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Megan Crowley

Megan Crowley is a nationally recognized litigator who represents clients in complex, high-stakes cases at the intersection of law, government, and policy. As Co-Chair of Covington’s Government Litigation practice, she combines strategic foresight with public-sector experience, having previously litigated high-impact constitutional, statutory, and administrative law cases at the U.S. Department of Justice.

For more than five years, Megan has co-led Covington’s representation of TikTok in litigation concerning privacy, data security, and government regulation—some of the most consequential technology cases of the past decade. In 2020, she co-led Covington’s successful challenge to the Executive Order seeking to ban TikTok’s operations in the United States. In 2023, she and the team obtained a preliminary injunction blocking Montana’s statewide ban on TikTok—the first ruling of its kind. Since 2024, Megan has continued to co-lead Covington’s representation of TikTok in matters arising under the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, including proceedings before the D.C. Circuit and the U.S. Supreme Court, as well as related issues critical to the platform’s ongoing U.S. operations.

Megan has also achieved significant victories for other clients facing complex regulatory and constitutional challenges. She played a pivotal role in Covington’s successful representation of Xiaomi Corporation in overturning a Department of Defense designation that would have barred the company from U.S. financial markets, and has represented major global companies in administrative and appellate litigation involving data security, government regulation, and consumer protection.

In addition to her federal work, Megan has defended clients in State Attorney General enforcement actions. She delivered the winning argument that led to the complete dismissal of an Indiana Attorney General consumer protection action—one of several matters in which she has successfully opposed novel applications of state enforcement authority.

Beyond the courtroom, Megan advises clients on constitutional and administrative law issues, regulatory compliance, and emerging legislative frameworks governing online platforms. Her practice also encompasses litigation under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, the Administrative Procedure Act, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, and the First Amendment.

Her achievements have earned broad recognition. The American Lawyer named her “Litigator of the Week” for her successes, and Law360 has recognized her as a Rising Star in Cybersecurity & Privacy.

Megan maintains a robust pro bono practice, focused on civil rights litigation. She played a central role on the team representing the University of California in its challenge to the government’s rescission of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, obtaining a nationwide injunction and, ultimately, a 5-4 victory in the U.S. Supreme Court.

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Last month, the D.C. Circuit in In re: Sealed Case, 2025 WL 2013687 (D.C. Cir. July 18, 2025) invalidated a non-disclosure order (“NDO”) that applied to prospectively issued subpoenas, holding that it failed to meet the statutory requirements in 18 U.S.C. § 2705(b) of the Stored Communications Act.  Continue Reading Federal Court Invalidates Prospective Blanket NDO

On September 16, the Fifth Circuit issued its decision in NetChoice L.L.C. v. Paxton, upholding Texas HB 20, a law that limits the ability of large social media platforms to moderate content and imposes various disclosure and appeal requirements on them.  The Fifth Circuit vacated the district court’s preliminary injunction, which previously blocked the Texas Attorney General from enforcing the law.  NetChoice is likely to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review the Fifth Circuit’s decision.Continue Reading Fifth Circuit Upholds Texas Law Restricting Online “Censorship”

Last Thursday, the Eastern District of Virginia in United States v. Chatrie, No. 19-cr-00130, 2022 WL 628905, denied a motion to suppress evidence obtained from Google pursuant to a geofence search warrant.  Geofence warrants are a relatively new investigative tool that target private companies’ databases of location data, compelling these companies to produce the location data of every user that was in a particular area over a particular span of time.  The court invalidated the warrant for lack of particularized probable cause, but declined to suppress the evidence obtained from Google—which linked the defendant to the scene of a 2019 bank robbery—because the officers sought the warrant in good faith.
Continue Reading Federal Court Expresses Skepticism About Validity of Geofence Warrants But Declines Suppression Remedy

On August 27, 2021, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker signed into law the Protecting Household Privacy Act (“PHPA”).  The law governs how, and under what conditions, Illinois law enforcement agencies may acquire and use data from household electronic devices, commonly referred to as “smart devices” or the “internet of things.”  The…
Continue Reading Illinois Enacts Protecting Household Privacy Act

Last week, the Ninth Circuit held in United States v. Wilson, No. 18-50440, 2021 WL 4270847, that a law enforcement officer violated a criminal defendant’s Fourth Amendment rights when he opened images attached to the defendant’s emails without a warrant, even though the images had previously been flagged as child sexual abuse materials (“CSAM”) by Google’s automated CSAM-detection software.  The court based its ruling on the private search exception to the Fourth Amendment, which permits law enforcement to conduct a warrantless search only to the extent the search was previously conducted by a private party.  Because no individual at Google actually opened and viewed the images flagged as CSAM, the court held that law enforcement “exceeded the scope of the antecedent private search,” thereby “exceed[ing] the limits of the private search exception.”  Op. at 20-21.
Continue Reading Ninth Circuit’s Interpretation of Private Search Exception to the Fourth Amendment Contributes to “Growing Tension” Among Circuit Courts