David Wolfsohn '88 Named Chair of Litigation Group at Woodcock Washburn LLP

Woodcock Washburn LLP announced that David J. Wolfsohn has been appointed the chair of the firm's litigation group.

Mr. Wolfsohn has tried numerous copyright, patent, trademark, unfair competition, and trade secret cases. On behalf of plaintiffs, he has obtained multi-million dollar verdicts and settlements, including a $19 million jury verdict in June 2006 in a copyright case (The Graham Company v. USI MidAtlantic) and a $5.8 million settlement of a trade secret case. Mr. Wolfsohn joined Woodcock Washburn in 2005.

In 2009 alone, Woodcock Washburn lawyers in the firm's litigation group have had a string of favorable outcomes at trial, in jury verdicts, settlements and court rulings that include:

In May 2009, Judge Sue Robinson in the District of Delaware awarded our client TruePosition, Inc. approximately $20 million in additional damages, plus certain attorneys' fees and court costs, in continued patent infringement litigation against Andrew Corporation. This was on top of a jury verdict in September 2007, in which the jury found that Andrew had willfully infringed TruePosition's patent.
In June 2009, Woodcock Washburn received a reversal from a unanimous three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit of a district court's decision to overturn an $18.9 million verdict obtained by Woodcock Washburn attorneys in the landmark Graham Company copyright case.
In August 2009, Woodcock Washburn lawyers represented McNeil-PPC Inc. in a win before the Federal Circuit. The Court reversed a U.S. Patent and Trademark Office decision that McNeil's reexamined patent was invalid due to obviousness in view of the prior art.
In February 2009, Woodcock Washburn successfully defended an action for trade secret misappropriation, breach of contract and unfair trade practices on behalf of its client Illinois Tool Works, Inc., Trident Division in an action filed in Connecticut Superior Court, Judicial District of New Haven. During six days of trial before a jury, the Woodcock Washburn team established a highly favorable evidentiary record that led to a settlement.
In November 2009, a team of Woodcock Washburn lawyers succeeded in derailing a patent infringement action brought in 1997 against its client, Microsoft Corporation, by winning a re-examination proceeding. The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed the patent office finding that the claims were unpatentable.

Mr. Wolfsohn is chair of the Trial Evidence Committee of the American Bar Association, the President of the Federal Bar Association, Eastern District Chapter, and a Fellow of the American Bar Association. He is a frequent speaker nationally and internationally on trial and discovery strategies and tactics, ediscovery issues, and on copyright and trade secrets, and is the former chapter president of the Copyright Society (Delaware Valley chapter).

Mr. Wolfsohn was lead counsel (pro bono) in the landmark case Nixon v. Commonwealth, in which the Pennsylvania Supreme Court struck down as unconstitutional a Pennsylvania statute barring persons convicted of minor crimes decades ago from all jobs in health care related fields. For this representation, he received the Equal Justice Award in 2004 from Community Legal Services.

A former concert pianist, Mr. Wolfsohn sits on the board of Astral Artists, an organization dedicated to advancing the careers of young concert musicians. He served as county counsel in Delaware County to the Obama campaign in the Pennsylvania primary and in the general election in 2008. He also serves on the Swarthmore Borough Authority, and previously was the solicitor for the Borough of Swarthmore.

After graduating cum laude and order of the coif from the University of Chicago Law School in 1988, Mr. Wolfsohn served as a law clerk to the Honorable Walter K. Stapleton of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. He then worked at a Philadelphia litigation firm, handling commercial, governmental, and intellectual property disputes.