Professor of Law and Michael R. Klein Distinguished Scholar Chair, University of Miami School of Law
Mary Anne Franks, Professor of Law and Michael R. Klein Distinguished Scholar Chair, is a nationally and internationally recognized expert on the intersection of civil rights and technology. She teaches classes on criminal law, criminal procedure, First Amendment law, Second Amendment law, family law, and law and technology. Professor Franks is also an Affiliated Faculty member of the University of Miami Department of Philosophy and an Affiliate Fellow of the Yale Law School Information Society Project (ISP).
Dr. Franks is the author of the award-winning book, The Cult of the Constitution: Our Deadly Devotion to Guns and Free Speech (Stanford Press, 2019). In 2020, she was awarded a grant from the Knight Foundation to support research for her second book, Fearless Speech (expected 2022). Her scholarship has appeared in the Harvard Law Review, the California Law Review, and UCLA Law Review, among others. Dr. Franks has also authored numerous articles for the popular press, including the New York Times, the Atlantic, the Washington Post, and Newsweek. She has delivered more than a hundred lectures to a range of audiences around the world, including law schools, domestic violence organizations, law firms, and tech companies. She was named a member of the American Law Institute in October 2018.
Dr. Franks is the President and Legislative & Tech Policy Director of the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative, a nonprofit organization dedicated to combating online abuse and discrimination. In 2013, she drafted the first model criminal statute on nonconsensual pornography (sometimes referred to as “revenge porn”), which has served as the template for multiple state laws and for pending federal legislation on the issue. She also served as the reporter for the Uniform Law Commission’s 2018 Uniform Civil Remedies for the Unauthorized Disclosure of Intimate Images Act. Dr. Franks is a principal investigator for a 2020 National Science Foundation grant project, COVID-19 and sexual cyberviolence: Impact on general users and vulnerable populations. She regularly advises legislators, tech industry leaders, and advocacy organizations on issues relating to online privacy, sexual exploitation, extortion, harassment, and threats.
Dr. Franks holds a J.D. from Harvard Law School as well as a doctorate and a master’s degree from Oxford University, where she studied as a Rhodes Scholar. She previously taught at the University of Chicago Law School as a Bigelow Fellow and Lecturer in Law and at Harvard University as a lecturer in social studies and philosophy.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit
Judge Katsas was appointed to the D.C. Circuit in December 2017. He graduated from Princeton University and Harvard Law School, where he was an executive editor on the Harvard Law Review. Between 1989 and 1992, he served as a law clerk to Judge Edward Becker on the Third Circuit, to then-Judge Clarence Thomas on the D.C. Circuit, and to Justice Thomas on the Supreme Court. Between 1992 and 2001, he was an associate and then partner in the Washington office of Jones Day, where he specialized in appellate and complex civil litigation. Between 2001 and 2009, he served in many senior positions in the Department of Justice, including as Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division and as Acting Associate Attorney General. In 2009, he returned to Jones Day. From January to December 2017, he served as Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy Counsel to the President.
Before joining the bench, Judge Katsas argued more than 75 appeals, including three cases in the Supreme Court, 13 cases in the D.C. Circuit, and cases in every other federal court of appeals. By appointment of the Chief Justice, he served on the Advisory Committee on Appellate Rules from 2013 to 2017. In 2016, he was elected to membership in the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers.
Thomas M. Siebel Senior Fellow, The Hoover Institution, Stanford University; Gary T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus, UCLA School of Law
Eugene Volokh is the Thomas M. Siebel Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution (Stanford), as well as the Gary T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus and Distinguished Research Professor at UCLA School of Law. He recently retired from teaching at UCLA, after 30 years there, and is now focusing on research.
Volokh is the author of the textbooks The First Amendment and Related Statutes (8th ed. 2023), and Academic Legal Writing (5th ed. 2016), as well as over 100 academic law journal articles, mostly on First Amendment law. He is a member of The American Law Institute; the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Free Speech Law; and the creator and coauthor of The Volokh Conspiracy, a leading legal blog founded in 2002 (hosted at the Washington Post from 2014 to 2017 and now at Reason Magazine).
Professor of Law and Michael R. Klein Distinguished Scholar Chair, University of Miami School of Law
Mary Anne Franks, Professor of Law and Michael R. Klein Distinguished Scholar Chair, is a nationally and internationally recognized expert on the intersection of civil rights and technology. She teaches classes on criminal law, criminal procedure, First Amendment law, Second Amendment law, family law, and law and technology. Professor Franks is also an Affiliated Faculty member of the University of Miami Department of Philosophy and an Affiliate Fellow of the Yale Law School Information Society Project (ISP).
