Professor of Law and Michael R. Klein Distinguished Scholar Chair, University of Miami School of Law
Mary Anne Franks, Professor of Law and Michael R. Klein Distinguished Scholar Chair, is a nationally and internationally recognized expert on the intersection of civil rights and technology. She teaches classes on criminal law, criminal procedure, First Amendment law, Second Amendment law, family law, and law and technology. Professor Franks is also an Affiliated Faculty member of the University of Miami Department of Philosophy and an Affiliate Fellow of the Yale Law School Information Society Project (ISP).
Dr. Franks is the author of the award-winning book, The Cult of the Constitution: Our Deadly Devotion to Guns and Free Speech (Stanford Press, 2019). In 2020, she was awarded a grant from the Knight Foundation to support research for her second book, Fearless Speech (expected 2022). Her scholarship has appeared in the Harvard Law Review, the California Law Review, and UCLA Law Review, among others. Dr. Franks has also authored numerous articles for the popular press, including the New York Times, the Atlantic, the Washington Post, and Newsweek. She has delivered more than a hundred lectures to a range of audiences around the world, including law schools, domestic violence organizations, law firms, and tech companies. She was named a member of the American Law Institute in October 2018.
Dr. Franks is the President and Legislative & Tech Policy Director of the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative, a nonprofit organization dedicated to combating online abuse and discrimination. In 2013, she drafted the first model criminal statute on nonconsensual pornography (sometimes referred to as “revenge porn”), which has served as the template for multiple state laws and for pending federal legislation on the issue. She also served as the reporter for the Uniform Law Commission’s 2018 Uniform Civil Remedies for the Unauthorized Disclosure of Intimate Images Act. Dr. Franks is a principal investigator for a 2020 National Science Foundation grant project, COVID-19 and sexual cyberviolence: Impact on general users and vulnerable populations. She regularly advises legislators, tech industry leaders, and advocacy organizations on issues relating to online privacy, sexual exploitation, extortion, harassment, and threats.
Dr. Franks holds a J.D. from Harvard Law School as well as a doctorate and a master’s degree from Oxford University, where she studied as a Rhodes Scholar. She previously taught at the University of Chicago Law School as a Bigelow Fellow and Lecturer in Law and at Harvard University as a lecturer in social studies and philosophy.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit
Judge Katsas was appointed to the D.C. Circuit in December 2017. He graduated from Princeton University and Harvard Law School, where he was an executive editor on the Harvard Law Review. Between 1989 and 1992, he served as a law clerk to Judge Edward Becker on the Third Circuit, to then-Judge Clarence Thomas on the D.C. Circuit, and to Justice Thomas on the Supreme Court. Between 1992 and 2001, he was an associate and then partner in the Washington office of Jones Day, where he specialized in appellate and complex civil litigation. Between 2001 and 2009, he served in many senior positions in the Department of Justice, including as Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division and as Acting Associate Attorney General. In 2009, he returned to Jones Day. From January to December 2017, he served as Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy Counsel to the President.
Before joining the bench, Judge Katsas argued more than 75 appeals, including three cases in the Supreme Court, 13 cases in the D.C. Circuit, and cases in every other federal court of appeals. By appointment of the Chief Justice, he served on the Advisory Committee on Appellate Rules from 2013 to 2017. In 2016, he was elected to membership in the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers.
Thomas M. Siebel Senior Fellow, The Hoover Institution, Stanford University; Gary T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus, UCLA School of Law
Eugene Volokh is the Thomas M. Siebel Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution (Stanford), as well as the Gary T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus and Distinguished Research Professor at UCLA School of Law. He recently retired from teaching at UCLA, after 30 years there, and is now focusing on research.
Volokh is the author of the textbooks The First Amendment and Related Statutes (8th ed. 2023), and Academic Legal Writing (5th ed. 2016), as well as over 100 academic law journal articles, mostly on First Amendment law. He is a member of The American Law Institute; the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Free Speech Law; and the creator and coauthor of The Volokh Conspiracy, a leading legal blog founded in 2002 (hosted at the Washington Post from 2014 to 2017 and now at Reason Magazine).
Professor of Law and Michael R. Klein Distinguished Scholar Chair, University of Miami School of Law
Mary Anne Franks, Professor of Law and Michael R. Klein Distinguished Scholar Chair, is a nationally and internationally recognized expert on the intersection of civil rights and technology. She teaches classes on criminal law, criminal procedure, First Amendment law, Second Amendment law, family law, and law and technology. Professor Franks is also an Affiliated Faculty member of the University of Miami Department of Philosophy and an Affiliate Fellow of the Yale Law School Information Society Project (ISP).
