Daniel J. Lenerz, Esq., currently serves as a Deputy Chief in the Appellate Division of the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia (USAO DC), where he litigates criminal cases in the District of Columbia Court of Appeals and the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. He also served as a trial attorney with the USAO-DC in the Superior Court. Mr. Lenerz is a member of the D.C. Circuit Advisory Committee on Procedures and the committee that drafts the Redbook jury instructions. He also teaches Legal Rhetoric as an Adjunct Professor at the American University, Washington College of Law.   

Before joining the USAO-DC, Mr. Lenerz was an appellate attorney in the United States Department of Justice’s Civil Division, where he handled cases before the federal appellate courts and the Supreme Court of the United States. Mr. Lenerz also worked as Senior Counsel to the Criminal Division’s Assistant Attorney General. Earlier in his career, Mr. Lenerz focused on complex civil litigation as an associate at Latham & Watkins LLP. He spent a year as a criminal trial attorney in the San Diego U.S. Attorney’s Office.   

Mr. Lenerz received his undergraduate degree, cum laude, from Pomona College and his Juris Doctor, Order of the Coif, from Stanford Law School. Following law school, he clerked for the Honorable Myron H. Thompson on the United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama, the Honorable Stephen F. Williams on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, and Justice John Paul Stevens on the Supreme Court of the United States.