Morningstar Law Group – Raleigh Law Firm – Durham NC Attorneys

Political and Government Disputes

Morningstar Law Group’s Political and Government Disputes attorneys are uniquely qualified to help you navigate complex investigations and litigation involving government entities. Our lawyers’ extensive experience in successfully resolving high-impact government-related disputes at the national, state, and local levels helps us guide clients who are confronted with this challenging terrain.

Services We Provide:

  • Strategic Counseling: The issues, events, priorities, and personalities that shape government action change constantly. Our attorneys make use of their experience and relationships to help clients stay on top of critical public policy issues and emerging trends in public disputes.
  • Internal Investigations: A proactive approach is often the best way to identify and manage issues and concerns that may arise later in a more adversarial form. We help find vulnerabilities early on so clients can proactively address them through compliance-related programs that we help design.
  • Responding to Government Investigations: When disputes arise, we work to contain them, often by constructively engaging with investigators on your behalf. Our experience managing complex investigations from inside government, as well as responding to them from outside, is indispensable in helping craft timely and effective responses to government investigations.
  • Negotiation and Resolution: With any government-related dispute, our goal is to help clients find a workable, practical, and durable resolution. This is often achieved through strategic negotiations, coupled with an effective litigation strategy. Our government investigation and litigation attorneys have deep experience designing and executing these strategies.
  • Litigation: When disputes move to court, our team members’ government experience and litigation savvy combine to help us shape litigation strategy and guide clients toward a successful result. Our attorneys have experience that spans a broad range of subject areas, including data security, privacy, consumer protection, environmental, constitutional rights, labor/employment, and promotions/sweepstakes, and many industries, including pharmaceuticals, technology, biotech/life sciences, gaming, and real estate/land use.

High-Impact Government Investigations, Negotiation, and Litigation

Our attorneys have played leading roles in numerous high-impact government investigations, negotiation, and litigation, including:

  • Serving as lead national negotiator for a bipartisan coalition of state Attorneys General in connection with the $50+ billion national opioid settlements. This involved negotiating consent orders with multiple Fortune 50 companies to create multi-billion-dollar remediation funds, require major changes to the opioid distribution industry, and resolve what the New York Times calls “one of the most complicated and gargantuan legal battles in American history.”
  • Leading the State of North Carolina’s investigation and litigation against e-cigarette maker Juul for marketing to children, resulting in a $40 million consent order.
  • Negotiating a $1.1 billion coal ash clean up agreement between the North Carolina Attorney General’s Office and Duke Energy.
  • Representing coastal communities dealing with state enforcement of regulations in the face of sea-level rise.
  • Representing multi-family housing developers in addressing local governments’ attempts to restrict urban development.
  • Assisting pro-democracy organizations in challenges to voting restrictions and partisan gerrymandering.


Our Political and Government Disputes Attorneys

Our Political and Government Disputes attorneys bring a wealth of experience in successfully resolving public sector disputes, through prior senior-level government service, and extensive experience representing private sector clients, as well as government officials, agencies, and politicians, in disputes and controversies arising from political and governmental issues. Some of our attorneys have held high-ranking government positions and are frequently sought out for advice by current officials and elected leaders at the federal, state, and local levels. Our team also includes attorneys who have successfully represented clients in complex public sector-oriented matters, including disputes, investigations, litigation, public-private partnerships, and development deals.