Eric E. Johnson

Assistant Professor of Law, University of North Dakota School of Law

Professor Johnson received his J.D., cum laude, from Harvard Law School in 2000, where he was a member of the Board of Student Advisers and an instructor in legal reasoning and argument. He received his B.A. with highest honors and special honors from the Plan II program at the University of Texas at Austin in 1994.

After law school, Professor Johnson was an associate in the litigation and intellectual-property litigation practices at Irell & Manella in Los Angeles, where his clients included Paramount, MTV, CBS, Touchstone, Immersion Corporation, and the bankruptcy estate of eToys.com. At Irell, Johnson’s matters included claims of patent infringement in the video-game industry, copyright infringement of a television series, breach of a motion-picture director’s contract, and breach of a profit-participation clause in a television executive-producer’s contract. Professor Johnson later became in-house counsel to Fox Cable Networks in Los Angeles, drafting and negotiating deals for Fox Sports Net (“FSN”) and Fox College Sports.

Outside of his legal career, Professor Johnson was a consultant to an early-stage internet start-up, a top-40 radio disc jockey, and a stand-up comic. In 2005, he was awarded a patent on a headrest he invented for patients suffering from Parkinson’s Disease.

At UND, Professor Johnson’s courses include Torts, Entertainment Law, Sports Law, and electives relating to intellectual property. His primary scholarship interests are intellectual property and entertainment law. Before joining the UND faculty, Johnson taught as an adjunct professor at Whittier Law School and Pepperdine University School of Law, teaching Patent Law, Trademarks, and Entertainment Law.