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Government Relations
Government Relations
Getting Business Strategies and Government Policies to Work Together
In business and government, relationships matter—even more so when the relationships are between the two entities. Savvy business leaders know that successful interaction with government is vital to implementing their organizations’ strategies and realizing their goals.
Manatt’s Government Relations group helps business and government work together. With hands-on political experience and more than 40 professionals located in key business centers and state capitals throughout the United States, our team enjoys access to every level of government.
Manatt does more than open doors. It provides an opportunity to have an impact on the regulatory and legislative landscape in a rapidly changing marketplace. We are actively involved in the issues that are important to our clients, helping to shape the policies, legislation and regulations that affect their interests.
Making Relationships Work for Our Clients
While the actions of federal, state and local decision makers regularly impact businesses, we help our clients understand government-related challenges and manage public policy change by anticipating it, creating it and making it work for them. The lawyers, lobbyists and other professionals in our practice are strategic thinkers who help clients grow and leverage sound positions that advance their public policy goals.
We find unique and often unprecedented solutions by designing advocacy strategies, directing lobbying of elected and appointed officials and orchestrating coalitions of business, labor, not-for-profit entities, community-based organizations and other grassroots groups to support lobbying initiatives.
Our team’s sophisticated political experience and leading-edge legal knowledge allow us to work for our clients in the following ways:
Assess key political risk and opportunity factors.
Engage the interest and support of key federal, state and local officials for clients’ business objectives.
Secure international, federal, state or local funding for clients’ projects.
Protect clients against adverse regulation, legislation or policy actions that could negatively impact their businesses.
Advocate legislative, regulatory or policy actions that can improve the terms on which clients do business.
Advise clients regarding anticipated regulatory, legislative, and other important emerging developments, and help them assess and respond to the business impact of these changes.
Facilitate clients’ pursuit of competitive government contract and financial assistance opportunities, and guide them through the applicable laws and regulations to ensure compliance.
Safeguard clients’ vital interests in key business concerns, such as land use, environmental compliance, tax policy and employer/employee relationships.
Establish and maintain strategic partnerships with key public relations professionals, grassroots coalitions, media consultants and community organizations to manage and promote clients’ objectives and their organizations effectively.
In the Forefront for Our Clients on the Hill
The way we see it, we are on the front line for our clients’ interests. We know government policies, the ever-evolving laws and the political realities—and we effectively use that knowledge to advance our clients’ goals.
Our professionals have represented clients on legislation in every major committee of the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate, successfully working with Republican and Democratic leaders and members in both houses. We have firsthand experience as members of Congress, as senior staff advisors to senators and congressmen, and as counsel to the House and Senate Energy Committees, Senate Government Affairs Committee and other legislative groups on the Hill. Because our professionals have served on both sides of the aisle and have maintained strong relationships in Congress and with key players in the administration, our ability to advance our clients’ interests in Washington is unsurpassed.
Additionally, Manatt has a solid record of success in securing legislation and federal funding on behalf of clients, including millions of dollars on a wide variety of transportation, water and housing projects, as well as other areas of concern to business and regional interests. Whether addressing a competitive imbalance (such as our work to strengthen the antipiracy laws against trade counterfeiters), securing regulatory relief through legislation, or advocating new programs for expanding the transportation and housing infrastructure for our clients, we not only have the ears, but also the respect, of members in both houses and both parties of Congress.
Advocating for Clients at the State and Local Levels
Manatt is one of the few law firms in the country with an extensive state and local government practice dedicated to advocating clients’ positions. Our team includes professionals who have held or currently hold state and local elective or appointive offices in jurisdictions throughout the United States. We use our extensive contacts to stay on top of proposed laws and regulations in municipalities, counties and states, advising clients of those that could have a direct impact on their businesses and helping present testimony as well as other position statements that inform and influence the right centers of authority.
Whether the efforts are legislative, administrative, proactive or remedial, our professionals make sure clients understand how to comply with agency decisions, opinions, rules and regulations, providing the proper focus to help balance federal, state and local obligations. Our depth of services at the state and local levels also includes advising on contracting processes, land use and environmental issues.
Our team often helps clients by participating directly in the legislative process. We regularly work for the passage, modification or defeat of legislation throughout the country, including the legislatures of our home states (California and New York) as well as many other states through our partnerships with local firms. In addition, we maintain a network of contacts in all 50 states. We are also intimately involved in all aspects of the municipal and regional governmental processes in Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, the District of Columbia, Baltimore, Philadelphia, as well as numerous other regional and local governmental bodies.
Manatt considers diversity to be a fundamental component of our institutional identity. As a law firm, we have a professional responsibility, and as individuals, we have a personal responsibility to our respective communities. Incorporating diversity into our culture allows us to enhance the high-quality, creativity and excellence in legal services that our clients have come to expect.
Manatt has invested a significant amount of human and financial resources in our own diversity program. Our philosophy is simple: include women and minority lawyers at all levels of Firm leadership and promote diversity in the legal profession through our support and active involvement in various minority civic and bar organizations.
The mix of our minority and women attorneys has consistently exceeded the national average among the country's top law firms. Our talented mix includes minority and women lawyers serving as heads of offices, members of the firm's Board of Directors and management team, and chairs of some of the firm's most important practice groups.
