About David Barton
Education
Stanford University
B.A., Philosophy, 1988.
Graduated in three years, with distinction and honors.
University of California, Berkeley
Ph.D., Philosophy, 1994.
University of California, Berkeley
J.D., 2002.
Member of the California Law Review.
Career
After receiving a Ph.D. in philosophy, David taught philosophy at the University of Oregon, University of California, Davis, and Swarthmore College, where he was a Mellon post-doctoral fellow.
David then attended law school and went on to pursue a commercial litigation practice at the San Francisco boutique litigation firm of Folger, Levin & Kahn and at the San Francisco office of Crowell and Moring. He successfully represented sophisticated clients in nationally high-profile cases:
• He defended the board of directors of McKessonHBOC in an accounting fraud case that ended in the largest settlement in 9th Circuit history (at the time) but no liability for the board members.
• He helped coordinate General Motors’ successful response to federal investigations relating to the spin-off of its supplier, Delphi.
• He successfully defended Enterprise Rent-A-Car in a wrongful termination case brought by its chief accountant.
David joined the legal team at St. Luke’s Health System in 2011, where he managed litigation for the organization until retiring in 2025. As St. Luke’s Deputy General Counsel, David oversaw litigation in the areas of insurance, health care and health care compliance, antitrust, defamation, contracts, and employment. He also served as chair of the creditors’ committee in the complex bankruptcy of Corizon Health.
David has attended a forty-hour mediation course and is listed as a civil case mediator for the Idaho court system. He is licensed in California and Idaho.
David lives in the North End of Boise with his wonderful family and enormous Bernese Mountain Dog. He continues to study and write about philosophy, and he presented a summary of his current work on Aristotle’s conception of law to the Boise State philosophy department in the fall of 2025.