Partner, Shook, Hardy & Bacon, LLP
Phil Goldberg is the office managing partner of Shook in Washington, D.C., and co-chair of the firm’s Public Policy Practice Group. He has more than 25 years of experience advising clients on high stakes and high profile liability-related public policy, public affairs and public relations issues. He counsels businesses and their trade associations on some of the most cutting-edge liability issues of the day.
As part of this work, Phil co-chairs the firm’s National Amicus Practice, which files more than three dozen amicus briefs every year. He has filed amicus briefs for many of the most influential trade and civil justice groups with courts at every level, from the U.S. Supreme Court to the U.S. Courts of Appeals and state appellate courts. He has testified before Congress and state legislatures, has authored leading legal scholarship and is a regular speaker at judicial education conferences. He also is a resource for journalists, podcasters and others who report on and discuss pressing liability issues.
President, Harned Strategies LLC
Karen Harned is President at Harned Strategies LLC. Previously, she served as Executive Director of the National Federation of Independent Business Small Business Legal Center, a post she held from 2002-2022. Prior to joining the Legal Center, Ms. Harned was an attorney at a Washington, D.C. law firm specializing in food and drug law, where she represented several small and large businesses and their respective trade associations before Congress and federal agencies. She also served as Assistant Press Secretary to U.S. Senator Don Nickles of Oklahoma from August of 1989 to March of 1993. Ms. Harned received her B.A. from the University of Oklahoma in 1989 and her J.D. from The George Washington University National Law Center in 1995. She is admitted to practice in the District of Columbia.
As Executive Director of the NFIB Small Business Legal Center, Ms. Harned commented regularly on small business cases before federal and state courts, as well as the U.S. Supreme Court. She has appeared on Fox News, Fox Business, NBC Nightly News, CNN, CNBC and MSNBC, as well as National Public Radio, CBS Radio, and radio outlets across the country. Her opinion editorials and articles regarding healthcare, lawsuit abuse, regulation, and other issues important to small business have been published in newspapers and other publications nationwide.
Ms. Harned has testified before Congress on the small business impact of regulation and the civil justice system. Additionally, she has conducted numerous webinars and legal compliance seminars for small business owners across the country on issues relating to employment law, including unionization and immigration.
Partner, Shook, Hardy & Bacon, LLP
Phil Goldberg is the office managing partner of Shook in Washington, D.C., and co-chair of the firm’s Public Policy Practice Group. He has more than 25 years of experience advising clients on high stakes and high profile liability-related public policy, public affairs and public relations issues. He counsels businesses and their trade associations on some of the most cutting-edge liability issues of the day.
As part of this work, Phil co-chairs the firm’s National Amicus Practice, which files more than three dozen amicus briefs every year. He has filed amicus briefs for many of the most influential trade and civil justice groups with courts at every level, from the U.S. Supreme Court to the U.S. Courts of Appeals and state appellate courts. He has testified before Congress and state legislatures, has authored leading legal scholarship and is a regular speaker at judicial education conferences. He also is a resource for journalists, podcasters and others who report on and discuss pressing liability issues.
Patrick Hotung Professor of Constitutional Law, Georgetown University Law Center; Faculty Director, Georgetown Center for the Constitution
Randy E. Barnett is the Patrick Hotung Professor of Constitutional Law at the Georgetown University Law Center and is the Faculty Director of the Georgetown Center for the Constitution. After graduating from Northwestern University and Harvard Law School, he tried many felony cases as a prosecutor in the Cook County States’ Attorney’s Office in Chicago. A recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in Constitutional Studies and the Bradley Prize, Professor Barnett has been a visiting professor at Penn, Northwestern and Harvard Law School.
