John Stout practices in business organization, finance, and governance at Fredrikson & Byron PA, a Minneapolis-based law firm with offices in Iowa, North Dakota, Mexico, and China. From 2011 to 2014, he was chair of the Corporate Governance Committee (CGC) of the American Bar Association’s Business Law Section. He is a member of the Section’s Governing Council and serves as vice chair of the Section’s Committee on Corporate Social Responsibility (focusing primarily on business sustainability matters) and cochair of the CGC’s Artificial Intelligence Task Force.

Stout cochairs Fredrikson’s Corporate Governance and Corporate Sustainability and Social Responsibility Groups, as well as a working group on artificial intelligence. He is also a member of Fredrikson’s Corporate, Securities, Mergers & Acquisitions, and International Groups. He advises executives, boards, board committees, and individual directors and officers of for-profit and nonprofit organizations on domestic and international governance, risk assessment, indemnification and insurance, legal compliance, internal investigations, board and director evaluations and performance improvement, business sustainability and social responsibility matters, oversight of artificial intelligence usage, and the legal implications of business strategies and decisions.

Stout serves as a director of several nonprofit and for-profit corporations. He is a former member of the Board of Directors of the National Association of Corporate Directors (and cofounder of its Minnesota Chapter) and the Center for International Private Enterprise, as well as a former trustee of Carleton College.

As an adjunct professor at the University of St. Thomas Law School in Minneapolis, Stout co-teaches a governance course, and he frequently writes and speaks on corporate governance subjects. He has also served as an expert witness on governance matters. He is a fellow of the American Bar Foundation and a member of the American College of Governance Counsel. In 2017, he received the Twin Cities Business Outstanding Directors Lifetime Achievement Award for his corporate governance accomplishments and was recognized in 2018 by Minnesota Business magazine in its Power 50 Group.