L. Q. C. Lamar Professor of Law, Emory University School of Law
Thomas C. Arthur holds degrees from Yale Law School and Duke University, where he was an Angier B. Duke Scholar and a member of Phi Beta Kappa. Before coming to Emory, he practiced law for eleven years with the Washington, DC office of Kirkland & Ellis. In 1982, he left his law firm partnership to join the Emory Law faculty.
Arthur teaches antitrust, civil procedure, and administrative law, and he has been active on the executive committee of the Antitrust Section of the Association of American Law Schools. His articles in the California and Tulane law reviews have been credited with the founding of a new, "statutory" school of antitrust analysis. His 1991 Emory Law Journal article (co-authored with Professor Richard D. Freer) provoked a nationally noted debate over an important new statute governing the jurisdiction of federal courts. A major antitrust article, "The Costly Quest for Perfect Competition: Kodak and Nonstructural Market Power," was published in the New York University Law Review (vol. 69, April 1994).
Professor of Law and Co-Director, High Tech Law Institute, Santa Clara University School of Law
Eric Goldman is a Professor of Law, and Co-Director of the High Tech Law Institute, at Santa Clara University School of Law. Before he became a full-time academic in 2002, he practiced Internet law for 8 years in the Silicon Valley. His research and teaching focuses on Internet, IP and advertising law topics, and he blogs on these topics at the Technology & Marketing Law Blog [http://blog.ericgoldman.org]. Managing IP magazine has twice named him to a shortlist of North American “IP Thought Leaders,” and he has been named an “IP Vanguard” by the California State Bar’s IP Section.
Kathleen Q. Abernathy recently returned to Wilkinson Barker Knauer LLP as special counsel. She was previously elected to the Board of Directors of Frontier Communications as an independent director in 2006 following her term as a Commissioner at the Federal Communications Commission from 2001 to 2005. In 2010 she joined the company as Chief Legal Officer and Executive Vice President, Regulatory and Governmental Affairs. Prior to her term as an FCC Commissioner, Ms. Abernathy worked for a number of different telecommunications companies and law firms. She has received numerous awards in recognition of her professional accomplishments and has taught as an adjunct professor at Georgetown University Law Center and Catholic University’s Columbus School of Law. She received her B.S. from Marquette University and her J.D. from Catholic University’s Columbus School of Law.
Senior Counsel, FCC
For the past four years, Mr. Degani has served as Commissioner Pai's Wireline Legal Advisor. He joined the office from a detail to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce, where he served as counsel under Chairman Fred Upton and Communications and Technology Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden. Before his detail, Mr. Degani served as an Attorney Advisor in the Wireline Competition Bureau's Telecommunications Access Policy Division and Competition Policy Division, as well as the Commission's Office of General Counsel. Mr. Degani entered the Commission through the Attorney Honors Program. Earlier in his career, Mr. Degani clerked for Judge Jeffrey Sutton of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. He graduated cum laude from Harvard Law School and magna cum laude from Yale University, where he studied Electrical Engineering/Computer Science and History.
Partner, HWG LLP
Patricia Paoletta is a partner with the law firm of HWG LLP, where she specializes in telecommunications, trade and technology policy. Ms. Paoletta provides advice on regulatory, trade and legislative policy to clients before the FCC, Congress and the Administration. Her clients include providers of content, cloud, mobile broadband, VoIP, international telecommunications, small cells, cognitive radio, public safety and homeland security solutions. She serves on Advisory Boards for several entities engaged in information services, communications and technology.
Ms. Paoletta has accrued considerable experience with telecommunications trade and policy in the public sector. From 1990 to 1995, she was senior advisor to the International Bureau Chief and Office Director at the Federal Communications Commission. In the mid 1990s, Ms. Paoletta served as Director of Telecommunications Trade Policy in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, Executive Office of the President, where she worked on the WTO Information Technology Agreement (ITA) and the Basic Telecommunications Agreement. After USTR, Ms. Paoletta served as Majority Counsel to the House Energy and Commerce Committee. She then moved to Level 3 Communications, as Vice President, Government Relations.
Ms. Paoletta is on the Steering Committee of the Transatlantic Roundtable on Telecommunications and Information Technology of the European Institute. She is a member of the USTR Alumni Association, Washington International Trade Association, the Federal Communications Bar Association (FCBA), and Women in Technology. Ms. Paoletta has served on the Board of Advisors for the Inter-American Dialogue's Latin America Telecom Advisor, Co-Chairman of the American Bar Association International Communications Committee, and as a member of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Technology Policy Committee.
