Bio

Michele Johnson, Global Chair of the Litigation & Trial Department, is consistently recognized as a leading national litigator. She represents Fortune 500 companies, boards of directors, financial institutions, and individuals in securities, M&A, and other complex commercial litigation. Ms. Johnson is a former member of Latham’s Executive Committee and the former Managing Partner of the Orange County office. Ms. Johnson’s recent representations include securities class action trials, special committee engagements in controlling stockholder transactions, multi-jurisdictional litigation arising out of solicited and hostile takeover attempts, and investigations and litigation on behalf of special committees and boards of directors related to public company crises. She has significant trial experience involving securities, product liability, unfair business practices, tax, trusts and estates, and insurance bad faith trials. Ms. Johnson has been named a Top 100 Trial Lawyer (2022, 2023), Top 20 Trial Lawyer in California (2023), Litigation Star (2023), Top 250 Women in Litigation (2022), and California Securities Litigator of the Year (2021) by Benchmark Litigation. She was named one of the country's leading 500 lawyers by Lawdragon Magazine in 2022, and both a Litigation Trailblazer and a Winning Litigator by National Law Journal. She was named to the 25 Most Influential Women in Securities Law and as a 2022 Securities MVP by Law360 and the 2022 Top Women Lawyers list in California by the Daily Journal. Ms. Johnson has served on the firm’s Executive, Pro Bono, Associates, and Diversity Committees. She serves on the boards of Georgetown University Law Center, Berkeley Center for Law and Business, the Public Law Center, and the Orange County Bar Foundation’s Project Youth, and is past president of the Orange County chapter of the Association of Business Trial Lawyers.