David A. Martland is an American lawyer based in Boston, Massachusetts, whose practice covers business law, mergers and acquisitions, and antitrust matters. He is a partner at Nixon Peabody LLP and a graduate of Princeton University and Yale Law School, where he served as a senior editor of the Yale Law Journal.
Education
Martland received a Bachelor of Arts from Princeton University in 1982, graduating cum laude. Princeton was chartered in 1746 as the College of New Jersey and is a private university in Princeton, New Jersey, long known for undergraduate instruction in the liberal arts.
He later earned a Juris Doctor from Yale Law School, which was founded in 1824 and is one of the oldest law schools in the United States. At Yale he was a senior editor of the Yale Law Journal, a student-edited legal periodical, an editorial role that formed part of his legal education.
Career
After his legal education, Martland was admitted to the Massachusetts and New York bars in 1987. That year he was also admitted to the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts and the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, the federal appellate court that hears appeals from the federal courts of Massachusetts and other New England states.
Martland clerked for Walter R. Mansfield of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, a federal appellate court based in New York that hears appeals from New York, Connecticut, and Vermont. Clerkships at this level give young lawyers direct exposure to appellate reasoning and the preparation of judicial opinions.
By 2011 he was a partner in the Boston office of Nixon Peabody LLP, a multi-office American law firm. In that year he led the firm's global business and transactions practice group, counseling private and public companies on a broad range of corporate matters. He also served as leader of the firm's M&A and Corporate Transactions practice group, which includes its Mergers and Acquisitions, Venture Capital and Sophisticated Business Transactions practices.
His work includes representing private equity and venture funds in their investments and advising corporate and health care clients on antitrust matters. Antitrust law in the United States traces its origin to the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890, which addresses monopolistic and anticompetitive business conduct, and merger review by federal and state regulators forms a significant part of that field. He has also helped launch the firm's Food, Beverage & Agriculture team.
Membership
Martland chairs the Board of Trustees of Historic New England, a nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving New England buildings, landscapes and objects dating from the 17th century to the present. Its work centers on the region's architectural and cultural heritage, and the board oversees the organization's governance and long-term stewardship of its collections and properties.
