David W
Writer #57957
Joined 5/5/2021
5 Star Rating
100% Success
11,864 Projects
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0 Elite Skills
David has been a freelance writer since 2011. As a recovering lawyer, his main focus has been on legal topics. He has also written for real estate agents, insurance companies, tax consultants, theater production companies, and more.

The written word called to David long before he ever thought about law school, and even longer before he knew he could make a living as a writer. It all began in the early 1980s with Transformers fan fiction. High school angst poetry followed, along with a strange period that centered around haiku.

In college, David discovered a love of theater. He also thought he found his calling in the law. Law school allowed David to hone his legal writing skills, including fun words like "hereunder" and "thereafter." Theater and law collided for him in a law student theater organization called Assault and Flattery. David had the honor of writing the 2002 show, which was performed over four nights to about 1,000 people.

David practiced law in Austin, Texas for about a decade. His firm primarily handled family and business cases, with some employment law and general civil litigation. After about forty bench trials and more settlements than he cared to count, David decided it was time to move on to another adventure. Through multiple strokes of luck and an affinity for blogging, he discovered freelance writing as a career.

It is a privilege for David to be able to help people find ways to communicate about their businesses. Perhaps he can help you, too.
Insurance
Article
Web Page
Blog Post
Tax
Pets
FAQ
Medical
Real Estate
Legal
1 More

Specialties

David's education and experience as an attorney lend themselves to writing about legal topics. He has particular experience writing about employment law, criminal defense, and business law. That said, David has yet to encounter an area of law that he could not tackle — for writing purposes — with a bit of research.

Law school teaches you how to identify issues and solve problems. It does this much more than it teaches you how to be a lawyer. This has helped David as a writer by giving him insight into how to research complicated topics and find answers to difficult questions. As a result, he is comfortable taking on an eclectic array of projects.

Since we're talking about specialties, though, David is your guy if you need writing on legal issues.

Interests

David is a tremendous nerd who loves learning at nearly all times. Freelance writing gives him the opportunity to learn every time he sits down at his computer.

When he is not writing, David might be playing with his dogs, reading a book (history and science fiction are his favorites), or watching some geeky television. He has been known to contribute as a performer to the Austin improv scene, and he has appeared in a few locally-produced short films. When David is writing, he has a secret room in his house where he tortures metaphors.

Education

University of Texas School of Law

Class of 2002

Rice University

Class of 1997

Legal

5,024 Projects Completed

David has been a freelance writer with a focus on legal topics since 2011. Before that, he was a lawyer for close to decade. He is fairly familiar with writing about law.

Business

503 Projects Completed

David has written on topics like business law, employer-employee relations, business marketing, and business formation.

Medical

500 Projects Completed

David has written extensively on topics related to medical malpractice, nursing home abuse and neglect, risk management, and more.

Real Estate

500 Projects Completed

In his career as a freelance writer, David has written for real estate agents, real estate attorneys, mortgage lenders, and more.

Tax

401 Projects Completed

David has written about issues relating to federal income tax, gift and estate taxes, taxes during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the treatment of tax debts in bankruptcy.

Insurance

103 Projects Completed

David has written for insurance companies of topics related to risk management and cybersecurity.

Pets

50 Projects Completed

David is a dog person. It is important to say that up front. David is rather obsessed with dogs. He often likes dogs more than he likes their humans. But that tells you nothing about David as a writer.

David has worked in various capacities as a volunteer for several animal welfare and advocacy organizations. In these roles, he has written about topics like the practical aspects of caring for dogs and the legal duties of a human to their dog.

None of this is to say that David could not, if given the opportunity, write about something other than dogs. David likes cats, although it might be more accurate to say he respects cats. Cats make no apologies for who they are, and they brook little nonsense from humans. David respects that.

Blog Post

3,302 Projects Completed

David has been a ghostblogger for lawyers, law firms, and other clients since 2011. He has also maintained several blogs of his own over the years. The number 3,000 is David's best estimate of the total number of posts he has written for clients over the past decade.

Web Page

1,310 Projects Completed

David has written website copy for dozens of clients over the past decade. Most of these have been lawyers and law firms, but not all of them. David is well-versed in the non-technical aspects of SEO. Give him your keywords and he will make them dance on the screen.

Article

121 Projects Completed

David has written articles for web publications on topics ranging from employment law to the peculiarities of human communication.

FAQ

50 Projects Completed

- How many FAQs has David written?

He would estimate around 50 in recent years.

- How does David write FAQs for a client?

He likes to begin by talking to the client to get a sense of their business and their style. FAQs can be a way for a client to express themselves. Someone in a more buttoned-down profession — accountants and many lawyers, for example — probably want to be conservative and straightforward in their answers. People in other fields might be able to get away with having a little fun with it. Once David has an idea of how to approach the FAQs, he asks the client if they want him to include any particular questions.

- Don't you think this gimmick of writing FAQs to describe David's experience with FAQs is a bit silly?

You're a bit silly.

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