S. Samuel Arsht Professor of Corporate Law, University of Pennsylvania Law School
David Skeel is the Caryl Louise Boies Visiting Professor of Law at New York University, and the S. Samuel Arsht Professor of Corporate Law at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of The New Financial Deal: Understanding the Dodd-Frank Act and its (Unintended) Consequences (Wiley, 2011); Icarus in the Boardroom: The Fundamental Flaws in Corporate America and Where They Came From (Oxford University Press, 2005); Debt’s Dominion: A History of Bankruptcy Law in America (Princeton University Press, 2001); and numerous articles on bankruptcy, corporate law, financial regulation, Christianity and law, and other topics. Professor Skeel has also written commentaries for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Books & Culture, The Weekly Standard, and other publications.
William F. Baxter-Visa International Professor of Law, Stanford Law School
Marcus Cole is a leading scholar of the empirical law and economics of commerce and finance, and teaches courses in the areas of Bankruptcy, Banking, Contracts, and Venture Capital. Professor Cole’s writings have explored questions such as why corporate bankruptcies are increasingly filed in Delaware, and what drives the financial structure of firms backed by venture capital. His current research interests involve the ways in which the world’s poor are using technology to solve their own problems, often in the face of government restrictions hindering such solutions. Professor Cole has served as a National Fellow at the Hoover Institution, and is a Fellow at the University of Amsterdam Center for Law and Economics. He has been a Visiting Professor at a number of institutions around the world, including the University of Amsterdam, the University of Vienna, the University of Leiden, Bucerius University in Hamburg, Germany, Northwestern University, Korea University, and Peking University School of Transnational Law in Shenzhen. Professor Cole has also served on the boards of several civic and charitable organizations, including that of the Central Pacific Region of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, and Businesses United in Lending and Development (“BUILD”). He currently serves on the Editorial Board of the Cato Supreme Court Review, the Academic Advisory Board of Bar-Bri, the Advisory Board of the Independent Institute’s Center on Culture and Civil Society, and is President of the Board of Directors of Rocketship Education, a national, non-profit charter school network, operating California’s most successful charter schools for low-income children. Before joining the Stanford Law faculty in 1997, Professor Cole was an associate with the Chicago law firm of Mayer Brown, and he clerked for Judge Morris Sheppard Arnold of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.
Legal Scholar and Solo Practitioner
Jack received his B.A. in History from the University of Virginia in 1977, graduating with Highest Distinction. After graduating Yale Law School in 1980, he served active duty in the U.S. Army's JAG Corps, rising to the rank of Major, where he represented the United States in more than 250 cases.
He practiced for a decade as an Associate for Bradley Arant in Birmingham, Alabama. He proudly served the State of Alabama in the Office of the Attorney General, both as Deputy and Assistant Attorney General, handling complex civil and criminal litigation cases for the people of Alabama. In 2000, he won the "Best Brief Award" from the National Association of Attorneys General for his brief in a case decided by the U.S. Supreme Court, James Alexander v. Martha Sandoval – a case he won. He was Special Assistant to the Inspector General for the Corporation for National and Community Service, Visiting Legal Fellow for the Center for Judicial and Legal Studies for the Heritage Foundation, Of Counsel at Strickland Brockington Lewis, a solo practitioner, and General Counsel for Indigo Energy.
Most recently, he "re-upped" for military service, volunteering his legal services to the Georgia State Defense Force where twice each month he provided legal services for National Guardsmen who were being deployed. He wore his military uniform for the last time in October 2024.
Jack Park passed away on March 16, 2026.
President, Norton Regulatory Strategies and Former Secretary, U.S. Department of the Interior
Gale Norton has three decades of experience handling energy, natural resources, and environmental issues. As Secretary of the Interior, 2001-2006, she played a key role in shaping national energy policies. A member of President George W. Bush’s Cabinet, Norton was responsible for managing over 20% of the land area of the United States, a Fortune-500-sized budget, and a workforce of 70,000 employees.
