Gonzaga University
John F. Lord was born on April 27, 1954, in New York City, New York, United States. New York City was the most populous city in the United States at the time and a major center of courts, law firms, and commerce, an environment in which many American legal careers began.
John F. Lord received a Bachelor of Arts, cum laude, from Ramapo State College of New Jersey in 1976. The institution, now known as Ramapo College of New Jersey, was founded in 1969 as a state college in northern New Jersey and opened on its Mahwah campus in the fall of 1971. Its creation addressed a gap in the state's public higher education, since before 1969 the public system consisted mainly of Rutgers and six teachers colleges.
He later received a Juris Doctor, cum laude, from Gonzaga University in 1985 and was a Thomas More Scholar there. Gonzaga traces its origins to Gonzaga College, a Jesuit school founded in Spokane in 1887, which became Gonzaga University in 1912, the same year its law school opened. The law school began as a night school for students who worked during the day and remained exclusively a night school until 1970. The Jesuit-affiliated school has been accredited by the American Bar Association since 1951.
John F. Lord has practiced law in Seattle, Washington, where he has worked at The Beles Group. The firm is a Seattle law practice whose published practice areas included general international business, litigation, arbitration and mediation, intellectual property, and construction law.
His areas of specialization have included general international business, litigation, and arbitration, with emphasis on North American Free Trade Agreement, European Community, Russian, and Pacific Rim law, as well as computers and software, technology transfer, intellectual and industrial property, state and federal construction law, federal contract disputes, United States and international taxation, estate planning, family law, personal injury, bankruptcy, entertainment, publishing, and sports law. His practice has also included appellate law, conflict of laws, agents' errors and omissions matters, covenants not to compete, and wrongful termination cases involving employment at will.
He was admitted to the bar in Massachusetts in 1986 and in the District of Columbia in 1988. He was admitted before the United States Supreme Court in 1990.
John F. Lord is a member of the Massachusetts Bar Association and the American Bar Association. The American Bar Association, founded in 1878, is a national voluntary association of lawyers that works on legal education, professional standards, and the improvement of the law. State bar associations such as the Massachusetts Bar Association serve lawyers practicing within their own jurisdictions.
He is also a member of the Bar Association of the District of Columbia, a voluntary association for lawyers practicing in the capital, and of the National Network of Law School Officers.