Ms. Paoletta served as a delegate in 2012 to the ITU-R's Study Group 6 Working Party 6A Meeting and in 2009 and 2010 to the ITU-R's Study Group I Working Party IB Meetings; the 2009 meetings of CITEL (the Committee on International Telecommunications at the Organization of American States) PCC-II; the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) World Telecommunications Standards Assembly (2000); the ITU Internet Protocol Telephony Experts Group and the ITU World Telecommunications Policy Forum in 2001; as Chairman of the National Reliability and Interoperability Council (NRIC) Steering Committee (2000-2001); as Board Member for the Voice on the Net Coalition (2001); as Co-Chairman of the FCBA's Annual Seminar Committee (2009-2011); as a member of the FCBA's Ad Hoc Speakers Committee (2006-2007); as Co-Chairman for the FCBA International Practice Committee (2001-2002 and 2005-2006); and as a Co-Chairman of the FCBA Legislative Practice Committee (1999-2000).
Managing Partner, Wilkinson Barker Knauer LLP
Bryan Tramont, the firm’s managing partner, offers strategic counsel to Fortune 100 companies and trade associations, as well as small and mid-sized telecommunications and media companies, on all aspects of communications law and regulation. He is regularly called on to advise companies as they develop and evaluate new business opportunities in the technology, media, and telecommunications sectors. Mr. Tramont also designs and leads the execution of the firm’s strategic plan and directs client management and development. Mr. Tramont has been recognized by leading publications like Legal 500, Chambers USA, and Washingtonian as one of the nation’s top communications lawyers. In 2017, he was named to the inaugural Legal 500 Hall of Fame List, which highlights individuals who have received constant praise by their clients and who have been recognized by the Legal 500 as an elite leading lawyer for six consecutive years. He has been awarded The Best Lawyers in America © 2017 “Lawyer of the Year” for Media Law and “Lawyer of the Year" in Communications Law in 2016. In 2016, he was also named one of the Top 10 Washington, DC Super Lawyers.
Mr. Tramont serves on the Commerce Spectrum Management Advisory Committee (CSMAC), advising the Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information at NTIA. Appointed under the Bush and Obama Administrations, he also served as the committee’s Co-Chairman from 2008-2010. In addition, Mr. Tramont is active in the Federal Communications Bar Association, where he served in a variety of leadership roles, including as President from 2010-11 and has been awarded the organization’s Distinguished Service Award. Mr. Tramont chairs the Federalist Society’s Telecommunications Practice Group Executive Committee, serves on the International Institute of Communications Canada Board of Directors, and previously served on the Governing Committee of the ABA Forum on Communications Law. Mr. Tramont currently is an adjunct law professor at The Catholic University of America as part of the Communications Law Institute, is a senior adjunct fellow at the University of Colorado, Boulder, has served as the Syracuse University Law School’s Practitioner in Residence, and is on the Board of Trustees at William Woods University. Mr. Tramont is the author of numerous articles on communications policy and is a frequent speaker and lecturer at academic and industry events. Prior to joining Wilkinson Barker Knauer, Mr. Tramont served as Chief of Staff of the Federal Communications Commission under Chairman Michael Powell. As Chief of Staff, Mr. Tramont managed all aspects of the agency’s operations and directed FCC staff in implementing all components of the agency’s policy portfolio including media, broadband, mobility, and traditional telephone services. Before being elevated to Chief of Staff, Mr. Tramont was Chairman Powell’s Senior Legal Advisor, advising him on strategic policy matters and on wireless, international, technology, satellite, and consumer issues. Mr. Tramont also served as Senior Legal Advisor to Commissioner Kathleen Abernathy and, before that, to Commissioner Harold Furchtgott-Roth. He also served as a law clerk for the Honorable Duane Benton on the Supreme Court for his home state of Missouri. In addition, Mr. Tramont has served as an expert witness in a number of communications-related litigation matters.
Bryan Tramont graduated summa cum laude from The George Washington University with a degree in political science. He earned his law degree from Yale Law School, where he served as editor of the Yale Law & Policy Review.
Senior Fellow and Director of Constitutional Studies, Manhattan Institute
Ilya Shapiro is a senior fellow and director of constitutional studies at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal. Previously he was executive director and senior lecturer at the Georgetown Center for the Constitution, and before that a vice president of the Cato Institute.
Shapiro is the author of Lawless: The Miseducation of America’s Elites (2025) and Supreme Disorder: Judicial Nominations and the Politics of America’s Highest Court (2020), coauthor of Religious Liberties for Corporations? (2014), and editor of 11 volumes of the Cato Supreme Court Review (2008-18). He has contributed to a variety of academic, popular, and professional publications, including the Wall Street Journal, Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, National Review, and Newsweek. He also regularly provides commentary for various media outlets, writes the Shapiro’s Gavel newsletter on Substack, and once appeared on the Colbert Report.
Shapiro has testified many times before Congress and state legislatures and has filed more than 500 amicus curiae “friend of the court” briefs in the Supreme Court. He lectures regularly on behalf of the Federalist Society, is a member of the board of fellows of the Jewish Policy Center, was an inaugural Washington Fellow at the National Review Institute, and has been an adjunct law professor at the George Washington University and University of Mississippi. He is also the chairman of the board of advisers of the Mississippi Justice Institute, a barrister in the Edward Coke Appellate Inn of Court, and a former member of the Virginia Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.
Earlier in his career, Shapiro was a special assistant/adviser to the Multi-National Force in Iraq on rule-of-law issues and practiced at Patton Boggs and Cleary Gottlieb. Before entering private practice, he clerked for Judge E. Grady Jolly of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. He holds an AB from Princeton University, an MSc from the London School of Economics, and a JD from the University of Chicago Law School.
Senior Legal Fellow, the Meese Institute for the Rule of Law, Advancing American Freedom
Paul J. Larkin is a Senior Legal Fellow in the Meese Institute for the Rule of Law at Advancing American Freedom. Paul has held various positions in the federal and state governments throughout his career, such as being an attorney in the Organized Crime and Racketeering Section of the Criminal Division at the U.S. Department of Justice, an Assistant to the Solicitor General in the Office of the Solicitor General at the U.S. Department of Justice, Special Agent-in-Charge and Acting Director of the Criminal Investigation Division at the Environmental Protection Agency, and a member of the Parole Abolition and Sentencing Reform Commission and of the Juvenile Justice Reform Commission in the Office of Virginia Governor George Allen.
He has also worked at Verizon Communications and two law firms in Washington, D.C. His current research is principally in the fields of drug policy, criminal justice policy, and administrative law and policy. He has published numerous articles in law and public policy journals, both in print and online.
Chair, Global Antitrust Law Practice Group, Morrison Foerster
Alex Okuliar is Co-Chair of Morrison Foerster’s Global Antitrust Law Practice Group. He is the former Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Civil Antitrust Enforcement at the U.S. Department of Justice and a former advisor at the Federal Trade Commission.
Alex’s practice spans merger review, civil litigation, and criminal investigations. Over his twenty-five-year career, Alex has worked on nearly one thousand deals. He has deep experience guiding clients through the complex global merger clearance process and has litigated agency merger challenges through trial. He has also helped clients succeed in a wide range of federal and state cases, including class actions and private party disputes alleging price fixing, monopolization, group boycotts, market allocation, and tying. His understanding of the agency processes from the inside allows him to offer expert, timely, and practical advice to clients navigating merger and conduct investigations by the U.S. Department of Justice, the Federal Trade Commission, state Attorneys General, and foreign agencies. Alex’s work has been recognized by leading industry publications such as Chambers, The Legal 500 U.S., and Global Competition Review.
Outside of client work, Alex is a prolific thought leader and was recognized as a 2024 Top Author for Antitrust & Trade Regulation by JD Supra’s Readers’ Choice Awards. He currently serves as the co-chair of the ABA Antitrust Law Section’s Joint Conduct Committee and is the former chair of the Section’s Intellectual Property Committee and co-chair of the 2023 Antitrust Fall Forum on Artificial Intelligence. He is also a member of the Corporations, Securities & Antitrust Executive Committee of The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies.
Before law school, Alex co-founded and sold an online technology company. Alex received his B.S. in economics and B.A. with distinction in history from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and his J.D. from Vanderbilt University Law School.
L. Q. C. Lamar Professor of Law, Emory University School of Law
Thomas C. Arthur holds degrees from Yale Law School and Duke University, where he was an Angier B. Duke Scholar and a member of Phi Beta Kappa. Before coming to Emory, he practiced law for eleven years with the Washington, DC office of Kirkland & Ellis. In 1982, he left his law firm partnership to join the Emory Law faculty.
