Homeland Security

Protecting Those Who Protect Us

September 11, 2001 changed our country and the way it does business. Since then, every level and branch of our government, our industries, and our major institutions, have redoubled their efforts to keep us safe. The result has been a staggering number of new laws, regulations, and programs that continue to evolve and that pose challenges for our clients.

We protect our clients by helping them navigate through the constantly changing legal and regulatory enactments that affect their businesses in the areas of:

• Corporate security
• Employment practices
• Immigration
• Information security
• International trade
• Legal compliance
• Supply chain integrity

Maximize Opportunity

The  challenges created in the wake of September 11, 2001 are also accompanied by unprecedented opportunities for public and private funding of Homeland Security solutions. Mintz Levin's Homeland Security Practice helps our clients overcome the challenges and capitalize on the opportunities they encounter by providing current multidisciplinary expertise in the Homeland Security arena.

We work with a variety of clients, including Fortune 100, mid-sized, and start-up companies, as well as trade groups, associations, and non-profits. We have extensive experience counseling clients on security-related laws and initiatives, including the following:

• USA PATRIOT Act
• Terrorism Risk Insurance Act
• SAFETY Act
• Exon-Florio Amendment to the Defense Production Act
• Immigration laws and alien registration requirements
• Foreign Corrupt Practices Act
• Trading With The Enemy Act
• Foreign Agents Registration Act
• Office of Foreign Assets Control
• International Emergency Economic Powers Act
• Bank Secrecy Act

Additionally, we have experience with Currency and Monetary Instruments Reporting, export controls, antiterrorism controls, and a host of other related laws.

Partnering Across Your Business Life Cycle

As a result of our extensive experience working on Homeland Security issues with high technology companies, Mintz Levin provides clients with soup-to-nuts expertise and continuity throughout their business life cycle.

From understanding the marketplace while you’re in start-up mode to protecting your most important asset—your Intellectual Property (IP) and patent portfolios—our attorneys begin as knowledgeable advisors and remain as valued partners who are deeply invested in ensuring your success.

We help you negotiate government cooperative research and development agreements (CRDAs) and protect you from giving up valuable IP and patent rights when negotiating with the U.S. government.  We also identify sources of venture capital and private equity funding to help you obtain the financing you need to take your ideas from the drawing board to your customers. As you continue to expand, we assist you with corporate structuring, financing, employment and immigration issues. We’ll also protect and defend your interests through litigation, if necessary. 

Our  experience and familiarity with your industry makes us uniquely qualified to provide advice to our clients on government procurement, public policy and regulatory affairs, international trade, intellectual property protection, product liability/risk mitigation, and human resources issues arising in the Homeland Security arena.

Government Relations and Communication Expertise

Mintz Levin’s attorneys often work in conjunction with ML Strategies, LLC, a government relations consulting firm and affiliate of Mintz Levin, that focuses on federal and state legislative affairs in a number of industries including Homeland Security. From its offices in Boston and Washington, DC, MLS helps clients manage complex government relations, business and communications issues, offering professional services staffed by senior-level team members who develop and implement strategies to ensure clients’ long-term business success.

Our attorneys and the professionals associated with ML Strategies are highly skilled in:

• Complex regulatory matters
• Congress liaison on legislative, lobbying, and investigative issues
• Defending against governmental enforcement actions
• Ensuring compliance with export laws
• Government procurement
• Internal investigations
• Navigating agency bureaucracy
• Preparing and implementing company-specific compliance programs
• Protecting valuable intellectual property
• Structuring transactions

ML Strategies guides our clients to effectively influence decision-makers, opinion leaders, and elected officials from Beacon Hill to Capitol Hill. Their robust Governmental Relations practice brings together the experience and perspectives of several former government officials, including a former CEO of Massport—an independent public authority which develops, promotes and manages airports, the seaport, and transportation infrastructure in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts; a former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission; and a former chief counsel to the Senate Majority Leader and Speaker of the House.

Representative Successes

• Secured $6 million in federal funding for a demonstration project at the Port of Charleston in South Carolina that will show the effectiveness of a client technology that helps inspect incoming sea cargo containers without hindering the flow of commerce.
• Achieved legislative language that allowed the government to procure systems utilizing our client’s patented technology for passenger inspection at the nation’s airports. Previously, we successfully demonstrated the superior threat-detection capabilities of the client’s technology to Congress through a pilot project conducted by the Transportation Security Administration.
• Successfully litigated numerous trade secret and patent claims to protect our clients’ intellectual property in emerging homeland security and threat-detection technology. 
• Prepared our clients to serve as witnesses at Congressional hearings on homeland security issues.
• Working with Mintz Levin’s established Congressional contacts, we encouraged the Department of Defense to procure our client's imaging technology for threat detection—particularly in relation to Improvised Explosive Devices in Iraq and Afghanistan.
• Helped client obtain multi-million dollar research grants and follow-on government contracts for the next-generation explosive detection machines for screening airport baggage; assisted numerous defense contractors and individual employees in retaining government security clearances.
• Located and negotiated millions of dollars in venture capital funding for clients whose goal is to establish businesses in the Homeland Security arena.