Lindsay Bernsen Wardlaw

Associate Attorney

Lindsay Bernsen Wardlaw is an associate in the international trade practice in the Washington, D.C. office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. Lindsay is also an adjunct professor at the Georgetown University Law Center, where she teaches U.S. export control and sanctions law.

At Gibson, Lindsay advises clients on compliance with U.S. export control, sanctions, antiboycott, and customs laws. She has successfully led her clients in advocacy before BIS, DDTC, OFAC, CBP, and Census, including through voluntary and prior disclosures, investigations, and pre-merger or divestiture transactional due diligence, as well as in licensing and classification requests. Other representative matters include trade-related client counseling and compliance program guidance, customs and trade remedies litigation, sanctions and export control investigations, and CFIUS filings.

Lindsay has over a decade of trade experience. Before joining Gibson Dunn, Lindsay was an associate at Sidley Austin and a vice president at Amalie Trade Compliance Consulting. At Amalie, Lindsay led the company’s trade advisory practice; counseled the company on internal compliance matters; served as an extension of client trade compliance leadership; and managed teams of trade compliance professionals in risk assessment, audit, governance, restricted party screening, export and import classification, and licensing projects for her clients.

Prior to law school, she was a corporate trade compliance manager, specializing in global compliance program-building, process improvement, and system launches.

Lindsay earned her J.D. magna cum laude in 2019 from the University of Michigan Law School.  At Michigan Law, she was a supervising student attorney in the International Transactions Clinic, the Editor-in-Chief of the Michigan Journal of International Law, and the student coach of the Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot team. She also interned at the Department of Justice. In 2012, she graduated cum laude from the University of Texas at Dallas with a Bachelor of Arts degree in International Political Economy; she was awarded additional honors from her department and from the honors college.

Lindsay is admitted to practice law in the District of Columbia and the State of Maryland, as well as before the U.S. Court of International Trade. She earned the highest score in the nation on the April 2016 administration of the U.S. Customs Broker Exam and is a licensed U.S. Customs Broker.

Currently, Lindsay serves on the board of the Michigan Law International Transactions Clinic, and she is on the ABA’s international law steering committee for export controls and sanctions. She also co-coaches the Michigan Law Vis Moot team.

Capabilities

Credentials

Education:
  • University of Michigan - 2019 Juris Doctor
  • University of Texas - Dallas - 2012 Bachelor of Arts
Admissions:
  • District of Columbia Bar
  • Maryland Bar