Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law and Director, Classical Liberal Institute, New York University School of Law; Director, Classical Liberal Institute, Civitas Institute University of Texas at Austin
Richard A. Epstein is the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law, at New York University, a senior research fellow at the Civitas Institute at the University of Texas Austin, and a senior Lecturer, the University of Chicago. He received an LL.D., h.c . from the University of Ghent, 2003 , and an LLD h.c . from the University of Siegen in 2018 and the Bradley Prize in 2011. He has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 1985. He has edited both the Journal of Legal Studies (1981-1991) and the Journal of Law and Economics (1991-2001). He is also a founder and director of the Classical Liberal Institute at NYU Law School. His most recent book is The Classical Liberal Constitution: The Uncertain Quest for Limited Government (2014). His other books include Takings: Private Property and the Power of Eminent Domain ( 1985); Bargaining with the State (1993); Simple Rules for a Complex World (1995); Principles for a Free Society: Reconciling Individual Liberty and the Common Good (1998); Skepticism and Freedom: A Modern Theory of Classical Liberalism (2003); Design for Liberty: Private Property, Public Administration and the Rule of Law (2011), and most recently, The Myth of Birthright citizenship—and Beyond (2026). He has taught courses in , administrative law, antitrust, constitutional, contracts, environmental law, land use planning; real property, torts and water law. He has written and spoken extensively on a wide range of topics, and is writes a regular column for Defining Ideas.
Of Counsel, Bredhoff & Kaiser PLLC
Richard F. Griffin, Jr. is Of Counsel at the Washington, DC law firm of Bredhoff & Kaiser, and has practiced labor law for more than 36 years. Prior to joining the firm, from November 4, 2013 through October 31, 2017, Mr. Griffin was the General Counsel of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), nominated by President Obama and confirmed by the U.S. Senate. Before becoming NLRB General Counsel, from January 2012 through August 2013, Mr. Griffin was a NLRB Board Member, recess appointed to that position by President Obama. From 1983 through his appointment as a Board Member, Mr. Griffin worked in the legal department of the International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE); from September 1994 until January 2012, he was the IUOE’s General Counsel. While IUOE General Counsel, Mr. Griffin was on the AFL-CIO Lawyers Advisory Panel and was a member of the Board of Directors of the AFL-CIO Lawyers Coordinating Committee. From 1981 to 1983, Mr. Griffin served as staff counsel to two NLRB Board Members.
“For exemplary public service and leadership on behalf of America’s workers” Mr. Griffin was named to the National Employment Law Project’s 2016 Honor Roll. He is a Fellow of the College of Labor and Employment Lawyers and of the American Bar Foundation. He graduated from Yale College (BA 1977) and Northeastern University Law School (JD 1981).
Partner, Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP
Philip A. Miscimarra is the former Chairman of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Phil leads the firm’s NLRB special appeals practice and is co-leader of Morgan Lewis Workforce Change, which manages all employment, labor, benefits, and related issues arising from mergers, acquisitions, startups, workforce reductions, and other types of business restructuring. He represents clients on a wide range of labor and employment issues, with a focus on labor-management relations, business acquisitions and restructuring, and employment litigation. Phil is also a Senior Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School and the Wharton Center for Human Resources. He is admitted in Illinois only, and his practice is supervised by DC Bar members.
Phil was named Chairman of the NLRB by President Donald J. Trump on April 24, 2017, after previously serving as Acting Chairman and a Board Member. He was appointed to the NLRB by President Barack Obama on April 9, 2013, and was approved unanimously by the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions on May 22, 2013. He was confirmed by voice vote in the US Senate on July 30, 2013, and served from August 7, 2013, to December 16, 2017. Upon the completion of his term, Phil served on the NLRB longer than 26 other board members over the past 30 years.
Phil is the author or co-author of several books involving labor law issues, including The NLRB and Managerial Discretion: Subcontracting, Relocations, Closings, Sales, Layoffs, and Technological Change (2d ed. 2010) (by Miscimarra, Turner, Friedman, Callahan, Conrad, Lignowski and Scroggins); The NLRB and Secondary Boycotts (3d ed. 2002) (by Miscimarra, Berkowitz, Wiener and Ditelberg); and Government Protection of Employees Involved in Mergers and Acquisitions (1989 and 1997 supp.) (by Northrup and Miscimarra); and other publications. He has also testified on labor and employment law issues in the United States Congress.
Chambers USA named Phil one of the leading lawyers for employment law in the United States from 2004 to 2012, based on the views of clients, peers, and other industry professionals. He has been described as a "fantastic lawyer" and "prolific writer," with clients admiring his "multilayered abilities and business savvy" and his "high level of integrity."
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Tenth Circuit
Judge Tymkovich, of Denver, Colorado, was nominated to the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals by President George W. Bush, and confirmed in April 2003. On October 1, 2015 he became Chief Circuit Judge and held this position until October 2022. He was Chair of the US Judicial Conference’s Committee on Judicial Resources from 2011 to 2015. Since 2008 he has been an adjunct professor of law at the University of Colorado School of Law, teaching Election Law. He is a member of the Doyle Inn of Court, the American Law Institute, and the International Society of Barristers. Since he joined the Circuit, Judge Tymkovich has hosted judicial delegations from Russia, Kazakhstan, and Afghanistan, and has also represented the United States in programs at Kiev and Yalta in Ukraine.
