A trial lawyer with more than thirty-five years of experience, John Hall is the chair of Covington's global Litigation Practice. John represents some of the world's leading companies in their most challenging disputes.
In the past year, John obtained highly-publicized victories against the federal government in two bet-the-company disputes. John was lead counsel for TikTok in challenging the Trump Administration's attempt to ban the popular app, winning a preliminary injunction only hours before the ban was set to take effect. See TikTok, Inc., et al. v. Trump et al., 490 F. Supp. 3d 73 (D.D.C. 2020). John also led the Covington team that prevented the Defense Department's blacklisting of global electronics maker Xiaomi Corporation from U.S. financial markets, a win that restored $10 billion to Xiaomi’s market capitalization. See Xiaomi Corporation, et al. v. Department of Defense, et al., 2021 WL 950144 (D.D.C. March 12, 2021).
A former Assistant United States Attorney, John also represents individuals and companies in white collar criminal defense and investigations. Many of his civil representations arise out of government enforcement proceedings and have a cross-border dimension. He is an expert on the defense of international tort claims under the Alien Tort Statute, the Antiterrorism Act, and similar laws, having won precedent-setting rulings at trial and on appeal in several leading cases.
For a large firm litigator, John has an unusual amount of plaintiff-side experience. In 2018, he was lead trial counsel for the State of Minnesota in a national resources damages lawsuit against 3M that recovered $850 million to remediate drinking water contamination in the Twin Cities area. He has served as lead counsel in several high-stakes insurance recovery actions on behalf of policyholders. And on a pro bono basis he has prosecuted numerous civil rights lawsuits on behalf of individuals victimized by police and prosecutorial misconduct.
A native of Kansas City, John served early in his career as a top aide and campaign manager for former U.S. Senator John C. Danforth and former Missouri Governor Christopher S. Bond.