Personal Background
David Hobbs is a senior attorney in The Lanier Law Firm’s Houston office, where he represents people harmed by defective drugs and medical devices and litigates complex commercial disputes. His strength is bringing order to the most data-heavy and technical cases. He is often the lawyer who takes complicated medical, scientific, regulatory, and financial evidence and makes it clear enough for a jury to weigh, and he builds the document and analysis systems that keep large litigation moving.
David joined the firm in 2026 after more than a decade litigating product liability, medical malpractice, and commercial matters in Houston. Much of his current work sits at the center of two large medical device programs and a long-running medical malpractice fight. He serves as Assistant Administering Counsel on the Bard hernia mesh settlement involving more than 30,000 plaintiffs, and he represents roughly 1,200 patients in consolidated litigation in Utah over unnecessary cardiac procedures.
David lives in Houston with his wife and their three children. He has studied Latin, Portuguese, Spanish, and Russian, builds his own computers, and avidly follows Texas Longhorn sports.
Representative Cases
Current Work
- Bard Hernia Mesh Settlement (MDL 2846). Serves as Assistant Administering Counsel helping manage a settlement fund involving more than 30,000 plaintiffs and designing the processes claimants use to submit and appeal offers, while coordinating with the court-appointed special masters on program administration. Continues to file new cases against Bard.
- Utah Cardiac Procedure Litigation. Represents roughly 1,200 patients in consolidated medical malpractice litigation in Utah state court arising from unnecessary PFO heart-closure procedures. The litigation has twice reached the Utah Supreme Court, most recently after December 2025 oral argument, with a decision anticipated in 2026.
- Olympus Scope Infection Litigation. Works with Kelsey Stokes on the firm’s Olympus endoscope and duodenoscope litigation. At the center of these cases is a design problem. The scopes are built to be reused, but their narrow internal channels and the moving elevator mechanism at the tip are extraordinarily difficult to clean. Tissue, blood, and bacteria can lodge in those spaces and survive standard high-level disinfection, so a scope used on one patient can carry live, often drug-resistant bacteria into the next. Patients who come in for what should be a routine diagnostic procedure can leave with a severe, sometimes life-threatening infection.
Leadership and MDL Experience
- Valsartan Products Liability Litigation (MDL 2875). Serves on the Plaintiffs’ Steering Committee and on the ESI and the Law and Briefing subcommittees.
- Ethicon Proceed and PHS Hernia Mesh Litigation (New Jersey MCL). Oversees the document review platform and review teams during active litigation and now serves as administrating counsel on the settlement.
- Addicks and Barker Reservoir Flood Litigation. As a member of the trial and litigation team for the downstream property owners, David helped secure a liability ruling for the plaintiffs. Built and managed the document review effort, applying machine-learning tools to surface key evidence, and independently ran hydrologic models to test the competing expert and Army Corps analyses.
- Earlier pharmaceutical and device matters reached the testosterone therapy Androgel, the Essure contraceptive device, the antidepressants Lexapro and Celexa, and artificial hip implants.
Commercial and Oil and Gas
- Provident Royalties Investment Fraud. Represented a trustee and investors in litigation arising from a $400 million oil and gas investment fraud. After the company’s bankruptcy and the principals’ convictions, investors assigned their claims to a liquidating trust, through which the team pursued the escrow bank and the broker-dealers that had sold the investments.
- Oil and Gas Royalties. Represented landowners for underpaid royalties under the Texas Relinquishment Act, including securing a multimillion-dollar settlement over underpaid royalties on behalf of lease owners.
Notable Results and Other Work
- Obtained a $1.7 million jury verdict for a plaintiff who sustained shoulder injuries when she was sideswiped by a commercial truck.
- Pursued the qui tam and False Claims Act component of the Utah cardiac matter, resolving claims with two hospitals and the physician on behalf of Medicare and the federal government.
- Represented doctors and hospitals in litigation against insurance companies for delayed payment and underpayment, resulting in multiple million-dollar arbitration awards and settlements.