U.S. Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit
Frank H. Easterbrook is a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and a Senior Lecturer at the Law School of the University of Chicago. He was Chief Judge from 2006–2013. Before joining the court in 1985, he was the Lee andBrena Freeman Professor of Law at the University of Chicago, where he taught and wrote in antitrust, securities, corporate law, jurisprudence, and criminal procedure. He has published The Economic Structure of Corporate Law (with Daniel R. Fischel) and about 100 scholarly articles. He served as Co-Editor of the Journal of Law and Economics from 1982 to 1991 and as a member of the Judicial Conference’s Standing Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure from 1991 to 1997. Before joining the faculty of the Law School in 1979, Judge Easterbrook was Deputy Solicitor General of the United States. He holds degrees from Swarthmore College (B.A. with high honors, 1970) and the University of Chicago (J.D. cum laude, 1973), and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Law Institute, the Mont Pelerin Society, Phi Beta Kappa, and the Order of the Coif.
Partner, Rule Garza Howley LLP
Partner, White & Case
Mr. Grannon helps clients with antitrust matters, including civil and criminal defense as well as counseling for mergers and acquisitions and settlements of pharmaceutical patent litigation. Since 2001, he also has helped clients with concerns under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and other anti-corruption issues. Mr. Grannon began at the firm as a summer associate in 1997 and has been a partner since 2007.
A former prosecutor, Mr. Grannon returned to White & Case after serving as Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Antitrust Division of the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) in 2003-04, where he helped formulate US antitrust enforcement policy and manage the civil and criminal investigations and court cases brought by the Antitrust Division. He ended his DOJ service with a detail as a Special Assistant US Attorney in the District of Columbia, trying twenty bench and jury trials as lead counsel.
In private practice, Mr. Grannon has argued on behalf of clients in district courts across the country, including a successful verdict for defendants in an antitrust jury trial, argued appeals in the Eleventh and DC Circuits, and worked on eleven matters before the US Supreme Court, ten of which were antitrust cases.
Mr. Grannon clerked for the Honorable Walter K. Stapleton, US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, 1999-2000, and the Honorable Federico A. Moreno, US District Court for the Southern District of Florida, 1998-99.
He is a member of the Legal Policy Board of the Washington Legal Foundation.
Mr. Grannon served a three-year term, 2015-18, on the American Bar Association's Standing Committee on Amicus Curiae Briefs.
He previously served as Vice-Chair of the Health Care and Pharmaceuticals Committee of the American Bar Association Section of Antitrust Law, and prior to that as Vice-Chair of its Compliance and Ethics Committee.
Mr. Grannon has served as an adjunct faculty member at the Howard University School of Law, where he taught a seminar on advanced antitrust law.
Professor of the Practice of Law, Stanford Law School
Doug Melamed practiced law for 43 years before spending the 2014-15 academic year at the Law School as the Herman Phleger Visiting Professor of Law. He was appointed Professor of the Practice of Law in 2015.
From 2009 until 2014, Professor Melamed was Senior Vice President and General Counsel of Intel Corporation and was responsible for overseeing Intel’s legal, government affairs and corporate affairs departments. Prior to joining Intel in 2009, he was a partner in the Washington, D.C., office of WilmerHale, a global law firm in which he served as a chair of the Antitrust and Competition Practice Group. His practice included appellate and trial court litigation, counseling, and representing clients in matters before government law enforcement and regulatory agencies. He joined WilmerHale’s predecessor in 1971. From 1996 to 2001, Professor Melamed served in the U.S. Department of Justice as Acting Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Antitrust Division and, before that, as Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General.
Professor Melamed has received numerous professional awards and honors. He has been the Distinguished Visitor from Practice and an adjunct professor at the Georgetown University Law Center, and he has authored numerous articles on antitrust and on law and economics. He is a member of the boards of directors of the Nasdaq exchanges and the American Law Institute and a Contributing Editor of the Antitrust Law Journal. He was for many years a member of the Yale University Council and a member of the board of trustees of Sidwell Friends School in Washington, D.C. After graduating from law school, he clerked for Judge Charles M. Merrill of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit
John B. Nalbandian serves as a United States Circuit Judge from Kentucky on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. He was nominated and confirmed to that position in 2018. Prior to that, Judge Nalbandian was a partner in the litigation practice group of Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLP in Cincinnati, where he served as the firm’s lead appellate lawyer and also practiced complex litigation in state and federal courts. Judge Nalbandian was board certified by the Ohio State Bar Association as a specialist in appellate law. Prior to joining Taft, Judge Nalbandian practiced for five years in the appellate section of Jones Day in Washington, DC. Upon graduation from law school, Judge Nalbandian clerked for the Honorable Jerry E. Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in Houston. While in private practice, he also served as a board member of the State Justice Institute, a nonprofit organization established by the federal government to improve the administration of justice in state courts. He served as President of the Cincinnati Lawyers Chapter of the Federalist Society. He has also been involved in his community as a board member of the Greater Cincinnati Minority Counsel Program, and as a board member of the Asian Pacific Bar Association of Southwest Ohio. Judge Nalbandian earned his B.S., magna cum laude, from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and his J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law, where he was inducted into the Order of the Coif and served as managing editor of the Virginia Law Review.
U.S. Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit
Frank H. Easterbrook is a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and a Senior Lecturer at the Law School of the University of Chicago. He was Chief Judge from 2006–2013. Before joining the court in 1985, he was the Lee andBrena Freeman Professor of Law at the University of Chicago, where he taught and wrote in antitrust, securities, corporate law, jurisprudence, and criminal procedure. He has published The Economic Structure of Corporate Law (with Daniel R. Fischel) and about 100 scholarly articles. He served as Co-Editor of the Journal of Law and Economics from 1982 to 1991 and as a member of the Judicial Conference’s Standing Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure from 1991 to 1997. Before joining the faculty of the Law School in 1979, Judge Easterbrook was Deputy Solicitor General of the United States. He holds degrees from Swarthmore College (B.A. with high honors, 1970) and the University of Chicago (J.D. cum laude, 1973), and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Law Institute, the Mont Pelerin Society, Phi Beta Kappa, and the Order of the Coif.
