Head of AI Policy, Abundance Institute
Neil Chilson is the Head of AI Policy at the Abundance Institute. Prior to this position, he served as a Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Growth and Opportunity. Chilson is a lawyer, computer scientist, and author of the book “Getting Out of Control: Emergent Leadership in a Complex World.”
Chilson was previously the senior research fellow for Technology and Innovation at Stand Together, where he guided efforts to understand and promote the legal and cultural paradigms that best enable people to discover, innovate, and improve all our lives.
Before Stand Together, Chilson was the Chief Technologist at the Federal Trade Commission, where he focused on the economics of privacy and blockchain-related issues. Previously, he was an attorney advisor to Acting FTC Chairman Maureen K. Ohlhausen. In both roles he advised Chairman Ohlhausen and worked with staff on nearly every major technology-related case, report, workshop, or other FTC proceeding since January 2014. Neil joined the FTC from telecom firm Wilkinson Barker Knauer. Neil is frequently quoted by the press and his work has appeared in numerous news outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, USAToday, and Newsweek. Neil has a J.D. from The George Washington Law School, a M.S. in computer science from University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and a B.S. in computer science from Harding University.
AI Innovation and Law Fellow, University of Texas School of Law
Kevin Frazier is an AI Innovation and Law Fellow with University of Texas School of Law.
Senior Vice President, Americans for Responsible Innovation
Satya Thallam is Senior Vice President for Government of Government Affairs at Americans for Responsible Innovation, focused on AI policy issues. He is also Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Foundation for American Innovation. He is a policy expert and advisor, having served in senior roles in the congressional and executive branches and as an executive at a biotechnology startup, and is frequently invited to testify before Congress and appear in media.
Previously, he was a senior policy official at the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), with direct oversight, review, and negotiation of all federal regulatory policymaking across over a dozen cabinet agencies. In this role, he advised the Director of OMB and fellow senior White House colleagues on regulatory policies and process. His time in government began in the U.S. Senate, at the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, where for nearly five years he was the Senate’s point person on regulatory reform, as well as the committee’s expert on areas running the breadth of the committee’s jurisdiction.
Satya has also spent many years in the think tank sector, leading programs primarily related to financial services policy, at both university-based and independent organizations. In this capacity, he authored policy reports, congressional testimonies, op-eds, and presentations, and built new research programs. Satya’s policy career began at the Goldwater Institute, the premier state policy-focused think tank, beginning as an intern and rising to a director-level role leading the organization’s fiscal policy program.
Senior Fellow, R Street Institute
Prior to R Street, Adam spent 12 years as a senior fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. Before the Mercatus Center, he served as the president of the Progress and Freedom Foundation. Adam has also worked for the Adam Smith Institute, the Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute.
Adam has published 10 books on a wide range of topics, including online child safety, internet governance, intellectual property, telecommunications policy, media regulation and federalism.
In 2008, Adam received the Family Online Safety Institute’s “Award for Outstanding Achievement.”
Partner, Co-chair of the Litigation & Trial Practice Group, Alston & Bird LLP
Adam Biegel is co-chair of Alston & Bird’s Litigation & Trial Practice Group and former co-chair of its Antitrust Team. He has substantial experience representing clients on antitrust counseling and litigation matters, including those involving government and internal investigations, mergers and joint ventures, pricing and distribution, compliance counseling and training, pre-merger reviews under the Hart-Scott-Rodino (HSR) Act, and multidistrict litigation. He regularly represents clients before the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) Antitrust Division, Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and state attorneys general, and in federal courts.
Adam is recognized for his antitrust experience by Chambers USA and selected to The Best Lawyers in America®, including his recognition as “Lawyer of the Year” for Antitrust Litigation in Washington, D.C., in 2022. He is a longtime member of the American Bar Association Antitrust Law Section’s leadership, currently serving as co-chair of its In-House Counsel Task Force and previously having served on its board, and chaired its Corporate Counseling Committee, Long Range Planning Committee, and Spring Meeting conference. He also serves on the board of the Federalist Society’s antitrust practice group.
Adam served as a law clerk to the Hon. Frank M. Hull, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. Before attending law school, he worked as a newspaper reporter in Arkansas and on the legislative staff of U.S. Senator Orrin Hatch.
Partner in the Antitrust & Competition Practice Group, Sheppard Mullin
John’s practice focuses on civil and criminal antitrust matters, including mergers & acquisitions, strategic counseling and compliance, and global cartel investigations, where he represents clients before the Department of Justice Antitrust Division, Federal Trade Commission, and international and state antitrust enforcement authorities.
Prior to private practice, John was in the Mergers I Division of the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Competition for several years. While with the FTC, he investigated, challenged, and negotiated settlements in a number of potentially anti-competitive business combinations in the aerospace, technology, consumer products, defense, healthcare, and pharmaceutical industries and received an Award for Meritorious Service for work on merger litigation.
John frequently speaks and writes on antitrust issues. He was the lead editor on the American Bar Association, Section of Antitrust Law’s Energy Antitrust Handbook, and has held leadership positions in that organization.
Partner, Boies Schiller Flexner LLP
Rich’s primary practice area is complex litigation, with a particular emphasis on antitrust matters. He frequently represents plaintiffs and defendants in private litigation, in addition to representing parties and third parties in the context of DOJ, FTC, and State Attorney General investigations and litigation. He also advises clients regarding transactions—both their own and those of others—including mergers or acquisitions that may be subject to review by federal, state, or international antitrust authorities. His experience includes both criminal and civil antitrust jury trials, and he is relied upon by clients for clear and practical guidance shaped by years of experience in antitrust enforcement and private practice.
Rich rejoined the firm in December 2013 after serving for four years as the Director of the Bureau of Competition at the Federal Trade Commission. He directed the FTC’s antitrust enforcement activity during a period when approximately 80 enforcement actions were initiated in a wide variety of industries. Major matters included, among others, two victories in the Supreme Court (involving pay-for-delay and state action), successful challenges to hospital mergers, and Intel and Google consent orders. He also participated directly in drafting and implementing the 2010 Horizontal Merger Guidelines.
Prior to serving as Bureau Director, Rich was a partner in the firm’s Washington D.C. office from 2001 to 2009. From October 1998 to June 2001, he served as an Assistant Director of the Bureau of Competition, in charge of the Health Care Services and Products Division. The work of that Division focused on antitrust enforcement in the health care industry, including anticompetitive practices and mergers involving health care providers, and anticompetitive conduct in the pharmaceutical industry.
Before initially entering private practice in 1985, Rich worked as a trial attorney in the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, and also served as Acting Deputy Director of the Division’s Office of Policy Planning and as Acting Assistant Chief of the Division’s Energy Section.
Research Manager, American Economic Liberties Project
Laurel manages AELP’s team of policy analysts and coordinates with expert advisors and fellows to develop original research and policy briefs. An experienced attorney, she also frequently writes and speaks about high profile court cases that impact the economic liberties of the American people.
