Christopher "Chris" Leibig

Chris graduated from Falls Church High School in 1988, Georgetown University in 1992, and William and Mary law School in 1996. He also attended the George Washington University Master’s Program in Forensic Science from 2001-2003. During law school, Chris concentrated in criminal defense by working as an investigator at the D.C. Public Defender Service. He also clerked at the Public Defender’s Office in Bellingham, Washington in the summer of 1995, where he won his first jury trial under a Washington State Supreme Court rule, which allows law students meeting certain qualifications to try cases.

After passing the bar exam, Chris joined the Alexandria Public Defender’s Office, where he spent two years handling the traffic docket, mostly consisting of Driving While Intoxicated and other serious traffic offenses. He later became a Senior Assistant Public Defender, and for three years defended serious felony cases including murder, rape, child sexual abuse, and all varieties of serious drug offenses.

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In 2002 Chris left the Alexandria Public Defender’s Office and formed his own law firm with Andrea L. Moseley. In 2005, Leibig, Moseley, and Bennett merged with the nationally known Law Offices of John Kenneth Zwerling to form Zwerling, Leibig, and Moseley, P.C. In private practice, Chris has represented hundreds of individuals charged with serious felonies, including murder cases in Washington, D.C., Alexandria City, Fairfax County, Orange County, Prince William County, Charlottesville, Spotsylvania County, Arlington County, and Stafford County. He has also represented dozens of clients for serious sex offenses including rape, child sexual abuse, child pornography, and internet solicitation of a minor.

Chris started The Law Office of Christopher Leibig in 2012, and has received various recognition’s and awards, including being named by Washingtonian Magazine as one of the top criminal lawyers in the D.C.area every year since 2011. He is regularly named as one of the area’s top criminal lawyers by Super Lawyers, Best Lawyers, and Northern Virginia Magazine. Chris has also published legal articles in various local and national magazines, including the Huffington Post, Bloomberg.com, and Forbes.com

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He has appeared regularly as a legal commentator in various media outlets, including the Washington Post, the Washington Examiner, Fox News (local and national), Fox.com, Inside Edition, CNN, Sports Illustrated, the New York Post, the Atlanta Constitution, and others. See In the Press page.
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Unique Legal Experience DNA Evidence
Chris studied Forensic DNA typing at the George Washington University School of Forensic Science Master’s program with students aspiring to a career as DNA scientists. Many of the DNA scientists at the Northern Virginia Department of Forensic Science attended the same program.

Chris has litigate the admissibility, reliability,and meaning of DNA in

many cases,including: Commonwealth v.Butler (2000), where the

Court excluded the government’s DNA evidence from trial in a rape case Commonwealth v. Rogers (2006), where DNA evidence in a death penalty case bore on the critical question of time of death; and, Common wealth v.Samuel Manns (2002),where anomalies in the DNA evidence resulted in a finding of attempted rape instead of rape.

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The Ambien Defense
Chris has handled various cases, including a murder case in 2011, that raised the issue of “sleep-driving” — the very real phenomenon where users of sleep aids like Ambien engage in complex conduct while sleep-walking — often resulting in serious traffic offenses, or worse. He has also written on the topic, and has been consulted by lawyers across the country about how to present a defense based on Ambien induced sleep-walking.
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Juveniles Tried as Adults
Chris has extensive experience representing teenagers charged with serious offenses where the Commonwealth seeks to transfer the juvenile to Circuit Court for adult punishment. He has represented young people for Murder, Rape, Robbery, malicious wounding, attempted murder, gang activities, child sexual abuse, serious drug offenses and other charges.
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In 2003, he has raised a constitutional challenge to Virginia’s “automatic transfer” provision on the grounds that the automatic transfer of teenagers to adult Court deprives them of the right to argue important mitigating factors, such as child abuse, learning disabilities, and immaturity. He has successfully argued numerous times that a teenager, even if convicted of a serious offense, simply does not belong in an adult prison.

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Teaching
Beginning in 2012 and through 2013, in conjunction with the nationally recognized forensic group Guardian Digital Forensics, Chris regularly conduct legal training courses for defense attorneys throughout Virginia about digital forensics evidence. Chris was an Instructor of Legal Rhetoric at American University Law School in 2002-2003, and he has lectured criminal law seminars regularly since 2001 at George Washington University Law School.

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Since 2012, Chris and a group of colleagues have travelled to speak and teach about criminal defense at law schools in Scotland, Trinidad and Tobago, Ireland, and Bahamas; Germany; Denmark, Bulgaria; Jamaica: and Portugal.

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Defense of Drug Cases
Chris has represented hundreds of clients charged ,with drug offenses, and appeared regularly in state and federal courts on these matters. He is a member of the Legal Committee for the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws and on the Executive Board of Directors for Virginia Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers

In 2007, Chris handled the first so-called “marijuana kingpin” case in Virginia history. The Virginia Drug Kingpin statute, Va. Code 18.2-248 (H)(2), carries a mandatory life sentence for a defendant who is the leader or organizer of a drug operation of a certain size. After nearly two years of litigation, the defendant in that case was sentenced to less than three years to serve.

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Chris has also written published articles and spoken to groups about defense of marijuana and other drug cases. See In the Press page.

​Defense of Law Enforcement Officers
2011 Chris has worked with the National Legal Defense Fund – a national fund created for the legal defense of police officers. He is on call, along with Heidi Meinzer to represent Northern Virginia law enforcement offices who need legal representation for events occurring while on duty.