David is chair of the firm's Utility & Energy Practice Group and focuses his work on regulatory, commercial, and development issues involving utilities. He has dedicated his career to defending private enterprise against governmental overreach.
David practices before state and federal regulatory agencies, representing clients in the energy (natural gas and electricity), water, wastewater, telecommunications, and transportation industries. He is experienced in base rate, certificate of public convenience, purchased gas cost, steam cost, distribution system improvement charge, electric and natural gas supplier licensing, formal complaint, safety investigation, securities registration, management audit, affiliated interest, rulemaking, policy-making, and tariff proceedings before the PA Public Utility Commission. He has successfully handled approvals of mergers and acquisitions of regulated public utilities, including acquisitions by equity funds, and has helped to defend utilities against a hostile takeover attempt. He has also represented clients in disputes between regulated public utilities and municipal authorities, and has assisted developers and large institutional clients (such as universities and health systems) in negotiating utility contracts.
David serves as the Office Managing Partner of the firm's Harrisburg Office. He has also served on the firm's Management Committee, Shareholder Nominating Committee (Co-Chairing for two years), and Marketing Committee.
From 2001 to 2004, David served as counsel to the former chairman of the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission Glen R. Thomas. Prior to state service, he served three years as a captain in the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General's Corps. While in the Army, he practiced as a courts-martial prosecutor and a special assistant U.S. attorney for the Western District of Kentucky.
David has been designated a Super Lawyers "Rising Star" from 2005 through 2008. In 2005, the Central Penn Business Journal named him one of Central Pennsylvania's "Forty Under 40," and in 2004, The Legal Intelligencer named him a "Lawyer on the Fast Track." In 2002, he was commissioned by Pennsylvania Governor Mark Schweiker as a member of the Pennsylvania Homeland Security Council. In 2008, he served as a member of the Pennsylvania Governor's Sustainable Water Infrastructure Task Force, Legislative/Regulatory Work Group. In 2007, he served on the York County, Pa., Commissioners' Transition Team.
He is an active participant on the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission's Procedural Rules Committee and serves as a faculty planner for the Pennsylvania Bar Institute's Public Utility Law Conference. He is a member of the American Legion Post No. 799 in York, Pennsylvania.
David received his bachelor's degree from Grove City College, graduating magna cum laude. He earned his J.D., from The Dickinson School of Law. He was a member of the Dickinson Law Review and on the Appellate Moot Court Board.