In government contracting, the deals that shape missions rarely make headlines. The decisions that protect a company’s future often happen far from the spotlight. That’s where Andrew Sakallaris works.
As vice president and general counsel of LMI, Sakallaris sits at the intersection of law, technology and national security. He leads the company’s legal department while advising across every corner of the business, from regulatory strategy and risk to ethics and compliance. His role is less about slowing things down and more about making sure innovation can move fast without losing its footing.
In this Q&A, Sakallaris talks about the career path that took him from Big Law to the center of a mission-driven technology company, why legal teams now shape growth as much as they manage risk and how LMI is building commercial-grade solutions that meet federal needs from day one.
Can you provide a brief overview of your professional background and career progression? Please include what ultimately landed you in your current role.
After serving as a summer associate and graduating from George Washington University Law School, I joined the Labor & Employment Practice of Morgan, Lewis & Bockius where I defended clients in single plaintiff employment matters and class actions in federal and state courts.
I left the law firm and joined LMI in May 2016 as the third member of the law department. There my practice broadened to include corporate law, contracts, intellectual property, ethics, and risk management.
Following a series of significant changes for LMI, including transitioning from a non-profit to a for-profit entity, I became General Counsel in 2022, a position I’ve held ever since.
Why was this the path you chose, and how influential was it to your career?
I knew from the time I was in Law School that I wanted to begin my career in a large law firm practicing employment law. By 2016, I was ready to expand into new areas of the law and wanted to serve as business partner instead of as an outside counsel brought in to handle disputes.
Do you have a personal connection to the current mission you support?
I’ve always had a family connection to supporting the federal government. My father was a career civil servant, as was his father before him and my sister after him. LMI was founded during the Kennedy administration and has been serving the federal government for over 60 years.
What are your current top priorities and responsibilities? How do these relate to your company’s overall mission/growth strategy?
The government contracting landscape is shifting rapidly toward LMI’s model – agile, commercial solutions that are designed for federal and mission-ready, day one and we’re accelerating how we develop and deploy our technology platforms to meet the growing demand. My top priority is ensuring the law department is not just a risk manager but a force multiplier for that speed and scale.
Practically, that means working closely with our technology and organization leaders to enable the commercialization of LMI-developed platforms, navigating intellectual property strategy, ownership structures, trademarks, licensing, and contract frameworks so our teams can move quickly without introducing friction or uncertainty. As LMI increases the pace of platform development, the legal function plays a critical role in clearing pathways and enabling business success.
Where do you and your team see growth opportunities in your current field or portfolio you support, or what do you anticipate to be your customers’ top pain points?
Growth opportunities increasingly sit at the intersection of speed, trust, and readiness. Federal customers are under pressure to adopt modern capabilities faster, but they continue to face structural barriers: long acquisition timelines, fragmented ownership models, and uncertainty around rights, sustainment, and scalability.
From my perspective, a major opportunity is helping LMI differentiate by removing those barriers upfront. Customers are looking for private-sector partners who not only understand their operational challenges but who can bring clearly defined, legally sound, commercial-grade solutions that are deployable on day one and sustainable over time. As platforms, data, and software become central to mission execution, clarity around ownership, usage rights, and long-term flexibility is a mission enabler.
How are you and your team planning to address/prepare for these opportunities?
My team and I are always shaping how we operate to ensure close alignment with LMI’s strategic direction. That starts with prioritizing early engagement: embedding legal expertise upstream in technology development, commercialization decisions, and strategic partnerships so issues are addressed proactively rather than reactively.
We’re also investing in operational efficiency, including the thoughtful use of emerging technologies like AI, to streamline review cycles, improve consistency, and free our team to focus on higher-value, strategic work. Just as importantly, we’re aligning our efforts around moments of change – industry, technological, or both with a steady, solutions-oriented legal framework.
The goal is simple: enable LMI to move fast, responsibly, and with confidence so our technologists, operators, and customers can stay focused on mission impact.
How important is mentorship & networking in GovCon? Were they influential to your career?
Extremely important. The GovCon community is a relatively small one, so you see and work with the same group of colleagues and peers frequently.
What is something most people don’t know about you personally?
I collect fountain pens and have well over 100. Some of the pens I use regularly are over 100 years old.