Professor Barnett’s publications includes thirteen books, more than one hundred articles and reviews, as well as numerous op-eds. His most recent book is Felony Review: Tales of True Crime and Corruption in Chicago (2026). His other books on the Constitution include: A Life for Liberty: The Making of an American Originalist (2024); The Original Meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment: Its Letter and Spirit (2021) (with Evan Bernick); An Introduction to Constitutional Law: 100 Supreme Court Cases Everyone Should Know (2019) (with Josh Blackman); Restoring the Lost Constitution: The Presumption of Liberty (2nd ed. 2013); Our Republican Constitution: Securing the Liberty and Sovereignty of We the People (2016); and Constitutional Law: Cases in Context (5th ed. forthcoming 2027) (with Josh Blackman). His books on contracts are The Oxford Introductions to U.S. Law: Contracts (2010) and Contracts: Cases and Doctrine (7th ed. 2021) (with Nate Oman). And he is the author of The Structure of Liberty: Justice and the Rule of Law (2nd ed. 2014).
In 2004, he argued the medical marijuana case of Gonzalez v. Raich before the U.S. Supreme Court. In 2012, he was one of the lawyers representing the National Federation of Independent Business in its constitutional challenge to the Affordable Care Act in NFIB v. Sebelius. He’s appeared in numerous documentaries and portrayed a prosecutor in the 2010 science-fiction feature film, InAlienable: The Movie. On X he is @RandyEBarnett
Former Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals, DC Circuit
Robert Heron Bork served as Solicitor General, acting Attorney General, and judge for the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Judge Bork passed away in December 2012.
Tribute to Judge Robert Bork by John McGinnis - Event Audio/Video
Celebration of the Life of Robert Heron Bork 1927-2012
Judge Robert H. Bork: His Life and Legacy - Practice Group Podcast
A Conference Discussing the Contributions of Judge Robert H. Bork - June 26, 2007
Columbia Law School
E. Allan Farnsworth was a legal scholar whose writings on contract disputes have become a standard reference in courtrooms and law schools. A professor at Columbia University School of Law, Farnsworth was considered the country's foremost legal authority on contracts. He spent more than 50 years studying and explaining the legal underpinnings of contracts, whether written or oral, commercial or private, and wrote Farnsworth on Contracts, the most frequently cited reference work on contract law. He represented the US at diplomatic conferences on trade and on the UN Commission on International Trade Law.
Emeritus Professor of Law, UC Hastings College of Law
Professor Joseph Grodin, a native Californian, received his B.A. with honors from UC Berkeley in 1951 and his J.D. cum laude from Yale Law School in 1954. Upon graduation from law school he traveled to England on a Fulbright grant and earned a Ph.D. in labor law and labor relations from the London School of Economics.
Professor Grodin practiced law in San Francisco from 1955 to 1971, specializing in labor law and serving pro bono in a variety of civil rights and civil liberties matters. During portions of that period he taught as an adjunct professor at UC Hastings and a visiting professor at the University of Oregon Law School. Active in bar affairs, he served as chairman of the labor law section of the San Francisco Bar Association and as a member of the State Bar Committee on Legal Services.
From 1972 to 1979 Professor Grodin was a full-time professor at UC Hastings, teaching courses in labor law, employment discrimination, arbitration, and contracts. During portions of that period he served as a member of the first Agricultural Labor Relations Board, as foreman of the Alameda County Grand Jury, and as a visiting professor at Stanford Law School.
In 1979, Professor Grodin was appointed Associate Justice of the California Court of Appeal; in 1981, he was elevated to presiding justice of that court, and in 1982 was appointed Associate Justice of the California Supreme Court, a position he held until January 1987. Upon leaving the court, Professor Grodin returned to the UC Hastings faculty. He retired from full-time teaching in May 2005. He continues to teach part-time and to do arbitration and mediation work.
Professor Grodin is the author of numerous scholarly books and articles. He is particularly proud, however, of a book on hiking trails in the Silver Lake area of the Sierra, which he coauthored with his daughter, Sharon.
Senior Fellow, Cato Institute
Walter Olson is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute’s Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies and is known for his writing on the American legal system. His books include The Rule of Lawyers, on mass litigation, The Excuse Factory, on lawsuits in the workplace, and most recently Schools for Misrule, on the state of the law schools. His first book, The Litigation Explosion, was one of the most widely discussed general-audience books on law of its time. It led the Washington Post to dub him “intellectual guru of tort reform.” Active on social media, he is known as the founder and principal writer of what is generally considered the oldest blog on law as well as one of the most popular, Overlawyered.com. He has advised many public officials from the White House to town councils and in 2015 was named by Gov. Larry Hogan to be co-chair of the Maryland Redistricting Reform Commission, which issued its report recommendations later that year to acclaim across the state.
