In a career spanning more than 40 years, David has handled cases in virtually every area of complex high-stakes litigation, consistently achieving outstanding results for clients. He is a leader in the firm’s appellate practice and a trusted counselor and advisor, with experience in matters ranging from commercial, securities, antitrust, and IP to class actions, arbitration, and mediation. He has argued and briefed dozens of appeals in the U.S. Supreme Court, federal Courts of Appeals and New York state courts.
In January 2016, The American Lawyer recognized David and BSF partner Stuart Singer as Litigators of the Week for achieving by far the largest recovery–over $255 million–in any litigation on behalf of investors in the feeder funds to Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi fraud. They won several precedent-setting rulings in the course of a seven-year effort.
More recently, following a multiweek bench trial in federal court, David with a BSF team won dismissal of unfair competition claims seeking $250 million in damages (with potential for trebling) brought against Uber by Boston taxi medallion owners. David is lead counsel defending the judgment on appeal.
David won reversal in the Second Circuit of summary judgment dismissing a $150 million action to compel Morgan Stanley to buy back a defaulted loan it had included in a commercial mortgage-backed securities pool. On remand, David settled the case just prior to trial with a substantial recovery for BSF’s client.
David authored a Supreme Court amicus brief that supported the successful petitioner in a case which established the Sixth Amendment right of a criminal defendant to a hearing on plausible claims that jury deliberations were infected with racial bias. An appendix to the court’s opinion included extensive data submitted in the amicus brief. Litigation, the journal of the ABA litigation section, recently published a feature article that David co-authored analyzing lower court responses to the decision.