As Chief Counsel of Maryland’s Tobacco Enforcement Unit, John M. Leovy is responsible for enforcing Maryland’s tobacco legislation and ensuring that Maryland maximizes its recovery under the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement. He is the first-chair trial attorney for Maryland in multi-state arbitrations against Philip Morris, R.J. Reynolds, and two dozen other cigarette manufacturers seeking recovery of hundreds of millions of dollars in withheld settlement funds. Before joining the Office of the Attorney General in 2014, John served as a trial lawyer and supervisor for the Torts Division of the City of Chicago Department of Law, as a Federal Judicial Law Clerk, and tried two federal music copyright cases against Andrew Lloyd Webber while in private practice. John holds a law degree from I.I.T. Chicago-Kent College of Law, which kindly allowed him to complete school part-time while he worked as an actor and writer for the Second City National Touring Company. John also holds a Masters degree from the University of Chicago and a B.A. and M.A. in Classics from Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland, and has taught courses in trial advocacy and pre-trial litigation at Loyola University of Chicago and the University of Baltimore.