In the face of crises including the September 11th attacks and the War on Terror, increasing domestic energy production became a major focus for Norton’s term. She oversaw lands and offshore areas that produced a third of America's domestic oil, natural gas, and coal. She was actively involved in consideration of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, offshore and onshore oil and gas production, coal mine leasing and reclamation, hydroelectric generation, as well as biomass, wind and geothermal development.
Norton led efforts that resolved 70-year-old interstate disputes on the Colorado River and instituted a west-wide water conservation program. She championed the President's Healthy Forest Initiative and Cooperative Conservation.
Norton returned to Colorado as General Counsel for Royal Dutch Shell Unconventional Oil, 2007-2010. She was a member of Shell’s global legal leadership team, and handled legal, regulatory and governmental issues for Shell’s oil shale and in-situ oil sands projects, primarily in Colorado and Alberta.
As an attorney, Norton has handled multi-billion-dollar and high-profile litigation involving products liability, antitrust, taxation, environmental and constitutional issues, including arguing cases before the US Supreme Court and negotiating one of the largest lawsuit settlements in history. Norton served two terms as the elected Attorney General of Colorado, 1991-1999.
Norton’s background also includes serving as senior counsel at Brownstein, Hyatt & Farber, P.C.; Associate Solicitor of the U.S. Department of the Interior; Assistant to the Deputy Secretary of Agriculture; National Fellow of Stanford University’s Hoover Institution; and Senior Attorney for Mountain States Legal Foundation. Norton has a B.A., J.D. and honorary Ph.D. from the University of Denver, and an honorary Dr. Eng. from the Colorado School of Mines. She has chaired the National Park Foundation and the Migratory Bird Conservation Commission.
Norton is currently a Senior Advisor for Clean Range Ventures, an energy technology venture capital firm. She serves on boards for the Federalist Society, the Reagan Alumni Association, and the University of Colorado Renewable and Sustainable Energy Institute. She and her husband, John Hughes, are avid international travelers, golfers, skiers and outdoor enthusiasts.
S. Samuel Arsht Professor of Corporate Law, University of Pennsylvania Law School
David Skeel is the Caryl Louise Boies Visiting Professor of Law at New York University, and the S. Samuel Arsht Professor of Corporate Law at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of The New Financial Deal: Understanding the Dodd-Frank Act and its (Unintended) Consequences (Wiley, 2011); Icarus in the Boardroom: The Fundamental Flaws in Corporate America and Where They Came From (Oxford University Press, 2005); Debt’s Dominion: A History of Bankruptcy Law in America (Princeton University Press, 2001); and numerous articles on bankruptcy, corporate law, financial regulation, Christianity and law, and other topics. Professor Skeel has also written commentaries for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Books & Culture, The Weekly Standard, and other publications.
Legal Scholar and Solo Practitioner
Jack received his B.A. in History from the University of Virginia in 1977, graduating with Highest Distinction. After graduating Yale Law School in 1980, he served active duty in the U.S. Army's JAG Corps, rising to the rank of Major, where he represented the United States in more than 250 cases.
He practiced for a decade as an Associate for Bradley Arant in Birmingham, Alabama. He proudly served the State of Alabama in the Office of the Attorney General, both as Deputy and Assistant Attorney General, handling complex civil and criminal litigation cases for the people of Alabama. In 2000, he won the "Best Brief Award" from the National Association of Attorneys General for his brief in a case decided by the U.S. Supreme Court, James Alexander v. Martha Sandoval – a case he won. He was Special Assistant to the Inspector General for the Corporation for National and Community Service, Visiting Legal Fellow for the Center for Judicial and Legal Studies for the Heritage Foundation, Of Counsel at Strickland Brockington Lewis, a solo practitioner, and General Counsel for Indigo Energy.
Most recently, he "re-upped" for military service, volunteering his legal services to the Georgia State Defense Force where twice each month he provided legal services for National Guardsmen who were being deployed. He wore his military uniform for the last time in October 2024.
Jack Park passed away on March 16, 2026.
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