Attorney
Memphis, Tennessee, 38117
While not “born on a mountaintop in Tennessee,” attorney David W. Hill was born among the mountains and rivers of East Tennessee, in Knoxville. His parents were each the first members of their immediate families to obtain college degrees, and they were determined that their children would also have the best educations possible. When Mr. Hill's father died while Mr. Hill was very young, his mother – who did not know how to drive, did not own a car, and had no job – was faced with maintaining the family and raising two children by herself. However, she was not alone – extended family and neighbors assisted with the children and through helping on the farm, gardening, and performing other chores. Mr. Hill and his younger brother learned the value of hard work and family. During this time, Mr. Hill also developed a life-long love of animals.
Following his father’s death, Mr. Hill's mother found a job as a teacher. As a result of being a teacher’s son, Mr. Hill found that he had free run of the school's library. Using that resource, he become an avid reader in many subjects, remaining near the top of his class throughout his public school education and winning a public speaking contest. He also picked up his mother's love of music and musical skills (she had played the saxophone and sang publicly at various venues since her youth, and had even cut a couple of demo records), and joined the school band. He eventually earned the position of section leader in the band and learned the valuable lessons of teamwork and mutual accomplishment. He also learned that groups working together in a common interest can usually accomplish more than individuals. Pursuing his love of music, Mr. Hill enrolled in the music education program at Tennessee Technological University.
While at Tennessee Tech, Mr. Hill reveled in meeting and getting to know people of many different races, religions, and economic backgrounds. He learned to work with different types of people and different types of music, playing in marching bands, orchestras, jazz bands, rock and roll bands, and performing a solo recital. He rose to the level of supervisor of music department student workers and was elected president of his fraternity, turning that organization into a dedicated service group for the music department. For the next 10 years following graduation, Mr. Hill served as a band director, teaching students of all ages, writing marching band shows and music, and judging marching band competitions in East Tennessee and Southeast Kentucky. From 1993 through 1995, he served as vice president of the Tennessee Secondary School Band Directors Association.
While working toward his master's degree, Mr. Hill took a class in the law of education and children. Based upon the professor’s suggestion and his own interest in public service, Mr. Hill and his four cats moved to Memphis where he enrolled at the University of Memphis, Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law. While in law school, Mr. Hill worked in the legal clinic program, was elected president of the Public Interest Law Organization, and clerked at a law firm that represented insurance companies. Mr. Hill was ready to hit the ground running as a lawyer, trying his first court case through a Tennessee Supreme Court program established through the legal clinic affiliated with Memphis Area Legal Services, while still a law student.
Following graduation from law school, Mr. Hill went to work for a small, long-established law firm, handling personal injury, workers’ compensation, and other cases on behalf of individuals. Mr. Hill had seen the defense side of personal injury cases while working during law school and decided that he did not want to represent insurance companies. He was immediately immersed in litigation and trial appearances, handling injury cases in Tennessee state and federal courts, as well as disability appeals before the Social Security Administration. Mr. Hill especially enjoyed handling cases in which he could protect the rights and damages of families and children.
Mr. Hill joined Nahon, Saharovich & Trotz as a litigator in 2001. There, he continued to represent injured individuals and families in personal injury matters, handling automobile accident cases, workers’ compensation cases, wrongful death cases, and other negligence cases. Over time, he also handled products liability and medical malpractice cases. Mr. Hill also began representing clients and the families of those injured or killed by defective and dangerous pharmaceutical products, and he became the chair of the firm’s Mass Torts Litigation Practice Group.
As Nahon, Saharovich & Trotz has a reputation for excellence not just throughout the Memphis community but also into Arkansas and Mississippi, and was able to represent clients in those states as well, Mr. Hill took bar exams and became licensed in both of those states so that he would be able to serve the needs of clients in those states. He was later granted law licenses in Kentucky and Missouri, in order to also represent injured people and families in those states.
In 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020, Mr. Hill was selected by Super Lawyers as one of the Top 50 Super Lawyers in Memphis and was among the Top 100 Super Lawyers in Tennessee. Super Lawyers is an organization that rates attorneys based upon peer nomination and review and individual achievement. Mr. Hill is appreciative and very grateful for this rare honor and privilege in the legal community.
Mr. Hill is married and resides in Shelby County, Tennessee with his wife and multiple cats. He and his wife are active in supporting animal rights and various local organizations for the support of animals and people in need in the community. Mr. Hill maintains and promotes the importance of families and of groups working together in order to produce something more valuable as a whole than any individual effort could accomplish – peace and justice.