Dr. Franks is the author of the award-winning book, The Cult of the Constitution: Our Deadly Devotion to Guns and Free Speech (Stanford Press, 2019). In 2020, she was awarded a grant from the Knight Foundation to support research for her second book, Fearless Speech (expected 2022). Her scholarship has appeared in the Harvard Law Review, the California Law Review, and UCLA Law Review, among others. Dr. Franks has also authored numerous articles for the popular press, including the New York Times, the Atlantic, the Washington Post, and Newsweek. She has delivered more than a hundred lectures to a range of audiences around the world, including law schools, domestic violence organizations, law firms, and tech companies. She was named a member of the American Law Institute in October 2018.
Dr. Franks is the President and Legislative & Tech Policy Director of the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative, a nonprofit organization dedicated to combating online abuse and discrimination. In 2013, she drafted the first model criminal statute on nonconsensual pornography (sometimes referred to as “revenge porn”), which has served as the template for multiple state laws and for pending federal legislation on the issue. She also served as the reporter for the Uniform Law Commission’s 2018 Uniform Civil Remedies for the Unauthorized Disclosure of Intimate Images Act. Dr. Franks is a principal investigator for a 2020 National Science Foundation grant project, COVID-19 and sexual cyberviolence: Impact on general users and vulnerable populations. She regularly advises legislators, tech industry leaders, and advocacy organizations on issues relating to online privacy, sexual exploitation, extortion, harassment, and threats.
Dr. Franks holds a J.D. from Harvard Law School as well as a doctorate and a master’s degree from Oxford University, where she studied as a Rhodes Scholar. She previously taught at the University of Chicago Law School as a Bigelow Fellow and Lecturer in Law and at Harvard University as a lecturer in social studies and philosophy.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit
Judge Katsas was appointed to the D.C. Circuit in December 2017. He graduated from Princeton University and Harvard Law School, where he was an executive editor on the Harvard Law Review. Between 1989 and 1992, he served as a law clerk to Judge Edward Becker on the Third Circuit, to then-Judge Clarence Thomas on the D.C. Circuit, and to Justice Thomas on the Supreme Court. Between 1992 and 2001, he was an associate and then partner in the Washington office of Jones Day, where he specialized in appellate and complex civil litigation. Between 2001 and 2009, he served in many senior positions in the Department of Justice, including as Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division and as Acting Associate Attorney General. In 2009, he returned to Jones Day. From January to December 2017, he served as Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy Counsel to the President.
Before joining the bench, Judge Katsas argued more than 75 appeals, including three cases in the Supreme Court, 13 cases in the D.C. Circuit, and cases in every other federal court of appeals. By appointment of the Chief Justice, he served on the Advisory Committee on Appellate Rules from 2013 to 2017. In 2016, he was elected to membership in the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers.
Thomas M. Siebel Senior Fellow, The Hoover Institution, Stanford University; Gary T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus, UCLA School of Law
Eugene Volokh is the Thomas M. Siebel Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution (Stanford), as well as the Gary T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus and Distinguished Research Professor at UCLA School of Law. He recently retired from teaching at UCLA, after 30 years there, and is now focusing on research.
Volokh is the author of the textbooks The First Amendment and Related Statutes (8th ed. 2023), and Academic Legal Writing (5th ed. 2016), as well as over 100 academic law journal articles, mostly on First Amendment law. He is a member of The American Law Institute; the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Free Speech Law; and the creator and coauthor of The Volokh Conspiracy, a leading legal blog founded in 2002 (hosted at the Washington Post from 2014 to 2017 and now at Reason Magazine).
Acting Assistant Commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, Office of Professional Responsibility, U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Brian M. Fish is currently the Senior Advisor to the General Counsel at the Department of Homeland Security where he works on immigration and law enforcement issues. Previously, he was a trial attorney with the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement, where he represented the Department of Homeland Security in removal hearings before the U.S. Immigration Court. Additionally, he was a Special Assistant United States Attorney and a Baltimore City homicide prosecutor. He is a member of the Federalist Society's Criminal Law & Procedure Practice Group Executive Committee and the President of its Baltimore Lawyers Chapter. He earned his B.A. from LaSalle University in 1992 and his J.D. from Loyola University New Orleans School of Law in 1998.
