Author Archives: Shane McCall

Happy Veterans Day From SmallGovCon

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Today, on Veterans Day, we at SmallGovCon take a moment to honor the brave men and women who’ve served our country. We salute those who’ve worn the uniform and their families who’ve stood beside them. Both today and whenever we have the chance.

Because this is a legal blog, we also want to remind you of the federal government’s program for Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Businesses. Those benefits are available to those with disabled status based on their service, and those who work at their companies. It is a program that we hope to see grow even more important in the future.

For our service-disabled veteran readers and our veteran readers, we wish to say thank you. And Happy Veterans Day.

SmallGovCon Week in Review: Nov. 3-7, 2025

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I recently attended the NAPEX Fall conference in DC this past week. I was able to speak on the topic of The FAR Overhaul and Legal Updates for 2025. It was a great presentation with some insightful questions. Thanks to all the wonderful Apex Accelerator folks for saying hi to me.

It’s Friday and time for another week in review. This week was full of updates about the effects of the government shutdown. In other news, OPM is pushing to boost tech expertise and the DoD is looking to streamline acquisitions and hear from small businesses ahead of new cybersecurity standards (CMMC). You can read more about these stories and other federal government contracting developments in the articles below.

Have a great weekend.

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Webinar Announcement: Regulatory Updates in Government Contracting, Nov. 18, 2025

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In this webinar, hosted by the El Paso Texas APEX Accelerators, government contracting attorneys and authors Shane McCall and John Holtz will discuss the most important legal developments for federal contractors in 2025. Specifically, they will discuss the many FAR changes, important new small business rules and processing for various SBA certifications, recent cases pertinent to federal contractors, and more. This presentation will help federal contractors stay up to date on current federal regulatory and legal changes. We hope you will join us!

Please register: Here

SmallGovCon Week in Review: October 27-31, 2025

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Happy Halloween! We hope you have the candy purchased and are ready for the trick or treaters.

And speaking of scary things, another week of the government shutdown which is creating a lot of uncertainty about when agreement can be reached. One data point: all shut downs in the past have ended. But these stories illustrate how it has created a ripple effect for federal contractors and government personnel.

Our very own SmallGovCon contributor, Nicole Pottroff, was interviewed about the SBA’s 8(a) Program’s internal review and the importance of compliance. You can read that article in full below. Have a great weekend and enjoy the spooky visitors this evening.

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SmallGovCon Week in Review: October 20-24, 2025

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October and November always seem to be a popular conference season in the federal contracting world. Last week attorney-author Greg Weber was in Oklahoma. This week saw Nicole Pottroff visit the GovCon Kansas City 2025 to present on the topic of the Top 21 Legal Mistakes in Federal Government Contracting. It was a great event with a lot of enthusiastic attendees and interesting questions. Thanks to the organizers including the Missouri APEX Accelerator for inviting us to present!

While news of the shutdown is high on the list of articles this week, there were also updates on CMMC, federal hiring and workforce, and a spotlight on the 8(a) Program.

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SmallGovCon Week in Review: October 13-17, 2025

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Hello, SmallGovCon readers! It’s Friday, which means it’s time for another Week in Review.

SmallGovCon attorney-author Gregory Weber recently traveled to Oklahoma City this week to attend the ICBS Conference Accelerating Success in Contracting, where he gave a presentation on one of our most requested topics—Legal Updates. A big thank you to the Oklahoma APEX for hosting this event and to everyone who stopped by to connect with Greg!

In other news, SmallGovCon contributor and attorney Annie Birney was recently quoted in a Washington Technology article (see list below) discussing the risks of using AI to draft bid protests—and why that’s not the best route. As always, if you’re facing a bid protest or need legal assistance on a federal government contracting matter, our team is here to help.

Below, we’ve rounded up some insightful articles on the government shutdown and other key issues in federal contracting. Have a great weekend!

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FAR 2.0 Update: Part 12 – Acquisition of Commercial Products and Commercial Services

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Many federal contractors have heard about the revamping of the Federal Acquisition Regulation. Variously called FAR 2.0, the Revolutionary FAR Overhaul, or simply RFO, this project has been undertaken by the Office of Federal Procurement Policy (OFPP) and the Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council (FAR Council). An executive order got the ball rolling, setting forth the mandate to create FAR 2.0 by October 12, 2025. We wrote about it in our earlier post, and described it as two parallel tracks. Track 1 involves a rewrite into “plain language” and removing non-statutory and unnecessary content. Track 2 involves the development of the non-mandatory guidelines to guide procurement officials.

Our earlier posts regarding the RFO can be found here: Executive Order, Overview of FAR 2.0, FAR Part 6, FAR Part 19.

The revision of the FAR sections has continued over the past few months, with additional proposed revisions being released through September 2025. In this post, we’ll review one proposed revision that seems to make some significant changes to the language: Part 12 – Acquisition of Commercial Products and Commercial Services.

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