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            Mr. Schallert received his B.A. in psychology from Stanford University (1977, graduate “with distinction”) and his J.D. from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law (1983, Order of the Coif). Upon graduating, he joined Pillsbury Winthrop (formerly Pillsbury Madison & Sutro), one of the oldest and largest law firms in California. He was a litigator with Pillsbury for fifteen years, the last eight as a partner specializing in trial work. In 1987, Mr. Schallert spent nine months as a San Francisco Public Defender and tried seven criminal jury trials. While at Pillsbury, he successfully represented, inter alia, Chevron, BHP-Utah, Bangkok Metropolitan Bank, Bank of California, Chicago Title Insurance Company, Lincoln National Insurance Company, DHL, and Commercial National Bank. Mr. Schallert specialized in complex commercial fraud (including real estate fraud and check kiting), lender liability, legal malpractice, interpretation of insurance policies and bad faith insurance claims (representing plaintiffs and defendants), employment law (including wrongful termination and sexual discrimination/harassment claims), and debtor-creditor relationships.

            Mr. Schallert has tried cases in a variety of forums including civil jury trials, criminal jury trials, bench trials, arbitrations conducted through JAMS and the AAA, and trials in Bankruptcy Court and Federal Tax Court. During his last five years at Pillsbury, Mr. Schallert was regularly asked to step into cases shortly before trial and help in all aspects of final trial preparation, including development of trial themes, expert preparation and depositions, motions in limine, jury selection, and presentation of evidence at trial. Mr. Schallert was also a member of Pillsbury’s Professional Liability Committee and was designated as counsel to the firm; in that capacity, he supervised the handling of claims against the firm and advised the firm on issues of malpractice, legal ethics, and professional responsibility, including teaching MCLE classes and training new attorneys as part of Pillsbury’s in-house litigation training program.

            After choosing to leave Pillsbury, Mr. Schallert served as a legal consultant while he raised his two daughters. Having previously provided consulting services to the firm of Doyle Fike & Watson, Mr. Schallert became Of Counsel and San Francisco Resident to that firm in 2006. His successful collaboration with Mr. Doyle on several cases resulted in the founding of Doyle & Schallert in 2008. Following are three of Mr. Schallert’s more notable trials:

1. Lead trial counsel for six banks seeking recovery on guaranteed investment contracts issued by Executive Life Insurance Company. The California Insurance Commissioner sought to deny any recovery on the contracts by alleging improper relationships between the bank and an artificially inflated junk bond market, which had caused the collapse of Executive Life. After three trials (each at least a month in length) and three appeals, Mr. Schallert’s clients received judgments and final payments for $1.5 billion. See Texas Commerce Bank v. Garamendi, 11Cal.App. 4th 460 (1992); Commercial National Bank v. Superior Court, 14 Cal.App. 4th 393 (1993); In Re Executive Life Ins. Co., 32 Cal.App.4th 344 (1995).
2. Lead trial counsel for plaintiffs in a four-month civil-rights trial after the family of a parolee was subjected to an unlawful search and seizure by the Department of Corrections. In what the San Francisco Chronicle and the Examiner reported as the first successful lawsuit arising out of parole search, the Contra Costa County jury awarded plaintiffs over $600,000 in emotional distress damages, and the court awarded $2.1 million in attorneys’ fees along with wide-ranging equitable relief. Liability and damages were affirmed on appeal in an unpublished opinion. Pillsbury donated the $2.1 million in fees to its co-counsel, the ACLU.
3. In his first major civil trial, Mr. Schallert was second-chair for plaintiff in a month-long trial arising out of a complex check kite fraud culminating in the return of $17 million of worthless checks. Mr. Schallert’s client recovered a final judgment of $23 million. See Chicago Title Insurance Company v. California Canadian Bank, 1 Cal. App. 4th 798 (1991)

   - David D. Doyle - Mark Schallert -