David Sanford is a Founding Partner of Sanford Wittels & Heisler, LLP, a national law firm with offices in Washington, D.C., New York, and California.
Mr. Sanford represents the interests of individuals in class actions 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 over one hundred million 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 served at co-lead counsel representing 5600 female sales representatives for Novartis Pharmaceuticals in the U.S. in the largest gender discrimination case ever to reach trial. After a 5 week trial the jury found Novartis liable for discrimination in pay and promotion and related to pregnancy. The jury returned a verdict of $250 million in punitive damages and the entire class of 5600 women is also entitled to compensatory damages which could reach into the hundreds of millions of dollars.
Before founding SWH 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.
