JOHN J. LAVELLE joins Treanor Devlin Brown as Of Counsel, bringing over 25 years of sophisticated litigation expertise and deep experience advising startup companies through their most complex legal challenges. A former litigation partner at Sidley Austin LLP for nearly two decades, John has successfully represented Fortune 500 companies, major financial institutions, and emerging technology ventures in high-stakes commercial disputes and regulatory investigations across the country.
John’s distinguished career spans both BigLaw litigation leadership and hands-on general counsel experience. At Sidley Austin through 2020, John built a diverse complex commercial litigation practice, securing significant victories in antitrust, telecommunications, consumer class action, financial services, and technology disputes. His notable achievements include obtaining summary judgment and defeating class certification in multi-district wireless antitrust litigation, representing a major publisher against price-fixing claims in the high-profile United States v. Apple e-book litigation and obtaining summary judgment dismissing two follow-on actions filed by e-book retailers, and successfully defending multiple consumer class actions for major telecommunications carriers across federal and state trial and appellate courts.
Beyond traditional litigation, John brings valuable perspective from his recent roles as General Counsel at Deep Lake Capital Management and the technology startup Maergo, where he guided companies through strategic transactions, regulatory compliance, capital raising, operational growth, and litigation risk management. At Deep Lake Capital, he served as general counsel to a $207 million NASDAQ-listed SPAC, overseeing all aspects of its formation, IPO, and acquisition strategy in the fintech and e-commerce sectors. This unique combination of BigLaw litigation prowess and in-house strategic counsel enables John to approach client matters with both courtroom credibility and practical business judgment.
John earned his J.D. magna cum laude from New York University School of Law, where he was inducted into the Order of the Coif and received the American Jurisprudence Award in Constitutional Law. He holds an M.A. in English from Northwestern University and graduated with high honors and Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Notre Dame. He began his legal career as a law clerk to Hon. Kathleen A. Roberts, U.S. Magistrate Judge for the Southern District of New York.
John is admitted to practice in New York and Illinois, as well as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and the U.S. District Courts for the Southern, Eastern, Northern, and Western Districts of New York.