John P. Mahoney, Esq.

John P. Mahoney, Esq., is a Washington, DC Attorney at Law and the Founding and Managing Partner of the Firm, who specializes in the practice of federal sector employment, labor, and national security clearance law. Attorney Mahoney is rated as a "Preeminent AV-Rated Lawyer™", a " Lawyer of Distinction™", and is registered by Martindale-AVVO® in the 2022 Bar Registry of Preeminent Lawyers™. John was selected as a "2022 Top Rated Lawyer in Labor & Employment," and a “2022 Top Rated DC Metro Lawyer in Labor & Employment Law” by The National Law Journal, Corporate Counsel Magazine, American Lawyer Magazine, and Martindale-AVVO™. He has also achieved a perfect 10.0 AVVO Rating. He recently was selected for membership in the Million Dollar Advocates Forum. Also, he was recently selected as a Best Lawyer in America for 2023, was on the cover of the Top 100 Attorneys Magazine in 2022, and was chosen as Federal Employment Lawyer of the Year in 2020 and 2021. Furthermore, Attorney Mahoney was named “the Most Influential Employment Lawyer 2021 – Washington, DC”, and as the “Leading Employment and Labor Rights Attorney of the Year in Washington, DC for 2021.”

His last Attorney performance rating was rated by his last law firm as a perfect 10 or "Outstanding" based upon each of the following Attorney performance standards: 

Interpersonal Relationships-Clients

1. Interpersonal Relationships-Clients
2. Interpersonal Relationships- Colleagues and Staff
3. Communication: The ability to communicate ideas in both individual and group situations
4. Judgment- Legal
5. Reliability
6. Productivity and Dedication
7. ​Organization (efficiency)

Attorney Mahoney provides legal representation, expertise, advice, and counseling to federal employees, contractors, agencies, unions, and employee associations in federal sector labor, employment, and national ​security clearance law matters, throughout the USA and around the world. He has over 29 years of experience effectively representing the federal sector community and has served as an expert witness on federal employment law. He recently served on the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board’s (MSPB or "the Board") stakeholder working group that substantially revised the MSPB regulations at 5 C.F.R. Part 1201. As Co-Chair of the DC Bar's Labor & Employment Law Section, John previously served on the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's (EEOC or "the Commission") stakeholder working group that substantially revised the EEOC's federal sector regulations at 29 C.F.R. Part 1614, as well as EEOC's Management Directive (MD)-110.

ATTORNEYS MAHONEY'S WORK IN FEDERAL COURTS

John has represented federal employees, contractors, unions, employee associations, agencies, and/or private businesses before various federal courts such as the Supreme Court of the United States, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, various U.S. district courts, as well as before such federal agencies as the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB), the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA), the Office of Special Counsel (OSC), the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), and the Defense Office of Hearings and Appeals (DOHA). In one victory before the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, John successfully argued an appeal of first impression resulting in the creation of new due process rights for a class of Excepted Service Schedule A disabled federal employees and the reversal of several MSPB decisions and an OPM regulation. See VanWersch v. Department of Health and Human Servs., 197 F.3d 1144 (Fed. Cir. 1999).

Attorney Mahoney was previously appointed to serve as the statutory Vice Chairman, executive, and an administrative judge (ES-IV) of the U.S. Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) Personnel Appeals Board (PAB), where he adjudicated employee disciplinary, discrimination, whistleblower reprisal, and labor law cases. He has served as General Counsel to various federal sector unions, as Senior Associate to the General Counsel of the Senior Executives Association (SEA), outside employment or national security law counsel to a number of federal agencies, private federal contractors, and/or other corporations, as well as a member of the AFL-CIO's national Lawyers Coordinating Committee.

ACCOLADES & RECOGNITIONS

John received the highest Attorneys recognition by Martindale-AVVO™ including being named “Preeminent AV Rated™” in the 2022 Bar Registry of Preeminent Lawyers. As such, he is considered by the DC legal community to be a lawyer with "preeminent legal ability; expertise, experience, integrity and overall professional excellence" and that he "clearly demonstrates the highest professional and ethical standards." The quality legal services that Attorney Mahoney regularly provides to his clients has also earned him and our firm distinctions such as selection by The National Law Journal, Corporate Counsel Magazine, and American Lawyer Magazine as a “2022 Top Rated DC Metro Lawyers in Labor & Employment Law™.”

Attorneys Mahoney has also been a member of the Metropolitan Washington Employment Lawyers Association (MWELA), and is a current member of the American Bar Association (ABA) and the Bar of the Supreme Court of the United States. He is admitted to practice law in the District of Columbia and Maryland.