Dr. Franks is the author of the award-winning book, The Cult of the Constitution: Our Deadly Devotion to Guns and Free Speech (Stanford Press, 2019). In 2020, she was awarded a grant from the Knight Foundation to support research for her second book, Fearless Speech (expected 2022). Her scholarship has appeared in the Harvard Law Review, the California Law Review, and UCLA Law Review, among others. Dr. Franks has also authored numerous articles for the popular press, including the New York Times, the Atlantic, the Washington Post, and Newsweek. She has delivered more than a hundred lectures to a range of audiences around the world, including law schools, domestic violence organizations, law firms, and tech companies. She was named a member of the American Law Institute in October 2018.
Dr. Franks is the President and Legislative & Tech Policy Director of the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative, a nonprofit organization dedicated to combating online abuse and discrimination. In 2013, she drafted the first model criminal statute on nonconsensual pornography (sometimes referred to as “revenge porn”), which has served as the template for multiple state laws and for pending federal legislation on the issue. She also served as the reporter for the Uniform Law Commission’s 2018 Uniform Civil Remedies for the Unauthorized Disclosure of Intimate Images Act. Dr. Franks is a principal investigator for a 2020 National Science Foundation grant project, COVID-19 and sexual cyberviolence: Impact on general users and vulnerable populations. She regularly advises legislators, tech industry leaders, and advocacy organizations on issues relating to online privacy, sexual exploitation, extortion, harassment, and threats.
Dr. Franks holds a J.D. from Harvard Law School as well as a doctorate and a master’s degree from Oxford University, where she studied as a Rhodes Scholar. She previously taught at the University of Chicago Law School as a Bigelow Fellow and Lecturer in Law and at Harvard University as a lecturer in social studies and philosophy.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit
Judge Katsas was appointed to the D.C. Circuit in December 2017. He graduated from Princeton University and Harvard Law School, where he was an executive editor on the Harvard Law Review. Between 1989 and 1992, he served as a law clerk to Judge Edward Becker on the Third Circuit, to then-Judge Clarence Thomas on the D.C. Circuit, and to Justice Thomas on the Supreme Court. Between 1992 and 2001, he was an associate and then partner in the Washington office of Jones Day, where he specialized in appellate and complex civil litigation. Between 2001 and 2009, he served in many senior positions in the Department of Justice, including as Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division and as Acting Associate Attorney General. In 2009, he returned to Jones Day. From January to December 2017, he served as Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy Counsel to the President.
Before joining the bench, Judge Katsas argued more than 75 appeals, including three cases in the Supreme Court, 13 cases in the D.C. Circuit, and cases in every other federal court of appeals. By appointment of the Chief Justice, he served on the Advisory Committee on Appellate Rules from 2013 to 2017. In 2016, he was elected to membership in the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers.
Thomas M. Siebel Senior Fellow, The Hoover Institution, Stanford University; Gary T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus, UCLA School of Law
Eugene Volokh is the Thomas M. Siebel Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution (Stanford), as well as the Gary T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus and Distinguished Research Professor at UCLA School of Law. He recently retired from teaching at UCLA, after 30 years there, and is now focusing on research.
Volokh is the author of the textbooks The First Amendment and Related Statutes (8th ed. 2023), and Academic Legal Writing (5th ed. 2016), as well as over 100 academic law journal articles, mostly on First Amendment law. He is a member of The American Law Institute; the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Free Speech Law; and the creator and coauthor of The Volokh Conspiracy, a leading legal blog founded in 2002 (hosted at the Washington Post from 2014 to 2017 and now at Reason Magazine).
Partner, Shook, Hardy & Bacon, LLP
Phil Goldberg is the office managing partner of Shook in Washington, D.C., and co-chair of the firm’s Public Policy Practice Group. He has more than 25 years of experience advising clients on high stakes and high profile liability-related public policy, public affairs and public relations issues. He counsels businesses and their trade associations on some of the most cutting-edge liability issues of the day.
As part of this work, Phil co-chairs the firm’s National Amicus Practice, which files more than three dozen amicus briefs every year. He has filed amicus briefs for many of the most influential trade and civil justice groups with courts at every level, from the U.S. Supreme Court to the U.S. Courts of Appeals and state appellate courts. He has testified before Congress and state legislatures, has authored leading legal scholarship and is a regular speaker at judicial education conferences. He also is a resource for journalists, podcasters and others who report on and discuss pressing liability issues.
