Though all cases vary and none is predictive, John’s lead trial experience includes a $1.6 billion confidential arbitration in 2013 arising out of the largest Ponzi scheme in history. The result was a complete victory for the client. John is regularly recognized as one of the leading trial lawyers in the nation. In 2009, The American Lawyer named him “Litigator in the Spotlight” - “Lawyers’ lawyer, John Villa of Williams & Connolly scored three big wins for law firm clients this spring.”  The following year, naming him “Litigator of the Week” for a favorable Second Circuit decision, The American Lawyer writes “John Villa [has] made a career of getting law firms out of big trouble.”  The American Lawyer has described his successful trial victory in In the Matter of USAT … as “the longest trial arising from the savings and loan crisis” – a “trial that stretched over 18 months” and resulted in a decision that “exonerated [his client] on all counts” “a crushing defeat for the federal agency that brought the case.” 

John is a prolific writer, and, among other publications has authored the following treatises: Banking Crimes: Fraud, Money Laundering and Embezzlement (2 vol.) (Thompson), Bank Directors' and Officers' and Lawyers' Civil Liabilities (Wolters Kluwer), and Corporate Counsel Guidelines (2 vol.), (co-published by Thompson and Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC)).  He has also co-authored a casebook, Professional Responsibility: Representing Business Organizations, published by WestAcademic in June 2016. John has been the chairman of, or a speaker on, more than 230 professional conferences on issues involving legal malpractice and ethics, the duties of corporate counsel, banking litigation, directors and officers liability, money laundering and other related topics.

John serves as an adjunct professor at Georgetown University Law School, teaching a course entitled "Counseling the Corporation in Crisis." He previously served as a trial attorney (Honors Program) in the United States Department of Justice, and a special assistant United States Attorney in the United States Attorney's Office in the District of Columbia.  John was a recipient of the Attorney General's Special Commendation Award for Outstanding Service.  He is a graduate of Duke University and the University of Michigan Law School, where he was an editor of the Michigan Law Review. 

John is a member of the Board of the Washington National Cathedral, member of the Board of Visitors of Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy, and is on the Washington D.C. Board of Directors of Big Brothers of the National Capital Area, and of the Society for Orphan Armenian Relief (SOAR).

John’s biography has appeared in Who's Who in Hispanic America.