David W. Lease is a co-founding member of the firm and chairs the firm's litigation practice. Mr. Lease represents individuals and businesses in diverse criminal and civil matters throughout the region with his practice focused in the areas of criminal law, residential and commercial landlord/tenant matters, appellate practice and commercial litigation, including business, real estate and construction law. Additionally, Mr. Lease serves as a member of the Criminal Justice Act Panel for the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
Mr. Lease has extensively lectured in the areas of trial practice, landlord/tenant and commercial real estate matters, including seminars for Lorman Educational Services, National Business Institute, Sterling Educational Services and MICPEL. Mr. Lease is active in the Bar Association of Montgomery County and served as chair of the Criminal Law Section, co-chair of the Long Range Planning Committee, Fee Dispute Resolution Committee, and the Membership Benefits Committee, and served on the District Court Bench Bar Committee. Mr. Lease is also active in the Maryland State Bar Association where he was recently elected to a second term on its Board of Governors. Mr. Lease is a member of the Maryland Criminal Defense Attorneys' Association and a bencher on the Montgomery County Inn of Court.
Mr. Lease has received numerous professional awards including an AV peer review rating by Martindale-Hubbell, acknowledgment as a Bar Leader from the Montgomery County Bar Foundation, the 2003 Outstanding Section Chair Award and the 2009 Committee Chair of the Year presented by the Bar Association of Montgomery County, and the 2007-2012 Super Lawyer Awards presented by Thomson Reuters. In 2010 Mr. Lease was elected as a Fellow to the Maryland State Bar Foundation.
Mr. Lease is a Montgomery County native who graduated from Charles W. Woodward High School and received his undergraduate degree from the University of Maryland at College Park. Mr. Lease graduated summa cum laude from the University of Baltimore School of Law where he was a member of the Heuisler Honor Society and received American Jurisprudence Awards for excellent achievement in the study of criminal law, contracts, commercial transactions, corporation and domestic relations. Mr. Lease was also a member of the University of Baltimore Law Review.
Following law school, Mr. Lease spent six years working as a litigation associate with Gordon, Feinblatt, Rothman, Hoffberger & Hollander, a large Baltimore-based law firm. Mr. Lease subsequently returned to Montgomery County and in 2000 founded Smith, Lease & Goldstein, LLC with Marc J. Smith and Jeffrey D. Goldstein.
Mr. Lease was lead counsel in the following reported decisions:
• United States v. Thorne, 153 F.3d 130 (4th Cir 1998);
• BDC Capital Properties v. Trinh, 307 F.Supp.2d 12 (D.D.C. 2004);
• Azat v. Farruggio, 162 Md. App. 539, 875 A.2d 778 (2005);
• Frasch v. Peguese, 414 F.3d 518 (4th Cir. 2005);
• In re Vetal, 433 B.R. 534 (Bankr. D.Md 2010);
• Ahmad v. Eastpines Terrace Apartments, 200 Md. App. 362, 28 A.2d 1 (2011).
