Attorney Profile
John Adler is a founding member of Adler Murphy & McQuillen
LLP with over fifty years of specialization in aviation defense
litigation. He has tried numerous cases in a variety of complex
situations and is one of only a handful of aviation defense
attorneys who have been admitted to fellowship in the American
College of Trial Lawyers.
John began his legal career with the U.S. Department of Justice,
Tax Division. After commissioning into the U.S. Air Force as a JAG
officer, he tried numerous courts martial, including capital
offenses.(Read
more about John's military life here ) He also
occasionally tried cases on behalf of the U.S. Army and Navy. In
1965, John returned to the Justice Department, Civil
Division-Aviation Section, where he continued to hone his trial
skills. His cases included the Pan Am accident in Elkton, Maryland,
and the Eastern airliner accident at LaGuardia airport.
In 1967, John went to work for United Airlines as a trial
attorney, where he litigated uninsured cases and various regulatory
issues before the Civil Aeronautics Board. This included litigation
relating to United Airlines' southeast service to Los Angeles and
small market West Coast service case. He also participated in
various trials and accident investigations as the United's
corporate legal representative.
John joined Lord, Bissell & Brook in 1970 and appeared as
trial counsel for aviation clients in more than 30 U.S.
jurisdictions. He was lead counsel in most of these cases and tried
many of them. In 1978, John founded the firm of Conklin &
Adler, a firm specializing in aviation litigation, where he
continued trying cases on behalf of various aerospace companies.
Then, in 1988, John formed Adler, Kaplan, and Begy, where he
continued to defend aerospace clients in numerous high profile
lawsuits, including litigation arising out of the explosion of the
Space Shuttle Challenger in January 1986 and the United Airlines
Sioux City accident. In 1995, John, and his long-time partners Jim
Murphy and Mike McQuillen, formed Adler Murphy & McQuillen
LLP. John has tried approximately 75
wrongful death cases.