Assistant Solicitor General, Office of the Texas Attorney General
Partner, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher and Flom, LLP and Affiliates
Boris Bershteyn is a partner at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher and Flom, LLP. He served as acting Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in 2012 and 2013, and as General Counsel of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) starting 2011. In 2010 and 2011, Bershteyn served as Special Assistant to the President and Associate White House Counsel, focusing on legal issues in regulatory, economic, health, and environmental policy. In 2009 and 2010, he served as the Deputy General Counsel of OMB. Earlier in his career, he served as a law clerk to Justice David H. Souter of the U.S. Supreme Court and Judge José A. Cabranes of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He holds a B.A. in Economics and Political Science from Stanford University and a J.D. from Yale Law School. Among other positions, Bershteyn serves as Senior Fellow of the Administrative Conference of the United States, the Chair of the Board of Advisors of the Institute for Policy Integrity at NYU Law School, and Trustee of the U.S. Supreme Court Historical Society.
Of Counsel, Covington & Burling LLP
The Honorable Paul J. Ray is currently Of Counsel at Covington & Burling LLP where he advises clients on regulatory opportunities and challenges and helps them formulate and execute advocacy strategies for their regulatory policy priorities before the executive branch and Congress.
During the first Trump Administration, Paul held various senior positions at the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) within the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, including as acting, and then Senate-confirmed, head of the office. As OIRA Administrator (the "regulations czar"), Paul supervised the review of hundreds of regulations from across the government, drafted numerous executive orders governing the regulatory process, and led the Administration’s regulatory reform effort. As a result of this experience, Paul is well-positioned to help clients understand and achieve regulatory policy priorities in the context of the government’s regulatory agenda and ongoing reform efforts.
Most recently, Paul was also the Director of the Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation. In that role, he supervised the formulation of the Foundation’s economic and regulatory policy recommendations and provided technical assistance to congressional committees and staff regarding legislative changes to the regulatory process. In addition to his role at The Heritage Foundation, Paul also served as a Senior Advisor at a strategic advisory firm. Before his time in government, Paul practiced law at a law firm in Washington, specializing in administrative law matters.
Prior to his role at the White House, Paul was Counselor to the Secretary at the U.S. Department of Labor. There he led departmental efforts in high-profile rulemakings and helped formulate the Department’s legal positions and strategy.
Paul served as a law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito and as a law clerk to the Honorable Debra Livingston of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
Paul is a thought leader in the conservative legal movement and is a frequent commentator and speaker on regulatory policy and reform matters, including at law schools, professional gatherings, and other venues. He is the Chairman of Innovations in Peacebuilding International and the Regulatory Process Working Group of the Federalist Society’s Regulatory Transparency Project and a public member of the Administrative Conference of the United States. Paul is also an adjunct lecturer at the Hillsdale College School of Government.
Deputy Secretary of Agriculture, U.S. Department of Agriculture
Judge Stephen Alexander Vaden was appointed as the Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture on July 7, 2025. Alongside Secretary Brooke L. Rollins, Deputy Secretary Vaden leads the Department’s operations and implements policies that support America’s food and farm systems. A native of Union City, Tennessee, Deputy Secretary Vaden brings expertise in agricultural policy, law, and rural development. Previously, he served as a judge on the U.S. Court of International Trade and as General Counsel of USDA. Throughout Deputy Secretary Vaden’s time as General Counsel, he led successful Supreme Court litigation, advanced regulatory reform, and supported the implementation of the 2018 Farm Bill. He is a graduate of Yale Law School and Vanderbilt University. A public servant with strong agricultural roots, Deputy Secretary Vaden is committed to revitalizing rural America and ensuring an abundant, affordable, and safe U.S. food supply.
