice and Hilda Friedman Professor of Law at Columbia Law School, and Chief Executive Officer at the New Civil Liberties Alliance. Before coming to Columbia, he was the John P. Wilson Professor at the University of Chicago Law School.
He writes on constitutional law and its history—with particular emphasis on religious liberty, freedom of speech and the press, judicial office, administrative power, and unconstitutional conditions.
His books are Separation of Church and State (Harvard 2002), Law and Judicial Duty (Harvard 2008), Is Administrative Law Unlawful? (Chicago 2014), The Administrative Threat (Encounter 2017), and Liberal Suppression: Section 501(c)(3) and the Taxation of Speech (Chicago 2018). A forthcoming book is Purchasing Submission: Conditions, Power, and Freedom (Harvard 2021).
He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and he has served on the board of directors of the American Society for Legal History. He has twice received the Sutherland Prize for the most significant contribution to English legal history, and has been awarded the Henry Paolucci - Walter Bagehot Book Award, the Hayek Book Prize, and the Bradley Prize.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit
Judge Katsas was appointed to the D.C. Circuit in December 2017. He graduated from Princeton University and Harvard Law School, where he was an executive editor on the Harvard Law Review. Between 1989 and 1992, he served as a law clerk to Judge Edward Becker on the Third Circuit, to then-Judge Clarence Thomas on the D.C. Circuit, and to Justice Thomas on the Supreme Court. Between 1992 and 2001, he was an associate and then partner in the Washington office of Jones Day, where he specialized in appellate and complex civil litigation. Between 2001 and 2009, he served in many senior positions in the Department of Justice, including as Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division and as Acting Associate Attorney General. In 2009, he returned to Jones Day. From January to December 2017, he served as Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy Counsel to the President.
Before joining the bench, Judge Katsas argued more than 75 appeals, including three cases in the Supreme Court, 13 cases in the D.C. Circuit, and cases in every other federal court of appeals. By appointment of the Chief Justice, he served on the Advisory Committee on Appellate Rules from 2013 to 2017. In 2016, he was elected to membership in the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers.
J.B. and Maurice C. Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law; Director of the Environmental Law Advocacy Center; Executive Director, Project for Older Prisoners, The George Washington University Law School
Jonathan Turley is a nationally recognized legal scholar who has written extensively in areas ranging from constitutional law to legal theory to tort law. After a stint at Tulane Law School, Professor Turley joined the GW Law faculty in 1990, and in 1998, became the youngest chaired professor in the school’s history.
He is the founder and executive director of the Project for Older Prisoners (POPS). He has written more than three dozen academic articles that have appeared in a variety of leading law journals including those of Cornell, Duke, Georgetown, Harvard, and Northwestern Universities, among others. He most recently completed a three-part study of the historical and constitutional evolution of the military system.
Professor Turley has served as counsel in some of the most notable cases in the last two decades, including his representation of the Area 51 workers at a secret air base in Nevada; the nuclear couriers at Oak Ridge, Tennessee; the Rocky Flats grand jury in Colorado; Dr. Eric Foretich, the husband in the Elizabeth Morgan custody controversy; and four former U.S. Attorney Generals during the Clinton impeachment litigation. Professor Turley also has served as counsel in a variety of national security and terrorism cases, and has been ranked as one of the top 10 lawyers handling military cases.
He has served as a consultant on homeland security and constitutional issues, and is a frequent witness before the House and Senate on constitutional and statutory issues as well as tort reform legislation. He also is a nationally recognized legal commentator; he ranked 38th in the top 100 most cited ‘public intellectuals’ in a recent study by Judge Richard Posner and was found to be the second most cited law professor in the country.
He is a member of the USA Today board of contributors and the recipient of the “2005 Single Issue Advocate of the Year” – the annual opinion award for the Aspen Institute and The Week magazine. More than 400 of his articles on legal and policy issues regularly appear in national newspapers. He also has worked as the CBS and NBC legal analyst, respectively, during national controversies.
Partner, Kirkland & Ellis LLP
Neil Eggleston is a litigation partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Kirkland & Ellis LLP.
Neil has a distinguished record of public service, and has held a number of senior government roles. He was White House Counsel to President Obama from 2014 to 2017, and advised the president on all legal and constitutional issues across a broad spectrum of domestic and foreign policy matters. Neil’s practice focuses on enforcement defense including at the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), U.S. Attorney’s Offices, and other enforcement agencies.