Inclusive Culture
Our progressive culture allows us to maintain a growing mix of women and minority lawyers, and the results illustrate this commitment. The American Lawyer ranked our Firm 29th (in the top 12%) on its Diversity Scorecard for the largest 250 law firms in the country for 2009. Multi Cultural Law Magazine included our Firm on its 2008 lists of the Top 100 Law Firms for Diversity, Top 25 Law Firms for Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders, and Top 25 Law Firms for Openly Gay/Lesbian Americans.
Despite our progress and diversity success, we can do better. Our challenge extends far beyond exceeding national averages. Our plan cannot succeed if we focus only on recruiting minority and women attorneys. The true challenge and measure for achieving success lies in creating and preserving an inclusive environment where our minority and women lawyers will stay, progress, prosper and succeed. We have implemented a formal diversity program designed to enhance our recruiting and retention of diverse attorneys through an executive mentoring program intended to cultivate personally and professionally meaningful relationships between our diverse lawyers and our partners.
Our commitment to diversity exists in a living document – a plan – that is concrete, easy to understand and publicly available. The plan demonstrates to every law school student, lateral associate candidate, lateral partner candidate, recruiter, existing client, and potential client that we are serious about creating a workplace that mirrors the breadth of the communities where we and our clients live and work.
We focus on the following key areas to accomplish our mission.
Targeted Recruitment Effort
At Manatt, recruiting women and minority attorneys does not end on law school campuses. Our recruiting efforts focus on locating talented women and minority lawyers at all levels. At law schools, we seek out and interview students who share our core values in ways shaped and enhanced by their own experience. Manatt's 2005 Summer Program was the most diverse in the Firm's history. Our nine 2005 Summer Associates included two African-American students, three Hispanic students, one Asian-American student and three Caucasian students. Five of these nine students were women.
Mentoring as a Cornerstone
Minority attorneys who join Manatt as new or lateral hires immediately become the focus of a mentoring program. They are paired with senior attorneys who take an active role in encouraging their career development. Mentors actively work with their protégés, helping them form business plans and involving them in firm-wide marketing and development opportunities. Management holds mentors accountable for their roles and their protégés' progress at the Firm, including reviewing their efforts as part of the evaluation and compensation process.
Access to Opportunity
Success is a matter of talent and opportunity. At Manatt, we believe that the key to retaining talented minority attorneys -- and therefore the key to the success of our diversity efforts -- is providing a distinctive experience that offers clear access to professional accomplishment. We provide women and minority attorneys with important responsibilities and leadership opportunities in client development activities, complex litigation, large transactional matters and high-profile community and civic organizations. We also encourage and support minority and women attorneys who take leadership positions within the firm and outside in the community at large.
Long-Term Commitment
We challenge ourselves to make our young lawyers feel valued, involved and invested in the future of the firm. We know that they will eventually occupy the most important financial, management and executive positions at Manatt. Our professionals thrive in an atmosphere that encourages and supports responsibility, ambition, and entrepreneurship. We offer true opportunity equal to individual commitment to success and advancement. That's the history of opportunity at Manatt, where professionals with talent and drive are rewarded with a nurturing, dynamic and energizing climate.
Promoting Diversity
Promoting diversity in the legal profession requires both an investment of money and time. Our women and minority attorneys are prominently involved and hold leadership positions in some of the most important minority civic and bar organizations in the country including:
Asian Americans of Equality
Asian Pacific American Legal Center
Black Entertainment and Sports Lawyers Association
California Association of Black Lawyers
California Black Chamber of Commerce
California Women's Law Center
Chilean Association of Attorneys
D.C. Commission on Asian & Pacific Islander Affairs
Hispanic National Bar Association
Inner City Law Center
International Human Rights Committee of the Association of the Bar of City of New York
Client Champion awards recognize those attorneys who excel at service as affirmed by their clients. The awards, based on the quantity
and quality of an attorney’s Martindale-Hubbell client reviews, demonstrate an ongoing commitment to delivering excellent client service.
Award recipients stand out from their peers with a platinum, gold or silver icon.
At least three reviews and a score of 4.0 or higher.
At least six reviews and a score of 4.2 or higher.
At least ten reviews and a score of 4.5 or higher.
Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP got this award in 2026
A lawyer who receives a minimum threshold of qualifying responses from fellow attorneys can qualify for one of three prestigious
Martindale-Hubbell Peer Review Ratings:
AV Preeminent®: The highest peer rating standard. This rating signifies a large number of the lawyer’s peers rank him
or her at the highest level of professional excellence for their legal knowledge, communication skills and ethical standards.
Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP got this award in 2026
Distinguished: An excellent rating for a lawyer with some experience. This rating indicates the attorney is widely
respected by their peers for high professional achievement and ethical standards.
Notable: This rating indicates that the lawyer has been recognized by a large number of their peers for strong ethical standards.
Avvo Top Contributor: The Avvo Top Contributor Award is granted to attorneys who have earned significant contribution points in a given year on our sister site, Avvo.com. Contribution points are earned by answering questions in Q&A,
publishing Legal Guides, and other useful contributions to the Avvo community.
Avvo Client’s Choice: The Avvo Client's Choice Award Badge is granted to attorneys with a significant number of 4+ star reviews in a given year.
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