John Brown

John Brown

Partner

Amarillo, Texas
806.372.5050
jobrown@mhba.com

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About

John Brown, a founding partner of Mullin Hoard & Brown, practices in the areas of accountant’s liability, director and officer liability, fidelity bond litigation, fiduciary and trusts and estates litigation, estate planning, and trust and probate law. For over forty years, John has successfully represented trustees, executors, guardians, and beneficiaries in a wide variety of contested trust and estate issues. He also advises clients in connection with their private tax and estate planning, structuring their business interests and carrying out their duties as trustees and executors.

John focuses in representing creditors’ committees, trustees of litigation trusts established in bankruptcy proceedings and receivers of federally insured financial institutions in the recovery of various professional liability and fidelity bond claims. He successfully represented the FDIC as receiver in claims against former officers and directors of the First National Bank of Arizona and First National Bank of Nevada. John also served as lead counsel alongside Steve Hoard in the firm’s successful representation of Enron Creditors Recovery Corporation (formerly Enron Corporation) to recover theft losses from insurers of Enron’s former Chief Financial Officer. This decision resulted in the largest settlement of a crime policy coverage case in U.S. history. In 2017, John was lead counsel with partner Steve Hoard representing a client in bankruptcy in the District of Delaware in a legal malpractice case against a major Wall Street law firm which resulted in a recovery of $25 million for the client.

John also has significant experience in accountant malpractice investigations and has litigated cases against all of the national accounting firms in matters pending throughout the United States. Most recently, John represented a client in a private arbitration against one of the major international accounting firms that resulted in a recovery of $22 million. In 2018 John was on the trial team in an audit malpractice case against PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, which resulted in a verdict of $625 million for the FDIC, the largest single verdict in the history of the United States against a Big Four accounting firm. In 2007 John was trial counsel with David Mullin prosecuting the FDIC’s malpractice claims against a major accounting firm. The $23 million judgment was later affirmed by the United States Court of Appeals in the Fourth Circuit. 

John received his B.B.A. degree in Accounting with distinction from the University of Hawaii in 1974. Following college, he joined the audit staff of Haskins & Sells (now Deloitte & Touche) in San Francisco and became licensed as a certified public accountant in 1976. He received his J.D. degree with Honors from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law in 1979.

While in law school, he served on the editorial staff of the Hastings Law Journal where he co-authored a published article with Dean Miguel de Capriles, former Dean of New York University Law School. While at Hastings, John also held membership in the Thurston Society and the Order of the Coif.

Certifications/Specialties

• Estate Planning and Probate Law, Texas Board of Legal Specialization (1986)
• Certified Public Accountant, California (1976)
• Certified Public Accountant, Texas (1982)