John Turner

John Turner is a trial lawyer who represents plaintiffs and defendants in civil litigation across the United States. His experience covers a broad spectrum of business and commercial law, ranging from intellectual property cases to contract disputes to antitrust matters to environmental proceedings. His approach to litigation is guided by a few key practices that are crucial to a successful outcome in any lawsuit: effective communication with the client, thorough investigation of the facts, and clear explanation of the law.

John is currently the co-chair of the firm’s Trade Secret Litigation Practice Group, and he leads trial teams in this active area of litigation. For example, he recently served as lead counsel to the Halliburton Company in an arbitration in which the opposing party claimed that Halliburton had misappropriated technology related to the water treatment in hydraulic fracking. The plaintiff originally sought $300 million in damages.

After two-week hearing in Miami, a three-arbitrator panel found that Halliburton did not misappropriate any technology and awarded zero damages to the plaintiff. John has represented Halliburton in other trade secrets cases, including a successful two-week trial in Dallas County in which the jury awarded damages to Halliburton in the exact amount requested.

Public interest and governmental entity representation also play a large role in John’s practice. For example, from 2011 to 2015 John represented a coalition of 88 Texas school districts in major litigation related to the adequacy of the school finance system in Texas.

After trial, District Judge John Dietz ruled in favor of the school district coalitions, finding that the system had evolved into an unconstitutional state property tax and that it failed to provide school districts with funding sufficient to meet constitutional standards. While the Texas Supreme Court ultimately reversed the trial court’s judgment, the case was widely discussed and provided a window into the state of public education in Texas.

John has also represented Texas cities and counties in proceedings before the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. He was part of a team that assisted more than 30 Texas cities, including Dallas and Houston, which were challenging the proposed construction of a number of new coal-fired power plants across Texas in the mid-2000s. He currently represents the Dallas Police and Fire Pension System in several high-profile matters related to the system’s efforts to improve its long-term financial stability.

John grew up in Crockett, Texas. He graduated from Harvard College and obtained his law degree from Yale Law School, where he won the Thurman Arnold Prize as the best oral advocate in the school’s moot court competition. Before joining Haynes and Boone in 2008, he was a partner in the firm of Susman Godfrey LLP, where he began his legal career. After law school, he served as a law clerk for the Honorable Lee H. Rosenthal of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas.

EDUCATION :

• J.D., Yale Law School, 2000
• A.B., Social Studies, Harvard University, 1997

CLERKSHIPS:

• The Honorable Lee H. Rosenthal, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas (2000-2001)

ADMISSIONS : Texas