Shawn A. Johnson

Shawn A. Johnson is a civil trial lawyer who uses his professional backgrounds in accounting, technology, and law to provide results for his clients. Shawn has a track record of success in a variety of complex legal disputes and proved himself to be a skilled trial and appellate attorney in his first half-decade of private practice after graduating first in his law-school class and clerking at the Texas Supreme Court.

Shawn has handled a wide range of business litigation, including cases involving claims for breach of fiduciary duty, trade secret misappropriation, contract breaches, and violations of non-compete agreements. He has handled numerous disputes between partners, shareholders, and members of companies, which often lead to owner buyouts. His cases have involved a wide variety of industries including oil and gas, energy, healthcare, hospitality, and construction.

Shawn routinely draws from his prior professional experience in public accounting to achieve successful outcomes for clients. He received an M.S. in Management Information Systems and a B.B.A. in Accounting from Texas A&M University, becoming licensed as a Certified Public Accountant shortly thereafter. Shawn worked for the international accounting firm of Deloitte & Touche for three years, primarily as a cyber security consultant in enterprise-transforming system implementations for some of the largest companies in the world. He then decided to pursue his legal education at Texas A&M University School of Law and was awarded his J.D. summa cum laude and graduated first in his law-school class.

While in law school, Shawn served as Managing Editor of the Texas A&M Law Review and authored multiple articles published in law reviews and legal journals across the county. In law school, Shawn also worked for Texas Supreme Court Justice Debra H. Lehrmann, Judge Sim Lake in the Southern District of Texas, and Judge Jeffrey L. Cureton in the Northern District of Texas and served as a summer associate at the Buzbee Law Firm.

After graduation, Shawn clerked for Texas Supreme Court Justice Paul Green and then spent four years as an associate at Burford Perry, LLP. While at Burford Perry, and in addition to the complex cases he was handling at that firm, Shawn began co-counseling with Kent Schaffer in complex civil cases representing students with claims against private schools and judges in election contests.

Throughout his legal career, Shawn has experienced success at all levels of the judicial system. He won cases in the Texas Supreme Court and the Nevada Supreme Court, as well as in numerous intermediate appellate courts. He has also successfully defended against a petition for writ of certiorari as lead counsel in the United States Supreme Court. Shawn also obtains great results in the courtroom, obtaining successful client outcomes before a lawsuit becomes necessary and in injunction proceedings, jury trials, bench trials, and arbitrations.

Whether an individual or new or established business, Shawn is dedicated to understanding his clients’ goals and working efficiently and effectively to reach those goals through communication, hard work, and use of a thorough understanding of the law and the facts of his clients’ cases.

Bar Admissions

• State Bar of Texas, 2016
• Federal District Court for the Southern District of Texas, 2017
• Federal District Court for the Northern District of Texas, 2022
• Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, 2022
• United States Supreme Court, 2021

Education

• Texas A&M University School of Law
  • J.D. 2016, Summa Cum Laude, Valedictorian
  • Managing Editor, Texas A&M Law Review
• Texas A&M University
  • M.S., Management Information Systems, 2010
• Texas A&M University
  • B.B.A., Accounting, 2010

• Fiduciary Litigation
• Fraud Litigation
• Partnership and Shareholder Disputes
• Theft of Trade Secrets
• Noncompetes & Unfair Competition
• Business Litigation
• Appellate Law

