Ed Shapiro is a strategic advisor with decades of experience and deep expertise in CFIUS, security clearance, and defense contracting matters.  As a Senior Advisor at the Chertoff Group, he assists companies seeking national security regulatory approval of transactions and restructurings, and helps them to devise and implement efficient and effective governance and operating arrangements to support that approval through mitigation agreements and related policies and procedures.

Mr. Shapiro was a partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Latham & Watkins LLP for more than 30 years.  His practice focused on complex litigation of diverse matters, including government enforcement actions, and on advising parties on regulatory compliance and clearance in connection with major transactions and ongoing operations.  In the course of this work, he has advised numerous companies and boards on a variety of governance, M&A and related transactional issues.

In his litigation practice, Mr. Shapiro has been lead trial counsel in complex disputes in industries including telecommunications, aerospace and defense, energy, manufacturing, finance, health care and others in dozens of forums (including state and federal courts and various arbitral bodies).  Many of these matters involved allegations of fraud with respect to weapons systems product quality, accounting compliance, ethics law, competition law, and the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, among others.  He has extensive experience conducting and defending investigations in these areas for companies, audit committees and individuals.  He is also an expert in corporate governance and control issues, which he regularly litigated in a variety of commercial settings and jurisdictions.

Before his election to Latham’s partnership in 1988, Mr. Shapiro served as Assistant General Counsel (Legal Counsel) of the United States Department of Defense.  In that position, he and his staff were responsible for management of the Department’s legal response to the Iran-Contra investigation and other litigation-related matters, defense industrial security matters, the development of anti-fraud enforcement regulations and ethics/standards of conduct issues.  Before his Pentagon appointment, he had been an associate at Latham, where he began his career.

Mr. Shapiro has been recognized and recommended multiple times by The Legal 500 US for his work in the International Trade field.  He has served as Vice Chair, and later Chair, of the ABA Public Contract Sections Committee on Contracting with National Security Requirements.

Mr. Shapiro is a member of the Boards of Directors, and Chair of the respective Government Security Committees, of (1) a cybersecurity company, and (2) an engineering services company, each of which is subject to a Special Security Agreement with the Department of Defense and CFIUS.  He recently completed service on the Governing Board of the National Cathedral School (member, Executive Committee and chair, Audit and Risk Management Committee) and is a member of the Board of Trustees of the American Folk Art Museum.  He is a graduate of Princeton University (AB) and Harvard Law School (JD).