In private practice, Laurel represented firms of all sizes– from startups to Fortune 500 companies– spanning a wide variety of industries, from software to generic pharmaceuticals to semiconductors. At Comar Mollé LLP, a boutique firm that specializes in serving startups and investors, she provided strategic counseling on employment, privacy, and transactional matters. At Goodwin Procter LLP, a global biglaw firm, she litigated high stakes patent and complex commercial disputes and counseled clients on technology transactions.
Before joining AELP, Laurel researched competition policy issues for the Balanced Economy Project in Europe. Earlier in her career, she analyzed legislation promoting access to essential medicines at the World Health Organization, coordinated patent law training workshops for Vietnamese research institutions through the Public Intellectual Property Resource for Agriculture, and developed public outreach materials for the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She has also developed and taught courses on topics ranging from legal practice skills to emerging policy issues.
Partner, Global Chair, Antitrust and Competition, Fried Frank
Bernard A. Nigro Jr. (“Barry”) is Global Chair of Fried Frank's Antitrust and Competition Department. Barry previously served as the Department of Justice’s Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust and the Federal Trade Commission’s Deputy Director for the Bureau of Competition.
During his almost 40 years of practice and government service, Barry has handled hundreds of civil and criminal matters in dozens of industries ranging from concrete to high tech and everything in between. For example, Barry has been involved in some of the largest M&A transactions during the past decade, served as the antitrust compliance monitor in United States v. Apple Inc. (S.D.N.Y. 2013), worked on a variety of cartel matters, and counseled on complex compliance and litigation matters. While in government, Barry supported the rollout of the Procurement Collusion Strike Force, an initiative to modernize the merger review process, and revisions to the merger guidelines and remedies policies.
Barry is recognized as a leader by Chambers USA: America’s Leading Lawyers for Business, a “Leading Lawyer” by Legal 500 in Antitrust: Merger Control, and a “Global Leader” by Who’s Who Legal: Competition. Clients say "Barry is very adept at getting deals across the finish lines. He knows the inside game very well," “he is a skilled and knowledgeable antitrust lawyer with a very practical approach,” and “knows how to marry business and antitrust.” Other clients describe him as “the rare combination of DOJ and FTC expertise that is invaluable to clients who need to understand the agencies’ latest thinking” and note that “his decades of experience generally, and recent experience as the number-two lawyer in the Antitrust Division, make him a knowledgeable and skilled counselor on a broad array of government enforcement matters.” Clients say he is “fabulous” and “figures out quickly what’s important and focuses energies there.” Clients also report that “[n]o one compares to Barry Nigro in terms of goodwill” and note his “years of experience make his counsel and perspective, particularly seeing what is coming down the road, exceptional.”
Barry’s commitment to public service includes having served as Vice Chair of the American Bar Association’s Section of Antitrust Law (numbering over 10,000 members from across the globe), President of the George Washington University Law Alumni Association, a member of the Executive Committee of Higher Achievement’s DC President’s Council, a member of St. Albans School’s Development Committee, a member of Bishop Ireton High School’s Campaign Leadership Committee, and a member of Georgetown University’s Class of 1982 Executive Committee, among many other roles.
Alexander Hamilton Professor of Business Law, George Washington University Law School
Barak Richman’s primary research interests include the economics of contracting, new institutional economics, antitrust, and healthcare policy. His work has been published in the Columbia Law Review, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, Law and Social Inquiry, the New England Journal of Medicine, the Journal of the American Medical Association, and Health Affairs. In 2006, he co-edited with Clark Havighurst a symposium volume of Law and Contemporary Problems entitled "Who Pays? Who Benefits? Distributional Issues in Health Care,” and his book Stateless Commerce was published by Harvard University Press in 2017.
Professor Richman represented the NFL Coaches Association in an amicus curiae brief in American Needle v. The Nat’l Football League, which was argued before the U.S. Supreme Court in January 2010 and again in Brady v. The Nat’l Football League in 2011. His recent work challenging illegal practices by Rabbinical Associations was featured in the New York Times. And in 2020, he was a member of the Working Group on Platform Scale at Stanford University’s Program on Democracy and the Internet that proposed middleware as a solution to stem the economic and political power of dominant internet platforms.
Professor Richman is also a Senior Scholar at the Clinical Excellence Research Center at the Stanford University School of Medicine and is currently a special counsel for competition policy at the Department of Health and Human Services. He won Duke Law School's Blueprint Award in 2005 and was named Teacher of the Year in 2010. He has had visiting appointments at Columbia, Harvard, and Stanford.
Professor Richman has an AB, magna cum laude, from Brown University, a JD, magna cum laude, from Harvard Law School, and a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, where he studied under Nobel Laureate in Economics Oliver Williamson. He served as a law clerk to Judge Bruce M. Selya of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, and from 1994-1996 he handled international trade legislation as a staff member of the United States Senate Committee on Finance, then chaired by Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Partner, Jenner & Block
Matthew S. Hellman is a litigator. He has been lead counsel in dozens of appellate matters, and has presented arguments in the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. Courts of Appeals, and in state appellate courts. In addition, he routinely presents arguments in the trial courts. Mr. Hellman’s cases involve a variety of issues such as commercial law, intellectual property and administrative law. He has argued important cases for corporations like Marriott, GE and General Dynamics.
In 2010, Law360 recognized Mr. Hellman as a “Rising Legal Star” in the practice of Appellate Law. In 2007, Jenner & Block recognized Mr. Hellman with the Albert E. Jenner, Jr. Pro Bono Award, which annually recognizes attorneys in the Firm with a strong commitment to pro bono or public service work. He has argued or supervised more than a dozen pro bono cases in the courts of appeals, including two capital cases.
Mr. Hellman is member of the firm’s Appellate and Supreme Court Practice. He is also a member of the Edward Coke Appellate Inn of Court, and an Associate Trustee for the Washington Lawyer’s Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs. He serves as the Co-Chair of the DC Hiring and the Hiring Executive Committees and is also a member of the Associate Development and Evaluation Committee and the Finance Committee.
Partner, Supreme Court & Appellate Litigation Practice, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP
Willy Jay is a partner at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP, and head of the firm’s Supreme Court & Appellate Litigation Practice.
Prior to joining Paul, Weiss, Willy Jay was a partner in Goodwin’s Appellate and Supreme Court Litigation practice. After ten years leading that practice, he became co-chair of Goodwin’s broader Complex Litigation and Dispute Resolution practice. Willy used his deep experience litigating before the U.S. Supreme Court and U.S. Courts of Appeals, including more than 80 oral arguments, to help clients formulate winning appellate strategy. His appellate skill led Benchmark Litigation to name him the nationwide Appellate Lawyer of the Year for 2020. A former Assistant to the Solicitor General and Supreme Court clerk, he has argued 19 cases before the Supreme Court, briefed more than 60 Supreme Court cases on the merits, and briefed more than 150 cases at the certiorari stage. In recent years he argued five of the most significant intellectual-property cases at the Court, involving patent, copyright, and trademark law.
