David is regularly named in peer review surveys as one of the top matrimonial attorneys in New York. For more than twenty-five years he has received the highest peer rating for competence and ethics (‘AV’) by the well-respected Martindale-Hubbell directory of attorneys.
“Best Lawyers in America” has twice, 2011 and again for 2018, named David as its “Lawyer of the Year” in the New York Metro Area. David has repeatedly been selected by “Super Lawyers” as among the “Top 100 Lawyers” in New York (including lawyers in all specialties).
Chambers and Partners, and Chambers USA, the respected British legal ratings publication, rates David as “Band 1″ the highest rating they provide, an honor they have extended to only three matrimonial lawyers in New York.
David was admitted to the bar in 1975 after graduating cum laude from Brooklyn Law School, where he was an Editor of the Law Review. Following his graduation, he served as the Law Clerk to a United States District Judge in Manhattan before joining the litigation department at one of New York City’s most prestigious law firms. Since 1983, David applied the skills he had acquired as a commercial litigator to the practice of matrimonial law and, for more than thirty years, has been among the most respected lawyers in the field.
Although an experienced and respected trial lawyer, David is proud of his reputation as a creative settlor of cases, who recognizes that whenever possible, disputes should be resolved through negotiation, and that trials should be viewed as a last resort. For that reason, other matrimonial lawyers have frequently turned to David to act as a mediator or arbitrator when their efforts to settle cases for their clients have deadlocked.
David is a member of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, the International Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, the American College of Family Trial Lawyers (which only has 100 members nationwide), the American Bar Association, the Association of the Bar of the City of New York (and sat as a member of that Association’s Council on Judicial Administration), and the New York State Bar Association. He is a former Adjunct Assistant Professor at Brooklyn Law School. He has served as Vice President and on the Board of Managers of the New York Chapter of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, as a member of the Executive Committee of the Family Law Section of the New York State Bar Association, and as a member of the Office of Court Administration’s Matrimonial Practice Advisory Committee and its predecessor, the New York State Courts Committee on Matrimonial Practice. As a committee member, David helped organize seminars, draft legislation, and regularly lectured to the sitting matrimonial judges and their staffs on such issues as valuation, equitable distribution, maintenance, and custody.
David has lectured at many professional and continuing legal education seminars. Among the organizations that have asked him to appear are the New York State Office of Court Administration, the New York State Judicial Institute, the Women’s Bar Association, the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, the American Society of Appraisers, the Association of Divorce Financial Planners, the Appellate Division, First Department of the Supreme Court of the State of New York, the New York City Family Court Summit, the Practicing Law Institute and the New York City, County and State Bar Associations.
David has been married to Inette Fox Aronson since 1978. They have a daughter, who is a theatrical director, and a son, who is a lawyer at Aronson Mayefsky & Sloan.