© 2013 The Texas Lawbook.
By Brooks Igo
Staff Writer for The Texas Lawbook
(December 10) — K&L Gates continues to grow its Houston office, launched in February, with the addition of John Sullivan III as a partner in the firm’s commercial disputes practice. Sullivan joins the firm from Watt Beckworth Thompson Henneman & Sullivan, where he was for five years.
Sullivan has handled disputes involving commercial agreements, intellectual property rights, officer and director responsibilities and unfair competition in more than 25 years of practice. He says he is very excited to be a part of a firm like K&L Gates at this stage of his career.
“I was motivated by the opportunity to join the relatively new Houston office and to play a role in its growth especially since Houston is such a vibrant market,” he said.
An avid tennis player and fan, Sullivan said one of the most unique and interesting cases he has worked on was when he was the lead trial lawyer on a case his team brought against the Association of Tennis Players (ATP) by the top-ranked professional doubles tennis players, including the Bryan brothers—the winningest doubles team of all time, for antitrust violations for an ATP initiative to disallow doubles players from entering the doubles draws at tournaments unless they were already in the singles draw.
Because, at the time of the case, most single players did not play doubles and doubles players did not play singles, this would have effectively prevented almost all of the top-ranked doubles players from competing on the tour, Sullivan explained. The case resolved and the doubles players were able to continue to compete in doubles draws with certain conditions.
The University of Houston Law Center graduate has focused more of his practice on cases in the oil and gas industry in recent years. He was the lead trial lawyer for a client who owned mineral interests and oil and gas leaseholds in West Texas who sued an operator for breach of the operating agreement and fraud.
“As Houston is a vibrant energy market and as demands for energy continue to increase and new technologies are utilized to meet the demands, we want to be on the front end of helping clients, not only in litigation, but in all aspects of furthering their business model by identifying and avoiding risk and facilitating company growth and return to shareholders,” he said.
Sullivan is also actively involved in the pro bono representation of human trafficking victims and children seeking asylum. He said the most meaningful case he has worked on was when he was the lead trial lawyer for Young Zheng v. the USA and John Pogash, a case that received attention in The New York Times, American Lawyer and other newspapers.
Sullivan said his team was able to prevail by having a federal district judge overturn a denial of consent by the U.S. in order to proceed with an application for Special Immigrant Juvenile (SIJ) Visa for their client at the 11th hour (he had to apply before he turned 18), and they still had to get a state court dependency order before applying with USCIS. The basis for the SIJ, Sullivan explained, was that Young had been abandoned by his parents and threatened with death and torture by Chinese snakeheads—Chinese gangs that smuggle people to other countries—over the alleged failure to pay a $65,000 smuggling debt.
Sullivan and his team’s hard work and advocacy paid off. After being granted SIJ, Young went on to become a U.S. Citizen and is now pursuing a graduate degree in biotechnology after graduating from Texas A&M with a bioenvironmental science degree.
“My motivation for this type of work is born out of my faith and also a belief that we must give back and help those who are oppressed or victimized and who can’t help themselves in the system,” Sullivan said. “We are blessed as lawyers and this is an area I feel good about using my skills to serve others, especially children.”
In addition to China, Sullivan has represented parents and children from India, Honduras, Iraq, El Salvador and Mexico. While he was at Fulbright & Jaworski, Sullivan created a program to inform detained children of their rights prior to appearing before an immigration judge unrepresented and another program for the pro bono representation of immigrant and refugee children seeking asylum or legal status.
The Houston office of K&L Gates now has 14 lawyers, 11 of whom are partners.
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