Earlier in his career, Neil served as Associate Counsel to President Clinton from 1993 to 1994. Heals o served as Deputy Chief Counsel, U.S. House of Representatives Select Committee Investigating the Iran/Contra Affair (1987-1988); Assistant U.S. Attorney (1981-1987); and Chief Appellate Attorney for the Southern District of New York (1986-1987).
Neil served as a law clerk for the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit (1978-1979) and for Chief Justice Warren E. Burger on the United States Supreme Court (1979-1980).
Neil teaches a seminar in Presidential Power at Harvard Law School in the spring of 2017, 2019, 2020, and 2021 and at Yale Law School in the spring of 2018. He also frequently lectures at American Bar Association and similar seminars.
President, Center for Individual Rights
Todd Gaziano is the President of the Center for Individual Rights. Mr. Gaziano received his J.D. in 1988 from the University of Chicago Law School, where he was a John M. Olin Fellow in Law and Economics. He received his B.A. from West Virginia University, summa cum laude in 1985. He was selected as a Truman Scholar from West Virginia while an undergraduate.
Mr. Gaziano’s previous legal work includes service as a law clerk for U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit Judge Edith Jones, as an attorney in the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel, as a chief subcommittee counsel in the U.S. House of Representatives, as a Houston trial attorney, and as a chief corporate legal officer. He also served a six-year term as commissioner on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights (2008-2013), where he helped conduct oversight and investigations of civil rights agencies.
For most of the last 25 years, Mr. Gaziano was a legal scholar and public interest law leader, promoting individual liberty in the Supreme Court and Congress. From 1997 to 2013, he was the founding director of the Edwin Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation. From 2014 until he joined CIR, he was the Chief of Legal Policy and Strategic Research, and Director of the Center for the Separation of Powers, at Pacific Legal Foundation.
Maurice and Hilda Friedman Professor of Law, Columbia Law School; CEO, New Civil Liberties Alliance
Philip Hamburger is the Maurice and Hilda Friedman Professor of Law at Columbia Law School, and Chief Executive Officer at the New Civil Liberties Alliance. Before coming to Columbia, he was the John P. Wilson Professor at the University of Chicago Law School.
He writes on constitutional law and its history—with particular emphasis on religious liberty, freedom of speech and the press, judicial office, administrative power, and unconstitutional conditions.
His books are Separation of Church and State (Harvard 2002), Law and Judicial Duty (Harvard 2008), Is Administrative Law Unlawful? (Chicago 2014), The Administrative Threat (Encounter 2017), and Liberal Suppression: Section 501(c)(3) and the Taxation of Speech (Chicago 2018). A forthcoming book is Purchasing Submission: Conditions, Power, and Freedom (Harvard 2021).
He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and he has served on the board of directors of the American Society for Legal History. He has twice received the Sutherland Prize for the most significant contribution to English legal history, and has been awarded the Henry Paolucci - Walter Bagehot Book Award, the Hayek Book Prize, and the Bradley Prize.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit
Judge Katsas was appointed to the D.C. Circuit in December 2017. He graduated from Princeton University and Harvard Law School, where he was an executive editor on the Harvard Law Review. Between 1989 and 1992, he served as a law clerk to Judge Edward Becker on the Third Circuit, to then-Judge Clarence Thomas on the D.C. Circuit, and to Justice Thomas on the Supreme Court. Between 1992 and 2001, he was an associate and then partner in the Washington office of Jones Day, where he specialized in appellate and complex civil litigation. Between 2001 and 2009, he served in many senior positions in the Department of Justice, including as Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division and as Acting Associate Attorney General. In 2009, he returned to Jones Day. From January to December 2017, he served as Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy Counsel to the President.
Before joining the bench, Judge Katsas argued more than 75 appeals, including three cases in the Supreme Court, 13 cases in the D.C. Circuit, and cases in every other federal court of appeals. By appointment of the Chief Justice, he served on the Advisory Committee on Appellate Rules from 2013 to 2017. In 2016, he was elected to membership in the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers.
J.B. and Maurice C. Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law; Director of the Environmental Law Advocacy Center; Executive Director, Project for Older Prisoners, The George Washington University Law School
Jonathan Turley is a nationally recognized legal scholar who has written extensively in areas ranging from constitutional law to legal theory to tort law. After a stint at Tulane Law School, Professor Turley joined the GW Law faculty in 1990, and in 1998, became the youngest chaired professor in the school’s history.
