David Deal serves as outside general counsel and strategic counsel for companies and transactions at the intersection of technology and insurance. His clients include growth-stage tech companies — especially those selling into insurance and financial services — insurance entities navigating growth or transformation, and investors and deal-makers evaluating tech or insurance complexity. He sees around corners, professionalizes legal infrastructure, identifies and protects against enterprise risks, and accelerates deal cycles on the complex, high-value transactions that require both legal and regulatory fluency to close.
What distinguishes David from most attorneys advising in this space is that he has not just counseled these companies from the outside — he has run them from the inside. Before returning to private practice, David served as Chief Legal Officer at multiple high-growth technology and insurance companies, including a company that scaled from $10M to $100M in revenue in under three years, an InsurTech company acquired by a Fortune 50 insurer, a payment services company that grew to a valuation exceeding $1 billion, and a $500M, international SaaS company serving global insurance enterprises. Earlier in his career, he served as senior corporate counsel at Apple Inc. and Allianz, two of the largest companies in the world.
That operating experience — having sat in the C-suite, managed P&L responsibility for a legal function, and been accountable for outcomes rather than just advice — is what his clients actually engage him for.
What David Does
Outside General Counsel for Growth-Stage Companies
David serves as the senior outside legal voice for technology companies that have no in-house legal team or a lean one that is already in over its head. He advises across the full spectrum of what a general counsel does — commercial contracts, vendor and customer agreements, employment and executive matters, corporate governance, board advisory, and operational risk management — bringing Fortune 50 legal infrastructure thinking at a fraction of the cost of an in-house hire. His particular value is finding and fixing the legal and operational problems that accumulate faster than they are managed during periods of rapid growth or strategic pivot — before they surface in a dispute, a regulatory action, a failed financing, or a diligence process.
Insurance and Regulated Industry Transactions
David advises on the full range of insurance regulatory and transactional matters that generalist counsel cannot handle — insurer, MGA, MGU, TPA, and reinsurance structures; captive and fronting arrangements; change-of-control transactions requiring state insurance department approval; multi-state licensing and market conduct; and embedded insurance and InsurTech operating models. He regularly supports PE sponsors and strategic acquirers on M&A transactions involving regulated entities, advising on the insurance and regulatory dimensions that affect deal pricing, structure, and viability. He frequently addresses regulatory strategy for major insurers, producers, and insurance-adjacent companies.
Complex Technology and Commercial Transactions
David closes the deals that other lawyers cannot — high-value, multi-party, cross-border agreements involving insurance companies, financial institutions, and other regulated counterparties. His commercial transaction work spans SaaS, PaaS, technology licensing, embedded insurance, co-development, distribution, and managed services agreements. He has closed more than 250 deals with top U.S. insurance companies worth multiple billions in committed value, including multiple individual transactions exceeding $1 billion, and complex $5M+ deals in a matter of days when the business required it.