Partner, Rule Garza Howley LLP
Partner, White & Case
Mr. Grannon helps clients with antitrust matters, including civil and criminal defense as well as counseling for mergers and acquisitions and settlements of pharmaceutical patent litigation. Since 2001, he also has helped clients with concerns under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and other anti-corruption issues. Mr. Grannon began at the firm as a summer associate in 1997 and has been a partner since 2007.
A former prosecutor, Mr. Grannon returned to White & Case after serving as Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Antitrust Division of the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) in 2003-04, where he helped formulate US antitrust enforcement policy and manage the civil and criminal investigations and court cases brought by the Antitrust Division. He ended his DOJ service with a detail as a Special Assistant US Attorney in the District of Columbia, trying twenty bench and jury trials as lead counsel.
In private practice, Mr. Grannon has argued on behalf of clients in district courts across the country, including a successful verdict for defendants in an antitrust jury trial, argued appeals in the Eleventh and DC Circuits, and worked on eleven matters before the US Supreme Court, ten of which were antitrust cases.
Mr. Grannon clerked for the Honorable Walter K. Stapleton, US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, 1999-2000, and the Honorable Federico A. Moreno, US District Court for the Southern District of Florida, 1998-99.
He is a member of the Legal Policy Board of the Washington Legal Foundation.
Mr. Grannon served a three-year term, 2015-18, on the American Bar Association's Standing Committee on Amicus Curiae Briefs.
He previously served as Vice-Chair of the Health Care and Pharmaceuticals Committee of the American Bar Association Section of Antitrust Law, and prior to that as Vice-Chair of its Compliance and Ethics Committee.
Mr. Grannon has served as an adjunct faculty member at the Howard University School of Law, where he taught a seminar on advanced antitrust law.
Professor of the Practice of Law, Stanford Law School
Doug Melamed practiced law for 43 years before spending the 2014-15 academic year at the Law School as the Herman Phleger Visiting Professor of Law. He was appointed Professor of the Practice of Law in 2015.
From 2009 until 2014, Professor Melamed was Senior Vice President and General Counsel of Intel Corporation and was responsible for overseeing Intel’s legal, government affairs and corporate affairs departments. Prior to joining Intel in 2009, he was a partner in the Washington, D.C., office of WilmerHale, a global law firm in which he served as a chair of the Antitrust and Competition Practice Group. His practice included appellate and trial court litigation, counseling, and representing clients in matters before government law enforcement and regulatory agencies. He joined WilmerHale’s predecessor in 1971. From 1996 to 2001, Professor Melamed served in the U.S. Department of Justice as Acting Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Antitrust Division and, before that, as Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General.
Professor Melamed has received numerous professional awards and honors. He has been the Distinguished Visitor from Practice and an adjunct professor at the Georgetown University Law Center, and he has authored numerous articles on antitrust and on law and economics. He is a member of the boards of directors of the Nasdaq exchanges and the American Law Institute and a Contributing Editor of the Antitrust Law Journal. He was for many years a member of the Yale University Council and a member of the board of trustees of Sidwell Friends School in Washington, D.C. After graduating from law school, he clerked for Judge Charles M. Merrill of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit
John B. Nalbandian serves as a United States Circuit Judge from Kentucky on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. He was nominated and confirmed to that position in 2018. Prior to that, Judge Nalbandian was a partner in the litigation practice group of Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLP in Cincinnati, where he served as the firm’s lead appellate lawyer and also practiced complex litigation in state and federal courts. Judge Nalbandian was board certified by the Ohio State Bar Association as a specialist in appellate law. Prior to joining Taft, Judge Nalbandian practiced for five years in the appellate section of Jones Day in Washington, DC. Upon graduation from law school, Judge Nalbandian clerked for the Honorable Jerry E. Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in Houston. While in private practice, he also served as a board member of the State Justice Institute, a nonprofit organization established by the federal government to improve the administration of justice in state courts. He served as President of the Cincinnati Lawyers Chapter of the Federalist Society. He has also been involved in his community as a board member of the Greater Cincinnati Minority Counsel Program, and as a board member of the Asian Pacific Bar Association of Southwest Ohio. Judge Nalbandian earned his B.S., magna cum laude, from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and his J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law, where he was inducted into the Order of the Coif and served as managing editor of the Virginia Law Review.
Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law and Director, Classical Liberal Institute, New York University School of Law; Director, Classical Liberal Institute, Civitas Institute University of Texas at Austin
Richard A. Epstein is the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law, at New York University, a senior research fellow at the Civitas Institute at the University of Texas Austin, and a senior Lecturer, the University of Chicago. He received an LL.D., h.c . from the University of Ghent, 2003 , and an LLD h.c . from the University of Siegen in 2018 and the Bradley Prize in 2011. He has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 1985. He has edited both the Journal of Legal Studies (1981-1991) and the Journal of Law and Economics (1991-2001). He is also a founder and director of the Classical Liberal Institute at NYU Law School. His most recent book is The Classical Liberal Constitution: The Uncertain Quest for Limited Government (2014). His other books include Takings: Private Property and the Power of Eminent Domain ( 1985); Bargaining with the State (1993); Simple Rules for a Complex World (1995); Principles for a Free Society: Reconciling Individual Liberty and the Common Good (1998); Skepticism and Freedom: A Modern Theory of Classical Liberalism (2003); Design for Liberty: Private Property, Public Administration and the Rule of Law (2011), and most recently, The Myth of Birthright citizenship—and Beyond (2026). He has taught courses in , administrative law, antitrust, constitutional, contracts, environmental law, land use planning; real property, torts and water law. He has written and spoken extensively on a wide range of topics, and is writes a regular column for Defining Ideas.
