James H. Lesar is an attorney licensed in Washington, D.C., several federal appellate courts, and the Supreme Court. 

         He is also President of the Assassination Archives and Research Center (AARC), a nonprofit organization which obtains, preserves, and disseminates information on political assassinations, especially the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.   On behalf of the AARC, he testified before three Congressional committees in support of the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992, which was unanimously passed by Congress and signed into law.

         Now in his 43^rd year of practice, Lesar has litigated over 200 FOIA cases in federal district and appellate courts.  A number of his cases have set important precedents, including, recently, Morley v. C.I.A., 508 F.3d 1108 (D.C.Cir.2007), which held that the CIA had to search its operational files on George Joannides, a former CIA case officer who had been in charge of a Cuban exile organization when it was in contact with Lee Harvey Oswald before the assassination of President Kennedy.  Other of his cases set precedents on such issues as the right to take discovery in FOIA cases, the right to obtain interim awards of attorney fees for substantially prevailing in a cases where the public interest in disclosure warranted such an award, and the right to obtain records by submitting a un-notarized declaration according to the prescribed statutory form rather than being required to submit a notarized affidavit.