We have a shared responsibility to fix what is broken. Let’s get it done.
Dave Domina
Dave Domina is a Nebraska lawyer. Domina’s life is “all Nebraska.” Birth, farm upbringing, high school, university, military service, marriage, fatherhood, admission to his profession—all are Nebraska events for Domina.
Dave was born to Marvin and Jackie Domina in a midwife’s home at Laurel and raised on a crop and livestock farm south of Coleridge, Nebraska (pop. 467), in Cedar County.
Carol Ewald Jorde Domina was raised at Valley City in North Dakota’s farm country; her father was in the grain elevator business. Carol taught at Wayne State College and worked in business before the Dominas married. The Dominas are parents of three children. Dr. Thurston Domina is a professor at the University of California at Irvine. Brian Jorde, is a lawyer with Domina Law Group pc llo. Salesia Domina, is a university student.
Issues of Concern
Domina’s lays before Nebraska some major issues, including:
- The need to make Nebraska’s case for focused, reasonable decisions – not partisan division, to move the nation’s issues to a centrist solution, and to meet Nebraska’s needs by doing so.
- There is a dangerous dilemma afoot in our national life. It is the product of a federal government that has become so divided and contentious that it was closed down by partisan and ideological warfare last October. This dangerous action and the uncertainty it brings means the U.S. does not command international respect, and faces escalated challenges to national security and international stability.
- A tax system that has become so fundamentally unfair that it is damaging the economy and job creation.
- Defense funding challenges that have become so daunting they may require consideration of fundamental military reform.
Public Service
Dave Domina is called by others one of Nebraska’s most preeminent trial lawyers. He has been repeatedly named to the Top 100 Trial Lawyers list by the National Trial Lawyers Ass’n and to the exclusive “Best Law Firms” list by U.S. News & World Report. He has appeared in about 250 appeals to demanding Appellate Courts, with 200 arguments in the Nebraska Supreme Court alone. Domina’s cases have changed the law in several areas and have led to re-examination of areas of major concern.
Domina’s service in matters of high public interest include responsibility for two of Nebraska’s three trials to remove and bar public officials from elective office on articles of impeachment, representation of the State in a complex banking crisis involving exposure of hundreds of millions of dollars to the State Government, service as special prosecutor and trial lawyer in cases declaring unconstitutional Nebraska’s property tax and several of its election laws. Domina was selected to write the amicus curiae brief for 67 national, state and local public interest organizations when Mad Cow Disease threatened the nation’s food supply. [1]
Dave Domina is believed to be the only lawyer in the country to win both capital acquittal cases and a civil jury verdict of more than $1.28 billion. The impeachment trials make Domina’s professional uniqueness even more apparent.
Dave’s contributions to professional literature include many articles about the law, or laws themselves, and the practice of law. He is a published author on antitrust, dangers of permitting corporations to become too large and too dominant in their industries, and resulting risks to small businesses from unfair market competition.
Domina was selected to face off with meat packing industry lobbyists in a public forum attended by more than 2,000 persons, hosted by the U S Departments of Justice and Agriculture. The U.S. Attorney General and the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture attended the event. Domina spoke on behalf of livestock producers and in favor of competitive markets. He also spoke out against abuse of employees and exploitation of labor by meat packers at the event.
Domina’s cases have examined safety regulations involving, unsafe machines, farm machinery dangers, and overreaching by large corporations against farmers, ranchers and consumers. He has handled complex medical malpractice and death cases arising from hundreds of misfortunes. His work has focused important attention on airplane and automobile passenger restraints.
Dave Domina relishes cases in which his clients have issues of merit but are often confronted with well-funded, powerful opponents. He stepped up to protect Nebraska landowners threatened to be overrun by a foreign oil company that wants to run a pipeline through the State. His work helped with a Special Session of the Legislature and led to highly visible litigation over the validity of a newly enacted state law strongly supported by “big oil”. On February 19, 2014, Domina won this lawsuit successfully defending the Constitution and got yet another bad law declared unconstitutional.
Background
Domina graduated from the University of Nebraska College of Law in 1972. Domina holds active bar admissions in Nebraska, Missouri, Michigan and New York, and has argued in courts across the United States. He served as a Judge Advocate General, or lawyer, in the United States Army, and formed his legal practice in 1975. Domina’s complete resume as of December 2013 can be viewed here.
Domina was raised at Coleridge, in northeast Nebraska on a row crop, alfalfa and livestock farm. The livestock work meant a variety of things. “By the time of high school graduation, I had performed a couple thousand successful surgeries, all to neuter male calves and pigs, and seldom had any complications.”
Farm life left Domina with deep passion for agriculture and work on the land. He has worked on cases involving agriculture from Arizona to North Dakota, and from central California to New York. “And,” he says, “How could I forget the call from the rancher on Maui’s most remote location who had a fence dispute with a neighbor!”
Domina is the author of published peer reviewed articles on law, economics, and agriculture. He co-authored several extensively cited examinations of markets and economics with a distinguished Auburn University economist. Mr. and Mrs. Domina publish together at times. [2] Mrs. Domina works at Domina Law Group pc llo, the law firm her husband founded.
Domina has made presentations to law students, lawyers, and the public on hundreds of occasions ranging from commencement speeches to industry gatherings and political events. [3] He also preaches guest sermons on request from time to time.
In addition to his law practice, Domina has served as a director of a small community bank named one of the safest in the nation in 2012, and has interests in farming, and retail concerns. These are small businesses that employ Nebraskans and meet every payroll – a point Domina is proud to make.
Law Practice. Domina Law Group pc llo
Domina and his law firm represent people – instead of large multi-national corporations, insurance companies, or huge banks. They are his adversaries. Domina says this preference is driven by “my awareness that people need the best quality help, while their adversaries can hire about anybody” and “sense that the individuals generally have claims with great merit, but can lose because the legal talent deck is stacked against them.”
Dave Domina and his law firm have been recognized widely for handling complex cases against substantial adversaries. The National Trial Lawyers Association (NTL) recognizes Domina on its Top 100 list. According to the NTL, “Each of our distinguished Top 100 members possesses the knowledge, skill, experience and success held by only the finest and best lawyers in America. By combining resources, power, and influence, The National Trial Lawyers: Top 100 is devoted to preserving and protecting justice for all.”
Mr. Domina formed Domina Law Group over 35 years ago. He has tried about 330 cases to jury verdict, argued about 250 State and Federal appeals, and appeared in court in 43 states across the nation. Domina won a jury verdict of more than $1.28 billion in a market manipulation case against the nation’s largest slaughter house. The verdict was taken away on appeal on the grounds the jury was wrong. Domina believes that a jury’s verdict should be sacred and not upset by second-guessing judges unless fraud or misconduct occur.