John was elected by the nearly 2,000 DC labor and employment law Attorney members of the D.C. Bar’s Labor and Employment Law Section to serve two terms as that Section’s Co-Chair, in which position he led that Section to its only “Best Section of the DC Bar Award.” Subsequently, he was elected to serve as the Chair of the D.C. Bar’s Council on Sections, in which position he oversaw the development of continuing legal education and community outreach programs for the 26,000 Attorney members of the Bar’s then-23 practice area sections.


As a former candidate for the Maryland State Senate, member of the Maryland Democratic Party’s Executive Committee,President of the Young Democrats Maryland, Attorney Mahoney has worked with the Speaker and Majority Leader of the U.S. House of Representatives, and the former Chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, as well as with U.S. Senators Kennedy, Mikulski, Cardin, and Van Hollen. In 2004, John had the honor of addressing the Maryland Delegation at the Democratic National Convention (DNC), where he had the pleasure of meeting for the first time Barack Obama, former President of the United States of America. That year, he also led the Young Democrats of Montgomery County, Maryland to its award as Democrats of the Year.

From 2009 through 2014, Attorney Mahoney was a Partner with and the Chairman of the Labor & Employment Law Practice Group at the law firm of Tully Rinckey, PLLC in Washington, DC, in which position he represented the Federal Administrative Law Judges Conference (FALJC), which was granted "Friend of the Court" status by the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in the federal employee furlough case of Berlin et al. v. Department of Labor. From 2003 to 2008, John was the Founding Partner and the Director of Litigation at Mahoney & Mahoney, LLP, at that time another leading, AV®Rated, Washington, D.C. federal employment law firm specializing in representing federal government agencies, businesses, unions, employee associations, and individual federal employees in labor and employment law matters. From 2000 to 2003, John was a Senior Associate at the law firm of Shaw, Bransford, Veilleux & Roth, which, at that time, was General Counsel to the Senior Executives Association (SEA). From 1992 to 1999, John was a Law Clerk, an Associate, and then a Senior Associate with the AV®Rated federal employment law firm of Passman & Kaplan, PC.

John is an oft-published author and frequent public speaker on federal employment and labor law issues. His article, “What Rights to Privacy Do Federal Employees Have?” was published in THE NATIONAL LAW JOURNAL (Jan. 2011). John also Co-authored nine chapters of the 1st Edition of the book “THE FEDERAL EMPLOYEE'S LEGAL SURVIVAL GUIDE”.

EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUND

Attorney Mahoney earned his Juris Doctorate from the Catholic University of America’s Columbus School of Law in 1993. While there, he was chosen as an Editor of the Year of THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY LAW REVIEW® and interned for the D.C. Government's Office of Labor Relations and Collective Bargaining. In 1990, John obtained his bachelor’s degree with honors from Assumption University in his hometown of Worcester, Massachusetts, where he co-founded the university’s Law Society.

In over 29 years of law practice, John has effectively represented thousands of federal employees in EEO complaints, OSC complaints, as well as EEOC cases, DOHA appeals, MSPB appeals, and federal court cases.

Attorney Mahoney has won cases before the EEOC in which his federal employee clients have received hundreds of thousands of dollars in back pay, benefits, interest, compensatory damages, and attorneys’ fees, in addition to equitable relief including the reversal of termination decisions and the award of retroactive promotion to the Senior Executive Service. He has won MSPB appeals, reversing or mitigating removals, demotions, and indefinite suspensions, involving backpay, benefits, interest, and awards of attorneys fees. See, e.g., Cohen v. Department of Homeland Security, (ICE), MSPB Docket  No. SF-0752-12-0427-I-1 (Jun. 19, 2014) (nonprecedential). He has successfully negotiated hundreds if not thousands of settlement agreements in federal sector EEO complaints and MSPB appeals, including a Million-Dollar EEOC Case settlement awarding his disabled federal employee client retroactive reinstatement to a Criminal Investigator, GS-1811-14, position with awards of $275,000 in compensatory damages, over $193,000 in attorneys’ fees, as well as back pay, benefits, and interest in excess of $250,000. See Hamilton v. Gates, Sec’y, Dep’t of Defense, USAF, EEOC Case No. 531-2011-00114X (Settlement Agreement Entered May 14, 2012).

Attorney Mahoney frequently addresses the EEOC Excel and the Federal Dispute Resolution (FDR) Conferences, among others and is a frequent media commentor on legal and political issues. Additionally, John has successfully litigated and/or negotiated settlements in numerous EEOC sanctions cases, including obtaining default judgment sanctions, one of which resulted in full relief for a federal employee in a then-novel race and national origin by association and “regarded as” disability discrimination case that resulted in the reversal of a termination decision. See Johnson v. Johanns, Sec’y, USDA, EEOC Case No. 520-2006-00120X, Agency No. FSA 2005-00711 (EEOC New York District Office, Boston Area Office, Sanctions Order Issued Jan. 22, 2007).

"I look forward to utilizing my legal experience to protect, defend and enhance your federal career."

Sincerely,