Overview

Josh Yount, a Litigation & Dispute Resolution partner in Mayer Brown’s Chicago office and a member of the firm’s top-ranked Supreme Court & Appellate practice, focuses his practice on class certification defense and appellate litigation. With experience successfully representing a wide variety of businesses, he offers clients sophisticated legal analysis, careful strategic thinking and vigorous advocacy.

Josh has been defending class actions for over 15 years, accumulating deep and wide experience. He has represented defendants in securities, consumer and insurance class actions in state and federal courts. He has obtained trial court denials and appellate court reversals of class certification. He has handled petitions for interlocutory appeals from class certification rulings. He has defeated class actions at the dismissal and summary judgment stages. He has served as preservation counsel at a class action trial. And he has litigated jurisdictional issues under the Class Action Fairness Act.

In his appellate work, Josh has briefed and argued appeals in numerous federal and state courts. He also has assisted clients with trial and post-trial strategies to develop and preserve arguments for appeals. Josh’s work has been instrumental in achieving significant successes for major corporate clients in the US Supreme Court and other appellate forums.

Josh also has represented clients in some of the largest securities fraud cases ever litigated. He has participated in all phases of such litigation, from discovery to class certification to dispositive motions to appeals. His cases have involved the major securities laws (the Securities Act, the Securities Exchange Act, and the Investment Company Act), as well the various preemption and immunity doctrines that govern common law and antitrust suits involving securities transactions.

Beyond his extensive work on appellate, class action, and securities matters, Josh has experience with a wide variety of business litigation in the areas of insurer defense, bankruptcy, accountant’s liability, antitrust, tort, contract, products liability, commercial disparagement and white collar criminal. In addition, Josh has worked on a number of pro bono appeals through Mayer Brown’s Seventh Circuit Project.

Josh is an Associate Editor of The Circuit Rider (the Bar Journal of the Seventh Circuit), in which capacity he has written articles on oral argument, motions practice, preserving issues for appeal and pleading requirements. He is the author of the motions chapter of the Attorney’s Guide to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals and the attorneys’ fees and costs chapter of Federal Appellate Practice. And he is a co-author of a chapter on class certification in the treatise, Litigating Securities Class Actions. Josh also is a regular contributor to Class Defense, the firm’s blog on key issues affecting class action law and policy.

Before joining Mayer Brown in 2001, Josh worked at the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, first as a staff attorney and a temporary law clerk for Circuit Judge Diane P. Wood, then as a law clerk to Circuit Judge Ann Claire Williams.

Areas of Focus

Practices

Spoken Languages

  • English

Experience

  • Achieved victory in the US Supreme Court for major investment banks, persuading the Court that an alleged agreement to rig the initial public offering process was immune from antitrust challenge.
  • Obtained reversal of class certification for major investment banks in a securities fraud suit alleging manipulation of stocks recently taken public.
  • Secured a series of voluntary and involuntary dismissals in putative class actions against a leading insurance company over allegedly improper reductions in payments for medical treatment.
  • Represented a pair of banks in an MDL class action challenge to certain bank fee practices.
  • Handled strategy for opposing class certification in district court and briefed a petition for interlocutory appeal in a securities suit against underwriter and broker.
  • Represented an appliance manufacturer in challenging class certification rulings in the US Supreme Court, as preservation counsel at trial, and on appeal from favorable verdict.
  • Served as counsel for a paint company in an MDL multistate class action alleging product defects, ultimately negotiating favorable settlement.
  • Represented an appliance manufacturer in a class action over changes to retiree healthcare benefits.
  • Handled appeals from excessive attorneys’ fee awards against an appliance manufacturer following class settlements.
  • Prevailed on appeal in a suit against an auto manufacturer, defeating a product liability claim based on a vehicle crash incompatibility theory.
  • Obtained affirmance for an investment firm in an appeal that upheld the dismissal of a class action complaint challenging mutual fund practices.
  • Won summary judgment and appellate affirmance for an on-line brokerage, defeating class action claims regarding the timeliness of on-line securities prices.
  • Obtained denial of class certification and dismissal for an on-line brokerage in a suit challenging the promptness of on-line securities transactions.
  • Secured denial of class certification and summary judgment for an on-line brokerage where the plaintiff alleged improper delays in the execution of securities transactions.
  • Achieved victory for an operator of movie theaters, persuading the appellate court to dismiss a class action challenge to the accuracy of movie start times.
  • Represented a bank in series of suits arising out of the collapse of a Ponzi scheme.
  • Prevailed at trial and on appeal in a suit against a major bank subsidiary over the proper interpretation of lease and remarketing contracts.
  • Obtained judgment for a turbo blower manufacturer, prevailing on defamation claims and defeating various counterclaims in a suit over allegedly false and disparaging statements about the parties and their products.
  • Obtained judgment for an auto finance company in a state court and related bankruptcy action arising out of the auto dealer’s failure to repay loans.

Perspectives

Events

  • May 2011

    The Law of Business, A Review of Recent Business Cases in the U.S. Supreme Court

    PLI’s Illinois MCLE Marathon 2011, Chicago

  • November 2008

    The Supreme Court’s Recent Securities Decisions and Their Implementation in the Lower Courts

    IQPC 5th Securities Litigation Conference, New York

Education

Illinois Wesleyan University, BA, summa cum laude

The University of Chicago Law School, JD, with honors
Executive Editor, University of Chicago Legal Forum

Admissions

  • Illinois

Court

  • US Supreme Court
  • US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
  • US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
  • US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
  • US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
  • US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit
  • US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
  • US Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit
  • US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois
  • US District Court for the District of Colorado