Partner David Scher recently started a new position as Second Vice President with the New York State Trial Lawyers Association (NYSTLA).
After one year serving as Parliamentarian, he was installed as Second Vice President on Thursday, June 24, 2021 at NYSTLA’s 54th Annual Installation of Officers and Directors. The ceremony was attended by more than 150 guests who witnessed new officers and directors be sworn in by new Court of Appeals judge, Anthony Cannataro.
To attain the title of Second Vice President, Mr. Scher was first nominated by the NYSTLA Officer Nominating Committee and then approved by the Board of Directors.
Other NYSTLA officer positions include President, President-Elect, First Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer, Deputy Treasurer, Parliamentarian, and Immediate Past President. The Second Vice President plays an important leadership role in the organization, assisting with various committees and attending to NYSTLA agendas throughout the year.
Mr. Scher has served NYSTLA in the past in many other ways, taking on multiple leadership roles. Prior to taking on the role of Second Vice President, he served as Parliamentarian. He is also vice chair of the Judiciary Committee and a co-chair of the Partnership for Justice Committee. NYSTLA has a variety of committees that allow members to get involved with the issues that are most important to them.
Mr. Scher is known for his expertise in New York State Labor Law, specifically Sections 240(1) and 241(6) which govern worker safety. In addition to leadership roles, Mr. Scher regularly teaches Continuing Legal Education (CLE) courses for NYSTLA on topics such as litigation and construction accident cases. In June 2021, he taught a lecture entitled “Pleadings to Win a Construction Case” that was part of a larger seminar on strategies for winning labor law cases. Aside from the 80 lawyers that attended his live lecture, many other lawyers are able to view it, as the lecture recording can be purchased on NYSTLA’s website.
As a member of NYSTLA’s Labor Law Committee, Mr. Scher has published a number of articles discussing Labor Law in the New York Law Journal as well as NYSTLA’s Bill of Particulars magazine. In the New York Law Journal’s recently published 2020 rankings, Mr. Scher, working with Partner Stephen Murphy, attained the top three construction accident case results across the Northeast. In the NYLJ’s Mediated Settlements category, Mr. Scher, along with Partners Frederick Aranki and Daniel O’Toole, attained the number one settlement, a $15 million settlement in a wrongful death case for the family of a worker who was fatally crushed by an air chiller in a construction accident.
The New York State Trial Lawyers Association was formed more than 60 years ago by a group of 20 trial lawyers who saw the need for a bar association specifically for plaintiff’s lawyers. NYSTLA has since grown to become a more than 3,500-member organization, with a board of directors and the mission of promoting “a safer and healthier society, to assure access to the civil justice system by those who are wrongfully injured and to advance representation of the public by ethical, well-trained lawyers.”