John M. Dowd heads the firm's Criminal Litigation Group. Mr. Dowd has prosecuted and defended significant criminal matters at trial and in parallel proceedings before Congress and regulatory agencies for more than 30 years. His practice focuses on the trial of complex civil and criminal cases.
Mr. Dowd is noted for his representation of a U.S. District Judge, a former U.S. attorney and two U.S. senators including Senator John McCain. In addition, he represented Governor Symington of Arizona in a lengthy, high-profile criminal trial involving 23 counts charging false statements, wire fraud and attempted extortion. The Governor was fully exonerated.
Mr. Dowd has represented a U.S. senator before the Department of Justice and the Senate Ethics Committee; a U.S. Army colonel in the Iran Contra Hearings; a U.S. senator before the Senate Ethics Committee; and a U.S. governor in litigation with the Resolution Trust Corporation and in a fact-finding hearing before the House Subcommittee on General Oversight and Investigations, Committee on Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs, which inquired into the failure of the savings and loan industry. He has served as an arbitrator for the International Court of Arbitration of the International Chamber of Commerce in Paris.
Mr. Dowd has also served as special counsel to three commissioners of a professional sports organization in the investigations of one of its team's players, a team owner and others including the matter of Peter Edward Rose.(dowdreport.com).
Before entering private practice, Mr. Dowd was a trial attorney in the Tax Division of the U.S. Department of Justice and chief of the Organized Crime Strike Force in the Criminal Division. He tried the first prosecution of the federal RICO statute in United States v. Parness. At the request of the attorney general, he also supervised an internal investigation of the FBI and the investigation of Congressman Daniel Flood of Pennsylvania.
Mr. Dowd received his A.B. cum laude from St. Bernard College in 1963 and his J.D. from Emory University in 1965. He was a captain in the U.S. Marine Corps and a member of the Judge Advocate General Corps. He is a member of the District of Columbia Bar and the American Bar Association. He serves as a member of the Boards of Trustees of Flint Hill School and the Injured Marine Semper Fi Fund. He recently received the General Leonard F. Chapman,Jr. Medallion for his service on the Board of Trustees of the Marine Corps University Foundation. Mr. Dowd is listed in Who's Who in America and has been recognized for more than 10 years in The Best Lawyers in America.
He is the father of five children including two United States Marines and ten grandchildren.