Mark D. Schwartz

Despite the patronage of Edward Rendell, Schwartz has not shied away from criticizing him and his failure to reign in political corruption in Pennsylvania, as he did in a July 2009 op-ed piece on the conviction of former Pennsylvania State Senator Vince Fumo [5]. Scwhartz had also been a visible opponent of the controversial project to relocate the Barnes Foundation art collection, a project funded by a grant from the Rendell Administration.

Schwartz was involved in litigation against Home Depot, defending Michael Davis, a whistleblower whom the company terminated. According to a May 18, 2007 story in the New York Post, Home Depot employees testified that employees were encouraged to routinely overcharge vendors for damaged or defective merchandise. It was revealed that Home Depot even established a quota of overcharges that employees had to meet. [2]

Schwartz, who also is an actor, appeared Off-Broadway in a 2000 production of "Cruelties," a play about Truman Capote.

He was named a board member of the Philadelphia Crime Prevention Association's Finance Committee in 1992.

In 1991, then Philadelphia mayor Edward Rendell named Schwartz to the Mayor's Transition Team and to the Mayor's Private Sector Task Force.

In 1989, Schwartz complained about retaliation against employees who refused to make campaign contributions to political candidates favored by Prudential Bache Securities management. He was sacked as a "disgruntled employee" and subsequently blacklisted in the securities industry after filing a lawsuit against the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD). An NASD arbitration panel never looked into his allegations, though a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) investigation substantiated his charges. As a result of the SEC investigation, the securities industry promised to curb abuses in the solicitation of political donations.

In 1989, Scwhartz was appointed by the Speaker of the Pennsylvania House to be a Commissioner of the Independent Regulatory Review Commission, an oversight body that approves the issuance of regulations by public agencies in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. He served as a commissioner through 1994.

He served as Counsel to the Chair of the Credentials Committee of the Democratic National Committee during the 1988 Democratic Presidential Convention.

In 1978, Schwartz was appointed by Pennsylvania Governor Milton Shapp (a Democrat) to the state's Juvenile Justice & Delinquency Prevention Advisory Committee of the Governor's Justice Commission. He was reappointed by Governor Dick Thornburgh, a Republican, and served on the committee until 1989.

A graduate of Swarthmore College, where he majored in political science, Schwartz served as legislative assistant to K. Leroy Irvis, the Majority Leader of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, from 1975 through 1976, when he went on to law school. After earning his J.D. degree from the University of Pittsburgh Law School in 1979, Scwhartz eventually became an investment banker, rising to the position of first vice president of Prudential-Bache Securities's public-finance department in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

As legislative assistant to the Pennsylvania House Majority Leader in the mid-1970s, Schwartz served as a speech writer and developed legislation. His responsibilities included the directorship of the House Rules Committee. Schwartz also was involved in administrative agency oversight.

Mark D. Schwartz (born San Francisco, California, 1953) is an attorney in private practice known for his defense of whistle blowers and his handling of litigation involving the Sarbanes–Oxley Act. In addition to employment law and civil rights litigation, he also has handled prominent probate cases.