30 Mar 2026
Day Pitney Welcomes Mark D. Nielsen as Of Counsel in Corporate and Business Law
"Day Pitney LLP hires Mark D. Nielsen as Of Counsel in its Corporate and Business Law Department; he will work on corporate, regulatory, restructuring matters and large-scale transactions."
Nielsen joins Day Pitney from Frontier Communications, where he served for nearly 12 years as chief legal officer. At Frontier he guided the company through four multi-billion-dollar M&A transactions, numerous high-stakes litigations, a shareholder activist campaign, three CEO transitions, and a $17 billion bankruptcy restructuring that preceded the company’s sale to Verizon in January 2026. He will practice in the firm’s corporate and business law areas, drawing on experience in regulated industries, large-scale transactions, restructurings, and related regulatory matters.
Earlier in his career, Nielsen held a series of senior in-house legal roles for nearly 20 years at Raytheon, Praxair, and Frontier. From 2004 to 2007 he served as chief legal counsel and later chief of staff to Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, advising on legal aspects of policy, drafting legislation and executive orders, and overseeing administration policy and legislative initiatives. Nielsen was also elected to the Connecticut House of Representatives in 1992 and to two terms in the State Senate in 1994 and 1996.
An honors graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, Nielsen is a member of the adjunct faculty at Columbia Law School and is admitted to practice in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New York. He currently resides in Ridgefield.