Director of Health Policy Studies, Cato Institute
Michael F. Cannon is the Cato Institute’s director of health policy studies. His scholarship spans public health; regulation of clinicians, medical facilities, pharmaceuticals, and medical devices; employer‐sponsored and other private health insurance; Medicare; Medicaid; CHIP; the Veterans Health Administration; medical malpractice litigation; administrative law; international health systems; political philosophy; and more. Cannon is “an influential health‐care wonk” (Washington Post) and “the most famous libertarian health care scholar” (Washington Examiner). Washingtonian magazine named Cannon one of Washington, DC’s “Most Influential People” in 2021, 2022, and 2023.
Cannon has appeared on ABC, Al Jazeera, BBC, CBS, CNN, CNBC, C‑SPAN, Fox News Channel, NPR, and other broadcast media. His articles have appeared in the Wall Street Journal; the New York Times; USA Today; the Washington Post; the Los Angeles Times; SCOTUSBlog; Forum for Health Economics and Policy; JAMA Internal Medicine; Health Matrix: Journal of Law‐Medicine; Harvard Health Policy Review; the Yale Journal of Health Policy, Law, and Ethics; the Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law; and Quinnipiac Health Law Journal. His latest book is Recovery: A Guide to Reforming the U.S. Health Sector.
Cannon was previously a domestic policy analyst for the U.S. Senate Republican Policy Committee, where he advised the Senate leadership on health, education, labor, welfare, and the Second Amendment. He is a member of the Board of Advisers of Harvard Health Policy Review and the Federalist Society Regulatory Transparency Project’s FDA & Health Working Group.
Cannon holds an MA in economics and a JM in law and economics from George Mason University and a BA in American government from the University of Virginia.
Partner, Steptoe & Johnson LLP
Stewart Baker is a partner in the law firm of Steptoe & Johnson in Washington, D.C. From 2005 to 2009, he was the first Assistant Secretary for Policy at the Department of Homeland Security. His law practice covers cybersecurity, data protection, homeland security, and travel and foreign investment regulation; he has been awarded one patent.
Mr. Baker has been General Counsel of the National Security Agency and General Counsel of the commission that investigated WMD intelligence failures prior to the Iraq war. He is the author of Skating on Stilts, a book on terrorism, cybersecurity, and other technology issues; he also hosts the weekly Cyberlaw Podcast.
Professor of International and European Law, University Grenoble Alpes
Theodore Christakis is Professor of International and European Law at University Grenoble Alpes, Director of Research for Europe with the Cross-Border Data Forum, and a former Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the New York University Cybersecurity Centre. He is also Chair on the Legal and Regulatory Implications of Artificial Intelligence with the Multidisciplinary Institute on AI (ai-regulation.com), Director of the Centre for International Security and European Studies, and Co-Director of the Grenoble Alpes Data Institute. He is a honorary member of the Institut Universitaire de France.
At the national level, he has exercised responsibilities on digital issues as an active member of the French National Committee for Digital Ethics (created in December 2019 at the request of the French Prime Minister) and as a past member of the French National Digital Council, an independent advisory commission of the French government (2018-2020).
He has published or co-edited 11 books, he is author or co-author of more than 90 academic articles and book chapters, and he has been invited to give lectures and present his work at conferences, workshops, and seminars on over a hundred occasions in more than 31 different countries.
As an international expert he has advised governments, international organisations, and private companies on issues concerning international and European law, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, and data protection law. He also has experience working as external Data Protection Officer (GDPR compliance) for tech companies.
Professorial Lecturer in Law, The George Washington University
Paul Rosenzweig is an accomplished writer and speaker with a national reputation in cyber security and homeland security. He is the founder of Red Branch Consulting PLLC, a homeland security consulting company. He is also a Senior Advisor to The Chertoff Group. Mr. Rosenzweig formerly served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy in the Department of Homeland Security.
He is a Professorial Lecturer in Law at George Washington University, and a Senior Fellow in the Tech, Law & Security Program at the American University, Washington College of Law. He serves as an advisor to and former member of the American Bar Association Standing Committee on Law and National Security, and a Contributing Editor of the Lawfare blog. He is a member of the ABA Cybersecurity Legal Task Force and of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit Advisory Committee on Admissions and Grievances. He serves, as well, as a Hearing Committee Member of the District of Columbia Board of Professional Responsibility. In 2011 he was a Carnegie Fellow in National Security Journalism at the Medill School of Journalism, Northwestern University.
