John Tehranian
John Tehranian is an academic, attorney and author. He currently serves as the Paul W. Wildman Chair and Professor of Law at Southwestern Law School and is a Visiting Professor of Law at UCLA School of Law. He is also Affiliated Faculty at the Center for Security, Race and Rights at Rutgers University. He has previously served as a tenured Professor of Law at the University of Utah, S.J. Quinney College of Law, and as a Visiting Professor of Law at Loyola Law School.
A graduate of Harvard University and Yale Law School, John is the author of dozens of scholarly articles and three books: Whitewashed: America’s Invisible Middle-Eastern Minority (New York University Press, 2009), which Publisher’s Weekly has lauded as a “consistently informative” work that “covers fresh legal and social territory;” Infringement Nation: Copyright 2.0 and You (Oxford University Press, 2011), which the Harvard Law Review has praised for its “insightful critique of the copyright regime” and “convincing case for . . . reform;” and The Secret Life of Copyright: Intellectual Property, Intersectionality and Inequality in the Digital Age (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming). His work has also appeared in such publications as the Yale Law Journal, Harvard Journal of Law & Gender, Northwestern University Law Review, Southern California Law Review, University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law, Iowa Law Review, William & Mary Law Review, George Washington Law Review, Hastings Law Journal, U.C. Davis Law Review, University of Colorado Law Review, University of Connecticut Law Review, BYU Law Review, Utah Law Review, Berkeley Technology Law Journal and the Chronicle of Higher Education. John’s work has been widely cited in congressional testimony, federal, state and foreign court decisions, and briefs before the United States Supreme Court in such landmark intellectual property cases as Warhol v. Goldsmith (2022), Google v. Oracle (2021), Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons (2013), Golan v. Holder (2012), and MGM v. Grokster (2005).
John began his legal career at O’Melveny & Myers LLP and is a founding partner of One LLP, where his legal practice has focused on litigation, counseling and crisis management for clients in intellectual property, entertainment and constitutional matters. John has handled high-profile disputes and transactions involving numerous legends from the worlds of music (Bootsy Collins, Don Henley, B.B. King, Madonna), film (Luis Bunuel, Harold Lloyd), fashion (Jeremy Scott), theater (Stephen Sondheim), photography (David LaChapelle, Annie Leibovitz,), literature (John Fante, Ernest Hemingway, Frank Herbert, Jules Verne) and athletics (Oscar de la Hoya, Tony Parker, Dean Potter). He has served as counsel in numerous significant appellate decisions on copyright matters, including Mavrix Photo, Inc. v. Brand Technologies, Inc., 647 F.3d 1218 (9th Cir. 2011), Direct Technologies, LLC v. Electronic Arts, Inc., 836 F.3d 1059 (9th Cir. 2016), Mavrix v. LiveJournal, 873 F.3d 1045 (9th Cir. 2017) and Ventura Content, Ltd. v. Motherless, Inc., 885 F.3d 597 (9th Cir. 2018). Variety’s Legal Impact Report has recognized Professor Tehranian as one of the world’s top 50 entertainment lawyers, Billboard Magazine has identified him as one of the top music lawyers in the business, and he has been repeatedly honored as a Southern California Super Lawyer.
John remains actively involved in pro bono legal work, with a particular focus on cases involving immigrants, civil rights plaintiffs, and indigent criminal defendants. He has successfully handled numerous appeals in the federal circuit courts on behalf of political asylum seekers from such countries as Columbia, Romania, and Iraq. He has litigated constitutional cases related to free speech, religious establishment, free assembly, due process, race discrimination, gender discrimination, and privacy rights. He has also served as a court-appointed public defender in numerous criminal appeals and is the recipient of the Wiley W. Manuel Award for Pro Bono Legal Services from the Board of Governors of the State Bar of California.
A frequent commentator for the broadcast and print media, John has appeared on such television programs as ABC’s Nightline and has been quoted as an expert on legal issues in such publications as The New York Times, Harper’s Magazine, Financial Times, Los Angeles Times, Hollywood Reporter and Christian Science Monitor. He has also spoken at numerous national and international conferences and venues, including the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, South by Southwest (SXSW), and the U.S. Census Bureau. He has also served as an expert witness in numerous intellectual property and civil rights suits.