Holly Fechner is a Partner at Covington & Burling LLP and a co-chair of the firm’s technology industry group. She advises clients on complex public policy matters. Nationally ranked by Chambers, Fechner received the 2019 American Lawyer Magazine "Dealmaker of the Year" award. Fechner is Executive Director of Invent Together, a campaign dedicated to understanding the gender, race, income, and other diversity gaps in invention and patenting and supporting public policies to close them. She serves on the board of directors of the American Constitution Society and has taught at the Harvard Kennedy School, the University of Maryland Law School and George Washington University. Prior to Covington, Fechner was Policy Director for Senator Edward M. Kennedy and Chief Labor and Pensions Counsel for the Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions Committee. She graduated from Oberlin College and received her law and women’s studies graduate degrees from the University of Michigan.
Board: Board of Directors
Peter Shane
Peter M. Shane is the Jacob E. Davis and Jacob E. Davis II Chair in Law Emeritus, The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law, and Distinguished Scholar in Residence, NYU Law.
His areas of expertise include Constitutional Law, Administrative Law, Legislation and Regulation, Law and the Presidency,
Peter is also a frequent op-ed writer, contributing essays to numerous outlets including Slate, the Atlantic, the New York Times, the Washington Post, Washington Monthly, Bloomberg BNA, and Huffington Post.
Peter received his A.B. degree from Harvard College and his J.D. from Yale Law School. Professor Shane clerked for the Hon. Alvin B. Rubin of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. He served as an attorney- adviser in the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel and as an assistant general counsel in the Office of Management and Budget, before beginning to teach full-time.
Franita Tolson
Franita Tolson is the Dean and the Carl Mason Franklin Chair in Law at University of Southern California Gould School of Law and an expert in the areas of election law, constitutional law, legal history, and employment discrimination. Tolson is an active member of ACS and has demonstrated a deep commitment to its amplifying its network beyond the national nonprofit’s West Coast affiliates.
Previously, Tolson was the Betty T. Ferguson Professor of Voting Rights at Florida State University College of Law and a Visiting Assistant Professor at Northwestern University School of Law. Tolson’s research has been featured in the nation’s leading law reviews, including The Notre Dame Law Review, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, Boston University Law Review, and Vanderbilt Law Review, and she has served as a contributor and issue expert for various media organizations, including Reuters, Bloomberg Law, The Hill, and HuffPost.
Tolson clerked for both the Honorable Ann Claire Williams of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and Chief Judge Ruben Castillo of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. She earned her B.A. from Truman State University and her J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School.
Alice O’Brien
Alice O’Brien serves as General Counsel to the National Education Association which represents three million educators who serve in our nation's schools and institutions of higher education. She has served in that role since March of 2010. Prior to that, Alice served as the Chief Counsel to the California Teachers Association (from 2008-10) and as an associate and then member of the labor law firm of Bredhoff & Kaiser PLLC.(from 1995 until 2008).
During her tenure at NEA, Alice has expanded the civil rights and student rights legal advocacy of the union including by creating Law Fellowships devoted to that work. Alice is currently leading NEA's legal efforts to ensure that schools and colleges reopen safely in a manner that protects students, staff and the surrounding community. Alice also has overseen the defense of NEA and its affiliates against the array of litigation brought against public sector unions in the wake ofJanus v. AFSCME, as well as challenges to the rollback of public sector collective bargaining rights in Iowa, Missouri and Wisconsin, and challenges to the rollback of payroll deduction dues arrangements in Alabama, Arizona, Michigan and North Carolina. Alice also has expanded NEA’s judicial nominations work.
Alice earned her B.A. from Yale University and her J.D. from the Georgetown University Law Center.
Michele Goodwin
Michele Bratcher Goodwin is a Chancellor’s Professor at the University of California, Irvine and founding director of the Center for Biotechnology and Global Health Policy. She is the recipient of the 2020-21 Distinguished Senior Faculty Award for Research, the highest honor bestowed by the University of California. She is also the first law professor at the University of California, Irvine to receive this award. She is an elected member of the American Law Institute as well as an elected Fellow of the American Bar Foundation and the Hastings Center (the organization central to the founding of bioethics). She is an American Law Institute Adviser for the Restatement Third of Torts: Remedies.
Peter Karanjia
Peter Karanjia is a partner at DLA Piper LLP (in its Washington, D.C., and New York offices) and chairs the firm’s Administrative Law Appellate Practice. In 2017, Karanjia was appointed to the ACS Board of Directors and was elected board chair from 2019 to 2023.
From 2010 to 2013, Karanjia served as Deputy General Counsel of the Federal Communications Commission. In that role, Karanjia supervised all of the agency’s litigation—including defending the FCC’s first net neutrality rules in the D.C. Circuit. Previously, as Special Counsel to the Solicitor General of New York, Karanjia argued several major appeals, including the successful defense of a first-of-its kind statute requiring online retailers to collect state taxes. Karanjia received the New York Attorney General’s Award in 2010.
Karanjia focuses on appellate, regulatory, and complex litigation. He is also active in pro bono and civic work, regulatory representing amici before the U.S. Supreme Court in constitutional cases, such as the litigation challenging the Trump administration’s rescission of the DACA program (on behalf of United We Dream and 50 other organizations); the litigation challenging President Trump’s “Travel Ban” executive orders (on behalf of more than 130 Members of Congress); and the litigation defending fair-share union fees against First Amendment challenge (on behalf of U.S. Senators Sheldon Whitehouse and Richard Blumenthal). Karanjia also has represented media organizations and press associations (including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, The Intercept, BuzzFeed, Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, and The Center for Investigative Reporting) in cases raising novel First Amendment issues in connection with digital media.
Karanjia holds law degrees from Harvard Law School, where he studied as a John F. Kennedy Scholar, and the University of Oxford, from which he graduated with highest honors.