Meet the Attorney
Mr. Schallert was born in Los Angeles, California in 1954. He graduated from Stanford University in 1977 when he was awarded a BA in psychology (“with distinction”). Following his marriage in 1979 to Marian Brook, the couple moved to San Francisco where he attended University of California, College of the Law, San Francisco (formerly Hastings College of Law). He graduated in 1983 with honors, including Order of the Coif, Thurston Honor Society, National Moot Court Finalist, and the Hastings Law Journal. Since graduation, he has worked for three law firms as his practice evolved from big-firm corporate litigation to a solo practice focused on handling just a few cases at a time, typically civil rights and class actions brought on behalf of individuals.
Pillsbury Winthrop. Mr. Schallert spent the first sixteen years of his legal career at Pillsbury, Madison & Sutro, now Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pitman (“Pillsbury”), one of the oldest and largest law firms in the state. Mr. Schallert began working at Pillsbury in his third year of law school, was hired as an associate attorney, and became a partner in his seventh year. After working on a wide range of corporate litigation, he developed expertise in lender liability and complex financial fraud. Mr. Schallert was a member of the firm's Professional Liability Committee. In that capacity, he was designated as one of the firm’s “in-house” counsel, and he helped oversee the defense of lawsuits against the firm.
While at Pillsbury, Mr. Schallert tried cases in a variety of state and federal courts, including tax and bankruptcy courts, as well as half-a-dozen trials on behalf of the San Francisco Public Defender. Mr. Schallert helped try several lengthy cases that addressed novel issues of law.
Over the course of three trials, each a month long, Mr. Schallert was lead trial counsel for seven banks representing the interests of tens of thousands of bondholders holding $1.8 billion in non-recourse municipal bonds sold outside California. Bond payments came from Executive Life Insurance’s guaranteed investment contracts. When Executive Life became insolvent, the Insurance Commissioner sought to deny any recovery for Mr. Schallert’s clients so that other policyholders could be paid in full. After the third trial (and third appeal), Mr. Schallert’s clients recovered their pro rata share of the Executive Life assets, roughly $1.6 billion. The three trials led to three published opinions. 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).
In Davis v. California Department of Corrections, Mr. Schallert was lead counsel in a four-month-long civil rights trial in Contra Costa County Superior Court. Mrs. Davis was married to a parolee and the CDC conducted an invasive raid of her home, which was filmed for an anticipated reality television show. The jury trial resulted in an award of emotional distress damages and attorneys’ fees exceeding $2.5 million in total. The San Francisco Chronicle reported this was the first verdict against the CDC arising from a parole search. Mr. Schallert wrote and argued the appeal, which upheld the jury’s verdict.
In his first major civil trial, Mr. Schallert was second chair for plaintiff in a month-long trial arising out of a check-kite fraud culminating in a final judgment of $23 million. The judgment was upheld on appeal. Chicago Title Insurance Company v. California Canadian Bank, 1 Cal. App. 4th 798 (1991). The case clarified the law on a bank’s obligation to alert noncustomers about suspected frauds. Chicago Title Ins. Co. v. Superior Court (1985) 174 Cal.App.3d 1142.
Doyle & Schallert. Mr. Schallert left Pillsbury after sixteen years. After providing consulting services for a couple years, he formed Doyle & Schallert with David Doyle. The firm was based in Fresno but litigated cases throughout the state. For a dozen years, Mr. Schallert mostly represented plaintiffs in employment cases, which ranged from wage-and-hour class actions in Alameda and Los Angeles Counties to state court wrongful terminations to a Title VII sexual harassment case. The firm’s most significant cases included the following:
In his first case with Mr. Doyle, Schallert was hired to write and argue the appeal for a plaintiff who received an adverse jury verdict on her claim of a hostile work environment. The Sixth District reversed the jury’s verdict for the defendant. See Turman v. Turning Point of Central California, Inc. (2010) 191 Cal.App.4th 53. On remand, Plaintiff argued that the appellate decision effectively resolved liability issues. The Court entered a directed verdict for plaintiff on liability, after which the case settled favorably.
Mr. Schallert was lead counsel in several wage-and-hour class actions. The largest of them, Sosa et. al. v. Dreyer’s Grand Ice Cream, Inc. (Alameda Superior Court, Case No. RG08424366), was a class action for the workers at Dreyer’s ice cream manufacturing facility in Bakersfield. The case concerned wage claims for donning/doffing and meal periods. The case eventually settled for $13.5 million with many individual class members recovering more than $10,000. The Firm also helped prosecute two “drive time” wage-and-hour cases.
Mr. Schallert represented Suzanne Mitchel in her lawsuit arising from prolonged sexual harassment by supervisor at Federal Prison. When Ms. Mitchel complained, the prison retaliated with a harsh assignment. This Title VII case settled after the federal district court denied the government’s motion for summary judgment. Ms. Mitchel received the maximum emotional distress award permitted by statute along with attorneys’ fees.
Law Office of Mark Schallert. As reflected on our home page, Mr. Schallert has continued to represent plaintiffs in high-stakes litigation for the last ten years. The cases reflect the firm’s ability to address a wide range of complex legal cases ranging from a class action for 5000 tenants for security-deposit abuses to a lawsuit to enforce the sale of a television station to two pending civil rights lawsuits arising from the shooting deaths of two men by Fresno law enforcement.