John S. Adams
John is a trial lawyer at heart. He is a passionate speaker and advocate for his clients. John launched his own firm to address growing needs in the market:
- Most firms are built to delegate, creating silos as work is spread among attorneys. John is committed to personally developing cases for trial, based on hands-on mastery of the facts.
- Many firms are incentivized to bill more hours—at higher and higher hourly rates. This firm is built to deliver results, with fee agreements to match.
- Most firms are slow to adopt technology and only once it becomes essential. This firm is founded on a technology-first principle to scale better and faster than a traditional law firm.
Before launching his firm, John was as a trial partner in the Dallas office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher—an elite global law firm, ranked by Benchmark as the 2025 Texas Firm of the Year. John began his career at a a Chambers-ranked litigation boutique in Dallas, where he had early success in the courtroom.
John is recognized by Best Lawyers: Ones to Watch® in America for his work in Commercial Litigation from 2021-2024, and is named in D Magazine’s 2023 Best Lawyers Under 40 list.
John’s experience spans numerous industries, including oil and gas, real estate, and technology. He has successfully litigated cases involving asset purchase agreements; partnership disputes; executive compensation; trade secrets; non-compete agreements; natural gas gathering agreements; mineral leases; receiverships; securities; and class actions.
REPRESENTATIVE CASES:
- Represented a Dallas real-estate developer in a two-week jury trial based on claims of fraud, breach of fiduciary duty, and civil theft in a closely held partnership where the client’s partner mismanaged the business and failed to account for millions in profits. Top Verdict 2019.
- Represented a national manufacturing and sales organization in a two-week jury trial based on claims of misappropriation of trade secrets, breach of contract, and breach of fiduciary duty when former employees joined a competing business and unlawfully diverted the client’s customers to the competitor.
- Represented nationally recognized real-estate developers in bench trial based on claims for breach of contract arising out of guaranty agreements for a multi-million dollar hotel development project on Lake Tahoe.
- Represented a national pipeline company in a preliminary injunction after it invested over $100 million to develop a gathering system and an upstream natural gas producer threatened to violate a dedicated “area of mutual interest.”
- Represented a national pipeline company in a temporary restraining order when an upstream natural gas producer threatened to divert approximately $1 billion of natural gas to a competing pipeline.
- Represented an international distribution company in a temporary injunction when a former joint-venture partner solicited customers, while defending against claims of trademark infringement.
Represented a national manufacturing and sales organization in a temporary restraining order when a former employee breached his contract by joining a competing company and threatened to disclose trade secrets.
PUBLICATIONS:
- Swift and Rigorous: Texas Business Court’s Primxx Energy Ruling and Its Implications for Corporate Governance, Texas Law Book
- Nothing but the Truth: The Joy of Cross Examination, ABA Litigation Journal
- Give the Jury What it Wants--Decision Making in Trial Practice, ABA Litigation Journal
- How to tell Your Story at Trial, Dallas Bar Journal
- Tips for a Better Direct Examination, Dallas Bar Journal
- Protecting Information Provided to the Government, ABA Corporate Counsel Journal
- Well Established but Often Forgotten: Breach of Fiduciary Duty Claims Against Employees, ABA Business Torts & Unfair Competition
- Goldilocks and the Three Outcomes: Civil En Banc Review in the Dallas Court of Appeals, 2001-18, Appellate Advocate
- Recent Decisions on Arbitration, News for the Bar, Litigation Section of the State Bar of Texas
- A synopsis of Error Preservation, Dallas Bar Journal
