David Plante is an experienced trial lawyer who has been practicing law in the Tampa Bay area for the last fourteen years.  Mr. Plante is proud of the fact that he spent five of those years as a law partner of the late Robert W. Merkle, the former United States Attorney for the Middle District of Florida, and the five years prior to that as an associate attorney in Mr. Merkle's firm.

Prior to moving to the Tampa Bay area, Mr. Plante served as a judicial law clerk to the Honorable G. Ross Anderson, United States District Court Judge for the Greenville Division of South Carolina.  Mr. Plante was fortunate to be able to perform his federal law clerk duties at both the district court (trial court) level, as well as the circuit court (U.S. Court of Appeals) level. 

Mr. Plante was awarded a merit recruitment scholarship to attend the University of South Carolina School of Law.  Mr. Plante obtained his juris doctor degree in 1992 from that University with Honors.  While attending law school, Mr. Plante was selected to serve as Articles Editor for the American Bar Association's Real Property, Probate & Trust Journal and was elected to the Executive Board of the University of South Carolina School of Law's Student Bar Association. 

Prior to attending law school, Mr. Plante was employed in a regional management capacity by a large multinational corporation.  Mr. Plante also obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from Florida Atlantic University with Honors.  Mr. Plante is also an active real estate investor and property manager in Hillsborough and Pinellas Counties.

Mr. Plante's areas of practice are quite diverse.  Such areas include, but are not limited to, Business Transactions and Litigation, Real Estate Transactions and Litigation, Employment Transactions and Litigation, Family Law Matters, Criminal Law Matters, Post Conviction Relief, Construction Law, Licensure and Regulation Issues and State, Federal and Administrative Appeals.  The reported appellate cases that Mr. Plante has litigated and argued include:  St. George v. Pinellas County Sheriffs Department, 285 F.3d 1334 (11th Cir. 2002) (reversal of dismissal of a civil rights claim against a sheriff’s deputy relating to his killing of a fifteen year old child); Garbutt v. LaFarnara, 754 So.2d 727 (Fla. 2d DCA 1999) ($1.75 million verdict obtained against former City Commissioner of Treasure Island for physical and emotional abuse of the Plaintiff defended); Johnson v. Fla. Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services, 695 So.2d 927 (Fla. 2d DCA 1997)(seminal case establishing a Plaintiff’s right to sue both individual State actors as well as the State agency that employed them, despite language in Florida’s waiver of sovereign immunity statute which had previously been construed to create a mutually exclusive right to sue either the individual actor or agency, both not both); Upshaw v. Singletary, 54 F.3d 718 (11th Cir. 1995) (reversed denial of evidentiary hearing on claims of Federal Habeas Corpus relief in relation to conviction for allegedly killing three children during an act of arson); Castro v. The Honorable Richard A. Luce, 650 So.2d 1067 (Fla. 2d DCA 1995) (reversed trial court’s denial of Appellant’s motion for trial judge’s disqualification); Johnson v. Sackett, 793 So2d 20 (Fla. 2d DCA 2001)(seminal case holding that an employee of the State Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services is not entitled to immunity, neither absolute nor qualified, in a State malicious prosecution action in which it is established that the employee filed a Dependency Petition without probable cause and for a malicious purpose.); Harper v. Harper, 848 So2d 1179(Fla. 2d DCA 2003)(successfully defended trial court’s ruling that marriage of a dependent adult child to an individual who is also mentally incapacitated is not an emancipating event warranting termination of a parent’s support obligation). Mr. Plante is also proud of the decision in the DeLeon vs. The Department of Retirement Services, Case # 04-0266 (February 23, 2005) in which he was able to obtain In the Line of Duty Death Benefits for a Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Deputy's widow whose husband died of a heart attack while working at his bait and tackle shop.  Another decision that Mr. Plante was involved in obtaining is Inquiry Concerning a Judge, Re:  The Honorable Charles W. Cope, Florida Supreme Court, NO. SC01-2670 (May 29, 2003) (successfully defended claims which if proven would have resulted in the judge's permanent removal from the bench).  These reported cases represent only a small fraction of the type of aggressive legal representation that Mr. Plante has provided to his clients over the last twelve years.

Mr. Plante is a member of the following sections of the Florida Bar: Business Law; Real Property; Probate and Trust and Labor & Employment Law