Blank Rome partner Michael Joseph Montalbano has been named a 2025 Rising Star by Law360. The Rising Star award recognizes "attorneys under 40 whose legal accomplishments belie their age."
Michael is one of just four attorneys recognized nationwide in the Government Contracts category. At Blank Rome, he represents government contractors in a wide array of litigation and counseling matters, including bid protests, industrial security audits and compliance with the National Industrial Security Program Operating Manual ("NISPOM"), the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification program, litigation under the False Claims Act and Anti-Kickback Statute, contract disputes, Freedom of Information Act requests, and internal investigations and compliance issues involving various federal regulatory requirements.
Law360 editors reviewed more than 1,100 submissions to select this year’s Rising Stars, ultimately recognizing attorneys from over 80 law firms across 34 practice areas. Honorees were chosen based on their significant career achievements and contributions to their respective fields.
To view the full list of Law360’s 2025 Rising Stars, please click here.
An excerpt of Michael's Rising Star profile, as published by Law360, is copied below.
Michael Montalbano of Blank Rome LLP successfully defended his client's $45 billion U.S. Department of Energy contract at the Court of Federal Claims and fought back against a protester's attempt to unravel a Spanish client's naval contract awards at the Federal Circuit, earning him a spot among the government contracts law practitioners under age 40 honored by Law360 as Rising Stars.
The biggest case of his career:
Montalbano served as the lead associate on Blank Rome's team representing Hanford Tank Waste Operations & Closure, or H2C, in defending its $45 billion contract award for waste management at the Department of Energy's Hanford site, a contaminated facility in Washington state that used to produce plutonium for nuclear weapons.
The protester, Hanford Tank Disposition Alliance LLC, had argued that a lapse in H2C's registration in the federal System for Award Management should permanently disqualify it from the disputed procurement. But the Court of Federal Claims clarified in September that the SAM registration requirement only kicks in when they submit final proposals in response to government solicitations, making H2C eligible for the award.
"We really went back to basics, and we looked at the text of the regulation at issue. And then we applied rules of regulatory interpretation and how those fit into the procurement context, and in that instance, we were able to persuade our judge that, notwithstanding these other cases that you're reading about, if you apply the text of this regulation, then our client is still eligible for award and was properly selected, and you should uphold the award," Montalbano said.
To read the full article, please click here.
"Michael Joseph Montalbano Named 2025 Rising Star by Law360," by Madeline Lyskawa was published in Law360 on August 6, 2025.