Before joining Cato, Olson was a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and an editor at the magazine Regulation, then edited by future Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. Olson’s more than 400 broadcast appearances include all the major networks, NPR, the BBC, The Diane Rehm Show, and Oprah.
Fuller E. Callaway Chair of Law, University of Georgia School of Law
Elizabeth Chamblee Burch joined the School of Law faculty in 2011. She was promoted to the rank of full professor in 2015 and served a visiting professor at Harvard Law School in 2017. After holding the Charles H. Kirbo Chair of Law for two years, she assumed the Fuller E. Callaway Chair of Law in 2019. She is the author of Mass Tort Deals: Backroom Bargaining in Multidistrict Litigation (Cambridge University Press 2019) and her teaching and research interests include civil procedure, class actions and mass torts.
Burch is an award-winning scholar whose groundbreaking work on multidistrict litigation and class actions won the American Law Institute’s Early Career Scholars Medal in 2015, the Fred C. Zacharias Memorial Prize for Professional Responsibility Scholarship in 2016 and the Mangano Dispute Resolution Advancement Award in 2019.
Burch has published over 30 articles and essays in respected journals such as the New York University Law Review, Yale Law Journal, Cornell Law Review, Virginia Law Review, Vanderbilt Law Review, Washington University Law Review, Boston University Law Review and George Washington Law Review, among others. She co-authors a casebook titled The Law of Class Actions and Other Aggregate Litigation with the late Richard A. Nagareda, Robert G. Bone, Charles Silver, and Patrick Woolley.
Burch has delivered over 70 lectures at research institutions across the United States and abroad to diverse audiences—from law professors at their annual meeting to federal judges at their judicial retreats, lawyers and jurists at the American Law Institute and the American Bar Association, and psychologists at the International Congress on the Psychology of Law. She was elected as a member of the American Law Institute in 2013, and she is a frequent commentator in various international and national news media such as National Public Radio’s Marketplace, BBC World News, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today and The L.A. Times.
Before joining the School of Law's faculty, she was an assistant professor at Florida State University College of Law, where she received the university-wide Graduate Teaching Award and was voted “Professor of the Year” by second- and third-year students. Burch began her academic career in 2006 at Cumberland School of Law, part of Samford University, where she received the Harvey S. Jackson Excellence in Teaching Award and the Lightfoot, Franklin & White Faculty Scholarship Award. In 2014, she received the School of Law’s John C. O’Byrne Memorial Award for Significant Contributions Furthering Student-Faculty Relations.
Before entering the legal academy, Burch worked as an associate at Holland & Knight in Atlanta, where she practiced in the area of complex litigation, including securities class actions. She has served as the mass torts subcommittee chair for the American Bar Association's Class Action and Derivative Suits Committee, on the executive board for the Association of American Law Schools’ Scholarship Committee and as a co-editor of the Mass Tort Litigation Blog.
She earned her bachelor's degree cum laude from Vanderbilt University and her Juris Doctor cum laude from Florida State University, where she served as the writing and research editor for the Florida State University Law Review.
Partner, Kirkland & Ellis LLP
Mr. Doug Smith has litigated cases at both the trial and appellate stage in state and federal courts throughout the country, including commercial, mass tort, product liability, securities, bankruptcy, environmental, and intellectual property cases. He is a member of the American Law Institute and has published on a wide variety of legal topics.
President, Harned Strategies LLC
Karen Harned is President at Harned Strategies LLC. Previously, she served as Executive Director of the National Federation of Independent Business Small Business Legal Center, a post she held from 2002-2022. Prior to joining the Legal Center, Ms. Harned was an attorney at a Washington, D.C. law firm specializing in food and drug law, where she represented several small and large businesses and their respective trade associations before Congress and federal agencies. She also served as Assistant Press Secretary to U.S. Senator Don Nickles of Oklahoma from August of 1989 to March of 1993. Ms. Harned received her B.A. from the University of Oklahoma in 1989 and her J.D. from The George Washington University National Law Center in 1995. She is admitted to practice in the District of Columbia.
