Joe Thornton

Joe Thornton is Senior Division Counsel, American Medical Association, based in Chicago.

The primary lawyer for AMA’s Publishing Group, he also serves as Editorial Counsel for The JAMA Network®, including flagship JAMA® and nine specialty journals.  He was recruited to AMA in 2007 from private practice, with a career representing newspapers, book and online publishers, broadcasters and the companies that insured them.

For ten years he was Senior Counsel for Chicago Tribune and then Tribune Company’s publishing division, counseling Pulitzer Prize winners, litigating libel/privacy suits and subpoenas, wrestling with IP pirates and government agencies, and negotiating M&A deals.  While 3-0 before the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, he knows the best content, contracts, licenses and transactions yield value without a contest.  Initially a reporter, Joe clerked with the Iowa Supreme Court, and once was a registered lobbyist.

He earned a Communications degree at Seton Hall University, and a JD at Saint Louis University School of Law.