Appropriations

On behalf of a software and actuarial services firms specializing in sophisticated industry tax issues, we are working with the congressional tax-writing and appropriations committees, the Department of Treasury and the IRS to secure funding for a pilot program to enhance compliance verification and audit automation in various industry sectors.

On behalf of a Midwestern company specializing in high tech training for manufacturing, we working with Congress, the Department of Labor and the White House to secure funding for high tech manufacturing training programs in public education institutions.

On behalf of an application service provider (ASP) who has developed and implemented the first Web-based "virtual desktop" accessible from any Internet-enabled device, we are working with Congress and Federal agencies to secure funding for related digital divide, remote access and emergency preparedness programs at the Federal, State and local level.

Intellectual Property, E-Commerce, High Technology

We represent a large copyright content owner on a variety of domestic and international intellectual property, Internet and trade secret protection issues. In the past on its behalf, we enlisted the support of members of the intellectual property and trade-related committees in Congress, the United States Trade Representative, the State Department, and the Commerce Department in a successful effort to convince the Swedish government to introduce and pass stronger copyright protection laws that stopped the infringement of our client's intellectual property.

In representing MP3.com, an online music pioneer, we undertook a broad congressional education campaign on the emerging issues surrounding online music. We worked with the congressional copyright and commerce committees and other music industry groups on issues such as fair use of copyrighted material in the digital environment, Internet music licensing, and Internet privacy. We facilitated MP3.com's participation at the Senate Judiciary Committee's groundbreaking hearing on Internet music in the summer of 2000, which helped garner greater congressional and public understanding and support for MP3.com's products and legal positions.

For the Commercial Finance Association (CFA), the secured credit industry association, we worked with members of Congress, the Copyright Office, the American Bar Association, and various intellectual property associations on a CFA legislative proposal to increase the protection of the interests of secured lenders in collateral consisting of copyrightable material. As part of our efforts, we worked closely with the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Intellectual Property on a hearing focusing on CFA's proposal at which CFA's president played a prominent public role.

We represented MCY.com, an online concert webcaster and developer of secure technology to download music from the Internet. We worked to position MCY.com among Congress, the recording industry and the media as a soluition provider to the technology problems and conflicts in the online music industry.

On behalf of ICraveTV.com, the world's first Internet company to retransmit television broadcasts over the Internet, we facilitated the company's appearance at two congressional hearings on webcasting and set up briefings with key congressional players on Internet/IP issues. Our efforts helped deflect copyright industry criticism of the company.

We represented Streambox, Inc., an early player in streaming media industry, and now a leader in the emerging world of video infrastructure, services and tools. We arranged and drafted testimony for the company's appearance at a Copyright Office rele-making hearing on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). We also established a dialogue between Streambox and the recording industry on legal and legislative issues.

On behalf of PenOp, Inc., a developer of biometric electronic signature software, we worked with Congress and industry allies to help overturn federal plans to create a negative legal presumption for electronic signatures in contravention with the treatment of conventional signatures.

For the Software Publishers Association (now the Software Information Industry Association), we assisted the association in the development of a content rating system for computer games and then helped the association overcome intense opposition to achieve congressional acceptance of the rating system.

Tax

For Boston Capital Partners, a major national syndicator of affordable housing, we helped design and achieve passage of the Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC). When the LIHTC was threatened with sunset, we helped in the establishment and operation of a congressional support caucus which led to a successful legislative effort to make the credit permanent.

For American Airlines, we helped achieve passage of law allowing depreciation of intangible assets on an accelerated basis, saving hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes. We later worked with American to establish a multi-industry coalition of major corporations to mitigate the effects of a tax on frequent flyer programs.

We assisted FirstPlus Financial Group at the time it was the leading provider of High Loan-to-Value (HLTV) home equity loans in responding to congressional criticism of the HLTV industry. We mounted a broad congressional education effort and we were able to work closely with the General Accounting Office on their major study of the industry. As a result, previous congressional calls for investigative hearings and\or legislation that could have adversely affected FirstPlus and the industry never materialized. We also advised FirstPlus on consumer bankruptcy issues.