James Villa Email and Phone Number

I serve as the General Counsel of a sophisticated government contractor which provides industry-leading capabilities in the domains of Space, C-UAS and Autonomous Systems, Cyber, and AI/ML, focusing on inspired engineering to develop, transition, and field next-generation capabilities to solve the most complex challenges of our customers’ critical missions and reestablish our national security posture in the near-peer contested arena. I protect the Company's interests and provided guidance to officers and other managers on corporate and business matters. Establish the company's strategy regarding legal matters. I manage all legal activities, including supervising outside counsel, as well as matters involving regulatory compliance, export control, dispute resolution and intellectual property.

Teach a course on advanced legal writing for second and third year law students, as well as LLMs. This course is taught from an in house counsel perspective and focuses on drafting key documents that are essential to in house practice, including non-disclosure agreements, employment agreements, and agreements for the provision of services.

Chief Legal Officer of a government contractor providing an array of offerings to a wide variety of federal clients, including Technology Services, Environmental Services, Construction Services, and Infrastructure Services. Lead a 15-person legal, compliance, and government contracts team. I help protect the Company's interests and provide guidance to officers and other managers on corporate and business matters. Reporting directly to the President, I establish the Company's strategy regarding legal matters, ensuring that Aleut’s practices, policies, and business activities fall within the bounds of the organization's legal requirements.

Planned, directed and managed administrative operations for a leading supplier of premium sensors for security and surveillance missions, radar systems and electronic protection systems. This included leading the legal, compliance, IT, human resources, security, insurance, real estate, and government contracts functions. Protect the Company's interests and provide guidance to officers, directors and other managers on corporate and business matters. Reported to the CEO, I also served as the General Counsel, Corporate Secretary and the Chief Compliance Officer. Established the Company's strategy regarding legal matters, ensuring that Hensoldt's practices, policies, and business activities fell within the bounds of the organization's legal requirements. Oversight and responsibility for corporate governance, government contracting, ethics and compliance, legal aspects of doing business in foreign jurisdictions, employment law, litigation, and risk management. Hensoldt is a globally leading supplier of premium sensors for security and surveillance missions. It is the world market leader for missile warning systems and submarine periscopes.

Managed all legal and compliance activities of this publicly-held company with the objective of protecting Versar’s interests and provide guidance to officers, directors and other managers on corporate and business matters. Reported directly to the CEO, I also serve as the Corporate Secretary and the Chief Ethics and Compliance Officer. Established the Company’s strategy regarding legal matters, ensuring that all of Versar’s practices, policies, and business activities fall within the bounds of the organization’s legal requirements. Oversight and responsibility for all SEC reporting issues, corporate governance, mergers and acquisitions, government contracting, ethics and compliance, legal aspects of doing business in foreign jurisdictions, employment law, litigation, and risk management. Was also responsible for managing the company’s insurance program and its real estate portfolio.• Managed the due diligence and negotiation of two strategic acquisitions, resulting in significantly increased revenues for the Company.• Counseled Board of Directors on their fiduciary responsibilities, regularly updating them on changes in the legal and regulatory environment, revising committee charters, as well as implementing a new Director evaluation scheme. • Successfully negotiated and resolved a number of disputes with both federal and commercial clients, resulting in significant cost savings.• Drafted and implemented a best in class set of corporate policies and procedures, ensuring that were widely disseminated and followed.• Oversaw the Contracts and Procurement Department, which managed the day to day contracting and subcontracting efforts of the Company.

