David Adams was born on January 22, 1943, in Wichita, Kansas, United States. Wichita is the largest city in Kansas, and during the Second World War its aircraft industry expanded considerably, making the city an important manufacturing center.
Adams earned a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Kansas in 1965 and a Juris Doctor from the same university in 1968. The university, chartered in Lawrence in 1864 and opened in 1866, was among the first public institutions in the United States to admit men and women on equal terms. Legal instruction at the university dates to 1878, and the School of Law was established in 1893 to replace the earlier law department.
At the law school he served as case note editor of the University of Kansas Law Review during 1967 and 1968. The Law Review is a student-edited journal of legal scholarship published five times a year, and each issue includes legal notes and comments prepared by its student editors.
He was also a member of Phi Delta Phi, a legal fraternity founded in 1869 at the University of Michigan Law School. His academic distinction included the Order of the Coif, an honor society founded in 1902 at the University of Illinois College of Law that recognizes law graduates in the top ten percent of their class at member schools.
Adams was admitted to the bar in Kansas in 1968, the year he received his Juris Doctor. He later served as a partner of Chartered, a firm based in Wichita.
His practice encompassed general civil and trial work and several specialties, including corporations, real estate, oil and gas, litigation, antitrust, securities, taxation, banking, bankruptcy, product liability, mergers and acquisitions, probate and estate planning, environmental law, and regulatory law.
Adams's professional memberships were in state and national bar organizations. The Wichita Bar Association was incorporated in 1915 and serves the lawyers of Wichita, the city where Adams practiced, and he held its presidency from 1988 to 1989.
The Kansas Bar Association serves the lawyers of Kansas statewide, while the American Bar Association, founded in 1878, is the national professional association for American lawyers. Adams was also a member of Phi Delta Phi, a legal fraternity founded in 1869 at the University of Michigan Law School.