Arthur teaches antitrust, civil procedure, and administrative law, and he has been active on the executive committee of the Antitrust Section of the Association of American Law Schools. His articles in the California and Tulane law reviews have been credited with the founding of a new, "statutory" school of antitrust analysis. His 1991 Emory Law Journal article (co-authored with Professor Richard D. Freer) provoked a nationally noted debate over an important new statute governing the jurisdiction of federal courts. A major antitrust article, "The Costly Quest for Perfect Competition: Kodak and Nonstructural Market Power," was published in the New York University Law Review (vol. 69, April 1994).
Professor of Law and Co-Director, High Tech Law Institute, Santa Clara University School of Law
Eric Goldman is a Professor of Law, and Co-Director of the High Tech Law Institute, at Santa Clara University School of Law. Before he became a full-time academic in 2002, he practiced Internet law for 8 years in the Silicon Valley. His research and teaching focuses on Internet, IP and advertising law topics, and he blogs on these topics at the Technology & Marketing Law Blog [http://blog.ericgoldman.org]. Managing IP magazine has twice named him to a shortlist of North American “IP Thought Leaders,” and he has been named an “IP Vanguard” by the California State Bar’s IP Section.
Senior Counsel, FCC
For the past four years, Mr. Degani has served as Commissioner Pai's Wireline Legal Advisor. He joined the office from a detail to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce, where he served as counsel under Chairman Fred Upton and Communications and Technology Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden. Before his detail, Mr. Degani served as an Attorney Advisor in the Wireline Competition Bureau's Telecommunications Access Policy Division and Competition Policy Division, as well as the Commission's Office of General Counsel. Mr. Degani entered the Commission through the Attorney Honors Program. Earlier in his career, Mr. Degani clerked for Judge Jeffrey Sutton of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. He graduated cum laude from Harvard Law School and magna cum laude from Yale University, where he studied Electrical Engineering/Computer Science and History.
Partner, HWG LLP
Patricia Paoletta is a partner with the law firm of HWG LLP, where she specializes in telecommunications, trade and technology policy. Ms. Paoletta provides advice on regulatory, trade and legislative policy to clients before the FCC, Congress and the Administration. Her clients include providers of content, cloud, mobile broadband, VoIP, international telecommunications, small cells, cognitive radio, public safety and homeland security solutions. She serves on Advisory Boards for several entities engaged in information services, communications and technology.
Ms. Paoletta has accrued considerable experience with telecommunications trade and policy in the public sector. From 1990 to 1995, she was senior advisor to the International Bureau Chief and Office Director at the Federal Communications Commission. In the mid 1990s, Ms. Paoletta served as Director of Telecommunications Trade Policy in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, Executive Office of the President, where she worked on the WTO Information Technology Agreement (ITA) and the Basic Telecommunications Agreement. After USTR, Ms. Paoletta served as Majority Counsel to the House Energy and Commerce Committee. She then moved to Level 3 Communications, as Vice President, Government Relations.
Ms. Paoletta is on the Steering Committee of the Transatlantic Roundtable on Telecommunications and Information Technology of the European Institute. She is a member of the USTR Alumni Association, Washington International Trade Association, the Federal Communications Bar Association (FCBA), and Women in Technology. Ms. Paoletta has served on the Board of Advisors for the Inter-American Dialogue's Latin America Telecom Advisor, Co-Chairman of the American Bar Association International Communications Committee, and as a member of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Technology Policy Committee.
Ms. Paoletta served as a delegate in 2012 to the ITU-R's Study Group 6 Working Party 6A Meeting and in 2009 and 2010 to the ITU-R's Study Group I Working Party IB Meetings; the 2009 meetings of CITEL (the Committee on International Telecommunications at the Organization of American States) PCC-II; the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) World Telecommunications Standards Assembly (2000); the ITU Internet Protocol Telephony Experts Group and the ITU World Telecommunications Policy Forum in 2001; as Chairman of the National Reliability and Interoperability Council (NRIC) Steering Committee (2000-2001); as Board Member for the Voice on the Net Coalition (2001); as Co-Chairman of the FCBA's Annual Seminar Committee (2009-2011); as a member of the FCBA's Ad Hoc Speakers Committee (2006-2007); as Co-Chairman for the FCBA International Practice Committee (2001-2002 and 2005-2006); and as a Co-Chairman of the FCBA Legislative Practice Committee (1999-2000).