Reported to the Chief Executive Officer of a mid-sized services company with over 1200 employees across 225 facilities. I led strategic and tactical legal initiatives and provide senior management with legal counsel on company strategies and their implementation and manage the legal function.• Drafted and negotiated million dollar plus agreements regarding technology, software, trademark licenses, joint ventures, operating agreements, and employment agreements. Negotiated agreements with state and federal government entities.• Provided legal counsel to Operations, finance, accounting, human resources, and logistics. Managed and direct outside counsel. Areas of focus include contract negotiation, compliance, litigation management, records management, corporate governance, and labor and employment.• Conceived, developed and implemented technological and process solutions resulting in cost and time savings for key stakeholders. This includes a computer-based deal process to ensure that agreements are properly reviewed, approved, and executed and templates for key corporate agreements to reflect industry best practices. Developed and implemented a database of all corporate agreements and a dashboard to provide stakeholders access to critical contract information.• Directly represented the company in EEOC claims and other litigation and selected and supervised outside law firms for litigation and transactional matters.• Trusted advisor to the Chairman of the Board of Directors on corporate administration and governance issues, including structure of the Board and revising the authority and roles of corporate officers. Assist board members in discharging their fiduciary responsibilities to shareholders. • Drafted, implemented, and supervised execution of new corporate policies, including employee non-disclosure, anti-nepotism, signature authority, and network access, streamlining company’s operations and reducing risk.

Led a 28-person legal team across a wide range of areas, including litigation, e-discovery, antitrust, regulatory, product accessibility, and records management. Key member of deal team responsible for divestiture of AOL from Time Warner. Prosecuted, defended and managed litigation and claims throughout the world, supervising outside counsel in matters including commercial/contract, class action, bankruptcy, employment, copyright and trademark. • Initiated offensive litigation efforts related to breach of contract and other claims resulting in multi-million dollar recovery which exceeded group’s annual budget by 40%.• Provided legal counsel to senior executives and other attorneys on litigation avoidance in negotiating and preparing commercial agreements.• Analyzed more than 25 successful acquisitions and divestitures exceeding $2.5 billion in value.• Internalized discovery costs by hiring dedicated discovery counsel and increased use of technology, reducing department’s litigation spend by 15%.• Directly represented the company in trials, depositions, and hearings and retained and supervised outside law firms for litigation matters. Made extensive use of all forms of ADR to reduce total legal spend.• Managed the largest outside counsel budget in the Legal department.• Led major internal investigations of potentially unethical conduct. • Founded and served as co-chair of best-in-class in house pro bono team which was named Pro Bono Law Firm of the year in 2008 by the Northern Virginia Pro Bono Law Center.

Manage numerous commercial litigation matters, including copyright and bankruptcy litigation. Supervise outside legal counsel throughout the country. Advise business executives on litigation risks of various activities. Provide general antitrust counseling and support for all transactions; assisted with ten acquisitions totaling almost $2 billion and several divestitures exceeding $300 million. Provide antitrust training to business units regarding various business conduct. Co-chair, pro bono committee. Advisor, corporate Standards of Business Conduct (ethics) committee. Member of Antitrust Council, U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

• Led investigations of potential Clayton and Sherman Act violations.• Many of the matters involved leading edge technology issues, including those in the life sciences, electronic publishing, and defense industries.• Led the Division's investigation of a $5 billion merger, resulting in a consent decree requiring divestitures exceeding $50 million. • Assigned merger filings to attorneys and reviewed recommendations. • Conducted depositions, drafted pleadings, and led hundreds of witness interviews. • Served as acting section chief on numerous occasions. • Led technical assistance mission to Mexican Competition Commission.

Prepared and tried matters before United States District and Magistrate Judges. Tried two felony kidnapping cases. Presented several indictments before federal grand juries. Wrote and argued briefs before the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, resulting in one published opinion.

Associate, antitrust and litigation. Experience in general litigation, including class actions, mergers, grand jury, and other counseling matters in the defense, health care, telecommunications, and manufacturing industries.

Commanded a 148-person combat support military police company in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait in support of Operations Desert Shield, Desert Storm, and Task Force Freedom. Recipient of the Bronze Star Medal for Meritorious Service.

Associate, antitrust and litigation. Experience in general litigation, grand jury, antitrust civil investigations, merger, and other counseling matters in the computer, telecommunications, education, and various manufacturing industries.