Education, Training, and Experience in Law Practice
After attending high school in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, and with a strong interest in the sciences, Dave attended Purdue University, graduating with a B.S. degree in Chemical Engineering. After college, he moved to Atlanta, receiving his J.D. degree from Emory University’s College of Law.
Dave’s law practice includes experience in small and large firms. He began practice in a small litigation firm, later moving to an Atlanta-based full-service firm.
In 1985, Dave moved to the Chicago-based firm, Lord Bissell & Brook, practicing there for twenty-three years, through their merger with the Texas-based firm Locke Liddell & Sapp, to become Locke Lord LLP. During his tenure, he served in leadership roles on various firm administrative committees, and as Partner-in-Charge of the firm’s Atlanta office.
In 2008, he moved his practice to the Atlanta office of another national firm, Carlton Fields, PA, again serving in leadership roles across the firm and as Managing Shareholder of the Atlanta Office for seven years. He practiced with Carlton Fields until moving full-time into arbitration in 2021, creating Dave Leonard Arbitration, LLC.
Dave’s experience in litigation and arbitration involved complex business, contract, and insurance disputes.
His experience in complex contract disputes includes significant cases involving not only typical claims of breach, but claims for rescission, reformation, unjust enrichment, misrepresentation, and fraud. In many cases that involved technical science and engineering issues, Dave drew on his technical background when presenting and when cross-examining expert witnesses. He developed expertise in translating complex technical and engineering concepts into language and stories that could be understood by members of the court and by juries.
His practice also included involvement in multi-state class actions against directors and officers, typically involving allegations of securities violations, but also several involving claims of systemic employment discrimination.
During the last decade of his practice, Dave became one of a relatively small group of practitioners knowledgeable in disputes involving a developing insurance product designed to cover liability and losses from breaches of M&A representations and warranties and other transactional risks. As the product developed, it became a common element in the practices of corporate transactional lawyers involved in both strategic and private equity-funded transactions.