David L. Comerford is a member of Akin Gump’s litigation practice steering committee and the partner in charge of the firm’s Philadelphia office. Mr. Comerford focuses on complex class actions and other commercial litigation. He has handled matters involving business torts, contracts, accountants’ liability, lender liability, banking, securities, antitrust, RICO, ERISA, insurance and trade secrets.

Mr. Comerford repeatedly has been listed as recommended in securities litigation in Chambers USA: America’s Leading Lawyers for Business, which has stated he is an “excellent trial attorney,” that he “is renowned for his ‘stellar’ busy securities litigation practice, and is a popular choice among healthcare and accountancy firm clients” and that “he is recognized as a strong securities litigator.” Mr. Comerford was recognized in a survey of his peers as a Pennsylvania “Super Lawyer” from 2004 through 2010. In 2002 he was named one of “50 on the Fast Track” by The Legal Intelligencer and Pennsylvania Law Weekly. Mr. Comerford has lectured on securities litigation, accountants’ liability, class actions, trade secrets, litigation avoidance and in-house counsel liability risks and has been a speaker at the Pennsylvania Bar Institute’s annual seminar for business lawyers and the annual meeting of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association.

Mr. Comerford has spoken and written on the following topics—

• “Recent Securities Litigation Developments” (Pennsylvania Bar Institute’s Twelfth Annual Securities Litigation Forum, April 2009), co-written with Jeffery A. Dailey and Paul T. McGurkin, Jr.
• “Fraud on the Market Presumption: Rebuttable,” SecuritiesLaw360 (December 2008), co-written with Jeffery A. Dailey
• “Ten Practice Pointers for Handling Securities Litigation Post-Dura, Tellabs and Stoneridge” (Pennsylvania Bar Institute’s Fourteenth Annual Business Lawyers’ Institute, November 2008)
• “Avoiding Self-Inflicted Litigation Wounds” (New York, June 2008; Philadelphia, January 2009)
• “New Litigation Threats to the Accounting Profession” (The Penn Club, New York, October 2007)
• “Mandatory Arbitration Provisions in Commercial Contracts”  (Villanova University, October 2007)
• “New Developments in Securities Litigation” (Pennsylvania Bar Institute’s Thirteenth Annual Business Lawyers’ Institute, October 2007), co-written with James L. Griffith, Jr., Jeffery A. Dailey and R. Brendan Fee
• “Ten Ways to Avoid a Lawsuit,” Accounting Today (June 18, 2007), co-written with Edward F. Mannino and Jeffery A. Dailey
• “Personal Liability Risks Facing In-House Counsel” (Association of Corporate Counsel, Delaware Valley Chapter, April and June 2007; Pennsylvania Bar Institute’s Twelfth Annual Business Lawyer’s Institute, Nov. 2006)
• “Preparing for and Surviving the New Class Action Game” (40th Annual Lawyers’ Conference of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, May 2006)
• “Protecting Your Trade Secrets Under the New Pennsylvania Uniform Trade Secrets Act” (Pennsylvania Bar Institute’s Tenth Annual Business Lawyer’s Institute, Oct. 2004)
• “Ways to Avoid Costly Litigation” (Pennsylvania Bar Institute’s Eighth Annual Business Lawyer’s Institute, Oct. 2002)
• “Artful and Inartful Dodging – How Much Candor Do We Need?”, with The Honorable John Herron, Thomas Kline and Marshall Walthew (University of Pennsylvania Law School, March 1998).

Mr. Comerford received his B.A. in history in 1989 from the University of Virginia, where he was president of Phi Alpha Theta, the history honor society. He received his J.D. with honors in 1992 from the Rutgers University School of Law, where he served on the editorial board of the Rutgers Law Journal. He was an associate in the University of Pennsylvania American Inn of Court from 1996 to 1998. He is a member of the Pennsylvania, New Jersey and District of Columbia Bars; the U.S. District Courts for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and the District of New Jersey; and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit. Mr. Comerford is actively involved in the Philadelphia Bar Association, where he is a member of the Business Law Section and serves on the Business Litigation Committee.