About Kurt A.
Kurt A. Johnson built his legal foundation at two rigorous schools. He earned an A.B. from the University of Chicago in 2011 and a J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School in 2015. Those years set the stage for a career that has moved quickly into the appellate arena.
After law school, Johnson spent a year clerking for Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. That early bench experience gave him front-row exposure to appellate decisionmaking and opinion drafting. He went on to join Sidley Austin as an associate in 2016, where he worked on litigation matters that sharpened his briefing and oral-advocacy skills.
In 2019 he served as a law clerk to Justice Neil Gorsuch at the Supreme Court of the United States. That clerkship placed him at the center of high-stakes federal litigation and exposed him to the Court’s procedures and deliberations. He returned to practice the following year and joined Jones Day as an associate in 2020.
Johnson is a member of the District of Columbia Bar, admitted in 2017. He appears regularly in federal appellate courts and in federal trial court proceedings. The jurisdictions listed on his records include the D.C. Circuit, the Fourth Circuit, the Third Circuit, the Seventh Circuit, the Eighth Circuit, the Federal Circuit and the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. Those admissions enable him to handle matters that travel through multiple levels of the federal system.
His work has centered on appellate litigation and federal-court matters. He prepares briefs, handles merits and guidance memoranda, and takes part in oral argument in appellate proceedings. Colleagues describe him as someone who moves quickly from research to a written product that is structured for judges and for the practical demands of litigation. He has combined private-firm practice with two significant judicial clerkships, and that mix informs how he frames issues and anticipates appellate review.
At Jones Day he continues to practice in the federal appellate space, representing clients in appeals and related proceedings. He currently concentrates his practice on appellate and federal-court litigation.