Of Counsel, Bredhoff & Kaiser PLLC
Richard F. Griffin, Jr. is Of Counsel at the Washington, DC law firm of Bredhoff & Kaiser, and has practiced labor law for more than 36 years. Prior to joining the firm, from November 4, 2013 through October 31, 2017, Mr. Griffin was the General Counsel of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), nominated by President Obama and confirmed by the U.S. Senate. Before becoming NLRB General Counsel, from January 2012 through August 2013, Mr. Griffin was a NLRB Board Member, recess appointed to that position by President Obama. From 1983 through his appointment as a Board Member, Mr. Griffin worked in the legal department of the International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE); from September 1994 until January 2012, he was the IUOE’s General Counsel. While IUOE General Counsel, Mr. Griffin was on the AFL-CIO Lawyers Advisory Panel and was a member of the Board of Directors of the AFL-CIO Lawyers Coordinating Committee. From 1981 to 1983, Mr. Griffin served as staff counsel to two NLRB Board Members.
“For exemplary public service and leadership on behalf of America’s workers” Mr. Griffin was named to the National Employment Law Project’s 2016 Honor Roll. He is a Fellow of the College of Labor and Employment Lawyers and of the American Bar Foundation. He graduated from Yale College (BA 1977) and Northeastern University Law School (JD 1981).
Partner, Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP
Philip A. Miscimarra is the former Chairman of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Phil leads the firm’s NLRB special appeals practice and is co-leader of Morgan Lewis Workforce Change, which manages all employment, labor, benefits, and related issues arising from mergers, acquisitions, startups, workforce reductions, and other types of business restructuring. He represents clients on a wide range of labor and employment issues, with a focus on labor-management relations, business acquisitions and restructuring, and employment litigation. Phil is also a Senior Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School and the Wharton Center for Human Resources. He is admitted in Illinois only, and his practice is supervised by DC Bar members.
Phil was named Chairman of the NLRB by President Donald J. Trump on April 24, 2017, after previously serving as Acting Chairman and a Board Member. He was appointed to the NLRB by President Barack Obama on April 9, 2013, and was approved unanimously by the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions on May 22, 2013. He was confirmed by voice vote in the US Senate on July 30, 2013, and served from August 7, 2013, to December 16, 2017. Upon the completion of his term, Phil served on the NLRB longer than 26 other board members over the past 30 years.
Phil is the author or co-author of several books involving labor law issues, including The NLRB and Managerial Discretion: Subcontracting, Relocations, Closings, Sales, Layoffs, and Technological Change (2d ed. 2010) (by Miscimarra, Turner, Friedman, Callahan, Conrad, Lignowski and Scroggins); The NLRB and Secondary Boycotts (3d ed. 2002) (by Miscimarra, Berkowitz, Wiener and Ditelberg); and Government Protection of Employees Involved in Mergers and Acquisitions (1989 and 1997 supp.) (by Northrup and Miscimarra); and other publications. He has also testified on labor and employment law issues in the United States Congress.
Chambers USA named Phil one of the leading lawyers for employment law in the United States from 2004 to 2012, based on the views of clients, peers, and other industry professionals. He has been described as a "fantastic lawyer" and "prolific writer," with clients admiring his "multilayered abilities and business savvy" and his "high level of integrity."
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Tenth Circuit
Judge Tymkovich, of Denver, Colorado, was nominated to the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals by President George W. Bush, and confirmed in April 2003. On October 1, 2015 he became Chief Circuit Judge and held this position until October 2022. He was Chair of the US Judicial Conference’s Committee on Judicial Resources from 2011 to 2015. Since 2008 he has been an adjunct professor of law at the University of Colorado School of Law, teaching Election Law. He is a member of the Doyle Inn of Court, the American Law Institute, and the International Society of Barristers. Since he joined the Circuit, Judge Tymkovich has hosted judicial delegations from Russia, Kazakhstan, and Afghanistan, and has also represented the United States in programs at Kiev and Yalta in Ukraine.
Associate Professor of Law and Director, Program on Economics & Privacy, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
Associate Professor of Law James C. Cooper brings over a decade of public and private sector experience to his research and teaching. He served as Deputy and Acting Director of the Federal Trade Commission’s Office of Policy Planning, Advisor to Federal Trade Commissioner William Kovacic, and an associate in the antitrust group of Crowell and Moring, LLP. His research on vertical restraints, price discrimination, behavioral economics and antitrust, and privacy policy have appeared in top journals and are widely cited.
Professor Cooper has a BA from the University of South Carolina, received his PhD in economics from Emory University, and his law degree (magna cum laude) from Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University, where he was a Levy Fellow and a member of the George Mason Law Review.
He teaches Economics for Lawyers, Advanced Seminar on Law & Economics, and Digital Information Policy Seminar.
Partner, Sullivan & Cromwell LLP
Andrei Iancu is a partner at Sullivan & Cromwell and one of the leading voices in intellectual property law and innovation policy. He is a former Undersecretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), a position to which he was confirmed unanimously by the Senate. Andrei has decades of experience representing plaintiffs and defendants in IP matters across the technical and scientific spectra, including medical devices, genetic testing, therapeutics, the Internet, telephony, TV broadcasting, video game systems and computer peripherals. He represents clients in litigation and trials before the district courts, the U.S. International Trade Commission and the USPTO, the Federal Circuit and U.S. Supreme Court, and also counsels clients on obtaining, licensing, enforcing and defending against IP rights globally.
Former Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
The Hon. Michelle K. Lee is a proven leader in technology, law, business and government. She spent most of her professional career advising some of the country's most innovative companies on issues at the intersection of law, technology and policy.
As the Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), Ms. Lee led one of the largest intellectual property offices in the world, with 13,000 employees and an annual budget of over $3 billion. Ms. Lee also served as the principal advisor to the President, through the Secretary of Commerce, on domestic and international intellectual property policy and a trial judge on the USPTO’s Patent Trial and Appeal Board. She is the first woman Director of the USPTO in our country’s 200+ year history.
Prior to joining the USPTO, Ms. Lee was Deputy General Counsel at Google, where she was responsible for formulating and implementing Google’s patent strategy (including dispute resolution) for all its products and services worldwide. Before Google, Ms. Lee served as a partner at Fenwick & West, advising on technology licensing, litigation, intellectual property, corporate and mergers and acquisition matters, and as a litigator at the trial boutique law firm of Keker & Van Nest. Earlier in her career, Ms. Lee worked as a computer scientist at Hewlett-Packard Research Laboratories and the MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab. She holds a B.S. and an M.S. in electrical engineering and computer science from MIT (where she wrote her graduate thesis on artificial intelligence) and a J.D. from Stanford Law School. Ms. Lee clerked for the Honorable Vaughn Walker, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California and the Honorable Paul Michel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.
From 2017-2018, Ms. Lee held the appointment as the Herman Phleger Visiting Professor at Law at Stanford Law School where she taught on disruptive technologies (including artificial intelligence and driverless cars) and their impact on existing laws and regulations. Ms. Lee also serves on a number of public and private company boards including alarm.com (NASDAQ: ALRM) and Nauto, Inc.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Third Circuit
David J. Porter is a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. He was nominated by President Donald Trump and confirmed on October 11, 2018. Before his appointment, he was a shareholder at Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney PC, where he practiced commercial and civil litigation. Porter received his bachelor’s degree from Grove City College and his J.D. from the George Mason University School of Law. He clerked for Judge D. Brooks Smith on the United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania.
Of Counsel, Jones Day
Dr. Ognian Shentov is a lead trial lawyer who secured over $30 million damages in a patent infringement case, where the jury verdict was affirmed en banc by the Federal Circuit. He directed a joint defense group of international companies in a semiconductor manufacturing dispute and has led jury trials, arbitrations, and numerous claim construction and summary judgment hearings. His practice focuses on patent, trade secret, copyright, and complex technology issues in the electronics, communications, artificial intelligence (AI), medical device, and finance industries.
Oggie represents companies like IBM, Qualcomm, DirecTV, Lenovo, Marine Polymer, and Chevron in matters ranging from distributed servers, to satellite television, MPEG video, dynamic web page generation, anti-hemmoraging devices, and trade secret misappropriation of high-throughput technology. He was lead attorney in an instituted PTAB trial on Distributed Antenna Systems. Oggie also represents Korean companies, successfully defending SOLiD, Inc. against a competitor by defeating the asserted patents on summary judgment and jury verdict of noninfringement, as well as Sewoon and Taewoong in a dispute over stents. With litigation in mind, he also builds patent portfolios and has prosecuted more than 500 patents with international counterparts.
Oggie is vice chair of the International Patent Law and Trade committee of the Intellectual Property Owners (IPO) Association and a five-term vice chair of its U.S. Patent Law committee. He frequently leads panel discussions on intellectual property (IP), lectures internationally on AI-related legal issues and, along with several technical journal articles, has published on issues of patent eligibility, international IP protection, portfolio management, and monetization.
Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law and Director, Classical Liberal Institute, New York University School of Law; Director, Classical Liberal Institute, Civitas Institute University of Texas at Austin
Richard A. Epstein is the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law, at New York University, a senior research fellow at the Civitas Institute at the University of Texas Austin, and a senior Lecturer, the University of Chicago. He received an LL.D., h.c . from the University of Ghent, 2003 , and an LLD h.c . from the University of Siegen in 2018 and the Bradley Prize in 2011. He has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 1985. He has edited both the Journal of Legal Studies (1981-1991) and the Journal of Law and Economics (1991-2001). He is also a founder and director of the Classical Liberal Institute at NYU Law School. His most recent book is The Classical Liberal Constitution: The Uncertain Quest for Limited Government (2014). His other books include Takings: Private Property and the Power of Eminent Domain ( 1985); Bargaining with the State (1993); Simple Rules for a Complex World (1995); Principles for a Free Society: Reconciling Individual Liberty and the Common Good (1998); Skepticism and Freedom: A Modern Theory of Classical Liberalism (2003); Design for Liberty: Private Property, Public Administration and the Rule of Law (2011), and most recently, The Myth of Birthright citizenship—and Beyond (2026). He has taught courses in , administrative law, antitrust, constitutional, contracts, environmental law, land use planning; real property, torts and water law. He has written and spoken extensively on a wide range of topics, and is writes a regular column for Defining Ideas.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit
Britt C. Grant is a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. Judge Grant was appointed to the federal bench in August 2018 after serving as a Justice on the Supreme Court of Georgia. Prior to her judicial appointment, she served as the Solicitor General of Georgia and practiced in the Washington, D.C. office of Kirkland & Ellis. Upon graduation from law school, Judge Grant served as a law clerk to then-Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. She earned her J.D., with distinction, from Stanford Law School, where she was the Co-Founder of the Stanford National Security and the Law Society, and the President of the Stanford Law chapter of the Federalist Society. Before enrolling in law school, Judge Grant served in The White House in a variety of domestic policy roles as well as on the staff of Congressman Nathan Deal. Judge Grant earned her B.A., summa cum laude, from Wake Forest University, where she was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. She now lives in Atlanta, Georgia with her husband and three children.
Maurice and Hilda Friedman Professor of Law, Columbia Law School; CEO, New Civil Liberties Alliance
Philip Hamburger is the Maurice and Hilda Friedman Professor of Law at Columbia Law School, and Chief Executive Officer at the New Civil Liberties Alliance. Before coming to Columbia, he was the John P. Wilson Professor at the University of Chicago Law School.
He writes on constitutional law and its history—with particular emphasis on religious liberty, freedom of speech and the press, judicial office, administrative power, and unconstitutional conditions.
His books are Separation of Church and State (Harvard 2002), Law and Judicial Duty (Harvard 2008), Is Administrative Law Unlawful? (Chicago 2014), The Administrative Threat (Encounter 2017), and Liberal Suppression: Section 501(c)(3) and the Taxation of Speech (Chicago 2018). A forthcoming book is Purchasing Submission: Conditions, Power, and Freedom (Harvard 2021).
He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and he has served on the board of directors of the American Society for Legal History. He has twice received the Sutherland Prize for the most significant contribution to English legal history, and has been awarded the Henry Paolucci - Walter Bagehot Book Award, the Hayek Book Prize, and the Bradley Prize.
Professor of Law, Rutgers Law School
Professor Kovacs teaches Administrative Law, Natural Resources Law, Environmental Law, and Property.
Prior to joining the Rutgers faculty in 2011, she spent twelve years in the U.S. Department of Justice’s Environment and Natural Resources Division, Appellate Section. She wrote more than 100 appellate and Supreme Court briefs and argued more than sixty appeals in all thirteen of the federal circuit courts of appeals, twice en banc, and in three state supreme courts. Her cases covered a wide range of areas including environmental, administrative, and constitutional law, both civil and criminal. Among other cases, Professor Kovacs defended the Navy's use of low frequency active sonar and the display of a Latin cross in the Mojave National Preserve; she prosecuted crimes under the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act; she pursued a claim to compensate the Oneida Indians for the State of New York's unlawful purchase of their land in the early 19th Century; and she defended the Endangered Species Act against Fifth Amendment takings claims.
In 2016, Professor Kovacs was a political appointee serving as Senior Advisor to the Director of the Bureau of Land Management in the U.S. Department of the Interior. She also spent three years litigating primarily constitutional claims as an attorney in the Baltimore City Law Department, and she clerked for the Honorable Robert C. Murphy, former Chief Judge of the Maryland Court of Appeals. Professor Kovacs is a cum laude graduate of Yale University and the Georgetown University Law Center.
Professor of Law, UCLA Law
Jon Michaels is Professor of Law at UCLA School of Law. His scholarly and teaching interests include constitutional law, administrative law, national security law, the separation of powers, presidential power, regulation, bureaucracy, and privatization.
Michaels (view CV) is a graduate of Williams College, Oxford University, where he was a Marshall Scholar, and Yale Law School, where he served as an articles editor for the Yale Law Journal. Michaels clerked first for Judge Guido Calabresi of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and then for Justice David Souter of the U.S. Supreme Court. Immediately prior to his appointment at UCLA, Michaels worked as an associate in Arnold & Porter’s National Security Law and Public Policy Group in Washington, DC.
A two-time winner of the American Constitution Society’s Cudahy Award for scholarly excellence in administrative law, Michaels is a frequent legal affairs commentator for national and local media outlets and contributes regularly to the Take Care blog.
His book, Constitutional Coup: Privatization’s Threat to the American Republic, was published by Harvard University Press in October 2017. (Read the Introduction. Read reviews and interviews.)
Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law and Director, Classical Liberal Institute, New York University School of Law; Director, Classical Liberal Institute, Civitas Institute University of Texas at Austin
Richard A. Epstein is the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law, at New York University, a senior research fellow at the Civitas Institute at the University of Texas Austin, and a senior Lecturer, the University of Chicago. He received an LL.D., h.c . from the University of Ghent, 2003 , and an LLD h.c . from the University of Siegen in 2018 and the Bradley Prize in 2011. He has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 1985. He has edited both the Journal of Legal Studies (1981-1991) and the Journal of Law and Economics (1991-2001). He is also a founder and director of the Classical Liberal Institute at NYU Law School. His most recent book is The Classical Liberal Constitution: The Uncertain Quest for Limited Government (2014). His other books include Takings: Private Property and the Power of Eminent Domain ( 1985); Bargaining with the State (1993); Simple Rules for a Complex World (1995); Principles for a Free Society: Reconciling Individual Liberty and the Common Good (1998); Skepticism and Freedom: A Modern Theory of Classical Liberalism (2003); Design for Liberty: Private Property, Public Administration and the Rule of Law (2011), and most recently, The Myth of Birthright citizenship—and Beyond (2026). He has taught courses in , administrative law, antitrust, constitutional, contracts, environmental law, land use planning; real property, torts and water law. He has written and spoken extensively on a wide range of topics, and is writes a regular column for Defining Ideas.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit
Britt C. Grant is a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. Judge Grant was appointed to the federal bench in August 2018 after serving as a Justice on the Supreme Court of Georgia. Prior to her judicial appointment, she served as the Solicitor General of Georgia and practiced in the Washington, D.C. office of Kirkland & Ellis. Upon graduation from law school, Judge Grant served as a law clerk to then-Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. She earned her J.D., with distinction, from Stanford Law School, where she was the Co-Founder of the Stanford National Security and the Law Society, and the President of the Stanford Law chapter of the Federalist Society. Before enrolling in law school, Judge Grant served in The White House in a variety of domestic policy roles as well as on the staff of Congressman Nathan Deal. Judge Grant earned her B.A., summa cum laude, from Wake Forest University, where she was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. She now lives in Atlanta, Georgia with her husband and three children.
