Leslie E. John

Litigation, Antitrust, Product Liability and Mass Tort, Securities

Leslie E. John is a partner in the Litigation Department and Practice Leader of the Antitrust Group. She is also a member of the Product Liability and Mass Tort Group and the Securities Group. Her practice is concentrated in the areas of antitrust and complex litigation, and she has represented clients in federal and state courts and before the U.S. Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission.

Ms. John also has substantial class action experience, including the defense of product liability, securities, antitrust, and ERISA class actions, and the litigation of complex commercial cases. She has assisted in the design and implementation of an innovative confidential alternate dispute resolution program in which individual personal injury claims are being arbitrated. Ms. John has tried numerous individual claims to verdict in this program, obtaining defense verdicts in the majority of the claims.

Representative Matters

• Represents a pharmaceutical company against claims that it unlawfully extended its alleged monopoly by engaging in petitioning activity before the U.S. Food and Drug Administration
• Represents a pharmaceutical company in the defense of more than 600 individual claims for personal injury related to a pharmaceutical product; assisted in the design and implementation of an innovative confidential alternate dispute resolution program in which individual personal injury claims are being arbitrated
• Defended an insurance company sued in a class action case under ERISA for the wrongful denial of benefits because it did not cover the drug Viagra; successfully negotiated a resolution 
• Successfully represented a large manufacturer that was injured by an international price-fixing conspiracy of its suppliers, collecting more damages than any other purchaser and, in fact, the entire class combined
• Defended a pharmaceutical company that was accused of conspiring with others in the pharmaceutical industry on the pricing of its products to retail pharmacies, obtaining a favorable resolution of federal and state litigation and a parallel government investigation, and was successful in vastly reducing the claimed damages
• Represented a biotechnology company before the Federal Trade Commission, convincing the agency to allow a proposed merger

Professional Activities

WOMEN'S WAY (nation's oldest women's funding federation), General Counsel

Ballard Spahr's Diversity Council 

Recognition & Accomplishments

Benchmark Litigation, "local litigation star," commercial litigation, 2011 

Publications

Co-author, "Justice Department Announcement of $12 Million Settlement Signals Renewed Antitrust Scrutiny on Energy Markets," Ballard Spahr Alert, February 23, 2010

Co-author, "Unjust Enrichment: Unjust, Indeed," Law360, December 8, 2008

Speaking Engagements

Panelist, "New Mood in Antitrust," Ballard Spahr CLE for Free, June 16, 2009

"Antitrust and Intellectual Property: Patents, Pitfalls and Potential Profits," 2007

"Successful Joint Venturing: Avoiding Antitrust Issues," executive briefing on "Current Trends: Successful Joint Venturing with For-Profit and Nonprofit Entities," fall 2003

"Record Retention Policies, Related Issues, and Ethical Considerations," Ballard Spahr Women's Marketing Group

Panelist, "Defense Symposium for In-House Counsel: Avoiding Litigation Disasters," DuPont Primary Law Firm Network

Board Memberships

Philadelphia Bar Foundation, Board of Trustees, 2010-present

University of California, Berkeley, School of Law (J.D. 1987)
Associate Editor, California Law Review; Member, Moot Court Board

University of California, Berkeley (A.B. 1984, summa cum laude)

California

Pennsylvania