David L. Wallace

Partner

Practice Description

Representative Matters

• Successfully tried two directed verdicts in tobacco cases in state courts—one in Connecticut (2001) and the other in New York (2005).
• Successfully litigated the pre-trial dismissal of numerous high-profile products liability actions by either voluntary dismissal or on motion.
• Represented an English company in a landmark $280 billion action brought by the U.S. Department of Justice against multiple corporate defendants alleging conspiratorial violations of civil racketeering laws (RICO).
• Successfully defended an English company in the first tobacco case ever heard in the courts of the United Kingdom, which ended on voluntary dismissal, at the Queen’s Bench in Belfast.
• Defended several hundred products liability cases against the holdings of an English company in civil law courts across Central and South America.

Honors

Mr. Wallace is recommended in The Legal 500 -- United States (2007, 2008, and 2009), Benchmark Litigation: The Definitive Guide to America's Leading Litigation Firms & Attorneys (2009 and 2010), as well as New York Super Lawyers (2006, 2007, 2008, 2009), and was also listed in An International Who’s Who of Product Liability Defense Lawyers (1997).

In April 2009, Nanotechnology Law & Business named Mr. Wallace to its "Top Ten" list of experts on "environmental, health and safety issues related to engineered nanomaterials" who are expected "to play a leading roles in nanotechnology law and business." See 6 Nanotechnology Law & Business 133 (Spring 2009).

The Australian Financial Review reported that Mr. Wallace’s pre-trial cross-examination of the key witness against his client in a civil RICO case—an affiliate’s former general counsel turned whistleblower—caused the witness’s Australian barrister “extreme[ ] disappoint[ment]” and the witness to “storm out of the examination.” Portions of this cross-examination subsequently appeared in a documentary film called The Big Lie: The Controversial Case of McCabe vs. The British American Tobacco Company, which aired on Australian television in 2005. Some of the novel, multi-jurisdictional discovery disputes he litigated in the course of this RICO case were covered by The National Law Journal.

Activities and Affiliations

• Member, International Association of Defense Counsel (IADC)
• Member, Defense Research Institute (DRI) 
• Board of Editors, Product Liability Law & Strategy (ALM Publication)
• Advisory Board, The Nanoethics Group (Cal. Polytechnic State Univ.)
• Advisory Board, Nanotechnology Law & Business
• Member, Product Liability Committee, International Institute for Conflict Prevention and Resolution

Publications

Mr. Wallace serves as editor of In re Products Liability, Chadbourne’s products liability newsletter.

Speeches and Events