218 North Lee Street
Third Floor
Alexandria, Virginia 22314
United States of America
Telephone: (703) 519-3773
Telecopier: (703) 548-4399
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Joseph Peter Drennan was born on the 15th of April 1956, in Albany, New York, as the eldest of four children of Irish-American parents, Richard Peter Drennan and Ann Marie Drennan (née Conlon), and was raised, primarily, in several communities in Upstate, New York, living in Buffalo, Utica, Rochester and Waterville, New York, as well as in Dauphin, Pennsylvania , and Enfield, Connecticut. At various points in his childhood, Mr. Drennan lived in urban areas and a suburban neighborhood, as well as in rural areas and a small town.
Mr. Drennan commenced his formal schooling at the Memorial Park Elementary School, in Waterville, New York, and then went on the attend the following parochial grammar schools: St. Francis de Sales School, in Utica, New York; Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament School, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; St. Monica's School, in Rochester, New York; and St. Martha's School, in Enfield, Connecticut, from which he was graduated in 1970. After attending the Thaddeus Kosciusko Junior High School, in Enfield, Connecticut, Mr. Drennan attended Enrico Fermi High School, in Enfield, where he was graduated, with honors, in 1974.
Apart from the guidance and wisdom of his parents and school teachers, Mr. Drennan attributes his early love of learning to having spent many hours in the Utica Public Library, a magnificent community resource built, financed and maintained by the citizens of Utica, New York, that, fortuitously, was located virtually next door to his grammar school there. Mr. Drennan's education in his formative years was enhanced further by his extensive travels, starting in the early 1970s, to visit his relatives and his ancestral homes, in the scenic Irish midlands, in Athlone, County Roscommon, and in Kells, County Kilkenny, Ireland, as well as visits, in latter years, to his relatives in Panamá, who are descendants of Mr. Drennan's late great uncle Lawrence Drennan, M.D., who, with Mr. Drennan's late grandfather, Richard Patrick Drennan, and another great uncle, Jeremiah, traveled from Washington, D.C., to Panamá, shortly after the turn of the last century, to work on the construction of the Panama Canal.
While in high school, Mr. Drennan appeared on "As Schools Match Wits," America's longest-running high school quiz television show. He also served, during the summer of 1973, as a Congressional Intern in the office of Senator Lowell P. Weicker, Jr., of Connecticut, during the historic Senate Watergate Committee hearings. Mr. Drennan attended college at the University of Richmond, in Richmond, Virginia, where, in 1978, he received his Bachelor of Arts degree, cum laude, majoring in Political Science, having been earlier inducted in the Pi Sigma Alpha (&Pi&Sigma&Alpha) national political science honor fraternity, and was, for two years, the Vice President of the Virginia Young Democrats chapter at the University of Richmond. While in college, Mr. Drennan also worked as a Legislative Intern with the public interest group Common Cause.
It was at Richmond that Mr. Drennan developed an abiding interest in the culture, history and politics of the Middle East. In the spring of 1978, while in his senior year at the University of Richmond, Mr. Drennan researched and wrote a paper on the central role of Ambassador J. Rives Childs (1893-1987), in American foreign policy in the early and mid-twentieth century, a project which entailed extensive archival research at the National Archives, as well as extensive interviews with Ambassador Childs, who was then eighty-five years of age, at the McGraw-Page Library, located on the campus of Ambassador Childs' alma mater, Randolph-Macon College, in Ashland, Virginia.
Mr. Drennan is presently working on a book on the life and times of the sapient Ambassador Childs, who had a distinguished career of over thirty years in the American Foreign Service, with postings in Cairo, Jeddah, Jerusalem, Riyadh, Sana'a, Tangier and Tehran, among other places, in the context of the contemporary Middle East.
Mr. Drennan attended law school at the Catholic University of America, Columbus School of Law , in Washington, D.C., and was awarded the Juris Doctor degree in 1981. While in law school, Mr. Drennan worked as a law clerk with the United States Department of Labor and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
Upon completion of law school and his admission to the bar, Mr. Drennan commenced his solo practice of law, and has been in actively engaged in the private practice of law, full-time, for over twenty-five years. In addition to practicing law, Mr. Drennan has been a frequent presenter of Continuing Legal Education Seminars to area lawyers, and has taught college courses in Courts and the Administration of Justice, and Health Care Law and Risk Management, as an adjunct professor, at Germanna Community College, in Fredericksburg, Virginia, and the University of Baltimore, Yale Gordon College of Liberal Arts, in Baltimore, Maryland, respectively. In addition, for some twenty years, Mr. Drennan has been judging moot court competitions at his law school alma mater, Catholic University of America, Columbus School of Law.
