David D. Burnett

David Burnett is a partner in DiCello Levitt’s Washington, D.C., office. His practice includes commercial litigation, product liability mass torts, securities class actions, and environmental cases.

For sixteen years, David has represented plaintiffs of all kinds—Fortune 100 companies, U.S. states and counties, classes of shareholders, and individuals—against Wall Street banks, pharmaceutical companies, and technology companies in cases alleging fraud, negligence, breach of contract, securities fraud, public nuisance, and other corporate wrongdoing.

During a decade at one of the world’s largest business litigation law firms, David represented Allstate, Prudential, and other insurance companies in litigation against Wall Street banks arising from the 2007-2008 financial crisis. The cases alleged fraud in the sale of mortgage-backed securities and collateralized debt obligations. As part of a small team, he helped recover hundreds of millions of dollars in dozens of favorable settlements for investors.

David recently represented U.S. states, counties, and cities in litigation arising from the nationwide opioid crisis, taking and defending dozens of depositions of experts and government employees and working closely with epidemiologists and economists to quantify the cost of social services programs to abate the epidemic. He also has represented investors in complex securities fraud class actions against Amazon, AbbVie, Alexion, Qualcomm, and the NYSE, Nasdaq, and BATS stock exchanges. He has worked with victims of the September 11 terrorist attacks to tell their stories of being injured at Ground Zero, helping them obtain tens of millions of dollars in monetary judgments through a victims’ compensation fund.

David also previously worked as a vice president of underwriting at a leading litigation finance firm, where he evaluated the legal and economic merits of potential investments in lawsuits and monitored active litigation investments.

Outside of work, David volunteers as the president of the Abenaki Tower and Trail Association, a century-old conservation organization in New Hampshire. He has served on the Board of Advisors of the Appalachian Mountain Club, the nation’s oldest conservation nonprofit, since 2014. Before law school, David worked with at-risk youths for Outward Bound, worked in a hut on the Appalachian Trail, interned at the Wilderness Society, and bicycled across the country for charity. He was born in the Philippines, the son of a Navy lawyer. David lives in Old Town Alexandria, Virginia, with his wife, Taylor.