Partners Emeritus

Frazer Ryan’s commitment to civic and professional leadership and putting clients’ interests first is Dave Frazer’s legacy as one of the firm’s co-founders and now Partner Emeritus.

Dave retired from the practice of law in 2005, concluding a professional career that included a clerkship for the Chief Judge of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, four years as a trial attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice, and 20 years in private practice before co-founding, in 1989, the law firm that bears his name.

A Detroit native who earned his law degree in 1954 from the University of Michigan, Dave came to Arizona in 1962. His practice included estate and corporate tax planning, exempt organizations, income tax litigation, and probate and trust administration.

He was the first of five Frazer Ryan attorneys to be inducted as a Fellow of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel, and he helped establish the State Bar of Arizona’s legal specialist certification program. 

A leader in the community, Dave established and was a long-time board member of the Flinn Foundation. He chaired the National Conference of Community and Justice (Arizona Region), served as president of the Jewish Federation of Greater Phoenix and vice president of the Phoenix Symphony Association, and was an active member of the Grand Canyon Council, Boy Scouts of America, and the St. Joseph’s Hospital Medical Research Committee.

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Yale entered the legal profession in 1972 after earning his law degree, with honors, at George Washington University School of Law, where he also received an LL.M. degree in Taxation.

The Philadelphia native began as a trial attorney for the Tax Division of the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. He served in that capacity for six years before moving to Arizona in 1978 to advocate for taxpayers in controversies involving the IRS.

Yale practiced at a large Phoenix law firm until 1989, when he joined Dave Frazer and Jim Ryan as co-founders of the firm that became Frazer Ryan Goldberg & Arnold LLP.

In the three ensuing decades, Yale’s professional achievements include being named a Certified Specialist in Tax Law (Arizona Board of Legal Specialization) and a Fellow of the American College of Tax Counsel (ACTEC); selected repeatedly by Super Lawyers and The Best Lawyers in America®; and named 2015 Phoenix “Lawyer of the Year” in Tax Law by U.S. News & World Report / Best Lawyers.

Throughout his career, Yale was widely known and appreciated by clients and fellow attorneys for his positive attitude, unselfishness in helping others, and encouragement to everyone with whom he came in contact.

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For more than 40 years, Chick Arnold was Arizona’s most forceful voice and effective advocate for the rights of the mentally ill.

His 1981 class action lawsuit on behalf of Maricopa County's seriously mentally ill population alleged that the State of Arizona failed to fund a comprehensive mental health system as required by state law. In 1989, the Arizona Supreme Court ruled, in Arnold v. Sarn, that the State had indeed violated its statutory duty, and the State’s subsequent compliance with the Court’s ruling has resulted in additional annual funding in the hundreds of millions of dollars for the benefit of seriously mentally ill Arizonans. Chick’s efforts in that case prompted one commentator to assert, “Chick Arnold is to the mentally ill of Arizona what Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was to African Americans during the civil rights movement.”

A native New Yorker who earned his law degree from the University of Arizona in 1970, Chick was one of the first Arizona lawyers to be named a Certified Specialist in Estate and Trust Law. He chaired the Maricopa County Superior Court Task Force on Mental Health Services and the State Bar of Arizona's Elder Law and Mental Health Section.

In 2014, Chick was inducted into the Maricopa County Bar Association Hall of Fame. In addition, he was the first inductee into both the Arizona Fiduciary Hall of Fame (2015) and Mental Health America of Arizona Hall of Fame (2017).