David Sugerman is used to being a leader. He’s the founder of Sugerman Dahab in Portland, Oregon. He has led important litigation in class actions and mass tort in the areas of consumer protection, civil rights, and personal injury, and now, he’s leading the Public Justice Board as its president.

But ask David about his role in any one of these things, and he will tell you that it’s not about him.

“I’m just a steward of this work and now of Public Justice’s board and executive committee,” he said.

And a steward he has been throughout his career.

Before landing on class action and mass tort litigation, David started Lewis and Clark Law School set on a career in environmental law. He pivoted in law school and hoped to work for legal aid after graduation, but instead he landed at a small plaintiffs’ law firm in Portland, starting out in medical malpractice and product liability. He began trying cases after working for Public Justice Past President Jeff Foote, trying auto cases for 18 months before starting his own firm.

Since then, David has secured several notable verdicts in Oregon courts, chief among them the 2018 decision in Scharfstein v. BP West Coast Products, LLC. Serving as lead counsel in this landmark class-action lawsuit, David helped secure a trial court win of over $400 million after a jury ruled that BP illegally charged millions of customers a hidden debit card fee. The win resulted in a payout of $185 per consumer to over 2 million consumers. It also resulted in funding for Oregon Legal Aid and creation of Oregon Consumer Justice, a new Oregon consumer advocacy center.

It was also around this time that David first got involved with Public Justice, first joining the Class Action Preservation Project (CAPP) in 2016.

“I knew about Public Justice as a young plaintiffs’ lawyer through both ATLA [Association of Trial Lawyers of America] and also Jeff Foote, and later on, I was doing a lot of consumer class action work and fighting forced arbitration clauses, and I got to know [former Executive Director] Paul Bland,” he recalled. “I always looked at Paul as one of the single most powerful voices on forced arbitration.”

A few years later, he got a call from Public Justice Past President Janet Varnell, gauging his interest in joining the board. By 2019, David was elected to serve on the board.
Now leading the organization’s board of directors, David said he’s found a community of like-minded lawyers that inspire his own work.

“I am proud to be part of the peer group that makes up the Public Justice board,” he said. “The work that they do and the values that they live- are the best of our profession. They are the fighters and the dreamers. They are the people I want to be around.”

Another source of inspiration for David — the work that Public Justice’s staff does to ‘unrig the system’ in our country every single day.

“Whether that’s filing a case for Right 2 Hug, or battling and winning a Clean Water Act case, protecting students, or fighting the latest corporate abuse that threatens to lock the courthouse doors, I draw inspiration from these things,” he said. “What Public Justice does is an expression of both the hope and the fight over what kind of world we are going to have. It feels like a gift to be part of that.”

In his year as board president, David said his primary goal is to continue to be a good steward of the organization, both as its latest leader and as a partner to board and the staff.

“Our board has so much talent, and I am here to lead us as we face the future.”