John Batter is a retired Litigation Partner in the Boston Office of Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP where his practice focussed on on the defense of public and private companies and their directors and management against breach of fiduciary duty claims and securities fraud allegations, including those arising out of mergers and acquisitions and public offerings. He also has extensive experience handling the defense of SEC investigations and the unique issues presented by class actions. He teaches the EC course Law, Management and Entrepreneurship each semester.
John has represented high technology and other public and private companies, which have included a national NYSE retailer, Raytheon, Canaccord Genuity, Liberty Mutual Insurance, Gulf Oil, Cumberland Farms, Vonage, Discovery Communications, Chicago Bridge & Iron, Babcock Power, Aspect Medical Systems, Sonus Networks, Peritus Software Services, Akamai Technologies, BioSphere Medical, Inc., Copley Pharmaceuticals, Fallbrook Technologies, Storage Technology, Avid and Michaels Stores. Clients also relied on John for counsel on corporate governance matters and in connection with SEC, FINRA and state regulatory investigations.
In addition to advising clients in securities matters, John represented companies involved in litigation arising from consumer class actions and software or other technology licensing disputes and supervised pro bono cases involving veterans seeking benefits from the US Department of Veterans Affairs and individuals seeking housing and Social Security Administration assistance.
John has been included among the Best Lawyers in America in the 2014-2022 editions for commercial litigation and securities litigation; recommended in the 2017 edition of The Legal 500 United States for securities litigation: defense; recognized as a Massachusetts leader in the Litigation: Securities field in the 2006-2015 editions of Chambers USA: America's Leading Lawyers for Business; and recognized as a "New England Super Lawyer" (formerly "Massachusetts Super Lawyer") in securities litigation in Boston Magazine's annual listing.
John has lectured in both first and second year courses, including Legal Aspects of Entrepreneurship, the Founders' Journey and the Entrepreneurial Manager at HBS and has been a visiting teacher at MIT's Sloan School of Management, where he co-taught a course he helped design for second year MBA students entitled "Essential Law for Business."
John serves on the Marine Biological Laboratory Council in Woods Hole and is a former member of the Board of Directors of the New England Legal Foundation, a non-profit public interest firm addressing policy concerns related to free enterprise. He is also a former member of the Finance Committee for the Town of Weston and served previously as a Regional Chair of the Harvard College Parents Fund.
John received his J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1982 and an S.B. in Management Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1978.
