Dixie Johnson

Dixie Johnson represents businesses and individuals in securities enforcement investigations and conducts internal investigations for corporate board committees and companies. As a partner on our Securities Enforcement and Regulation team and our Special Matters and Government Investigations team, Dixie also serves as Deputy Practice Group Leader for Government Matters, a collection of ten government-facing practices within our firm. She appears regularly before the SEC, DOJ, FINRA, PCAOB and other federal and state authorities. Since she joined King & Spalding in early 2014, the government has closed almost forty investigations without charging Dixie’s clients.

Dixie brings to her clients solid judgment and strategic insight from over 30 years of experience in representing public companies, financial institutions, investment managers, broker-dealers, public accounting firms, boards of directors and boards of trustees, law firms, corporate officers and others. She is widely recognized as a legal industry leader in securities enforcement, regulatory compliance, corporate governance and crisis management.

Board committees call on Dixie to investigate accounting and disclosure-related whistle-blower allegations and look to her for guidance in times of crisis. She regularly interacts with lead directors, presiding directors, and non-executive board chairs from many of the largest companies in the world. She is a Fellow of the American College of Governance Counsel and, for five years, was a member of the Lead Director Network.

Public companies and regulated entities seek Dixie’s representation in complex securities-related government investigations. C-Suite officers and other professionals look to Dixie for representation in internal and SEC or other investigations when their careers are on the line. She is a lawyer's lawyer, representing law firms and lawyers under scrutiny. Her bench is deep and highly skilled. She analyzes lessons learned and especially enjoys counseling clients on how to avoid problems in the future.

Chambers USA, Legal 500, Benchmark, Who’s Who, Best Lawyers and others all consistently rank Dixie as a leading lawyer, and Chambers included our practice on the 2017 short list of firms for Securities and Financial Services Regulation. Chambers has noted that she is "a very strong and thoughtful lawyer with an encyclopedic knowledge of securities laws," (2019), she “wins praise across the board for her ‘terrific relationship with the SEC.’” (2018) and she leads an “expert, broad-based enforcement practice.” (2017) Dixie also has served in multiple leadership roles within the American Bar Association, including as Business Law Section Chair, Chair of the Federal Regulation of Securities Committee, and co-Chair of the Fellows Committee. She is a member of the Board of Trustees for the Legal Aid Society of Washington, D.C. and the Board of Advisors for the SEC Historical Society. Before becoming a lawyer, Dixie served for six years as a public school teacher in Albuquerque, New Mexico.