Senior Executive Counsel, NFIB Small Business Legal Center
Elizabeth Milito serves as Senior Executive Counsel with the National Federation of Independent Business, a position she has held since March 2004. Ms. Milito came to NFIB from the U.S. Department of Veteran's Affairs where she defended the agency in employment and labor lawsuits and was responsible for training and counseling managers on fair employment and HR practices. She has an extensive background in tort, medical malpractice and employment law.
Prior to serving as an attorney at the Department of Veteran's Affairs, Ms. Milito worked as a trial attorney at Nationwide Insurance Company. At Nationwide, she completed over 100 trials to verdict. Ms. Milito was the editor of notes and comments for the Maryland Law Review at the University of Maryland School of Law where she earned her Juris Doctor degree in May of 1996. Following her education, she served as a clerk to the Honorable Alan M. Wilner on the Maryland Court of Appeals, the state's highest court.
Ms. Milito is responsible for managing litigation and amicus work for NFIB. She has testified before Congress, federal agencies, and state legislatures on the small business impact of labor and employment issues. She also comments and writes regularly on small business cases before federal and state courts. Ms. Milito frequently counsels businesses facing employment discrimination charges, wage and hour claims, wrongful termination lawsuits, and in most other areas of human resources law. She also provides and develops on-line and on-site training on a variety of employment law matters and is a frequent media spokesperson on employment and labor matters.
Founder and Senior Director, Institutional Religious Freedom Alliance
Stanley Carlson-Thies is the Founder and Senior Director of the Institutional Religious Freedom Alliance (IRFA), a division of the Center for Public Justice. As part of this role, he convenes the Coalition to Preserve Religious Freedom, a multi-faith alliance of social-service, education, and religious freedom organizations that advocates for the religious freedom of faith-based organizations to Congress and the federal government. In addition he is also a Senior Fellow at the Canadian think tank Cardus.
From 2009-2010 he served on a task force of President Obama’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, helping to draft recommendations on how to clarify the church-state rules that apply to federal funding of social-service providers, and has consulted with federal departments and several states.
He served with the White House Office of Faith-Based & Community Initiatives from its inception in February 2001 until mid-May 2002. He assisted with writing “Unlevel Playing Field: Barriers to Participation by Faith-Based and Community Organizations in Federal Social Service Programs,” a report released by the White House in August 2001, and “Rallying the Armies of Compassion,” the initial blueprint for President George W. Bush’s faith and community agenda.
Previously, he was Director of Social Policy Studies for CPJ and directed CPJ’s project to track the implementation and impact of the Charitable Choice provision of the 1996 federal welfare reform law. Following his term in the White House, he returned to CPJ as the Director of Faith-based Policy Studies.
He received the William Bentley Ball Life and Religious Liberty Defense Award from the Center for Law and Religious Freedom and the Christian Legal Society in October 2004. He was named as one of 12 advocates who are “reinterpreting God and country” by the National Journal in May 2004. He holds a doctorate in political science from the University of Toronto. His dissertation is on the role of Protestants and Catholics in the development of Dutch politics in the 19th and 20th centuries. Besides the United States, he has lived in Canada, the Netherlands, and Japan, where he was born of missionary parents. He lives in Annapolis, Maryland, with his wife, Christiane. They are the proud parents of Simon.
Retired
Tom Gede retired in 2023 as a principal in Morgan Lewis Consulting LLC and of counsel to the firm. He currently consults on a variety of legal and policy matters for both public and private clients. Tom has a national reputation and distinguished background in federal Indian law. Prior to retirement, he represented clients in complex governmental matters in litigation, administrative and regulatory proceedings, including high-profile matters involving state governments. A former senior deputy in the California Attorney General’s office, Tom was amicus coordinator and Supreme Court counsel, and argued cases in the US Supreme Court, the California Supreme Court, and numerous state and federal appellate courts.
Tom also served as executive director of the Conference of Western Attorneys General (CWAG), coordinating activities on key legal and policy issues, such as federal Indian law, energy, environmental, public lands, financial services, and telecommunications, for the attorneys general of 18 western states and territories. In 2016, Tom was elected as a Member of the American Law Institute (ALI), and served as an Adviser on the Restatement of the Law Third - The Law of American Indians. Tom also taught federal Indian law as an adjunct law professor at the University of the Pacific - McGeorge School of Law. He served as an assistant editor for and the author of the Indian gaming chapter in CWAG’s American Indian Law Deskbook (2d & 3d eds.). He has been engaged in Indian gaming and Indian law matters for more than three decades, having focused on the gaming compacts with Indian tribes, as well as complex civil and criminal jurisdiction, land, natural resources, water and law enforcement issues in Indian country. He has testified before Congress on American Indian and Native Alaskan issues. In 2012 he was appointed by Speaker John Boehner to serve on the United States Indian Law and Order Commission, where he examined criminal justice issues in Indian country and Alaska, resulting in the issuance of an important report to the President and Congress.
