Attorneys
David W. Sanford
Sanford Wittels & Heisler, LLP
1666 Connecticut Avenue NW, Suite 310
Washington, DC 20009
Phone: (202) 742-7780
Fax: (202) 742-7776
E-mail: dsanford@nydclaw.com
Web site: http://www.nydclaw.com
David Sanford is a founding partner of Sanford Wittels & Heisler, LLP ("Firm"), a national law firm with offices in Washington, D.C., New York, and California. He received his law degree from Stanford Law School in 1995.
Mr. Sanford represents the interests of individuals across the United States in discrimination/civil rights, wage and hour, commercial litigation, and whistleblower/qui tam matters. Mr. Sanford has served as lead counsel in approximately 50 class actions around the United States, generating millions of dollars in recoveries to class members and extensive non-monetary relief. The United States government has intervened in three qui tam matters brought by Mr. Sanford in the past year, and is currently investigating an additional 15 whistleblower cases brought by the Firm.
Mr. Sanford is lead counsel in a gender discrimination class action against Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation. The Court has certified a class of 5600 women who allege discrimination in pay, promotion and pregnancy. The 5-week trial is scheduled to begin in federal court in the Southern District of New York in April of 2010, and will be the largest class action gender discrimination case ever tried in the United States.
Before founding the Firm in January 2004, Mr. Sanford opened and managed the Washington, D.C. office of the civil rights firm of Wiggins, Childs, Quinn & Pantazis from 1998 through 2003. He also helped open the Washington, D.C. office of Boies & Schiller in 1997, and worked with David Boies on antitrust matters and commercial litigation. Prior to that, Mr. Sanford worked in the appellate division of Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue, drafting petitions of certiorari to the United States Supreme Court.
Mr. Sanford served as a law clerk for the Honorable Gladys Kessler of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia; as a law clerk in the White House Counsel's Office under President Clinton; and as a judicial intern for the Honorable Dorothy Nelson of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in Pasadena, California.
Mr. Sanford is an active member in good standing with the bar of both the District of Columbia and state of Maryland. Mr. Sanford was a philosophy professor at Williams College and Oberlin College. He has served as a guest lecturer at the American University Justice Program, and was a member of the William B. Bryant Inn of Court from 1996 through 2007.
Mr. Sanford and the firm are "AV" rated, which is the highest rating Martindale & Hubbell gives to attorneys.
Education
- Stanford Law School, Stanford, California, J.D., 1995
- Law Review: Symposium Editor, Stanford Law and Policy Review, 1994 - 1995
- University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC
M.A., Philosophy - Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY, B.A. 1980
AV Rated (The AV Rating by Martindale-Hubbell is the highest level of professional excellence at which an attorney can be ranked by his peers.)