Danny Tobey
A lawyer, medical doctor, and successful software founder, Danny is the 2023 Financial Times Innovative Lawyer of the Year and led Business Insider’s 2022 list of top lawyers helping companies adopt artificial intelligence (AI). Danny leads DLA’s team helping Fortune 10, 50, 500 and global brands cross-industry adopt new and disruptive technologies like AI, including in risk mitigation, governance, and litigation. Danny also represents leading life sciences and healthcare companies in matters involving FDA, CMS, HHS, commercial parties, and claimants. The U.S. Library of Congress gave Danny a Burton Award recognizing “the best of the best writers in the legal profession” among the nation’s top 1,000 largest firms.
A graduate of Harvard College, Yale Law School, and UT Southwestern Medical School, Danny has handled successfully some of his clients’ most challenging and important matters. He played a key legal role in the Covid vaccine effort, helped obtain one of the largest Daubert wins in a pharmaceutical mass action, designed the winning scientific case in the first Hatch-Waxman suit in the Eastern District of Texas, and obtained a unanimous reversal in federal appellate court in a much-cited R&D tax case of first impression. He has successfully handled as lead counsel litigations arising from biotech M&A transactions and has resolved board and shareholder disputes for life-science companies. Danny has represented healthcare clients in matters ranging from internal investigations to business litigation.
Danny is a world-recognized leader in the law and regulation of AI. He sits on the World Economic Forum’s AI Governance Alliance and the Executive Committee of the United Nation’s AI for Good law track. Danny is a founding member of the Health AI Partnership with the Mayo Clinic, Duke, Berkeley, and others, and sat on Pfizer’s Digital Health Scientific Advisory Board. He moderated the closed-door Ministerial Roundtable in Morocco on Improving Health Outcomes in Africa through Innovative Solutions and has hosted the Principal Deputy Commissioner of FDA, U.S. Senators, and others for fireside chats on key issues of public concern. Danny is a frequent invited speaker on AI governance and law, including for the Attorney General Alliance, National Retail Foundation, National Association of Corporate Directors, the Business Council, Stanford Rock Center for Corporate Governance, Stanford Law School, Harvard Business School’s OPM Annual Conference, the Swiss Embassy, the Korean Chamber of Commerce & Industry, the Association for the Advancement of AI, and many others. Danny represents numerous companies on AI governance and adoption, as well as the leading foundation model and other innovators. His clients also include breakout startups like IDx, the first FDA-approved fully autonomous AI diagnostic, with whom he authored the peer-reviewed Lessons Learned About Autonomous AI: Finding a Safe, Efficacious, and Ethical Path Through the Development Process. Danny’s writing on legal issues in medicine and biotechnology appears in National Law Journal, American Health Law Association Connections, Proceedings of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence, Yale Journal of Law & Technology, the American Journal of Ophthalmology, and Health Law Litigation. Danny led a successful software company from inception to acquisition. His original medical research appears in Pediatric Blood & Cancer and the Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology.
Beyond healthcare, Danny has represented private equity, finance and other clients in some of their most pressing cases in state and federal court. He has argued successfully before the en banc Delaware Supreme Court and the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals among others.
Danny is Chair of the Board of Directors of the non-profit AT&T Performing Arts Center, the largest performing arts district in the United States. He chaired the Legal Advisory Counsel of the Perot Museum of Nature and Science and has served on the boards of the Parkland Foundation, SPCA of Texas, Texas Israel Alliance, and the regional Anti-Defamation League. He has co-chaired the Judiciary Committee and the Membership & Admissions Committee of the Dallas Bar Association and served on the Governing Council of its Business Litigation Section. Danny previously served on the Executive Committee of the Yale Law School Association.