Practice Leader: L. Andrew Zausner
Dickstein Shapiro’s Public Policy & Law Practice is dedicated to a single objective: providing clients consummate, focused, and cost-effective advocacy in the councils of both federal and state government. Increasingly, this demands a ready combination of substantive and political resources and a close coordination of skills drawn from traditionally separate practice disciplines—not only government representation, regulatory, and administrative counsel, but also litigation when appropriate. Dickstein Shapiro recognizes that changing times require creative solutions. Traditional approaches to such legislative and regulatory challenges often are inadequate to the task. The practice’s advocacy strategies are designed not just to win, but to better position its clients for the future.
To meet this need in the service of an expanding client base, Dickstein Shapiro formed its Public Policy & Law Practice in 1990. Its team of attorneys, lobbyists, and advisors not only has the necessary skills and experience, but also is dedicated to using its capabilities to maximize the probability of success. The team members have a collective background that comes from years of highly varied public service, and among its ranks are two former U.S. Senators, two former members of the House of Representatives—including Speaker J. Dennis Hastert—and others who held senior positions at the White House with Cabinet departments, on Congressional staffs, and in elected state offices. All have been involved directly in the national political process for many years. They also have long experience in Washington practice with a variety of legal and policy concerns. Together, they assemble the range of professional capabilities required for:
Dickstein Shapiro’s Accomplishments
Dickstein Shapiro has engaged in sophisticated lobbying efforts on behalf of energy, tobacco, insurance, water monitoring and bioterrorism detection/prevention device manufacturers, natural resources, health care, financial services, and other corporate clients, as well as national trade and professional associations. The firm’s partners have led coalitions of energy producers and consumers in battles over the restructuring of the electric utility industry, amending the Federal Power Act and the Clean Air Act, and reforming the Public Utility Holding Act. The firm also has served as legislative counsel in numerous hostile takeovers and other contested corporate transactions, as well as in negotiations over major health legislation.
Dickstein Shapiro actively has been involved in Congressional debates affecting the tobacco industry, from legislation involving comprehensive tobacco product regulation to tax, agricultural, trade, and other matters relevant to tobacco manufacturing practices. The firm also has played an active role in public policy debates focused on the implementation of major legal settlements, as well as the creation at the state level of funding assistance for tobacco growers.
For many years, Dickstein Shapiro has been involved in all federal legislation affecting the gaming industry, including all developments of gambling by Native American Indians. The firm has been instrumental in addressing a range of federal tax matters, from obtaining transition rules for an innovative power project to securing legislative relief of critical importance to the mutual fund industry to defeating a proposed levy on certain consumer products worth approximately $2 billion industry-wide. Drawing on its particular experience with Congressional procedures and the appropriations process, the firm has helped guide clients from the inception of the President’s budget to final signature on tax and spending legislation.
Within the past several years, the members of the Public Policy & Law Practice have participated in many highly visible matters including:
Among leading U.S. law firms, Dickstein Shapiro believes none has a practice that offers a more comprehensive ability or better recognized knowledge and experience than the firm to address the needs and interests of private or public sectors—whether before Congress or the state legislatures nationwide, in federal or state government offices, or in commercial or litigation matters that have public policy dimensions.