Deputy Policy Director, U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, & Transportation
Dan Ball is a Deputy Policy Director with the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, where he handles the Communications, Technology, Innovation, and Internet portfolio. He has previously practiced telecommunications law at law firms and at the FCC.
Senior Policy Advisor and Senior Technology Counsel, Senator Mark Warner
Rafi Martina currently serves as Senior Policy Advisor for Senator Mark Warner (D-Virginia). In this capacity, he acts as the senator’s principal advisor on cybersecurity, technology, telecommunications, competition, and consumer protection issues. Mr. Martina serves as Senator Warner’s principal cybersecurity and technology advisor across his committee assignments, including the Senate Banking Committee and Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, along with the Senator's work as Co-Chair of the Senate Cybersecurity Caucus.
He has spearheaded the Senator’s work on addressing social media disinformation, including by authoring the Honest Ads Act, authored numerous pieces of legislation the Senator has led on information security, including the IoT Cybersecurity Improvement Act of 2017, and drafted the Senator’s influential white paper developing policy proposals for the regulation of social media and technology firms.
Prior to joining Senator Warner’s staff, Mr. Martina served as regulatory counsel for Sprint Corp. from 2011-2015, where he represented Sprint in major rulemaking proceedings, mergers and acquisitions, and cases before the Federal Communications Commission, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, the Department of Justice, and federal courts.
Before joining Sprint, Mr. Martina was the recipient of a post-graduate fellowship from the University of Virginia School of Law Foundation. Under the auspices of his fellowship, he acted as a legal fellow and staff attorney for FCC Commissioner Meredith Attwell Baker from 2010-2011.
Mr. Martina graduated from the University of Virginia School of Law. He received his Bachelors of Arts (with high honors) in Political Science from the University of Michigan and was a visiting scholar at Oxford University (Worcester College).
Partner, McCarter & English LLP
Mr. Cote represents both small and large businesses and occasionally individuals in both federal and state courts throughout the country. His practice concentrates primarily on hospitality, employment, civil rights, contracts, unfair and deceptive conduct, class action, private property rights and appellate litigation.
During his time with McCarter, Mr. Cote has played an integral role in obtaining several significant victories for the firm's clients, including the dismissal of a challenge under the public trust doctrine to the private ownership of lawfully filled, tidelands that were developed pursuant to a legislative grant issued in 1832 and the successful defense of a large food service company in a case of first impression concerning the application and interpretation of the Massachusetts Tips Act. Mr. Cote was also instrumental in obtaining a sanctions award of $100,000 in connection with a construction accident case brought in bad faith against one of the firm's clients.
Prior to his admission to the bar, Mr. Cote served for over ten years as a paralegal and law clerk in Arizona, Massachusetts, Vermont and Washington, D.C. During this time, he served as the principal legal assistant to the Arizona Legislature's Ombudsman for Private Property Rights. He also clerked for the Honorable Roger J. Marzulla and Nancie G. Marzulla at Defenders of Property Rights, which, at the time, was the nation's only non-profit legal foundation dedicated exclusively to the protection of private property rights. He is a contributing author of that organization's 1999 publication "State Property Rights Legislation Report: Federalism in Action."
Mr. Cote presently serves as the vice-chair of the Boston Lawyers Division of the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies. He is also a member of the executive committee for the Federalist Society's Litigation Practice Group and the primary author of the Environmental Practice Group's 2001 terrorism briefing paper entitled: "National Security vs. Public Disclosure: The War on Terrorism's Implications Upon Federal Emergency Planning and Right to Know Laws."
H.H. Macaulay Endowed Professor of Economics, Clemson College of Business
Thomas Hazlett is the Hugh H. Macaulay Endowed Professor of Economics at Clemson University. He has previously held faculty positions at George Mason University, the University of California, Davis, and the Wharton School, and served as Chief Economist of the Federal Communications Commission. A noted expert in regulatory economics and information markets, his research has appeared in academic forums such as the Journal of Law & Economics, RAND Journal of Economics, the Journal of Financial Economics, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review and the Columbia Law Review. He has also written for such popular periodicals as the Wall Street Journal, The Economist, Slate, the N.Y. Times, N.Y. Daily News, Reuters.com, Business Week, The New Republic and the Financial Times. His most recent book, The Political Spectrum: The Tumultuous Liberation of Wireless Technology, from Herbert Hoover to the Smartphone, (Yale, 2017), was featured as one of the top tech books of the year at CES 2018.
Special Assistant and Counsel to Commissioner Peter Kirsanow of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, U.S. Commission on Civil Rights
Carissa Mulder is a 2009 graduate of the University of Notre Dame Law School and a member of the Virginia Bar. She is a special assistant and counsel to Commissioner Peter Kirsanow of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.
Deputy Policy Director, U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, & Transportation
Dan Ball is a Deputy Policy Director with the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, where he handles the Communications, Technology, Innovation, and Internet portfolio. He has previously practiced telecommunications law at law firms and at the FCC.
Senior Policy Advisor and Senior Technology Counsel, Senator Mark Warner
Rafi Martina currently serves as Senior Policy Advisor for Senator Mark Warner (D-Virginia). In this capacity, he acts as the senator’s principal advisor on cybersecurity, technology, telecommunications, competition, and consumer protection issues. Mr. Martina serves as Senator Warner’s principal cybersecurity and technology advisor across his committee assignments, including the Senate Banking Committee and Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, along with the Senator's work as Co-Chair of the Senate Cybersecurity Caucus.
He has spearheaded the Senator’s work on addressing social media disinformation, including by authoring the Honest Ads Act, authored numerous pieces of legislation the Senator has led on information security, including the IoT Cybersecurity Improvement Act of 2017, and drafted the Senator’s influential white paper developing policy proposals for the regulation of social media and technology firms.
Prior to joining Senator Warner’s staff, Mr. Martina served as regulatory counsel for Sprint Corp. from 2011-2015, where he represented Sprint in major rulemaking proceedings, mergers and acquisitions, and cases before the Federal Communications Commission, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, the Department of Justice, and federal courts.
Before joining Sprint, Mr. Martina was the recipient of a post-graduate fellowship from the University of Virginia School of Law Foundation. Under the auspices of his fellowship, he acted as a legal fellow and staff attorney for FCC Commissioner Meredith Attwell Baker from 2010-2011.
Mr. Martina graduated from the University of Virginia School of Law. He received his Bachelors of Arts (with high honors) in Political Science from the University of Michigan and was a visiting scholar at Oxford University (Worcester College).
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