Not the Third Wheel: Intervenors in Government Accountability Office Protests

摘要

In protests at the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the protester and agency have easily defined roles. Intervenors, however, may seem about as useful as a third wheel on a bicycle. Protesters' counsel properly see the intervenor as an obstacle to a successful protest, while agency attorneys are often hesitant to work too closely with intervenor counsel either out of concerns related to information sharing or that the interests of the government and the intervenor may diverge, or both. Our goal in this article is to dispel these agency concerns. We will, accordingly, explain why the intervenor should not be perceived as a third wheel, but rather as an integral and valuable part of the agency's defense. We explain why intervenors intervene, discuss the government's perspective, and describe a roadmap of how intervenors can help agency counsel defend an award. We offer these views to illuminate a clearer role for intervenors in a bid protest as a key part of the agency defense.