Biography

Mr. Johnson (who goes by Mars) was born in Palau and raised in Guam. He attended Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota, graduating with a B.A. in Sociology and Anthropology in 2004. After traveling and working for a year, he attended law school at the William S. Richardson School of Law, University of Hawai‘i, where he graduated in 2008.

Following law school, Mr. Johnson accepted a position at Kessner Umebayashi Bain & Matsunaga, where he focused primarily on insurance defense, including workers’ compensation, medical malpractice, asbestos litigation, and employment matters. Mr. Johnson also worked at Hughes Richards & Associates where he focused on construction defects litigation, general personal injury defense, and corporate litigation.

Mr. Johnson returned to Guam in 2013 and joined Blair Sterling Johnson & Martinez. In Guam, Mr. Johnson has continued to work on matters involving insurance defense, construction litigation, and corporate litigation. He has also expanded into the areas of government procurement and business formation.

Representative experience:

• Successfully defended the award of a federal contract for base operating support services on Guam’s military bases against a GAO protest by a competing bidder. The maximum value of the contract, including optional extension periods, was more than $40 million.

• Successfully protested a Guam Waterworks Authority contract award for the construction of a water reservoir on grounds that the winning bidder lied to the agency about its safety record. The contract, worth more than $20 million, was then awarded to the firm’s client, with the agency noting its intent to scrutinize past awards made to the dishonest bidder.

• Successfully defended an ultra-low-sulfur diesel fuel contract award by the Guam Power Authority to two bidders against a protest by the other winning bidder who insisted the contract must be awarded to only one bidder in its entirety. Mr. Johnson obtained a favorable result, allowing the client to keep the three-year contract it had been awarded, estimated to be worth $10 million per year.

• Successfully appealed an insurance company’s denial of coverage for a client’s pacemaker replacement through the company’s federally regulated internal appeals process. This favorable decision resulted in the client reaching her out-of-pocket maximum for that year, entitling her to a sizeable reimbursement for all out-of-pocket costs incurred after her pacemaker replacement.

Community Involvement

Mr. Johnson has coached high school mock trial on Guam since 2013 and has judged the Korean Mock Trial Association’s twice annual tournaments in Seoul, Korea since 2015. He is also a member of the Rotary Club of Guam.

As a past chair of the Guam Bar Association’s Continuing Legal Education Committee, Mr. Johnson organized the Guam Bar Association and District Court of Guam’s 2016 Law and International Practice Conference, held in Manila.

He is a former Steering Committee member for the Guam Chamber of Commerce’s Guam Young Professionals subcommittee, a former director of the Palauan Community Association of Guam, and a former vice-president of the Ngaraard Club of Guam.

As a law student, Mr. Johnson served two terms as president of the William S. Richardson School of Law Student Bar Association. He also served as a director of the William S. Richardson School of Law Alumni Association from 2009 to 2012.