Prior to joining Cogan & Partners, John focused primarily on entrepreneurial endeavors and serving as an in-house lawyer for several companies he co-founded. In 1998, directly after law school, he moved to Silicon Valley where he joined Institutional Venture Partners as an Entrepreneur in Residence. In that incubator, he and his friend Bill Nguyen created One Box, a web-based unified messaging service for which John became General Counsel. In February 2000, John and Bill sold One Box to Phone.com (now Openwave Systems) and went on to co-found Seven Networks Inc., a mobile email and messaging platform company, for which John also served as General Counsel. While at Seven, John developed affiliate programs and licensing agreements with wireless telephone service providers in Canada, England, Japan and the United States. In June 2005, John co-founded and served as General Counsel for Lala Media, an online platform for sharing and streaming music. As General Counsel for Lala, John was responsible for licensing agreements with almost every major and minor recording label. He also initiated programs for Lala with Google and Facebook. In December 2009, Lala was bought by Apple. John still serves the internet industry by advising on copyright and licensing matters.

 

John currently concentrates his practice on intellectual property matters as well as renewable energy, oil & gas and general business transactions. John is a member of the State Bar of Texas and is a graduate of Southern Methodist University, Dedman School of Law (J.D., 1997) and Southwestern University, B.A. (cum laude, 1993).