Denver Managing Partner, Wilkinson Barker Knauer LLP
Raymond L. Gifford counsels communications, electric and gas utilities, and information technology companies on state and federal aspects of regulation, administrative law, and competition policy. He is an expert in public utilities law, and the law and economics of regulation of network industries. Mr. Gifford’s law and policy work focuses on the convergence of broadband communications and energy, as well as environmental policy as it applies to the electric industry. He represents clients in state and federal courts and agencies, and serves as an expert witness on utility regulation and its history. He is also a Senior Adjunct Fellow at the Silicon Flatirons Center for Law, Technology and Entrepreneurship, and Co-Directs the Institute for Regulatory Law & Economics at University of Colorado Law School.
Mr. Gifford served as Chairman of the Colorado Public Utilities Commission from 1999-2003. Following that, he served as President of The Progress & Freedom Foundation, a Washington DC-based think-tank that studied the digital revolution as it relates to regulation of network industries. He entered the regulatory law world as First Assistant Attorney General in the Colorado Attorney General’s Office. He clerked for the Honorable Richard P. Matsch of the United States District Court for the District of Colorado. Mr. Gifford has authored a number of articles on communications law, public utility regulation and competition policy in network industries. He is a graduate of University of Chicago Law School and St. John’s College in Annapolis, Maryland. He is an elected member of the American Law Institute
Partner, Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP
Mr. Douglas is a partner in Davis Polk’s Financial Institutions Group, heading the firm’s bank regulatory practice and focusing on bank restructuring and resolutions and other issues arising from the current banking and financial crisis. He has been involved in some of the most difficult and sensitive matters during the crisis, including advising the boards of directors of Indymac and Bank United, counseling Citigroup with respect to FDIC matters, advising various parties on the fallout from the failure of Washington Mutual and advising various private equity firms on proposed investments in troubled or failed banks.
Mr. Douglas was appointed General Counsel of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation in 1987 and continued in that capacity through 1989. This was a period of unprecedented stress on the financial system, and he was involved in the major bank failures and restructurings of the late 1980s, participated in the landmark Financial Institutions Regulatory Reform and Restructuring Act of 1989 and assisted in the organization of the Resolution Trust Corporation.
Mr. Douglas is regarded as one of the leading bank insolvency lawyers in the nation.
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.
Chief Legal Officer & General Counsel, Americans United for Life
Steven H. Aden serves as Chief Legal Officer & General Counsel at Americans United for Life. Aden joined Americans United for Life in August 2017, overseeing all legal operations of America’s most effective pro-life organization. Aden is a highly experienced litigator, having appeared in court against Planned Parenthood and the abortion industry dozens of times and appointed by the attorneys general of six states to defend prolife laws. Mr. Aden secured court victories that upheld an Arizona law that resulted in six abortion businesses ceasing to offer abortion, applied Missouri’s abortion laws to chemical abortion and upheld the right of Louisiana regulators to shut down dangerous abortion facilities. A prolific author and analyst on sanctity of life issues and constitutional jurisprudence, Aden is admitted to the bars of the District of Columbia, Virginia, and Hawaii (inactive), and is a member of the bars of the U.S. Supreme Court and numerous federal circuit and district courts. He has practiced law since 1990 and earned his J.D. (cum laude) from Georgetown University Law Center and his B.A. from the University of Hawaii.
Board Member, Center for Equal Opportunity
Roger Clegg is a Board Member at and former President and General Counsel of the Center for Equal Opportunity. He focuses on legal issues arising from civil rights laws--including the regulatory impact on business and the problems in higher education created by affirmative action. A former Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Reagan and Bush administrations, Clegg held the second highest positions in both the Civil Rights Division (1987-91) and in the Environment and Natural Resources Division (1991-93). He has held several other positions at the U.S. Justice Department, including Assistant to the Solicitor General (1985-87), Associate Deputy Attorney General (1984-85), and Acting Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Policy (1984). Clegg is a graduate of Yale University Law School (1981).
Founder, Chairman, and CEO, Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law
Hon. Kenneth L. Marcus is an internationally recognized expert in civil and human rights, as well as a leader in the fight against anti-Semitism on and off university campuses. He is the Founder, Chairman, and CEO of The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, the leading civil rights legal organization fighting against anti-Semitism. The New York Times has called him “The Man Who Helped Redefine Campus Anti-Semitism.” He been described, in that paper, as “the single most effective and respected force” to combat anti-Semitism.
During his public service career, Marcus served as Assistant U.S. Secretary of Education for Civil Rights; Staff Director at the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights; and General Deputy Assistant U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity.
In academia, he serves as Professorial Lecturer in Law at George Washington University. He formerly held the Lillie and Nathan Ackerman Chair in Equality and Justice in America at the City University of New York’s Bernard M. Baruch College, served as Visiting Research Professor of Political Science at Yeshiva University, and was a Board of Visitors member George Mason University and Distinguished Senior Fellow at that university’s law school. He is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Contemporary Antisemitism and previously served as Associate Editor of the Journal for the Study of Anti-Semitism.