He lives, with his family, in Spotsylvania, Virginia, but returns to Utica each summer to run in the "Utica Boilermaker Road Race", America's largest 15k road race.
Mr. Drennan is a GNU/Linux computer user and open-source enthusiast, and is a contributor to the open-source Wikipedia encyclopedia project.
Education:
University of Richmond, Richmond, Virginia, Bachelor of Arts, cum laude, 1978;
Catholic University of America, Columbus School of Law , Washington, D.C. Juris Doctor, 1981
Professional Experience:
Solo practice of law in the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Area for over 25 years, before state and federal trial and appellate courts and administrative agencies.
Teaching Experience:
Germanna Community College, in Fredericksburg, Virginia; Adjunct Faculty, Department of Criminal Justice (1995 - 2000);
University of Baltimore, Yale Gordon College of Liberal Arts, in Baltimore, Maryland, Adjunct Faculty (2007 - present);
Has presented the following Continuing Legal Education Seminars:
"Trial Advocacy in Virginia" (under the aegis of National Business Institute, Inc.) Fairfax, Virginia, 1996;
"Bad Faith Litigation in Virginia" (under the aegis of National Business Institute, Inc.) Fairfax, Virginia, 1997;
"Trying the Automobile Injury Case in Virginia" (under the aegis of National Business Institute, Inc.) Arlington, Virginia, 1997;
"Bad Faith Litigation in Virginia" (under the aegis of National Business Institute, Inc.) Arlington, Virginia, 1998;
"Uninsured and Under-insured Motorist Law in Virginia" (under the aegis of National Business Institute, Inc.) Arlington, Virginia, 2000;
"How to Litigate Your First Civil Trial in Virginia" (under the aegis of National Business Institute, Inc.); Arlington, Virginia, 2001;
"Police Liability in Virginia" (under the aegis of Lorman Education Services); Arlington, Virginia, 27 August 2002;
"Police Liability in the District of Columbia" (under the aegis of Lorman Education Services); Washington, D.C., 10 December 2002;
"Police Liability in Maryland" (under the aegis of Lorman Education Services); Baltimore, Maryland, 6 August 2003;
Court Admissions:
District of Columbia Bar (1981);
United States District Court for the District of Columbia (1983);
United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (1983);
United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (1984);
Virginia State Bar (1984);
United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia (1987);
United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit (1987);
United States Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Virginia (1990);
Miscellany:
Guest speaker before the Trial Lawyers of Metropolitan Washington, D.C.; Topic: "Successful litigation against the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority", 7 September 1995;
Served on drafting committee for Standardized Civil Jury Instructions for the District of Columbia (Bar Association of the District of Columbia, Young Lawyers Section) (Rev. ed. 1998);
Listed in:
"Outstanding Young Men of America", 1984;
Who's Who in the East , 22nd & 23rd ed.;
Who's Who in Finance and Industry, 26 & 27th ed.;
Who's Who of Emerging Leaders in America, 2nd & 3rd ed.;
Who's Who in American Law , 5th, 6th, 7th, 11th, 12th, 14th & 15th ed.;
Who's Who in the World, 9th, 10th & 24th ed.;
Who's Who in America , 56th, 61st & 62nd ed.;
Professional Memberships:
American Bar Association;
Alexandria Bar Association;
American Association for Justice (formerly Association of Trial Lawyers of America) ;
Bar Association of the District of Columbia;
Cleveland Club of Washington, D.C. ;
Enfield (Connecticut) Historical Society ;
National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers;
National Legal Aid & Defender Association ;
Oneida County (New York) Historical Society;
Trial Lawyers Association of Metropolitan Washington, D.C. ;
Utica Public Library;
Waterville (New York) Historical Society (Life Member) ;
Nationality:
United States of America;
Ireland.
UTICA MUSIC FEST 2008
Utica, New York Slideshow
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