In Memoriam: John Lewis Jr.
John H. Lewis, Jr. was 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.
John Lewis and David Langfitt practiced complex litigation and trial work as partners for more than 10 years. They won multiple commercial cases on the plaintiff's side and the defendant's side in both federal trial courts and bankruptcy courts. Mr. Langfitt brought Mr. Lewis out of retirement to work on NFL and NCAA litigation, which he did for several years before he died. This page is in memoriam to John Lewis.
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 the same rigor and preparation to those matters that he brought to every case he handled.
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.
Mr. Lewis had 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 clients who had been subjected to abusive litigation tactics — work that required the same precision and tenacity he brought to every matter he touched.
John brought to this firm what no brief or credential could fully capture: a genuine commitment to the people on the other side of every intake call. He understood that the former lineman calling about memory loss, or the widow trying to understand what happened to her husband, was not a case file. He treated them accordingly. His legal instincts were sharp, his preparation thorough, and his presence in client conversations steady and reassuring. Colleagues trusted his judgment. Clients trusted him as a person.
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Pennsylvania
United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania
Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit
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