John Morrison is well known in Montana as a trial attorney and public leader. John grew up in western Montana working from the age of 13 as a dishwasher, lawn mower, construction laborer, landscaper and radio announcer before going to law school. After passing the Montana bar exam, John worked in Washington D.C. for Sen. John Melcher, where he helped write the Farm Credit Act of 1987, before returning to Montana to practice law. While still in his 30s, he received an AV rating from Martindale Hubbell, was President of the Montana Trial Lawyers Association, served as Special Assistant Attorney General and chief Montana counsel in the Tobacco Case, and represented the New York Times and NBC in the Unabomber case before being elected to public office. John has tried numerous cases to verdict and judgment in the state and federal trial courts and won many landmark appeals in the Montana Supreme Court and the United States Court of Appeals. Using fees from the tobacco case, John co-founded the Safe Kids and Families Fund that has provided thousands of bicycle helmets to low-income children in Montana.
After two terms as a state-wide elected official, John returned to the law practice in 2009. In 2015, he received the Appellate Advocacy Award from MTLA (appellate lawyer of the year) for a series of important victories in the Montana Supreme Court, and his cases continue to receive national media attention. John is listed in US News Best Lawyers in America, SuperLawyers, and the National Trial Lawyers Top 100 and is a member of the invitation-only American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA). Based on peer reviews, Best Lawyers in 2020 named John Lawyer of the Year in the Great Falls-Helena region for personal injury litigation.
John’s results since 2018 include a $56.7 million judgment for the Montana Health CO-OP in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims redressing wrongful reduction of risk corridor payments under the Affordable Care Act; a $14 million judgment for a Montana Jewish family against a Nazi internet troll leader; a $7 million settlement for 11,000 Montana Hospital employees against five hospital employers for ERISA violations; National class certification and summary judgment in favor of a Sidney truck driver and some 40,000 Americans against short term medical insurance companies that systematically underpaid tens of millions of dollars in claims; a $585,000 medical malpractice judgment against the U.S. for wrongful death of a 63-year-old homeless itinerant ranch hand; a $1.234 million judgment for the Montana Health CO-OP in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims (first case to hold the Trump administration wrongly withheld CSR payments). *Past results afford no guarantee of future results and every case is different and must be judged on its own merits.
John was elected Montana State Auditor in 2000 where he served as Montana’s Insurance and Securities Commissioner and on the State Land Board. He wrote and led passage of major health coverage initiatives, including Insure Montana and Healthy Montana Kids, that have provided health coverage to tens of thousands of Montanans. More than half of the children in Montana are now covered by HMK and the program has brought into Montana nearly a billion dollars in additional healthcare funding. John chaired the Health Insurance (B) and Market Regulation (D) committees of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners and led the national ban of discretionary clauses in ERISA plans, which was upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals in Standard Insurance v. Morrison, restoring fair claim handling rights to tens of millions of Americans. He also led roll out of the Consumer Information Source web portal and the Market Conduct Annual Statement, which required U.S. insurers for the first time to file annual reports containing data about their claim handling practices. As NAIC’s International Vice-Chair for Asia, he helped develop the working relationship between US and Chinese regulators and represented the US in Doha Round trade negotiations and the US-China Strategic Economic Dialogue. John introduced the legislation that made Montana a captive insurance domicile and helped the industry develop; nearly 300 captive insurers now call Montana home, generating over $5 million per year for Montana, and hundreds of U.S. business leaders now travel to Montana for captive insurance meetings each year. As a Land Board Commissioner, John led creation of the state land bank, which has added a hundred thousand publicly accessible acres to the state land trust.
In addition to his continuing trial practice, John is an insurance consultant on national and international matters. John co-founded the Montana Health CO-OP and served for three years as the Founding President of the National Alliance of State Health CO-OPs (NASHCO) whose members, by their second year of operation (2015) provided coverage to more than one million Americans and saved consumers and taxpayers billions of dollars. He has recently served as Vice-Chair of the board of the National Academy of State Health Policy, board member and past Chairman of the $3 billion Senior Health Care Oversight Trust and serves on a number of corporate boards. In recent years, John has given invited lectures at Harvard Law School, Harvard Medical School, Harvard School of Public Health, Stanford’s Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, Peking University, and a number of other colleges and law schools. John is also an adjunct professor of insurance law at the Alexander Blewett III University of Montana Law School. e has given invited testimony on multiple occasions to both houses of Congress and is a consulting expert to the U.S Department of Labor on ERISA related issues. John has been covered by and/or published in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Politico, the Los Angeles Times, Bloomberg News, The Times (London), Money, Forbes, Smart Money, Consumer Reports, Best’s Review, CNN, Good Morning America, and National Public Radio among other national publications and broadcasts. He is the author of numerous articles and one book: Mavericks, The Lives and Battles of Montana’s Political Legends (Univ. of Idaho Press, 1997; Montana Historical Society Press, 2003), which he wrote with his wife Cathy.
John and Cathy have been married for 29 years. They have two daughters, Allison (26) and Amanda (23). Both were born in Helena, Montana and attended Title I public schools there. Allison, a Division I All Academic American track and field athlete, received her AB from Harvard in 2016, served as a legislative aide to Sen. Michael Bennett in the U.S. Senate, and now handles Risk and Response for Facebook. Amanda, a Cook Scholar, U.S. Presidential Scholar and Schwarzman Scholar, received her BA summa cum laude from Princeton in 2019 and her MS in Management and Global Affairs from Tsinghua University in 2020. John and his family enjoy the full range of sports and activities in Montana’s great and spectacular outdoors. An avid runner, John qualified for and competed in the 2018 and 2019 Boston Marathons. John and his daughters also enjoy mountaineering and have summited most of the state high-points in the American West and New England.
Distinctions
• AV rating, Martindale-Hubbell
• State Auditor, Insurance and Securities Commissioner of Montana, 2001-08
• Appellate Advocacy Award, Montana Trial Lawyers Association (Appellate Lawyer of the Year)
• Past President, Montana Trial Lawyers Association
• Ethics Committee, Montana Bar Association
• American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA)
• Two-time National Trial Competition Finalist
• Public Service Award, Montana Trial Lawyers Association
• Excellence in Consumer Advocacy Award, NAIC Consumer Representatives
• Montana Nurses Association Friend of Nursing Award 2019
• Health Care Leadership Council, Honor Roll for Coverage Award
• Leadership Montana, Inaugural Class
• Chairman, Health Insurance and Managed Care Committee and Market Regulation and Consumer Affairs Committee, National Association of Insurance Commissioners
• Consulting Insurance Expert, U.S. Department of Labor
• Who’s Who in American Law; Who’s Who in America; Who’s Who in the World
• The Best Lawyers in America, Super Lawyers, The National Trial Lawyers Top 100
Current/Recent Positions
• Vice Chair, Center for Health Policy Development/National Academy of State Health Policy
• Founding President, National Alliance of State Health CO-OPs
• Chairman, Board of Directors, Senior Health Insurance Company of Pennsylvania
• Chairman, Board of Trustees, Senior Health Care Oversight Trust
• President, CASA of Montana
• Vice-Chair, Board of Directors, Montana Health CO-OP
• Board of Directors, Presidio Reinsurance Corporation
• Board of Directors, UMTA Trust Captive
