Leonard Bickwit, Jr. joined the firm in April 2023 after a long and productive
relationship with another law and lobbying firm. With both firms, Len has practiced
in the areas of federal legislation and federal government regulation. His practice
has focused largely on tax policy issues, although his experience extends to a
significant degree to other substantive areas in which the firm
focuses—including energy and environmental regulation, federal appropriations
legislation, and international trade and tariffs. In connection with the first of
these areas, Len served as General Counsel to the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission
during the period of the Three Mile Island accident and several years beyond it. Len
has consistently received outstanding recognition from Chambers USA,
The Legal 500, and The Best Lawyers in America® for
his experience in both government relations and tax law. Chambers quotes one of his
clients as noting that "he has great experience and understanding of Congress
and the way to approach issues" and is "highly connected at the federal
level."
Len also has long been involved, as a major part of his professional activity, in the
causes and political objectives of the national Democratic party (though he is
described in Chambers as "highly respected by members of both political
parties"). Early in his career, he served in senior staff positions for two
highly regarded Democratic senators over the course of a nine-year period on Capitol
Hill. Since leaving those positions, he has continued to provide frequent policy and
political advice to Democratic candidates for federal office and to the Democratic
Senatorial Campaign Committee. He has been widely regarded for many years by Senate
Democrats as one of the committee’s most active supporters.
Representative legislative and regulatory tax policy engagements over the years have
included the following subjects: the taxation of employer sponsored health insurance
benefits; alternative approaches to corporate tax rate reduction; energy tax policy;
like-kind exchange taxation; bonus depreciation; excess business loss policy; LIFO
accounting; the percentage of completion accounting method; maritime tax policy; the
taxation of US possessions; agricultural cooperative taxation; taxation of the
franchise industry; state taxation of remote sellers; the federal excise tax
drawback program; Alaska Native settlement trust taxation; and overall domestic and
international tax reform policies. More specifically, Len served as General Counsel
to a coalition of most of the nation’s major telecommunications companies in
their efforts to oppose significant state-level tax increases on those companies. He
also served as chief US tax counsel to the Government of Puerto Rico’s
Treasury Department for most of the time in office of Governor Alejandro Garcia
Padilla.