Mr. Rosenzweig is a cum laude graduate of the University of Chicago Law School. He has an M.S. in Chemical Oceanography from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California at San Diego and a B.A from Haverford College. Following graduation from law school he served as a law clerk to the Honorable R. Lanier Anderson, III of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.
He is the author of Cyber Warfare: How Conflicts in Cyberspace are Challenging America and Changing the World and of three video lecture series from The Great Courses, Thinking About Cybersecurity: From Cyber Crime to Cyber Warfare; The Surveillance State: Big Data, Freedom, and You; and Investigating American Presidents.
He is the co-author (with James Jay Carafano) of Winning the Long War: Lessons from the Cold War for Defeating Terrorism and Preserving Freedom and co-editor (with Jill D. Rhodes and Robert S. Litt) of the Cybersecurity Handbook (3rd ed.). He is also co-editor (with Timothy McNulty and Ellen Shearer) of two books, Whistleblowers, Leaks and the Media: The First Amendment and National Security, and National Security Law in the News: A Guide for Journalists, Scholars, and Policymakers. Mr. Rosenzweig is a member of the Literary Society of Washington.
Elizabeth and Thomas Holder Chair, Scheller College of Business, Georgia Institute of Technology
Peter Swire has been a leading privacy and cyberlaw scholar, government leader, and practitioner since the rise of the Internet in the 1990’s. He came to the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2013, where he is the Elizabeth and Tommy Holder Chair in the Scheller College of Business, and Professor in the School of Cybersecurity and Privacy. He is senior counsel with the law firm of Alston & Bird LLP.
Swire served as one of five members of President Obama’s Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technology. Prior to that, he was co-chair of the global Do Not Track process for the World Wide Web Consortium. He is a Senior Fellow with the Future of Privacy Forum, and has served on the National Academy of Sciences & Engineering Forum on Cyber Resilience.
Under President Clinton, Swire was the Chief Counselor for Privacy, in the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, the first person to have U.S. government-wide responsibility for privacy policy. Under President Obama, he was Special Assistant to the President for Economic Policy.
Executive Vice President and Senior Policy Advisor, Stephens, Inc.
Mary Kissel is Executive Vice President and Senior Policy Advisor at Stephens Inc., where she provides advice on geopolitical risk and macroeconomic trends to Stephens clients and the Stephens management team. Previously, she served as Senior Advisor to Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo from October 2018 to January 2021. Prior to joining the State Department, she had a long and distinguished career on The Wall Street Journal editorial board, including stints as chief foreign policy commentator in New York City and Asia-Pacific editorial page editor, based in Hong Kong. Ms. Kissel hosts the Nixon Seminar on Conservative Realism and National Security, is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and serves on the boards of the American Australian Council, The Marathon Initiative, and RXO, Inc. She is a graduate of Harvard University and the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.
Maurice A. Deane Distinguished Professor of Constitutional Law and Faculty Director of International Programs, Hofstra University School of Law
Professor Ku’s primary research interest is the relationship of international law to constitutional law. He has also conducted academic research on a wide range of topics including international dispute resolution, international criminal law, and China’s relationship with international law. He teaches courses such as U.S. constitutional law, U.S. foreign affairs law, transnational law, and international trade and business law. Since 2014, he has served as the faculty director of international programs, overseeing Hofstra Law’s study abroad, exchange and LL.M. programs. Professor Ku also teaches Constitutional Law in our online degree programs: Master of Laws in American Law and Master of Arts in American Legal Studies. He has also been selected as the John DeWitt Gregory Research Scholar and as a Hofstra Law Research Fellow. He is a member of the American Law Institute.