President, Harned Strategies LLC
Karen Harned is President at Harned Strategies LLC. Previously, she served as Executive Director of the National Federation of Independent Business Small Business Legal Center, a post she held from 2002-2022. Prior to joining the Legal Center, Ms. Harned was an attorney at a Washington, D.C. law firm specializing in food and drug law, where she represented several small and large businesses and their respective trade associations before Congress and federal agencies. She also served as Assistant Press Secretary to U.S. Senator Don Nickles of Oklahoma from August of 1989 to March of 1993. Ms. Harned received her B.A. from the University of Oklahoma in 1989 and her J.D. from The George Washington University National Law Center in 1995. She is admitted to practice in the District of Columbia.
As Executive Director of the NFIB Small Business Legal Center, Ms. Harned commented regularly on small business cases before federal and state courts, as well as the U.S. Supreme Court. She has appeared on Fox News, Fox Business, NBC Nightly News, CNN, CNBC and MSNBC, as well as National Public Radio, CBS Radio, and radio outlets across the country. Her opinion editorials and articles regarding healthcare, lawsuit abuse, regulation, and other issues important to small business have been published in newspapers and other publications nationwide.
Ms. Harned has testified before Congress on the small business impact of regulation and the civil justice system. Additionally, she has conducted numerous webinars and legal compliance seminars for small business owners across the country on issues relating to employment law, including unionization and immigration.
Levin, Mabie & Levin Professor of Law, University of Florida Levin College of Law
Professor Gary Lawson joined the University of Florida Levin College of Law faculty on July 1, 2024, after twenty-four years at Boston University School of Law and eleven years at Northwestern University School of Law. While at Boston University, he was named a William Fairfield Warren Distinguished Professor in 2022 – the highest faculty honor within the university. He has authored or co-authored nine editions of a textbook on administrative law, a textbook on constitutional law, five university press books, one popular press book, and more than one hundred scholarly articles on topics ranging from aspects of constitutional theory and history to the proof of legal propositions. His works have been cited in more than twenty opinions of United States Supreme Court justices. He is a founding member, and serves on the Board of Directors, of the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies and is on the Editorial Advisory Board of the Heritage Guide to the Constitution.
Professor of Law and Michael R. Klein Distinguished Scholar Chair, University of Miami School of Law
Mary Anne Franks, Professor of Law and Michael R. Klein Distinguished Scholar Chair, is a nationally and internationally recognized expert on the intersection of civil rights and technology. She teaches classes on criminal law, criminal procedure, First Amendment law, Second Amendment law, family law, and law and technology. Professor Franks is also an Affiliated Faculty member of the University of Miami Department of Philosophy and an Affiliate Fellow of the Yale Law School Information Society Project (ISP).
Dr. Franks is the author of the award-winning book, The Cult of the Constitution: Our Deadly Devotion to Guns and Free Speech (Stanford Press, 2019). In 2020, she was awarded a grant from the Knight Foundation to support research for her second book, Fearless Speech (expected 2022). Her scholarship has appeared in the Harvard Law Review, the California Law Review, and UCLA Law Review, among others. Dr. Franks has also authored numerous articles for the popular press, including the New York Times, the Atlantic, the Washington Post, and Newsweek. She has delivered more than a hundred lectures to a range of audiences around the world, including law schools, domestic violence organizations, law firms, and tech companies. She was named a member of the American Law Institute in October 2018.
Dr. Franks is the President and Legislative & Tech Policy Director of the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative, a nonprofit organization dedicated to combating online abuse and discrimination. In 2013, she drafted the first model criminal statute on nonconsensual pornography (sometimes referred to as “revenge porn”), which has served as the template for multiple state laws and for pending federal legislation on the issue. She also served as the reporter for the Uniform Law Commission’s 2018 Uniform Civil Remedies for the Unauthorized Disclosure of Intimate Images Act. Dr. Franks is a principal investigator for a 2020 National Science Foundation grant project, COVID-19 and sexual cyberviolence: Impact on general users and vulnerable populations. She regularly advises legislators, tech industry leaders, and advocacy organizations on issues relating to online privacy, sexual exploitation, extortion, harassment, and threats.