Willy has handled cases in every federal court of appeals as well. He has filed more than 300 briefs in federal and state appeals courts and argued in 11 federal circuits. He is a prominent advocate at the Federal Circuit, where he has argued 30 times, filed more than 120 briefs in patent appeals, and been recognized as “Appellate Litigator of the Year" by both Managing IP and LMG Life Sciences. Willy also regularly counsels clients on appellate strategy at the trial level, preparing and arguing key motions and post-trial briefing before district courts and federal and state administrative agencies.
Willy is recognized in Band 1 in two different appellate categories in Chambers USA: America’s Leading Lawyers for Business, where clients praise him for being "a rocket scientist" whose "spectacular brief writing" and "keen and analytical mind" enable him to “take any issue on appeal.” Another client noted that Willy "is an extraordinary litigator" who "has a unique way of synthesizing complex arguments and making them understandable." Other clients comment that Willy is “A super-efficient appellate litigator who is able to cut straight to the most critical issues and construct simple, persuasive arguments from extremely complex legal and factual records." Forbes named him to its inaugural list of America’s Top 200 Lawyers. Willy is also listed in Legal500 and Best Lawyers in America. Law360 named him an “Appellate MVP.” He has been named “Litigator of the Week” by the AmLaw Litigation Daily.
Willy has particular experience in appellate cases involving intellectual property (including patent, copyright, and trademark law), financial services, administrative law (with a particular focus on pharmaceutical regulation), environmental law, class action practice, federal preemption of state law, and the First Amendment (including campaign finance regulation, election law, and election crimes).
David L. Brennan Endowed Chair, Associate Professor, and Associate Director of the Center for Intellectual Property Law & Technology, The University of Akron School of Law
Emily Michiko Morris, an experienced teacher and scholar in specializing in patent law, particularly as it relates to biotechnology and university research, and is an expert on intellectual property and regulatory issues related to the pharmaceutical industry. Her research also focuses on comparative law and comparative intellectual property law. Professor Morris’ work has been published in books and leading journals, such as the Connecticut Law Review, the Stanford Technology Law Review, and the Harvard Journal of Gender and Law. Professor Morris is also currently a Scholar and Edison Fellow at the Center for Intellectual Property x Innovation Policy at George Mason University in Washington, D.C.
Professor Morris has been the recipient of numerous grants and awards, including a three-year, $250,000 fellowship as an Eastern Scholar at the Shanghai University of Political Science and Law, where she lived and worked for a year as a visiting professor. She has also taught as a visiting or guest professor at other universities in a number of other countries.
Before joining academia, Professor Morris earned her A.B., magna cum laude, from Harvard University and her J.D., magna cum laude, from the University of Michigan Law School, where she was an articles editor on the Michigan Law Review. Following graduation from law school, Professor Morris clerked for the Honorable Bruce M. Selya on the First Circuit Court of Appeals and practiced for three years as an associate in the Issue & Appeals group in the Washington D.C. office of Jones Day.
Partner, Duane Morris LLP
Brian Pandya is Partner at Duane Morris LLP. A member of the firm’s Trial Practice Group, Brian represents technology, manufacturing, and healthcare companies in high-stakes litigation, arbitrations, investigations and appeals. He has served as lead trial counsel in a range of intellectual property, antitrust, complex commercial and white-collar matters. He also regularly counsels clients on cybersecurity and national security issues, particularly matters concerning emerging technologies and artificial intelligence.
Before joining Duane Morris, Brian served at the U.S. Department of Justice as Deputy Associate Attorney General from 2019-21, where he oversaw investigations and litigation undertaken by the Antitrust Division and Civil Division and served on several high-profile task forces and trial teams. Brian was also previously a litigation and IP partner at another prominent Washington, DC firm.
Brian clerked for Judge Leonard Davis on the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. He is a two-time recipient of the Federal Circuit Bar Association’s Pro Bono Advocacy Award for work on behalf of military veterans and has served as volunteer federal public defender in the Eastern District of Virginia, among many other bar and community engagements.
Brian graduated cum laude from the University of Michigan Law School, where he was articles editor of the Michigan Telecommunications and Technology Law Review, and with honors and high distinction in mechanical engineering from Penn State University, where he received the Ralph Dorn Hetzel Memorial Award.
Partner, Clement & Murphy PLLC
Matt’s practice focuses on solving complex legal issues wherever they arise. Matt has developed winning strategies and written successful motions and briefs in a wide array of complicated, high-profile cases at every level of the federal court system and in multiple state courts. At the Supreme Court, Matt has written dozens of successful cert-stage and merits briefs. At the court of appeals level, Matt has briefed and delivered oral argument on a wide range of constitutional and statutory issues. At the trial level, Matt has helped craft litigation strategy from the ground up, and has delivered closing argument in a week-long bench trial. Matt’s cutting-edge work has been recognized by the American Lawyer and Legal 500 U.S. Matt’s matters have addressed administrative law, antitrust, bankruptcy, federal jurisdiction, habeas corpus, intellectual property, labor and employment, products liability, res judicata, securities law, and statutory interpretation; the First, Second, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, Ninth, Tenth, Eleventh, Fourteenth, and Twenty-first Amendments; and multiple separation of powers and federalism issues. Matt maintains a robust pro bono practice, through which he has helped wrongly convicted criminal defendants secure their freedom.
Outside of Clement & Murphy, Matt teaches classes on constitutional law and the Supreme Court at Georgetown University. Matt is an avid, long-suffering fan of his hometown Angels and his adopted Arsenal Football Club. When he is not thinking about the law or watching sports, Matt enjoys spending time with his wife and golden retriever.
Founder and Executive Director, National Security Institute; Assistant Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
Jamil N. Jaffer is the Founder and Executive Director of the National Security Institute at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University where he also serves as an Assistant Professor of Law, Director of the National Security Law and Policy Program, and Director of the Cyber, Intelligence, and National Security LLM Program. Jamil also teaches classes on counterterrorism, intelligence, surveillance, cybersecurity, and other national security matters, as well as a summer course held abroad with U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil M. Gorsuch. Jamil is also affiliated with Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation and previously served as a Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution from 2016 to 2019.
Jamil is also a Venture Partner with Paladin Capital Group, where he assists the firm with investments across the full range of its themes and theses, including a focus on dual-use national security technologies. Jamil also serves on the board of directors of RangeForce, a cybersecurity training and readiness platform startup and Tozny, a digital identity startup, and on the advisory boards of U.S. Strategic Metals, North America’s largest primary producer of cobalt, a critical mineral used in EV batteries, aerospace, and other national security applications; and Constella Intelligence, a deep and dark web intelligence startup. Jamil also serves as an advisor to Beacon Global Strategies, a strategic advisory firm and Duco, a technology platform startup that connects corporations with geopolitical and international business experts. Jamil is also the managing director of Trigraph Caveat Capital, a private investment vehicle.
