Shook Hardy Hires Former Coca-Cola Litigation Chief in Houston
Leaving Atlanta for Houston, John Lewis Jr. joined Shook, Hardy & Bacon on Monday as a business litigation partner.
January 28, 2019 at 07:00 AM
3 minute read
A former chief litigation counsel for Coca-Cola Co., who left the company for an Atlanta litigation boutique in 2016, has returned to his hometown of Houston, where he is joining Shook, Hardy & Bacon as a business litigation partner.
John Lewis Jr., who also served as Coca-Cola's global chief diversity officer during his time in-house, made the move to Shook Hardy on Monday. He came from Atlanta's Lawrence & Bundy, where he was a partner. He joined that firm in 2016 when he left Coca-Cola.
Lewis said he was drawn to Shook Hardy by its litigation practice. “They are great trial lawyers,” he said. The firm has 30 lawyers in Houston.
Lewis worked at Coca-Cola from 2002 to 2016 and had various roles, including chief litigation counsel, senior managing compliance and global anti-bribery counsel, and global chief diversity officer.
He first got to know his new firm early in his career, he said, while doing bankruptcy and creditors' rights work in Kansas City, Missouri, where Shook Hardy is headquartered.
During his time at Coca-Cola, he used Shook Hardy as outside counsel and got to know the firm better. So in 2018, when Lewis decided he wanted to join a larger firm with a strong litigation practice, he began talking with Shook Hardy, he said.
At Lawrence & Bundy, Lewis worked on bankruptcy litigation, labor and employment work for executives, internal investigations and compliance work, class actions and whistleblower litigation. He declined to identify his clients. He said his background has provided him with both trial experience and familiarity with the C-suite.
Lewis said his move to Shook Hardy gives him the opportunity to return to his hometown of Houston, where he has family. Still, he said, he intends to remain active in Atlanta, where he is an advisory board member of the National Commerce Corp., the Anti-Defamation League (Southeast region), and a trustee for the Atlanta Botanical Garden.
Mike Cargnel, a partner in Kansas City who co-chairs Shook Hardy's business litigation practice, wrote in a statement that Lewis' background fits well with the firm's team of commercial litigators handling contentious lawsuits.
“John is a great lawyer and longtime friend,” Allegra Lawrence-Hardy of Lawrence & Bundy said in an email. “We wish him the very best in his new endeavors as he returns home to Houston, and we look forward to opportunities to continue to work together in the future.”
Further Reading:
This content has been archived. It is available through our partners, LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law.
To view this content, please continue to their sites.
Not a Lexis Subscriber?
Subscribe Now
Not a Bloomberg Law Subscriber?
Subscribe Now
NOT FOR REPRINT
© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
You Might Like
View AllEnergy Lawyers Expect Demand for Energy Work to Stay Steady Under Second Trump Administration
3 minute readTexas AG Paxton Stops Biden's Spousal Parole For Undocumented Immigrants
4 minute readTrending Stories
- 1Judicial Ethics Opinion 24-58
- 2Sweet James Clinches $17.4M Personal Injury Jury Verdict in California's Kings County
- 3In Lame-Duck Session, US Senate Confirms Illinois Federal Judge on Bipartisan Vote
- 4Gordon Rees Opens 80th Office, ‘Collaboration Hub’ in Palo Alto
- 5The White Stripes Drop Copyright Claim Against Trump Campaign
Who Got The Work
Michael G. Bongiorno, Andrew Scott Dulberg and Elizabeth E. Driscoll from Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr have stepped in to represent Symbotic Inc., an A.I.-enabled technology platform that focuses on increasing supply chain efficiency, and other defendants in a pending shareholder derivative lawsuit. The case, filed Oct. 2 in Massachusetts District Court by the Brown Law Firm on behalf of Stephen Austen, accuses certain officers and directors of misleading investors in regard to Symbotic's potential for margin growth by failing to disclose that the company was not equipped to timely deploy its systems or manage expenses through project delays. The case, assigned to U.S. District Judge Nathaniel M. Gorton, is 1:24-cv-12522, Austen v. Cohen et al.
Who Got The Work
Edmund Polubinski and Marie Killmond of Davis Polk & Wardwell have entered appearances for data platform software development company MongoDB and other defendants in a pending shareholder derivative lawsuit. The action, filed Oct. 7 in New York Southern District Court by the Brown Law Firm, accuses the company's directors and/or officers of falsely expressing confidence in the company’s restructuring of its sales incentive plan and downplaying the severity of decreases in its upfront commitments. The case is 1:24-cv-07594, Roy v. Ittycheria et al.
Who Got The Work
Amy O. Bruchs and Kurt F. Ellison of Michael Best & Friedrich have entered appearances for Epic Systems Corp. in a pending employment discrimination lawsuit. The suit was filed Sept. 7 in Wisconsin Western District Court by Levine Eisberner LLC and Siri & Glimstad on behalf of a project manager who claims that he was wrongfully terminated after applying for a religious exemption to the defendant's COVID-19 vaccine mandate. The case, assigned to U.S. Magistrate Judge Anita Marie Boor, is 3:24-cv-00630, Secker, Nathan v. Epic Systems Corporation.
Who Got The Work
David X. Sullivan, Thomas J. Finn and Gregory A. Hall from McCarter & English have entered appearances for Sunrun Installation Services in a pending civil rights lawsuit. The complaint was filed Sept. 4 in Connecticut District Court by attorney Robert M. Berke on behalf of former employee George Edward Steins, who was arrested and charged with employing an unregistered home improvement salesperson. The complaint alleges that had Sunrun informed the Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection that the plaintiff's employment had ended in 2017 and that he no longer held Sunrun's home improvement contractor license, he would not have been hit with charges, which were dismissed in May 2024. The case, assigned to U.S. District Judge Jeffrey A. Meyer, is 3:24-cv-01423, Steins v. Sunrun, Inc. et al.
Who Got The Work
Greenberg Traurig shareholder Joshua L. Raskin has entered an appearance for boohoo.com UK Ltd. in a pending patent infringement lawsuit. The suit, filed Sept. 3 in Texas Eastern District Court by Rozier Hardt McDonough on behalf of Alto Dynamics, asserts five patents related to an online shopping platform. The case, assigned to U.S. District Judge Rodney Gilstrap, is 2:24-cv-00719, Alto Dynamics, LLC v. boohoo.com UK Limited.
Featured Firms
Law Offices of Gary Martin Hays & Associates, P.C.
(470) 294-1674
Law Offices of Mark E. Salomone
(857) 444-6468
Smith & Hassler
(713) 739-1250