Duane Jones grew up in Queens, New York.  In the seventh grade, he was recruited to be one of the first African-American students to attend Middlesex School, a preparatory school in Massachusetts.  He won debating prizes and decided to make the law his career.  He graduated near the top of his class and went on to Harvard University, where he was appointed one of the first students ever to hold a seat on the Committee on Undergraduate Curriculum in his major.  He received a magna cum laude on his senior thesis there, and went on to law school at Berkeley Law, the University of California, where he became a teaching fellow in his second year, a paid faculty member tutoring first year students in Tort law. 

Duane has worked at the General Counsel’s office at IBM Corporation, the largest in house corporate law department in the U.S., under former US Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach, and as a partner in the law firms of Johnson, Johnson & Jones, and King & Jones.  He now has his own law firm and remains of counsel to the successor firm of his original partners, Johnson, Hopewell & Coleman. 

Duane has represented clients in personal injury, wrongful death, employment discrimination, police brutality and misconduct, domestic and divorce, as well as criminal defense.  He has recovered judgments and settlements for his clients in the millions of dollars over the years.

He has also coordinated multiple law firms in complex litigation, and has won appeals to the Georgia Court of Appeals and Supreme Court in cases ranging from divorce and adoption to medical malpractice.

Duane is an ordained elder at the Rock Church of Atlanta, and was a charter board member of Project Impact, a court approved juvenile justice program serving DeKalb County youths.

Duane’s fellow lawyers and judges have entrusted him with their personal and family legal business time and time again.  That’s why people call him “the lawyer’s lawyer.”

In 2020, Middlesex School honored Duane by establishing the E. Duane Jones Service to Alumni Award, which will always be named after him and is given to that person who alongside a busy and accomplished career, has shown his love and dedication to the school by serving it and its alumni. In the School’s 120 year history, Duane is only one of two graduates who have received the honor of an annual award named after themselves.