Director, Americas Program, Center for Strategic and International Studies
Ryan C. Berg is director of the Americas Program and head of the Future of Venezuela Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He is also an adjunct professor at the Catholic University of America and a course coordinator at the United States Foreign Service Institute. His research focuses on U.S.-Latin America relations, strategic competition and defense policy, authoritarian regimes, armed conflict and transnational organized crime, and trade and development issues. Previously, Dr. Berg was a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he helped lead its Latin America Studies Program, as well as visiting research fellow at the University of Oxford’s Changing Character of War Programme. Dr. Berg was a Fulbright scholar in Brazil and is a Council on Foreign Relations Term Member. He has been published in a variety of peer-reviewed academic and policy-oriented journals, including The Lancet, Migration and Development, the SAIS Review of International Affairs, and the Georgetown Security Studies Review. His articles have appeared in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, CNN.com, Los Angeles Times, and World Politics Review, among other outlets. He routinely testifies before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Dr. Berg obtained a PhD and an MPhil in political science and an MSc in global governance and diplomacy from the University of Oxford, where he was a Senior Hulme Fellow. Earlier, he obtained a BA in government and theology from Georgetown University. He is fluent in Spanish and Portuguese and is conversational in Slovenian.
Partner, SFS Law
Michael Nadler counsels and defends corporations and individuals on a broad range of regulatory, criminal, and civil matters, including claims involving the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), money laundering, healthcare fraud, securities law violations, and white-collar criminal defense.
Prior to joining Stumphauzer, Foslid, Sloman, Ross & Kolaya, Michael was a federal prosecutor for almost ten years in the Southern District of Florida. Michael has extensive courtroom and trial experience. During his time at the United States Attorney’s Office, he successfully tried over twenty-five federal jury trials and argued before the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.
While at the United States Attorney’s Office, Michael specialized in prosecutions and investigations involving sophisticated international and domestic money laundering and FCPA cases. Michael was selected to be part of a newly-created group targeting money laundering and foreign corruption. His cases covered the world. ranging from cases involving corrupt officials in Venezuela, the Middle East, Africa, and Europe. and extending to large scale financial investigations involving European banks and foreign nationals. He was lead prosecutor in some of the highest profile, largest money laundering and FCPA prosecutions in the history of South Florida. In one case alone, Michael’s prosecution of the former treasurer of Venezuela resulted in a one billion-dollar forfeiture, one of the largest forfeiture amounts ever ordered.
As an Assistant U.S. Attorney, Michael also led hundreds of complex investigations and prosecutions against individuals and corporations for violations of federal health care statutes, large scale narcotics trafficking, firearms offenses, murder for hire, tax fraud, aggravated identity theft, securities fraud and elder fraud.
Throughout his time at the U.S. Attorney’s office Michael travelled extensively throughout South America and Europe. He built partnerships and relationships with numerous law enforcement agencies both domestic and international, officials and foreign lawyers. Michael participated in several summits whose participants included officials from Lichtenstein, Italy, Bulgaria, Spain, Portugal, Argentina, Luxemburg, Switzerland, Colombia, Panama, Mexico, Honduras, Equator and Guatemala on bilateral efforts to combat organized transnational crime involving money laundering, foreign corruption and narco- trafficking. Michael has also lectured federal law enforcement agencies on complex money laundering investigations and weapons of mass destruction.
Prior to his service with the federal government, Michael served as an Assistant Miami-Dade County Attorney at the Miami-Dade County Attorney’s Office. As an Assistant County Attorney, Michael was the trial attorney on a wide variety of civil cases and trials in federal and state court, including tort cases, medical malpractice, section 1983 civil rights cases and employment cases where he represented numerous County departments, including the Miami Dade Fire Department, Building Department, and the Port of Miami. Michael drafted appellate briefs and conducted several successful oral arguments before the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit and the Florida Third District Court of Appeal.
Earlier in his career, Michael worked in the financial and securities litigation group in Sidley Austin LLP’s Chicago office. As an associate there, he built a reputation for successfully representing clients on white collar investigations involving securities violations and accountant liability.
Of Counsel, DLA Piper LLP (US)
Harout J. Samra – a Board Certified Specialist in International Law – focuses his practice on international dispute resolution and arbitration matters, including international civil litigation in US courts.
Harout has represented clients from both the public and private sectors, including foreign governments, public officials and clients from a variety of industries. He has experience in international arbitrations administered under the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), International Centre for Dispute Resolution (ICDR), United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL), China International Economic and Trade Arbitration Commission (CIETAC), Bogota Chamber of Commerce, Madrid Court of Arbitration and International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) arbitration rules.
