David V. Stiles is a Bakersfield native, graduating from Bakersfield High in 1968 where he served as Student Body President. He graduated with honors from UC Santa Barbara, worked in Bakersfield for the Dept. of Human Services for one year , and then attended UC Hastings College of Law in San Francisco. He graduated and was admitted to practice law in 1976. He returned to Bakersfield to join the practice of Morris Chain in 1977, and became a partner five years later. He has practiced without interruption at the firm for more than 33 years. His senior paralegal, Kay Roberts, recently was honored for completing 30 years with Chain Cohn Stiles as a member of Mr. Stiles's litigation team. Linda Houts, another top paralegal in the department, has an equal amount of experience at the firm in several departments. Marshall Frasher, an attorney working in Stiles' Department has 25 years of experience in insurance defense law prior to joining the firm, and now lends his expertise and experience to representing injured victims with Mr. Stiles at Chain Cohn Stiles. Stiles's practice in the San Joaquin Valley focuses on representing injured people who are the victims of negligence and reckless conduct in all settings. In addition, Stiles has represented employee groups such as Teachers and County and State Employees both in litigation and administrative hearings. He has extensive experience in Court, and has tried cases in almost every Southern California and Southern San Joaquin Valley jurisdiction.

Mr. Stiles is currently President-Elect of the San Joaquin Valley Chapter of The American Board of Trial Advocates, whose membership is composed of experienced trial attorneys dedicated to promoting civility in the profession, and advocating for fairness in media regarding the role of the judiciary in administering justice. He has served on the Kern County Bar Association Board of Directors, and has been appointed by the Kern County Superior Court to serve on the Alternative Dispute Resolution panel, as well as acting as an expert witness in legal matters. He is a long-time member of the California Association of Consumer Attorneys, and has served as a speaker in their continuing education programs. He has also been a regular contributor to Kern County Bar continuing education programs, and has served as a panelist for educational programs for the Young Lawyers section. He is also is a member of the American Trial Lawyers Association, and is a panelist and legal service provider for the California Association of Nursing Home Reform (CANHR). Likewise he has taught legal issues for the yearly "Coaches Clinics" for the Kern County Superintendant of Schools (educational clinics for volunteer coaches) for over twenty years. He received the award for outstanding service from the California Teachers Association Southern Sierra Council in 2004 citing his many years of service to Teachers and Public Education. .

Two special interest areas for Mr. Stiles are neglected children, particularly those in the foster care system, and neglected or exploited elders. He served on the Board of Directors of Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) for six years. His wife, Cynthia, is a past president of the Board and also deeply committed to the program. CASA supplies dependent children with an advocate in court—usually a non-lawyer who has received special training through the organization. The Stileses are long time program partners with CASA in sponsoring and promoting the vital efforts of the group, and have been honored many times by CASA as "Children's Advocates".

In the realm of neglected elders, Stiles has been active as a legal services provider and panel member in the Southern San Joaquin for the California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform. This group, based in the Bay Area, publishes information on nursing home citations and violations, advocates in the legislature, promotes pro bono work and education about Elder Abuse. The group has been instrumental in promulgating laws such as EADACPA (Welfare and Institutions Code 15600 et seq) designed to provide legal remedies to elders neglected or abused in custodial care. For over ten years, Stiles has litigated numerous cases in Court for the elderly, and took the first such case to trial in Kern County. We take great pride in the advances that have occurred due, in part, to efforts like these to protect the helpless.

In trial in the last two years, Mr. Stiles has had over $1.5 million in jury verdicts in favor of his clients, and many times that much in litigation settlements occurring before trial. These included several oilfield construction or installation accidents, a classroom injury to a teacher, a semi-truck vs. pickup collision, auto accidents, fall from bed in a nursing home, head injury to a child, medical negligence involving urgent care, traumatic brain injury, untreated hip fracture in a nursing home, and others.

Mr. Stiles has been married for 38 years to retired teacher Cynthia, and they have two children: Dr. Anne M. Stiles, Assistant Professor of English Literature at Washington State University, Pullman; and John Stiles, a software engineer at Blizzard Entertainment, where he has worked on popular entertainment software for PCs such as "Starcraft", "Warcraft", "World of Warcraft" and "Diablo". In addition to CASA, Cynthia is an accomplished plein air painter, and serves on the Board of Directors of the Bakersfield Art Association. Her work has appeared in the Bakersfield Californian, the Bakersfield Museum of Art Cunningham Gallery, the BAA gallery, and Dagney's Coffee where she had a one man show in 2010. As workshop chair, she has coordinated demonstrations and classes for numerous distinguished California painters at BAA including Brian Mark Taylor, Paul Buxman, Keith Wicks and others.

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