Marcus is also author of The Definition of Anti-Semitism (Oxford University Press) and Jewish Identity and Civil Rights in America (Cambridge University Press). He has published widely in academic journals as well as in more popular venues such as The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Newsweek, USA Today, and Politico. He is a graduate of Williams College and the University of California at Berkeley School of Law.
Earlier in his career, he was a litigation partner in two major law firms, where he conducted complex commercial and constitutional litigation. He also serves as Chairman emeritus of the Executive Committee of the Federalist Society for Law & Public Policy Civil Rights Practice Group.
Partner, Capitol Counsel LLC
Martin B. Gold is a partner with Capitol Counsel LLC. In service to our clients, he brings over 40 years of experience, both on Senate staff and in private practice. He is a recognized authority on matters of congressional rules and parliamentary strategies.
Gold is the author of “Senate Procedure and Practice,” a widely consulted primer on Senate Floor procedure, now in its third edition (2013). He frequently advises in offices of Senators and serves on the adjunct faculty at George Washington University. Before domestic business, professional and academic audiences, he often speaks about Congress as well as political and public policy developments.
Gold has been a guest lecturer at Tsinghua University and the Beijing Foreign Studies University, Moscow State University, the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, the State Parliament of Ukraine, and the Federation Council of the Russian Federal Assembly. He published in China “The Grand Institution: A Profile of the United States Senate.” (2011)
Between 1972 to 1982, Gold worked in senior staff positions at the Senate, culminating as counsel to Senate Majority Leader Howard H. Baker, Jr. (R-TN). Gold began his career as a legal assistant to Senator Mark O. Hatfield (R-OR) and later served as republican staff director and counsel to the Senate Rules Committee and as a professional staff member on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. In 2003, Gold was floor adviser and counsel to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN).
Gold was president of the lobbying firm Gold and Liebengood, which he co-founded in 1984. He joined the government relations firm, Johnson, Smith, Dover, Kitzmiller & Stewart, Inc. in 1995. Later, Gold co-founded The Legislative Strategies Group, a leading government affairs practice.
In 2004, Gold became a partner at Covington & Burling LLC, one of the nation’s most prominent law firms. While co-chair of Covington’s government affairs practice, Gold was instrumental in securing adoption of congressional resolutions expressing regret for the Chinese exclusion laws. For this pro bono project, he was awarded the Champion of Justice Award by the Chinese American Citizens Alliance. In 2012, he authored “Forbidden Citizens: Chinese Exclusion and the U.S. Congress: A Legislative History.” His book was awarded the Benjamin Franklin Gold Medal by the Independent Book Publishers of America and was named an Honor Book by the Asian and Pacific American Librarians Association. At the end of 2016, Gold published “A Legislative History of the Taiwan Relations Act; Bridging the Strait.”
In 2006, President George W. Bush appointed Gold to serve as a member of the United States Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad. On the commission, Gold commemorated the work of D. Ho Feng Shan, a Chinese diplomat who, while serving as a consular officer in Austria, issued visas to Shanghai to save several thousand Jews from Nazi persecution. In 2008, the Senate adopted a resolution honoring Dr. Ho’s selfless heroism.
Gold is a member of the Cosmos Club in Washington, D.C. He was elected in 2000 in recognition for excellence in the field of political science.
Gold is a graduate of the Washington College of Law at The American University and serves on the Board of the Friends of the Law Library of the Library of Congress.
Professor of Law, Cornell Law School
Josh Chafetz received his B.A. from Yale University, his doctorate in Politics from Oxford (where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar), and his J.D. from Yale Law School. Following law school, he clerked for Judge Guido Calabresi of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
His research interests include structural constitutional law, American and British constitutional history, legislation and legislative procedure, American political development, and the intersection of law and politics. His second book, Congress's Constitution: Legislative Authority and the Separation of Powers, was published by Yale University Press in 2017. He is also the author of Democracy's Privileged Few: Legislative Privilege and Democratic Norms in the British and American Constitutions (Yale University Press, 2007) and is a co-editor (along with William N. Eskridge, Jr., Elizabeth Garrett, and James Brudney) of the leading casebook in Legislation, Cases and Materials on Legislation and Regulation: Statutes and the Creation of Public Policy, published by West.
His scholarship has been published in a number of top law reviews, including the Harvard Law Review, Yale Law Journal, University of Chicago Law Review, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, Duke Law Journal, Notre Dame Law Review, and Yale Journal of Law & the Humanities, among others. He has also written for a number of popular press outlets, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, Politico, Slate, and the New Republic. He is currently a Contributing Writer for the Capitol Hill newspaper The Hill.
General Counsel to the House of Representatives
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Yale Student Chapter
New Haven, CTThe Second “Helping Families Save Their Homes Act”
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