John Sanders

Practice Areas

John Sanders is a founding partner of the Dallas office of Winston & Strawn LLP and also serves as the Dallas office hiring partner.  John’s litigation experience is broad.  He has managed cases involving partnership disputes, theft of intellectual property and trade secrets, breaches of contract and fiduciary duties, business torts, non-compete and non-solicitation agreements, unfair competition, corporate espionage, whistleblowing, and securities fraud.  Additionally, he has extensive experience defending companies in class-action litigation and regularly handles class claims involving allegations of RICO and securities violations. His litigation achievements include plaintiff-side wins for millions of dollars and multiple defense wins rejecting claims for billions of dollars.  Along with his jury trial practice, John has extensive experience representing clients in arbitration proceedings, including those administered by the American Arbitration Association and JAMS.

John’s experience defending and advising direct-selling organizations is particularly deep.  He has been retained by nearly half of all direct-selling companies that have faced class-action pyramid scheme litigation in the last several years and has successfully defeated multiple claims filed against direct-selling companies.  In 2019, Texas Lawyer recognized John as a “Trailblazer” for his work defending direct-selling businesses facing bet-the-company class actions. 

John’s work for direct-selling businesses also goes beyond litigation defense.  He is often called in to advise direct-selling organizations on regulatory compliance issues.  He has assisted multiple direct selling organizations facing publicity crises and helped those organizations to craft persuasive and creative responses.  He also regularly advises direct selling companies undergoing government investigations, including those brought by the FTC. 

John is frequently asked to speak about strategies for litigating cases involving theft of trade secrets and the enforcement of non-competition agreements. He regularly prosecutes cases on behalf of employers involving the theft of trade secrets and breaches of non-compete agreements. He has successfully obtained injunctive relief for employers on numerous occasions in such cases.