Shontavia Johnson

Shontavia Johnson joined the Drake University Law School faculty in 2010 and was named the Kern Family Chair in Intellectual Property Law and Director of the Intellectual Property Law Center in 2016.

Her academic specialties include intellectual property law, trademark law, patent law, entertainment law, business law, technology and innovation, entrepreneurship, and social justice.

Named one of the Top 40 Young Lawyers in the US by the American Bar Association, Shontavia was recently placed on the prestigious Fulbright Specialist roster and named a 2016 A. Leon Higginbotham Fellow by the American Arbitration Association.

Shontavia’s publications have appeared in the Berkeley Technology Law Review, the Michigan Telecommunications and Technology Law Review, the John Marshall Review of Intellectual Property Law, and the Arkansas Law Review. Shontavia has taught law to students in the U.S. and abroad and served as a consultant to both startups and large corporations.

In 2014, Shontavia’s article, Trademark Territoriality in Cyberspace: An Internet Framework for Common Law Trademarks, was awarded the International Trademark Association Ladas Memorial Award, a competition that identifies the best article in the world on a trademark law topic. That same year, her article, Memetic Theory, Trademarks & the Viral Meme Mark, won third place in the competition. Shontavia has received the Iowa Organization of Women Attorneys Gertrude Rush Award, the South Carolina Governor’s School for Science and Mathematics Outstanding Alumnus Award, and the Jackie Robinson Foundation 42 Under 40 Alumni Award. In 2013, Shontavia was also named one of 40 Lawyers Under 40 by the National Bar Association and IMPACT.

Shontavia is also the founder and managing attorney of Jackson Johnson LLC, a boutique law firm serving entrepreneurs and entertainers. She frequently counsels clients in all areas of intellectual property law and consults with clients on entrepreneurial growth and development. She is registered to practice before the United States Patent and Trademark Office and a licensed mediator and arbitrator.

Shontavia received a B.S. in Biosystems Engineering from Clemson University, where she was a Palmetto Fellows Scholar, Coca-Cola Clemson Scholar, and a Jackie Robinson Foundation Scholar. She received her J.D. from the University of Arkansas School of Law, where she was associate editor of the Arkansas Law Review and a member of the National Criminal Procedure Moot Court team. While in law school, she was named a Vincent W. Foster Scholar, Jim G. Ferguson Scholar, and Harold Flowers Law Society Scholar, and she also served as a judicial extern to Judge Jimm Larry Hendren of the United States District Court for the Western District of Arkansas. Shontavia also studied international law and comparative constitutional law at the University of the Western Cape in Cape Town, South Africa.