David Thomas

ABOUT

Dave Thomas joined the Riverside office of Hanna Brophy in June 2003 and has been a partner since 2008.  In 2016, he became the office managing partner of the Riverside office.  Dave represents private self-insured employers, public entities, professional sports teams and insurance carriers in workers’ Compensation and CalPERS Industrial Disability Retirement cases.  He specializes in public safety officer (police/fire) and professional sports team Workers’ Compensation defense, Industrial Disability Retirement defense, S&W and 132a allegations, and Cal/OSHA defense.

Since coming to Hanna Brophy in 2003, Dave has defended over 200 professional sports team Workers’ Compensation defense cases, over 200 CalPERS Industrial Disability Retirement cases, and has gone to trial in Workers’ Compensation and Industrial Disability Retirement Cases over 100 times before administrative law judges at the Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board and Office of Administrative Hearings.

representative experience

Dave Thomas is an exceptionally experienced and successful trial attorney, who has tried over 70 jury trials in federal and state courts across the country as well as several hundred bench trials and administrative hearings.  In addition to trying civil and administrative cases involving workplace injuries at Hanna Brophy, he also defends complex federal criminal cases in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.

Mr. Thomas spent a total of 12 years with the U.S. Army JAG Corps, including 6 years as an active-duty officer and 6 years in the U.S. Army Reserves. He left the Army in 2005 as a Major in the U.S. Army Reserves.

Prior to joining Hanna Brophy, Dave spent almost ten years handling complex criminal litigation in federal and military courts, both as a prosecutor and a defense attorney. He was a Trial Counsel in the U.S. Army JAG Corps, as well as a Special Assistant United States Attorney for the District of Maryland. After a few years as a prosecutor, he switched to defense and was both a Trial Defense Attorney in the U.S. Army JAG Corps as well as a Deputy Federal Public Defender for the District of Maryland. He has handled all types of federal felony cases in U.S. District Courts as well as U.S. Army Courts Martial, including charges of murder, sex crimes, terrorism, drug crimes, gun crimes, and especially white-collar fraud cases. Dave was also the lead prosecutor for several of the “Army Sex Scandal” cases at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, back in the mid-1990s.