John Lewis
Practice Areas:
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Complex Commercial Litigation
Mass Torts
Securities Fraud
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Education:
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B.A. Princeton University
J.D. Harvard Law School
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Bar Admissions:
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Pennsylvania
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United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania
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Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit
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United States Supreme Court
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Contact Information:
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Email: john@langfittpllc.com
John H. Lewis, Jr. is a graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law School and a member of the American College of Trial Lawyers, which is limited to the top one percent of trial lawyers.
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For more than thirty years, Mr. Lewis was a partner with Morgan Lewis where he served as head of the litigation section and was also head of the antitrust section. While at Morgan Lewis, he represented a wide variety of Fortune 500 Companies, often in litigation that threatened the very existence of those companies. He represented United States Gypsum (USG) in its nationwide defense of asbestos claims for ten years and represented USG in a multi-million dollar case brought by the State of Maryland where he obtained a defense verdict after a six-week trial. Mr. Lewis successfully defended Exxon in a $2 billion class action antitrust case. At the same time, he took on claims by plaintiffs and brought to trial in New York the now legendary case initiated by defrauded investors against the Bank of New York and the law firm of Wilkie Farr for aiding and abetting a fraudulent scheme directed by Robert Vesco. Mr. Lewis made a favorable settlement with Wilkie Farr and tried the case in opposition to the Bank's new lawyers at Sullivan and Cromwell. Mr. Lewis won a 60 million dollar verdict against the Bank of New York. He returned nearly one hundred percent of lost funds to the defrauded investors.
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​Mr. Lewis left Morgan Lewis in 1998 and became one of the most prominent litigators at Montgomery McCracken Walker & Rhoads, where he and David Langfitt joined efforts to become a potent trial team in complex commercial litigation. Some of those cases involved, among other things, the unwinding of large corporate merger agreements, litigating successfully on behalf of creditors, and exposing pre-packaged corporate bankruptcies designed to evade liability for asbestos claims. Mr. Lewis and Mr. Langfitt also recovered more than $360,000,000 for defrauded investors victimized by Bentley Financial Services, the largest Ponzi Scheme in the United States as of 2001.
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Mr. Lewis has experience litigating under the Dragonetti Act, the Pennsylvania law that puts in statutory form the common law remedy for wrongful use of civil proceedings. He teamed with David Langfitt to defend and counterclaim on behalf of one of the nation’s most successful plaintiff’s law firms against a Fortune 500 company determined to ruin the firm for allegedly filing a series of class actions without a sound basis. The law firm settled the case on the eve of trial in a public settlement for a $1,000 donation to the James Beasley School of Law at Temple University, a resounding achievement for Langfitt and Lewis. On the other side of the coin, Mr. Lewis participated in the successful prosecution of a Dragonetti Act claim against those responsible for bringing a frivolous lawsuit.
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​Mr. Lewis serves of counsel and is admitted to practice in Pennsylvania, as well as the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit and the United States Supreme Court.
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