A senior policy firm with offices in Washington and Berlin.

Prime Transatlantic is a boutique firm that works at the meeting point of U.S. and European policy. The clients are multinationals, trade associations, and non-profits who need counsel on regulation and legislation in Washington, Brussels, and Berlin at once — and who need it from people who have actually drafted the rules, argued the trade-offs, and stood in the rooms where the decisions are taken.

The working premise is straightforward. Durable policy outcomes come from building real coalitions, putting market-based mechanisms ahead of mandates where possible, and staying with a matter through implementation. The firm focuses on a small set of practice areas — sustainability and climate, chemicals and consumer products, pharmaceuticals and health, aviation, and transatlantic stakeholder engagement — so the depth in each is genuine.

What makes the firm unusual is its lineage. The founder, John P. Schmitz, served as Deputy White House Counsel to President George H.W. Bush and worked extensively on the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments — the law that established the first national cap-and-trade system. That work, and the relationships built around it, gave the firm an unusually deep regulatory network across both U.S. parties and German politics. Three decades on, that network is still how the firm gets things done.