Practice

Nielsen Merksamer attorneys have unsurpassed experience representing organizations and individuals before federal, state, and local ethics agencies. Our expertise includes filing complaints, mounting rigorous defenses to enforcement proceedings, preparing thorough audit responses, requesting agency advice, submitting comments on proposed regulations, and litigating challenges to agency rules and actions.

We also work with clients to evaluate potential violations of political law, and advise on strategies to mitigate the potential consequences and avoid a recurrence going forward.

We have successfully represented clients before the Federal Election Commission, the California Fair Political Practices Commission, and other state and local ethics agencies such as the San Francisco Ethics Commission, the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission, the New York State Joint Commission on Public Ethics, the Massachusetts State Ethics Commission, and the Texas Ethics Commission, among others. Where appropriate, Nielsen Merksamer represents clients in state and local agency matters throughout the United States in cooperation with local counsel.

Our effectiveness as advocates before ethics agencies is enhanced by our firm’s leading role in organizing or participating in annual political law conferences and monitoring developments in political law as they occur. For example:

• Nielsen Merksamer co-chairs the Practising Law Institute’s annual Corporate Political Activities program and participates in leading compliance and legal conferences to establish best practices and between the regulated community and regulators year-round.
• Firm attorneys compile and edit the Council on Governmental Ethics Laws’s annual compendium on campaign finance litigation and participate in its annual conference.
• Every week, the firm closely monitors the regulatory and rule-making proceedings of ethics agencies across the country to keep clients informed of developments and changes through our Essential Ethics blog and via Twitter.