David A. Coon is a litigator with experience in complex commercial litigation, appeals, and regulatory and enforcement investigations. He was recognized in Best Lawyers’ 2024 list of “Ones to Watch” in the publication’s appellate category, as well as by Super Lawyers in its 2023 New York Metro “Rising Stars” list.
Representative Matters:
- American Federation of Teachers union: Represented members in a settlement of a nationwide class action lawsuit with Navient, one of the nation’s largest student loan servicers, challenging Navient’s practices with respect to advising federal student loan borrowers on Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF). David and the team secured a novel class settlement under which Navient agreed, among other things, to enhance its practices for public service workers (teachers, nurses, Legal Aid workers, firemen and policemen, for example) and, in addition, to contribute millions to a nonprofit organization that provides education and student loan counseling to public service workers. Selendy Gay Elsberg successfully secured a unanimous affirmance of settlement approval on appeal in front of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. In April 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court denied the petition for certiorari, allowing the settlement to stand.
- Markel CATCo: Represented retrocessional reinsurer of catastrophe events in a $300 million suit in the Delaware Court of Chancery against D.E. Shaw, an insurance-linked security investor, which sought to unilaterally change the terms of its contract. The investor ultimately abandoned its effort to change the contract.
- Trump v. Vance: Served as co-counsel to Cyrus Vance, then the Manhattan District Attorney, in a lawsuit by then-President Donald Trump asserting that the Constitution gives a sitting President absolute immunity from any form of criminal process or investigation, and therefore prohibited enforcement of a New York grand jury subpoena to the President’s personal accounting firm for financial records relating to the President and business organizations affiliated with him. The U.S. Supreme Court ultimately issued a landmark decision reaffirming the centuries-old principle that “no citizen, not even the President, is categorically above the common duty to produce evidence when called upon in a criminal proceeding.”
- National Public Finance Guarantee Corp.: Represented National Public Finance Guarantee and MBIA, who insured numerous bonds issued by Puerto Rico and its agencies, in a suit against eight major Wall Street banks to hold them accountable for inequitable conduct that contributed to Puerto Rico’s economic collapse.
- Matterport: Representing the technology company and its directors in the Delaware Court of Chancery in a dispute with a former executive in connection with a de-SPAC transaction.
David earned his J.D. cum laude from Harvard Law School, where he was a senior editor of the Harvard Business Law Review and represented indigent criminal defendants in the Criminal Justice Institute clinic. David served as a law clerk for the Honorable Dennis Jacobs of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Before law school, he was an analyst at a major financial services institution in New York.