Harout currently serves as a member of the Florida Supreme Court Judicial Nominating Commission, by appointment of Governor Ron DeSantis. He previously served, by appointment of Governor Rick Scott, as a member of the Florida Third District Court of Appeal Judicial Nominating Commission, and was elected as Chair of the Commission from 2018-2019.
Acting Assistant Commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, Office of Professional Responsibility, U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Brian M. Fish is currently the Senior Advisor to the General Counsel at the Department of Homeland Security where he works on immigration and law enforcement issues. Previously, he was a trial attorney with the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement, where he represented the Department of Homeland Security in removal hearings before the U.S. Immigration Court. Additionally, he was a Special Assistant United States Attorney and a Baltimore City homicide prosecutor. He is a member of the Federalist Society's Criminal Law & Procedure Practice Group Executive Committee and the President of its Baltimore Lawyers Chapter. He earned his B.A. from LaSalle University in 1992 and his J.D. from Loyola University New Orleans School of Law in 1998.
Professor of Law and Michael R. Klein Distinguished Scholar Chair, University of Miami School of Law
Mary Anne Franks, Professor of Law and Michael R. Klein Distinguished Scholar Chair, is a nationally and internationally recognized expert on the intersection of civil rights and technology. She teaches classes on criminal law, criminal procedure, First Amendment law, Second Amendment law, family law, and law and technology. Professor Franks is also an Affiliated Faculty member of the University of Miami Department of Philosophy and an Affiliate Fellow of the Yale Law School Information Society Project (ISP).
Dr. Franks is the author of the award-winning book, The Cult of the Constitution: Our Deadly Devotion to Guns and Free Speech (Stanford Press, 2019). In 2020, she was awarded a grant from the Knight Foundation to support research for her second book, Fearless Speech (expected 2022). Her scholarship has appeared in the Harvard Law Review, the California Law Review, and UCLA Law Review, among others. Dr. Franks has also authored numerous articles for the popular press, including the New York Times, the Atlantic, the Washington Post, and Newsweek. She has delivered more than a hundred lectures to a range of audiences around the world, including law schools, domestic violence organizations, law firms, and tech companies. She was named a member of the American Law Institute in October 2018.
Dr. Franks is the President and Legislative & Tech Policy Director of the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative, a nonprofit organization dedicated to combating online abuse and discrimination. In 2013, she drafted the first model criminal statute on nonconsensual pornography (sometimes referred to as “revenge porn”), which has served as the template for multiple state laws and for pending federal legislation on the issue. She also served as the reporter for the Uniform Law Commission’s 2018 Uniform Civil Remedies for the Unauthorized Disclosure of Intimate Images Act. Dr. Franks is a principal investigator for a 2020 National Science Foundation grant project, COVID-19 and sexual cyberviolence: Impact on general users and vulnerable populations. She regularly advises legislators, tech industry leaders, and advocacy organizations on issues relating to online privacy, sexual exploitation, extortion, harassment, and threats.
Dr. Franks holds a J.D. from Harvard Law School as well as a doctorate and a master’s degree from Oxford University, where she studied as a Rhodes Scholar. She previously taught at the University of Chicago Law School as a Bigelow Fellow and Lecturer in Law and at Harvard University as a lecturer in social studies and philosophy.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit
Judge Katsas was appointed to the D.C. Circuit in December 2017. He graduated from Princeton University and Harvard Law School, where he was an executive editor on the Harvard Law Review. Between 1989 and 1992, he served as a law clerk to Judge Edward Becker on the Third Circuit, to then-Judge Clarence Thomas on the D.C. Circuit, and to Justice Thomas on the Supreme Court. Between 1992 and 2001, he was an associate and then partner in the Washington office of Jones Day, where he specialized in appellate and complex civil litigation. Between 2001 and 2009, he served in many senior positions in the Department of Justice, including as Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division and as Acting Associate Attorney General. In 2009, he returned to Jones Day. From January to December 2017, he served as Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy Counsel to the President.
Before joining the bench, Judge Katsas argued more than 75 appeals, including three cases in the Supreme Court, 13 cases in the D.C. Circuit, and cases in every other federal court of appeals. By appointment of the Chief Justice, he served on the Advisory Committee on Appellate Rules from 2013 to 2017. In 2016, he was elected to membership in the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers.
