When a lawyer needs a lawyer, David is the one to call. In all matters of legal ethics and professional responsibility, David provides attorneys and their firms practical advice on issues of disciplinary exposure, financial risk, and conflicts of interest.

An eminent authority on attorney grievance complaints, malpractice suits, and the panoply of disputes between lawyers, their firms, and their clients, David’s credentials include a three-year term as chair of the New York City Bar Association’s prestigious Professional Responsibility Committee. He has also served on the state level, with the New York State Bar Association’s Committee on Standards of Attorney Conduct (COSAC). These committees are at the vanguard of the legal ethics field, studying and recommending changes to rules and procedures that directly affect the practice of law.

David’s own practice reflects this experience. He represents lawyers and firms wherever the Rules of Professional Conduct come into play – from partnership disputes to privilege and confidentiality issues – from conflicts of interest to bar admission problems. He defends clients facing attorney grievance complaints, disqualification motions and other court matters.

David is quick to make the distinction between ethics and morality. He understands that one’s morals are not always an accurate guide to what the ethics rules proscribe.

To help lawyers grasp this distinction, David advises both outside and inside counsel – including Fortune 500 companies – on issues of ethical risk management. At his lectures and seminars, he teaches how to avoid disciplinary complaints and malpractice charges – to make sure engagement letters, conflict waivers, and other basic procedures are scrupulously executed in a way that reduces exposure. Prevention, to David, is always preferable to litigation.

David’s approach to legal ethics – a field known for its rigidity, is to keep an open mind. He prefers to think through his client’s entire situation, looking for other – possibly better – options than what is immediately evident.

For his clients – those lawyers and firms that may have strayed from the rules, thereby putting their careers and businesses at risk – David’s thorough and carefully considered approach provides the guidance that puts those clients on the right track.