Member Spotlight: David P. Muellenhoff

David has been a devoted and hardworking member of the CLA and the BLS, following in the footsteps of Suzanne Weakley and her legacy of service to CLA and to the California business law community.   Suzanne mentored David  when he joined Continuing Education of the Bar (CEB) in 2019 and impressed him with her dedication to CLA and its mission.

David has spent more than 25 years as a business lawyer, including 20 years’ experience with a wide variety of commercial transactional matters for San Francisco Bay Area companies with highly-visible, heavily-regulated nationwide operations and thousands of employees; extensive volunteer outreach to disadvantaged and underserved populations; and many years of volunteer service on city, county, and nonprofit boards and commissions.

David began his career as Assistant Corporate Counsel for publicly-traded SaaS company Stockpoint, negotiating licensing agreements for financial data with stock exchanges and businesses worldwide.  He then assisted with the merger of Stockpoint with Screaming Media (later Pinnacor), then as Corporate  Counsel for Pinnacor negotiated licensing agreements for financial and media content before its acquisition by CBS Marketwatch.  Thereafter he spent fifteen years as in-house and outside General Counsel for a closely-held business group with wide and varied interests and operations including consumer credit counseling and debt management; credit cards; residential mortgage lending; student loans; and residential and commercial-property acquisition, management, and leasing.  David served as General Counsel for the California-based sixth-largest Denny’s franchise nationwide with operations in eight states and 1000+ employees, and for the largest Buffalo Wild Wings franchise in the Bay Area, before transitioning to his current role with CEB.

At CEB, David serves as editor of seven of CEB’s business practice guides: Debt Collection Practice in California, Selecting and Forming Business Entities, Business Buy-Sell Agreements, California Business Litigation, Privacy Compliance and Litigation in California, California UCC Sales and Leases, and Secured Transactions in California Commercial Law Practice. As such, he works with and edits expert attorneys in their  fields who update specific chapters each year under deadline pressure.

David served as editor-in-chief and co-editor-in-chief of CEB’s Business Law Reporter periodical, beginning with the September 2020 issue and through its final issue in 2022. The Business Law Reporter was published six times a year in both print and online versions. Each issue included summaries and analyses of business law cases written by David and others. Each issue also featured several in-depth articles on business law topics by diverse attorneys, all experts in their respective fields.  Topics for articles included entity formation, bankruptcy, business contracts, debt collection,  securities law, taxation, intellectual property, employment law, commercial transactions, and general business litigation, among others. This experience provided David with ample opportunities to interact with — and edit the work of –top business attorneys across California within the context of a publishing deadline. David has written more than 113 articles (so far) on business-law topics for CEB’s Daily News product (see https://contributors.ceb.com/contributor/david-muellenhoff for articles list).

David also enjoys public service. From 2004-2017, while serving as General Counsel for two 501(c)(3) nonprofit credit counseling organizations, he spearheaded community outreach initiatives to partner with other nonprofit organizations in providing free and low-cost financial education and counseling services in low-income housing projects across the San  Francisco Bay Area. In that role, David personally provided or supervised more than 100 free educational seminars on budgeting and debt at low-income-housing complexes and at community fairs and events.

David’s additional volunteer experience includes: (1)  the Livermore Housing Authority, a HUD-certified federal low-income housing agency for the City of Livermore, where he served as a Commissioner (2009-2016); Vice-Chair (2011-2013); and Chairman (2013-2015); (2) the Tri-Valley Housing Opportunity Center (TVHOC), a now-closed 501(c)(3) nonprofit, HUD-certified housing counseling agency formed by the Tri-Valley cities of Livermore, Pleasanton, Dublin, San  Ramon and the town of Danville to serve first-time, low-income homebuyers, where David served as a Member of the Board of Directors (2011-2016); Vice-Chair (2013-2014), and Chairman (2014-2016); (3) the Oakland-Alameda County Community Action Partnership (a Great Society-era federal grant-disbursement agency), where David was appointed by the Alameda County Board of Supervisors as the OACAP board member representing Eastern Alameda County for the January 2013-February 2014 term; and (4) Infinite Education, a now-closed 501(c)(3) nonprofit founded by David and his wife to serve less fortunate communities by overcoming legal, regulatory and logistical obstacles to success. This program provided South Bay foster children with free robotics STEM camps and laptops in cooperation with city and county government agencies, school districts, and private enterprise, and its slogan was “Every student deserves to thrive.”

David is a 1992 graduate with a BA from the University of California, Berkeley, and he received his JD in 1996 from the University of California, Davis School of Law.  He and his family make their home in Livermore, where they enjoy the many local wineries.