He is the co-author, with John Yoo, of Taming Globalization: International Law, the U.S. Constitution, and the New World Order (Oxford University Press 2012). He also has published more than 40 law review articles, book chapters and symposia essays. He has given dozens of academic lectures and workshops at major universities and conferences in the United States, Europe and Asia.
He co-founded the leading international law weblog Opinio Juris, which is read daily by thousands worldwide. His essays and op-eds have been published in major news publications such as the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the NYTimes.com. He has been frequently interviewed for television news programs and quoted in print and electronic media. He has also signed or submitted amicus briefs to national and international courts and served as an expert witness in both domestic and international proceedings.
Before joining the Hofstra Law faculty, Professor Ku served as a law clerk to the Honorable Jerry E. Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and as an Olin Fellow and Lecturer in Law at the University of Virginia Law School. Professor Ku also practiced as an associate at the New York City law firm of Debevoise & Plimpton, specializing in litigation and arbitration arising out of international disputes. He has been a visiting professor at the College of William & Mary Marshall- Wythe School of Law in Williamsburg, Virginia; a Fulbright Distinguished Lecturer in Law at East China University of Political Science and Law in Shanghai, China; and a Taiwan Fellow at National Taiwan University in Taipei, Taiwan. He is a member of the New York Bar and a graduate of Yale College and Yale Law School.
Senior Director for Research, Institute for Indo-Pacific Security
Michael Mazza is the senior director for research at the Institute for Indo-Pacific Security. Mike analyzes U.S. policy in the Indo-Pacific region, cross-Strait relations, and Asian security issues. He is concurrently a senior non-resident fellow at the Global Taiwan Institute and previously spent 15 years at the American Enterprise Institute, where he contributed to studies on American grand strategy in Asia, US defense strategy in the Asia-Pacific, and Taiwanese defense strategy. His published work includes pieces in The Wall Street Journal Asia, the Los Angeles Times, Foreign Affairs, and Foreign Policy.
Mike has a master’s degree from the Johns Hopkins University Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies and a bachelor’s degree from Cornell University. He previously lived and studied in China.
Professor Emeritus of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
Jeremy A. Rabkin is a Professor Emeritus of Law at the Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University. Before joining the faculty in June 2007, he was for over two decades a professor in the Department of Government at Cornell University. Professor Rabkin serves on the board of directors of the Center for Individual Rights, a public interest law firm based in Washington, D.C. Previously he was a board member of the U.S. Institute of Peace and the board of academic advisors of the American Enterprise Institute.
Professor Rabkin’s books include Law Without Nations? (Princeton University Press, 2005). He authored “If You Need a Friend, Don’t Call a Cosmopolitan,” a chapter in Varieties of Sovereignty and Citizenship (Sigal R. Ben-Porath & Rogers M. Smith eds., University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012). His articles have appeared in major law reviews and political science journals and his journalistic contributions in a range of magazines and newspapers, including the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal.
University Professor of Law and Executive Director, Liberty & Law Center, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
David Bernstein holds a University Professorship chair at the Antonin Scalia Law School, where he has been teaching since 1995. He has also been a visiting professor at the University of Michigan, Georgetown University, William & Mary, Brooklyn Law School, the University of Turin, and Hebrew University. Professor Bernstein teaches Constitutional Law, Evidence, and Products Liability.
A prolific author, Professor Bernstein often challenges the conventional wisdom with prodigious research and sharp, original analysis. He is the author of five books, and coauthor of two more. Professor Bernstein’s book Rehabilitating Lochner was praised across the political spectrum as “intellectual history in its highest form,” a “fresh perspective and a cogent analysis,” “delightful and informative,” “sharp and iconoclastic,” and “a terrific work of historical revisionism.” Columnist George Will praised Bernstein’s most recent book, Classified, The Untold Story of Racial Classification in America, as “perhaps the most consequential American book of 2022.”
Professor Bernstein has also written dozens of articles and essays published in major law reviews, including the California Law Review, Columbia Law Review, Michigan Law Review, and Yale Law Journal. An article he coauthored, Defending Daubert: It’s Time to Amend Federal Rule of Evidence 702, directly inspired a pending amendment to Rule 702.
