John W. Wheeler has a record of extensive service to the legal profession. After serving as East Tennessee vice president, district governor, and vice president, he was president of the Tennessee Bar Association in 1989-90. He was a member of the American Bar Association House of Delegates from 1986-2000. He served as a member of the Tennessee Appellate Court Study Commission; was chair of merit selection panels in the appointment of two United States magistrate judges and the reappointment of a third magistrate judge; was a member of merit selection panels in the appointment of two U.S. bankruptcy judges; was founding chairman of the Historical Society of the U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Tennessee; and a founding member of the executive committee of the Tennessee Supreme Court Historical Society. His professional memberships include the Tennessee Defense Lawyers Association, Defense Research Institute, International Association of Defense Counsel, American Inns of Court in which he is a Master of the Bench (Emeritus), Southern Conference of Bar Presidents, and National Conference of Bar Presidents. He has been listed for more than 10 years in The Best Lawyers in America and among Mid-South Super Lawyers. He is a Life Fellow of the American Bar Foundation and served as Tennessee Chair of the Fellows from 2000-2008. He is a Life Fellow of the Tennessee Bar Foundation and Life Member of the United States Sixth Circuit Judicial Conference. Mr. Wheeler graduated from the University of Tennessee with a degree in journalism in 1960 and received a commission in the United States Army in which he served on active duty as an officer from 1961 to 1963. He then became a newspaper editor until leaving journalism to enter the University of Tennessee College of Law from which he graduated in March of 1968. He was a member of the Board of Editors of Tennessee Law Review and, while in law school worked as administrative assistant to the director of the UT/AEC Agricultural Research Laboratory in Oak Ridge, TN. He was admitted to practice in all the courts of Tennessee and in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District in 1968, and subsequently admitted to practice in the District Courts for the Middle and Western Districts. He was admitted to practice in the United States Supreme Court in 1974, and in the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in 1975. His primary areas of practice have been commercial litigation, tort and worker’s compensation litigation, and class action defense. He is an approved mediator under Tennessee Supreme Court Rule 31 and in the U.S. District Court.

AV Preeminent Rating, Martindale Hubbell