Maurice and Hilda Friedman Professor of Law, Columbia Law School; CEO, New Civil Liberties Alliance
Philip Hamburger is the Maurice and Hilda Friedman Professor of Law at Columbia Law School, and Chief Executive Officer at the New Civil Liberties Alliance. Before coming to Columbia, he was the John P. Wilson Professor at the University of Chicago Law School.
He writes on constitutional law and its history—with particular emphasis on religious liberty, freedom of speech and the press, judicial office, administrative power, and unconstitutional conditions.
His books are Separation of Church and State (Harvard 2002), Law and Judicial Duty (Harvard 2008), Is Administrative Law Unlawful? (Chicago 2014), The Administrative Threat (Encounter 2017), and Liberal Suppression: Section 501(c)(3) and the Taxation of Speech (Chicago 2018). A forthcoming book is Purchasing Submission: Conditions, Power, and Freedom (Harvard 2021).
He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and he has served on the board of directors of the American Society for Legal History. He has twice received the Sutherland Prize for the most significant contribution to English legal history, and has been awarded the Henry Paolucci - Walter Bagehot Book Award, the Hayek Book Prize, and the Bradley Prize.
Professor of Law, Rutgers Law School
Professor Kovacs teaches Administrative Law, Natural Resources Law, Environmental Law, and Property.
Prior to joining the Rutgers faculty in 2011, she spent twelve years in the U.S. Department of Justice’s Environment and Natural Resources Division, Appellate Section. She wrote more than 100 appellate and Supreme Court briefs and argued more than sixty appeals in all thirteen of the federal circuit courts of appeals, twice en banc, and in three state supreme courts. Her cases covered a wide range of areas including environmental, administrative, and constitutional law, both civil and criminal. Among other cases, Professor Kovacs defended the Navy's use of low frequency active sonar and the display of a Latin cross in the Mojave National Preserve; she prosecuted crimes under the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act; she pursued a claim to compensate the Oneida Indians for the State of New York's unlawful purchase of their land in the early 19th Century; and she defended the Endangered Species Act against Fifth Amendment takings claims.
In 2016, Professor Kovacs was a political appointee serving as Senior Advisor to the Director of the Bureau of Land Management in the U.S. Department of the Interior. She also spent three years litigating primarily constitutional claims as an attorney in the Baltimore City Law Department, and she clerked for the Honorable Robert C. Murphy, former Chief Judge of the Maryland Court of Appeals. Professor Kovacs is a cum laude graduate of Yale University and the Georgetown University Law Center.
Professor of Law, UCLA Law
Jon Michaels is Professor of Law at UCLA School of Law. His scholarly and teaching interests include constitutional law, administrative law, national security law, the separation of powers, presidential power, regulation, bureaucracy, and privatization.
Michaels (view CV) is a graduate of Williams College, Oxford University, where he was a Marshall Scholar, and Yale Law School, where he served as an articles editor for the Yale Law Journal. Michaels clerked first for Judge Guido Calabresi of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and then for Justice David Souter of the U.S. Supreme Court. Immediately prior to his appointment at UCLA, Michaels worked as an associate in Arnold & Porter’s National Security Law and Public Policy Group in Washington, DC.
A two-time winner of the American Constitution Society’s Cudahy Award for scholarly excellence in administrative law, Michaels is a frequent legal affairs commentator for national and local media outlets and contributes regularly to the Take Care blog.
His book, Constitutional Coup: Privatization’s Threat to the American Republic, was published by Harvard University Press in October 2017. (Read the Introduction. Read reviews and interviews.)
Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law and Director, Classical Liberal Institute, New York University School of Law; Director, Classical Liberal Institute, Civitas Institute University of Texas at Austin
Richard A. Epstein is the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law, at New York University, a senior research fellow at the Civitas Institute at the University of Texas Austin, and a senior Lecturer, the University of Chicago. He received an LL.D., h.c . from the University of Ghent, 2003 , and an LLD h.c . from the University of Siegen in 2018 and the Bradley Prize in 2011. He has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 1985. He has edited both the Journal of Legal Studies (1981-1991) and the Journal of Law and Economics (1991-2001). He is also a founder and director of the Classical Liberal Institute at NYU Law School. His most recent book is The Classical Liberal Constitution: The Uncertain Quest for Limited Government (2014). His other books include Takings: Private Property and the Power of Eminent Domain ( 1985); Bargaining with the State (1993); Simple Rules for a Complex World (1995); Principles for a Free Society: Reconciling Individual Liberty and the Common Good (1998); Skepticism and Freedom: A Modern Theory of Classical Liberalism (2003); Design for Liberty: Private Property, Public Administration and the Rule of Law (2011), and most recently, The Myth of Birthright citizenship—and Beyond (2026). He has taught courses in , administrative law, antitrust, constitutional, contracts, environmental law, land use planning; real property, torts and water law. He has written and spoken extensively on a wide range of topics, and is writes a regular column for Defining Ideas.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit
Britt C. Grant is a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. Judge Grant was appointed to the federal bench in August 2018 after serving as a Justice on the Supreme Court of Georgia. Prior to her judicial appointment, she served as the Solicitor General of Georgia and practiced in the Washington, D.C. office of Kirkland & Ellis. Upon graduation from law school, Judge Grant served as a law clerk to then-Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. She earned her J.D., with distinction, from Stanford Law School, where she was the Co-Founder of the Stanford National Security and the Law Society, and the President of the Stanford Law chapter of the Federalist Society. Before enrolling in law school, Judge Grant served in The White House in a variety of domestic policy roles as well as on the staff of Congressman Nathan Deal. Judge Grant earned her B.A., summa cum laude, from Wake Forest University, where she was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. She now lives in Atlanta, Georgia with her husband and three children.