Dr. Franks holds a J.D. from Harvard Law School as well as a doctorate and a master’s degree from Oxford University, where she studied as a Rhodes Scholar. She previously taught at the University of Chicago Law School as a Bigelow Fellow and Lecturer in Law and at Harvard University as a lecturer in social studies and philosophy.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit
Judge Katsas was appointed to the D.C. Circuit in December 2017. He graduated from Princeton University and Harvard Law School, where he was an executive editor on the Harvard Law Review. Between 1989 and 1992, he served as a law clerk to Judge Edward Becker on the Third Circuit, to then-Judge Clarence Thomas on the D.C. Circuit, and to Justice Thomas on the Supreme Court. Between 1992 and 2001, he was an associate and then partner in the Washington office of Jones Day, where he specialized in appellate and complex civil litigation. Between 2001 and 2009, he served in many senior positions in the Department of Justice, including as Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division and as Acting Associate Attorney General. In 2009, he returned to Jones Day. From January to December 2017, he served as Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy Counsel to the President.
Before joining the bench, Judge Katsas argued more than 75 appeals, including three cases in the Supreme Court, 13 cases in the D.C. Circuit, and cases in every other federal court of appeals. By appointment of the Chief Justice, he served on the Advisory Committee on Appellate Rules from 2013 to 2017. In 2016, he was elected to membership in the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers.
Thomas M. Siebel Senior Fellow, The Hoover Institution, Stanford University; Gary T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus, UCLA School of Law
Eugene Volokh is the Thomas M. Siebel Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution (Stanford), as well as the Gary T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus and Distinguished Research Professor at UCLA School of Law. He recently retired from teaching at UCLA, after 30 years there, and is now focusing on research.
Volokh is the author of the textbooks The First Amendment and Related Statutes (8th ed. 2023), and Academic Legal Writing (5th ed. 2016), as well as over 100 academic law journal articles, mostly on First Amendment law. He is a member of The American Law Institute; the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Free Speech Law; and the creator and coauthor of The Volokh Conspiracy, a leading legal blog founded in 2002 (hosted at the Washington Post from 2014 to 2017 and now at Reason Magazine).
Partner, Shook, Hardy & Bacon, LLP
Phil Goldberg is the office managing partner of Shook in Washington, D.C., and co-chair of the firm’s Public Policy Practice Group. He has more than 25 years of experience advising clients on high stakes and high profile liability-related public policy, public affairs and public relations issues. He counsels businesses and their trade associations on some of the most cutting-edge liability issues of the day.
As part of this work, Phil co-chairs the firm’s National Amicus Practice, which files more than three dozen amicus briefs every year. He has filed amicus briefs for many of the most influential trade and civil justice groups with courts at every level, from the U.S. Supreme Court to the U.S. Courts of Appeals and state appellate courts. He has testified before Congress and state legislatures, has authored leading legal scholarship and is a regular speaker at judicial education conferences. He also is a resource for journalists, podcasters and others who report on and discuss pressing liability issues.
President, Harned Strategies LLC
Karen Harned is President at Harned Strategies LLC. Previously, she served as Executive Director of the National Federation of Independent Business Small Business Legal Center, a post she held from 2002-2022. Prior to joining the Legal Center, Ms. Harned was an attorney at a Washington, D.C. law firm specializing in food and drug law, where she represented several small and large businesses and their respective trade associations before Congress and federal agencies. She also served as Assistant Press Secretary to U.S. Senator Don Nickles of Oklahoma from August of 1989 to March of 1993. Ms. Harned received her B.A. from the University of Oklahoma in 1989 and her J.D. from The George Washington University National Law Center in 1995. She is admitted to practice in the District of Columbia.
As Executive Director of the NFIB Small Business Legal Center, Ms. Harned commented regularly on small business cases before federal and state courts, as well as the U.S. Supreme Court. She has appeared on Fox News, Fox Business, NBC Nightly News, CNN, CNBC and MSNBC, as well as National Public Radio, CBS Radio, and radio outlets across the country. Her opinion editorials and articles regarding healthcare, lawsuit abuse, regulation, and other issues important to small business have been published in newspapers and other publications nationwide.
Ms. Harned has testified before Congress on the small business impact of regulation and the civil justice system. Additionally, she has conducted numerous webinars and legal compliance seminars for small business owners across the country on issues relating to employment law, including unionization and immigration.
