Natashia Tidwell, Partner, Mintz
Natashia focuses her practice on white collar defense and government investigations with a special emphasis on assisting educational institutions in identifying and managing internal and external challenges. She leverages her experience as a former federal prosecutor and police officer to provide pragmatic counsel to schools on federal and state constitutional issues and to advise individuals and institutions on government enforcement actions. Her clients include colleges, universities, secondary schools, cities and towns, hospitals, and other organizations.
Natashia has extensive experience advising clients on responses to grand jury subpoenas, civil investigative demands, and interview and deposition requests. She also provides guidance on internal investigations of alleged misconduct, assisting with the assessment of potential violations and recommending steps to mitigate risk and reputational damage.
In the education side of her practice, Natashia oversees a broad spectrum of internal investigations for colleges, universities, and independent secondary schools in matters involving racial and gender discrimination, sexual misconduct, campus safety and security, and other constitutional matters.
In connection with the nationwide focus on social justice following the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Natashia led many investigations of alleged discriminatory conduct by schools, local police departments, corporations, and other organizations. As the lead monitor in Ferguson, Missouri, Natashia is providing oversight on city police department and municipal court reforms stemming from a civil rights investigation by the US Department of Justice. In Newark, New Jersey, Natashia is serving as a subject matter consultant for the monitoring team instituting court-ordered reforms within the city’s police force.
Prior to joining Mintz, Natashia was a partner at a US-based law firm, where she focused on white collar and government enforcement, including matters involving higher education institutions and K-12 schools. Earlier, she served as counsel at a global law firm and a Boston-based law firm and as an Associate Professor of New England Law | Boston.
Natashia’s public service career included serving in the public integrity section of the Department of Justice and in the US Attorney's Office for the District of Massachusetts. During her tenure as a prosecutor, she secured convictions in a bribery and conspiracy trial of two sitting state court judges and a prominent local trial attorney. In a separate matter, she secured guilty pleas from a congressional official and high-level staffers to federal conspiracy and honest services fraud charges following a bribery and organized crime investigation.
Before attending law school and while earning her JD, Natashia worked as a police officer for the Cambridge Police Department in Massachusetts, where she rose through the ranks to become the department's first female lieutenant.