Biography: Product Liability Defence

David Wallace is a courtroom lawyer focusing on all phases of complex, health effects products liability defence and related counselling. For two decades, he has counselled, coordinated and personally litigated the defence of multinational corporations in civil and common law jurisdictions globally. Based in New York, he leads Chadbourne's inter-disciplinary nanotechnologies practice, which he established in 2008.

Recently, Mr Wallace served as lead trial counsel for British American Tobacco (Investments) Limited (BATCo) in securing a defence verdict in the Circuit Court of the city of St Louis, Missouri in a health care recoupment lawsuit brought against BATCo and five other defendants. The plaintiffs, 37 public and non-profit hospitals in Missouri, filed the lawsuit in 1998, seeking more than US$450 million in compensatory damages. After a prolonged trial and several days of deliberation, the jury delivered a defense verdict, finding that BATCo and the other defendants has no liability and awarding nothing to the plaintiffs. After more than a decade of litigation encompassing a nine-month trial and multiple appeals, Mr Wallace recently scored another major victory for BATCo in United States v Philip Morris USA, Inc, a nationally watched federal racketeering suit in Washington, DC. On remand, he successfully argued that by rejecting the 'effects' test for extraterritoriality in Morrison v National Bank of Australia Ltd, the US Supreme Court had "invalidated the sole basis for BATCo's liability".

In addition, Mr Wallace has successfully tried two directed verdicts in tobacco cases in state courts - one in Connecticut (2001) and the other in New York (2005) and has successfully litigated the pre-trial dismissal of numerous high-profile products liability actions by either voluntary dismissal or on motion in federal and state courts across the country. He also successfully defended an English company in the first tobacco case ever heard in the courts of the United Kingdom, which ended on voluntary dismissal during the cross-examination of plaintiff's chief medical expert, at the Queen's Bench in Belfast. Mr Wallace's extensive experience includes defending several hundred products liability cases against the holdings of an English company in civil law courts across Central and South America.

Mr Wallace is recommended in The Legal 500 US (2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010), Benchmark Litigation (2009, 2010 and 2011), as well as New York Super Lawyers (2006 to 2009), and was also listed in An International Who's Who of Product Liability Defence Lawyers (1997).

A frequent author and speaker on products liability matters, Mr Wallace serves as the editor of In re Products Liability, Chadbourne's products liability newsletter, and is on the board of editors of Product Liability Law & Strategy (an ALM publication). He is also a member of the International Association of Defense Counsel, the Defense Research Institute, The Nanoethics Group and the advisory board of Nanotechnology Law & Business. Mr Wallace received his BSFS from Georgetown University in 1982 and his JD, cum laude, from Georgetown University Law Center in 1987.