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Meet the Speakers Meet the Speakers Meet the SpeakersSpeakers:::: Johnathan Turley J.B. and Mauric C. Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law; Director of the Environmental Law Advocacy Center; Executive Director, Project for Older Prisoners Jonathan Turley is a nationally recognized legal scholar who has written extensively in areas ranging from constitutional law to legal theory to tort law. After a stint at Tulane Law School, Professor Turley joined the GW Law faculty in 1990, and in 1998, became the youngest chaired professor in the school’s history. He is the founder and executive director of the Project for Older Prisoners (POPS). He has written more than three dozen academic articles that have appeared in a variety of leading law journals including those of Cornell, Duke, Georgetown, Harvard, and Northwestern Universities, among others. He most recently completed a three-part study of the historical and constitutional evolution of the military system. Professor Turley has served as counsel in some of the most notable cases in the last two decades, including his representation of the Area 51 workers at a secret air base in Nevada; the nuclear couriers at Oak Ridge, Tennessee; the Rocky Flats grand jury in Colorado; Dr. Eric Foretich, the husband in the Elizabeth Morgan custody controversy; and four former U.S. Attorney Generals during the Clinton impeachment litigation. Professor Turley also has served as counsel in a variety of national security and terrorism cases, and has been ranked as one of the top 10 lawyers handling military cases. He has served as a consultant on homeland security and constitutional issues, and is a frequent witness before the House and Senate on constitutional and statutory issues as well as tort reform legislation. He also is a nationally recognized legal commentator; he ranked 38th in the top 100 most cited ‘public intellectuals’ in a recent study by Judge Richard Posner and was found to be the second most cited law professor in the country. He is a member of the USA Today board of contributors and the recipient of the “2005 Single Issue Advocate of the Year” – the annual opinion award for the Aspen Institute and The Week magazine. More than 400 of his articles on legal and policy issues regularly appear in national newspapers. He also has worked as the CBS and NBC legal analyst, respectively, during national controversies. Eric L. Lewis Partner Eric Lewis practices in the areas of international insolvency, cross border disputes, and serious fraud cases. Currently, Mr. Lewis serves as Global Legal Coordinator for the Algosaibi family of Saudi Arabia, the victims of the largest fraud in the history of the Middle East, as well as counsel to the Liquidators of Carlyle Capital Corporation, the Liquidators of Madoff International Securities Limited, the Trinidad and Tobago Unit Trust Company, and a number of hedge funds and family-owned Middle East conglomerates. Mr. Lewis also represents Guantanamo and Afghan detainees in litigation seeking redress and accountability for torture and religious abuse while in U.S. custody. He has served as principal U.S. counsel to the liquidators of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) in multi-jurisdictional criminal and civil litigation. Mr. Lewis led the trial team that obtained a $1 billion fraud and racketeering judgment against a BCCI front man and enforced the judgment through the courts of Saudi Arabia, the first non-Arab League judgment ever enforced in that country. Mr. Lewis has particular expertise assisting European, Middle Eastern, and Latin American clients dealing with the complexities of U.S. civil and criminal proceedings. Previously, he has represented a large U.K. pension fund with respect to losses suffered in the collapse of WorldCom, a leading hedge fund in a Foreign Corrupt Practices Act investigation, and the Executive Director of the United Nations Oil-for-Food Programme in connection with United Nations and U.S. investigations. An expert in offshore asset tracing and trusts, he serves as a Director of the Jersey International Business School in the Channel Islands. Mr. Lewis was selected by Washington DC Super Lawyers (2007-2012) and by Super Lawyers Corporate Counsel Edition (2009) as one of "The Top Attorneys" in Business Litigation in the Washington, D.C., area. He is also featured in Who’s Who as an expert in international insolvency. Renée Lettow Lerner Associate Professor of Law, The George Washington University Professor Lerner works in the fields of U.S. and English legal history, civil and criminal procedure, and comparative law. She focuses particularly on the history of U.S. procedure and legal institutions, and how they have diverged from those of England, and on the differences between current adversarial and nonadversarial legal systems. She regularly speaks to groups of U.S. and non-U.S. judges about comparative procedure and institutions. She is the author, with John Langbein and Bruce Smith, of the book History of the Common Law: The Development of Anglo-American Legal Institutions (2009). Professor Lerner received an A.B. summa cum laude in history from Princeton University. She did graduate work as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University in English legal history. At Yale Law School, she was Articles Editor of the Yale Law Journal. She served as a law clerk to Justice Anthony M. Kennedy and to Judge Stephen F. Williams of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. From 2003 to 2005, she served as Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Counsel at the U.S. Department of Justice . Shireen T. Hunter Visiting Professor, Georgetown University Shireen T. Hunter is a visiting scholar at the Center for Christian- Muslim Understanding where she directs a project on Reformist Islam funded by the Carnegie Corporation Of New York. She is also a Non- Resident Distinguished Scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies where she directed the Islam Program from 1998 to 2005. She is the author of seven books and three monographs and the editor and contributor of seven books and three monographs. She has contributed to more than 35 edited volumes and written forty journal articles. Her latest publications include, Reformist Voices of Islam: Mediating Islam and Modernity (M.E. Sharpe, forthcoming in June 2008); Islam And Human Rights: Advancing A US--Muslim Dialogue (edt) (CSIS Press, 2005); Modernization, Democracy And Islam (co edt & contributor) (Praeger, 2004); Islam In Russia: The Politics of Identity And Security (M.E .Sharpe, 2004); Islam: Europe's Second Religion (edt) (Prager,2002). James D. Filpi Senior Counsel, Commercial Law Development Program James D. Filpi is a Senior Counsel with the Commercial Law Development Program (CLDP) in the Office of the General Counsel of the United States Department of Commerce. CLDP provides consultative services to assist political, regulatory, judicial and commercial leaders to augment their policies, laws and organizational structures in order to improve the legal environment for doing business around the globe. Mr. Filpi primarily advises governments in North Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia. Prior to joining CLDP, Mr. Filpi practiced law with the International Competition Group of the Washington, DC office of the law firm Goodwin Procter, LLP, where he advised foreign and domestic clients regarding commercial transactions, including mergers and acquisitions, federal administrative procedures, corporate restructurings, banking, and consumer protection. Prior to his legal career, Mr. Filpi managed research and development programs for the Washington, DC- based strategic research firm the Advisory Board Company and tracked commerce and trade legislation for a member of the United States Congress. Mr. Filpi received his Juris Doctorate from Georgetown University Law Center, where he served as a student representative in the Center for Applied Legal Studies, representing refugees from Western Africa. Mr. Filpi was a staff member of the Georgetown International Environmental Law Review and spent a portion of his legal study focusing on transnational law at the University of Hong Kong. Mr. Filpi also holds a Bachelor’s of Arts in Psychology from the University of Virginia. Mr. Filpi is a member of the American Bar Association Section of International Law and is a Vice Chair of the Middle East Committee. Mr. Filpi is also a member of the Maryland Bar Association Section of Business Law and the District of Columbia Bar Association Section of International Law. Mr. Filpi is admitted to practice law in Maryland and the District of Columbia. Mr. Filpi formerly served as member of the Board of the LD Access Foundation, a not-for-profit organization that promotes rights for the learning disabled and is the founder of the St. Anselm's Abbey School Alumni Association Charity Golf Tournament in Washington, DC. Robert Eisen Department Chair, Department of Religion, Professor Robert Eisen is Professor of Religion and Judaic Studies at George Washington University in Washington D.C. He received his B.A. at Yale University in 1983, and his Ph.D. in Jewish thought at Brandeis University in 1990. His areas of interest include medieval and modern Jewish philosophy, biblical interpretation, religious ethics, and comparative religion. He is author of three books, Gersonides on Providence, Covenant, and the Chosen People (State University of New York Press, 1995); The Book of Job in Medieval Jewish Philosophy (Oxford University Press, 2004); and The Peace and Violence of Judaism: From the Bible to Modern Zionism (Oxford University Press, 2011). He has also co-edited two volumes: Philosophers and the Jewish Bible (University of Maryland Press, 2008) with Charles Manekin, and Just Peacemaking in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (Pilgrim Press, forthcoming) with Glen Stassen and Susan Thistlethwaite. Professor Eisen has also received a number of grants and awards to support his research, including a Fulbright research grant at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem in 1999-2000.
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