Oles Morrison Reorganizes Federal Practice Group

Under the leadership of Partner Jim Nagle, Oles Morrison Rinker & Baker has reorganized its Federal Practice Group in order to facilitate both its responses to client needs and recent changes that have impacted the kinds of inquiries the Federal Practice Group is seeing.

Nagle is one of the nation’s preeminent federal government procurement lawyers, and is the co-author of Nash, Cibinic & Nagle, Administration of Government Contracts (4th ed., CCH, 2006), long considered the seminal treatise on federal government contracting.  He commented that the reorganization of the Federal Practice Group is being driven by significant changes in the types of issues that are arising during the current economic downtimes.  “While we continue to see bid protests and contract disputes arising in the context of federal procurements,” said Nagle, “there has been an enormous rise in the number of SBA-related, ‘Buy American,’ and disadvantaged business matters we are seeing, and with which we have great experience.”

The reorganization includes the identification within the Group of those Oles Morrison lawyers with experience and knowledge in specific areas of federal practice.  “We noted how broad our experience has become across our Group and wanted to organize ourselves in a way that allows us to best and most efficiently address the needs of our clients,” Nagle said.  Consequently, Nagle is spearheading the effort to ensure that lawyers with like and complimentary federal experience are better organized, so that matters can be directed immediately to lawyers or groups of lawyers best equipped to address them.  “For example, we have a number of members of the Federal Practice Group who are experienced in federal bid protests,” Nagle said, “Our goal is to make sure that we capitalize on our collective experience to maximize our effectiveness on every federal protest that comes in.”

Nagle observed that the reorganization would focus on OMRB’s depth of experience in (among other common matters):

• Pre-bid contracting advice
• SBA certification/decertification and size protests
• Payment issues
• Contract terminations
• Changes, Delay, Differing Site Conditions Claims
• Defective Specifications/Impossibility of Performance
• Surety Bonds and Buy American Act Compliance
• False Claims Act