Counsel for companies that sell to the federal government on procurement compliance, bid protests, and contract disputes, handled with the discipline a regulated buyer demands and the strategy to keep an award worth having.
A disappointed bidder has 10 days from learning the basis of its complaint to protest at the Government Accountability Office, and the automatic stay of performance requires filing within 10 days of award or 5 days of a required debriefing, whichever is later. The debriefing is therefore the most important meeting in the procurement, and the one companies most often attend without anyone who can read an evaluation.
Performance runs on the same discipline. The Changes clause gives a contractor 30 days from a written change order to assert its right to an adjustment, and a claim above $100,000 must be certified before the contracting officer is obliged to decide it. The mandatory-disclosure clause requires a contractor to report credible evidence of certain violations and of significant overpayments on its own initiative; a knowing failure is itself a ground for debarment.
We read the solicitation before the proposal is written, keep the file during performance, and advise clients in matters before the contracting agencies and the Government Accountability Office, with co-counsel brought in where a matter requires a particular bar. Size eligibility is checked at formation and at every change in ownership, because a size protest arrives five business days after the award notice.
Counsel on compliance with the Federal Acquisition Regulation and agency supplements such as the DFARS: flow-down clauses, certifications, cost-charging, and the cybersecurity and supply-chain requirements that attach to performance.
Protests of agency procurement decisions, and defense of awards a company has won, at the agency, the Government Accountability Office, and the Court of Federal Claims, where short deadlines decide if a challenge is heard at all.
Review of solicitations and proposals before submission, reading the terms, clauses, and representations the way the evaluators and the auditors will, so a winning bid is also a performable and compliant one.
Eligibility for small-business and socioeconomic set-aside programs, with size, affiliation, joint-venture, teaming, and mentor-protege analysis, and coordination with the Small Business Administration's program offices where required.
Contract claims, requests for equitable adjustment, change-order disputes, and termination matters under the Contract Disputes Act, documenting impact and pursuing the remedies the contract and the regulations provide.
Response to audits, investigations, and false-claims exposure, and defense against suspension and debarment that would exclude a company from federal contracting, with co-counsel brought in where conduct is alleged.
A clause the FAR makes mandatory is read into the contract by operation of law even when the contracting officer left it out, so the signed document is not the whole contract. Since 2025 the FAR itself is being rewritten part by part, so the clause numbers in a current solicitation may not match the last award.
A protest of a solicitation's terms is due before proposals are, at the GAO and in practice at the Court of Federal Claims too, since both treat a defect noticed and not raised as waived. The GAO decides within 100 days, and an agency can override the stay only with written findings of urgent and compelling circumstances or best interests.
Since November 2025, Defense solicitations have begun to require a CMMC assessment level as a condition of award, phased in over three years, and the self-assessment score a contractor posts to the Supplier Performance Risk System is a certification the False Claims Act can reach. The Justice Department has pursued contractors whose scores did not match their networks.
On a services set-aside the small prime must itself perform at least 50 percent of what the government pays, and 85 percent on general construction, with similarly situated subcontractors counting toward it. Affiliation turns on control rather than ownership: a minority investor with a veto over ordinary business decisions can bring its own size into the company's count.
Suspension can be imposed on an indictment or adequate evidence alone, with no hearing in advance; debarment generally runs up to three years and can reach affiliates. A contractor has 30 days to answer a notice of proposed debarment, and the standard is present responsibility, meaning what the company has fixed since, not innocence.
A termination for convenience pays the contractor its allowable costs to date, a reasonable profit on the work performed and the cost of settling, but never the profit expected on the unperformed balance, and the settlement proposal is due within one year. A default termination found improper is converted to one for convenience, which is why the delay file matters.
Before a proposal is written, we read the RFP the way the source-selection board and the auditors will. We map the FAR and DFARS clauses that flow into the award, the representations and certifications the bid commits you to, and any set-aside eligibility question that must be settled before you compete.
The award decision opens a clock measured in days. If you won, you may have to defend the award; if you lost, you may be able to protest it. Either way, we assess the debriefing and the evaluation record immediately and pick the forum among the agency, GAO, and the Court of Federal Claims where the timing rules still let the challenge be heard.
During performance, every directed change, constructive change, and government-caused delay is documented as it happens, because a request for equitable adjustment or a Contract Disputes Act claim is won or lost on the contemporaneous file.
When an audit, an investigation, or a show-cause notice arrives, we respond with one coordinated position across the contracting officer, the agency suspension and debarment official, and, where conduct is alleged, the Department of Justice, so one misstep does not become exclusion from the federal market.
In the federal market, the file you kept is the case you have.
A government contracts practice helps companies compete for, perform, and defend contracts with the federal government and its agencies. The work spans bid and proposal questions, compliance with the Federal Acquisition Regulation and agency supplements such as the DFARS, bid protests, contract claims and disputes, small-business and set-aside eligibility, and responses to audits and investigations. Selling to the government is governed by a body of rules distinct from commercial contracting, and the cost of getting them wrong can include lost awards, withheld payment, or exclusion from future work.
A bid protest challenges how the agency ran the procurement rather than who deserved to win: an evaluation that departed from the stated criteria, unequal treatment of offerors, or an award to a proposal that did not meet the solicitation. The forum decides the timetable. An agency-level protest is the cheapest and fastest; the GAO offers the automatic stay of performance if the deadlines are met and decides within 100 days; the Court of Federal Claims has no 10-day rule but no stay by right. Ask the debriefing questions in writing, because at the Defense Department the enhanced-debriefing rules hold the protest clock open until the agency answers them.
The Federal Acquisition Regulation, or FAR, is the uniform rulebook for how federal agencies buy goods and services; the DFARS is the Department of Defense supplement that adds defense-specific requirements, including cybersecurity and supply-chain rules. Together they govern what clauses are in a contract, how costs are charged, how changes are handled, and what a contractor must certify. Compliance has to be part of performance from the start, because a clause a contractor overlooked can become the basis of a claim, a payment dispute, or an investigation.
Yes. We advise companies on eligibility for small-business and socioeconomic set-aside programs administered by the Small Business Administration, including size and affiliation questions, joint ventures and teaming, and the mentor-protege relationships used to compete for set-aside work. Eligibility is a structural question decided long before an award, so the analysis belongs at formation and at every change in ownership, control, or revenue.
The first question is whether the mandatory-disclosure clause now requires a report to the agency inspector general and the contracting officer; credible evidence of certain violations or a significant overpayment triggers it, and a knowing failure is itself a debarment ground. The second is whether counsel runs the internal investigation, so that its findings stay privileged while the facts are still moving. The third is how to address two audiences at once: the suspension and debarment official, who asks about present responsibility and what has been fixed, and the Justice Department, which asks about liability. We advise clients in matters before the contracting agencies and the Government Accountability Office, and we bring in additional counsel where a matter calls for it.
Yes. Federal contracts include clauses that let the government direct changes and, in defined circumstances, terminate for convenience or for default. Those rights are real, but they are bounded. A change can entitle the contractor to an equitable adjustment, and an improper default termination can be converted or challenged. We help contractors document the impact of changes and pursue the claims and remedies the contract and the regulations provide.
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Explore →Reviewed by Jonathan D. Herpy, Sr., Senior Partner · Last updated October 2026 · Educational overview · Not legal advice
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