SPENCE JOHNSON
Partner / Civil Trial Lawyer

Spence Johnson specializes in high-stakes commercial matters and is one of Johnson Marlowe LLP’s founding partners. Bringing his business education and experience to bear as he helps his clients navigate rough seas, he currently represents clients in matters involving six, seven, and eight figure sums throughout the Southeast and beyond.

Spence has represented his clients in high-stakes litigation and arbitrations across the United States. He successfully resolves complex disputes for his clients with eight-digit amounts in controversy. On the transactional side of his practice, Spence has experience working with small to mid-sized business clients in all phases of their life from startup to company sale.

Construction Disputes. In his construction litigation practice, Spence has represented owners, general contractors, and subcontractors in multimillion-dollar disputes on projects from California to Florida and many points in between. His construction experience involves payment disputes, delay claims, and defective construction claims resolved through litigation and arbitration.

When local governments have attempted to thwart his clients’ development through improper zoning actions, Spence has taken them to court and successfully exposed unlawful government actions.

Estate and Trust Matters. In estate and trust disputes, Spence has defended trustees facing seven-figure fiduciary claims, set aside erroneous awards of years support worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, and successfully prosecuted and defeated Will challenges. When executors and trustees fail to adhere to their fiduciary duties, Spence has experience taking them to account. He has multiple reported successful appellate decisions in the Georgia Supreme Court and Georgia Court of Appeals. Spence serves as the trustee of family trusts for high-net-worth individuals.

Business Divorces. When business relations between partners go south, he has helped multiple clients find improved terms of separation with seven-figure net benefits. He counsels small businesses with revenues ranging from $500,000 to $100 million in a wide range of commercial disputes and transactions, including sticky contract negotiations, heated customer disputes, and dicey employee separations.

Commercial Loan Workouts. Spence has resolved commercial loans in default totaling tens of millions of dollars for clients ranging from residential and commercial developers to medical practices, finding non-bankruptcy solutions in nearly every case both before and after litigation is filed. His results include fending off a national bank holding a judgment of nearly $20 million against his client and successful defense of a case in which a regional lender alleged fraudulent transfers totaling over $7 million.

Transactional Practice. Two decades of resolving business disputes in court gives Spence a unique perspective on the transactional side of his practice, where he has deep experience advising owners at all phases of the founding, growth, and sales of their companies.

Many thriving businesses need regular legal advice but aren’t large enough to retain full-time in-house counsel. Spence routinely provides outsourced general counsel services to small to mid-sized companies, serving as a first call for executives with complex issues ranging from contract negotiations, to employee compensation, mergers, acquisitions, and company sales. He helps businesses form and capitalize themselves, negotiating agreements between the owners to set the companies up for future success, including operating agreements, buy-sell agreements, and employment agreements.

As his clients grow, they often need to incentivize their employees. Spence helps his clients draft and implement equity ownership incentives, profit-sharing, phantom stock, and stock appreciation right plans. Sometimes, his clients need to separate employees, and he helps his clients with internal investigations and employee separations, including severance packages.

Outside Business Experience. It’s hard to think like a businessman if you’ve never had to run a business. As a private investor in closely-held businesses, Spence has an informed view of the everyday issues that owners trying to capitalize and build their businesses face. He was part of an investor group that has taken Creature Comforts Brewing Company from an idea to one of the nation’s most successful craft breweries. During his term on the company’s board of directors, Creature Comforts has recognized industry-leading growth and completed award-winning adaptive redevelopments of historic buildings in the Athens area.

From 2007 through 2010, Spence was an investor in and sat on the board of the Terrapin Beer Company, a regional microbrewery headquartered in Athens. During his tenure on that board, Terrapin opened a 48,000 square foot manufacturing facility in Athens, expanded its geographic footprint beyond the southeast, and increased sales at an industry-leading rate. He also owns and runs real estate ventures in the Athens area and manages a family timber farm in Terrell County, Georgia.

Community. Spence is proud to call the Five Points neighborhood in Athens, Georgia his home, where he lives with his wife, Cress, and two daughters. An active member of the community, he attends the First United Methodist Church in Athens, where he serves as an usher and as chairman of the church’s Board of Trustees. He has also served a full term on the Board of Trustees of Athens Academy. A (very) amateur musician and yogi in his spare time, Spence enjoys an active life of exercise and the occasional weekend gig with his bandmates in “The Grateful Dads” playing classic rock covers.