As Executive Director of the NFIB Small Business Legal Center, Ms. Harned commented regularly on small business cases before federal and state courts, as well as the U.S. Supreme Court. She has appeared on Fox News, Fox Business, NBC Nightly News, CNN, CNBC and MSNBC, as well as National Public Radio, CBS Radio, and radio outlets across the country. Her opinion editorials and articles regarding healthcare, lawsuit abuse, regulation, and other issues important to small business have been published in newspapers and other publications nationwide.
Ms. Harned has testified before Congress on the small business impact of regulation and the civil justice system. Additionally, she has conducted numerous webinars and legal compliance seminars for small business owners across the country on issues relating to employment law, including unionization and immigration.
Partner, Kirkland & Ellis LLP
Mr. Doug Smith has litigated cases at both the trial and appellate stage in state and federal courts throughout the country, including commercial, mass tort, product liability, securities, bankruptcy, environmental, and intellectual property cases. He is a member of the American Law Institute and has published on a wide variety of legal topics.
Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law and Director, Classical Liberal Institute, New York University School of Law; Senior Fellow, The Civitas Institute, University of Texas at Austin
Richard A. Epstein is the inaugural Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law at NYU School of Law. Prior to his joining the faculty, he was a visiting law professor at NYU from 2007 through 2009. He served as the Peter and Kirstin Bedford Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution from 2000 to 2024. Since 2024 to the present he is a senior lecturer at the Civitas Institute at the University of Texas—Austin. Epstein is also the James Parker Hall Distinguished Service Professor of Law Emeritus and a senior lecturer at the University of Chicago. His initial law school appointment was at the University of Southern California from 1968 to 1972. Epstein received an LL.D., h.c. from the University of Ghent, 2003. He has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 1985 and was a Senior Fellow of the Center for Clinical Medical Ethics at the University of Chicago Division of Biological Sciences, also from 1983. to 2022 He served as editor of the Journal of Legal Studies from 1981 to 1991, and of the Journal of Law and Economics from 1991-2001. From 2001 to 2010 he was a director of the John M. Olin Program in Law and Economics at the University of Chicago.
His newest book, The Myth of Birthright Citizenship: What the Fourteenth Amendment Really Says was published in 2026 (Encounter Books). Prior to that he has published many books including, The Dubious Morality of the Modern Administrative State (Roman & Littlefield 2020).Earlier he published th Classical Liberal Constitution: The Uncertain Quest for Limited Government (Harvard 2014) iHis previous books include Design for Liberty: Private Property, Public Administration and the Rule of Law (Harvard 2011); The Case Against the Employee Free Choice Act (Hoover 2009); Supreme Neglect: How to Revive the Constitutional Protection of Property Rights (Oxford 2008); Antitrust Decrees in Theory and Practice: Why Less is More (AEI 2007); Overdose: How Excessive Government Regulation Stifles Pharmaceutical Innovation (Yale University Press. 2006); How Progressives Rewrote the Constitution (Cato 2006); Cases and Materials on Torts (Aspen Law & Business; 8th ed. 2004); Skepticism and Freedom: A Modern Case for Classical Liberalism (University of Chicago, 2003); Torts (Aspen Law & Business 1999); Principles for a Free Society: Reconciling Individual Liberty with the Common Good (Perseus Books, 1998): Mortal Peril: Our Inalienable Rights to Health Care (Addison-Wesley, 1997); Simple Rules for a Complex World (Harvard, 1995); Bargaining With the State (Princeton, 1993); Forbidden Grounds: The Case Against Employment Discrimination Laws (Harvard , 1992); Takings: Private Property and the Power of Eminent Domain (Harvard, 1985); and Modern Products Liability Law (Greenwood Press, 1980). He has also edited(with Catherine M. Sharkey) Cases and Materials on the Law of Torts (10th edition 2012).
Professor Epstein has written numerous articles on a wide range of legal and interdisciplinary subjects. He has taught courses in administrative law, antitrust law, civil procedure, communications, constitutional law, contracts, corporations, criminal law, employment discrimination law, environmental law, food and drug law health law and policy, legal history, labor law, property, real estate development and finance, jurisprudence, labor law; land use planning, patents, individual, estate and corporate taxation, Roman Law; torts, and workers' compensation.
