In August, the governing council of the ABA Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice voted to confirm the nomination slate of new officers and council members, and the leadership transition became effective yesterday. I am very excited to chair the Section this year and to welcome the new leadership.

I’d like to thank the outgoing chair, Linda Jellum, for setting the bar so high and leading the Section with excellence. I’d also like to thank our outgoing secretary, Bill Jordan, as well as our council members who just finished their three-year term on the governing council — Anne Marie Bechdolt, Emily Schleicher Bremer, Kathryn E. Kovacs, and Jeffrey Greg Weiss.

I’ve posted below the leadership team for 2020-2021, with the biographies of the new leaders following.

2020-2021 Section Leadership

2020 Officers

Chair – Christopher J. Walker
Chair Elect – Andrew Emery
Vice Chair – Jill Family
Last Retiring Chair – Linda D. Jellum

Secretary – Daniel Cohen
Budget Officer – James P. Gerkis
Section Delegate – Ronald M. Levin
Section Delegate – Richard W. Parker

Ex-Officio

Administrative Judiciary – Hon. David Welch
Judicial Branch – Hon. Ryan Nelson
Executive Branch – Rosario Palmieri
Legislative Branch – Daniel Flores
State Administrative Law – Hon. Julian Mann III

Liaisons

Law Student Division Liaison – Sandra Davis
Young Lawyers Division Liaison – Erik Knapp
ABA Board of Governors Liaison – David Clark
Administrative & Regulatory Law News Editor in Chief – Daniel Walters
Administrative Law Review Editor in Chief – Sara Talebian
Notice and Comment Blog Editor – Elsa Dodds

Council
Term Ending 2021

Daniel Flores
Kristin Hickman
Nikesh Jindal
Gillian Metzger

Term Ending 2022

Reeve T. Bull
Darryl  L. DePriest
Michael A. Fitzpatrick
Christina E. McDonald

Term Ending 2022 (new council members)

Jonathan Cedarbaum
Aaron Nielson
Arti Rai
Amy Wildermuth

Biographies of New Leaders

Chair Elect: Andrew Emery

Andrew Emery is president of The Regulatory Group, Inc. Since 1996, Mr. Emery has worked with numerous federal agencies on regulations and policy documents and supported advisory committees chartered by agencies to address complex policy issues. Mr. Emery is the primary instructor of more than 10 classes on the regulatory process, which draw attendees from almost every federal regulatory agency, as well from state and foreign governments and the private sector.

Mr. Emery is on the Governing Council for the American Bar Association’s Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice, and serves on the section’s Rulemaking and E-Rulemaking committees. He has been involved in the Rulemaking 101 program at the section’s conferences since 2011, has co- chaired the section’s Fall Conference since 2014, served on the section’s Nominating Committee in 2017, and received the Chair’s Award for Outstanding Volunteer Service in 2017. He is Special Counsel to the Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS) and is a member of the ACUS Rulemaking Committee. Mr. Emery is a graduate of Kenyon College and American University’s Washington College of Law.

Vice Chair: Jill Family

Jill Family is Commonwealth Professor of Law and Government and Director of the Law and Government Institute at Widener University Commonwealth Law School. She studies immigration law as a type of administrative law. Her scholarship encompasses study of the U.S. immigration court system, immigration benefits adjudication, immigration agency policymaking, the role of the federal courts in immigration law, and comparative study of immigration procedures in other countries. Currently she is a visiting professor at University of Baltimore School of Law.

Professor Family has testified before the United States Senate on issues at the intersection of immigration law and administrative law. She has served as a member of the governing council of the American Bar Association’s Section on Administrative Law.  She was the chair of the Section on Immigration Law of the Association of American Law Schools. Also, she has served as the chair of the Government Lawyers Section of the Dauphin County Bar Association in Pennsylvania.

Professor Family has presented her research extensively in the United States as well as in England, Scotland, and Spain. She has published 14 articles in US law reviews in addition to publications in British and Spanish law journals. Two of her articles were selected for reprinting in an anthology of immigration law scholarship. She received the Douglas E. Ray Excellence in Faculty Scholarship Award, the National Administrative Law Judiciary Foundation selected Professor Family as its fellow, and she received the Light of Liberty award from the Pennsylvania Immigration Resource Center. She was a visiting scholar at Queen Mary School of Law in London.

After receiving her J.D. with high honors from Rutgers University School of Law-Camden, Professor Family completed clerkships with the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the ThirdCircuit. She also practiced immigration law at Dechert LLP in Philadelphia. Her undergraduate degree in history is from the University of Pennsylvania.

Secretary: Daniel Cohen

Daniel Cohen is the Assistant General Counsel for Legislation, Regulation and Energy Efficiency at the Department of Energy (DOE), managing an office of 18 attorneys. The office is counsel to the DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. The DOE’s energy efficiency and renewable energy programs and activities include support for renewable energy sources such as wind, solar, biomass and water, and energy efficiency activities including appliance standards, vehicle technology, weatherization assistance, building code standards and Federal energy management. Additionally, the office provides legal support and advice on legislative matters throughout the Department. The office participates in the development of DOE views on pending legislation, drafts DOE legislative proposals and supporting documents, and prepares, coordinates, and reviews bill comments to Congressional committees. Finally, the office provides legal counsel and rulemaking support to programs throughout DOE on administrative requirements for developing DOE rules, directives, and other generally applicable policies.

Prior to joining the Energy Department, Mr. Cohen served for thirteen years as an attorney in the General Counsel’s Office at the Department of Commerce. During his tenure at the Commerce Department, Mr. Cohen was appointed the first-ever Chief Counsel for Regulation. In this capacity, he oversaw the Office’s Regulatory Division, which is responsible for legal review of all regulatory actions of the Department. The division is also responsible for developing and implementing the Department’s regulatory policy.

