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“Massey possesses a broad-based commercial disputes practice which encompasses antitrust, bankruptcy and financial services.”
“Massey is a creative thinker when it comes to novel legal issues.”
– Chambers USA Client Quotes
Jonathan Massey is a founding partner of Massey & Gail and a nationally recognized appellate and strategic litigation lawyer with more than three decades of experience managing high-stakes matters nationwide.
Jonathan focuses on complex litigation involving cutting-edge legal questions. He represents clients before trial and appellate courts across the country, including the Supreme Court of the United States. Clients turn to Jonathan for clear legal framing, strategic judgment, and credibility in cases where legal questions will drive the outcome. He also has an extensive practice of counseling clients on sensitive matters outside the litigation context.
Jonathan has argued more than 70 cases in federal and state courts, including three before the Supreme Court, and has filed over 90 briefs in the Court. His practice also includes representing clients before the U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Communications Commission, Federal Trade Commission, Environmental Protection Agency, and other agencies, particularly in matters involving overlapping litigation and regulatory risk.
His experience spans antitrust, telecommunications, financial services, securities, intellectual property, tax, environmental law, and constitutional issues. His clients include leading corporations, universities, foreign governments, U.S. states, and senior public officials, including former Vice President Al Gore in Bush v. Gore.
Jonathan served as a law clerk to Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. of the Supreme Court of the United States and Judge Abner J. Mikva of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. He later served as Deputy Special Counsel to Independent Counsel Lawrence Walsh.
While at Harvard Law School, he served as a research assistant to Laurence Tribe and was an editor of the Harvard Law Review. He has taught appellate advocacy and related subjects at Harvard Law School and Georgetown University Law Center and has served as an instructor for the D.C. Bar. He is an elected member of The American Law Institute.
Representative Matters
Selected Supreme Court and Appellate Matters
- Represented Vice President Al Gore in the U.S. Supreme Court in Bush v. Gore and related Florida election litigation.
- Successfully briefed and argued Mississippi ex rel. Hood v. AU Optronics Corp. in the U.S. Supreme Court, securing a unanimous decision under the Class Action Fairness Act.
- Successfully briefed and argued Dole Food Co. v. Patrickson in the U.S. Supreme Court, addressing foreign sovereign immunity under the FSIA.
- Briefed and argued Cooper Industries v. Leatherman Tool Group in the U.S. Supreme Court, establishing the standard of appellate review for punitive damages.
- Successfully represented Land of Lincoln Insurance Company in the U.S. Supreme Court, helping to secure an 8-1 victory in 2020 for health insurers owed $12 billion under the Affordable Care Act.
- Successfully briefed the first-ever Supreme Court stay of an agency regulation prior to judicial review in the lower courts. West Virginia v. EPA.
- Twice defeated a “Texas two-step” $8.9 billion talc bankruptcy filed by Johnson & Johnson in New Jersey bankruptcy court and the Third Circuit.
- Successfully briefed O’Bannon v. NCAA, a landmark antitrust case involving student-athlete compensation, and successfully briefed and argued the resulting fee award on appeal in the Ninth Circuit.
- Represented The Coca-Cola Company in a $12 billion tax dispute in the U.S. Tax Court.
Other Representative Matters
- Successfully briefed and argued a federal constitutional challenge to a $100 million retroactive New York tax on pharmaceutical distributors.
- Successfully briefed and argued Chavez v. Dole Food Co., securing a unanimous en banc victory in the Third Circuit on an issue of cross-jurisdictional tolling of statutes of limitations.
- Defended JPMorgan in more than a dozen consumer class actions involving mortgage and credit card practices, securing a defense verdict and affirmance on appeal in a $750 million case and dismissal of multiple class actions seeking over $100 million and hundreds of millions in damages.
- Represents pharmaceutical distributors in a Commerce Clause challenge to a Connecticut drug pricing statute, with appeal pending in the Second Circuit.
- Represents the Yuma County Water Users Association in ongoing administrative proceedings involving Colorado River water allocation rights.
- Represented Humana, a leading health insurer, in federal antitrust litigation alleging price-fixing by pharmaceutical manufacturers.
- Briefed and argued Caremark v. Chickasaw Nation in the Ninth Circuit, addressing arbitrability of tribal claims under federal healthcare statutes.
- Briefed and argued Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe v. Mylan Pharmaceuticals in the Federal Circuit, presenting a question of sovereign immunity in inter partes review proceedings.
- Briefed and argued Santander Holdings USA v. United States in the First Circuit, involving more than $200 million in foreign tax credits.
Download a full list of Jonathan Massey's Representative Matters
Education
- Harvard Law School, J.D., magna cum laude, 1988
- Harvard College, A.B., magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, 1985
Clerkships
- William J. Brennan, Jr., U.S. Supreme Court
- Abner J. Mikva, U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
Awards
- Band 4, Litigation: General Commercial (2024–present), Chambers USA
- Washington, D.C. Elite, Commercial Disputes and Antitrust (2026), Legal 500
- Litigation Star (2020–present), Benchmark Litigation
- Litigator of the Week (Feb. 3, 2023), The American Lawyer
- Legal Lion (Aug. 4, 2023), Law360
- Super Lawyers (2013–present), Washington, D.C. Super Lawyers
Publications
- “Content Moderation and Antitrust,” Concurrences Competition Law Review (Nov. 3, 2025)
- “March Sanity: Can Courts Finesse a Legal Remedy to the NCAA’s Fantasy of Amateurism?,” The Recorder (Mar. 29, 2019)
- “The Two That Got Away: First American Financial Corp. v. Edwards and Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co.,” Charleston Law Review (2012)
- “Wrong Ideas About Wrongful Death Statutes,” Trial (Jan. 1997)
- “Preemption of Medical Device Tort Claims: Recent Developments,” Trial (Nov. 1995)
- “The Florida Tobacco Liability Law: Fairy Tale Objections to a Reasonable Solution to Florida’s Medicaid Crisis,” Florida Law Review (1995)
Admissions
- U.S. Supreme Court
- U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
- U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit
- U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
- U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit
- U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
- U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
- U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
- U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit
- U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
- U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit
- U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
- U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
- U.S. Court of Federal Claims
- District of Columbia
- Maryland
- New York
Community Involvement
- Member, Massey & Gail Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee