David Seligman

2020 Rising Star

David has been the Executive Director of Towards Justice since 2018 and previously was Litigation Counsel with the organization. At Towards Justice, David has litigated in support of workers and consumers in several class and collective actions to attack systemic injustices that undermine the power of workers and consumers in the marketplace. Those cases include the first antitrust case to challenge “no hire” provisions in franchise agreements among fast-food franchisees, several cases supporting workers to challenge unsafe working conditions during COVID-19, cases alleging misclassification or fraud on behalf of franchisees, victims of multi-level marketing schemes, independent contractors, and guestworkers, cases challenging coercive workplace practices under anti-trafficking laws, and cases attacking policies that discriminate against people of color in hiring. David has argued several cases in courts of appeals and the Colorado Supreme Court, including a case where the Colorado Supreme Court took a certified question from a federal district court to clarify the traditionally narrow scope of a doctrine that corporations have recently relied on to force workers and consumers into forced arbitration even when the corporation is not a signatory to the arbitration agreement.

David also performs support and policy advocacy to support state and local agencies in their efforts to protect workers, and he writes and speaks regularly on forced arbitration, including before state legislatures considering reforms that could mitigate the harms of forced arbitration. He also writes and speaks regularly on the use of the antitrust laws to challenge anticompetitive practices in labor markets.

Prior to moving back to his hometown to join Towards Justice, David was a staff attorney at the National Consumer Law Center, working on forced arbitration and predatory auto lending. While there, he authored the Model State Consumer and Employee Justice Enforcement Act, which provides states with tools to mitigate some of the harms that forced arbitration causes low-income consumers and workers. David remains a contributing author for the National Consumer Law Center, where he authors the organization’s treatise on the enforceability of forced arbitration clauses and class waivers.

David clerked for Chief Judge Patti B. Saris of the District of Massachusetts and Judges Robert D. Sack and Susan L. Carney of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. David is a graduate of Williams College and Harvard Law School.