David Wendel joined the firm (known at that time as Glickman, Glickman & Orr) in 1951. During his career, he was a leader of Oakland's business community and served as a longtime managing partner of the firm. He practiced real estate and business law until just a few months before his death at the age of 83, when he finally lost his struggle with cancer.

He stayed with the firm for more than 50 years, serving as managing partner for more than 30 of those years. He is credited with formalizing the management of the firm as it began to grow substantially in the 1970s. He expected great things from the lawyers he worked with and was a mentor to many of the firm's young lawyers during that time.

Mr. Wendel was president of the Alameda County Bar Association in 1966 and was chairman of the board of directors of the Oakland Chamber of Commerce during the 1980s. In 2005, the Chamber named their Board Room in his honor. In the 1960s and '70s, he was chairman of the State Bar's committees on continuing legal education and the economics of law.

He graduated from University of California at Berkeley in 1942 and joined the Army. During World War II, he served as a lt. colonel in charge of a 180-man artillery unit in Europe. After, earning his J.D. in 1948 from Harvard Law School, Mr. Wendel returned to the Bay Area in 1949. He worked for the Alameda County district attorney's office, where he was a legislative advocate for two and a half years, before joining the firm.