Mr. Rue’s practice is focused on commercial litigation, with an emphasis on complex matters and class actions, e-discovery issues and antitrust law. He also has solid experience with products liability, contract disputes, bankruptcy, education law, and corporate litigation counseling. John had extensive litigation and courtroom experience at White & Case, accentuated by his recent in-house hands-on discovery practice experience as in-house counsel at Novartis.
After graduating magna cum laude from Fordham Law School, where he was Notes and Articles Editor of the Fordham Law Review, John started his legal career at the global law firm of White & Case LLP, where he litigated such high profile cases as the Enron securities class action and In re Refined Petroleum Products, a class action against the national oil companies of the Member Countries of the OPEC nations. After eight years at White & Case, Mr. Rue transitioned to work as in-house counsel to Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation, as its global Discovery Counsel, responsible for all civil discovery in litigations and investigations for that company worldwide, before transitioning back to private practice at Kim & Bae in 2013.
Mr. Rue is also very active in volunteer and pro bono work, especially in the area of special education law. He has served on the Board of Trustees of Volunteer Lawyers for Justice since 2008, and is a past Trustee of the Education Law Center, legal counsel for the plaintiff-class of over 300,000 school-aged children and 60,000 preschoolers in New Jersey’s seminal funding equity case Abbott v. Burke; and Mr. Rue second chaired the remand trial in Abbott XXI in 2012. John is the President and General Counsel of the Innisfree Foundation, which advocates for children with disabilities in New Jersey. He is also the Scoutmaster of the Boy Scouts of America Troop 55 in Glen Ridge.
Prior to law school, he had a career in the theater, directing plays and as a dramaturge (working with playwrights to develop their work). In his spare time, he plays poker and rides his motorcycle, a BMW cruiser, an R1200C.