James J. Leonard Jr. began his career in Criminal Law in 1999 with a two-year internship at the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office, where he successfully prosecuted hundreds of cases involving adult and juvenile offenders. Upon graduating from the prestigious Villanova University School of Law in 2001, Mr. Leonard became an associate at a prominent Camden County law firm specializing in criminal defense work. In 2002, Mr. Leonard was one of three attorneys on a defense team that successfully represented two defendants in separate capital murder cases, one in Camden County Superior Court, the other in Burlington County Superior Court.
James J. Leonard Jr. began his career in Criminal Law in 1999 with a two-year internship at the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office, where he successfully prosecuted hundreds of cases involving adult and juvenile offenders. Upon graduating from the prestigious Villanova University School of Law in 2001, Mr. Leonard became an associate at a prominent Camden County law firm specializing in criminal defense work. In 2002, Mr. Leonard was one of three attorneys on a defense team that successfully represented two defendants in separate capital murder cases, one in Camden County Superior Court, the other in Burlington County Superior Court.
In October of 2002, Mr. Leonard left the firm and started his own practice, the Leonard Law Group at the age of 28, specializing in aggressive criminal defense litigation. In 2003, Mr. Leonard won two high-profile jury trials that established his reputation as a highly skilled trial attorney and made him one of the most sought after criminal defense attorneys in the State of New Jersey.
In one case, Mr. Leonard represented a Camden man who was charged with possession of a firearm and distribution of heroin in a school zone. In the other, Mr. Leonard represented a member of the notorious Pagans Motorcycle Club who was charged with armed robbery and various other offenses. The defendant, a convicted murderer, was facing a life sentence if he was found guilty on the armed robbery charge.
In both cases, the juries found each defendant not guilty of all charges.
Later that year, Mr. Leonard successfully represented a woman who was charged with aggravated assault and weapons offenses after allegedly stabbing a man outside an Atlantic City casino. An Atlantic County Superior Court Judge found the woman not guilty by reason of insanity.
In 2004, Mr. Leonard successfully represented Vincent McDaniels, a/k/a Omar Salaam, the reputed former head of the Salaam’s, a notorious Atlantic City drug gang. Mr. McDaniels was charged as a drug kingpin in a massive 154-count indictment and faced life in prison if he was convicted at trial. Mr. Leonard aggressively negotiated a plea bargain for Mr. McDaniels and had 152 of the 154 charges dismissed, including the kingpin charge and Mr. McDaniels was released from prison after serving four years and six months.
In 2005, Mr. Leonard opened an office on North Carolina Avenue in Atlantic City, the city where he was born and where his father served honorably as an Atlantic City Police Officer for more than 30 years before his retiring in 2004. Later that year, Mr. Leonard’s services were retained by Grammy Award winning rap star Kimberly “Lil’ Kim” Jones to help her secure an early release from the Federal Detention Center in Philadelphia, where she was serving a sentence following a perjury conviction in New York. On July 3, 2006, the federal Bureau of Prisons gave Ms. Jones an early release.
Shortly after her release, Mr. Leonard was filmed interacting with Ms. Jones inside her home for her television series Countdown to Lockdown / Season Two. Mr. Leonard would go on to successfully represent Ms. Jones in a subsequent criminal investigation launched by the US Attorney’s Office in Brooklyn, New York stemming from a shooting incident allegedly involving a former associate of Ms. Jones, who was alleged to have fired shots at rap superstar Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson outside a hotel in Jersey City. No charges were filed against Ms. Jones and she would go on to appear as a contestant on the popular reality television show Dancing With the Stars.
In April of 2007, Mr. Leonard was retained to represent a Salem County man named Terry Oleson, who was suspected of murdering four prostitutes and dumping their bodies in a drainage ditch behind a stretch of seedy motels on the Black Horse Pike in West Atlantic City in November of 2006. Dubbed by reporters as a serial killer and given the moniker “The Black Horse Strangler”, the Oleson cas
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