Babst Calland announced that Timothy H. Goodman has joined the firm as shareholder in the Transportation Safety Group in the Firm’s Washington, D.C. office.
Goodman brings to clients a current and detailed understanding of the federal government’s approach to transportation safety regulation (particularly motor vehicles), including its programs and personnel as a former Federal Senior Executive (key positions just below top Presidential appointees). Goodman spent nearly a decade at the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT), where he served in various capacities, including at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and in the Secretary of Transportation’s Office of the General Counsel. As NHTSA’s Assistant Chief Counsel for Litigation and Enforcement, Goodman was the chief legal officer for the litigation and enforcement matters of the 600-plus employee federal agency. He also served as a senior trial attorney in the Secretary of Transportation’s Office of the General Counsel, where he led teams in matters throughout USDOT and across multiple transportation modes, including pipeline safety, hazardous materials, federal environmental, urban transit, motor carrier, aviation economic regulatory, and maritime matters.
Goodman is the fourth former USDOT regulatory attorney during the past 18 months to join Babst Calland’s Washington, D.C. office where former colleagues and energy attorneys from the USDOT’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) maintain a national Pipeline and HazMat Safety practice. He joins us from a prominent global law firm where he focused on transportation regulatory and litigation matters.
At the DOT, Goodman was recognized for effectively working with corporate executives, senior officials and engineers to achieve practical and efficient results in high profile enforcement actions, landmark consent orders, litigations and rulemakings. He collaboratively led some of the largest civil enforcement actions and recalls in the history of NHTSA – including the largest and most complex safety recall in U.S. history – involving nearly 70 million airbag inflators and tens of millions of vehicles subject to recall by 2019.
Before joining DOT/NHTSA, Goodman litigated at various law firms on behalf of companies and individuals in various high-value matters. He was also a seagoing officer in the U.S. Navy. He is admitted to practice in the District of Columbia, the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. Courts of Appeal for the D.C. and Sixth Circuit, and various U.S. District Courts. Goodman earned a J.D., with honor, from Case Western Reserve University School of Law, and a B.S. in Foreign Service from Georgetown University. He also earned a Certificate of Completion from Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Executive Education, in the Strategic Management of Regulatory & Enforcement Agencies Program.
“Tim Goodman is a strategic addition to our Washington, D.C. office and our growing federal safety regulatory capabilities,” said Chester R. Babst III, a founding shareholder of Babst Calland. “Collectively, our D.C. attorneys represent a national resource for the energy, transportation and chemical industries, with years of experience in understanding federal agency priorities and emerging business and technology trends in these sectors,” said Babst.