He is the founder and executive director of the Project for Older Prisoners (POPS). He has written more than three dozen academic articles that have appeared in a variety of leading law journals including those of Cornell, Duke, Georgetown, Harvard, and Northwestern Universities, among others. He most recently completed a three-part study of the historical and constitutional evolution of the military system.
Professor Turley has served as counsel in some of the most notable cases in the last two decades, including his representation of the Area 51 workers at a secret air base in Nevada; the nuclear couriers at Oak Ridge, Tennessee; the Rocky Flats grand jury in Colorado; Dr. Eric Foretich, the husband in the Elizabeth Morgan custody controversy; and four former U.S. Attorney Generals during the Clinton impeachment litigation. Professor Turley also has served as counsel in a variety of national security and terrorism cases, and has been ranked as one of the top 10 lawyers handling military cases.
He has served as a consultant on homeland security and constitutional issues, and is a frequent witness before the House and Senate on constitutional and statutory issues as well as tort reform legislation. He also is a nationally recognized legal commentator; he ranked 38th in the top 100 most cited ‘public intellectuals’ in a recent study by Judge Richard Posner and was found to be the second most cited law professor in the country.
He is a member of the USA Today board of contributors and the recipient of the “2005 Single Issue Advocate of the Year” – the annual opinion award for the Aspen Institute and The Week magazine. More than 400 of his articles on legal and policy issues regularly appear in national newspapers. He also has worked as the CBS and NBC legal analyst, respectively, during national controversies.
Director of Equality and Opportunity Litigation, Pacific Legal Foundation
Joshua directs the litigation for PLF’s Equality and Opportunity Program, where he fights to dismantle unconstitutional barriers to opportunity, freeing individuals to rise based on their choices, character, and ability.
Joshua joined PLF as an attorney in 2007. His litigation practice has covered all PLF subject areas with a particular focus on equality and opportunity. Joshua argued PLF’s 13th case before the United States Supreme Court, Cedar Point Nursery v. Hassid, where the court ruled that a California regulation that allowed union organizers onto private property violated the Fifth Amendment’s Takings Clause. Other litigation highlights of his include ending a decades-long racial quota in Hartford, Connecticut, lifting a ban on boys’ dancing in Minnesota, and vindicating an entrepreneur’s right to start a moving business in Kentucky.
Joshua’s writings have been published by the USA Today, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post. And his research has been published in journals such as Texas Review of Law & Politics, Alabama Civil Rights & Civil Liberties Law Review, Journal of Civil Rights & Economic Development, and Northern Illinois University Law Review. He has appeared on national television and radio, including PBS Newshour, NPR’s All things Considered, Stossel, and Univision.
Joshua earned his BA with distinction from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a triple major in political science, international relations, and German. He earned his JD cum laude from Michigan State College of Law where he was on the law review and trial practice institute. Joshua lives in Sacramento, California with his wife and three children. He loves playing chess and rooting for Wisconsin sports teams.
Joshua is a member of the bar only in the state of California.
Partner, Briscoe Prows Kao Ivester & Bazel LLP
Tony Francois is experienced in Water and Real Property Law, Land Use and Zoning, Environmental Regulation, Natural Resources Development, Agricultural Law, and Constitutional Law. He has represented homeowners, builders, farmers and ranchers, trade associations, and water districts in administrative, civil, and criminal proceedings before state and federal administrative agencies and state and federal trial and appellate courts. He is a member of the California State Bar and the Northern, Eastern, and Central Districts of California and the Districts of New Mexico and North Dakota, and has litigated cases in federal courts in California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, North and South Dakota, Minnesota, Massachusetts, Maryland, South Carolina, and the District of Columbia, as well as the Sixth, Eighth, Ninth, and Tenth Circuit Courts of Appeals. He has appeared before the Supreme Courts of California, Idaho, Nevada, and the United States.
Prior to attending law school, he served as an infantry officer in the United States Army, and was stationed in the former West Germany during the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Tony was an Attorney at Pacific Legal Foundation from 2012 to 2021. He was a lobbyist for 10 years, first with California Farm Bureau Federation from 2003 to 2007, and then with KP Public Affairs from 2007 to 2012. He was an attorney at McQuaid, Bedford & Van Zandt in San Francisco from 1999 – 2003.
Attorney, Briscoe Ivester & Bazel LLP
Peter Prows counsels public agencies, private clients, and sovereigns on all manner of water, land use, and environmental issues, from neighbor disputes and development-permit issues to national-profile bet-the-company federal litigation. He is experienced in California’s water rights and quality laws, the Clean Water Act and wetlands regulation, the Coastal Act, CEQA and NEPA, the public trust doctrine, real property, and the law of the sea. He litigates in state and federal trial and appellate courts, including the California and U.S. Supreme Courts, while also counseling clients on compliance matters to avoid disputes and help projects proceed. Mr. Prows also defends clients in environmental enforcement matters, whether administrative, civil, or criminal. Representative matters include:
Drakes Bay Oyster Company v. Jewell. Won an injunction from the Ninth Circuit keeping historic family oyster farm, which the federal and state governments wanted shut down, in business for an extra nearly 2 1/2 years. Organized amicus and other material litigation support from a national coalition of sustainable food advocates, environmentalists, scientists, historians, community members, and affected employees.
Duarte Nursery, Inc. v. United States. With some 600 jobs at risk, settled high-profile federal Clean Water Act enforcement action against wheat farmer for tiny fraction of government’s demand. Organized national coalition of farming interests to support defense. Discussed prosecution with federal elected representatives and staffs; opposition to prosecution became a talking point for federal officials interested in regulatory reform.
American Farm Bureau and California Farm Bureau (various matters). Filed U.S. Supreme Court amicus briefs, at both certiorari and merits stages, on Due Process concerns with the Clean Water Act. Those concerns were picked up by Justice Kennedy in his concurrence in one of these cases, Hawkes v. United States.
The Republic of Palau. Represented Palau in United Nations negotiations over destructive fishing practices in the high seas, the security and resource implications of climate change, and the extended continental shelf.
Bay Island Club v. California Coastal Commission. Complete win in Court of Appeal for client challenging a public-access condition in a coastal development permit.
Mark Pasternak d/b/a Devil’s Gulch Ranch (various matters). Successfully tried, through judgment, neighbor dispute over client’s historic farm road. Successfully challenged Marin County decision to restrict client’s use permit for agriculturally related activities on property. Successfully co-defended client in misdemeanor Fish & Game Code charge, resulting in complete dismissal of charge on the day of trial.
Prior to coming to Briscoe Ivester & Bazel in 2008, Mr. Prows clerked for Judge Charles N. Brower of 20 Essex Street Chambers, London, in his private international arbitration practice, and for Judge Abdul G. Koroma of Sierra Leone at the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
Counsel, Venable LLP
Tyler Welti is counsel in Venable's Environmental Practice in the San Francisco office. Drawing on his experience with the U.S. Department of Justice's Environment & Natural Resources Division, he represents clients in a wide range of federal and state environmental, natural resources, land use, and other litigation matters, including government enforcement actions, citizen suits, California Environmental Quality Act petitions, and Administrative Procedure Act challenges and appeals. He has particular expertise in counseling and defending project developments involving a federal or state nexus, including transportation, renewable and conventional energy development, timber, mining, water, and other infrastructure projects.
Mr. Welti's experience includes counseling and litigation involving the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), Endangered Species Act (ESA), Clean Water Act (CWA), Clean Air Act (CAA), Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA), Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA), National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA), Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA), National Forest Management Act (NFMA), Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA), Mining Law, Mineral Leasing Act, Antiquities Act, Migratory Bird Treaty Act, and many other state and federal laws and regulations.
He began his career as a trial attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice's Environment & Natural Resources Division, where he served as lead counsel on a number of major environmental cases. He received a special distinction award for tireless efforts on behalf of the American public for his work on the Deepwater Horizon litigation. He also served as a judicial law clerk to the Honorable Consuelo M. Callahan for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
Vice President of Law & Policy, Property and Environment Research Center
Jonathan Wood is vice president of law and policy at the Property and Environment Research Center (PERC). An attorney, Jonathan has litigated environmental and property-rights cases in the Supreme Court of the United States, federal and state appellate courts, and trial courts across the country. His writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, National Review, Reason, and other outlets. And his research has been published in journals such as Environmental Law Reporter, Yale Journal on Regulation Notice & Comment, Pace Environmental Law Review, and California Western Law Review.
Prior to coming to PERC, Jonathan was a senior attorney at Pacific Legal Foundation, where he litigated cases concerning the Endangered Species Act, Clean Water Act, and other federal environmental laws. He was co-counsel for forest landowners in Weyerhaeuser Co. v. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, in which the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that private land could not be arbitrarily regulated as critical habitat under the ESA. He also led a successful effort to reform regulation of threatened species to better align the incentives of private landowners with the interests of rare species.
