Alternative Dispute Resolution, Antitrust, Appellate Litigation, Class Action Defense, Commercial Litigation, First Amendment & Media
Advertising, Broadcasting, Consulting Services, Health Care Institutions / Services, Information Technology, Legal Services, Management Services, Printing / Publishing, Public Relations
Pennsylvania, District of Columbia
Philadelphia, PA
University of Pennsylvania Law School
The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania
David H. Marion is a past chairman of Montgomery McCracken and of its Litigation Department. A former Chancellor of the Philadelphia Bar Association, he is widely known for his successful trial practice, concentrating in business litigation, antitrust, securities, professional liability and communications law.
Mr. Marion has acted as both plaintiff and defense counsel in many major antitrust, ERISA, securities and RICO actions and class actions. For example, he won substantial plaintiffs' jury verdicts in a business tort case against a broadcast network and in a consumers' vertical price-fixing antitrust class action in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. He has recently headed the successful defense of cases involving claims of conspiracy, antitrust, ERISA, RICO and Civil Rights Act violations and represents a number of other law firms and lawyers.
Mr. Marion served as counsel to a major public utility in precedent-setting federal ERISA class actions. He successfully argued in the United States Supreme Court in a landmark constitutional/libel law case (Philadelphia Newspapers, Inc. v. Hepps) and represented another newspaper in a Pennsylvania Supreme Court case which liberalized standards for grant of summary judgment. On motion of the Securities Exchange Commission, Mr. Marion was appointed Receiver by the U.S. District Court for Bentley Financial Services and related companies. The Receivership is still pending and has to date collected more than $320 million for the benefit of victims of a Ponzi scheme.
Mr. Marion's clients have included Accenture, The American Bar Association, Dun & Bradstreet, Microsoft, Nordstrom, Oracle, PECO Energy, Parade Magazine, The Philadelphia Bulletin, Philadelphia Magazine, Philadelphia Newspapers, Inc., Sherwin Williams and a number of major law firms.
He was elected a Fellow, and served as National Chair of the attorney-client relations committee of the American College of Trial Lawyers, an honorary association of distinguished lawyers recognized for courtroom skill and experience. Mr. Marion also has been elected to fellowship in the International Academy of Trial Lawyers and the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers. He was chosen to co-chair and serve on the faculty and the Advisory Board of The Sedona Conference on Complex Litigation, an annual national conference of judges and lawyers dealing with the most pressing issues faced by courts and lawyers in complex litigation. Mr. Marion served as the president of the Philadelphia Lawyers Club and the University of Pennsylvania Law Alumni Society and as a lecturer-in-law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School.
Mr. Marion co-authored Expert Witnesses: Pitfalls Posed by the Discovery Process, 2002 Sedona Conference Journal. He served as a faculty member for the Pennsylvania Bar Institute seminar "Advice from the Experts: Successful Strategies for Winning Commercial Cases in Federal Courts," addressing the topic Winning Trial Techniques and Strategies. As a faculty member of The Sedona Conference on Complex Litigation, Mr. Marion spoke on Devising Solutions for Handling Complex Litigation in the 21st Century. He was a course planner and speaker at the Pennsylvania Bar Institute seminar Managed Care Litigation: HMO Liability After Pegram v. Herdich. Mr. Marion authored two articles which appeared in The Legal Intelligencer, Devising Solutions for Handling Complex Litigation; and Five Steps to Happiness, addressed to young lawyers. Mr. Marion was a contributing author of the Pennsylvania Bar Institute's Third Circuit Appellate Practice Manual (2007). Mr. Marion spoke at the Federal Bench Bar Conference (June 2007) on Dealing with Obstreperous Adversaries, and delivered a paper "Personal Observations on Opening and Closing Arguments" at The Philadelphia Bar Association Federal Courts Committee presentation "My First Federal Trial" (May 2008).
Mr. Marion is admitted to practice in Pennsylvania and District of Columbia.
Mr. Marion received a B.S. degree in Economics from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 1960. He graduated magna cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1963, where he was Editor-in-Chief of the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, president of the Class of 1963, a member of the Order of the Coif, and a Harrison Cup Moot Court Award winner.