David P. Dean has successfully represented labor unions and employees for more than fifteen years before federal courts and agencies. For example, he is currently co-lead counsel in five putative class actions instigated and supported by the Service Employees International Union on behalf of Registered Nurses alleging that hospitals in five cities colluded to suppress wages in violation of the federal antitrust laws – suits that have so far won settlements in Detroit and Albany for over $30 million (or $20 million if class certification is eventually denied in Detroit) along with agreed injunctions on hospital exchanges of wage information. He previously succeeded on behalf of the United Farm Workers and Farm Labor Organizing Committee enjoining the Department of Labor to raise minimum wage rates annually for migrant farm workers, as required by the DOL's own regulations.
Mr. Dean has been particularly active in aggressively defending against employer efforts to interfere with union organizing and bargaining in the airline industry. For instance, he sued one airline's management on behalf of its mechanics after the carrier fired almost 400 mechanics during a union organizing drive. He won Court affirmation of the union certification in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, enjoining management to bargain, and negotiated a settlement bringing heavy maintenance back in-house and getting job offers for all the fired mechanics. On behalf of a pilot union at another airline, he successfully sued management to procure access to flight operations areas for organizing and campaigning. He also participated in the largest single employer proceeding ever decided by the National Mediation Board, holding four regional "American Eagle" feeders to American Airlines a single bargaining unit over the carriers' opposition. Mr. Dean has conducted numerous contract negotiations and significant system board arbitrations. For example, he succeeded in establishing an airline's liability for $23 million to its pilots' union for violating contractual scope provisions during furloughs after September 11th.
Mr. Dean is a Senior Editor of the ABA's Treatise on the Railway Labor Act. He is a frequent faculty member at ALI-ABA conferences on Airline and Railroad Labor Law and has authored numerous presentations and papers in that area.
Graduating with Parker School Recognition of Achievement with Honors in International and Comparative Law, Mr. Dean received his Juris Doctorate from Columbia University Law School in 1990. He was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar, research assistant to Professor Jack Greenburg and an Ella Baker intern at the Center for Constitutional Rights. Mr. Dean received his Bachelors in Philosophy from the University of Chicago in 1987. Before joining in the founding of James & Hoffman in 1995, Mr. Dean was associated with Paul Weiss Rifkind Wharton & Garrison in New York. Mr. Dean is admitted to the bars of New York and the District of Columbia and to practice in the United States Supreme Court; the United States Courts of Appeals for the Second, Fifth, Sixth, Ninth, and Eleventh Circuits, and the federal district court for the District of Columbia and the District of Arizona.
Before receiving his law degree, Mr. Dean was the Executive Director of the Neighborhood Action Council of Troy, New York, which organized and provided services to low-income tenants, and he also directed the East Bay organizing project for the California ACORN affiliate, Citizens Action League. He is a member of the AFL-CIO Lawyers Coordinating Committee, the American and D.C. Bar Associations, and the National Lawyers Guild. He has been awarded an AV Preeminent rating by Martindale Hubbell, the highest rating achievable by attorneys, and was voted by his peers as one of the Best Lawyers in America.
dpdean@jamhoff.com
