Shawn A. Johnson has excelled in a variety of complex legal disputes and proved himself to be a skilled trial and appellate attorney since joining Burford Perry in 2017, following his clerkship with Texas Supreme Court Justice Paul W. Green. Shawn also graduated first in his class with summa cum laude honors from Texas A&M University School of Law in 2016.

Since joining Burford Perry, Shawn has handled complex oil and gas litigation, fiduciary litigation, partnership disputes, commercial disputes, commercial real estate disputes, and trade-secret litigation, among many other legal disputes, from the infancy of litigation to appeals. Shawn has successfully defended appellate challenges to trial court judgements, obtained favorable temporary relief in complex trade-secret and breach-of-contract litigation, and obtained early dismissal of unmeritorious lawsuits and favorable settlements for clients in a wide array of legal disputes.

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. Weeks after graduating, Shawn spearheaded the deployment of a grant management application to manage a $500 million grant program and directed the implementation of electronic vendor payment capabilities for the Galveston County Auditor’s Office. Then, as a cyber security professional for Deloitte & Touche, Shawn managed teams in the design, configuration, and deployment of security and controls solutions in global, enterprise-transforming system implementations. Shawn utilizes his academic and professional background in accounting, technology, and law to provide results for his clients.

Shawn’s notable client outcomes include:

• Obtaining favorable confidential settlement for mineral-interest owners in a most favored nations clause-based dispute against two large oil and gas companies.
• Obtaining 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.
• Obtaining favorable out of court settlements for clients in multiple lawsuits against high-performance automotive shops.
• Obtaining favorable out of court settlements for hotel owners in multiple nuisance cases brought by the Harris County Attorney’s Office.
• Pursuing breach of fiduciary duty claims against majority owner of limited liability company, leading to favorable buyout of client’s ownership interest.
• Obtaining 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.
• Obtaining take-nothing summary judgments for claims brought against commercial contractors.
• Successfully defending appeal of trial court judgment favorable to clients.
• Obtaining temporary injunction against company formed by former officers and employees of client enjoining competing company from using client’s trade secret information.
• Obtaining protection from request for medical provider’s confidential reimbursement-rate contracts and other trade secret information.
• Obtaining protection from request for company’s bank records in child-custody dispute involving minority owner of company.
• Fostering informal resolution of planned commercial development in Harris County floodway.
• Obtaining favorable settlements for financial advisors in multiple FINRA arbitrations.

Bar Admissions

• State Bar of Texas, 2016
• Federal District Court for the Southern District of Texas, 2017

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

Honors and Awards:

• Texas Rising Stars by Thomson Reuters, 2020

Professional Associations

• 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

Publications

• “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).

Media Appearances

• Residents Concerned New Friendswood Development Could Cause Homes to Flood, Fox 26 News Houston (June 4, 2018).
• Some Friendswood Residents Concerned New Strip Center Will Flood Homes, KHOU 11 News Houston (June 5, 2018).

Past Employment Positions

• Supreme Court of Texas, Law Clerk to the Honorable Justice Paul W. Green, 2016-2017
• United States District Court, Southern District of Texas, Judicial Intern to the Honorable Judge Sim Lake, 2015
• United States District Court, Northern District of Texas, Judicial Intern to the Honorable Judge Jeffrey L. Cureton, 2015
• The Buzbee Law Firm, Summer Law Clerk, 2014
• Supreme Court of Texas, Judicial Intern to the Honorable Justice Debra H. Lehrmann, 2014
• Deloitte & Touche LLP, Senior Consultant, 2010-2013
• Galveston County Auditor’s Office, IT Audit Analyst, 2010