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David Chizewer was recently featured in the National Law Journal's list of 10 of the nation's top litigators. In 2007, he was named Trial Lawyer of the Year by the Public Justice Foundation. He was a runner-up for that same award in 2006.
Mr. Chizewer served as co-lead trial counsel in two of the country's most prominent public interest cases to be tried in the past several years: In October 2006, Mr. Chizewer was co-lead trial counsel for Plaintiffs, and obtained the largest verdict in the history of the federal False Claim Act, in the case captioned, United States of America ex. rel. Cleveland A. Tyson, et al. v. Amerigroup Corporation, et al., pending in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.
In May 2004, Mr. Chizewer was co-lead trial counsel for a class of 600,000 children on Medicaid against the State of Illinois in the case captioned, Memisovski, et al. v. Patla, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, obtaining a declaratory judgment against the State of Illinois, resulting in hundreds of millions of additional dollars worth of health care to the children class. In 2006, for his efforts in the Memisovski case, Mr. Chizewer was the recipient of the Excellence in Pro Bono Award from the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. In 2005, he received the Child Advocate Award from the American Association of Pediatrics. Mr. Chizewer has defended dozens of consumer class action lawsuits in federal and state courts all over the country. He has litigated or counseled clients on compliance with, and litigation over, a range of federal and state consumer protection statutes. He currently serves as lead counsel to one of the principal defendants in the Multi-District Class Action Litigation captioned, In Re Ocwen Federal Bank Mortgage Servicing Litigation, pending in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. Mr. Chizewer is a frequent speaker and author on class action issues. He is a past chairman of the Defense Research Institute's (DRI) Business Litigation Subcommittee on Class Actions and Complex Litigation. Sponsor and Moderator, "Current Issues Following Fairbanks," Sub Prime Lending Conference (November 2003) Speaker, "International Class Actions," Meritas Annual Meeting (April 2003) Panelist, along with Professor John C. Coffee Jr. and the Honorable Milton I. Shadur, American Bar Association's Fourth Annual National Institute on Class Actions (October 2000) Author, "New York Court of Appeals Decides Negligent Marketing Case" and "Defense of Consumer Class Actions after Johnson v. Revenue Management Corporation," DRI periodical, The Business Suit. Co-author, "International Class Actions: Predicting the Next Wave of Class Litigation," Class Action Litigation Report (December 2003) Co-author, "What to Watch for in the Bridgestone/Firestone Litigation," Class Actions and Derivative Suits (a publication of the American Bar Association Section of Litigation) (January 2002) In addition, Mr. Chizewer is at the forefront of the legal issues affecting the education reform movement. He counsels charter schools around the country on issues relating to application and renewal, corporate structure, and contract negotiation with management companies and charter authorities. He is currently a member of the Education Policy Group for the Barack Obama Presidential Campaign. In May 2005, he argued a seminal charter school case before the Illinois Supreme Court. Mr. Chizewer has been a frequent speaker on education reform topics. In October 2005, he spoke at the annual National Association of Charter School Authorizers (NACSA) in Denver, Colorado on legal issues affecting charter school authorizers. In June 2002, he organized and served on a panel concerning legal issues affecting charter schools at the Fourth Annual U.S. Department of Education's Charter Schools National Conference. At the National Charter School Financing Forum in June 2001, he led a panel discussion on education management contracts and tax exempt financing. In December 2000, he presented his views on contracting with education management organizations at the U.S. Department of Education's Third Annual Charter Schools National Conference. Mr. Chizewer is a founding board member and vice president of the Chicago International Charter School (CICS), which runs one of the country's largest charter schools. He has led CICS through contract negotiations with three different management companies, including Edison Schools, the country's largest private education management organization (EMO). He supervised litigation for CICS arising out of its termination of SABIS Educational Systems Inc., CICS's original EMO. Mr. Chizewer is also a founding member of the Illinois Network of Charter Schools (INCS). In addition, he has served on the board of directors and the executive committee of the Daniel Murphy Scholarship Foundation, which provides tuition and other support to enable economically disadvantaged children to attend private high schools. He was a member of the original board of directors of College Bound, a not-for-profit organization that provides tuition and other support for economically disadvantaged students to attend private and public colleges and universities. As a result of Mr. Chizewer's civic leadership, he was selected a Leadership Fellow for the 2003-04 Leadership Greater Chicago Program. Mr. Chizewer received his law degree from the University of Chicago in 1991 and his B.A. in economics, magna cum laude, from Pomona College in 1988. He was elected a member of Phi Beta Kappa.
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