John C. Dwyer has 37 years of experience as an attorney at the highest levels in both the private and public sectors. He spent the past 27 years as a partner at Cooley LLP, an international law firm based in Palo Alto, CA, focusing on technology and the life sciences. During that period, he was regularly recognized as one of the country’s leading lawyers in securities litigation, antitrust and crisis counseling. John has represented many of the most innovative companies in the world in some of their most difficult legal challenges (including NVIDIA, Gilead Sciences, Uber, Twitter, eBay and Sony) as well as the executives and board members who lead them (including Jensen Huang, Tom Siebel, Shery Sandberg, Jack Dorsey, and Meg Whitman). He also represented Elizabeth Holmes in a series of civil, SEC and US Department of Justice investigations and actions. Throughout his tenure at Cooley (prior to his retirement in January 2025), John held major leadership roles at the firm, including a twelve-year tenure as the managing partner of the firm’s largest office (Palo Alto) and multiple terms on the firm’s board of directors.
Prior to joining the Firm, John served, from January to December 1997, as the Acting Associate Attorney General for the US Department of Justice. He was selected for the post, the third highest in the Department of Justice, by President Clinton. As Acting Associate Attorney General, he oversaw the Department’s Antitrust, Civil, Environment and Natural Resources, Civil Rights and Tax divisions. From 1993 to 1997, John served as Deputy Associate Attorney General. In that capacity, he served as a senior advisor to Attorney General Janet Reno on a wide variety of civil and criminal enforcement issues and acted as a primary liaison with the White House Counsel’s Office.
In addition, John serves as the Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees of the California Academy of Sciences and is scheduled to take over the chair role in July 2025. He has also served as the Vice Chair of Bay Area Legal Aid, the largest provider of legal aid in Northern California, since 2004.
John is currently working toward a California teaching credential with the intention of teaching U.S. history and government at a public high school.
John received a Bachelor of Science degree, summa cum laude, in Business Administration from the University of California Berkeley and a Juris Doctor degree, magna cum laude, from Harvard Law School.