Jonathan has testified before several congressional committees on wildlife conservation and endangered species topics. He has also appeared on national television and radio, including NPR’s All Things Considered, C-Span’s Washington Journal, Stossel, Fox News, and Hill.TV.
Jonathan has a law degree from the New York University School of Law, a masters degree in economic policy from the London School of Economics, and a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Texas. He is on the executive committee for the Federalist Society’s Environmental Law and Property Rights Practice Group and a steering committee member for the Environmental Law Institute’s Emerging Leaders Initiative.
Constitutional Scholarship Director and Senior Legal Analyst, Pacific Legal Foundation
Anastasia Boden is Director of Constitutional Scholarship at Pacific Legal Foundation, where she leads the organization’s Supreme Court commentary and directs scholarly analysis in support of the firm’s litigation. She has represented entrepreneurs and small businesses nationwide in challenges to onerous licensing regimes, anti-competitive titling restrictions, Certificate of Need (“competitor’s veto”) laws, and other forms of unnecessary red tape that block economic opportunity.
Prior to this role, Anastasia developed nearly a dozen constitutional challenges to Certificate of Need laws across the country, helping spur legislative reform in Montana, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. Her victories include a ruling invalidating Houston’s busking restrictions, multiple appellate decisions expanding access to the courts for civil rights plaintiffs, and the legislative repeal of Virginia’s happy-hour advertising ban.
Her writings on law and liberty have been featured in USA Today, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, Forbes, and more, and she has appeared on Headline News, CBS News, Fox News, ReasonTV, Newsmax, and John Stossel. In 2020, she was featured on Libertarian Party presidential candidate Jo Jorgensen’s Supreme Court shortlist.
Anastasia earned her BA with dean’s honors from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and her JD from Georgetown University Law Center, where she was research assistant to Professor Randy E. Barnett—the “intellectual godfather” of the constitutional challenge to Obamacare. She is the co-creator of the podcast Dissed, about infamous Supreme Court dissents. She authors the biweekly newsletter SCOTUS Scoop and the column, “In Dissent” for SCOTUSblog.
Founder, Chef, Chef Geoff's
Geoff graduated from Georgetown University in 1995 with a degree in theology. He then went on to graduate first in his class at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, NY. Geoff opened Chef Geoff’s in 2000 and Chef Geoff’s Downtown in 2002. Both were opened before he reached the age of 30. In 2006 Geoff opened his third restaurant, LIA’S in Chevy Chase, MD. In late 2008 Geoff opened Hank’s Tavern & Eats in Hyattsville, MD. He operates the 200 seat restaurant in partnership with his brother Chris Tracy. Geoff’s fifth restaurant, Chef Geoff’s Tysons Corner opened in 2009 in Vienna, VA. The sixth restaurant, Chef Geoff’s Rockville, opened in 2012.
Geoff, along with a very talented team, oversees restaurant operations as well as managing the concept, menu development, marketing, finances, and growth at each of the restaurants. The restaurants serve 750,000 guests every year and employ more than 400 amazing people.
Geoff is also the co-author of the New York Times Best Seller, Baby Love. Baby Love teaches busy parents how to feed “Healthy, Easy, Delicious Meals for Your Baby and Toddler”. The book is published by St. Martin’s Press.
As an active member of the Washington DC community, Geoff serves as vice chairman on the executive board of the Restaurant Association of Metropolitan Washington. Additionally, Geoff contributes to more than 150 charities and organization every year in the form of silent auctions, fundraising appearances, and even the Chef Geoff sponsored Little League team. Geoff is also a member of the Washington Baltimore chapter of the Young Presidents Organization.
In 2006 the National Restaurant Association awarded Chef Geoff’s The Best Neighbor Award for its contributions to the community. In 2009 Geoff was awarded the Albert Uster “Chef of the Year Award”. In 2010 Geoff was named one of the top 40 business people under the age of 40 by Washington Business Journal. In 2011 Chef Geoff’s Tysons won the RAMMY award for “Hottest Restaurant Bar Scene”. In 2009 and 2011 Lia’s was selected as “Best Restaurant in Chevy Chase” by Bethesda Magazine in its annual Reader’s Choice Awards. In 2012, the readers of Washingtonian Magazine selected Geoff as “Best Local Chef”.
Geoff is extraordinarily fortunate to be married to the love of his life and CBS This Morning Anchor Norah O’Donnell. They reside in both New York City and Washington DC with their three beautiful children Grace, Henry, and Riley.
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