The Honorable John W. deGravelles currently serves as judge on the United States District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana. He received his BA degree from Louisiana State University in 1971 and graduated from Louisiana State University Law School with honors (Order of the Coif) in 1974. From 1974 until he took the bench in 2014, deGravelles had a distinguished career as a civil litigator specializing in maritime law, products liability and medical malpractice. He was a founding partner in the firm of deGravelles, Palmintier, Holthaus and Fruge. deGravelles was the President of the Louisiana Trial Lawyers Association (now the Louisiana Association for Justice), a Member of the Board of Governors of the American Association for Justice, President of the Louisiana Chapter of the American Board of Trial Advocates, President of the George McMahon Inn of Court, and admitted as a Fellow in both the International Academy of Trial Lawyers and Litigation Council of America. deGravelles has been a member of the Adjunct Faculty at the Paul M. Hebert Law Center since 1994, teaching Maritime Personal Injury, Pre-Trial Litigation and Advanced Litigation. He currently teaches Federal Courts. He has been a regular faculty member of Tulane Law School’s Summer Session in Rhodes, Greece since 1993, teaching Maritime Torts. In 2001, he was awarded a Fulbright Teaching Scholarship to teach American Maritime Private International Law at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki Law School in Thessaloniki, Greece. He has written and lectured extensively in the areas of maritime law, trial practice and procedure, including lectures in St. Petersburg, Russia, Odesa, Ukraine, Athens, Greece and Istanbul, Turkey. In 2014, he was nominated by President Barak Obama to be United States District Judge for the Middle District of Louisiana and was confirmed by the United States Senate on a vote of 100-0.