Lenny Feldman

LENNY FELDMAN is a Managing Partner, Operating Committee with Sandler, Travis & Rosenberg, P.A., resident in the Miami office. He previously co-chaired the twenty-member Customs and Border Protection’s Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee, providing strategic recommendations directly to CBP, Homeland Security and Treasury executives on issues such as forced labor, intellectual property rights, e-commerce policy, trade partnership programs, enforcement and facilitation mechanisms, and regulatory reform. He currently serves as General Counsel and Customs Counsel to the National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America (NCBFAA). He also serves on the board of governors of the American Association of Exporters and Importers and as one of their delegates to the World Customs Organization Private Sector Working Group in Brussels.

He is a frequent trade commentator, having interviewed with The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, CNN, NPR, the Miami Herald, International Trade Today, and Inside U.S. Trade. He also regularly meets with elected, career, and appointed officials in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. Department of Commerce, the U.S. Department of Treasury, and the office of the United States Trade Representative.

Mr. Feldman innovatively and resourcefully resolves complex issues pertaining to import classification compliance and tariff engineering; valuation requirements and first sale duty savings; seizure and penalty prior disclosures and mitigation petitions; antidumping and countervailing duty administration and enforcement; trade preference qualification for NAFTA/USMCA, CAFTA-DR, and other programs; intellectual property pre-compliance and forfeiture defense; importer/broker compliance reviews and cost savings analysis; export control reviews and enforcement strategies; and CTPAT/border security certification, validation, and suspension/revocation support. 

Mr. Feldman assists clients with import compliance and enforcement before CBP, DHS, and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement; export compliance and enforcement before the Census Bureau, the Office of Foreign Assets Control, the Bureau of Industry and Security, the Directorate of Defense Trade Controls, and the Transportation Security Administration; and product safety and admissibility before the Food and Drug Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Fish and Wildlife Service, the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, and the Consumer Product Safety Commission. He is renowned as a leader in educating business officials and elected officials at the local, state, and federal levels concerning international trade and business reform. Prior to serving as counsel to the NCBFAA, Lenny served as lead counsel to the Florida Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association. He is a former chairman of the board of the World Trade Center of Miami and is currently a committee chair of the Miami-Dade County International Trade Consortium, among other positions. 

Prior to joining STR, Mr. Feldman was a senior attorney with the U.S. Customs Service (now CBP) in Washington, D.C., from 1991 to 2000. While serving in the Penalties, Value, and General Classification branches at CBP headquarters, he issued several hundred national guidelines, directives, and administrative rulings. He was a negotiator of NAFTA and also consulted with foreign customs and trade officials throughout South America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. The vice president of the United States, the World Customs Organization, and numerous countries recognized him for these efforts. 

After leaving Customs, Mr. Feldman served as the chief compliance officer and vice president, international, for a trade and logistics software development company developing end-to-end e-commerce solutions, where he was responsible for content and automation pertaining to the trade laws of more than 100 countries.