Joshua A. Claybourn is a business and public-law attorney known for careful preparation and practical results. Clients turn to him for matters that sit at the intersection of law, government, and commerce, whether the task is testing a statute against constitutional limits, protecting a brand, structuring a deal, or working through a knot of regulations.
Based in Indiana, Claybourn leads the firm’s intellectual property and licensing practice group. He focuses on building, protecting, and monetizing brands and other IP assets in business, banking, entertainment, and publishing. The World IP Review has recognized him as a trademark “Leader,” a distinction reserved for top intellectual property practitioners worldwide.
Claybourn represents clients ranging from start-ups and closely held companies to large public corporations and local governments. His work includes entity formation, mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, and major economic development projects. He often structures public-private partnerships and state and local incentive arrangements, and he regularly advises municipalities and other units of government on utility, annexation, reorganization, funding, and budget matters.
He has briefed and argued high-profile appeals in state and federal courts on constitutional, statutory, regulatory, and related issues, for both private parties and governmental clients.
Claybourn also brings deep experience in utility law. Before private practice, he served in-house at a large publicly traded energy company, gaining first-hand knowledge of how utilities plan, invest, and operate. Drawing on that background, he now advises renewable energy developers, municipal water and sewer utilities, and industrial consumers on supply agreements, contract disputes, leases, bond financings, zoning and land use, and regulatory approvals and rate cases. His work has included rate proceedings for some of the largest and the smallest utilities in Indiana.
The Indianapolis Business Journal named Claybourn one of the state’s 250 most influential business leaders in the inaugural year of that list, and Indiana Lawyer recognized him as an “Up and Coming” attorney in its first statewide awards. Beyond the courtroom and conference room, he is a prolific author of books and essays on history and law. He supports several historical non-profit organizations and has appeared on national television documentaries about Lincoln and his world.
