David M. Walsh (JD 1985) leads USC Gould Board of Councilors, continuing his legacy of service.
Behind the scenes, David M. Walsh (JD 1985) has been a quiet force at the USC Gould School of Law for more than 20 years. Last May, he stepped into the spotlight in his new role as chair of the USC Gould Board of Councilors (BoC).
Composed of professional, business and community leaders, the 42-member board advises USC Gould deans and faculty on top school priorities and advocates for essential research, education and public service programs. Individually, councilors function as Gould ambassadors to the greater Los Angeles legal community. They also assist in securing financial support from individuals, corporations and foundations.
Walsh’s predecessor was Tom Larkins (JD 1986), who was formerly general counsel for Silicon Valley-based semiconductor manufacturer Applied Materials. Following Larkins’ strong leadership example, Walsh will focus on three concrete goals:
- Advancing the new building. A new six-level facility is set to rise directly west of the current Musick Law Building. With numerous academic programs introduced in recent years, including an undergraduate major in legal studies, “USC Gould is educating more students than ever,” Walsh says, “and we urgently need a building that provides the level of educational services a school of our reputation and quality deserves.” Walsh plans to keep the USC Gould community informed about and focused on this critical facility as it moves forward.
- Get to know our classmates again. “I have so many wonderful memories from my three years at USC Gould,” Walsh says. “The best part of those memories is the people — my friends, classmates and professors.” Having co-chaired two of his class reunions, Walsh wants to spark increased engagement within each alumni class. “We need to identify key players who can unify each class and take ownership of reunions,” he says. Walsh points to his own Class of 1985 as a model of alumni engagement, with unusually high levels of participation. “My experience is that it’s far more likely people will attend a reunion if a friend is asking them to come,” he says.
- Celebrate our 125th birthday. “USC Gould has been educating lawyers and sending them out to be a positive influence in their communities for 125 years,” Walsh “It is time to take a moment to celebrate ourselves and our law school.” Special events are planned throughout the year and a campaign is underway to support scholarships, clinics and the new law school building. “Each person can have an impact. My goal is to spread the effort. Instead of everybody pulling one big oar, let’s get a whole bunch of oars in the water, with everyone pulling in the same direction.”
Past Service as Prologue
Walsh was primed to take the lead on the BoC, having devoted many years to public service in the charitable and pro bono communities.
At 26, he joined the board of Chrysalis, eventually becoming chair and helping to lead the homeless employment agency’s expansion into Santa Monica. As board members of the Alliance for Housing and Healing, he and Laurie Hasencamp (JD 1985) helped to grow the HIV/AIDS housing and services agency from a single group home to more than 250 housing units. With two friends, Walsh founded Urban Compass, an inner-city after school enrichment program. He was a board member and chair of Queens Care, a $600 million charitable foundation providing health care services to economically disadvantaged and uninsured people. Walsh was a board member of the Inner City Law Center for 13 years and is a longtime trustee of Catholic Charities of Los Angeles. For his pro bono and public service work, the USC Barbara F. Bice Public Interest Law Foundation recognized Walsh with its Paul R. Davis Award.
His past service at USC Gould has focused on promoting federal judicial clerkships to 1L and 2L students, with the goal of elevating the prestige and perceived value of clerking on par with participation in moot court and law review.
“I found clerking to be such a rewarding experience that I thought more people should be doing it,” he says. “It is something we should nurture.”
Starting in the early 2000s, Walsh collaborated with USC Gould’s former director of legal writing Jean Rosenbluth (JD 1993), now a U.S. District Court Magistrate Judge, and Hasencamp, who is a former BoC chair, to establish the Judicial Clerkship Program. Each semester, it hosts opportunities to meet judges and former judicial clerks and, in partnership with the Career Services Office, extends hands-on assistance throughout the clerkship search and application process.
Walsh, together with his wife, Monica Miller Walsh, established an endowment honoring the legacy of Judge Howard Boyd Turrentine. Crowd-funded by the late U.S. District Court judge’s former clerks, the endowment provides scholarships and supports USC Gould’s Judicial Clerkship Program and its annual reception for the incoming class of judicial clerks.
Walsh and his wife also rallied former clerks of Judge Alicemarie Huber Stotler (BA 1964, JD 1967) to establish a USC Gould scholarship named for the esteemed Central District of California chief judge. “Fourteen of the judge’s law clerks graduated from USC Gould School of Law,” Walsh wrote in a 2014 article in USC Law Magazine.
From Literature to Litigation
Walsh’s energetic charitable, pro bono and alumni service stem from a deep sense of intellectual gratitude.
“USC Gould did an excellent job of teaching my brain to think,” says Walsh, 63, who earlier this year retired from Paul Hastings, having enjoyed a long and distinguished career in commercial, real estate and environmental litigation.
Growing up in Arcadia and Woodland Hills, Walsh was a dedicated equestrian. As a freshman at UCLA, he followed a pre-med path “under the strong belief that I was going to be a doctor.” After transferring to UC Santa Barbara in his sophomore year, Walsh found he liked literary criticism more than chemistry and calculus. At the urging of his Milton professor, Walsh switched majors and graduated in 1982 with a bachelor’s in English.
“It was USC Gould that gave me a disciplined approach to evaluating the real factors impacting any decision: the human, the economic, the political factors. I gained the gift of critical thinking, and equally important, thinking quickly. I learned how to assess situations, identify risks and recognize opportunities in the moment,” he says.
After law school, Walsh was an associate in the L.A. offices of Bronson, Bronson & McKinnon. In 1987, he took a leave of absence to clerk for U.S. District Court Judge Howard B. Turrentine in the Southern District.
Both he and his future wife clerked in Judge Turrentine’s chambers. She went on to become an assistant U.S. Attorney. Now both retired, the Walshes live in San Marino and have two adult children: Alec, 24, graduated with bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Stanford University; Katie, 18, is a freshman at Middlebury College.
After his clerkship, Walsh left the Bronson firm in 1999, having risen to managing partner in L.A., in order to join Paul Hastings, where he spent most of his career. In 2013, he moved his practice to Morrison & Foerster but returned to Paul Hastings in 2020. Walsh stepped away from the firm in May 2024, just as his term as BoC chair began. He continues to work as a pro bono mediator for the federal courts.
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