Among other things, Jamil currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Greater Washington Board of Trade, the Board of Advisors for the Global Cyber Alliance, and the Advisory Board of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies’ Center on Cyber and Tech Innovation, the Executive Committee of the Reagan Institute Strategy Group. Jamil is also a Fellow at the Academy for Judaic, Christian, and Islamic Studies, an advisor to the Concordia Summit, and is a member of the Board of Directors for the Center for Intelligence Policy, the Board of Directors of Speech First, and the Executive Committee of the International Law and National Security Practice Group of the Federalist Society.
Immediately prior to his current positions, from 2015-2021, Jamil served as a senior business leader at IronNet Cybersecurity, helping take the company from a bootstrapped first-year technology products startup through two rounds of venture capital fundraising, growing from 40 employees to over 300, and through its listing on New York Stock Exchange. In his role as IronNet's Senior Vice President for Strategy, Partnerships & Corporate Development, Jamil worked directly for the co-CEOs of the company, Gen (ret.) Keith B. Alexander, the former Director of the National Security Agency and Founding Commander of U.S. Cyber Command, and Bill Welch, the former COO of Zscaler and Duo; in that role, Jamil led all of the company’s strategic and technology partnership efforts, including developing go-to-market and technology integration plans with some of the largest cloud platforms and cybersecurity companies in the market, evaluating potential acquisition targets, and developing overall corporate strategy and thought leadership around collective security and collaborative defense in the cyber arena.
Prior to his time at IronNet, Jamil served on the leadership team of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee as Chief Counsel and Senior Advisor under Chairman Bob Corker (R-TN), where he worked on key national security and foreign policy issues, including leading the drafting of the proposed Authorization for the Use of Military Force against ISIS in 2014 and 2015, the AUMF against Syria in 2013, and revisions to the 9/11 AUMF against al Qaeda. Jamil was also the lead architect of the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act and two sanctions laws against Russia for its first intervention in Ukraine.
Prior to joining SFRC, Jamil served as Senior Counsel to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence under Chairman Mike Rogers (R-MI) where he led the committee’s oversight of NSA surveillance, NRO intelligence issues, and NGA analytic and collection matters, as well as intelligence community-wide counterterrorism issues. Jamil was also the lead architect of the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, the nation’s first cyber threat intelligence sharing legislation that was signed into law in 2015.
In the Bush Administration, Jamil served in the White House as an Associate Counsel to the President, handling Defense Department, State Department, and intelligence community matters, and serving as one of the White House Counsel’s primary representatives to the National Security Council Deputies Committee.
Prior to the White House, Jamil served on the leadership team of the Justice Department’s National Security Division as Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for National Security, where he focused on counterterrorism and intelligence matters. At NSD, Jamil helped lead the division’s work on In re: Directives, the first ever two-party litigated matter in the FISA Court and the second case before the FISA Court of Review in its 30-year history. Jamil also led NSD’s efforts on the President’s Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative (CNCI), including the drafting of NSPD-54/HSPD-23, and related classified matters, and advised the National Security Agency (NSA) and U.S. Cyber Command’s predecessor organization, the Joint Function Component Command for Network Warfare (JFCC-NW), on matters related to cyber intelligence collection and offensive cyber activities. For his work on these matters, Jamil was awarded the Assistant Attorney General’s Award for Special Initiative and was among the group of lawyers awarded the Director of National Intelligence’s 2008 Legal Award (Team of the Year – Cyber Legal).
Jamil also served in other positions in the Justice Department, including in the Office of Legal Policy, where he worked on the confirmations of Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. and Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. to the United States Supreme Court.
Jamil also served as a lawyer in private practice at Kellogg Huber, a Washington, DC-based litigation boutique, as a policy advisor to Congressman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), and as a staff member or senior advisor on a number of political campaigns, including two presidential campaigns and a presidential transition team. While in law school, Jamil was a member of the University of Chicago Law Review, managing editor of the Chicago Journal of International Law, and National Symposium Editor of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy. Following law school, Jamil served as a law clerk to Judge Edith H. Jones of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and, later in his career, as a law clerk to then-Judge Neil M. Gorsuch when he first joined the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit as well as a law clerk to Justice Neil Gorsuch when he joined the U.S. Supreme Court.
Jamil has published multiple op-eds and academic articles on national security, foreign policy, cybersecurity, counterterrorism, encryption, and intelligence matters, and is the co-author of a book chapter with former NSA Director Gen. (Ret.) Keith B. Alexander on national security and the press in National Security, Leaks, and the Freedom of the Press: The Pentagon Papers Fifty Years On (2021) and a book chapter with former CIA Director Gen. (ret.) Mike Hayden on ISIS, al Qaeda, and other international terrorist groups in Choosing to Lead: American Foreign Policy for a Disordered World (2015). Jamil has also written book chapters on cybersecurity and surveillance, as well as op-eds and policy papers with former Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey, former National Counterterrorism Center Director Matt Olsen, and Congressman Mike Waltz (R-FL), among others.
Jamil has previously taught graduate-level courses in intelligence law and policy at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs and the National Intelligence University, served an outside advisor to the Cyberspace Solarium Commission, and has recently testified before committees of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives on China, cybersecurity, counterterrorism, and other national security matters. Jamil has also recently appeared on a range of national television and radio outlets including CNN, Fox News, Fox Business, MSNBC, Bloomberg, PBS, Voice of America, and National Public Radio, and in various print and online publications, including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and the Washington Post on a range of national security matters including cybersecurity, counterterrorism, surveillance, encryption, privacy, and foreign policy issues.
Jamil holds degrees from UCLA (BA, cum laude), the University of Chicago Law School (JD, with honors), and the United States Naval War College (MA, with distinction).
Managing Director, Beacon Global Strategies
Klon Kitchen, Managing Director at Beacon Global Strategies, leads the firm’s Global Technology Policy Practice. With over two decades of hands-on experience, Klon is adept at helping technology leaders anticipate and manage geopolitical risks, ensuring they stay ahead in an ever-evolving landscape.
Klon is a distinguished national security expert, bringing unparalleled insights and strategic foresight to the table. As a non-resident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, he regularly shapes policy discussions through his congressional testimonies, high-impact publications in the The Wall Street Journal and other top-tier outlets, and features on CBS News’ “60 Minutes.”
Before joining Beacon, Klon was national security advisor to former Senator Ben Sasse and played a pivotal role in the U.S. Cyberspace Solarium Commission, crafting the strategic blueprint for America’s cyber defense. His leadership extended to directing the National Security and International Trade and Finance Subcommittee for the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, where he navigated complex security and trade issues.
Klon’s foundational experience includes over 15 years as an intelligence officer, focusing on counterterrorism, cyber operations, and covert actions. His distinguished service, which includes deployments to multiple combat zones, earned him several prestigious honors, such as the civilian combat support medal and a commendation from the Commander of Joint Special Operations Command.
Holding an MA in strategy and security studies from the College of International Security Affairs and a War College Diploma from the National War College at National Defense University, Klon combines academic excellence with practical expertise. His unique perspective and proven track record make him an invaluable ally for technology executives facing the intricate challenges of geopolitical risk.
Wall Chair in Corporate Law and Governance and Professor of Law, University of Missouri School of Law
Thom Lambert holds the Wall Family Chair in Corporate Law and Governance at the University of Missouri Law School. He is co-author of a leading antitrust casebook and has published more than two dozen law review articles on antitrust, corporate, and regulatory matters. His most recent book, How to Regulate: A Guide for Policymakers was published by Cambridge University Press in 2017. He is a regular contributor to the law and economics blog, Truth on the Market (www.truthonthemarket.com) and is currently a visiting professor at Washington University Law School.
Brandon Pugh is the director and a resident senior fellow for the R Street Institute’s Cybersecurity and Emerging Threats team.
Outside of R Street, he serves in the U.S. Army Reserve as a national security law professor at The Judge Advocate General’s Legal Center and School, having previously served as a paratrooper and international law officer. Brandon is also a nonresident fellow with the Army Cyber Institute at the United States Military Academy at West Point, a member of the International Association of Privacy Professional’s Research Advisory Board, and a board member for both the Ithaca College Cybersecurity Program and a governor’s advisory council.
Prior to joining R Street, Brandon was legislative counsel for the New Jersey General Assembly Minority Office, where he handled nearly all policy and legislation on cybersecurity, emerging technology, and privacy. He also provided legal and policy advice to the 28-member caucus on almost every committee area from judiciary to commerce.
Brandon has served as a fellow with the Federal Bureau of Investigation; managing editor of the Journal of Law and Cyber Warfare; president and CEO of a homeland security advisory company; member of the Rutgers University Cybersecurity Program Board; and an elected and appointed official at the local, county, and state levels. This includes service as vice president for legislation of the New Jersey School Boards Association, a quasi-governmental entity representing the state’s nearly 600 school boards. His early work was in emergency management and chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear incidents.
Brandon has presented and been published dozens of times; delivered congressional testimony; appeared on C-SPAN and other networks; trained congressional staff on cybersecurity; contributed to the U.S. Army’s critical infrastructure resiliency project; prepared cybersecurity guidance sent to thousands of public schools; and led events with senior military and intelligence community officials. He has received awards for his work from members of Congress and a governor of New Jersey, among others.
He holds a JD from Rutgers Law School and a bachelor’s degree from The College of New Jersey. Brandon is a master continuity practitioner through the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, a certified information privacy professional, a certified information privacy manager, and a fellow of information privacy. He is licensed to practice law in New Jersey and the District of Columbia, along with being admitted to the Supreme Court of the United States.
Brandon lives in New Jersey with his wife, who serves as an Air Force pilot.
Vice President and Director of Competition Policy, Progressive Policy Institute
Diana Moss joined the Progressive Policy Institute in 2023. She was previously President of the American Antitrust Institute from 2015-2023. An economist, Dr. Moss has developed and expanded competition enforcement and policy advocacy channels and strategies, and strengthened communications with enforcers, Congress, other advocacy groups, and the media. Her work spans both antitrust and regulation, with industry expertise in digital technology, electricity, petroleum, food and agriculture, airlines, telecommunications, and healthcare. Dr. Moss was previously at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, where she coordinated the agency’s competition analysis for electricity mergers. In the early 1990s, she consulted in private practice in the areas of regulation and antitrust. Dr. Moss has spoken widely on various topics involving competition policy and enforcement, testified before Congress, appeared before state and federal regulatory commissions, and made numerous radio and television appearances. She has published articles in a number of economic and legal academic journals, including: American Economic Review, Journal of Industrial Organization, the Energy Law Journal, and the Antitrust Bulletin. She is editor of Network Access, Regulation and Antitrust (2005). Dr. Moss is Adjunct Faculty in the Department of Economics at the University of Colorado at Boulder. She holds a M.A. degree from the University of Denver and a Ph.D. from the Colorado School of Mines.
Former Senator, Pennsylvania
Pat Toomey (born November 17, 1961, Providence, Rhode Island, U.S.) is an American politician who was elected as a Republican to the U.S. Senate in 2010 and represented Pennsylvania from 2011 to 2023. He previously served in the U.S. House of Representatives (1999–2005).
George Mason University Foundation Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
TODD J. ZYWICKI is George Mason University Foundation Professor of Law at Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University and Research Fellow of the George Mason Law and Economics Center. During the Fall 2023 semester he served as the Visiting Scholar in Conservative Thought and Policy for the Bruce Benson Center for the Study of Western Civilization at the University of Colorado-Boulder. From 2020-2021 he was Chair of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Taskforce on Federal Consumer Financial Law. In 2021 he was inducted to the American College of Consumer Financial Services Lawyers. He is also a Senior Fellow of the F.A. Hayek Program for the Advanced Study of Politics, Philosophy, and Economics at George Mason University and a former Senior Fellow of the Cato Institute. From 2015-2017 he was Executive Director of the George Mason Law and Economics Center. He served as Co-Editor of the Supreme Court Economic Review from 2006-2017. From 2003-2004, Professor Zywicki served as the Director of the Office of Policy Planning at the Federal Trade Commission. He has also taught at Vanderbilt University Law School, Georgetown University Law Center, Boston College Law School, Mississippi College School of Law, and China University of Political Science and Law.
Professor Zywicki clerked for Judge Jerry E. Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and worked as an associate at Alston & Bird in Atlanta, Georgia, where he practiced bankruptcy and commercial law. He received his J.D. from the University of Virginia, where he was executive editor of the Virginia Tax Review and John M. Olin Scholar in Law and Economics. Professor Zywicki also received an M.A. in Economics from Clemson University and an A.B. cum Laude with high honors in his major from Dartmouth College.
Professor Zywicki is also a Lone Mountain Fellow of the Property and Environment Research Center, a Fellow of the International Centre for Economic Research in Turin, Italy, and a former Senior Fellow of the Goldwater Institute. During the Fall 2008 Semester Professor Zywicki was the Searle Fellow of the George Mason University School of Law and was a 2008-09 W. Glenn Campbell and Rita Ricardo-Campbell National Fellow and the Arch W. Shaw National Fellow at the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace. He has lectured and consulted with government officials around the world, including Iceland, Italy, Japan, and Guatemala. In 2006 Professor Zywicki served as a Member of the United States Department of Justice Study Group on “Identifying Fraud, Abuse and Errors in the United States Bankruptcy System.”
Professor Zywicki is the author of more than 130 articles in leading law reviews and peer-reviewed economics journals. He is one of the Top 10 most-cited law professors in the field of Commercial Law and one of the Top 25 law professors on Twitter as measured by engagement levels. He is one of the Top 50 Most Downloaded Law Authors at the Social Science Research Network. He has testified multiple times before Congress on issues of consumer bankruptcy law and consumer credit and is a frequent commentator on legal issues in the print and broadcast media, including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, The Washington Post, The Washington Times, Nightline, The Newshour with Jim Lehrer, Neil Cavuto Show, Fox & Friends, Smerconish, Fox News @ Night with Shannon Bream, Fox Business, CNN, CNBC, Bloomberg News, BBC, The Diane Rehm Show, Lou Dobbs Show, Jerry Doyle Show, and The Laura Ingraham Show.
