John Marshall joined Vanderbilt's law faculty in 1969 after practicing law with Covington and Burling in Washington, D.C., and New Jersey. He also served as Associate Professor and Chairman of the Department of Business Administration at Fairleigh Dickinson University,as Fulbright Associate Professor of Law and Assistant Dean of Haile Selassie I University in Ethiopia, and as a Fulbright faculty member at the University of Zambia. He served as Associate Dean during part of his tenure, and retired to the status of Adjunct Professor of Law in 1995.