John Stokes is a trial and appellate lawyer trusted to lead high-stakes disputes where the outcome matters most. He combines first-chair trial experience with appellate-driven strategy, delivering wins in complex, fast-moving cases across trial courts, federal courts of appeals, and the U.S. Supreme Court.
Stokes’s practice spans a wide range of complex business disputes, including intellectual property, ERISA and fiduciary litigation, antitrust, bankruptcy, and constitutional claims. Regardless of subject matter, he is known for quickly mastering the facts and law and positioning cases for success at trial and on appeal.
Lawdragon Honors
| Honor | Year | Practice |
|---|---|---|
| The 2026 Lawdragon 500 Global Plaintiff Lawyers | 2026 | Class Action, Financial Litigation |
| The 2026 Lawdragon 500 Leading Plaintiff Financial Lawyers | 2026 | Financial Litigation, Appellate |
Trial Practice
Stokes regularly serves as first-chair trial counsel in bet-the-company disputes, leading teams through expedited, high-pressure proceedings and delivering decisive results for both plaintiffs and defendants.
In early 2026, Stokes led a ten-person Stris & Maher team to a sweeping win in the Delaware Court of Chancery after a multi-day, highly-expedited trial in a $250 million earnout and governance dispute arising from Krafton’s acquisition of video game studio Unknown Worlds. Stokes’s team represented the studio’s founders, who had been terminated by Krafton on the eve of releasing the sequel to their blockbuster game Subnautica.
In late 2024, Stokes delivered a $186 million recovery for industrial-scale bitcoin miner Rhodium after a week-long trial in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas. The trial came after he secured a temporary restraining order and two preliminary injunctions in parallel proceedings in state court and arbitration that preserved Rhodium’s operations while the dispute was ongoing.
In 2019, Stokes helped secure a near-complete defense victory—at trial and on appeal—when he helped a client defeat a $180 million suit from a disgruntled competitor. The firm’s victory was named a Top Defense Verdict of 2020.
Appellate Practice
Stokes is also an accomplished appellate lawyer. He designs and leads appellate strategies that shape the law in his clients’ favor, handling both interlocutory and merits appeals in high-stakes cases.
He has argued major appeals in multiple federal circuits. In 2023, Stokes won a significant Tenth Circuit decision—one of the first on this issue—concluding that an arbitration provision in an ERISA plan was invalid under the “effective-vindication doctrine” because it unlawfully restricted the remedies available to plan participants under ERISA. In 2020, he secured a landmark Second Circuit ruling expanding the availability of equitable remedies under ERISA following the Supreme Court’s decision in CIGNA Corp. v. Amara.
Stokes has also led briefing in some of the firm’s most consequential matters. He was the lead author and second chair at oral argument in Fourth Estate v. Wall-Street.com, where the firm secured a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court victory.
Background
Stokes received his J.D. from Yale Law School. After law school, he served as a law clerk to the Honorable Raymond C. Fisher on the Ninth Circuit and the Honorable Paul G. Gardephe in the Southern District of New York.
Stokes received his undergraduate degree in linguistics from Harvard University, where he graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa.