Fences are visible.
In law, the barriers aren’t.
Meet The Founder, Dan Peterson
Dan didn’t start Equal Fight Advocates (EFA) because he lost faith in the legal system. He started it because he saw how easily the system can lose sight of fairness.
After more than two decades in healthcare startups, Dan entered the legal world the hard way by blowing the whistle to protect patients from avoidable injuries. His employer’s response wasn’t accountability. It was lawyers. Forced arbitration. Silencing mechanisms.
The truth was buried in the private forum his employer required as a condition of employment. When Dan turned to the courts to review the outcome, they said they had “no power.”
That experience wasn’t just personal. It was clarifying.
He founded EFA to help ensure fairness isn’t optional. Justice requires a fair fight. He has been in one that wasn’t.
Who He Is
Dan is a veteran, an entrepreneur, and a healthcare innovator. He entered the legal world the hard way after blowing the whistle to protect patients and found himself thrown into what he calls the “legal blender.” He came out undeterred, with a law degree.
He is an unlikely founder of a legal advocacy organization. In his own story, lawyers appeared during life’s hardest moments and did not always leave him with a positive view of the profession. But he’s an optimist, and that experience shifted his path from healthcare into the legal system.
Dan has spent his career in startups—building, failing, learning, and improving. He brings both scars and hard-earned perspective to EFA. The wins are nice. But the best lessons usually come from the losses.
Education
Bachelor of SciencePark University (earned while serving on active duty in the U.S. Air Force).
MBA & MS in Business Information SystemsUniversity of Kansas (earned using the GI Bill).
Juris DoctorUniversity of Missouri–Kansas City (earned part-time, one month before his 50th birthday).
Career Snapshot
U.S. Air Force VeteranDan enlisted after high school and served at a nuclear missile base with top secret clearance. He is a proud veteran.
Healthcare StartupsAfter early roles in finance and technology, Dan spent more than two decades bringing medical innovations to market. His work includes acquisitions by Johnson & Johnson and a billion-dollar IPO for a company that ultimately crashed and burned, ending in bankruptcy and collapse.
Minerva SurgicalThe turning point. Dan blew the whistle to protect patients from avoidable injury. The company’s response: forced arbitration, silencing mechanisms, and lawyers paid to win—not fight fair. That experience changed everything.
Dan remains passionate about healthcare, but his focus now is on making lasting, positive change in the legal system.
