Per David Midboe

Prior to joining Crowell, Per served more than 14 years as a U.S. Navy procurement lawyer, including leading the Naval Information Warfare Systems Command’s Washington, D.C. legal offices. Per also served as a senior procurement attorney and subsection head at the Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA), where he directly oversaw, coached, and mentored a team of 10 program attorneys, providing legal analysis and business advice to NAVSEA contracting officers and program offices. Per’s team advised five of the Navy’s PEOs on nearly all of the Navy’s surface and subsurface weapon systems, managed a wide variety of relationships with academia via the University Affiliated Research Centers, and directly supported NAVSEA’s 10 Warfare Centers as they conducted cutting-edge naval weapons research. Through this work, Per worked closely with senior leadership clients to acquire many critical military technologies, including lasers, autonomous vessels, complex combat systems, radars/electronic warfare systems, and missile systems. These technologies are pivotal to the future of the defense industry in the majority of the DoD’s most contested battle spaces, including air, surface, subsurface, cyber, ballistic missile defense, and electronic warfare. 

Per also advised the SeaPort Program with respect to its management of the Navy-wide professional support services’ multiple-award indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity contracts, projected to buy up to $5 billion worth of support services annually for the Navy.

Building on that substantial Navy experience, Per advises clients — particularly in the defense, energy, and space sectors — on a wide range of issues under the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) and the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (DFARS). These include:

• Organizational conflicts of interest (OCI)
• Solicitation terms
• Evaluation factors
• Bidders’ Q&As
• Request for Information (RFI) responses
• Subcontract formation
• Conducting discussions
• Government data rights clauses
• Subcontractor flow-downs
• Procurement Integrity Act investigations
• Debriefs

He also advises clients on contract administration disputes, including settlement and release negotiations, requests for equitable adjustment, and claims litigation. 

In doing so, Per works closely with companies of all sizes, from established players —such as major weapon systems integrators and federal research institutions — to early-stage venture-backed companies aiming to scale into the federal marketplace.

Crowell GovCon Strategies

Per also serves as the Vice President of Growth & Strategy for Crowell GovCon Strategies, an independent consulting affiliate of Crowell & Moring LLP that provides integrated business and regulatory perspectives to guide companies through the strategy, pursuit and execution of federal procurements. In that role, Per helps companies gain a “Government perspective” about how best to engage with federal customers and position themselves to succeed. Having shepherded scores of competitive and sole-source procurements from inception to award as a senior Navy procurement attorney, Per provides companies with key insights about opportunity identification, federal requirements shaping, developing relationships with key stakeholders, and complying with agency engagement rules.

Per also provides capture strategy advice and supports proposal development teams both directly and through color team reviews. As a former Navy bid protest litigator, he understands the tradeoffs (and mistakes) agencies may make in developing their evaluation records. Per has extensive experience working with technical evaluators; having trained dozens of Source Selection Evaluation Boards (SSEBs) and Source Selection Advisory Boards (SSACs) to review competitive proposals and make best value decisions. Per also has substantial experience assessing government cost realism analyses and has trained contracting officers and attorneys across numerous Department of Defense service branches on the subject. By integrating all of these perspectives, Per provides companies an opportunity to dry-run their entire proposal to gain insight into the likely Government response.