Joshua A. Claybourn is more than just a lawyer. He is a trusted advisor who helps clients achieve their goals and overcome their challenges. Whether it’s securing intellectual property rights, closing complex deals, or navigating renewal energy transactions, Claybourn provides the knowledge and experience to deliver results.
Serving as the firm's group leader for intellectual property and licensing, Claybourn advises on matters including trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets, and licensing. He diligently safeguards the integrity and commercial viability of brands and IP assets. His experience includes successfully negotiating and litigating various IP infringements, licenses, and transfer agreements in the realms of business, banking, entertainment, and publishing. The World IP Review (WIPR), an exhaustive guide to top-notch intellectual property lawyers worldwide, acknowledges him as a trademark “Leader.”
Claybourn’s clientele spans small entrepreneurs to Fortune 500 behemoths. He takes the helm as lead counsel for business formations, mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, and economic development projects. Beyond conventional municipal finance transactions, he tackles more complex, demanding projects that encompass public-private partnerships and state and local incentive packages. He also represents municipalities and government units in matters of utility, annexation, reorganization, funding, and budgeting.
Before joining Jackson Kelly, Claybourn sharpened his skills in utility law while working in-house at a major publicly traded energy company. Now, he consults with renewable energy developers, municipal water and sewer utilities, and industrial consumers. He handles supply agreements, contract disputes, leases, bond financings, zoning and land use, and regulatory approvals and rate cases, with his rate case experience varying from the largest to the smallest utilities in the state.
The Indianapolis Business Journal named Claybourn one of the state’s 250 most influential business leaders in its first year of the award, and Indiana Lawyer named him an “Up and Coming” attorney in its first statewide award. He is also a prolific writer of books and essays on non-legal topics — especially Abraham Lincoln. He supports several history non-profit groups and has appeared on national television documentaries about Lincoln.