John D. Esterhay Partner

John Esterhay is a partner with the firm's Litigation practice. Uniquely positioned as an attorney with a Materials Science and Engineering degree, John leverages his technical background to successfully represent companies in complex commercial litigations where advanced technical issues are at stake, such as patent, trade secret, breach of contract and business tort litigations.

Prior to his legal career, John used his technical background in engineering at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and skills in cryptanalysis at the U.S. National Security Agency. This broad base of technical experience has allowed John’s legal practice to span a wide variety of technical industries, such as advanced analog and mixed-signal semiconductors, synchronous step-down converters, multi-phase controllers, power integrated circuits, CMOS image sensors, wireless and cellular network communications, heat dissipation technology, solid state drives, double data rate synchronous dynamic random-access memory (DDR SDRAM), optics, e-commerce, mobile application technology, touch sensors, medical, power storage, automotive and de-icing technology.

John’s clients are equally diverse, ranging from the largest members of the Fortune 500 to niche manufacturers facing “bet-the-company” litigation on their proprietary technology. John’s experience in litigating dozens of cases in federal district court has helped him amass in-depth knowledge in many types of highly technical litigation.

John also maintains an active pro bono practice, specializing in asylum proceedings for immigrants who arrive at the Tijuana-San Ysidro border crossing. He has successfully obtained asylum for multiple pro bono clients facing persecution, torture or worse in their home countries, for which he has received a Pro Bono Publico award recognizing his contribution.

In law school, John was editor-in-chief of the Yale Journal of Law and Technology, which focused on issues related to patent law, as well as more general issues on how technology intersects with the law.