Professor Zywicki is former Chairman and a current member of the Board of Directors of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and is a member of the Board of Directors of the Institute for Humane Studies, Bill of Rights Institute, the Executive Committee for the Federalist Society's Financial Institutions and E-Commerce Practice Group, the Board of Trustees of the Foundation for Research on Economics and the Environment. He formerly served on the Governing Board and the Advisory Council for the Financial Services Research Program at George Washington University School of Business. He is currently the Chair of the Academic Advisory Council for the following organizations: The Bill of Rights Institute, the film “We the People in IMAX,” and the McCormick-Tribune Foundation “Freedom Museum” in Chicago, Illinois. He is a member of the Board of Visitors of Ralston College and was a member of the Board of Trustees of Yorktown University. From 2005-2009 he served as an elected Alumni Trustee of the Dartmouth College Board of Trustees.
President, Corporate and External Affairs, Plaid
Jelena McWilliams is the former Managing Partner of the Washington, D.C. office of Cravath, Swaine, & Moore LLP and former Head of the Financial Institutions Group (FIG) Practice. She is a former Chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). Ms. McWilliams focuses her practice on advising public and private companies, financial institutions, fintechs, and early-stage and venture companies on regulatory and corporate matters, as well as on mergers and acquisitions, IPO and other capital markets transactions.
While at the FDIC, Ms. McWilliams managed over 6,000 employees supervising approximately 5,000 banks, including through the COVID-19 pandemic. She participated in interagency negotiations, policy developments and joint agency rulemakings both as agency principal and as a voting member of the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC). Ms. McWilliams chaired the Resolution Group at the Financial Stability Board (FSB); chaired and served on the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC); and served on the Financial and Banking Information Infrastructure Committee (FBIIC). She testified before U.S. Congress on numerous occasions and engaged extensively with U.S. and international regulators, including the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision and the International Association of Deposit Insurers. She established the agency’s first office of innovation to implement technological advancements through supervisory channels and collaborative partnerships between banks and fintechs. Ms. McWilliams also spearheaded the agency’s effort to develop prudential banking policy on digital assets, including through a “crypto sprint” with the Office of the Currency Comptroller (OCC) and the Federal Reserve Board (FRB), and in collaboration with the President’s Working Group multiagency effort on stablecoins. She envisioned and created Mission Driven Bank Fund, a novel private/public partnership investment fund to support investments in low- and moderate-income communities served by the Minority Depository Institutions and Community Development Financial Institutions.
Ms. McWilliams is a frequent speaker on trends and topics in the financial services sector, including bank regulatory policy, governance trends, digital assets, fintechs and early-stage company regulatory policy. She is a member of the Economic Council of Washington, D.C., and serves on the Board of Trustees of the Southwestern Graduate School of Banking Foundation at Southern Methodist University.
Ms. McWilliams was born in Belgrade, Serbia. She received her B.A. with highest honors from the University of California, Berkeley in 1999 and her J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law in 2002.
Head of AI Policy, Abundance Institute
Neil Chilson is the Head of AI Policy at the Abundance Institute. Prior to this position, he served as a Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Growth and Opportunity. Chilson is a lawyer, computer scientist, and author of the book “Getting Out of Control: Emergent Leadership in a Complex World.”
Chilson was previously the senior research fellow for Technology and Innovation at Stand Together, where he guided efforts to understand and promote the legal and cultural paradigms that best enable people to discover, innovate, and improve all our lives.
Before Stand Together, Chilson was the Chief Technologist at the Federal Trade Commission, where he focused on the economics of privacy and blockchain-related issues. Previously, he was an attorney advisor to Acting FTC Chairman Maureen K. Ohlhausen. In both roles he advised Chairman Ohlhausen and worked with staff on nearly every major technology-related case, report, workshop, or other FTC proceeding since January 2014. Neil joined the FTC from telecom firm Wilkinson Barker Knauer. Neil is frequently quoted by the press and his work has appeared in numerous news outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, USAToday, and Newsweek. Neil has a J.D. from The George Washington Law School, a M.S. in computer science from University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and a B.S. in computer science from Harding University.
Senior Legal Fellow, The Future of Free Speech, Vanderbilt University
Ashkhen Kazaryan is a renowned expert in First Amendment law and technology policy, specializing in digital free speech, artificial intelligence, and the intersection of constitutional rights with emerging technologies. As a Senior Legal Fellow at the Future of Free Speech at Vanderbilt University, she leads initiatives to protect free expression and shape policies that uphold the First Amendment in the digital age.
Previously, Ashkhen was the lead for North and Latin America on the content regulation team at Meta, where she also served as the company’s policy lead on Section 230. She has also been a Senior Fellow at Stand Together and the Director of Civil Liberties at TechFreedom, where she worked extensively on platform liability, free speech, and internet governance. She is currently Fellow for the First Amendment at the Freedom Forum.
Ashkhen earned her specialist in law degree summa cum laude from Lomonosov Moscow State University in 2012 and later received a master of law degree from Yale Law School in 2016. During her time at Yale, she contributed as an articles editor for the Yale Journal of Law and Feminism, a senior editor for the Yale Law and Policy Review, and an editor for the Yale Journal of Law and Technology, while also serving as co-chair of the Public Interest Fellowship.
Founder and CEO, Chamber of Progress
Adam Kovacevich (Kuh-VACK-uh-VITCH) is the Founder and CEO of Chamber of Progress, a center-left tech industry policy coalition promoting technology’s progressive future.
Chamber of Progress – which Adam founded in March 2021 – works to ensure that all Americans benefit from technological leaps, and that the tech industry operates responsibly and fairly. It has been called “one of the most powerful tech lobby groups,” (New York Times), “one of the tech industry’s most prominent allies in Washington,” (Washington Post) and “a significant voice in the progressive movement” (Washingtonian).
Adam is a veteran Democratic tech industry leader who has had a front row seat for more than 20 years in the tech industry’s political maturation. He is an expert in helping lead technology companies through today’s challenging political environment.
Senior Fellow, R Street Institute
Prior to R Street, Adam spent 12 years as a senior fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. Before the Mercatus Center, he served as the president of the Progress and Freedom Foundation. Adam has also worked for the Adam Smith Institute, the Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute.
Adam has published 10 books on a wide range of topics, including online child safety, internet governance, intellectual property, telecommunications policy, media regulation and federalism.
In 2008, Adam received the Family Online Safety Institute’s “Award for Outstanding Achievement.”
