Elected Member

The Hon. John B. Owens

San Diego, CA
U.S. Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit
Education
University of California, Berkeley
Stanford Law School

John Byron Owens is a United States Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

In 1993, he graduated with a bachelor of arts from the University of California, Berkeley. He earned his J.D. from Stanford Law School in 1996, graduating first in his class and earning the Stanford Law Review Board of Editors Award.

After law school, Mr. Owens clerked for Judge J. Clifford Wallace on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The following year, he clerked for Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the United States Supreme Court. After these distinguished clerkships, Mr. Owens worked as trial attorney in the Department of Justice’s Office of Consumer Litigation (now Consumer Protection Branch) from 1998 to 1999, and as a litigation association at O’Melveny & Myers LLP in Washington, D.C. from 2000 to 2001. In 2001, Mr. Owens became an Assistant United States Attorney in the Central District of California. He transferred to the Southern District of California in 2004. In 2008, he was named Deputy Chief of Major Frauds in that district, and he was elevated to Chief of the Criminal Division in 2010. In 2012, Mr. Owens joined the firm of Munger, Tolles, & Olson as a partner.
The Hon. John B. Owens Image
Areas of Expertise
Litigation