Senior Counsel, Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP
Michael J. Madigan is a litigation partner in Orrick's Washington, D.C., office. Mr. Madigan has more than 30 years of experience in white collar criminal investigations, congressional and corporate investigations, corporate governance issues and Washington, D.C., legislative and political issues. He began his legal career by serving as a federal prosecutor where he tried more than 100 jury trials. At age 30, he served as Counsel to Senator Howard Baker on the historic Senate Watergate Committee. In addition, Mr. Madigan has served as Chief Counsel for Senator Fred Thompson's Campaign Finance investigation, Counsel to the Church Committee and Minority Counsel of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Mr. Madigan has successfully defended corporate and individual clients (including law firms and accounting firms) in a variety of complex criminal, civil and congressional investigations; conducted corporate internal investigations and counseled on corporate governance and Foreign Corrupt Practices Act issues.
Mr. Madigan has been elected to and/or been asked to serve on a variety of boards and has been involved in the major decision-making of each organization, including the Board of Governors of the D.C. Bar (elected to two three-year terms); the Board of Trustees of the District of Columbia Public Defender Service; the Boards of Directors of the Robert A. Shuker Scholarship Fund, Inc.; the Frederick B. Abramson Memorial Foundation, the D.C. Conference on Opportunities for Minorities in the Legal Profession, the Council for Court Excellence and the Bar Association of the District of Columbia (elected to two two-year terms).
Mr. Madigan has been appointed to serve on a number of commissions and committees, including the District of Columbia Federal Judicial Nominating Commission (federal judge selection), the Magistrate Judge Selection Committee (Vice Chairman), the D.C. Judicial Nomination Commission (local judge selection), the D.C. Circuit Judicial Conference and the Mayor's Corporation Counsel Advisory Committee. He has taught Trial Advocacy at the National Institute of Trial Advocacy for the past 20 years, where he received the "Justin Simon Award for Excellence in Teaching" and has been a Delegate to both the D.C. Circuit and D.C. Judicial Conferences for the last 15 years.
Mr. Madigan is a Fellow in the International Academy of Trial Lawyers and a "Master" in the Edward Bennett Williams Inn of Court. He is a Member of the Barristers, the Lawyers Club and the Cosmos Club.
President, TRACE International
Alexandra Wrage is the author of Bribery and Extortion: Undermining Business, Governments and Security and the host of the training DVD Toxic Transactions: Bribery, Extortion and the High Price of Bad Business produced by NBC. Ms. Wrage has written three compliance guidebooks and is a guest blogger on the Huffington Post. She speaks frequently on topics of international law, anti-corruption initiatives and the hidden costs of corruption.
Ms. Wrage currently serves on the Independent Governance Committee (IGC) of the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), football’s governing body. She has previously served as Chair of the Anti-Corruption Committee of the ABA’s International Section and Chair of the International Legal Affairs Committee of the Association of Corporate Counsel. She has participated in anti-bribery working groups with the OECD and the UN Global Compact. Ms. Wrage was named one of the “Canadians Changing the World” by the Toronto Globe and Mail in 2011.
Prior to founding TRACE, Ms. Wrage was international counsel at Northrop Grumman where she was responsible for managing and improving the company’s FCPA program, including policy revisions, training, monitoring and board briefings.
Ms. Wrage, a Canadian, studied law at Kings College, Cambridge University. She is a member of the Maryland and District of Columbia bar associations.
Senior Research Fellow, Open Technology Institute, New America Foundation
As a Senior Research Fellow with New America's Open Technology Institute, Michael Calabrese focuses on developing and advocating policies to promote pervasive connectivity, including spectrum policy reform, wireless broadband deployment and IT investment and innovation more broadly. The founding director of New America's Wireless Future program, Mr. Calabrese also served as Vice President (2003-2010) and was instrumental in establishing the organization's programs in areas including retirement security, health policy and the Next Social Contract Initiative.
Previously, Mr. Calabrese served as General Counsel of the Congressional Joint Economic Committee, as Director of Domestic Policy Programs at the Center for National Policy, and as pension and employee benefits counsel at the national AFL-CIO.
An attorney and graduate of both Stanford Business and Law Schools, Mr. Calabrese speaks and writes frequently on issues related to spectrum, wireless broadband, and Internet policy, as well as on Next Social Contract issues related to improving retirement security and health coverage. He has co-authored three books and published opinion articles in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic Monthly and other leading outlets.
H.H. Macaulay Endowed Professor of Economics, Clemson College of Business
Thomas Hazlett is the Hugh H. Macaulay Endowed Professor of Economics at Clemson University. He has previously held faculty positions at George Mason University, the University of California, Davis, and the Wharton School, and served as Chief Economist of the Federal Communications Commission. A noted expert in regulatory economics and information markets, his research has appeared in academic forums such as the Journal of Law & Economics, RAND Journal of Economics, the Journal of Financial Economics, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review and the Columbia Law Review. He has also written for such popular periodicals as the Wall Street Journal, The Economist, Slate, the N.Y. Times, N.Y. Daily News, Reuters.com, Business Week, The New Republic and the Financial Times. His most recent book, The Political Spectrum: The Tumultuous Liberation of Wireless Technology, from Herbert Hoover to the Smartphone, (Yale, 2017), was featured as one of the top tech books of the year at CES 2018.
President, The Free State Foundation
Randolph J. May is Founder and President of The Free State Foundation. The Free State Foundation is an independent, non-profit free market-oriented think tank founded in 2006.
From October 1999-May 2006, May was a Senior Fellow and Director of Communications Policy Studies at The Progress & Freedom Foundation, a Washington, DC-based think tank. Prior to joining PFF, he practiced communications, administrative, and regulatory law as a partner at major national law firms. From 1978 to 1981, May served as Assistant General Counsel and Associate General Counsel at the Federal Communication Commission.
May has held numerous leadership positions in bar associations. He is a past Chair of the American Bar Association’s Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice. He is a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration. Mr. May also has served as a Public Member of the Administrative Conference of the United States and currently is a Senior Fellow at ACUS.
Mr. May has published more than two hundred articles and essays on communications, administrative and constitutional law topics. He is author of A Call for a Radical New Communications Policy: Proposals for Free Market Reform, and co-author of #CommActUpdate: A Communications Law Fit for the Digital Age and The Constitutional Foundations of Intellectual Property. Mr. May is editor of two books, Communications Law and Policy in the Digital Age: The Next Five Years and New Directions in Communications Policy. In addition, he is the co-editor of two other books, Net Neutrality or Net Neutering: Should Broadband Internet Services Be Regulated? and Communications Deregulation and FCC Reform. In the past, Mr. May has written regular columns on legal and regulatory affairs for Legal Times and the National Law Journal, leading national legal periodicals.
He received his A.B. from Duke University and his J.D. from Duke Law School, where he serves as a member of the Board of Visitors.
United States v. Home Concrete & Supply, LLC and Its Implications for Administrative Law
Elizabeth Milito
I. Introduction On April 25, 2012, the United States Supreme Court decided United States v....
Bar Watch Bulletin for August 7, 2012
Remarks by James Silkenat, New ABA President-Elect The new ABA president-elect, James Silkenat, addressed the...
Barwatch Bulletin for August 2012
Around the ABA Annual Meeting… South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham offered the Annual Meeting’s keynote...
Which Religious Organizations Count as Religious? The Religious Employer Exemption of the Health Insurance Law's Contraceptives Mandate
Stanley Carlson-Thies
On August 1, 2011, the Health Resources and Service Administration issued guidelines specifying that, among...
Criminal Jurisdiction of Indian Tribes: Should Non-Indians Be Subject to Tribal Criminal Authority Under VAWA?
Thomas F. Gede
Ever since the U.S. Supreme Court issued its 1978 decision in Oliphant v. Suquamish Tribe,1...
ABA Praises Decision in Arizona v. United States
ABA President Bill Robinson praised the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Arizona v. United...
ABA Weighs in on Judicial Selection
The ABA has long supported “merit” selection in appointing state-court judges over elections or the...
The ABA and Executive Power in the Obama Administration
In August 2006, ABA Watch examined the American Bar Association’s scrutiny of President George W....
Foreign Corrupt Practices Act
Spectrum Policy in the Age of a Spectrum Crunch
Teleforum