President, Corporate and External Affairs, Plaid
Jelena McWilliams is the former Managing Partner of the Washington, D.C. office of Cravath, Swaine, & Moore LLP and former Head of the Financial Institutions Group (FIG) Practice. She is a former Chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). Ms. McWilliams focuses her practice on advising public and private companies, financial institutions, fintechs, and early-stage and venture companies on regulatory and corporate matters, as well as on mergers and acquisitions, IPO and other capital markets transactions.
While at the FDIC, Ms. McWilliams managed over 6,000 employees supervising approximately 5,000 banks, including through the COVID-19 pandemic. She participated in interagency negotiations, policy developments and joint agency rulemakings both as agency principal and as a voting member of the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC). Ms. McWilliams chaired the Resolution Group at the Financial Stability Board (FSB); chaired and served on the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC); and served on the Financial and Banking Information Infrastructure Committee (FBIIC). She testified before U.S. Congress on numerous occasions and engaged extensively with U.S. and international regulators, including the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision and the International Association of Deposit Insurers. She established the agency’s first office of innovation to implement technological advancements through supervisory channels and collaborative partnerships between banks and fintechs. Ms. McWilliams also spearheaded the agency’s effort to develop prudential banking policy on digital assets, including through a “crypto sprint” with the Office of the Currency Comptroller (OCC) and the Federal Reserve Board (FRB), and in collaboration with the President’s Working Group multiagency effort on stablecoins. She envisioned and created Mission Driven Bank Fund, a novel private/public partnership investment fund to support investments in low- and moderate-income communities served by the Minority Depository Institutions and Community Development Financial Institutions.
Ms. McWilliams is a frequent speaker on trends and topics in the financial services sector, including bank regulatory policy, governance trends, digital assets, fintechs and early-stage company regulatory policy. She is a member of the Economic Council of Washington, D.C., and serves on the Board of Trustees of the Southwestern Graduate School of Banking Foundation at Southern Methodist University.
Ms. McWilliams was born in Belgrade, Serbia. She received her B.A. with highest honors from the University of California, Berkeley in 1999 and her J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law in 2002.
Partner, Mayer Brown
Andrew Olmem is a partner in Mayer Brown’s Washington DC office and a member of its Public Policy, Regulatory & Government Affairs, and Financial Services Regulatory & Enforcement practices. His practice focuses on complex financial services regulatory and public policy matters.
Andrew previously served as the Deputy Assistant to the President for Economic Policy and Deputy Director of the National Economic Council (NEC), where he oversaw the development and coordination of the administrations’ domestic economic policies, including for financial services, technology, telecom, energy, and infrastructure.
Earlier, he also served as the Republican Chief Counsel and Deputy Staff Director at the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs. Andrew began his legal career practicing corporate and securities law at Mayer Brown in New York City. Prior to attending law school, he served as an Assistant Economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.
Free Speech and Compelled Speech: First Amendment Challenges to a Marketplace of Ideas
Mary Anne Franks, Gregory G. Katsas, Jed Rubenfeld, Eugene Volokh
Section 230 has been understood to shield internet platforms from liability for content posted by...
Free Speech and Compelled Speech: First Amendment Challenges to a Marketplace of Ideas
Mary Anne Franks, Gregory G. Katsas, Jed Rubenfeld, Eugene Volokh
Section 230 has been understood to shield internet platforms from liability for content posted by...
Topics
The DC Circuit Reminds the NLRB—Again—That Employers Have a Right to Speak About Unionization
Can a statute designed to implement the First Amendment somehow protect less speech than the...
Free Speech and Compelled Speech: First Amendment Challenges to a Marketplace of Ideas
Freedom of Thought Six-Part Series: Part 1
TeleforumTopics
Yet Another Federal Court Rules Against the CDC Eviction Moratorium
Note: This blog was originally posted at the Volokh Conspiracy. Earlier today, the Judge...
Courthouse Steps Decision Teleforum: BP P.L.C. v. Mayor and City Council of Baltimore
Phil Goldberg, Karen Harned
Nearly two dozen lawsuits against energy manufacturers seeking state tort damages over climate change have...
Marbury v. Madison [SCOTUSbrief]
Gary Lawson
In an effort to pack the courts following the election of 1800, William Marbury was...
Courthouse Steps Decision Teleforum: BP P.L.C. v. Mayor and City Council of Baltimore
TeleforumTopics
Remembering a Time When Broadband Policy Was Bipartisan
Last week, the House Energy and Commerce Committee held a hearing entitled Broadband Equity: Addressing...
Keynote Speaker: Jelena McWilliams
Chairman, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation