Speaker Biographies
David E. Bernstein is a professor at the George Mason University School of Law, where he has been teaching since 1995. He is the author of over sixty frequently cited scholarly articles, book chapters, and think-tank studies. Bernstein is also the author of You Can’t Say That! The Growing Threat to Civil Liberties from Antidiscrimination Laws (Cato Institute, 2003) and Only One Place of Redress: African-Americans, Labor Regulations, and the Courts from Reconstruction to the New Deal (Duke 2001), coauthor of The New Wigmore: Expert Evidence (Aspen Law and Business, 2003), and co-editor of Phantom Risk: Scientific Inference and the Law (MIT, 1993). He is a past chairman of the Association of American Law Schools Evidence section, and a current contributor to the popular Volokh Conspiracy blog.
Edward K. Cheng is a professor at Brooklyn Law School, where he studies scientific and expert evidence. His most recent article, forthcoming in the Duke Law Journal, deals with the evidentiary and ethical ramifications of having judges do independent research in cases involving scientific or other specialized information. This research was also featured in Judicature magazine. Professor Cheng is a coauthor of the four-volume treatise Modern Scientific Evidence (West, 2006). Other recent works include “Same Old, Same Old: Scientific Evidence Past and Present” in the Michigan Law Review (2006) and “Does Frye or Daubert Matter? A Study of Scientific Admissibility Standards” in the Virginia Law Review (2005). Professor Cheng clerked for Judge Stephen F. Williams of the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, and he was the Searle Fellow at Northwestern University School of Law. He also serves on the advisory committee of the Section on Evidence of the Association of American Law Schools.
Ted Frank is a resident fellow at AEI and director of the AEI Liability Project. Mr. Frank manages the Institute’s research in products liability, medical malpractice, class actions, civil procedure, corporate regulation, antitrust and patent litigation, lifestyle litigation, and judicial selection. Before joining AEI, Mr. Frank was a litigator from 1995–2005. His litigation experience includes defending the use of punch card ballots in the California gubernatorial recall election against an ACLU constitutional challenge; Vioxx and automobile products liability cases; class action defense; and antitrust and patent cases. He has also argued successfully in front of the Ninth Circuit multiple times, including the first reported victory against the Department of Justice in the forty-year history of the Johnson Act, the statute regulating gambling devices. Mr. Frank has written for law reviews, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and National Review Online, and has appeared on National Public Radio, BBC, C-SPAN, and Fox News. Mr. Frank also clerked for Judge Frank H. Easterbrook on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. He is a regular contributor to the liability reform blogs PointOfLaw.com and Overlawyered.com.
Joe G. Hollingsworth specializes in trials and appeals and leads a practice group of sixty attorneys at Spriggs & Hollingsworth. Over a hundred opinions arising from his cases are published in the federal and state reporters. He has been recognized by the National Law Journal three times for the year’s top-ten defense wins. Mr. Hollingsworth defends cases involving pharmaceutical and medical-device product liability, toxic and environmental torts, and consumer product liability, and he prosecutes and defends complex federal claims involving the government. He has argued in the United States Supreme Court, in most U.S. Circuit courts, before the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation, and in many state supreme courts and intermediate appellate courts. Mr. Hollingsworth frequently lectures, and is consulted by media interests, about litigation strategies in complex litigation. He is a member of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce National Chamber Litigation Center‘s Constitutional and Administrative Law Committee, a group that helps the chamber select appropriate cases for amicus participation in the highest appellate courts in the country. He is also a member of the Product Liability Advisory Council, as well as the Defense Research Institute.
David Michaels is a research professor and acting chairman of the department of environmental and occupational health at the George Washington University School of Public Health. He is also the director of the Project on Scientific Knowledge and Public Policy, which brings together an interdisciplinary group of scientists to examine the use and misuse of science in the courts and the regulatory arena. From 1998 to January 2001, he served as assistant secretary for environment, safety, and health at the Department of Energy, where he was the chief architect of the historic initiative to compensate civilian nuclear-weapons workers who developed cancer or lung disease as a result of exposure to radiation, beryllium, and other hazards. In February 2006, Michaels received the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s Scientific Freedom and Responsibility Award for his work on behalf of nuclear-weapons workers and for his advocacy for scientific integrity. He is the recipient of the American Public Health Association’s David P. Rall Award for Advocacy in Public Health, and the Department of Energy’s Meritorious Service Award.
Deborah Runkle is a senior program associate at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). She is the associate staff officer of the National Conference of Lawyers and Scientists, a joint standing committee of AAAS and the American Bar Association (ABA) Science and Technology Law Section, as well as a member of the leadership group of that ABA Section. She provides staff support for the Committee on Scientific Freedom and Responsibility and is the staff coordinator for the AAAS Scientific Freedom and Responsibility Award. Ms. Runkle has contributed to a number of projects in the areas of science and law and science and society, including working as the project manager of Court Appointed Scientific Experts (CASE), an innovative AAAS project that assists judges by identifying highly qualified and independent scientific and technical experts who will work for the judge, thereby improving judges’ ability to make decisions based on sound science.
View Event Details
