Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law Center, Georgetown University
Urska Velikonja is a Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center. Before joining the Georgetown faculty in 2017, Professor Velikonja taught at Emory University and the University of Maryland, and visited at UC Berkeley, the University of Chicago and Duke Law School. She graduated first in her class at University of Ljubljana School of Law and earned her LL.M. and J.D. magna cum laude from Harvard Law School. Prior to entering academia, Professor Velikonja clerked for Judge Stephen F. Williams of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and worked for several years as a banking and finance associate and cross-border M&A with an Austrian law in her native Slovenia.
Professor Velikonja has written extensively on securities regulation and securities enforcement. Her work has been published by the California Law Review, the Cornell Law Review, the Notre Dame Law Review, the Stanford Law Review, the Washington University Law Review, the Yale Law Journal, and the Yale Journal on Regulation, among others. Her article on SEC fair funds was selected as one of top ten articles published in 2015, and two of her articles were selected for presentation at the Harvard-Stanford-Yale Junior Faculty Forum.
Professor Velikonja’s work on SEC enforcement is regularly discussed by regulators and has been featured in exclusive and/or major stories in the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, the New York Times, and The Economist, and quoted in the Financial Times, Reuters, The American Banker, as well as international press. Professor Velikonja also regularly contributes to three corporate law and financial regulation law blogs: the Harvard Law School Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation Forum, the NYU PCCE Compliance & Enforcement Blog, and the Columbia Law School Blue Sky Blog.
Associate Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
Associate Professor of Law J.W. Verret joined the Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University faculty in 2008. In 2013, he took leave for two years to serve as the Chief Economist and Senior Counsel for the U.S. House Committee on Financial Services. He received his JD and MA in Public Policy from Harvard Law School and the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, respectively, in 2006. While in law school, Professor Verret served an Olin Fellowship in Law and Economics at the Harvard Program on Corporate Governance under the guidance of Prof. Lucian Bebchuk.
Professor Verret then served as a law clerk for Vice-Chancellor John W. Noble of the Delaware Court of Chancery. Prior to joining the faculty at Scalia Law, Professor Verret was an associate in the SEC Enforcement Defense Practice Group at Skadden, Arps in Washington, D.C. He has written extensively on corporate law topics, including Delaware's Guidance, co-written with Chief Justice Myron T. Steele of the Delaware Supreme Court. His academic work has been featured in the Yale Journal on Regulation, The Business Lawyer, the Delaware Journal of Corporate Law, the Stanford Law Review, the University of Pennsylvania Journal of Business Law, and the Virginia Law and Business Review. Professor Verret was selected by the Northwestern Law School Searle Center on Law, Regulation, and Economic Growth for a 2009-2010 Searle-Kaufmann Research Fellowship.
Professor Verret is also a Senior Scholar at the Mercatus Center Working Group on Financial Markets, where he regularly briefs Congressional staff, members of Congress, SEC Commissioners and other financial regulatory agencies on financial regulation topics. He also directs the Corporate Federalism Initiative, where he obtains research grants for a network of students and faculty scholars who study the division between states and the federal government as sources of corporate law. Professor Verret has been invited to testify before various House and Senate Committees four times during the financial crisis of 2009 regarding all of the central provisions of the Obama Administration's 2009 financial regulatory reform proposals. For a full list of Professor Verret's C-Span appearances, including testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, see http://www.c-spanvideo.org/jwverret.
Professor Verret has been an invited panelist for various television appearances, including an interview on The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. Professor Verret has been quoted in various media on financial regulation and corporate law topics, including the New York Times, CNN Money, the CNN Political Ticker, CNBC, ABC News, Investor's Business Daily, ESPN.com, The American Banker, The American Lawyer, The Huffington Post, CBS.com, and AP News. Professor Verret's op-eds have been featured in Forbes, The Chicago Tribune, The Orange County Register, and The Wall Street Journal. Professor Verret is also a regular guest contributor to three of the most noted corporate law and financial regulation law blogs: the Harvard Law School Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation Forum, Deallawyers.com, and The Conglomerate.
Partner, King & Spalding
John Richter is a trial and investigations partner in the Special Matters and Investigations Practice Group, and represents and defends companies, Boards of Directors, Board committees, and individuals facing a variety of white-collar criminal and regulatory enforcement matters, parallel civil litigation, and internal corporate investigations. John previously served as the Acting Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Criminal Division at the U.S. Department of Justice and as the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Oklahoma, having been nominated by President George W. Bush and confirmed by unanimous consent of the U.S. Senate.
Enforcement Attorney, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
David Hirsch joined the SEC's Fort Worth office in 2015 as an enforcement attorney. Prior to his service with the SEC Dave was a litigator with the law firm of McDermott, Will & Emery, and later he co-founded and ran a private investigation firm focused on securities fraud investigations. Mr. Hirsch graduated from UCLA School of Law and clerked for Judge Edward J. Schwartz in the United States District Court for the Southern District of California. He serves as the Cyber Liaison for the SEC Fort Worth Regional Office and is a member of the SEC DLT Working Group and the Dark Web Working Group. Mr. Hirsch received the SEC Staff Excellence Award in 2018.
Partner, Jones Day
Mark Rasmussen is a seasoned litigator and investigator with more than a dozen years of experience representing clients in complex commercial litigation, securities litigation, regulatory and internal investigations, and bankruptcy litigation. He also advises clients on regulatory compliance related to cryptocurrencies, initial coin offerings (ICOs), and blockchain technology and was recently appointed by Chief Judge Barbara Lynn, of the Northern District of Texas, to be the first ever receiver in an SEC enforcement action involving an ICO promoter. In addition, he is co-editor and author of a forthcoming book entitled Blockchain for Business Lawyers and is a frequent speaker on legal issues related to blockchain technology.
Partner, King & Spalding
John Richter is a trial and investigations partner in the Special Matters and Investigations Practice Group, and represents and defends companies, Boards of Directors, Board committees, and individuals facing a variety of white-collar criminal and regulatory enforcement matters, parallel civil litigation, and internal corporate investigations. John previously served as the Acting Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Criminal Division at the U.S. Department of Justice and as the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Oklahoma, having been nominated by President George W. Bush and confirmed by unanimous consent of the U.S. Senate.
Professorial Lecturer in Law, George Washington University Law School
Theodore C. (Ted) Hirt was an attorney in the Department of Justice's Civil Division from August 1979 to March 2016. He was in its Federal Programs Branch from 1979 to 2008 (trial attorney, senior trial counsel, assistant director), and then in its Office of Immigration Litigation from 2008 to 2016 (trial attorney and senior litigation counsel). Among his responsibilities (September 2001 to March 2016) was being an advisor to the Assistant Attorneys General for the Civil Division, who serve ex officio on the Civil Rules Advisory Committee. Mr. Hirt’s areas of specialization include First Amendment issues, internet and telecommunications law, and electronic discovery. From 1976 to 1979, he was an associate at Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Kampelman. From 1975 to 1976 he was an attorney in the Prehearing Division of the Michigan Court of Appeals.
Deep Dive Episode 38 – The Debate Over the SEC's Accredited Investor Standard
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