Theodore R. Posner is a partner in the International Trade Group at Crowell & Moring's Washington office. Ted is a former director for international trade and investment at the National Security Council (NSC). He joined the firm in February 2009, after a decade working on international trade and investment law and policy, beginning in the U.S. House of Representatives, continuing in the U.S. Senate, then the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR), and eventually the NSC. Prior to his government service, Ted practiced at other law firms in Washington and New York, working on both international trade and commercial litigation matters.

Ted's practice draws on his experience with U.S. and international law of trade and investment, as reflected in the agreements of the World Trade Organization (WTO), free trade agreements, and investment treaties. His practice covers international arbitration, strategic counseling relating to international trade and investment agreements and legislation, and national security reviews by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) and related proceedings.

Ted has extensive experience as a litigator, negotiator, and advisor in the area of international trade and investment. As an associate general counsel at USTR, Ted represented the United States in some of the most high-profile arbitrations to come before the WTO, including the U.S.-EU Airbus arbitration and the U.S.-Canada Softwood Lumber arbitration. Ted was lead counsel for the United States in the WTO dispute over EU and EU Member State subsidies to Airbus. Ted’s work on this case, one of the most complex to come before the WTO in its 15-year history, led to a major victory for the United States. He played an integral role in all U.S. free trade agreement negotiations since 2002, including serving as the lead U.S. counsel in negotiations with Thailand and Malaysia. As international trade counsel to the Senate Finance Committee, Ted was instrumental in drafting and securing passage of the Trade Act of 2002, the legislation that has framed U.S. trade policy for most of the past decade. Prior to joining the staff of the Finance Committee, Ted served from 1999 to 2001 as international trade counsel to Congressman Sander M. Levin, the senior Democrat on the Trade Subcommittee of the House Ways and Means Committee. In that role, Ted developed key legislation that enabled the United States to agree to China's accession to the WTO.

Ted's experience also includes in-depth work on national security reviews of foreign investment in the United States. As director for international trade and investment at the NSC, Ted played a central role in developing the regulatory framework governing CFIUS reviews since enactment of the Foreign Investment and National Security Act of 2007. Through his combined work at USTR and NSC, Ted was involved in all CFIUS reviews of foreign investment from 2004 through the beginning of 2009.

In his work at the NSC, Ted also helped to shape U.S. economic policy in areas including protection of intellectual property rights, import safety, economic sanctions, and transatlantic economic integration.

Ted received his bachelor's degree, summa cum laude, in 1990 from Princeton University, where he was a student in the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. He then studied for a year as a Swiss University Fellow at the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva. In 1994, Ted received his J.D. from the Yale Law School, where he was an essays editor on the Yale Law Journal. Following graduation from law school, he clerked for Judge Wilfred Feinberg on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.