Managing Partner, Wilkinson Barker Knauer LLP
Bryan Tramont, the firm’s managing partner, offers strategic counsel to Fortune 100 companies and trade associations, as well as small and mid-sized telecommunications and media companies, on all aspects of communications law and regulation. He is regularly called on to advise companies as they develop and evaluate new business opportunities in the technology, media, and telecommunications sectors. Mr. Tramont also designs and leads the execution of the firm’s strategic plan and directs client management and development. Mr. Tramont has been recognized by leading publications like Legal 500, Chambers USA, and Washingtonian as one of the nation’s top communications lawyers. In 2017, he was named to the inaugural Legal 500 Hall of Fame List, which highlights individuals who have received constant praise by their clients and who have been recognized by the Legal 500 as an elite leading lawyer for six consecutive years. He has been awarded The Best Lawyers in America © 2017 “Lawyer of the Year” for Media Law and “Lawyer of the Year" in Communications Law in 2016. In 2016, he was also named one of the Top 10 Washington, DC Super Lawyers.
Mr. Tramont serves on the Commerce Spectrum Management Advisory Committee (CSMAC), advising the Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information at NTIA. Appointed under the Bush and Obama Administrations, he also served as the committee’s Co-Chairman from 2008-2010. In addition, Mr. Tramont is active in the Federal Communications Bar Association, where he served in a variety of leadership roles, including as President from 2010-11 and has been awarded the organization’s Distinguished Service Award. Mr. Tramont chairs the Federalist Society’s Telecommunications Practice Group Executive Committee, serves on the International Institute of Communications Canada Board of Directors, and previously served on the Governing Committee of the ABA Forum on Communications Law. Mr. Tramont currently is an adjunct law professor at The Catholic University of America as part of the Communications Law Institute, is a senior adjunct fellow at the University of Colorado, Boulder, has served as the Syracuse University Law School’s Practitioner in Residence, and is on the Board of Trustees at William Woods University. Mr. Tramont is the author of numerous articles on communications policy and is a frequent speaker and lecturer at academic and industry events. Prior to joining Wilkinson Barker Knauer, Mr. Tramont served as Chief of Staff of the Federal Communications Commission under Chairman Michael Powell. As Chief of Staff, Mr. Tramont managed all aspects of the agency’s operations and directed FCC staff in implementing all components of the agency’s policy portfolio including media, broadband, mobility, and traditional telephone services. Before being elevated to Chief of Staff, Mr. Tramont was Chairman Powell’s Senior Legal Advisor, advising him on strategic policy matters and on wireless, international, technology, satellite, and consumer issues. Mr. Tramont also served as Senior Legal Advisor to Commissioner Kathleen Abernathy and, before that, to Commissioner Harold Furchtgott-Roth. He also served as a law clerk for the Honorable Duane Benton on the Supreme Court for his home state of Missouri. In addition, Mr. Tramont has served as an expert witness in a number of communications-related litigation matters.
Bryan Tramont graduated summa cum laude from The George Washington University with a degree in political science. He earned his law degree from Yale Law School, where he served as editor of the Yale Law & Policy Review.
Senior Fellow and Director of Constitutional Studies, Manhattan Institute
Ilya Shapiro is a senior fellow and director of constitutional studies at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal. Previously he was executive director and senior lecturer at the Georgetown Center for the Constitution, and before that a vice president of the Cato Institute.
Shapiro is the author of Lawless: The Miseducation of America’s Elites (2025) and Supreme Disorder: Judicial Nominations and the Politics of America’s Highest Court (2020), coauthor of Religious Liberties for Corporations? (2014), and editor of 11 volumes of the Cato Supreme Court Review (2008-18). He has contributed to a variety of academic, popular, and professional publications, including the Wall Street Journal, Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, National Review, and Newsweek. He also regularly provides commentary for various media outlets, writes the Shapiro’s Gavel newsletter on Substack, and once appeared on the Colbert Report.
Shapiro has testified many times before Congress and state legislatures and has filed more than 500 amicus curiae “friend of the court” briefs in the Supreme Court. He lectures regularly on behalf of the Federalist Society, is a member of the board of fellows of the Jewish Policy Center, was an inaugural Washington Fellow at the National Review Institute, and has been an adjunct law professor at the George Washington University and University of Mississippi. He is also the chairman of the board of advisers of the Mississippi Justice Institute, a barrister in the Edward Coke Appellate Inn of Court, and a former member of the Virginia Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.
Earlier in his career, Shapiro was a special assistant/adviser to the Multi-National Force in Iraq on rule-of-law issues and practiced at Patton Boggs and Cleary Gottlieb. Before entering private practice, he clerked for Judge E. Grady Jolly of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. He holds an AB from Princeton University, an MSc from the London School of Economics, and a JD from the University of Chicago Law School.
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