FCC Names Howard Symons General Counsel

Federal Communications Commission chairman Tom Wheeler on Tuesday announced that he will appoint Howard Symons to succeed Jon Sallet as general counsel. Sallet is leaving the FCC to join the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division as deputy assistant attorney general for litigation.

In his new role, Symons will lead the FCC’s principal legal advisory office, which represents the agency in litigation, recommends decisions in adjudicatory matters, assists the Commission in its decision-making capacity and perform a variety of legal functions regarding internal and other administrative matters.

“Howard Symons has distinguished himself as a sage practitioner of communications law for decades,” Wheeler said in a statement. “I have had the opportunity of working with Howard many times on complicated and important communications issues and know from firsthand experience his significant abilities. Now that the Incentive Auction rules are in place and the auction is underway, we have the flexibility to ask Howard to transfer his considerable talents to become general counsel.”

Symons has been working in telecommunications in the public and private sectors for more than 30 years. Before his appointment to the FCC’s Incentive Auction Task Force in 2014, he was the chair of the communications practice at Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo, P.C., and served as senior counsel to the Subcommittee on Telecommunications in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Sallet, who has been with the FCC since 2013, had previously been a partner in three law firms, served as chief policy counsel for MCI Telecommunications — later MCI WorldCom — and served as Director of the Office of Policy & Strategic Planning for the Department of Commerce.

“Jon Sallet has been an incredible contributor to the activities of the Commission over the last two and a half years,” Wheeler said in a statement. “He has been a great counselor to me and the commission. As general counsel, Jon worked closely with our colleagues at the Department of Justice; it should be no surprise that the Antitrust Division would seek to have Jon join their team. To the Antitrust Division, we say, ‘Good move!’ To our friend Jon Sallet we say, ‘Godspeed.’”