Michael Edney

Overview

Mike’s practice focuses on challenging government regulations before they are enforced and defending clients in criminal and regulatory investigations. When companies encounter allegations of wrongdoing, Mike has conducted many internal investigations on their behalf, while carefully avoiding disruption of the client’s important business operations. He has worked extensively with the Audit Committees and senior management of public companies to determine how to comprehensively resolve suggestions of misconduct. And he has defended multiple executives against criminal cases brought by the United States Department of Justice and against civil suits and administrative proceedings brought by multiple federal agencies.

Mike’s civil practice focuses on challenging regulations and government decisions before the government has a chance to enforce them. Cases he handled under the Administrative Procedure Act have reversed rules, regulations, and orders by the Food and Drug Administration, the United States Department of the Treasury, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, among other agencies. Absent the courts’ intervention, many of these regulations threatened massive upheaval in multiple industries and businesses.

His civil litigation practice spans beyond anti-regulatory suits. He has defended corporations in bet-the-company litigation concerning securities, environmental, employment and fair housing. He has represented states at the request of their governors. He has served as lead counsel for three former Attorneys General of the United States before the Supreme Court.

During the administration of President George W. Bush, he served as deputy legal advisor to the National Security Council at the White House and in the Office of Legal Counsel at the United States Department of Justice.

Mike graduated with high honors from The University of Chicago Law School, where he was Articles Editor of The University of Chicago Law Review. Immediately after law school, Mike served as a law clerk to the Honorable Danny J. Boggs on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.

Experience

Secured a unanimous decision in the DC Circuit vacating an industry-wide, government-mandated health warnings regulation on First Amendment and Administrative Procedure Act grounds.
Obtained vacatur of a Food and Drug Administration comprehensive and industry-threatening regulation of premium cigars.
Brought challenges resulting in the reversal of numerous federal, state, and local statutes and regulations seeking to compel commercial speech, to restrict the ability to advertise, or otherwise to encroach on First Amendment rights.
Obtained reversal of several Treasury and Commerce Department sanctions and designations of companies and individuals.
Defended an executive in a federal criminal case where the jury refused to convict on any of dozens of counts asserted by the government at trial.
Represented clients before the Department of Justice, the Department of the Treasury, the Department of State, the Department of Commerce, the Department of Defense, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the National Security Agency, the Food and Drug Administration, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Federal Reserve Board, congressional committees, and other government entities.
Represented clients through numerous national security matters, including the Classified Information Procedures Act, the Foreign Agent Registration Act, matters before the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, government cyber-security investigations into companies regarded as critical national infrastructure, the handling of classified information by government contractors, and pre-publication review of books authored by former government officials for sensitive and classified information.