Overview
John Williams practices in the area of complex civil litigation with a particular focus on securities litigation, international disputes and arbitration, and professional liability defense.
John has represented issuers, private equity firms, underwriters, professional advisers, and individuals in securities litigation, class actions, derivative cases, state securities and fraud actions, regulatory challenges, and government investigations. Those matters have included successful representations of clients at all levels of the federal and state courts, including the Supreme Court of the United States.
His international experience includes representing foreign institutions and individuals in civil and criminal matters as well as government investigations. John also has extensive experience in international arbitrations. His international representations are confidential.
Although his work has covered a variety of industries, John has defended numerous clients in the energy and healthcare sectors. In the energy space, he has represented corporations and private equity firms in securities class actions, government investigations, and international arbitrations. In the healthcare area, he has represented companies in numerous securities cases and commercial disputes.
John has defended international, national, and regional law firms, as well as individual lawyers. The cases have involved civil matters initiated by clients, non-clients, and bankruptcy-related trustees, as well as government investigations and criminal prosecutions. The non-client representations have usually involved matters brought by counterparties to the law firm’s client or customers or shareholders of the client suing in representative capacities. John has also counseled law firms and individual lawyers in sanctions matters and disciplinary proceedings.
A graduate of Princeton (A.B., magna cum laude), Harvard (J.D., cum laude), and Yale (M.A.), John grew up in Scarsdale, New York. After graduating from law school, he served as a law clerk to the Honorable Danny J. Boggs of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. He joined Williams & Connolly in 2005.
John serves on the firm’s Discovery Attorney Committee. His pro bono representations have included representing asylum seekers and a D.C. habeas petitioner. He argued on behalf of the habeas petitioner and his six co-petitioners before the Supreme Court of the United States in Turner v. United States, 582 U.S. 313 (2017). That case was later featured in the Netflix series “The Confession Tapes.”