Thomas M. Johnson, Jr.

Tom assists clients in the communications, technology, and utility sectors in navigating high-stakes, complex challenges spanning regulatory, transactional, and litigation matters, with a particular focus on matters implicating the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and state public utility commissions. Drawing on Wiley’s deep bench of telecom and other regulatory experts, Tom has led teams to facilitate federal and state regulatory approvals for billion-dollar fiber transactions, developed strategies for responding to federal and state regulatory investigations, and successfully challenged unlawful regulatory barriers in the federal courts of appeals. As co-chair of Wiley’s Issues and Appeals Practice, Tom has represented clients in successfully overturning several high-profile FCC rules that would have imposed billions of dollars of costs on regulated companies, and has argued cases in the Second, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, District of Columbia, and Federal Circuits.  He has been recognized by Law360 as a Telecom MVP and in the American Lawyer’s Litigator of the Week feature. 

Prior to joining Wiley, Tom was the General Counsel at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), where he served as the agency’s chief legal officer and briefed dozens of appeals – personally arguing two – in the federal courts of appeals in constitutional and administrative law challenges to the FCC’s orders. Tom managed a team of over 70 attorneys and staff and provided consultation and advice on a wide range of practice areas relating to the FCC’s work, including administrative law, appellate and trial litigation, bankruptcy, ethics, fiscal law, fraud, labor and employment, and public records requests. He has spent his career advising clients on all stages of federal agency rulemaking, adjudication, and litigation, in fields ranging from communications to environmental law to securities to labor and employment. He frequently speaks and writes on legal issues and his articles have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, National Review, Forbes, and Newark Star-Ledger.

Representative Matters

At Wiley

• Serves as team lead on conducting due diligence and obtaining federal and state regulatory approvals for large, complex transactions in the communications, technology, and utility sectors, including significant recent fiber acquisitions on behalf of a large nationwide wireless carrier.

• Assists clients in navigating mission-critical FCC rulemakings, investigations, and enforcement proceedings.
• Led litigation team and successfully argued appeal in the Fourth Circuit on behalf of the Retail Energy Advancement League to obtain a preliminary injunction in a First Amendment challenge to a Maryland law that restricted consumer choice and effectively drove retail energy companies out of the market, in a win recognized in the American Lawyer’s Litigator of the Week feature.
• Led litigation team in the Fifth Circuit on behalf of national and state communications trade associations that led to successful reversal of FCC rule imposing unlawful and onerous mandates on covered companies under the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA).
• Represented national communications trade associations in the Eighth Circuit in successful challenge to FCC’s disparate-impact liability rules imposed under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA).
• Represented a national communications trade association in the Sixth Circuit in successful challenge to the FCC’s attempt to reclassify broadband Internet access service under Title II of the Communications Act and impose so-called “net neutrality” rules.

At FCC

• Oversaw the legal review of the FCC’s 2017 Restoring Internet Freedom Order, which repealed the prior Administration’s “net neutrality” rules and restored a light-touch regulatory framework to broadband internet access service. Successfully defended this framework at oral argument before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, in a victory that the President called a “great win for the future and speed of the internet.”
• Persuaded the U.S. Supreme Court to review the FCC’s deregulation of outdated media ownership rules, resulting in a “unanimous knockdown” (Wall Street Journal) of a Third Circuit decision vacating those rules, thus allowing for pro-competitive media combinations that have been held up in court for decades.
• Successfully defended the FCC’s national security and supply chain order, which established a process to exclude insecure equipment from American communications networks, at oral argument before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, resulting in a unanimous decision rejecting constitutional and statutory arguments raised by Huawei.
• Developed and drafted the legal analysis for a series of three FCC orders that streamlined state and local approvals for wireless infrastructure deployment to promote the more rapid rollout of 5G services, and oversaw the successful defense of the substantial majority of these orders in litigation before the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Ninth and D.C. Circuits.
• Filed two FCC General Counsel statements of interest that successfully persuaded two federal district courts that the City of Berkeley’s “right-to-know” ordinance for cell-phone retailers, and alleged class-action tort claims against Apple, were preempted by FCC rules on radiofrequency emission (RF) limits.
• Formulated the legal framework for the FCC’s unique plan to clear portions of critical “C-band” spectrum, occupied by incumbent satellite companies, for use in emerging 5G services.
• Oversaw the FCC’s legal review of the merger of the third- and fourth-largest mobile telecom providers. Collaborated with the U.S. Department of Justice to file a joint amicus brief successfully urging a federal court to reject an antitrust challenge by state attorneys general to the merger.
• Successfully defended the constitutionality of West Virginia’s “right to work” law in briefs and at oral argument before the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia.
• Developed litigation strategy and drafted briefs as part of team bringing challenges under the Administrative Procedure Act to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency rules under the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act, including the Clean Power Plan, New Source Rule, Methane Rule, and Waters of the United States rule.
• Managed the drafting of briefs in a successful administrative law challenge to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s “extractive industries” rule, adopted as part of Dodd-Frank, which the agency estimated would impose billions of dollars in costs on covered issuers.
• Second-chaired oral argument in U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of New York municipality in case that resulted in landmark opinion holding that client’s practice of starting legislative sessions with an invocation does not violate the Establishment Clause.

Professional Experience

• General Counsel, Federal Communications Commission (2017-2021)
• Deputy Solicitor General, Office of the West Virginia Attorney General (2016-2017)
• Private Practice (2006-2016)

Affiliations

• Public Member, Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS)
• Executive Committee, Administrative Law Practice Group, The Federalist Society
• Co-Founder and Board Member, St. Thomas More Guild for the Diocese of Arlington, Catholic Bar Association

Recognitions

• Recognized by Law360 as a Telecommunications MVP (2025)

• Named Among The American Lawyer’s Litigator of the Week Runners-Up (2026)

• Recognized by The Legal 500 US as a "Recommended Lawyer" in Telecom and Broadcast: Transactional (2022) and Appellate: Court of Appeals (2023-2025)
• Included in The Best Lawyers of America directory for Communications Law (2024-2026)