Our people

John is a senior litigator at Reed Smith.  He is also a member of the Financial Industry Group, practicing in the area of financial services litigation.  He has practiced broadly in the areas of civil litigation and business counseling, with an emphasis on commercial matters.  He has had extensive experience in the fields of insurance, banking, health care, governmental relations, the licensing of intellectual property, constitutional interpretation, and employment and civil rights matters.  John has served as lead or coordinating counsel in a wide variety of complex matters, class actions, and regulatory proceedings.  He has represented national insurance companies in sales practice and other disputes, banks in Uniform Commercial Code and False Claims Act matters, business corporations in contract, intellectual property, and employment controversies, medical organizations in regulatory and reimbursement litigation, company directors in litigation charging that they had breached their fiduciary duties, and government entities in construction and civil rights litigation.  He is a frequent course planner and lecturer at Pennsylvania Bar Institute events and has chaired the Reed Smith Roundtable on the Financial Industry.

With this breadth of experience, John serves as coordinating counsel for a major Delaware Valley manufacturer in connection with its outside legal service needs, has acted as lead counsel to Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, in connection with the successful development and implementation of a $150 million resource recovery project, has negotiated the commercial settlement of intellectual property and contract disputes with a European licensor, and has resolved numerous other commercial and governmental differences.

Representative Matters

• Acted as lead trial counsel for the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia in certificate-of-need litigation that twice reached the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, resulting in the establishment of Children’s right to implement a pediatric liver transplant program

• Acted as lead trial counsel for the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) in its development, and successful defense against constitutional challenge of a random drug and alcohol testing policy for bus and train operators

• As lead counsel for a consortium of Delaware Valley hospitals and affiliated health care providers, was responsible for litigation against the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania concerning the state’s ultimate responsibility for medical assistance payments when it chooses to use an intermediary for such payments

• Represented a national accounting firm and two of its partners in enforcement proceedings brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission

• Acted as an expert on issues of Pennsylvania law in an international arbitration pending in the United Kingdom.

Experience

Legal Education

Undergraduate Education

Court Admissions

• State Supreme Court - Pennsylvania
• U.S. Supreme Court

Professional Affiliations

• American Bar Association
• Fellow of the American Bar Foundation
• Founder of the Foundation for Individual Responsibility and Social Trust (FIRST)
• Chair of the Board of Trustees of the International House of Philadelphia
• Chair of the Board of Directors of the Economy League of Greater Philadelphia
• Member of the President's Council of the Unitarian Universalist Association
• Former President of the Philadelphia Chamber Ensemble (which he helped to found)
• Former member of the Board of Directors of the World Affairs Council of Philadelphia

Interests

John served for three years as an officer in the United States Navy, including service as the Operations Officer of River Division 511 in Can Tho, South Vietnam. He is married to the former Susan Jane Brown. They have three sons.

Awards & Honors

• Listed in The Best Lawyers in America, Who's Who in America, and Who's Who in American Law