David Commins

After 40 years as a successful trial lawyer and firm owner, David Commins has moved to full-time mediation and arbitration.  For more than 25 years, informed by his experience as a litigator, trial lawyer and arbitrator, David has successfully mediated hundreds of cases. “I have enjoyed mediating and arbitrating - I felt it was a calling - which is why I decided to focus my career full-time on ADR.” The majority of these disputes have called upon his years of experience in commercial, financial services and securities matters but also include employment, wage and hour, insurance, real estate, construction defect, personal injury and medical malpractice cases, ranging in size from two party cases to complex, multi-party matters involving nine figures.

David’s mediation style is adaptable, creative, patient and persistent, aimed at understanding each party’s priorities, building trust, facilitating negotiation and assisting parties to their best path to settlement.

“I started mediating when two brothers who owned a successful wine business but could not run it together asked me to mediate their diverging interests.  This process led to my service on the board of their company and the eventual sale of the company’s assets for $140 million in October 2001.  Since then, I have mediated many disputes, and finally decided that helping parties settle was what I wanted to do full time.”

Personal Interests

David is on the board of Grateful Gatherings, a Bay Area charitable organization that puts homeless people in homes.  He regularly repairs donated furniture before it is delivered to those homes.  For more than 40 years he has been an instructor in the University of California Martial Arts Program in both Yongmudo and Taekwondo.  He has taught martial arts to children, college students, and older adults.  He is on the board of Yongmudo USA, the national governing organization for Yongmudo.  He speaks Italian and Swedish.