Thomas M. Siebel Senior Fellow, The Hoover Institution, Stanford University; Gary T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus, UCLA School of Law
Eugene Volokh is the Thomas M. Siebel Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution (Stanford), as well as the Gary T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus and Distinguished Research Professor at UCLA School of Law. He recently retired from teaching at UCLA, after 30 years there, and is now focusing on research.
Volokh is the author of the textbooks The First Amendment and Related Statutes (8th ed. 2023), and Academic Legal Writing (5th ed. 2016), as well as over 100 academic law journal articles, mostly on First Amendment law. He is a member of The American Law Institute; the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Free Speech Law; and the creator and coauthor of The Volokh Conspiracy, a leading legal blog founded in 2002 (hosted at the Washington Post from 2014 to 2017 and now at Reason Magazine).
District Attorney, Tulsa County
Steve Kunzweiler is District Attorney for Tulsa County. Elected by Tulsa County voters in November 2014, Steve Kunzweiler and his staff are responsible for reviewing police investigations to determine whether the facts, the evidence and the law warrant filing a charge to initiate a criminal prosecution.
The Office of the Tulsa County District Attorney prosecutes criminals, advocates on behalf of victims, including deprived and neglected children, collects restitution for victims and business owners, supervises those on probation for misdemeanor and low-level crimes and promotes crime prevention. The Office of the District Attorney also represents Tulsa County's elected officials in civil legal matters.
Acting Assistant Commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, Office of Professional Responsibility, U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Brian M. Fish is currently the Senior Advisor to the General Counsel at the Department of Homeland Security where he works on immigration and law enforcement issues. Previously, he was a trial attorney with the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement, where he represented the Department of Homeland Security in removal hearings before the U.S. Immigration Court. Additionally, he was a Special Assistant United States Attorney and a Baltimore City homicide prosecutor. He is a member of the Federalist Society's Criminal Law & Procedure Practice Group Executive Committee and the President of its Baltimore Lawyers Chapter. He earned his B.A. from LaSalle University in 1992 and his J.D. from Loyola University New Orleans School of Law in 1998.
Acting Assistant Commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, Office of Professional Responsibility, U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Brian M. Fish is currently the Senior Advisor to the General Counsel at the Department of Homeland Security where he works on immigration and law enforcement issues. Previously, he was a trial attorney with the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement, where he represented the Department of Homeland Security in removal hearings before the U.S. Immigration Court. Additionally, he was a Special Assistant United States Attorney and a Baltimore City homicide prosecutor. He is a member of the Federalist Society's Criminal Law & Procedure Practice Group Executive Committee and the President of its Baltimore Lawyers Chapter. He earned his B.A. from LaSalle University in 1992 and his J.D. from Loyola University New Orleans School of Law in 1998.
Free Speech and Compelled Speech: First Amendment Challenges to a Marketplace of Ideas
Mary Anne Franks, Gregory G. Katsas, Jed Rubenfeld, Eugene Volokh
Section 230 has been understood to shield internet platforms from liability for content posted by...
Free Speech and Compelled Speech: First Amendment Challenges to a Marketplace of Ideas
Mary Anne Franks, Gregory G. Katsas, Jed Rubenfeld, Eugene Volokh
Section 230 has been understood to shield internet platforms from liability for content posted by...
Free Speech and Compelled Speech: First Amendment Challenges to a Marketplace of Ideas
Freedom of Thought Six-Part Series: Part 1
TeleforumMcGirt v. Oklahoma: State and Tribal Impact A Year Later
Tulsa Lawyers Chapter Event
Tulsa, OKCourthouse Steps Oral Argument Teleforum: United States v. Palomar-Santiago
Brian M. Fish
On April 27, 2021, the Supreme Court will hear oral argument in the case of U.S....
Courthouse Steps Oral Argument Teleforum: United States v. Palomar-Santiago
TeleforumInternational Corruption and the Venezuela Indictments: The Case of Alex Saab
Ryan C. Berg, Michael Nadler, Harout J. Samra
One year ago, the United States Department of Justice announced a series of indictments against...
Courthouse Steps Decision Teleforum: Pereida v. Wilkinson
Brian M. Fish
In Pereida v. Wilkinson, the Supreme Court held 5-3 that an individual seeking relief from a...
Courthouse Steps Decision Teleforum: Pereida v. Wilkinson
TeleforumTopics
Oral Arguments in Arthrex
On March 1, 2021, the Supreme Court heard oral argument on the question of when...