Jim Davidson
Shareholder
Polsinelli
Jim Davidson counsels companies and business associations on how they can achieve their goals regarding legislation before Congress or regulations and decisions before federal agencies.
For more than three decades, Jim has effectively represented Fortune 500 companies and leading industry groups on issues involving taxation, agency regulations, government information policy, consumer policy, media regulation, privacy, regulation of advertising, health care, appropriations, and budget policy. Jim is also one of the nation’s leading authorities on media and advertising law. In 2011, a coalition he directed a broad coalition of multinational companies that successfully prevented four federal agencies from adopting a new standard that would have barred advertising of most food products, including most cereals, whole wheat bread, and low-fat yogurt. Jim directed another coalition that succeeded in preventing the Congress from taxing certain types of advertising to pay for the Affordable Care Act. In April 2012, Reuters described Jim as “one of the most powerful lobbyists in Washington” and “the point man for the advertising industry in free speech issues.”
During his service on professional committee staffs in the United States Senate, Jim served as the chief counsel and staff director of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Administrative Practice and Procedure, and chief counsel of the Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on Intergovernmental Relations. Jim also served as special assistant to Missouri Senator Stuart Symington. He was the principal Senate staff author of the federal Privacy Act, and of a major amendment to the Freedom of Information Act. While serving on Senate staffs, Jim was recognized in a chapter of the book, Unelected Representatives: Congressional Staff and the Future of Representative Government.
Following a decade of service on Capitol Hill, Jim formed Davidson & Company, a government relations firm that later merged with Polsinelli, one of the nation’s top 100 law firms. Jim has served as an adjunct professor of law at the Washington College of Law at American University. He is a member of the District of Columbia Bar, The Missouri Bar, the American Bar Association, and has written the “Eye on the Hill” column for DTC Perspectives magazine. He is a frequent lecturer on media and advertising issues.