Overview 

As a lawyer, Dave has extensive experience in personal injury cases, business disputes and pro bono matters involving criminal justice and constitutional violations.  Dave has represented individuals and companies in high profile, high stakes cases, with many multi-million dollar jury verdicts. He also regularly represents individuals without means who are in dire circumstances.

Dave had a full career at large law firms with wide-ranging experience , including handling fraud and breach of contract cases, personal injury cases, shareholder disputes, employment issues, malpractice cases, civil rights claims and innocence claims.  He now handles only important cases of interest to him. 

Dave’s work in a series of cases was profiled in a book released in 2013, The  Price of Justice, written by a New York Times best-selling author. One of Dave’s cases,  Caperton v. A.T. Massey, went to the United States Supreme Court, 556 U.S. 868 (2009), and resulted in a landmark decision creating a constitutional right to disqualify a judge in certain circumstances based upon the appearance of bias.  Dave has overturned convictions based upon newly discovered evidence and obtained freedom for several men who previously were serving life sentences.

Representative Matters 

A. Civil Cases: Business Disputes Personal Injury & Death Cases

Lead trial counsel in following sample of cases:

• $267 million jury verdict, including $100 million in punitive damage award, following 5-week jury trial. 

• $5 million jury verdict for an individual following 3-week jury trial. 

• $50 million jury verdict, including multimillion-dollar punitive damage award, following 7-week trial. 

• $7.2 million verdict following 3-week jury trial. 

• Successful appeal to United States Supreme Court in which the Court established a constitutional right to recuse a judge under the due process clause where, using an objective “reasonable man” standard, it clearly appears that a judge cannot be free of bias. 

• Successful defense of proxy challenge to Board of Directors of a publicly-traded corporation. 

• Damages and attorney’s fees awarded in nonjury trial over failure of an ERISA pension plan to pay retirement benefits to a divorced spouse. 

• Defense of injunction request and award of legal fees in nonjury trial involving Pittsburgh Penguins television broadcasting rights. 

• Successfully obtained injunctions against former employees for theft of confidential information and breach of employment covenants in various jurisdictions: Omaha, Nebraska; Kansas City, Missouri; Fulton County, Georgia; Jefferson County, Kentucky; Chester County, Pennsylvania; Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. 

B. Criminal Justice Cases

• Obtained freedom and release from prison for individual who served 18 years of life sentence based on newly discovered evidence (in conjunction with the Pennsylvania Innocence Project).

• Obtained freedom and release from prison for individual who served 30 years of life sentence in resentencing proceeding.

• Obtained settlement against Allegheny County Jail for class of female inmates which included damages, plus revision of County policies to require proper healthcare and to limit use of restrictive housing for pregnant inmates (in conjunction with ACLU).

• Obtained reduced sentence and release of individual who served 30 years of life sentence in “juvenile lifer” case. 

Honors & Awards 

• Twice listed in National Law Journal’s “Top 100 Verdicts of the Year” 

• Listed in Best Lawyers in America since 1999 under category “Bet-the-Company Litigation” 

• Listed in Pennsylvania Super Lawyers (2002 - present)  

Employment History 

• 2011 - 2023: Reed Smith, LLP  

• 1985 - 2010: Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney PC  

Professional Affiliations

• Fellow, American College of Trial Lawyers

• Member, Academy of Trial Lawyers of Allegheny County 

• Mediator, U.S. District Court (W.D. Pa.) Panel of Mediators