Daniel Wall

Associate

  • Daniel Wall
  • Phone: +1 415 957 3032

    Import to Address Book

  • Duane Morris LLP
    Spear Tower
    One Market Plaza, Suite 2200
    San Francisco, CA 94105-1127
    USA

Daniel Wall is an accomplished trial attorney concentrating on civil litigation and criminal defense across both state and federal courts. Prior to joining Duane Morris LLP, Mr. Wall was a defense attorney with the Santa Clara County Office of the Public Defender, where he represented thousands of clients in all stages of criminal proceedings, including arraignments, pretrial motions, evidentiary hearings, jury trials, dispositions and sentencings. He has first-chaired many high-stakes cases to jury verdict.

 In 2023, Mr. Wall and his colleague Alexandra Jones were honored with the Duane Morris Pro Bono Attorney of the Year Award for their work on a complex international child abduction case.

Mr. Wall also serves as a Board Member and Executive Council Member of Santa Clara University Law School’s Social Justice Advisory Board and sits on the Board of Directors for The Guardsmen, a nonprofit supporting at-risk youth in the Bay Area. He also worked with the Northern California Innocence Project and the Honorable Edward Davila of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California.

Mr. Wall is a native of the San Francisco Bay Area, All-American swimmer, two-time ACC Champion, and graduate of the University of Virginia.

Admissions

  • California
  • U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California
  • U.S. District Court for the Central District of California
  • U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California
  • U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California

Education

  • Santa Clara University School of Law, J.D., 2016
  • University of Virginia, B.A., 2012

Experience

  • Duane Morris LLP
    - Associate, 2023-present
  • Santa Clara County, Office of the Public Defender
    - Trial Attorney, 2016-2023

Civic and Charitable Activities

  • The Guardsmen of San Francisco

Representative Matters

  • Successfully defended the Los Angeles Superior Court and its leadership in an action brought by 29 cities in Los Angeles County challenging the Superior Court’s revised bail schedules and Pre-Arraignment Release Protocols, which, rather than assigning a dollar amount to all crimes, assign non-financial release conditions for most nonviolent, non-serious offenses prior to arraignment. The plaintiffs sought writ, injunctive, and declaratory relief to essentially declare the new bail schedules unconstitutional and order the Superior Court to revise its bail schedules to revert to money bail. The case garnered significant media attention and ended with a favorable ruling for the defendants, resulting in the dismissal of the action.

  • Successfully represented a Peruvian father in a five-year case under the Hague Convention, securing the return of his abducted daughter from the U.S. to Peru. The case, involving multiple countries and complex legal challenges, concluded with the child's return just in time for her ninth birthday. 

  • Represent the Judicial Council of California, as well as several superior courts, judges and court executives, in statewide litigation involving criminal justice reforms. Successfully defended the Los Angeles Superior Court and its presiding judge in defeating two identical putative class actions raising constitutional challenges on behalf of criminal defendants being held pretrial on bail they could not afford. The Central District of California judge dismissed the cases, citing the Eleventh Amendment and judicial immunity; the Ninth Circuit affirmed the dismissals in a precedential opinion, holding that “Eleventh Amendment immunity is a threshold jurisdictional issue, and [federal courts] have no power to resolve claims brought against state courts or state court judges acting in a judicial capacity.”