Founder, Original Jurisdiction
David Lat is a lawyer turned writer. He publishes Original Jurisdiction, a newsletter on Substack about law and legal affairs, and he writes for newspapers and magazines, including the New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal. Prior to launching Original Jurisdiction, David founded Above the Law, one of the nation's most widely read legal news websites, and Underneath Their Robes, a popular blog about federal judges that he wrote under a pseudonym. He is also the author of a novel set in the world of the federal courts, Supreme Ambitions. Before entering the media world, David worked as a federal prosecutor in Newark, New Jersey; a litigation associate at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, in New York; and a law clerk to Judge Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. David graduated from Harvard College and Yale Law School, where he served as an editor of the Yale Law Journal.
Partner, Squire Patton Boggs (Denver)
Keith Bradley represents companies before US federal and state agencies across a spectrum of regulatory regimes. As a senior advisor to the General Counsel of the US Department of Energy (DOE) until recently, he organized the defense of high-stakes litigation; advised on prominent departmental regulatory reforms, such as those in energy conservation and nuclear export controls; and was the department’s lead lawyer on implementation of the Iran nuclear deal.
Before joining DOE, he was counsel in the Legal Division of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, where he helped draft significant regulations, counseled senior agency executives on administrative and constitutional law, and worked with enforcement teams on some of the bureau’s most significant matters. Since leaving DOE, he has served as senior counsel for a corporation in Denver, where he built and ran the compliance management system and helped introduce regulators to the company’s novel business model.
Before his government service, Bradley engaged in administrative and regulatory litigation, appellate litigation and complex commercial litigation at a major US-based law firm.
Bradley is also a physicist who developed nanoelectronic sensor systems at a technology startup. He has 13 issued patents to his name.
Partner, Perkins Coie LLP
Thomas (Tom) Jensen provides strategic regulatory counsel, litigation support and legislative advocacy to clients in the environment, energy and natural resources sectors. With considerable experience in and deep knowledge of environmental and resources law, Tom delivers sophisticated counsel to clients involved with energy and water pipelines, electric transmission projects, transportation facilities, hydropower and other energy generation assets, and other capital-intensive infrastructure projects. Tom currently serves as lead outside regulatory and litigation counsel to a major interstate natural gas pipeline project and recently led the successful permitting and siting effort for a 500 kV interstate electric transmission project.
A nationally recognized practitioner of natural resources and environmental law, Tom advises clients throughout the business, government and nonprofit sectors, reflecting his credentials not only in the legal industry, but also in the public sector. He served as the majority counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources and was the associate director for natural resources on the White House Council on Environmental Quality. He has also written numerous pieces of legislation that have been enacted into federal law and has published and lectured widely in the field.
Developers of innovative, challenging energy projects and new environmental initiatives seek out Tom’s guidance for his insight into protected natural and cultural resources, public lands and marine areas, takings law and the National Environmental Policy Act. A key player in helping clients develop and defend their project strategies, Tom leads teams involved in siting, property and right-of-way acquisition, federal, state, tribal and local permitting, settlement negotiations and litigation.
Tom speaks frequently on environmental issues, from protected species mitigation to siting strategy, water development, water quality, climate adaptation and marine energy development. He also writes and speaks on conservation of at-risk wildlife and western range lands.
Partner, Marzulla Law
Roger J. Marzulla is one of the nation’s leading environmental, water, and property lawyers. As Assistant Attorney General in charge of the U.S. Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division, Roger learned first hand the operations and litigation styles of his client agencies: EPA, Interior Department, Bureau of Reclamation, Fish and Wildlife Service, National Marine Fisheries Service, Department of Transportation, Department of Commerce. In 1997, he co-founded Marzulla Law, where he brings to bear more than 35 years of expertise representing companies and individuals in industries as diverse as land and project development, aerospace, chemicals, oil and gas, mining, timber, manufacturing, computers, agriculture and water service.
Roger began his legal career as a trial lawyer in San Jose, California, after graduating magna cum laude from the University of Santa Clara School of Law. As a partner in Matthews & Marzulla he represented developers, title and construction companies, shopping centers, apartment owners and lenders in litigation throughout California. In 1981 he moved to Denver to become President of Mountain States Legal Foundation, litigating environmental and natural resource cases across the West.
In 1983 Roger joined the Justice Department as Special Litigation Counsel. He was subsequently promoted to Deputy Assistant Attorney General and, in 1987, was confirmed by the Senate as Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Environment and Natural Resources Division. At the Justice Department, Roger helped create litigation strategies for government programs as diverse as Superfund, the Clean Air Act, off-shore oil leasing, environmental crimes, federal facility clean-up, wetlands, endangered species and hazardous waste enforcement, as well as Presidential Order EO 12,630 (Government Interference with Private Property Rights).
