News Kilpatrick Townsend Adds Key Advisor from Office of North Carolina Speaker of the House

Nelson Freeman Joins Raleigh Office March 1

RALEIGH (February 13) – Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton announced today the addition of Nelson Freeman to the firm’s Government Relations Team in the Raleigh office. Mr. Freeman joins as Government Relations Advisor.

“Nelson brings deep experience on major policy issues affecting North Carolina, the region, and the country from his high-profile roles in the public affairs arena. We are excited to have Nelson join our growing government affairs practice,” said Ches McDowell, Kilpatrick Townsend Senior Government Relations Advisor.

Prior to joining the firm, Mr. Freeman served as Office of North Carolina Speaker of the House Tim Moore’s top advisor on tax policy, information technology policy, Alcohol Beverage Control, and economic development. During his time with Speaker Moore, Mr. Freeman was integral to the negotiations of the four major tax bills in 2017 including the enactment of a personal income tax cut to the lowest rate in the Southeast and corporate tax reduction to the lowest in the country for those states that have a corporate tax.

Mr. Freeman served as the N.C. Department of Revenue’s (DOR) Legislative Liaison prior to joining Speaker Moore’s office. In this role, he successfully lobbied for major changes to tax reporting to reduce fraud and identity theft that is now saving the state of North Carolina over $60 million dollars a year. Mr. Freeman was also the primary representative of the DOR before the General Assembly on negotiations related to the base expansion for sales tax that represented the largest shift in state sales tax collections.

Mr. Freeman worked for over eight years for Safari Club International (SCI), a membership advocacy organization in Washington, D.C. before joining the DOR in 2015. His last position for SCI was Deputy Director of Government Affairs, and in this role Mr. Freeman managed SCI’s entire public affairs program including in-house lobbyists, multiple lobbying and public relations consultants, and acted as an industry-wide coordinator for international, national, and state based lobbying. He raised over $3.2 million for the organization’s political action committee over four election cycles with more than an 80% win rate.

Mr. Freeman received his B.A. in Political Science and Government from Wake Forest University.

Follow the firm on Twitter: @KTS_Law.