Firm overview
Sanford Heisler Sharp McKnight is a nationwide plaintiffs-side law firm that was founded in 2004 by David Sanford and Jeremy Heisler to litigate public interest and social justice cases that make a significant difference in society. In 2017, Kevin Sharp, a former Chief Judge of the United States District for the Middle District of Tennessee, joined the firm as its third named partner. In 2024, H. Vincent McKnight Jr., Co-Chair of the firm’s Whistleblower and Qui Tam Practice Group, became a fourth named partner.
David Sanford has served as lead counsel in more than 50 class actions and numerous significant qui tam fraud cases; he has represented over 100 general counsel, in-house counsel, and lawyers in claims against their law firms and companies. Over the course of his 43-year legal career, Jeremy Heisler has achieved notable success in employment, civil rights, and consumer class actions and complex multiparty and multistate litigation, producing hundreds of millions of dollars in settlements to class members and individuals. Judge Sharp has nearly 30 years of experience litigating and/or presiding over complex civil litigation cases, qui tam and whistleblower matters, products liability claims, malpractice cases, class action matters, ERISA claims, and civil rights matters. H. Vincent McKnight Jr. is a leading voice on whistleblower law who has generated approximately $5 billion for the U.S. government and clients during the past ten years.
The firm has offices in New York, Washington, D.C., Palo Alto, San Francisco, San Diego, and Nashville. The firm has recovered over a billion dollars for its clients, and continues to move the needle in high-profile, precedent-setting litigation not only by winning significant compensation, but also through achieving real change in companies and institutions to create a more equitable environment and enlightened management policies.
The firm is committed to helping and giving a voice to disadvantaged groups and individuals, assisting whistleblowers in litigating their claims, representing employees seeking relief from employers’ retirement fund mismanagement and abuses, and advocating for employees and executives in a wide range of employment disputes, including severance negotiations, wrongful termination, retaliation, wage and hour violations, sexual harassment, and gender, sexual orientation, race, national origin, and disability discrimination. The firm also promotes social and economic change by increasing media awareness and stimulating public dialogue.
The firm’s lawyers are successful in protecting plaintiffs’ rights in federal and state courts, in settlement negotiations, and in arbitrations nationwide. The firm has forged ahead, often against the odds, and achieved success against major technology firms, including Oracle, Western Digital, and Alaska Communication Systems; pharmaceutical giants like Merck, Novartis, Sanofi, and others; premier law firms in the United States such as Chadbourne & Parke (now Norton Rose Fulbright), Sedgwick, Morrison & Foerster, and Proskauer Rose; and top universities, including Dartmouth College, Harvard College, Columbia University, New York University, and the University of Arizona. The firm has waged and won lawsuits that have protected thousands of employees’ rights to have their 401(k) retirement plans appropriately managed as required by the federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act (“ERISA”).
The firm has an active practice representing military sexual assault survivors in civil actions against the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard. These cases seek to hold the U.S. military accountable for its longstanding failure to prevent and address sexual harassment and assault within its ranks. The firm currently represents, among others, more than 40 victims of a former Army doctor charged with sexually assaulting patients at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington; survivors of a decades-long cover-up of sexual misconduct at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in Connecticut; a 17-year-old Marine recruit abused by her recruiter; and a civilian mariner allegedly raped by the captain of the Navy vessel USNS Carson City.
The firm excels at holding institutions accountable when they cause harm, consistently advocating for victims of discrimination, harassment, and sexual assault, including employees at Fortune 500 companies, attorneys in Big Law, and university faculty and students, and routinely pursues cases against institutions such as schools, daycares, and religious institutions that fail to keep children safe from sexual abuse.
Most firms would shy away from challenging the most powerful interests in society. Sanford Heisler Sharp McKnight has taken on the largest corporations in the world and has succeeded.
Among the Firm’s Recent Notable Successes
ERISA 401 (k) CASES
UnitedHealthGroup
On June 13, 2025, the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota granted final approval of a historic record-setting $69 million settlement in Snyder v. UnitedHealth Group on behalf of approximately 350,000 participants in the UnitedHealth Group 401(k) Savings Plan. Charles Field, David Sanford, and Leigh Anne St. Charles served as lead class counsel after filing suit in April 2021. The Complaint alleged UnitedHealth violated ERISA’s fiduciary duty of prudence by retaining the poorly performing Wells Fargo Target Fund Suite as the Plan’s default investment. The settlement is believed to be the largest recovery ever obtained in an ERISA case alleging failure to remove imprudent investment options.
In re: GE ERISA:
The U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts granted final approval of a $61 million settlement in In re GE ERISA Litigation—the second largest recovery ever in an Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) case challenging a company’s use of proprietary investment funds. Originally filed in 2017 and litigated for nearly eight years, the case alleged that General Electric Company and its fiduciaries breached their duties of loyalty and prudence by exclusively offering underperforming, GE-managed investment options in the company’s retirement plan. Plaintiffs asserted that GE retained poorly performing in-house funds to bolster the assets and sale value of its wholly owned subsidiary, GE Asset Management (GEAM), which was ultimately sold to State Street for $485 million in 2016. The class argued that GE’s actions inflated GEAM’s value at the expense of employees’ retirement savings.
