David’s combined experience as a lawyer, whose work has ranged from iconic water rights matters to returning billions of dollars to defrauded investors in equity receiverships, and as an executive, guiding strategy, staffing, solution-based pricing, and more, provides substantive value to the clients he serves. Whether routine or novel, his clients are confident that he will find a viable approach for anything that arises. In particular, David is known for his ability to find a path for resolving unique questions—where answers are not clear-cut—or sorting peculiar facts outside of established law.
Although water resources, firm management, and creditors’ rights may seem distinctly different, they do have one thing in common—scarce resources. There's not enough water for the environment, business, and population growth. A law firm has a finite supply of talent, time, and resources to be spread among many competing goods. And, by definition, no debtor-creditor problem ever arises where there is enough money. Each is familiar territory for David, where he is adept at dividing a limited pie among unlimited expectations.
WATER RESOURCES
As water supply issues become more extreme nationwide, but particularly in the West, water resources and water rights are critical for businesses to succeed. David works with clients in enterprises as diverse as real estate development, manufacturing, agriculture, solar renewables, and public utilities to resolve their water challenges through negotiation or litigation, if necessary.
Demand caused by population growth, economic activity, and migration is outpacing supply, especially in California. There, David represents real estate developers—commercial, industrial, and residential—and other businesses in all aspects of water resources, from finding water and fighting for water rights to increasing access to existing supplies and getting water to where it is needed.
Over the years, his work has covered master-planned communities, golf courses, farms, landfills, plant and tree nurseries, ranches, solar renewables, sand, aggregates, and aquaculture operations. He has appeared on behalf of his clients before state and federal courts, the California State Water Resources Control Board, and numerous local public agencies, handling significant matters involving the Colorado River, groundwater adjudications, and agriculture to urban water transfers, among others.
David is one of a handful of highly experienced legal resources in California, and beyond. Among his notable achievements, he was intricately involved in negotiating and documenting over a dozen agreements that settled the most significant water matters regarding the Colorado River in the last 50 years.
CREDITORS’ RIGHTS
David is widely recognized as an authority on creditor and debtor rights in out-of-court workouts and restructurings, federal and state court receiverships, and reorganizations and liquidation bankruptcy proceedings.
Primarily, he represents creditors—national, international, and institutional investors and lenders—in restructuring distressed real estate deals and developments.
David has advised and represented secured lenders with collateral ranging from shopping malls and golf courses to hotels, casinos, office buildings, and toll roads. He has represented bankruptcy trustees and examiners in multi-million dollar cases. His creditor committee clients cover matters related to subdivision development, business-to-business e-commerce, manufacturing, hospitality, and entertainment interests, among others.
EQUITY RECEIVERSHIPS
David has handled more Securities Exchange Commission receivership cases—by size and value—than nearly any other lawyer in California. A Fellow in the American College of Bankruptcy (one of only four elected in San Diego), David has been involved in receiverships involving tens of billions of dollars of fraudulent investments, which resulted in the return of billions of dollars to investors.
A sample of major cases David has handled include representing equity receivers in:
- a senior living and real estate development company;
- a hedge fund;
- a company involved in factoring medical receivables;
- an unregistered day trading firm;
- an internet auto-surfing program;
- a prime bank investment scheme; and
- several investment advisory firms.
David is an active member of the American Bankruptcy Institute and the Section of Business Law of the American Bar Association. He serves on the panel of bankruptcy mediators for the Southern District of California and is a frequent lecturer at debtor-creditor industry conferences.