Head of Antitrust and Competition Law, Ericsson
Dina Kallay is the head of Antitrust of Ericsson where she covers the American and Asian continents and also advises on Intellectual Property matters. Prior to joining Ericsson in 2013, Dina served over six years as Counsel for Intellectual Property and International Antitrust at the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”). As Counsel for I.P. at the FTC, Dina focused on worldwide antitrust-intellectual property matters, including standard-setting issues, as well as on Asian and multilateral competition matters. She worked closely with the three Chinese antimonopoly agencies and has also spent a year with the FTC Bureau of Competition, working on antitrust conduct and merger enforcement matters in high-tech industries. Prior to joining the FTC, Dina practiced antitrust and intellectual property law at a couple of law firms, most recently with the Washington DC office of Howrey LLP. She also worked as in-house antitrust counsel for Microelectrónica Española, where her work focused around the I.P. policy of the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI). Before that she clerked at the European Commission Directorate General for Competition (DG COMP) unit for Information Industries and Consumer Electronics, where she worked on antitrust investigations and policy matters involving intellectual property. Ms. Kallay holds a doctorate from the University of Michigan Law School, where her doctoral dissertation focused on antitrust-IP interface issues, and was later published as a book - The Law and Economics of Antitrust and Intellectual Property (Edward Elgar, 2004). Dina has written and spoken extensively on antitrust and intellectual property, and has also taught both subjects as an adjunct professor at the Hebrew University and Bar Ilan University. She is a member of the District of Columbia, New York, England and Wales (Solicitor) and Israel bars.
Former NAAG Antitrust Task Force Chair and Former Assistant Attorney General at Wisconsin Department of Justice
As former Chair of the NAAG Multistate Antitrust Task Force and as Wisconsin's Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust from 2005-2024, Gwendolyn has extensive experience litigating antitrust cases on behalf of the State of Wisconsin- including merger enforcement, cartel prosecutions. She was the lead attorney in State of Wisconsin v. Indivior, where she led 42 Attorneys General in their successful case against the manufacturer of Suboxone, resulting in a $102.5 million settlement. Gwendolyn was also on the trial team for the States' challenge to the T-Mobile/Sprint merger.
Gwendolyn was co-chair of the Pharmaceutical Industry Working Group in the National Association of Attorneys General Antitrust Task Force, and was a delegate to the “Future of Pharma Mergers” international initiative spearheaded by the FTC, and lead the Reimagining Pharma Attorney Generals Advisory Group.
Active in the American Bar Association, she is a member of the Antitrust Section Council. Gwendolyn was also the 2023 recipient of the NAAG (nationwide) Attorney General Career Staff Award, and was named as a “Woman Making History” by Wisconsin Lawyer magazine in 2024.
Partner, Rule Garza Howley LLP
David Daniels Allen Distinguished Chair of Law, Vanderbilt University Law School
Rebecca Haw Allensworth studies antitrust and professional licensing. Her work on antitrust focuses on how to adapt competition policy to address competition problems posed by tech platforms and her research on professional licensing explores how lawmakers should balance the need for expertise in regulating the professions with the problems that can arise from self-regulation. She is currently writing The Licensing Racket, a book about professional licensing and self-regulation. Her article about medical licensing boards and unethical prescribers, “Licensed to Pill,” appeared in The New York Review of Books in July 2020. Her work has been cited by the U.S. Supreme Court and has received the thirteenth annual Jerry S. Cohen Memorial Fund Writing Award for groundbreaking antitrust scholarship.
Professor Allensworth earned her undergraduate degree from Yale and an M.Phil. from Cambridge University before earning her J.D. at Harvard Law School, where she served as articles editor of the Harvard Law Review. She served as law clerk to Judge Richard A. Posner of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and then as a Climenko Fellow at Harvard Law School before coming to Vanderbilt. She held the Tarkington Chair of Teaching Excellence before her appointment to a David Daniels Allen Chair in Law in 2022.
Partner, Antitrust and Competition, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati
Maureen Ohlhausen is a partner in the Washington, D.C., office of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, where she advises industry-leading clients on complex antitrust and litigation matters, with a focus on high-profile cases. Sought after for her depth of experience on antitrust and Federal Trade Commission (FTC)-related issues, Maureen is known for her relationships with officials in the U.S. and abroad.
After finishing law school and clerking at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, Maureen joined the FTC in 1997. She held a series of roles at the agency over the next 12 years, rising to the position of Director of the FTC Office of Policy Planning, where she led the agency’s work on e-commerce and headed the FTC’s Internet Access Task Force, which produced an influential report analyzing competition and consumer protection legal issues in the broadband and internet sectors. She then went into private practice at a leading telecommunications law firm, where she headed the FTC practice group.
In 2012, Maureen was confirmed by the Senate as a Commissioner of the FTC and was appointed Acting Chairman in January 2017, a role she held until May 2018. As Acting Chairman, Maureen directed all aspects of the agency’s antitrust work, including merger review, conduct enforcement, and all consumer protection enforcement, with an emphasis on privacy and technology issues. Under her leadership, the FTC won several influential merger challenges in court and reached a number of key digital privacy settlements.
To date, Maureen is the only FTC Commissioner to have received the Robert Pitofsky Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of her contributions to the FTC.
Following the end of her term at the FTC, and immediately prior to joining Wilson Sonsini, Maureen was chair of the global antitrust and competition practice at Baker Botts, based in that firm’s Washington, D.C., office.
A recognized thought leader, Maureen is a frequent author and speaker, and is often quoted by leading print and broadcast media on antitrust, FTC, and privacy and data security matters. She has published dozens of articles on antitrust, privacy, intellectual property, regulation, FTC litigation, telecommunications, and international law issues in prestigious publications. During her tenure at the FTC and in private practice, she testified more than two dozen times before Congress, including before the Senate Commerce Committee and the House Energy and Commerce Antitrust Sub-Committee. She also testified before the Antitrust Modernization Commission.
Senior Scholar, Competition Policy, International Center for Law & Economics
Daniel J. Gilman is a senior scholar of competition policy at ICLE. Before joining ICLE, Dan was an attorney advisor in the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) Office of Policy Planning, where he worked on competition issues in health-care and technology markets and, more broadly, on the competitive impact of regulation, with a focus on privacy regulations, among others.
During the 2014-15 academic year, while on leave from his FTC duties, he visited Harvard Law School as the Victor H. Kramer Foundation Fellow in antitrust law and economics. Prior to the FTC, Dan taught law and economics, as well as health and science law, at the University of Maryland. He has also taught at Penn State University and at Washington University in St. Louis, and has experience in private practice in the District of Columbia.
Dan holds a JD degree from Georgetown University, a PhD from the University of Chicago, and an AB from Dartmouth College.
Partner, Dechert, LLP
Rani A. Habash advises clients on the antitrust aspects of mergers, acquisitions, and joint ventures. He has helped guide industry-leading companies to successful strategic transactions in the face of intense antitrust scrutiny by the U.S. Department of Justice, U.S. Federal Trade Commission, Senate and House Judiciary Committees, state attorneys general, and international competition authorities.
