David B. Harrison

1953 - 2024

David B. Harrison
04/21/1953 - 03/04/2024
David Harrison, loving husband, father, and longtime San Francisco criminal defense attorney and advocate for social justice, died unexpectedly on March 4, 2024, while on vacation with his wife in Mexico. He was 70.
David was born in New York City and raised in Wash., D.C. His family's legacy of philanthropy informed his actions, and his generous spirit and progressive politics endured throughout his life. David served on the New World Foundation Board, a philanthropic organization advancing economic equity, democratic rights, and civic participation in the United States, until his death. He also was active in the National Lawyers Guild Anti-Apartheid Committee, going to South Africa three times, including as an election observer for the first democratic election in April 1994.
His father, Gil Harrison, was the owner and editor of The New Republic, the political and cultural opinion journal, and a strong voice for civil rights, from 1953 to 1974. David's mother, Anne Blaine Harrison, was an organizer for the Textile Workers of America before her marriage and afterward, became a well-known advocate for public education in Wash., D.C.
David's youth was spent swimming, body surfing, and sailing in the ponds and ocean around Martha's Vineyard. He also became politically aware at a young age, canvassing for Democratic Presidential candidates, Eugene McCarthy and George McGovern.
Following David's graduation in 1975 from Wesleyan University, where he played on the school's club rugby team and was a member of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity, David attended law school at U.C.L.A. He met his wife, Colette Brooks, in 1979, while working at the Legal Aid Foundation of Long Beach, where he was a distinguished Reginald Heber Smith Fellow. Relocating to San Francisco in 1981, David worked for Legal Aid in both San Francisco and Marin.
For the past 35 years, David ran his own law practice in San Francisco, devoted exclusively to criminal defense, primarily representing indigent criminal defendants. Just prior to his death, he successfully defended an innocent client on trial for a serious offense, one of many such cases he handled with skill and integrity, earning him the respect and friendship of fellow attorneys, and the judges and staff of San Francisco Superior Court.
David loved to play pickup sports of all kinds. He played lacrosse and rugby in college, pickup basketball, and soccer, throughout his life, and, more recently, fit pickleball into his rotation. He also enjoyed riding his bike all over San Francisco, sometimes with his daughters. Many weekends, David, Colette, and their girls would head off to Stinson Beach, where David would swim and boogie board, continuing his love affair with the ocean.
Avid travelers, David and Colette visited a variety of places around the world, including trips to the Arctic Circle, Bosnia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Morocco, and Ecuador.
Smart and funny, David could light up a room with his presence. He loved to engage others in animated discussions that often bordered on debate. But despite his frequently opinionated veneer, David was kind-hearted and generous to those he loved. He had a number of close male friends; the "Dinner Guys," college fraternity brothers, law school poker buddies, and a (now retired) rugby club affiliated with Hastings College of Law (now U.C. Law S.F.).
Colette reminisced that she and David spent 45 years together, which included some disagreements, but also, many adventures and undiminished love. "I should have told him more often than I did how much I loved, respected, and appreciated him, but I think he knew that my love was greater than my ability to express it as often as I should have."
Around his family, David was gentle and unequivocally supportive. He refused to kill bugs in the house, instead, carrying them outside. His beloved daughters, Simone and Marie-Claire, who are both pursuing graduate degrees in the sciences, said he would listen with rapture and pride to whatever topic they were researching, despite understanding almost none of it. He couldn't have loved them more.
In addition to Colette and his daughters, David is survived by his siblings, Jamie (Joy), Joel (Lesley), and Eleanor (Gedeon); as well as a niece; and two nephews.
Family and friends are warmly invited to a Celebration of David's life on Friday, May 17, 2024, from 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m., at Cavallo Point, 601 Murray Cir., Sausalito, Calif. (Please r.s.v.p. to coletteabrooks@aol.com, attending only).
In lieu of flowers, the family suggests donations be made in David's memory to The Sentencing Project (advocating for effective and humane responses to crime and punishment) at sentencingproject.org, or Doctors Without Borders (medical and humanitarian assistance in conflict zones, including Gaza) at doctorswithoutborders.org