Meet Daniel Burnett, a Duke Law Student

Dan specializes in freedom of speech and media law, representing liberal arts curricula while advocating for transparency and accountability on campus. He has served as lead counsel in multiple Supreme Court cases as well as providing civil litigation representation across a spectrum of fields.

Dan began his career at the Food and Drug Administration testing medical devices and writing congressional reports on cutting-edge devices. Later he founded and serves as CEO for health care incubator Theranova.

Early Life and Education

Daniel Burnett discovered one of his childhood keepsakes recently on a recent trip home, discovering a drawing he created at age five of an eye with each part labelled correctly – it proved prophetic given Burnett now works as both an MD-MBA program practitioner and an ophthalmologist at Duke.

LMU education has allowed him to bring theory, passion, and practice together. Not only has he excelled in class and as student philanthropy officer; he has also participated in multiple meaningful research experiences–such as an internship with the United States Department of State and writing on perimenopause–while winning multiple scholarship awards.

Burnett enjoys American history, brunching and kickball in his spare time outside of school. Dolly Parton is his hero and higher education should form the basis of our nation.

Personal Life

Personal Life for Daniel involves his daughter J.B. He also owns two businesses – farming and trucking businesses owned by Burnett Trucking; most of his farmland is leased out to Burnett Farms which pays cash rent which helps cover mortgage payments on his properties.

Margaret Kommer testified that she often attends many of J.B’s events, such as gymnastics lessons and school parties. She has seen both parents attending these occasions; however, J.B tends to prefer her mother more.

Jennifer testified that, upon returning from parenting time with Daniel, she finds her daughter dirty, exhausted, and without having completed her homework. Furthermore, Jennifer claimed Daniel is avoiding her. However, the GAL disproved these claims.

Professional Career

Dan has achieved noteworthy legal victories on behalf of free speech, privacy, intellectual property and Internet issues throughout his professional career. He has served as lead counsel in multiple Supreme Court cases as well as engaging in all forms of civil litigation matters.

He co-wrote and edited WebRTC – JavaScript APIs used by major browsers that enable plug-free audio, video and real-time peer-to-peer communications and data we all depended on during the pandemic – along with longtime editor. His current focus lies within the Ethereum ecosystem; particularly efforts to standardize self-sovereign and cryptographically verifiable identifiers that could replace centralized digital identifiers online.

Alyssa testified that she assists Daniel with the trucking business at Burnett Farms by handling much of its dispatching responsibilities – such as calling brokers and searching for loads to haul.

Achievement and Honors

Daniel Burnett has achieved great heights at LMU Bellarmine College of Liberal Arts since enrolling there as a student, from academic success and student philanthropy work, impactful research projects and formative internship opportunities to academic research excellence and impactful philanthropy work. Daniel has taken full advantage of all its programming resources and opportunities.

Alyssa testified that J.B. spends 85-89% of her parenting time with Daniel and the two play board games, musical chairs and tag. Alyssa also mentioned how J.B. likes visiting his animals – which include a dog, cat and two rabbits – at his house.

Net Worth

Daniel owns and operates his trucking business from home. According to him, his wife Jennifer handles most of the calls that come in requesting trucking services and also assists with operating logistics of his company. It seems as if in 2011 or 2012 Daniel scaled back his operations so much that Jennifer has spent between 20-25% of her time working on this aspect of it all.

Daniel owned several acres of farmland that he purchased prior to marriage and leased it back out for cash rent payments from Burnett Farms, his father’s company, for which he received cash rent payments annually. Additionally, he owned a Country Companies paid-up life insurance policy with an approximate cash value of $122,055. Jennifer asked that child support payments be calculated based on Daniel’s actual income reported on tax returns.