David serves as a board member and treasurer of the Pepper Center for Public Service, which draws on the talents of the firm’s retired partners and senior attorneys to wrestle with tough problems facing our communities. He uses his extensive trial and litigation experience to deal with issues related to race, policing, prisons, the environment, public education, and more. As a fellow of the Pepper Center, David also has been involved in the pro bono representation of two asylum seekers in immigration proceedings.
As a trial and appellate attorney, David focused his practice on environmental and commercial disputes, and medical device, toxic tort, and automobile product liability litigation. He also advised clients in the pharmaceutical and medical device industries on product liability, product recall, insurance recovery, and sale of goods disputes. He served as national coordinating counsel in medical device multidistrict litigation and to national companies in asbestos products and premises liability litigation.
A former assistant district attorney, David also represented corporate and individual clients in criminal matters, including grand jury investigations. He has tried numerous commercial and products liability actions, jury and non-jury, and has argued scores of appeals in civil and criminal cases in state and federal courts.
David has taught at regional programs of the National Institute for Trial Advocacy and served as a mediator and arbitrator for the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. He was an adjunct professor of law at Temple University’s Beasley School of Law from 2000 to 2015, where he taught Advanced Civil Procedure and Remedies, and he has lectured and published on topics in the fields of environmental law, professional responsibility, and evidence.
From 1982 to 2000, David served as court-appointed counsel to the inmates of the Philadelphia Prison System in a federal class action. For 14 of those years, he negotiated, enforced and participated in the implementation of consent decrees requiring improvements in conditions of confinement. Martin Harris v. City of Philadelphia is the subject of eight opinions of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. From 2006 to 2016, he was co-counsel to Philadelphia’s inmates in two subsequent federal class actions challenging conditions of confinement.
David’s pro bono practice has also included leading a team of lawyers in a successful post-conviction challenge to a murder conviction on behalf of a Philadelphia death row inmate who ultimately gained his freedom on parole.
David joined the firm in 1974, following five years as an assistant district attorney for the City of Philadelphia, the last as chief of the appeals division, and a brief stint as counsel to an ad hoc committee of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives investigating corruption in government contracting.
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