Ben Powell

Benjamin Powell is widely recognized as one of the country’s top authorities on handling cybersecurity, data breach and related investigation matters. He is a leading attorney in handling complex regulatory matters relating to international investment and mergers, including matters involving the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) and the Defense Security Service (DSS). He also is regularly asked to be lead counsel on major investigations and strategic counseling across a variety of sensitive regulatory matters for the world’s most prominent companies.

Mr. Powell handles matters relating to international investment and mergers, including matters involving the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), is widely recognized as one of the country’s top experts on handling cybersecurity, data breach, and related investigation matters, and regularly handles major investigations and strategic counseling for the world’s most prominent companies. He is also frequently retained to perform due diligence on major domestic corporate transactions requiring expertise in government regulatory issues, including government contracting, security clearance issues with the Defense Security Service (DSS), export control and related issues. He is regularly named as one of Washington’s Top Lawyers in surveys of best attorneys in DC. The Wall Street Journal calls him one of Washington’s “big legal guns” and The Legal 500 calls him an “exceptional lawyer” who “provides clear guidance on complex technological issues.” He is recognized as a CFIUS expert in the 2013 and 2014 editions of Chambers USA: America's Leading Lawyers in Business.
 
Mr. Powell has performed due diligence on some of the largest recent corporate transactions and successfully guided companies through some the most complex CFIUS filings for companies in a range of industries. He has counseled companies and handled investigations for many of the most sensitive cybersecurity and data breach incidents in recent years. He has represented clients in civil and criminal litigation involving privacy and surveillance issues at the state and federal level. He has also served as lead counsel on matters for companies facing difficult regulatory, congressional, and public policy issues across a range of industry sectors and subjects. Mr. Powell regularly handles matters involving the Defense Security Service, including the structuring of Special Security Agreements and Proxy Agreements, related to corporate security clearances and classified government contracting. 
 
Mr. Powell was unanimously confirmed by the United States Senate as General Counsel to the Director of National Intelligence. His background includes serving as General Counsel to the first three Directors of National Intelligence, Special Assistant to the President and associate White House Counsel, Air Force officer, work at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, corporate counsel at a software company in Silicon Valley, and part of the trial team that obtained the largest antitrust jury verdict in US history. He joined the firm in 2009.

• JD, Columbia Law School, 1996, Senior Editor, Columbia Law Review, Kent Scholar
• BSE, Finance, magna cum laude, University of Pennsylvania, 1989
• BAS, Applied Science, magna cum laude, University of Pennsylvania, 1989