Mark O'Connor, Member

Contact:

Telephone: 202-552-5121

Email: [email protected]

Mr. O'Connor represents clients in the telecommunications industry on a broad range of transactional and regulatory matters before the FCC, state PUCs, and federal courts.  With over 25 years of telecommunications legal and business experience, he has earned the trust of management teams to achieve their most critical business objectives. 

Mr. O'Connor has deep experience in the management and investor side of the telecommunications industry, having led the business development and legal affairs of a wireless equipment manufacturer, and from his years of experience as an investor and board member of wireless companies.

For wireless companies, Mark has guided clients through complex transactions including telecommunications mergers and acquisitions, debt and equity financing, carrier-to-carrier arrangements, and interconnection agreements.  He has provided extensive counselling on all aspects of FCC spectrum auctions and wireless licensing, access to unlicensed and lightly licensed spectrum, and regulatory compliance.  He has also successfully represented large and small wireless providers in dozens of FCC rulemaking proceedings.  Further, Mark helps clients effectively navigate state and federal telecommunications infrastructure regulations, including the FCC's wireless siting “shot clock” and pole attachment rules.

For wireline telecommunications carriers, Mark has represented and advised clients on all aspects of the telecommunications regulatory landscape, including intercarrier compensation and access charge rules, FCC and state regulatory approvals of mergers and acquisitions, broadband Internet regulation, access to numbering resources, interconnection, and local number portability.

Representative Matters

• Obtained approvals of 40+ state PUCs and the FCC for a publicly held telecommunications carrier to acquire a national wireline competitive carrier.
• Led numerous regulatory and legal due diligences for mergers, acquisitions, and partnerships on behalf of clients in the wireline and wireless industry.
• Led legal team in “bet the company” multi-jurisdictional federal district court litigation regarding FCC and state carrier access charges.
• Successfully represented telecommunications companies in debt and equity financings and an initial public offering.
• Obtained dozens of FCC regulatory approvals for transfers and assignments of wireless licenses.
• Successfully represented a new wireless industry entrant before the FCC, Congress, and federal courts in connection with the client's award of the largest “pioneer's preference” wireless license in the U.S.
• Successfully represented clients in resolving FCC investigations of compliance with federal universal service contribution obligations.
• Successfully settled investigations by the FCC and U.S. Justice Department of alleged illegal bidding in an FCC spectrum auction.
• Represented telecommunications clients in several federal court appeals of FCC orders.

Education

UCLA School of Law, J.D., 1992

University of Pennsylvania, B.A. with honors (Communications), 1989

Awards and Distinctions 

AV Preeminent Peer Review Rated

Editor, Federal Communications Law Journal

Magna Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa

Prior Experience

Partner and Co-Founder, Lampert, O'Connor & Johnston, P.C., Washington, DC

Special Counsel, Phillips Lytle LLP, Washington, DC

Associate, DLA Piper, Washington, DC

Associate, Fleischman and Walsh, PC, Washington, DC

Practice Admissions

District of Columbia Bar

Member of the U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeals for the District of Columbia, Third, Eighth, and Ninth Circuits, and of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia

Federal Communications Bar Association