Partner David Scher was recently nominated as President-Elect of the New York State Trial Lawyers Association (NYSTLA) for the 2022-2023 term.
Mr. Scher previously served one year as Parliamentarian before being elected to his current position of Second Vice President in 2021. In these leadership roles, he has worked alongside other NYSTLA officers, which include the President, First and Second Vice Presidents, Secretary, Treasurer, Deputy Treasurer, Parliamentarian, and Immediate Past President, to ensure the association continues to achieve its goals.
NYSTLA was founded more than 60 years ago by a group of 20 trial lawyers concerned by the lack of a forum for plaintiffs’ lawyers in New York. These attorneys organized an association with a mission of “assuring access to the civil justice system by those who are wrongfully injured and to advance representation of the public by ethical, well-trained lawyers.” Today, NYSTLA is more than 3,500 members strong. Their mission resonates with Mr. Scher who believes that working with the association “is the most effective and impactful way to fight for the rights of our collective clients and for fairness, safety, and civil justice for all New Yorkers.”
First inspired by his father who worked as a litigation lawyer for the New York State Attorney General’s Office, Mr. Scher worked hard to pursue a legal career that has enabled him to provide aid to clients facing catastrophic losses resulting from accidents.
Today, Mr. Scher is a known authority on New York State Labor Laws, specifically Sections 240(1) and 241(6) which regulate worker safety. He has used his expertise to obtain many notable results for his clients, including a $15,000,000 settlement in a hard-fought wrongful death case for the surviving family of a worker who was fatally crushed while attempting to remove a 28,450-pound chiller unit from a hospital. After the trial court initially dismissed this case on summary judgment, Mr. Scher and his colleagues worked hard on an appeal and the appellate division ultimately granted summary judgment in their client’s favor under Labor Law 240(1).
In addition to his work on the Board of Directors, Mr. Scher regularly lectures Continuing Legal Education (CLE) courses provided by the New York State Trial Lawyers Institute (NYSTLI), specializing in topics like litigation and construction accident cases. In June 2021, he gave a lecture entitled “Pleadings to Win a Construction Case” at a seminar on labor law strategy. His involvement with NYSTLA further extends to the positions of vice-chair of the Judiciary Committee and co-chair of the Partnership for Justice Committee.
During the pandemic, Mr. Scher worked as a moderator for NYSTLA’s COVID-19 Response Forum, which provided a platform where members could ask questions and receive answers on a variety of pandemic-related issues. Mr. Scher noted the importance of the communal environment that this forum created, stating “It served the positive psychological function of reminding us that we were in this together, all facing more or less the same problems and stresses that the pandemic imposed.”
We at Block O’Toole & Murphy congratulate Mr. Scher on all he has accomplished with NYSTLA so far, and are eager to see what’s to come.