Daniel F. Donovan (Dan)

• Experience representing numerous clients under investigation by Republican-controlled Senate and House Committees, including Senate Banking, Commerce, Finance, HELP, Homeland Security, Judiciary, Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Special Committee on Aging, and House Education and the Workforce, Energy & Commerce, Financial Services, Judiciary, Oversight and Reform, Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, Select Committee on CCP, and Ways & Means, among others.
• Providing advice and counsel with respect to congressional oversight activity to leading companies in private sector industries, including accounting, auto, banking, consulting, defense, energy, fashion, food, healthcare provider, higher education, insurance, medical device, pharmaceutical, private equity, and tech, among others.
• Representing a variety of clients in connection with investigations relating to allegations of government fraud, food and product safety and recalls, cybersecurity breaches, product pricing, clinical research, off-label promotion, direct-to-consumer advertising, payments to physicians, and financial conflicts of interest.
• Representing multiple pharmaceutical companies in connection with congressional and state attorneys general drug pricing investigations.
• Representing a variety of clients on healthcare policy and legislative issues.
• Represented a major university and pharmaceutical company in connection with the Select Panel on Infant Lives (authorized under the House Energy and Commerce Committee) investigation relating to fetal tissue research.
• Represented a global financial institution in connection with an investigation by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, regarding international tax matters.
• Represented a Big Four accounting firm in a Senate Finance Committee investigation of a University’s handling of federal funds.
• Represented multiple pharmaceutical companies in House and Senate investigations related to Affordable Care Act enactment and implementation.
• Represented medical device companies in connection with House and Senate committee investigations into 510(k) regulatory issues, direct-to-consumer advertising, and payments to physicians.
• Represented a leading clean energy technology company in connection with a Senate investigation into Department of Energy grant program.
• Represented a major oil company in connection with congressional investigations.
• Represented a health insurer in House and Senate investigations related to Affordable Care Act implementation.
• Represented a coalition of food product companies in connection with congressional inquiries relating to food safety and regulatory issues.
• Represented a medical society in connection with Senate committee investigations in payments to physicians.
• Represented individuals in connection with House and Senate committee inquiries and ethics investigations.

A former Senate Chief Investigative Counsel who co-leads the firm’s nationally recognized, bipartisan congressional investigations practice, Daniel Donovan represents companies, executives, and government officials when a subpoena, state attorney general demand, or parallel investigation puts their business or reputation at risk. Having run investigations from the other side of the dais, Dan anticipates investigators’ next moves and steers clients through crisis with calm, strategic judgment.

A congressional or parallel government investigation is rarely just a legal problem. Legal exposure runs alongside public-relations and political risk, and each compounds the others as politicized policy fights spill into oversight, enforcement, and litigation on multiple fronts at once. Dan helps clients navigate that convergence—anticipating and responding to committee document requests and subpoenas, readying CEOs, executives, and government officials for interviews, depositions, and high-profile testimony, and keeping legal strategy aligned with a client’s business and reputational interests when the stakes are highest.

That foresight comes from eight years on Capitol Hill. Dan served as Chief Investigative Counsel in the U.S. Senate and as Senior Investigative Counsel to Senator Charles Grassley, then Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, directing investigations into regulatory compliance, drug and device safety, drug pricing, and waste, fraud, and abuse in federal health care programs. He also managed consumer-protection inquiries under Senator Kit Bond on the Senate Small Business Committee and began his Senate career on Senator Fred Thompson’s investigation into the 1996 federal election campaigns. Having built and run investigations and hearings himself, Dan sees around corners and positions clients before an inquiry escalates.

Across his career, Dan has guided clients through hundreds of congressional inquiries, advising companies, executives, boards, trade associations, and nonprofits in industries including financial services, health care, life sciences, pharmaceutical, automotive, energy, technology, defense, higher education, and consumer products, as well as state and local officials facing federal and multistate scrutiny. Clients value the calm he brings to a crisis, his fluency with the congressional process, and his credibility with Members and staff on both sides of the aisle, which can be the difference between resolving an inquiry quietly and fighting it in the press.