Dave is a Partner in the firm’s Litigation Department where he focuses on appellate and complex civil litigation.
As a member of the firm’s Appellate Group, Dave has represented clients in the U.S. Supreme Court, ten federal courts of appeal, four state supreme courts, and numerous state intermediate appellate courts. Among other recent engagements, Dave was part of the team that obtained a unanimous Supreme Court reversal on behalf of a major German public cultural institution; he successfully briefed and argued appeals in the Third Circuit and the New Jersey Supreme Court on behalf of insurers regarding coverage for COVID-19-related losses; and he prevailed in the Connecticut Supreme Court on behalf of one of the state’s largest municipalities regarding municipalities’ authority to address landlords’ failure to provide code-compliant housing to their tenants. Along with Tadhg Dooley, Dave is also one of the principal authors of Wiggin and Dana’s Supreme Court Update, keeping clients up to date with timely summaries of recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions.
At the trial level, Dave has represented clients in a broad range of factually and legally complex cases. Recent matters include a high-profile case between Fortune 500 companies over a digital transformation, a decades-long trademark dispute between competing industrial companies, and transnational litigation over investments in foreign manufacturing companies. He also regularly practices in the area of Connecticut election law and represents municipalities on issues of land-use, urban development, and governmental immunity.
Dave maintains a robust pro bono practice. He is a Visiting Clinical Lecturer at Yale Law School where he co-directs the Yale Appellate Litigation Project. Along with Tadhg Dooley, Dave supervises Yale Law students representing pro bono clients in cases assigned by the Second and Third Circuits. Recent clinic victories include securing a unanimous reversal from the Third Circuit of a district court’s dismissal of a Section 1983 claim over a state prison’s wrongful rejection of inmate mail and a Second Circuit reversal of a district court’s pre-trial dismissal of an inmate’s Section 1983 retaliation claim.
Before joining Wiggin and Dana, Dave clerked for Judge Christopher F. Droney of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He received his J.D. from Yale Law School, where he was a Notes Editor for the Yale Law Journal. He earned an M.A. in Classics from the University of Virginia and a B.S. in Classics from the University of Oregon.
Updated Sep 2024
