Advisory Board

Member of the Board
Chair, Legal Advisory Board

Lester S. Hyman has acted as an advisor to eight U.S. presidential candidates, and has vetted candidates for Vice-President, U.S. Attorney General, Secretary of the Treasury, Director of the CIA, and the U.S. Supreme Court.

Now a sole practitioner, Mr. Hyman was a founding partner and Senior Counsel at the prominent Washington law firm Swidler Berlin LLP (now part of Bingham McCutcheon LLP). He draws on over 40 years of experience in law, government and politics to create and implement legislative strategies, as well as resolve disputes, for clients that include Fortune 500 corporations, major international companies and foreign nations.

Member, Technology Transfer Advisory Board

Edward H. Ghafari is currently the Director of Enterprise Enabling Solutions at SRA International. He heads a unit that supports the U.S. Department of Defense and U.S. Department of Justice, as well as civil service agencies such as the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA), the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA).

Mr. Ghafari has more than 20 years of experience in engineering, marketing and management. He directed the architecture and first deployment of DSL technology at Bell Atlantic (now Verizon), where he secured several patents. Mr. Ghafari subsequently led DSL product development and marketing at Efficient Networks, where quarterly revenue grew from $1 million to $100 million during his tenure. The company then staged a successful IPO that climaxed with its acquisition by Siemens AG for more than $1 billion.

Member, CADS Legal Advisory Board

Since his receiving his J.D. degree from George Mason University, Edward Pennington has practiced exclusively in the field of intellectual property. He serves as head of the Intellectual Property practice group at the Swidler Berlin law firm. Previous to his work with Swidler Berlin, he was the managing partner of Morgan & Finnegan’s Washington, D.C. office. Mr. Pennington has served as a member of the Board of Directors of the Virginia State Bar, Intellectual Property Section (1997-2000), and is a member of the Bar of the Supreme Court of the United States and bars of the District of Columbia, Virginia, the Eastern and Western Districts of Virginia, the Courts of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, the D.C. Circuit and the Federal Circuit. He is a member of the American Bar Association, the American Intellectual Property Law Association, the Licensing Executives Society, and the Virginia State Bar, Intellectual Property Law Section.

Member, CADS Legal Advisory Board

Chadwick A. Jackson is a member of the District of Columbia and New York bars, and of the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Mr. Jackson has represented clients in a variety of Intellectual Property areas including: preparing and prosecuting patent applications; rendering opinions on the issues of patent infringement and validity; performing due diligence including conducting patentability, product clearance, validity and prior art searches; drafting license agreements including software license agreements and distribution agreements; developing and enforcing patent portfolios; and advising clients in various trademark and copyright matters.

Member, CADS Legal Advisory Board

A Washington, DC-based attorney and lobbyist, Dominic Vorv has been hailed by many in Washington legal and political circles for his fierce advocacy of individual and corporate matters in the, international, national, and local arenas. In addition to serving as Secretary of the Hispanic Bar Association of the District of Columbia (HBA-DC) for five consecutive years, Mr. Vorv sits on the Greater Washington Ibero-American Chamber of Commerce and the Maryland Hispanic Bar Association boards of directors.

Founder of The Vorv Firm, P.L.L.C., Mr. Vorv has been called upon as a trial lawyer to handle complicated litigation, medical malpractice, personal injury, immigration, corporate, and lobbing and counseling matters for major national and international clients. Mr. Vorv has also dedicated a great percentage of his time to working with many local and national political candidates and organizations in the Washington D.C. Metropolitan area.