Mark D. Schwartz

Mark D. Schwartz (born Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 1953) is an attorney in private practice specializing in defending whistle blowers and in qui tam law. A graduate of Swarthmore College, Schwartz eventually became an investment banker, rising to the position of first vice president of Prudential-Bache Securities's public-finance department in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The public finance business, which involved the marketing of municipal bonds, was rife with corruption.[1]

Prudential-Bache Retaliation

In 1989, Schwartz complained about retaliation against employees who refused to make campaign contributions to political candidates favored by Prudential-Bache management. He was sacked as a "disgruntled employee" and subsequently blacklisted in the securities industry after filing a lawsuit against the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD). An NASD arbitration panel never looked into his allegations, though a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)investigation substantiated his charges. As a result of the SEC investigation, the securities industry promised to curb abuses in the solicitation of political donations.

Though the Federal Election Committee subsequently fined Prudential for the shakedown of its employees, securities industry arbitrators upheld the dismissal of Schwartz. The experience gave Schwartz an appreciation for the predicament of whistle blowers, which is now the focus of his private, one-man "boutique" law firm in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, along with corporate fraud and qui tam cases involving federal government fraud.

Cases

Currently, Schwartz is involved in litigation against Home Depot, defending Michael Davis, a whistleblower whom the company terminated. According to a May 18, 2007 story in the New York Post, Home Depot employees testified that employees were encouraged to to routinely overcharge vendors for damaged or defective merchandise. It was revealed that Home Depot even established a quota of overcharges that employees had to meet. [2]

His most high profile case before Home Depot was the probate case involving the estate of the late violinist Isaac Stern. Representing Stern's grown children, Schwartz successfully sued estate executor William Moorhead, a friend of Stern's third wife, Linda Reynolds Stern, who had cut Stern's children by his second wife Vera out of his will due to her influence over Moorhead.[3]

Life Beyond the Law

Schwartz, who also is an actor, appeared Off-Broadway in a 2000 production of "Cruelties," a play about Truman Capote. As a teenager, he had wanted to become an actor, but didn't consider drama a sufficiently "serious" occupation, so studied political science at Swarthmore instead.[4]

External Links

• Swarthmore College Alumni Magazine
• "Home Depot Case Revived", by Suzanne Kapner New York Post (April 12, 2007)