Mr. Cohen has authored several law review articles on the subject of Federal agency rulemaking, including Congressional Review of Agency Regulations (1997). Additionally, he has been invited to speak on rulemaking procedure to a variety of groups in the United Sates, as well as to lawyers and government officials in countries such as Moldova, Morocco and China. He also has served as Chair of the Rulemaking Committee, Budget Officer and as a Council Member of the American Bar Association’s Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice (Section). The Section has honored Mr. Cohen with the Mary C. Lawton Award for Outstanding Government Service. Mr. Cohen is a member of the Administrative Conference of the United States. Finally, Mr. Cohen has been an adjunct professor at the American University, Washington College of Law, in Washington, D.C, where he taught a course in Federal Regulatory Process.

Budget Officer: James P. Gerkis

James P. Gerkis is a Partner resident in the New York office of Proskauer Rose LLP, an International law firm with 13 offices and over 700 lawyers. He is in the Corporate Department with extensive experience in sophisticated U.S. and global corporate transactions, including mergers & acquisitions, capital markets, venture capital, media, real estate and restructuring transactions. He has represented a wide variety of financial institutions, Fortune 500 companies and growth companies. James currently focuses on matters for clients in the technology, media and real estate industries.

Among other clients, James has represented iHeartMedia, Preferred Apartment Communities, Financial Guaranty Insurance Company, Oxford Analytica, Olshan Properties, the Creditors Committee in the chapter 11 cases of Westinghouse Electric Company, Lightstone Group, Neuberger Berman and Suburban Propane Partners.

James received his law degree from Columbia University School of Law in 1983, where he was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar and a Teaching Fellow. He did his undergraduate work at Columbia College, where (having been admitted without finishing high school) he received a BA degree in Political Science in 1980.

James has been a member of the American Bar Association for his entire career. He has participated in the following Section on Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice activities: Co- Chair (Securities, Commodities and Exchanges Committee); Vice-Chair (Homeland Security and National Defense Committee); Past Council Member; Past Liaison Member of the ABA Task Force on Financial Markets Regulatory Reform James has made presentations at numerous industry and bar association conferences and has authored many articles on different legal topics.

James is the President of the Columbia University Club of New York and is active in other Columbia University alumni affairs. In May 2018, James was presented with the Columbia University Alumni Medal for Distinguished Service. James also is on the Board of Directors of HABA-Hellenic American Association for Professionals in Finance. In 2017, James received the Attorney of the Year Award from The Hellenic Lawyers Association.

Council Member: Jonathan Cedarbaum

Jonathan G. Cedarbaum is a partner at WilmerHale in Washington, D.C., based in its Government and Regulatory Litigation Group. He graduated from Yale Law School in 1996, where he was the editor-in-chief of the Yale Law Journal. He clerked for David Tatel on the D.C. Circuit and David Souter on the U.S. Supreme Court. He served in the Justice Department’s Office of LegalCounsel during the Clinton, Bush 43, and Obama Administrations, in the first two as an attorney-advisor and in the last as a Deputy Assistant, Principal Deputy Assistant, and Acting Assistant Attorney General. He has been a member of the Section since 1998.

Council Member: Aaron Nielson

Aaron Nielson is a professor at Brigham Young University Law School where he focuses on administrative law, civil procedure, and federal courts. He serves as a public member of the Administrative Conference of the United States and co- chairs the Rulemaking Committee of the American Bar Association’s Section of Administrative Law & Regulatory Practice. Previously he chaired the Section’s Antitrust & Trade Regulation Committee. Before joining the academy, Professor Nielson was a partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Kirkland & Ellis LLP, where he remains of counsel. He also has served as a law clerk on the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Professor Nielson received a J.D. from Harvard Law School, an LL.M from the University of Cambridge, and a BA from the University of Pennsylvania.

Council Member Arti Rai

Arti Rai, Elvin R. Latty Professor of Law and co-Director, The Center for Innovation Policy at Duke Law, is an internationally recognized expert in intellectual property (IP) law, innovation policy, administrative law, and health law. Rai’s research on innovation law and policy in biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, and software has been funded by NIH, the Kauffman Foundation, and the Woodrow Wilson Center. She is the editor of Intellectual Property Law and Biotechnology: Critical Concepts (Edward Elgar, 2011) and the co-author of a 2012 Kauffman Foundation monograph on cost-effective health care innovation.

Rai has served as the chief policy advisor to the Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office; a member of the National Advisory Council for Human Genome Research; and as a public member of the Administrative Conference of the United States. Rai has also served on, or as a reviewer for, numerous National Academies of Science committees. In 2013, she was elected to the American Law Institute. She won the World Technology Network Award for Law in 2011.

Rai graduated from Harvard College with a degree in biochemistry and history (history and science), attended Harvard Medical School, and received her J.D. from Harvard Law School.

Council Member Amy Wildermuth

Amy J. Wildermuth is the dean of the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. Before moving to Pittsburgh, Dean Wildermuth spent sixteen years at the University of Utah, where she served as the Associate Vice President for Faculty, the first-ever Chief Sustainability Officer, and a Professor of Law.

Dean Wildermuth teaches and writes on civil procedure, administrative law, environmental law, and U.S. Supreme Court practice. Her work has been published in a variety of outlets, including the Northwestern Law Review, the Emory Law Journal, and the Minnesota Law Review. Professor Wildermuth clerked for Justice John Paul Stevens of the U.S Supreme Court during the October Term 2002. She has also represented several parties as amicus curiae in cases before the U.S. Supreme Court.

A native of the Chicago south suburbs, Professor Wildermuth spends her free time with her family and trying not to injure herself while snowboarding and mountain biking.