Professor Epstein also writes a regular column for Civitas Institute, which also sponsors his podcast, The Libertarian with Charles C.W. Cooke, and Law Talk, with Cooke and John Yoo. He also does a podcast with John Batchelor. And appears regularly on the Freedom File with Judge Andrew Napolitano.
Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law and Director, Classical Liberal Institute, New York University School of Law; Senior Fellow, The Civitas Institute, University of Texas at Austin
Richard A. Epstein is the inaugural Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law at NYU School of Law. Prior to his joining the faculty, he was a visiting law professor at NYU from 2007 through 2009. He served as the Peter and Kirstin Bedford Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution from 2000 to 2024. Since 2024 to the present he is a senior lecturer at the Civitas Institute at the University of Texas—Austin. Epstein is also the James Parker Hall Distinguished Service Professor of Law Emeritus and a senior lecturer at the University of Chicago. His initial law school appointment was at the University of Southern California from 1968 to 1972. Epstein received an LL.D., h.c. from the University of Ghent, 2003. He has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 1985 and was a Senior Fellow of the Center for Clinical Medical Ethics at the University of Chicago Division of Biological Sciences, also from 1983. to 2022 He served as editor of the Journal of Legal Studies from 1981 to 1991, and of the Journal of Law and Economics from 1991-2001. From 2001 to 2010 he was a director of the John M. Olin Program in Law and Economics at the University of Chicago.
His newest book, The Myth of Birthright Citizenship: What the Fourteenth Amendment Really Says was published in 2026 (Encounter Books). Prior to that he has published many books including, The Dubious Morality of the Modern Administrative State (Roman & Littlefield 2020).Earlier he published th Classical Liberal Constitution: The Uncertain Quest for Limited Government (Harvard 2014) iHis previous books include Design for Liberty: Private Property, Public Administration and the Rule of Law (Harvard 2011); The Case Against the Employee Free Choice Act (Hoover 2009); Supreme Neglect: How to Revive the Constitutional Protection of Property Rights (Oxford 2008); Antitrust Decrees in Theory and Practice: Why Less is More (AEI 2007); Overdose: How Excessive Government Regulation Stifles Pharmaceutical Innovation (Yale University Press. 2006); How Progressives Rewrote the Constitution (Cato 2006); Cases and Materials on Torts (Aspen Law & Business; 8th ed. 2004); Skepticism and Freedom: A Modern Case for Classical Liberalism (University of Chicago, 2003); Torts (Aspen Law & Business 1999); Principles for a Free Society: Reconciling Individual Liberty with the Common Good (Perseus Books, 1998): Mortal Peril: Our Inalienable Rights to Health Care (Addison-Wesley, 1997); Simple Rules for a Complex World (Harvard, 1995); Bargaining With the State (Princeton, 1993); Forbidden Grounds: The Case Against Employment Discrimination Laws (Harvard , 1992); Takings: Private Property and the Power of Eminent Domain (Harvard, 1985); and Modern Products Liability Law (Greenwood Press, 1980). He has also edited(with Catherine M. Sharkey) Cases and Materials on the Law of Torts (10th edition 2012).
Professor Epstein has written numerous articles on a wide range of legal and interdisciplinary subjects. He has taught courses in administrative law, antitrust law, civil procedure, communications, constitutional law, contracts, corporations, criminal law, employment discrimination law, environmental law, food and drug law health law and policy, legal history, labor law, property, real estate development and finance, jurisprudence, labor law; land use planning, patents, individual, estate and corporate taxation, Roman Law; torts, and workers' compensation.
Professor Epstein also writes a regular column for Civitas Institute, which also sponsors his podcast, The Libertarian with Charles C.W. Cooke, and Law Talk, with Cooke and John Yoo. He also does a podcast with John Batchelor. And appears regularly on the Freedom File with Judge Andrew Napolitano.
Clerk, US Court of Appeals for the Eight Circuit
Shiva Logarajah is a J.D. Candidate at Columbia Law School and serves as the 2017 National Student Symposium Chair.
