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JOHN HOUSER
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Office of the County Attorney, St. Mary’s County
John Houser serves as deputy county attorney for St. Mary’s County Office of the County Attorney, where his practice focuses on land use and zoning, legislative and governmental affairs and regulatory enforcement. He regularly advises the county’s Planning Commission, Administrative Charging Committee and Policy Accountability Board on local government law and public administration.
Before joining the county attorney’s office, Houser practiced with Baldwin, Briscoe & Steinmetz, P.C. in Lexington Park. He also served as a law clerk to the Honorable David W. Densford of St. Mary’s County Circuit Court and as a summer law clerk with Council, Baradel, Kosmerl & Nolan, P.A., in Annapolis.
Houser earned his juris doctor, magna cum laude, from Washington & Lee University School of Law, where he was inducted into the Order of the Coif and received the A.H. Ross-McLeod Oral Advocacy Award. He was a winner of the school’s mock trial competition and a finalist and best advocate at the National Trial Competition’s 2017 Washington D.C. Regional Qualifier. He received his bachelor of arts, cum laude, from Washington & Lee University.
Active in the professional and civic life of St. Mary’s County, Houser serves as president of the St. Mary’s County Bar Association and is a member of the Southern Maryland Inns of Court. He serves on the boards of the St. Mary’s County Historical Society and St. Clement’s Hundred, and has coached local students in the MYLaw High School Mock Trial program.
Houser has credited several mentors — high school mock trial coach Samuel Baldwin, college mock trial coach and law school professor Beth Belmont, Judge David Densford and David Weiskopf, the former county attorney who hired him — with having profound impacts on his character and his sense of personal, professional and civic responsibility.
“My long-term goal is to continue building a career centered on active service, sound institutional stewardship, and continued contributions to the legal profession in St. Mary’s County,” Houser said.
