James L. Lyons
| Partner 1350 Connecticut Avenue, N.W., Suite 600 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 496-0722 e-mail: jlyons@kwllaw.com Mr. Lyons has over forty years of trial experience as a practicing attorney. Following three years of active duty in the United States Marine Corps, Mr. Lyons graduated from Wheeling Jesuit University in 1962, summa cum laude, with a Bachelor of Arts in English. He received his Juris Doctor Degree from Georgetown Law Center in 1967. From 1966 to 1967 he was a law clerk to the Honorable Judge Edmund T. Daly of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. He served as a Staff Attorney with the District of Columbia Public Defenders Service from 1968 to 1969. He then served for three years as an Assistant United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, prosecuting serious federal felony cases, including the first major organized crime narcotics prosecution in the District of Columbia involving government wiretapping. United States v. James, 494 F.2d 1077 (D.C. Cir. 1974). As an Assistant United States Attorney, Mr. Lyons also argued numerous appeals in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and the District of Columbia Court of Appeals. Since 1972, Mr. Lyons has been in private practice as a partner in Kellogg, Williams & Lyons. He has focused his practice on litigation, both civil and criminal. Over the years he has handled a wide variety of cases and trials. He and his partner Philip L. Kellogg served as co-counsel in the successful challenge to the District of Columbia’s attempt to impose an income tax on non-resident professionals, which resulted in the refund of $40 million in taxes that had been collected. Bishop v. District of Columbia, 401 A.2d 955 (D.C. 1979), aff'd en banc, 411 A.2d 997 (1980). Mr. Lyons has enjoyed an “AV Preeminent” peer rating in Martindale-Hubble for more than thirty years. Mr. Lyons is the co-author of Strategy and Tactics in the Prosecution and Defense of Complex Wire-Interception Cases, National Wiretap Commission Report 1976. He has taught evidence and trial strategy at George Washington University and he has lectured at numerous trial seminars throughout the country. He recently spoke on trial tactics to Assistant United States Attorneys and Department of Justice attorneys at the National Advocacy Center in Columbia, South Carolina. In 2002, Mr. Lyons was the recipient of the Judge Robert A. Shuker Memorial Award for “his outstanding contribution to the administration of justice” in the District of Columbia. In 2012, he received the Justice Potter Stewart Award presented by the D.C. Council for Court Excellence. |
 James L. Lyons |