Partner, Shook, Hardy & Bacon LLP
Victor Schwartz chairs the firm's Public Policy Practice Group, which focuses on integrating litigation, government affairs and public relations. The group seeks to be the vanguard of developing public policy issues that will help improve our civil justice system. Mr. Schwartz also has an active appellate practice and advises product manufacturers on liability prevention, litigation and public relations issues.
Sought by print and broadcast media, Mr. Schwartz is frequently quoted in The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and The New York Times. He has appeared on Oprah, 60 Minutes and leading news programs. The Legal Times of Washington has named Mr. Schwartz one of Washington’s Top 30 “Visionary” lawyers, and The National Law Journal named Mr. Schwartz one of the 100 most influential lawyers in the United States in March 2013.
Mr. Schwartz is on the Board of Directors of the Searle Civil Justice Institute at George Mason University School of Law. He is a frequent participant in judicial education programs. Mr. Schwartz serves as General Counsel to the American Tort Reform Association.
Prior to entering the full time practice of law, Mr. Schwartz was a professor and dean at the University of Cincinnati College of Law. He currently serves on the College’s Board of Visitors. In 2012, the College established the Professor Victor E. Schwartz Chair in Tort Law.
Mr. Schwartz, while at the U.S. Department of Commerce, served as chair of the Federal Inter-Agency Task Force on Product Liability, and the Federal Inter-Agency Council on Insurance. He was the principal author of the Uniform Product Liability Act and the Federal Risk Retention Act. He received the Secretary of Commerce’s Award for Professional Excellence.
Mr. Schwartz is co-author of the most widely used torts casebook in the United States, Prosser, Wade and Schwartz’s Torts (12th ed. 2010). He is author of the leading text Comparative Negligence (5th ed. 2010).
Mr. Schwartz has been an advisor for each of the American Law Institute’s (ALI) Restatement (Third) of Torts projects; Products Liability, Apportionment of Liability, and Liability for Physical Injury and Emotional Harm. He is a life member of the ALI.
Mr. Schwartz’s law review articles have analyzed almost every major subject of modern tort and civil justice public policy issues. His articles are frequently cited by both state and federal courts.
Courthouse Steps Decision Teleforum: BP P.L.C. v. Mayor and City Council of Baltimore
Phil Goldberg, Karen Harned
Nearly two dozen lawsuits against energy manufacturers seeking state tort damages over climate change have...
Courthouse Steps Oral Argument Teleforum: BP P.L.C. v. Mayor and City Council of Baltimore
Phil Goldberg
Nearly two dozen lawsuits against energy manufacturers seeking state tort damages over climate change have...
The Death of Contract and the Rise of Tort [Archive Collection]
Randy E. Barnett, Robert H. Bork, E. Allan Farnsworth, Joseph Grodin, Walter K. Olson
On September 13, 1991, the Federalist Society hosted its annual National Lawyers Convention at the...
Mass Tort Deals: Backroom Bargaining in Multidistrict Litigation?
Elizabeth Chamblee Burch, Douglas Geoffrey Smith
Multidistrict litigation has been the subject of much controversy in recent years. Defendants lament the...
Thacker v. Tennessee Valley Authority - Post-Decision SCOTUScast
On April 29, 2019, the Supreme Court decided Thacker v. Tennessee Valley Authority, a case...
Courthouse Steps Decision Teleforum: Air & Liquid Systems Corp., et al. v. DeVries
Karen Harned
On March 19, 2019, the Supreme Court decided Air & Liquid Systems Corp., et al....
Courthouse Steps Oral Argument: Merck Sharp & Dohme Corp. v. Albrecht
Douglas Geoffrey Smith
In Merck Sharp & Dohme Corp. v. Albrecht, the Supreme Court has been asked to...
Studying the Common Law
Richard A. Epstein
In law school, the four major branches of the Common Law, property, contract, tort, and...
Banquet Keynote Address by Richard Epstein
Richard A. Epstein, Shiva H. Logarajah
Professor Richard Epstein delivered the keynote address titled "A common lawyer looks at the constitutional...
The Rise of “Empty Suit” Litigation™: Where Should Tort Law Draw The Line? - Podcast
Victor E. Schwartz
In The Rise of “Empty Suit” Litigation™: Where Should Tort Law Draw The Line?, Victor E....