Background

Johanna Harrington joins the Firm’s Miami office as an associate after more than a decade of practicing law in the U.S. Virgin Islands.  There she represented a variety of clients in both litigation and transactional matters. She counseled businesses seeking to establish operations in the territory, including businesses seeking tax incentives from the Government of the Virgin Islands’ economic development programs. She represented clients before the Virgin Islands Bureau of Internal Revenue and the Internal Revenue Service in tax controversy matters, including negotiating offers in compromise.  She was the first Director of the Virgin Islands Department of Justice Medical Malpractice & Risk Unit where she worked to modernize the government’s self-insurance fund of healthcare providers while providing representation to the territory’s public hospitals and individual insureds.  Her court-appointed experience includes family and criminal defense matters. She was most recently the Managing Attorney for the US Virgin Islands for a national law firm serving the financial services sector.

She co-authored an article for the IFC Review discussing tax incentives available in the territory for knowledge-based businesses, “The USVI: Economic Incentives for Knowledge-Based Businesses”, IFC Review, January 5, 2011.

Her legal career began as a judicial law clerk for the Missouri Court of Appeals-Southern District including clerking for the Honorable Kerry L. Montgomery.

She received her Juris Doctorate from the University of Missouri-Columbia where she was a member of the Journal of Dispute Resolution and published a comment, “To Litigate or Arbitrate? No Matter–The Credit Card Industry is Deciding for You”, 2001 J. Disp. Resol., 101.  She also drew a regular cartoon strip for the law school newspaper, The Gavel. She received her Bachelor of Arts in History from the University of Central Missouri. She participated in the Asian Studies Program at Kansai Gaidai University in Hirakata City, Japan where she studied Japanese language and culture for school year and lived with a Japanese family for a year.

She is licensed to practice in Missouri, U.S. Virgin Islands, and Florida