Meredith K. McCoy
Meredith’s experience includes providing guidance to for-profit businesses, individuals, and 501(c)(3), 501(c)(4), 501(c)(5), 501(c)(6), and 527 organizations. She assists clients in their advocacy efforts and offers general counseling at all stages of an organization’s life cycle. Her experience includes:
- Organization formation and ongoing governance counseling
- Guidance on IRS restrictions on lobbying and political activities
- Gift and ethics compliance and training (federal, state, local)
- Campaign finance disclosure and compliance programs (federal, state, local)
- Limits and disclosure of political contributions
- Political advertising
- Campaign finance enforcement actions
- Ballot access and election administration
- Pay-to-play rules and political giving policies
Before joining Venable, Meredith served as an attorney at the Federal Election Commission. As part of the Office of General Counsel, she handled complex enforcement actions, providing legal recommendations to the Commission on a variety of issues, including testing-the-waters activity and candidate status, conduit contributions, candidates’ use of personal assets for campaign activity, coordination, fraudulent misrepresentation, and candidate debates.
Related Practices
Related Industries
Experience
Government Experience
- Attorney, Federal Election Commission
Representative Matters
- Serves as general counsel to an organization of female filmmakers, engineering and overseeing compliance for a multi-state effort to provide low- or no-cost campaign ads to state and local candidates in compliance with state contribution limits and source restrictions
- Represents a high-profile super PAC that spent more than $50 million in 2018 U.S. House races, reviewing all content and disclosure reports for compliance
- Counsels candidates for U.S. Congress and potential presidential candidates on the FEC’s “testing-the-waters” regulations, personal financial disclosure statements, ballot access, interactions without outside groups, and other complex rules
- Vets political giving by corporations, LLCs, partnerships, PACs, and high-net-worth individuals to ensure compliance with federal, state, and local contribution limits, source restrictions, and pay-to-play laws, and conducts due diligence on recipients to minimize public relations exposure
- Advises major media companies on parameters of the FEC’s “press exemption” for airing political content
- Provides parameters for trade association PACs and recommends mechanisms for maximizing PAC fundraising efforts
Insights
Credentials
Education
- J.D. William & Mary School of Law 2012
- Notes editor, William & Mary Law Review
- B.A. Political Science Duke University 2009
Bar Admissions
- District of Columbia
- Virginia (inactive)
Clerk Experience
- Honorable Christopher C. Conner U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania
Recognition
- The Best Lawyers in America, Ones to Watch, 2024 – 2025
- Legal 500, Tax - Not-for-Profit (Fortune 1000 private foundations, national trade associations, and charities), 2024