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Balancing caution and progress matters at a company focused on economic empowerment. Block’ s purpose is to help individuals, businesses, artists, and others access and benefit from the economy. For David, that mission comes to life when disagreements happen.“ We can never get cynical. There’ s a real person on the other side of a dispute. Maybe the problem is theirs, maybe it’ s ours, but you always want to find a solution that works for everyone and remember where they’ re coming from.”
Understanding people is just one part of resolving disputes. The other is anticipating how a disagreement might play out. David’ s early trial experience still shapes how he approaches cases today.“ It’ s helpful and fundamental at the outset to realize that, while it’ s rare for something to actually go to trial, ultimately, that’ s where it might end up. So, you need to think early on: what would it look like if that’ s where we land?” That mindset shapes every decision, from strategy and negotiations to resource allocation.”
Judgment matters
The habit of looking beyond the immediate issue has followed David throughout his career. Raised in Montana, he moved to California to attend UC Berkeley before earning his law degree from UC Law San Francisco. Long before he became an in-house lawyer, he was drawn to litigation for reasons that had nothing to do with the law itself.“ I’ ve always had a bent toward history, and litigation in a way is history. It’ s researching what happened, getting to know the personalities, learning the stories, and then building the arguments.”
That interest led him into private practice, where he spent years building a litigation career and eventually became a partner. It also made him pay attention when colleagues began leaving law firms for in-house positions.“ They told me about the advantages of working directly with the business, having very direct responsibility for both handling matters and advising the business.
I’ ve always had a bent toward history, and litigation in a way is history. It’ s researching what happened, getting to know the personalities, learning the stories, and then building the arguments
It changes your perspective. You just get a better view of everything going on in the business. If you’ re at a law firm and handling specific litigation, you try to know the broader picture of what’ s happening with the business and how that might affect your strategy. But when you’ re in-house, you’ re much more in touch with that broader set of factors that may affect your strategy.”
The closer David moved to the business, the clearer it became that relationships matter.“ Part of it is having good relationships with the teams that advise on new products, so that they will bring you in. You can take a look and let them know of any risks that you see. And when you are looking at a new product, finding the risks, advising the business of what you think those risks are, but being realistic about how high the risk is.”
For David, spotting risk is only part of the job. The business values solutions.“ If you can come up with ideas for mitigating risk, that is always hugely helpful.” David brings that same instinct to his work with other teams.“ If something comes up and someone is frustrated with another team, I say, hey, we want to be good partners
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