Richard Metzger is widely regarded as one of the most knowledgeable telecommunications lawyers in the country. He advises and represents clients on a diverse array of policy and transactional matters. Richard has represented Comcast Corporation in a wide variety of rulemaking and adjudicative proceedings before the Federal Communications Commission, primarily those involving the company’s Voice over Internet Protocol service. He also has represented General Electric in its sale of NBC Universal to Comcast, Sprint in its opposition to AT&T’s acquisition of T-Mobile, and Comcast in its acquisition of AT&T’s cable assets.
Richard has been recognized for many years as one of the nation’s leading telecommunications lawyers by Chambers & Partners®, The Best Lawyers in America©, Legal 500, Lawyer Monthly Magazine, Super Lawyers® and other major publications. Best Lawyers also selected Richard as the Telecommunications Lawyer of the Year for 2018.
Prior to joining Lawler, Metzger, Keeney & Logan, Richard served as the Deputy Chief and then Chief of the FCC’s Common Carrier Bureau (now the Wireline Competition Bureau). In those positions, he played a key role in the agency’s implementation of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the first comprehensive overhaul of the FCC’s enabling statute in more than 60 years. As part of that effort, the FCC rewrote the rules regulating wireline local and long-distance telephone companies to foster the development of competitive markets that would reduce or eliminate the need for regulation.
Before joining the FCC, Richard was a partner in the law firm of Rogers & Wells, resident in the firm’s Washington, D.C. office.
Richard received his law degree from Georgetown University Law Center and a Bachelor of Arts degree, cum laude, from Williams College. He also served as a law clerk to the Honorable Murray M. Schwartz, U.S. District Judge for the District of Delaware.