Using his expertise in economics and significant experience in dealing with antitrust agencies, Mr. Habash has helped clients secure regulatory clearance in numerous high-profile transactions, including deals between American Airlines/US Airways, Albertsons/Safeway, CVS Health/Aetna, CVS Health/Target Corporation, FMC Corporation/DowDuPont, Medco/Express Scripts, Monster.com/Yahoo! HotJobs, and OfficeMax/Office Depot, among others. In addition, Mr. Habash defends companies in government antitrust investigations and helps them further key corporate strategies by providing antitrust counseling on conduct, distribution, government affairs, and public relations issues.
Mr. Habash was recognized as a "Future Leader" by Who's Who Legal in its 2020, 2021, and 2022 Competition guide. The National Law Journal named Mr. Habash a “D.C. Rising Star” in 2019. This award recognized lawyers for the substantial legal influence they wield within their practice areas and as innovators with strong leadership qualities, superior legal expertise, and a commitment to pro bono, charitable, and professional volunteer work.
Mr. Habash has held leadership positions in the ABA’s Section of Antitrust Law on the Mergers & Acquisitions, Corporate Counseling, and Membership and Diversity Committees. He also served as the editor of The Antitrust Counselor, an ABA newsletter with practical antitrust guidance for in-house counsel.
Mr. Habash is a frequent author and speaker on cutting-edge antitrust issues. Notably, he has helped develop the Dechert Antitrust Merger Investigation Timing Tracker (DAMITT), which tracks and reports on U.S. antitrust merger investigation trends. Data from DAMITT has been cited by The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Time, TheStreet, and many other leading publications.
Counsel, Rule Garza Howley
Derek Moore brings nearly twenty years of experience inside and outside of government to advise clients on antitrust, regulatory, and consumer protection matters, including mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures, and investigations by the U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Trade Commission and state law enforcers and regulators, as well as civil litigation involving government law enforcers and private parties.
Derek held numerous positions during nearly a decade at the Federal Trade Commission, including Attorney Advisor to a Commissioner, Attorney Advisor in the Office of Policy Planning, and Staff Attorney (on detail) in the Technology Enforcement Division of the Bureau of Competition. Derek worked on law enforcement matters pursued in federal court as well as in the Commission’s Part 3 administrative court. Derek played a leading role in numerous policy initiatives, including as a lead drafter of various antitrust enforcement guidelines.
Derek has worked on matters involving a wide variety of industries, such as software and technology, retail, health care and pharmaceuticals, media and entertainment, consumer goods, energy, financial services, manufacturing, and distribution.
Derek received a J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law, and a B.A. in economics from the University of Virginia. He previously served as a law clerk for the Honorable Douglas H. Ginsburg of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and for the Honorable Claude M. Hilton of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.
Associate Professor, University of Connecticut
Professor Shor is an associate professor at the University of Connecticut, teaching the subject areas of industrial organization, experimental economics, and game theory. He's been awarded several honors and appointments, including the Grillo Awards for Teaching Excellence and Research Excellence (UConn) and the James A. Webb Award for Excellence in Teaching (Vanderbilt).
His research surrounds such topics as the theory of auctions, decision making and choice overload, antitrust and collusion, and game theory.
Shor recieved his B.A. in Economics and Foreign Affairs at the University of Virginia and his Ph.D. in Eceonomics from Rutgers University.
Chief Operating Officer and General Counsel, North American Meat Institute
Mark Dopp is the chief operating officer and general counsel for the North American Meat Institute (NAMI), previously serving as its senior vice president of regulatory affairs and general counsel. In his role, Dopp oversees policy development and represents industry views on significant regulatory, scientific, legislative, and communications matters. He also provides legal counsel to NAMI and oversees its administration and financial matters.
Dopp became the Meat Institute’s outside general counsel in May 1995 and in 1999 he formally joined the Institute and assumed responsibility for its legal and regulatory affairs. Before joining NAMI, Dopp worked at Hogan and Hartson (now Hogan Lovells), where he was active in areas of food and agricultural law on behalf of many clients, including domestic and foreign corporations. He joined Hogan and Hartson in 1989 as an associate and in January 1993 became a partner. Dopp began his career in USDA's Office of the General Counsel in 1984 and entered private practice in 1985.
Dopp received his Bachelor of Science-Agriculture degree in agricultural economics from the University of Wisconsin and his Master of Science from Michigan State University in 1981, also in agricultural economics. He received his law degree in 1984 from the University of Missouri.
U.S. Congressman, (MN-01)
Congressman Brad Finstad was elected to Congress in a special election on August 9, 2022, and was sworn in three days later with his family by his side as he took the Oath of Office to proudly represent Minnesota’s First District.
Brad is a fourth-generation farmer and resident of the New Ulm area. He and his wife, Jackie, met on the school bus in second grade and they are now the proud parents of seven children. A graduate of the University of Minnesota with a degree in Agriculture Education and an emphasis in Rural Leadership Development, Brad and Jackie now operate an agriculture business in New Ulm while working alongside extended family to run their generational family farm.
Brad is proud to have served as State Director for USDA Rural Development in Minnesota where he worked to support infrastructure improvements, business development, homeownership, community services such as schools, public safety, health care, and high-speed internet access in rural areas. He previously served three terms in the Minnesota Legislature. He also held executive positions with the Minnesota Turkey Growers Association and the Center for Rural Policy and Development.
President, Board of Directors, Farm Action
Joe Maxwell is a co-founder of Farm Action. He focuses his work on a vision of an inclusive U.S. economy that works for all people, providing them an equitable opportunity to share in the prosperity they help build, rather than an economy that works for just a handful of individuals and multi-national corporations.
Joe has held key positions in both political and initiative petition campaigns. During the last election cycle, he assisted Presidential, U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives candidates in developing their antitrust, agriculture, and food policy positions.
Joe holds degrees in agriculture economics and law from the University of Missouri. He served as a Missouri state legislator, as Missouri’s Lieutenant Governor, and is retired from the Army National Guard, where he served as a First Sergeant in the Field Artillery. Joe and his brother, Steve, are Missouri family farmers. Joe’s work has been profiled by The Hill, Huffington Post, Mother Jones, Politico, and The Nation. He has been cited by CNN, The New York Times, NPR, USA Today, Washington Post, and more.
Deputy Secretary of Agriculture, U.S. Department of Agriculture
Judge Stephen Alexander Vaden was appointed as the Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture on July 7, 2025. Alongside Secretary Brooke L. Rollins, Deputy Secretary Vaden leads the Department’s operations and implements policies that support America’s food and farm systems. A native of Union City, Tennessee, Deputy Secretary Vaden brings expertise in agricultural policy, law, and rural development. Previously, he served as a judge on the U.S. Court of International Trade and as General Counsel of USDA. Throughout Deputy Secretary Vaden’s time as General Counsel, he led successful Supreme Court litigation, advanced regulatory reform, and supported the implementation of the 2018 Farm Bill. He is a graduate of Yale Law School and Vanderbilt University. A public servant with strong agricultural roots, Deputy Secretary Vaden is committed to revitalizing rural America and ensuring an abundant, affordable, and safe U.S. food supply.
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