Overview

John works with clients ranging from innovative, emerging startup companies to the world’s largest technology companies. His particular areas of expertise are oil and gas technologies, chemical processes, polymers, pharmaceuticals, and medical devices, but he has also represented many clients in many other technology areas, such as consumer electronics, computer telephony, software, and memory cards.

In addition to his patent practice, John maintains an active pro bono practice. For over 10 years, he has been lead counsel for Sherwood Brown, who was wrongly convicted of a triple murder and spent 22 years on Mississippi’s death row. At the time Mr. Brown was convicted in 1995, DNA testing was in its infancy and was not conducted. In 2012, John and his co-counsel filed a successful motion in the Mississippi Supreme Court to gain access to the evidence to allow for DNA testing. Two independent laboratories then tested the evidence, which showed that Mr. Brown’s DNA was not present at the crime scene. As a result, in 2018, John and his team secured a ruling from the en banc Mississippi Supreme Court vacating Mr. Brown’s convictions and death penalty sentence. Afterwards, the State announced that it intended to retry the case and seek the death penalty. But after three years of additional litigation, the State dismissed the case against Mr. Brown, resulting in his release in August 2021. Articles about John’s work on this case appear in Law360, the American Bar Association website, and Lawdragon.

John earned undergraduate degrees in chemical engineering and biology at Auburn University. He attended Auburn on a swimming scholarship on Auburn’s highly ranked NCAA swim team. Before attending law school, he was a chemical engineer at Fluor, one of the world’s largest engineering companies.