David Fine was born in 1963 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. Pittsburgh was a major industrial city in western Pennsylvania during the decades of his youth, with an economy long anchored in steel, coal, and heavy manufacturing.
His undergraduate studies took place at the University of Pittsburgh, in the same city where he was born.
David Fine received a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Pittsburgh in 1986. The university traces its origins to the Pittsburgh Academy, founded in 1787, and became a state-related public institution in 1966, serving as a principal research university in western Pennsylvania.
He later received a Juris Doctor from Cornell University in 1989. Cornell was founded in 1865 in Ithaca, New York, and its law school forms part of a private research university. The Juris Doctor was the professional law degree that prepared graduates for admission to state bars.
David Fine was admitted to the Pennsylvania bar in 1989 and to the Massachusetts bar in 1990. Admission to a state bar authorizes a lawyer to practice law in that state's courts.
He worked as a partner in a New York law practice specializing in real estate law. Real estate law governs the acquisition, leasing, financing, and development of property, areas of legal work that are prominent in Manhattan's dense commercial market.