Professor Bernstein blogs at the Instapundit.com, the Times of Israel, and the Volokh Conspiracy. He is a graduate of the Yale Law School, where he was senior editor of the Yale Law Journal and a John M. Olin Fellow in Law, Economics, and Public Policy.
Partner, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher and Flom, LLP and Affiliates
Boris Bershteyn is a partner at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher and Flom, LLP. He served as acting Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in 2012 and 2013, and as General Counsel of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) starting 2011. In 2010 and 2011, Bershteyn served as Special Assistant to the President and Associate White House Counsel, focusing on legal issues in regulatory, economic, health, and environmental policy. In 2009 and 2010, he served as the Deputy General Counsel of OMB. Earlier in his career, he served as a law clerk to Justice David H. Souter of the U.S. Supreme Court and Judge José A. Cabranes of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He holds a B.A. in Economics and Political Science from Stanford University and a J.D. from Yale Law School. Among other positions, Bershteyn serves as Senior Fellow of the Administrative Conference of the United States, the Chair of the Board of Advisors of the Institute for Policy Integrity at NYU Law School, and Trustee of the U.S. Supreme Court Historical Society.
Of Counsel, Covington & Burling LLP
The Honorable Paul J. Ray is currently Of Counsel at Covington & Burling LLP where he advises clients on regulatory opportunities and challenges and helps them formulate and execute advocacy strategies for their regulatory policy priorities before the executive branch and Congress.
During the first Trump Administration, Paul held various senior positions at the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) within the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, including as acting, and then Senate-confirmed, head of the office. As OIRA Administrator (the "regulations czar"), Paul supervised the review of hundreds of regulations from across the government, drafted numerous executive orders governing the regulatory process, and led the Administration’s regulatory reform effort. As a result of this experience, Paul is well-positioned to help clients understand and achieve regulatory policy priorities in the context of the government’s regulatory agenda and ongoing reform efforts.
Most recently, Paul was also the Director of the Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation. In that role, he supervised the formulation of the Foundation’s economic and regulatory policy recommendations and provided technical assistance to congressional committees and staff regarding legislative changes to the regulatory process. In addition to his role at The Heritage Foundation, Paul also served as a Senior Advisor at a strategic advisory firm. Before his time in government, Paul practiced law at a law firm in Washington, specializing in administrative law matters.
Prior to his role at the White House, Paul was Counselor to the Secretary at the U.S. Department of Labor. There he led departmental efforts in high-profile rulemakings and helped formulate the Department’s legal positions and strategy.
Paul served as a law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito and as a law clerk to the Honorable Debra Livingston of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
Paul is a thought leader in the conservative legal movement and is a frequent commentator and speaker on regulatory policy and reform matters, including at law schools, professional gatherings, and other venues. He is the Chairman of Innovations in Peacebuilding International and the Regulatory Process Working Group of the Federalist Society’s Regulatory Transparency Project and a public member of the Administrative Conference of the United States. Paul is also an adjunct lecturer at the Hillsdale College School of Government.
Deputy Secretary of Agriculture, U.S. Department of Agriculture
Judge Stephen Alexander Vaden was appointed as the Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture on July 7, 2025. Alongside Secretary Brooke L. Rollins, Deputy Secretary Vaden leads the Department’s operations and implements policies that support America’s food and farm systems. A native of Union City, Tennessee, Deputy Secretary Vaden brings expertise in agricultural policy, law, and rural development. Previously, he served as a judge on the U.S. Court of International Trade and as General Counsel of USDA. Throughout Deputy Secretary Vaden’s time as General Counsel, he led successful Supreme Court litigation, advanced regulatory reform, and supported the implementation of the 2018 Farm Bill. He is a graduate of Yale Law School and Vanderbilt University. A public servant with strong agricultural roots, Deputy Secretary Vaden is committed to revitalizing rural America and ensuring an abundant, affordable, and safe U.S. food supply.
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