King, Campbell, Poretz, and Mitchell

Focus and practice areas

The firm opened in 2008 and is based in Northern Virginia. It works across four areas: criminal defense in state and federal courts, civil litigation, family law, and wills, trusts, and estates. That spread lets one firm handle both the criminal and the everyday legal problems a household might run into.

The criminal side is the widest. It covers homicide, DUI and DWI, traffic offenses, white collar matters, federal drug and firearm charges, sex offenses, and expungement. On the civil side the firm takes business disputes, contract disputes, landlord and tenant cases, and commercial litigation. The two tracks sit under one roof but read as genuinely separate lines of work.

Family law work includes divorce and prenuptial and postnuptial agreements. The estates practice covers wills, trusts, powers of attorney, and advance medical directives. The firm also takes on local counsel work and offers services in Spanish, which it notes on its home page.

How the team is built

The firm names both former prosecutors and former public defenders on its roster, and it reports more than 100 years of combined experience. That figure is the firm's own count, and the biographies give a reader enough dates to check it. As a reviewer, I read the prosecutor-and-defender pairing as useful. Lawyers who once charged cases and lawyers who once defended people without means tend to see the same file from different angles, and a client can get both readings in one place.

The attorney group is small enough to list in full. Joseph King, Ryan Campbell, Daniel Poretz, and Evelyn Mitchell carry the firm name. Sebastian M. Norton and Thomas M. Velarde round out the practicing attorneys. Steve Hall and David L. Chamowitz are listed as Of Counsel, and Jessika R. Antinori is listed as an Associate. Most of the biographies name a law school and a graduation year, which makes the roster easy to verify.

The criminal defense bench

Joseph King came out of the Alexandria Office of the Public Defender and started his private practice in 2008. He earned his J.D. cum laude from the University of Michigan Law School in 2003. He also holds a master's in History from George Mason University, earned in 1996, and a bachelor's in Physics from Mary Washington College, earned in 1992, and he speaks Spanish fluently. His page reports that he has been counsel or co-counsel in over two hundred trials, and his criminal work runs to murder cases, federal white collar matters, federal drug conspiracy and firearm charges, state offenses, and DUI and DWI.

Ryan Campbell earned a B.S. from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in 1999 and a J.D. from George Washington University Law School in 2002. His practice centers on criminal defense, including DUI and DWI, federal crimes, violent crime, and expungement.

Steve Hall handles criminal defense in Virginia state and federal courts. Before he joined the firm he worked as an Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney in Fairfax County, where he prosecuted felonies that included murder, DUI manslaughter, drug distribution, internet crimes against children, and gang cases. In my opinion that prosecutorial history is worth knowing for a defendant who wants to understand how the other side builds a case.

Family law, civil, and estate work

Evelyn Mitchell handles family law and graduated from the University of South Carolina School of Law in 2011. She was selected to Rising Stars from 2021 through 2024. Thomas M. Velarde also works in family law, and he covers divorce, child custody, child support, spousal support, alimony, and marital agreements. He earned a bachelor's from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2007 and a J.D. from George Mason University School of Law in 2010.

Daniel Poretz works on civil litigation, insurance, communications and media, and criminal defense. He received a bachelor's from George Mason University in 2002 and his law degree from the same school, and he spent time with the Alexandria Public Defender Service from 1999 to 2002. Sebastian M. Norton studied philosophy and political science at Tulane University and took his law degree from Loyola University New Orleans College of Law, where he sat on the Law Review. He has clerked at the United States Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Louisiana and worked as an associate on medical malpractice and wrongful death cases.

David L. Chamowitz, listed as Of Counsel, earned a bachelor's from the University of Virginia and a J.D. from George Mason University School of Law. He has practiced in Alexandria, including at Chamowitz and Chamowitz, P.C., and his work covers zoning, land use, and commercial litigation. His background adds a property and land dimension that the rest of the roster does not.

Where the firm works

The firm keeps two offices, one in Alexandria and one in Leesburg, both in Virginia. It reports work for clients in Fairfax, Prince William, and Arlington Counties, along with other Virginia communities. Two locations give it a presence on both sides of the region's busy criminal and civil courts. The Spanish-language service and the local counsel role widen who can use the firm, since out-of-area lawyers sometimes need Virginia counsel to appear with them.

For a reader comparing firms, the useful facts here are concrete. There are named attorneys with stated schools and dates, a clear split between the criminal and civil tracks, and Spanish-language service on offer. The firm states its numbers plainly, and each biography lines up with the work that attorney is assigned. That is the kind of evidence this directory looks for.