Speakers
Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar
Supreme Court of California

Justice Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar began serving on the Supreme Court of California in January 2015. He was nominated by Governor Jerry Brown, confirmed unanimously by the Commission on Judicial Appointments, and retained by the voters for a full term in November 2014. His previous career was in public service, university administration, and legal academia, with a focus on administrative, criminal, and international law.

Read more
Thomas C. Goldstein
Goldstein & Russell, P.C.

Thomas C. Goldstein is an appellate advocate, best known as one of the nation’s most experienced Supreme Court practitioners. He has served as counsel to one of the parties in roughly 10 percent of all of the Court’s merits cases for the past 15 years (more than 100 in total), personally arguing 38. Only three lawyers in the Court's modern history have argued more cases in private practice. He has been counsel on more successful petitions for certiorari over the past decade than any other lawyer in private practice. Over the past 15 years, the firm's petitions for certiorari have been granted at a higher rate than any private law firm or legal clinic. He is the co-founder and publisher of SCOTUSblog.

Read more
Conrad K. Harper
Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP (retired)

This year, the Henry J. Friendly Medal will be presented to Conrad K. Harper.

Mr. Harper is a retired partner at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett. He received his bachelor’s degree from Howard University in 1962 before graduating from Harvard Law School in 1965. Mr. Harper spent the first five years of his career as a staff lawyer for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund in New York. He joined Simpson Thacher in 1971, and became its first African American partner in 1974. In 1993, Mr. Harper was appointed Legal Adviser for the U.S. Department of State. From 1993 to 1996 and from 1998 to 2004, he also served as U.S. representative to the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague. In 1996, he returned to Simpson Thacher, and became of counsel to the firm in 2003.

Read more
D. Brock Hornby
U.S. District Court, District of Maine

D. Brock Hornby has been a Judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maine since 1990, and served as Chief Judge from 1996 to 2003. He formerly was a Justice of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court and a U.S. Magistrate for the U.S. District Court for the District of Maine. Before joining the bench, he was a partner at the firm of Perkins, Thompson, Hinckley & Keddy in Portland, Maine, and a professor at the University of Virginia School of Law.

Read more
Linda A. Klein
American Bar Association, Baker Donelson Bearman Caldwell & Berkowitz

Linda A. Klein, senior managing shareholder at Baker Donelson Bearman Caldwell & Berkowitz, is president of the American Bar Association. Her practice, based in Atlanta, includes most types of business dispute resolution, including contract law, employment law and professional liability. She was the first woman to serve as president of the State Bar of Georgia, and she was one of the first women to lead a prominent Georgia law firm.

Read more
Roberta Cooper Ramo
The American Law Institute

ALI President Roberta Cooper Ramo is a shareholder in the law firm of Modrall Sperling, where she concentrates her practice in the areas of mediation, arbitration, business law, real estate, probate, and estate planning.  She has been a member of the Institute since 1991 and was elected to the Council in 1997. She has served as ALI’s President since 2008 and she previously served as First Vice President from 2004 to 2008.

Read more
David W. Rivkin
Immediate Past President, International Bar Association; Debevoise & Plimpton

David W. Rivkin is a partner in the New York and London offices of Debevoise & Plimpton and Co-Chair of the firm’s International Dispute Resolution Group. He practices primarily in the areas of international litigation and arbitration. He is The Immediate Past President of the International Bar Association (IBA), and was the first American to serve as President of the IBA in 25 years.

Read more
Wesley S. Williams, Jr.
Lockhart Companies Inc.

The Rev. Dr. Wesley S. Williams, Jr., has had a lengthy and esteemed legal career as both a practicing attorney and a law professor since completing his J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1967. He has also earned a B.A., magna cum laude, M.A., an LL.M., and a D.Min. degree. He started as an instructor at Columbia University Law School, while commuting for a year and a half to work for the Washington Office of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and as counsel to the then newly-formed District of Columbia City Council.  

Read more
Speaker Schedule 
At A Glance

Monday, May 22
Linda A. Klein

Tuesday, May 23
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Conrad K. Harper (Friendly Medal Recipient)
D. Brock Hornby
David W. Rivkin
Wesley S. Williams, Jr.

Wednesday, May 24
Thomas C. Goldstein


The Early Career Scholars Medals was presented on Wednesday, May 24, by Justice Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar of the Supreme Court of California.