In 1989 Roger returned to private law practice, successively heading the environmental law practices of the Powell, Goldstein and Akin, Gump law firms.
Since 1997, as a partner in Marzulla Law, Roger has continued to represent corporate and business clients in a wide array of environmental and property issues in courts across the country, frequently in litigation against the United States. He also assists clients in attaining compliance with environmental, health and safety regulation, and in avoiding risks in transactions.
Senior Attorney, Institute for Justice
Michael Bindas is a senior attorney with the Institute for Justice (IJ) and leads IJ’s educational choice team. In this role, he oversees a talented group of IJ attorneys who help policymakers design constitutionally defensible educational choice programs and who defend educational choice programs in courtrooms nationwide. He joined IJ in 2005.
Michael was part of IJ’s litigation team in Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, in which the U.S. Supreme Court held the exclusion of religious options from Montana’s educational choice program unconstitutional, and he led IJ’s defense of the Choice Scholarship Program for elementary and secondary students in Douglas County, Colorado. He also successfully challenged Washington’s denial of special education services to children in religious schools, as well as the state’s exclusion of sectarian options from its state work study program. Currently, he leads IJ’s team in Carson v. Makin, challenging Maine’s exclusion of religious options from its educational choice program.
Prior to leading IJ’s educational choice team, Michael litigated extensively to secure economic liberty, property rights, and freedom of speech throughout the nation. He was counsel of record at the U.S. Supreme Court for Kimbrough Fine Wine & Spirits in Tennessee Wine and Spirits Retailers Association v. Thomas, a successful challenge to Tennessee’s durational residency requirements for retail liquor licenses. He also led successful challenges to the municipal sign codes of St. Louis, Mo. and Norfolk, Va., after those cities attempted to silence protests of their abusive eminent domain practices.
Prior to joining IJ, Michael spent three years as an attorney with Perkins Coie LLP. He is a former law clerk to Judge Rhesa Hawkins Barksdale of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and served as an engineer officer in the United States Army and Pennsylvania Army National Guard before beginning his legal career.
Michael received his law degree cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 2001, where he served as Articles Editor for the Journal of Constitutional Law and was elected to the Order of the Coif. He received his undergraduate degree from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1995.
Partner, Holtzman Vogel Baran Torchinsky & Josefiak PLLC
Member, Caplin & Drysdale
Services
Mr. Birkenstock focuses on advising corporations, non-profit organizations, candidates, officeholders, and other clients in structuring new political efforts and administering their political, lobbying, and issue-advocacy projects. He also helps clients respond to controversies involving issues of political law such as alleged campaign finance improprieties, conflicts of interest, and real or perceived violations of other legal and ethical obligations.Highlights
While at the DNC, Mr. Birkenstock worked closely with the party's fundraisers and campaign staff to help ensure their compliance with the myriad of state and federal laws governing their activities. He took primary responsibility for responding to several investigations into Democratic Party fundraising following the 1996 presidential election. He also assisted in the litigation and public relations efforts surrounding the 2000 Florida recount and helped implement the DNC's transition to the McCain-Feingold campaign finance regime.Partner and Chair of Political Law Practice Group, Perkins Coie
Partner and Chair of Election Law and Government Ethics Practice, Bryan Cave
Senior Legal Fellow, Edwin Meese III Institute for the Rule of Law, Advancing American Freedom
Partner, Squire Patton Boggs (Denver)
Keith Bradley represents companies before US federal and state agencies across a spectrum of regulatory regimes. As a senior advisor to the General Counsel of the US Department of Energy (DOE) until recently, he organized the defense of high-stakes litigation; advised on prominent departmental regulatory reforms, such as those in energy conservation and nuclear export controls; and was the department’s lead lawyer on implementation of the Iran nuclear deal.
Before joining DOE, he was counsel in the Legal Division of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, where he helped draft significant regulations, counseled senior agency executives on administrative and constitutional law, and worked with enforcement teams on some of the bureau’s most significant matters. Since leaving DOE, he has served as senior counsel for a corporation in Denver, where he built and ran the compliance management system and helped introduce regulators to the company’s novel business model.
Before his government service, Bradley engaged in administrative and regulatory litigation, appellate litigation and complex commercial litigation at a major US-based law firm.
Bradley is also a physicist who developed nanoelectronic sensor systems at a technology startup. He has 13 issued patents to his name.
Partner, Perkins Coie LLP
Thomas (Tom) Jensen provides strategic regulatory counsel, litigation support and legislative advocacy to clients in the environment, energy and natural resources sectors. With considerable experience in and deep knowledge of environmental and resources law, Tom delivers sophisticated counsel to clients involved with energy and water pipelines, electric transmission projects, transportation facilities, hydropower and other energy generation assets, and other capital-intensive infrastructure projects. Tom currently serves as lead outside regulatory and litigation counsel to a major interstate natural gas pipeline project and recently led the successful permitting and siting effort for a 500 kV interstate electric transmission project.
