Federal Judges Panel

Judge Thomas Griffith

Judge Thomas Griffith is a federal judge on U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Prior to his nomination by President Bush in 2004, Judge Griffith served as Assistant to the President and General Counsel of Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, and General Counsel to the Advisory Commission on Electronic Commerce, which was created by Congress to study the implications of the growth of electronic commerce on tax policies for states and the Nation. Following graduation from law school, Judge Griffith became an associate with the law firm of Robinson, Bradshaw, and Hinson in Charlotte, North Carolina. In 1989, he joined the Washington, D. C. law firm of Wiley, Rein, and Fielding as an associate. He was elected to the partnership of that firm in 1993. Mr. Griffith's practice involved commercial, corporate, employment, and First Amendment litigation, government investigations, and a significant pro bono representation of a death row inmate that led to a commutation of his sentence by the Governor of Virginia. In 1995, the U.S. Senate, by a unanimous resolution sponsored by the Republican and Democratic Leaders, appointed Judge Griffith to the non-partisan position of Senate Legal Counsel of the U.S., an office he held until 1999. As the chief legal officer of the U.S. Senate, Judge Griffith represented the Senate, its committees, Members, officers, and employees in litigation relating to their constitutional powers and privileges and advised committees about their investigatory powers and procedures. Judge Griffith represented the institutional interests of the Senate in the impeachment trial of President Clinton, the Line Item Veto Act litigation, which resulted in two landmark decisions by the Supreme Court of the U.S., and in numerous committee investigations. Following his service as Senate Legal Counsel, Judge Griffith returned to Wiley, Rein, and Fielding in 1999 where he was a partner in that firm's litigation and government affairs practices. He graduated Summa Cum Laude from Brigham Young University and with High Honors with Distinction from its Honors Program. He earned his J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law, where he was a member of the editorial and articles review boards of the Virginia Law Review. Judge Griffith and his wife are natives of McLean, Virginia and were educated in the public schools of Fairfax County, Virginia.

Judge Richard A. Paez

Richard Paez is a federal judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Paez was confirmed by Senate on March 9, 2000 by a 59-39 vote, more than four years after President Bill Clinton first nominated him to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Paez waited 1,506 days to be confirmed, which at that time was the longest wait for a vote by any judicial nominee in U.S. history.

Judge Milan Smith Jr.

Milan Dale Smith, Jr. a federal judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. He was nominated by President George W. Bush on February 14, 2006. He was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on May 16, 2006. Before becoming a judge, he was the managing partner at the law firm of Smith, Crane, Robinson, and Parker, which he co-founded in 1972. In his private practice, Judge Smith was well recognized for his expertise in real estate law. He represented major corporations, such as Honeywell International and Toyota Motor sales USA, Inc., and a wide range of public clients, such as the Palos Verdes Unified School District, the Los Angeles State Business Authority, and non-profit organizations such as Marymount College. Judge Smith also has extensive experience in the areas of tax law, corporate law and environmental law. He graduated from Brigham Young University in 1966, where he received his degree cum laude. In 1969, Judge Smith received his Juris Doctor degree from the University of Chicago Law School.

John Taylor

John B. Taylor is the Mary and Robert Raymond Professor of Economics at Stanford University and the Bowen H. and Janice Arthur McCoy Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. He formerly served as the director of the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, where he is now a senior fellow, and he was founding director of Stanford's Introductory Economics Center.

Taylor's academic fields of expertise are macroeconomics, monetary economics, and international economics. He is known for his research on the foundations of modern monetary theory and policy, which has been applied by central banks and financial market analysts around the world. He has an active interest in public policy.