Magistrate Judge Herman N. Johnson, Jr. was appointed United States Magistrate Judge on June 1, 2017.  Prior to his appointment, Magistrate Judge Johnson enjoyed a wide-ranging legal career in practice, academia, and the court system.  His civil legal practice focused upon civil litigation in class, collective, and individual actions.  Throughout his practice, he engaged in all aspects of litigation, from case inception, design, and initial pleading; to discovery, dispositive briefing, and Daubert challenges; and then to trial and appellate oral argument.  He served as chief counsel or otherwise took a prominent role in several class action and individual trials, and he argued several appeals before the Eleventh Circuit. 

In his academic legal career, Magistrate Judge Johnson was a tenured Professor at Samford University’s Cumberland School of Law.  At Cumberland, he continuously taught several courses conducive to litigation in federal courts, including:  Civil Procedure, Evidence, Comparative Procedure (Civil & Criminal), Federal Courts, Equitable Remedies, Civil Rights, and Complex Litigation.  He also published articles in leading law school and practice journals analyzing constitutional and statutory provisions germane to federal civil practice.

Before practicing law, Judge Johnson served as a law clerk in Montgomery, Alabama, for the Honorable Myron H. Thompson, United States District Judge, Middle District of Alabama, and then in Nashville, Tennessee, for the Honorable Martha Craig Daughtrey, Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.  Prior to clerking, Columbia University awarded him his Juris Doctor and Master of International Affairs degrees, and before his two-year service in the Peace Corps he obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from Duke University.