I was born in, and grew up in, Atlanta in the late 1960s and 1970s. I attended the Unitarian church with my mother but found a strong early influence in a Methodist Youth Fellowship, to which friends had invited me, in my early teens. I came to Stanford as an undergraduate, where I majored in Greek and Latin, but I didn’t dream of settling in California. I met my wife Rebecca Lyman in 1979 when we both studied at Oxford. In 1984, after I had finished law school and was clerking for a federal judge in Atlanta, I was baptized and confirmed in the Episcopal Church.
In 1985 Rebecca and I married, I moved to Berkeley to join her, and I started law practice in SF. We moved to the Peninsula in 1996. As a lawyer I represent technology and Internet companies in litigation challenges to their business models by other industries (especially the entertainment industry) that feel threatened by the Internet. I also litigate and advise on broader issues of copyright, trademark, advertising, freedom of speech/association, and Internet law. I am a partner at Fenwick & West in Mountain View. I have dropped to a 60 percent workload to start focusing on long-deferred reading and travel that interest me.
I have served on the vestries of St. Mark’s Berkeley (including stints as stewardship chair and Senior Warden) and Christ Church Portola Valley. I have also served on nonprofit boards of Theatreworks, the Ronald McDonald House at Stanford, the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, and The Stanford Daily Publishing Corporation (which I currently chair). I find St. Marks to be a wonderful spiritual home, integrating excellent preaching and liturgy, music, community service and outreach, social justice focus, clergy development, and a warm and embracing community. I would be delighted to support the people and mission of St. Mark’s on the vestry.