Results

• 2023: In suit against former spouse for stealing jointly owned company, obtained jury verdict for client totaling $157 million for derivative and direct claims for breach of fiduciary duty, fraud, and breach of contract.
• 2023: Obtained complete nonsuit of claims against client for alleged unlawful water diversion, negligence, trespass, and Water Code violations.
• 2023: Obtained favorable settlement for business client against chamber of commerce for wrongful revocation of chamber membership.
• 2022: Obtained settlement favorable to client before significant litigation efforts commenced in dispute with architectural firm.
• 2022: Obtained dismissal of former congressional candidate’s defamation claims against congressional opponent, as well as an award of attorney fees and court costs.
• 2022: Obtained favorable settlement for defendant clients of claims by competitor and former employer of certain defendants for breach of contract, tortious interference, breach of fiduciary duty, misappropriation of trade secrets, and related unfair competition claims.
• 2022: In complex, accounting intensive case alleging breach of fiduciary duty and partnership dispute, after nine-day arbitration, obtained a $7.4 million arbitration award in clients’ favor and a take-nothing award as to the respondents’ counterclaims.
• 2022: After obtaining dismissal of business disparagement and tortious interference claims against defendant client, obtained favorable settlement of client’s counter- and third-party claims for breach of executive compensation and stock subscription agreements.
• 2021: Defeated non-resident officer’s motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction in district court and in Nevada Supreme Court, successfully defending the decisions in the United States Supreme Court.
• 2021: Obtained reversal of district court’s order granting special appearances of residents of California and Greece and successfully defended petition for review by the Texas Supreme Court.
• 2020: Obtained favorable judgment after bench trial enforcing setback restriction against commercial developer, overcoming challenges to plaintiffs’ standing to enforce, restriction interpretation, and restriction applicability and defenses of waiver and abandonment.
• 2020: Obtained temporary injunction ordering political party to place judge’s name on primary ballot, and defeated challenges to ruling in Fourteenth Court of Appeals and Texas Supreme Court.
• 2020: Obtained unanimous jury verdict in suit to quiet title.
• 2019: Obtained take-nothing summary judgment of sexual assault claims against company.
• 2019: Obtained order enjoining private school from dismissing minor student.
• 2019: Obtained order enjoining company created by former officers and employees from contacting former customers in non-compete and trade-secret litigation.
• 2019: Effectuated multi-million-dollar sale of cosmetics company.
• 2018: Pursued breach of fiduciary duty claims against majority owner of limited liability company, leading to favorable buyout of client’s ownership interest.
• 2018: Obtained favorable out of court settlement for former owner, officer, and director of oil and gas company facing $15,000,000 breach of contract and breach of fiduciary duty claims.
• 2018: Obtained favorable confidential settlement for mineral-interest owners in a most favored nations clause-based dispute against two large oil and gas companies.
• 2018: Obtained take-nothing summary judgment on claims against construction companies for surface water diversion.
• 2018: Obtained favorable out of court settlement for client against high-performance automotive shop.
• 2018: Obtained attorneys’ fee award and expedited dismissal of claims against estate brought by decedent’s ex-wife, who alleged decedent had fraudulently concealed assets during the couple’s divorce, and successfully defending the expedited dismissal in the Texas Supreme Court.

Published Cases

• Nyanza Moore et al. v. Derrick Reed, No. 14-20-00463-CV, 2022 WL 1180116 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] Apr. 21, 2022)
• Lewis v. Second Judicial Dist. Court in & for County of Washoe, 478 P.3d 872 (Nev. Apr. 5, 2021)
• In re Cornelio, No. 14-20-00025-CV, 2020 WL 262729, at *1 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] Jan. 15, 2020)
• Sportscapers Constr., Inc. v. Mitchell, No. 01-17-00432-CV, 2018 WL 3651620 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st. Dist.] Aug. 2, 2018)
• Collins v. Collins, No. 01-17-00817-CV, 2018 WL 1320841 (Tex. App. —Houston [1st Dist.] Mar. 15, 2018)

Honors & Awards

• Texas Rising Stars, Super Lawyers by Thomson Reuters, 2020-2023
• Inductee, National Order of Scribes, American Society of Legal Writers, May 2016

Professional Associations & Memberships

• State Bar of Texas
• State Bar of Texas Litigation Section
• State Bar of Texas Appellate Section
• Houston Young Lawyers Association
• Houston Bar Association
• Houston Bar Association Litigation Section
• Texas Aggie Bar Association

• Co-Author: Rare Earth: Original Mandamus Jurisdiction in the Texas Supreme Court, State Bar of Texas: Texas Supreme History & Current Practice (2021)
• Co-Author and Co-Presenter: Post-Judgment Discovery and TUFTA: How to Get Paid, State Bar of Texas: Advanced Evidence and Discovery Course (2020)
• “Make Whole”: The Need for Gross-Ups in Employment Discrimination Cases, 17 Hous. Bus. & Tax L.J. 31 (2016)
• A Law and Economics Approach to Privacy Policy Misstatements: Considering the Need for a Cost-Benefits Analysis in the FTC’s Deception Framework, 18 Colum. Sci. & Tech. L. Rev. 79 (2016)
• Note, Brookshire Brothers v. Aldridge: Making the Spoliation Instruction a Litigation Unicorn, 3 Tex. A&M L. Rev. 445 (2015)