Experienced Trial Lawyer

John Howley, Esq. is an experienced trial lawyer with a reputation for getting excellent results in difficult cases.  Among his noteworthy cases are:

• representing Pfizer, Novartis, and other major pharmaceutical companies in multi-billion dollar lawsuits
• representing individuals in more than 300 Medicare and Medicaid fraud investigations with no criminal charges filed
  
• helping dozens of whistleblowers earn large financial rewards and legal protections for reporting Medicare and Medicaid fraud at hospitals, nursing homes, urgent care centers, hyperbaric oxygen therapy providers, and pharmaceutical companies

After graduating magna cum laude from New York Law School, John Howley began his legal career as a law clerk to Judge Roger J. Miner on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.  Mr. Howley assisted the judge in a wide range of appeals involving drug and firearms convictions, embezzlement, and securities fraud.

Mr. Howley spent the next 20 years representing multinational corporations and their executives in criminal investigations, trials and appeals.  He worked closely with his law partner, former U.S. Attorney Paul J. Curran, on a number of high-profile criminal cases, including the successful defense of a Teamster's Union President who was accused of embezzlement and several high-profile securities fraud cases.

​John has received The Thurgood Marshall Award from the New York City Bar Association, The Gideon Champion of Justice Award from the New York State Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, and The Medal for Excellence in Advocacy from the American College of Trial Lawyers.  He has been named one of New York's SuperLawyers.

Mr. Howley is best known for his unusual success in post-conviction proceedings for convicted murderers on death row.  In Haney v. Alabama, he brought a habeas corpus proceeding that resulted in his client, a death row inmate, avoiding the death penalty. In Richey v. Mitchell, Mr. Howley was retained by the British Government to pursue habeas corpus relief for one of its citizens who had spent 21 years on death row in Ohio.  The case resulted in a new trial.  In Virginia, Mr. Howley convinced a Republican Governor, James Gilmore, to grant the clemency petition of death row inmate Calvin Swann and, a few years later, convinced a Democratic Governor, Tim Kaine, to grant the clemency petition of another death row inmate, Percy Levar Walton.

Education and Training

​John graduated from the Northfield Mount Hermon School in Massachusetts and studied as a Rotary Exchange Student in the Philippines before earning a B.A. in Government and History from Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York.

After college, John was a registered lobbyist with the Commission on Independent Colleges and Universities (cIcu) in Albany, New York.  He was put in charge of the Council of Governing Boards, which recruited and organized business leaders who served as trustees of 115 private colleges and universities to lobby Congress and the New York State Legislature to support higher education.  John worked closely with the Council's first Chairman, Bob Keeshan (a.k.a. Captain Kangaroo) and his successor, Peter Warren, the Chairman and CEO of Pepsico International.  

John left politics to earn a law degree, magna cum laude, from New York Law School, where he was Articles Editor of the Law Review and a member of the team that won the National Moot Court Competition.  During law school, he served as an intern to U.S. District Judge Kevin Thomas Duffy and as a research assistant to former U.S. Magistrate Judge, later U.S. District Judge, Shira A. Scheindlin.

Upon graduation from law school, John served as a law clerk to U.S. Circuit Judge Roger J. Miner on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

Employment Experience

After his federal clerkship, John worked as a litigation associate at Kaye, Scholer, Fierman, Hays & Handler, which later merged to become Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer. 

After six years, he became a partner in the firm and Co-Chairman of its Business Development Committee.  Over the course of 20 years at the firm, John represented multinational corporations, banks, labor unions, and foreign governments in their most important patent, antitrust, commercial, product liability, and labor and employment litigation.

John left the firm in 2007 to become President and CEO of Davies Energy Systems, an energy services company in Asia that helped multinational companies run their large facilities more efficiently.

In 2012, John returned to New York and formed The Howley Law Firm to focus on health care fraud, whistleblower, and employment litigation.

Pro Bono and Volunteer Service

John’s commitment to making a difference extends to his pro bono and volunteer work.  He has represented more than a dozen death row inmates in habeas corpus challenges to their death sentences.  He has won all but one of those challenges, and he has convinced Governors to grant clemency twice.  He has also represented the Government of the United Kingdom as amicus curiae, including in the U.S. Supreme Court, to challenge death sentences imposed on UK nationals.

Commenting on his unusual success rate, The New York Law Journal wrote that “The best news a death row inmate can hear is that John Howley has agreed to take his case.”

Throughout his career, John has remained intimately involved with education policy.  He has served as Vice Chair of the Skidmore College Board of Trustees and Chair of its Strategic Planning Committee; as Vice Chair of the Northfield Mount Hermon School Board of Trustees and Chair of its Financial Policy Committee; as a Trustee of New York Law School; and as a Trustee of the Commission on Independent Colleges and Universities.

John has also served as a Trustee of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.  He is a Director of the Philippine Disaster Relief Corporation, Chairman Emeritus of the Philippine American Chamber of Commerce, and a former Director of the American Chamber of Commerce in the Philippines.

John Howley, Esq.
​(212) 601-2728