PUBLIC INTEREST LITIGATION
Crime Victims’ Rights Appeal
Since 2022, Firm Chairman David Sanford has represented the family of Hae Min Lee in their long fight for justice. After the Baltimore Circuit Court vacated Adnan Syed’s conviction without properly notifying the Lees, Sanford appealed on their behalf. In August 2024, the Maryland Supreme Court ruled in the family’s favor, affirming that crime victims have a right to notice, to be present, and to participate in key proceedings. The Court later commended Sanford and colleague Sharon Kim for their “extraordinary advocacy.” Their efforts not only reinstated Syed’s conviction but also prompted the State of Maryland to acknowledge that its original motion to vacate was based on “false and misleading statements.” For this landmark victory strengthening victims’ rights, Sanford received the Vincent Roper Memorial Award from the Governor’s Office of Crime Prevention and Policy and the Roberta Roper Lifetime Achievement Award from the Maryland Crime Victims Resource Center.
Clemency Granted to Leonard Peltier
Since 2019, Sanford Heisler Sharp McKnight Co-Vice Chairman Kevin Sharp led a nationwide push to secure presidential clemency for Leonard Peltier, a Native American civil rights activist wrongly convicted in federal court and sentenced to two consecutive life terms for aiding and abetting in the murder of two FBI agents at Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in 1975.
On February 18, 2025, Leonard Peltier returned home to the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa, in Belcourt, North Dakota, after being granted clemency the previous month by President Biden. Mr. Peltier entered prison at age 32 and was released at age 80—nearly 50 years of wrongful incarceration for the deaths of two FBI agents during a shootout in 1975 on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.
Opioid Litigation
Since October 2018, Sanford Heisler Sharp McKnight filed suit on behalf of the City of Martinsville, Virginia, against major opioid manufacturers, distributors, pharmacies, and pharmacy benefit managers for their roles in fueling the opioid epidemic that devastated the community. Unlike most opioid cases consolidated in federal multidistrict litigation, City of Martinsville v. Purdue Pharma, L.P., et al. has proceeded independently in state court following its remand to the Martinsville Circuit Court in October 2024. While the city has reached settlements with several defendants, its claims against pharmacy benefit managers OptumRx and Express Scripts continue, with the Fourth Circuit affirming the case’s return to state court in April 2025. Active litigation is ongoing, and trial is set for April 2027.
EMPLOYMENT LITIGATION
Robinson v. De Niro and Canal Productions
In 2023, in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, a jury found Canal Productions liable for gender discrimination and retaliation and awarded our client, Graham Chase Robinson, $1.2 million. Ms. Robinson was Robert De Niro’s former longtime executive assistant. The jury also rejected Canal’s counterclaims of conversion, breach of fiduciary duty, and breach of the duty of loyalty.
United States Marshals Service
In 2024, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) granted final approval of a $15 million settlement in a nearly 30-year-long race discrimination class action alleging that the United States Marshals Service (“USMS”) discriminated against African Americans in its promotions, recruitment, and hiring policies for Deputy U.S. Marshals positions. As part of the settlement, the USMS agreed to institute significant programmatic reforms to its hiring practices.
MILITARY SEXUAL ASSAULT
Webb, et al. v U.S. Coast Guard
On March 13, 2025, our firm filed seven new Federal Tort Claims Act complaints against the U.S. Coast Guard, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Department of Transportation on behalf of former and prospective Coast Guard Academy cadets who allege they were sexually assaulted while attending the Academy in New London, Connecticut. In total, the firm now represents 29 former cadets in these administrative claims, the first step toward filing federal lawsuits. As first reported by CNN, the Coast Guard intentionally withheld from Congress a report known as “Operation Fouled Anchor,” which exposed decades of widespread sexual assault and institutional failures to protect cadets.
Manning, et al. v. Department of the Army
The firm represents 42 plaintiffs with Federal Tort Claims Act complaints against the U.S. Department of the Army and Department of Defense who allege sexual abuse by former Army doctor Michael Stockin at Madigan Medical Center, Joint Base Lewis-McChord. In January 2025, Dr. Stockin pleaded guilty in a military court-martial to sexually abusing 36 male patients and indecently viewing five others, and he faces over 13 years in prison. The complaints allege the Army was negligent in hiring, supervising, and retaining Dr. Stockin, failed to implement adequate safety protocols, and knowingly allowed his abusive conduct to continue.
WHISTLEBLOWER/QUI TAM
In 2023, our firm and the U.S. government settled a whistleblower action under the False Claims Act (FCA) with International Vitamin Corporation (“IVC”), a leading importer of dietary supplements. As part of the settlement, IVC agreed to pay the U.S. government $22.865 million to resolve claims that it systematically skirted customs duties on thousands of imports of nutritional supplements from China between 2015 and 2019 by fraudulently reporting incorrect tariff classifications and duty rates on the imports. The Complaint also alleged that IVC knew that it had evaded more than $10 million in duties but failed to inform the government and pay the duties as required under applicable law.
Updated Oct 2025