A nationally recognized practitioner of natural resources and environmental law, Tom advises clients throughout the business, government and nonprofit sectors, reflecting his credentials not only in the legal industry, but also in the public sector. He served as the majority counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources and was the associate director for natural resources on the White House Council on Environmental Quality. He has also written numerous pieces of legislation that have been enacted into federal law and has published and lectured widely in the field.
Developers of innovative, challenging energy projects and new environmental initiatives seek out Tom’s guidance for his insight into protected natural and cultural resources, public lands and marine areas, takings law and the National Environmental Policy Act. A key player in helping clients develop and defend their project strategies, Tom leads teams involved in siting, property and right-of-way acquisition, federal, state, tribal and local permitting, settlement negotiations and litigation.
Tom speaks frequently on environmental issues, from protected species mitigation to siting strategy, water development, water quality, climate adaptation and marine energy development. He also writes and speaks on conservation of at-risk wildlife and western range lands.
Partner, Marzulla Law
Roger J. Marzulla is one of the nation’s leading environmental, water, and property lawyers. As Assistant Attorney General in charge of the U.S. Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division, Roger learned first hand the operations and litigation styles of his client agencies: EPA, Interior Department, Bureau of Reclamation, Fish and Wildlife Service, National Marine Fisheries Service, Department of Transportation, Department of Commerce. In 1997, he co-founded Marzulla Law, where he brings to bear more than 35 years of expertise representing companies and individuals in industries as diverse as land and project development, aerospace, chemicals, oil and gas, mining, timber, manufacturing, computers, agriculture and water service.
Roger began his legal career as a trial lawyer in San Jose, California, after graduating magna cum laude from the University of Santa Clara School of Law. As a partner in Matthews & Marzulla he represented developers, title and construction companies, shopping centers, apartment owners and lenders in litigation throughout California. In 1981 he moved to Denver to become President of Mountain States Legal Foundation, litigating environmental and natural resource cases across the West.
In 1983 Roger joined the Justice Department as Special Litigation Counsel. He was subsequently promoted to Deputy Assistant Attorney General and, in 1987, was confirmed by the Senate as Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Environment and Natural Resources Division. At the Justice Department, Roger helped create litigation strategies for government programs as diverse as Superfund, the Clean Air Act, off-shore oil leasing, environmental crimes, federal facility clean-up, wetlands, endangered species and hazardous waste enforcement, as well as Presidential Order EO 12,630 (Government Interference with Private Property Rights).
In 1989 Roger returned to private law practice, successively heading the environmental law practices of the Powell, Goldstein and Akin, Gump law firms.
Since 1997, as a partner in Marzulla Law, Roger has continued to represent corporate and business clients in a wide array of environmental and property issues in courts across the country, frequently in litigation against the United States. He also assists clients in attaining compliance with environmental, health and safety regulation, and in avoiding risks in transactions.
Managing Attorney of the Washington Office, Institute for Justice
William R. Maurer is the Managing Attorney of the Washington state office of the Institute for Justice, which engages in litigation in the areas of economic liberty, private property rights, educational choice, & freedom of speech.
Maurer is an advocate against the criminalization of poverty and the governmental use of the criminal and civil enforcement systems to raise revenue. He was lead counsel in a class action challenging the use of tickets to raise revenue in the city of Pagedale, Missouri. The suit resulted in a federal consent decree that reformed the city’s ticketing and municipal court system. He regularly speaks, teaches, and writes about the abuse of fines and fees in the criminal justice system. He was a participant in summits on taxation by citation put on by the White House and Department of Justice during the Obama Administration. His work on the issue includes serving as an advisory board member of the Fines and Fees Justice Center.
In addition to his work on criminal and civil justice reform, Maurer is a First Amendment litigator. In 2011, he successfully argued before the U.S. Supreme Court that Arizona’s punitive campaign financing regime was unconstitutional. Before the Washington Supreme Court, he successfully argued against efforts to classify radio commentary as a contribution under the state’s campaign finance law.
His cases and advocacy have been covered in the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Economist, the Wall Street Journal, and other major media outlets.
Maurer was named a “Washington Superlawyer” by Washington Law & Politics Magazine for several years. He is a chapter author in numerous legal reference works and has written several articles for law reviews and legal publications across the country.
Prior to joining IJ-WA, Maurer clerked for Washington Supreme Court Justice Richard Sanders and then practiced law at Perkins Coie LLP. Maurer received his law degree in 1994 from the University of Wisconsin – Madison, where he was an editor of the Wisconsin Law Review. He received his BA from Bard College in 1989.
Trump v. Biglaw: Executive Orders Against Law Firms and Their Implications for the Legal Profession
Pennsylvania Student Chapter
Philadelphia, PAPreparing for Summer Internships
Chicago Young Lawyers Chapter
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