Tending the Garden at the Intersection of Design, Law and Policy
David has taught Negotiation by Design at the d.school, and Advanced Negotiation at Stanford Law School, since 2016. He recently did a stint as a Visiting Professor at the National University of Singapore Law Faculty, teaching Negotiation by Design for Lawyers.
David’s legal career began in the courtroom with over thirty first-chair trials and appeals, including two state supreme court arguments. In Silicon Valley he has been General Counsel to private, public and non-profit tech companies across social media, biotech, systems design and higher education. He has testified as an expert witness in federal court, before the California Senate, and Congress. He returned to DC to deliver a policy and strategy memo for Vice-President Al Gore on the Waxman-Markey GHG cap-and-trade bill, HR2454.
In 2014, with the gracious assistance of d.school Prof. Leticia Britos-Cavagnaro, David created and delivered the world’s first free online course (MOOC) on Negotiation to over 10,000 students in 47 countries. Thereafter, General Electric took a five-year exclusive license to the course for their global in-house executive education program ‘Brilliant You.’
For his JSM degree at SLS, David’s interdisciplinary research and writing explored object-oriented modeling and fuzzy set theory as possible design modalities for environmental law- and policy-making, eliciting from his advisor “you’re one of the most widely-read people I know.” Backhanded compliments notwithstanding, David continues with his work on design, law and policy. His recent publications include "Design for Legal Systems," 33 SAcLJ 387 (Singapore Academy of Law, 2021) and "Designing Online Mediation: Does ‘Just Add Tech’ Undermine its Ownmost Aim?" Direito GV Law Review (Sao Paulo, 2020)(links below).
In addition to writing and teaching, David is an avid skier and sailor, and a diligent but decidedly average tennis player.
