100 Is the New 30: Recommendations for the FTC's Next 100 Years

Abstract

Looking back on my twenty-plus-year career as a lawyer, I can see that several institutions have greatly influenced my path, from my field of practice (antitrust and consumer protection law), to where I practice (primarily government service), to how I approach my responsibilities as a government official. George Mason University School of Law (“GMUSL”) is where I learned about antitrust, as well as the proper goals of economic regulation, such as the rules that protect consumers from fraud and deception. At the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, as a staff attorney and then a law clerk to a judge, I learned about how a collegial deliberative body should operate. Finally, at the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”), I put that learning into practice, starting as an attorney in the Office of General Counsel, serving as an attorney advisor to a commissioner, heading the Office of Policy Planning, and now as a commissioner myself. Thus, as the FTC marks its centennial this year, I was very honored to participate in the George Mason Law Review and the Law & Economics Center at GMUSL symposium on “The FTC: 100 Years of Antitrust and Competition Policy” (“Symposium”).