David is the oldest of seven children from a loving and free-spirited Chicago family. At the age of 14, he entered the seminary to become a priest, but discovered this was not his path in life. He went on to law school where he served on the writing staff of the Law Review. Beginning in 1977, David practiced for nearly four decades as a trial lawyer in the medical-legal field. He regularly lectured to physicians and lawyers, published in legal and medical journals, and was a guest lecturer at the University of Notre Dame Law School. During these years he volunteered with the Legal Assistance Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago, and eventually becoming Chair of the Board of Directors. In the early 1990s, David went back to school and earned his Masters Degree in Theology with a major in ethics, and for the next several years served on the Ethics Advisory Board ("EAB") of Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago. While at Children's, he lectured to interns and residents on medical-legal issues, participated with the EAB in attempting to resolve heartbreaking medical situations, and was instrumental in organizing the first ethics retreat at the hospital. In the late 1990s, David was invited on to the Board of Directors of Friends Without A Border, an American-Japanese charity that provides medical care to the children of Southeast Asia; as well as formal training for doctors, nurses, and other healthcare workers. (See "Friends" at www.fwab.org.) In 2015, David retired from the practice of law and stepped down from the Friends Board to volunteer full time as Executive Director of Friends where he oversaw the founding and initial development of Lao Friends Hospital for Children in Luang Prabang, Lao PDR. David has studied and practiced meditation for more than four decades, including training with recognized masters in Europe, Israel, Nepal, Tibet, and the United States. He has taught introductory meditation courses including seminars for lawyers at the Chicago Bar Association; and in 2006, served as one of four group facilitators at the "Compassion in the Rockies Retreat: A Meditation for World Peace" at which the Dalai Lama, Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, and Rabbi Irwin Kula gave teachings. David and his wife Joan have three adult children. In 2018, David and Joan moved from Chicago to a home on a lake in Northwest Indiana where David writes, and they both enjoy spending time with their son, Zak, his wife, Jeannie, and their grandchildren, Oliver and Eloise.
