Townsend Bourne is a partner in the Governmental Practice in Sheppard Mullin’s Washington, D.C. office, where she also serves as Leader of the firm’s Government Business Group and the Governmental Practice Cybersecurity & Data Protection team.  She represents companies that do business with government, either directly or through a prime contractor or reseller. She represents multiple clients in the aerospace and defense industry as well as commercial companies and cloud service providers.

 Townsend specializes in matters relating to cybersecurity and data protection for government contractors, including counseling clients with regard to Department of Defense and civilian agency security requirements, implementation of system security plans and data security policies based on industry best practices, negotiation of subcontractor and vendor agreements, and incident response. She chairs the Coalition for Government Procurement’s Cyber and Supply Chain Security Committee and writes and speaks frequently on cybersecurity developments affecting the Government Contracts industry.

 Townsend's experience also includes complex litigation in connection with the Contract Disputes Act, bid protest actions before the Government Accountability Office and Court of Federal Claims, claims litigation before the Armed Services Board of Contract Appeals and the Civilian Board of Contract Appeals, investigating and preparing contractor claims, and conducting internal investigations.

 She has been recognized for her work by Legal 500 (Government Contracts, 2023) and Super Lawyers (DC Rising Star, 2019-2020), and serves on Law 360’s Aerospace & Defense Editorial Board.