Maurice and Hilda Friedman Professor of Law, Columbia Law School; CEO, New Civil Liberties Alliance
Philip Hamburger is the Maurice and Hilda Friedman Professor of Law at Columbia Law School, and Chief Executive Officer at the New Civil Liberties Alliance. Before coming to Columbia, he was the John P. Wilson Professor at the University of Chicago Law School.
He writes on constitutional law and its history—with particular emphasis on religious liberty, freedom of speech and the press, judicial office, administrative power, and unconstitutional conditions.
His books are Separation of Church and State (Harvard 2002), Law and Judicial Duty (Harvard 2008), Is Administrative Law Unlawful? (Chicago 2014), The Administrative Threat (Encounter 2017), and Liberal Suppression: Section 501(c)(3) and the Taxation of Speech (Chicago 2018). A forthcoming book is Purchasing Submission: Conditions, Power, and Freedom (Harvard 2021).
He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and he has served on the board of directors of the American Society for Legal History. He has twice received the Sutherland Prize for the most significant contribution to English legal history, and has been awarded the Henry Paolucci - Walter Bagehot Book Award, the Hayek Book Prize, and the Bradley Prize.
Professor of Law, Rutgers Law School
Professor Kovacs teaches Administrative Law, Natural Resources Law, Environmental Law, and Property.
Prior to joining the Rutgers faculty in 2011, she spent twelve years in the U.S. Department of Justice’s Environment and Natural Resources Division, Appellate Section. She wrote more than 100 appellate and Supreme Court briefs and argued more than sixty appeals in all thirteen of the federal circuit courts of appeals, twice en banc, and in three state supreme courts. Her cases covered a wide range of areas including environmental, administrative, and constitutional law, both civil and criminal. Among other cases, Professor Kovacs defended the Navy's use of low frequency active sonar and the display of a Latin cross in the Mojave National Preserve; she prosecuted crimes under the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act; she pursued a claim to compensate the Oneida Indians for the State of New York's unlawful purchase of their land in the early 19th Century; and she defended the Endangered Species Act against Fifth Amendment takings claims.
In 2016, Professor Kovacs was a political appointee serving as Senior Advisor to the Director of the Bureau of Land Management in the U.S. Department of the Interior. She also spent three years litigating primarily constitutional claims as an attorney in the Baltimore City Law Department, and she clerked for the Honorable Robert C. Murphy, former Chief Judge of the Maryland Court of Appeals. Professor Kovacs is a cum laude graduate of Yale University and the Georgetown University Law Center.
Professor of Law, UCLA Law
Jon Michaels is Professor of Law at UCLA School of Law. His scholarly and teaching interests include constitutional law, administrative law, national security law, the separation of powers, presidential power, regulation, bureaucracy, and privatization.
Michaels (view CV) is a graduate of Williams College, Oxford University, where he was a Marshall Scholar, and Yale Law School, where he served as an articles editor for the Yale Law Journal. Michaels clerked first for Judge Guido Calabresi of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and then for Justice David Souter of the U.S. Supreme Court. Immediately prior to his appointment at UCLA, Michaels worked as an associate in Arnold & Porter’s National Security Law and Public Policy Group in Washington, DC.
A two-time winner of the American Constitution Society’s Cudahy Award for scholarly excellence in administrative law, Michaels is a frequent legal affairs commentator for national and local media outlets and contributes regularly to the Take Care blog.
His book, Constitutional Coup: Privatization’s Threat to the American Republic, was published by Harvard University Press in October 2017. (Read the Introduction. Read reviews and interviews.)
Joint Employment: The Unintended and Unpredictable 'Employment' Relationship
Richard A. Epstein, Richard F. Griffin, Philip A. Miscimarra, Timothy M. Tymkovich
The vast web of federal and state laws protecting employees stands or falls on a...
A New Approach to Antitrust Law: Transparency
Frank H. Easterbrook, Deborah A. Garza, Eric Grannon, A. Douglas Melamed, John B. Nalbandian
Antitrust enforcers in the post-Microsoft era, under both Republican and Democratic administrations, have been under...
A New Approach to Antitrust Law: Transparency
Frank H. Easterbrook, Deborah A. Garza, Eric Grannon, A. Douglas Melamed, John B. Nalbandian
Antitrust enforcers in the post-Microsoft era, under both Republican and Democratic administrations, have been under...
Joint Employment: The Unintended and Unpredictable 'Employment' Relationship
Richard A. Epstein, Richard F. Griffin, Philip A. Miscimarra, Timothy M. Tymkovich
The vast web of federal and state laws protecting employees stands or falls on a...
Artificial Intelligence and Big Data Innovation: Navigating the Technology World of the Near Future
James C. Cooper, Shawn D. Hamacher, Andrei Iancu, Michelle K. Lee, David James Porter, Ognian V. Shentov
Technology progress in recent years has been driven in large part by the continuous generation...
Showcase Panel I: What is Regulation For?
2018 National Lawyers Convention
Washington, DCShowcase Panel I: What is Regulation For?
Richard A. Epstein, Britt C. Grant, Philip A. Hamburger, Kathryn Kovacs, Jon D. Michaels
The administrative state, with roots over a century old, was founded on the premise that...
Showcase Panel I: What is Regulation For?
Richard A. Epstein, Britt C. Grant, Philip A. Hamburger, Kathryn Kovacs, Jon D. Michaels
The administrative state, with roots over a century old, was founded on the premise that...
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NLC 2018 Digital Survival Guide
This "Survival Guide" is your one-stop-shop for all things digital at the National Lawyers Convention. Enjoy!...
Topics
Ninth Circuit Attempts to Moot Rule 11 Petition by Deciding DACA Appeal
Updating an earlier post regarding Solicitor General Noel Francisco’s petition for certiorari before judgment in...