David Unkovic

Background

About David Unkovic

I practiced as a municipal bond lawyer in Pennsylvania for 44 years ending in December 2023. I served as bond counsel to all sizes of governmental entities, including state agencies, townships, boroughs, cities, school districts, counties and authorities. I also represented various financial entities and nonprofit corporations in tax-exempt financings. My experience included the areas of distressed municipalities, bank lending and investment regulations. For most of my career I worked at private law firms, but I also served as chief compliance officer at PFM Asset Management, as chief counsel of the PA Department of Community and Economic Development and as the state appointed receiver for the City of Harrisburg. I joined McNees Wallace & Nurick in 2013 and practiced in the Lancaster and Devon offices as part of the Public Finance Group. Much of my practice since 2013 was focused on serving on consulting teams advising Pennsylvania local governments through the Strategic Management Planning Program (STMP) of the Department of Community and Economic Development (DCED). Since January 2022, I have served as an adjunct professor at Widener University Commonwealth Law School in Harrisburg. I teach a legal methods course in contract drafting. Over the course of 14 weeks, I have the students draft or review a contract every week, and I give them feedback on each assignment. Most classes consist of drills on all the details of contracts. For some classes, I invite an experienced lawyer as a guest lecturer to review a complex contract in a specific area (e.g, collective bargaining agreement, stock purchase agreement, solar power agreement) with the students. By the end of the course, the students have become confident contract drafters. I have also been a panelist on many CLE courses for public finance lawyers through the National Association of Bond Lawyers and the Pennsylvania Association of Bond Lawyers. The panels have covered substantive topics and ethics trainings. I have also presented on substantive panels at conventions of state associations of local governments. I am a former president of the Pennsylvania Association of Bond Lawyers and am a fellow of the American College of Bond Counsel. I was born in Pittsburgh, and I received my B.A. in political science, summa cum laude, from the University of Pennsylvania, and my J.D. from Harvard Law School.