David Feldman, Esq. the founder and Managing Partner of Feldman, Weinstein & Smith LLP is vigorous, friendly, charming, focused, direct and contemplative—aware of his character and mindful of his motivation.  He’s managed to fuse his appreciation for tradition and his penchant toward non-conformity into a boutique law firm where his nine partners and their eleven associates perform work they enjoy in an emotionally, professionally and financially fulfilling atmosphere.

Personally David remains close to his roots.  He still lives in Woodmere, Long Island, the town in which he grew up, with his one and only wife of 22 years Barbra and the two children to whom they are both devoted—their generous and outgoing 17-year-old daughter, Sammi, who matriculates at Brandeis in the fall and five-year-old Andrew, “the miracle baby,“ who appeared just when David and Barbra had despaired of ever having the second child they’d both wanted for so long.  Although they both attended Lawrence Woodmere Academy, David and Barbra first noticed each other during the summer before she went off to Brandeis in Boston and he returned to Philadelphia to attend Penn Law School after graduating from Penn’s Wharton School.  Their subsequent four year long-distance romance was a bonanza for Amtrak.

David’s father was a fine orthopedic surgeon, but after watching him operate once, David understood that he and blood did not belong in the same room.  “I always knew I had an entrepreneurial bent.  I was the eight-year-old kid who sold lemonade at a stand on the street.”  He managed his high school newspaper and UPenn’s student radio station to test his leadership skills.  While an undergraduate at Penn he invested his Bar Mitzvah money in a day camp on Long Island.  His partner was his high school soccer coach, a man he knew and respected.  Four year later, the coach bought out David’s interest for five times his original investment, setting a precedent to which David still adheres.  He only does business with people he knows, likes and trusts. 

David went to law school, “because my parents made me go.  They didn’t consider a business career a suitable profession.  Luckily I enjoyed Law School and considered it the completion of my business education.”  When he was 23-years-old and still in law school, he and the co-manager of the UPenn Station bought a daytime AM station in Daytona Beach, Florida.  “I think that’s when I really became an entrepreneur. You can’t call yourself one unless you’ve suffered a significant setback.  I learned a lot from this experience.  Our biggest problem was the actual legal fees which were four times greater than our lawyers projected.  I wouldn’t have minded the bigger fee but I resented the surprise because it left us under capitalized, however, we sold the station for enough money to return their investment to our backers.”

David turned down a job at a Manhattan law firm to join Rivkin Radler, the family firm on Long Island.  His uncle was Rivkin.  “Within a year I realized that they only did litigation which didn’t interest me.  I think litigation, by nature, is destructive.  I prefer to be negotiating and creating deals which, by nature, is constructive.  Litigators have to convince a supposedly objective third party that they are righter than the other guy.  What I do is harder.  I have to convince my adversary to change his mind and do something the way I think it should be done.  Sometimes I also have to convince my client.  I would rather rule the boardroom that the courtroom.  I enjoy that challenge and I’m good at it.”

David moved back to Manhattan, working at Fullbright & Jaworski where he got fantastic training.  “It was a very difficult lifestyle, but I loved what I learned.  I always wanted to have my own clients, so I networked and got some, but they gave me no compensation for bringing in business.  All they cared about was associates providing them with billable hours.”  Three years later, David moved to Pryor Cashman where he was compensated for bringing in business but his value was still based “not on my efficiency or speed in concluding a transaction but at my skill in providing accounting with billable hours, which I think is a conflict of interest.  The lawyers’ goal is to run the bill up.  The clients’ goal is the opposite and he’s always uneasy.  If you’re in a big firm and you spot an issue, you pass it down to an associate to check out and the client gets billed for 10,000 dollars.  We communicate rather than bill.  We advise our clients about any problems and allow them to decide themselves whether researching that issue matters to them.”

The birth of his daughter Sammi changed David’s life.  “The morning after she was born I got a call from the firm saying they needed me back there immediately.  For the next six weeks I worked 15 hours a day 7 days a week.  I never saw my kid, never saw the friends and family who came to visit us.  I didn’t mind working hard but I wanted control of my life.”  The solution was to use his entrepreneurial energies to build his own law firm.  “I truly love the practice of law, steering clients through challenges, solving seemingly insolvable problems and using my brain every day.”

So in 1992, at age 31 with a two-year-old daughter, a mortgage and a busy but non-working wife, David walked away from a six figure salary and started a partnership with a friend.  “Just two guys and a secretary who is now my office manager.  Things went more slowly than I had anticipated in my three year plan.  Unfortunately we were adding overhead as quickly as we were building income and I was taking home less money than I thought I should be. Things got tough but then I realized as a solo guy with no secretary I could double my income and that’s what happened.  In 1996, I opened the Law Offices of David Feldman—just me, a small client base, a phone, a desk and a computer which grew into the 22 lawyer firm we have today.  I’ve grown slowly because the law business suffers from reverse economies of scale.  The larger you grow, the less profitable you are.”

In 1997, the firm became capable of handling litigation, intellectual property, and later, tax and trusts & estates along with hedge fund and broker-dealer regulation, private bank lending and employee benefits.  In 2000, David added partners with clients of their own which smoothed out the firm’s cash flow.

David has also found a very interesting niche.  He’s become the leading expert on reverse mergers, and has written a book on that subject that even been translated into Chinese.  China is where many of these transactions now take place.  In a reverse merger, a private company becomes publicly traded through a merger with a publicly held “shell” company, saving legal and marketing costs and avoiding the market risks associated with an IPO.

As managing partner David has structured some billing innovations.  The one that pleases his clients most is the firm’s flat fee structure, “which a client suggested and which resonated with me because of my own history.”  Throughout its history, the firm’s philosophy has remained unwavering.  The focus is and has been on the highest quality work, efficiency and speed, reasonable cost, responsiveness and attention to detail.

Internally, a family atmosphere reigns.  Attorneys and staff work hard, but balance work with their private lives, making them more energized and content.  Loyalty runs from staff to partners and very strongly and directly back.  In the end, though, David’s number one priority is his clients, their needs, and their protection.  “I like everyone I work with, both clients and partners and associates.  We all consider each other friends.”