David R. Scott

140 Lawyers, Five Jurisdictions

Scott is the managing partner of Scott+Scott Attorneys at Law LLP, responsible for 140 lawyers across offices in North America and Europe — New York, London, Amsterdam, Berlin, and a network of United States offices from Connecticut to California. He represents public pension systems, sovereign wealth funds, corporate pension arrangements, and other major investors in securities, financial-product, and corporate-governance matters.

He directs review of portfolio data, offering and transaction records, governing law, available forums, filing deadlines, and overlapping proceedings, connecting each investor's holdings to a client-authorized strategy and to the lawyers responsible for class, individual, or foreign proceedings.

Where proceedings overlap, the firm matches each trade and coordinates the class, individual, and foreign routes around the client's transactions. Scott sets portfolio safeguards, controls filing deadlines, selects matters, and assigns lawyers across offices.

The firm's platform extends through the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Germany. He also advises multinational corporations on cartel-damages investigations and claims, developing programs for recouping losses across jurisdictions and applying transaction analysis to corporate-purchaser claims.

The Governing Instrument

Scott has pursued claims against mortgage-backed-securities trustees accused of failing to protect investors, and represented a consortium of regional banks in a completed auction-rate-securities resolution — one of the few auction-rate matters in the country resolved successfully in the plaintiffs' favor.

Those matters differ from a conventional public-company class action in what they require at the outset.

A Rule 10b-5 class action starts from a public statement and a trading market. A trustee claim starts from a contract: it turns on the indenture, the notices given or not given, the loan documentation, and the specific duties owed to holders — obligations that exist because a document created them, not because federal law imposed them. An auction-rate dispute turns on transaction-specific proof about the instruments, the liquidity representations made about them, and the individual investor's own purchase record.

In each, the work begins with the governing instrument and the investor's claimed recoverable loss rather than with a public company statement.

Micro Focus and Newell Brands

Scott served as lead counsel in the Micro Focus litigation arising from the 2017 combination of Micro Focus and Hewlett Packard Enterprise's software business. The plaintiffs pursued claims in California state court while a related federal action proceeded in parallel.

The state plaintiffs obtained class certification, reviewed millions of pages, and took twenty-one fact depositions. After several mediation sessions, the developed record produced a $107.5 million global cash agreement covering both actions.

Resolving parallel state and federal proceedings in a single global agreement requires the negotiation to account for two class definitions, two procedural postures, and two courts that must each approve what the parties have done. A settlement of one action alone leaves the defendant exposed and the plaintiffs' leverage divided.

Scott also served as lead counsel in the Newell Brands litigation involving securities issued in connection with the company's 2016 acquisition of Jarden. Oklahoma Firefighters Pension and Retirement System served as class representative in New Jersey state court. The matter produced a $102.5 million settlement and a fund of approximately $103 million, which received final approval in February 2023.

Micro Focus involved depositary securities and parallel state and federal proceedings; Newell proceeded in a New Jersey state class represented by a public pension fund. Scott guided both to cash funds exceeding $100 million, coordinating distinct class definitions, discovery records, state-court proceedings, and claims-payment structures.

Money That Goes Back to the Company

Scott's derivative practice operates on a different premise from a securities class action.

In a securities class action, the recovery is paid to the investors who bought at inflated prices. In a derivative action, the claim belongs to the corporation itself — shareholders sue on its behalf, alleging that its directors failed in their duties — and any monetary recovery therefore returns to the company, not to the shareholders who brought it. Shareholders may benefit indirectly from monetary or governance relief received by the corporation.

Oversight claims impose a demanding burden because they require more than showing that directors made a poor decision. The theory focuses on failures of board-level monitoring, reporting, or response rather than ordinary disagreement with business judgment.

Alphabet and L Brands

Scott oversaw and settled the Alphabet shareholder derivative action concerning board oversight of sexual harassment, bias, and workplace controls. The court approved the terms in November 2020.

Alphabet agreed to set aside $310 million over ten years for workplace programs and to add board structures addressing bias, misconduct, and retaliation.

He also oversaw the L Brands derivative action concerning board oversight of sexual misconduct, discrimination, and workplace culture. L Brands and Victoria's Secret each committed to invest $45 million in reforms, for a combined $90 million, and adopted changes involving nondisclosure agreements, arbitration, workplace policies, board roles, and public reporting. The federal court granted final approval in May 2022.

In both matters the relief was directed into the companies through defined workplace, reporting, and board-oversight reforms rather than paid out as class damages to purchasers. The nondisclosure and arbitration changes in particular alter what the next employee with a complaint is able to do — a remedy that operates prospectively, on people who were never parties.

Scott's firmwide responsibility coordinated the pension-fund clients, co-counsel, litigation teams, and implementation structure required to carry those remedies into the companies that received them. The terms specified reporting, workplace, and board-level measures whose implementation could be observed after approval.

Day Two of the Meta Trial

The Meta shareholder derivative litigation concerned user privacy, Cambridge Analytica, consent-order compliance, board oversight, internal reporting, and director conduct.

The case survived dismissal, proceeded through discovery, and began trial in the Delaware Court of Chancery in July 2025 — a destination derivative oversight claims almost never reach.

The parties reached agreement after opening statements and before the second day of trial.

The settlement required $190 million to be paid to Meta and included policy changes addressing director conduct, insider trading, and whistleblower protections. The court granted final approval on April 7, 2026.

Scott+Scott served as co-lead counsel with Kaplan Fox & Kilsheimer and Prickett Jones & Elliott. Scott directed the firmwide strategy, staffing, cross-office support, and trial resources that carried the matter through discovery, trial opening, settlement, and approval, integrating the evidentiary, trial, negotiation, and client work required to deliver the result.

Managing a Cross-Border Practice

Scott's work spans merger-related securities cases, trustee and financial-product disputes, cartel-damages claims, and class and derivative remedies. He oversees matter selection, forum strategy, specialized teams, client communication, and implementation of approved relief.

The firm uses transaction data, jurisdictional monitoring, filing advice, and coordinated teams to pursue available domestic and foreign remedies for the same underlying conduct.

Scott earned his J.D. from Temple University School of Law and works from the firm's New York office.