David Keller Trevaskis, M.A.T., J.D.

David Keller Trevaskis, Esquire, is an attorney and former third grade teacher with a Master’s Degree in Education.   Trevaskis is the Pro Bono Coordinator for Legal Services for the Pennsylvania Bar Association (PBA), responsible for assisting local bar associations, legal services programs and other groups who offer pro bono legal services across the Commonwealth to help improve the access to justice for the neediest among us.  His work in poverty law informs his teaching.  Trevaskis staffs the PBA’s Immigration Law Committee and he presents on immigration issues to a variety of audiences.  He supports the Wills for Heroes Program of the PBA’s Young Lawyer Division which has provided at no cost first responders and veterans with wills and other estate planning documents.  Trevaskis is proud of his work supporting veterans and active duty personnel with civil legal aid through the PBA’s Military and Veterans Affairs Committee. He is also proud that his namesake, nephew David Trevaskis, serves in the United States Army.  Trevaskis presents regionally on liability prevention and is Of Counsel to Donna Adelsberger & Associates, P.C., an insurance defense law firm.

An Olweus certified bullying prevention trainer, Trevaskis views bullying through the prism of his legal training as a violation of basic human rights and sees bullying prevention education as an important element of both school safety and the civic mission of the schools. He also has seen the impact of this behavior in the workplace.  A Board Member of Physicians for Social Responsibility in Philadelphia, Trevaskis is well aware of the health consequences of both the good and bad things that happen in and out of schools to children and beyond school to adults.  Trevaskis has long been a champion of non-violence, having been the designer of and original trainer for Project PEACE (Peaceful Endings through Authorities, Children and Educators), a peer mediation, anti-bullying and youth court program jointly sponsored by the PBA and the Pennsylvania Office of the Attorney General.  Trevaskis is a frequent presenter across Pennsylvania on civic education, presenting on topics as diverse as current Supreme Court decisions and rules for the kindergarten classroom. 

A co-author of the 2013 text, School Law: Legal Framework, Guiding Principles, and Litigated Areas, Trevaskis is recognized as a national expert in public education about the law.  Trevaskis is a champion of social studies education, having served in a leadership role in the Pennsylvania Council for the Social Studies since 1989. He became that organization’s first two term president in October 2013 and will serve in that role until October 2015.  An expert on school crisis, Trevaskis helped prepare the draft school climate standards for the Pennsylvania Department of Education during the Rendell administration.  Trevaskis teaches more than twenty undergraduate, graduate and continuing education courses each year, some online and others face to face, for institutions such as Penn State Abington, Gratz College, Arcadia University and the University of New England.  He is a sought after lecturer at numerous other institutions.

Trevaskis is the recipient of the 1996 Philadelphia Bar Association's Leon J. Obermayer Education Award, a 2000 President's Award from the Pennsylvania Bar Association for the Project PEACE anti-violence program he developed and still coordinates, the Philadelphia Bar Association’s Young Lawyer Division’s 2002 F. Sean Peretta Service Award, and a 2004 Chester County Bar Association President’s Award. In 2006, Trevaskis was the second recipient of the Compass Award for leading the way in citizenship education, an award first given to United States Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.  During that same year, Trevaskis received the President's Citation from the Indiana Bar Association and the LEAP-Kids Lifetime Achievement and Mentor Award.  In 2007, Trevaskis received the President's Award from the Delaware County Bar.  Trevaskis was one of ten inaugural Gavel Award winners from Community College of Philadelphia in 2009. He has earned Pro Bono Supervisor of the Year recognition from the University of Pennsylvania Law School every year since 2010 for his work with the Black Law Student Association’s Project PEACE outreach and he was honored by Community College of Philadelphia in 2011 and 2012 for his work with Wills for Heroes. Trevaskis was honored by the Glenside Rotary as a Paul Harris Fellow in 2011. He received a 2013 Pennsylvania Legal Aid Network Excellence Award and he was honored over the 2013 King Holiday with a parade of cadets at Valley Forge Military Academy and College in recognition of his anti-bullying work at the school.

Trevaskis is married with two children and two grandsons.