David French is passionate about living with kindness and defending freedom, and that passion has led him step-by-step into his expansive career. As an attorney, he argued prominent religious liberty cases and litigated other constitutional cases in courts across America. As a commentator and writer, he has strived to bring Americans together despite ever-present religious, cultural, and moral differences.
French grew up in Kentucky and later graduated from Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1991. Three years later he received his JD from Harvard Law School and started out as a commercial litigator before switching to constitutional law.
In 2006 French joined the Judge Advocate General’s Corps as an Army lawyer and the next year volunteered to be deployed to Iraq. He was awarded a Bronze Star for his service as a squadron judge advocate during Operation Iraqi Freedom.
French spent much of his legal career defending free speech and working on religious rights issues. He also served as a lecturer at Cornell Law School, as a senior counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice and the Alliance Defending Freedom, and as president of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.
Wanting to fight polarization and holding to a vision of America where people are different yet united, French switched careers in 2015. For the next four years, he wrote for National Review before helping launch The Dispatch. While there, he became a contributing writer for The Atlantic, and in 2023 he joined the New York Times, where he currently writes.
French and his wife, Nancy, live with their three children in Tennessee. His love for God is a driving force in everything he does. “In both my personal and professional life I strive to live up to the high ideals of Micah 6:8—to act justly, to love kindness, and to walk humbly before God.”1
Notes:
- “About David French,” The New York Times. Accessed September 13, 2024.
