David Marshall, Partner |
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David J. Marshall has successfully litigated a wide range of employment discrimination matters, with a concentration on the representation of whistleblowers in the nuclear, financial and medical industries, and plaintiffs in sexual harassment cases. Mr. Marshall's representation of whistleblowers includes cases arising under the employee protection provisions of the new Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Washingtonian Magazine named Mr. Marshall as one of Washington's Top Lawyers for 2007.
In 2006 and 2007, Mr. Marshall successfully represented ten U.S. Capitol tunnel workers in a whistleblower retaliation complaint against the Architect of the Capitol Tunnel Workers v. Architect of the Capitol, which is an agency of the U.S. Congress. The workers charged the Architect with harassing and threatening them after they alerted Congress in March 2006 to the life-threatening levels of asbestos and other hazards they faced while working in the utility tunnels that run beneath the U.S. Capitol. In June 2007, the workers and the Architect agreed to a substantial out-of-court settlement that was later approved by the Congressional Office of Compliance.
Mr. Marshall has also served as class counsel in several consumer class-action lawsuits. He played a leading role among class counsel in a number of class actions against the magazine sweepstakes industry in 1999-2000, resulting in a $42 million-dollar settlement. In 2001, along with Georgetown University Law Professor Gary Peller, Mr. Marshall initiated a nationwide class-action lawsuit against the "payday" lending industry, and was subsequently appointed co-lead counsel in that case. This initiative, in which Mr. Marshall partnered with the AARP Foundation and leading consumer advocates to curb predatory lending practices, led to a court-approved settlement in late 2003 that relieved low-income borrowers of over $50 million of dollars in debt. The settlement also provided cy pres awards to the National Consumer Law Center, the Community Reinvestment Association of North Carolina, and Texas Rural Legal Aid, Inc. — three organizations that are playing leading roles in the fight against predatory lending.
Mr. Marshall began practicing law in 1981 when he joined the Political Rights Defense Fund in New York as a staff attorney. As a PRDF lawyer until 1985, Mr. Marshall represented trade unionists and political activists in civil liberties, free speech, defamation, political asylum and security clearance cases before federal and state courts nationwide. After leaving PRDF, Mr. Marshall worked for over a decade as a steelworker, garment worker, railroad freight conductor, and refinery worker before joining Bernabei & Katz in 1997. Mr. Marshall served as Of Counsel to that firm from 1997 until 2006. During this period, Mr. Marshall worked as a rank-and-file union activist in some of the nation's largest industries and unions. Mr. Marshall has appeared in numerous national and local media, both in his capacity as an attorney and as a labor union activist.
Mr. Marshall is an active member of the District of Columbia Bar, the Georgia Bar, the National Association of Consumer Advocates, the Metropolitan Washington Employment Lawyers Association, and the National Legal Aid and Defender Association. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree, summa cum laude, from Emory University, and in 1980 received his J.D. degree from Harvard Law School, where he graduated cum laude.
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