J. Gordon Cooney, Jr.

Partner

J. Gordon Cooney, Jr. is a partner in Morgan Lewis's Litigation Practice and is Managing Partner of the Philadelphia office. Mr. Cooney's practice encompasses a variety of commercial and civil litigation, with particular emphasis on class actions in both state and federal courts, including consumer, product liability, deceptive trade practice, toxic tort, RICO, antitrust, and securities class actions.

Mr. Cooney currently is co-chair of the firm's Class Action Working Group. Mr. Cooney's class action practice has included the representation of medical device, pharmaceutical, financial services, and consumer and construction product companies in class actions throughout the nation.

In addition, Mr. Cooney's practice has included substantial commercial, business, merger-and-acquisition, and appellate court litigation. Through his practice, Mr. Cooney has handled numerous matters in the medical device, food, consumer product, corporate transactional, construction product, computer software, financial services, and healthcare fields.

Since 1988, Mr. Cooney has represented John Thompson, who was wrongly convicted in 1985 of both the murder of a New Orleans hotel executive and an unrelated armed carjacking which was used by the prosecutors in the murder case. As a result of the convictions, Mr. Thompson was sentenced to death by electrocution in the murder case, and to 50 years in prison without parole in the carjacking case. Over the course of 15 years of postconviction proceedings, Mr. Cooney and the Morgan Lewis team uncovered concealed blood evidence in the carjacking case, which proved that Mr. Thompson was not the carjacker, as well as witnesses, documents, and critical information that had been hidden from the defense in the murder case. Ultimately, after the carjacking conviction was vacated based on the blood evidence, a Louisiana appellate court ordered a new trial in the murder case. In May 2003, Mr. Cooney, fellow Morgan Lewis partner Michael Banks, and New Orleans lawyer Robert Glass retried the murder case. The jury deliberated just 35 minutes before finding Mr. Thompson not guilty of the murder. Mr. Thompson was released from custody after 18 years of imprisonment and has been totally exonerated of any involvement in those crimes. Following Mr. Thompson's release from prison, Messrs. Cooney and Banks prosecuted a civil right action against the Orleans Parish District Attorneys' Office. In February 2007, a federal jury in New Orleans awarded Mr. Thompson $14 million.

Mr. Cooney served for 11 years as an adjunct lecturer in law at Villanova University Law School. Before joining the firm, Mr. Cooney served as a law clerk to Judge J. William Ditter, Jr. of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

Mr. Cooney is admitted to practice in Pennsylvania.