Megan Chester is an associate and government contracts attorney with Foley & Lardner LLP. Megan is based in the firm’s Washington, D.C. office, where she is a member of the firm’s Government Solutions Practice.
Prior to joining Foley, Megan served as an attorney advisor at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA),Office of the Chief Counsel, Procurement and Fiscal Law Division, where she acted as the lead procurement attorney on over $10 billion of disaster response contracting actions, including a $3.4 billion solicitation and its resulting contracts for COVID-19 Pandemic Response. There, she advised on nearly all aspects of federal government contracting, including negotiating commercial terms and data rights, and indemnity, insurance and privacy issues with private sector counsel for both large and small businesses. She counseled technical evaluation teams on written and oral proposal evaluation techniques and served as an adjunct ethics counselor to review conflicts of interest and donation issues affecting government procurements.
Megan successfully defended the government in appeals before the Civilian Board of Contract Appeals and bid protests before the Government Accountability Office. She advised the Office of the Chief Procurement Officer on the resolution of pre-award and post-award agency level protests, Contract Disputes Act claims, and requests for equitable adjustment. She also served as a procurement law subject matter expert, advising on FBI and Office of Special Counsel investigations.
Previously, Megan served as an attorney advisor at FEMA, Office of Chief Counsel, Federal Insurance & Mitigation Law Division, where she advised the Federal Insurance and Mitigation Administration. She provided technical drafting assistance and legal sufficiency reviews in response to congressional requests. She drafted memoranda and conducted legal research while providing guidance for policy decisions and referred suspected fraud and misrepresentation to the appropriate internal/external offices. Megan also led program development projects, provided litigation mitigation advice to internal constituents, and conducted legal research and sufficiency reviews of final agency actions on flood insurance claim appeals.
