Mr. Donahue has represented clients in a variety of transactional, operational, regulatory and public policy matters since 1996.  In private practice for nearly ten years and, more recently, as senior counsel for a Tier I Internet provider with one of the largest IP transit networks in North America, Mr. Donahue has a proven record for delivering strategically sound, pragmatic management and proactive strategies for business clients.  Mr. Donahue has represented CLECs, ISPs, VoIP providers, DSL providers, and other domestic and international data and voice telecommunications providers and technology companies in all aspects of their businesses, including regulatory compliance, corporate and transactional advice, public policy advocacy and litigation. 

• Transactional Experience:  Mr. Donahue has advised a wide-variety of clients with regard to mergers and acquisitions, transfers of control and other restructurings; asset acquisitions and sales; debt and equity financing and security arrangements; and transactions in bankruptcy.  Mr. Donahue has also drafted and negotiated interconnection, traffic exchange and other inter-carrier agreements; pole attachment, building access, rights-of-way and franchise agreements; wholesale and retail commercial agreements, including customer, vendor, service and sales contracts, and non-disclosure agreements; and multi-state, multi-party settlement agreements.

• Regulatory Compliance:  Mr. Donahue has managed national licensing activities for numerous clients, including preparing and prosecuting applications for public convenience and necessity and petitions for approval of mergers, transfers of control and authority to issue securities or enter into credit arrangements before state public utility commissions throughout the United States, and applications for international authority and to transfer control of international and domestic authority before the Federal Communications Commission.  Mr. Donahue has also advised clients regarding the myriad of federal and state regulatory compliance obligations applicable to licensed telecommunications carriers, VoIP providers and other communications providers, including USF and other contribution mechanisms, E911/911, CALEA, CPNI and privacy, LNP and numbering issues, tariffs and other requirements, as well as state regulatory and corporate annual reporting and tax obligations.

• Public Policy Advocacy:  Mr. Donahue has assisted senior management in formulating and implementing regulatory and legislative policy to respond to the continually evolving regulatory framework for competitive telecommunications and Internet services.   Mr. Donahue has regularly engaged in oral and written advocacy on behalf of a variety of companies before the Federal Communications Commission, state public utility commissions, and other regulatory agencies and has prepared numerous comments, petitions, and other policy filings in proceedings before these agencies.  Mr. Donahue has also frequently met with the Commissioners and Staff of these agencies to advocate a client’s position or for policy or regulatory change.

• Litigation:  Mr. Donahue has authored and co-authored briefs, motions, discovery, petitions and other filings in cases before federal and state courts.  He has also conducted hearings as sole or second-chair counsel in numerous state commission proceedings, including access charge reform, interconnection arbitration, inter-carrier compensation disputes, Triennial Review, Section 271, and UNE pricing proceedings.  Mr. Donahue has also represented clients in Federal Communications Commission and state public utility commission enforcement actions, show cause proceedings, and formal and informal complaints. 

Mr. Donahue is a graduate of the University of Southern California and received his Juris Doctorate, cum laude, from the Columbus School of Law at Catholic University.  He is admitted to practice in Maryland and the District of Columbia and is a member of the Bar of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.