John served as managing partner of the firm for 20 years, stepping down in 2021 as part of a partner-adopted succession plan. During his tenure, the firm grew from 60 to nearly 300 attorneys, with some of its most strategic practice areas reaching national prominence. John's work with lateral partner recruitment and integration has involved overseeing 12 separate firm-to-firm combinations ranging in size from 10 to 60 attorneys and including deals with Saperston & Day, Damon Morey, Menter Rudin, Gilberti Stinziano, and Shapiro, Lifschitz & Schram, among other respected firms.
In his roles as former managing partner and current chair of the firm, John has recruited and led the integration of dozens of large group deals involving attorneys deciding to leave regional and national competitors to join Barclay Damon. In 2019, John led the successful recruitment and integration of a 20-attorney group from LeClairRyan, which enhanced the firm's major market offices in New York City and Boston and established a new 12-lawyer office in New Haven, Connecticut. Most recently, he worked in a lead role with the firm’s Management Committee to combine with the 10-lawyer Washington DC-based powerhouse Shapiro, Lifschitz & Schram, establishing a fully staffed Capitol District office and adding additional depth in the areas of corporate, real estate, litigation, and power and energy construction law.
The lateral program's success has come from an innovative onboarding system and personal commitment by senior leadership to client, attorney practice, and cultural integration, which John helped develop and oversee. The result is record high retention of lateral partners, who expand their practices and thrive at the firm for the remainder of their careers, as compared to national statistics confirming that typically over one-third of laterals leave within the first four years of joining a new firm. Altogether, the transformative impact of the firm’s uniquely successful growth strategy has created a seamless and stable platform of nine high-performing offices in midsize and major market cities across the Northeastern United States and in Toronto.
As the firm’s chair, John reports to the managing partner and focuses on the continued growth of the firm's major market offices, managing some of the firm's largest client relationships, and driving select, strategic initiatives appointed by the firm's Management Committee.
In his legal practice, John capitalizes on his experience as a former Wall Street project finance lawyer and trial lawyer at a leading New York firm. He serves a large roster of corporate and individual clients in disputes involving white-collar and corporate fraud and complex commercial litigation matters in both state and federal court.