Bid Protest Attorney — Paid Consultation While the Protest Clock Is Still Open
A paid consultation with Sherrod Seward, Esq. on an agency-level protest, a protest at the Government Accountability Office, or a protest at the Court of Federal Claims.
The dangerous thing about a bid protest is not that the deadline is short. It is that there are two of them and they are not the same. Filing in time to have the protest heard, and filing in time to stop the work, are separate tests measured from separate events — and a protest can be perfectly timely and still fail to stop performance. Which clocks you are inside depends on what you are objecting to, whether a debriefing was required, and, if the buyer is a Defense component, when the Government answered your debriefing questions. You will leave the call knowing which forum fits, which dates have already run, and which have not.
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Request the consultation
Six fields. About a minute.
Bring the call one of these
- You lost an award and a debriefing has been offered, held, or refused.
- Something in the solicitation looks wrong and it has not closed yet.
- You filed an agency-level protest and are wondering whether you still have a route to GAO.
- Performance has started on a contract you intend to protest.
- You are choosing between the agency, GAO and the Court of Federal Claims.
- You are not certain whether your company counts as an interested party.
Timeliness and the automatic stay are different clocks
GAO's timeliness rules are at 4 C.F.R. 21.2. An impropriety apparent on the face of a solicitation must be protested before bid opening or the time set for receipt of initial proposals — a rule with no day count at all. Every other ground must be protested not later than 10 days after the basis "is known or should have been known (whichever is earlier)". Where the procurement was conducted on the basis of competitive proposals and a debriefing was requested and required, the protest may not be filed before the debriefing date offered and must be filed not later than 10 days after the debriefing is held. The automatic stay is a wholly separate question under 31 U.S.C. 3553(d)(4)(A): to suspend performance, the agency must have notice of the protest within a window ending on the LATER of 10 days after contract award, or 5 days after the debriefing date offered. For Department of Defense components that 5-day period does not even begin until the Government delivers written responses to enhanced-debriefing questions — 31 U.S.C. 3553(d)(4)(B). So a protest filed on day nine after a debriefing can be timely under 21.2 and still have lost the stay under 3553(d). And FAR 33.103(f)(4) closes the obvious escape route in terms: "Pursuing an agency protest does not extend the time for obtaining a stay at GAO." Every one of these periods is counted in calendar days, and a filing after an agency's close of business — presumed 4:30 p.m. local time under FAR 33.101 — counts as the next day.
How it runs
- Send the enquiryThe form below. Six fields, about a minute.
- Pay the consultation fee$500, on the firm's secure payment page. Credited in full against the fee for the engagement if this office is engaged on the matter.
- The consultationThe call itself. Bring the contracting officer's decision, the envelope or transmittal it arrived in, the contract or solicitation number, and any debriefing correspondence — the clocks run from when you received the paper.
- A written summaryWhat was decided, what the next step is, and the date it has to happen by.
Questions people actually ask
What do I actually get for the fee?
The $500 is the fee for the consultation itself and for the written summary that follows it. It is not a retainer, and it does not include drafting or filing a FOIA request, an administrative appeal, a licence application, a delisting petition, a federal court complaint, a trademark application, a response to a USPTO office action, or a post-registration maintenance filing - each of those is separately scoped and separately quoted. Government, agency and court filing fees, any agency search, review or duplication fees, and any USPTO filing fees, are not included and are payable to the government, not to this office. On a government contract matter it likewise does not include preparing or certifying a claim to a contracting officer, a request for equitable adjustment, a termination settlement proposal, an agency-level protest, a protest at the Government Accountability Office, an appeal to an agency board of contract appeals, or a complaint in the United States Court of Federal Claims - each of those is separately scoped and separately quoted.
Is this legal advice?
The consultation is. This page is not — it is general information about federal practice, and reading it creates no relationship with this office. Sending this form does not create an attorney-client relationship. No attorney-client relationship is formed until this office and you have signed a written engagement agreement.
Can you tell me what my chances are?
You will get a candid assessment of what your record supports and where it is thin, which is the useful version of that question. What you will not get is a percentage. Every matter is decided on its own record by a government officer or a judge, and prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.
What happens if you cannot help?
You will be told so on the call, and told where the matter actually belongs. That happens often enough to be worth saying out loud.
Which forum should a protest go to?
It depends on what you want and how much time is left, and the three are genuinely different. An agency protest under FAR 33.103 is the least formal of the three, and FAR 33.103(g) has agencies aim to resolve one within 35 days — but pursuing it does not extend the GAO stay window. GAO decides within 100 days, or 65 on the express option, under 4 C.F.R. 21.9, and carries the CICA automatic stay. The Court of Federal Claims has jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. 1491(b) both before and after award and reviews the agency under the Administrative Procedure Act standards in 5 U.S.C. 706 — but there is no automatic stay there, so interim relief has to be asked for. One caution about that section: it still prints a grant of jurisdiction to the district courts, and that grant terminated on 1 January 2001 under Pub. L. 104-320 section 12(d). Note also that monetary relief in a protest is limited by 28 U.S.C. 1491(b)(2) to bid preparation and proposal costs.
I filed with the agency first. Have I lost GAO?
Not necessarily, but the clock is unforgiving and it may already have started. Under 4 C.F.R. 21.2(a)(3) a subsequent protest to GAO must be filed within 10 days of actual or constructive knowledge of initial adverse agency action — and unless the agency has imposed an even shorter period, in which case that one controls. The trap is what counts as adverse agency action, because 4 C.F.R. 21.0(e) defines it far more broadly than a written denial: it includes the opening of bids, the award of a contract, the rejection of your proposal despite a pending protest, or the agency simply acquiescing in continued and substantial performance. Waiting politely for a written answer is how this window is usually lost.